Beverly Hills Safari!

What's up world? I just got done studying for an hour or so after getting back from ROTC. I'm getting used to the frequent studying. At first it depressed me a little bit. But now I'm caught up in it all and the whole situation makes a great story, especially if I succeed.

So I just watched a Youtube video about the symbolism behind a deck of cards. It wasn't that interesting. It was something about King Jesus and whatever and I'm like yeah but you could say that about anything. The interesting part was that there's 52 weeks in a year, 52 cards, 4 seasons, 4 suits; it's a calendar basically. So then I was like, I love decks of cards! I always travel with one! Then I realized I had already blogged about cards back in September. Yeah, so now I have nothing to blog about. I wonder if eventually I'll hit a point where I have literally blogged about every thought that has ever crossed my mind and I completely run out of material. I doubt that will happen. But for the time being I have nothing to write about. I know, I'll tell you a story. I love telling stories but my family and girlfriend hear so many they've stopped listening to them. So, what story should I tell? What memory from my exciting life should I immortalize on the internet? Hmmm I'm having trouble deciding, I'll look at my Facebook photos to dig up some material. Oh my God! Yes I got one! I will tell the story of my Beverly Hills Safari! Sit down and strap in because this is a good one.

So the time was Summer 2010. I spent that summer partying and manly at Bardstown road. But when I wasn't working as a lifeguard, or partying at BTR, I was traveling. Among several journeys that summer, was a two week trip to Southern California. This was my first time going to SoCal and seeing my good friend Alex face to face. So July 28th rolled around fairly quickly and I flew off to LA.

Ok pause. A big part of my enjoyment in traveling is NOT tourism. In fact I believe tourism and travel are completely different. Being a tourist to me is the worst way to spend any trip. Riding around in an open-roofed big red double-decker bus while being barked at by tour guides is miserable. Not only is it boring, not only are you getting laughed at by everyone, but you're just looking at all the fun. It's like going to a really nice restaurant but just sitting in the waiting room watching everyone else eat dinner, and someone's telling you all the history of the restaurant and other shit you don't care about. Why fly all the way over to LA, to sit on a tour bus and look at everyone have fun in Santa Monica? No fuck that! I wanna roam around my destination as I please and be free to play in the sand as much as I want!

But worst of all, when you're a tourist you are hated and ridiculed by the locals no matter where you are. When I travel, I want to experience the lifestyle of my destination. Whether that's the highlands of Honduras, South Beach, Beverly Hills, or Europe; every city has a certain mood and a lifestyle to accompany it. Being a tourist is just looking at it. Being a traveler is experiencing that lifestyle.

So when I travel, I act like I live there even if it's only a matter of days. I dress like I belong there, act like I know where I'm going and what I'm doing, and I don't do touristy shit. But unfortunately, my mother and father look like the biggest damn tourists in the city. My dad takes pictures of everything, my mom just looks lost all the time, and then I'm wearing aviator sunglasses with a polo and $100 watch 15 feet behind them. But whatever. Long story short, I want to experience the lifestyle, not the tourism; so I act like I live there. Resume.

Alex and I stayed away from much of the tourist stuff and focused on just broing it out in Los Angeles. The city is a giant playground, it'd be hard for us to ever be bored. I fit in wherever we went (we never looked like fucking tourists that's for sure), and by the time I was halfway through my trip I felt like I'd grown up in LA. I had the smug attitude, I was sending entrees back at restaurants because it wasn't exactly how I ordered it, I was making fun of Latinos, it was great!

So we had a free day on Wednesday and Alex's friend Daniel was telling us how it's a fun time to go to Beverly Hills and chill and check out girls and cars for the day. I thought it sounded like an absolutely fantastic idea, and so did Alex. The only problem is we'd have to work out the logistics. Ok, so if we go to Beverly Hills we HAVE to make a stop in Hollywood for a cigar, and parking plus traffic in Hollywood AND Beverly Hills would be a nightmare, so...fuck. Then Alex's mother came to the rescue with an idea!

She told us there's a pretty bus company that for just $20 you get a ticket for a bus that goes from Hollywood to Beverly Hills to West Hollywood and back to Hollywood all day and night, and parking is included. We could park in Hollywood, chill there for a while, hop on the bus to Beverly Hills, chill there for a while, then hop on and see West Hollywood real quick before going back home. Awesome! Perfect solution!

So Wednesday rolled around and Alex and I dressed like we were going shopping in Beverly Hills, got and the car and made the drive to Hollywood. When we got there we acquired our ticket and ran into a bit of a surprise. The buses that were taking us around LA were those big humiliating double-decker open-roofed buses. We had just spent $40 for a TOUR of Los Angeles! With our heads down we got on the bus, which was filled with Asians, families, old people with those white visors, and single men in their 40's. Oh well. When we get off on Rodeo Drive, we'll just dip into a store immediately and come back out so it looks like we're not tourists.

Sooner or later we did just that, and went to a cute little Panini Cafe on Rodeo Drive for lunch. There were agents talking on their phones, really really really rich housewives, the whole lot. This was THE place to eat lunch. While eating, I whipped out my iPhone a curious question that'd been on my mind for some time: the location of the Playboy Mansion. It was about five miles. I told Alex it was a little under two and convinced him to make the walk!

