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Werd.

I know it has been quite some time since you’ve heard from me (in blog format, anyhow), and I’ve been trying to accomplish various things today. The blogging hour (around 3:45 AM) has rolled around, so it’s prime time to do things other than sleep, clearly.

Now that my posts have grown increasingly infrequent, I have more difficulty trying to remember what things I might have done since my last post, so I’m sure you’re going to miss a lot–what a shame. Rather than trying to approach this from some logical, ordered standpoint, I’m just going to jump in, and basically produce a several-paragraph long stream of literary vomit from my fingertips. Don’t be tremendously shocked if you feel disoriented, uncomfortable, or dirty at any point.

I’m now about two weeks into second semester here at the U of MN. I have a new class schedule again. There are a few points of the schedule that are really killing me. I’m actually quite displeased with how early I have to get up on Tuesday and Thursday (around 10:15) for my Intro to Theater course. The class is additionally annoying me through the fact that my TA has already assigned four papers (two due last week, two this week), when my sources informed me that this was to be a very easy course to fulfill one of my few remaining LibEd (liberal arts education) requirements. Additionally, my nighttime schedule this semester is absolutely abysmal in regards to my TV schedule. On Tuesday, I miss Scrubs for German Folklore, and on Wednesday I miss Smallville, Lost, and Alias for my damn Intro to Film Study course. To make matters worse, I have to get up early Thursday, so staying up late to watch the downloaded copies I get results in about four hours of sleep Wednesday night. Bleh.

While I’m in bitch mode, I’ll complain a bit about my Computer Science 2031 class. This is Yet Another&tm; math class disguised as a Computer Science course. So far we’ve gone over advanced taylor series expansions, proofs, and derivations, and other various annoyingly long summations. To make matters worse, the class assigns weekly homework :'(. I’m really starting to hate this university’s CS curriculum. At least we’re getting into a real language this semester (C) in the other CS class, though (sort of). Granted, Java in second semester of freshman year wasn’t horrible, but this could actually be useful. I should really pay attention, or something. (Although, the professor seems to be approximately useless, and already announced that he doesn’t particularly plan to cover much C in class. Hm.)

I probably spent a solid 30-45 minutes tonight (around 2 AM, of course) making this ad banner for my site. It’s now linked in about a 1/20 rotation on www.peda.info, so I’m sure the hits are just about to pour in :P.

Anyway, to jump back a ways, I had my finals for first semester in December. Three out of my four finals were pretty easy, but Physics 2 for Sci/Eng was pretty killer. Despite that, I ended up doing alright: B+ in Physics 1302, Computer Science 2011, and Math 5248, and a B in Statistics 3021. I got pretty horribly raped on homework on the last three of these courses, and well on the tests (almost aced my two tests in Statistics), but they kinda balanced out. I moved back home for break on the Wednesday night before Christmas (we’re forced to move out of the res halls for break), and ended up working until about 3 AM that night already, only to be back in the office by 8 AM the next morning. Christmas went fairly well though. We celebrated with my mother’s extended family at her sister’s house, which is a bit of a change from the past ~18 years when it has been held at my family’s house. Regardless, it went well, and I think everyone had a good time. My immediate family exchanged gifts and had brunch at our house the next morning, followed by a relaxed, lethargy-filled day in pajamas. I think we had a dinner with my Father’s extended family a day or two later, although he was too sick to attend, ironically (and unfortunately).

Then, Monday, my three weeks of personal hell began around 7 AM. When I was at school, I got up around 11:30 AM; now that I was on "break," I had to get up at 7, and then work ~10-14 hours every day, Monday through Friday. All told, I think I ended up working about 175 hours over break. I two partial salvations during the period: Adrianne (a friend from school) stayed at my house for a week (S-Sa), and Amanda (girlfriend) came to the cities for a weekend. It was really great to have Adrianne around for a week, because she actually gave me something enjoyable to do after work (foosball, ping pong, scrabble, alias, just hangin’ out, etc.). To make herself just that much more fantastic, she ended up picking out/up three pairs of pants from Banana Republic and two button-down shirts from Gap for me, with her employee discount applied on top of sale prices, so I got it all for $80 (and I didn’t even have to go shopping!). Unfortunately for Amanda’s stay, she A. came with her parents, because she B. had a ski race Saturday and Sunday. We still had a good time, though.

In other good news, I ended up talking to Betsy (my ex-girlfriend from 12th grade and the following summer) rather extensively over break (probably more in one night than we had spoken in the preceding 14 months), and hung out with her (and other people–not alone, heh) one night. I wouldn’t go so far to say that we’re "chummy," but we’ve spoken since then, too, much more casually and easily than before. In one of these more recent conversations, though, I had the unfortunate distinction of being one of the early people she told that she broke up with her boyfriend she met first semester. While I am truly sad for her, that it happened, she seemed to be dealing with it fairly well, and I was bittersweetly surprised that she thought of me, to talk to about it.

I found out tonight that one of my Linux servers at work got semi-hacked by some worm/script going around. That was a pretty crappy realization, but I think I’ve got the situation taken care of, and no significant damage was done, that I can tell.

Brad (my roommate) broke his hand snowboarding about a week ago. He ended up going home to Rochester, MN to get a screw put in the bone to help it heal, and now takes Percocet. His main motivation for getting off it, though, is to resume habits of excessive drinking, which is ill advised in combination with the drug. Good for him…or something.

I think I have an "in" to the sweet residential apartment I’m hoping to get into for next year. A guy I know, who lives there now, is potentially ditching his current roommate, and is probably willing to request me as a roommate for next year. With the way that the U of MN does their housing sign-up, he’ll get first round priority for his current room, or at worst second round priority for a different room in the same building, and then by requesting me as a roommate specifically, gives me some added priority when my third round for residents having lived on campus for more than one year comes around. I think it’s only about $400 more, per semester, than my current room, and I think I’ll cut my meal plan down a fair amount, which might save a little money.

Speaking of money, I have about $30 left to my name right now (sound familiar from my last post?), and I’ve overdrawn my checking (check card) account twice in the past week or so. Fortunately, though, I think I’ll be getting a paycheck fairly soon, from the work I did over winter break. In addition to that, I hope to get all my W2 tax forms around the same time, so I can file my taxes as soon as possible. I think this will be my third year of filing my own taxes. Ever since my first year, I’ve been fairly excited to file taxes, because too much money gets withheld from my paychecks, which translates to a sizable tax refund (although, that’s probably at least a month away from reaching me).

