Frankenstein Reborn

So I finally got my desktop computer up and running again, after a long-time hiatus in death-land. His graphics card crapped out... AGAIN. This is the third one I've had inside this particular computer and I believe it shall be the last. I'm going to transfer all the music, pictures and other random junk off here, onto my new laptop, clean it off a bit and then give it to my girlfriend Ashley, whose computer has died even harder than Frank did. Frank's the name of my computer, in case you didn't know. I put him together from random parts I got from www.newegg.com with the help of my old buddy Chris. I've had to replace a few parts here and there over the years, but for the most part, he was still going strong. Just going off to basic training, then tech school really threw a wrench in getting him up and running this last time. But I finally did it, despite numerous setbacks and dead-ends. Anyways, I wanted to brag on myself a little bit. Tomorrow is Friday, good thing, I'm ready for the weekend, Billy and Amanda are coming to New Orleans and I'm meeting up with them for a big weekend of fun and festivities. Should be nice. Of course, the only thing missing will be Ashley. Dang... Miss that girl. Well, goodnight internet!

Strange feeling

So I know that most will think this is stupid and pointless, but I just need to get it out. I just finished playing Grand Theft Auto 4, the video game, on my laptop, and the ending to the story... just saddened me. There are two endings, really, and I played them both. You can either get revenge on your enemy, or you can choose to work with him and get a lot of money. Well, in the end, you kill him either way, but in both endings you lose someone you love, well, Niko loved. Niko is the main character. So in one scenario, he loses his love interest Kate, and in the other he loses his cousin and best friend Roman. What the hell, Rockstar? All that work, all that investment in the story of this sad but strong character and he doesn't even get a remotely happy ending? I felt for this dude! Is that so strange? His story is that he's a Serbian who fought in the Yugoslav War and was ordered to commit atrocities, was betrayed by his "friends" and fled to America to get away from a former employer who believed owed him money. So he comes to America to find the men who betrayed him and earn some money to get the old boss off his back and help his cousin out financially. Well, of course since it's GTA you drive and shoot and steal and all that stuff, but I mean the character is an ex-soldier who has seen awful, terrible stuff and has grown jaded and cynical and believes himself to be un-redeemable. So he does what he can to make money. But after he has settled his debts, helped out his cousin, gotten closure with those who betrayed him and given up the life of a gangster, he loses someone he loves dearly, either his blossoming love or his dear cousin. Garbage! So I realize this is ridiculous, but imagine your favorite book with your favorite character who you have stuck through thick and thin with the whole novel and right at the end, when the hero has saved the day, something wicked comes in and smites him. And then the book ends. How does that feel? Crappy. That is right. I guess it's one of those Goodfellas type things. Just showing you that a life of crime only leads to heartache. Well, it lead to this heart's ache. :(

Thoughts

Just when you thought things were crappy, there's always someone else out there who has it worse. So there's this website, http://www.fml.com/, which stands for "f*ck my life", where people share stories of unfortunate events that happen to them, followed by "fml". Some are funny, some are really unfortunate, and some are both. Then there's this one.

Today, I came home from work late (2:30am). As I snuck carefully into bed and laid down next to my sleeping future wife, my fiancee half awake said "No, no... Dan will be home soon." I am Dan. FML

I had to read that one twice to fully appreciate the true misfortune of Dan, but damn that sucks. Sorry Dan, but you make me feel like things in my world are pretty peachy. Best of luck to ya.

edit:

Ok, this one's even better, less unfortunate, way more funny.

Today, I was at a club with my girlfriend of only two weeks. As we were dancing, another woman grabbed my ass from behind me and squeezed. I yelped and turned around to see my mother as the culprit. My girlfriend punched her. I found out my mother is a Cougar and my girl has a mean right hook. FML

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Well, it is apparently that time of the year, kiddies. Wesley has started to go crazy enough to want to talk to himself and to a hypothetical semi-anonymous audience on the internet. So here I sit, on my bed, with my cool new laptop, drinking my coffee made from my new coffeepot, listening to music on my new stereo. Yet, in a very Fight Club way, I am still unsatisfied with things. But before I go into a brain dump about all the things that are bothering me, I might as well talk about some concrete things that maybe will be more understandable than my rantings.

