6 hours of driving...

Friday I left work at 4:15 and sped my way to Weedsport to pick up my aunt and her friend for a night at the casino. We got there around 7 and it was packed... a good 5,000 extra people. It was so tough to find a machine, I ended up looking for one for an hour and then blew through all my money in an hour. But we had a good dinner and drove back around midnight.

I stayed the night at Deb's house, we had breakfast the next morning, grandma came over, I fixed Deb's computer and her satellite dish settings and then I was on my way to my mother's house. I helped her with stuff for several hours, hung out with her, she mended a couple of my shorts and then I left for Rochester. The rest of the day was quiet, but Jake came over in the evening and we played video games until midnight.

Sunday was nice and quiet. I got some things done, cleaned up a bit and studied for a short while. Jake got back from his racing and whatnot and we again played video games for hours. I made some food and the night ended on a good note.

Monday I got a call from security telling me that the guy that took my money confessed to it and his parents are actually going to repay the money he stole. That's good news to help bounce back from the bad week last week.

Monday night I studied with Carrie, Tuesday night was class until 9, Wednesday night Jake came over late, ate my food and complained about life. He said he would be saying here more often now. That should be nice, I wonder if he'll help with rent?

Thursday night I studied with Carrie, Friday night I drove to Binghamton with Alison to go see Sheila. The 2.5 hour drive was quiet, I listened to music, Alison sufted on the net with my computer and cell phone and we got there around 8. Sheila took us to Olive Garden and we rented scary movies. We watched stuff until really late and eventually fell asleep on the floor... but not before Sheila whacked me in the crotch. Thanks Sheila ;)

Saturday morning she made us pancakes and then we had to leave by 11. The drive back was fast too. I dropped Alison off and got back to my place and hung out for the rest of the day. At 2am (which changed to 1am) I went to bed, only to be awoken 10 times during the time from howling wind. Way to go Halloween :)

Today I'm off to the gym and then studying with my Stats homework group for the afternoon. Sigh, midterm on Tuesday isn't going to be fun.

Where the hell did the week go?

Thursday and Friday of last week were all catch up. I was really backed up on Thursday and Mary helped me work on some stuff. Friday was more of the same, but still not as bad. One of those days I met with my group and we worked on some homework. We got most of it all done which is great, we planned to meet again on Sunday.

Friday night was relaxing, I had a lot of tv to catch up on and it was a quiet evening in.

Saturday was slow until Jake called and invited me to Buffalo. So I left around 3:45 and got to Buffalo an hour later. Once I got off the thruway a cop pulled me over and gave me a ticket for speeding. Sigh. He didn't have much to say to me, he just said he 'felt I was going much faster than he caught me at'. Too bad he pulled over the slowest guy in the group of cars I was traveling with.

I got to Jake's apartment, which was really nice, they've decorated nicely and have new furniture. Jake, Rach and I went to a Mexican restaurant called 'Cinco de Mayo' on the other side of Buffalo and had a good dinner. A bit expensive, but Jake paid! So all ends well. It started raining and sleeting, so the ride home with Jake was a bit nerve racking.

We got back and pulled out the video games to start playing, but we realized Jake only had 1 controller left, so we went to Target to buy another. We finally started playing Champions of Norath around 10 and stayed up until 2am having a good time. Jake and I pulled the mattress out of the basement and I went to bed.

Jake left around 7 to go to his autocross, I woke up around 9:30. I left for his autocross around 10:30 and got there just in time to see Jake race his new Echo Hatchback. The 2nd time through (he gets 3 tries each round) he asked me to ride with him.

So I did. Jake spun out going around a turn and it was like being thrown down a hill. Jake told me not to flail or yell or anything during the run, so I held on for dear life and kept my mouth shut.

I watched his 3rd run and left, losing one of my gloves on the way home. :( Now I have one glove and its getting cold. I got back to Rochester around 4 and just hung out for the rest of the day. Didn't feel like shopping or even eating.. just sat. Our group was supposed to meet but Katie called and said it was cancelled. Yay.

The week started back up and wasn't any more exciting than the last. I started going to the gym again at noon, so I guess I'm back on track. Monday night I met with my group and we finished up the homework. Tuesday night was class and we got back our homework. We got 115% on it (extra credit) which is good, too bad I'm confused about everything. The midterm is Nov. 2nd, eeek.

During the break around 7, I realized I was missing $10 from my wallet. I KNEW I hadn't spent it on anything, since I just got $20 out of the ATM Monday at noon, so I was royally pissed since I knew someone had taken it.

