This blog post is going to be LEGENDARY!
Ok not really... I've just been watching a lot of How I Met Your Mother. And by a lot I mean... I'm on episode 3 of season one. The LEGENDARY flight to Philly.
I'm going to have to add licking the liberty bell to my list of things to do.
OK maaaaaaaaybe not.
Anywho there was a line at the end of this show that really inspired me this evening....
"And this is why I hang out with barney... I never got where I thought I wanted to go but I always got a great story."
I think that's sorta... a really... REALLY... great line. I mean... the funny thing about life is we always kinda get sad or upset or disspointed by the worst things... that sometimes lead to the best things!
Ok... I mean just stay with me for a moment. Think back in your life and think about the things that ended up REALLY being annoying or sucky. Then think of how maaaaaaybe not always, but most of the time just when you are thinking to your self blaaaaaaah... something great happens! Or life takes a turn and then all of a sudden there's just awesomeness around the corner!
Or something happened and you're thinking well that seemed to be pointless and completely not anything with getting me to where I want to be!
But the thing about life is I don't think it's a destination at all, it's a journey. It's just a story built on a story built on a story and we use each previous story to help shape the next one! And we can refer back to previous stories to laugh or cry when we think about them.
I mean... morning comes just when the night is darkest and longest. Ok... I heard that somewhere... I just don't remember where. Or maybe I read it somewhere? I don't remember. But it's true! Things always get most awesome after not being awesome for a while.
But I think everyone should be prepared for awesomeness to happen in their life at ANY moment. It's coming! Awesomeness.
I actually had a note to write a blog titled "stay happy" like that stay thirsty commercial. But then I watched this episode of How I Met Your Mother and decided to write on this.
But... I don't know... I mean... so maybe this blog post isn't legendary but I'm sure that if you think about something in your life you can name at least one thing that is legendary... and I'm sure just around the bend... there's even more things to come that are even more legendary!
I know for me I just recieved another email today on my Philly Comedy Improv class. If you'd asked me a year ago if I thought I'd be signing up for an improv class... I'd have said... ummm... WHY would I do that?!?!
I guess maybe I got a little NPH/Barney inspired and just kinda did it on a random whim. I really like some of what Barney has going on with his character. It's like he spices up his life by acting on a little on whim and chance.
Sooooooooo I'll definitely post updates on the way about my whole comedy class thing to let everyone know how it goes... but I'm gonna say right now in the optimistic spirt of Barney from How I Met Your mother...
It's going to be LEGENDARY!
The thing I like most about meetup
So I've been thinking about the whole meetup thing. I'm pretty excited. The thing I like most about meetup is that...
You actually meet up!
These days it seems like most people are only about talking to people or being friends with people online. Or people they work with they claim to be friends but then after work is over... that's just it... it's over and they don't socialize outside of work!
I can't wait till wednesday for my next meetup! I've also scheduled one for Saturday morning. It's just awesome actually having people to hang out with in person. It's weird because for some reason very few people seem to want to hang out in person. They are fine with tweeting at me or emailing me or commenting on facebook or this blog. But when I go to email them or text them and say hey... let's grab a beer! Or hey let's hang out and do karaoke... or hey let's watch a movie!
They just don't seem to have any interest. But as soon as I post a blog or tweet? They are ALL about reading it.
It makes me feel a little down on myself actually... like what's wrong with me that I'm not good enough to actually spend time with in person? And the thing about it is... all the people who I interact with online... I used to hang out with or know in real life.
But then for some reason or another beyond me... they just don't seem to want to hang out in real life any more! But that's where meetup comes in.
The people on meetup are always interested in well... meeting up!
So that's what I like most about meetup.
I've found that I definitely like to be socially interacting with people in person a lot. The online thing is great but I think it's a good tool to coordinate people actually meeting up!
I guess it just makes me sad to know I have all these people that used to be in my life that are no longer...
It's kind like that song... somebody that I used to know... Because... now they're all just somebody that I used to know.
But maybe that's life? Maybe no one sticks around for more than a fleeting moment and there's always new people and always new relationships. I dunno... so far it seems that way. I guess that it must be true for so many other people because the song seems to be a number one hit... there's like 149 MILLION hits on it!
