Every time they turn the lights down, just wanna go the extra mile for you

Wow, it's been almost two months, maybe more, since I've posted anything. I post sporadically on MySpace, but I can't go nearly as in-depth there, partially because I don't like people I'm writing about to read it, especially if it's negative.

Let's see... work. It's a lot of fun. *So* much better than Sonic, Wal-Mart too. Kinda. The nice thing about Wal-Mart was the total lack of having to deal with customers, other than the occasional "Where do you guys have marshmallows?", and the hours were the best of any job I've had so far.

Anyway.

I'm registered for school, starting in '08. Three classes - Discrete I, Chem I, and Assembly Language. The first one is a funny story - I've already got credit for Discrete II, but they won't give me a blanket waiver for I, and it's an easy 'A'. Chem I, I've already wasted two tries on. It's going to be an annoying class, since it's probably going to be almost entirely freshmen and sophomores. And, of course, Assembly Language. No idea what's going to happen there. Thanks to Sonic and those 70 hours weeks, I was able to pay for this semester, including the ridiculous "You suck at life and are taking this class for the third time" fee. I mean, I understand why, and I'm not complaining about it, just how big it was. But I'm the one who fucked up, so I can live with it. Moving on.

Been playing a TON of Guitar Hero lately, picked up parts III and Rock the 80's. I tried Rock Band a few times at Wal-Mart, the drum-set is AWESOME. If I had a ps3 or 360, I'd buy it right now, but I don't, so I'm not. They're coming out with it for the ps2 later, and the Guitar Hero guitars work with it, so I might just buy the game for the new songs and stuff, wait 'til later to pick up the drums. Still playing WoW.

Personal life... not so much. Ran into Rebecca working at Wal-Mart, asked her out. She said she already had a boyfriend, that before that, she was dating a jerk. So she definitely knows I'm interested, and I have a tendency to end up at Wal-Mart late at night when she's working, so I'll see her from time to time, I'm sure. But I'm writing her off as a prospect, though I'd still take her out if the oppurtunity presented itself. Speaking of girls, I passed Lilie on the way to Bambi's today. She called me right afterwards, but I didn't answer. Just didn't feel like talking to her. Left a voice mail, haven't responded yet, not sure if I'm going to. She's just not a part of my life anymore, and it's her choice.

Then there's Beth, Ashley and Alaire's friend. Bill's dating Alaire now, I mentioned that I think Beth's the hottest of the three; he mentioned it to her via Alaire. Her response? "Well, I do need to get laid. Josh, who used to work with me, tells me she likes big guys. Whatever. Probably won't pursue that one either. I think I'm regressing - I didn't have any problems pursuing Lilie, but then again, she kind of threw herself at me. Sort of.

I'm not going to go into a huge rant about how basically every girlfriend I've ever been involved with has thrown herself at me, in one way or another.

Moving on.

Turned 25 last week, I'm officially old now.

Britney Spears -- Gimme More

This is the story of the lalala girl, from lalala land

So, a quick update of various facets of my life, in a rare moment where I'm not doing anything else.

Domino's is going fine. I'm closing five nights a week, working around fifty hours. It's a cut in pay from Sonic, to be sure, but only because I'm working fifteen to twenty hours a week less than I was at Sonic. However, working here doesn't leave me emotionally and psychologically drained - I don't spend my entire first day off sleeping and/or lying in bed, unable to move. That's nice. The drivers have pretty much accepted me as a manager - not that they had a *ton* of choice in the matter - I just mean that they listen to what I say with only minimal resistance. I don't get any "But Sergio does it this way" or "But Bill would let me do that!". That's nice. The inside crew is pretty cool, too. Sergio has really opened up, talks a lot more now. Part of that is being GM, he pretty much has to, though if he were really determined, I'm sure he could find a way to continue being really quiet while GMing, but he's not.

I went through the drive-through at Jack-in-the-Box a while back, and holy crap! Rebecca was there! I wasn't going to say anything, because I, well, really had no idea what *to* say. However, she initiated conversation with me! - "Hey, haven't seen you here in a while!" I told her I was working at Domino's again, and she told me how she didn't like working at JitB, how she was thinking of going to apply at Wal-Mart or something. I took all that as a positive sign, that she wouldn't have said any of that if she thought I was just a creepy bastard that she dreaded dealing with. I've only seen her once since then, which is kind of a drag. Ah, well. It's usually this two random douchèbag guys working the window when I go through, which makes me sad. Ah, well. I've been referring to her as my pretend girlfriend, which I guess is kind of creepy, but it's not like I'm stalking her or anything.

