Bigger and Better Things

I wouldn't call myself an irrational person. I actually hate irrationality. But I would call myself impulsive. I think that may stem from my ADD. But more than just getting bored of things I think there comes a certain point when you have gotten all you need from something. You've learned what you need to learn and its time to move on. 

This is why I just quit my job.

Now I actually really enjoyed my job. I sold phones at Costco and made a decent living out of it. It wasn't too sales'y.. So people didn't feel a lot of pressure like buying a car...and it was in a reputable place, so it wasn't like the mall full of crazies. But more importantly I enjoyed the people I worked with. I had a good boss who wasn't too strict, and funny coworkers who were fun to work with. 

But things change. Things are never in a perpetual state of good. They may be good for awhile, but they begin to get stale. You get to a certain point where you need to make a choice. Is the staleness of this situation something that I need to endure through for a greater purpose, or is this more like a car stuck in neutral. Neither moving forward or backward. I think my car was put in neutral. 

Now in many instances I wouldn't mind that. In high school I wouldn't have minded just coasting along live, splurging my pay checks and having fun. But I'm not a teenager anymore. As much as I dread the responsibilities and mantle of adulthood, it's inevitable. I find myself making more and more choices that are less like what I would do even just a year ago. 

Now tied in with this mentality comes my tendencies. Because of the way I am, I can procrastinate and put things off to an excessive amount. But I've found a partial solution to that flaw. If I put myself in a situation that I literally MUST make a decision, then I'm extremely motivated. Probably for the same reason that a procrastinator does all of his homework last minute. So realizing I was in the work funk I did the only rational thing I could think of. Quit.

Ok maybe there are more rational things I could do, but I'm optimistic. I'm less afraid and more excited to explore a new opportunity. We all have an outrageous amount of potential, and I relish the idea of finding an exciting job that brings out that potential. Maybe that is starting my own business, maybe it's finding the right start-up, maybe its an internship. What I do know is that I have lots of options, and time to figure out what I want to do.

I'm also moving home for a bit. Just a month or so. I can make a quick dollar back home so that I can be on my feet when I get back to Utah. 

And if everything goes to hell and I end up being a server and barely making ends meat..then so be it. At least I tried. I feel like not everyone has the opportunity to do what I'm doing. They don't have the means, or they have some baggage that does not permit them to be ambitious or drastic. This is the best point in my life to try something bold. 

Maybe I'll sink. 

Maybe I'll be the next accidental millionaire. 

Maybe I'll come out better then I was

Maybe worse.

No matter what happens, I'm glad that I'm doing it .I'm glad that I'm taking the risk. And I hope you all are somehow aware of the journey, or apart of it.

More to come.

Crowning Glory

It's 3:36 AM right now.
What on earth am I doing awake?
Well I can't really sleep. Though you'd think I would be able to.

I've just spent the last 12 hours of my day editing this video for one of my classes.
12..straight..hours...
You wanna know what that looks like?

That. That is 12 hours of my life sucked away from me.

I feel like Wesley in the Princess Bride after he was tortured.

"I just sucked one year of your life."

It felt like a year.

What more annoying is that what I have to show for it isn't even that amazing. What ended up taking most of the time was the fact that I was forced to use the schools slooowwww macs to edit it. So any time I wanted to make a change to a particular scene I had to re-render it.

Rendering video is the worst thing ever. 

It just takes forever. And you can't really do much aside Facebook while it's going.

You just sit.

and wait.

So needless to say i've been doing a lot of sitting and waiting.

Not to mention your random technological errors that conveniently emerge when you least want them.

Not to mention when your roommate accidentally unplugs your hard drive while you are exporting your movie so you have to log in an extra hour of re-syncing your media.

Ok enough of the complaining, lets get on to the good stuff.

So if you know me, and I'll assume you know me to at least some degree... You know that I can be, at times, a ridiculous person. Whether thats being loud, obnoxious, adventurous, or just plain stupid. I put myself out there. I like to entertain others. It doesn't matter at who's expense..even if its at my own. So consequently I end up making this ridiculous videos that have me doing something probably embarrassing  . But I don't really mind it. I'm a compulsive person, and usually decisions to make these kinds of things are done in the moment.

