Category: Uncategorized Page 133 of 157

My mood has improved a bit today – at least partially since I can’t seem to maintain a bad mood for too long. Tires me out.

After work yesterday, I went for a walk and headed up to the nearby tattoo and body piercing studio – with the full intention of getting my ear re-pierced. I’ve been to the company before – though not at their current location. The first place was a little seedy, the second was pretty classy – well, as classy as tattoo and body piercing studios go. The new location – extra seedy.

Strike 1. Door propped open = no air conditioning. The equipment generates heat and a busy place with lots of people generates heat as well. Not going to be comfortable if a person is there very long.

Strike 2. Cash only. The signs were everywhere. Having a credit card machine takes time and money to establish. Cash only is a little more “fly by the seat of your pants”. And since some tattoos can be a lot of money, that’s a lot of cash to carry around.

Strike 3. The owner came out, and he was looking like hell warmed over. He did one of my first tattoos and later one of his employees examined the work and didn’t have anything good to say. I dunno if he was on something, but I got a bad vibe. Especially if he was going to be the one to re-do my ear.

I asked him the price for getting my ear redone – he said it was $40.00 and that it included a silver hoop.

Strikes 4 & 5. $40.00 seemed pretty high, especially since it was redoing an existing piercing – it’s not like he would have had to aim or anything. And a hoop? A hoop means the hole is going to heal around the shape – and I don’t want a curved hole in my ear.

So, I said something about needing to go to the ATM and made my escape.

Back to my car and then to get my hair cut – and then to the mall. I’ve done enough research to now be a little disdainful of getting my ear pierced in the mall, but I got it done the first time there and figured it might not be bad. Well, I looked and looked and couldn’t find what I was really looking for in either kiosk – nor could I find it in spencer gifts or even the painfully girly claires. By this point I’d decided I was just going to do it myself and needed a simple post. I settled on a pair at claires and made my exit.

Later in the evening after a little pizza, a couple episodes of Lost season 1, and a little work on my origami – I decided to get to work on my ear. I started to push the post through and it started to hurt. So I went downstairs to discover I was out of ice. Back to the bathroom, I took it slow and gently worked the post into place. It bled a bit, but not too bad, and I got it cleaned up and took a shower.

It seems fine today – but it also seems like a lot of work to get a piece of metal in my ear.

In other news, nothing new on the work front. One of my colleagues may or may not be resigning – which is stressing all of us out since we’re already short handed. Getting a little tired of muddling through.

Well, I guess I should get back to the grind…

I was using Wikipedia, one of my favorite sites, to look up info on the video game God of War. One of the items in the game is Pandora’s Box – and Wikipedia had an article for the myth as well.

According to the site, there’s some confusion as to the real story. Might have been a box, might have been a jar – might have been that the box and the woman were one.

In one version, Pandora opens the box and all the evils escape – but closes it so that only Hope is still trapped. In another, she traps Hope and lets it out later – with the idea that Hope is in the world, but it has some catching up to do.

The real question, I think, is what was Hope doing in a box of the evils of the world? I don’t think they really answer that in the site article, but I believe that in some circumstances – Hope itself is evil.

No matter how terrible a person may feel, there’s always Hope – and always a chance to have that Hope dashed. There’s always a chance for things to get just that much worse.

So, I think by this point it should be clear that I’m not having a good week. Hell, I’m not sure that it’s even been a good year – or any other band of tire.

Family: There’s an underlying tension anymore and every time we talk about it – things get just a little bit worse. So, we don’t talk about anything of consequence and the banality continues.

Relationship: I tried to show some honesty and caring recently – it went badly.

Work: After our 4.25 hour long meeting yesterday, we’ve finally got a plan of attack for our future – and given the current staffing and other resources, it’s utterly impossible for us to succeed. Which, in a way, makes it a little easier- all we have to do now is fail with a little bit of style.

But hey, there’s always hope, right? All I have to do, apparently, is keep my head down and shut my damn mouth and everything will work out.

(later)

Well, the relationship thing is little better after some email exchanges. Still not entirely comfortable at how things have gone, but it’ll work out. Work is much the same – still in the dark, still up in the air, still doomed.