Maybe there are so many views because so many of us can relate to it... Maybe so many of us have people in our lives that are just somebody that we used to know...
Last day of break!
It's been an awesome break. Today is my last day. I slept in. I even kinda went to bed a little early AND slept in. I feel SUPER refreshed and just feeling so fantastically great right now!
So my video is done and posted. I'm at 28 plays so far! My contest is under way. I have 3 peeps entries. I think it's just awesome. I definitely want to do the contest again. Maybe next time I post a video I'll do the same thing. We'll see... haha it could turn into a thing! Like every time I post a video or song or something I'll have a contest. I don't know yet... but that could be super fun!
Ok so I've got 2 songs in the pipeline and 3 videos. I think I'm going to alternate between working on finishing a song and working on finishing and posting a video. The videos will alternate between music videos, a skit video with the puppets and a Vlog. I think the next one will either be a Vlog or a Music video.
So there's lots more stuff coming up! I'm just enjoying this last day. Today I want to check out the second planet fitness that's close to me. I checked out one and was SERIOUSLY impressed! I'm gonna get the second tier membership that lets you work out at other gyms up to 10 times a month. But you still have to choose a home gym. So that's what I'm deciding on and then I'll sign up.
Tonight I'm going to chow on some chips and guac at bottom of the rock AKA rock bottom brewery up in KOP. I'm going to check out the quizzo game there. I don't plan to play but I'll just go and hang out and see what's what and chow.
This week has a bunch of fun things going on too! Tomorrow I have to shop for a few things for my mom after work and then I'm going to see if I can make it to the tuesday night clinic at the LL Bean store. Every Tuesday night they have a clinic and it's free to attend and they show you cool stuff about hiking or whatever. This week the clinic is adventure technology. OOOOOOoooo I LOVE adventure and I LOVE technology! It's like the best of both worlds!
Wednesday night is pickle-balling. Sooooo that will be mega amounts of fun. Then Thursday I might do karaoke again. Friday probably just chill and work on music and then Saturday morning I signed up for a meet up to hike Ridley Creek State Park! There are like 20 or 30 people going to that. Soooo it will be pretty happening.
Speaking of hiking I stumbled upon some trails up in Valley Forge park that are pretty awesome. I hiked it twice. On Friday and again on Saturday. I went a little further Saturday but didn't hike the entire thing. I'm going to try and find a trail map and figure out how far it goes and then try to hike the whole thing one time.
Ok well that's kinda what's going on at the moment! I hope everyone has a fantastic Monday. It looks like a beautiful day from my window here on my couch so I'm going to probably have to at least get out and maybe go to the park and read a little bit as well. Later!
Easter blog part 2, a weird feeling
Soooooo it's 6:46pm and i'm still home. I'm supposed to be at the Easter service at church that started at 6pm. But something weird just happened.
Ok so for the most part I've gone to church every Sunday this year. I missed one because I was being stupid and foolish. The first few of the year were at another church and I've tried out even the church down street and then went back to my old church. I've been going to the usual 5pm service no problem. Today they changed the service to 6pm. Still not a problem... but at about 5:30pm when I was getting ready to go I got a really weird feeling. Like my feet became heavy and my stomach a little sick.
So I ate something. I then laid down another 5 minutes after eating something. The feeling got worse.
At 5:40 I was like ok I'll just go to church and come home. It's the Easter sunday service! I have to go! I looked at the clock now and it was 5:45pm.
I gathered up my stuff, put my shoes on and headed for the door.
I couldn't open my door. I just felt weird and sick and frozen with fear. Like I just couldn't go.
I don't get it! I've never had a bad experience going and there is no reason why I could be afraid at ALL to go!
But I just couldn't.
I put my stuff down and sat on my couch for another 5 minutes. Then I got up and tried again.
I just stood there looking at the door handle not able to open the door.
I went and kicked off my shoes and laid on my bed.
My mind was racing and I started to feel like almost panicked.
I looked at the clock at 6 and just thought ok this is soooo RIDICULOUS!
It's CHURCH! Nothing bad can happen there's no reason for this! I've been going to the evening service for a while now and it's always good! I sit with friends and I chat with them after.
WHY DO I FEEL THIS WAY!??!?!
I put on my shoes and notice that my hands are shaking as I'm trying to lace up my shoes.
