Forecasting doom and destruction.. no wait

Okay, for being self-motivated self-starters, my group has been sluggish in every regard for this project. It's due in 2 weeks and we haven't even surveyed anyone... let alone drank ourselves silly doing some site "testing." ;) We'll pull it together. Each of us has access to people that we can survey and if necessary, I can pull out the punches and mail the survey to 2,000 people I have access to. Though the questions are so specific and confusing.. which is NOT the goal. Perhaps we'll get bad data, or perhaps we'll answer every question we need. Then again, it's just a class and only 10% of our grade.

I had an amazing weekend. It's liberating and relaxing to spend time with the people we feel most comfortable around. Unfortunately, I had an exam first thing on Saturday morning, so my Friday night was spent studying and watching Dane Cook's Tourgasm. I waited until all the episodes were available and watched them back to back. He's brilliant, and being the popular culture-addict that I am, instantly attached myself to his comedy. Back in February, Remi gave me his 2-CD collection and it's only gotten better since then. He has a lot of the same mannerisms that Remi has. Too bad Remi isn't returning my phone calls. Hmmm...

Saturday afternoon, I met up with Deb and Jen to have dinner and gamble all afternoon and evening. Lunch, horse races, slot machines, dinner, more gambling.. winning, winning, losing.. then winning big. With over $1,200 ahead at the end of the night, it felt magical. They had this competition thing that everyone would win something. They won t-shirts, which I promptly confiscated, and I actually won more cash. My luck was great. I even got to see a movie that evening and spent the better part of the following 12 waking hours cleaning and prepping for the upcoming weekend. My friend Sheila is in town, and she's bringing her beau. And my sister is in town that weekend looking for a job and apartment. It'll be packed, with lots to do, lots to see and lots of late nights. Can't wait.

Plus, in the coming weeks the following events occur:

1. My birthday (Aug 4) and all that fun
2. Camping in the Adirondacks & hiking & pictures & canoing! And bears?
3. Week long vacation & the end of classes & travel & photo projects
4. More camping in Pennsylvania with a ton of friends
5. CindyA is coming up from Georgia to visit

How much fun can I fit into the end of summer? How many people can I fit in?

I have some pictures coming too. My patio has plants on it that I maintain.. and I planted 5 plants that like to grapple and grow up on things. Well, the fire escape is covered and I think the people on the top floor are going to start complaining. Ha.

And I'm thoroughly jamming out to Daddy Yankee's Rompe and Chelo's Cha Cha. When did I go Latin?

Tell me what to do.. help me find a way...

My boss is asking me to do more and more things as of late. It could be because of the new job title, or it could just be because she knows I can do them. Everything from simple programming tasks to multistep crossday fullblown projects, I'm hearing from her more and more. Which is odd, since all work usually goes through my supervisor and not from the top. But it's nice to feel useful and wanted. I'm told weekly that she praises my work in meetings. She introduces me in high esteem at gatherings and has added me to a couple working groups/committees for the coming year. I guess this is how it works. You start as a peon and slowly work your way up.

Last weekend was fantastic. I wanted to blog about it while it happened and was fresh in my mind, but unfortunately I didn't get around to it. As it is, it takes me a couple hours to write one entry as I'm distracted and called away for other things. Saturday my coworker/friend Katie had a birthday party / fund raiser get together at her house. I arrived at around 2 and stayed until late. I had another BBQ to go to, but ended up skipping it because of how entertaining this party was. I was humored by being hit on by women older than me, and a bit scared when they became violent after I guessed (correctly) their ages. We played card games tournament style with buyins and jackpots, raffles, a ton of food and beer and a lot of laughs. They even asked why I never visit the local bar, as I'd be a hoot. I bet. Maybe.

Sunday morning I had a terrific brunch at a place called Charlie Brown's with Jake, Rachael and her friend (insert name here). Heh. Yeah, I don't remember her name. She wasn't that engaging anyway, but Jake and I had a good time. While it took us about a half hour to decide between breakfast or lunch, the food was fantastic and we talked about 100 different topics. Jake and I hung out for a couple hours, we all played some board games, but alas.. I had responsibilities back at Simon and returned to do homework with my group for several hours.