After 5 hours of class I returned home for a quick evening and bed. Wednesday I decided to set a couple 'traps' in my office to see if I could catch someone going through my drawers. I put a pack of gum and a penny in my drawer hinge so it would fall out if someone opened it (the drawer where my wallet usually is) and a paperclip in my door if someone opened my office. By noon, nobody had been in there. I went to the gym and played volleyball with 5 of my coworkers and when I got back at 1pm, not only had someone been in my office, but in the drawer. The pack of gum was sitting on my desk and the penny on the floor.

We called security and reported the twirp. It's the cleaning kid they have from the BOCES program or something. He 'cleans' our offices during the day. Unfortunately, my garbage hasn't been taken out in 2 weeks, so I knew he wasn't in my office to do that. Security came and we gave a report.

We had a staff meeting, which was more like a gossip sessions (always fun) and eventually, I left for home. Went to Walmart and got myself a pumpkin (I know I know.. but it was a good deal!) and a ton of food and Halloween stuff. Jake got there around 10:15 and we played Champions of Norath until 1:30 in the morning. Fun fun.

Dunno how fun today will be, but hopefully less 'exciting' than yesterday.

So much to talk about...

Thursday I worked like a dog to finish up everything before not only Laura arrived in the evening but that I would be busy on Friday driving a golf cart. Laura arrived around 4, so I went and picked her up a little early from the airport and we went back to my place to drop off her stuff. Around 5 her parents got to my place and we sat around for a little bit until we went to Golden Port to eat dinner. We wanted to introduce her parents to some really good food. We also eventually made our way to campus to see Dennis Miller. His right wing rheteric was kinda tiring. He had some funny things to say but eventually I just tuned him out. So we enjoyed the evening and eventually made our way back to my place. Laura and I watched tv for awhile.

Friday I got to work at 9 and worked until 10. Then Emily and I went and grabbed our golf carts for the rest of the day. It was a lot of fun. I had a terrific time and got to drive Laura around for several hours. I even had to drive a couple of employees to Fairbank alumni house. I got access to the free food room and had a blast. I showed my boss how to drive a golf cart and when Katie came out and started driving about too, Emily her and I had a great time. Katie and Emily went home early, but I stayed until after 5.

After it all, Laura and I went to Paola's for dinner and afterward, hung out for a bit. On Saturday, my mom called me early to say that she wasn't going to be up in Rochester by 8:30 for the President's Breakfast, so I told her it wouldn't make sense for her to come up for an hour and have to drive round trip 2 hours. So Laura and I went to campus, ate breakfast in Douglass and then after, we went to the Palestra and watched (and laughed) through James Carville and Mary Madalin. They were both VERY funny. Even though Mary was pretty conservative, she was funny by making fun of her intelligent and charismatic husband.

I went back to my apartment to work on homework (in theory) but instead cleaned up a bit (Laura is a partier.. just kidding) and watched some television. I watched the rest of Lost, which is a fantastic little show in of itself. I had to be back on campus at 4 to check in to help with the Rochester Revue. I got in position, I was assigned to guard a flap (door) for the night and I did so. My flap was opened up bigger and while other doors had 2-3 people, I was the only one there. My door was also in prime view of the stage and thus, all non paying people gathered at my door and crowded me, even though I told them to step back and step to the sides. Sigh, they wouldn't listen. It was a 2.5 hour fight, all the while standing. Tiring the say the least.

Sunday was a nice day. I left here around 10:00a to make it to my aunt's house by 11 for the get together there. My whole family, plus Nola's boyfriend Alex and Molly's friend were all there. We had a breakfast of breakfast pizza, french toast and juices. It was really good. We then had cakes and apple pies with ice cream. This is my family. We eat well. :) I got back to Rochester and Laura was here. Good. I had to go to campus at 3:30, Laura dropped me off and I worked with my group on our stats homework. It was bad.. none of us really had a great grasp on the situation. But we worked through it and rescheduled again for Monday night. Laura picked me up and eventually I dropped her off at the airport. She called me later and told me that her plane was cancelled and she was flying out in the morning. Amazing.. so much stuff going on.

Monday I got to work and quickly got to work on all the catchup from not working Friday. I worked all morning and ended up leaving to go to my Web Development Conference at http://www.highedweb.org/ The afternoon was interesting. I seemed to be going to all the wrong sessions. I'm not going to go into detail because its all geeky, but after the conference I left to get back to campus to work on homework with my group. We had a tutor help us through several items. And then we decided to meet again (!!). Monday at 5:30. I got home around 10 and went to bed shortafter after watching the Judging Amy episode of the day.

