LA Vacation - Day 3

Finally, we slept in. And by slept in, I mean the Cindys slept until 9 and I was up wandering around by 7. Something about sleeping until noon NY time doesn't do it for me.

We left for Dim Sum around 10 and got into Chinatown "land" by 11. Riding the LA metro is a lot of fun, but it's a lot smaller than the DC metro. But the LA metro has themes at every terminal, which is very cool.

Dim Sum was good, not the best, but pretty darn good. We ate far too much shrimp based food (especially since I don't like shrimp) and were off shopping in chinese shops through the area. Cindy bought a couple things and Cynthia broke a couple things. ;)



Once back to the hotel room we pretty much vegged in the pool for a good 3 hours. We did take a little break to go next door to buy a pool floaty, but were back into the pool in no time. CindyV and I are trying to darken up a little bit so we don't look so pale on the beach. I did get a bit of color, but not nearly enough. Hopefully we'll do the beach a couple more times in the next week or so. If not, I have another week with my family. :)

But as Cynthia reminded us, we had bumper boats left to do for the day, so we were off for that by 5.



We got the amusment park in a remote location (undisclosed) out in the middle of nowhere after a long drive. Remind me to thank Cindy for all her driving, she's a saint in HelloKitty clothing. We had a blast doing bumper boats, go karts, ferris wheel twirly thingies, video games, skiballs and even minigolf. I'm no fan of minigolf (simply because I suck so bad) but the scenery was gorgeous. They sure know how to make you feel good about putting a tiny ball into a tiny hole.



Though I did get a hole in one on a really tough 5 par hole, which made my day. I also took a video of Cynthia hitting the ball 5 times just to get it over a hill. Good times. Though we've discovered that when she gets tired, annoyed or hungry.. she resorts to one word quips like "hungry" or "thirsty" as her existance hinges on our knowing her current status. :) We started getting creative with "confused" and "contemplative" but she hasn't caught on. Heh.

Poor Cynthia stalled her go kart in the middle of the course and was excorted off the runway. I took a fun video of the whole thing and almost wiped her out when I looked up to see her stopped in the middle of the track.

We left the minigolf about 10 holes early because Cynthia had a migraine, but we got her back to the hotel in no time flat (45 min flat!) and she started feeling better. Cindy and I took off for a random internet cafe to print out our boarding passes for the Mexico tour and had a good time chatting and catching up on random crud we used to talk about when we spent long poor hot summers at UR.

Cindy took us to a place that is famous in LA. Bob's Big Boy, a burger joint seen in the movie "Austin Powers" with that giant child holding a plate of burgers. Food was fantastic, and we got done and out of there before 3am NY time.

Cindy has to work tomorrow, so Cynthia and I will be checking out the Hollywood branch of Scientology (mostly to learn more about why they act the way they do) and also hanging out by the pool and working on our tans. Indian food tomorrow with a hint of shopping thrown in the mix. Should be fun!

LA Vacation - Day 2

We got to bed around 5am and had to get up around 7 to get on the road to San Diego. This vacation is gonna tire me out to no end. Cindy A almost collasped at dinner, she's so tired. I don't blame her, but we're sneaking in a little shut eye whenever we can.

We got to our destination (after wrestling morning traffic down the 5) around 10:45 and got into our kayaks and out into the ocean for our cave tour pretty quickly. I'm a pretty damned good kayaker. Unfortunately, the Cindy's were about a half mile behind, but they cuaght up, and we enjoyed meeting seals in the middle of the ocean and also cave tours along the coast. We had a ton of fun and the day was a bit cool, but we still got a LOT of sun. My feet and ankles are sunburnt. It feels great. I have a lot of great color of my face.



We didn't end up snorkeling because visability was so poor, and since we hadn't eaten at all yet that day, we got on the road to head back up north around 2. Cindy A wanted to stop by In and Out to try the place out. I had had the food last summer and enjoyed it, but I remember the burger being bigger. The place was packed with people and the drive thru was 2 lanes and packed to the road. After a quick bite to eat we headed back to LA and our hotel to relax a little bit.

I talked to the family in Nebraska. The wedding rehersal and whatnot have gone very well. The wedding is tomorrow, so I'll be sure to hear how it went. Hopefully my tags were a hit. I'm sure the M&Ms inside the bags would be more fun, but hey, I'll take the credit where I can.

After being shunned for updating the blog (the first time, which the post was lost when the internet gave out) we headed to a local bar (and by local, I mean everything is within 3 minutes walking from our hotel). We hung out in the bar for a couple hours, chatting with each other, talking about dating and relationship failures, drowned our sorrows and then headed down the street to a fantastic thai restaurant for dinner.



The food there was utterly the best damned food I've ever had. The soup was liquid pleasure and the vegetables were bursts of spice and kick. Wow. Cindy said she eats there at least once a week. I don't blame her! If I had food like that within earshot of my apartment, I'd stop grocery shopping!

The tour place for Catalyna island called and told us our boat broke down. So that's canceled those plans. So we adjusted, planned something new and have a goal of eating Dim Sum by 10 in China town. I can't wait, I haven't had good Dim Sum since... like Tuesday. ;) I love it here. I never want to leave.

LA Vacation - Day 1

Our flight ended up being delayed a couple more times last night, which was extremely annoying. We ended up leaving Atlanta by 2am and getting into LA at 3:17am (which was 5:17am NY time). We tried our absolute best to sleep on the plane, but it didn't help that some guy had a seizure or something and they kept turning all the cabin lights on and asking "Is anyone here a Doctor? PLEASE? Is anyone a doctor??" and then later "Does anyone have any valium, xanex or mytropin?" Luckily, the lady next to me on the plane (no, not Cynthia) had a bunch of valium (hello??) in her purse and she saved the day.

Seeing Cindy V again was wonderful. Funny as always, but she was as tired as we were. She was up half the night checking updates of when our flight would finally come into LAX. But she picked us up in her rental (a big behemoth of a car) and we left right away for our hotel in Hollywood. And what a nice hotel it is. Free parking (a big plus in LA), free breakfast, a big pool, the room is HUGE with 2 queen beds, free highspeed wireless internet for my laptop, fridge in the room and a really nice showerhead. Hey, you can't beat that, PLUS it's 2 blocks from where Cindy lives so we've walked back and forth a couple times already.



This morning we had a quick bite to eat at Denny's (since that is after the Cindys' all time favorite Rochester breakfast restaurant) and then off to Santa Monica for the day. We spent quite a bit of time on the pier, sight seeing, playing games (such as bumper boats and skyball. Fun fun, as always, and I got to catch up with my family at the same time I was winning the boat contest.



Cindy V and I rode this neat ride that thrusted you up into the air and then dropped you 30 feet. We rode it twice, which was fun. We had the fight our way through 30 children, but we managed to have fun. Cynthia A wasn't in the mood for rides, so she took pictures of Cindy and I doing "suck it" motions and other such fun kodak moments. When we went to wave at Cynthia down on the dock for a nice photo, instead of taking the picture, she waved back. :) Oh well, I guess!


so white

We ended up spending about 4 hours at the beach, either sitting in the sun, playing in the water, burying Cindy in the sand (check this video out!). We ended up getting a lot of great sun (you should see how nice Cynthia looks now) and I'm hoping I've browned some of my whiteness. I blinded several children walking into the water. Plus, we got to see 3-4 dolphins jumping and playing out in the water about 100 feet from shore. It was quite the site to see. But alas, we needed to move on. We left the beach around 6 and headed toward the hotel to clean up for dinner.

Dinner consisted of authentic Mexican food at a place called Barragan's. Cindy apparently loves the place and eats there often. After reading a great review, I ordered Sopas for dinner, which are handmade corn tortillas with a bunch of vegetables and chicken in spicey sauces and the like. We got great guacamole and also ordered drinks to celebrate Cynthia's recent job loss. "Freedom!" The folks in the bar area didn't understand (and grumbled) when CindyV dedicated a karaoke song to Cindy's job situation (maybe cause they too may not have jobs? dunno, just a guess!). They sang a couple songs and we peeled out of there, headed toward Korean karaoke at DingDongDang in Korea town.



We sang our hearts out (and then some, seeing how I fell asleep about 90 minutes into the session). And seeing how it's $15 an hour, I guess I wasted our time! But I had fun, Cynthia had fun with all her crazy country songs, and CindyV got her fill of Shakira.

We just got back to the hotel about 45 minutes ago. It's been exactly 24 hours since we've arrived in LA and it's been a freakin blast ever since. My body is all whacked out by the time changed, especially since I only got 5 hours of sleep last time and tonight I will only get about the same. We're planning to go kayaking and snorkeling and a bunch of other stuff, so stay tuned... I plan to update when I get back, which may be the middle of the night for you!

