Stupidest Car Repair Ever…

Jeromey Balderrama

So as I write this my car is in the shop, for the dumbest repair that it’ll (hopefully) ever need.  Yesterday I was driving to work when I put in a CD (which will remain nameless for a minute).  I heard a few songs on the CD and as usual, my short attention span was tired of this band.  So I hit "eject" and guess what – the CD won’t eject!  I keep getting this "Ejection Error" message that run across the display…  I tried and tried, but short of ripping the stereo out of the car I couldn’t do anything to get the CD out.  But what’s really strange is that it’s still playing just fine, just won’t eject…

And to make the matters worse the CD is BLINK 182! ARGGGH!  It’d be one thing if it was Dave Matthews, 311 or Five For Fighting, but freaking Blink 182!  So you can guess that one day later I’ve had enough.  It’s bad enough to be listening to the same CD over and over again, but when it’s Blink 182 my patience is really tried.

So I take the car in thinking that this will be a simple repair, I can sit in the lobby for an hour and see if I can finish my book…  No!  Apparently they won’t be able to get to my car right away.  The guy who does the mobile/radio stuff is out at a job right now, and it’d be impractical for me to wait!

Hey, so if they couldn’t get to my car when I took it in at the assigned time, then what was the point for me making an appointment?!? 

So they gave me a ride back, and I’m here at work, but now I’m paranoid because today is the day I’m supposed to be getting my Dave Matthews tickets, and they won’t leave the package for me unless I sign for it!  I worked from home this morning and the tickets didn’t come, and I figured that I’d be alright in leaving for an hour, but now I’m gone all afternoon and the weekend will go by with no DMB tickets   I’m sure I’ll get them Monday, but it would have been really cool to have them this weekend (oh… and TWO WEEKS AND COUNTING!).

Luckily my car is under warranty so I won’t have to pay for this repair, but when I called this morning and told them about my problem they mentioned that if they couldn’t get the CD out through conventional means, they’d have to rip out the stereo and send it down to Denver to be taken apart (it seems the technology to dismantle a CD player – A SCREWDRIVER – isn’t yet available in Fort Collins).  I really hope they just put a new unit in there.

I don’t even want the CD anymore!  I just don’t want to be driving around all weekend with a giant hole in my dashboard!

Bar Room Fun

Jeromey Balderrama

So it’s the second day of school, beautiful late-summer evening, work piled up a bit today, let alone reading that needs to get done for school… And what do I do?

SPEND FOUR HOURS IN A BAR!

Yes, I am a bar-room degenerate…  I was over at Old Chicago’s from 8pm until Midnight!!  That’s nuts!  I went over there thinking I was going to be there for an hour, maybe two, BUT NOT FOUR!?!  What started simply was Michael and myself sitting at at the bar eventually turned into a group of 10 people moving to table in the dining room.  For a brief while I thought Michael and I got stood up by all of our friends, but Karen and her guy Ryan came to the rescue.  Then 9:45 roles around and all of the sudden we have people surrounding us who I don’t even know!  A bit nuts… 

Now I know what you’re thinking, but no, I wasn’t sitting around drinking the whole time.  I did have the equivalent of about three beers during those four hours, and ate one of those mini-pizzas they serve at Happy Hour, but a good deal of my time was having some very engaging discussions with a lot of my friends I haven’t seen in a while.  It was really nice to be able to make those re-connections, catch up on how everyone is doing, laughing a lot, along with hearing some very thought-provoking words.  I especially appreciated the discussion I had with my friend Christian regarding Spirit Fire and the state of things at John XXIII.

Reflecting upon our talk I’m once again feeling nostalgic for the "good ol’ days, and when thinking about just how much things have changed it really blows me away.  At the same time, it’s refreshing to know that people who are tied to once was are still around, and at the same time are very committed to campus ministry.  It really inspires me to do my part to support those people, pray for them, and do what I can to offer any help.  At the same time I feel very affirmed with where I’m at with NCSC, and greatly appreciate the opportunity I have to connect with amazing students who are very passionate about campus ministry (and who are more aligned with my theology).  I would like to find some way to bring that connection back to J23, specifically with the students who are struggling in finding their place at our changing church…  Something to think about for the rest of this week.  More on this topic to come…

Well time for bed, long day tomorrow.  I need to keep on top of things and spend no more time in bars this week!