Anyhow, I should probably get to bed about now. I keep meaning to be productive, but I have tremendous difficulty actually doing so. Maybe tomorrow will be better (doubtful, though).

Good night.

A lot has happened since my last post (although, Ninjas are still awesome). I moved back to the University of Minnesota campus (I have a totally rockin’ dorm room), and am taking four classes (they suck, but my class schedule rocks). That means I’m pretty much not working any more, which is good and bad. Hooray for getting out of that office, but lack of consistent income sucks quite a bit, particularly considering my financial aid went down, and I had $67.73 left in my savings account after paying for first semester. I have a birthday (someone else’s) and Christmas coming up, and past-due cable bills, not to mention another semester of school. Donations are welcome.

Also, I’ve now been with my girlfriend, Amanda, for over a year, and that’s going pretty well, so I guess that’s good. It’s her birthday in a month from yesterday (as alluded to above), and I haven’t gotten anything yet, so hopefully that works out. I’m open to suggestions. We kind of talked about it, though, and I might not be obligated to buy her anything big for her birthday, since Christmas is right after that (that’s kind of what happened last year). I’d normally consider jewelry, but she’s not a big fan, so there goes my main idea =P. Even still, I can’t help but feel guilty some times for what I have now, and who got hurt in the process, which isn’t helped by the fact that I still can’t manage to talk to her. Anyhow…

I hung out with a good friend from high school tonight for a while, which was the first time I’d done so in many months. I also managed to piss off my girlfriend in the process, by saying that I just wanted to hang out with him (that is, didn’t want her to come along), since I hadn’t seen him in so long, and such. Over the course of one our conversations, it occurred to me that I don’t even really talk to people from my high school that often any more, despite having spent every weekday of many school-years with them a couple years ago… It’s not that I’m necessarily dissatisfied with people I’ve since met at college, but it sucks to realize those friendships are kinda gone. Bah; anyhow. We ate dinner at his home, with his family, which is always an interesting experience, to say the least. His father, in particular, is quite the character, so plenty of interesting stories always come up, and his two younger brothers always eagerly contribute interesting side notes (such as imitation snoring sounds, as it was tonight). I got to fix a couple things on their computer, for old time’s sake, interspersed and followed by the traditional rounds of ping pong. I had a good time.

Other than that, I’ve just been hanging around, mostly. I got another guy hooked on the TV show Alias, which has involved re-watching the entire 66-episode (42 minutes per episode) series again. I’ve also picked up watching Lost (ABC), mainly because it’s written or produced by the creator of Alias, and managed to get at least three people hooked on that, too. I think one of my hobbies might be getting people hooked on TV shows that I like (which currently consist of Alias, Smallville, Lost, and Scrubs). Having all the episodes on my computer, connected to a projector, showing on about a 5′ screen, might help my cause a bit, but I’d like to think they’re just good shows.

In other news, I should have a 20 GB iPod coming within a month or so, and unrelatedly, you should join The FaceBook and Facebook me. (2016 update: my original profile URL was http://minnesota.thefacebook.com/profile.php?id=13901315&l=5b1ddd68bf , but Facebook apparently didn’t see fit to retain backward compatibility.) It’s nifty. I’m not particularly pleased that Bush won the election, and I don’t think it’s impossible that the results were not completely accurate, but that’s about how much complaint I’ll put into the subject currently. I did my part, and successfully won my state for Kerry ;).

I’m going to head to bed shortly, though. I’ve got some computer science and physics homework to hit tomorrow night, and probably some more Alias to watch. I hope you’ve enjoyed the entry, after the dry spell for a while. G’night.

Ninjas are awesome.

Photos from my vacation to Michigan (explained later)

Why yes, it has been quite a while since I’ve blogged. I told you all that once I missed my first entry, the blog would be doomed to just get worse and worse, until I stopped blogging altogether. People keep asking me if I’ve given up on blogging, and I keep explaining that I haven’t given up, I just haven’t blogged in a very long time. In addition to this being my first post in a long while, this is my inaugural entry from work. I probably won’t write much about work, but I’m here, so I suppose you’re getting a taste of my day at work :-P.

I’ve been fairly busy over the past few weeks, I think. I’ve already explained how horribly my memory of the previous day is, so my memory of the past weeks is laughable. As of right now, I can only think of three things worth mentioning in my blog, and my confidence of being able to remember them in a few minutes is so low that I’ve written them down as a reminder. Thankfully, though, I’m cool enough to use my phone to keep a schedule of some things I do (to remind me I have to do them), so I can use that to spark my memory of some things I’ve done. (I can hear you all sighing with relief.) I’ll work from oldest to most recent.

Monday, August 02

After work, I had to go over to my grandmother’s house to physically set up a computer I’d ordered and configured for her. I had to leave work early to transfer files from her old computer to the new computer, prior to going there to set it up. The old computer was majorly f-ed up, so that took longer than it should have, but I’m a genius, so I got it done. I had a little get-together to attend after that, so I didn’t want to stick around too long, but my grandmother can never seem to resist an opportunity to give me food, so I had some pie and ice cream, and then moved on to my next event for the evening.

A friend, Sara Buffie, was having some people over to her house for a casual get-together/bonfire. I was pretty hungry, and the best she could do for food was NutriGrain bars. They were alright, but they certainly didn’t hit the spot like half a pizza or an omelette would have. I hung out there until 12:30 AM or so, and I don’t remember what happened after that, but it presumably involved sleep at some point.

Wednesday, August 04

I had a 7:15 AM meeting scheduled for that morning, but was notified around 6:45 that one of my bosses was MIA, so the meeting was canceled (abut the other 8:00 AM meeting was still on). I used the extra time to bike to the post office where a package was being held for me (a few miles the opposite direction of my work). When I finally got there, I was told the package was actually being held at another post office, another few miles out of my way. I was already tired of biking, and didn’t have loads of extra time, so I skipped that extra detour, and just headed in to work. It was horribly annoying to have wasted an entire morning/trip for nothing, but I know it was good exercise, so it wasn’t all bad.