Ugh, in the airport, waiting, annoyed.. online..

Cynthia and I are sitting in the Atlanta airport, toiling away, waiting for our flight (which has been delayed 3 times).

I packed and got to the airport just fine, but the last 10 minutes were frantic since my mother told me that I had my birth certificate somewhere, and since I am planning to go to Mexico (with the Cindys and with Aaron) I needed it way before mom got there. But I looked, and looked.. and tore stuff apart looking.. and I couldn't find it. Jake got there, I gave him some super secret instructions in case I die, and then he took me to the airport going 95 down 390 like it was the last thing he was going to do.

Our plane was given extra fuel since we were planning to fly around a storm in PA, but it ended up being a storm in GA that we needed to avoid. We flew around Atlana for an hour in a circle. The sun kept coming in the window.. then into the other side of the plane.. then back in our window. Ugh. But we finally landed an hour late, I met up with Cindy (yay, she brought me Chick-fil-A) and we've been sitting here ever since. I am hogging two outlets right now, after giving one of the neighbor kids the evil eye for an hour since he wouldn't give it up.

Oh, and Cynthia wanted me add that she is amazingly funny and hot. And she smells great. And she's single. And she's employable. And smart. And rich. And she thinks I'm really good at describing her. And she's bored. And talks a lot. And she laughs a lot. ;) And she can't believe I just said that. And she keeps treating me like I'm her boyfriend. She said "if I don't like it, you better do it again!" and I'm all like "lay off me woman! I'm not your slave"

Oh well, we leave in another hour and arrive in LA at 3am NY time. This is gonna be one LOOOOOONG night.

Bah.. bah I say.. and then he was off to LA..

Okay, counting down the hours until I'm on a plane. 6 hours and counting. I still have packing to do, but I have a good 3 hours this afternoon to get that done. At least my place is clean and ready for the folks coming in and out to take care of my stuff while I'm gone.

I was again called cheap last night by people I love. Sigh. See, I spend money on other people, generously. I don't spend it on myself, selfishly. In fact, it takes me several weeks to ever even decide to buy myself something. I spend $20 a week on groceries, I have inexpensive utilities, I don't eat out, I don't drive my car a lot to save on gas. I buy on the bargain, use coupons for stuff I need when I can and try to live frugally, to my own demise, but never to the chagrin of other people. That's where I don't get why people are trying to be mean. I resent that people think that.

This year alone I've donated money to my alma mater, the DCCC, Lollipop Farm, St. Jude's Children's Hospital, the AIDS Walk, Rochester Public Library, Mary Cariola Children's Center, $20 a month to the United Way from my paycheck, the Red Cross since I can't donate blood, Wade Norwood and the Democratic Party.

I've lent thousands of dollars to my family and friends, offered countless other gifts of money, I've given $200 to the American Diabetes Association in memory of Michael recently, I helped Jason raise money to get to Brazil on his United Nations trip, and I'm in the middle of organizing of a fundraiser for the family of Nicholas (who was shot on Friday in the line of duty) who have been without their father and may be without him for time to come. Plus, we may start raising money to help Mike's family cope with his funeral costs.

I never forget birthdays presents wise, I've always offer to pay for dinner for my family, and I even take my coworkers out to lunch every couple months.

I grew up poor, very poor. So poor in fact that for 5 months out of the year, my family lived in our kitchen because our house couldn't even be insulated from the cold. We would eat macaroni for every meal because its all we could afford. All my life I've heard that I need to make something of myself and when I do, to save what I earn and help others when I can. How does that make me cheap?

Sigh.

Oh, and big apologies to Cynthia. My post on Monday was by no means me lecturing you on what you should do. My blog is my thought space, and what I think I would do in your situation. By no means is my way to best way to deal with a situation, nor is it what you should do. You do what you think is best and I will support you in whatever you decide.

Anyway, short day at work. I think I look snazzy with my new haircut (and had a bunch of fun talking to the hair stylist about my braces, my surgery and my upcoming trip to LA) and finishing up a project so I have NO WORK due while I'm gone. Thank goodness, I am so looking forward to getting out of dodge.

I will keep the blog updated throughout my vacation, with pictures and posts describing all the fun I'm having. Feel free to visit, and comment. :) And I'm happy to add Phia and Deb on as readers, I appreciate your patronage!

Getting nervous, getting anxious, vacation here I come...

Last night was a big wash in getting things done. I had wanted to at least clean up, but I barely managed that. I did get an hour workout out of the way, and another 30 minutes this morning, so at least I didn't waste my entire evening.

So Verizon Wireless is giving their users $20 if they switch off paper billing and enroll in autodebit for payment. Yikes, did that. Free money and I'm there. :) Besides, it was getting annoying logging in every month to pay the bill anyway, and I never go over 250 minutes of my 400 allowance, so I have no worries of overages.

Tonight's to do list (and I will do it!) includes, but not limited to: haircut @ 5:30, cleaning my entire apartment, washing clothes and sheets, packing food, packing laptop, packing clothes, watering all 30 plants, beating on the cat :), dinner somewhere in there, clean bird cage, and a 30 minute workout. Eh. Not fun. But it all needs to be done.

The shuttle launched today into space without a hitch. Good news. It always gives me a chill when something like that happens in the world. I watched it live in fascination. While I don't think I'd ever want to go into space, I still love the idea, especially since 90% of my TV shows have that as a theme. ;)

I found an interested website called AIM fight, from the AOL folks.
http://www.aimfight.com What you do is go there, enter in two screen names and it returns the number of people in your social 'network' out to 3 places. This only includes people that buddy list YOU, and then THEM, and then THEM. It's an interesting idea. You have no ability to influence your number, and it changes all the time depending on how many people are online at that moment with you on their buddy list. I've seen my numbers (for all 3 of my SNs) fluctuate between 700 to 28,000.

In exactly one day, I will be on a plane departing for Atlanta. :) I'm hoping I can get some Chic-fil-A from the airport (with my favorite Atlantian of course) before we hope on over the LA. Oh.. my.. god.. this is so exciting. I'm enthused, enthralled and pepped up about this trip. I have a ton of spending money planned to blow on all sorts of activities, ranging from eating at every single nationality, to museums, shopping in all sorts of stores, visiting baseball games, exploring mexico and so much more. Ahhhhh... and the beaches.

Mentally already on vacation...

I hadn't planned to spend the entire weekend with my family, but that is how it turned out. I completed the invitations for Deb's party in August (all 140 of them) and also printed out the tags for Jered's wedding. I've been drug into this wedding and I'm not even going (I'm flying OVER that state in a couple days!).

But by the time I had gotten done with everything it was 11:30 and Deb convinced me to stay. Convinced may be too strong.. let's say.. bribed me with promises of food and drink. :) But I soon realized that Sunday was the day of moving and setting up grandma's house, so we quickly go to work on that after a hearty breakfast of danishes and muffins.

Her house is wonderful. It smells very new and it's huge, but still small. We moved stuff into her full basement for several hours, set up her living room, bedrooms, computer room and garage. After several hours of work, we had a fantastic lunch of bbq pork chops and other thanksgivingy dishes. But then we returned to work and didn't get done until around 5. I promptly went home (with a 24 pack of soda from Deb) and got to work on miscellaneous errands that I had meant to do during the day. Grocery shopping and other dreary stuff that needs to get done before I leave.

But now I have all my laundry clean and all the food and drink I'll need for the trip, so I'm all set. I'm very excited. Countdown of less than 2 days until I'm in CA... for 2 weeks! It hit me of how long I'm going to be gone and it's sorta freakin me out. But at least I have people taking care of all my stuff while I'm gone.

I've been told by Jake not to expect a thank you card for his wedding. Apparently he's only doing one per guest pair and I forfeited my card when I told him to send one to Cynthia too. Oh well I guess. He hasn't spoken to me in about 5 days, ever since Rach told him to spend more time with him. Interesting. Oh well I guess. They'll have two weeks without me.

So my friend Cynthia is on the rocks with her employer. Interesting. I don't know how I feel about that. I would rather not LEAVE a place on bad terms, but if she's happy, I guess she can look back on this place like it was McDonalds or something (not resume material). Hopefully we can keep her mind off of it while in LA, though if it were me, I'd be unhappy that I was spending all that money when I didn't have a job anymore. Oh wait, she reads this. :) Hi! Yay! LA! No problems! Woohoo!

I wish I had a funny story to tell you or some interesting thing going on right now, but I'm exhausted from moving furniture, I don't want to pack since I'm so tired, I just wanna go home and nap and my cat is annoying the hell out of me with her meowing. Ugh. Until tomorrow.

