2003 Thoughts

1/1/03 - 10:26 pm Good lord was today ever a long day. I've had two 4 day work weeks in a row so I am really looking forward to a nice normal 5 day week next week... these extra off days are killing me. New Years Eve did not happen like I had hoped, but then it never has. I didn't spend it with my parents so it wasn't horrible but last New Years Eve was much better. I actually heard from the person I spent most of last New Years Eve with although it wasn't the best conversation. She kinda surprised me with something which I'm going to have to ask her about the next time we talk. Still, she made me smile, she always does, and I really needed that today since mother talked about nothing but me being fat and single. As for Xmas... it was a pretty good one this year. The parents were pretty surprised with what I got them and for the first time I was more excited about people opening what I got them rather than me open my presents. Santa still didn't get me what I really wanted but even Santa isn't that good. Time for bed.

1/14/03 - 12:02 am Today was another good day at work but it did lead to my first official complaint. You see, we have this project, a very old project in fact... it will be a year old in Febuary... and I get to work on it tomorrow. I worked on this same project back in November when it was suddenly canceled because it was taking too long to complete. Between then and now all the records of what we did have been tossed and we're basically going to start from scratch. The annoying thing is that now all of the sudden this project is a priority and I'm going to have to redo stuff that I already did once. And to top things off, we have to do things in the most retarded and backwards way. But the real kicker is that we could have done this whole thing while 95% of the base was away on vacation around Xmas and News Years! I so hate having to redo shit that I already did once. Anyway, I sent out the first email for the beach last night and was pretty surprised that the house is full already. I thought I had counted the people correctly before but it actually looks like all the rooms have people in them. Hrm... I just realized its January 14th... I hate how I remember birthdays so well. I'm looking forward to this weekend... with any luck I'll get to go out with the old gang from Wells Fargo on Friday and then I'm going to a computer show with people from work on Saturday. I can't believe that I work with computer technicians and none of them have ever been to a computer show. Time for bed.

1/16/03 - 11:46 pm It's been an extremely busy week at work for some reason. The problems haven't been major but they've been back to back and in some cases the same person has the same problem the next day (although we know it their fault the second time). Tomorrow is Friday though and I'm still looking forward to this weekend. I was hoping to get together with some of the gang from Wells Fargo but we just couldn't work it out for this week. On the bright side, I haven't had to do any of that project I mentioned... of course no one has so its still waiting for me.

1/23/03 - 11:52 pm Well, it has been another busy week at work. I've been at this job long enough now to notice who the trouble callers are. I swear I see the same two or three people's names at least once a week. One individual in particular has at least one call a week, and it isn't always about his machine. Its usually about a machine belonging to someone that works under him that he somehow screwed up. Anyway, like I said, its been very busy at work and for no reason in particular. The next couple weekends shouldn't be too bad, at least if anything goes as planned. Time for bed.

1/25/03 - 11:46 pm Nope, nothing went as planned this weekend... and I found out Friday that my plans for next weekend are canceled too. I kinda figured that next weekend wouldn't happen, I'm just not that lucky. Dinner was interesting tonight... my parents were talking about the "family newsletter" for next Xmas. They said they're going to have to make something up and say I'm dating someone. Not entirely sure what brought this conversation about since we have never sent out a family newsletter before. Nothing like two unpleasant days in a row to bolster your spirits. Maybe Sunday will be better.

1/26/03 - 10:02 am Well, I didn't get much sleep last night. Have no idea why, I just kept waking up every 30 minutes or so. I did have a pretty good dream though so that will start today off on a better foot.

1/26/03 - 11:00 pm It was a pretty good day after all. The Super Bowl was less than spectacular this year but the commercials were pretty good. I got a call from my friend tonight which pretty much made my weekend. I haven't talked to her in a couple weeks and she wasn't home when I called earlier so I was surprised when she called me back. She gave me some news which made me a little sad but does free up some room for the beach. So... eventhough my weekend started out like crap and nothing went like it was supposed to it did end pretty well. Some friends just make you feel like that I guess.

2/2/03 - 1:17 am It was a long and sad day today. I spent a lot of it getting ready for my conference this week but also watched most of the coverage on the Columbia disaster. I did get to spend some time with a friend and her younger sister today which was a welcome break from the rest of the day. Well, off to bed. No updates until at least the 6th.

2/9/03 - 9:13 pm Well now... wasn't this weekend just craptastic. My week down in Baltimore at the Command Conference was great. It was an extremely busy week... met some pretty important military people, got to work with some great people, practiced some skills I haven't used in a while, and managed to impress the higher-ups on base. By Thursday evening I had put in 52.5 hours so I decided to take most, if not all of Friday off. Well... it snowed Friday which meant school was canceled, which meant mother was home, which meant I wasn't going to get a "day off". She asked me 6 times in less than two hours to shovel the driveway... 5 of those times before I even had the chance to shower. First off, asking me once is enough. Second, the next five times she asked me it was followed by something like "aren't you going to do anything today" or "don't you think you've slept long enough." She knew full well that I didn't get much sleep during the week. She knew that Friday was supposed to be a day off for me. Third, what's the rush to shovel it anyway, we all know she isn't going to drive her car anywhere because of the snow. Anyway, I ended up going to work by noon without shoveling the driveway... if she hadn't asked me for the sixth time as I was heading down the stairs to shovel it I still would have done it. Anyway, she got a little pissed and I left. I could only stand a couple hours at work because she had pretty much ruined my day and not even work was going to make it better. So that started off my weekend to be as craptacular as it was. I did go see "Shanghai Knights" today which was a good movie and got me out of the house for a while. Hopefully this week will go well and lead into a good weekend next weekend... even if it is the dreaded V-day weekend.

2/17/03 - 10:27 am I made it through another V-day. The days leading up to V-day were not so good this year for some reason. Since then though, things haven't been too bad. I went to a computer show on Saturday and got the last parts of my new system and then went to see "Daredevil" with some friends Saturday evening. And then the snow started... As of right now we have 26'' of snow. The Governor issued a ban on all travel yesterday but that has expired now. Dad and I still have a lot of shoveling to do before we can even make it to the street. Of course Adelphia had to go down last night so I was without internet access until this morning. So today is going to be pretty boring since I can't really go anywhere, and even if I could, everything is still closed.

2/20/03 - 10:27 pm I managed to make it into work on Tuesday after about an hour or so of shoveling... the plow never did make it on Monday so we basically had to shovel the court. Work was slow until today when it picked up for no particular reason. I'm hoping that tomorrow is slow again so I can work on my new system. I didn't get much sleep last night... couldn't fall asleep and then I woke up with a headache after having a very unpleasant dream. If I were a normal guy I would have called it a good dream but I'm not and it just made me sad all morning. But, it was a good day overall and someone cheered me up tonight like they usually do so I can't really complain.

2/27/03 - 9:23 pm Oh good lord am I tired. Work has been insanely busy the last two days. It hasn't been bad at all though, I actually like it this busy. But work isn't why I'm tired... I haven't been getting anything close to "a good night's sleep" in over a week now. I've gone to bed fairly early just about every night and end up tossing and turning until after 1am. And then there have been the crappy dreams and ever present nightmare. I doubt most males would think that my dreams were bad but they have just been making me sad. This time of the year doesn't help anything either... I hate how I remember dates so well. Hopefully this weekend will be okay and I can get some sleep. I'm meeting the old gang from Wells Fargo tomorrow night for drinks which I hope will cheer me up. On the beach front, the list stands at 9 confirmed and 2 on the fence. Its gonna be a good year this year.

