Back in the day, growing up on my block on St. Thomas, there was a group of us guys all around the same age plus or minus a year or two. We would sit around and talk shit A LOT on Nils' wall. Many a great discussion happened on that wall. Which was better: Chaco Tacos or Push-Up. What kind of cars we're gonna get when we get older. Which girl at school was the hottest. Many a summer night was spent on that wall talking shit, waiting for for the ice cream truck, and defying curfews.
Decades later, if I had known then what I know now, I woulda kept my damned mouth SHUT! haha! Back then grandma cooked and washed my clothes. Well, she stopped washing and ironing my clothes after about 7th grade to make me more independent. Still she cooked and looked after me. When I had some place to go, there was the bus, my friends' folks or a friend of the family. No need to worry about gas, car notes, or insurance there! My biggest problem was if the cafeteria was serving more prison gruel that day.
One of my new found friends in SD commented that it seems like I'm always cleaning. And shit, it sure as hell does seem that way. Today I cleaned the kitchen, washed dishes, did 4 big loads of laundry, and straightened up.
I miss my grandma. Admittedly my toys are cooler now. There are some perks to being older. :)
So did this happen on Tuesday night or Wednesday night? I have no freaking idea man. I went into work Tuesday at 11:30PM to assist with software upgrade. I left work at around 11:45AM Wednesday morning. Some time around 12:15PM I got home settled down and fell alseep. And although i was golden all night, I KNOW I'll be dragging ass later. Thankfully the upgrade was successful this time around.
It is really interesting to think about one's earnings as finite resources. Even if your check is hourly and can fluctuate up or down, those resources are finite. When I was laid off, my income was pretty damned fixed to the nth degree. Unemployment is no joke. And to think, they still tax unemployment. So anyway, I've begun to think about my earnings just as they were finite resources. There is only so much I can do. As much I wish I could do things faster, I can't and this is a sobering realization.
The good thing is progress is being made on a daily basis. A lot of the goals I have set are being accomplished. I tell my friends to be kinder to themselves. Perhaps I should take my own advice and realize the good I am doing. That in time the things I work hard for will be realized.
Oh yea - I've lossed 3.5 lbs so far. :)
It's 3PM Sunday afternoon and all I've done thus far is shower and put the ribs in the oven. Ah the ribs. Yesterday I woke up with a serious jonesing for some spare ribs. Part of me was like, I can just go to Outback or some other joint and get some. Absent a grill, I gotta do a culinary MacGyver with the oven. And dammit it all, my apartment is smelling really good now.
So if I can get off my ass today, I'll unpack some more boxes, do some more cleaning and go for walk later on. I've been feeling comfortable enough for a little jogging, so I'll see how far I can go. My new gym has a 25 meter long lap pool and when I figure out a way to keep my hair from getting wet (damn that sounds gayish) I'll be doing laps.
For now I'm quite content to be sitting on my ass.
I really do like my neighborhood. There is a lot of stuff in walking distance, no more than 10 minutes at the farthest. 7/11 is right down the street and as I think about it, I seem to always be near one of those. When I was in Santa Barbara I was practically on a first name basis with the late night clerk. You know how I could tell we had gotten cool? He'd be in the back doing something, hear the door ding, see me, give me the head nod and head back leaving me alone by myself. This scene played out regularly on the weekends or during exams. 2AM or 3AM I'd roll in for Gatorade, bag of something salty and may be even a little jerky.
Once again, I have a 7/11 less than 2 blocks away. About the same distance and easrterly is a Hollywood Video, Rite Aid, McDonalds, Wendy's, Kragen's Auto Parts. And a little further, is my new gym. Cheaper than anything I went to on the East Coast or even out here, with a pool, raquetball court, basketball court and heavy bags. The experience could have been more pleasant if the dude signing me up didn't act so blatantly like a sales guy, while he was swearing up and down he hated sales guys. His speel even inluded the writing down of the membership and sign up fees, underlining the differences in how good the prices are now and how they would change. Ultimately, I got the membership without having to pay the signup fee. Fucking hate it when people try to *handle* other people.
After that charade I went to get some groceries. Yo, if you want some cheap spices go to a Rite Aid or Walgreens or other drug store. They stock good spices for 0.99!!! Versus the $3-$6 per bottle you'd pay at a grocery store. This tip is for staple spices you go through a lot. For the good specialty stuff, seeds, pods, etc. pay the extra money and get the good stuff. But for the stuff that's going to get lost in a sauce, seared away on a grill, or get tossed into a spice rub...save your money!