Now don't play with fire, or someone will get hurt...

I talked to a couple people that went to Mike's wake on Friday. His family was overwhelmed by the response of the online community to his death. They were touched beyond words and amazed at how many people knew and cared about him. A bunch of us are putting together the details about raising some money to support his family, as the details of his death and the amount of debt and whatnot that his sister now has to take on is a bit overwhelming. We'll do what we can to help you.

In other news, another guy I know online was shot yesterday. He's a police officer in Rochester, MN and was taking care of a domestic disturbance when a person pulled a gun and shot him in the chest. I don't know him personally, but a lot of people I know do. It's been an amazingly bumpy week. Emotional for a lot of people, too.

I've spent most of the day at Deb's house. I've been moving stuff from one place to another for my grandma. Helping out with birthday invitations and wedding favors and whatnot for my cousin's upcoming wedding. On the way there I was about a half mile from the thruway when I saw up ahead a massive plume of smoke. When we got closer, 4 lanes of traffic turned into 1 lane and the fire and police were turning people away at the U turn and preventing us from getting through. Apparently a truck had caught fire, either way, I had to turn around, head back to 96 and take it to the exit about 1/4 mile further past the truck fire and then get on the thruway. It added an extra 25 minutes onto my 45 minute drive.

Oh well, it's the weekend, no rush, right?

I want to live... I want run through the jungle...

Aren't the new babies adorable? (and really sqeeky..)

It's nice working with people that are friendly, willing to take a moment to share a story and not afraid to smile. During the slower summer months the chats become longer and folks just tend to be more comfortable. When I get back from vacation, we kick it up a notch and we head into one of our busiest times of the year. I'm gonna miss the summer months.

A construction worker, 21 years old, died on our campus a couple days ago right outside my building. Scary stuff. They've ripped up the entire campus doing construction work this Summer, hopefully it'll all be worth something in the end. They're in the middle of a 42 million dollar construction blitz. I even got a pamphlet in the mail pepping us up about it.

Jake has let me know that he needs to spend more time with Rachael. Apparently we made her really mad last night when I was over there for 3 hours. I'm gonna be gone 15 days, you'd think that would be enough. Didn't help when I made the comment that she should be 'full time in Buffalo' this summer. :)

My betta died. He was fine last night and I went to feed him this morning and he was just kinda dead. Strange, the water is clean, the filter is on, the scumsucker is happy. It was prolly the cat.. can't take the jealousy anymore. Regardless, not gonna replace him until I get back. Jake has agreed to take care of the birds and my plants while I'm gone (hopefully not to Rachael's dismay) and the cat is going with my sister to Fayette. I'm sure she'll like it. She has plenty of places to walk on and knock stuff over there.

I've decided not to shave my head this trip to CA. I'm gonna get a close haircut though, long enough to gel up, but not long enough to worry about. (Definition of worry about is needing to spend more than 5 seconds with water and gel) Prolly more toward this photo. I don't like how I look bald anymore, so I guess I'll stick with hair. I'm sure you agree. CindyV doesn't like me with hair, but blah, not impressing her.

I was looking back today on some videos that I took with my digital camera in 2001 and 2002. Dancing with my friends drunk, taking shaky videos of all of us in my dorm room, zooming in waaayyy too far. It's nice to look back, I'm happy I have them. I wish I had taken more pictures back then, but I guess there's time to make new picture memories with the lot. I had a quick chat with Cathy tonight. She's on her way to Boston for a summer job as a tutor. Sounds like life is picking up for her post-graduation. Everyone has gone their own way. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with friends in a little under a week. :)

Death

Death is happiness for passing of others to the other side
Death is sadness for the pain of its children
Death is pain for the love of others
Death is the reward for keeping a promise from ages past
Death is the only peace and joy we have to look forward to
Death is sweet slumber and beauty after the honors of life
Death is the last piece of the puzzle waiting to be worked
Death is the beginning and end of the mystery of existence
Death is a reunion of family and old friends and new
Death is a way to cheat Mother Nature of her revenge
Death is like a sunset on the ocean, beauty to end the day
Death is at first cold and alone but only briefly
Death is the chylde of Life and Time
Death is the stopping of the clock and of life
Death is our final lover to be embraced
Why do those who seek death fear to embrace it?

by aneria romana

Getting back to normal... said my piece.

I've spent the last 24 hours taking in the fact that Seth is gone. I've gotten a lot of well wishes, including a couple from coworkers. I appreciated everyone IMs and emails and in-person condolences. I'm so happy to know so many people felt the need to comfort me. Mike's wake is tomorrow (Friday) from 2-8pm in Indiana. I unfortunately cannot go, but I wish I could just drop everything and drive 10 hours to be at his wake tomorrow. The funeral is on Saturday. I know several people going, and they've promised to tell him goodbye for me. His family set up a guestbook in his name for his online friends to say goodbye. I've been sitting in a chat room for the past hour and a half with 50 people that knew him, me being one of the guests of honor since I knew him so well.

Jake offered to cheer me up today after work, so I spent several hours with him tonight. But then he kicked me out since he wanted to spend time with Rach. Don't they live together?? Jake wasn't too interested in talking to me about Mike, but was interested in keeping occupied with other fun stuff to do. Rachael said I spoil him, but it's just because he's tirelessly tolerant of me and my rantings about everything. I can talk to him just about anything and he'd patiently listen to me (and then later change the subject to cars or girls). And he's also one of the few people I know that doesn't read the blog... :)

Another typical day at work, nothing too exciting. Lunch with the guys, helping people out with their neverending quest to get on our website, persuading folks to use our automated forms and working on projects that I've been putting off for months until a 'quieter' time. Trying to take it easy, keeping myself composed and bright for the folks around me. Wouldn't want to give them the impression that something is wrong. Though I'm feeling better a day later. I was more in shock than anything, and that's passed and I feel better now that I've expressed myself. I felt sad last night, was up until 2am in fact talking to people about it, but I think things will be brighter and happier from now on. Mike wouldn't have wanted people to be upset for too long, anyway.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. Should route myself back to normalty. Friday night are three new episodes of TV. Saturday is sale hopping with Deb, helping out the family again with their computers, mooching off free food, running a million errands before my trip on Wednesday, doing some shopping for vacation clothes, haircut and cleaning up the apartment. Jake is busy racing all weekend so I'll need to find someone else to harass on Sunday. One last thing: the baby birds are beautiful. Two grey birds and a third is white. Never had a white one before, I'm happy. I might even keep her.

I'm happy for Cynthia for having a successful first date with the guy she's been talking to. Makes me happy that she's happy. I am looking forward to gossiping with her in LA next week. Also looking forward to griping with Cindy about food, dates and the usually crap we complain about. :) Not looking forward to leaving my cat alone for 2 weeks. Looking forward to being in the sun, on a white sandy beach, in front of a blue ocean, in 100 degree weather. I guess it will all even out in the end.

Alas, I should go to bed. No 2am chats for me tonight. Tomorrow is Friday and a busy 3 days are ahead of me.

In memory... Michael C. Back

I am distraught. I learned tonight that my dear friend Michael that I've known since October of 2000 passed away yesterday in his sleep. He was 35 years old. Mike and I fast became friends back in 2000 through our online activities and have kept in touch ever since. I've engaged him in many a conversation about game politics, organization structures, the morons that surround us, programming secrets and much more.. all stuff each of us find interesting and entertaining. He and I have had a playful competition between each other for 5 years and I'm finding myself at a loss of thoughts, emotions and words. I feel empty. I don't know how I should feel. I've not lost someone this close to me ever.

Mike (aka Seth Cotis) has been a brother to me, keeping me in check, checking in on my status and poking his head in to see if I'm doing something he can do better. Over the years we've learned so much from each other that I don't know where to go from here. I spoke to his sister tonight to verify that he had died and she had let me know that Mike died in his sleep, peacefully, but from complications with his diabetes and his heart. He was a healthy man, this is a shock to everyone involved. I won't go into what he and I were involved in online, but suffice to say, he has touched hundreds of people. Before I called his sister, everyone was scrambling for a good 2 hours trying to find out something, ANYTHING about what had happened to him. Fake death notices are fairly common unfortunately We got a small bit of info when one of his friends posted a message to a forum, and I track down his sister's name and address from my information and found out more. I hate being the bearer of bad news, but I'd do anything for Mike.

Mike was a dear friend. He challenged my concept of friendship, defended me in my time of need, came to my aide without my asking and supported me in my time of triumph. I couldn't have asked for a better buddy and I'm sorry I had let our friendship slide over the past 6 months. My last words to him were a happy birthday wish on the 4th of July. He responded just as kindly. I will remember him as a fun-loving creative chap that loved what he did and loved those around him. I only wish I had his confidence and strength. His passing will stay with me for a long time. I will miss him dearly.

