Monday, October 27, 2014

Where the budding white collared man can find white collars for cheap(er)...



Who doesn't like to look good? Setting aside all of the timeless wisdom of only making one first impression, clothes can make or break an individual, and blah blah blah, it simply feels good to look good.

There are many different options, Good Will, Men's Warehouse, Macy's, or even some of the more upscale-but-small shops in Santa Row or similarly expensive overrated location. However if you want to look good on the cheap, there are two ways to go about it, one of them is a new company that I have recently stumbled upon.

The first is a small chain located in New York, NY, called Century 21 Department Store. I managed to pick up a whole slew of ties and shirts, most them ranging from $5-10 and approximately $20 respectively. These shirts and ties managed to see me through 18 days in Europe traveling through some of the most important Non-Governmental Agencies in the world. The cheap but well made clothing really withstood the scrutiny to the stylings of Europe.

 Whenever I am in NY, I stop by the huge department store and pick up a few nice things to expand my wardrobe. They do have an online section, but half the fun is browsing the huge assortment of items that are literally wall to wall in their store. 

The second is the more important recent find is a site called the Combat Gent. They are an up and coming site that has lots of stylish but modestly priced suits and accessories that many recent graduates will find themselves in need of. 

While every student should own at least one suit, there are many ways to dress for success that do not require suits. Often overlooked are the slacks and cardigans or even just a nice dress shirt. Searching either site, one would find many different options, many times several different outfits can be created from just two or three different shirt and pant combinations. 

Again one of things any college student should leave their institution with is a set of skill how to dress and act when entering their chosen profession. And these sites can help you do it cheaper than a quarter at SCU,

Monday, October 20, 2014

Some. Random. MUN Musings.


Some. Random. MUN Musings.

Joelle's car got hit. Officers 1 Delegates 0.

MOD UN: Day 1 Zero hour. Joëlle's car is hit at Starbucks.

MUN: Day 1 Hour 2. Racism strikes. Olivia and the Marco-Derek fiasco.

MUN: Day 1 Hour 3 Garretts "special route"

MUN Day 1, Hour 4 Marco-Eric seating fiasco

MUN Day 1 Hour 5 con't @Stephanie the stakes have been razed to :3)

MUN Day 1 Hour 5 con't 2 Assembly of Generals @hamda

MUN Day 1 Hour 6: The official Prim and Proper (Fairy) way to Derek hold the cup.

MUN Day 1 Hour 7 Dirty Jingle bells @Eric

MUN Day 1 Hour 7.5 high fives, rising under P27

MUN Day 1 Hour 7.8 @Amy, officially the President and responsible #thanksyou

MUN Day 1 Hour 8: Hero in room 4114. @carlos

MUN Day 1 Hour 9: and the only large ladies. @carlos

MUN Day 1 Hour 10: I've seen some large people @Mark

MUN Day 1 Hour 11:

I don't like the middle finger @Amy.

I use it all the time, people deserve it. @Derek

MUN Day 1 Hour 13 : God loves it when you run around naked. @Joëlle..... Herp/Derp woes @Amy

MUN Day 1 Hour 13.5:

"I wouldn't put up with my shit" @Bilen

"I have a weakness for beautiful ladies" @Dan

MUN Day 1 Hour 14

"I'm not gay cockblock" @Eric

"Because I'm a girl cockblock" @Bilen

"Not giving up" @Eric

MUN Day 2 Hour 3: small wood to the face in Chinatown @hamda








Santa Clara University's under utilize (and most likely over priced) parking structure. (End Rant)

I live off campus, about 15 miles or so. This means that every day I drive to school, sometimes multiple times. And it is almost impossible to find parking near the campus, which used to be understandable, but not any more.

Why?

As part of the ongoing renovation of the campus, a new parking lot was built. It would stand to reason that the students over time would pay for the privilege or the right to park across the street from Campus.

However this is not the case. Everyday I walk past the parking structure there tons of spots inside, with hundreds of open spots. Today as I walking I told a quick picture with my cell and saw approximately 302 open spaces.

A person would think that with the increase of parking the streets would be clearer, with most of the students taking advantage of the new space. But they aren't. It seems that once again SCU has created something that does not help the students (the previous one is the
Patricia A. and Stephen C. Schott Admission & Enrollment Services Building) but instead costs so much that its cheaper to just park in the neighborhood. And with the upcoming vote to limit the number of tenants within the neighborhood, this could have eased the tensions by creating places for off campus students to store their cars, and create a less crowded environment But instead SCU charges almost three times what other local colleges charge (average of $100/yr vs. $325/yr or $200/yr- reduced fee), and while everything about SCU is more expensive, there is nothing to balance it out like there is at SStanford Stanford, while having a interesting approach to parking, actually pays you to not purchase an annual pass instead purchase individual scratchers or permits and earn up $300 a year. 

So obviously SCU has an unused parking structure, as the picture attests to (the 47 is the last number a little hard to read). What do they plan to do with it is my question, I would love not fight with other students and neighbors to find parking. But as long as the prices remain so high, its cheaper to walk and annoy a nearby resident than it is to use something built for the students. Go Broncos!

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

PSA: Vets, take a moment.

America's Veterans, the ugly secret most American try to hide, we ask them to give their all, yet we expect them to return to normal at the drop of a dime.

This is probably one of the more moving music videos I have seen in awhile. Please take a second to view.


Things I love (and occasionally hate): Zotero

Zotero, my dearest friend. 

First off lets start with what Zotero is. Zotero is a multi-platform resource collection agent. Its function is to help individuals create a list of sources, such as bibliographies and work cited pages. These sources can be culled from almost any electronic format. Use a book in a paper, find it on Amazon, then click the install-able connector for your browser and Ta-Da! You now have a fully editable sourcing program that can be used in word editors. Your now thinking that sounds nice but what exactly does it do for me? Well, let me tell you a story...

I was surfing OSCAR and One search for some statics regarding polling turn out, exit polls etc for my Political Science class. As I find sources, I am constantly throwing them into my Zotero folder for later review and collection, aka a super book mark system. However I find something that I can use for another paper, say a piece on voting and religion I want to use for my Religion, Theology & Culture 3 class (core requirement). Boom! Throw that bad boy into my folder for RTC 3, and now I have source I would have never found or could have easily lost.

But that's not all. Now I am done with my both my papers, the RTC 3 class wants MLA formatting style while the Political Science class wants Blue Book style. Most people would go to either OWL Perdue (which is another great/amazing source) or the site affectionately known as Son of a Citation. However with Zotero, you simply highlight the sources and then right click "Create Bibliography", go thru the prompts of type and how to save, and then like a genie granting a wish its done, for either format. All sources are done, leaving only inline notes or sources left to be done.

So basically all of my gathering of sources for a paper has been reduced to a few clicks. Finding, organizing, and creating of sources has been automated, leaving me free to procrastinate, err focus on the content of my paper. Did I also mention that Zotero is free?





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