Building project in Dubai

Dancing Towers
via Unique Daily

For some reason, I like this

Found via Neatorama

This is how I like my commercials!

The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

Food O

Rick bought some of this extreme dark chocolate earlier while we were fighting the crowds at wally world and couldn't wait until we got into the car to rip one open and eat it. He ripped one open and ate it-I thought he was going to pass out, he was moaning like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally!

I like chocolate, but I'm not a choco-holic. I tried a bite and it just didn't do it for me. I have been trying to think of what food has this effect on me since then and I can't think of any food I like THAT much.

Our weather this weekend was wacky. We had a huge storm Friday night with 95mph winds that knocked down huge trees North of town, ripped roofs off of buildings and blew car windows out. Then Saturday it snowed all day. Sunday it was windy and cooler and then today it was nice and springlike! Tomorrow it is supposed to storm again.

I finally got my taxes done and was pleasantly surprised I got money back! I suspected I would have to pay in and put it off until the last minute.

I hope everyone is having a great week :)

I Dance Like Elaine

Luckily I only dance when I get drunk :O

I had a pretty good day at work, it went by fast and I got a lot done. We have a few special events coming up that mixed in with the regular events will keep us busy this month.

I need to get more organized-I've been working on that this week. I got tired of missing pieces of paper, items to include in various fliers etc. I'm afraid to throw anything away because I keep throwing things out and then needing them a few days later!

I hope everyone had a great Monday :)

I need a hug

Recent Pictures around the house

Snow??

I had a few moments of feeling wound up too tight again today, but overall it was a good day. I got a lot done at work and nothing at home!

I need to do some spring cleaning around here but I'll have to wait until the urge hits. I'm doing good to get the laundry and dishes done.

Most of my flowerbed plants are coming up nicely, there are a few that still look like twigs but I haven't given up hope yet. This weekend we are supposed to have lower 30 degree weather with the possibility of snow :O Let's hope it is just thunderstorms.

We had the puppy spayed today, she is not too happy with anyone right now. She is getting around ok, but the pain killers are knocking her out most of the time. The other dogs want to go see what is going on with her, but she snaps at them to get away, but I think she feels safe in her pet porter.

Randy got out of the fence today-and he is a runner. It couldn't have been more than 2 minutes but he was halfway down the alley. He was just sniffing around as if nothing was wrong-saw me and wagged his tail.

It reminded me of the first time Rudy got out. He was probably 2 at the time. I looked everywhere for about 30 minutes all around my neighborhood. Then I got in the car and drove even further, down alleys, everywhere I could think of for another 30 minutes.

Finally I decided to leave my residential area and cross a major street into another residential area across from us. I drove one block and there he was just sitting on a corner under a stop sign as if nothing was wrong. I opened the car door and he hopped in and we drove home.
He was covered in road tar, smelled like garbage and happy as could be.

God, if I think about him too much it still hurts my heart. I miss him so much. He was such a good dog and went through so much with such a great attitude.

I need to take a note from Rudy's book :)

Is it Friday yet?

Aha

For the past few work days I slept through my alarm. I usually don't do that-I've been know to turn it off and go back to sleep, but not sleep through it. I had it on a radio channel that I listen to at work and today I noticed that several times during the day it would just go to dead air. I'm thinking that is what is going on, so I've changed the channel-hopefully that will help

I'm getting nervous about next week. I have a doctors appointment that is pretty sure to lead to surgery-day surgery most likely, but surgery just the same. I've never had any kind of surgery before.

My medical experiences are summed up by an overnight stay when I was 4, stitches three times and normal doctor visits. Never anything that involved anesthesia. I have 7 days left to dread it.

I haven't read anything all the way through in months besides flipping through magazines. I miss it but I just haven't had the urge.

Regarding my mention of a rut yesterday-this was on my page a day calendar when I got to work today:

"It doesn't matter how slow you go, as long as you don't stop!"
--Confucius

Here is to having a great tomorrow :)

I love a good parody

I do like Fergie, don't get me wrong, but Alanis Morissette makes a great statement about the lyrics of this song-some not safe for work



This video by Pink takes the cake on parodies-also with some not safe for work lyrics:



Not much has been going on lately-I have been mentally, physically and spiritually tired. I have been trying to figure out which to take care of first and how to do it. The rut deepens.

Randy is back to normal. He woke up one day after being out of it for 3 days on pain killers and was back to his old self. I'm so thankful this hasn't resulted in second trip to the vet.

I hope everyone is having a great week :)

Non-Stop

Today at work was non-stop-go go go. My desk looks horrible, I have notes everywhere, and stacks of papers waiting on other papers to go with them before I can finish. I have a huge mail out to do tomorrow so I have stacks of envelopes, letters and certified stickers to fill out. My to do list seems to be growing at night.

I love it! This job is great!

Randy is on his pain pills and they seem to be working. The side effects are lethargy, lack of appetite and diarrhea. I'd rather deal with that than hear his pitiful whining and crying when he hurts. Poor guy, I hope he feels better soon.