Thursday, August 05

I don’t remember anything that really happened during the day on Thursday, but I know that I left work around 4:15 or so, because I had to go home and pack for my trip to visit Amanda (my girlfriend) in Michigan :-D. I left with Brad (friend from school, roommate for this upcoming year) Thursday around 6:30 for Iron Mountain, which is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I think we made the trip in about 5 hours (an hour less than the estimate we were given), and only drove past two turns (it was dark). I don’t think much happened after we got there, other than setting up beds (pull-out couch and futon mattress on the floor) and sleeping. It’s very hard to describe how nice it is to see one’s girlfriend for the first time in about a month, but sufficed to say, I was happy to see her.

Friday, August 06

I got my hair cut Friday morning.

This was not just any haircut, though. This was the first haircut of any kind I’d had in almost exactly one year, the first real haircut I’d willingly gone to since about 9th grade in High School, the first salon I’d ever willingly gone to, and the first haircut I’ve ever had decided by committee–that is, Amanda and Brad sat through the haircut and gave suggestions for what to do. It was a very…interesting…experience. They ended up gelling up my hair and such, which wasn’t what I was expecting, and I had no intention of maintaining that particular style, but I’m sure I said it was great anyway.

We went swimming, jet-skiing, tubing, and wake-boarding later that afternoon, which was pretty cool. We were at this kid’s house, that Amanda knows, who’s 15 or 16 or something, but he had a really killer drum set. My reputation preceded me, so the kid wanted me to play some, but I declined the opportunity since I haven’t played for ~2+ years. (Although I’ve yearned to play on several occasions, that wasn’t quite the situation I was looking for, to make my big come-back.) After we left, I think we went back to Amanda’s house for some burgers and corn, and then headed out to "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle." It was a pretty funny, in a pot-head/stupid sense. After the movie, we headed out to Walmart where I picked up some rockin’ aviator’s (sunglasses), and then swung by Little Ceaser’s for a $5 pizza (what a totally awesome deal, by the way).

Saturday, August 07

We got up Saturday morning and departed to Marquette, Michigan, which is an hour and a half north, or so, from Iron Mountain, but the drive went quickly. We spent pretty much the entire day hiking around the rocks/shore of Lake Superior. It’s quite beautiful, and I had a great time. It would seem that I’m either getting younger or older, though, because I got so tired after we got back into the car and drove for a while…I needed my afternoon nap ;).

At some point after we returned, we met up with Marissa (she was very proud of her free pants), and headed over to some local Battle of the Bands concert. A number of the bands sucked (the lead guitarist of one band even forgot how one of their songs went), but some had some good components. One band had a really good drummer, and another had a really awesome guitarist (whose guitar should have been louder), so I think there should be some reorganization to form a good band, but I have my doubts if anyone else will catch on to my genius plans. (The band with the really good guitarist won, since I’m sure you were all dying of curiosity.)

We went to some crappy party afterwards, where I didn’t know anyone other than the people I came with (perhaps due at least in part to the fact that I was two states away from my home and school…but who can really say for sure?). Brad was trying to get his thang on with Marissa, but got shut down, which made for an unhappy drunk Brad, but I think he went to bed pretty soon thereafter.

Sunday, August 08

We all slept in a bit on Sunday, but went out for brunch with Amanda’s mother and sister. We had a lengthy discussion about the regionally specific usage of the words cabin, camp, and cottage, to describe what everyone else (well, Minnesota, anyhow) just calls a cabin. After brunch, Amanda, Brad, and I went up to the top of the ski jump (the really tall kind, like they use in the Olympics) by her house. It was pretty sweet up there (and windy), but it’s too bad it was a bit hazy, so we couldn’t see as far as possible. I’ll live.

After that, we went to meet up with Autumn (another friend of Amanda), and then headed out to some woods/trails place. We hiked around for a while by a river with some rapids, and such. We actually hiked a ways in, but didn’t stay all that long. I think we kind of randomly drove around for a while, dropped Autumn back off at her house, ate some stuff, and went to a water-ski show. The highlights of that show were some pretty cool jumps, and two people who dressed up in a moose costume, and danced. (I have a picture of the moose, and video of the moose dance and some water-ski jumps.)

After the water-skiing show, we hooked back up with Autumn (now accompanied by two friends), and ended up going to Casey’s (some guy I don’t know) house to hang out. When I heard the name Casey, though, I could visualize Luke Wilson in that 70’s show as Casey Kelso, but I couldn’t put my finger on who it was, or what show it was (I thought it was a movie), at the time. It was quite frustrating, but damn, I finally figured it out! Anyway, Casey (the guy, not the character) was a cool enough guy…we watched some movie, talked, etc. We left around 11:45 or something, because Casey had to work the next morning (eeek, I have to work tomorrow morning, too), but headed back to Autumn’s house.

I’ll skip a bit, because I’m trying to wrap this up in the next eight minutes, but Autumn said she’d come visit us around the beginning of school, Brad wanted a hug from Amanda and me, we got some frozen pizza, and we went to bed.

Monday, August 09

We got up, packed, picked up some Subway (I’m only a couple sandwiches short of getting a free footlong :-D), and ate lunch at a beach with Autumn. Then Brad wanted to go to a dollar store to pick up some sunglasses, which ended up getting us stuck in the store for a while because it was raining horribly outside for quite a while (20′ visibility, perhaps?). Brad ran to the car first, and the proceeded to lock me out of the car for a bit, while I was standing in the pouring rain (thanks again, by the way). We left Michigan around 3:15, got back to my house around 8:15, ate some pizza, and Brad headed back down to Rochester, MN.

The rest

The rest of last week was kind of a blur, again (and I’m rushing to get to bed), but there are a few major points. I officially realized I’d spent over $20 in the soda machine at my work (gone through two $10 rolls of quarters, plus whatever else I’d put in), which was a nice milestone. I finished watching the entire series of Scrubs, which I’d started a week or two before. And lastly, I went to a movie with Betsy, my ex-girlfriend, and a mutual friend, Carley. I haven’t done anything with her since late last August, or so, shortly before we broke up, and we hadn’t talked a whole lot, either. I still feel pretty bad/sad about that whole situation from time to time (a few songs, in particular, are triggers), and as I told Amanda (after she asked me such a horribly baited/loaded question) I do still miss Betsy, so it was good to see her again, despite it being a bit awkward (for me, anyhow). It was a very random invitation, but it was nice.