Which has been really great. We're working with this upstart .COM company to do their marketing research for them. This is for a class, of course, but the company is real and they have a fantastic business plan. I almost wish I thought of it. We're going to be doing research on what kinds of wine people drink, what kinds of attributes they wish to rate them, what kinds of features they'd want in a website that would organize it and so much more. We got into this protracted 2 hour conversation about the finer details of the project and its got us all pretty hyped up. Unfortunately, I have midterms this week (one of which was last night) and it's put a damper on my excitement, for now.

There are so many things I want to talk about, but the topics are fleeting and I forget them too quickly. This didn't happen when I blogged every day. Funny things. Funny people. Fascinating discussions. Movies, music, people.

Oh, and my brother is engaged.

So much going on.

Fighting back against the man

Poor little blog.. how I neglect you so. If it seems I no longer love you, it's only because my schedule keeps me busy and I have little to no time for internet browsing anymore. And I'm spreading that love to others too.. as my busy schedule has been contagious and I've made others busy as well.

The rest of Saturday was entertaining. Four of us went GeoCaching and tromped around Rochester, ending up in a couple parks, abandoned railroad beds, swamps, in trees and under bridges along the Erie Canal. We spent a good part of the afternoon and evening finding a couple good caches and enjoying the crisp summer evening air. The girls enjoyed getting a couple dozen different wildflowers for some bouqets and I got a nice small patch of poison-ivy on my ankle. All in all, we all benefited. Fit in some mexican food, a failed attempt to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and a very long board game while watching King Kong and you have a typical Saturday with my friends.

Rachael, Lindsay and I enjoyed a busy and fruitful Sunday. We woke up at the crack of dawn and headed to the Public Market for a very large garage sale arrangement they had set up. I took out $100 from the ATM just in case.. and ended up being the sugar-daddy (their words) to both Rach and Lindsay. I picked up a couple tiny things for a couple bucks and both of them ended up taking home huge pieces of furniture (sucking up my money) which barely fit into the car.

We also hit up the Corn Hill Arts Festival for several hours, enjoying the sun, the art and even a bit of shopping. I didn't end up buying any art.. but one of these days I will. It's just difficult for me to justify $300+. But then again, if you like it, you have it forever. One of these days... but then again, I'm willing to fork out money at Applebees and ice cream later in the day. I'm not sure where my priorities are.

This week has been a blur. I'm tending to concentrate on work and then shut down in the evenings and stop thinking. I've been horrible exhausted... again.. as of late and my Wednesdays and Thursdays are extremely long days of work and class. Summer is wearing me down. Gotta fight back.

Holiday week ending abruptly

Okay, 4th of July Indian Food ended up being Dim Sum at a new Chinese restaurant in the outskirts of the city. Wasn't exactly all that wonderful, but I did get to try out a new Indian grocery store which had a ton of food that I really like. I love the spices, I love the little snacks. The owner tried to explain to me what I was buying, I guess I looked a bit too Caucasian.. but I had already had them, so I just nodded, paid and left. I also tried out this great natural foods store I've been meaning to go to. Huge. Absolutely huge. I know Wegmans is like the prescription for groceries around here, but I've wanted to see what this little store had to offer. I wasn't disappointed and ended up buying a few things. Organic and the like.

I was yelled at last night for not mentioning Jake's party the other night. I guess it slipped my mind. It was a wonderfully packed good time full of dozens of people doing everything from playing catch, to being bit up by mosquitoes, to playing euchre, to dancing and drinking. I was one of the last to leave, and then apparently forgot to say goodbye to the very drunk Jake as he told me I didn't do that either. He did this all last night for midnight margaritas as the Distillery with his wife and I. Rachael wants to hit up the Corn Hill Arts Festival sometime on Saturday. I'm all too happy to oblige. I've always wanted to do it.

