1/1/02 - 11:32 pm There are so many thoughts in my brain right now that I can't keep them straight which means writing them all down is going to be nearly impossible. My trip to Mo'town was eventful to say the least. Almost immediately upon arriving I was told that my two former roommates are now officially engaged. Not much of a bombshell really, it was only a matter of time ;) That was by far the happiest news of the trip. I also found out that someone has a new relationship, one which they certainly don't deserve. Good things happen to bad people I guess. New Years Eve was an interesting day, at least once 6pm rolled around. We went over to an older couple's house for a small gathering of really good people. I wish I would have gotten to spend more time around those people while I was in school. I had to leave there early because I had plans to meet a friend downtown. I got back to the house and found two messages on the machine from her, neither of which sounded too good. Even if she hadn't of come right out and said that there was something wrong, I would have been able to tell, she just didn't sound like her usual self. I met her downtown and found out things just hadn't gone well for her over the past couple days. She thinks she did something stupid and embarrassing. Embarrassing, yes... stupid, definitely not. Some other friends of hers showed up shortly after I did and we all ended up going to another bar to ring in the new year. I know it was extremely difficult for my friend to be at this particular bar, but she did a great job of facing up to things. Her and I left there and went back to the first bar so we could talk about things. After she explained what had happened I understood why the past couple days were so bad for her. Most people have had similar experiences in their lives including myself so it wasn't too difficult to imagine what she was feeling. While I understood her feelings, it was still very hard for me to see her like that and not be able to do anything about it. Since I first looked into her eyes that night all I wanted to do was hold her hand or hug her to make her feel better. I didn't because I know how I would react if I were her, I'd break down right then and there. She wanted to be in public to avoid just that so doing what I wanted was out of the question. We talked some more and parted ways after planning on getting together for lunch today. I spent a lot of time last night thinking about what I wanted to say to her at lunch. Since she lives so far away I never know if I'll ever see her again so I wanted to do what I could while I could. Lunch rolls around and she tells me that she hasn't slept yet so I decide not to say everything I had planned. It really was a good pep talk that I had worked out, I just didn't think it would have helped as much as I wanted it to at that moment. We talked for a little while longer before parting ways with a far too brief hug. I hope I get a chance to look into those eyes again someday. My trip wasn't a complete bust. I saw the people I wanted to see and spent some time with the one I needed to see. I didn't get drunk like I wanted to, but the trade off was far more rewarding than drinking could ever.
1/7/02 - 1:58 am Things has been a little better since the first. I went back to work on the second and it really cheered me up. I'm still not a big fan of the job, but if it can bring me out of my funk like my old job did then it can't be all bad. I also heard from my friend whom I was out with on NYE. She's better but not great, its going to take a while to get back to "great" I think. On the bright side, we did get our first snow here today. I used to be excited about snow, but now that I don't have any classes for it to cancel I could care less about it. Mother still looks forwards to it so she can get a day off. If they have a late start tomorrow then I'm supposed to drive her to school. I guess its too dangerous for her to drive to school but its okay for me to drive her... its only twice the number of miles she'd drive, and I'm only half asleep when I do it. Hrm... maybe that wasn't really a "bright side" after all.
1/14/02 - 12:09 am After last week's bit of bad news I've come to the conclusion that not only cannot I not share the bad news in my life with people, I can't even share the good news because it seems to jinx things. I tell people about someone new and special in my life and I never see that person again... I tell them about a job prospect and it falls through almost immediately. Call me paranoid if you want, but things just seem to happen that way whether I'm paying attention to it or not. I should have learned this lesson a long time ago, it sure would have saved the parents asking me how things went or how they're going when it comes to work and relationships. Other things... our company leaves next weekend which was about 3 weeks too late for me. She's already hinting about going to the beach... glad I won't be going with them. I get the house to myself for most of Saturday next weekend which will be a welcome relief. As for work, things are going pretty good. If things don't work out for me in my job hunt then at least I'll have this job to fall back on. My boss has already hinted at a permanent position for me. Anyway, that's it for now.
1/25/02 - 2:41 am The company left this past weekend... one gallon of Black Velvet, two fifths of brandy, and five bottles of wine later. Its amazing how much alcohol a 5'1'', 90 year old woman can drink in just four weeks. Anyway, she's gone so now I have the house back to myself during the day. Not too much else to report really. Work is going quite well... I've learned a lot and am enjoying simply being at work. I do need a little weekend diversion though, need to get out of the house and do something fun. I also haven't heard from a few people in a while. That doesn't really concern me but I do miss hearing from them. Oh well, maybe they don't want to talk to me anymore.