Lilie called me a few days ago, I actually called her back. Nothing terribly notable there, she sounded sad and said she missed me, that she was sorry we hadn't talked in like two (four) months. I don't know how to tell her that she's just not an important part of my life anymore, that I've moved on. Completely. Whatever.

Still set for going back to school in January, and I'm both excited and nervous about it. I mean, I'll be graduating around the time I'm twenty-seven or so, be fresh out of college with no real experience, having had worked in food service for the last seven - nine years. Yeah, that's *really* going to impress potential employers. Obviously, I need to get some experience between then and now, I guess through internships or whatever.

Got my account back from David, that's fun.

Paffendorf -- Lalala Girl

Now, that this love has overcome me

So, it's been quite a while since I've done an in-depth post about what's going on in my life, so I'm going to try to provide a brief history of what I've been up to.

So, I was working at Wal-Mart, doing overnight stocking on the grocery side of the store. I really liked it, for a few reasons. First, I didn't really have to deal with any customers at all. Well, I did occasionally, but it was stuff like "Hey dude, where's the Gatorade?" "Aisle six, right side, halfway down the aisle after the Kool-Aid." Usually, two to three of those a night, more on Fridays and Saturdays. The time period was great - 10 pm to 7 (8/9/10) am, which was fantastic. Work all night, sleep all day. I loved it. Had two days off, which didn't change from week to week. I was working with Matt, which meant we never had scheduling conflicts (at least, not work-based) for playing racquetball, and it made transportation fairly simple. There was even a cute girl, Robyn, to look at from time to time.

However, there were some definite downsides. First, we were constantly understaffed. I mean, systemically and intentionally. (In a related side-note, they've recently laid off even more people, causing massive understaffing throughout the entire store. Productivity has suffered as a result.) We were often running behind due to our lack of sufficient people. Of course, management didn't see it that way - we were "slackers" and "needed to pick up our pace." Juan constantly threatened us, saying that when the remodel was over, we were going to all be replaced by the remodel workers that they hired. That kind of frustrated me. At some point, Javi called me on my cell, asking if I still wanted to work there (in desperation, while searching for a job before Wal-Mart called, I stopped by there to see if they would hire me back. Dave waffled on it, but eventually left the option up to Javi, who called me, though by the time he did, Wal-Mart had called, so I declined.). He told me that Bubba, the former GM of Buda, was now our GM, and that things were totally different. Also, Ashley (of Domino's fame) was also an assistant there now, which was really neat. I really like working with her. We talked about it briefly, and I told him I'd call him back.

As luck would have it, a few days later, we had a ton of freight come in, a few people call in, and Juan was in particularly rare form. Ambra had started working there at this point, and Mindy was gone. Well, at that point, I decided I'd had enough. I went to the bathroom, called Ashley, confirmed that they still had a place for me, and walked out. It was fun. I clocked out, went up to Juan, and handed him my discount card that had my clock in bar code on the opposite side. He was kind of caught off-guard, as a good walk-out will always catch management. It was awesome. He told me that he'd always confirmed (excused) my absences - I had like four or so - and that he certainly wasn't referring to me when he talked about how much we suck. I wasn't going to be dissuaded, though, and I left. I kind of apologized to Ambra on the way out, because she was still there with all this terrible freight to have to deal with. On the way out, I stopped to talk to Robyn, let her know I enjoyed working with her but that I was leaving, and that I thought she was fantastically cute.

The personnel lady called me a few days later about why I left. I told her about Juan, she said something like "Well, that's certainly not true." Not the point. "Well, he shouldn't have done that." Yeah, I believe I indicated I already thought as much by leaving. She asked me if I wanted to talk to Terry (our GM), I half-heartedly accepted, but never showed up.

