Decisions

Have you ever wondered might have been if you made a different decision in your life? I always look back and examine the decisions and choices I made in life. From minor ones like I should have turned left instead of right to major ones like quitting your job to pursue a dream. We all have made some decisions in our life that changed the course of our life. Everyone has regrets on decisions they have made. However looking back in my life I am happy with every decision I made. Even the bad decisions because they made me the person I am today. It has brought me to where I am today. I have been married for five and a half years to a wonderful wife. I have a great four year old son. I have an awesome family. I have a job that I actually enjoy and love. I am living where my wife and I has wanted to live since we were married. All of this because of the decisions I have made in my life both good and bad.  I am under the impression that everything happens for a reason and I can see that looking back at the decisions I have made in the past. It seems like every decision has lead me making another decision that lead me to where I am now. Let’s take a bird’s eye view of decisions that lead me to my current career. This is very top level stuff and not specific but it will illustrate what I mean about how decisions lead you to where you are. 

As you know I am currently a DBA (Database Administrator) for the company I work for which of course is in the computer field. Ever since I was a kid I enjoyed computers. My dad would always get computers and let me use them. Computers like the Commodore 64, Amiga 2000 to modern computers of today. I decided at a young age that computers were definitely the future. I mean after seeing the original Terminator there was something up with these crazy machines. I always kept up with the latest computer technology and even school officials at both middle school and high school would ask me questions about computers when there is something wrong with them.  My love of computers leads me to apply at UNR for a Computer Science degree. I decided to stay in the dorms for my first year of college. Now this leads me to meet a college friend of mine. By meeting him we decided to live off campus with other roommates the following year. He got a job at a store. I decided I needed a job and he got me a job at the store while he left the store to work somewhere else. I decided to work hard at the job and it got me promoted to a senior position. Later I decided I wanted a higher paying job so because of my experience at this store I got hired at a different retail store. I decided to work hard there and once again I was promoted to a senior position at the store.  

I graduated college after four years and with my degree I wanted a higher paying job (and some other reasons but that is story for another time) so I got my first Software Engineering track with a casino company in Reno. I continued up the software engineering rank getting promotions until I actually got upset with some things in the company. I even started looking for other jobs (which is how I met my wife from southern California which is also another story for another time, see how those decisions affect your life) in other places. Finally I decided to change departments in the company which was ok at first but found out was not a good decision because I could never move back up (However as you will find out it ended up being a good decision).  Finally I had enough of the company and the way they treated me that I decided to pursue another dream of mine which was to be an officer in the Navy. I was accepted and went to OCS for training. This also caused me to get debt free which is another story for another time. I had to get surgery while at OCS and eventually had to drop from the program. It was a hard decision but I had to do it for my health. I went back jobless and me being one that wants to work to support my family I searched for a job quickly in a market that was not good at the time. I even tried to go back to my old company but they decided against it. After three weeks of being out of work I found a database job in Las Vegas where I never saw myself ever living.  

I worked hard at the Vegas job but the company environment was not for me. I decided again to look for another job and I found it. It was with the casino company I am current working with right now. I got it because of my extensive database knowledge and because of my experience working in that second department for the first casino company. This job is great because I do stuff I know very well and I get to travel which is what I love. This also allowed me to live in Goldfield and make a lot of money and more opportunities.  This is just a small snippet of what lead me to where I am now with my career. You can see stuff from just meeting someone in college or getting mad at something at work can change your whole life. It is amazing when you go back and think about it. I will take all the good and bad decisions because they made me the person I am today. Do I wish I could change the mistakes I made in the past? I wish I could say that I do but I don’t. Who knows where I would be now if I did? Sometimes you have to fall hard and crash to bring yourself up. I have had bad times and made wrong decisions where I thought life would be bad. However sometimes you have to fall to come back stronger. 

For the future I plan to work harder on my writing which I have been and it is starting to pick up. Also I still have those plans for the Goldfield area so stayed tuned for that. See more decisions I am making. Let’s see where they bring me.    I want everyone to think about some aspect of their life and think of the decisions that lead you to where you are. It could be a career, your love life or where you are right now. Do you see major decisions that lead you to where you are even the bad ones? Do you wish you could change your decisions or are you like me and am happy for the decisions I made whether good or bad? Comment below and tell me some things you decided that lead you to where you are. I want to hear from you. Thanks for reading and hopefully next week I will have the Stephen King Carrie movie reviews up. My copy of Carrie broke because of the great care the airlines take when handling your bags. Stay tuned for those and any other blog posts.

Long week but will write a bit next week

Sorry everyone I know I said I was back but sometimes in my job I have to travel accross the country and work some long hours on a project. This week was the case so that I why I didn’t get to write as much as I wanted to. I will get going again next week as I will be in Nevada working regular hours. Probably get a personal blog up and maybe reviews of the three Carrie movies I have coming. Until then enjoy the Memorial Day weekend and always remember what the day stands for and not just as a long weekend to have out of work.