What the heck is going on!?!?!?!
I grab my backpack and eventually just get to the door. I force myself to open the door and then about halfway down the hallway of my apartment to the car I just feel a presence that...
basically... it didn't "talk" so much as the words hit me like a freight train of force...
but the feeling or words or whatever was pretty commanding and pretty hardcore...
It was just...
"TURN AROUND RIGHT NOW."
I stopped and couldn't take another step. I just felt this force pushing me back.
I turned around and came back into my apartment and just laid on my couch.
Eventually it passed. Now I feel fine.
No sick feeling... no fear... nothing. It's gone.
So basically I missed probably THE MOST important church service to attend of the year and I have no idea why I couldn't go.
An Easter Blog
Happy Easter everyone!
I like this one too...
Anywho, just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter Sunday.
Amazon $25 Dollar Gift Card Contest
Well my video is officially up and rocking. It's already got 14 views! That's pretty sweet.
In celebration of my nifty new video I'm having this here contest. Soooo here we go!
Contest starts today at 12pm and ends in 1 week at 12pm I'll include the official rules at the end of the post.
To enter all you have to do is follow me or already be following me on twitter. Then post a tweet of any kind that includes my name @kennethwest and the video link to my youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVipfslhkdI
Here's a clickable link to the video: An Eating Of The Minds
So anything like this would work:
CHECK OUT @kennethwest new comedy video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVipfslhkdI it had me in laughing out loud the whole time!
But you can tweet anything you want.
Once I get the @ reply notification I'll check it out and approve it. Then I'll @ mention you a number. When the contest is over next week I'll randomly draw a number and post the winner! Then I will DM you on twitter for your email and email you the amazon card right away!
That's all there is too it. So I'm writing this now at about 11am... in 1 hour the contest starts! Ready? Set? Go!
Oh and if anyone has any questions feel free to @ me on twitter and I'll answer away.
Here are the official rules:
1. Contest starts at 12pm Saturday April 7, 2012 and ends at 12pm Saturday April 14, 2012 2. To enter user must mention “@kennethwest” and the URL of the youtube video as mentioned in contest in the same tweet on the website twitter.com 3. Winner will receive an entry number in an @ mention reply from twitter user @kennethwest when entry is accepted 4. The winner will be chosen by using the random number generator on random.org to pick a number of the total entry pool 5. One entry per person, if a person has multiple twitter accounts only one of those accounts can enter 6. One winner will be drawn to win a $25 dollar gift card to amazon.com to be sent via email 7. Winner’s email will only be used to send giftcard and will be kept private 8. Winner must be following @kennethwest at time of entry and time of drawing 9. Any user caught tampering with the contest, attempting to cheat in any way, or trying to tip the odds in their favor will be disqualified from the contest and their entry will be removed 10. Tweet must remain in timeline of users twitter account from the time entry is accepted until the time of the final drawing in order to be eligible for gift card, if the user removes the tweet or modifies it in any way they will be disqualified and an alternate random number will be drawn and card will be won by an alternate winner 11. Rules subject to changes or additions as needed to ensure a fair contest
Creative Comedy Video #1: “An Eating Of The Minds”
Here it is!!!! I've been talking about it for what seems like ages. It's short and sweet and I think it's super neat. So sit back and relax and enjoy my very first creative stick puppet comedy video...
"An Eating Of The Minds"
It's a play on that phrase: A meeting of the minds. "Oh they're trying to put together the new furniture in the other room... it's a regular meeting of the minds in there."
So I took that idea and thought to myself...
What if minds really could meet!?!??!?!
...so I tried to make it into an animation... buuuuuuut the animation wasn't working... so I turned it into a live action puppet thing... and this is what came out of my head...
This is my take on when two genius minds get together at night time in the park to chat about things.
At some point in the next week or two I'll make a little behind the scenes blog about the making of the video.
Anywho... enough chat... on to the film!!!!
Movie Tavern Meetup
Wow! Tonight was just soooooooooo much fun!
The people were super nice and cool. The food was FANTASTIC. The movie venue was REALLY REALLY NEAT...
And of course the best part was... THE HUNGER GAMES ROCKED! I think Katniss Everdeen is one of my favorite all time characters ever. She's the bees knees... or in this case... the tracker jacker's knees.