The week went by really fast, which was really nice. I only had half classes this week due to the holiday, so it was pleasant to only sit inside a very cold room for 2 1/2 hours twice this week. I finally got a haircut, which I've been itching to do for almost a month. I hate my hair long.. I hate my hair short. But that's really my only problem. And I also fit in a couple movies in the evenings. See what happens when you give me some free time?

Last night JB and his band em dash [buy the t-shirt!] played at RoCo for their premier of "Up Against the Wall" which turned out really well. They played for almost 3 hours in a very.. very echoey room. There were about 75 people there, but the majority stayed outside so they could actually hear. Mike, Lisa, Kate and a couple others all stayed the entire time. Rachael, Sara and the significant others (except Jake) all joined a little later. A great evening out, which melded into that Distillery visit. I got to visit Mike's new apartment too. Jake broke some lugnut bolting things on his wheels, and had to stay home to fix them... persistently calling me every 30 minutes to say hello.

And I've mentioned him 10 times because yesterday he complained I haven't talked about him enough here. Ha.

For art thou wish to share

In the last week, my mood has shifted to a much happier note than I last left off. I worked tirelessly for a couple hours trying to fix what was done to me at work, and it paid off. I went around my boss to another department and fixed it. It's not exactly what I wanted, but a lot better than originally written. Several people were misled; I wasn't the only one. I guess I found comfort in telling people that. But in the end, I've learned not to depend on certain people, and to get things written down and signed by others.

People are so quick to thank me and say they appreciate me and sign me up for more work I'm qualified to do, but then say "Well, if he doesn't like it, tough luck." Who says that? That's just what was presented to me. I have no choice in the matter. My evening independent work that I do for another department has been added into my duties which I'm expected to do outside of work. I didn't plan to continue spending 7 more hours of my free time in my office, but alas.. that is what I get for getting a new job title. Plus I've been placed on a new committee for our company's web presence by our new vice president for communications. After those fascinating demos two weeks ago mingling with the heavy weights of our IT community, I'm looking forward to it.

I presented my finished product on Friday, a project I've been working on "when I can" for over 7 months and they absolutely loved it. Praised it. Said it was wonderful. I tried to smile. Tried to agree. I am proud of it. I think it's a great new thing. It will push us forward. But now I have to meet with 24 departments, present it to them, get their feedback and get information approved. One thing leads to 24 new things. But that's scheduled for the end of this month, so I have a couple weeks.

This week was relaxing. I didn't take Monday off, so it went by really fast, but Saturday I spent with my family at a picnic and doing more yard work. Remind me never to buy a home. With 10 acres of land, there is never a shortage of work. I spent 3 hours cutting limbs off trees and trimming hedges. And then had to drag it all to burn. But it's good exercise and good times joking. But Sunday was a lazy of lazy days and 4pm came too quickly. I had to head off to Simon to do homework with my group for 2 hours. They were even less in mood for it than I was. And we argued. And agreed. And argued. It's all we do at Simon.

Work yesterday was laughable. Yes, yes, I worked on July 3rd. When nobody else was. Except the construction guys on our new building and the hot dog vendors across the street. But there were four of us in the office, versus the normal 30, and I actually got a lot of work done. Nola and I went off to this great little italian place and had a fantastic lunch. Little had I known, but we were being let out at 2 from work, so I barely had enough time to get back to the office before I went home for the day. But I didn't sit still. Nola and I headed off for errands and to watch Superman at the theatre. Now, I'm not this huge fan of the man of steele, but I've heard a lot of great things about it, so I wanted to check it out. Plus, it was only $1.50 to sit in nice air conditioning for 3 hours. Additionally, I watched the movie Primer and Munich. Yesterday was the day for movies.

Plans for today? Other than sitting out on my patio this morning and enjoying a beautiful rainstorm, we're headed off to a new Indian restaurant and then a pinic later this afternoon. Happy Independence Day to some and Happy Canada Day to others. :)