2/7/02 - 1:19 am Tonight was the first night that I didn't enjoy being at work. My calls were all fine, nothing spectacular, but there was more down time between them tonight. There isn't much to do in the down time except talk and listen to people talk, and I seem to do more listening than talking. The thing that made tonight rough was the seemingly endless talk about V-day. I really didn't even notice V-day this year, although I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. On the bright side, since I didn't notice until now, I only have to deal with it for another seven days.
2/12/02 - 11:34 pm Illness is a funny thing. You can take your vitamins, eat your vegies, and even be in half decent shape and still get horribly sick two or three times a year and take months to recover. Or, you can skip the vitamins, eat whatever you want, be out of shape and get sick once, maybe twice a year for only a couple days at a time. The first case would be mother, the second would be me. Mother has been dealing with an illness for months now... complaining about it most of the time but not bothering to go to the doctor. Last week she said she felt better... right about the time she got me sick. So I've been fairly ill the past few days but getting better every day. Being sick doesn't bother me but having to miss work does. If I was just "sick" then I could have gone to work, but I've been coughing so much that I don't have much of a voice left, and when your entire job involves talking on the phone it hard to do the job. Anyway, the parents were gone this weekend so I didn't have to deal with them, although I would have enjoyed the weekend more if I wasn't sick. At least I'll get back to work tomorrow.
2/20/02 - 2:05 am Its been a long time since I went off on one of my little tirades about something annoying, so here goes. Over the past few weeks I've seen the same general topic on the "Maury" show at least six or seven times. Each show has had something to do with women not knowing who the father of their child(ren) is/are. The fact that there is a seemingly endless supply of women in this situation doesn't surprise me... its a modern world and things happen sometimes, no big deal. The thing that bugs me is this one woman that has been on the show no less than three times... she has had SEVEN different men tested to see who the father of her child is and NONE of them tested positive. SEVEN... a lot of people can go their whole lives without having seven different partners... this women couldn't go a month! After the fifth guy tested negative she said she was going to give up... but yet today she had two more guys tested. Its gotten so bad that the guys aren't even trying to defend themselves anymore and the usually male-hostile audience isn't booing them anymore. I just can't get over the fact that this woman had 7+ partners in the same month and Maury keeps bringing her back to further embarrass herself. Okay, end of tirade. Other stuff... work is going okay. Being sick has kind of taken some of the fun out of the job, but only because I can't talk normally yet. One of my monitorings went badly recently... made a mistake reading numbers and it cost me a perfect score. The rest of my scores were pretty good and my mistake wasn't intentional so I don't feel too bad. Hrm... what else... V-day came and went without much of a problem. I still wouldn't mind a date or something one of these weekends... if not romantic then at least a friendly date where I get to do something besides sit here at home. Mother has threatened to sign me up for singles clubs lately... I don't like that idea. Oh well... here's to dreaming.
3/3/02 - 3:45 am Well, I have to admit it, this weekend has been pretty damn good and its only half over. Last week ended is a fairly scary way with a number of layoffs at work. Thankfully I was not one of them... at least not yet. As a temp I knew coming into this job that I was expendable... but it isn't just the temps that are getting the pink slip, a number of regular employees have been put on notice too. Anyway, I got to see "Queen of the Damned" today with a friend. I had a great time and it was a good movie, even if it was a bit too loud. Not going to say much else about my weekend for the moment... we know how that gets me in trouble.
3/17/02 - 8:55 pm This past week just wasn't a good one. Work was fine but extremely busy. One of our call centers was closed on Thursday and Friday and half the system was down on Friday which made the normally busy time of the month incredibly busy. Of course we did have our promised "pizza party" on Friday... but by the time any of us had a chance to eat it was fairly cold. I did get a nice surprise on Saturday when a couple friends from school stopped by for a visit. Today really wasn't a good day though, which is both a bad end for last week and a bad start for this one. There are four times of the year when I can count on hearing the usual "you'll never find anyone unless" advice from my mother. This is not only one of those times, but usually when its the worst. Today she decided to bring up all those people I was interested in at one time or another and ask why it didn't work out. I did my best with the "I'd rather not talk about it" routine but that never works so I just retreated here to my room. Perhaps next weekend will be better.
3/25/02 - 12:59 am Life since my last update has been eventful to say the least. Last Monday I came home from work to find an email from someone I haven't heard from in years. It was an ex from back in high school, my first true love to be exact. It was strange that she picked when she did to write me, my mother had just mentioned her name the night before. Even after all this time I think my parents still love her because she's the only ex that they bring up year to year. Anyway, we've written to each other a couple times since then and I hope we continue to keep in touch. Then there's work... last Tuesday my boss asked me what hours I'd want to work if I were offered a permanent position there. I'll take that as a good sign for now and assume that she didn't ask every temp in our group the same thing. Things did get a little stressful at work on Friday. The boss was out of the office and some of us were given special assignments to work on. Well, without the boss, things got a bit loud and disorganized for a little while. I got to install software on a bunch of co-workers' machines which was a nice change, but it was slow going and a gigantic pain in the ass. All the machines are slow, they're all Compaqs, and they all have Win95 on them. I think I ended the night with a total of five calls, far from my usual 40. This weekend was uneventful but I did get to talk to a friend that I only get to talk to once a week. Today is her birthday and based on this past weekend, she's not expecting it to be a good one. I offered to try to cheer her up but I don't think there was anything I could have done. Off to bed.
