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Well, tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day and it’s the first time in years that I won’t be working at McGurks or at a FIRST robotics competition. Actually, I don’t know if I’m going to celebrate tomorrow because I’ve got a nasty head cold! We’ll see….

Other than that, I want to wish my niece, Megan, a happy b-day! She’ll be three today.

Happy Patty’s day everyone!

Well, here I am updating my website…

I have actually doing more on myspace than here…and that’s a shame.

Anyway, I’ve added a new thing to the site: a twitter badge! What the heck is twitter? Twitter is like a mini-blog: I can update it at anytime from my mobile phone. For you kooz stalkers out there, if I remember, I can text Twitter with whatever I want, and it’ll appear in the box on the right hand side! Cool?! I guess…it should be interesting!

Other than that, nothing much is going on. The next two weeks are dedicated to FIRST Robotics!! I’ll be head referee at the St. Louis Regional this weekend and the Wisconsin Regional next week.

Grad school is going well…I have no complaints there, but it is good hard work!

Well, peace out!

The “Contact Me” link does not work! For some reason, I’m not getting anything from it! I’ll look into it…

No, I’m not addicted to Myspace…

Actually, it’s a food addiction. Every once in a while, I’ll get a craving for a very specific food and I’ll eat a ton of it until I eventually get sick of it (as most addictions go, this is par for the course…unless you’re talking about crack, opium, or chocolate…I’ll never get over my chocolate habit). What confection am I talking about? What is this mysterious food that has bewitched my taste buds and enslaved me?

Tuna.

Not just any tuna though…whole, grilled tuna steak. I’m not talking Chicken of the Sea here folks…I’m talkin’ real tuna. A nice 3/4 inch thick tuna steak cooked medium-rare to rare. I can’t emphasize the importance of the cooking temperature enough. If you want over cooked tuna, buy the “Sorry Charlie Tuna” crap in a can (although, you can’t have a good tuna salad without that stuff though…) as it’s the same thing. Let me state this another way: the pink in a rare cooked tuna steak equals crazy delicious! Luckily, my local Trader Joe’s stocks decently priced tuna and other meaty fish. In fact, I’ve cooked other fish this way too: flaky white fish need not apply. A meaty fish like Opah, Mahi, or Shark is all good! All I do is put lots of pepper (sometimes Old Bay) and lemon juice on the tuna, grill it, then either eat it plain or on a sandwich (which is my latest twist on my addiction). Hmm…tuna sandwich…and I don’t leave it plain…I’ve concocted a yummy, spicy mayo to go on top…it’s 2-3 heaping tablespoons of mayo, a teaspoon of minced garlic, half teaspoon of paprika, and a liberal squirt of Thai red pepper sauce (otherwise known as Rooster Sauce) to add some much needed kick! YUM!!

If you follow the link menu item on the far left side of the screen, you’ll find some of my favorite links!

Yea, I buckled. I did it. I couldn’t resist. I was just too curious…

*sigh*

I got a myspace.com page.

I know I know! It’s a bastion of poor web design! But I promise to bring Kooz style to my myspace site (not one of those pre-packaged “pimp” sites). In fact, after I’m done with my myspace..uh…space, people will beg me to pimp out their space!

However, I am having fun with the concept! And I hope kooz.net can incoorperate some of those concepts! It’s cool to catch up on friends, to get updates on them, and to be able to communicate with them in a structured, yet asynchronous fashion. Plus, I’ve been finding friends that I haven’t seen in years! I’m very happy about that! So, if you get a chance, head on over to my website over at The Real Kooz myspace.

Oh, plus I put up new pictures on my flickr website .

Hey everyone! Welcome to my new website! I bet you’re wondering, “Oh, what the hell is he up to now?!” And you’re right: I really don’t know. But check this bit out…

To all those worried, kooz.net is back! My e-mail should be working again and I have a new webhosting service. My last host f’d things up. I don’t know if I’ll keep this site’s design…I am rather fond of it though. Check back later as I’m going into website creation mode for the next couple weeks!
To get your fix of kooz stuff. Click here to go to the flickr.com site I created: I’ve uploaded some cool pictures! Peace!

As you can tell, I haven’t updated my website in about 6 months. I would say half the problem lies with me being distracted by other things while the other half lies with the fact that my newscript (the thing that allows me to post my thoughts on the web) has been broken. Don’t be fooled, it’s still broken: I’ve sucked it up, and I’m doing this the old fashioned way: I’m editing the output file that the script made. By the end of the next week, I will, hopefully, be using a new system of updating my website!