So there we were. Two high schoolers, wearing polo shirts, walking through the streets of Beverly Hills passing one celebrity house after the other to get to the Playboy Mansion....for five miles. After a bit of complaining from Alex ("Decker, there is no way this is under two miles."), we finally came up on a tiny alleyway called Charing Cross Road. You would have never noticed the Playboy Mansion was just a short walk down that road unless you knew where you were going. Take a left there, take a stroll down the hill and boom, you're at the Playboy Mansion.

Then we had to walk back. Was it worth it? Fuck yeah. Do you know how many people have been to the Playboy Mansion? Like no one. So that's my story. I hope you liked it. Until next time...

The Dells

What's up readers? Happy Wednesday. The work week's almost halfway complete, "hump day" as they call it. After studying calculus for three straight days I'm finding that I'm making steady progress.

I truly have 'waged war' on calculus. Much like my determination on getting that scholarship last year, I'm dead set on passing this class. I'd rather die trying than give up and fail. So through frustration and bore and headaches alike, I push through and get back up after being knocked down, and I'm going to keep at it until I get a 90 on that damn test. This is when I always surprise myself. Once I hit that threshold of excessive frustration, I feel like I turn into the fucking Hulk, with pure steroids running through my veins. I use that 95th percentile brain to get what I want. And in this case it's pretty much entirely the drive to learn the difficult material to pass.

But behind the front lines of this war I have this fighting force of manipulation. In addition to being able to learn the material as a result of this determination, I've also thoroughly thought through my set of moves in order to make it as difficult as possible for my professor to enter a grade in lower than a C. It's a mix of charm and choice wording to make this guy feel both sympathy and respect for me. When you have a man's sympathy and respect, you gain a lot of breathing room.

So to follow through with this modus operandi, I've been attending between two and three office hours each day, meeting with both my professor and TA. Before my office hours, I study for a few hours at home, so I sound smart during the office hours and show off more of my progress. And guess what, it's working.

The whole learning part is obviously causing improvement, but the whole charm/manipulation deal is working better than I could have expected. Due to my exam scores, I don't have much of a prayer at passing this class. 99% of people with my exam history would drop, and try again next year. Well I say fuck that. I'm an underdog. Not only am I an underdog; I'm a hardworking, Air Force underdog who's parent's don't pay for shit, and who doesn't take handouts. And I'm willing to learn calculus in two weeks to pass.

Well my story has spread a little bit throughout the university calculus community. "There's a kid who failed TWO OUT OF HIS THREE EXAMS and is now going to three office hours a day to get an A on the final because he can't fail the class." Now I just started finding out about this recently, when TA's and professor's from OTHER CLASSES started coming to help me between 10 and 1. Today for example, three different professors and TA's ate their lunch with me while I studied with my actual professor. And half of them know my name! People who've heard about me through rumors and gossip want to believe in me.

As touching as that is, it follows the Hollywood fail-safe formula. A likable underdog, plus a daunting task for him to complete, equals a gain in support from the community. It happens every time. I've come to realize that I'm one of the few students who can't seem to pass this class but won't drop. So game fucking on. I'll put on a show come Thursday night. And after a total of over 20 hours in just two weeks, if I don't pass, my professor has failed me and he should feel like a dick.

Because if I don't pass this class, I'm gonna feel like the biggest tool on Earth for 15 days while I roam around Morocco. And I HATE feeling like a tool! The scholarship that bought me the trip in the first place will be in jeopardy, and unless I change it ONE WEEK before I leave then I'm fucked. And for 15 days I'm gonna be walking around the Medina with my head down because calculus won the war.

But regardless, Karen and I booked our trip to South Beach. Our spring break will make Panama and Daytona and Frat Fuckthissucksdale look like Wisconsin. And of course we got Miami Heat tickets, we have to do it right. And since I can't think about my Morocco trip without a guilty conscience due to my Calculus grade, I've resorted to getting excited about Miami. Let me tell ya, I am STOKED. I'm on trip advisor reading reviews with an ear to ear smile, beginning to micro-plan our trip to ensure it's absolutely perfect.

But then, for some odd reason I became sad last night thinking about it. I remembered my late great Aunt Claire. Aunt Claire was a nun, she didn't get out much. Her world revolved around her love for her family. No money, no ski trips or motorcycles, her life revolved around pure love. My family visited her once a year until she died, every labor day weekend. As a 10 year old, it was consistently the most boring three days of my life. The last time we visited her humble convent, we all had a bitter feeling that it'd be our last visit. As Aunt Claire's health deteriorated, her love never diminished.

She became slightly delusional about her health, thinking she was still able to do all the things she could do her whole life. Her boldness lead her to tell us about wanting us to take her waterskiing, or to amusement parks, or ball games. The more her health declined the more irrationally she wanted to take us somewhere she couldn't go.

On our last labor day visit, we saw her in her assisted living room. With oxygen tubes and IV's taped all over her, she showed us a trip she had planned to the Wisconsin Dells. She had ordered videos and pamphlets and pricing options for hotel rooms. She talked about that trip to Wisconsin Dells for hours. We tried to tell her that a field day at the Dells is completely out of the question for a woman of her age and condition. She took it pretty hard.

But what makes me the saddest, is when I realize that her excitement and anticipation for taking her great nephew to a waterpark, could only be matched by my excitement for going to South Beach. It sucks, it really sucks, but she died with that excitement and anticipation still built up. She was a woman who gave nothing but love her whole life, and when she wanted to give anything else it was too late. I hope to God by the time she died she realized the latter wasn't important.

