Dallin's Funworld!

performance issues

2011-03-18T12:10:00.003-05:00

So yesterday at the end of the day at work, my team lead says to me: "Dallin you need to limit your internet time - people are saying things"

While I had been on the internet for a minute or two here and there during the day, I had also been working all day. So that got me curious. We work in two basic systems - one of which allows you to track everything. So in that system I pulled the stats for everything I had done vs. what everyone else had done. Here's how the numbers played out:

Numbers expressed in "items processed"

Employee 1...36 (this is one of the ones I suspect probably said something)
Employee 2...37
Employee 3...43 (this is also a suspected tattler)
Employee 4...56

Me...70

Hmmm... would you look at that? Looks like I did more than everyone else. AND that's not counting the other system - which I had been working in for the first 3 hours I was at work.

Sounds like some bitches need to keep their damn mouths shut...

(Also when I showed my team lead these numbers she told me I was in the top 3 overall for the year in terms of production/numbers.)

FAIL

2010-03-20T21:24:00.002-05:00

This weekend I went on a road trip with my travel group... or at least, part of it...

To explain:

The carpools met up and got to the rendez-vous point in good time, and without incident. Starting off on the right foot there. Our rendez-vous point was the Taco Cabana in Lewisville.

After dinner we get on the road and start our journey to Oklahoma. Our destination was just outside Lawton, where there is a wildlife sanctuary reported to have buffalo and lots of other fun and interesting wildlife. The weather all week had been beautiful and on Friday the temperature was even up in the 70's. The weather report predicted a cold winter storm coming in overnight, but didn't sound too unbearable. We packed warm clothes and just expected to maybe walk through a little snow accumulation on our planned Saturday hike.

There were only 6 people on this trip (small for our group) so we fit in two cars. We, in the 2nd car noticed that the driver in the lead car seemed rather sporadic with her speed - going really fast when no one was in front of her, and then slowing WAY down as soon as there was another car. Andrew, the driver of the car I was in, was doing his best to keep up. At one point we realize they're going VERY fast - like over 90, so I try calling someone in the lead car to let them know - "hey - country highways in Texas are heavily patrolled" they didn't answer, because apparently the phone I was calling was on vibrate... but by then it was too late anyway - we saw red and blue flashing lights come on behind us. Andrew starts to pull to the side and the cop actually goes past us and after the lead car.

We didn't have a map of where we were going and didn't want to end up lost, so we pulled over behind our other caravan half and the cop. Looking back, we shouldn't have stopped - we should have just kept going and got off at some exit down the road, because they cop gave BOTH drivers tickets. About $250.00 fine EACH. Afterward the conversation in the car tended to center a lot on that. Lots of ennui.

When we got to the lodging we were going to stay in, Danielle, the group leader, goes in and finds the place completely unlocked. Upon further inspection, all the beds had been slept in, the trash hadn't been taken out, etc. Basically, they hadn't come and cleaned after the previous people had checked out.

We played a round or two of Apples to Apples, and then decided to call it a night, as most everyone was tired. The lodge was VERY drafty and cold. There was a recessed light over the bed I was sleeping in that if you felt closely, a freezing cold breeze was coming in from the outside. After lights out, I crammed a t-shirt into the fixture to at least try to prevent some freezing air from getting in.

So we all went to sleep in a freezing cold house in already-slept-in-by-some-stranger beds.

This is when it got "real" for me. I wake up at 4am with a very weird feeling. I can tell something is "off" so eventually I head down to the bathroom. Lets just say the bathroom and I became VERY well acquainted over the next 8 hours. Something I had eaten at Taco Cabana was, apparently, pure evil, and my body wanted to get it out by whatever means necessary.

I alternated between sleeping and visiting the bathroom the rest of the night and through the morning.

When everyone else woke up and decided they wanted to go to breakfast, I gave them a grocery list for a liquid diet to bring back to me, and went back to sleep. Many hours later they came back and I got the only calories in me since everything had been expelled overnight.

The snow was relentless, and the wind was blowing hard and fierce. I was in no condition to be going out in that weather, and the lodge was still freezing cold. Everyone, fully dressed in their winter clothes, STILL huddled under blankets to keep warm. It was at about that point that everyone kind of realized there was no way things were possibly going to get better from that point - so we cut our losses and came home.

While I was quite nauseated for a good majority of the car ride back, I miraculously didn't need to stop. So at least the return was fairly uneventful... except...

As we were riding back I got a "head's-up" phone call to let us know from the other car what the plans were. During that call my phone gave the "low battery" bleep sound, so after I hung up, I turned the phone off. Well, the on/off button seems to have either broken or stuck, because I have been completely unsuccessful in turning it back on. So if you're trying to call or text me and I'm not answering... I'm not ignoring you, my phone won't turn back on!

head over heels... again

2009-06-18T19:20:00.006-05:00

so last year - on May 19th, to be precise... I wrote a blog about going head over handlebars on my bike.

It happened again today.