We had a huge thunderstorm today. It rained and hailed so hard on my way back from lunch I had to pull over because I couldn't see. It rained for quite some time. It's supposed to again tomorrow. I love this weather but it makes me want to take a nap.

I hope everyone has a great weekend :)

Hopeful

Before I split up with my ex, we had a very close friend. My ex and her had a falling out and I got caught in the crossfire-losing her as a friend as well. I never could get the whole story out of either of them of what happened, but it was pretty bad and looking back, I handled it poorly.

When I split up with him, I tried to make contact with her and start over but it didn't work-she would be nice enough, just not want to get close. It kinda became a running joke-whenever I would see her I'd say "let's have a drink sometime-call me!" Both of us have easy to remember phone numbers so we'd laugh and say I remember your number. I gave up calling and she never did.

So over the past 7 years I haven't seen her too much, until recently. The building I work in has an association that she is a member of and they have a meeting there once a week. She came to my office a few times to say hi.

Then out of the blue she pops in today and said "lets get a drink tomorrow!" Who knows if she will follow through with it, but it's a nice thought and I'm hopeful.

Today drug by and I was so tired. Last night Randy woke up yelping, whining and shaking about 1:30am. It was too early to give him his medicine so I put him in his bed and hugged on him and tried to calm him down. I finally got him to sleep around 3:00am and got up at 7:00am and boy did I feel it all day. It was worth it, I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway knowing he was miserable.

This morning he was stiff and wimpering and the vet gave us some pain pills for him. It seems to be working-he is dozing now and 20 minutes after I gave him the pain pill he loosened up and you could tell he was relaxed.

I won't need a pill to sleep tonight! I hope everyone had a great humpday :)

Spring

Everything in the yard is coming up. It is nice to see things I planted last year popping up, still waiting on others-keeping my fingers crossed.

Even though it means extra work in the yard, I love this time of year when everything is just on the verge, budding out but not all the way yet. The grass still brown, but with hints of green-even the dandelions I try to get rid of every year.

I have several bradford pears and I love it when they are in bloom.


I had to take my Dachshund, Randy, to the vet yesterday. He got excited and jumped off the bed a few days before (he is 13). Later on he would squeal whenever he walked around. I thought it was his leg or shoulder but it turned out to be his neck.

After horrible flashbacks to my other Dachshund, Rudy, paralyzed from the waist down after his jump from the couch, she finally said he would most likely be okay with some anti-inflammatory medication. He has only jumped off the bed once before in his whole life, but I'm not going to allow him up there anymore-also going to keep him off of the couch just in case.

Rudy (God I still miss him) had shown signs of back trouble when he was young, Randy and Petey luckily haven't. Petey is still young at 3, I try to keep Petey from activities that would cause back trouble like tug o war and jumping up.

I hope everyone is having a great week :)

Rainy Weekend

It started raining late last night and has been overcast all day, drizzly. I like it until I have to let the muddy pawed dogs in!

This week will be busy at work, and my boss in out of town.

I got my $200 ticketmaster gift card in that I won-I'm going to save it until our next Las Vegas trip for a good concert or show.

Not much else is going on, going to have to juggle a couple of bills this week and hope that nothing gets cut off! I hope everyone has a great monday :)

I accidentally fixed it!

I finally decided to dust off the laptop in the corner and give it a go again to try to get on the internet wirelessly. I had doubts. I tried a few settings, called tech support again for 3 different products but nothing.

Finally I decided I would try to work on the notion that it was spyware or the like. I went to the remove program area in windows and just started uninstalling everything after I looked on google and found out what it was.

I finally uninstalled a program called NewDotNet and voila, my internet popped up and said connected. I was leary at first and hopeful.

I crossed my fingers and opened up firefox. I have never been so happy to see the google start page!

I'm continuing the removal of a bunch of junk on this computer such as kazaa, etc.-wish me luck!

I got my $200 gift card to Ticketmaster in the mail today, that was exciting. My wins have been sparse.

I hope everyone has a great weekend :)

Laptop Hell

The good news is that I bought a nice laptop for $100. I spent more on the router, adapter and wireless mouse that I did the laptop!

The bad news is that I cannot get it to connect to the internet with my wireless router. It has been a week now and I have tried everything that I know to do.

Including a few hours on live chat and phone support that went in circles and did nothing.

I finally put it in the corner until I can figure something else out. I had to. I was getting dangerously close to climbing on the roof just so I could hurl it onto the patio.

Work is going good-we have been very busy. We have quite a few events coming up and I have been getting prepared for those.

Our weather has been nice, springlike but windy.

(glaring at laptop in the corner) I hope everyone has had a nice week

Snickergate-I just don't get it

Personally, I thought the spots were funny and didn't get offended-but Janet's nipple and Prince's guitar penis didn't rile me up either.

Here are the commercials:

Snickers-Chest Hair

Snickers-Love Boat

Snickers-drink

Snickers-wrench

What will everyone get riled up about when the Superbowl goes pay-per-view???

Today was really foggy-exorcist foggy and cold-this after my spirits lifted from a nice sunny 70 degree remind me of spring day. A kind of day that even getting stabbed in the back by someone I never suspected it from didn't get me down.

