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So, after my swim yesterday, I called my former landlord about the deposit on the apartment that I’d shared with Jeff since I hadn’t heard anything about that.  She cheerfully explained that she’d talked to Jeff’s siblings about that and had been told by his sister to just keep the deposit since they would have to repaint.

Really.

So, $800 dollars back to the landlord to paint.  I mean, we had lived there for almost 8 years  – wouldn’t you think that painting would be part of the ordinary process of getting the apartment ready to go again?

(insert head shaking here)

If his sister had talked to me about it, we could have gotten the full amount back.  I got the full deposit back on the previous apartment and my room-mate at the time had trashed the place.  Instead, she made the decision that required the least amount of brain-power and I’m out $400.

Well, not entirely.   I guess I’d be more upset about that and would have fought for it if Jeff hadn’t left me some money.  I’ll just add that to what I’m keeping back to pay what I’d loaned him before giving the rest to his siblings.  Still, what a waste.

In other news… I got my haircut yesterday and since it was my 10th cut, I got it free.  So I gave the stylist a $5 tip.  Made me feel like a big spender.

I ran a few errands and grabbed some Arby’s for dinner before settling in for some DVD’s and folding.  Working on what I’m hoping will be a cool project as a birthday present.

One funny story I forgot from the weekend was when one of the kids I was with remembered that it was supposed to be a “supermoon” that night.  He raised his arm at a right angle with his hand pointed at his face and solemnly intoned – “The Moon.  The Sun goes down, the Moon comes up,”  He’s 4 years old.   It was a little funny and also every so slightly creepy.  Even after he was sent to bed, the adults in the room would occasionally look at each other, raise arms, and solemnly intone -“The moon”.

I left work a little early today in order to get a bite to eat before my blood appointment.  I stopped at McDonald’s on the way and as usual, the place was chaotic.  Fryers beeping, customers ordering and arguing, kids fighting – the usual.  I tried to tune things out and eat my nuggets in peace when I happened to catch a snatch of the music playing over the speakers.  It was Annie Lennox – “No More I Love You’s”.   Which is a beautiful and peaceful song.  I focused in on that and actually ended up with a small smile on my face.

I got over to the donation site early and read  through the materials – then sat down in the line waiting to be called.  There was a guy two seats over who was loudly reciting the locations of the ESPN restaurants and super stores in North America.  It was the most boring bit of trivia I’ve ever heard and he just kept going on and on.   I wondered if someone was helping keep track of him – seemed that he wasn’t quite able to function on his own.  I busied myself with some paper folding and tried to tune him out.  I may be a more than a little obsessive about origami, but at least I’m quiet about it.

When it was finally my turn, I sat with the staff person and she did all the usual checks.  I told her that I had lived with someone in the past 12 months that had hepatitis, but that I had been tested and was clear.  She thought that would be okay, but had me go through the health questions on the computer.  When that one threw a flag she had a couple other people over to discuss and they ended up deferring me for a year.

Which sucks.  I thought I was doing the right thing with all of this – getting tested, disclosing, etc.   But, the rules are the inflexible rules.  If I had been thinking ahead I would have brought the test results with me – though I doubt it would have done any good. I’m sure there are people with far riskier health issues and less honesty that are donating today – but this O- was not one of them.

Not the end of the world, but disappointing.  I guess I’ll start up again in December.

On Friday, I met up with a friend and some of his friends for dinner.  They picked me up and while we ran a few errands before dinner, I entertained their 3 year old with some paper folding – a small person, then a horse for him to ride.  He was impressed and wanted me to fold a hat for the rider.   I couldn’t really do a cowboy hat – the closest I got was a sort of samurai turban.

Dinner was good and afterwards he asked if “that guy” (since he couldn’t remember my name) could come home with them.  🙂  Guess he figured I was entertaining enough that he wanted me to stick around.   I promised that we could play with Legos next time I saw him and that was good enough for him.

On Saturday, I did a ton of yard work.  Mowed the grass, raked, cut down some vines and did a little weeding.  That evening, I went to a BBQ.  The food was good and the company was fun – though I actually got some of my Origami turned down.  I had made some stuff for the little boy that was there, but when I offered a bird to his sister, she said no and that was it.  Kinda took me surprise – origami is pretty much universal with kids and senior citizens.  🙂

Sunday morning was more yard work, then some errands.   I had dinner at Chipotle and took a picture of my burrito bowl to send to one of my co-workers.  He texted me back and asked if that was barf.   I was a little surprised since he’s a fan of chipotle as well – must not have come through as a good picture since it tasted really good.