I was all excited to go for a ride, since I hadn't been in a long time. Got my bike out, aired up the tires and struck out on the sidewalk. About half a mile down the road there is a trail that goes through a park. I got there and went downhill on the trail, then, there was a sharp curve with dirt covering the trail and a ditch on both sides. As soon as I saw it I knew I was hosed. If I tried to turn sharp enough to keep the trail at the speed I was going I would skid on the dirt and crash, if I tried to not turn the wheel [which I ended up doing] I would go off into the ditch and flip right over.

The brunt of the impact was borne on my left forearm near the elbow and there were various other cuts/scrapes on my left leg and various other places

My left shoulder hurts a LOT, too. I can't raise my left arm very high, but it's not dislocated or anything, so hopefully I didn't do any hardcore damage to it and it will get better within a day or two.

I think now I'll just lie and watch some TV... that's safe...

Dallas has the best audiences

2009-05-15T08:41:00.002-05:00

So... having attended concerts in Houston, Austin, and many in Dallas, and seeing the musicians' responses I think I've determined that Dallas has the best audiences. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Allison Moyet of Yaz, and Ed Kowalczyk of Live all seemed particularly enthralled by the crowd response at their respective shows here in Dallas.

For some reason...

2009-03-05T06:51:00.002-06:00

I have three "for some reason(s)..."

1. For some reason I didn't sleep much last night. I went and played mini golf with the travel meetup, met some new people and lots of fun was had there, and maybe I was all riled up from that, or maybe I was all riled up thinking about all the trip possibilities [now that I'm an assistant organizer for that group.] I got home a little after ten, and was in bed by about 10:30pm, but was wide awake. I couldn't turn it off... so I got up and got on the computer for a while, and eventually got back in bed about 11:30 or so. Then I woke up about 5:15 this morning. I tried for about 15 minutes to fall back asleep, but couldn't so I just gave up, got ready, and came to work! I clocked in here at 6:40am. I'm sure in a few hours I'm going to be so dead tired I won't even be able to stand it.

2. For some reason it smelled like skunk INSIDE the entry of the office today. [Dwight... what have you been up to?]

3. For some reason I can't log in to the imaging system where I need to log in in order to do any work here... so thus, I'm writing a blog! Hooray!

catching up

2009-02-20T16:25:00.004-06:00

so... again, it's been a while since I last posted... I can get lazy about updating my blog [as you may have already noticed.]

The main point of this entry is to recap the road trip I took with my travel group back on Feb 6-8.

Friday night we get picked up in our carpools and meet in downtown Fort Worth at a Chipotle there. I had already eaten before I got picked up, so I was just hanging out. One other car had arrived before the car I was riding in and when we got there they were already proposing a little detour to the carnival that was going on just down the street. Well, after we got the message that one of the other cars had gotten a flat en route and they would be delayed about an hour, Brian, Andrew, Angela, Misty, and I all headed over to the carnival. It was free to get in - so bonus there. Brian paid for a ride called "the Kamikaze" for all of us. It was crazy fun. After that we wandered around and then ended up getting a funnel cake. I had never had one before. Sure, I had seen them around, but never sampled one myself. As we were finishing up our funnel cakes and walking back toward the car we got texts and calls that we'd better get our butts back to Chipotle, since the other car had arrived and the group was ready to go. When we got out to Abilene the owner of the guest houses gave us a guided tour. They were VERY nice. If you ever have occasion to go to Abilene with a group [I know, why would you?] I would HIGHLY recommend these guest houses. Our group occupied all 3 of the houses. That night we all ended up in house #3 [we referred to them based on the order they were shown to us on the tour] and ended up playing a rather rousing game of taboo. The most fun part of that was yelling out fake 'funny' answers when it was the other team's turn - to throw them off their game. Ahh, good times.

Saturday was our 'photo scavenger hunt.' The goal was to take pictures of Texas redneck/country things such as: a dead animal, cactus, windmill, historical marker, sign with the word "gun" on it, etc. The list had at least 30 or 40 items. We divided into 4 groups of 4 and went separate ways. We all met up in San Angelo for lunch, and then went back out for more photos. We met again at a steakhouse for dinner in "Buffalo Gap." That evening we reviewed and had some good laughs at the photos - and counted up all the points - with some hotly debated items... After the photo sharing there was fun of all kinds in all places. One group member brought the whole Rock Band package with the X-box, so there was always that going on [with certain instances of horrible singing.] There was a lot of sitting around socializing, and just before midnight I instigated a polar bear swim in the pool at house #1, and got a few other willing participants to join me. And of course, there was also a "throwing in fully clothed" incident or two... or three... Good times.

Sunday was kind of a "take it easy" day. We got IHOP takeout for breakfast and played RockBand some more, then drove home in the afternoon. Definitely a fun and VERY memorable trip. Photos can be seen here.

they fired my friend...