I hope everyone is having a great week.

Recovering from the blues

I think all of the snow, cold weather and today-a full moon have sunk me into a light depression.

I haven't wanted to do anything but sleep.

Everything is going good though. I just don't wanna.

Hopefully the sun will come out soon.

I hope everyone had a great week, and has a great weekend :)

Borat????

I found this movie online and watched it tonight. I will say that I had no idea what to expect and I had an idea that I wouldn't like it.

I could not quit laughing. I really enjoyed it, and normally this would not be my kind of movie.

I watched The Illusionist earlier tonight and really like it-one of the best movies I have seen in awhile. An American Haunting-not so much.

Nacho Libre had a few funny scenes but overall I didn't care for it.

The Descent was gory and scary but I liked it-the gore was extra gory and the scare factor was amped up because I felt the claustrophobia!

I hope everyone is having a great week :)

A neat product

I found one of these today at Bed Bath and Beyond. I had several knife sets with mismatched blocks and the way this works is amazing! It features moveable "fibers" inside that are fully adjustable and holds any type of knife in any position - no slots required.

It's pretty good sized and held all three of my knife sets in one place! I love finding things like this!

I hope everyone had a great weekend :)

My first love

Banana??

I hope this is a joke!

Ice

I found this for you Persian Guy, but you are on hiatus and couldn't leave it on a comment for you:

Tori Amos Tribute Contest

It's pretty bad outside, sheets of ice on everything. I scraped my car about an hour ago and its layered again. Its thundering and lightning while it sleets. Now its supposed to snow. Brrr

It's so icy, even my fake icicles have icicles:



I hope everyone is having a great (and warmer) day!

Next week should be fun!

Was just getting used to the mild weather and then bam:



Work has been going great. I have been focusing on updating our website, creating an e-newsletter and a print newsletter. I should have some business cards soon-it'll be weird, I haven't had a business card in years!

I have been trying to get a renter out for the last few days, I think he finally got the hint-when I went over earlier he was packing and looked nervous when I told him that if he wasn't out by tomorrow at 5 I would be over to change the locks while a sheriff supervised.

I kinda feel bad for him. He had a job for the longest time, was paying late-but paying. Then he got fired and found a graveyard job at an IHOP or Denny's. Not sure if he got fired from there, but he quit calling and paying. Hopefully he will be on his way and I can get it re-rented.

Curves is not what it's cracked up to be! My friend Ginger wrote this after I told her what happened at a local curves to a friend of Rick's.

I hope everyone is having a great week :)

Skyscraper

I have always been fascinated by skyscrapers. This one called the Burj Dubai, it is being built in Dubai City, The United Arab Emirates. It will be amazing when it is finished. At 807.1 meters it will be the tallest in the world.

33 things that have names you neither knew or cared about!

I had a good week, work was good. I didn't do much except clean the house this weekend and watched the latest Pirates of the Caribbean and fell asleep while watching The Davinci Code.

I found this on the internets earlier, kinda sorta interesting:

1. AGLET
The plain or ornamental covering on the end of a shoelace.

2. ARMSAYE
The armhole in clothing.

3. CHANKING
Spat-out food, such as rinds or pits.

4. COLUMELLA NASI
The bottom part of the nose between the nostrils.

5. DRAGÉES
Small beadlike pieces of candy, usually silver-coloured, used for decorating cookies, cakes and sundaes.

6. FEAT
A dangling curl of hair.

7. FERRULE
The metal band on a pencil that holds the eraser in place.

8. HARP
The small metal hoop that supports a lampshade.

9. HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER
A 64th note. (A 32nd is a demisemiquaver, and a 16th note is a semiquaver.)

10-13. JARNS, NITTLES, GRAWLIX and QUIMP
Various squiggles used to denote cussing in comic books.

14. KEEPER
The loop on a belt that keeps the end in place after it has passed through the buckle.

15. KICK or PUNT
The indentation at the bottom of some wine bottles. It gives added strength to the bottle but lessens its holding capacity.

16. LIRIPIPE
The long tail on a graduate's academic hood.

17. MINIMUS
The little finger or toe.

18. NEF
An ornamental stand in the shape of a ship.

19. OBDORMITION
The numbness caused by pressure on a nerve; when a limb is `asleep'.

20. OCTOTHORPE
The symbol `#' on a telephone handset. Bell Labs' engineer Don Macpherson created the word in the 1960s by combining octo-, as in eight, with the name of one of his favourite athletes, 1912 Olympic decathlon champion Jim Thorpe.

21. OPHRYON
The space between the eyebrows on a line with the top of the eye sockets.

22. PEEN
The end of a hammer head opposite the striking face.

23. PHOSPHENES
The lights you see when you close your eyes hard. Technically the luminous impressions are due to the excitation of the retina caused by pressure on the eyeball.