Upcoming

Since I probably won’t get to this again for a while, I’ll try to fill in upcoming events.

I have a 7:45 AM meeting tomorrow (er, today…dammit!), then meeting with a friend in the evening, to order a computer, which I may or may not also "get" to assemble/install. Amanda (my girlfriend) is done with work after Thursday, so she’s coming to visit me for a weekend, starting Friday. I move back to my dorm on Sunday, August 29th, in the afternoon/evening (YES!), and the Scrubs season premier is Tuesday, August 31st (don’t miss it). That covers my schedule for the next few weeks. And no, I’m not giving up on blogging, I’m just being realistic by saying that I probably won’t post for a while ;-).

Enjoy. Let’s do something before I go back to school (my treat…maybe).

First, I’d like to express my sincerest apology for missing my entry for yesterday. I’ve been emphatically repeating how much I don’t want to miss a day of blogging, because I know that once that happens, I’m doomed to slip into worse habits of skipping entries, degrading eventually to the point of non-use. Well, it happened last night–but it wasn’t entirely my fault.

You may have noticed that I don’t tend to get a very early start on these entries, with an average posting time that’s probably somewhere around 2 AM (the time you see is when I *started* the post, not finished it). So, when my internet started slowing to a halt last night around 12:50 AM, I hadn’t even begun my entry. A quick investigation revealed that RoadRunner (my ISP) was performing maintenance between 12:00 AM and 6:00 AM, so I was SOL. Without the internet, I had nothing to occupy my attention that late at night, and I wasn’t about to wait until 6:00 AM to get back on, so I reluctantly shut down my computer and went to bed. The silence was erie, but the sleep was nice. I realize, now, that I certainly could have typed my blog entry in Word, and then just posted it in the morning, but that didn’t occur to me at the time, so you all had to suffer through today without a new blog entry. Like I said, I’m sorry :'(.

I don’t do very well to remember what happened earlier in the current day, so it’s really not a very productive exercise for me to try to remember what I did yesterday. If I need to know what I did on a given day, I pretty much have to try to figure it out based on files I’ve saved, internet history, and phone called and emails I’ve sent and received. Now, I suppose I could reference my blog, but I haven’t yet gotten around to actually re-reading anything I’ve written here, as is the case with pretty much anything I write. I’ve submitted 8-page research papers without reading through them once, and I’ve already typed more than that in my blog, so I’ll just ask one of you, my faithful minions, slaves, readers, friends.

Despite that, I’ll try to humor you with a half-hearted attempt to recall Wednesday.

It’s safe to assume that I didn’t sleep much on Tuesday night (5 hours, I believe), and was consequently tired at work, for a good portion of the day. I don’t know what I did for work, but I know I invested some more time into my web site, and became very frustrated with Microsoft [Internet Explorer] for not behaving how I wanted it to. <geek>If you’ve ever done serious web design, you’ll understand what I’m saying about this, to an extent. Things used to be designed for IE, and wouldn’t work in Netscape. Now things are designed for W3 standards compliance, and don’t work in IE. An ironic fate, isn’t it?</geek>

I believe I watched a really horrible movie when I got home, named Cheerleader Ninjas. For just a glimpse at how…[shifty-eyes]…good…it is, check out this picture from it. It was a good waste of an hour and a half, and I don’t regret it (unlike that horrible hour or so that I spent watching the Olsen Twins’ 16-year-old movie "Getting There"…never waste your time one that one). I was on my own for dinner, so I made a frozen pizza and ate that, which was tasty. I would highly recommend the same to anyone else (unless I didn’t like them, in which case I wouldn’t want them to share in that tasty delight). I like you, though, so I think you should make, and then eat, some frozen pizza. Come back when you’re done with that.

[…Later]

Well, I already explained what caused me to miss my blog, so you pretty much know what happened with the rest of my Wednesday night (that I can remember, anyhow). Please let me know if you remember something about my night that I should know…any children I’ve fathered and forgotten about, any buildings I’ve started on fire, and should check on…things of that nature :P.

And on to Thursday….

(Hey, that was today!)

I woke up around 9 at the mercy of my relentless alarm clock, but snoozed it until around 9:30. I proceeded to dick around until about 10:15, when I finally went for a nice 15-minute shower. I then managed to whittle away another half hour or so, before I actually left for work around 11. For various reasons, I started my day in a really fantastic mood. It was a gorgeous day outside, I’d slept a lot, and well, last night, some good music was playing (although I can’t remember exactly what it was, at the moment), and I had a happy conversation with a friend, before leaving for work. I was actually kind of looking forward to work, believe it or not.

After arriving at work around 11:20 (I would probably be embarrassed about that, if I really liked my job), I was soon drained of the energy and enthusiasm that had characterized my morning at home. I know I had a conference call with my boss and another co-worker at 11:47 AM (phone call history is nice like that), but past that, I just remember looking at the clock, and being amazed it was 1:45 already. (Isn’t it fascinating how quickly 1:45 arrives, when you don’t get to work until 11:20? :-D) I biked over to Chipotle to pick up my lunch. It takes about 20 minutes to get there, order, and back, and I bike pretty quickly, so you can try to do the math on how far it is, if you want. I was a little reluctant to eat Chipotle today, because I’d eaten there three times last week, I believe, so I don’t want to tire myself of chipotle before the summer’s end. Even so, the only real options available to me are Chipotle, Noodles & Co, and Subway. I’d eaten Noodles on Monday and Subway on Tuesday, so Chipotle seemed like the best option.

With all this Chipotling I’ve been doing recently, I have my ordering process down pretty well (although admittedly not as well as I had the taco bell ordering down for my senior year). "I’d like a chicken burrito with pinto beans please." [Wait.] "Hot salsa, sour cream, cheese, and a little [make the universal ‘little’ gesture with thumb and forefinger about 1" apart] lettuce, please. Thanks." With the exception of this person putting a little more lettuce on the burrito than I would have liked, it all appeared to be prepared to my standards. The bike-ride back to work always seems to be into the wind, so it’s an annoyingly more difficult ride, but I get there eventually, anyhow. I’ve also gotten into the trend where I know that I’ll drink exactly two cans of soda with my Chipotle Burrito, so I grab those, and make my way back to my desk. (What can I say; I like routine/not-change.)