2009-01-24T16:11:00.001-06:00

Well, work became a little less fun and magical this week as the manager, operating under heavy influence from the team lead, fired my friend Alicia. She hadn't been there very long, relatively speaking. She, like me, started as a temp from K-Force, and then went permanent. Her work was good - once she learned all the systems she didn't really make any errors. She and I hung out many times outside of work and got to be really good friends. Neither she nor I can really figure out exactly why they fired her - it came totally out of left field.

ahhh 3 day weekends... never get tired of 'em

2009-01-19T13:14:00.002-06:00

What a nice 3 day weekend...

Friday night I went to dinner at Cici's with my friend Bryan and then we went to see the movie 'Role Models' at the dollar theater. Pretty funny.

Saturday I played frisbee with my Ultimate Frisbee Meetup Group. 3 other guys showed up, so we had just a "practice" since there weren't enough people to have an actual game, but hopefully when warmer weather rolls around we'll have a big enough membership to get some games going. Then in the evening it was my friend Tony's birthday so I met him and his friends at Texas Land & Cattle for dinner, and then after we went to the clubs and danced. It was fun, and I can't wait for the smoking ban to go into effect in April! [Some chick burned my arm with her cigarette because she wasn't paying attention to where she was holding it. Grrrr. Although it stung for a while, at least it didn't leave a mark.]

Sunday I spent most of the day lazing around the apt, but in the late afternoon I finally got off my tail and went out for a bike ride. It was a lot colder than I had anticipated, but I still went for about 2 hours - did probably 20 miles. My friend Trent invited me to his place after that, where we soaked in the hot tub for a while [which was much needed, after my bike ride] and then watched Simpsons and the previous night's Saturday Night Live.

Today I actually got my act together and got all the clutter on my desk and around my apartment in general cleaned up, and tonight I might just have a date...

frustrations

2009-01-05T20:47:00.005-06:00

Arg... today sucked.

Work was mostly ok, except that it was slow [didn't have a lot to do most of the day - which makes the time go by slower] and I was SUPER tired. There were a few times it was really hard to stay awake. Although I got enough sleep last night, I had stayed up too late both Friday and Saturday nights, so tonight will be catch-up if I can make it to bed in time [I guess that depends on how long I take to rant about my stuff here...]

So when I get out of work and start my car up my 'tire pressure indicator' light comes on. I bust out my trusty cigarette lighter powered air compressor and get to work on the tires. When I get around to the front passenger side I find that while it's not flat, it IS completely bald. No tread left. Not showing cord yet, but no tread left [which is not great since it's cold and rainy here right now.] This annoys me because that tire has no more than 23,000 miles on it since that's all the car has. It's also possible that was one of the tires that had to be replaced in my accident repairs, in which case it didn't even last 13,000 miles, because my accident was right around 10K. So I drive to Sam's to see about getting a new tire. The guy there didn't seem to have his crap together and I wasn't totally sold, so I went on to NTB. The guy there was knowledgeable and I ended up getting two tires because the other front one [driver's side] really didn't have much tread left either. Just the other day when hanging out with my friends Danny and Craig they related their experience with having to get new tires for their Acura. Apparently car and tire companies have conspired together to create a new breed of tire and force them on people who like nice cars. They're called V-rated tires - they cost more, and wear out faster because they are "softer." But to switch to a lower rating of tire you would have to replace all 4 at the same time. So anyway, like my Acura friends, I'm stuck with V-rated tire choices. They get the old tires off and look at the wear on them and tell me my alignment may need adjustment. So they put it on their fancy computer that shows the alignment, and of course, the front end is way off - so there's another $80 on top of the $275 for the tires. I walk out of there having dropped around $360 or so and by this time it's about 6pm and I'm already hungry. [I had left work just before 4:30pm.] But I was determined to get to the gym and at least do something there, and it was just around the corner from the tire place.

So I get there and can't decide what I want to do, but settle on just swimming laps. Well, a few weeks back I was doing some weight stuff and my right shoulder started hurting. Since then whenever I've done anything with weights my shoulder starts to hurt again, so whenever it does I avoid activities that would stress it until the hurt goes away. It had been long enough I didn't figure there would be any problem. Wrong. It start hurting about 10 minutes into my swimming. I did another 5 minutes just doing a one-armed side-stroke [not using my right arm for that one] and then quit. By the time I got dressed and out of the gym it was after 7pm and I was starving. I knew I had salad at home, so I could eat that, but I didn't have any protein [meat] so I would have to stop at the store for that. Foolishly, I chose Walmart.