24. PURLICUE
The space between the thumb and extended forefinger.

25. RASCETA
Creases on the inside of the wrist.

26. ROWEL
The revolving star on the back of a cowboy's spurs.

27. SADDLE
The rounded part on the top of a matchbook.

28. SCROOP
The rustle of silk.

29. SNORKEL BOX
A mailbox with a protruding receiver to allow people to deposit mail without leaving their cars.

30. SPRAINTS
Otter dung.

31. TANG
The projecting prong on a tool or instrument.

32. WAMBLE
Stomach rumbling.

33. ZARF
A holder for a handleless coffee cup.

I hope everyone had a great weekend :)

This puts it in perspective

I always have a hard time wrapping my mind around things like how big the universe is, etc. One thing I had never thought of was how wealth was distributed around the world, now that I read this article (assuming it is accurate).

I am considered part the richest 10 per cent of adults globally according to this article and by no means am I living the high life in the lap of luxury-it really puts it into perspective how poor some places are.

I watched this show called "The Chernobyl Heart" over the weekend. It's a documentary on HBO about the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe and its' effects on the area health wise, especially the children. It broke my heart to see the children and the effects that are still ravaging them. I had no idea.

The scariest 3 factoids were that (1) the release of radiation that day in 1986 was only 3% of what the reactor is capable of still spewing forth!! I could not believe that-3%???!!! and (2) 700,000 people still live within 150 miles of the radioactive zone and (3) In Belarus, only 15-20% of babies are born healthy.

The narrator stated that the next Chernobyl will probably be Chernobyl itself when the cement sarcophagus decays and completely collapses-a process already happening due to water and the elements.

I still can't get the images out of my head.

Silly String?

Send silly string to the troops in Iraq?

Lightbulbs..

For some reason last week 6 lightbulbs went out when I flipped the switch. After the 3rd one I started thinking something was up! Then I get to work Monday and 2 go out there when I flipped the switch!

Work is going good, I finally finished a PowerPoint presentation for Thursday-Everyone was pleased. It had been awhile since I had made one, I was worried. I started familiarizing myself with FrontPage this weekend and playing around with it so I can start updating the webpage at work.

While doing the PowerPoint presentation, I found this picture-I love this picture! I used it as the first slide:


I finally started backing up my files after I lost my hard drive last month-I had won a Lenovo 80gb external hard drive earlier this year and wished I had used it before. It was so easy-I just plugged it in, it showed up as a drive and I drug and dropped .

I have had a dry spell in the sweeps lately-only $62.94 this month-but I finally passed the $25K overall total at $25,095.73!

I hope everyone is having a great week :)

Take a closer look at your...

Pennies

Not much to update

Not much to update, but I have some pictures that I uploaded today:

Petey:

Here is Randy snoozing:

The new job is going really well, it is keeping me busy, I enjoy it and the time goes by fast. I have been busy creating a newsletter, powerpoint presentations and updating Access files.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving

Why? (AKA another drunken blog)

Someone asked me earlier about blogging. First of all they asked me why, then they asked me if I would feel weird if they read my blog. They were amazed that I would put personal things out there for all to read, shocked even. I was taken aback at first and then I started thinking "why?".

I blog for therapy-I blog for fun-I blog for letting it out-I blog for the heck of it-and yes I have blogged while upset/happy/mad/manic/depressed/drunk/sober. I blog while I'm in my head, not really thinking of who is reading what flows out of my typing fingers.

So I don't feel weird no matter who is reading my blog, or not. If this was just for me or a thousand people, I would say the same thing.

I freely give out my blog address in email, in person-but only if someone asks-it's not like I'm trying to promote it! It's a multi-purpose thing I do.

Sometimes my friends read it, sometimes my family members read it, sometimes people whose blog's I read read it, sometimes strangers read it, and sometimes enemies read it. It's just out there.

Why? I don't know-I don't think I'm any more interesting than anyone else. I'm sporadic on my updates and I'm sure I don't have everyone linked that I should.

But It's here and I have fun with it and in a hundred years from now what will it matter?

A good day

I enjoyed the first day at work. There is a lot to learn, but it is mainly figuring out the system of how things work and where things are. Most of the stuff I need to do, I have done in the past-a quarterly newsletter, keeping up with several databases, billing, maintaining files, etc.

The lady I work for is really nice, easy going and not a micro-manager. She made me feel really welcome. There are a few other offices in the same building that we aren't affiliated with and they all made me feel welcome too.

I had a cold for the first part of the week and now I have the chest/nasal congestion left over. Luckily the sore throat only lasted one day. I am able to function but I feel like I'm in a fog. The "non-drowsy" sinus pill I took earlier made me drowsy. When I got home I took a mucinex and it knocked me out for about an hour.

I'm still surprised over the election results! I hope everyone had a chance to go vote.

Have a great weekend :)

New job offer

I got a new job offer today on the job I talked about a few days ago. I took it-I was so excited. I start Thursday.

I started getting a sore throat yesterday, and today I am coughing and sneezing. I'm waiting for my nyquil to kick in!

I finally got most of my computer back together-my bookmarks, programs, music, pictures etc. I've started backing up often!

I hope everyone is having a great week :)

Hard drive toast

My computer crashed today and I got a blue screen of death.

After an hour on the phone with Dell and a nice Indian man we figured out my hard drive went to the big OS in the sky. He was so upset when he had to inform me that my warranty expired 6 days ago.

