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Not Much On JerseySmarts.com For A Few Days

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Alright, folks. There’s not going to be much information on JerseySmarts.com for the next few days since I’ve got a busy weekend leading into a busy Monday with little time to rest before work on Tuesday. I’ve got my buddy’s bachelor party today (which I’m hosting at my place) which is going to take up the entire day. Sunday is a busy day for everyone with Father’s Day (I’ll be heading up to Morris County to visit my Dad’s resting place). Then I have to catch a train on Monday morning at 6:30am to spend the day in Washington DC – I should be back at my place anywhere from 9:30pm to 10:00pm which will leave me just enough time to go to bed so I can wake up early Tuesday morning and go to work!

A busy weekend, indeed.

However, I have placed some entries ready to pop up automatically tomorrow and Monday. I just may not be around much to add to the discussion.

Enjoy!

Clearing Out the Bookmark Folder

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Today, I thought I would clean out my bookmarks folder since some of these links are pretty old. These links are essentially stories that I wanted to write blog entries about, but I just never got around to it.

First up we have: “Obama Administration Affirms Bush Policy on Detainee Rights.” Well, this headline goes without the need of further explanation, right? I was going to write a post talking about how our “change” President didn’t really bring much change on this particular issue, right? However, this story was written in February and things have changed since then.

I loved this story, which talked about setting up newspaper organizations as nonprofit groups: “Decline in Newspapers Renews Idea of Nonprofits.” Frankly, I think it’s a pretty a good idea, but there are a lot of problems with making the newspaper organizations nonprofits; especially in terms of who is funding their endowments…

This one still has me laughing: “Princeton U. students take advantage of utensil-rich cafeterias.” Ha ha ha! Anyone who has gone to college anywhere and then moved off campus is almost guaranteed to have dining hall utensils in their apartments! Lord knows we have them in my place…

Now this link was going to lead to one of my longer entries, since it deals with Princeton University’s dining clubs. “12 drunken Princeton students taken to hospital” talks about (as the title suggests) students who drank too much during a dining club initiation. For those of you that don’t know, the dining clubs at Princeton are essentially fraternities. This one was going to set me off because Princeton has a variety of reasons for not allowing fraternities and sororities to be recognized on campus – one of which is the stereotype-fueled alcohol abuse. Seems that their drinking clubs are the problem, not fraternities…

This is a gigantic article from the New York Times Magazine about “green” stuff. I haven’t read it, but I’ll probably keep this bookmark somewhere so I can read the article and see what’s doing.

And that’s pretty much it. As you can see, each of these could have been a separate post, but I just didn’t get around to talking about these topics when they were fresh in the news. Oh well!

In the mean time, check out New Jersey Carpet Cleaning for the best carpet cleaning in the Garden State!

A Little Inspiration from the Church Bulletin

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The following was in St. Jerome Church’s weekly bulletin a few weeks ago and I thought that it was nice and worth sharing. It was definitely worthy of hanging onto in case I needed some quality, uplifting content for the blog at some point. Read on…

Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways:
I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. If anyone knows of it, it will not count. I will do at least two things I do not want to do – just for exercise. I will not show anyone that my feelings are hurt; they may be hurt, but today I will not show it.

Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can; dress becomingly; talk low; act courteously; criticize not one bit; not find fault with anything and not try to improve or regulate anybody but myself.

Just for today, I will have a program. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it. I will save myself from two pests: hurry and indecision.

Just for today I will have a quiet half hour all by myself, and relax. I will try to get a better perspective on my life.

Just for today I will be unafraid. Especially I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful, and to believe that as I give to the world, so the Father will give to me.

Father Brian D’Arcy

Isn’t that nice? Just for today, I think I’m going to try to get that quiet half hour all by myself and relax. Sounds refreshing. Enjoy!

Working From Home Today…

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One of the best parts of my job is that I can choose to opt out of my daily commute and work from home on occasion. As it stands, I get one day a week where I work from home (usually Fridays) and once every 6 to 8 weeks I take an additional day one week. It’s a sweet deal.

I opted to work from home today so I could work on a major project that my company is participating in. It’s a huge, multi-million dollar deal that kept my brain to the grindstone for most of the day. I tell you this because I have nothing interesting to put up on the blog today and the reason why is because I’m exhausted from working from home.

Hmmm… A little bit of irony there, right? The fact that I’m exhausted from working, but working from the comfort of my home office? Weird.

More fun and games tomorrow – see you then!

Quick Review of the Weekend

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As I stated the other day, I had a busy weekend this last weekend and I thought I’d give a brief rundown of what went down. On Saturday, I attended a BBQ at one of my coworker’s homes. This was the first time that a group of my coworkers were able to meet up and enjoy each other’s company outside of working hours, so that was fun for everyone. Our host was showing off his brand new renovated kitchen and I really enjoyed being able to spend some leisure time with my coworkers. I’m looking forward to doing that some more in the coming months, since we all had a great time and are seeking out more opportunities to have some outings.

From the BBQ I went directly to my Mom’s house up in Morris County. Soon after arriving at my Mom’s place we headed over to my aunt and uncle’s house for a pre-wedding party for my older cousin, David, who was getting married the next day. This was also a lot of fun as my Grandmother and Aunt were at the party – both of whom I haven’t seen in a few years (probably since my Dad’s funeral almost two years ago).

Like most families, we tend to have an extremely fun time once the drinks start going down and the music gets turned on (and raucously “sung” at high volumes late into the night). And since he’s a dedicated reader of JerseySmarts.com, I’d like to give a shout out to Mike R. Happy?

The next day was my cousin’s wedding and reception, which was some of the most fun that I’ve had in a long, long time. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook have probably already browsed through the pictures from the wedding, but I also created a Google photo album for those of you who aren’t on Facebook (yet).

I thought the ceremony was very well done. There were about 30 witnesses and I was sitting in the back row with my brothers. The wedding was emotional for my family since David is the first among the cousins to get married – which explained why my Mom, her sisters (including the groom’s Mom), and my Grandmother were in tears for a portion of the ceremony. 🙂 It was a very nice wedding ceremony and I think that the pictures from the church show how it was very well put together.

The reception was also a good time. It’s always fun hanging out with family and friends for a celebration like a wedding. One funny occurrence – as I was walking outside for some fresh air, a kid came up to me and asked me if we knew each other from somewhere. I had no idea (and the memory wasn’t being assisted by the few beers that I had put away). To make a long story short, it turns out that the kid – who was one of the bride’s cousins – had just graduated from The College of New Jersey and is a member of my fraternity. He remembered me from all of the visits that I made to his chapter and the workshops that I put on while I was in charge of New Jersey for the fraternity. Small world, huh?

All in all, it was a great weekend. I hope for the best for my cousin and his wife and I hope that our family can get together more often to hang out and have some fun! Next on the agenda is a BBQ that my older brother’s girlfriend is throwing in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to that!