So I live in Mississippi. Who saw that coming? Not me, that's for sure. How is it? It is less populated than I imagined. But in what ways is Mississippi different from my beloved home state of Texas? Let's just look at a few statistics I pulled up after about 30 seconds of internet searching:

Obesity prevalence among U.S. adults
#1 Mississippi: 26%, (tied four ways for)#3 Texas: 24%

Percent of People Below Poverty Level in the Past 12 Months
#1 Mississippi: 21.6%, #8 Texas: 16.6%

Firearms Death Rate per 100,000
(tied for)#6 Mississippi: 17.3, #26 Texas: 11

Unemployment Rate
#2 Mississippi: 7.9%, (tied for)#12 Texas: 5%

So, while Texas doesn't blow Mississippi out of the water on all of those statistics which were chosen based on which ones made me laugh out of the ones I looked at. This website is the source: www.statemaster.com So anyways, all of these statistics just confirm my susipicion that Mississippi is indeed fatter, poorer, less employed and more trigger-happy than Texas, which I didn't know was possible. I mean, I love my state, but there are a lot of rednecks in Texas, so I gotta hand it to Mississippi. Anyways, does this do anything to make me feel better about my current predicament? No. In fact the opposite. It just reminds me that I am not home, where all the people I love are. I am basically conscripted into a job that I don't care about, to work with people that I do not identify with and therefore have a hard time socializing with, which makes Wesley go crazy and have to talk to himself on his blog page. Harrumph.

Ok, so my advice for anyone who is all in the dumps and pessimistic is to look on the bright side, count your blessings, find the silver lining, blah blah blah. So lets do that, for realz.

#1) I am alive. Like the saying goes, every day you can get out of bed is a good one.

#2) I have a job. In reference to the aforementioned statistic, I guess I am lucky.

#3) I have a lot of people who love me in Texas and some elsewhere, including but not limited to: Ashley, Mom, Dad, Lindsey, Nonnie, Papa, Grandma, Grandpa, all the aunts, uncles, and cousins, my buddies, all my friends from all the jobs, clubs, classes and activites I've been involved in over the years, and anybody else out there that cares about me that I am unable to put in a category. So to all of you, I love you too.

#4) I am healthy. While I am getting older, and I can tell (stupid grey hairs), I am healthy and fit, although I want to be going to the gym more than I have been, that's another story. Still, no major illnesses.

#5) I suppose this should go higher on the list, but I have got God looking out for me. Right now He is testing me, making sure I'm as tough as I think I am, but He is up there.

So, I do feel a little bit better. Yes, maybe I don't have just a roll-a-dex of friends here in MS, but that's my own fault. I need to get out there and get involved in activities and clubs and talk to people, get their phone numbers and go do fun stuff with them instead of sit in my room, playing computer games, waiting for something to happen. I also need to stay out of casinos, unless I have someone with me to pull me away when I'm doing good... or doing bad, haha. They can be fun, but it has become apparent to me that the best way to make money is to go to work and wait for paydays, instead of trying to make it multiply at blackjack, they'll just take it away.

Also, I live on the freakin' beach! Why am I not out there, soakin' up the sun and sand right this very minute? I should go buy a beach towel, slather on some sunscreen, go take a dip in the gulf and then let the sun warm me dry. That sounds nice. Maybe get something good to drink... Yes. That sounds like fun. I would prefer someone to go hang out with, but hey, I'll be that cool solo guy out there.

Speaking of being a solo guy, why, you may be asking yourself, are you not chatting up the ladies, Wesley, everyone knows you are a ladies' man. Well that is because, my dear friend, that I DO have a lady. And I am trying to do everything in my power to get her down here. Her name is ASHLEY and she is BEAUTIFUL. Just LOOK at her.

So, anyways, she's gorgeous and I am not about to do anything to jeopardize my situation with her. I just need to find her a job and a place to live and then life will be GREAT because I'll have someone to explore with, which is way more fun than exploring by yourself, I think. Anyways, I'm going to wrap this up because I'm losing daylight and that's the whole point in going to the beach!

A stale start...

So I have lots of "Ok, THIS is gonna be the start of a new phase! A new beginning! A fresh chance at redemption and glory!!!" But I usually lose steam part of the way through and I have to re-pump myself, so its not really new anymore, I guess. So, here is one of those re-pumps. Rar! Off to learn things I've already learned and hopefully some new stuff. Maybe even make a friend... yay! Coffeez, mmmm.

Happy (belated) New Year!