That evening, I helped my friend walk his two small dogs.  We were making our way down the street when we heard a popping noise and saw a screen fly off the window of the house we were in front of – followed instantly by a very large dog leaping through the window.  My friend scooped up his dog while the large dog bounded over for what was a very quiet, but very aggressive, inspection.  Since that small dog was out of reach, he turned to me and I quickly scooped up the dog I was walking.  There was a moment when we didn’t know what was going to happen, then the door flew open and a very angry woman came storming out after the dog – whose name was, apparently, Rodeo.  She apologized, then began dragging the dog back in the house without checking to see if we were okay.   Once the coast was clear, we walked a bit then set the dogs down and continued on our way.

I’m planning on leaving work a little early to give blood – been while since I’ve given since the region’s red cross blood services is on strike and they’ve cut way back on the blood drives.  I’m hoping I don’t have to cross a picket line.

The boss is out of the office this week, but I’m expecting I’ll still be pretty busy – better get back to it.

Our service awards came in yesterday and were delivered with the least amount of fanfare possible.  I got a certificate that was signed with a jpg of the president’s signature and a “box of stuff”.    This included a keychain – which was too bulky to use but very shiny.   There was a business card case – which was not as nice as the circuit board version that I also don’t use – but was very shiny.  A money clip that I’m pretty sure I’m not wealthy or arrogant enough to actually use, but very shiny.  And a pen set that’s too nice to carry around and risk losing, but very shiny.

So, several very shiny things that I won’t use and a certificate that I’m going to file in a drawer somewhere.  Still better than the paperweight I got at 10 years, but somewhat pointless.  I guess I was hoping for a more personal touch – a human acknowledgement of my value.  A handshake and a thank-you would have been far better than a form letter and what amounted to a “form gift”.

These “small gifts” – as they were described in the invitation to the service awards event – came in at a somewhat ironic time.   I was deeply hating my job yesterday.    Just so burned out this week, fighting broken systems and one admin task after another.  I just wanted to get back to being a creative geek, but I don’t see that in my immediate future.  I was too cranky to even swim yesterday – just went home and played video games and ate junk food until I felt better – which was right around the time I went to bed.

I’m in a better mood today, sort of.  My meeting got canceled today, I remembered to set out my garbage last night (which is pretty big deal for me), I beat my star wars game, and my dad has offered to buy me some gardening tools.    Kind of weird mix of good things, but I’ll take them.  So, back to the grind and saving the day.   Maybe I’ll do some gardening after my swim – a little sunshine will do me good.

A few weeks ago when we had some nice weather, I went around my house and opened up all the storm windows and put the screens in place.  Since this is Ohio, the nice weather only lasted a short time and I was soon forced to close the regular windows, but didn’t bother with the storm windows since I figured that the cold snap wouldn’t last.

It’s recently been very cold and the temp in my house dropped into the mid 50’s.   I’ve resisted turning on the heat since I’m too stubborn to go around and re-winterize the house.  It’s the last day of April, for crying out loud.    So, I’ve been wearing a jacket in the house – and one day a stocking cap as well – and have been bundling up before I go to bed.  I’m pretty sure that as soon as I winterize the house again and turn on the heat  – we’ll get a heat wave.  Yesterday wasn’t too bad, we may be on a warming trend already.  Which is good to hear since I couldn’t feel my toes the other day.

Played a few rounds of Zombie Fluxx and Zombie Dice with one of my friends recently – and got my ass kicked.  The Zombies won the first round and he won the next two.  And then handedly won the Zombie Dice game.  It was fun – especially when the rules got really complicated in Fluxx.

I swam last Saturday and finished up 5 miles in the pool for the week.  Not bad for a 39 year old.    And I’ve lost weight – I’m down below 180.

I’ve been playing the new Dungeon Siege games on the PS3 and had some fun with the multiplayer of de Blob.  And made some progress in Minecraft before a Creeper blew up my house.  Stupid Creeper.  It was a neat house too, the walls were flowing water.  The creeper took out a section of the roof and the water went everywhere.

Went out to eat a Macaroni Grill and had trouble deciding what I wanted – the Simple Salmon was off the menu now.  I decided on the Create Your Own Pasta.  When I requested that, the server whipped out a paper pad with a checklist.  I hurried through the list and checked off the options – and ended up with exactly what I wanted.   Wheat Fettuccine pasta, basil pesto, asparagus, and meatballs.    Finished the meal and soaked up the rest of the pesto with the rest of the really excellent bread.  I think I’ve got a new favorite dish.

Guess that’s it for me.  Swimming after work, then some Dead Like Me, video games,  and a bit of folding.

I may have crossed a line today.