I’ve got an hour to go before I head out today – thinking about trying to get my ear done, get a haircut, and some new pants.

I guess that’s it for today…

This weekend, I decided to pick up a couple of Mother’s Day cards – one for my mom and one for my grandmother. I was in the grocery store card aisle and picked up a card with snoopy on it. I’m not big on mushy cards and I usually go for humor unless it’s a card for someone having died. So, Snoopy is usually a non-mushy choice and I figured I was half-way done. To my horror, I opened the card and a literal shower of glitter poured out. The lights above the rack made it almost glow – as though Tinkerbell had been by earlier and had taken a crap in the card.

I hastely put the card back though the damage had been done. A woman standing nearby asked, “Bad card?” as though I’d taken the time to see the written content and been troubled for some reason. I simply replied “too much glitter” and spent the next few minutes trying to brush myself off. And as my sister will attest – it’s a futile exercise. She has a glitter-phobia.

After much careful searching, I finally found two cards with a minimum amount of glitter (i.e. none) – though since the cursed stuff had already eaten its way into my skin, my perceptions may have altered.

Overall, tramatic.

In other news, I think I’m going to get my ear re-pierced today. I haven’t worn one in a while and the whole has closed over. Hoping they can “re-activate” the existing hole with a minimum of pain.

My contacts are bothering me again. My eyes seem really dry and I’m begining to wonder if the “cold” is really an allergy springing up. Get it? It’s spring time and the allergy is “springing up”? Yeah, I didn’t think it was that funny either.

Playing Prince of Persia The Two Thones last week. Had to race a chariot though an obstacle course and once I’d finally survived that one, faced off with two huge monsters. Got my ass royally kicked. Tried a couple more times, got frustrated and stopped. Fired it up later and had to restart from the chariot race. Ass kicked, again.

Went online and looked up the cheat section on how to beat the two monsters. Tried to follow the advice – ass kicked again, though I did get a few hits in. And this is on the heels of a huge and complicated puzzle – and while on the “easy” setting. I dunno know about this game – I think it’s stopped being fun – which means I’ll stop playing it and most likely sell it. It’s too bad, the time travel elements are pretty sweet.

Well, I guess that’s about it for now – got a busy day ahead of me and a potentially 4 hour long meeting this afternoon. “Alex, I’ll take ‘Things that suck’ for a thousand”

later…

Still sick. Not much more to say about that.

Strangely sore. Got a weird ache on my left side, just above and below my collarbone. No idea why it’s sore, but I’ve tried stretching and rubbing it to no avail. I noticed it yesterday and thought I’d slept funny, but it hurt when I went to sleep last night and it’s still hurting this morning. Shouldn’t another nights sleep cancel it out somehow if that was the case? I’m going to try heat tonight if it’s still bothering me.

So, I’m driving into work, heading down a four lane one-way street. Well, three and a turn lane. I’m not turning and I’m in the correct lane to proceed forward, fully aware that we’ve only got two lanes across the interection to work with since one is closed for the musuem construction. I’m stopped at a light behind several cars and though it seems like it’s taking forever, there’s at least a good song on the radio and I’m doing okay. Light turns green and we start across the intersection, only to get stopped halfway. Turns out that the construction is now taking up two of the three lanes – including mine.

I freaking hate that. Just freaking hate it. Streets are for cars to drive upon. Don’t block my lane to unload mulch or deliver a precious moments figurine – get out of the way and park. Seems like freaking common courtesy to me.

Anyway, I’m stuck out in traffic until the only open lane clears enough to let me through. And then, joy of joys – I arrive at work. We’ve got two meetings today – 3.5 hours total. Dramatic sigh.

So, I guess I should get back to work and try to get something productive accomplished. I have high hopes that the sun will come out tomorrow (tomorrow) and that I’ll have a better day.

later….

I’m still sick – and the tylonal is just not quiet doing the job. I’m considering shoving a couple of pills up my nose all the way into my sinuses. None of this “bloodstream” crap – I want them to go to work right freaking where the problem is. Do my toes hurt? No, so there’s no need for the drugs to even head that direction. It’s plan. Not a great plan, but a plan none the less.

