Thunder of Wade

It’s been a while since I blogged, though it’s not for lack of news. Nope, I’ve just been very busy with work and with home as well.

The biggest news is that I’m moving – or rather, nearly done moving. Got a new place with a garage, and a new room-mate. So, I’ve been working on moving all my stuff to the new place day by day – though we’ve made a few trips in a borrowed van as well. It’s been tiring and I feel like I’ve been moving forever, but I think I’m in the home stretch. Just a few more items, then some clean-up and I’ll be done. And then I have to start on sorting out the cardboard disaster in the basement – it’s been the dumping ground for all the boxes that we don’t know what to do with.

I’ve been keeping up with my swimming, bumping up to 7 laps a couple of times. The other day, the hot water was out in the pool building – which made for a very cold shower. My stamina is improving and I think I’m getting a stronger so once things are settled in my new place I think I may start using the bowflex again.

Work has been busy, doing a lot more with graphics and some programming. Trying to learn more about CSS – I think I may end up redoing my site again in that format.

Along those lines, one of my colleagues looked though my site and said that he was surprised at how candid I was and that I must be pretty secure here. Which struck me as a little odd since I thought I tended to be circumspect and not use names + keeping things a little vague. I think my boss has seen this and since he hasn’t said anything about it, I guess I’m in the clear.

Also in work news…I conducted a really good training session yesterday for a student group. Seemed like they understood what I was talking about and they laughed at my jokes – so, it was cool, though my voice started to fade out. I also trained some folks with the board of trustees and got some really nice compliments.

Went and saw Kathy Griffin last night – freaking hillarious. She was on fire from the moment she walked on the stage and didn’t let up. Great stories, a lot of swearing, totally funny.

This weekend I’m heading down to visit my folks for my sister’s birthday. Should be a fun trip and I’m really looking forward to cake and some time in the hot-tub. Though not at the same time. I’ve been tired and sore from the cold and the move – and I’ve already got my suit packed.

Well, that’s about it for now – time to get back to work…

I’m not sure entirely what triggered it this morning – but I’ve been cranky since I got to work. Wait, I think I just figured out what started it…

Anyway, I’ve been cranky all morning. Snarky, even. Biting comments, grumbling, and occasionally growling. It’s been a lot of “People insisting on doing things wrong” and “People making things more difficult than they need to be”

So, I figured I should go get a swim and I’d feel better. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work? Well? No, apparently, it isn’t. Or I did something wrong ’cause I’m still cranky.

I’ll get over it, eventually, but for now I’m thinking of putting up the orange cones in front of my cube as a warning.

So, swam again today – 6 laps. Tired when I got done, but no longer feeling like I might die. Which is a step in the right direction.

Played a game over the weekend called Dungeon Siege. Pretty good, though it’s got some quirks. For starters, no teleport option. So, no gathering a bunch of loot and teleporting home to sell it. Nope, you gotta carry all that shit to the next town – however far away that might be. The answer to this is to buy a mule to carry the loot around. So I did. And then poor Midnight got scared during a fight and ran the wrong way. He promptly got beaten unconscious by a pack of trolls. I was really pissed off and set all the trolls on fire. They hate that. So, it was on. Later on I shot an arrow at a box that turned out to be filled with explosives. Mistake. It killed three of my characters instantly. And all their stuff fell on the ground. I revived them and spent the next 20 minutes trying to sort everything out. It was like going to Burger King and getting custom orders for a bunch of people.

“Okay, who had the Granite Great Sword of Bashing? Come on, one of you had to have it,”

“These aren’t my gloves! I’m an archer, not a magician,”

“I wanted 2 rings of health and I’m not sharing,”

It was annoying. But, otherwise, a good game. I also beat Onimusha 3 on easy mode. Pretty cool swords and a whole lotta ass kicking.

I also watched Descent this weekend. There were a few “pants-wetting” moments, but once you got used to the pacing of the movie you could tell when they were coming. The ending was a little weak and the characters were a little one-dimensional, but not a bad flick.

So, that’s it for now… time to get back to work…

Generally speaking, I like ATMs. Given the frequently unhelpful bank hours, an ATM is a pretty handy thing. Lately, however, they’ve begun to annoy me.

1. My bank’s ATM now prompts for language as the first selection. English or Espanol. Which, considering how I’m never leasurely at an ATM, seems like a wasted step. A better plan would be to have the transaction prompt first, with an extra button at the bottom that refreshes the screen in Spanish should the user choose that prompt.

2. There’s an ATM on campus that, even though no one is using it, sits there and quietly talks to itself in a woman’s crisp british accent. It’s damned creepy.