Now... I think all decent people hate Walmart, for varying reasons, but everyone still goes there because it's cheap. My reason for hating it is usually the other "patrons" one encounters there as well as the cashiers. Today was an especially bad example. I get my three things - a bunch of bananas, a single steak packet, and a little bag of baby carrots and go to the "express lane." I always avoid the self-check option when I have fruit to be weighed [bananas.] There are only 2 'speed' lanes open, and as I walk up one of them has the dreaded "flashing light" which translates into 'I've got a high-maintenance customer and this is going to take a while' so I go to the other lane. There is a woman with her boy there and they don't seem to have much stuff. What I didn't realize at first glance was that this woman had apparently seen more that she wanted than her bank account could handle, so the transaction they were performing when I first came up was actually reversing the first iteration of her transaction. Then they had to ring up the stuff she could afford [while her boy, in the meantime, tried to balance the reject stuff she couldn't pay for on top of a display next to the cashier stand that was taller than he was, so it fell down all over the place.] Anyway, the cashier finishes the 2nd ring up and the lady takes an inordinate amount of time to run her card through the machine [honestly, how hard is it? apparently very, watching this chick.] So then I think they're done, and now it will be my turn. Wrong. The cashier turns on the flashing light and after looking for a manager for a minute or two, walks off to get one. [The chick has already wandered toward the manager stand] and at that point I'm like... [there are no words - only rage feelings]

So I go in search of another line. I find another line with only one person who has but a few items and I think I've struck gold. As I stand there waiting behind this person, I realize that the cashier is not wearing anything that would indicate he is a Walmart employee. He is also quietly, but still very audibly, singing to himself - with a very mumbley African accent - songs that seemed to be something about Jesus. The person in front of me finishes their transaction and leaves, and it is my turn. As he scans my items and rings me up, he does not even pause once in his Jesus singing. No conversation or anything - he's COMPLETELY in his own little praise-Jesus world. I run my card in the little thing and it says "ask cashier to press credit key" which I try to do, but can't manage to get out any real words because I'm so overcome by the complete and utter bat-shit-crazy that is coming from across the counter. I get my items and walk away and feel a little bit sorry for the poor people in line behind me who must also then deal with that dangerously insane individual. I thought about alerting the management to the fact that they were employing[?] someone who belonged in a padded room, but then I remembered it was Walmart...

And of course, when I get home and go in my kitchen I remember that I am out of milk...

On the plus side, however, I built an excellent fire in my fireplace which only took one light and it was raging in no time. So I think I'll sit there and bask, while listening to my iTunes on shuffle for a little bit before I head to bed...

I'll just have oatmeal [made with water] in the morning and hopefully remember to stop and get milk before I get home tomorrow...

forgot to eat...

2008-12-20T21:01:00.002-06:00

Today I had lots of fun - my travel group had a local activity. We went to lunch together first at a place called Obzeet [generally a very weird place with somewhat spotty and unfriendly service, but good food] and then we went to an ice rink and went ice skating - something I couldn't even tell you when the last time was that I went, but probably at least 15 years ago. The last time I was even on an ice rink at all was playing broom ball back in '01.

The first pair of skates they gave me at the rental counter were figure skates made from hard plastic, with buckles similar to ski boots. Although there was a cushy lining inside the skates, as soon as I got out on the ice I immediately felt all kinds of pain, as they were very uncomfortable. I fell once, and then other members of the group, seeing the plastic skates, recommended I go get a pair of lace-ups, which I did. This time they gave me hockey skates [with no toe pick.] Those were more comfortable, and I got out on the ice and made it a lap or two before falling again. It was pretty hard to get back up with those skates on, but I eventually did, and didn't fall again the whole rest of the time. I started getting the hang of it a little by the end - not trying anything fancy, by any means, but was doing better than where I started out. After that some of the members went to Blue Goose Cantina and we hung out talking for a while. I left at 4 to take my friend Chris to the airport for his trip to Germany to spend Xmas with his parents.

I got my car washed on the way home [the winter weather had made it unbearably dirty over the past week and I paid for the $3 wash with the change in my ashtray.] Once I got home I got on the internet and started planning my trip to Austin for the Brazilian Carnaval they have there. It was cold in my apartment so I also got a little fire raging. As I was sitting at the computer planning away I started feeling a little weird. I assumed it was because I was cold [the computer is not near the fireplace] so I went and warmed myself by the fire for a little while. The feeling didn't go away. I took me a minute or two, but I realized I hadn't eaten anything since lunch, and it was now 8:30pm. I usually eat every 4 hours. So I ate some baby carrots, and quickly popped a pot-pie in the microwave and fixed my blood sugar levels. :) Now I'm going to lie by the fire and watch a movie.

great weekend

2008-12-15T10:49:00.003-06:00

Ahhh... I love four day weekends...

In an effort to use up the last of my paid time off from work [otherwise I would forfeit it] I took off Friday and today and I'm very glad I did. I originally had a whole lot more planned this weekend than I actually did, but it was a good thing that some of the stuff got canceled - it gave me more rest time.

Friday I took it easy most of the day, and went on a lunch date. Friday evening I had a game night planned, but since I had set it up fairly last minute and it's the holiday party season, no one but my friend Chris came. But that was OK. Chris and I just ended up going to see Twilight. It was my second time to see it, but it's a good little movie, and this time it was in DLP, so it's like watching it in enormous HD [love it.]

