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| Friday, May 1st, 2009 | | 10:07 am |
A conversation
I miss the days when I could just sit around with friends and shoot the shit. Now we're all working or caught up in our own lives. But today I said "hell with it" to the job long enough to respond to something Chris put on Facebook. I'm posting this because it's the kind of fun pseudo-intellectual conversation I wish I could engage in more often, with someone I really like talking to and don't get to see very much these days. ( Chatting with Chris about user-generated content ) Current Mood:  pleased | | Saturday, April 4th, 2009 | | 8:30 pm |
It IS my grandpa's Oldsmobile
So now I have an Oldsmobile 88. That's a model type, not a year. The car itself is '92. It's ... well, it's not in the greatest repair. The cloth ceiling is drooping. Some of the weather-stripping around the back windows is not up to snuff. The steering feels a little soft. I think the speedometer is off a tad -- it feels like it's going a few miles over the speed it's displaying. Oh, and I think the gas mileage sucks. But it's a car, and it's free (more or less. My grandparents want me to pay for part of the repairs to get it driving again, which is fair). So once the Yaris goes back to the rental place on Monday, we will still be vehicular for a while. Driving in style in the 88 Olds. That's us. | | Sunday, March 8th, 2009 | | 11:58 am |
| | Saturday, March 7th, 2009 | | 12:21 am |
For all geeks
The Watchmen was as good an adaptation as I could have ever hoped for. Sure, there were changes and tweaks here or there, but none of them struck me as making the story worse. A couple of the layers of the story were excised because the movie was only 3 hours long (or nearly) and couldn't handle everything, but the lack of these layers did not lead to gaping plot holes. Also, I'm somehow impressed that Zach Snyder got away with showing a lot of electric blue man parts over and over and yet kept the movie rated R. (The parts with Silk Spectre in the buff were a nice counterpoint to Dr. Manhattan's glowing junk, too.) Current Mood: satisfied | | Saturday, February 7th, 2009 | | 12:46 am |
| | Thursday, January 29th, 2009 | | 10:08 am |
| | Thursday, January 1st, 2009 | | 12:22 am |
In acknowledgement
Been one of those years where a lot happened but I'm not really sure how to summarize it. So, instead, I'm just wishing everyone a Happy New Year's. Now I'm going to bed so I can wake up early to go to work. | | Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 | | 6:08 pm |
Read a few books, too
I didn't set a 50 books challenge for myself the way Forest did. I know that I probably wouldn't have gotten as many books as I did if they weren't mostly rereads. I just needed mental comfort food, apparently. Also, there's a double handful of graphic novels, but I'm only going to put a few of them on this list. Not that they don't count to "books" I've read, just that I didn't track most of them. Also, some of the graphic novels were pretty dire and I don't want to memorialize my time with them. ( The list of what I done read. )That comes to around 57 books, if you count reading and rereading some Dresden Files books this year. Not too shabby. | | Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 | | 12:20 pm |
The Auto, She Is Dead
Well, no, not really. I can drive the car just fine, although there's a new sound from things rattling a bit. But the claims estimator says the cost to repair the car is near equal, or slightly exceeds, the value of the car. That means that it's not worth my while to do the repairs, and I should just take the money and run. Run to a car dealership, probably, and use this insurance check as a down payment for a newer vehicle. But I'm reluctant to take on a car payment while I'm still paying off the last of the student loans. ... And while writing this, I get a call from the insurance agent saying that the company who used to have the lien on my car still hasn't released it, even though I sent them their final check over three years ago. So now I get to deal with them, as well. As my mom likes to say, "Cars, cars, I'd rather be on Mars." Current Mood:  annoyed | | Monday, December 29th, 2008 | | 4:58 pm |
On vacation
I'm trying to remember how to vacation properly. Stay-at-home vacations are a little rough, because the main activities here which are outside my usual daily routine are mostly chores. While chores may be necessary, they're not what I would call exciting. Also, even though we got money for Christmas, I'm trying to save most of it for bills and paying back people. So while it's tempting to go out to eat or shop for books or something, I'm trying to be somewhat good now that the holiday rush of consumerism is over. Technically, I don't have to go back to work at all this week. My vacation days run through New Year's Eve, and then New Year's Day and the day after are holidays at the office. I will be in for part of the day on New Year's anyway, and right now the odds are good that I'll have to be in the office on Jan. 2 for at least half the day. At the JW, I sort of forgot how to take vacations. It was always swapping shifts with people, taking a day or two around a weekend, actually looking to work on several of the official holidays to get that time-and-a-half. Traditionally, the most time I would take would be half weeks around Dragon*Con, and a lot of that time was spent traveling, at the con, or recovering from such. I should enjoy the time off. I am staying up late reading and waking up relatively late, although I'm not quite able to just sleep in the way I once did. Anyway, a couple more days of slacking, then I'm working again. And, hopefully, that will apply to stuff I want to do that's not in an office as well. I just need to work on scheduling my time and keeping my motivation up. Current Mood:  calm | | Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 | | 6:34 pm |
This post with 100% more Christmas cheer