Oh yea, knocked out my laundry too! Woohoo to clean underwear! haha! It would have been a better day if I had worked out. There's also a lake near my new apartment too. I've been around most of it once already and it was amazing. It's larger than Lake Los Carneros, with nice gradations in the path to keep it interesting. One of my goals is to get good enough to jog around the whole things some time.
Friday at work could not have gone by any faster. Things weren't terribly bad this weekend, just a few hiccups. Today was St. Patrick's Day and although I really could give a hoot less, but me and my coworker were headed downtown to an annual St. Patty's Day celebration called ShamRock. There would be live bands, performances, lots of corned beef specials and other stuff going on.
We of course didn't get to see much if any of that! LOL We headed for Maloney's (I think that was the name) and right off the bat I noted it was going to be an interesting night. While standing in line this rather large, drunk, odd looking woman, wearing necklaces comprised of blinking penises and balls started talking to me. In all honestly I saw it coming...haha! So we finally make it and the place was PACKED to the gills with Irish and wannabe Irish alike. I noticed this group was paying their check and asked one of the guys to let us know when they were going to leave so we could get their table. 10 minutes later, we were seated, 10 minutes after that our first drink orders was in. And oh dear goodness, did we drink.
Of all the drinks we had, owe nly paid for half of them. Since we were sitting at a table, people would want to sit too and they'd offer us drinks to join us. It was comedy. The downside was we were pretty well marinated by 9:30PM. Mwhaha!! And my buddy claimed to be a professional drinker too!! lol
Shortly thereafter the drunken drama ensued...haha! I ended up dancing with this chick, total random bar dance. While I'm dancing, I notice my friend was leaving so I left the dancing chica and asked my friend where she was going. Turns out she had contacted one of her friends to come get her because she was so plastered. And the way how her friends roll is, if someone else is hooking up they'll just leave. Then sometime after they'd make a phone call to see say they had left. I was like, naw, that's not how my friends roll. If you show up together, you leave together, and if the plan changes just let the crew know. The dumb and funny thing was, we were both arguing rather passionately for how each of our crew rolls. I'm pretty sure we were both pissed with each other too. She was all, you're not my husband...and I was all, I'm not trying to be your husband, father, brother or anything else...I'm trying to look out for you.
In my defense, I won't let any female friend of mine bug out unescorted especially in the middle of 20,000 drunk people without making sure she makes it to whereever she was going. May be it is sexist or chauvinist or whatever. But in this example, that's just how it is. You don't have to be someone's best friend/relative/whatever to make sure they are ok.
In her defense, that's how her and her friends did things. A partying system I guess that served them for a long time. And even after all the attitude I copped (that I remember at least lol), she and her friend picked me up, we went to Burger King and I got to have my favorite food: anything fried.
Weighed myself today for the first time in almost 6 months. I weigh 6 lbs more than I did 6 months ago, which is a small blessing in and of itself. I was thinking I would have gained much more given my shitty eating habits and inactivity. Thank goodness for small miracles I guess. Bleh. Anyway, me and my coworker have decided to work with each other towards attaining some of our fitness goals. Hopefully this new strategum will further me along in my fitness goals. Hate to sound like one of those damned supplement or weight loss program commercials, but I have been struggling with my weight for a long ass time. Hopefully now with some stability in my life I can focus my energy on shedding some tonage. I'm glad to have a fitness ally at work, as it is so damned easy to just have lunch and sit on my hugely spreading ass.
Today was a bit of the good and bad. First the bad, get that shit out of the way. While trying to make a purchase I could have ordinarily made otherwise, the clerk tells me I was declined. And I'm like WTF?! Oh, no, lemme have the phone please. Come to find out someone had tried to charge $1900 worth of shit on my card and those transactions were pending, locking up nearly my whole damned account. I drove home on the phone with the representative dude, trying to figure wtf happened. The irony is, for a hot minute I was like, may be yea I did do that...hold up wait, no I sure as fucking hell did NOT! When the charges hit my account I was at work. And unless I bought lunch for the ENTIRE IT staff, there was no fucking way that could have happened. Well my car is gassed up, I have some spare cash, the card cancelled and a new card on the way. So whoever out there - fuck you very much. I hope you get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and spend many a night avoiding the gang rape gangs in Cell Block 6. On a different note, customer service still lives. That rep stuck on the phone with me through all my shitty cell service. I had to speak to his supervisor and give him his due credit. Most anyone else would've hung up and said fuck it.