Saturday morning I originally had a boot camp planned through my fit club, but the only girl who had RSVP'd yes said she was backing out since there wouldn't be anyone else there. Which was fine... gave me time to sit around and be lazy instead. :)
One of the highlights of my weekend was getting to take a 3 hour nap on Saturday afternoon. Ahhhhh... After I woke up from my 3 hour nap I went to the gym [and had surprisingly little energy there - I couldn't do nearly as much of a workout as I normally would...] and then went to a dinner party. I left the dinner party a little after 10pm and went right to bed when I got home.

Most of the day Sunday was also spent lazing around and taking it easy. Then in the late afternoon I went to the gym again and then to a holiday party at my friend Jim's place. From there I went to my friend Danny's place and hung out with him for a bit, watched Simpsons, and then I went to the LITE Dallas Annual Christmas Party, which was SO much fun. It was at the House of Blues. I got invited because one of the bosses of the company was in my travel MeetUp group. There was a good number of people from the travel group there and we had lots of fun hanging out, dancing, and getting our pictures taken in the photo booths they had set up. Glad I was able to stay out and not have to worry about getting home early to I could go to bed in order to get up for work...

Now today will be another day of lazing around and taking it easy. :) Tomorrow I have to go back to work, but at least it will only be a 4 day work week, and then next week will only be a 3 day work week!

Arizona for Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T21:34:00.006-06:00

Just got back from a fun and relaxing vacation to Arizona for Thanksgiving. Here's a quick recap of events.

Erlynne, Chris, Ethan, Tristan and I all drove in Chris' mother's van, taking the drive easy - in installments - staying over night in Midland TX on the way out. When we got there on Saturday evening, Lana, Erlynne and I all went directly out to see "Twilight." It was pretty good. Entertaining enough for someone who hadn't read the books [me] - and from what I gathered - enthralling for those who HAD read the books.

I can't currently think of all the details of all the things I did the rest of the week, except for rappelling. That was certainly a highlight. Chris and I went with his nephew Jared to a park where there was a huge rock formation pretty perfect for rappelling. It was my first time and I was really nervous at first, but I was already feeling like a pro by my 2nd and 3rd trips down the rope. A couple showed up to set up for their family reunion and I went down at the same time as the girl to reassure her that it wasn't that scary. I forgot to bring my camera that day, so I don't have any pictures, but Chris did get some, and some video, so we'll see if I can get some of those and post them.

Thanksgiving day itself was lots of fun. Lana and her kids and I all got up early and went to see Porter, Eric, and Dixie compete in a triathlon. I DID bring my camera with me that day - so you can see my pictures on Facebook where I uploaded the best of them. When I heard what the triathlon entailed I thought 'I could do that, easy' so... next year I will. Lana said Staci had also said she wanted to do it next year... so next Thanksgiving I challenge all my siblings and in-laws to "bring it" because I'm totally there! The rest of the day was fun, too - Thanksgiving dinner at the Shumway's was plentiful and varied, and after eating Dana played the piano and the singers took turns performing. I even dusted off my old, unused, vocal chords and mumbled through a song.

Overall a very fun and relaxing trip for me. I got to take a nap most of the days, so hopefully that will catch me up on my rest. Now it's off to bed so I can get up early for work again tomorrow [frowny face.]

long time no post

2008-11-14T18:43:00.005-06:00

I was recently chided for not posting any updates here in a long time. I knew it had been a while, but when I got on and looked - Holy Fudge! It's been almost 2 months. The reason for that as some may already know - is that I'm constantly busy. Ever since I discovered MeetUp.com there's almost never a reason to stay home just killing time. I can always be out and about - meeting and associating with people from different cultures, countries, and all kinds of different backgrounds. I have radically diversified my social circle faster than I ever imagined possible. A good thing, methinks.

So the most recent adventure: Last weekend I went with my Travel MeetUp to Hot Springs Arkansas. We went to experience the fall colors and see Hot Springs. Here are a few pictures I took:

...and here's a picture someone else took that has me in it [to prove I was actually there]

and here's a picture taken by someone who's a much better photographer than I

add a couple of insults to injury

2008-09-17T12:51:00.002-05:00

This past weekend I threw my lower back out while over-exerting myself a bit playing frisbee. Well, round about the same time my food poisoning decided to come back [the bacteria and/or virus wasn't really gone - even though I felt ok for a week.] So now not only am I back on a liquid diet with my stomach churning, but also most movements I make that involve my lower back [which is almost ALL movement] are excruciatingly painful. When I woke up this morning I felt so crappy I just wanted to call work and tell them I wasn't coming in. However, since I've already got all my time off planned for pretty much the rest of the year, I don't have much leeway there. So I went in to work. It wasn't long, however, before I realized that I really shouldn't be there. I figured that one out due to the fact that I was spending more time in the bathroom than I was at my desk working. And of course the one day I can't eat anything, and the one day this has ever happened since I've been working here - they were giving away free ice cream in the cafeteria!

So I came home at noon, made myself some chicken broth and am now going to sleep the rest of the day. Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow.

sick in Boston, but a cash haul is always nice...

2008-09-13T22:07:00.003-05:00

going back a little bit...