The next day, I was talking to Javi and Bubba at Sonic. One week after that, I walked into my first day of Sonic. That was interesting, because only Javi, Ashley, Bubba, and a few people who were still there - Larry, Cruz, Pedro - knew who I was. Everyone else just saw this new guy - goofy looking - in a shirt and tie, walking around like he knew the store like the back of his hand. Which I do. Anyway. I knew it was going to suck going in to it, but I figured, hey, Javi and Ashley are there, so how bad could it really be?

I quickly became acquainted with the new crew, which was in some ways better, some ways worse than the old crew I dealt with. Well, the old crew was probably better in most respects. I won't go too much into specifics, but there were some very constant things that really defined the new crew. Whining, for one thing. Attitude problems, for another. There were a few people I really despised, and a few people I really liked (Emily, Ashley S, Katie). Things started off pretty good. I started getting around 70 hours a week, which was nice, since it amounted to a FUCKTON of overtime, and very nice paychecks.

Then Ashley left.

That really, really, really sucked. I was really sad that she left, but I totally understand her decision to leave. She was really frustrated, since she had only wanted to be part time, and she hadn't worked less than 50 hours on any week since she started. She felt that either Bubba or upper management, whoever was responsible for it, just wasn't doing enough to get us more assistants, and Bubba kept scheduling her a ton (more on this later). That, and how frustrating and stressful of a job it is to begin with, made her leave. We didn't get another manager or anything for a quite a while, and we had a bit of a staffing crisis for a while. We got through that.

Then Javi left. That was really the beginning of the end for me, as well. Javi's last week, I worked 90 hours without a day off. Now, I was used to 70 hours a week with one day off, and that was okay. However, 90/0 wasn't really okay. Well, it would have been okay, but Bubba didn't see fit to warn me or anything. I mean, he knew about it as early as Sunday morning, possibly earlier. I wish he would have warned me or something, since he wasn't releasing the schedule for the week until Monday afternoon, which was also really frustrating. So I had to take this annoying Serv-Safe class (8 hours, 90 multiple-choice question test, test took about six and a half minutes), then go in and close afterwards. That was alright, since the early draft of the schedule had me off on Tuesday. However, I walk in around 6:30, look at the schedule, and find out I don't have a day off that week. Yeah, I was kind of upset. I mean, I know a lot of people work seven days a week, at jobs much harder than mine. I just wish Bubba would have warned me or something.

So Javi left, and it was just me, Angie, and Bubba. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Bubba took over doing the order and the schedule. We'd run out of stuff a lot more - tater tots, ranch, barbecue sauce, M&M's, spoons, bananas, sugar, you name it. That, and people would get scheduled when they weren't available, which, to be fair, stopped for the most part eventually. There were several weeks, though, where a lot of people couldn't come in when they were scheduled and it was our fault. Good times. The other fun thing about having Bubba in charge of scheduling... well, it really had nothing to do with him being in charge of scheduling, but something systemic about him managing, was that he expected every employee to be 100% devoted to the Drive-In. I'm not talking about just while they're on the clock, which I agree with, but ALL THE TIME. Every time someone called in, he'd ask people to stay late, and come in early, and come in on their only day off, and would get annoyed when they couldn't. I mean, I'm talking about people who'd already worked eight, ten hours, or had worked six days and it was their only day off. We didn't seem to be pursuing the long term solution, hiring more people so we didn't have to keep asking people to work stupid amounts of hours.

So yeah, I have a few grievances with Bubba as a GM. I think part of it might be the difference between Buda and San Marcos. Most of our crew members, at least non-cook, are college kids, who aren't looking for 40 hours a week, and will work that much if you need them to, but didn't apply for that. They're going to highly value their time outside of work, and place a greater premium on social time and interaction then on being at work, hence the frustration with always, ALWAYS being called in. Now, most of them are more than happy to help out occasionally. However, it starts to get annoying, when every other day, you're asked to stay late or come in early, when every day you "have off", you're asked to come in for a bit. There's a line between "helping out" and "being expected to be overly devoted to your job". That's one of the reasons Ashley left, as well.

So yeah, I put in my two weeks notice almost two weeks ago, on Saturday the fourth. I walked out on Friday the tenth. Almost made it. I didn't really tell anyone that I was leaving, except for Aaron, the assistant we were borrowing from Montopolis (who was a friend of Bubba's) a few days a week. That week, we finally had a new assistant start; he was an ex-GM from Round Rock or something.