Until next time...

Enough is Enough

What's up readers? I come with a fun fact for you today: I am tired of studying. I've studied all day. I wanted to study for another half hour or so but my brain just farted out on me and I think I'm done for today. This how my day's go every day until finals. I'm not gonna fucking fail a class. Mainly because I won't be able to enjoy my trip abroad knowing a class defeated me. No fuck that. So I'm studying all day.

So it's Spring Break planning season. Karen and I have known we're making the pilgrimage to Miami for about 8 months now, but we've crossed the line from planning phase to booking phase. And let me tell you, I  have a great itinerary set up for us. Hotel on Collins, Miami Heat game, Tom's NFL, Coconut Grove; yes I've got it all in there. I'm determined to have a bomb-ass spring break to make up for last years. I'm not saying last years spring break wasn't a good time, but it didn't even come close to doing living up to the high expectations I've formed for spring break trips.

One thing that bugs me about human tendencies, is that nothing is ever enough. Unless you're so unfortunate you're dying, satisfaction is a feeling that doesn't really exist. Whether it's money, girls, or practically anything at all really; you will find that you will NEVER get enough of it. Last year, I wanted a scholarship. With a scholarship I'd be getting several hundred dollars a month on top of several thousand dollars a year. 'I'd get the scholarship and be happy', I thought. But no. I got the scholarship, I'm making more money than 90% of students my age, and I still want more.

My mom writes books. For the past ten years, all I've heard her talk about is publishing a book. "If I could just publish ONE book, I don't even care if I get rich or not I just want to be published", she said. Now she's published on the market with four books, selling hundreds if not thousands each month. And now all I hear her say is how she wants more and more buyers. Eventually she'll want to be famous.

I remember a few years ago, in high school, wanting to travel all over the place. I'd book a few trips to LA, try to get out to Miami once or twice, but as predicted, I was never satisfied. I traveled more than every single person in my high school, but I wanted to see more of the world. I wanted more trips away from home. I did the math last night, and assuming nothing changes, I'll have visited Miami at least once a year since junior year of high school. That's four years, and four trips to Miami. Now I'm going to Morocco and Spain in between my Miami trips and it's STILL not enough. I still want to travel more.

There just isn't any satisfaction in anything. You can get close to satisfaction but then the variables change and you require more and more to become satisfied. Whether it's popularity, money, globetrotting, or power, we compete more and more for a goal that keeps getting harder and harder to reach. And that is awesome.

This driving force that pushes us for some bar we'll never get to makes us incredible individuals. It's one of the biggest motivators in all of us. Would I be in the Air Force if I didn't have this driving passion to visit everywhere on Earth twice? Would I be in college pushing myself to get smarter than everyone else if I didn't want an infinite amount of money? Fuck no! No one would be doing anything if we weren't able to motivate ourselves with bribes of personal triumph. We wouldn't have presidents, or airline pilots, or leaders or thinkers solving the world's problems. We'd just have faggot 1 and faggot 2 at home smoking pot. (Sorry, I just really hate potheads).

But unfortunately this 'driving force' that pushes us to do great things, also pushes some people in the opposite direction. Many people find that they can never party enough, or shoplift enough, or get high enough. People get the same triumph off of doing bad things as I do for good things. I mean hell if I want to travel and get money and power I could just as easily get into organized crime; and that never-ending chase for satisfaction will push me to steal and deal a great deal of harm.

So I guess what it comes down to, is finding out what satisfies you...and picking a side. Until next time...

How Decker Loyd Ruined Norton Commons

Good afternoon everyone. Second day in a row blogging. There's now nothing standing between me and Thanksgiving break, so the break starts now.

I really love staying on campus until the last possible moment before a break. I just sit back and relax while everyone scrambles to get home as quickly as possible. Watching everyone rush makes it even more calming from my perspective.

I haven't been on a cruise in over a year now, which is fine, I'm not complaining about it. The cruise lifestyle is so immensely chill, it serves as an antidepressant to just think about a cruise and recollect fond memories. I spent a proud amount of time this morning watching freshman go through the process of packing up and leaving the dorm while I sip tea from behind the front desk, having a mild conversation with the fellow RA's. With some Vacation music lightly playing from the speakers, and my feet propped up on the table in front of me, I can't help but relate the moment to that of a cruise. Then I left for K-Lair to waste a meal plan on a bag of chips and cup of orange juice (because I have enough swypes for shit like that) and realized that some days are just so peaceful that I'd need to be on a cruise ship to match it.

Cruises are the highest caliber of relaxation in the whole wide world. You can argue with me, but being on a ship with pretty girls and sunshine and food and drinks is simply the maximum R&R one can achieve. But take away the palm trees, the ocean, and the service, and you're still left with consistent pleasure. There are pleasures that don't require a cruise ship to retain  These are the pleasures of sleeping in a little bit, putting on a Vacation playlist while sipping your favorite beverage, and watching the world go by with some friends from a comfortable place to sit.

So, like most days before an academic break, today is one of those days. I've done calculus and physics for a few hours already and now I'm going to spend the rest of my afternoon enjoying tea, Halo, and the company of bros. And even though I won't be on a cruise ship, I'll still have a similar mindset.