On the Tuesday after Labory Day I flew out to Boston for a few days on the Cape [in Provincetown, MA] and then a few days with Clark and family in Framingham. Well, something I ate on Tuesday gave me some pretty hardcore food poisoning, so a disproportionate amount of my trip was spent lying in bed/sleeping during the day/subsisting on a liquid-only diet/and generally feeling like puréed tarnation...

On my first day of seeing Clark and Benjamin I did manage to get my camera out and take some pictures... here's a few of them

I did manage to get out and swim in Walden Pond, as well as go to the site of "the shot heard round the world" [the beginning of the American Revolution.] And the important part was getting to see Clark, Guinevere, and Benjamin and hang out with them, so mission accomplished. Oh yea, the last evening I was there [on Clark's birthday] Guinevere made a SUPERB clam chowder, and since I was luckily weaning slowly back on to solids by that time I got to eat as much as I wanted. :) They also gave me a really funny birthday card and my favorite present - COLD, HARD CASH! Which was just the start of the cashflow... :)

When I got back to Dallas I got another birthday card from Lady and Schteve, with MORE CASH! So, SCORE! Then at work they were going to have cake for my birthday, but the lady who was going to get it had a flat tire, so they just gave me the money they would have spent - so, SCORE! Then our sister department happened to also be having "birthday celebration" that day and had enough cake and ice cream to go around, so we ended up being able to have some after all - AND I kept my cash! SCORE! :)

Then today I went to the Fort Worth Bird Mart and sold off a few birds, and most of the excess cages that I needed to get rid of, so I came home with a wad of CASH, so again, SCORE!

the view from my balcony

2008-08-12T21:28:00.003-05:00

ahhh, the joys of pollution :) Here are a few pictures I took from my balcony - a few days apart - when I was waking up really early for work [both were taken shortly before or after 6:30am on different days in the last week of July '08]

busy busy busy

2008-08-07T15:02:00.008-05:00

I've been so busy the past few weeks that I haven't even had the time to think about writing a blog chronicling the things that have been keeping me busy. But here I am... during a surprising [and very welcome] respite from the constant onslaught at work.

Last night I went to the Weird Al concert with Erlynne and Chris. It was great! During the costume changes they showed videos which were hilarious. :)

The last two concerts I went to before Weird Al were Ours, and Yaz. The 'Ours' show was amazing. Ours was great, but more surprisingly, BOTH of the opening bands were really good. I bought the CDs they had there at the show and fell in love with one of the bands. They're called God or Julie. I haven't gotten this hyped about a new band discovery since Mika. You can get God or Julie's album "This Road Before" on iTunes, and I highly recommend that you do!

The Yaz show was also great. They peformed pretty much their entire catalog. A few of the songs had been re-worked and hopefully they'll release some kind of live versions and/or DVD at some point.

Now the next concert I look forward to is Nine Inch Nails. First, my friend Tony and I will be taking a road trip down to Houston to see them on August 16th. Then my friend Brock will join Tony and I to see them again in Dallas on August 18th. I've been listening to the NIN cds again, getting stoked!

Some of the other things that have been keeping me busy lately are watching movies and going to plays. I finally saw Iron Man at the dollar theater the other day and really liked it. I'd be excited to see what a sequel will present. I also saw "Baby Mama" [with Tina Fey and Amy Pohler] at the dollar theater - if you haven't seen it yet I recommend it. I laughed a lot. A friend brought over some DVDs one night and I finally saw "Lars and the Real Girl." Another one I would highly recommend. It made me cry - like 2 or 3 times...

My friend Chris is currently in a theater class and had to see and review 3 different plays. Since he didn't want to go alone, and of his friends, I'm the only one up for such a thing, I went with him to all of them. We saw Footloose [the musical] a british play called "House" [we didn't see it's companion play "Garden" though] and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." During both "Footloose" and "A Funny Thing..." I felt like I might have seen each of those plays at some time before in my life... but wasn't really sure, as my memory can best be described as "very spotty" now.

Footloose was put on by the Plano Repertory Theater. It was hard to sit through. The singing was sometimes ok - sometimes not. The acting was bad, the direction was bad. You definitely weren't missing anything if you didn't see this production.

In the next play - House - the acting/direction was all good, but the play itself was billed as a comedy and I think I only slightly chuckled at maybe two or three lines the whole time. It was just generally uninteresting and often boring. It had companion piece called Garden, being performed simultaneously by the same cast in the adjacent theater. Each piece was billed as standing on its own, but there were a bunch of things in the play we saw that made absolutely no sense without seeing the other one. Perhaps seeing the other one would have made it better, but I don't think I could have sat through another boring play just to get the other pieces to the bewildering puzzle.

"A funny thing happened..." was put on at the Watertower Theater in Addison. It was at least entertaining, and sometimes actually humourous. The actors certainly brought energy to the show. Overall good.

Should I BE this excited about an IRON?

