I’m all about honesty and being real, and I want any company that I work for to know that.  The problem is that I also have to be diplomatic about what I say and how I say it.  The right words at the wrong time, or carelessly worded observations can lead to trouble.

With that said, I do have a few things to say about working at Jackson.

First, and most importantly, working at Jackson has been a positive experience (no, I don’t have my fingers crossed behind my back, nor am I getting any sort of under-the-table cash bonus for these words).

Second, it’s a corporation.

What does that mean?  There’s red tape to get through for all sorts of things.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  It’s good because it protects against many negatives (failure, bad quality products/services, tense co-worker relations, etc.).   It’s a bad thing because it means that things that should take very little time often take a while.

Also, since it’s a big corporation, things are a lot more stable. (more on this later)

Moving on…  You really don’t get to do the fun stuff all the time.

There’s just always things that are monotonous, boring, or just plain not that fun to do.  It’s very obvious to me now that there is no escaping this, regardless of what company I end up working for.

To be continued…

I officially started my full time internship with Jackson National on Monday.  [Edit - See next post]

Not many blogworthy things have happened since my last post.  I spent the majority of my time in my office in the engineering building of MSU.  I have made a lot of friends though, so that’s kinda cool.

In an effort to avoid boredom, I will end here.

It’s not so much school as it is programming, I suppose.  And since my classes have programming projects, how could I not like them?  I’ll tell you how: exams.  If every one of my classes skipped the whole idea of exams and gave regular homework and projects, I would be a happy man.

The real story begins last week when I sent out two books that were ordered at nearly the same time. I had to go to Meijer first to get some bubble envelopes to send the books in. Before I left I laid out the two books on the table. I printed out the packing slips and put them in the front cover. As soon as I got back from the store I put the books in the envelopes and sealed them up, making sure I knew which was which and that everything was in it’s place. Then I went over to my trusty computer machine and printed up some shipping “labels” to tape on the envelopes. Next step: to the post office. The package shipped out without any problems and I quickly went back to business as usual. Here’s the really fun part: apparently I shipped the books to the wrong people! I got an email a few days later saying “Ummmm, I got a book, but not my book. What now?” (quoting paraphrased to protect the innocent). So now I’m waiting for both books to come back “Return to Sender” before I can ship out the book to the one guy who did not cancel his order. Neat.

Now for the “+ a near miss” part (I sure am liking the double quotes today). I sold another two books since then, one going out on Monday (props to the wife for taking care of that for me), and the other one going out today. The only interesting part of this story is that on my bike ride back from the campus “post office”, I was at an intersection with a “don’t cross” pedestrian signal. I looked up at the traffic signal since the cars were stopped and noticed that the light was red. I proceeded to cross. I guess the guy in the far lane just didn’t realize that I was making a break for it because I swear there was a mere inches (6-12 maybe?) between the front of his car and the back tire of my bike. Whew.

So to anyone that thinks of my sister and/or I as negative people, we’re sorry that it seems that way.

It was a few weeks ago, but I had a seriously good time in Chicago with sister. I spent way too much on food, but it was all soooo good. It was really great to spend some time with just me and my sister. We actually got to have some good conversation that went below surface level. Nothing really crazy happened while I was there (except I did miss my train back home and had to catch a later one, but there weren’t any incidents with that). We did find a really cool bookstore that had like more bookshelf space than it had walking space (and floor to ceiling books, I didn’t know it was possible till I saw it).

Classes are going well as usual. I’m mostly enjoying them, although they are still in the beginning stages so it’s hard to tell how I’ll feel by the end.

Well, I think that’s it.

The trick is deciding what is enough without making it too much. If I write about every little thing, it seems like it would get boring in 5 seconds. If I only write about the big stuff, then it takes too much time to write….

So in an effort to try something rather than just not write, I will say this: my heater broke sometime yesterday. Kristie and I got home around 1am last night (after watching Benjamin Button, which I thought was good), only to find that our house was a mere 57 degrees. The temperature kept inching lower until it was 48 degrees when I awoke at 8:15. Luckily Jim Horn is a wonderful and magical heating guy, because he made it out in less than an hour. I’m not sure how long it took to fix the thing since I left for class just after he arrived. The happy ending: everything is hunky dory in the heating dept.

It used to be a nice to write out my thoughts and opinions online since I was mostly sitting at home working. Now that I’m at school, I have made a bunch of new friends that I can bother with all of my ideas. And yet there is still a nagging inside for me to post here.

Maybe Christmas break will allow for more blogging.