Five months.
It's been about five months since I've posted. I'll try to catch up with what I've missed.
School:
School's going really well so far. Took those three classes during the Spring semester, got a 4.0. That was pretty neat. The day of Finals was kind of funny. They schedule like 2 hours for each final, and mine were back to back to back. Each final took me around thirty to forty-five minutes to do, giving me between forty-five minutes and an hour to kill between each final, in addition to the half hour break they already build in to the schedule. The obvious answer would be to use that time to review the material and/or study for the next final; the only problem with that, of course, is that I don't like to count on such intangible, unsure variables like that, so I was completely ready for each final. I went to a dining hall and grabbed some breakfast during one break, and I don't recall what I did during the other final. After the last one, I had to walk to work where Mom was picking me up to give me a ride home.
Something had gone crazy wrong with my truck. Ended up dropping quite a bit on new tires, then I had to have the engine remounted and stuff (they did it wrong during the original installation). That was fun. I ended up only taking three hours during summer school, one class during Summer I. Phil 1305, Introduction to Philosophy and Critical Thinking. The class was okay, I guess. Every morning at 8 am, for two hours, Monday through Friday. I ended up late to work quite a few days because of it, which was fun. I pulled a strong A in that class as well, which was really good, 'cause it was a Writing Intensive class, and I hate writing. It seemed like the more outlandish I made my conclusion, the better my grade on the test was. I don't know if it just did a better job of making my point, or my writing just got stronger as the semester went on, or the professor just appreciated someone who could effectively communicate the material and their understanding thereof, while still making their conclusion fun to read. I hope it was the latter, but I'm not counting on it. Whatever.
So I didn't take any classes during Summer II, 'cause of the money I had to drop on my truck. I'm registered for 13 hours, 4 classes and 1 lab, for the Fall. Chem II, Chem II Lab, Prob & Stat, Data Structures, and Intro to Fine Arts. I even got some financial aid for this and the Spring semesters. It's pretty awesome. Class starts in about two weeks. I've got most of my textbooks, bought two textbooks online - ebay and amazon are pretty neat, around half price of what the bookstore wanted, *and* I could flip them back for most of the price. I still have to pick up my Chem book/lab manual at the bookstore; the professor wrote both of them. So that's fun. Got my classes blocked Monday/Wednesday, which works out well. I start at 9:30 both mornings; Monday, I go to 6-something, on Wednesday, I'm out around 3-something. Long days, but I'll be taking both days off work so I don't have to go in that night. I might take the occasional Tuesday night off as well, to give me some time to get some real sleep. Of course, that's all depending on the work situation, which will have to get better before I'm able to do so, but we'll get to that later.
And I'm officially a senior.
So I don't feel like going into work just yet, so I guess I'll go with personal stuff next. I finally started a good diet that I'm comfortable with, and I feel confident that I can stick with it, for the most part. Coupling that with the amounts of exercise I have lined up, I hope, I really hope, that I can finally lose some weight.
Socially, it's just as much of an abyss as always. Didn't talk to anyone in any of my classes over the fall semester, or the one I had in the summer. I ended up sitting behind this semi-cute girl over the summer, didn't really get her name or anything. She was a hippie (Wait. Her parents were hippies. I'm not sure?) from Austin. Anyway.
So still friends with Matt, we work out and/or play racquetball in the mornings when our schedules work out. Haven't talked to Cullen recently, though I hope to remedy that soon. Rose is moving out of her parents place, which is cool, getting a little one bedroom; I'm helping her move (no big surprise there). Haven't made any new friends (except at work, but that gets covered in the work section) lately. Maybe that'll change in the Fall. I doubt it, but whatever.
Work's been interesting. Our new GM is working out really well, he's a really cool guy. We're getting pasta and sandwiches in the next few weeks (Sh! Nobody's allowed to know that!), which means we have to regear a lot of things, and find room for a bunch of new products, and retrain everyone on new stuff. It's going to be somewhat more labor-intensive, which kind of sucks. The only good part is that we're getting some good stuff, like sliced provolone, genoa salami, and chicken. Of course, they don't really fit in with my diet, so I'll only taste them sparingly, but it'll probably positively impact sales.