Farewell Michael, you will be missed more than you ever knew.

Affirmation.. confirmation?

Just sitting here, doing dishes, cleaning up, listening to the 40 gigs of music I have.. and this pops up.. made me think, made me happy..

Affirmation, by Savage Garden

I believe the sun should never set upon an argument
I believe we place our happiness in other people's hands
I believe that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for you
I believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do

I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem
I believe I'm loved when I'm completely by myself alone
I believe you can't control or choose your sexuality
I believe that trust is more important than monogamy

I believe your most attractive features are your heart and soul
I believe that family is worth more than money or gold
I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair
I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love until you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

I believe forgiveness is the key to your unhappiness
I believe that wedded bliss negates the need to be undressed
I believe that God does not endorse TV evangelists
I believe in love surviving death into eternity

He's gonna get me thrown in a mexican jail...

I've been planning what I'll be doing for the latter half of my vacation. The first half isn't really going to require much forethought since I'll be with Cindy and Cynthia and we'll just be eating and walking and eating some more anyway.

My brother called me last night to get me into the idea mode for what we'll do while in San Diego. He has several ideas, but as he pointed out, all of them could be done in 1 day, and we'll be in San Diego for 3 whole days. He said one of those days we'll be heading into Mexico to have some fun. He said he didn't really know what to do other than get drunk and party down there (and I assured him mom would be happy to oblige).

But my friend Jonathan has family right across the border in Baja. He sent me a couple pictures of life down there, including the above image of the best birria in town. I asked him what we should do down there and he gave me a nice, simple list:

From Jon's Email: (sic)

1. visit roasarito mexico..its beautiful weather adn good food... they filmed the titanic at the fox studio there...68 degrees ocean and fantastic food if you know where to go
2. don't try to speak english, nobody speaks it down there unless you go to one of the tourist restaurants and thats not where you get the good food unless you go see chef johnny at the halfway house
3. go to the beach relax with a margarita and ahh relax and shop mexico needs your tax dollars
4. rent a couple horses and ride up and down on the beach
5. rent an ATV and go sand duneing
6. have dinner in the moonlight go to the bar and get muy borracho..
7. dont drink the water.. bottled only
8. bring bribe money for the cops incase you get pulled over..5 bucks for seat belt 10 for speeding and blantent disreguard of a stop sign
9. make sure you get mexican tourist insurance, its like 10 bucks

I think he's going to get me thrown in a mexican jail O.o But he's given me lots of ideas to think about! I can't wait...!

An adventure on Park, Monroe and East Ave

You'd think between Park Ave, Monroe Ave and East Ave, we'd find a good place to eat. But believe it or not, it took us 45 minutes to find a place and sit down to order.

After a long and tediously tiringly boringly long day, I went over to Jake's for the evening of car work, video games and dinner. We found yet another thing on Jake's car to rip apart, sand, repaint and reattach for 2 hours. I have the battle wounds to prove it. Jake cut himself (again) and I now am the proud owner of two large blisters on my thumbs. But egad, we got his Toyota Echo Vitz's spoiler fixed, his Echo logo removed and the Vitz attached, and were in the house playing Champions before 8. That is, until Lindsay and her new boy Jesse (surfer boy) came over for dinner. Interupted once again, we piled into Lindsay's rickety car for an adventure into the city.

After lucking out at one two three four different restaurants, we finally settled on Charlie's Frog Pond. But wait! I noticed Sinbad's was open (right where we parked). Terrific, we ate that. And that we ate, a lot. So much food, fanastic filafel that we ended up bringing most of it home. I'm happy that Jake and Rach are experiences and willing when it comes to food. It's an unhappy occasion to eat with people that stick to the same american crud each time you eat out. :)

So, I got a job offer today. Scott offered me a $66,000 a year job. Not that I'm looking, but it's a job in Washington, DC being a programmer. While it would normally be a great opportunity, I'm bounded to Rochester for at least 2 years. After that, I'd consider moving to DC, or LA, or even NY. But right now, I'm here to be here. I need to finish my degree. I didn't tell him that, but it's tempting.

Jake is trying to entice me to come over tonight to help him with house chores. He never ceases to amaze me. I saw the pile of dishes he has (I contributed a glass or two this week) and it's monstrous. Tho, I'm not one to complain, I have my own mound piling up in my kitchen. I'm so gross.

We've angered god here, ladies and gents...

Over the past four days, we've had 3 major thunder and lightning storms. Craziness. Fun stuff, too. Tonight I even sat out on my patio and ate dinner watching the flashes and listening to the rain.

I've had a good weekend, which was stark contrast to my Friday. The most I can say we accomplished then was figuring out which keys do what on our keychains. See, we have several parts of the building that certain people have keys to but others do not. And since our office is shared with another office, certain people have keys and others do not. And some keys do the same thing but are labeled differently because, say, they can't get you into the main building, but anywhere inside the building. A couple of the folks I work with spent about 30 minutes trying to unlock and relock a door just to make sure they could. My boss and I got involved and there we were, all four of us, standing around a door we recently locked and looking at each other like... what are we accomplishing here?

I had big plans for Friday evening, which didn't include going outside my apartment. Friday night is dubbed 'SciFi Fridays' by the SciFi channel since my 3 favorite shows air new episodes beginning 2 days ago. Their seasons run a bit different than the main broadcast channels, which is pleasant, since they split their seasons in 2, start one now, finish around October when the other channels start their new season, and then they start again in January when the other channels are on winter hiatus. They do this primarily to take advantage of people avoiding TV when there are no new shows on.

Unfortunately, I do not get SciFi channel, but the folks that put the shows online do it really fast. So I wasted time by watching the 6 episodes (2 of each) of all 3 shows from the end of last season (which I got in January because they aired in the UK 2 months before they aired in the US). All the show watching got me excited for the new season. Stargate is based around the US military, which alone I think is pretty boring, but throw in alien forces that outmatch Earth any day of the week and we get great storytelling and interesting plot development. Last season left us in a quiet pinch in show 1, a dire situation in show 2 and a traumatic situation (main character shot 5 times in the chest by other main character) in show 3. The first show was posted online around 10 (minutes after it aired) and I started the several hour download process. I finished up my 6 episodes while I worked out and went to bed knowing in the morning I would be watching TV once again.

After watching all 3 shows, which rocked, I got ready, made a pan of brownies, and headed to my mothers for dinner. Don't ask me, I somehow managed to spend the entire day in the span of 3 TV shows.

I got home around 5 and nobody was there. Which was strange, since both my sisters and my mother had all called me separately during the drive home. But I wasn't alone for long, and dinner soon began to cook. Between the hot dogs, hamburgers, fruit salad, corn on the cobb and the dessert I brought, food was pretty good. Nola had hugged me profusely since she loves my brownies. I fixed my mom's computer, burned a CD of pictures I have to work on for my aunt, and was soon out the door... which was again strange, since I was alone again. Mom went to her high school reunion and my sisters left to a friends.

I stopped at Deb's house to fix her computer, since something was acting up. When I got there, Mary Joan, Frank and Grandma were all headed next door to see the new carpet. Okay...? But I became useful once more and hooked up her phone and answering machine for her. The carpet and flooring was just installed and it looks really nice. She should be moving in very shortly, to the relief of Deb. After Mary Joan had left, the 3 of us just hung out talking about obscure things. Deb made fun of me for being so frugal that I only pay $9 a month for cable and $20 a month for road runner. But then we read an article about the difference in length of your ring finger and index finger. If the ring finger is longer than the index finger, it means you had gotten more testosterone in the womb. Deb's right hand was fine, but her left hand out of whack and all of us were grossed out. I simply do not know how she sleeps at night.

Speeking of sleeping the night, I ended up staying overnight at Debs. Not only did I fix her computer, but I also designed an invitation for my cousin Jered's upcoming bachelor party that Deb is throwing. Yes, my aunt has taken control of his bachelor party. But the invite ended up looking nice. She told me his interests (landscaping, smores, he's in school to be a doctor, St.Louis Cardinals, lobsters since thats the family business, and finally the Schwetty Balls skit from SNL. After getting images relating to all of them, grandma became editor and chief and veteod the SNL picture. Printed. Mailed today.

This morning I met the bunch at a diner for breakfast. They of course had just gotten out of church, and I drug my heretic self to the breakfast table 10 minutes late. They were rehashing jokes from last night and had fun at my expense. I was given grandma to drive around for the morning and we made our rounds. First we ended up at a moving sale in someone's apartment. Or should I say tiny room with a bathroom. Not only was it on the 3rd floor of a rotty house but the lady smokes and the entire place reeked of it. The barterer my grandmother had gotten the lady to lower her price on pretty much everything and we made it out of there with a little under $20 worth of goods, but taking up my entire trunk and backseat. Oh, and I got a beutiful knitted blank to add to my living room (which I washed right away).

