Blood, Hard Rock, Number Crunching, and Technological Innovations

Things I Am Loving Right Now

Giving Blood....
It's hard to explain why this has always been one of my favorite things to do. Despite the whole process taking sometimes up to two hours, and the same person asking me both my name and whether or not I am allergic to iodine 4 times each in 5 minutes, I still enjoy that short amount of time when I can actually give away a piece of myself to share with someone in need. Plus, my blood type is the wildcard for all, which means hospitals need it even more because it matches anyone's blood.

"Until We Have Faces"....
RED's new album (released 8 days ago)!! Words cannot describe how strongly I feel for the sounds I'm hearing on this CD right this minute. RED is one of my top 5 all time favorite bands (Christian/Metal), and yes it takes me a few listens of most albums to start falling in love with the songs, but now that I've heard it enough times, I am head over heels. I wish I could write a legitimate review for a substantial blog post, but all I can say is that this music literally resonates with my soul. It's "hitting the spot," so to speak. One of my favorite expressions in reference to music. If anyone's interested, ask me to recommend a song.

Accounting....
Relief: An emotion I'm feeling as this semester continues and I'm still enjoying my freshly declared major as much as I did when I made the quick decision of what career path to follow. A LOT of information is soaking into my head every week, and I suspect it will only increase in intensity as I progress with this degree. But I actually have fun doing homework and practice exercises, just because the satisfaction of getting the right answer as a product of complete understanding is so awesome! I feel like I own the problems, and what's great is that Accounting is the type of path that people only pick because, like me, they truly like it, or else they wouldn't be doing it at all. I mean, most of you reading probably hear the word and think "Ew, numbers and math," so it would take a lot of outside motivation for a normal person to go that direction. It's never like, "Oh, well, Accounting isn't a complete nightmare so why not?" It's a love or hate thing.

Right now we're on the chapter about Activity Based Costing, which in simple terms is the way you allocate various costs that go into production of goods and services, to the specific products themselves. It's a more accurate, detailed, and complex approach than the broader method using a predetermined overhead rate, which just seems silly to me now (for reasons sort of explained in a second), but as I've been reading, ABC methods are a lot more costly to implement. I was thinking today if I ever partner up with someone to start a business, I'll start off with all the smartest accounting methods, but that may not be possible when they cost so darn much to implement. But seriously, ABC is so much better because you get a much more accurate calculation of the cost to produce each product in a line. Sometimes companies estimate poorly and end up with misleading figures, causing them to make the wrong decisions based on that incorrect information. I wonder if this is making sense to you right now because in my head everything clicks perfectly, and I just hope I'm putting it into words understandably.

Thinking along the lines of publishing again (thinking again, not publishing again), I really REALLY wish I could put a video/sound clip into a book, because sometimes the songs from my posts are what capture my mood and thoughts the best. Sometime during my lifetime this better be made feasible. Heck, we have picture frames with changing photos, and that must've sounded like a crazy idea 30 years ago, but they're totally in use right now. It's just a shame I can't turn the entire first year of my blog into a yearbook, all forms of media included.

But we are at least making progress with cool inventions. Like I said, those digital picture frames are pretty cool, and I've seen ski/board goggles with a camera built in for videotaping. I still think hovercars are taking too long, as are a simpler, portable storage form of music that actually lets you listen at the same time - I'm thinking a USB drive that you can plug headphones into. I always want to get a few CD copies from friends, but until I get them on my laptop and then my ipod, they are stuck on that flat disc unless I can find a CD player, and who carries around a walkman anymore? We could be sharing 50 songs at a time on cheap USB drives (or something similar) and walking around campus listening to those instead of wasting so multiple CDs for the same amount of songs that aren't even accessible by themselves. Does this idea make even less sense than the benefits of accurate cost accounting methods, or can you picture what I'm thinking? Feedback is appreciated.

Also, what do you think are some cool new inventions that have sprung up recently?