2008-07-02T16:50:00.003-05:00

I haven't been the owner of decent iron at any point in my life before and the latest hand-me-down I got from Lady was very problematic, basically making any clothes I tried to iron with it worse off than where they started. I've got all these shirts I never wear because I don't have an iron and even I wouldn't wear something THAT wrinkly.

So I decided it's time to buy an iron for myself. I have done this one time before - back when I was living in the townhouse in Allen. I didn't want to spend a lot of money and I basically got what I paid for. After about a year the heat setting knob broke and came off.

This time, I decided, is going to be different. I went online and did reasearch. I went to the Consumer Reports website and their "best buy pick" was a Black & Decker Digital Advantage D2030, which I searched for on a few shopping sites and realized that buy.com [where I have all my credit card points accumulating] had it for just over $50, and I had enough points that I cashed in and only paid out of pocket about $3.58. So I'm getting the sweetest iron out there, probably better than anyone else I know - and it cost me less than $4.00!!! And shipping was free! Unfortunately I can't get the instant satisfaction of having it right now... but nearly free is worth waiting for a few days of shipping.

I'm kind of surprised at how excited about this I am. I can't wait to let my new iron loose on all my jeans [the legs always get twisted around in the dryer] and I'll finally be able to wear all of my shirts without looking sloppy.

update

2008-06-24T21:56:00.003-05:00

Haven't written any new blogs in a while... I actually just looked and was surprised to see that the last one here was over a month ago. It's not that nothing has been going on, just that I haven't taken the time to write it down. I'll summarize some of the highlights of the past month...

The summer concert-going season has started with a bang. I went to see a band called Rilo Kiley on June 15. Then a week later, on June 22 I went to see the "True Colors" tour - with Cyndi Lauper, The B-52's, Joan Jett, Andy Bell, and Wanda Sykes doing comedy. Both were very good shows. Lots of fun. Coming up later this summer I'm going to see the following:

July 12 - Ours [it's ok if you've never heard of them - most people haven't]
July 22 - Yaz [they got back together for a reunion tour]
August 6 - Weird Al
August 16 - Nine Inch Nails [in Houston]
August 18 - Nine Inch Nails [in Dallas]

So yea, I'll be losing some more hearing, as if I wasn't already deaf enough...

Work has been somewhat stressful. We're short one person, so the rest of us have to work harder to pick up the slack, and last Friday another of the ladies gave her 2 weeks notice. So it won't be getting any easier in the immediate future... :( At least on the plus side, I'm getting into the groove a little bit better and getting the hang of the job. I'm also planning to take the entire first week of September off and do my traveling for the year. I'm thinking I'll hit both San Diego and Phoenix the first part of my time off, then head to Boston to visit my brother for our collective birthdays. Gotta check with everybody to make sure that will be a good time to visit.

I also got a pretty sweet new digital camera [which is to credit for the new profile pic on here.] It's not as awesome as Clark and Guinevere's [I decided to go a lot cheaper] but it's still better than any camera I've ever had previously. Hopefully I'll actually be able to put it to use and get some sweet photos to put up here...

Faceplant!

2008-05-19T21:04:00.002-05:00

dah dah dum dum dum, another one bites the dust!

At the end of my weekly bike ride I decided to take the short cut across the field back to my friends' house where we had started the ride from. The normally dry ditch had some water in it, but I didn't think twice about it - surely my bike tire would just roll right out... but nope - I went down in the ditch and the front tire stuck hard - at which point I proceeded to flip head over handlebars and land face-first in the dirt. Luckily I only ended up with a scrape on my chin and no broken teeth or bones. My jaw was a little sore the rest of the day, but that was it. I fully expected some latent aches today, too, but there were none. Not even mild whiplash. Lucky to have escaped pretty much unscathed from my first bike accident in approximately 20 years...

life is good

2008-04-28T16:10:00.003-05:00

Ahhh. I just got back yesterday from a great vacation [which I had really been needing] and although it got started off on the wrong foot [explanation to come on that in a bit] the rest of the time was great.

Today, back at work, I got the official offer of employment, and thanks to some great acting by me in the interview [i.e. 'life is hard on what I'm making now,'] and my stellar performance on the job so far, the salary they're offering me is more than what I was making at my last permanent job [a job which had me constantly at my wit's end.] Here's a quick comparison of this new job vs the last [permanent] one: Making more money, working only 40 hours, a manageable workload, better co-workers and bosses, quarterly and yearly bonuses, a MUCH larger company [so there's room for growth or transfer if I decide I'm tired of what I'm doing.] Oh yea, and I'm in a better apartment that costs less. So yea, things kinda fell into place, creating a great relief for me.