3/3/03 - 11:47 pm I'm still tired. More bad dreams along with a slowly forming cold are keeping me from getting much sleep. Today was a very long day at work too. We didn't get any new tickets to speak of but some ongoing tickets are really giving me a headache. But to tell the truth, even the pain-in-the-ass tickets don't bother that much. One of my co-workers today told me that he's getting a divorce. He's only 23 and has been married for about 3 years. I just don't get the whole divorce thing. That little bit of info really got me down today, so much so I came home and took a long nap. It didn't help much, except now I am down but a little less tired. The rest of this month is going to be extremely busy for various reasons.

3/18/03 - 10:22 pm What a difference a couple days make. I was in a great mood last week... even on Friday which was a surprise. It was a good week, I made some important decisions and was feeling good about them. I even got to visit some friends over in Mo'town and have some fun. Today things are different. I haven't slept well over the past couple nights... dreams of someone from my past keep visiting me. I'm also regretting one of my decisions from last week which in turn is sapping my will to follow through on the other ones. I'm hoping that I'm just panicking over nothing but only time will tell... specifically the next few days. This weekend is definitely going to be very busy but I have no idea if its going to be a good weekend or a bad weekend.

3/25/03 - 12:14 am Well, last week royally sucked. I was worried about one decision last week and my worries were well justified. No need to go into details here... if you know me well enough you probably know what I'm talking about. Needless to say, we now only have 6 people going to the beach and 5 on the fence. What can I say, sometime you have to take a chance to be happy... unfortunately I have bad luck with taking chances. So things are as close to normal as they can be for now. On the bright side, now that I've stopped losing sleep over that decision I am resolute to follow through on the other one. As a result, I may close my webpage for a while... got some stuff to go though on my own so I won't be post anything here anyway.

The section below consists of thoughts written while I was on vacation in NC.

6/1/03 - 1:28 am Once again I am on vacation at the beach... back to the "normal" week, although possibly for that last time. My day began at 7am and we were on the road at 8:45am. We got to the house around 3:45pm which was excellent time considering the nasty weather we drove in and the extra hour we added on by stopping for gas, food, and alcohol. The house is nice but I was a little disappointed at first because a lot of stuff seemed broken or dirty. For a house that is only 3 years old, the carpet looks very spotted and there are an awful lot of marks on the walls. But the house is growing on me and I'm very happy my current guests are here. Once again I find myself surrounded by undescribable beauty on all levels but for the first year in a long time, I'm not the only non-couple here. Yeah, they're all attached to someone but that really doesn't matter since that someone isn't here and I don't have to worry about providing anyone with enough "alone time" like in years past. Already I've been to Top Dog, been in the hot tub, and been fairly tipsy... and that's just day one with a lot of shity weather and 7 hours of driving. Still... I find myself thinking about the friends that couldn't make it and about what would make things perfect...

6/1/03 - 7:08 pm It's been a good day so far. Went and had a good breakfast at the Froggy Dog then did a little grocery shopping. Came back, went swimming, watched a little tv, generally just sat around and enjoyed the nice weather. The women are out having dinner at the moment, I wasn't too hungry and I figured they'd like to do something without me around. I went for a quick run after they left, trying to work off breakfast. It was good except for the guy that kept throwing bread into the street that I was running on... every seagull within a mile was either circling or on the street. Some people just have no consideration for others I guess... or he's an ass and wanted to see me dodge 50 birds. Other stuff... its been brought up a couple times already this week about the time mother asked me if I was gay several years back. While the incident is nothing but a joke now, having it brought up in present company is making me feel strange. I'm not sure how to describe it but its like instead of it being a man and three women here, its Wells and three women. I know its a double edged sword... on one hand everyone is comfortable with me which I love, but at the same time I don't feel like a guy. Anyway, I'm hoping that the rest of tonight goes well...

6/3/03 - 1:03 am Well, last night did not go as I had hoped. Today was a good day up until the end again. Went down to the beach for the first time and got slightly burned on my arms... which is what I wanted. Made my oatmeal-chicken recipe and while no one had any, everyone seemed to like how it smelled. That was fine of course since we went to Howard's Pub for dinner and not having a big lunch was a good idea. Our conversation on the way back somehow ventured into my love-life or lack thereof. It was suggested that I try online dating... of which I am already a seasoned veteran. I was pretty disappointed after we got back from Howard's because I was hoping to play some drinking games but no one else was in the mood. I suppose I shouldn't be so excited about drinking games anymore, but it just doesn't feel right drinking shot after shot just for the hell of it. Took a quick walk down to the beach after everyone else went to bed... nothing special. Tuesday will be a day of mixed emotions... it will be the last day for two people and two more will arrive late in the evening. Time for bed.

6/4/03 - 1:47 am Today was the last day here for two of my friends. My day didn't start out very well thanks to a bad dream from last night. After getting up and having a quick lunch, me at the two that were leaving headed to the Wright Brothers Museum. It was more interesting than I thought it would be... although I wondered why they need to build a hanger that is 20 times larger than the Wright Brothers original hanger to reconstruct their flyer. Anyway, after a long day of site seeing, driving, shopping, and dinner, we made it back here. Shortly after we got back, the last two people for this week arrived. I finally got to play some real drinking games and with everyone in the house... something I wasn't expecting. Anyway, I'm nicely drunk now so with any luck I won't have any bad dreams or nightmares tonight.

6/5/03 - 12:34 am Have you ever done that thing where you make a wish at 12:34? I seem to notice the clock a lot at 12:34 lately and I always make a wish... childish I know but I could use the luck. Anyway, I didn't have any bad dreams last night thanks to about 12 or so shots. I woke up early today as usual after drinking and saw off two of the house guests. I think I missed them even before they left. The rest of the day was spent inside because of the crappy weather. We had a good home-cooked dinner before we went for a walk on the beach. The whole walking on the beach thing still makes me sad... I inevitably see some happy couple walking along and I wish it were me. Oh, well... maybe one of these lifetimes I'll get lucky like that. Not much drinking going on after we got back but I did play some cards. Thursday is another day.

6/6/03 - 1:04 am Well, tonight was the last night of drinking for the week. Only three of us did any drinking but it was all good since I managed to get nicely drunk. The week is now over for all intents and purposes and in retrospect it was a good week. Not the best but better than most weeks down here. While I'm sad that I don't have anyone to share this king sized bed with, I am happy that I was surrounded by such amazing beauty all week. It's one of those small things that makes me happy but the small things are all I have. Time for bed again.

6/6/03 - 11:35 pm Well, this year's vacation is over. It was brought up again to me tonight about the online dating thing. We talked about the luck that one of us has had with one particular website and it made me a bit sad. Exactly what is it that women find more attractive about vain, lying, drug using, formerly drug dealing ex-criminals anyway? I guess that whole "looking for a nice guy" thing is just a myth or a lie. Anyway, this year is over and I'm already looking towards next year. We will most likely be getting a different week next year because some people have requested it. Next year will probably be my last year though unless more people come and I'm in a relationship. It just too hard to keep doing this single thing at the beach and now that no one is interested in drinking down there, I have little to look forward to.

6/9/03 - 12:18 am I'm back home after a very annoying drive yesterday. My trip back as very fast until I got to 95 when it slowed to a crawl thanks to accidents and lots of rain. It didn't take mother long yesterday to ask if I met anyone new (as in single) at the beach... or if anyone I went with was single. She didn't hesitate for a second when I mentioned the extremely-recently divorced friend that went. I made the mistake some years ago of bringing this friend back here and my mother never stopped asking about her until I told her she was married. Guess I'll have to hear her name for a few more years again now that she single again. As for my little hiatus from the webpage thing... I'm back. I'm still dealing with what I've been dealing with but to a lesser extent now. Still have a long ways to go though. I'm very happy to be back to work tomorrow but have a feeling its going to be a very busy day.