The first 2/3 of my burrito was fantastic, as well it should be. I’ve also started trying to consistently take one Centrum a day, to hopefully compensate for my horribly un-balance diet over the summer. I don’t remember thinking about this in the past, when I took Centrum, but the pills have a pretty bad taste/after-taste, just from putting it on my tongue for a moment, before swallowing it. I’m supposed to take the Centrum with a meal (it aids with the absorption of certain vitamins into the body, or some crap like that), so I usually try to remember to take it in the middle of a meal, which I’ve been doing surprisingly well. I only think to mention that, this time, because of the god-awful taste that was waiting for me in one bite of rice in my burrito. I still don’t really know what it was, but it reminded me slightly of something being extremely salty (like when I had to gargle with really strong salt-water when I had mono). I ate the rest of the burrito except for the rice, so I was fairly displeased with that overall experience.

The rest of the day passed essentially without incident. I went home around 7, microwaved a Chicken Cheese Chimichanga (mmmm, delightful…no bad bite in that one), and then had to run out around 8. I had agreed to tutor my neighbor in Excel. I had absolutely no idea, going into the lesson, what her skill level was, so I was scrambling to get together some examples, and whatnot. After seeing her Compaq Presario running Windows 95, I pretty quickly guessed what her skill level was, haha. We spent an hour and a half doing something I’m confident I could replicate in about five minutes. It paid well, though, so I’ll do that. I don’t think I could do that for 40 hours a week, but I’ll do it for an hour an a half, once or twice per week, for the price she’s willing to pay. She was, without a doubt, the most excited I have ever seen a person get about Excel. Yay for number crunching…apparently?

I got back here around 9:30, then, and actually started this blog entry shortly thereafter. That would make this my longest blog entry yet (both by measure of time spanned from beginning to completion, as well as page length), although it still doesn’t make up for my missed entry yesterday. I killed another ant while writing this, so I can’t give the disclaimer that "no animals were hurt during the production of this feature." I can just see PETA (not to be confused with PEDA) rallying together to come protest outside my house.

I also was somewhat productive tonight, in that I finally got a computer ready for my brother. I told him, yesterday evening, that he could come pick up a computer to borrow, some time after I got home from work. I was supposed to call him when it was ready. Meh. He can live without it for one day (unless of course he needed it to order an online prescription that he needed to prevent his death…that’d suck). I’ve apparently turned into some sort of computer broker. One friend picked one up some time last week, now my brother’s picking this system up tomorrow, which I just wiped clean after getting it back from another friend. Damn, I’m such a geek pimp.

I think that’s all I have for tonight [sigh]. Nelly – #1 just came up on my playlist, so I think that’s a good song to listen to while going to bed. I want to see "I, Robot" (or possibly Catwoman, if you’d rather see that) this weekend, so let me know if you’re interested. G’night, at long last.

I’m sorry. It’s 3 AM, and this isn’t a Matchbox 20 song, so that’s just a bad sign…and not even slightly catchy. I slept about 3.5 hours last night, and maybe five the night before. If I was asleep right now, I’d be on track for six tonight, but I don’t appear to be in my bed right now, nor are my eyes closed. This blog entry will be, for real this time, very short, so you can have a healthy p14nd4 to read about.

So I begrudgingly got up around 7:00 AM this morning, because of the absolutely horrible idea of an 8 AM meeting at my job. I got there around 8:03, grabbed a soda from the machine (I really needed it), and got to the meeting around 8:04, which was just in time to hear the announcement that the meeting was canceled. ^&#%!*#@%! That was an extremely unpleasant way to begin my day. I toyed with the idea of leaving for a few hours, to go back to bed, but the damage was already done, so I just stayed.

I met with my boss for about 20 minutes to discuss a few things I’m working on. Mind you, this is the same boss that requests people schedule meetings with him, even for 5-minute meetings. But, we just sat and talked for 20 minutes. That hypocrite.

I know I went to Subway for lunch (three more 12" subs and I get a free 12" sub), but most of the rest of the day is a blur, with one exception. Can anyone say "hot 18-year-old summer temp chick wearing tight white stretchy pants?" Come on, I know you can do it. Say it with me now! Well, no, I guess you don’t have to do that, but yes, she does have quite the nice ass, as was made readily apparent with those pants, today. Mmmm. [Aside: I debated whether or not I should include this in my public blog entry, which I’m fully aware my girlfriend reads, but decided it deserved to be in here. I’m not being disloyal, dishonest, or deceptive, so all she/you have left to yell at me about is being at work today. It’s not my fault I’m an observant young man.]

I then spent a good chunk of time, tonight, editing another article for my own company (not my regular job), which I had to get done before going to bed, because we’re the first site to post a review, after the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) expired 07.28.2004 12:00 AM EST. I didn’t write it, but it might be worth a read, if you’re technically inclined. Either way, you should know that the product name is Sempron. Sem-pron? I don’t know if it’s just the sleep deprivation talking, or just my own sick mind, but I see Sem[en]-P[or]n from that product name. Someone had to say it, and I just might be the only person cool enough to actually do so.

Anyway, this went longer than I planned, as always. I need to sleep. Stop keeping me up. Ribbit.

In the meantime, enjoy my new photo and BANANAPHONE!

I’m starting this a few hours earlier than I have the past few nights, in what I believe to be a futile attempt to get to bed earlier. I feel incredibly exhausted right now (more so than my regular state of exhaustion), and I have an 8:00 AM meeting tomorrow. Despite that attempt, an hour managed to pass between my second and third sentences, so my chances of getting to bed early are not looking very good so far. People keep distracting me…IM, chat, phone…gah. I hate technology.