Lets go back to the beginning of this video adventure. It starts off in a class: Motion Picture Making - taught by Paul Nibley. Mr. Nibley (yes he's related) is kind of a grouch. Him and I never really got off on a good foot with each other. Oh well. He worked on smokey and the bandit and some other low budget things. And at the end of the year we are to write a script and then compose a film as the final project. Not a full length film.. and 8 minute film. I hate time limits. 

Now I felt that I had a pretty good script. It was an action movie where basically a kid gets hold of some sensitive information and is tracked down by these big corporations who it might harm, but ends up outsmarting them in the end. That what they call a "log line" in the 'biz'. But no matter how good my script was it wasn't really good enough for Mr. Nibs. So in the end (we are in a group at this point) we decided to go with a script about a beauty pageant at UVU. This girl had actually competed in this pageant so she had some first hand experience. But me being me and all wasn't really satisfied with a movie about some girls beautify pageant..I wanted to mix things up. I suggested that we make it a comedy and make it about guys competing for a MR. UVU pageant. They like it. We went with that instead. 

So we churn out the script and figure out the logistics..but as we loom closer to the film date we get a little nervous. We aren't very confident in our actors..and we weren't able to lock down a location to film (specifically a stage). One day Morgan (in the group) and I take a walk to the nearby middle school to ask if they would be keen on letting us use their facility. They weren't. But the trip wasn't a complete bust. I recommended an idea to Morgan that might solve at least 1 of our problems. See we had friends and acquaintances lined up to fill the parts in our movie..but none of them have ever really acted before. On top of that it would be extremely difficult to get 6 different guys with different schedules all to meet at one place for hours at a time. So me being me suggests another idea. I remember that my brother one time had made a movie where at one point in the movie he has a little dance routine with himself. In the scene you saw 4 different Brents all doing different things but all in the same scene. I think you know where I am going with this. 

Hey Morgan..I've done videos like this before.. and I think you trust me as an actor...so..how about...I mean..What if I just played..all the parts...

She loved it. We wouldn't have to bother anyone, we could do all the filming very easily and if we needed to fix anything I literally was always available. It was an ideal scenario.

Dane Hampton - The pretty boy

And..I guess it all worked out in the end. I mean it's not a bad video. Its ridiculous. So I guess it fits right in with me. The actual filming process was kind of a mess as well. One of the locations we had planned on filming at had, at the last minute, decided to fix all the lights in the gym. We ended up having to go up to Heber (30 mins into the mountains) to film at Morgans home church building. We did all of the filming in one day.

One. Long. Freaking. Day.

Keep in mind that I'm playing 7 different parts, all with different accents, mannerisms, costumes and lines. It was exhausting to say the least.

Marcus Cornelius... The Thesbian that no one likes.

And that gets us to now. The post production process. Editing. Usually it's my favorite part, because I am in control of everything.. but because of the lack of speed and time, it just became stressful and obnoxious.

Maybe not quite as annoying as Doug Jenkins - the fat nerd

But alas.. It is complete.

It is now on YouTube to forever immortalize my ridiculousness. I'm sure i'll get enough slack from my friends telling me how un-funny I am.. but I had a lot of fun doing it. I wish you could see the whole thing, 8 minutes doesn't really do it justice. If I had time or really just cared more I would make an extended edition... but I think i'm ready to be done with Crowning Glory.

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Will you enjoy it? Probably. Its entertaining enough.

Will you judge me? Good chance.

It is time to wrap up this blog post?

Absolutely. 

(Seriously? Look how Emo Alan Hendrix looks)

Here is the link to the video my friends.

My First Real Sickness in a Long Time.

I feel like had you asked me two days ago to list some of my unique abilities.. one might be that I'm pretty good at holding my stomach. Two days ago I would have proudly noted that it had been over a decade since I had thrown up. Two days ago I would tell you that I'd never thrown up more that once in a day. Well I guess November 25th would have been a good day to gloat about my health.
So what happened on the 26th?
I'll break it down for you, because I'm still not sure exactly what happened.

Lets go back to the 25th.