I feel like that's what people on welfare say when they can't afford vacations. I mean they'd be right if they did. Anyway, after blogging yesterday about PR and how manipulation can really accelerate your efforts, I decided I might as well try my hand at manipulating my Calculus overlords into helping me get a passing grade as much as possible. Obviously if I do terribly in the class I won't pass regardless of PR or manipulation, BUT the more I can make my professor feel like I'm deserving of it the more "assistance" I will get. So...yeah... game on.

I promised you yesterday I believe that I'd tell you the story of Norton Commons. I guess I'll keep my promise and tell the story of how Decker Loyd ruined Norton Commons. So first I have to set the stage...

This story takes place last summer while I was working for the YMCA at an on-site waterpark. I was one of the more senior shift supervisors and had earned a modest amount of power in my service. So in addition to the waterpark, the Y had managed a small neighborhood pool several miles away at a community called "Norton Commons".

Norton Commons was a very peculiar place. It was a neighborhood of hundreds of cute little apartment-houses with a cute little main street with cute little businesses like bakeries and cafe's. This place was borderline creepy. It's the type of place you think of in a quasi-utopian village or some shit; where like when a visitor comes to town all the residents just stand on their front porch with an eerie smile waving lightly at passersby. It was the type of neighborhood in which you wouldn't be entirely surprised if it was run all by crab people and they were planning on expanding their cute properties until their adorable society took over the entire world. So at this complex, was a pool. Which of course was an adorable little pool with this cute white gazebo where the residents can relax and cool off without leaving their creepy little slice of Eden.

So our staff of lifeguards at the Y had to run the Norton Commons pool as well as the waterpark. Guards typically hated working the waterpark, and loved working Norton Commons. The waterpark was simply hell, 7 hour shifts dragged by painfully like nails on a chalkboard. Norton Commons on the other hand, was bliss because you really didn't have to do shit. Very few people even came to the pool, there was no one monitoring you so you could typically do whatever you wanted, and you got a 40 minute break every 20 minutes.

I had worked at the YMCA about three years before I ever did a shift at Norton Commons. Then finally, one beautiful Saturday afternoon I worked my first Norton Commons shift. 12-7pm, best 7 hours I've ever been paid for. I was making about $8.75/hour at that point in my lifeguarding career, so before tax I made over 60 bucks for what was about to happen. And guess who I was working with, Karen and Mitch. One of my top bros AND MY GIRLFRIEND. Talk about a recipe for disaster.

So since I'd never worked Norton Commons before, despite outranking both Karen and Mitch, I asked them to talk me through the shift so I know what to do and don't fuck anything up. And those assholes told me with confidence, "You can do whatever you want."

After a bit of discussion I realized that Norton Commons was sort of a hidden gem~a secret lifeguard Valhalla among the YMCA staff. Only drunk old people and kids came to this pool, and our bosses were a 15 minute drive away. Being reassured that anything goes at this pool because "fuck Kym" I hopped on board the fuck-it train and choo-choo'ed my ass all the way to fuck-it'ville.

So we did our job for a few hours, and eventually decided to close the pool for 'thunder'. Yeah. We heard 'thunder'. The shift pretty much went downhill from there. My motorcycle ended up in the gazebo, Mitch and Kyle ended up picking up this girl who lived down the street and we all ordered pizza. After several hours it became apparent that we weren't going to be able to hear 'thunder' any longer and we opened the pool back up. So while working, we invited over a few other girls who lived in the neighborhood and sooner or later we had three lifeguards and like 4 girls and we spent the rest of the shift playing Apple to Apples.

So I guess, somehow, the chief developer (of Norton Commons) saw us? I don't know how, the guy is sneaky as hell; but with a stroke of luck he was able to piece together that we had pulled into the fuck-it'ville station hours ago. And I guess he told my boss? I don't know the details but apparently he was pissed.

A day or so later the guards working the shift were pulled aside and had a chat with Kym. She wasn't looking for any reasons to why we had such a lapse in judgement but apparently "because fuck Kym" wasn't going to be a valid excuse. We didn't get fired, in fact we weren't even written up for it. But the Norton Commons developer had a hard-on for getting us in as much trouble as possible, and since Kym wouldn't adhere the developer banned us. He fucking BANNED us. I WAS BANISHED FROM NORTON COMMONS.

Not only was I not allowed to work there anymore, I wasn't allowed to go there anymore! I was no longer welcome at Norton Commons! What the fuck! I was like Scar from Lion King; being exiled from the pride lands for committing such a heinous act of delinquency!

But of course the developer wasn't satisfied with simply banning us from his fucked up Dr. Seuss town, he then threatened the Y stating that if the Norton Commons lifeguards don't start doing their job, they would go elsewhere to staff their pool. But here's where it gets tricky; the Y aquatics was having terrible financial trouble at the time, and couldn't afford a voidance in their contract with Norton Commons. So the Y executive staff begged and pleaded and promised that the lifeguards would shape up.

Norton Commons went from a complete vacation from the waterpark, to a boring and overly formal venue laced with paranoia of who's watching you waiting for you to make a mistake. This happened within days from our seven-hour party shift. For the first time in years guards were complaining about working Norton Commons. Kym and the exec staff as well as the executives of Norton Commons were making frequent rounds to the pool to ensure no one screwing around again.

After that summer our contract with Norton Commons expired and they no longer relied on our Y for staffing their pool. I swear I had nothing to do with that, but for our final two and a half months with Norton Commons, I completely ruined the fun. And in addition to that I'd like to think the legacy of my acts live on in the treatment and training of future Norton Commons Lifeguards. I don't think Norton Commons will ever be as chill as it was before I worked my first and last shift there.