So today was Monday. What a horrible day, even though I did sleep in until about 9. There should be mandatory breakfasts provided at work on Mondays. I was strongly considering stopping at Bruegger’s Bagels this morning to pick up one of those egg and sausage bagel sandwiches they make. It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of those (this past spring break in Colorado, to be exact), and it sounded particularly good this morning. If you ever want to pleasantly surprise me, get me one of those, some morning when I have to work. I’ve also discovered that no matter how much extra time I give/allow myself, prior to some deadline (as in, a deadline to accomplish something, such as leaving my house for work), I’ll uncontrollably waste enough time to either push me past the deadline, or at least make the margin of completion about 10 seconds from the deadline. Even though I’ve reached this conclusion many times, I still optimistically set my alarm to allow myself about 40 minutes in the morning (versus the 15-20 minutes, or possibly less, in which I could actually accomplish everything, if needed).

I had to "fix" a laptop used by one of my bosses, today. It kept rejecting her email, explaining that one of the recipient addresses was wrong. After some investigation, I discovered that, *gasp*–like it said–it wasn’t sending email because one of the recipient addresses was wrong. Nathan@mycompany.com won’t work when the actual address is Nate@mycompany.com. As a Mac user, I’m sure she wrote that off in her mind as the fault of Windows.

Later, the “Mac server admin” asked me to make a change in one of the other servers. Later in the day he complained to me about why his Mac wasn’t working right, with the new change. I demonstrated it worked perfectly in both Windows and Linux, so he kind of sulked off. Take that Steve Jobs!

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, my company organizes lunch runs (they send one of the assistants out to buy everyone food). I still have to pay for lunch (except Free Pizza Fridays), but it means I have a sure shot at getting lunch. Today was Noodles & Co., so I got my classic large "Wisconsin Macaroni and Cheese." They specifically wrote on the sheet of paper that we should calculate tax for our meal, and give them money accordingly. Not being one to over-spend something on the scale of $0.06, I calculated the exact cost, and included exact change. The "lunch lady" for the day (an assistant for one of my bosses) then proceeded to complain that some people had included change. Wtf? How am I supposed to calculate and include tax, if I’m not supposed to give them change? I’m not going to give them $6 for my $5.14 meal. Maybe I’m cheap. Maybe they’re just stupid. Well, I’m the one writing this, so screw them; I win; they’re stupid.

I also spent a moderate chunk of time (both last night and today) editing an article for my company, since AMD was bitching at us to get it edited and posted. After showing the edited article to the author, he commented "it doesn’t look like you changed very much." Ow. I proceeded to show him a word document with "track changes" enabled, which showed every page crammed with changes, which then earned the response "Oh, you changed a lot. Thanks." That’s what I do it all for–some recognition and thanks. That reminds me that my friend’s mother, whose computer I fixed on Sunday, emailed me today, to thank me for the work I did. That made me feel good, too. Remember this: if someone (I) spends his or her time doing something for you, that they don’t necessarily have to do (or even if they do have to do it), a thank you can mean a lot. I like doing nice things for people, but it pisses me off when they don’t acknowledge it.

I didn’t get home from work tonight until about 8 PM, but I did have a nice, freshly-cooked steak dinner waiting for me shortly after I arrived (and yes, I did say thank you). It was a truly delicious steak, although I would have preferred a twice-baked potato to go with the meal instead of cuscus and asparagus, but I won’t complain too much. It really was fantastic. After dinner, I got some things together, because I’d agreed to tutor a neighbor in the use of Microsoft Excel (at a really nice hourly rate). I called, received no answer, so I just went over there. Well, she’d forgotten about it, so we rescheduled for Thursday evening, which is probably alright. I’m sure I won’t do any preparations with my newfound additional prep time, but it’s a nice thought. I just hope I don’t get there and have some huge mind fart, and forget how to add. I’m sure she’ll have some database-minded questions I won’t be able to answer, but I’m generally alright with that, assuming I can throw at least an hour of new information at her.

You know the rest from there…got back, wasted time by talking to people and listening to music, and such. I spent another unnecessary $100 tonight on a new video card. Blargh =E. Maybe one of these days, the fact that I’m going to be broke soon will sink in. We’ll see. G’night.

Tonight’s entry will have to be cut short, due to technical difficulties with the time continuum. I seem to be having some difficulty preventing time from passing tonight, and I need to work in the morning, and my f-ing crappy body needs sleep, so something’s gotta give, and the blog is that something. I’m sure you must be devastated.

Anyhow, I was woken up around noon today by my mother offering me an omelet. Now, you might think this is one of those really nice things, that I couldn’t possibly complain about, but you’re horribly mistaken. I value sleep on weekends very highly. I was doing just fine digesting that Chipotle burrito from the previous night, in my sleep, and needed an omelet at that very moment about as much as I needed a spare transmission for a semi (I have zero, and that’s about one too many, if you didn’t figure that out on your own). But, the damage was done. I was awake, and there was an omelet waiting for me, so I ate.

I came back, only to find another f-ing ant crawling on my speaker, which I promptly killed, after swearing for a few moments. What the hell do the ants even want in my room? It’s not even like they’re all in the same place, ever. Some on one wall, some on another wall, one on the floor, one on the desk, and so on. I just don’t get it. F-ing ants.

Despite my then-crappy mood instilled by the ant, I managed to proceed with my day, with the aid of AC-DC – Back in Black. I’m still kind of in awe of music, after having lost about 5000 songs for about six months (and getting them back, finally, about a month ago). Think about how much you take it for granted some time. It’s crazy.

I listened to music, talked to people, the normal deal, and then showered, dressed, blah blah blah. As mentioned last night, I had to repair someone’s computer at 2:00 PM, so I was hoping to leave around 1:50. Well, around 1:58 I finally got out of the house, and arrived a minute late or so. No one else cared, but it pissed me off. I got right to work on the problem (adware, viruses, etc). The computer was slow, so much time was spent just watching the computer scan for things. I was able to talk to my friend’s parents for a while, though, which was pleasant. I think conversations go much better with pretty much everyone, after getting out of high school, but that might just be me. It’s probably because I’ve stopped caring about even more, since then, so I’ll tell people things that I wouldn’t have told them before, and am much less guarded, in general. I’m probably just over-analyzing this all, though, so I’ll stop with that.