Stephen King Book Review- Carrie

Here I begin my journey of reviewing every Stephen King book and movie (and sequels) that I can find. I will be reviewing every book in the order that it was published. I will review every movie that is based on that book and any sequel or remake of the movie I can get. Also keep in mind some of the reviews will have some spoilers and I will let you know when a spoiler is approaching. The first book I will review is Carrie.

 

Note: I read this book back in February when I was starting this project so forgive me if it is not in depth as I would like it. Future ones will be better.

 

 

What grand opening scene do I get when starting my review on every book of the master of horror Stephen King? Is it some horrendous monster that preys on the fears of everyone? Is it a psychotic killer on the loose? No the opening of my journey through the writings of Stephen King begin in a high school girls shower room where a girl named Carrie White gets her first period and the other girls start making fun of her and throwing tampons and pads at her.

Yes my friends this is my introduction to the world of Stephen King. As different of an opening this is, it is actually a strong opening. Carrie is a book about a high school girl who is unattractive, always gets bullied and made fun of, and has an overly religious mother. Oh and Carrie happens to possess telekinetic powers. The opening is strong because we get a feel of Carrie. We feel the pain she has of being bullied and made fun of. We get a glimpse of her background by the fact she did not know what a period was and how her over religious mother never told her. We also get signs of her telekinetic powers.

This strange but powerful opening keeps the readers engaged into the story to see what happens to this girl. The book is written in a way that would be unfamiliar to many seasoned Stephen King fans. It switches between writings from newspapers, books and interviews about the incident that takes place in the book to the actual story. To some readers this can cause annoyance or confusion. While I did not have issues with the writing format employed here by Stephen King, I did not particularly care for it. However, the story did engage me to read further so that was good.

The story details the events from the shower incident until the night of the school prom exploring the new found telekinetic ability Carrie has developed and plans to humiliate Carrie at the prom. It details how a classmate (Sue Snell) that was mean to Carrie regrets what she did and has her boyfriend (Tommy Ross) take her to prom. While one of Carrie’s biggest bullies (Chris Hargensen) who was the instigator of the shower incident hatches a plan with her boyfriend (Billy Nolan) to dump pig’s blood onto Carrie. This leads to fiery and destructive climatic ending that you will have to read where Carrie goes on a rampage from all the abuse she received from her classmates and her mother.

This book I find to be an excellent read and is just as relevant today as it was in 1974 when it was published. The main themes that I took from the book are abuse and being bullied. The mother abused Carrie so much in an over religious manner. She would lock Carrie under the stairs with religious items as punishment. This could go on for days. Stephen King received some flak for the mother character as they thought he was making fun of religion. I don’t think he was but even if he was it is true there are some people like that in the real world that I have known personally.

Bullying is a major driving point to the book. Today bullying is in the media a lot and there are major programs out there to help stop bullying. Almost every week I hear something on the news or some show about bullying. People are bullying at school and even on social media. I hear of deaths or suicides from bullying. I know that bullying has been around forever, I mean I ran into a few bullies in my life, but has it become worse?  Has kids just become more hateful and mean? Has social media and the internet increased bullying? Maybe I will write a blog post on bullying in the future. That is why Carrie is just as relevant today as it was when it was first published. Not only is it a good story but it mirrors many themes that are hot news items today and makes you think.

Overall Carrie is a good book and an interesting read. While the style Stephen King chooses to write the story in is not the best choice I feel like it is a great read. The characters are engaging, the story incites an emotional response and of course you do have the detailed descriptive writing Stephen King is known for. While the fear factor of the story is minimal (except the fear of what society can do to people and produce) it still has elements of the super natural and violence. The novel is also very short for a quick read. I give this opening book by Stephen King three stars out of five and recommend it to anyone interested in Stephen King’s early work or like emotion grabbing books.

Moral: Don’t bully or abuse people. Not only is it wrong but the person might telekinetic and your prom might be the last event of your life if you do.

That is my first review of Stephen King books. I have three movies to watch and review about Carrie that will be posted to the blog. It is a movie, a sequel to the movie and a remake. Also at the end of the blog I will have a tracker of the final ratings of each book or movie I reviewed to see what books I liked or didn’t like. Thanks for reading and please leave some feedback or comments. Did you read the book? If so what are your thoughts on it? What are your thoughts on the themes I expressed above? I want to hear from you so let me know and comment below.

You can buy the book and read up on information about it here.

 

Books Reviewed:

Carrie ***

I have been gone and I hope I am back

I have not written in this in awhile. I have been so busy adjusting to my new life and finding out how to go about everything. Believe me I wanted to come back and write a lot in this but things have been so busy and some personal things have been happening. Now I feel I can return to my writing. Not only just writing in this blog but writing my books and other items. I feel now is the time to get going and really push for my dreams. I mean I will be 30 in December. It is time to make my millions I wanted and live out my dreams and I will do it. I have it in me just like any person and if I try and work very hard on going for my dream it will come true. Come and join me in this blog as I journey towards completing my dream. It will be a fun ride.

I should have my first Stephen King review up either tonight or this weekend so check back on that. I also have some other porjects going so stay tuned. Yes this is short but wanted to let everyone know I am back.