But hey! The dollar store was fun. Because that was our next stop. And I had some high class shopping to do. I ran across pizza plates in the store, which Jake has, and I figure.. maybe thats why Jake doesn't come over anymore.. I don't have pizza plates. So I got 4 of them, and later Jake confirmed that is in fact the reason he does not come over anymore. With shopping over, we returned to Deb's and I took a nap. But on my way out, Grandma ended up giving me her new microwave since her new house has one built into the kitchen over the stove. And Deb bought me a pack of soda to thank me and I left around 3, a little under 24 hours since I had gotten there.

So there it is, my exciting and adventure-filled weekend. We did lose power here last night, which explains why my computer was off and my clocks are an hour and 20 minutes off. Wait, does that mean my milk is bad now? Cause I just had cereal for dinner... :(

Crash, bang... zap, power's out?

I should really just bury my head in the sand somewhere and just ignore the world. Over the past 24 hours, I've heard more griping, more complaining, more insane rants and uncontrollable fits of panic and rage that I'm just exhausted mentally. I want no more of it! Of course, I'll still be part of it, cause I'm a good friend and will listen to it... over and over.

My friend Jason sent me a note this morning from Brazil. He's down there for 7 months on an international work program to help develop poor areas (which, as he's described is pretty much the entire country). He's feeling alone. He's regretting going down there. The language barrier is tough, he's a vegetarian being forced to eat meat, the program is disorganized, he's not with a host family, and the list goes on. He may return early and give up (he's been gone a couple weeks). I feel bad for him. I even gave him some money for his trip down. He told me to read his blog and keep up with him. He's a great guy. I hope he gets through it.

Then there's Pete, a local friend from Penfield. I've been reading his blog too, and he's the funniest guy I've read from in a long time. Constant laughs, all the way down the page. Pete is young, but freakin hillarious. He's going to college after flunking out of high school. Good for him, but his trials and tribulations are funny. He's been studying for the entrance exam to MCC and got frustrated on a fractions question:

For those of you that don’t feel like doing the math, Sarah needs 3/80ths of a cup of sugar. Who the hell has a 3/80ths measuring cup laying around in the kitchen? “Excuse me, neighbor! Would you happen to have 3/80ths of one cup of sugar handy?” Not only that, but is the taste of your cake going to change that much if you’re missing 3/80ths of one cup of sugar?

He's loaded with more and more, like the post about the water heater replacement project or the trip to Wegmans in a drunken haze.

Including those (and more) that I've added to the right side of the blog, I've added Scott's blog too. He's a guy I know down in DC. He actually works in one of the buildings I walked by when I was down there... O:) He yelled at me that I should have let him know I was there, but alas, was having too much fun with Laura. :) Scott's also the one that I spoke of yesterday where I angered him. But he sent me a 3 page email this morning (at 3am) apologizing once again and letting me know he's getting help. Good. Between him and the other folks that have been driving me crazy, I need a break. :)

Katie, JB and I went out to Pelligrinos for lunch, on Katie's tab. That was after we hauled her 300 pound air conditioner out of her apartment. I swear, I've seen central air units smaller than that thing. She's returning it since it doesn't FIT in her apartment. Easy enough, and I got a sub out of the deal. JB is off to Philly for the weekend, but Katie and I returned for a glorious afternoon of thunder and lightning, power surges and stuffy offices.

Rachael is starting her job in Buffalo next week. She's gonna be staying there most of the week at someone's house. Good news for me, bad for Jake. He'll want me to come over more (good) but he won't see his wife but on the weekends (bad). Hmm.

Between last night being a completely uncomfortable sleep (after taking a 2 hour nap at 7), to the ramblings of someone being suicidal online (sigh), petty fights between people who have never meet each other face to face, to the giant oatmeal coffeecake that somehow made itself at 9pm.. I'm beat. I could REALLY use a drink. Oooh. Hmm. That makes me think. Amaretto and sour drink mix.. here I come! Tonight is gonna be fuuunnn..

Flashback: 2003

Indeed. Not only is it below freezing in that picture, but it's back in January 2003 during one our sledding expiditions behind Susan B. Anthony Hall, sledding our hearts desires out on the hill. So much fun, but I don't miss the snow.

I ended up getting in touch with Jake last night, bought my coke, and hung out with him until 11pm. We worked on his car for about 5 hours (becoming the dirtiest grease monkeys ever seen), ate some quick dinner from Sal's Pizzaria (instead of the promised Dim Sum), and then I drug myself home even tho I was still a bit tipsy from the mixed drinks I made at Jake's. Leftover wedding liquor.. nice.

The space shuttle ended up not launching today. Was supposed to launch at 10 to 4. That's a shame, was looking forward to watching it. Soon, perhaps. Also, a new link on the right, Tom sent me this today: Java Games For those slow boring Friday afternoons...

After my meeting with that department (mentioned last week), they finally approved me for 41 hours of work. That just rocks. I'm hoping to start working on it next week, after hours and on the weekends. I want to get as much of it done as possible so I can get paid as soon as possible. Another bonus.. my employer started contributing their 6.2% a month early. Nice. And 3rd bonus.. when I get paid in jumbo checks for my extra jobs, they give me 6.2% of that too. Now this makes me want to retire..!

My boss is out on vacation all next week. He comes back the day I leave for vacation. So starting Monday I'm bossless for 4 weeks. That's really weird. Even tho I'll be gone for the last 2 of those, still gonna be weird.

Oh, and my grumble of the day.. students that transfer schools. Especially if you transferred twice. Your record is a complete mess to go through. Yeah, I'm looking at you (Cynthia and other such students).. *scathing look* Just kidding... (I'm not kidding).

I kinda sorta maybe pissed someone off royally yesterday. After a rough 2 hour conversation with him, he just ignored me the rest of the day. Hmp, he called me manipulative. *evil grin* Only when I want something out of you... Even though he apologized, it left me thinking. And then after watching a Law & Order episode about manipulation last night, it kinda made me think I may be a sociopath (bah). Nahh, the symptoms of that are way out there. Okay, this ends the self-deprecating section of the blog.

I'm finally done with testing a new system we developed at work. Apparently a grant to our work to create new classifications recently prompted our computer folks to update certain scripts, and I was the testbed. So I've written and received over 100 emails over the past 7 days. Finally done. Now I can go back to just deleting spam. :)

Bah, the eye doctor still hasn't sent me my contacts. They shipped them off to Brockport, where I used to live. I gave them my new address. Morons.

Hoping to meet up with a friend tonight. May or may not work out. Also, Nola is coming up this weekend again. Maybe she'll see Star Wars with me.....?

Taking it easy, one nap at a time...

Last night was a very relaxing four hour nap, followed by an hour on the elliptical, followed by 8 hours of sleep. Yep, that was my Monday night. And you thought I was gonna be productive.

Sheila called me and spent a while saying hello, whats going on, miss you and whatnot. I miss her too. She's in Penfield for that Indian Camp she helps run every year. They apparently had a free night and were storming through Eastview Mall and had a moment to say hello. I hope to see her in Bing when I come back from vacation. May Alison will join me.

Today we had our staff picnic during the lunch hour. It was a lot of fun, I'm glad we did it. The boss even said we'll do another one in August. All 11 of us, sitting around in a circle of picnic blankets, with our bagged lunches from the food factory. Very good company, very good food. However, it was wonderfully warm, too much in fact, for us in a tie and long sleeve shirt.

Katie's birthday was today, a coworker of mine. I missed the morning birthday festivities, but I did manage to drop her a card with a diet pepsi attached. She likes her pepsi. And it was cold, freshly purchased in the morning. I skipped the coffeecake, with pleasure. I'm actually doing quite well with the eating as of late. I don't want to stop now, it only gets easier to stay on the wagon.

I got home and to my surprise I got a card from Cynthia in Georgia. How fun! A cute card, too. Inside was much love, much adores and much miss yous. And my favorite.. a coupon for a six pack of diet coke! How much does she rock? A lot, that's how much. Gonna go buy me some coke now. And the good stuff.. the diet kind.

Oh, what to do tonight, what to do. I've been calling Jake all afternoon to no answer. I wonder where he is. We should hang out tonight.

Oh, and congrats to Laura on her 2nd full day of being a teacher and on her passing the comps! Way to go, you!

A relaxing week ahead, but feeling the heat..