Was it worth it? Hell yes. I'll be telling this story for years. And now that I've written it down I've immortalized it so I could be reading this when I'm 40 and have a great laugh about it. Anyway, thanks for reading today. I'm planning on hopping off and playing some Halo. Until next time...

PR Sets the Standard

What's up world. It's the Monday before Thanksgiving, it's chill week. I'm trying to enjoy it as much as I can, but since I'm currently losing the war against CalcII, it's a little more difficult.

Speaking of war, it was Roman Empire weekend on History Channel and let me tell you, what..a..weekend. From Romulus and Remus to Julius Caesar to Caligula, Rome went hard. Plenty of history buffs absolutely adore the Roman Empire, in fact it seems the general consensus is that Rome was the greatest civilization in all of Mankind. That's weird to think about for a number of reasons, the first being that it started before the rise of Jesus Christ, and ended after. Interesting. Also, the society revolved around promiscuity, violence, money, and the combination of them all. What other successful society obsesses with sex, violence, and money?

It was actually the Roman's continual expression of sex and violence that caused them to be so successful. Violence is how they got their money, sex is how their leaders were established. If you slept with too many guys' wives, you were assassinated. America on the other hand has PETA, and feminist groups, and Mormons, and they call shame on the fact that we watch CSI: Miami every week. In fact organizations that so forcefully oppose sex and violence are one of the most apparent differences between Rome and America.

This is what I find fascinating about Rome, how the leaders climbed the ladder to power. Just like in America, Romans (who had a chance at it) craved power. For the upper class, it was part of life to desperately want to have as much power as possible. So regardless of your situation, if more power was graspable, you tried to take it. If you were in the military, you're gonna want to climb the military ladder. If you were a politician, go for the senate. If you were a thinker, you were a part of the university. But no matter where you were, you fought for the top of the food chain.

This doesn't happen as much in America. The concept of fighting someone for their hierarchical position only exists for a few of us. Obviously the 10% of American's without a job, the millions on welfare, and probably everyone except the tiny percentage of people who are like me, simply don't try. They don't see anything above them, and therefore don't strive to achieve anything greater. But back to Rome...

So for such a huge society, Rome was really filled with interesting leaders. And if you do some poking around the internet, you find how about 80-90% of them climbed to power: Public Relations. PR was everything to the Roman leader. Win or lose, if you looked damn good doing it and had a charming tone to your voice, people grew to like you and you rose to power. Charisma is well over half the battle.

So what is PR? Well, it's pretty much a euphemism for manipulating every single person around you. The most famous leaders in human history are masters of manipulation. I mean 'lie to your face, sleep with your wife, kill a man, and smile it off like it didn't happen' type of manipulation. It's all just a matter of great PR.

Julius Caesar once was captured by vicious pirates. They held a ransom at 250 bronze coins. Caesar laughed at them and said "Are you kidding? You know you could easily get 500..." Of course the pirates then demanded 500 bronze coins and the Army was charged double to get Caesar back. Caesar then told the pirates "But realize, if you end up getting your coin and releasing me, then I will use every resource of the Empire to find you and kill you."

The pirates were like 'whatever'; they got their money and let Caesar go. Apparently it took Caesar and the Roman Navy a few days to find the pirates, and Caesar fucking crucified them all (literally). But crucifixion is a terrible long and drawn-out, excruciating death. So Caesar slit their throat before torturing and humiliating the pirates to end their misery early.

Or at least that's what he says. Hell, the Roman public couldn't even be sure that he even found the pirates again to kill them. And if he did, there was no way to know whether Caesar tortured them or not. But they believed him; and his image became more merciless, caring, intimidating, and gentle at the same time. There is no way that story could be told without Caesar looking like someone who should not be messed with, but someone who isn't just a ruthless killer. That story couldn't be taken negatively.

Which seems a bit coincidental to me! I'm not saying Caesar made the whole thing up, but he's lying his ass off at some point in that story. That's an example of absolutely flawless PR. It's not about what you do, it's about what everyone thinks you did. Not that every leader in the Roman Empire was a liar, but PR is how they sustained their positions as leader.

The importance of PR still holds true today. After you get your 4.0 GPA's, scholarships, internships, etc. most of your success comes down to PR. Does your smile grab attention? Does your humor appeal to your likability? Can you put yourself in any situation and deter awkwardness? And most importantly, will people remember you for things other than your statistics?

While learning about Julius Caesar charming the Roman Empire, I realize that PR is what I do all day. Just like Julius Caesar, I can bullshit a pretty damn good story. Even if they story is true, I can put some emphasis on a few key words and make the story even more captivating. Then I tell it like it's not a big deal, so people think it's just another day in the life of Decker, and throw in something about apologizing for telling a long story to show humility and I would bet money that person would not soon forget about Decker Loyd. Then if you can smile and laugh a bit you're radiating some great PR.

Thinking back to the working at that God-forsaken waterpark over the summer, the community of lifeguards and shifts fits perfectly into this theory. Who was the director's right hand man? Spencer. What supervisors were more liked among the lifeguards? Matt, Kevin, and myself. Who spent every waking moment kissing Kym's ass? Spencer. Who tried to make work fun and laughable for the peons? Matt, Kevin, and myself. It's not by chance.