Ok so I suck at updating this thing. Sorry. But all I've got at home is dial-up so excuse me if I don't have the patience to sit there and watch paint peel, aka the page load. But now I do have my spiffy iPod touch with wifi so that is how I am currently blogging this entry. Via my iPod. I know, I'm bragging but I love gizmos and it seems like I'm never on the front edge of the new technology, but this time I am so booyah!

So I am not really rocking the gym membership like I should be doing, but it's all microsofts fault. They made the sexy xbox 360 and then someone made the game fallout 3 and that is the reason I have been planted in front of the tv almost continuously for the past 48 hours. Very little sleep, very little socialization. It's so damn addictive! "Just one more mission," I say. Well that turns into three or four and then suddenly five hours disappear and my stomach is complaining at me. I shut it up with a couple fistfuls of wheat thins and finish unloading a clip into another super mutant. Damn those things are annoying. The mutants, that is. Anyways, enough about that.

I believe this is one of the weirdest times in my life. Since that fateful day in 1990 when I walked into A. L. Day Elementary and met Mrs. Elroy, my kindergarten teacher, I have been a student in public education almost non-stop, minus summer and Christmas breaks, of course. But now, I have graduated college (finally!) and my title of student is now N/A; not applicable. So what am I now, I ask myself. A grown up? Well, a grown up would have his own place and a good paying job. I am living at home with the 'rents, currently, and while I do head to San Antonio on February 4th to begin my career of unforseeable length with the US air force, until then I have no real responsibilities, no objectives or purpose. Now while that sounds like vacation and carefree funtime, it is, as I have said, a little weird. No assignment to work on, no deadline looming or a test I should be cramming for. Well, ok not entirely true, I do need to take the ASVAB, and finish my last two stinkin thank you notes and close my old bank account. But really those are just kind of remnants of the old chapter and a little minor preparation for the one to come. I mean when I took the asvab in high school, I scored in the 95th percentile or something. Hopefully I haven't gotten dumber since then.

Which leads me to another topic which is a little sour but there is not much I can do about. Since I wasn't able to graduate on time, I wasn't able to commission into the AF as an officer and will have to fulfill my committmenr as an enlisted man. Now while I am glad that I still have the opportunity to join the air force and even eventually go to officers school if I want, i'm still a little less than thrilled at being ridiculously over-qualified for my job. I was in marching band in high school, I was in the A&M corps of cadets for four years, AF ROTC for four years and I completed AF field training. I know how to march, I know military discipline, I know leadership. So now I'm being thrown in with a bunch of 18-19 year old highschool graduates who know none of that and are probably going to try my every nerve. So yeah, I'm a little less than psyched. However, that's not to say that I'm not looking forward to testing myself, serving my country, learning new skills, meeting new people, traveling, and getting paid for it. Not to mention maybe getting a masters degree paid for and then all the benefits of being a veteran after it's all said and done.

Well, after that little thought-dump I am feeling a little tired, so that concludes this post. Thanks for chillin' with me. Wish me luck, I'm gonna try to beat fallout tomorrow. Night!

My Research Results

Voting Attitudes of Young Adults

by

Wesley St. Clair

I. Introduction

In my study, I was interested in the voting attitudes of young adults. Historically, there have been a list of reasons, or excuses, young voters cite that keep them from the polls ranging from laziness to absentee ballot complications to just sheer ignorance about politics. Beginning with the 2004 election and gaining momentum as the 2008 election approached, there have been more and more strong partisan and non-partisan movements dedicated specifically to bringing the 18- to 29-year-old demographic out to the polls.

According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), 49 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the 2004 Presidential election. It was the largest voter turnout among young voters since 1972, with an all time high of 55%. The 2008 election increased the turnout from 2004 by an estimated 1 to 6 percent.

Several mathematicians have said voting is irrational -- especially in presidential elections -- because of the exponentially low chance of actually casting a deciding vote. So what is causing young Americans to change their minds about voting? I felt the topic was personally relevant as well because the 2008 election was my first time voting, and I wondered why I decided to vote this time and not previously in 2004. I wanted to explore the attitudes and opinions of members of my generation to determine what influences attitudes on voting and what could ultimately influence a young person to vote.