When I first signed up for the meetup there were about 10 people going. But, since the time of the movie got moved up an hour we lost 4 people. Then as we were waiting one of the guys didn't show. So there ended up being 5 of us total. It was a good mix of people though.
Where to start?
Ok the name of the group was "Movie Chat". SO that meant two things... 1. movie watching, and 2. chatting about it. Both parts were pretty awesome. Buuuuuuuut the movie part was DEFINITELY very really completely awesome.
When I first arrived two of the people were already there. As you walk in there is a little bar/lounge area that you can order drinks and such on one side. Then on the other side you can buy your ticket. I bought my ticket and then hung out with the other two people and chatted. The two others showed up soon after. Everyone had a pre movie drink but I decided to wait until dinner and the movie to get mine, although when it came time to order dinner I decided I wanted some unsweetened iced tea instead with my burger and sweet potato fries. They give you the choice of regular fries or sweet potato fries. I'm a pretty big fan of sweet potato fries so I went with the potato of the sweet kind. I'm kinda getting ahead here! Let me back up...
Ok, well we went in and sat down in the very back row. It was waaaaay more crowded than we had anticipated. But, we still all got to sit together.
I will just say right now that The Movie Tavern is cool. They show up to take your order before the movie starts and they have these little digital tablets that they just type/click it in on. My guess is it goes right to the kitchen since our stuff came out really fast. They also have these little service buttons so you can just click on it and then someone will come wait on you without you having to get out of your seat! Pretty sweet.
So 2 of the people from our group ended up wanting popcorn halfway through. All they had to do was push the button and then the guy showed up and they were just like... small popcorn please.
And then... a popcorn appeared. Not RIGHT away... but a few minutes later.
It's full service!
One of the other group members made a joke that if they start offering catheter's so you don't even have to get up to pee... that would be too much.
I agree.
I'm fine taking care of my own pee. Afterall that's why they have http://runpee.com/!
Well I ordered a nice old fashioned classic bacon cheese burger. It was just awesome. I ate and watched and hung out with my new meetup peeps.
Afterwards we all went back to the lounge and had another round of drinks. I decided to have a mango smoothie something. I just wasn't feeling alcohol tonight. I'm sorta oddly disinterested in beer lately. I don't know why. It's weird... it's as if i've just completely lost any and all enjoyment from it! I don't know... as I said in my previous post I'm just bored of it. I don't know why or where it came from... but as of last thursday... I just... woke up friday morning and just didn't want anymore beer.
Weird.
I haven't had any since. It's a mystery to me!
OK well this was the second part of the meet up. We chatted about the movie compared to the book and then chatted about the movie scenes and characters and what we liked best etc. etc. We also chatted about other movies and directors and actors/actresses and directors and such. It was just a really fun and interesting conversation.
I thought the movie was just great. I loved every minute of it. I can't wait for the second one to come out. I'll be anxiously awaiting the release of that. I have a while to wait though... but it's ok.
Anywho speaking of movies. I'm just fixing one more thing on my own little short film thing and I will have that posted up tomorrow morning first thing when I wake up! Sooooo stay tuned. Right now... I'm off to dreamland.
Went on my first trail run of the year today
It was pretty super spectacularly sweet. I decided to head out to the trails across from work today after I was off at 5. It was just great. The sun was shining and there were a ton of other runners out. I just went along the main path easy at first and then turned up into the narrow hill paths. It was a good half hour run. I had some jams pumping on my ipod and just winded my way along the trail.
After I got home I made some dinner and then got to work on my video. It's done... I think... I need to let it sit and then see if there's anything else that pops out at me as needing to bed edited. I'm probably going to post it one day early on Friday. That will start my contest too! If the contest goes well I'll probably do that again when I post my next thing. After the video I'm going to work on a song and then hopefully finish up a new song soon. I'm just going to alternate between videos and songs. The more I post up the more likely it is that something will take off and be a hit!
So speaking of running and fitness and such... I think I'm going to join this planet fitness place. They have a bunch of those gyms around and I figure that will be a good healthy way to spend at least 1 or 2 evenings a week and hopefully meet up with some new people! I haven't decided yet. Gyms kinda scare me a little because I always think of the horror stories that people have told me over the years with gyms that won't let them out of contracts without having to pay like 2 years in advance or something like that. Or they bully them into buying all kinds of extra classes and things that they didn't want in the first place and of course when I think big giant gym I think of dodgeball and the globo gym...