So after a day or so of thinking out how I'm going to write a good blog post about it, I'm now in love with the concept of PR. Like Julius Caesar, I want mine to be perfect.

Oh I have to tell you the tale of Norton Commons. It's a good story, and I had forgotten about it for months until today in class. But I'll save that for later. This blog post is complete. Have a good Thanksgiving break, until next time...

8-hour Moment

What's up world? I was in the mood to blog just now and I realize it's been a little while since my last post so I thought it'd be nice to crank out a quicky.

So for those of you who aren't counting, there's only 35 days until my big trip. I'm starting to get more and more excited. Typically when I have a trip, I get overly excited like six months prior, and the excitement doesn't much fade up to the day I leave. But this trip has been different. Not only is it the biggest and by far the best trip I will have ever taken in my life, I haven't been nearly as excited as I get for something like a spring break cruise. But all of the sudden I'm getting cranked over the idea of flying to Dade in just 35 short days.

My iTunes is on shuffle and is giving me all the songs I listened to in LA a few years ago. There's been like three in a row so far. But that's off topic.

I decided to make a travel blog for this trip. I made one in Honduras and it was interesting as fuck. I should have written one in Germany but I was only 11 and that's a bit young to be blogging. So yeah this blog will be completely written on the spot, and we'll see where it goes. I want to just be able to chill in some restaurant in Rabat or Grenada or be sitting on the bus just writing my surroundings. Just put on some music and put the pen to my paper and output everything that I see. Traveling kinda gives you more insight about life in general, writing it down allows you to capture it.

Have you ever heard someone say, "I never want this moment to end"? Like a first kiss or that moment you do something good or experience something awesome? I was thinking about that phrase the other night; it's really a cliche. Whenever someone says they 'never want this moment to end', they usually are talking about a moment of only a few seconds. In some cases it's kind of an infinitesimally small amount of time, like the exact moment you get awarded wings. So like if you took the limit of the moment as delta (t) approaches zero for all you math majors out there. What if you stretched that moment out to like hours? What if you stretched it for like 8 hours? Would you just bask in it?

That's how I feel about long flights. When I'm on a plane, whether I'm flying it or not, traveling to destinations thousands of miles away; that's when I think to myself 'I never want this moment to end.' That moment of pure relaxation while sipping a cocktail gazing out the window listening to Owl City as your jetliner climbs out of Miami is perfection to me. Fortunately for me and my weird tendencies, that moment doesn't only last a few seconds, but rather 8 or 9 hours at times. It's like a whole day of just relaxing and straight chillin'. There is absolutely nothing to do but just sit and chill, and if you have a pen and paper you can write.

So that's how it'll be for me all the way to Spain, and all the way back. While people stress and get jetlagged and force a few hours of sleep, I will be chillin'.

In other news, Thanksgiving Break is coming up. And after Thanksgiving week is one week of normal academics, then we have one week of dead week, and then we have finals week, and then we're done. And Finals Week is the best week of them all. I will only have TWO finals this year, one on Monday, and the other on Tuesday I believe. Then the rest of the week is all about me. College is so nice like that.

Ok well this blog post served it's purpose of getting some excitement out of my system for the time being. Now I'm gonna go play Halo for a few hours. I'm into Halo now. I remember absolutely HATING Halo back in my younger days when it came out. Well now I'm into it. And Halo 4 just came out, and I don't know shit about Halo, so my good friend Conor is letting me borrow Halo's 1-3 and the two prequels to play through so Halo 4 will make sense. Conor's a great guy.

I also bought a year's subscription of Xbox Live last night. I promised myself I'd buy it if I studied and did well enough on my 2nd and 3rd calculus exam. So I passed the test and bought it. And keep this between you and me, but I used my plus account to buy it (i.e. parent's money) so SHHHHHHH.

Luckily my parents only read my blog when I forward it to them, but if they by chance read this one on a whim, now I'll know about it.

"YOU SPENT YOUR PLUS ACCOUNT MONEY ON VIDEOGAMES!?!?"

"Aww you really do read my blog!"

A Hardwired Human Mindset

What's up blogosphere? I'm enjoying my Thursday evening to a great extent now that my Air Force affiliations are complete and my week is winding to a close. I'm about to indulge in some relaxing kava as I tell the world what I've been thinking about recently. But first, I need to feed my fish.

Pretty much as far back as society goes, there's been a great deal of literal sacrifice. As far back as records of the human race indicate, there has been some sort of system where one person is just beat to a pulp for the greater good of the community.

It seems cultish and awfully taboo to a modern western society like us. In the most brutal forms, sacrifice has meant ending ones life to appease the gods. From the moment apes have walked upright to the present day, somewhere on Earth a society exists where they kill each other to feel comfortable. From the Mayans dissecting live women in front of entire capitals for the pleasure of the Rain God Chaac, to medieval criminals being decapitated, to Japanese kamikazes, to mass suicides of contemporary cults; sacrificing your own individuals seems like a pretty popular trend among humans. And needless to say, western culture thinks it's weird as hell.

The first question that comes to mind is "why?". It makes absolutely no sense to waste off your own people, regardless of the reason. In addition, the act is purely heinous! It seems like it should be a monstrous crime to point someone in of a society and tell them their most important contribution is a brutal and gory death in front of everyone.