4/4/02 - 3:41 am Things have been fairly boring over the past couple weeks. Work is going pretty well now that we've gotten over the whole "am I about to be let go" thing. My boss seems fairly confidant that I'll be employed there for a while but won't be able to go full time until at least June. That will be about the right time too since mother will be off for the summer in June... she'll already warned me about that. Of course I almost had a new job today but I had to turn it down. An IT contractor that has my resume called saying they had an 8 month contact position for me starting Monday. The problems were that it was in Sterling VA (which is an hour away without traffic), went from 7am until 4pm (which means I'd have to leave for work by 5:30am), that I'd be working for AOL (I could deal with that), and that it ended in 8 months with no chance of getting hired full time. I really thought hard about taking it, but I'd have to give up my current job because working both would mean I'd get about 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night and spend every other minute either working or driving to work. Plus, I really don't think my car could handle that drive for more than two weeks. If there was a chance of it being a contract-to-hire job I'd probably risk it, but as it is I'd just end up back in the same boat in 8 months. Anyway, I'm hoping to get out to see a movie this weekend. I saw Blade 2 by myself last weekend and wasn't too thrilled. It was an okay movie but a lot more gross than the first one. I'm hoping to see Ice Age this weekend. Time for bed I think.
4/15/02 - 12:24 am Last week was a very very long week at work. It seems that everyone was calling about their tax info which we "didn't send them." They couldn't possibly call when there was actually enough time to send them the info they wanted could they? Nooo... they had to call a few days before taxes were due. Not only that, but they all wanted paper copies of their info... couldn't just take the numbers over the phone. Of course I only had to deal with that for three days because I had training on Thursday and Friday. Of course Friday was almost a perfect day. Not only did I not have to deal with stupid and impatient people on the phone, but I got my tax refund back, got paid, and got offered a permanent position at the company. Like I said, it wasn't perfect... it isn't anything close to what I really want to do, but its a steady paycheck and full benefits. So tomorrow is my first official day... would have to be tax day of all days. I'm sure it will go okay.
4/29/02 - 2:36 am Well, I've been permanent and working full time for two weeks now and with the exception of one day, things have been going pretty well... work-wise anyhow. I'm still looking for something better though. Working full time has given me a little more cash and some breathing room in the job hunt, but its also shortened the time I can work there before burning out. I don't mind dealing with stupid people, and I don't even mind dealing with mean people, but I hate having to fix things for stupid and mean people that other employees screwed up. Five hours of that a day was fine... eight is starting to push it. Now that I do have more cash and actual vacation days I've started to think about the beach again. I have no idea when I'd go, or who I could even go with, but I'm going to need a break this summer... mother will be here 24/7 starting in June after all. As for other stuff... I went to see "The Scorpion King" today. It wasn't bad but the theatre I saw it in sucked. I've been to movies twice in the past three weeks, both in that theatre and something has been wrong both times. Anyway, time for bed.
5/6/02 - 1:03 am Last week was a long week so I was hoping for a nice relaxing weekend... its was a little too relaxing, boring actually. I was hoping to go out and do something but no one was really available... even my dad backed out on something we were going to do. The big event of the weekend was finding out that yet another friend is engaged. This one wasn't much of a surprise though since we all knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I did get to hear from another friend today that I've have talked to in a while. She hasn't been having a good time lately but she didn't want to talk about it so I didn't press her. God I wish I didn't miss her so much. Anyway, this weekend only really served to further intensify those old familiar feeling that I've been having for god knows how long. I will say that this week at work ought to be interesting since we're trying something new that has never been tested before. The idea is to keep us on the phones all the time and let this new group do all the research and call-backs. It's going to be a mess because now we have to explain the problem to a whole new person which will only complicate things more. Ever play that game where you whisper something to someone and they pass it on and by the time it gets back to you it's completely different from what you said? Imagine that with money and pissed off people thrown in. Okay, off to bed.