The family ended up having to leave before I finished, but paid me the flat rate I’d suggested, before leaving. In fixing one (or a few) problems, another fairly major problem appeared, in that right clicking any file would cause Explorer to restart itself (and the right-click menu wouldn’t appear). I’d never seen that in my life, which isn’t usually a good thing. I spent more time than I would have liked fixing it, and then started installing security fixes over dial-up. I wrote up a summary sheet of everything I’d done, and some future recommendations for self-service before I left, since I made a point of complaining that my friend’s computer repair store didn’t do that, when I was visiting him at work. I left with 115 minutes left on one Windows update download, so hopefully that finished without issue, and they were able to figure out how to click “Ok” to reboot it. And damn, I really hope that didn’t break anything else. As a side note, it would have been worlds faster for me to simply return home, download the necessary patches, burn a cd, and return there, but that would have required much more effort than I was being paid for, so that simply wasn’t going to happen.

I went back home, and ended up eating dinner with my mother, of all people, at Applebees. As you may know, I really don’t get along well with my mother, in virtually all situations. I have, however, been making a conscious effort to be less of an asshole to her, though. The results of that experiment are still up in the air–I’ll try to remember to keep you posted. We somehow managed to avoid more than about four long awkward silences during the meal, didn’t get into any major arguments, and I got a free bacon cheeseburger, so overall I felt it was a successful outing.

I returned home, did some work on my own stuff, talked, music’d a bit, got into some big arguments online about the current political state of the US, and then another argument later about racism and affirmative action (I think the argument kind of just migrated to that, but I tuned out for a while). That delayed me quite a while, but now I wrote more in here than I initially planned (although I did manage to keep this entry down to 1.5 pages singled spaced, as opposed to the previous two 2-page entries), and am going to bed much later than I initially hoped. Damn you. You manage to keep me up, even when you’re not even talking to me at the moment. (Look, now I’m talking directly to a text box. How awesome am I? Very awesome.) I’m off to work soon. Tschüss.

Hm, at first I was trying to explain how this was like the Matrix (Matrix: Reloaded being the second movie in the series, and this post is the second in the series), but got too lazy to finish the analogy (which, believe me, wasn’t shaping up to be anything worth posting…unlike the rest of the fine literature I choose to leave in, of course). You can try to figure it out for yourself, should you choose to be so ambitious; I obviously wasn’t.

Today started for me around 3:15 PM. I did wake up a couple times earlier in the day, but I promptly decided anything less than 12 hours of rest was simply unacceptable, and promptly fell back asleep. (I wonder what my boss would do if I started coming in to work around 4 PM, and simply explaining that I needed my 12+ hours of sleep. Maybe I won’t test my curiosity on that one, though.) Although I dislike many things about my job, virtually never having to work weekends is a definite plus. Well, I rolled out of bed, un-marked myself away on AIM, started up some music (Die Fantastischen Vier – Vier Gewinnt), and went to check out whatever was going on. I’m living with my parents this summer (what can I say, it’s cheap, I’m lazy and poor, so I’ll tolerate it), so their location is something that always needs to be assessed. My father is away for the weekend, and it turned out my mother was working until 6 PM, so I had the house to myself for a while yet, anyway. Although I don’t really do anything that really requires having the house to myself, in situations like that, it’s just nice to know I don’t have to deal with annoying parents for a few hours, know I can play my music loud enough to hear down the hall…things like that.

After wasting a couple hours, interrupted briefly by a shower, which I can’t really consider a waste of time, I concluded I wanted to see either “Bourne Supremacy” or “I, Robot” tonight. I scanned my buddy list for potential candidates to join me, but my main choices were either offline or away. I too lazy, or weird, or something, to actually call people to see if they want to go to a movie with me, so I ended up going to see “Bourne Supremacy” by myself. On the bright side, by not inviting the chick I was initially going to invite, I saved $7.50-$25 (depending on what we might have done for food), and presumably prevented any potential anger/jealousy from my girlfriend (although it’s her fault for being two states away). Some other people assured me it wasn’t terribly strange to attend the movie by myself, but it still felt a little strange. I’m sure I’ll get over it (in about 10 hours…by the time I wake up).

Overall I thought it was a pretty good movie. It had some good fighting, some good driving. I thought they abused the camera shaking effect during certain fight/driving scenes, though, which detracted from its quality, and made a few specific details difficult to track (although never to the point of making the events difficult to follow). I also thought the movie lacked closure on what happened with the Russians; the ~8 second “scene” left a few things ambiguous. I also thought it was a little interesting that they used the exact same song to finish the movie / begin credits that they did in Bourne Identity. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to mean something, but idunno. The knowledge that a third movie is coming forced me to think about what might be in store. The only real ideas I had involved Bourne cooperating with the government again, and probably learning more about what exactly happened to make him this way, and something to fix his condition. Maybe Julia Stiles will finally actually play some role in the movie (her minimal participation struck me as strange, considering she’s a moderately big name). Enough about that, though.

I headed over to Chipotle after the movie, which was my third meal from that restaurant this week. I think I may finally be re-acclimating myself to spicy foods, after many months of not consuming them. I’ve really become an increasingly large fan of Chipotle this summer, possibly due to its convenient locations relative to my office and my house. It may be the “new taco bell” for me. I used to eat Taco Bell at least once a week (during my senior year of high school), but have eaten there only rarely since then. It’s not that I’m a huge fan of Mexican food (hm, can Taco Bell even be considered Mexican food?), but Taco Bell just filled a hole in my life; it seems Chipotle may be able to do the same (although it is admittedly much more expensive than Taco Bell; minus one point for Chipotle).

Coming home late in the evening/night is always nice, because the stop-light a few blocks from my house changes from its normal daytime operation schedule to a night-time schedule. During the day, it will always remain green for the main/busy street for at least a minute or two, regardless of how many cars are going through it, or waiting from the other direction. I’m not sure exactly what time it switches to “night mode” (maybe 9 PM?), but once it does, damn is it glorious. The moment a car pulls up from the side street, or the moment someone pushes the walk button, the main street will turn yellow (followed shortly by red, if these concepts are foreign to you), so the maximum wait time is about six seconds. I want to get one of those police car remote control dealies so I can change the light to green for my direction whenever I’m coming. Screw everyone else.