6/13/03 - 11:18 pm It was an interesting first week back at work. This week was the last week for the lead person at the helpdesk, the next to last week for one of the other tier II techs from another group, and possibly the last full week for a tech in my group. So two are gone for sure and a third might be... which could make things very interesting until new people get hired. Too bad I don't know any computer techs in the area... they'd have a job for sure. Anyway, it was a fairly slow week which I was happy about since I was sick for most of it and didn't really feel like doing much of anything. I did get to have lunch with a friend on Tuesday which was a welcomed change. Found out that she's have a house-warming party the 4th of July weekend... which kinda sucks since that's always the family party weekend and I'm expected to attend this year... now that I have a real job and am less embarrassing. Of course I'm the oldest member of the family still not married and still without kids so they still have that. Oh well... every day is a new day I guess.

6/15/03 - 7:34 pm Well, it was Father's Day weekend and everything with dad went well. Things with mother though... Its been a while since I've sat down to a meal with them so I haven't had to deal with this, but the three of us had lunch yesterday and dinner tonight and she just couldn't help but bring up ex-girlfriends and women from my past that she thought were cute. I've told her not to bring it up, not to mention it but she just can't get it through her head. This could have been a good weekend.

6/22/03 - 11:08 pm It was a fairly dull but good weekend here. The parents were out of town so I had two peaceful days without them around. Went to a fairly dull computer show on Saturday but I did get to meet a "boss" of mine of sorts. Also had lunch with a former co-worker from WFHM. On to things that annoy me. For those of you that haven't heard, The National Network (TNN) decided to remake itself and was set to launch its new lineup on June 16th under the name "Spike TV." Well, it didn't happen. Why you ask, because Spike Lee decided that "Spike TV" would confuse people into thinking that somehow he was affiliated with it and therefore damage his name. Mr. Lee (I'm stripping him of his nickname because its way too cool for an asshat like him) filed a restraining order against TNN and has successfully been able to keep them from renaming themselves. First off, Mr. Lee's name is not "Spike" and have never been "Spike." Second, how ANYONE could think that Mr. Lee would have ANYTHING to do with a network that shows Ren and Stimpy and a cartoon called Stripperella that's about a stripper/superhero is probably too stupid to work their tv remote anyway. Third, it isn't like he's the only "Spike" in existance... in fact, if you asked me to name a famous "Spike" he certainly wouldn't be in the top three (Spike Jones, and two cartoon dogs named Spike). Hell... I'd name the Golden Spike driven into the ground that joined the Union-Pacific Railroad before I'd name him. Okay... I had something else to bitch about too but I'll hold off on that.

6/26/03 - 10:34 pm Its been an interesting week at work so far and tomorrow could get messy. First we needed someone to go over to another department for three days to fill in for someone that left. Well, there are only two people that are technically allowed to do that, me and "the new guy." I was busy with about 600 other things so it was the new guy's turn. Unfortunately, the last time he was over there he made some people unhappy and isn't allowed back. Me and this guy are the designated "floaters" which means we go where there is a shortage of techs or if someone needs a hand on a project or something. Its a position I'm proud of because it means having to get along with just about anyone on base at a moments notice. If you aren't allowed to "float" somewhere then you aren't really doing your job are you? If in the one time you had been to a location before you managed to piss them off so much that you aren't allowed back, you may not be suited for you job. I like this guy but he is the only person in the past nine months that anyone has had a complaint about. So basically, another tech was forced to go over and fill in... and she's been sitting on her ass most of the time because there really isn't that much for her to do. Then we have the guy who doesn't understand the concept of "the boss." When the boss tells you to do something, you do it. You don't tell him to make someone else do it and you definitely don't force the boss to do it himself, especially when you have nothing to do and the boss still has two calls to get done. Still, I love my job. As for other stuff... I have a friend taking his nursing boards tomorrow and he's a bit stressed about it. Personally, I think he'll do fine but I think he's studied so much that he gotten himself into a panic about it. This weekend needs to be half decent because next weekend is the family 4th of July party and its going to be nothing but stress and people asking "where's your girlfriend." On that topic, the online thing is not going well and adding a picture to your profile does not get you more responses.

7/4/03 - 9:58 pm It seemed like a very long week eventhough I only had four days of work. Unfortunately I spent three of those days waiting by the phone for one particular person to call me back. I've sent emails, called him, and even my boss has called him but still no response. This guy is holding up three tickets that I have and it's really pissing me off. Other than that there has been a little tension at work between the boss and one particular underling. The underling wants the boss' job and seems to be volunteering info to the higher-ups and all the "bad stuff" the boss is doing. Of course the underling did take a two hour lunch one day and didn't make up his time... which he didn't think the boss knew about. I don't know why the higher-ups would ever give him my boss' job anyway... everyone knows he always looking for a new job and is going to bail the first chance he gets. Hell... he even has all of his personal stuff packed in a box already. The week did have it's good parts though. It started last weekend with a visit to my friend's new house. I loved it, wish we had a house like that... or maybe just me. On Tuesday night I talked to another friend online and she invited me down to Ocean City the first week of September which made me extremely happy since she didn't get to go to the beach. Today I got a brief visit from a friend from WV. I was good to see her again but I really need to get back over to WVU to visit some more people. She invited me over towards the end of the month to keep her company for a weekend while her husband is away ;) Of course I still have to survive this weekend and the family 4th of July party tomorrow. Eight hours of driving to spent five hours with people that have the power to piss me of in less than 30 seconds. We'll see how it goes.

7/5/03 - 10:58 pm I'm back... I made it... the single/girlfriend/married thing only came up every 45 seconds... somebody fucking kill me please... pictures forthcoming.

7/12/03 - 12:30 am I didn't think that this week would go very well but it wasn't too bad. It was kinda slow for me because I spent a good bit of it waiting for one person to call... which he finally did... too bad it didn't actually accomplish anything. I did hear some good news though... someone got his nursing license and is now an RN. Now if I could only get over to WV to help him celebrate. My week did end on a couple good notes... managed to buy the co-workers lunch on-the-sly and they didn't give me too much shit about it (not that I gave them time to). I also went out with some of the old gang from WFHM tonight. It was good hearing about the old job... some things have changed but a lot hasn't... so very glad I have the job I have. I'm still recovering from last weekend's family party, and still cropping the pics from it... not to mention the ones from the beach. That's the only bad thing about a digital camera... lots more pictures to edit. Well, gotta go cruise the personals... g'night.

7/22/03 - 11:41 pm It's been a busy life since my last update. Work has been going well as usual but the next month or so is going to be interesting. One of our long-time techs is leaving tomorrow for his new job and in less than a month another tech in my group will be leaving us. Of course the one guy that everyone wants to leave hasn't left yet... he's still in the far-too-long interview process and knowing his personality he won't get the job. The parents are on vacation this week so its just me and the dog. It's nice when they're away... kinda like a vacation for me too :) I have a trip over to WVU planned for the weekend after this one and I'm really excited about it... been far too long since I've been there. Overall things are going well for once... but that's all I'm going to say... no need to piss off fate by getting all optimistic ;)

7/26/03 - 2:14 am I don't think I have the words to describe today. Work was good overall... it had its good moments and its bad moments but I solved all the problems I ran into so I don't have any complaints. I did get invited to go out tonight to shoot some pool with some co-workers. I had an okay time... saw an ex-girlfriend... found out that the ex-girlfriend and current co-worker went to the same high school... and that the co-worker was in a color guard that two friends once instructed. Small world eh? Anyway, I was interested in the co-worker but I don't think its at all mutual after tonight, she's a little young and just not looking for what I'm looking for I guess. Still, it would have been nice to "win the girl" for once. I thought I had a shot early on but I was under the impression that she was seeing someone so I didn't make any advances... probably a good thing. For once I'm hoping that this weekend goes fast so I can get through next week and finally get back over to school. I just hope that trip goes well, I pretty much need it to. Anyway, I'm a bit drunk and a little down so I should probably go to bed.