He even asked 3 supervisors to let it be a grace period and to help me, but to no avail.

So to Best Buy I go. I get a hard drive and an Windows XP and head back home.

After 4 hours I finally get everything working. Installing the hard drive, I had a few glitches that luckily I found solutions for on google. Then I could get either mine or Rick's computer on the internet, but not both.

After about 45 minutes of frustration and searching on Dell's website for drivers I finally do something right.

Then it was on to fix that I had no sound. That was the easiest of all.

Now I'm off to find several email addresses, programs, all my favorite bookmarks, all my sweeps bookmarks (I had at least 200) and try to forget that I lost pictures, videos, and who knows what else.

The lesson for today-backup regularly!

I hope everyone had a great day and an even better tomorrow :)

It won't be pretty!

For the next to weeks I have to go in really early. I have to get up at 4:30am bleah.

Luckily I'll be training with someone new, hopefully I can get some more info out of them and not be treated like a moron. Everyone has been nice, but there is some aspects of the job I will be expected to know that no one is showing me.

I'm already dreading tomorrow and I hate that. I so wanted this to be a good job. I found a real estate related job in the paper today, I know the lady from being in real estate before so I'll give her a call tomorrow and see about that.

It pays a bit less, but being able to go to work and not feel a combination of being flustered, nausea, and inadequecy will more that make up for it.

I hope everyone has a great week :)

It was a good day-for the most part...

Until about an hour before quitting time. I answered a question on the phone and misunderstood apparantly and it set in motion a big mess.

I tried to apologize and fix it as best as I could but I won't be surprised if I get to work in the morning and get called to someone's office :O

It was right at a time that I was holding 4 notes in my hand of things to do, answering phone calls right and left and trying to pay attention to 2 or 3 other people while moments away from a panic attack! When I finally clocked out and went home, it took about an hour to unwind and relax.

Yesterday went well and I felt like I did pretty good-then bam.

If I don't start feeling more comfortable soon, this may not be the job for me. I don't mind the chaotic atmosphere one bit, but that mixed with me not knowing how to handle it all makes me really uneasy-I hate to feel incompetent. I'm sure there are many times that I look like a deer caught in headlights.

Every job I have ever had I felt a high level of competency in what I was doing and I felt comfortable-I keep having to remind myself that it took some time to get there and that this too shall pass.

I hope everyone is having a great week and has a wonderful weekend :)

Back to the Grind

I won a $200 gift card to TicketMaster over the weekend-now I wait for a decent concert to come to our town-we don't have many since our venue is small. My best bet will be 2 hours away in another city.

Work went by fast today. It seems each day I get a little bit more stuff to do which keeps boggling my mind! The lady that is training me was not feeling good and another is out of town so I did more than I had before (ie: panic).

At one point I had so much going on I started forgetting important tidbits, hung up on a few people and totally screwed up working on the intercom call box-but luckily it all worked out.

Some of the nurses decided I was taking it all to seriously and would block my view of the board while I'm frantically trying to see (and relay to impatient people on the phone) what surgeries are next or what operating room a doctor/anesthesiologist were in and thought it was funny to bump my shoulder while I wrote.

Coming back from lunch I saw the dreaded black body bag being led away on a gurney from the ER. I was expecting it, but wasn't sure how I would react.

It made me more thankful for the day and to realize being at work wasn't so bad at all.

I hope everyone had a great Monday and that it will be a wonderful week :)

T G I F

I was so frazzled earlier today that I thought it was Wednesday, I was so glad to see it was thursday.

The more I learn at work the more I realize how lost I am. I get so anxious and flustered. I kept trying to take a deep breath and focus but that is hard to do when the work environment is a madhouse.

My boss overheard me say to a coworker that I was flustered, lost and frazzled but that I would stick with it until they kick me out and she told me that I was doing a great job and to hang in there. So that was nice.

I have to announce and call for things on an intercom that is overheard by at least 50 people and for some reason the word "transporter" just isn't in my vocabulary.

I keep saying "transforter". And to make it worse I didn't turn the intercom off before saying "I have a mouth full of marbles I guess" or something like that, I was so mortified there is no telling what I actually said.

I accidentally billed someone for $7500 today but luckily caught it and fixed the billing code before any harm was done.

Then when I was feeling half way decent about everything I get a call and the lady is talking so fast in medical terms that I told her I didn't hear the last part (some sort of medical procedure) and she starts all over talking really slow like I was a moron. Uggh.

Serenity now.

I hope everyone has a great weekend :)

Overwhelmed & Tired

The new job is going good-I'm slowing learning the computer aspect of it, but the other aspects have overwhelmed me.

I'm going to need at least 3 or 4 months to get used to everything, remember everyone's names/faces, as well as feel comfortable with everything.

Now I see why the pay is so good-I'll be working my ass off for it!

I am bushed and haven't been doing much but eating, catching some tv and going to bed-hopefully when my regular hours kick in I'll have more time.

I hope everyone has a great weekend :)

I hate football..

Actually I don't hate football itself, I hate the reactions of the fanatics in my living room right now screaming and yelling at the tv! The dogs are hiding, I'm in the office with the door shut and they sound like they are on the verge of a stroke.

