Boring Conversation Anyway

I know you all were probably the next post to be one about the wedding, but I found this video which made me die laughing. Only people that have seen Star Wars can truly appreciate it tho, so keep that in mind.



And then again.....LOLOL.

eBay Scammer vs. Judge Judy

This is exactly what every person who's ever dealt with a scammer on eBay has wanted to see. I was cheering half the video.

Singing Roommates

You just have to see this one for yourself. Those of you who know him, I present Robby Burg.

This One is for You Babe

This blog is dedicated to the beginning of my relationship with Sarabeth's and how it came about. It's not meant to be a bragging post, just one that gives some of you some insight into the beginning of our relationship. I figured SB could use the encouragement when she is in Chicago, so this one is for you baby!


10/1/2005 - I took this picture of my phone because as you can see there is no battery left, but I really wanted to call her because I told her I would; enough to take a picture of my phone just to make sure I'd have the number.


10/8/2005 - Here is Sarabeth and Drew at Campus Crusade's Fall Retreat, one of the final confirmations that yes indeed, I did want to ask Sarabeth to be my girlfriend. Little does she know, that I sat up till about 2 with my friends Dan Blosser and Robbie Burg from Crusade talking about my feelings for Sarabeth, and how miraculously different she was from anybody else I had ever been interested in. Part of the discussion I had with Robby hasn't really been talked about ever, so I'll shed part of that insight. Robby really called it when told me that he thought SB and I would get married. At the time, I didn't really want to think that, because I said, thought to myself, "I know that the reason I'm getting into this relationship is I think that we do have a good potential for that, but I'm in no way going to think about it for the time being, just getting to know her and appreciate her."


10/14/2005 - Ahh yes, the first date as officially "boyfriend/girlfriend". We went to Danielle's house for pumpkin carving.


The first time Sarabeth came to church with emo Joe. We were still having worship in the old sanctuary back then.


4/30/2006 - The famed, "Joe...don't take my picture right now. I'm SERIOUS Joe, don't take my picture!!!" Shameless flirting in her dorm room at 63 Beech.



10/22/2006 - I asked her to marry me. She was sold hook line and sinker on the 5 year plan and was shocked like crazy, but sooo happy. I can't believe it's almost time for us to get married. I love her so much and I'm so excited for our lives to start as a married couple.

And finally, here's some of our engagement Pics. I absolutely can't wait for the wedding!!!!!! I love you Sarabeth!!

What Controls You

Is it the WII??!?!?!?!?!? Check out this funny short about everyday life with Wii and Wiivil.

Time for a Sunday Final

That's right, I'm going to leave in a few minutes depraved of sleep and go take a final on a Sunday morning for my business ethics class. Why am I sitting here typing this if I know that this is the case? I guess that's just the way I roll. All I have to say is, after today I can turn into a normal human again.

Rolled out my package to 300 call center clients yesterday at 1:00 AM, no problems. Rockit.

Drinking from the Fire Hose (and getting beat by one)

So this weekended I embarked upon a wonderful mission of drinking from a fire hose. Not literally; BUS-329-XIM Business Ethics. The portion that comes after the class number (329) determines the section, so I'm pretty sure that this one means "Extremely Immersed Methodology", as the 3 credit course is only 5 days long. This means from 9:00 AM-5:00 PM every day of class I am a slave. What's even worse is that I need to take a day off of work for this Wednesday's class; and I really can't afford to do that. It's not a terrible class, it's just the burden of a lifetime. We covered 6 chapters in 2 days and the midterm is on Wednesday. Captain Insano.

Heineken is a new favorite, never had it until recently. Also a single Red Bull kept me attentive the entire class, it might become a new favorite. Unfortunately I admit the rip off of $2 a can, but I can't help it. I'm sure it's rotting my insides as well, but I ate a salad for lunch. I'll be fine.

Forget drinking from the fire hose, I feel like these dudes: getting beat down straight up owned by the fire hose. Extra credit for whoever can name the movie without looking it up.

It makes it funnier if you imagine the guy in the video is my professor and the assailants are my classmates.

Professor


Fire Hose Beating

Unequally yoked...Tennis

In the Bible 2 Corinthians 6:14 says:"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?" (KJV).

I couldn't think of a better verse to describe my tennis partner. If you know me at all, you know that I am very competitive, especially when it comes to sports and games. So when I am practicing tennis, I would love to have someone who is about my skill level to sort of spar with. However, this is not the case. My tennis partner cannot throw, catch, swing, or otherwise make a fluid motion with her racket. I found myself trying extremely hard to be cheerful and say whoops and such, but I can only do that so many times before I get frustrated that I spend my tennis class running after her mistakes. Should I really go that far to ask to be switched?!?! NO says I. That would be rude, plus this is teaching me patients. And then we start playing again...