Once I get back to my room (read: computer), time is pretty much lost. Between the period of about 9:45 PM (roughly when I returned) and now (2:25 AM), I can only think of three things I’ve done: watched star trek (again, that falls under the category of “yeah, I’m just that f-ing cool”), talked to people, and written this. I’m not exactly sure how that adds up to almost five hours, and the fact that it has, frightens me somewhat. I really need a personal, on-site personal assistant, to keep me in line, and notify me when I’m being overly wasteful of my time. (I have no problem being wasteful of my time…but there’s a point at which it crosses a line. I’m pretty sure I passed that a few hours ago, despite having no recollection of said line.)

As a last few notes for tonight, I killed the sixth ant I’ve found in my room in the past three days. I’m slightly concerned, but I don’t really know what could be drawing them in, nor how I can prevent them from getting in. I even go out of my way to remove sweet, sweet soda cans from my room, specifically for the purpose of not drawing insects in here. I’d also like to remind everyone to NEVER ASK ME TO DO ANYTHING. When people ask me to do things, I find it very difficult to say no, so I usually end up doing it, even though I’d probably rather not. And, for further clarification: NO, I WILL NOT FIX YOUR COMPUTER. I have to get up around 1 PM tomorrow (er, today already) to fix a friend’s family’s computer. Grr. I’m sure it’s spyware/adware/viruses, etc, but I know it’s an old POS too. I’ll probably just recommend the $319 (+tax) Dell to them. Maybe for payment they can give me SOMETHING TO MAKE MY HEADACHE GO AWAY.

Meh. I’m off to bed. I know it will be difficult, but you can (probably) live without my presence for the next 10 hours. G’night.

I’ve never been a huge fan of blogs. It’s 11:11 PM on a Friday night, and I’m creating, and posting in, one of my very own, though. I’m not exactly sure why, but I can guarantee you it was prompted by seeing one of my ex-girlfriend’s blog. I was dissatisfied with the quality of her profile on there, so apparently I’m rectifying my dissatisfaction by potentially making a better one of my own, that virtually no one will read (hey, like virtually all blogs!). I’m guessing this is going to be one of those things (like my first personal web site, http://thepieguy.tripod.com/ … or much of anything else I do, for that matter) in which I maintain interest for a brief period, and then abandon. I’ll look back at it in a year or two and have a nice laugh, and a good time will be had by all.

…Anyway, since I know everyone is dying to hear about my day (because I’m just that cool), let’s have it:

I’ve recently been setting my computer to start playing my music in the morning to wake me up (in conjunction with my alarm clock), since my alarm clock has proven to be fairly useless in its primary goal. The alarm clock sits at the foot of my bed, but I’ve apparently mastered the skill of sitting up, and turning it off (not just snoozing it) without actually waking up. (Even more impressive was during high school when it was across the room, and I was able to walk across the room (which entailed stepping in very specific places, over computers, piles, etc), turn off the alarm clock, and get back into bed, without really waking up (I didn’t remember doing it, much of the time, and no, the alarm clock never stops on its own).) Back to my exciting day, though. Anyway, I woke up to Tool – Forty Six and 2 at 8:05 AM, laid in bed for another song or two, then showered, and such, sat around my room for about 20 unnecessary minutes listening to music, and eventually headed off to FedEx (my third time in two days).

I bike to work (and most everywhere else I need to be), but FedEx is about one minute from my office, so it’s not a big deal to swing in there before work. I picked the most retarded way ever, to get there, though, which pissed me off. I literally thought to myself “This is the worst decision I’ve made today. Wait, no, sitting around my house an extra half hour was a worse decision. But this is definitely the worst decision I’ve made in the last ten minutes.” (Yeah, I’m…cool…like that. We’ll stick with that choice of words.) Anyhow, I decided not to lock my bike at FedEx, which sounds like a stupid comment, but I’ve pretty much locked my bike everywhere I’ve left it (except my garage) for the past five years, so it’s weird. I guess maybe I’m getting lazier, which may be difficult to believe, but I think it’s true. Into fedex…

I’ve always been confused with the forms and packaging they offer at FedEx. I’ve been going there for years, but not consistently enough to really get it down. There are certain things you’re supposed to use their packaging for, some you’re not…some charge by size, some by weight…it’s all very foreign to me. There are two forms for ground shipping, both of which I filled out. It turns out I didn’t need to fill one of them out, and the other one, that I did need to fill out (which I did), is possibly the crappiest form I’ve ever seen. There’s no way I can write all the necessary information legibly in the space they provide. Bastards. Well, the shipping was cheap, and I’m getting reimbursed for it anyway, so it didn’t really matter, but that was good. My bike wasn’t stolen (although you probably figured I mentioned it for some deeper reason, earlier in the story, you were wrong), so on to work I went.

I park my bike in the underground parking garage at my office-building. Everyone else from my company just parks in the regular lot in front (which does have a bike rack), so it’s kind of strange that I park [my bike] down there, but it’s closer to the bike path, and then I don’t have to lock it (the garage exemption rule ;)). It’s nice and cool (temperature) down there, too, which is pleasant after a vigorous bike-ride, heh. Parking where I do, means that I also end up using the back entrance to the building, which kind of reminds me of Peter Gibbons (my idol, by the way) explaining that he uses the side entrance so that Lumberg doesn’t see him come in late. I sit down, mark myself not-away on AIM (not only does my company allow the use of AIM, they require it…for company communication purposes, of course :P), read some email, catch up with a few people in chat, etc.

I won’t get too much into what I do at work, for various reasons, but today’s activities included:

• Telling a few co-workers to check out freeiPods ( http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=7274942 … one co-worker signed up)
• Researching a few WiFi/Ethernet bridges (I was annoyed that a co-worker mac-lot suggested the $125 AirPort Express off the bat … and laughed at Apple’s site claiming that they revolutionized wireless by introducing the first / affordable WiFi solution (geeks might find that funny))
• Visiting web sites and recording 1-800 number extensions from them into an excel sheet.

Hm. How horribly stimulating. On the bright side, though, I got free pizza. My company does free pizza Fridays as a morale boosting exercise, because they require you to put a note commending a co-worker on a specific thing you noticed them doing well. I think it’s a big load of crap, but if I get free pizza, I’ll jump through a hoop. The whole company then left “early” around 5:30 PM for a company party at the CEO’s house. It was alright…more free food, entertaining dog fight, fireworks, CEO walked into a glass door. I got a ride back to the office around 10 PM, at which point I biked home, read some away messages, including a link to a blog, which then started this. Damn I’m cool.