Usually Rick is kind enough to DVR the game and only watch it if his team wins therefore cutting out the stressfulness of it for everyone, but today his sons are over watching it with him. It sounds like their team is losing.

I start the new job tomorrow, or actually go in for an all day orientation. I start the normal part of the job Tuesday. I called my supervisor Friday to see if I should just go to orientation only or go to my department at anytime during the day. I figured I would just be going to the orientation but I wanted to also see if everything was ok after the bad reference scare on Wednesday.

I never heard back from anyone so I figured it was okay, but you never know!

I had a pretty good birthday weekend, just hung around the house and rested up.

I hope everyone has a great week :)

Preparations

I went monday for the formalities at the new job-drug test, TB test, paperwork, badge photo, etc. I went in today and the TB test showed ok, but since I don't have a record of having another before I have to take another next week.

The lady told me that all my stuff and my badge would be at the sign in desk for 8 hour orientation. I go home, thanking my lucky stars once again that I got hired.

I hear from one of my references saying that they just got a call from the lady at HR. I thought they had already done all that part of it! Then I get another call from another one of my references that they had been called.

We have a nice chat and then they tell me that they had heard from a "birdie" (who uses that anymore!) that one of my references was not giving me a good referral. In fact slandering me. This is not good. I know who they meant and it makes me furious that they could be so unprofessional and petty, furious, but not surprised.

I hope this doesn't affect what was going so well in this process. I'm nervous all over again until I either hear from HR with bad news or go in this coming Monday for orientation.

I did get 2 letters from other places that I had applied for saying the position had been filled yesterday-now I am wondering if the person giving me a bad reference had anything to do with those!

Picture post

These are the latest of Mason:

Mason with Gramps:



Mason with Great Gramma



Mason at his Baptism-peeking back at us



He did really well, until the water got on him-he wailed for the rest of the service!

A friend emailed me these pictures that I hadn't seen in years!

Me in Sante Fe Circa 1993:



Me in Nacogdoches Texas after a 12 hour drive with 8 druck people in a Suburban Circa 1992-I was the designated driver



Paris in January 1994. It rained the whole time we were there, but I didn't care!

A big surprise....

I sent out several resumes and applications this week and last. I got a call monday-they wanted to set up an interview for today.

So I get all worked up and nervous for the interview, get there 15 minutes early while the contact was 10 minutes late!

So I finally get to the interview with not one but two people. I'm sweating and my mind is racing-they are really nice and I start to relax. The questions were not what I was expecting at all.

I felt like I was a stammering idiot, and I said a few things that after I said them I thought "wtf, why did you say that jeff???!!!", but they giggled and it didn't seem to phase them.

It goes on for what seems an hour, but is only about 15 minutes. They ask me to wait outside for a few minutes and then call me back in and offer me the job. I was shocked.

I've never been hired during an interview! And to top it off, I was expecting the pay to be about what I got at my last job or less (the one I got passed over on!) and almost fell out of the chair when they told me the salary.

So I'm very happy that I am gainfully employed with great hours, great benefits and damn good pay! I don't start for about 2 weeks so I have time to get used to the idea!

I hope everyone has a great weekend :)

You can only use 2 words

I have a job interview tomorrow-I'm nervous, but prepared. I have my clothes ironed, my hair/beard trimmed and a positive attitude.

I saw this at my friend Ginger's MySpace blog and thought I'd try it. It took longer than I had orginially thought!


1. Yourself:
in transition

2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (husband/wife):
fly fisherman

3. Your hair:
very short

4. Your mother:
headstone ordered

5. Your Father:
country boy

6. Your Favorite Item:
many things

7. Your dream last night:
stress induced

8. Your Favorite drink:
dirty martini

9. Your Dream Car:
expensively foreign

10. The Room You Are In:
office/study

11. Your Ex:
estranged, pretentious

12. Your fear:
failure, hate

13. Where you want to be in 10 years:
comfortable, happy

14. Who you hung out with last night:
my dog

15. What You're Not:
self confident

16. Your Best Friend:
recent anniversary

17. One of Your Wish List Items:
laptop computer

18. The Last Thing You Did:
shaved head

19. What You Are Wearing
jeans, shirt

20. Your Favorite Weather:
rainy, gray

21. Your Favorite Book:
still looking

22. The Last Thing You ate:
snickers, triscuits

23. Your Life:
still learning

24. Your Mood:
nervous anxiety

25. Your body:
hairy, white

26. What are you thinking about right now:
gainful employment

27. Your Crush:
Anderson Cooper

28. What are you doing at the moment:
watching Frasier

29. Your summer schedule:
laid back

30. Who will answer this next?
anyone welcome

I finally got my Nintendo GameBoy Advance microsystem in that I won back in January. I can't wait to get a game for it and try it out.

But will I ride the rides?

We have a tri state fair here every year. I missed a few years but we are going to go tomorrow-Rick won some tickets at work. It's fun, with all the rides, the midway, the livestock shows, the games and the scary carnies.