7/31/03 - 12:05 am It has been an insanely busy week at work. Not because there are a ton of calls to do, but because the boss is on vacation and the man in charge for the week has his own (and completely retarded) way of doing things. Example... I have 4 calls to do... everyone else has 1 or 2... who should get the next call? Intelligent people would say one of the people with 1 call... he says I should because I'm "next in line." Another example... Tech "A" is in Building "X" working on a call when another call comes in for Building "X" that involves picking up a computer and bringing it back to the shop. Should the call be given to Tech "A" who is already in Building "X" or should it be given to the "next in line" so he/she has to take 15 minutes and drive to Building "X"? I think you can figure out what happened and who got that call. Then we have the fact that the boss-O-the-week has taken almost an hour extra in lunch time in just three days. And he wonders why he wasn't made lead tech instead of the current boss. Still... eventhough he's an ass it has been a good week. I can't wait for this weekend though... so much planned.

8/3/03 - 11:41 pm The weekend didn't go exactly as I had hoped but I did get to see everyone I wanted to see and spent some quality time with them. Friday night was a bit slow but that was fine since I had a long day of work and driving in me already. Saturday seemed like a very long day but it was still very good. Started off meeting a friend at the mall where we talked for a while. Two other friend met us there and we kinda walked around and did some shopping. Saturday night was a lot of fun. Met up with a friend and got to meet her brother for the first time... after hearing about him for about 6 years. Her mother and brother are still the only two I've met... haven't met her other brother and father yet for some reason. Anyway, it was a good night even if it did leave me with a bit of a hangover this morning. Looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow and to my next trip in 4 weeks.

8/10/03 - 12:10 am It's been a pretty good weekend so far despite things not going as well as I had hoped. Went out Friday night with some co-workers to have a couple beers and shoot some pool. We went to Lucas McCain's for a while and it made me feel a little better about myself... there were some mighty fugly people there. I had a long lunch with one of the co-workers this afternoon. We talked for over two hours and it was a very wonderful and welcome change to my usual Saturday routine. Anyway, it was still a good lunch and it did get some things out in the open... mostly our mutual dislikes for certain co-workers. The past two days have helped me get over a fairly stressful week at work that began with a certain co-worker accusing me of not doing my job and ended with a boss that took issue with me wanting to do my job too well. Hopefully Sunday will be a good day...

8/11/03 - 8:30 pm Okay... long story today. The short version is that I and two co-workers came extremely close to getting fired today but got off with probation. Here's the long version... if you've read this page over the last couple weeks then you know that there have been some issues at work, with one co-worker in particular. The three of us involved in today's incident failed to appreciate exactly how far this co-worker would go to cause us problems. Work began today like any other day but around 10am the project manager came to get me. Needless to say I was a bit scared when he said he wanted to talk privately with me. And that fear only got worse when I walked into the conference room and saw a company president, a company vice-president, and two project managers sitting there waiting for me. They showed me the email that had been sent to them (with the sender's name blacked out) accusing us of working on personal computers, for pay, on the government's time, using the government's resources. I was singled out for reassigning tickets to other people so I could work on these personal systems. Needless to say, the accusations were a bit exaggerated. Yes, we did work on personal computers but never during company time and never using the government network. Funny thing about this is that the author of the email also worked on personal computers too however they failed to mention that. The bit about me reassigning tickets is completely false. What I have done is to refuse to take tickets when I have twice as many as other people and they are sitting around doing nothing while I'm working. So now its all out in the open... the author of the email has made they're issues known and the three of us have admitted our mistakes and will be watching our backs for a while. Back to work tomorrow.

8/12/03 - 11:05 am Today sucked. It didn't suck in the scared-out-of-my-mind way like yesterday but in the I-can't-believe-I-have-to-put-up-with-this-asshole kind of way. The co-worker (herein referred to as Asshat) that caused our problems was very nice to everyone today which everyone absolutely hates. Ever meet someone that when they are being nice to you its the completely fake and overbearing kind of nice? That's what this guy is like. Now that one of us has been demoted temporarily, Asshat really feels like he has some power and since the temporary boss isn't in our office, he's basically in charge. Today Asshat took almost a 2 hour lunch with the president of the company so they could discuss a web design project he wants Asshat to do for him. I seriously doubt that Asshat paid for his own lunch which means he has been compensated for another job while on company time... which is exactly what we got in trouble for. Anyone see the irony? Okay, I need to hit the sack... I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be another long one.

8/15/03 - 12:00 am The last two days have been okay as far as work goes. I've had enough to do to keep me busy and keep Asshat off my radar. Funny thing did happen today though... Asshat tried to invite me and one of the other guys he screwed over out to lunch. That takes some serious balls folks... to almost get someone fired and then three days later invite them out to lunch with you. Speaking of lunch, tomorrow (or I guess I should say today) is one of my co-workers' last day and we are taking her out to our favorite wing place for lunch. Unlike other going away lunches, this one only has a few select people invited... like our helpdesk, our group of techs, and some of the co-worker's favorite people on base. Happily, we were able to avoid inviting the bosses... and given recent events, lunch probably will be a much happier time without them. Unfortunately, we were unable to get away with not inviting Asshat... I can guarantee that lunch would be a lot more fun without him there... especially since at least 12 of the 14 people going have a strong dislike for him. I am really going to miss this co-worker after she's gone. She was great to work with and always very nice... at least to me... plus it was nice having a female in the tech room to keep the boys in check. On the bright side, she has promised to come down twice a month on Fridays to go to Jay Birds with us. I am also hoping to go out again tomorrow night with some co-workers... and as you can imagine, I really need to vent after the week I've had.

8/19/03 - 12:15 am We didn't get to go out on Friday night so my weekend was fairly boring overall. I actually went to work for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday to finish some stuff I didn't get to do on Friday... I'm surprised I haven't been snitched on for working on government stuff on my personal time yet. Today was so busy that I didn't have time to sit around and be mad at Asshat. I've actually calmed down quite a bit though, far more than one co-worker that is still very pissed about the whole thing. On the bright side, it seems that we have another person that really does not want to see Asshat get promoted... I think that makes 12 against, 3 that don't care, and 0 that would like to see him promoted. A friend of mine suggested making a new section on my page called "Chronicles of Asshat" kind like one of my favorite pages, "The Chronicles of George." I like the idea... maybe I'll steal his webpage and make a parody out of it.

8/24/03 - 11:34 pm I didn't go out again on Friday... there were multiple reasons though. The two people I would have been out with weren't going out until 9 or 10pm, plus I had to get up early on Saturday, plus I would have just been a third wheel anyway. It was for the best, especially since my Saturday turned out to be extremely busy. Last week wasn't too bad of a week all things considered. The new guy in the tech room is a very nice guy and seems to know what he's doing. I was hoping that we'd be able to keep our feelings toward Asshat to ourselves in front of him for a while, at least until he formed his own opinion, but he spent his first day over at the Helpdesk and they made their feelings known. He's already noticing Asshat's qualities as it is so I don't think we have to worry about him. Asshat was sickeningly nice to everyone again this week. He even came to lunch with us on Friday, which is a rarity for him. I certainly didn't enjoy lunch as much as I usually do with him there. It was funny though when he tried to offer his web development skills to someone there that really doesn't like him. It was hard for me not to laugh because the person he asked has no problems telling you how he feels about you. A small part of me feels bad for Asshat, but with any luck, that part will be killed off at the beach with copious amounts of alcohol. My boss still doesn't know if he'll be getting his old job back but I'm hoping that he returns to the tech room this week. We've missed having him gone and I think we'll be needing him this week since one of the others is on vacation. This week should be an okay week at work but I am expecting it to drag on since I'm looking forward to the weekend.