Yeah, I feel pretty bad about walking out. Sort of. I mean, not really. I was really pissed off. Oh, yeah, forgot to mention, Sergio got the store, and called to offer me an MIT position. So I took that; I'll be starting there in a week. That's fun.

So that's where I am in terms of work. On to other matters.

I moved out of Les Chateaux a month or so after starting at Sonic. Moved back home instead of getting a 3-bedroom place with Ambra and David, decided to go back to school and the cheap rent offered at home would be a huge help towards that goal. I'm just now, three months later, that I'm finally starting to move in and get everything unpacked. I'm almost done there. Janelle moved out the other day, that was interesting. Not just into a dorm for the semester, but into a four bedroom apartment at University Springs with three dudes. That's cool. Spent Monday picking her up from the airport, then helping her move out. Got a decent entertainment center out of the deal, so I came out ahead.

Haven't talked to Lilie in, oh, probably two months now. I was going up to Austin every day off to play DDR and/or ITG2, and I'd usually call her before or during to see if she was around to see if she'd like to meet up, say hi, that kind of thing. The first time, I actually got a hold of her, and she didn't really seem very enthusiastic or anything. Every subsequent time, no answer whatsoever. A few weeks of that, and no reply whatsoever to any IMs/phone calls/emails, and I got the hint.

So yeah, I've already put in my application at SWT. I got re-accepted as well, so that's neat. I just have to go in for an academic advising appointment, then I'll be good to go. I'm starting in the Spring, and I'm pretty sure of what classes I'd like to take - Discrete I, Data Structures, Chem I, whatever CS course is next in my progression, and possibly Probability, depending on scheduling.

Oh, I sold my WoW account to David. Just didn't have the time working 70 hours a week, usually in 12-14 hour days. That, and the internet connection here SUCKED. It's getting better; we've upgraded our connection, and are on our third modem. So, we'll see. I'm contemplating buying it back, but I want to see how things go at Domino's first. Oh, Gina marked me down as non-rehireable, so that's fun. Eileen let Sergio rehire me anyway, so that's cool.

I think that's a sufficient return to blogging. More to come as updates warrant.

DJ Smooth -- DUI 091406

More new pictures. I'm really just stalling at this point

My first song - Daikenkai on Singles/Heavy. Max combo; not too bad. Granted, my PA sucks, but hey, I've never been good at that to begin with. That, and Daikenkai has some FUNKY-ASS steps - lots of double-steps.



Again, nothing spectacular, except that it's a decent PA this time (well, for me), and that this was right after the picture above.



And as I was leaving, I discovered it was the LBJ Student Center's birthday, and we were all receiving cake in its honor. I just found that odd. I mean, who was doing this? Is there an organization on campus dedicated to celebrating buildings' birthdays? Or perhaps they're just really, really dedicated to the LBJSC. Either way, the implications are frightening.

This could be messy

Here's my course schedule for this semester:

PHIL	1305 0251	-M-W-F-	0800A-0850A	PSY 00204
CS	2318 0251	-M-W-F-	0900A-0950A	DER 00235
CHEM	1341 0252	-M-W-F-	1000A-1050A	CHE 00100
MATH	3305 0261	-M-W-F-	1100A-1150A	DER 00330
CS	3358 0253	-M-W---	0200P-0315P	DER 00241

Semester Hours: 15

So yeah, I start at 8 am, which means I'll be able to find a parking spot in my parking lot of choice when I head to class. I've got four straight classes from 8 - 12, then a two hour break. That gives me plenty of time to play some DDR, do a little homework, catch my breath, whatever. Friday, I'm done at noon; otherwise, I have another hour and fifteen minutes later in the day. So it's going to be a fun semester.

You've washed your hands clean of us

Argh, so many things, don't know where to start.

Let's start with work.

Actually, no, let's try and finsh my recap that somehow dovetailed into a bizarre... I don't even know what. I'll get back to that weird tangent, though, and try to clarify what the hell I was talking about - assuming I can figure it out, of course.