My parents met at this fair in 1958 and were married and pregnant at the one in 1959! They were on a double date-not together. My Mom was with a guy she was set up with from the girl that my Dad was on a date with.

My Dad told me that as soon as he saw my Mom he knew. He couldn't stand the girl he was on a date with and at one point told my Mom. She said that she thought the guy she was with was a dud so they snuck off. She poured some of her smuggled in cherry vodka in his coke and the rest is history.

I'm going to smuggle some cherry vodka into the fair tomorrow, pour it into my coke and toast her-if it hadn't been for this fair, the crappy dates, and cherry vodka -I wouldn't be here.

asdf jkl;

I went to a few places to drop off my application package and took a typing test. I was nervous for some reason while taking the typing test-there was a 3 minute warm up and a 5 minute test.

They had this old tiny keyboard crammed on a desk with a huge monitor. I couldn't get comfortable and I'm used to an ergonomic keyboard. They only thing worse would have been taking it on a laptop keyboard!

I did 65wpm on the warm up and 60wpm on the real test. They only require 30 so at least I passed one hurdle.

My birthday is in 2 weeks. I'll be 37 :O Another year older but none the wiser!

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

After thinking about my Dad selling his house I am considering on selling one of my houses. If it is worth what I'm told it is I have a ton of equity in it. I've only had it for 3 years but the market here has been increasing. I'm meeting with someone on friday so we'll see.

I applied for 3 jobs today and called back 2 of the others that only have a phone number for a contact-I just had to leave a message since neither answered. I have one more lead I'm going to follow up tomorrow and one friday.

I didn't get one job that I had held before-the lady hasn't call me back yet, but I found out from someone else that they had hired another person-which I thought was unprofessional. The last thing she said to me when I called 2 weeks ago was that she promised she would call me either way.

I have an idea why I didn't get the job-which is total BS if it is true, so I might have dodged a bullet on that one!

The weather has been nice and cool here after all that rain we had. My lilacs and apple tree are blooming again!

I hope everyone is having a great week :)

SOLD and a deleted rant

My dad finally closed on his house. My childhood house. He got a good amount of money that he will be able to live on for a long time. He was so worried about getting the deal closed and I know it is a load off of his mind so I am happy for him.

I'm kinda sad and mad that he sold it and I know my mom would be so freaking pissed off that he sold it!

When I used to have money I offered to buy them a house in a better part of town for them to live in and either rent out their old house or sell it for money for them to have savings-you would have thought I slapped her-I had never seen her so mad-she said a few choice four letter words and hung up on me! God I miss her.

But with just my dad, he is estatic-he called me and wants to go celebrate with an all you can eat shrimp dinner for 15.99-that is him splurging!

I had too much to drink tonight and just deleted the rest of a rant that no one wants to hear!

I hope everyone has a great week :)

Still no word...

I'm starting to feel like a bastard at a family reunion-no call backs still :O

I found 3 more job leads and sent resumes in. I sound good on paper at least so I am hoping for at least one interview before they turn me away!

I did get one callback from a company, then when I heard what the detailed job entailed and found out that it had been robbed twice this year I declined. Although it is sounding good right about now.

My car is finally ready, I'll have to be creative to be able to pay for the deductible to get it tomorrow!

I had a job lead last week that sounded promising-I sent my resume and made a follow up phone call today. Keeping fingers crossed on this one, it pays really well-double what I was expecting to find.

I wanted to spend today not seeing any of the specials/documentaries on TV about 9/11 but Rick wanted to watch EVERYTHING even the presidental address. I just wanted to spend a normal day doing normal things and be thankful that I could.

I spent time doing laundry while Rick was watching the shows and while walking through to put laundry away I caught a video of one of the people who fell or jumped from the WTC.

That image has always put the whole thing into perspective for me. It makes it personal, it makes me hurt, it makes me sad, it breaks my heart and it makes me so %*#@ing angry.

Remembering..

You can't have watched television for the last few days without seeing something about it. I have watched a few shows/specials/documentaries and I have Flight 93 via Netflix sitting on my coffee table.

Out of all of the things I have watched-the one thing that made me cry surprised me. I don't even recall the title of the documentary-Rick dvr'd it.

There was this lady that was telling her story of getting out of the building. There was the interviews with the real people and a docu-style actor thing going on in between.

The lady was talking about the clothes she was wearing that day. It was a white pair of pants. She talked of how everyday she scrubbed them and hung them up to dry. Then the next day she would scrub some more-working on every stain day after day.

Her mission was to get them clean, as if getting every last bit of evil and sadness out of the pants. It was the only thing that kept her sane.

And in between some laughter and tears she held up the pants and said "they are clean now-they don't fit anymore but they are finally clean".

Uncertainty

I'm still waiting to hear on a couple of jobs I have applied for and interviewed with. Budget meetings and background checks oh my! Hopefully I'll hear something tuesday. I'll go through the want ads again probably tonight.

I've been so stressed about it the last couple of nights I've been having trouble sleeping. From that and bills bills bills!

We have been getting a lot of rain lately which always helps my mood-it is nice today overcast and under 70.

I have had a few good wins lately.