Dave Matthews not into himself anymore

Jeromey Balderrama

Hahaha I came across something this morning that made me laugh pretty hard – a good piece to all of the Dave Matthews haters out there.  As a big fan I found it pretty funny too, mainly because I hear this all the time from people who used to be fans.  Some of my favorite lines were:

"I was so blown away by everything I did—especially my live performances. I remember me and my buddies used to drive for hours just to go to one of our shows."

"Rock music with a violin? I don’t know," Matthews added. "Seemed cool once."

"I used to talk for hours about my music or spend a whole night in a DMB chatroom," Matthews said. "But now, the people at the shows seem like such geeks, standing there with their elaborate taping equipment. They’re really, really young, too. What do I have in common with them? They’re just a bunch of kids who need someone to look up to. Why would I look up to me? I’m so 1997."

And even though I shouldn’t have to point it out, I will – the Onion is weekly satirical paper, so obviously this interview never happened

Oh and 2 & 1/2 weeks until Red Rocks.  My tickets get shipped tomorrow!

First day of classes – kind of…

Jeromey Balderrama

So thus ends my first day of classes..  It’s back to school time and you can just smell that chalk dust in the air..  Well I can’t – because this is another semester of on-line classes for me..  Another semester where I’m not cool enough to go to an actual classroom.  Actually, it’s more like I’m really slammed at work and between my job and all the traveling I’m doing this fall semester I thought it’d be in my best interests to take on-line classes.  So right now I’m only taking 2.  I’m thinking about adding another one on, but we’ll see how things go.  I’m already looking forward to the spring when I’ll actually be going to a class again!

While this marks a big change from summer-time to fall for most of my friends, the biggest change is that I’ll no longer have time to play 3-4 games of Madden per day, but rather only 1-2…  Actually there are more changes for me, but it’s mainly that I need to find some good solid time to get my reading done, as well as caught up in all of my assignments.  Right now I feel pretty good about being able to manage my time, especially when I’m not working from home as much and going into the office a little more often.  The change of environment really encourages me to be productive.

It’s funny to see the changes that happen in Fort Collins when school starts. There are some good changes and some really bad changes.  The good changes is that the Old Town night-life really picks up, and the city is a-buzz with activity.  The downsides is that there seems to be more traffic, and things are just overall more crowded.  All summer long I was one of three people in my apartment building that was living there, and it seems that literally overnight the parking lot is now full and everyone is busy doing their own thing.  On Friday night I came home to find that my next door neighbor was having a party…  Looks like things are getting back into routine.

A few nights ago I made the mistake of going to Target on the day that Freshman move into the dorms.  That was one of the worst ideas ever – that place was a freakin’ zoo.  Between freshmen in there with their parents getting things all situated, along with the brand new room mates that didn’t start moving into their place until this afternoon, Target was a total mess.  It seemed like every section of the store was packed. Then I went over to Best Buy (oh, during this whole time I was working on accessorising my new camera), I’m standing in line and there are these two girls in front of me.  One of them has this "Nintendo GameCube Starter Set" complete with the console, extra controllers and a few games, then her room mate had 5 2-packs of movies…  Okay, so what’s wrong with this picture?

1) What are two girls doing with a Gamecube?  Now I"m not saying that girls don’t play video games, I know a few that do, but when was the last time you saw two girls buying a game console?  I might be stereotyping, but virtually all the video game-playing girls I know got hooked on it because some guy in their life (either a brother, boyfriend or guy room mate) had the video games…

2) And what the heck are you doing buying all this entertainment crap 4 days before school starts?  While everyone else in line was buying laptop accessories, keyboards, memory sticks (all the basic back-to-school stuff) you guys are stock-piling video games and DVD’s?!?  This is going to be one fun semester for you guys!