8/29/03 - 11:57 pm Holy crap was that ever a long ass week! I was busy for parts of it but not busy enough to make my days go any faster. I did get picked to take on some additional duties at work, which makes me extremely happy given recent events. I'll basically be in charge of keeping a small but important group of computers up to date with the latest software and updates. Sounds easier than it is since most of the software is proprietary military stuff and making one mistake usually screws everything up. Still, I'm looking forward to it. As for the next week, I can't wait to get down to the beach tomorrow. I'm all packed and ready to hit the road by 9am at the latest. If I'm not too drunk maybe I'll post some updates while I down there.

The section below consists of thoughts written while I was on vacation in Ocean City MD.

8/31/03 - 1:45 am Well, I'm at the beach again... for the second time this year. So far I only know one person here but the six new people I've met are all extremely nice and easy to get along with. We played a few rounds of "asshole" tonight and I got a little drunk so the week is starting out very well. We have a bunch more people coming down tomorrow so things should be interesting... and more fun. I wish people could stay longer though... a good portion of them will be gone by Tuesday. Time for me to hit the sack I think. I was a lightweight tonight but considering that I only had two slices of pizza and some beef jerky today, I think I did quite well. One of the fifths of JC I brought is almost gone already :)

9/1/03 - 2:20 pm Last night was almost a perfect night. The only thing that didn't make it perfect was the amount of tequila I had... as in far too much. We went out to a bar, had a few, a couple of us got a little crazy, then we came back and continued drinking. We all had enough to get us talking fairly freely and honestly which at the time was a great thing but now that its "the next morning" at least one of us is regretting some things that were said. I'm not sure what things though... nothing I heard was bad. Of course now that I've had time to recover and think about how good last night was I've managed to get myself depressed because I know I'll never have one of those nights again. I think the rest of today will be spent recovering and trying to be happy.

9/2/03 - 2:39 am The rest of today was okay but very very slow. I only had one beer today because of the hangover. Some people left today but we got some more in to replace them. The replacements are a bit young but still good people. Maybe "young" isn't the right word, I think "outgoing" would be better. They definitely have more energy and spirit than I did at their age... and that wasn't too long ago.

9/2/03 - 8:10 pm It's been another slow one here so far. The two guys that arrived yesterday are gone already but not until after some damn funny moments. We just got done having an excellent dinner prepared by our host for the week. I think that our host is a lot like me when it comes to personality. I don't know if that's a totally good thing or not yet since I know how I am and know what my life is like. Still, nice to have a kindred spirit around. Things have been a little stressed for me since Monday morning... I can't figure out if I upset someone important to me on Sunday night or not. I know I didn't do anything but I don't know if I said something wrong or not. Of course it's entirely possible that my mere presence did the trick. And then again maybe I'm imagining everything and nothing is wrong between us at all. We'll have to see how tonight and the rest of the week goes.

9/3/03 - 3:44 am The games for this evening looked like they were going to be fun. We started out with "Beer Pong" but one person didn't want to play at all and three others couldn't handle their beer after just a few games. After that we tried "Queen's a Bitch" but we barely made it through one game before we lost someone. We moved on to "Asshole" but only got through 3 games before we lost one of our 4 players. Things basically disbanded after that. The folks that were left sat outside and talked. Needless to say, I didn't get as drunk as I wanted to and no one else got nearly as drunk as me. Time for bed.

9/4/03 - 2:49 am It was an extremely slow and horribly boring day today. The weather sucked for most of the day which seemed to affect most of the house. We were supposed to go out to eat this evening but by the time everyone had their late lunches and afternoon naps it was far too late to go out. I thought the evening was starting to look good when we played a few board games then went out and played a quick game of touch football. After the game we came in and started to do some shots but that didn't last very long. I'm still trying to get everyone to reach the same level of drunkenness as Sunday night but my hopes of that are fading fast.

9/5/03 - 4:12 am Today went as planned for the most part. We planned on going to an all-you-can-eat crab dinner around 4pm but we didn't get going until around 6pm. We were watching a movie and the weather sucked so badly that we all would have been soaked trying to get to the cars if we had actually gone at 4pm. The dinner was good although I had way too many ribs. My plan to pay for dinner did work out despite some grumbling from the others. What can I say... sometimes my need to be happy by being nice to others outweighs their dislike of me being nice to them... suck it up kids. We came back to the house and played some beer pong after a short rest. After that was over we had another break and then played a game of "Spades." The other team won but I didn't think we did too badly for having a total rookie on our team (me). Of course one of the members of the other team did quite a bit of gloating afterwards... of course my team didn't gloat after winning beer pong. Friday should be an interesting day, mostly because I need to talk to someone about this past Sunday night. Time really flew by tonight so I need to hit the sack.

9/6/03 - 1:56 am Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. I got up late because of last night but almost immediately went down to the beach. I was down there for about two hours which is a record for me I think... and most of that time was me laying on the beach. I tried swimming a bit today but the ocean was very rough so I could only take about 10 minutes before I felt like I was going to drown on every wave. Five of us went out to eat this evening to a nice little place on the bay side. Its weird but ever since I went on my diet I've been more willing to try new things... which could be a problem... but tonight I had flounder for the first time and it was very good. I have to admit though, all fish taste the same to me still. Anyway, we came back and spent the rest of the night finishing of as much alcohol as we could. It was a very good night since I now know where a certain someone is ticklish :) All in all it was an extremely good week... as close to perfect as I can get. See you back home.

9/7/03 - 10:43 pm Well, I'm back home and more than ready to head back to work tomorrow. I got back around 3:30pm yesterday and have heard the same questions from mother over and over again. "Yes" I met new people at the beach. "Yes" some of them were women. "No" nothing happened and nothing will ever happen. Mother hasn't stopped mentioning a certain someone's name since I got back despite her knowing that it pisses me off and that nothing would ever develop anyway. This is why I don't mention the names of females in the house... mother constantly brings them up as possible girlfriends. She's even done it with people that have gotten married... nice message mother. Anyway... back to work tomorrow... I'll even be happy to see Asshat... especially after my probation ends this week.

9/9/03 - 11:33 pm It feels so good to be back at work! I was really down after I got home from vacation and it felt so good to be busy at work... took my mind off of a lot of things. Not much happened while I was away except that things got mighty tense between Asshat and at least two other co-workers. Funny thing happened yesterday though... Asshat left a half hour early to go on a job interview. He fibbed to the boss about why he needed to leave early so I don't think the boss liked it too much when he found out. And I know he didn't appreciate seeing that Asshat had packed up his desk already... meaning he's going to split as soon as he gets the job and not give his two weeks notice. I came in this morning and didn't see his truck so I was really hoping he got the job and didn't come in but I was wrong. Part of me wants him to get it so he can be gone... but part of me wants him to be stuck here and be miserable... at least long enough to find out that he isn't getting promoted. Anyway, today was a very busy day so I didn't have to deal with him much. And tomorrow is my last day on probation :)

9/11/03 - 11:37 pm It was such a good day today!! I was officially off of my probation today and it felt so good not to have to watch my back so closely anymore. But that wasn't what made my day so great... it was the fact that Asshat got into a bit of trouble today. I don't know all the details but it had something to do with the network admins not being able to scan his system and him working on an outside project on government time (sound familiar?). The outside project thing is just ironic (or hypocritical depending on how much you know) but the fact that the admins can't scan his system means he has them blocked, which is a HUGE no-no. I was told afterwards that he thinks that one of us (the three that he ratted on) is trying to frame him... which is absolutely hilarious not to mention a very weak attempt for him to cover himself. Anyway, tomorrow should be very interesting since we are having lunch at our usual place and the person that actually turned Asshat in (and it wasn't one of the three of us) is going to be there.