5/17/02 - 3:13 am Not really that much to update at this point. Today was the first day in four days that I didn't have a headache the entire day. I think it was the weather... went for sunny and 75 down to like 55 for two days straight and my body doesn't like it when it does that. Work is fine although we are about to lose someone that we shouldn't be losing. Not sure why they didn't hire her but she got fed up and went looking for something else. Too bad too, she's one of only two single women my age that work there and don't have kids. Other stuff... I've been keeping a closer eye on who visits my page lately, mostly hoping to see visits from certain people. I'm always happy to see visits from the loyal and faithful friends... even a little surprised at the one hit I keep seeing on a regular basis. I do wish certain people would visit though... after all the interest I've taken in their lives it would be nice to see they care a little in return. Okay... something happier... Star Wars opened up today... uhm... okay, maybe that wasn't all that happy given the reviews I've read. Time for bed again.
5/27/02 - 1:34 am I don't really know how to summarize this weekend. I was looking forward to a nice three day weekend, even if the parents were going to be here. What I ended up with certainly wasn't "nice." By the time I got to Friday night I knew my weekend would be spent fighting off illness and by Saturday morning I was definitely sick. It's pretty much the same thing I had a couple months ago only I seem to be recovering faster and I didn't lose my voice this time. Thankfully I have an extra day to recover this time. Most of Saturday was spent in bed drinking bottle after bottle of water or taking a shower to get rid on the migraine I had. I felt much better when I woke up this morning but my day certainly didn't go any better. I got some news today which hit me kind of hard... of course news about her pretty much always has that effect on me. It didn't surprise me at all and I kind of figured it had happened already but actually hearing it was something different. The one good thing that happened today was getting the chance to help someone with a computer problem. It was nice to feel useful again even if it was just for a few minutes. Many other things went through my mind this weekend but it doesn't do much good talking about them here. The one thought that I couldn't stop thinking about is where I've been in years past for this weekend. For the past 6 years I have either been just getting back from the beach, or just getting to the beach on this weekend. It's funny the dates and things I remember...
6/7/02 - 11:25 am I had a very disturbing dream last night. It was very different from my usual nightmare but the players were basically the same. I don't know how my mind created this specific dream but I know what triggered it. Its been a long and difficult week at work. The past three days just never seemed to end... the last two hours of work felt like eight hours. It was slow enough to give a few of us time to talk for once. I always knew I worked with great people but I didn't realize how great until I got a chance to have a real conversation with them. They seem to draw strength from other people in their lives, husband, wife, boyfriend, kids etc... so no matter how bad things at work are it still makes it worth it. Envious... yeah, I'm definitely envious... I want what they have so badly that I can't even escape the desire when I'm asleep. Some days the desire is worse than other but its been pretty bad over the past couple weeks. News about the ex, weddings and engagements seem to fuel the fire. Just tired of being me really...
6/19/02 - 1:31 am Its been a long week already and its barely Wednesday. We have company this week and things are a little stressful around the house. My grandmother is here and she has stage six alzheimers. Because of my schedule I don't get to spend any time with her and my requests for time off have been turned down. There haven't been any problems so far though, at least none that I'm aware of. She gets up every day around 6:30 or 7:00am which isn't a bad thing, but she loves playing with Daisy... which gets Daisy barking... which wakes me up. I think Daisy may be the worst off once she leaves because Gram has played with her almost constantly and Daisy will probably expect the same next week. Work hasn't been that great this week either, mostly because of me not getting enough sleep but also because I'm starting to feel trapped there. I had a job interview with this place that I've wanted to work at for years and it didn't go well. It wasn't because I was overly nervous or anything, it was the guy I was interviewing with was a complete ass. He didn't introduce himself, didn't give me a chance to introduce myself, didn't pay attention to what I was saying, and interrupted the interview three times to do something on his computer. All that added up with arrogant comments like "people that can't cut it here go to my competition and become their best employees" made me glad that I didn't get the job. It did however make me miss working with computers. While I have fought the idea of going back to WVU I've come to realize that I miss that place too much and have started submitting applications for a few positions there. Going back there would actually cost me money and be more of a chance than when I moved home, but I'd rather be single, on my own and working at a job I love than single, living with the parents and working some place just to pay the bills. Mother doesn't want me to go of course, she thinks it would be a mistake but I don't have too many other choices. I've been out of the computer field for almost a year now and I need to take what I can get... and if I can get it in a place I love that's near friends I'll take the chance.
7/10/02 - 2:00 am Not really much going on since my last update. I've been to a few movies over the past few weeks... Minority Report, Sum of All Fears, and Men in Black II. I liked all of them and only had one minor problem with one of the movies. For those of you that have seen Sum of All Fears, did anyone wonder what cell phone company he was using to get such great reception in the middle of a city devastated by a nuclear bomb? He couldn't drive a truck more than a block without dodging fire and falling buildings but his cell phone worked just fine. Anyway, work has been going fine too, nothing spectacular really. The brightest light of recent weeks would have to be my upcoming trip to the beach. I really didn't think I'd get to go this year but I got a surprise invitation a couple weeks ago so I'm heading back down to the Outer Banks this Saturday. This year will be completely different from the other years, more of a family type trip, so no long nights of drinking games or evenings in the hot tub. I am definitely looking forward to going though, maybe even a little more than in years past.