Tuesday was busy at the conference. I missed breakfast, partly because I didn't want to wake up at 7:30. Morning sessions were good. Lunch was a buffet and was very good. After the conference at 3:45, I went back to campus, missing dinner at the conference. Sigh. :) I worked on question 3 of our homework (out of 4) and got a bunch of answers that hopefully will give us some credit for it. Katie worked on 2 extra credit questions. Class was at 5:30 and I stayed there until close to 9. I didn't stay for the lab, it was a waste of time in my opinion. I came home, watched tv and finally went to bed. LONG ASS DAY.

Today was another day at the conference. I got there for the tail end of breakfast, had some food and got to see a couple sessions I missed on Monday. They had the best 4 sessions present again and I got to see 2 of them, one of them with Daryl Dulong, one of the people that I know from UR. He used to go to school there and actually works there now. We had lunch and then in the afternoon I was in a workshop. Another waste of time. The title of the workshop was "Advanced PHP" What the better title would have been "What Luke learned 2 years ago" Sigh.

I changed my hairdo. I want to look less conservative and more like the young person I feel I still am. My hair is unbelievably hard to work with and I'm always concerned about it. So if you see me, compliment me.. ALL RIGHT??



I got home and about collapsed from being so tired. These 3 days have been exhausting. I feel bloated and tired and full of water. I found my ID for the gym, so I'm going to get back to working out every day. Emily from work IMed me and told me "You have a LOT of work to catch up on." Well.. duh. I've been out of work for 4 days. JB offered to help out with my work while I was out. Apparently, he didn't, but so what. So people have their transcripts in their hands in 8 days instead of 5. So people don't get instant verifications of their enrollment which they can do THEMSELVES online. Sheesh. Let's make Luke feel like crap.

I'm watching the debate right now. Bush is an absolute crapbag. At least the moderator is asking GOOD questions. Bush can't answer them and I hope the debate panelists eat him up alive.

By the way, this post took me 90 minutes.

We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Slow Week

So last week went by pretty slow, not much going on. An interesting couple of shows were on that I got to watch. A show called Origins on PBS and a special on George Eastman on NBC. Both pretty good and lots of learning. Pretty sad, huh?

Thursday we had a goodbye party for Walisa in Susan B Anthony hall. Lots of desserts, lots of sugar, big stomach ache. JB and I jetted a little early. I went home.

Mom bought up my new king sized bed with her truck that night. We loaded it into my bedroom. Her and I watched X-Men 2 on tv, hung out for awhile and just as the Presidential Debate started, she left. I watched the whole debate and man was I excited. I'm so proud and glad that Kerry kicked Bush's butt.

On Saturday I went to grandma's house to see Deb and hung out with her for the day. Deb, Sophie and Grace, and I went and saw Shark Tales at the movie theatre. It was frickin' hillarious. Deb and I were laughing out loud. The kids didn't seem to understand it and were pretty bored. That's funny.. it's a kid's movie!

After the movie, we went back to Deb's house and met up with Deb's friend. We all went to the racetrack and gambled for several hours. I won several hundred dollars before I lost it all playing the machines. I actually had a good time, which is amazing seeing how I hate that casino.

We went back to Deb's place and we all stayed the night. Sunday morning came and Deb left for church. I got ready and went to the mall and bought a couple pairs of pants. We then all went to breakfast at Magee diner. I had a good time and eventually I went to mom's place to hang out with her. She was in bed, so I worked on Molly's computer for several hours trying to get it to work. It turns out her power supply exploded and it needs to be replaced. Since its so old, that's gonna be hard. I found one on ebay, but its several days away from being closed.

Mom went to work and I left for Rochester. I ended up going to walmart and spending too much money on too many things for the week.

Monday I drove around after work looking for a barber unsuccessfully. I finally found a chain called super cuts and got my hair cut for $11.

Yesterday I had class after work. I went home a little early and ate some dinner and then arrived late back at my class. Class lasted until 9:50 and while I learned a bunch and got myself into a group for homework, I'm not looking forward to this class one bit. Plus, Tuesdays suck now since I get home so late.

Today has been busy, but nothing major planned for tonight except cleaning because Jake and Laura are coming. Jake tonight. Laura this weekend for Meliora Weekend. Lots to do, not enough time to do it!