3. Finally, I was at an ATM yesterday that:

a). prompted me for a language.
b). then asked me if I wanted an account balance. Which, though this isn’t my bank and they would charge me a fee, I thought it would be helpful and said yes. It promptly spit out my account balance and then asked if I wanted another transaction.

Wait, what? No, I wanted an account balance WITH my transaction. Why ask that first and make it a separate transaction? Do people just wander around and think, “Hey, I wonder how much money I’ve got in the bank?” Does that transaction ever just happen on it’s own?

So, cranky now, I proceeded to initiate another transaction and withdraw some money for lunch – which it was I was trying to do all along. This time, it gave me the money and spit out even more paper – but without an updated account balance. Wasted a lot of paper on that one. I got my money and left – cash in hand, but still cranky.

I’ve been playing Onimushu 3 – good game. Ran into some trouble for a while, got better at dodging and blocking – and now I’m kicking some serious ass.

Work… ugh… saving the day – again. Getting tired of this last nano-second crap. Our new programmer is starting on the 29th – still trying to hire a graphics person. Hope they can hit the ground running and help us out.

Well, gotta get back to it…

I went to visit my parents and my sister last weekend for my birthday. I turned 34 on Saturday – and people keep asking me if I feel older. And I don’t – but apparently I look older.

The student assistant working with our group and I were talking on Friday and I mentioned I had shaved off my goatee because it was so gray. He said, “I don’t even know how old you are – 40?”

When I reacted with shock, he quickly back-peddled and came up with 32. I told him I’d be 34 on Saturday. Then I said, “40!?!? You’re fired!”

I didn’t really fire him and we had a good laugh about it. He’s only 19, so I can’t really fault him for guessing poorly on ages.

I did a lot of driving this past weekend and encountered some of the longest patches of fog I’ve ever seen. Pretty intense and rather surreal.

Classes started here yesterday and other than more people being around in the student center for lunch, things done feel too different for our group. I guess parking is even more of an issue this semester, but I get here real early in the morning so it’s not too bad.

That’s about it for now, back to work…

After I posted my “copacabanna” lyrical incident, my sister called me when I wasn’t home and – with no preamble or closing comment – sang what she knew of the song to get it restuck in my head. While I was planning a rebuttle, she emailed me the complete lyrics and again got it stuck in my head.

Problem being is that she uses her cell phone as her primary phone, so it’s tough to catch her at a time when she “wouldn’t” answer her phone – since I wanted to leave a message. She had class last night and I called and left her my own message. I sang the entire “Mandy” song all the way through and then hung up. Which is an extra funny selection if you know my sister.

She called me later that evening and was impressed that I sang it all the way through. We had a good laugh.

Swimming – I’m up to 6 laps in my thrice weekly swim – but I’m having trouble keeping track of the numbers. I was using varied strokes to help me keep track, but I only know so many strokes and I loose track easily. I need to get one of those lap counter watches.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I turn 34. Heading down to visit my folks for the day – should be a quiet, but fun, time.

Games – I got a number of gifts cards for christmas and have put them all to good use. Managed to score several “new to me” video games and I’ve been enjoyed them. Also picked up season 1 of Justice League – good stuff. I’m a big fan of the Flash, but when the Green Lantern says his oath I do get the chills a bit – it’s really well done.

Got a call from my ex-roommate’s mom. She’s been in the hospital and asked if I would take her mother to the store for a few things. So, I hopped in the car and helped out with the errands. While we were out, the following items were purchased:

1. a bag of ice
2. stamps
3. scratch off lotto tickets
4. lotto numbers
5. newspaper

So, there’s my good deed for the week. Did you see that one, God? Write that one down somewhere. “Helped little old lady buy lotto tickets,”

Granted, not as good as picking her up from Bingo during a driving snowstorm a few years ago – but still worth some good karma points.

Anyway, I was glad to help out. They’re both a little crazy, but in a fun and non-scary way.

Well, I’ve got a slew of meetings coming up now, time to get back to work…

I woke up this morning, after a series of dreams about work, with the song – “Copacabana” running through my head. I’ve been trying to scrub it out with some help from iTunes and YouTube, but even the most bubble-gum-ish top 40’s pop isn’t enough to purge it from my head.

In other, less disturbing news, I got a call from Dad with an update on Grandma. She’s home and doing better. I called her last night and we chatted a bit. Seems like she was in good spirits and we had a nice conversation.

I got a pile of gift cards for christmas this year – looks like I get a second wave of christmas this year while I do some shopping for myself. Which is always quite nice.

So, that’s about it for now – except that it appears that I’m the only one in my group here today. Could be a really quiet – or a really busy – day.

later…

I had a sort of pre-christmas with some friends, then headed south to visit the folks. My sister and her husband came over early for dinner, presents, and a trip to see the Zoo Lights in Columbus. The lights were really impressive, but after a while – when pretty much everything was covered in lights – it started to all look the same. So we headed out and called it a night.