I might try and see if I can get a guest pass or something to one of them to check it out. For now I'll keep going on runs. The good news about the gym thing is that it's open 24/7... so when I have the urge to work out at 2 am... I'm covered.
Waiting In Line
So sunday night I was at wally world (Walmart) getting a couple of things. One of my finds are these modular storage bins, let me see if I can find a pic...
There we are. Here's the a link: http://www.homzproducts.com/Scripts/Durabilt-Modular-Storage-Small-Prodview.html
It says you can stack them 4 high. I bought 4 of them... sooooooo right now I have 4 but stacked 2 high side by side. So that means I can add double my height and width for future expansion of things and stuffs that I might need to put inside them!
Ok well yes so I'm waiting in line to buy my stuffs. I had a few other things too like some food items and other awesome random goodness. It wasn't an enormous line... maybe like... I think there were about 3 people in front of me and 2 behind. So 6 total. There were about 3 or 4 cashiers open.
Now no one really LIKES to wait in line. But I mean waiting in line is just one of those things that will probably never go away in life. So it's kind of a given and you just accept it. Like traffic as well... there's probably ALWAYS going to be traffic and lines and such. BUT, what's cool is that if you anticipate that this will most likely happen you can bring a book or something with you to entertain yourself and make it go faster.
So I've got some books on my nook app on my iPhone. Well I was just kinda standing there reading and waiting and really completely A-Ok with the speed of the line. Then all of a sudden I hear the guy on the phone behind me.
"Yea hello?"
...
"Yea I was just wondering why the lines were so long?"
...
"Yea I'm calling from over here in line and thought maybe you could open up a few more registers"
...
"Ahhh some people are out sick? Is that why the lines are usually long? Maybe you should hire more people so when the people call out sick you have extras?"
...
"I mean that's just the way I'd be running the business if I were doing it..."
...
the conversation went on... I quickly realized that the guy was calling the customer service desk up front. I kinda looked over that way and could SEE the person on the phone looking at the guy behind me on the phone! It was way awkward. I kinda almost wanted to just totally laugh out freakin loud and roll around on the floor laughing my butt off...
But the floors looked a little dirty. So I decided it was best to just keep my cool. I was definitely smirking at this point.
Well the guy eventually hung up and then decided to call his wife
"Yea honey I'm still at walmart. I'm in LINE... yea I mean I'd LOVE to be doing other stuff right now but here I am just WASTING my evening standing in line at walmart."
...
"What are you doing? I bet it's something that DOESN'T involve standing in line at walmart because there are barely any check outs open...."
He just went on and on speaking super loud on purpose so everyone around could hear.
I started to wonder if maybe there wasn't anyone on the other end and he was just kinda pretending to be on a phone call just to talk loudly about how long the lines were at walmart.
Eventually after what seemed like 5 minutes... because... it was about 5 minutes. I'd moved up to the front of the line and completed my order and was on my way out.
As I was putting my bags in my cart I heard the guy hang up on the phone and say loudly "Well FINALLY I'm at the check out honey... so I gotta go."
I was smiling holding back laughing sooooo hard and completely in disbelief that someone would actually call the customer service from line to complain about a 5 minute line wait.
Obviously he's never been to 6 flags. 45 minute line wait anyone? Someone call batman! This batman ride line is soooooooooooooooooooo long!!!!
Well anywho I didn't really have a blog topic for tonight so I figured I would recount my story from walmart. I've never had that situation happen to me before so I just thought it was blogworthy for sure.
If you ask me... the line wait was pretty enjoyable and of average length... I read a couple of pages in a book and got a moment to just stop and ponder about the meaning of life.
And I got a good chuckle from the dude behind me.
So the next time you're headed to the store just remember to bring something to do! Like a book... or a crossword puzzle. Or you could always bring a mini chalkboard and chalk and try to solve physics problems... or play hangman with the person in front of behind you.... that is if they aren't busy on the phone calling the customer service desk to ask why the line is soo long.
Well that's my funny story of the week. Life is always full of interesting people and events that's for sure!