The section below consists of thoughts written while I was on vacation in NC.
7/13/02 - 11:30 pm Well I'm here, down in the Outer Banks again for the sixth straight year. My trip down was the slowest I've ever had taking 6 1/2 hours. I seemed to run into traffic on every route I went on, like when it took me 35 minutes to cross a 3 mile long bridge. But now I'm here and drunk already. The rest of the house hasn't arrived yet so its just me, Doc and Heather. I'm hoping the rest of the week goes this well but I don't think it will.
7/14/02 - 11:50 pm Well, the house is now full. We have me, Doc and Heather, Heather's mom and younger sister, Heather's mom's friend, her 12 year old son, and the son's 12 year old friend. There's a chance that we'll have one more joining us on Wednesday or Thursday but I'm hoping he doesn't show, all the bed are full already. Speaking of beds... I'm sleeping in the top bunk of a bunk bed. Needless to say its been years since I've climbed onto a bunk bed. The bed doesn't bother me so much as sharing the room with a couple. If you know me well enough then you know I don't like being the third wheel and sharing a room with a couple just doesn't feel right. They invited me so they knew this was how it was going to be which means they don't have any problems with it... I'll just have to get over it. Of course my main duty is to help the both of them remain sane this week, something I'm happy to do :) Helping them remain sane may involve a couple of 12 year olds being bound and gagged this week. They've been here less than a day and I can already tell they're going to make things interesting.
7/16/02 - 1:34 am I didn't get a very good night's sleep last night... too much thinking I guess. Its strange how I seem to get up earlier on vacation than I do any other time of the year. Today was a pretty good day though. I managed to drag some of the group down to the Top Dog Cafe today and they seemed to enjoy themselves... even if one of them did order a salad instead of a burger. I think it may be the four of us verses the rest of the house for the rest of the week.
7/16/02 - 11:55 pm Ah... nice and drunk again. I got a much better night's sleep last night but had to deal with a flooded bathroom when I got up. Other than that, it was a long and fairly slow day here. I started playing a little Grand Theft Auto 3 on one of the boy's PS2 today. Its funny that he's allowed to play a game that is nothing but violence, drugs, stealing and prostitutes when he can't even go to the beach without taking a two way radio with him so mom can keep tabs on him. Although the radio is more of an annoyance to her I think. We were made to babysit them today though which I didn't think was very fair... well I should say "made"... the moms just left them with us. I think they would have been mad if we left anywhere without them so I guess we were babysitting.
7/17/02 - 11:00 pm Another long hot day here. Spent a little time down at the beach again today, most of it in the water. That's one thing about coming down this late, the water is a lot warmer. One painful note for today... one of the boys got stung by a jellyfish... in the testicle. If it didn't sound so painful I'd joke more about it. After spending a long afternoon doing absolutely nothing we went to a fairly fancy place to eat. I really wasn't too impressed with the menu but what I ended up getting was extremely good. One of those things I'd like to be able to make but probably shouldn't because its so bad for you. While we were gone, one of the boys decided to spend the last of his vacation money on a lobster for dinner. Ya know... when you're 12 and you decide to spend the last of your money on a lobster for dinner for yourself, I'm willing to bet that you're going to have a weight problem when you're older. After coming back to the house we went down to the beach for a little bit. Sadly, I was the only one drinking which made me feel a bit like an alcoholic, but I don't really care... I only really drink once a year now. Right now while I'm writing this we're watching the news and a story about the guy that sued over the Pledge. If you know much about me you know that I'm not a religious guy... even with that, this guy really bugs me. Basically I think he's an ass. Anyway, back to the beach... things had me a bit sad down there. I wish I could talk about them but I can't. Tomorrow should be pretty good since we're heading down to Howard's.
7/19/02 - 12:12 am Okay, today just wasn't a great day. I spent a lot of today on the road... left at 11:15am and got back to the house at 7:00pm. Being so far up north adds a good bit of time to the trip down to Howard's and it just wasn't worth it. My endeavor to introduce the gang to the joys of Howard's was far outweighed by the heat and the length of the trip. I've finally noticed a pattern in my trips down to Howard's... I always seem to spend the ferry ride down by myself. This year people seemed to be mad at me for dragging them on this insane journey while other years I just seem to be alone for whatever reason. Of course the time alone serves little purpose other than to dwell on things I already know. After we got back from our little trip things did improve. We played a few hands of "Uno"... which alcohol actually seems to improve... and then we talked a bit. Talking only worsened my condition though. My propensity to find compatible and desirable women without regard to the normal male requirements has reared it ugly head yet again. At least this time my own common sense is playing a major role. Enough about that for the time being. Today is the 19th which means its the birthday of two people that at one time or another meant a lot to me. It's going to be a long day.