So yeah, over at Lilie's Thursday night. Ex-girlfriends can't veto haircuts. She wants to be thought of as a friend, not as an ex-girlfriend. Which is no problem, because she's my closest friend. Well, it is a problem, because I can' t let go of my feelings for her, but I won't really mention them anywhere but here, so I guess it isn't really a problem. I ended up staying over there pretty late - I think it was around 4 or so when I lied down on her dining room floor and was opening her computer case, to see where the second hard drive was going to go - she has two disk drives, so the floppy drive is where the second hard drive would go. I'd just pull the floppy and put the hard drive there while she gets what she needs off of it, but apparently, its Keven's project, so I didn't really make any comments. Anyway. She came over and lied down next to me. She was really tired, and I wasn't that not-tired either. We *almost* fell asleep - I'm not sure how close she came, but I know she was almost, if not entirely, asleep. I got her up, though, and to bed, and went home. Had Friday off. Her car was getting out of the shop, so she asked me if I could come over and give her a ride to her car around 4:30 or 5.

So I left my house around 4:30 or so. I was sitting at the N LBJ/Sessoms intersection when I heard someone yell "Billy!" - it was Shelley, in what I could only gather at the time was Kevin's truck. I waved back, not wanting to tax my already sore throat. I was going to stop by Sonic to confirm with Javi that I was coming in around 9 or so to close for him since he had to work a long shift, as well as check the schedule for that night so I would know what I was going to be dealing with. Sure enough, Shelley/Kevin headed to Sonic as well. They parked on #3, I parked in the back and headed on via the other side. Shelley was standing in the lobby talking or something when I walked in, so I just went to the dry stock room to look at the schedule. When I came back, she was gone, so I talked to Javi about that evening - it was on. After that, I headed over to Lilie's. Her car wasn't quite ready, so I just hung out on the couch, watching TV. She made a comment about how Kevin didn't think she should be hanging out with me, and that he was also surprised that I hadn't made any moves to "get into her pants" Thursday night (or something like that). Annoying, but I can see his angle. And sure enough, Shelley and Kevin came in fairly soon afterwards. I gather Shelley had been trying to find someone to work for her on Saturday, so that she could go to a wedding with Lilie during the day, but to no avail. I didn't really say anything while they were there, mindful of Shelley's recently declared animosity towards me. I was invited (I think) to the wedding (as a last-minute escort, or something like that), but I had to work Saturday evening, and would have been unable to attend. They left fairly soon after that.

Lilie called to check on her car, and it was ready. We headed over there to pick it up, then came back. After that, we decided to go out to eat - she was really hungry. She wasn't sure where she wanted to go, so we stopped by Danielle's house first to pick up Kingdom Hearts and Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail: Special Collector's Edition DVD. I was wearing my cowboy hat the majority of the trip, but it turns out that neither Danielle nor Lilie like it. How terrible.

We ended up going to Bennigan's for dinner - she had the Fettucini Alfredo (I think), and I had the Monte Cristo. After that, I took her home, then headed into work. Nothing notable there. Saturday, slept in, and went to work at 5. Again, nothing notable. I think. Sunday, some thing. Well, one thing happened. The phone rang about 11:30 or so on Sunday. I answered it, and it was Lilie. My heart jumped with joy, until I realized that she was just calling to let me/the store know that Shelley was extremely sick - she may have caught the death flu, which I'm still dealing with the lingering effects of - and wouldn't be able to come in on Monday. I left a note, and I think Erica came in for her.

Monday, I had to re-attach my battery cable right before I left for work. Of course, it was incredibly corroded, and as I was tightening the terminal, it ripped off. It was... kind of scary. I was supposed to be leaving for work then, so I didn't really have a whole lot of time. Mom and Janelle were busy, so I tried Lilie. no answer. So I called Jarrod. Luckily, I got ahold of him, and he immediately started heading my way to give me a ride to work. As we were driving, we ended up making some plans for last night - he was going to pick me up from work, we'd watch the second DVD of RvB that I had just finished burning, play some video games, have a grand old time, and in the morning, he'd give me a ride to the bank, the part house to grab the parts I needed to replace, then to my house. I was only about half an hour late, nothing terrible, since Bruce was still there. I was originally supposed to close fountain with Rick running the show, but Katie wanted to stay and carhop, so Lacey stayed for me; I got off around 9:30 or so. Everything else went as planned. I crashed on their couch; we did our thing this morning, and I got my truck repaired. Fun times.