A while back, I started reading up on the mythology of the Blue Lanterns Corps – an ally of the Green Lanterns, but fueled by Hope.  Pretty neat back story and on a whim, I bought a Blue Lantern power ring.  I’ve had it hanging on the wall in the armory.

Yes, I have an armory.

Since I’d bought the ring from Amazon.com, they thoughtfully suggested that I get the t-shirt as well.  So, I ordered and it came in recently.

Causal Friday came around today and I decided to wear the shirt.

And the power ring.

I’ve also memorized the Blue Lantern Oath.

I think I’ve turned into a FanBoy.  Now all I need is some spandex and a convention and I’ll be all set.

In less ridiculous news, I’ve had some run-ins at the pool.   On Wednesday I shared a lane with a guy who was “swimming wide” – taking his half right out of the middle.  Luckily, I “swim narrow” as a rule and there were no injuries.  This was also the day that the lifeguard had no idea which lanes were open for lap swimming.  Really?  Isn’t their job to watch the pool?  How could they not know that?  He suggested I read the chart on the wall that was no help at all (partly since I could barely see it without my glasses) – I ended up guessing which lane I could use.

On Thursday, I’m sharing a lane again and about 3/4 of my way through my laps.  I had my head down and was really stretching into the stroke when I suddenly ran into something.  I popped up instantly and there was a girl in my half of the lane facing me.  She had been one lane over and the guy there was taking up the whole lane.  So, she came over to our lane without checking to see if we were splitting the lane or rotating.  It was her fault, but I still felt bad.

Also, I think I may have inadvertently grabbed some boob.

She went back over to her lane and shortly thereafter the guy in my lane finished up.  With a little more room, I poured on my last few laps and finished up as well.  Before I got out, I told her that she could move over to the now empty lane.

I’ll be glad when the swimming teams are done with the pool and we can go back to having our own lanes.

Looking forward to the weekend  – as the Blue Lanterns would say, “All will be well”

I’ve been feeling a little blue the past couple days – I think it’s the weather and having to bundle up again when I really should be wearing shorts.  So yesterday I decided that some good old fashioned mindless activity would do me good and I went to the pool after work with a goal of swimming two miles.  Now, I’ve gone further than that before, but that was with the lanes set up the short way and without a full day of work before that.

So, I hit the pool and there was only one lane open for lap swimming  – the swim teams had the rest of the pool.  At one point, we had 8 people in the lane and amazingly no one got kicked in the head.  Though, frankly, the girls that were treading water in the deep end and  getting in the way maybe should have been.

I was about a mile into the swim when I stopped at one end to let another guy go ahead of me – needed to catch my breath.  After a second, we each realized that we knew the other person – he was a colleague and works with me on a committee.   We talked for a couple minutes, then I set off again.

Over the course of my swim I got cramps in:

1. The bottom of my right foot.
2. The bottom of my left foot.
3. My left calf.
4. My left pectoral
5. My right thigh.
6. Lower back, right side.

I was running out of muscle groups to cramp up – though none were bad except for the calf muscle.  Apparently, I need to eat more bananas.

I was dragging ass for the last few laps – except for the last one. I poured it on and finished strong. And then had trouble climbing out of the pool.  I was pretty tired when I got home and had some ironic fish for dinner.  Feeling much better today, though still wishing it was warmer.

One of my friends had a couple of projects he wanted to work on and since I’m a helpful sort, I offered my assistance.

The first was a basement shower drain that needed to be snaked.  There was a separate drain opening we could use to work our way back, but the obstruction we kept hitting felt too solid to be a clog.  And even the narrow end of the snake wouldn’t go down the holes in the main drain.  Upon closer examination I noticed that there appeared to be a seam around the edge of the drain, but that it wouldn’t budge with a screwdriver at all.

“Do you have a sledge hammer?”  I asked and his eyes widened.

“Don’t worry,” I told him, “I’ll be careful,”

He dutifully went to get a hammer and I proceeded to tap around the edges of the drain near that seam.

“I don’t think…” he started and I interupted with,  “It’s working,”

I set the hammer down, inserted a screwdriver into the holes of the drain, and easily lifted it clear.    I let out a Woop! of triumph and did a short “victory dance” that would have made Snoopy proud.

What we thought was the drain was actually a cover. It had rusted into place over the actual drain and the holes we thought were for water were really for lifting it out of place.  The rust had sealed it shut and it had never worked since he had first moved in.

I did another victory dance while he went for the shop-vac and cleaned up the drain.  The snake easily went through un-impeded as did the test buckets of water.  He’s still got some work to do before it’s usable, but this was a major step forward and will be a huge time saver for him later on.

Still riding high on my hammer victory, we tackled the next project – an elliptical.