9/16/03 - 11:56 pm Its been a very long few days. My weekend did not go well again, mostly because I don't have anything to look forward to now that my beach trip is over. Mother really got on my nerves again this weekend by asking me yet again if I met anyone new at the beach. As if I forgot about that busload a attractive single women that stayed with us all week and then suddenly remembered it this weekend. She know what it does to me when she brings shit like that up... and she even said it... "You don't like it when I talk about relationships"... but then she keeps talking about them!! Thankfully, work has cheered me up quite a bit but not as much as I had hoped. Asshat basically got nothing but a slap on the wrist for what happened to him last week. We think that he's being moved to another department soon because management realizes that he's the problem with morale. Of course the department they're moving him to is the same one that his partner in the non-government webpage project works in. Doesn't make any sense to me... but then neither does not firing a guy that's been kicked out of two other departments. Still... we think he'll be gone soon.

9/20/03 - 11:46 pm The weekend is half over and its been pretty damn good so far. I got to go out last night with a co-worker and her friends. I was hoping to play pool but it didn't take me long to stop caring about that since I was having fun just sitting there and talking. We seemed to talk a lot about work and our mutual hatred for several people on the job. I also saw an old acquaintance from college/high school there. We didn't get to chat for long but she did tell me that her brother (one of my best friends from high school) is getting a divorce. Needless to say that kinda took me by surprise. Anyway, today was supposed to be a busy day for me but it turned out to be hideously boring and pointless. I tried to go down to a computer show but apparently it was canceled and no one felt the need to tell anyone. Didn't get an email, no signs were up, and they didn't say anything on the website about it... kinda pissed me off since I sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic because of an accident for 30 minutes to get there. That kinda screwed up my day since I needed to get some parts to work on a computer here at home. And to top things off, WVU's football team (or a bunch of semi-trained monkeys dressed as WVU's football team) made a pathetic showing against Maryland today. I think the final score was 34-7 with WVU's seven points being scored against Maryland 10th string team consisting of the school's co-ed chapter of PETA... and only because the PETA-people didn't want to hurt the semi-trained monkeys. But still... it will turn out to be a good weekend because of Friday night.

9/22/03 - 12:57 am It was a long day. Spent part of it at work trying to repair a bad HDD and the rest of it finishing up my new page. Time for bed.

9/24/03 - 9:59 pm Holy crap has it been a busy week. My first three days have been nothing but back-to-back calls... most of which I shouldn't have been assigned to in the first place. I have a special project to get done by October 1st and a ton of work to do as part of my new duties but some people think its more important to run my ass all over base applying patches to computers at 3:30 in the afternoon when most people are gone anyway. That's happened four out of the past five work days... and why the admins wait until 3:00pm to give us the days list just beyond me. As for Asshat, not much is new with him. He's been a little less happy lately... mostly because he didn't get that job but partly because my former supervisor has gently started to clue him in on the fact that he isn't liked. The grapevine says that his days with us are numbered, but that only means he'll be shuffled off to some other department to become their problem.

9/30/03 - 11:55 pm Time has really flown by over the past few months. I realized last night that its almost time to reserve the house for next year's beach trip already... and it feels like I just got back last week. I emailed the people that went this year to get their input on when we should go... and it looks like either the second or third week in August so far. I'm actually glad this happened now since I've felt kind of down since I got back from Ocean City... now I have something to look forward to again :) Work has gone quite well the past couple days since I'm finally getting to do some things that have been postponed lately for various reasons. Today was my one year anniversary on this job which means I should be having a meeting with the boss sometime soon to discuss a possible raise. Of course Asshat is still with us so he'll probably get a raise too. Time for bed.

10/1/03 - 11:09 pm It's amazing how such a great day can be ruined in such a short amount of time. Work was great today... I finally got a call done that I've been working on for two weeks and got started on some other stuff. Unfortunately, I can't live or sleep at work so I had to come home. When I got home I started looking for something that meant a lot to me back in the day... why I was looking for it isn't important, just the fact that it was mine and it meant something to me. After a little searching I was forced to ask mother for some help... since my stuff routinely gets moved and "reorganized." It seems that mother had gotten rid of this item some months ago... whether given away or thrown away I couldn't bring myself to ask. Her reasoning was normal for her... "we just don't have enough room." So another thing that was important to me is gone, just like some old pictures of happier times, and some gifts from people I loved... all to make way for more antiques and future "keepsakes." What are you supposed to do when parts of the past that you've relied on for so long to keep you going start to disappear and you can't bare to look more than a week into the future?

10/5/03 - 11:41 pm Friday started as kind of a downer since it was October 3rd which made it an ex's birthday. I needed something good to happen to help take my mind off of it. Thankfully, I got to go out Friday night and play a little pool and drink some beer with a co-worker and one of her friends. I did okay as usual for my first couple games... "okay" meaning I lost but I didn't get crushed. Since I was driving I only had a couple beers which meant that other guy that was with us had to finish the remainder of the two pitchers by himself. All three of us were kinda tired so we called it quits pretty early, but not before he invited me to a party at his house on Saturday. I really would like to have gone but mother and I took dad out to Dutch's Daughter for his birthday. I had made up my mind to go after we got back but I had way too much heavy food to eat and could barely move much less have a beer at a party. Today was a fairly slow day... got my ass handed to me in racquetball by my dad... picked up something at the computer show... working on pics from my Ocean City trip and that's about it. Nothing special coming up this week I don't think but next weekend a friend from school might be coming to town so I'm looking forward to that.

10/9/03 - 9:30 pm It was a bit of a painful day today on a number of fronts. I went out last night after work to shoot some pool with a co-worker and somehow managed to hurt my back. It hurt quite a bit then but it was a lot worse this morning... and I didn't take it easy at all today at work so tomorrow morning will probably be worse. Relationship stuff has been a little painful recently too. Lost out a couple times to other guys... again. I've actually lost count of how many times that's happened. Then there's the new one... losing out because you seem to have too many female friends. That's the one thing I've never had to worry about by having so many female friends... don't have to worry about a girlfriend leaving me for one of them. Things felt like they were improving but now it feels like I'm back to a bunch of no-win situations.

10/13/03 - 11:41 pm The past three days have been a combination of surreal and busy. Saturday started with a very quick trip to the computer show. On my way there a good friend called me about the party I was going to that night. It seems that the party hostess' (another friend from WVU) mother wanted to know if I could bring some beef jerky with me when I came. The funny thing is that I've only met the mother once about two or three years ago at her daughter's graduation party and she still remembers the beef jerky that I brought. Anyway, it made me happy. The computer show was good since I managed to pick up the parts I wanted to get. Soon after I got back I left for the party which is when things started to get surreal. To make a long story short, my friend's (the hostess) boyfriend is the older brother of a guy that I was friends with and haven't seen since the 5th grade. Then there was the friend (also from WVU) of my two friends who's boyfriend who knows a bunch of guys I see regularly on base. All in all it was a great party... I went expecting to know about three people but ended up knowing six or seven in a roundabout way. Sunday was a long day spent working on one computer that was just too screwed up for words. It was another case of someone trying to clean up their computer by deleting "unimportant stuff" only to find that the "stuff" was a bunch of critical system files. The only downer for Sunday was finding out that another person I was interested in has a new boyfriend... but this one was kinda my fault for dragging my feet. Today was a pretty good day since I got that computer delivered back to the customer, didn't have to deal with mother, had lunch with a friend, and got my wireless network up and running. Dad seemed happy with the new wireless setup... of course now I have to retrain mother on how to work the computer. I am looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow though... being there has been making me even happier lately.