Bill no longer works there; he left to go to Colorado or something, leaving me as the only MiT right now. Jen Fee almost came back, but she went to Kyle instead. I've mentioned to Ambra that she should come back and be an MiT for us; new gm, new dm, there's a good chance they'll let her. They should - she's well trained, she's smart, they let her GM a store for over six months. Oh, and we're NOT DATING, nor WERE WE EVER. They're cracking down ever harder on employee dating, transferred a GM to a completely different district because she was dating another GM. Whatever. We did hire this awesome insider named Becky, but she only worked here for the summer. That made me sad, especially when she left like two weeks ago. Thanks to that, we're still working on improving our inside staff. We need another shift runner or MiT, probably another insider or two. We did hire Janelle as a driver, that's pretty neat. She might be moving back here for her last semester and/or year of school, which would be interesting. Her and Mom don't get along as well as her and I do, so she's a little worried that it might not work out, that they're going to clash too hard much for her to live here. I keep telling her that it was hard for me at first, but that it got a lot better, especially once school started.
Anyway.
So that's what's going on with that.
Vanessa Carlton -- Nolita Fairytale
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
2007-08-17
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
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
2007-05-25
Not dead yet
Working 65-70 hours a week, quit playing WoW, going nuts living at home. Haven't unpacked much (anything except my computer), need to get on that. It's really messy in here.
2006-11-13
The kisses of the sun were sweet; I didn't blink
So my three day weekend ends in like thirteen hours. I don't know that I got anything notable accomplished. Truck registered and/or inspected? Nope. Room cleaned? Nope. I did play some WoW and get Femaledwarf up to 25 (Really close to 26, I could get that level before going in to work, if I felt the urge). I did vacuum the living room and mop the kitchen, which I suppose isn't completely insubstantial. It's something.
Wait!
In my defense, I went down the truck registration place Friday morning to do my registration, but they were closed for Veteran's Day, so I wasn't able to do it. I'll probably wait 'til Thursday, when I get paid, and will be running some other errands anyway.
I'm currently scheduled for nine days straight, but they don't like it when you work seven in a row, so they'll be changing my schedule around (again) to prevent that from happening. Hopefully, this will lead to having Saturday off, so I can go to the hockey game with Bambi and Mom on my birthday. I get to bring a guest as well. I'd really, really like to bring Lilie along; she lives in Austin, and likes hockey to boot. I don't know how well her and Mom get along, if they really like each other, Bam as well. It might end up being a moot point if i have to work Saturday night anyway, since it's up in the air if I'll be going if I do.
Mom asked me something earlier - she asked me if this is where I thought I'd be at 24.
Frankly, no, it's not.
I feel like somewhat of a failure. If not for a series of bad choices on my part, I could have been out of college for two and a half years (give or take a semester) ago, in a real job, working on building a real life. Right now, I feel like I'm just treading water, moving from moment to moment with no real goals or plan. I mean, I know where I'd like to be, and I have a vague idea of how to get there. It's just a matter of fighting the apathy that's been such a defining characteristic of my life the last five and a half years. The only thing I can of that's positive about the entire situation is that I have moved out, I'm kind of living on my own, earning a living. It's a start? I guess? of course, having Mom as one of my top choices for roommate in May kind of potentially negates that as well, although if it makes it easier to get back in school, it'll be worth it. I'm just not sure if it would, and it would definitely be a step backwards in other directions.
Then there's this whole thing with Lilie. It's pushing two and a half years since we've met. I reviewed most of our relationship, relived a lot of memories when I was going back through my 750 posts and putting tags on all of them; it's been the same situation almost the entire time, with a few exceptions: me being hopelessly in love with her, her not being sure how she feels about me, and the intimacy we tend to share whenever we're together serving to confuse the situation that much more. She remarked earlier that I've changed a fair amount since she'd met me, and I think it's reflected in our relationship, which has become a lot more stable, more comfortable, less confusing. There's any amount of repetitive analysis I could do about our history and relationship, but I've done it enough times. Too many. I know the rhetoric by heart at this point, and it doesn't really clarify anything. I think we'll continue along the course we're on now, which is a great one, to be sure. She's become a huge advocate of me moving in with her and Rose, now that she understands that I'm alright how we are, who she is, all that stuff.
I hate putting it like this, making it seem like an afterthought or something, but it'd be great living with Rose as well. I love her just as much, if in a different way, and really miss not seeing her very often and not getting to talk to her very much. As weird as it was when she lived with David and me, it was great seeing her every day. We clash occasionally, usually when one of us is really depressed, and the other one is feeling pissy and doesn't want to deal with it, but that kind of spat doesn't last too terribly long.