7/19/02 - 11:22 pm Well, I'm all packed and ready to go. I woke up this morning with a tiny hangover... nothing more than a slight headache and an uneasy stomach. Considering that I drank half a fifth last night I'm surprised it wasn't more severe. Today was a pretty good day for the last day. We started out with a pretty good breakfast at one of the many local breakfast joints. After that I stayed in while most of the house went out and did their own thing for a bit. I half-listened to a surprisingly adult phone conversation while I was watching Blackhawk Down and then had an equally adult conversation afterwards. Its funny how some people seem to grow up in just a year. The rest of the day was pretty much us laying around and packing. We did have some very very good tuna steaks for dinner which surprised the hell out of me since I don't like seafood. I wish someone would have told me before that grilled tuna steaks don't taste anything like tuna from the can. Four of us went for one final swim after dinner where I think I picked up my first ever jellyfish sting. Either its a jellyfish sting and I'm not that allergic to them, or its the largest bug bite I've ever had. As for that other thing... its very interesting. Time for bed... have a long day of driving ahead of me tomorrow.
7/26/02 - 2:36 am Good lord has it been a long week. Work has been pretty hellish since I got back. In some aspects I've improved a lot at work, but in others I've fallen behind. Of course the one's I've fallen behind in I could care less about. The quality of my work is great, but apparently I take a little too long on some calls... usually the ones where I'm fixing someone else's mistakes. I guess that's what I get for actually caring about what I do. Anyway, I'm glad the weekend is almost here even if I don't have anything planned.
8/28/02 - 2:26 am Its been over a month since I've updated my page. I was waiting until I had something really good to report but that something just hasn't happened and most likely won't at this point. It's been a very busy month altogether though. My month began with me getting a new(er) car. I got a 2000 Honda Accord Coupe pretty much just like I wanted. The dealership that I got it from has been a little crappy with me since then though... two parts that were supposedly ordered the day I got the car still haven't arrived. I had the Honda CD player replaced since then and that part arrived in less than seven days. As for other stuff this month... work was barely tolerable over the past two weeks. It was the middle of the month which means payments were overdue and it was a full moon last week which made people really pissy. People were calling with the dumbest, most insignificant, little, piss-ant complaints you can think of. Here's a helpful hint for those of you with a mortgage or future mortgage... if your loan is for $500,000+, and your payments are $4000+ a month, and you never pay on time and always get a $200 late charge... DO NOT call and bitch about the $10 fee you were charged for the copy of the year 2000 1098 form that we sent you once already!! First, your loan is $4000 a month... you can afford $10!! Second, its 2002... why hasn't your rich-ass filed your year 2000 taxes yet?!?!? Third, no I won't "put a rush on it" and no I don't care if you need it now... you've waited 2 years to do your taxes, you can wait another 5 days. Oh, and kids... if your mortgage is due on the 1st but you don't get any late charges until the 16th and your payment arrives on the 17th... don't call and whine that we charged you just because it was "one day late"... it was 16 days late. Okay, I think that will do it for now. The rest of the week is going to be busy and with any luck I'll back over in Mo'town this weekend for opening day of the football season.
9/16/02 - 1:42 pm It was a great weekend... nearly perfect in fact. I finally got the good news that I've been waiting for on Friday. Tomorrow I put in my two week notice and on the first I start my nice new job. It took me a year to get back into the computer field but I finally did it, and with a nice raise too. Went out and celebrated with the parents on Saturday and with a friend tonight. I'm hoping that the next two weeks go by as fast as most weeks do because I'm really looking forward to starting this new job. Eventhough working at Wells Fargo wasn't my dream job it still was a good job with some great people. They weren't single great people, but great people nonetheless. I'm just hoping my new job doesn't totally suck... actually, I'm just hoping that nothing bad happens, I will be on a military base after all. So basically things are finally coming together, got a new car, new job, and I actually have some money for once... just gotta work on the single thing.