10/14/03 - 9:48 pm Today was a fairly sad day at work. We found out that two of our co-workers lost a family member unexpectedly over the weekend. We also found out that another co-worker's girlfriend has cancer and has been told to "get her affairs in order" by the doctors. Not much else to say about today...

10/19/03 - 11:33 pm The work week ended with some more weird medical stuff... a co-worker with mono, the project manager taken to the hospital again for feeling dizzy, and another guy I know on base was taken to the hospital for as-yet unknown reasons. I also was asked to contact one of the two people that were out due to a death in the family to ask her about her timesheet. Needless to say, I didn't feel that it was very appropriate to call someone on their cell the day of a funeral. My weekend was very slow but very relaxing since the parents were out of town. Didn't do a damn thing all weekend except rearrange my room a little and go see "Kill Bill Vol 1." If you haven't seen it, don't go unless you want to see lots of blood and dismemberment and are planning on seeing "Kill Bill Vol 2." Anyway, I have a very short week this week... only working on Monday and Tuesday because of a visit to Mo'town I have planned.

10/26/03 - 10:46 pm Life since Wednesday has been great, busy, sad, and lonely... all at the same time and all at different times. My trip to Mo'town was highlighted by me getting to see one of the best WVU football games ever... the 28-7 pummeling of then #3 Virginia Tech. I arrived in town around noon on Wednesday, was drunk by 1:30pm and stayed that way until after I went to bed at 2am. As for the rest of the days since then... I don't really want to talk about them since they all fall into the "sad and lonely" category.

10/29/03 - 11:58 pm Its been a slow week at work so far, which is probably why it hasn't been the greatest. Today in particular was kind of a downer because I didn't get to see or even talk to a certain someone. I didn't really expect to see her, but I thought for sure I'd talk to her online. I did have lunch with a friend which helped cheer me up before a meeting of sorts that I had after lunch. Basically the meeting was about me taking on yet another duty at work, even if it's only for a short time. The fact that I was picked for this makes me happy but the fact that it probably won't help me in the raise/promotion department kinda pisses me off. I'm not pissed at the bosses, just Asshat since he started this whole thing. Because of him, my yearly review is delayed, my raise is questionable at best, and I can forget about a promotion anytime within the year. On top of the work stuff, I've been having problems sleeping and more and more unwelcome dreams. Maybe I'll get to talk to someone tomorrow and make things a little better.

11/4/03 - 12:27 am Last week ended very badly. Someone I did some computer work for on the side tracked me down on base and offered to pay me to fix his computer on Friday. This would not have been such a problem if he didn't say it very loudly and within 30 feet of the project manager. Since the "side work" thing almost got me fired last time, I was not too happy with this guy and hurried him outside to have a chat with him. After I came back inside I actually got sick in the bathroom worrying that the project manager heard him and was going to fire me. With the help of a co-worker I got calmed down and after today it looks like everything is fine since the boss didn't say anything about it. That incident affected my whole weekend but now that today is over with, nothing can ruin my week :)

11/5/03 - 12:28 am What the fuck was I thinking... "nothing can ruin my week"... in my seemingly countless years of failing with women has that phrase EVER come true?!?! Ya know, I'm not mad that I'm probably going to miss out on another good one, an extremely good one this time... I'm mad that my first instinct was to try to make her happy after things got called off. I'm tired of always wanting to make them happy... tired of never being able to give advice that helps me and not the other guy. I'm tired of believing in pointless romantic ideals "love at first sight" or that first kiss that wins her over. Just tired of everything...

11/11/03 - 8:03 pm So much has happened in the past seven days. Most of last week pretty much sucked because of what happened Tuesday night and what didn't happen Wednesday night. All that had me in a mood until Friday when we found out about all of the promotions and moves that were going to happen at work. It wasn't the best news but it wasn't the worst either... The good news... Asshat didn't get promoted but is instead being moved out of the tech room and "reassigned" as a "floater" (which is what I am, technically). The okay news... a help desk person has been promoted to Tier II and another Tier II tech that we really like has been reassigned to another organization. The guy that got promoted is very hyperactive and I think has a touch of OCD, and after one full day of working with us has gotten under our skins already. The Tier II guy that got reassigned is going to be missed because he did a lot of stuff on the contract besides normal Tier II stuff and the bosses are going to be a little lost without him. Now the bad news... my former boss has been "reassigned" as a "floater" and will be sharing the same room as Asshat. Also, the new lead Tier II guy for my group is someone that people didn't like in his last lead position because he never did anything. So I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get the job as lead but I understand why. When I have my review I'm planning on asking how much the incident with Asshat caused me as far as my raise and promotions. Anyway, there is a plan to move all the "floaters" into the same room... which would move me out of the tech room and into the same room with Asshat and my former boss. The bosses realized that Asshat was killing morale so they finally decided to solve the problem by moving him out of the tech room. The only problem is that at the same time they're moving one of the people that he stabbed in the back into the same room... and in time I'll be there too. So much for fixing the morale problem. All that takes us up to Saturday. I went to a computer show then went to work for 4 hours to move my end of the office around. When I got home I found an email from the girl that called things off last Tuesday. Nothing is resolved there... can't even talk about that night... but at least she's talking to me again. Sunday and Monday were pretty amazingly boring. I had today off since it was Veterans Day but its back to work tomorrow. The rest of the week should be uneventful except for Friday when all of us should be in a good mood since it will be Asshat's last day in the tech room.

11/16/03 - 2:33 am Today was such a great day... and how often to I get to say that?!?! It started out with the parents leaving until tomorrow... always a good start to any weekend. Things were kinda slow and I didn't think it was going to be a good day until around 4:30pm when I got a message about going out with a co-worker. We met up at 7:30 and played pool for several hours... long enough for me to watch most of this year's "Backyard Brawl" (WVU destroyed Pitt by the way). I actually did very well with pool this evening. I started off fairly well as usual but didn't suck too often after that. Anyway, after pool we ended up at T.G.I.Friday's and just talked until they closed at 2:00am. I won't bore you with the details but I will say that it was one of the best nights I've had in a long long time.

11/17/03 - 11:50 pm I'm still riding the overall greatness of this past weekend so today didn't bug me too much. Today was my new boss' first day and he did exactly what everyone expected him to... absolutely nothing. A bunch of new tickets came in and he didn't assign a single one to anybody... he left it up to us to assign them to ourselves. If you're wondering "what's the problem" then you should probably know that assigning tickets is supposed to be his primary job. Granted, it was only the first day so I'm willing to give him until the end of the week. Asshat managed to annoy me today, eventhough it was his first day out of the tech room which makes everyone pretty happy. He annoyed me by taking the desk that I was promised when the rest of us move out of the tech room. He was supposed to take the one right next to the project managers so he couldn't goof off and play games all the time but now I get stuck with that one. The only upside is that I've been promised that my move to that desk is temporary. As for other things that annoyed me today... I heard that they are coming out with spearmint flavored chewable birth control pills. Does the world really need this? What's next... birth control pills in "fun shapes"?!?! Couldn't the time and money used to create, test and market this product be used in a slightly more useful way... say... curing CANCER!!! In all my years of having girlfriends and friends on BCPs, I have never heard them say "I wish these were chewable" or "I wish they tasted better." I can maybe see making them taste better, but chewable?!?! Aren't BCPs smaller than a TicTac? What's to chew? Oh... and when little kids find them and discover they taste good... what's going to happen? Time for bed.

11/20/03 - 9:13 pm Folks... despite how today was as far as the family goes, it was the absolutely positively best day I've had in longer than I can remember. It doesn't matter what the rest of my days are like because all I need to do is remember this one.