So yes, other than a few issues, these two, in no particular order, are my top choice for living companions in May.
Moving on.
Things I still want to talk about:
Note: One of those probably won't happen. I'll let you figure out which one it is. (Hint: I like breasts.)
Also, if this post seems sporadic, it's because I'm lying in bed, watching one of the top five cartoons of all times, Rocko's Modern Life. (The other four, in no particular order, are Transformers (Generation One), The Angry Beavers, and two other ones that I'm not going to disclose at this time, because I don't feel like it's in our national interest. Hey, it works for the president, as it's about time I started exercising my privileges as Supreme Allied Commander of Dinosaur Moonbase 2.)
ATC -- Around the World
The kisses of the sun
Were sweet I didn't blink
I let it in my eyes
Like an exotic drink
Wait!
In my defense, I went down the truck registration place Friday morning to do my registration, but they were closed for Veteran's Day, so I wasn't able to do it. I'll probably wait 'til Thursday, when I get paid, and will be running some other errands anyway.
I'm currently scheduled for nine days straight, but they don't like it when you work seven in a row, so they'll be changing my schedule around (again) to prevent that from happening. Hopefully, this will lead to having Saturday off, so I can go to the hockey game with Bambi and Mom on my birthday. I get to bring a guest as well. I'd really, really like to bring Lilie along; she lives in Austin, and likes hockey to boot. I don't know how well her and Mom get along, if they really like each other, Bam as well. It might end up being a moot point if i have to work Saturday night anyway, since it's up in the air if I'll be going if I do.
Mom asked me something earlier - she asked me if this is where I thought I'd be at 24.
Frankly, no, it's not.
I feel like somewhat of a failure. If not for a series of bad choices on my part, I could have been out of college for two and a half years (give or take a semester) ago, in a real job, working on building a real life. Right now, I feel like I'm just treading water, moving from moment to moment with no real goals or plan. I mean, I know where I'd like to be, and I have a vague idea of how to get there. It's just a matter of fighting the apathy that's been such a defining characteristic of my life the last five and a half years. The only thing I can of that's positive about the entire situation is that I have moved out, I'm kind of living on my own, earning a living. It's a start? I guess? of course, having Mom as one of my top choices for roommate in May kind of potentially negates that as well, although if it makes it easier to get back in school, it'll be worth it. I'm just not sure if it would, and it would definitely be a step backwards in other directions.
Then there's this whole thing with Lilie. It's pushing two and a half years since we've met. I reviewed most of our relationship, relived a lot of memories when I was going back through my 750 posts and putting tags on all of them; it's been the same situation almost the entire time, with a few exceptions: me being hopelessly in love with her, her not being sure how she feels about me, and the intimacy we tend to share whenever we're together serving to confuse the situation that much more. She remarked earlier that I've changed a fair amount since she'd met me, and I think it's reflected in our relationship, which has become a lot more stable, more comfortable, less confusing. There's any amount of repetitive analysis I could do about our history and relationship, but I've done it enough times. Too many. I know the rhetoric by heart at this point, and it doesn't really clarify anything. I think we'll continue along the course we're on now, which is a great one, to be sure. She's become a huge advocate of me moving in with her and Rose, now that she understands that I'm alright how we are, who she is, all that stuff.
I hate putting it like this, making it seem like an afterthought or something, but it'd be great living with Rose as well. I love her just as much, if in a different way, and really miss not seeing her very often and not getting to talk to her very much. As weird as it was when she lived with David and me, it was great seeing her every day. We clash occasionally, usually when one of us is really depressed, and the other one is feeling pissy and doesn't want to deal with it, but that kind of spat doesn't last too terribly long.
So yes, other than a few issues, these two, in no particular order, are my top choice for living companions in May.
Moving on.
Things I still want to talk about:
- People at work that annoy me - Brenda, Conner, and I'm sure there're others
- Running into Kenny and Jason after getting off from work the other night
- Lilie's breasts
- A 5 year plan, complete with incremental steps, to getting my life back on track
Note: One of those probably won't happen. I'll let you figure out which one it is. (Hint: I like breasts.)
Also, if this post seems sporadic, it's because I'm lying in bed, watching one of the top five cartoons of all times, Rocko's Modern Life. (The other four, in no particular order, are Transformers (Generation One), The Angry Beavers, and two other ones that I'm not going to disclose at this time, because I don't feel like it's in our national interest. Hey, it works for the president, as it's about time I started exercising my privileges as Supreme Allied Commander of Dinosaur Moonbase 2.)