I hope everyone has a great day :)

The life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

I watched this movie earlier. I don't know why I like it so much. It's funny/sad all at the same time and for some reason I identify with it-a lot.

I had a friend that got mad at me for not watching it with her. Really mad. Super mad. I kinda understand now the reason why.

Boring week

I can sum it up pretty quick:

Many overdrafts because I counted a deposit twice for some stupid reason

Mowed a week after I should have on a rental, took twice as long as it should have

Plumbing trouble at a rental

Refrigerator trouble at another rental

On strike from cleaning house since no one else is-passive aggressivity at it's best/worst

Hope everyone has a great weekend :)

Finally the rain came...

Some parts of our city got over 3 inches of rain in 20 minutes, and in the past 2 days 5 total. A teenager was found dead in a park when it rained last night, drowned in the downpour. Our street looked like a rapid flowing river-Rick took some video:




I hope everyone is having a great week :)

Job Front

I put in a few applications last week. I had an interview today for one place and got an email from another place wanting to know when I would be available for an interview with them. So hopefully I'll find something out soon.

It has been raining here for the last week on and off-it has been really nice. It's been raining here all morning and making me want to go take a nap!

The grandbaby is doing well, the bruises from the forceps are going away and the jaundice is gone.

I have been winning a few things lately, the biggest in awhile was the Ipod from Focus Dailies contact lenses.

my pillow and the rain are calling me for a nap-I hope everyone is having a great Monday.

Mason

It took him a few extra days, but he is finally here!

Rick's son and his wife are anxiously awaiting the birth of their son. She was due on the 20th and now they are going to induce her labor later on tonight. Everyone is so excited and ready-especially the wife!

It's nice to be going up to the hospital for a birth, seeing all the little bundles.

Back to reality

The Las Vegas trip was more than I expected-we had a great time. We never had to pay for a thing except the inital $20 I put into a slot machine that paid me $501!

I didn't expect the limo rides, the extra nice room, and overall I won $1200 on the slots. Rick did pretty good too-on the last night he won about $150.

The Cirque Du Soleil show Ka was the best show I've ever seen. The Rodney Carrington show was a hoot and getting to meet him afterwards was nice.

We went and saw the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay, it was smaller than I thought but it was still nice.

Here are a few pictures we took:

I have no idea where this came from...

I had a long freakin day today-working on an apartment-where it seemed that all the small things I have left are taking longer than it should. I'm almost there-the renters are moving in tomorrow-probably 5 minutes after I finish!

It is hot here, 100+, and this apartment is upstairs which seems to make it hotter up there. I finished around 8:30pm (or decided to go home before I melted). I think I started today at 1. My clothes were dripping wet, my mood was crappy and I had a headache.

Finally after 2 tylenol and a cold shower I felt better. I ate something and relaxed and had a pretty good rest of the evening, what was left.

I'm laying there on the couch watching cartoons and out of NOWHERE I recollected a memory. A memory that I know for a fact I hadn't had from the time it happened until now. Yes I still watch cartoons! This memory was so vivid that it hit like a ton of bricks.

I must have been about 8 or 9? I'm still fuzzy on the timeline. But the memory clicked and it was like I was there all over again-it was so clear. It is weird that I had repressed? it until now or that it hadn't surfaced for all these years.

It hit so hard and out of the blue that I sat up and had such an overwhelming sense of longing (my Mom and 2 of the dogs I used to have were part of the memory) that I lost my breath-then starting bawling like a baby.

It was so surreal and unexpected but I'm thankful that it happened-I miss them all and it was nice to have this new memory of them.

Las Vegas here I come....

I got a call earlier from a DJ out of LA that I had won a trip to Las Vegas.

(1) Grand Prize: A three (3) day/two (2) night trip for two (2) to Las Vegas , Nevada . The trip includes round trip coach airfare for two (2) people from the major airport nearest the Winner’s home (as determined by the Sponsor) to the major airport nearest Las Vegas, Nevada, two (2) nights hotel accommodations (double occupancy) at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, two (2) tickets to the 2006 Rodney Carrington show at the MGM Hollywood Theater, (seats to be selected by the Sponsor) (the “Show”), a meet and greet and photo shoot for two (2) with Rodney Carrington, two (2) tickets to the 2006 KA Cirque du Soleil show at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, two (2) VIP passes for Tabu Lounge and Studio 54, and two (2) buffet meals per person.

This is my second biggest win ever!

A decent day

I finally got the weeds whacked on the 4plex. It was a nice day for it, overcast and cool. I still have a little bit in the front yard since I got rained out. It was a nice rain. I'll finish it tomorrow before I make a list of things I need to spruce up the vacant rentals there. I hope to start on it Saturday.

I organized a few things around here, transferring stuff to the storage shed. Next week I'm going to tackle my bookshelves and get rid of some books that I haven't/won't read to make room for a few boxes of books in my office closet.

Rick got his globe bar present in-he loved it. Guess who gets to assemble it??

I still haven't heard a word from any of the places that I applied for. I'm going to start calling them tomorrow and see if that helps any.

I found another place to apply for so I'll keep my fingers crossed for that one!

I hope everyone has a great weekend :)