9/22/02 - 11:24 pm Wow... two good weekends in a row... I'm going to have to be careful of this may become a habit. Spent most of Saturday with a friend. We did a little road rally then had dinner at UNO's and then went to the The Boure Identity. It was a very good day and ended in an unexpected way... came home to find that a friend from college that I haven't talked to in over a year called. It was too late to call her back so I called her this morning. It was nice hearing from her again and now I have her email and phone number so I might actually be able to keep in touch with her. Starting thinking about this upcoming year's beach trip already, even picked out a house or two. Oh well... only 5 more days at this job then on to the new one :)
10/9/02 - 10:38 pm I've been on the new job for a week and a half now and so far its been pretty good. My specific job has me moving around a lot on base, going where I'm needed and helping departments that have fallen behind or have a special project. What that means is that I have to know about 5 times as many people, buildings and procedures as any of the other techs. It doesn't make the job very stable, at least not right now, but it does mean that I'm very visible and will get to make a lot of contacts. As for other stuff... meh... stuff is stuff.
10/30/02 - 11:25 pm So much has happened in the past few weeks that I've ben too overwhelmed to write much of anything. Of course the biggest news is a few people getting married. I went to one wedding on the 19th and then found out that two other friends got married (to each other) on the 25th. The first wedding wasn't as stressful as I had thought it would be. Thankfully I was sitting with a bunch of non-singing and non-dancing people so I didn't feel awkward at all. It was nice to see some people that I haven't seen in quite a while although the whole single thing was pretty obvious. As for the other wedding... it wasn't stressful at all... mostly because I didn't know about it... no one really did. Oh... and to the two blushing brides who I know both regularly read this page... you both have single sisters (wink wink, nudge nudge). You both know me very well... aren't I a nice guy... would I ever hurt your big/little sis? C'mon, help a guy out will ya ;) As for work, its going great and I love it. I've spent the past week working on this one project and it's been stressful but in a good way. Actually, one of the base's police officers that I had to deal with this week is the older brother of a former high school friend. Other stuff... dad was in a minor car accident (his third in that car in a year) and mother is still trying to recover from her minor surgery. The doctor told her to stay off her foot so she of course cleans the entire house during the week that she was off from work. And she wonders why its red and swollen. Well, two more days and then I get the whole house to myself for the weekend.
11/9/02 - 1:53 pm Silly, silly Wells. I had a chance to go back over to WVU today to see a football game and visit with friends... or I could have gone to see a friend that I haven't seen in almost a year. To make a long story short, I picked the friend I hadn't seen and the trip got canceled literally as I was about to walk out the door. How silly of me to think that planning anything with her would go smoothly. At least I love my job.
11/17/02 - 10:42 pm Eventhough last week was a four day work week it felt like I worked seven days straight. We have this one project that some of us are working on which really should have been completed by now but isn't for one reason or another. One of the major reasons is that there is only two of us that know what to do and only two others assigned to help... and you need at least two people working to get anything done. Problem is that we all have other tickets to work on and can never get together at the same time for more than 30 minutes. Of course this is the kind of work-related stress I love :) As for the rest of the job... we did get some sad news last Tuesday when we got to work. One of the project managers had a massive stroke last Sunday and its unknown if he'll ever be back at this job. He's only 45 so it kinda came to a shock to everyone but the doctors say that because of where the aneurysm was located in his brain that he'll most likely make a full recovery. As for non-work related things... last weekend's canceled trip is causing more problems than I imagined it would. I've known the friend I was going to see for about 5 or 6 years and in all that time I've never mentioned her name in this house. Last Saturday I had to, just in case someone needed to reach me. Well, since then I haven't stopped hearing her name and today mother asked if I was going to invite her to T-day dinner. I learned this lesson years ago... never to mention a female friend's name to my mother but somehow I forgot or thought it would be different this time. Did I mention that I love my job?
11/28/02 - 11:27 pm The past couple days have made me long for the years that I spent by myself at school on T-day. I managed to convince the parents to eat at home again this year as apposed to going out somewhere like they always want to do. And as usual, I didn't eat anything all day so I'd have plenty of room for dinner. Well... I managed to get through only one serving before I was "full"... I just wanted to get the hell away from the table. It didn't take mother long to get into the "I'm sorry you don't have anybody to invite" routine. She even suggested that I ask out the girl that works over at the Italian place (the one that doesn't speak english). Thankfully my dad changed the subject but then I made the mistake of mentioning Jaime (he went for a drive up by where she used to live). Well... then I made an even bigger mistake by telling mom that Jaime has a couple kids. Her exact response was "You mean I could've had two grandchildren by now?" I didn't stop hearing about her until all the dishes were done and I managed to escape upstairs. I am so unbelievably happy that I have to work tomorrow since both of them have the day off. Up until yesterday things really hadn't been going too badly over the past 10 days. Last weekend I went out and saw the new Bond movie with a friend and it wasn't too bad. The highlight of the movie was definitely the new theatre we went to... we finally got a theatre that's actually worth the price of the ticket. The next couple weeks should be pretty good if I get to do what I have planned. Just wish I didn't have to deal with today.