ATC -- Around the World
The kisses of the sun
Were sweet I didn't blink
I let it in my eyes
Like an exotic drink
2006-11-05
You wanna get mad, bitch, I don't give a damn
Let's see if I can't do some crazy updating.
I've worked at Walmart now for something like two weeks. It's actually three, but that first week contained only my NHO, so I tend not to count it. In any case, I've now had two full weeks (5 days each) of actual, full shifts (10 - ~8-ish). I feel like I've started to grow accustomed to the job, the routine, and can really begin looking at it with confidence.
The basic job itself is incredibly simple - we take freight out from the back on pallets, break the pallets apart onto carts, take the carts down the shelves and put the product on the shelves, then make the shelves look pretty. It's just... they rarely give us enough people - 3 or 4 when we need 6 or 7. Whatever, I don't mind staying later to finish up the job - I'm scheduled for 40 hours, so anything afterwards is time and a half. We're not supposed to get overtime, and make every effort to cut hours later in the week if we go over earlier.
That doesn't happen on the grocery side.
See, when they originally called me, they didn't really say much, just "overnight stocker." I learned during my NHO that there's the 'grocery' side, and the G(eneral) M(erchandise) side, and that I was going to be GM. A week later, when I finally go to have my first shift, they put me on grocery. I don't really care, personally, except that Matt's trying to get me moved to electronics, which would be a slight pay raise and play to my strengths.
Anyway.
I definitely like doing this over fast food. There are a number of advantages to this job over my previous ones (while still allowing it to be a menial, entry-level job). First and foremost, I'm not dealing with food. Well, that's not *entirely* true - I am, but it's in boxes and jars, and I'm just putting it on shelves, not dealing with it directly. So I'm not around food, and I don't despise the thought of cooking when I get home. Good all around, there. Not only that, but instead of cooking food, I'm moving around (sometimes heavy) boxes around all day, which is also nice. I come home pretty tired physically, which is nice as well, in a weird sort of way. I was dead sore the first day, but I've started taking really long, hot showers after work, and stretching out in the shower, and I haven't been sore since. Oh! I also don't have to deal with customers. Well, I kind of do. Obviously, what we're doing is directly for the customers, and we have to take that into consideration. During the first two hours of our shift or so, there's usually a decent number of people still in the store, so we have to work around them. And I get the occasional question about where specific items are located. But that's nothing compared to the level of customer interaction I had to deal with at Sonic and (especially) Domino's. The schedule is really nice too - Domino's was evening to late night, this is night to morning. I usually end up sleeping from 11-ish to 6-ish (highly variant, though). Also, they stop playing those annoying commercials around midnight and don't resume until 6-ish, so I don't have to put up with them for the vast majority of my shift. They also play much more recent, much better music. Still very few songs I like, but still moving in the right direction. Of course, it sucks when they resume normal music/commercials near the end of the shift, when I'm tired, ready to go home, and having management start throwing all these extra things at me. Anyway.
They also have a demo of Guitar Hero set up on a really nice tv and 5.1 stereo system in front of the book/magazine area, and I get to play that my entire lunch hour (2-3 am); additionally, I usually hang around for half an hour or so after work to unwind and play some more.
Of course, there are some bad things about the job as well. First and foremost, my coworkers. I mean, Matt's there, which is really cool. Apparently, and I didn't know this until my second shift, but Sara works there as well. Sara is FUCKING AWESOME. Super cute, super fun to hang out with... only thing is that she's a lesbian.
I should really clarify that last statement. I certainly have no issues with anybody based solely on their sexuality. It just sucks meeting a super awesome girl and finding out you already have no chance with her, ever. Period. We're still good friends and all, and I certainly treasure our friendship.
Anyway.
Back to our current topic: Coworkers, as a bad part of working at Walmart; the good exceptions.
Mindy apparently still works there as well, but her shift is something like 2-10 or something weird like that, which means I never have to deal with her, ever. Almost ever. Tangent: I saw her baby. He takes after his father.