It's Friday, which means I don't have to work. Knowing that I didn't have to work I probably went to bed fairly late on Thursday night. I didn't eat much that morning, I think all I really had was a doughnut. I had planned on going to work at 5 that day, but apparently I had read the schedule wrong and I was supposed to come in at 1. I quickly got ready, threw down an Aderol and drove to work. It was black Friday so it was decently busy. Because of the Aderol I wasn't terribly hungry, but I know I needed to eat something. One of the reps had bought the kiosk some Five Guys, so on my break I had half a cheese burger and some cold fries. Felt fine. I got home around 9:30 ish and I wasn't starving, but I found some homemade banana cream pie in the fridge, so I had a slice of that. I went to bed around midnight.
That night was bizarre. I usually sleep upstairs on the couch but I went downstairs in my room that night. I usually don't sleep in my room because it's so dark and it's hard to get up in the morning, but I felt like I was going to bed early enough for it not to matter. For the next 3 hours I tossed and turned in my bed. I had lost all bearings on where I was. I remember a few times getting up and flipping on my tablet just to see where I was in my room. I wasn't dreaming normally, it felt like I had 3 dreams going on simultaneously and I couldn't stop them. It was giving me a headache. I figured it had something to do with the room so I went back upstairs to the couch. About an hour later I had that wonky feeling in my stomach like something wasn't happy.
Now in the past I've been able to get past this. Usually I lay on my back, distract my mind, and it eventually works itself out. But not this time. After about a half hour in the bathroom I finally threw up. It was so weird for me I even tweeted about it. It had been so long since I had thrown up.. I didn't really know what to do. I felt better so I figured I just ate something weird and that was now being flushed down the toilet.. so I went back to the couch. I slept for a few hours. Suddenly I woke up to that feeling again. What is going on? I remember thinking. 10 minutes later I was throwing up again. I remember Googleing "what should you eat after you throw up". A lot of things said water. So I tried that. Then went back to bed. The same process happened 2 more times. It was about 8:30 when my roommate finally got up and asked me what was up. Oh you know.. just throwing up 4 times out of nowhere. I think the conversation distracted my mind enough to buy me some time to take a shower and walk around.
So I knew I had to go work at 11, and I knew that it would be hard to find someone to cover for me on a Saturday, so I figured I'd just go for as long as I could. I tried to eat something.. so I had a few slices of an orange and I was off. I even stopped by a Walgreens to get some Pepto-Bismol. Honestly I was thinking that by getting up and moving and going to work that I'd just shoulder through and get over it sooner.
Nope.

So I get to work and I was noticeably gross looking. Pale, and distant I hovered around the kiosk, but I found myself pacing or sitting to settle my stomach. I probably could have left sooner but we were waiting on an OK from the my boss's boss. I took the liberty of asking all my Facebook friends the best course of action to heal myself... Most people just assumed I was pregnant. I guess I'll be able to sympathize with my wife now. Of course on that day a cute girl from my ward and her mom are in buying a phone. She (Lily) came over and talked to me, and again distracted me. I think the conversation gave me a few more moments of distraction. But not enough. I politely told Lily that I don't think I'd like her to see me vomit, so she politely walked away.
My co-worker Rob felt like this moment was to perfect not to capture on film.. so naturally he put a video of me throwing up on Youtube... watch at your own discomfort (but it's not really that bad)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAfPSqp6DeU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Gotta love my co-workers.
That last one was pretty rough. Every liquid that I had tried to consume had all but been upchucked previous to that point.. so I was fairly dehydrated. After I had thrown up both my hands and both of my legs went numb. I actually had a hard time walking.
At that point my boss just told me to go home. So I did.
I limped out to my car and drove home. Arriving home I promptly got back into my jams and started watching Avatar. I had my roommate pick me up some Gatorade (thanks to a facebook suggestion) and that seemed to be working alright for awhile. My friend Eric came over and we played some call of duty. I didn't feel awfully but I didn't feel good. I thought I'd take some Dayquil and try to settle my stomach as well. After about an hour or so I had to put the controller down and lie down. About an hour later the Gatorade and Dayquil was in the toilet along with my head.
Outstanding.
So I felt like taking the brief moment of not feeling like complete garbage to ask for a blessing from my roommate. It was short sweet and to the point. I then spent the next couple hours watching The Chronicles of Narnia. Now maybe it was the blessing... and maybe it was the magic of Narnia.. But I slowly and surely started feeling better. Eventually our neighbor came over and invited us to hang for a bit. I actually felt up to it. I was able to walk around and be somewhat normal. I took it easy the rest of the night, watched some more Chronicles of Narnia, and eventually passed out. But not before the Lily stopped by and brought me some Coke and Saltines.