3) When it came time to pay one gal put most of it on a gift-card she had, then put the rest on her credit card with the other girl saying "I’ll pay you my half later".  When it comes to room mates, this is always a bad idea.  If you’re making joint-purchases with your room mate, 99% of the time someone’s going to end up getting screwed.  When the end of semester/lease comes, you find yourself battling with them about a fair price for the other half of what you want.  The monetary value is never what you think it is, and then it becomes worse when people mix in sentimental value into the item ("well the TV is worth more to you because you watched it a lot more than I did").  This is never a good idea – I have the battle-scars to prove it!

So yes, maybe a few nerdy observations here, but the way this line was moving I had A LOT of time to think about this kind of stuff!

Oh, so I finally took a picture with my new camera…  And it seemed really appropriate that my inaugural picture for my new camera was of people who are very important to me – my family..  And as you can see, I was not actually the photographer of my camera’s first picture:

My mom, my sister Amanda, (me of course), and my sister Christina

Then my second picture was of me with my Broncos season tickets before I had to tear the first pair off for the first pre-season game:

More to come later, but for now I must get going to bed, as I have yet another full day ahead of me!

I am a Madden 2006 junkie.

Jeromey Balderrama

Ever since the game came out last Tuesday, I’ve been consumed my that game.  Okay, well maybe not consumed – but it’s sure taken up A LOT of my free time!  Ugh…  Right now I’m playing as two teams (Broncos & Eagles), and I just finished up with Week 5.  2 games per week, then the 4 pre-season games, which means that I’ve played 18 football games in the last two weeks!  Ugh!!!  At least next week I’ll get all busy with school and my Madden addiction should taper…

On a plus-side my stats are doing pretty well.  I’ve had some trouble with the Eagles playbook so I’m putting most of my stock into the Broncos (of course…).  What’s funny is that every year I blow the rest of the "league" (run by computer) out of the water on offense, then my defense is always pitiful, but this year it’s a complete 180.  The Broncos & Eagles are like 27 & 28th in the league on Offense, but in defense, they’re 1st & 2nd respectively.  After 5 games my Broncos have only allowed 489 total yards and 7.9 points a game! It’s been nuts!

Okay but enough about football – back to the real world…

Yesterday I met the sweetest, most precious & beautiful little girl – one that I am lucky and proud to call my God-daughter!  Little Sophie Elizabeth was born on Monday night, 7 pounds 9 ounces!  I got to meet her for the first time on Wednesday and she was the cutest thing!  I got to hold her for a few minutes, and she was so peaceful in my arms!  It’s amazing to experience the miracle of life, and a true gift of love in such a little person   I’m glad to say that Mom is doing great as well!  I can’t wait to get back down there to see the two of them soon!

Other things going on:

I picked up my Broncos season tickets on Tuesday!  I am so excited, just getting to hold both sheets of 10 tickets and thinking about all of the fun this fall and winter will bring.  I’m going to be paying for them for quite some time, but it’s all going to be worth it!  1st home game is on Saturday, which is a pre-season game, but I’ll be staying up here and playing at church…  My first game probably won’t be until the home opening on Sept 18th…  I’m still wondering what I’m going to do on that Christmas Eve Raiders game…

Also my new camera came in today!  I got it all unpacked and am reading through the manual and getting really exciting about it.  I charged up the battery (and bought another battery pack – these rechargeable lithium ion batteries are new to me – usually I was happy with the Energizer AA’s), got a case, went through the features, but I have yet to take a picture.  It’s kinda funny, but I’m putting a lot of thought into what my first picture with my new camera will be.  You want it to be something special – it’d be too cheesy to just take a picture of my desk or the wall or something like that..  I should at least take a picture of a  pretty landscape, or a good friend or someone in my family…  Hmmmm..  So yes, the camera has yet to go off..   Any suggestions on a 1st picture?

And with that I am retiring my old digital camera.  It’ll be making the trip next week up to Boston and MIT with my sister Amanda.  Hopefully it’ll give her many good pictures to come.  The last pictures I took with that camera were of the NCSC July trip here in Colorado, and the picture count was at 3641.  I’d say I got my money’s worth out of it   I hope my sister gives it a good home!