It's funny that I'm actually viewing the upcoming week as relaxing, but that's how I feel. While this week just includes my usual duties, it's the offweeks when the pressure is on and the heat turned up is when work becomes annoying or even uninteresting. Shock, I know. One of those weeks is coming up soon. Before vacation, thank gawd.

Oh, and that image above includes subject lines of some emails from Jake. *shakes head*

But right now I'm happy doing what I do. But you should love what you do, even if it's not your long term job. Otherwise you'll find stress, unhappiness and craziness in your life that is just not justifiable. To me anyway, and I'm big on justification.

For all you concerned about what to get me for my birthday in less than one month, I've added a couple convenient items to my wishlist:

1. Namely, a vacuum, since I've been using a shop vac for a year, and while it's nice, an upright would be fun.
2. City of Darkness, Colony, Venus and Mars. And if you buy Mars, buy Return to Mars too. ;)
3. The Incredibles or Team America
4. Martex Sheets, king size of course

See, I'm not much trouble at all.. ;) Though even a card would make me happy, but presents never hurt! August 4th! Write it down.

This morning I had all my meetings and I'm finally sitting down to read my email and take a breather. Grabbed a piece of candy and catch up on the news. Tho I was left behind for my 10:30, so that was annoying. I rather hate walking a mile to a work meeting. But no more meetings until Friday, so all is well.

Alex gave me a copy of Star Wars Episode 3. Hmmm.... not very good quality, so I'm not even gonna bother watching it. I still want to see it in the theatre, so anyway.. someone... you there..? Hint? :) I know its not the dollar theatre, but still.

How happy am I? A family member is giving me a beautiful oak desk, glasstop, 6 drawers with built in filing cabinet on both sides. It's huge, beautiful and will work perfectly in my bedroom. Now I just have to get it up here. I've never had a nice desk in my life.

I'm getting stuff together for my Simon Application and I'm going to the library for some prep materials for the GMAT. I'm gonna take it in August after I get back from vacation. While it would be splendid to take it before vacation, I'm not gonna just for the simple fact that I'm overburdened with other tasks right now. So if you'd like to volunteer to be my reference, let me know. :)

I've been looking at phones recently, a possible upgrade from the current one I have. I'm with Verizon and I like them. In addition to all the great stuff they have (including IN calling which is great since everyone I know is IN) they also have free internet, which is use A LOT when I'm traveling. So I'm sticking with them. My lease with them turns into a month2month in 2 months, so it's never too early to be looking ahead.

One of the new phones, which I adore, is the Morotola V710. As you may know, Verizon pulls a stunt and cripples most of their bluetooth phones (for whatever reason). Not so with the V710. In addition to the camera, it has a ton of need little features like internet without wires, which would be a plus since my USB cable gets somewhat annoying (not too much though). This ends Luke's segment on geek-talk.

I start work on my 3rd job with that department I spoke about last week this coming week. Looking forward to it. Every time I start one of these big projects, I expand my technical base knowledge a little bit more. Which is so much more useful than learning it through college. I didn't really get much experience out of school. But alas, I'm past that.

Seneca County fair is coming up in the next week. I was gonna volunteer to be a Chili judge again, but alas, I didn't respond in time. But I'm sure to stop by, so let me know if you're gonna be there and we'll meet up. That, and Monroe County's fair is coming up to, but that's even worse than Seneca's.. ;)

Books.. books.. and more crappy books...

Between my running up and down the thruway this weekend, to eating out at almost every meal, and doing good deeds fo family members and visiting with friends.. this has been one productive and relaxing weekend.

Cynthia made me feel guilty on Friday night due to my cake-making habits. So I gave half the cake to my neighbor Stephen and the rest to my sister. This was, of course, after I had a slice (or two). Saturday was mostly a cleaning day for me, which was sorely needed. Betweeen washing every item of cloth (6 loads) in my home, to scrubbing down ceramic and plaster, to doing a load of dishes, my place is pretty good for the next week or two.

Ugh. You try putting a jumbo bandaid on your neck every day, with bacitracin that causes the bandaid to lose its stickiness. I'm totally grossed out about this whole wound. I've grossed others out too. It's not my intentions. The damn thing is red, large and gross. I got some surgical tape to cover the gauze to help it stay on, but not only that, but it still aches. This isn't what I experienced when I had the surgery on my face. Gosh, I really should tell people when I'm having surgery. My entire family was shocked that I had the procedure done last week. People were coming up to me on the streets asking me what was wrong with my neck. Granted, this is Seneca County and people are really really bored.

Nola arrived at my place pretty early in the day, around 2. Her and I went and watched "The Interpreter" at Movies 10, came back and went to a spanish restaurant in the danger zone of inner Rochester, visited for a while with Alex and his coworkers and then came back to bum around. She took off for her date while I toiled away on Mary Joan's computer for the next 7 hours. Remind me never to try to back up any data on a computer running Windows 98. It just doesn't work. Nothing I tried was of any success until I finally networked the 2 computers together as a last resort (those college skillz come in handy once again).

I am SOOOOO looking forward to California. It's been far too long since I was last there (okay okay.. 7 months). Things I miss about California:

1. Being in PERFECT weather any day, any time.
2. Spending time with great friends, even if 3 hours a day are spent in a car on 5 miles of highway
3. Eating food that is actually cooked by people native to the country the food is from
4. TANS. God, people in Rochester are translucent its so bad (me included)
5. People with perfect bodies making the rest of us look like yokels from the blue lagoon.
6. City life has no equivalent.. and Rochester is nothing compared
7. Subways! So much fun, even if the people there despise them.
8. Shopping! Love to shop for tourist crap.. I'm a sucker for the keychains
9. So.. soo.. soooo much more.

I finally got done with Mary's computer at 3am. It needed so much work, including $200 worth of equipment and software upgrades This was, of course, after I watched Battlestar Galactica on NBC for 3 hours during the Windows install process. Love the show. Can't say enough about it. Season 2 premiers this coming Friday, and I couldn't be more excited. I get excited about very few teevee shows (survivor, stargate, battlestar) and its great that SciFi airs new seasons in the middle of other network hiatuses.

This morning I took off for Seneca County to try and have a fun day. I got to Deb's at 9:00 exactly and a bunch of us had breakfast together. Bagels and muffins from Dunken Donuts, definately a treat. After laughing and telling each stories from years ago, we all headed out to Auburn Mall to check out the book sale and the new Bass Pro store. Fill a bag with books with $2. Ya can't beat that. Or can ya? I tried my best but only found 4 books remotely interesting. I picked up a men's health book as well and a novel by an unknown author, maybe it'll be good. At least it'll be a quick read. I'm still trying to get through Earth, which is 700 pages long and the finest print I've ever read.

After the book sale we headed back to prepare for a dinner party. When the guests started to arrive, the food came out, and of course it was fantastic. I love hanging out with Deb and Jen. They're both a big hoot. We're usually all gambling buddies, but it's fun to just hang out together regardless. And besides, they went gambling last night while I was working on that computer. Jerks.

Plus, Deb bought this fly swatter that actually electrocutes the fly on contact. We had fun zapping flies as we chased flies (and knocked over stuff) all over her place.

I ended up taking a 2 hour nap this evening after overstuffing myself with lasagna, garlic bread, chocolate snickers cake, about a dozen sodas and chips and dip (of course, not in that order). It was an exhausting 11 hours today, and I'll definatly sleep well tonight. Tho the stories of being hit with bed pans and being choked by 98 year women doesn't help.

Gah. I wish this was another 4-day workweek. I have a day full of meetings tomorrow. I get started at 9 and don't get back to my desk until 2.

Quick catch up... *updated*

A couple things from the past couple of days that I forgot to mention...

So Jake is getting security clearance for his job at ITT. Apparently he's going to be working on projects for the government.. because an Air Force representative (Chris) came and interviewed me for 30 minutes yesterday. I checked with Jake before I gave this guy any information, but it was a load of fun. I'm surprised I know so much about Jake. I doubt he knows this much about me. Would he care to know this much about me? A couple of my coworkers were speculating WHY the government investigator was there to see me.

- maybe they're here to bust him for downloading episodes of Lost..
- maybe they're here to take out whatever they put into his neck the other day
- maybe he's getting a new job with the government

Those were all funny.. we had a good laugh about them over lunch today at Pelligrinos. But nope, just about Jake. He asked me just about everything about him, his wife, his life in Rochester.. Buffalo.. Elmira.. during the summers at UR.. etc. I knew 99% of it. I didn't know if Jake had ever been arrested.. but I did know if he had taken any drugs.. had ever been out of the country (Europe in HS, Canada all the time, etc)... I also knew his previous 4 jobs. Heh.