11/24/03 - 9:42 pm The greatness of last week helped get me through this weekend but it also tested me in ways that I haven't been tested in years. We did a lot of moving and packing around the house on Saturday... finally putting away some of my old things that had been sitting in the garage since before high school. Of course it didn't go totally smoothly... mother felt the need to make a homosexual "out of the closet" remark in the middle of all the packing. Dad and I exchanged the same understanding glance that we exchanged way back when so I know I just didn't take it the wrong way. I wanted to say, or rather scream, a couple things at her but couldn't bring myself to do it... which was one of those tests I mentioned. Saturday night ended the same way Friday night did, four shots of Cuervo and two hours of tossing and turning. Sunday had a bit of a surprise to it when I got a phone call from a certain someone that I never thought I'd hear from by phone. We missed another chance to meet though because I was on dinner duty for our early T-day meal. Dinner was great of course but I knew I couldn't escape the whole day without mother giving the ole "maybe next year you'll have somebody to invite" pep talk. I wanted to do some more screaming but kept myself in check again. Sunday night ended with four shots of Cuervo and four hours of tossing and turning. Today was horribly busy but I'm glad because it got it over with quickly. Tomorrow is going to be a tough day I think... have to move desks next to Asshat and do video conference setup for a meeting... and then there's that other thing that could make me do cartwheels.

11/25/03 - 10:30 pm Well, I survived today. I'm not a real big fan of my new desk, but I suppose that it will grow on me. The whole "temporary" thing definitely went out the window since the new lead wants to use the space my old desk is occupying for storage. All the other techs will be moving back into the tech room tomorrow... after just moving out today. Its funny how all of us voiced our dislike of the whole moving idea... just didn't make sense to take technicians away from a technical environment... but no one listened to us. All of the sudden the new lead says something and everyone moves back. What's even funnier though is that they moved everyone's phone lines but aren't moving them back... so everyone is getting a new number at some point but sharing one number until then. Anyway, the video conference didn't go too well. I did everything correctly but it kept dropping the connection after 30 seconds. On the bright side, I think I could work that system in my sleep now. All the other parts of my day were very good, cartwheel good in fact. Tomorrow should be a great day because I'm going out after work with a co-worker and then onto meet up with the old gang from WFHM. Just hope I sleep well tonight.

11/28/03 - 1:58 am Today was the best T-day I've had in years... ever actually. The parents and I went to Dutch's Daughter for an early T-day dinner but none of us had anything remotely Thanksgiving-like... there's short but not very interesting story why. We came home and I spent the rest of the day relaxing and moving more stuff up into the attic. What made my day so good was that a co-worker called to see if I wanted to go out with "the gang" to shoot some pool. I was actually out Wednesday too with the same people but never got to shoot pool because it was too damn busy... and loud. Anyway, we played some pool, had a few beers and called it a night. Life since last Thursday has been pretty damn good and with any luck things will continue this way. Its strange how the death of a relative can lead to so much happiness... and yes, I know that sounds cold. It wasn't the fact that he died so much as what happened as a result... really changed things. Anyway, looks like tomorrow is going to be a good day... partly because people I don't want at work aren't going to be there and partly because its Friday. My weekend is shaping up to be one of the best in a long time too... nothing like doing cartwheels for three or four days straight :)

11/30/03 - 11:43 pm Yup, it was a good one alright :) I spent a lot of time on the road this weekend, mostly because of the traffic... but for some reason it didn't feel like much time at all. I'm not too sure what this work week will hold... not really expecting anything to happen of importance but I am hoping it goes by fast. Time for bed.

12/4/03 - 11:06 pm Things have been going so well for me lately that I had actually stopped thinking that bad things would happen... silly me. To be fair, this really isn't that bad of a thing but it has gotten me more down than I've been in several weeks. First, work was great eventhough the next few days are going to suck (long story). I had a great lunch because I finally got back to playing racquetball, although the next few weeks are going to be more about teaching than playing... but I ain't complaining ;) Basically, everything was great until about 8:45pm when I got a call from a customer who's computer I fixed a couple days ago and delivered last night. She has an old POS E-machine that has been broken for months and months and this past weekend she decided she needed it fixed immediately because she has a term paper due Friday (that's tomorrow). I picked it up on Monday, worked on it a few hours that night and a lot on Tuesday night. I called her as soon as I got home on Wednesday but she didn't get back to me until 7:45pm, while I was out having dinner. I made a special trip home to deliver it to her by 8:30pm. I thought I was done with her... silly Wells. She called at 8:45pm tonight and started out by saying "I'm a little upset Mr. Wells." She said that she turned it on last night and it locked up as soon as she tried to get online with AOL. Then she said she let it sit for an hour, turned it off, turned it back on today at 4:30pm and let it sit until she called me. It upset me because she was upset that it wasn't fixed to her satisfaction. I'm trying to deal with it by telling myself that she had an entire semester to do this paper and get the computer fixed and that I shouldn't feel bad just because she's in a tight spot. Not really sure where I'm going with this so maybe I'll just go to bed... hope tomorrow is a good one.

12/16/03 - 10:56 pm Lots to update people on... let's start with work. My former boss put in his two weeks notice today because he will be moving to a higher paying job on post. No one is really surprised to see him go given how he's been treated in recent months. His replacement is living up to all expectations as well... two of the four techs he supervises are already looking for a new job and he has yet to go out on a call. To make things worse, our project manager may not be coming back due to health reasons and someone suggested to me today that his replacement may be the new lead tech (my old boss' replacement). The mistake that would be is unimaginable. We had our company holiday party this past weekend and I didn't think it was all that great. It was supposed to be a party for both my company and the other company on the contract but the other company decided to invite its employees from its main office and from other contracts that my company has nothing to do with. I don't know how my bosses felt about it but I thought it was pretty tacky... especially when the president of the other company boasts about how much the awards he was giving out cost but then doesn't give his employees a holiday bonus like my company gave out. After the party a few of us went out to shoot some pool and drink a little. It was a good time but was only a tiny part of the best weekend that I've had in my entire life. My weekend started Friday evening when my parents left for a long weekend trip to upstate New York and didn't end until I left for work this morning. Things have been going very well for me lately and this weekend was a high point I think. Of course the parents did come home today and mother managed to piss me off within the first 5 minutes of me being home tonight. It was the same old relationship crap but with a different spin this time... no less painful though. Oh well, tomorrow will be a good day again so I'm sure I'll be fine.

12/23/03 - 12:12 am My weekend was very long but quite good. Went out Saturday with the co-workers to shoot pool and drink. We started at Champions then moved to Olde Towne to listen to a pretty good band called "Bigger Better Faster More." I had a lot of fun considering I was the designated driver and everyone I was with was drunk. Sunday was a long day of shopping, driving, and wrapping presents... but still a good day. Work today was very busy for me but slow for pretty much everyone else. The new lead tech was "promoted" again last Friday to acting Project Manager and in his first 4 hours of his new job today managed to piss off all the techs and trash the idea of teamwork by being on a complete power trip. Tomorrow ought to be very interesting.

12/29/03 - 12:45 am I cannot wait to get back to work tomorrow. Its no secret that I don't like being at home... especially when I have more that two days off in a row... and even more so when its the holiday season. I survived Xmas with only a little of my recent good spirits intact. Mother bugged me for days about "having someone over" for Xmas Eve to Xmas itself but obviously she didn't get her wish. Now she's onto who and/or where I'm spending New Years Eve which is actually more annoying than the Xmas thing because you're expected to spend New Years Eve with someone. So all that led to me not sleeping except for about an hour last night and having problems sleeping tonight. I did spend some time with a co-worker tonight which gave the long weekend a good end and made everything alright like is usually does. And of course I have work tomorrow which starts a short week that I'm hoping turns out to be a very good one.