Moving on. Those are the good coworkers. I don't much care for the majority of the rest; they're not really my peers. Janelle argues this point, saying that they are, by virtue of being my coworkers, my peers. Perhaps. But not my intellectual, social, educational, etc., peers. I couldn't hold the types of conversations that I used to have with Mike or Ray, for example, with them. A few of them really get on my nerves, too. Of course, that's somewhat mitigated by the fact that I don't really have to deal with them constantly, as I'm stocking an aisle by myself or whatever. But looking at it, I doubt I'll ever meet someone like Lilie or Leslie working there. It's not that I'm necessarily looking, but it's something that's crossed my mind.
Anyhoo.
I guess it's an okay job, all told. There've been a lot of college kids doing their shopping while I'm there, including cute girls in their jammies, which is nice. Of course, I have to sit there and listen to them have a ten minute conversation in which they express their disbelief of the sheer number of pop-tart varieties available. Sure, there are a bunch, but come on! Move on. Move! Go!
Lemme see. Ooh, new baby report:
Kristina Galpin: Boy
Christina Zarate: Unknown
Montana (Jarrod's little sister): Six months pregnant
C'mon, there's more to do in this town.
Anyway.
So I'm looking at what options I have for living in May. I could always renew here with Ambra, but I don't know what she's doing, if that's even on the table, much less viable. Moving on. David seems happy living on his own, and Jarrod seems happy in his current situation, so those two are basically out. I don't really want to live on my own. First, it's more expensive, and second, while I don't like a lot of social interaction, I need SOMETHING. When I was stuck in the apartment for three days with no vehicle and David was gone, I went NUTS. There isn't really anyone at work I think I'd be able to stand living with. I've talked briefly with Mom, and she'd have no problems with me moving back into my room, but I don't really want to do that. I talked to Lilie, and she's somewhat amenable to the idea, though Rose counter-proposed all three of us getting a place together. That's an idea that bears at least some consideration.
Most of the cons involved are present whether I'm living with just Lilie or both of them, so I'll start with those. First, they are in Austin, and want to remain there. I'm in San Marcos, and have no immediate desire to leave. I just started a new job here, and while it's not a great job by any stretch of the imagination, leaving it in May would have me there for seven to eight months. I prefer to stay at jobs a little longer than that, but I suppose that listing "Moved to Austin" as my reason for leaving would alleviate that a little. But yeah, I'd have to look for a new job, though I supposed I could attempt to transfer Walmarts? I mean, commuting is definitely not an option, not with my current form of transportation. Second, and almost equal with the first, is that they're both heavy smokers. I, of course, loathe smoking with every fiber of my being. I can't stand the sight of it, the smell of it, the thought of it, and especially the trash it leaves behind. I don't mind doing a pretty good share of chores, but that's not something I ever want to have to deal with. When I mentioned that to Lilie, she said something like "Well, we can always go outside" and referenced that she never smokes while she's here. The latter is true, but I feel somewhat irrelevant; the first, well, it doesn't sound like a workable idea. I don't like being a burden on people, causing them to make drastic changes on account of me. That's not something I've talked to Rose about at all. The third major thing is their cats. I don't want to live with cats, especially not in an apartment. They smell. They poop. They leave hair and poop and stuff in places that aren't their litterbox. None of those are issues that I particularly want to deal with.
The funny thing is that even with those three issues, they're still my top choice right now, just by process of elimination.
I mean, there are a few other things that I might have to deal with, most notably the history Lilie and I share, but that's something I'm basically over. I mean, her dating other guys, bringing them home for the night, having sexy phone conversations with them - all things I'm confident I can deal with.
The best part, though, is that I'd rarely have to sleep alone.
Tila Tequila -- Fuck Ya Man
I've worked at Walmart now for something like two weeks. It's actually three, but that first week contained only my NHO, so I tend not to count it. In any case, I've now had two full weeks (5 days each) of actual, full shifts (10 - ~8-ish). I feel like I've started to grow accustomed to the job, the routine, and can really begin looking at it with confidence.
The basic job itself is incredibly simple - we take freight out from the back on pallets, break the pallets apart onto carts, take the carts down the shelves and put the product on the shelves, then make the shelves look pretty. It's just... they rarely give us enough people - 3 or 4 when we need 6 or 7. Whatever, I don't mind staying later to finish up the job - I'm scheduled for 40 hours, so anything afterwards is time and a half. We're not supposed to get overtime, and make every effort to cut hours later in the week if we go over earlier.
That doesn't happen on the grocery side.
See, when they originally called me, they didn't really say much, just "overnight stocker." I learned during my NHO that there's the 'grocery' side, and the G(eneral) M(erchandise) side, and that I was going to be GM. A week later, when I finally go to have my first shift, they put me on grocery. I don't really care, personally, except that Matt's trying to get me moved to electronics, which would be a slight pay raise and play to my strengths.