Now onto the good! Me and one of the new people were on our way to lunch and our Director spotted us. He was like, "so what are you guys' afternoons like?" We both look at each other and said, pretty open. What we should have said was, yea, we're open but probably all kinds of stuff we should be doing. Since he hired us, we were more than obliging! Over lunch we were both like, damn, wtf could he want?? Each of us were breaking down the brief encouter, trying surmise if we were getting called into good news or bad news. Turns out it was VERY good news! He put us on a very high profile, kick ass, and fun project! To boot, it is very well suited for both of our skill sets. She is incredibly process oriented, Six Sigma diva, with a serious head for work flow and process refinement. I am more the technical geek with previous and present experience automating the types of systems they are talking about. This could be a HUGE deal!
So aside from the fraudulent charges thing, today was a very good day. If the first part of my day didn't play out so well, I would be in a much less positive mood right now.
Quick note: I think I found my new Sunday morning breakfast and newspaper spot!
Word to all you people out there trying to make due with your 7 year old computer dumping parts and upgrades into it: let it go. Seriously, have some sort of seperation ceremony, bid your farewell and put that computer to bed!! Brand new desktops with kick ass configs can be had for like $600. All that money being spent on new RAM, hard drives, whatever could go towards a new comp. You could even get a cheaper one if you went to one of those Mom and Pop shops.
My cousin has one of those computers. He insists on trying to breath new life into it. Sigh. If you can follow, walk with me: PIII 700, 64MB of RAM, 20GB and wait for it...Windows 98!!!!! What-the-flying-fuck?!?! He's all, I'm gonna try to hold out for another couple of years...what can I do? You can take it out to your balcony and drop it. Ok, so since I didn't tell him that, I was like well you need more RAM and a bigger hard drive. Then you can upgrade to XP and may be get some more life out of this thing. Then I made the fatal mistake of volunteering for this mission. FUBAR. The case was too small and he'd already rammed all kinds of fucking components up in there. The BIOS was older than my car and needed some sensual massaging. And the damned floppy kept konking out!! You read that right. Floppy. As in 1.44MB. Fuck me sideways!! Anyway, I finished it 5 hours later!!!
I hate shopping. I hate shopping more than I hate cleaning the bathroom. I hate shopping more than cleaning someone ELSE'S bathroom! Today I had to get some stuff that I was badly needing...like food? I went and got myself a microwave, and true to form I researched the hell out of it. Ended up at Best Buy looking at the one I really wanted and got it. Then went over to Target looking for some household stuff. Now, I am not a regular Target-goer like my cousin. That man has almost every Target branded product somewhere in his house. However, for as much shit as I gave him, I gotta give that place props! I found my shaving stuff there cheaper than anywhere else. Got some snacks and other stuff on the cheap! Oh yea, went and looked at comporable microwaves to see if i made a good choice. Looked at the model at Target, read the specs and was ok, this thing looks about the same. Then I opened and closed the door. Damn thing almost fell apart right there on the shelf! Suz, I have an iron finally.
Afterwards I was whooped and hungry. Made my way to Ruby's for a burger at their counter. I so do not want to know the caloric count of that BBQ burger thing I ate! Afterwards I went to see Ultra Violet. It was clear they paid homage aka ripped off from other movies. But it was also clear the movie makers were trying out new special effects and was in desperate need of a storyline. So it was like a side of movie, with a main of special effects. Overall, I say it was a matinee.
I was sooo friggin' looking forward to today! Me and some co-workers were going to Happy Hour! We were going to blow off steam and celebrate the kick ass meetings we had! Well, brakes on that. My co-worker got rear ended on the way to happy hour! I got a terse message from her friend saying they were in an accident, my friend was shaken up and of course they wouldn't make it. And my effin' phone managed to shut itself off right as those calls came in! So I couldn't get the numbers to call back! Grrr!!!
Well the rest of us went to the steak place I had been looking forward to for ages. I gotta say, the place was TIGHT. Definitely a nice place for a first or second date sort of situation. My friends who knew each other seemed more interested in reminiscing about their mutually shared history, than anything else so I just sat back and people watched. After awhile I was pretty much done with the whole thing. We were supposed to go dancing afterwards and I was thinking after a few drinks and some good music things would be back to normal. Well, yes and no. May be it was just an off night for all of us. When I find myself having to insert and barge my way into situations I just withdraw.
Sun Tzu once wrote something to the affect, 'if you sit by the river long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemies floating by'. I love me some Art of War. Anyway, today was my first kick off meeting at my new job. I have been prepping for this thing for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Agendas were sent out. PowerPoint presentations were done. I showed up to work in one of my good suits with the intent to knock 'em dead! And the presentation indeed went very well! One down...