Talk about unequally yoked. And for myself, talk about impatient. Maybe I should learn to wait and remember that not everyone can be superstars at everything. (I'm by no means implying that I am a superstar at everything, you should see my golf swing, boy is that a joke).

Lebronnnnnnnnn JAmmmmmeeeesssssss it's a series now. 2-2. GO CAVS!!!!

Jerry Falwell?

Can anyone tell me if this is Jerry Falwell in the pic? I have no idea.



(This was at BNYC @ Liberty FYI...)

How to Stop a Brain Freeze

1. Understand what causes brain freeze. When the cold object touches the roof of your mouth, the blood vessels tighten up in response in an effort to prevent loss of body heat. As the coldness recedes, the blood vessels loosen up again, quickly increasing blood flow to the brain. This sudden release is what causes the intense headache sensation.
2. Prevent cold food from touching the roof of your mouth. Obviously, you're not going to give up cold foods just so that you can avoid brain freeze. Rather, let the bite or sip warm on your tongue before you let the substance touch the roof of your mouth.
3. Relieve brain freeze pain by quickly warming the roof of your mouth (also referred to as the palate) after it's already been cooled. If you do this soon enough, you may be able to ease the surge of blood flow to your brain:

* Touch your tongue to your palate. If you can roll your tongue in a ball, press the bottom of your tongue to the roof of your mouth. The underside of your tongue may be warmer than the top side which was probably cooled by the Slurpee you just chugged. (Some people find that firmly pressing your tongue against the roof of the mouth alleviates brain freeze, so try applying extra pressure!)
* Drink a warm substance. Slowly sipping room temperature water also does the trick for some people.
* Make a mask with your hands to cover your mouth and nose. Breathe quickly, raising the temperature inside your mouth.
* Press a warm thumb against your palate.
4. Wait it out. The brain freeze will usually pass on its own within 30-60 seconds. Sometimes the shock of the brain freeze makes it seem worse than it really is, but if you expect it and know that it'll come and go, it doesn't have to be a traumatizing experience.

Sarabeth's Goodbye to BW

These pictures were too cute to keep to myself. I'll probably get in trouble for posting them, but it's worth it. She really loves this school and a lot of people don't know how much.

The empty room



SB sad face (you really have to open this one to see how sad and cute she really looks)



Joe tries to make it better the only way he knows how

3.166

No, it is not Pi, it is my GPA for last semester. Considering the amount of projects at AmTrust I was working on and my course load, I'd say that's pretty impressive. It was 2 A's, 1 B and 1 C+.

We might be changing the church for the wedding, so we'll see what happens on that. Waiting on a callback, but I'm going to call tomorrow and figure out for sure.

Gotta run, SB, ravioli, the Cavs and 24 are waiting for me at Grans house.

Hooray Day!

Today was a very hooray day.

FIRST: there are only 100 days left to the day I am married to the beautiful, intelligent charming Sarabeth as noted in the sidebar.

SECONDLY, on Monday this week my boss Jason told everyone he was taking a job at another company, which was a real hit to everybody because he has an amazing work ethic, and is a very good manager. Plus he's an OK guy and not too bad to hang around with. [/sarcasm] So that's part 1 of the secondly. Today was part 2, in that he decided stay after some management changes were made (methinks he gets mas $ now too, and good for him).

THIRDLY, He called a team meeting at 11:30 and told us everything you see in secondly. Then he told everyone to cancel everything they had for the whole afternoon, that we were going to go do something fun. So after a bit of debate we ended up at Dave & Busters for the whole afternoon. I had 2 dortmunders, a peppercorn sirloin steak, and wings for lunch. I also played many a video game and shot a few baskets and went 2 games of pool, both of which I lost GARRR not cool. What an amazing day. Could it get better? Oh yes it does.


Matt playing a helicopter game and Damel taking a picture.

LASTLY, SB and I went and signed officially for the apartment in Brunswick, Cross Creek Apts. We went with the 3rd floor which is nice because it has vaulted ceilings, it's lower cost, and we get $500 dollars off whenever we want to spend it. We were shown 2, and it was God's hand that the key didn't work in the 2nd one, because they were both kind of questionable. For example, check this note on this persons door. Weird.



First of all, if the cat truly is panicking, the last thing it's going to think to do would be run out the door. It would most likely hide behind furniture. Secondly if it is panicking and you grab it as it's running past your legs, say goodbye to your hands. Not a cat fan here folks.