I watched part of Hostel last night – but not all of it. There was T, then there was A, then there were drugs, then gorey and pointless violence. Lather, rinse, repeat. Stopped watching after the first 45 minutes – it was terrible. Hellraiser had just as much gore, and it had a plot as well. This, this was just crap.

In other news… our Monday meeting, postponed until today – has been postponed again till tomorrow. I think we may have to rename this thing.

And that’s it for now, back to work…

This weekend I was sick. Headache, sore throat, sinus pressure – and mucus. More mucus than I realized a human being could produce. It was terrible. I filled a small trash can with klennex in no time at all. So, I’ve been jamming on Tylonal cold medicine most of the time and I think I’m getting better. Maybe.

I was driving on the highway on Friday and the far left lane – where I’m at – suddenly comes to a halt. I swear for a bit – but hold my ground in the hope that it will eventually clear instead of creating a problem in the next lane over by everyone moving to it.

Eventually, after much stop and go – I see a truck with one of those ——> signs on the back. Indicating that we should all get over. With some difficulty, I do. We finally go past the obstrutction and find that it’s…

1. The truck with the arrow, parked in the lane with the driver in the cab.
2. Two police officers standing next to their cruisers. Unhurt. Just chatting.
3. One motorcycle, upright and undamaged. The rider was just getting on the bike, he was unhurt. His helmet was on resting on the ground, undamaged.
4. One woman, also unhurt. Walking over to her undamaged car.

Now, I clearly don’t have the whole story. But at this point – everyone that was still there at the scene should have gotten away from there and freed up traffice – instead of standing there chatting. You want to chat? Go to Starbucks.

After this incident, I’m near my destination, but running on fumes. I pull into a gas station and see two pumps open on the right side of my car. I started to pull forward to go to the far one – as a courtesy – but notive a kid standing on the far pump’s island. He’s trying to direct a woman in a huge car to that pump – she’s making a wide loop to bring the left side of her car into postion. Now, I’ve never needed anyone to direct me to a pump to fill my car – but even with help she wasn’t doing a good job. I backed up to get away from her to the point where I wasn’t sure I could reach my gas tank at the second pump. She ended up vaguely near the pump, but mostly out in the isle. The kid proceeded to pump the gas. I pumped my gas and got out of there well before they were done.

Later that weekend I find myself traveling down a residental alleyway, one lane, and encounter a little girl on a bike. I’ve had dealings with this little girl before and based on her previous behavior I know her to be…

1. Arrogant
2. Foolishly unobservant
3. Annoying
4. Stupid

She’s on her little pink bike, riding right down the middle of the alley, coming right towards me. I slow down to a crawl and wait for her to get out of the way. I reach the cross intersection before she does, and I don’t deviate from my course. Still, she keeps coming. I slow even further, prepared to stop and let her hit my car. Might be funny.

At the last possible moment, she darts into a single car parking space at the back of the building. I figure she’s going to wait until I get past – which would be the sensible thing to do. Instead, she turns around and darts right back into my way – now headed away from me but still in the way.

What had been a game of chickcn or some kind of mind game has turned into rampant stupidity. As she pedels along she keeps looking back to see:

1. if I’m there. Duh, it’s an alley, where am I going to go?
2. how close I am. If she was worried about me hitting her, why did she get in front of me again?

She reaches an intersection of a main street and, without looking, darts into traffic. She looks back one last time as I turn onto the street and I raise my fingers to my forehead in the international “loser” symbol.

We both survived the encounter – but I doubt either of us will be the same.

Back to work…

Ever see that episode of the Twilight Zone with the creepy little boy named Anthony? He’s apparently got god-like powers, a bad attitude, and the abilty to “wish things to the cornfield”.

Last night at the Olive Garden, I seriously wished I could be that Anthony. A family at the next table over had a child who – for no apparent reason – would perodically shriek at the top of his lungs. They were soon replaced by a group of painfully loud people. It should be noted that the group contained a guy wearing a shirt that said, “Diamonds are forever, but she’ll never forget the crabs”. Yep, it was that kind of crowd.