But western civilization always seems to think they way is the best; we always carry on with life acting like we never do anything wrong or barbaric. This is my favorite part of the blog post; now I get to play devil's advocate. Western culture performs just as many sacrifices, if not many more, and our sacrifices are much worse.

To begin with, "barbarians" I'll call them (indigenous/Japanese people and cultists who still perform legitimate sacrifices) may be a little more animalistic. They kill you, and it's over. The gods are happy. Then they're done. In the West however, we pick a victim and brutally beat the snot out of them on an emotional level. The pain involved is all on the inside, affecting the hardest place to reach in a persons body: the mind. Victims are tortured for YEARS until they have no choice but to leave the society. And in most cases, our reasons are no better than the Mayans'.

I'll throw out the most prevalent example: high school. High school classes perform disgusting sacrifices every semester. They pick a kid, and that kid is doomed from jump street. Whether he's socially awkward, incompetent, ugly, or whatever, he will be sacrificed for the sake of the other students to feeling popular. Sometimes they end in suicides; sometimes they end in school transfers. I've seen it happen first hand and that poor child has no real options but to accept that he's been chosen and he will be miserable. Administrators call it 'bullying' and do all they can to prevent it; but it's a sacrifice, and it's just as barbaric as the Mayans.

I'm getting all the obvious examples out of the way first. What do all of these "humanitarian, non-barbaric, reformed" Western countries all do when a different country's been pissing us off? We strap a gun to an 18 year old and tell him we'll pay for his college. But in reality, if he doesn't get killed in combat, he's left to face a ridiculous 50% chance of homelessness, PTSD, and drug addiction. How is that any more moral than a blue-painted Mayan witch doctor ripping the organs out of a peasant?

Luckily however, I have found myself waist-deep in Air Force ROTC. Believe me, the idea of sacrifice still exists, but it's no longer pointless. It's all for training purposes; it's to make us better people. In my flight, we have a flight commander. This person is in charge of the flight of 12 or so cadets, and it's essentially their show. But there's a double standard that destines the flight commander to fail. If the flight does something good, the flight commander gets no praise, the praise is divided among the 12 cadets. However, if the flight does something bad, all of the blame goes to the flight commander. When the latter scenario is the case, the flight commander gets yelled at...hard.

Let's say one cadet is a minute late to a PT session. The flight commander will get sternly, in-your-face yelled at for a solid two minutes. I've been on the receiving end of it. It sucks, you feel like dropping the program, it affects your night; you are being sacrificed. Because of the way this sacrificial system works, it pretty quickly trains each cadet to not make any mistakes. After a year of it, you have 12 near-perfect individuals. But in order for it to work, just like the Japanese Kamikaze's, sacrifices have to be made. And in this case the sacrifice is getting emotionally destroyed by a senior.

There are certain little odd concepts that I've noticed pop up in the human race from start to finish. If you sit down and think for a while after reading some history books, you'll come up with several. The concept of human sacrifice is certainly one of them. There is something hard-wired into the human mindset that declares across the board that sacrifice is necessary, which I find fascinating.

It's not just that these cultures find sacrifice necessary, it's that they think it works! Every culture that partakes in these sacrifices honestly believes that it improves their culture to a large enough extent that they don't see the brutality in it. Mayans truly believed that these public murders appeased the gods. Monarchs really believed that decapitating clearly innocent people in the town square would deter people from committing crime. Worse of all, high school students honestly don't see the harm in continually harassing the shit out of a kid to his suicide, as long as it makes them look and feel 'popular'.

Then there's me, relaxing in my little culture of ROTC, completely slandering everyone else for performing 'sacrifice' when I even admitted that ROTC is only effective due to it's method of 'sacrificing' the flight commander. But seriously, we only break each other down and yell at each other because it makes us better. I don't see any brutality in it.

Well that about wraps up this blog post. It's just an interesting observation I've made about humanity in general. The theme of my beliefs are all starting to trend towards scientific observations that prove God's existence. I don't go to church because they tell my science doesn't exist, and they clearly need to open their eyes because I think they're wrong. And I don't hang around atheists much because they tell my God doesn't exist, and they clearly need to open their eyes because I think they're wrong. Keeping an open mind and asking questions is all we can do without sounding like a complete jackass to someone. No matter what you blindly believe, there's someone who thinks your an idiot for it.

So I put my ideals on the internet so everyone can think I'm a jackass.

Here. Take this.

What's up world? It's Monday again, but today is a special Monday. Since tomorrow is election day, there is no class. Since there is no class tomorrow, tonight is like a Friday! Yeah! So we have a nice little evening set up to properly celebrate. First off, a nice solid hour or two of relaxing blogging. That shit never fails to set me straight. Then, around 7:15 or so I leave to pick up Karen and go to the UK Basketball game! And of course UK basketball games go pretty damn hard. So then after the game is over, it's just the start to the night! I come back to South C, drop Karen off, pick up Tom and Slokes and it's BRO NIGHT. Haggin allows 24/7 visitation for BROS ONLY so we're gonna have a nice time. And it won't be cramped or anything since I have room to chill in my dorm room that sleeps three comfortable. We have plenty to look forward to on this calm Monday night.

Brb, I'm gonna trim my nails, they're bothering me. Ok that's much better. Thanks for your patience.

Karen and I got a fish today. It's name is Spongebob. He lives in a Pineapple under the sea and is blue and pretty and swims around all day without a care in the world. It's the perfect little addition to my huge dorm. I'm worried that my bros are gonna try to get him drunk tonight by pouring vodka into it's tank. This is the type of shit you have to worry about in college...