This morning I felt pretty good. I still feel like I should be more hungry.. seeing as I haven't eaten hardly anything in the last few days.. but I'm pretty sure I'm back to normal.

And that my friends, might be one of the roughest weekends of my life.

John Mayer??

So yesterday I spent a few hours trying to learn a John Mayer song on the guitar. It turns out that ALL OF HIS SONGS ARE HARD. But I finally settled on Why Georgia, one of my favorites. And for your viewing entertainment I uploaded a video of me playing it.

*Note: ITS NOT THAT GOOD.. but its worth a shot eh!?

*NOTE: no one knows why the audio blows and it sounds like I'm playing with a flanger effect on... but its good enough I suppose.

*Another note... if you cant see the video on this page - click the link at the top and it should be there.

Appearance

Oh just me lookin' super fine.

Sometimes when I walk in between my classes at school I look at people and make little judgements in my head. I try and figure out what they are thinking about, what there priorities are, or if they are even thinking at all. I start with their clothes, then their facial expressions, how they walk, and how they interact with their surroundings. Tight jeans tucked into boots, lots of makeup, and its 9 in the morning. This person cares about what they look like. They woke up even earlier to make sure that they looked this way. Sweats, a hoodie, headphones, greasy hair. This guy just doesn't care. He is going to class because class needs to be gone to. I noticed a few things.
1. People rarely smile: granted there is not much to smile about when you are late for a class that you have to take a test in.. but the vast majority of people wear these blank or slightly sad faces around.
2. Many people try extremely hard for attention:
Which makes sense, it's a social playground and people need to fight for attention. It's funny how people go about doing it. They will carry around a long board, hold an ipad, wear a low cut shirt. People just want a compliment sometimes.
3. Phones and Phones: If you aren't on your phone, you have headphones in. I would say that a good 70% of people I walk by are otherwise occupied by something. Not to say that I don't like to listen to music during classes, because I do. But every once in awhile I like to listen to the ambiance of the world around me. Try and pick up on bits of peoples conversations. It seems like people are just trying to get away from the world sometimes. Maybe that's why so many aren't smiling.

Today however, as I passed many an interesting folk, the thought struck my that I may not be the only person doing these mini judgements. I'm being judged. What message am I sending out in the hallways? Am I just a blip on someones radar or will I make an impression as I walk by?

So I tried an experiment. Everyone that I could make eye contact with I threw up a big cheesy smile. The results were expected. About half the people smiles and waved, while the other half kind of awkwardly smiled but were confused and avoided more eye contact. Its a fun experiment, and it definitely puts you in a good mood.

Our appearance really is an interesting thing. Sometimes all we want it someone to notice our haircut or new shirt because we spent so much time thinking about it. When I have a cold sore or acne it's all I can do to help from feeling self conscious. Our first impressions are always gauged by the way someone looks. Our mini judgements on the people around us at work or church are mostly based on appearance. So how much to we invest into it? One could argue either way, but these are my thoughts and this is my opinion. You aught to care for your appearance enough to be noticed by the people you want to attract. If I want to date someone high maintenance then I'd better start caring more about what I wear. I would also say that people in general should stop fishing for the compliment. Drop the long board, take off the sunglasses when you get inside, dress like an adult.

Rule of thumb: Think of the person you respect the most. Not the person you think is the coolest, or the hottest, but the person you respect. My bet is that if you model your appearance more towards their style that you will be a lot happier.

That's about it.

Late Nights and Early Mornings

I think ever since I could drive I started to go to bed late. It's probably the worst habit that I have. For some reason when I look at the clock at 10PM I think to myself "Good, now my night can start." I can't remember the last time I've slept before 10. Usually 1:30-2 is my regular threshold. The annoying thing is that every so often I'll have to get up early for something and then end up having a long productive morning..and of course I think to myself "I should do this more often." That obviously does not happen. For some reason I feel like I can get things done at night, like its my prime time. And if nights are great that means mornings are horrible. I hope that whoever I end up marrying is a morning person so that she can help me get up when I have to. I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily grouchy or rude in the morning.. I just sometimes don't have the will power to get up at all. Having two 9 o'clock classes this semester was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Not to mention 9:30 church on Sunday. What kind of sick joke is that. Last year church wasn't until 1:30 and it was AMAZING. Oh well.