Anyway.
I definitely like doing this over fast food. There are a number of advantages to this job over my previous ones (while still allowing it to be a menial, entry-level job). First and foremost, I'm not dealing with food. Well, that's not *entirely* true - I am, but it's in boxes and jars, and I'm just putting it on shelves, not dealing with it directly. So I'm not around food, and I don't despise the thought of cooking when I get home. Good all around, there. Not only that, but instead of cooking food, I'm moving around (sometimes heavy) boxes around all day, which is also nice. I come home pretty tired physically, which is nice as well, in a weird sort of way. I was dead sore the first day, but I've started taking really long, hot showers after work, and stretching out in the shower, and I haven't been sore since. Oh! I also don't have to deal with customers. Well, I kind of do. Obviously, what we're doing is directly for the customers, and we have to take that into consideration. During the first two hours of our shift or so, there's usually a decent number of people still in the store, so we have to work around them. And I get the occasional question about where specific items are located. But that's nothing compared to the level of customer interaction I had to deal with at Sonic and (especially) Domino's. The schedule is really nice too - Domino's was evening to late night, this is night to morning. I usually end up sleeping from 11-ish to 6-ish (highly variant, though). Also, they stop playing those annoying commercials around midnight and don't resume until 6-ish, so I don't have to put up with them for the vast majority of my shift. They also play much more recent, much better music. Still very few songs I like, but still moving in the right direction. Of course, it sucks when they resume normal music/commercials near the end of the shift, when I'm tired, ready to go home, and having management start throwing all these extra things at me. Anyway.
They also have a demo of Guitar Hero set up on a really nice tv and 5.1 stereo system in front of the book/magazine area, and I get to play that my entire lunch hour (2-3 am); additionally, I usually hang around for half an hour or so after work to unwind and play some more.
Of course, there are some bad things about the job as well. First and foremost, my coworkers. I mean, Matt's there, which is really cool. Apparently, and I didn't know this until my second shift, but Sara works there as well. Sara is FUCKING AWESOME. Super cute, super fun to hang out with... only thing is that she's a lesbian.
I should really clarify that last statement. I certainly have no issues with anybody based solely on their sexuality. It just sucks meeting a super awesome girl and finding out you already have no chance with her, ever. Period. We're still good friends and all, and I certainly treasure our friendship.
Anyway.
Back to our current topic: Coworkers, as a bad part of working at Walmart; the good exceptions.
Mindy apparently still works there as well, but her shift is something like 2-10 or something weird like that, which means I never have to deal with her, ever. Almost ever. Tangent: I saw her baby. He takes after his father.
Moving on. Those are the good coworkers. I don't much care for the majority of the rest; they're not really my peers. Janelle argues this point, saying that they are, by virtue of being my coworkers, my peers. Perhaps. But not my intellectual, social, educational, etc., peers. I couldn't hold the types of conversations that I used to have with Mike or Ray, for example, with them. A few of them really get on my nerves, too. Of course, that's somewhat mitigated by the fact that I don't really have to deal with them constantly, as I'm stocking an aisle by myself or whatever. But looking at it, I doubt I'll ever meet someone like Lilie or Leslie working there. It's not that I'm necessarily looking, but it's something that's crossed my mind.
Anyhoo.
I guess it's an okay job, all told. There've been a lot of college kids doing their shopping while I'm there, including cute girls in their jammies, which is nice. Of course, I have to sit there and listen to them have a ten minute conversation in which they express their disbelief of the sheer number of pop-tart varieties available. Sure, there are a bunch, but come on! Move on. Move! Go!
Lemme see. Ooh, new baby report:
Kristina Galpin: Boy
Christina Zarate: Unknown
Montana (Jarrod's little sister): Six months pregnant
C'mon, there's more to do in this town.
Anyway.
So I'm looking at what options I have for living in May. I could always renew here with Ambra, but I don't know what she's doing, if that's even on the table, much less viable. Moving on. David seems happy living on his own, and Jarrod seems happy in his current situation, so those two are basically out. I don't really want to live on my own. First, it's more expensive, and second, while I don't like a lot of social interaction, I need SOMETHING. When I was stuck in the apartment for three days with no vehicle and David was gone, I went NUTS. There isn't really anyone at work I think I'd be able to stand living with. I've talked briefly with Mom, and she'd have no problems with me moving back into my room, but I don't really want to do that. I talked to Lilie, and she's somewhat amenable to the idea, though Rose counter-proposed all three of us getting a place together. That's an idea that bears at least some consideration.