I lost a little ground at Step 2 – we had the dang thing oriented wrong – but we surged on ahead and made good progress.  Until we reached a step where we had to grease the axles and push them into the fittings.  They wouldn’t budge – at all.

Frustrated, I turned to him and said, “We need the hammer again,”

I got a nod back and went to get the hammer from the other room where we’d left it by the basement shower.

Hammer in hand and feeling even more like Thor, I tapped the axle into place with ease.  The other fell to my hammer as well and we were on our way.

It was starting to get late, but we were close enough that I wanted to get it finished.   We had a minor setback at the end – a missed step – but managed to wrap things up and get it turned on for a test by 11:00.

It was a later night for me than usual, but I’m glad I was able to help.    And I doubt Thor could have handled that hammer any better.   Not usually a fan of brute force to solve problems, but it worked pretty well for me last night with two projects.    Next time a webpage starts acting up, I know just the tool to reach for.

Or maybe not.

I got a note from the student government about the email issue.  Apparently, they are working on a resolution that they expect to pass  – thanking me for the work I did on the list and the excellent response they got from the survey they sent out. And, I guess, they want to officially say they aren’t ticked at my mistake – even going so far as to thanking me for the quick resolution of the problem.

On the one hand, it’s nice to be recognized for my work.  I mean, I haven’t stayed here for the buckets of money they pay me. (ha!) And it’s nice to know that they got good responses from the survey and that things have essentially worked out okay.

On the other hand, ehhhh. Not sure I’m all that excited about an official record of my screw-up.  They seem to think it would help smooth things over if I had gotten and negative feedback from my superiors (I haven’t), but it would also be nice to just let this one go.

They gave me the option of stopping things and they would vote down the resolution, but in the end I decided to let it ride.  I do appreciate the gesture and at worst it’s a reminder for me to slow down and be more careful.

In other news… I swam 50 laps today.   I wasn’t going to go that far, but I saw our student assistant on my way up to the pool and he said to me, “Going for a swim, old man?”

I growled at him as I went on past and was motivated to really push myself in the pool – going so far as to out swim one of the high school swimmers.  It was only one lap and I’m pretty sure it was a cool down for him, but hell, it still counts in my book.  Those kids are fast.

I’m tired this evening as a result – I think the new drag suit I got is working – so I’m going to eat an apple, read a book, and play a video game.

One of my tasks at work is to administer the email lists for the campus.  I had set up one earlier this week and in my hurry, I missed a step.  Instead of only the owner of the list being able to send to it, the default setting was in place – allowing all the members to send to it.    On legit message was sent out and then someone replied to it.  The message went to everyone – and it went downhill from there.

Under normal circumstances, this would have gone quiet pretty quickly, but this was a group of apparently very bored college students and it was 388 messages later before I got word of what was going on and shut it down.  Most of the messages were silly (favorite appetizers, pokemon, etc.) and “remove me from the list”.

Unfortunately, one of the students decided to take matters into his own hands and educate the rest of the group.  He actually had good advice – that he unfortunately didn’t follow himself.  And he also  unfortunately used was could best be described as “wildly inappropriate” language.  And to further complicate matters, he changed the name on his email to pretend to be a UA Administrator to get attention.

Well, he got attention.  The VP’s quickly got in the mix and there was a flurry of activity.  I sent out a final note to the list explaining what was going on and offered up my email address as a sacrificial goat to the feedback.  Figured I earned it.

Everyone involved that I’ve talked to has been understanding – I think I’ve been rougher on myself than anyone else.  Just feel so stupid about it. It’s pretty much blown over – for me, at least.  The helpful, but foul-mouthed, student is likely to regret his choice of words.

In better news… I got some new swim trucks.  It’s drag suit – meant to slow me down in the water and force me into a better workout.  And it’s a size smaller than I usually wear.  So, all the exercise is paying off.  It’s a little strange to wear – tight around my legs and loose around the waist.  It’s supposed to catch the water as I swim and I guess it’s doing it – though I’m not really fast enough to notice a difference.  I’ve gotten in a lot of laps this week and managed to swim everyday.

Finally, a good deed.   Yesterday after my swim I decided to go into work and get caught up a bit from the week.  I also decided to help out one of my co-workers.  This is one that got the Bieber poster and he still hadn’t had time to finish clearing out his old cubicle.  So, I got some boxes, packed everything up neatly, and then dusted and vacuumed.  I didn’t leave a note, but since the smaller loose items went into origami boxes, I think he’ll be able to guess.

So, that was the latter part of my week.  I’ve got a couple meetings on Monday so I’m really glad I was able to get a little caught up. Today is just going to be a relaxing day of reading, hot tea, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.