I did manage to talk to Lilie as Jarrod was driving me to work. We had an... interesting conversation. I asked her if she'd like to go skating sometime - Janelle really wants to go as well, since she's getting in some new skates (oh yeah, she's hired at my Sonic as well, and will probably be starting Sunday. More on that later.) , and when I mentioned it to Jarrod and Danielle, they seemed interested as well, so there might be all kinds of people there. Now, if only they had a real DDR machine instead of Pump It Up, things would be perfect.

I got my truck fixed, went to my Academic Advising appointment today, and got to work. Of course, I was late again, 'cause my appointment ran late - it was supposed to start at 3:30, but it didn't start 'til well after 4, and he had to take 2 different phone calls during my appointment. I wouldn't have minded, except I had to be somewhere at 5. Eventually got it done, left, and got to work. Nothing exciting there. Came home, registered for classes. I've got 15 hours this semester. More to come.

So, yeah. Did some house cleaning - vacuumed, mopped, cleaned the kitchen, and cleaned the glass. I'm going to clean my room tonight, and mow tomorrow moning. Fun. I think Janelle and I are going to Hastings tonight in a few hours; last minute Christmas shopping and all. I still have no clue what to get Rose or Suzie. I was thinking maybe a stuffed animal for Suzie.... but it seems kind of clichèd. She doesn't like jewelry; well, only weird pieces she sees and likes (and we all know I'm no judge of "weird"...) I'll deal with that as need be. Hmm...

"wondering where we are in the relationship.. though it is my belief that something you can't see, touch or smell prolly can't move either LOL"

She's such a dork! But I asked her the same thing last night - that might even have been what made her think of it. I sure don't know... I mean, I really care for her; I'm beginning to finally accept that she really cares for me as well (damn insecurities...). I think I might love her, although my emotional compass has been a little off for the past three years or so (well, 4 1/2, I guess). But I think i'll be able to recalibrate it with her. That sounds so retartded... But yeah. I don't plan on breaking up with her any time soon, and I think she doesn't either (breaking up with me, I mean. I don't know if she's going to break up with herself anytime soon or what). It's so funny... we just talked a little bit on IM - mainly calling each other dorks, and alerting each other to various updates to our web presences, but I'm all hyper now. I'm even doing that little head bobbing thing she does when she types (well, the times I've watched her type over the webcam.) It probably doesn't help that I'm listening to some Sarina Paris - Romeo's Dead, So I Wait, and You are all way too bubble-gum/poppy/lovey-dovey. And I really like 'em. Oh well... I really like her - dare I say love her yet? I don't know... - but I do know she makes me feel warm and fuzzy when we're together, and I miss her terribly when we're apart. As far as where we are in our relationship, frankly, I don't even know what that means. We should probably talk about it the next time we're together, see if we're on the same page (another weird saying that doesn't really mean anything). But you know what I mean. Because I know who you are as you read this, and I just wanted to tell you... Love ya!

In other news:

Shared Decks suck. Still.

Crossroads of Twilight sucks. Egwene now knows how to make cuendillar, and it's given LESS attention than the climactic moment of the book, which is when Perrin BUYS SOME GRAIN. The rest of the book is talking. Just talking. Most of it takes place while Rand is cleansing saidin. Argh. New Spring better kick serious ass.

The bowling party was... okay. it was nice to hang with some of the people - Jessica, Christina, Ray, Katie, Kristen, Freddie, etc - outside of work, which I don't do all that often. I did pretty decent; got like 6 or 7 strikes, and a number of spares overall. Of the 4 or 5 games I was in, I only won one, but I was close on all of them. Took a number of pictures, and recorded a few clips. I also won best night crew costume for Halloween (as if there was any doubt).

Oh! I'm officially a bobcat now. Some choice bits from the acceptance letter:
"a name [Bobcat] I hope you will claim with pride in the near future."

"This is the first step on an exciitng, fulfilling road to a successful future."

"The next few years will be among the most exciting and memorable of your life."

But my personal favorite:

"Acceptance to Texas State is a major accomplishment..."