Alas, despite my best efforts, they remained loud and at the table. So, dinner was finished quickly and an exit was located. I’m all for enjoying a dinner with friends, but these people were just being rude.

The webteam meeting yesterday was fairly uneventful – not sure what all the hype was.

Playing a new game at home – Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. Pretty cool, but a little frustrating. Yesterday I had to climb a series of platforms, attack and blind a giant, then stab him in the shins till he fell over and I could finish him off.

I suspect today will be a long day – time to get back to it…

Last evening, the cold that’s been mildly pestering me for a while now decied to ramp up and really make me sick. Mostly a cough, but some congestion as well. So, I took some Robo-tussin last night to help me sleep and I’m DayQuill today. Well, DayQuill and Fruit Breezers those thing are excellent.

We’ve got our Monday afternoon meeting today. It had been resceduled to Wednesday due to a conflict in scheduling and then rescheduled again for today since a member of the team was out sick. I’d like to be out sick as well, but I think this will be a “fate of the webteam” meeting – so, I think I should be here. Too bad it’s in the afternoon, I’m here for the long haul if I want to go to it.

In other news – I’m cranky. This morning I was pissed at the people that backed their cars into the parking spaces even though – a) no one was doing it as I pulled in and b) no one took more than their single space. I was just cranky based on what people usually do – instead of the reality of the day. I think I’m going to blame it on being sick.

Well, I should try to keep busy…back to work…

On Friday, one of our former co-workers came back for a visit. A couple of us had lunch with him and then hung out – talking for another hour. I was able to get caught up before hand, so the extra time didn’t cause any problems. He’s doing well and likes his job, but doesn’t like the town where he lives. It was good to see him and I think he’ll try to stop by again sometime soon – his family is all in the area so it may be doable.

Last evening I had dinner with some friends. It was pouring when I got out of my car and I had to struggle with my coat. Without realizing it, I lost something. Later that evening, as I was getting ready to leave, I realised I didn’t have my wallet. I had hoped it was in my car, but a through search of the car and the house yielded nothing. Worried and feeling down, I gave up the search and headed home – where I discovered two things. One, my landlord is raising my rent yet again and two, I had a message on my machine. It was the bank where I had parked my car last night. The message left a name, phone, number, hours they would be open today – and like Pandora’s Box – Hope.

I called them this morning and confirmed that they did have my wallet. Back in the car, I headed to the bank, my head filled with facts to confirm my identity. Instead, I walked in an identified myself by name and the girl produced my wallet and identified me by my picture.

I thanked them for finding it and keeping it safe – then gave them some origmai that I had made and brought along. They were surprised, but gracious.

The wallet was fine – and even the money was still in there ($7.00)

I guess if you have to lose a wallet – a bank parking lot is not a bad place to do it.

That’s it for now – and though it’s a Saturday, I think I may do a little work. Later…

The other day I saw a license plate that said: LMBR GAL I followed this GAL for a few miles (we were going the same direction, no, I wasn’t stalking her) and tried to figure out what the plate meant.

Was she a fitness instructor as the LiMBeR GAL? Maybe a chiropractor as LuMBaR GAL? Or was she really into woodworking as the LuMBeR GAL? I may never know.

This morning, I saw two ducks outside the computer center – a male and a female. I quacked a greeting to them as I headed for the door and they politely quacked back. I could make a joke about Hackers and Quackers, but I’m not the kind of person that makes that kind of joke. Well, I am, but it’s actually more amusing to move around that joke rather than dive right in.

And speaking of being on the periphery – I’ve felt more than a little disconnected the past few days. Had a conversation over the weekend that troubled me and I’m having difficulty adapting to what it means. I’ll figure out what it all means soon enough and figure out how to deal with it, but until then if you see me in a daze, I’m really just thinking hard about something. Or I’ve decided that recreational drugs are the answer and I’m “rocky mountain high”.

In either case, just let me go about my way and I’ll be back to as close to normal as I ever get soon enough.

And speaking of getting back to…time to get back to work…