First let me note that this is: The 6th Anniversary of Kooz.net!!!!! Six years ago, on this day, I founded kooz.net and started this crazy adventure! No one thing in my life has given me more shit than this website! Everyone goes “Why haven’t you updated kooz.net?!” (So let me take this opportunity to shout out to Sweeney: SWEENEY!) as if my website is an important part of their life: well, it just maybe!! Ha!

As you might have known from my last post, my sister Debbie was pregnant and I was thinking about going back to school. Well, Debbie had her little girl last month, and her name is Alicia Marie, and she’s a real doll! And yes, I did go back to school and I started a master’s degree in Instructional Design and Learning Technology! It has been easy so far, but next semester should be quite a challenge! And now for some other news: I moved to Belleville, IL! A buddy of mine, Doug, from Truman State/APO days bought a house out here and is giving me a great deal on rent! Plus, this place is the ultimate pimp pad: inground pool, bar with cold beer on tap, poker table, pool table, and two big screen tv’s! It’s like living in a sports bar! And, it’s located near the Metrolink stop here in Belleville, and I can ride it to work! Well, I’m keeping this brief because I have to get ready to par-tay tonight as it’s NEW YEAR’S EVE!! PEACE!

It’s been five months? Gah! Writing anything for kooz.net is like working out: once you stop, it’s sometimes hard to get back on track! But if my track record for updating this website counts for anything, then I’ve backslid for the last 3 years! Ha!

I got an e-mail from my die hard Republican friend, Todd, a while ago, and he complained that my website had devolved into an endless parade (some would say, tirade) of my liberal opinions. And this is true (see, we Democrats actually own up to our behavior!). Sigh. But, I should come clean because I really needed a bit of an online intervention. Why?

Politics are my intellectual crack.

Yup, I’m a crack whore for partisan chicanery. There! I said it! Let the healing begin! The last several months, I’ve actually preferred to read in depth articles about the vagaries of our national political landscape over writing here. I know: I should be a better American citizen and watch American Idol (which I missed tonight! Who got voted off?! GAH!).

And why don’t I write about myself more often?! I talk about myself way too much as it is! For example, I ran into someone today who I hadn’t seen or talked to in over a year, and I could only talk about myself, “…blah blah blah…” Granted, she was working, but she’s one of the more interesting people I have known! All I could think about was what was going on with me! I didn’t ask if she was still in a dance troupe, I didn’t ask her about her family, or how her grandmother, whom she’s close with, was doing. Gah! At a minimum, it does prove that I’m a dork around women, but we all knew that.

Ok, so here I go writing about myself: I’ll start with my family! My Mom and sister, Beth, are doing well! Mom went on a cruise a couple months ago in the Carribbean with my Aunt and Uncle: they had a great time! My middle sister, Debbie, is pregnant! So, I’ll have 2 nieces, one nephew, and one free agent: it could go either way! Debbie also got a job at a casino which is cool because they always have good benefits! My best friend, Craig, had a little boy, Dominic, in February, and his sister, Courtney, got married last month in New Orleans!! Click here to see the pictures of Dominic and the wedding! I’m in the wedding pictures too, but you might not recognize me! I’m the dude with long indie rock style hair!! Ha! (It’s currently back to normal and under control). My other good friend, Ryan, sold his house, is building a new one, and just got his law degree (he’s up one graduate degree on me! grrrr!). As for me, in addition to travelling to ‘Nawlins, I went to Atlanta for the FIRST Robotics International Championships where I was a referee. I’m also getting old: my knee has been acting up on me since Atlanta, and this last weekend, I hurt it really bad playing softball (I have ice on it right now: for the fifth day!). Last, but not least, I’m going to SIUE next fall to start my second masters degree! It’ll be in Instructional Design and Learning Technologies! I’ve been wanting to do interactive educational material for a long time, and this will help me reach that goal! Plus, it’ll make my job at the Science Center more interesting! Other than that, I’ve been just chilling and enjoying the weather! Is that enough info, Todd?!

Update: 5/12/05 I know, I’m a political junkie, but I had to throw this in here. I hate quoting historical figures, but in keeping with how radical Republicans have gone, this is telling:

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires [*cough* Bush family *cough*], and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54

I like IKE!!!