But for as much as I enjoy sleeping in I don't particularly care for sleep. If it were up to me I'd sleep for like 2 hours a day if I could operate. Back during high school I used to run off 4-5 but I think I had more energy back then.

While we're talking about sleep I think I'll recount to you my favorite dream I've ever had. Ever. Of All time. It was so good. Ok

So it starts out like any other dream.. I'm a secret double agent and I'm undercover in some sort of china town area. Me and my partner are walking around some gala event and end up talking to some thugs. The thugs warn me that they know a secret Sensai power that will stop me from attacking them. I naturally call them out on it. Before I know it the thug mutters some craziness and smacks his hands together. All of the sudden I have the ridiculous smile across my face. Ear to ear. He had made it so I literally could not stop smiling. Now here's the best part.. So I wake up.. and sure enough I'm still smiling. Get out of bed and walk to the shower. Halfway through the shower I realize that I haven't stopped smiling since I got up. I just have this stupid grin on my face. The more cognizant I become of it the quicker it fades... but I'd say for a solid 5 minutes I was on cloud 9. It was so bizarre.

And that my friends.. was one good freaking dream.

Well I guess it's about that time. I just wanted to get something down while I was wide awake.

Night.

Becoming a consistent Blogger

Starting a blog is like starting a new years resolution for me. I always just start them. I've rarely can successfully achieve a consistent blogging habit, they all just seem to fade out. I've discovered it requires the same determination as one would require to finish any task. You have to not let down on your ground rules. If you start posting everyday, you Must post everyday.. If it's once a week then you can never let that slip into once every other week. That has been my problem.. I justify and put it off till next week, but there in lies the problem. So how can I help you fellow blog slackers?

Here are my tips for getting better at blogging:
1. Use the right Blog site: Whether its Tumblr, Blogger, or Wordpress - find one with the best interface that suits the way you want to Blog.
2. Buy a Domain Name: If you actually purchase a domain name you will be 10x more likely to focus on your blog. Its the same logic behind buying a car and receiving a car from your parents. The latter is always taken less care of and brutally abused because you never had to invest in it.
3. Be Blog minded: Look for things throughout the day to blog about. Take pictures and put yourself in situations that are interesting. If you live a boring life, your blog will be boring, and you will be bored of blogging.
4.Get a Blog App: This was a big one for me. Once you have an App on your phone then you never have a reason to not blog. You are always by your phone and you can always write at least something.
5. Be consistent: Even if its just a few sentences - make a pattern of how much you want to blog and stick to it.

In the mean time...

I really am struggling to figure out what to do for Christmas. It's one of those broken years where everyone is scattered around the country and ill basically gave to choose where I want to go. But making it more difficult is my job. See last Christmas I took a week off and went he for Christmas and ended up staying a few extra days. This got me in a lot of trouble and basically I can never do that again. So I'll have essentially 2 days for Christmas. Is it even worth it? I mean I love my family.. But it's an awful lot of trouble for just a few days of face time. My other option would be to quit my job at the end of the year and take two weeks off and have a wonderful Christmas... But then not have a job and have to figure something out next year so that I can still pay rent.
Oh the struggles I have. Talk about white people problems.
Also I hate the snow. I had to scrape off my windshield this morning and that was super lame.
That's all for now.

The New Website.

After feeling a surge of motivation I finally decided to buy some domain names. This is one of them. Welcome to the official ScottKnudson.com. It's basically an online portfolio about my life. I'll be honest, it was Tanya Taylor who inspired me. I saw her page and thought "Hey I could do that." So this is my real attempt for a personal webpage.

Simple Test

I'm writting this blog post on my Asus Transformer tablet.. and im also using the Android App, not the website directly. So this is a test to see if it appears the way that i want it to.

Ill also be adding a picture

maybe two of them

And some links

www.stashi.com