Jared’s Blog

Last night I had the opportunity to see Nehemiah play for the last time with 3 of their members Brody, Chris, and Steve. What a show it was. My Rubicon, Four Letter Lie, and Since By Man opened. I’m not really a fan of any of the openers, but they were all decent. Four Letter Lie is probably the best of those 3. I’ll just skip over the boring stuff and get right to the show review.

Nehemiah came out and everyone in the club went nuts. They ripped into their first song and in no time there was a pit with all kinds of moshing and hardcore dancing. The kids were going absolutely nuts. They played a double long set with a short intermission. The best part of the show was during “The Asphixiation Process.” Everyone was going nuts. And these kids would jump on stage and then jump into the crowd. But this wasn’t your normal crowd surfing. They would run and jump as far into the crowd as possible, sometimes feet first. A few people went side to side and just about were able to jump from wall to wall at this tiny venue. I wasn’t too familar with Nehemiah’s songs, so I mostly sat in back and headbanged. It’s kind of ironic I saw them on their last time together. I’m sure they’ll find new members shortly as they’ve got an EP coming out in March.

I also found out Break the Silence will be there on Feb 12th. Best part about it is it’s only $7 to get in. I will definately be there after work that day.

Just got home from the Gebhardt ranch down in Walthum. I had a pretty sweet night. I took off yesterday and got down there about 2. Me and Rick chatted for awhile while we waited for Underminded to show up. I found out DecoyMusic.com is going through a few changes. One of those being, me being promoted to news poster and getting more involved in the site. The guys showed up about 4. We got their gear unloaded and set up in Rick’s mom’s photography studio pretty quick. Then I got to see them jam for a couple hours. The whole night I was kind in shock. It was just weird to see a band I’d watched at Warped Tour and listened to the CD play 5 feet from me. They were all really cool guys too. We played some Mario Kart and Halo 2 for awhile before bed.

We woke up bright and early at 8:30 so they could get on the road by 10:30. Rick’s mom made a good breakfast for us. The guys packed while me and Rick cleaned up a little. I think they managed to pack every crevasse of their baggage. Then Rick and I helped them load up and we were off to the airport. After a few quick thank yous and goodbyes Aaron and UM took off. I made the trek back home after a good weekend.

Even though neither of my football teams won, I still managed to have fun watching the games. Hank and I got in some hockey and I played World of Warcraft for awhile. I even drank a few beers.

Well being that the whole of the metro area and most of MN is getting DUMPED on right now. I decided to have a party. Staring out of the window at work, I kept getting more and more nervous for what was supposed to be a good time in Rochester. The guys from Underminded were on their way down from Canada and we going to stay with Rick, but got stuck in Fargo. With my weekend events postponed for the night, I decided some drinking was in order. After my usual 15 min drive home turned into over an hour, this solidified my decision. “Snowed-In 2005″ begins now! Stay tuned for possible updates.

*Disclaimer*
I may be too drunk to understand the concept of a keyboard, mouse, or computer system. In which case, no updates will be made.

Edit #1: Well it’s 10 and I mangaged to get pretty wasted. We “frolicked” in the snow tonight while building a snow bridge. The snow bridge was a project concieved several months ago. It will facilitate easier transport of beer between the Burns/Gustafson residence and our dwelling. Phase 1 is now complete.

Edit: #2: And so the night comes to an end. It didn’t turn out to be much of a party. Hank and Laura hit the sack early. Burns got home really late from work and didn’t party. So back to square one. Me. Numero uno. Seems like it’s always just me. Alas, I hope tomorrow is better than the last. Now if that isn’t a line out of an emo song, I don’t know what is.

The End.

Ever since I started working, I’ve been out of time to do anything. By the time I get home every day its after 5. Then I have to cook supper which usually takes close to an hour by the time I clean stuff up. After that its only 4 hours until bed time. Luckily on weekends I can still play World of Warcraft for hours on end.

This weekend I’ve got some plans to party! The band Underminded is crashing at Rick’s place. So I’m taking off for Rochester on Friday after work. Then on Saturday Rick has some company thing at Mystic Lake Casino. I get a nice free dinner and afterwards, I’ll probably hit the blackjack tables for awhile.

And now I’m out of time…

As of last Friday at noon, I am employed with TEK Systems. I’ll be working a contract for Target for the next 90 days doing phone support. I’ve been told they almost always extend that to 1 year after those initial 90 days. After that, Target has the right to hire me permenantly and hopefully I can move into something more appealing that phone support.

For people who know me, this is pretty big news as this is probably my first real job. But for me it’s bittersweet. The morning drive is going to suck because the call center is downtown. This also means I’m going to have to pay for parking out the wazoo. I’m talking like $6-10 a day! While this doesn’t sound like much, it’s gonna make a somewhat low hourly rate a little worse. No doubt I’ll be looking for people to carpool with or a bus I can take.

My other big gripe with the job is the dress code. It’s business professional AKA shirt and tie. The simple fact is I don’t have that many ties or dress clothes. My budget really doesn’t allow for a new wardrobe either. I know there will have to be some new purchases sometime soon, but until then my coworkers are going to have to deal with my lack of variety.

All in all, I’m quite excited to be working for Target being that they’re such a big company and will no doubt have many opportunities once I’m in with the company. Surely these first few weeks are going to suck because my body will have to adjust to the earlier schedule. It’s always easier for me to slide into a later schedule than it is to start earlier. Being that I could be starting as early as 5AM for weeks at a time, I’ll be due for some major naps each day after work.

Yesterday Andy pointed me to a job he found on Monster. It’s for an entry level web designer. Perfect for me! The only problem is in the job description they required a portfolio website.

I was already in the process of designing one because I wanted to start getting into a little more paid web design on the side. I’m being very picky this time around with my design though and it is taking a long time. Any feedback I could get would be great. I know it’s pretty barebones right now, I’ll be working on it most of the day until I get things mostly done. Here’s the link: http://jrmehle.homelinux.net/studioj/