So, positives, because I'm officially on vacation and don't have to be negative for almost a week: * I dislike dealing with insurance people on general principles, but I have never had a bad experience with Progressive. Claims was quick and friendly, the local agent who called me back (after half an hour, despite being told it might take two hours for him to reach me) was sympathetic and friendly. This matches with the last two times I've had to call them, first for a drunk neighbor ramming my car in the parking log, second for a hailstorm. Heck, in the case of the hailstorm, Progressive called me to see if my car was okay. The first things everyone from Progressive asked me today: "Are you all right? Do we need to send someone to give you a hand with anything right now?" * I have wrapped all the gifts that I can give out right now. This is a multi-layered bit of good news in that this year I can afford to use the plural form of "gift" and that we've still got money after shopping and renting a car. There have been Christmases, some very recent, where I was stretching hard to get afford even a single gift or two. For all I complain about my job, this not-being-broke thing is nice. (Also, I was able to cheat and buy gifts I didn't need to get for family members whose names I didn't draw or otherwise have a commitment to shop for.) * I was able to take a nap, snuggle with kitties, do a chore I've been putting off (litter boxes), spend a couple of lazy hours doing nothing but reading my book, and the day's not even done. Hurrah for vacation time. * If I wish to push things, I don't have to be back at work for a week and a half. Christmas Day, New Year's Day, and the day after New Year's are all official holidays at work. I will probably go back anyway for a short time on New Year's and the day after, but I don't have to. It's my choice. That's nice. * And a happy holiday of your choice to all of you. Current Mood: mellow | | 8:12 am |
It's official: I hate winter
I now have a new boo-boo on my car. The morning commute in snow is always a hell of a lot more exciting than it should be, because there are a lot of people who think the proper response to any moisture at all is to go 35 miles an hour on the fucking highway while tapping the brakes often. But I made it through that, without incident. Get to the exit ramp, which is never plowed or salted properly. But by pumping brakes and being careful, I get to the bottom of it no problem. Sit at the red light, my constant rage at coming in to work at a mere simmer. Light turns green, I start through the intersection, having to take a left. There's no one else on the road with me, I'm not trying to avoid anyone, I'm going probably 5 miles an hour. And lose all traction and control. I get the car angled rather than going head-on, but otherwise I'm sliding inexorably toward the guard rail. Maybe I was able to slow down a little by pumping the brakes, because it wasn't a big teeth-jarring crash. Barely felt the bump at all. Back when I only drove big steel 70s and 80s-era American cars, I bet they'd barely scratch the paint. But I lost my headlight on the right side. And I knew that the fiberglass and plastic is not designed to take, well, any damage at all. Since I didn't particularly want to sit in an intersection proven to be icy and dangerous, I continued into work. No damage to the engine or wheel that I can see, no smell of oil or antifreeze. After getting the morning stuff out of the way, I call Progressive and the car will go in for claim estimate next week. Oh, and that simmering rage? Full-on boil, now. Current Mood:  pissed off | | Friday, November 28th, 2008 | | 9:28 am |
Taking a breath
Been sort of running around a lot. Whether or not all this frenetic activity is accomplishing anything is another question. * Thanksgiving was pretty fun. My Aunt Pam and her twin girls Roz and Allie grabbed my grandparents and went up to Lincoln to see my dad, stepmom, little brother and little sisters. The twins really liked each other. Roz and Allie, all of 16 (and with that coltish look still) thought Delaney and Cassidy were adorable. Which they are, but the older twins wanted to take the younger twins back home with them. The older twins are on Facebook, so I'm more aware of their world these days. Their makeup and hair didn't come as a surprise. About the only thing that's odd is the fact that in a year or two they'll be graduating high school and I was an adult, 20 years old, when they were born. Forest and I drove up in a rush after she got off work. It's normally a 3-hour trip, I did it in less than 2 1/2 hours. We ate at a decent Italian place (although we were so hungry and in such a rush I barely tasted my food), then went back to dad's place. He and I geeked out a bit on his Tivo until midnight while my stepmom went into crazed baking mode. Then Forest and I went to bed in the cold cold basement. The next morning was hectic, with kids running around, coffee cake, preparing the big meal, helping my stepmom play with her birthday present (a Wii), taking all the kids to the park to get them out of the adults' hair, eating a big meal, then slowly extricating ourselves to get back home before 9 p.m. * Work is annoying. Even though I spoke to my boss about my time off, I forgot to fill out the paperwork (which, you know, I've never taken vacation days here before, so it's not like I know how it works). And my boss apparently forgot that I was leaving Wednesday afternoon, so she freaked out on me a bit. She's also wanting me to micromanage my employees more, and I just won't do it. This is causing tension. * Friday after Thanksgiving and there's almost no one in the office. I could take off to go shopping (hah!) and no one would notice. * I completely failed NaNo this year. I didn't have much time to write in the first place, and even when I was home and in front of a computer, I was so tired or fried that it was hard to string words together. So I'm going to just find a way to write more consistently and make the whole damn year a NaNo project. | | Friday, November 14th, 2008 | | 9:02 am |
Oh, and ...