We went back to the rental office and she gave us keys for another building and apt on the other side of the complex, much better, and no smoky smell in the lower doorway. Check this shot from the door.



They look pretty good especially for what we are paying, Luke should be helping us move stuff around on Saturday, we'll see how that goes. Picking up the keys tomorrow. ROCK...ON.

Worst Papercut in a Long Time

Holy cow, I just got sliced up by a Giant Eagle customer survey. WOW this thing hurts. Had to blog. Dang it all.

Check Ally's Blog for Engagement Pics

Yep, defer to Allyson Voller's blog to see some cool pics of me and SB. It is on the sidebar, or here.

Had to steal this one, Was browsing through Luke's photos because of the a weird "random image" and found this one, OK everyone together...AWEEEEEE.

Grilling on the Go

Yess folks it's that time once again. Summer, the outdoors and steak. Don't get stuck without a grill! Perfect for that after work tailgating party.



The Grill on the Go

Crazy, no?

A Suck Day

Today, is just a suck day. I feel like a vacuum cleaner, I just suck. I woke up late, (not that it matters because of flex time) I had a fairly unproductive day at work and my schedule is collapsing on these 2 upcoming weeks. I am not excited for the remainder of this week or next week. Perhaps today is just a downer. Nothing feels like it matters, especially anything that I do. My classes are useless, I don't have an apartment yet, the driver side door of my Accord hasn't opened from the outside in months (and I never have had time to fix it because I need it every day). I know this is sounding like a complain session and well it is. Guess what, it's my blog so read it and like it. Or don't like it and chalk it up to another of today's failures. Man. I'm going to another useless depressing class from my ADD prof who can't remember my name even though he asks me every class.

Good Morning

I was woken by my roommate kicking the foot of my bed (as opposed to normal humans that have the luxury of actually hearing their alarm clock). Normally I would snooze the alarm clock, roll over and enjoy the next 10 minutes of peace. This morning was different. Something absolutely amazed me about the alarm clock. I hit the snooze, turned over and stared at the electronic waking device. I marveled at its purpose and thanked it for every moment it granted me silence. I stared at the impossibly slow changing digital numbers until it the sound it emitted startled me beyond understanding, as only a true non-morning person can understand. Quite interesting is the human mind. Makes me wonder if mine is broken.

The Wedding Registry

Yes folks, it's time for the wedding registry. Should you decide to purchase an item for the lovely couple, you will find the link (soon to be links) conveniently located in the sidebar.






Can I help it that I'm turning into my Dad? Only time will tell.

Mountain of Dew..and Dr. Pepper, Mug, Code Red for that matter.

What happens when you get Mike and Joe have way too much time and plenty of pop? Besides beating up his brother Nick, we build things.

In all I think we used more than 4 cases of pop, but you can count and prove me wrong if you really want to. We reached our goal of: the ceiling.

Old emails

I was thumbing through some old emails and I found this, kind of funny. Those silly fraudulent Nigerians, they don't know what's coming.



Hey Greg,

Nice try with the fraudulent Paypal email but I think my grandma could have written a better one. Work on your English too if you really want to scam someone. I’ve reported you to eBay security.

Joe


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: GREG TOLUWANI [mailto:greg1@lopezclub.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 10:01 PM
To: Joseph Clarke
Subject: RE: eBay Item Purchase: Dell Inspiron 8500 Laptop 54mbps/wifi DVD+rw 1 GB RAM (Item #6740707558)



Hello,
I have sent the paypal payment. So kindly check your e-mail for the paypal confirmation mail and mail me immediately you recieve the payment confirmation from paypal so that i can send you my daughter's address in Nigeria and my fedex account number then can just send the item today and mail the tracking num ber to paypal for verification at (paypal-verification@consultant.com) thanks. i will be expecting your mail.

Re: Peep Passover

This video is a video taken april 12 2005, which I decided to post in response to luke and hannah's blog: Peep Passover. Some of us do have microwaves.

The Foo Fighters

But not what you'd think.



Best part: PUNCH HIM IN THE MICROFICHE!!!

Taco Bell Adding Skills

Apparently Taco bell needs to learn how to add. Check this out, me and Luke went to Taco bell to grab some food before class (since he was in the area). It was only after close inspection of the 2 receipts that we discovered that there was a rounding error in the tax. Note in the photo the same exact subtotal, same store, order numbers 265 and 266 (one right after another), both paid with credit card, same subtotals: DIFFERENT TAX. Not like I care, it's just a penny, but it's still kind of funny. Sorry about the sauce, looks really nasty in the photo.