Christmas eve – very late – I got a call that one of my friends had been in a car accident. A relatively minor one, but still worrying.

Christmas morning was just my folks and me – though my sister came back for lunch. We had all been planning on heading to Illinois – but my sister wanted to spend time with her husband and I wanted to head back to see if I could help my friend out – since his car was in bad shape.

So, we all headed out the day after christmas. I was able to help out my friend with some driving around and watched a bit of Dick Clark for the new year’s eve ball drop.

Might be my increasing cynicism, but the New Year’s eve show was kinda pointless. Dick Clark was not looking good and the rest of the crew seemed like they were having an almost enforced excitement. When you get down to it – it’s really just another tick of the clock. One funny thing – I called my folks at 12:07 to wish them a happy new year – they’d been asleep since 10:30. I felt bad, but it was funny.

What wasn’t funny was my happy new year call to my grandmother yesterday evening. I asked how she was doing and found she was headed to the hospital. She’d been hurting much of the day and the medicine wasn’t helping her. I cut the call short as my uncle was arriving to take her in. Not so much a happy new year for her – I hope she’s okay.

So, I’m back to work – got a meeting in a few that I’m not looking forward to, but those are the breaks. That’s it for now…

Last night I got a call at home from the boss. Seems like the changes we’d made to the home page weren’t working properly in IE. So, I had to go in and either fix (and it was code that I wasn’t familiar with and/or it was unfixable) – or restore from backup. The backup was the easier route and I had things back in a few minutes. Still, I was cranky about it.

We’ve got an interview today with a web developer – we’ll see how it goes. As a consequence, I’m wearing a tie. Well, not really wearing yet – it’s draped around my neck like a scarf until I’m done with my swim today. No way I’m tying this thing more than once in a day.

In other news… apparently, I’ve got a bit more shopping to do. Small things, but still needs to be done.

Watched the remake of “The Wicker Man” last night before my little trip back to work. Good movie.

I guess that’s about it for now. back to work…

Yesterday was the division wide holiday party. We had pizza, chicken, pasta, and lots of desserts. There was a visit from the school mascot – Zippy – and classical music performed by students here at UA. We also had a game show and prizes.

I was on the committee and it was a great honking pile of work. But, I think everyone had fun so it was worth it.

I didn’t go swimming yesterday – too tired, though I felt bad about skipping it. I’ll be going again on Friday and I may even try to go today as well – depends on how I feel and how screwed up my morning becomes.

Finished up a couple of Origami presents that I’d made for people and got them wrapped last night. Nothing real complicated, but I think they turned out well.

And finally, I’ve some new tires and wheels to put on my car this evening. Or rather, to have put on my car since I’m not going to be doing it myself.

That’s it for now… back to work…

I swam again today – and sort of felt bad about it. I was the only one in the pool and the lifeguards had to climb up in the little chair and watch that I didn’t drown. Got to be one of the most boring jobs on the planet. Couldn’t have been interesting to watch – swim to end, stop and pant, swim back. I did try to mix up my strokes a bit so that might have made it more interesting, but that was only because I’m not very good and I get tired.

And sore. This is the first time I’ve gone swimming in a while and actually been sore afterwards. Which is not a bad thing, just kinda odd since it didn’t feel like I worked any harder.

In other news… I got hit by a massive wave of ennui yesterday. Wikipedia says: “ennui describes weariness or annoyance over a long period of time”

I don’t know if a day constitutes a long period of time, but I was more weary and annoyed than those words can really cover.

I think part of it is the holidays – which haven’t really been a heck of a lot of fun for me in a while. They are so endlessly stressful and even the simple task of going to the mall – or anywhere near the mall – becomes a grueling experience. I’m essentially done with my shopping at this point and everything is wrapped – so at least that part is done.

Shopping for other people (not nearly as fun as shopping for ones self), trying to spend “just the right amount” and get “just the right gift” for everyone who ended up on my list, and then the travel – which I dread.

I’m trying to be festive and not bring the people around me down – but I don’t think I’m doing a great job of that. And hey! More guilt.

And I know I shouldn’t feel like this. It’s supposed to be a happy time. I’d try and chalk it up to some kind of SAD, but the nice weather refutes that.

So, apply Happy Face ™ and soldier on through. And I know that I’ll enjoy parts of if and will wonder why I was so cranky earlier. Still, it all feels a little empty to me. The Christmas spirit seems to have passed me by.

Enough of this rambling – nearly time to go home and do a bit of cleaning. Yep – I’m a party animal. Later…