I had my first flu shot on Wednesday. They were free at work, and my reasoning went like this: I'm going to see my siblings in a couple of weeks, and they are germ factories, plus a lot of people at work have kids and will be bringing in their own germs ... I'm usually pretty healthy. I tend to have one bad cold or a mild flu in the winter which knocks me down for a day, and then I'm fine. But I didn't want to get hit worse this time around, and I've not been able to exercise as much as I used to. So, you know, do something to stay healthy, right? I had a fever for two days straight, stuffed-up nose, and yesterday afternoon and last night I had random muscle aches. Fucking flu shot. I could have done all this without being injected. At least it gave me an excuse to go into work late today. Current Mood: annoyed | | Thursday, November 13th, 2008 | | 5:31 pm |
Life in bite-sized pieces
* Had a little bout of depression last night. The job is stressful at the best of times, and my boss likes to micro-manage at odd times. She sent an email at about 8 p.m. with five tasks I should be doing every day; I'm already doing all five, although admittedly two of them could be done better. So I got a nice long moment of realizing my boss has no clue what I'm doing every day -- and that worked out oh-so-well for me at the last job. The main questions I asked myself while bouncing off the walls: Am I just too quiet about what I'm doing while I'm doing it? Should I be claiming credit for stuff rather than pointing out the work being done by my coworkers? Do I really need to brag on myself rather than just doing my job efficiently and without fuss? In short, do I really need to be an asshole to get anywhere in this business? Because if so, that's another major reason not to try to get anywhere here. * Money is slowly getting better. Not where I'd like it to be, i.e. having paid off all my debts to friends as well as the soul-sucking bastard creditors, but better. The problem is resisting the temptation to use any "extra" cash -- which isn't really extra, just not already spent -- on things I want but don't need. * I need too knuckle down and write more. Work stress is making it hard for me to write, but I know the only way to deal with said stress is to write. So I've gotta deal with that thing soon. * As of today, Forest has been in Kansas for 7 years. I'm a lucky man. I just wish it were easier for us to get back to her neck of the woods more often. | | Sunday, November 9th, 2008 | | 4:09 am |
In case you were wondering ...
Insomnia is not as much fun as it's cracked up to be. Especially when it's not combined with the kind of energy that lets me write anything worth reading. | | Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | | 10:49 pm |
| | 5:07 pm |
Re: Election Day
Gaaaahhhh!! This was so much easier at the J-W that I can't even describe it! Also: Nothing like running around a newsroom between three computers while wearing a freakin' tie. That is all. UPDATE: Oh, and now the CMS crashed. For the entire group using this product. Yay for national databases and service providers. Current Mood:  hectic | | Saturday, November 1st, 2008 | | 12:54 pm |
Voting
I went to the caucus in Douglas County earlier this year, and I was impressed then with the voter turnout. We had maybe a couple thousand at the Fairgrounds that night. Right now I'm standing in line for advance voting for Johnson County. This is one of four locations open on Saturday, after a week plus of advance voting. The line probably has at least as many people as that caucus did, and apparently it's been this busy since the doors opened. This turnout after days of advance voting, with three and a half days to go until the end of this election. It's not often one can feel like one is part of a historic event. But right now, I am. Current Mood:  excited | | Monday, October 27th, 2008 | | 4:41 pm |
Bits
* Burning myself out on WoW, which is good, really. I need to not feel the urge to sign on to level up instead of writing, especially with: * NaNoWriMo coming up. I'm going to do this again, although I expect it will be more difficult to get the time with my current 9.5 - 10 hour a day shifts. That said, I am feeling more stressed these days, and it used to be that writing really helped me deal better with stress. So if only for my mental health, I need the excuse to write. * Money issues are a little bit better. Forest earning a steady income will help even more, and we haven't gone into the red for three paychecks now. But I did skid into payday with about a buck fifty to my name, so we're still cutting it too close. I think November will be a pretty good turning point, though. I'll be halfway through or more on my two major bills, and Forest's big bill will be cut in half. As long as the car holds up ... * And the car is surviving better than I expected. We're now getting random warning lights which seem to have little to do with how the car actually drives. But the rumbling and tapping are louder, the tires are going to need repairs before ice and snow season, and I still haven't heard about Grandpa's Oldsmobile. So that's the real money stress. I'm hoping we can slide through the holidays into next year with our current car, and I'm hoping even more than Grandpa gets his car to me before December. If we can make it on the cheap, once I pay off Big Bill #2, I can look into getting a newer car. * I'm figuring out the job some more, but I'm still pretty sure this will not be my long-term career. It's better than hating the gig, though. Current Mood: optimistic |
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