I actually asked one of my professors to explain it, and he said, "If you are honestly that worried about a penny you have bigger problems." Then he took a penny out of his pocket and said, "There, now you are square." He also said it was probably a rounding error in the software.

Senioritis...And A New Life

Why do I find it so difficult to stay focused on school recently? It's really finally hitting me that these classes will not directly affect my life or job after I graduate. And getting straight A's? Man, that is such a thing of the past. I just want to move on; I want BW to just give me the rectangular piece of paper that I've paid close to $60,000 for. Well, all that money didn't exactly come from me, scholarships grants and loans helped quite a bit. Still, I have my job, and more importantly understand now how corporate IT works. I also have found that I absolutely love my job, and my chosen field. I believe that I have an excellent jump on kids my age that are going into IT; and anyone else for that matter. I had a lunch with Jason (my boss) last week, and we discussed MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) boot camps. A MCSE boot camp is basically where you go for 2 weeks, 14 days straight from 9AM-6PM and take a Microsoft test every 2 days until you have taken 7, and are certified. He told me that whenever he's interviewing, he asks how they got their MCSE, and if they reply with a boot camp he g enerally writes it off. However, I think that as long as you have experience with which to accompany the certification, it should be considered valid. What's funny about this blog is that I am actually writing it during class on paper, with the intention of posting it immediately afterwards. I've been meaning to blog for some time now, but there has been a lot going on recently.


I've joined a paintball team called Team Hit Crew, based out of the Sandusky area, but have players all over NE Ohio. We will be practicing on Saturdays, probably in the afternoon because of some players' work schedules. They have their own field, and now their own air fills available to the team. We also are looking at buying paint in bulk to save for practice, which would greatly reduce the cost of practicing, but not necessarily the tournaments. If any of you would like to see a tournament, by all means check us out and ask me where and when. We'll be playing TPA, which stands for Total Paintball Addicts. We will be playing in division 3. There are actually 4 different classes at this tournament circuit, Open, D2, D3 and rookie. I think Rookie at TPA may be honestly the only true rookie division in existence. If you have ever played in a tournament worth naming, you are not allowed to play in this division. I actually haven't even met the guys on this team yet, I am active on the forums though. I am very much looking forward to playing again, it is such a fabulous sport. And good for your legs (@ Luke and Hannah).

Also in the life of Joe is the living quarters shopping. SB and I have basically narrowed our search to 2 places to live: either Medina or Strongsville. Myself I'm leaning towards Medina, because of a few reasons. 1) We get our Sundays back. It would be so different to wake up and not have to worry about wasting 2 hours just driving on 71 every Sunday. Plus we could just go home after church instead of looking desperately for some kind person's house to sponge off of for an afternoon. I really can't stand doing that. 2) Medina just feels like home. Most of the people in my friends link live in Medina, and it would be nice to actually be able to hang out with them impromptu without driving 40 minutes. 3) I think SB and I are both very happy with the layout of our apartment of choice; Price is good, washer dryer hookup, AC, internet ready and PARKING! GAH! First I must tell you what this means to me, and the nightmare that is parking at BW. I cannot possibly fathom the verbal beating I would deliver to the general contractor that came up with the brilliant idea of taking a perfect square area, and making the parking lot diagonal...and rectangular. Excuse my crude 3 second drawing, but I have things to do.

All that parking, is generously allocated for a whopping total of 50 residents. Yes, 50. Count the 13 parking spots available for 50 students, and then ask yourself how envious you are if you don't have one. Not to mention how angry you get. This is yet another example of "expensive and inefficient", the motto I have developed for Baldwin-Wallace College. I cannot wait to be done with this piece of crap school.

Oh my sweet Angel!

Yep. Time for paintballin.


Insane with happiness.

Both my Angels. Doesn't she look bad mother???!!! She's the next Ollie Lang for sure!

Nevermind....

OSB Coverage for Wednesday Feb 14th:

Desktop Engineering
Joe (Onsite)
Damel (Remote)
Mark (Remote)
Anand (Remote)
Matt (Remote)

Jason (Remote)

Oh that's just dandy. Make the college kid drive make the 3 hour drive. Hoo freakin ray.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It feels like sky-diving and having your parachute breaking and landing in a swimming pool of Jello.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I feel...like a kid.

Star Wars: What Really Happened

Ohhh man. I thought to myself, holy cow, how dumb is this, then realized I did the exact same thing when I was a kid.

OK Go, new dance video!!

Goodbye for a while

My friends, my schedule is too hectic. I must refrain from blogging in the general interest of my sanity. I just wanted to say, it's been fun. And I'll be back when the semester is over. Thank you, and have a nice day.