Turning inward, I felt the differences between my attitude in 2004 and my attitude currently towards voting had to do with my level of knowledge of various issues, candidates and policies. Therefore I wanted to study young adults’ habits when it came to watching the news’ affect on attitudes

II. Literature Review

The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE), an organization that conducts research on the civic and political engagement of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25 (Lopez, 2008), teamed up with Rock the Vote, a research-based organization that provided grassroots organizations and campaigns with resources and best practices for mobilizing young voters, as described on their website, to study the recent voting habits and interpret them in the context of the modern voting trends. Together, they came up with a paper designed to be a resource for policymakers, journalists, nonprofits, and political campaigns looking to better understand the political attitudes and behaviors of today’s 18- to 29-year-olds (Lopez, 2008). I used it in my study as a source of ideas for possible independent variables, various statistics to help design my survey, and as a foundational springboard from which to launch my own study.

The study by Chareka and Sears was interesting to me because it uncovered an interesting aspect of youth voting attitudes: “For most youth, the choice not to vote was not about apathy but perceived effectiveness.” (Chareka, 2006: 9) This was another topic of study for me, in that I wanted to determine the relationship between faith in the voting process and individuals who vote. The Chareka study focused on measuring these cynical attitudes of young adults, and it is based on this work that I attempted to seek the causes for this voting-apathy.

The study entitled “Wha’d’ya Know?” was important to my study because it focused on young adults’ information-seeking habits and how it might point to ways which could promote more informed and engaged young voters (Wells). This was one of my main-focus independent variables and it was a good resource to have to understand the prior research in the area I was interested in. It was more of a qualitative research, which I found useful and interesting because it breaks ground in the area of factors that promote or hinder young adult voting involvement. It is upon this study that I built my own.

The study by Hooghe intended to determine if there was any predictive relationship between adolescents’ political attitude and their political attitudes and/or behaviors as young adults. Ultimately, they found little stability between intention to vote as adolescents and actual voting behavior as young adults. This article mostly served to pique my interest in the topic and gather ideas.

From these studies and my own experiences I formulated these hypotheses:

· Hypothesis 1: Those who consistently follow the news are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 2: Those who were ever a member of a political organization are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 3: Those with parents with higher incomes are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 4: Those who reported that their parents influenced their opinion on politics are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 5: Those who are older are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 6: Those who voted in the 2008 election are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

III. Data and Methods

My sample was a convenient, non-random sample that was collected by creating a Facebook event and inviting potential respondents that fit the criteria for the study, as well as passing out surveys to various students at the Student Computing Center. A total of 81 surveys were distributed, 63 were valid. My survey instrument was a seventeen item questionnaire covering my independent and dependent variables.

My dependent variable consisted of an index constructed from several questions that all measured what I believed to be indicators of either a presence or lack of faith in the voting process. This included belief that voting is an obligation, voting is important, and that it’s important to stay current with political current events, among others.

My independent variables were obtained from the articles and studies in my literature review or my own observations and experiences as possible influencers of faith in voting. I believed that membership in either a political organization or an organization that simulated government, such as student council or some other representative body, were more likely to be familiar with the political process and thus, vote. In a similar vein, I have observed that people who are knowledgeable of the current political climate and issues seem to care more about the democratic process and I hypothesized this increased their faith in it. In my personal experience, I have observed that my parents did not really introduce politics as a particularly important topic to me and, until recently, have been mostly indifferent to the voting process. In conversing with my peers whose parents have made a point to discuss politics with them, they seem to be more politically active, hence my measurement of whether the respondent agreed that their parents helped shape their political opinion or attitude. My other variables, which were mostly for control variables, I chose age, parents estimated income (categorical), and participation in the 2008 Presidential election. For my study I used a multiple linear regression to analyze my data.

IV. Results

My dependent variable, taken from the index of similarly themed questions, ranged from a score of 5, “low faith”, to a score of twenty-five, “high faith”. Membership in a political organization, news watching and participation in the 2008 election were all dichotomous questions. However, originally news watching was a categorical variable which I divided into zero, little, moderate and high levels of news watching, but since the biggest variation was in those who watched news six or more times per week and everyone else, therefore I recoded it into a dummy variable. Parents’ influence and parents’ income were both categorical variables, with the influence variable on a Likert scale of “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” with the statement: “My parents have influenced my opinion on politics” and income grouped in ranges.