I just hit some serious writers block. Goddamnit. I can't think of anything to write about, which is a problem when I'm trying to blog. Got it.

I have a random interest in pharmacology. I think the study of drugs and what they all do to screw you up is terribly interesting. I'm not the only one either, a lot of people share this interest but most people keep it to themselves because for some reason in this society it's incriminating to know how narcotics work. But boy for some reason I just can't get enough information about it. Admittedly, I'm fairly confident I could cook up a batch of working meth just because I spend so much free time just researching all this information about drugs.

But the more I research, the more I begin to discover for myself that drugs are bad! But not for reasons you might assume. Of course getting addicted to any drug begins to age and toxify your body until you die, and of course every drug comes with a handful of ways to easily enter respiratory depression (i.e. DEATH). But it's not the safety and health concerns that make me believe drugs are the essence of the devil.

I've gained a huge insight on drugs from my years of research which is stemmed from boredom. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. The truth of the matter is that you could plan and ration drug use to an incredible extent and your chances of harming yourself will be quite low. You could take a drug like heroin, figure out a proper dose, administer the drug safely and do it just once, and you will not do much harm to your body. In fact, from what I've read online, it seems like many lawyers, doctors, teachers, PILOTS, etc. partake in this subtle drug use. Of course many of them get caught and lose their job; many get addicted and their life spins out of control, and there's always the occasional overdose. But there are people online with college degrees and six figure salaries who admit to relaxing to a line of cocaine now and then. Think about it. Heroin is almost identical in makeup to prescription pain medicine. Cocaine was legal 80 years ago. Methamphetamine is prescribed to CHILDREN with attention deficit problems. Drug use is a lot safer than CSI: Miami makes it out to be, it's just very few people can handle it without fucking up their lives.

I'm fairly certain that if I were to spend just ONE NIGHT doing heroin or crack or whatever I was given, I'd have the ability and cognitive discipline to still go about my life without messing anything up. In fact I could probably do it a couple times a year and not mess anything up. Drugs don't pose a safety concern, and the problem with addiction is literally all in the mind. However, there is one looming reason that has me convinced drugs are chemicals put in this universe for the sole purpose of spreading evil.

The way drugs work is very simple. Each drug (the popular ones at least) is a different chemical that uses a different method to do the same thing to your brain. In your brain, there are these receptors everywhere. These receptors fire off and receive different chemicals in response to different stimuli. There's ones for fear, love, excitement, etc. It's essentially how your emotions work. Well there's a certain chemical and receptor for happiness. It's called "dopamine". Whenever you're happy or something good happens (money, getting laid, your team wins, etc) this dopamine is fired around your brain spreading the message that you are happy. So the chemicals in crack and cocaine and whatever simply get into your brain, and tell it to go crazy on the dopamine. A lot of dopamine means a lot of happiness and this is the part where the user gets high.

But what part about that is evil? Well the human brain simply isn't accustomed to handling these chemicals. After drug has left brain, the brain just stops firing off dopamine completely. In fact, the brain doesn't fire off anymore dopamine for like three days! Some drugs take away dopamine for weeks! Since there's no dopamine in your brain, that means you don't have an ounce of happiness.

On any average moment, when your brain is at it's baseline you still have a constant flow of dopamine keeping you sane. After a night on drugs, there is zero happiness being released. None. Which means you're not going to have a SINGLE happy thought for days. This type of misery is only comparable to the loss of a loved one, going bankrupt, etc. It drains your happiness entirely. This is what makes drugs so damn addicting, since the only thing to get your happiness back is a chemical. But even if you fought the irresistible urge to use again, and you never touched a drug again in your life, in my opinion your life is still ruined.

The human brain is actually capable of dealing with such a huge surge of dopamine. There are actually a few times in a persons life that a similar amount of dopamine is released without the aide of any chemicals. The brain shoots off loads of happiness during those crucial points in a person's life that are never forgotten. Those days become memories that people describe as "their happiest moment in life" or whatever. It's when you're high on life. These are times like the birth of your first child, the first day a pilot takes to the sky, or days that you truly accomplish something. Once you've earned it, your brain can naturally release enough dopamine to make your hair stand on end. And when that happens, whatever you just did will become the happiest moment of your life.

This is the reason I believe drugs are evil. When a person has grown old and is preparing to die, their satisfaction in life will remain in their most cherished memories. Their most cherished memories will be of their happiest moments, which is just whenever their brain has released the most dopamine. If they've ever done a hard drug in their life, the happiest moments they look back on will be of them shooting up in their mom's basement, taking ecstasy in a warehouse, or god-forbid speedballing in an alley downtown. Their happiest memories won't be of anything of value, just empty shells of the times they'd taken a chemical to make themselves happy.

When I die, which is hopefully not soon, I want my happiest moments to be of me on top of the world. I want to look back on accomplishment after accomplishment and my memories to be filled with laughter and smiles that weren't created by a chemical. If there is a God, he put smiles and laughter in this world to make and spread happiness, and he used dopamine as the pipeline. If you follow the plan he's made for us then there is no need for meth and heroin and crack.

Think about it. If you were the devil, wanting to spread evilness and homelessness and hunger and theft and sadness and everything bad, what do you think the easiest way of doing that would be?

"Here. Take this; this will make you happy."