The guy was quite thourough.. and he remember a lot from other people he had interviewed. I guess they only do one person at a time.. because how could he remember full names of people that were from Jake's past (like 10 years ago past...). I told Jake about the interview and he thanked me for lying for him. Ha. I didn't lie, but I told him if he's denied clearance, it's not my fault!

Lunch today with the boys at Pelligrinos. Lively discussion about work... great food (huge proportions).. conspiracy theories about some sorta upcoming event going down in the big 312.. apparently there is some gossip that something is gonna go down.. soon. Nah, but it's fun to joke. I don't get to sit up there and listen, so they'll fill me in once a month. Heh.

So I couldn't get on my home computer at all yesterday or today from work. I had just reinstalled a lesser version of my firewall (due to the recommendations of my download program Azureus).. and I thought.. maybe it was misfiring again. Nope! My ISP reset my damn IP address to something else. First time in the year I've lived here. Well you know what, maybe that's what it is. It's been a year since I got the net hooked up. Interesting. Maybe it changes every year.

But regardless, I decided to get a DNS dynamic service so I don't have to remember my IP address anymore. Instead I can go to a friendly URL like lukecomp.2mydns.com etc It's not that, but its simple like that. It rocks. The more I learn about it, the more I like it. I like being able to do my email and pictures and such from afar. Totally geeky, I know, but it's nice to have your home computer at your finger tips wherever you are.

I changed the name of the blog. I got the idea from Cynthia, down in der gorgiah (sic). Hope it works.. for awhile. I wanted to change the template, but nothing struck my fancy. Maybe next week.

And for my daily gripe about my cat... she woke me up twice this morning sitting on my 6 foot dresser watching the birds (and the babies within). I don't know how she jumps that high.. I've removed any items that would aid her in his strategy.. have put things IN her way to prevent her from jumping.. but she's up there anyway. Nothing I do will stop her. Plus.. she completely ate one of my plants.

I'm trying to relax tonight, but my neck aches and I have a jittering feeling. Making a cake for the weekend. Don't yell at me, I felt like cake. ;)

Merit.. you don't speak for me...!

So I'm quite the busy worker as of late. I didn't get done with work until 6 today. Sheesh. But I'm the man of the hour since my boss is out. Everyone needs Luke to run batch jobs and test new doohickeys in development. No matter, I like feeling needed, even if it's only for a short while.

I'm kind of sad. I've finished my Firefly series. Only 1 season was shown by Fox and they canceled it and I got done watching them all. It really grew on me. I wish I could watch more. I'm glad the movie is coming out soon. So many movies to watch, and none of my friends wanna see them with me. Where's Linda when I need her??

Tonight I went to a club and watched several live bands perform. It was a lot of fun. Not a huge crowd, but what do you expect in Rochester.. on Thursday night.. in July? We all got dinner before the show at a local bar. Really good food, really cramped quarters. Food took forever to arrive. The band we ate dinner with actually had to leave before their food arrived.. which was an hour after we ordered.

We went to see Merit play anyway, and they performed for an hour. I have their CD in my car. It's a great play. It was great meeting the people behind the music. I should have brought my CD to have them sign it.. or at least my camera to take their picture. You can go their site and listen to one of their best songs. It's at the top right.

Tired. Bed. Night.

Why is it I always choose the gruff character that shoots arrows?

Hey, I got through yesterday. It was tough, but I knew my evening would be fun, so I stuck it out. Had a good meeting yesterday afternoon with another department. They've approved me for 35 hours of work for them. That should be a nice fat paycheck for my trip to Los Angeles in August.

I changed my bandages this morning. Okay, I hope the scar isn't gonna be that big, because the incision is huge. And one end looks inflamed. Great. The scar on my cheek has pretty much gone down to minimal status, which is good. I guess this one will too, with time.

Jake bought a bunch of new games last week while we were in Brockport and we spent 7 hours playing them last night. *big grin* It did take my mind off of the pain, I got a bunch of laundry done at his house and he fed me. Hey, you can't get much better than that. What more does a guy need? video games, check. laundry, check. pizza, check.

I didn't mention my new USB cord I got off ebay for my hard drive. It works great. So great in fact that the problems I had with the drive before were all the cord, and not the drive. So now it works better than before. Now I just need to keep it away from the cat. And I've neglected my cleaning routine over the past 2 weeks.. looks like I have something to do this weekend, other than running a thousand errands, fixing Mary Joan's computer and going to my mother's to fix her computer.

My boss is out again today. Should be a quiet day without him. Even if he comes in tomorrow, he'll be too busy for our weekly Friday meeting. I have a bunch of work to do anyway.

Another surgery.. another pain in the neck...

Last night was entertaining, to say the least. Nola made homemade brownies (see.. this is how I get around the Baking Moratorium I had as a goal. I still haven't baked ANYTHING in over a month. But I guess that doesn't mean I can't eat. She put peanut butter in them.. MmmmmMmm.. she kept asking me "Who are you? What did you do with Luke? I don't think I like this new you..." when I told her I didn't have any food in the kitchen to snack on, bake with or open and eat out of a box.

But Nola helped me, Jake, Rach and Lindsay move the rest of Rachael's crap print-making stuff from Buffalo to Rochester. The stuff weighs 600 pounds. Literally. It's lead, all of it. Lead type from the 1800s. My god. We unpacked a huge U-Haul in a little under 5 hours (sigh). Jake and Rach fed us main street pizza from Brockport (yum) and we hung out the rest of the night staring back at the neighbors since they stared at us all evening.

This morning I had my surgery on my neck. It hurts. It sucked. At least this time I got to see what it was they took out of me. And then I wanted to throw up. Remind me not to ask to see it next time. The freakin thing was the size of a marker cap. But now my neck hurts like hell and the stitches are so tight my neck leans to the left.. so now I have a crink. Sigh.

It was weird. I had to take my shirt off for the surgery, and the doctor came in and goes "Do you work out?" I was like.. wow.. what a compliment... but then he goes "Or did you lose a lot of weight?" Ugh. I guess my horribly disfigured body is noticable.. to a skin doctor. ;) But now I get to change bandages for 10 days like a good soldier.. in a part of my body I can't see to be accurate. I can feel the headache coming on. I was so dizzy after the procedure that I almost fainted. The nurse wouldn't let me leave for a bit, but I started feeling better. I prolly shouldn't have come into work, but alas, I'm not sick per se.

I've worked for 9 days straight. I could use a day off. Soon.

Ahh.. the sweet sound of hungry baby birds...

Last night, after I finished working on my project at work, I took a dinner break, did some grocery shopping and then went to Jake's to spend the rest of my evening. He had called me a little earlier, feeling guilty that he didn't call me on Sunday. Damn right. But we talked for an hour, even tho he's 3 miles away. It was nice explaining what I've been up to, to someone. After 30 hours of work, I'm surprised I'm still sane.

We played cards (euchre, uno, etc) for most of the evening. Lindsay ate about 50 freezy pops, they fed me a really delicious vegetarian dish, and we hung out and sweated out the night. No big fireworks display for us this year.

Nola came over around midnight last night, which gave us a little time to catch up on the latest family stuff going on. Not much. Grandma is living with Deb. Mom is having empty nest syndrome already. Molly is alone in Bing. The usual, I guess. :)

This morning I woke up to baby birds chirping away. Babies! I had no idea. That makes me so happy. I looked in the nest.. and they're UGLY. Man, they're at least a week old. Sheesh. I love it how the parents make throwing up motions every time one of them squeeks.. even if they're nowhere near them.

Ahh, the joys of fatherhood.

Nola and I went to Chopsticks for lunch. Sigh! There goes my starvation streak! But it'll resume right away. Lost 2 pounds over the last week. Woohoo! (Note: I'm not starving, stop giving me that look. I eat just fine.)

Yay, project is almost over! Boss is out today! Going home early! Movies tonight!

Happy 4th of July.. or as I like to call it.. 1 month until my birthday...

This weekend has been a big bust. But I feel great now that I've flushed my system of an overindulgence of food and that bloat feel I had all last week from having endless supplies of donuts, cakes, muffins and the like.

Cynthia called me, said she's flushing too. I guess we're both on Cindykins. ;) She's hanging out by a pool all day though, unlike me who is hanging out at work. Tho I'm almost done, so I'm happy about that. I'd of loved to have gone swimming this weekend, or simply lay in the sun, or go to the beach, or do something.

Laura and Luke are in DC today, enjoying the celebrations and watching the nation's fireworks. Lucky. Rochester has nothing. At least Nola is coming over tonight, so maybe it won't be a complete wash.