Descriptive Statistics

	Mean	Std. Deviation	N
“High faith in voting”	20.9048	2.96601	63
R was member of a political org.	.40	.493	63
R views news every day	.3016	.46263	63
R’s parents’ income	3.17	1.185	63
Parental influence on R	3.16	1.110	63
Participation in 2008 election	.86	.353	63
Age of respondent	22.75	2.300	63

The mean score of “high faith in voting” was moderately high, with 20.9 out of twenty-five and the average age was 22.75, indicating the majority of my respondents being recent recipients of Bachelor’s degrees. A majority of respondents were not in some sort of political organization and a minority of respondents reported watching or viewing some form of news media at least six times per week. The mean for parental influence and income were both in the third category, “neither agree/disagree” to having been influenced by their parents and having an estimated income of $70,000 to $99,999.

Linear Regression

	B	Std. Error	t	Sig.
(Constant)	14.485	3.428	4.225	.000
R was member of a political org.	-.776	.704	-1.103	.275
R views news every day	2.848**	.740	3.848	.000
R’s parents’ income	.118	.287	.412	.682
Parental influence on R	.294	.300	.979	.332
Participation in 2008 election	2.229*	.948	2.352	.022
Age of respondent	.117	.144	.811	.421

*p<0.05>2: 0.246

As indicated in the linear regression table, only two of my variables, consistent news viewing and participation in the 2008 election, were statistically significant. Controlling for all other independent variables, viewing the news at least 6 times per week as opposed to less than 6 times per week increases the faith in the voting process score by 2.848. In addition, when holding the effects of all other independent variables constant, having voted in the 2008 Presidential election as opposed to not increases the faith in the voting process score by 2.229 points.

My interpretations of these results:

a) That the relationship between consistent news watching and faith in the voting process is significant. I can reject the null hypothesis.

b) That the relationship between having voted in the 2008 Presidential election and having faith in the voting process is significant. I can reject the null hypothesis.

c) The rest of the relationships were not statistically significant, therefore I fail to reject the null hypotheses for age, political organization membership, parents’ income, and parents’ influence on opinion.

V. Conclusions

While it may not seem that much of a revelation to find out that people who vote in elections feel that the process is valid, I believe it can be seen as a way of confirming what we might hope is true: that people who vote do so because they believe what they are doing is right, important and necessary, and not because its just meaningless ritual or keeping the status quo.

Also, I was pleased to find out that one of my most anticipated independent variables, news watching, turned out to be significant. Young adults obtain up to 52% of their political information from some form of media (Wells, 2006: 1282) and therefore staying in touch with news media is a big part of acquiring political knowledge for youths, thereby educating themselves and improving their opinion of voting.

As for my other variables, they are apparently not fine tuned enough or were simply not significantly correlated to my dependent variable.

Limitations of my research included my sampling technique: ideally a larger, simple random, non-convenient sample would yield more generalizable and significant relationships. Also, considering the homogeneity of my sample, the majority of which being Caucasian, middle-class, morally and/or politically conservative college students, my findings are not very generalizable to all young adults.

In my study, I did not measure faith in voting in non-registered citizens, my main focus was on eligible voters. In order to obtain a more full picture of the relationships, I might consider increasing my focus on this population. Finally, if I were to continue with further research, next time I would improve my sampling techniques, reword certain questions on my survey, eliminate extraneous questions and increase the number of index questions for my dependent variable in order to try and find the exact variables that might influence young adults’ faith in the democratic process.

VI. Works Cited

Lopez, Mark H., Karlo B. Marcelo, Chris Kennedy, and Kathleen Barr. February 2008. “Young Voter Registration and Turnout Trends.” The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement. (http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/CIRCLE_RtV_Young_Voter_Trends.pdf)

Chareka, Ottilia, and Alan Sears. 2006. “Civic Duty: Young People's Conceptions of Voting as a Means of Political Participation.” Canadian Journal of Education 29 no2:521-40.

Wells, Scott D., and Elizabeth A. Dudash. May 2007. “Wha’d’ya Know? Examining Young Voters’ Political Information and Efficacy in the 2004 Election.” American Behavioral Scientist. 50 no9:1280-89.

Hooghe, Marc, and Britt Wilkenfeld. February 2008. “The Stability of Political Attitudes and Behaviors Across Adolescence and Early Adulthood: A Comparison of Survey Data on Adolescents and Young Adults in Eight Countries.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 37 no2:155-67

VII. Appendix

(continued on next page)