12/8/02 - 11:20 pm Its been a mighty interesting week. One of my co-workers was asked to "go home" on Wednesday for unknown reasons. Within 15 minutes they had taken his ids and keys, begun wiping his computer, cleaned out his desk, and were escorting him off base. He hasn't been officially fired but its doubtful that he will return. Then on Thursday we had a pretty good sized snow storm that closed the base except for "emergency" personnel. We aren't emergency personnel but none of the bosses seemed to know that. Basically, anyone that showed up got paid for 8 hours no matter how long they stayed. In the future only one technician needs to show up... which leaves it to either me or another guy since we're the closest. Of course I stayed there as long as I could since both parents were home. That's one thing that really annoyed me this week, Montgomery County schools announced they were going to be closed on Thursday before a single flake had even fallen on Wednesday night. Talk about a bunch of spoiled little rich wussies. Anyway, I got to go out Friday night with some former co-worker from Wells Fargo and had a lot of fun. All we did was go to the new T.G.I.Friday's here in Frederick and talked but it was still a lot of fun. I'm hoping I get to go out with them a little more often than once every 10 weeks. Saturday wasn't too bad of a day either... went to see Treasure Planet with another friend. It wasn't the best Disney movie but it wasn't the worst either. The theatre was a bit warm and I'm not all that impressed with some of the people that work there but at least we have a place worth the money now. Today was a good day too except when I had my weekly conversation with my friend in Bel Air. She just can't seem to catch a break in life. She handles everything as well as she can and she always manages to survive but nothing ever goes well for her for very long. I'm still hoping to get to see her but I don't think its going to happen this month. Hopefully next weekend will be a good one.
12/16/02 - 12:50 am Okay, before I get into my weekend let me vent a little about what happened here on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday we had a lot of freezing rain. Since Dad took off last week when we got all the snow, he said he didn't want to take off Wednesday too... so he decided to leave for work at 2:30am. Folks... he doesn't have to be at work until 7:30am... he ended up getting there at 3:20am. Anyway, as expected schools were closed on Wednesday which means mother was home again (which I think was dad's real reason for going to work). Thankfully I "had to" go to work so I braved the ice and put in a solid 4 hours work (and got paid for 8). Wednesday ended with the three of us assuming that schools would at least be delayed on Thursday. Well, I woke up Thursday morning at 6:45am to a ringing phone... it was mother telling me to come and pick her up at school. I can hear some of you thinking "if there's a two hour delay then why is she at school at 6:45am?" Good question... you see, when its cold and wet outside there is a chance of ice... which means mother "can't" (read as won't) drive herself to school so she has dad take her. Well now she's at a school with no power, trying to call dad on his cell phone (which he never turns on) to come back to pick her up. As you can guess, she can't get a hold of him so she calls me. Needless to say, I was not happy. Okay, on to this weekend. I had three things I wanted to do this weekend... see a friend from school, go see the new Star Trek movie, and wrap presents. I only got the presents wrapped. The reasons I didn't get to do the other two things were good reasons and I'm certainly not upset about it... I just wish a weekend would go as planned sometime. On the bright side I am going to see the movie Monday night which means I get to escape dinner at home :) I also have plans next weekend to go see my friend in Bel Air. I talked to her tonight and she's doing a lot better than she was last week at this time. This week is going to be a good one at work I think and I'd really love it if it ended with a good weekend.
12/17/02 - 12:10 am Holy crap... two updates in two days!!! Today was a very good day all around. Work felt really good today for some reason. I got several "thank you's" and compliments today for stuff that I've been working on which I sometimes don't know how to handle. I'm hoping the rest of the week goes as well and as fast as today did. After work I went to see the new Star Trek movie with a friend. I really liked this one for some reason although I have no idea how they're ever going to make another Star Trek movie after the way this one ended. I think today was as good as it was because I saw the parents for a grand total of 10 minutes and that I'm so looking forward to this weekend.
12/20/02 - 12:24 am Well, we had our little holiday dinner thing for work last night and it wasn't too bad. I wasn't all that impressed with the food but that place has never really impressed me. Some of us got a pretty nice cash bonus too... although a number of people just got cards. I'm hoping that their bonuses are included in Friday's paycheck because it just doesn't seem right for half the technicians to get money and the other half nothing. I did get to talk to my friend in Bel Air tonight and my trip is still on for Saturday... although I won't be sure that its really on until I'm actually there. Guess we'll have to wait and see.
12/22/02 - 10:31 pm This weekend was just about perfect. I got to see my friend and spend a lot of time with just her... something I haven't done in a long time. I met her incredibly cool roommate and the three of us played "Asshole" for hours. Nothing else terribly eventful happened... I was just happy I got to spend time with her again.