Tired of coding... but breakthrough! *updated*

I've been here for over 9 hours now... coding straight. I dun like it, not one bit. I am relieved tho, now that I just overcame a huge hurdle. It sucked, since in HTML forms, checkboxes that are not checked do not send data through to the server.. so if you UNCHECK a checked checkbox in a form, and then submit again, there is no easy way to know you unchecked it. So I had to include a hidden variable that included ALL checkbox names so I knew what was originally on the form. Boring, I know, but a pain in the ass, since this is an attendance system.. and checking and unchecking is routine.

This sucker took me an hour:

$spnum = $event;

if((($row1['event_id']==$event)&&($row1['week_'.$i.'_g']=='00000')) || (($row1['event_id']!=$event)&&($row1['week_'.$i.'_g']==$event)))
{

if($row1['event_id']!=$event) { $spnum = $row1['event_id']; }

$o .= $row1['netid'].'###week_'.$i.'###'.$spnum.'***';
$t .= '<input name="'.$row1['netid'].'---week_'.$i.'---'.$spnum.'" type=checkbox'.($row1['week_'.$i]?' checked':'').'>';
}
else
$t .= ' ';

Not too impressive, it just took a bit to think through it. This code is repeated up to a couple dozen times for each student. I didn't include a bit of code before it to check whether this person has guested in another person's session, because frankly it would be confusing for you... *grin*

But this doosey took me 2 hours and I just got it:

$tok = strtok($allchecks,"***");
while ($tok != false) {
$back_array[] = $tok;
$tok = strtok("***");
}
foreach ($back_array as $list) {
$tok = strtok($list,"###");
if($tok){
$u_id = $tok;
$wk_id = strtok("###");
$se_id = strtok("###");
$check_array[$list] = array();
$check_array[$list][1] = $wk_id;
$check_array[$list][2] = $u_id;
$check_array[$list][3] = $se_id;
$check_array[$list][4] = 0;
}
}

while (list($name, $value) = each($HTTP_POST_VARS)) {
$tok = strtok($name,"---");
if($tok){
$netid_n = $tok;
$wk_num = strtok("---");
$ev_id = strtok("---");
if( substr_count($wk_num, 'week') ){
$check_array[$netid_n.'###'.$wk_num.'###'.$ev_id][4] = 1;
}
}
}

Don't laugh if there was an easier way to do it, cause I don't want to know. And the kicker.. my super SQL.. ;)

foreach ($check_array as $r) {

if($r[3] == $event){ $ex = ", ".$r[1]."_g = 0"; }else{ $ex = ""; } //if its my event and my person, then reclaim empty guest checkboxes
if($r[3] != $event && $r[4]==0){ $ex1 = ", ".$r[1]."_g = 0"; }else{ $ex1 = ""; } //if its not my event, but a guest box I'm not using, give it back to owner

$sql = "UPDATE site_ams_participants SET ".$r[1]." = '".$r[4]."'".$ex.$ex1." WHERE netid = '".$r[2]."' AND event_id = '".$r[3]."' LIMIT 1;";
}

Toil toil toiling away.. shake it shake it shake it..

*blinks*

I'm sitting at work, working on my project. It took me an hour to get going, but now I'm making great progress. If I keep at this pace, I may not have to work on Monday.

Vacation Update:

Plane ticket to L.A.: $164.90
Hotel Room w/2 beds for 7 nights: $599.98
Car Rental 8 days: $156
Budget for food/drink: $150
Plane ticket home: $180.20
Spending time with Cynthia, Cindy, Aaron: priceless (or is it?)

I'm surviving on Diet Pepsi & Diet Mountain Dew this weekend. I'm wired, watch out!

Neato boditto.. where's my burrito..?

So I bitch about my cat a lot, I know. But she's getting stupid now. After ruining my USB cord the other night (reordered one immediately on ebay), I came home today to 2 plants knocked over.. a package of fish food completely chewed to pieces, cat hair all over my computer and her catfood/waterdish dipped over (apparently it called her a name). Sigh. What to do, what to do.

Last night her and I had a long nap together. I fell asleep in my chair and woke up with her wrapped around my neck soundly sleeping touching my cheek. She's so sweet.. and deadly. I clipped her nails when she started scratching me playfully.

This weekend should be ok. We got let out of work early.. it was a pretty slow day. I have Monday off, but I have a huge project to finish up, so I'll be working on that this weekend. I also have Mary Joan's computer to fix, along with Jake's. My mother also emailed me.. her computer needs works. DELL customer service, how can I help you?

I talked to Cindy V yesterday about our vacation plans. She's keeping busy, living in her grandmother's apartment and going to school Tuesdays and Thursdays. She has Wednesdays off too, and she gave me her new home number. It was nice catching up with her. I gave her the hotel info and she's gonna check it out for me. I'm afraid its gonna suck again, so I want a 2nd opinion. This time we're getting a pool. :) It's 3 blocks from Cindy's apartment, so I think we'll be good.

I miss my TV shows on my external hard drive. :( 80 gigs, all inaccessible. Damn cat.

I also found a new program called Real VNC, from Luke O in Virginia. It's a program that lets you use your computer from a remote location. I tried it out today at work.. and it rocks. I set it up on my home computer, so now I can get on it at work if need be. I have it at work, so I can get on there too. Plus if I'm upstairs I can log into my office remotely. It's such a great program, woohoo! Plus, when I get a new PC, I can do what Luke O did at Laura's house.. and hook it up to the TV and simply use it remotely to start/stop the videos. That's such a great idea. Copied! Done. :)

Chinese food tonight.. big meeting online tonight.. keeping busy... being happy.. ahh, it's good to be me.

Let out early.. and on a mission...

So, this morning I was watching my favorite money guru Suze Orman. I have had a couple episodes taped from December that I'm finally getting to... and the people on it are amazing. This one woman was hiding $90,000 in credit card debt from her husband.. and she wanted to secretly file for bankruptcy. BANKRUPTCY! Sheesh, people! There's nothing the matter with bankruptcy, but if you have to lie to your husband about how much money you owe people.. how long is your marriage going to last?

Suze says not long. 1/2 of all marriages fail. 1/2 of the ones that fail, fail because when the passion-love fades (and you're left with a loving friendship), money issues break that faster that something from the dollar store. The only way to maintain is to be honest and true. Hmp, awfully sappy for a millionair.

But she has excellent advice on everything, she's big into contingency plans and forplanning, and my current plan of action is the following:

1. Maintain an 8 month emergency fund. My currently monthly budget is $1,800, so that means $10,000 saved up in the bank. Check, that was last year's goal.
2. Stop lending money to people! Bah. I'm finally almost done with this. Suze says to treat any money you 'lend' to people as a gift and not a loan, because 9 times out of 10, it'll be hell getting the money back. While I've been pretty good at getting the money back, it's still annoying. $500 more and I'll have no more money lent out to people. :)
3. Start a Roth IRA with my bank. Why? Because Roth IRA's grow tax free. In 30-40 years when I retire (god, thats a long time away) the money I put into the Roth IRA will not be taxes when I take it out. If I have children, I can also pay for college expenses or even a house using the money in a Roth IRA tax free. I think that's a rockin' deal. Suze expects tax rates to go up in the coming years.. so if you've already paid taxes on the money at 20-25%, then even if they raise the rate to 30-35%, you don't have to pay it again. However, the following needs to be true for the IRA account:
   1. Made up of mutual funds (managed or index, such as the total stock index fund from vanguard)
   2. No commission on IRA for the bank, there is no need since there are free funds out there
   3. No load fund.. don't ask, I've just been told not to do it!
   4. Stay away from A or B funds. These funds have costs attached to them from the bank. Why pay for something when you can get it for free?
   5. Get from discount brokerage firm, since they have the best return for the least cost.
4. Continue paying off credit card 100% each month. The only reason I have them is because I get 1% back on all my puchases.. and I put EVERYTHING on my card to maximize the return. So far this year I've earned $120 cash back. :) plus, credit cards give you a good credit rating.. I'm trying for 800. Suze has 840.. Grrr...
   
5. Finish paying off my car. Ick, I only have a little bit left on it. What a weight on my shoulders. It turned 2 last month. :)
   
6. Contribute more to my 403(b) plan. I just set it up a couple months ago and I'm contributing 3% now. My employer is going to start dropping in 6.2% every payperiod, so that's great. Once my flex deducation ends at the end of this year, I plan to move that $350 a month into retirement.

To retire at 40, a website said I need to save about $23,000 a year in retirement accounts. Ha! Maybe not until I'm 30 and have an MBA under my belt. :)

People call into the show and sometimes are miserable pieces of crap, crying about their finances. Some people call in and just have made some bad mistakes. I know people in my own family that are drowning in debt, while others that are doing quite well. I told myself as soon as I got on my own, I wouldn't repeat the errors of my bloodline. I think I'm well on my way.