Now for the vacation:

First, before we even left for the airport, our flight had been pushed back from it's original 5pm whatever start time to 6pm. But we still left my place at about 3:30pm. Before I left I checked online where it showed that the flight was delayed and the departure time would then be 7:30. When we get into the airport at the gate it shows the departure time listed as 8pm. So already, we're 2 hours behind what the airline said. Well, everyone hurries on board about 8pm because there are thunderstorms coming and we'd like to get out before they hit. No such luck. As they are loading the bags someone notices some kind of tear in some lining in the plane so they have to have a mechanic come look at it. Because he's doing that, they can't load any baggage. Time goes by... he finishes looking at it and decides it's OK to go, but by that time it's already raining and before they can start loading bags again there is lightning. They close the ramp [because for the people on the ground it's akin to being in a swimming pool during a lightning storm] and we have to sit and wait. More time goes by... When the lightning FINALLY clears out, they load the bags and we miraculously start moving. Well, don't get your hopes up too, high, however... because of the previously closed ramp status there are 20something other planes ahead of us in line to take off. At a few minutes each, that adds up to another hour... because of the wind pattern they route us around the airport to the far side so we can be ready to take off, but by the time it's getting close to our turn, the weather has moved through, the winds have changed and they make us taxi to the opposite end of the airport. And it's not like Dallas is a little tiny airport. It's like... 20 miles from one end to the other. I don't remember exact times, but I know that by the time we actually FINALLY took off it had been 4 hours since we had gotten on the plane. THEN we still had the 2 and 1/2 hour flight to go. When we finally got to Utah it was 2 or 3 am [I don't remember exactly because everything was kind of hazy about then] but it ended up being a good 12hour voyage from the time we left my house until the time we got to my aunt Carol's where we were staying. I'd say that qualifies as the height of ridiculousness. We could have DRIVEN half the distance in that time. The rest of the trip, however, was wonderful. There was always something fun going on and we got to spend lots of time together as siblings [something I had been missing... a lot.]

paying for my wreck

2008-04-16T16:26:00.002-05:00

My insurance renewal bill came today - first time since my accident last October, and it's over $200 bucks more for the 6 month period than I was paying previously. I don't guess switching providers would save me much... would it?

I'm slowly but surely getting things at my new place in order. There's still a good deal of chaos right now as I unpack boxes. I have had a surprising Lady-like obsession with cleaning every surface of my new place, though. The other day I took a wet cloth to the screen door on the patio - the cloth was BLACK by the time I was done wiping the screen down.

I just realized

2008-04-12T00:06:00.003-05:00

As I was getting in bed I just realized that only the youngest and oldest siblings in our family are NOT moving this summer. Oh, yea, and the moves are also occurring in age order... well, that's depending on how soon Lana and Porter's closing happens. First me, then Clark/Guinevere/Ben, then L&P/crew. C&G are winning the "distance" award - for a Utah to Boston trip. Now it'll be a tossup for second between my 17 miles and how far L&P are from their new house.

what a crazy week...

2008-04-11T23:20:00.002-05:00

It's really hard to live in the place where you're packing up stuff to move... because you still need a good deal of the stuff to live your daily life. I also found out today that the free move won't actually be moving as much stuff as I thought. Well, they COULD move everything but it would not have been free if I had them do it all.

So I'm probably going to be making at least a few trips back and forth. Google maps says it's 17 miles from one door to the other. Sounds about right... that's going to add up to a few miles, but oh well, that's what cars are for. Speaking of cars, of course, I knew that as soon as I washed my car [which I had finally broken down and done last weekend on the advice of the weather that it would be sunny for the foreseeable future] it would rain... and it did... now my car looks just like it did before I got it washed last weekend. It was clean for about one or two and a half days. Grrrr...

And finally for this post, my new job is going ok. The work can be repetetive, but I keep my mind busy by playing word games in my head with the people's names and the places. Most of the people there are pretty cool, except for one girl... She's not in my department, but her cube is just across a walkway from my supervisor's cube, which is next to mine. This girl talks SO LOUD, ALL THE TIME. I bet she writes in all caps on the internet, just like she talks. lol So yea, she bugs.

Time to start a new chapter

2008-04-06T09:27:00.002-05:00

Another big life change is in the works. After getting laid off of an incredibly ridiculous and overly demanding job back in January I worked a few temp jobs, the most recent of which has already recognized what a smart, competent person I am and would like me to go permanent. So yesterday I went and found an apartment not too far from where the job is, and I'll be moving there next weekend [since my lease here in uptown will be up shortly thereafter.] The new apartment will still be an efficiency, but it's got more square footage, and best of all - a full size fridge, a dishwasher, a microwave, and even an included washer/dryer - NONE of which I had here. You're extremely limited in your food choices when all you have is a dorm-room fridge and a stove/oven. Oh, yea, it will also cost me about $45 bucks a month LESS than my current place, too.

I'll be a lot closer to a lot of my friends [who live in Plano and Allen] too.

About the job: I can see myself getting tired of the daily tasks pretty quickly, but at least they're easy, and it's a no-overtime environment, which will be awesome, since I value my free time. When you hit your 40 hours in a week, you go home! I left at 3pm last Friday. Also, you can wear jeans any day you feel like it [which will probably be every day for me.] Now all I have to do is round up a bunch of boxes so I can pack everything for the movers who are going to be coming next Saturday... uhg...