Most of the cons involved are present whether I'm living with just Lilie or both of them, so I'll start with those. First, they are in Austin, and want to remain there. I'm in San Marcos, and have no immediate desire to leave. I just started a new job here, and while it's not a great job by any stretch of the imagination, leaving it in May would have me there for seven to eight months. I prefer to stay at jobs a little longer than that, but I suppose that listing "Moved to Austin" as my reason for leaving would alleviate that a little. But yeah, I'd have to look for a new job, though I supposed I could attempt to transfer Walmarts? I mean, commuting is definitely not an option, not with my current form of transportation. Second, and almost equal with the first, is that they're both heavy smokers. I, of course, loathe smoking with every fiber of my being. I can't stand the sight of it, the smell of it, the thought of it, and especially the trash it leaves behind. I don't mind doing a pretty good share of chores, but that's not something I ever want to have to deal with. When I mentioned that to Lilie, she said something like "Well, we can always go outside" and referenced that she never smokes while she's here. The latter is true, but I feel somewhat irrelevant; the first, well, it doesn't sound like a workable idea. I don't like being a burden on people, causing them to make drastic changes on account of me. That's not something I've talked to Rose about at all. The third major thing is their cats. I don't want to live with cats, especially not in an apartment. They smell. They poop. They leave hair and poop and stuff in places that aren't their litterbox. None of those are issues that I particularly want to deal with.
The funny thing is that even with those three issues, they're still my top choice right now, just by process of elimination.
I mean, there are a few other things that I might have to deal with, most notably the history Lilie and I share, but that's something I'm basically over. I mean, her dating other guys, bringing them home for the night, having sexy phone conversations with them - all things I'm confident I can deal with.
The best part, though, is that I'd rarely have to sleep alone.
Tila Tequila -- Fuck Ya Man
2006-06-11
Thought you would treat me right
So, been a while since my last post. It will come to no surprise that I didn't do the followup post on Lilie that I had referenced, but it really wouldn't have been worth reading anyway. Or rather, to contrast it with everything else on here, it wouldn't have been interesting at all. Wait, that's not contrast. Damn.
Anyway.
So yeah, I'm basically moved into the new place. It's pretty cool so far. Got the couch set up, got the TV hooked up with cable and the PS2. It's nice having composite input, instead of having to depend on RF adapaters. I even picked up an input box, so I won't have to depend on them anymore. I can hook up the N64 as well, whenever I have an urge to play Blast Corps or Ogre Battle 64. I still plan on hooking up my old box and having a media server, but I have to buy a hard drive to do that, and probably the center of a stereo system, so I'll be waiting a bit on that.
So yeah, the move. Came down to the last minute, as usual. Had those five days off in a row, and didn't quite put to them as efficient use as I could have. But yeah, our move-out day was Saturday. Naturally, when I left for my 5-10 shift Saturday night, I wasn't done yet. Of course, to be fair, David wasn't either. He talked to the lady in the front office, and she said that as long as the keys were in the drop box when she checked it Sunday morning, it was fine. We were guessing around eight am, that was our goal. The plan was that I'd meet up with David at the apartment after work, we'd finish up.
Of course, it didn't happen.
I ended up having to close, which wouldn't have normally been a big deal, except I was already tired, and was planning on finishing up moving after work. David came by about twelve thirty, after calling me a record *three* times. So yeah, we talked about what we were going to do; he was going to finish most of the cleaning, get all of his stuff out, and leave his keys somewhere for me - either come back by the store and drop them off, or something. It got kind of busy at close - not terribly busy, but busy enough that I couldn't really do any preclosing. I helped the drivers get out of there, did money. I just had inventory left, but I just couldn't bring myself to get up and do it. Most frustrating. *Finally* got up and did it, got out of there at like five. Yeah, I know. Shut up. Came home to change and stuff. I actually dozed for like half an hour or so. However, I came to fairly soon, ran over to mom's, grabbed the vacuum cleaner, and got back to the Cedars. I was really, really tired and frustrated by that point, just wanted to be done with the whole damn thing.
Of course, at this point, I'd like to interject that yes, I know it was my fault that I was having to scramble at the last minute to get this stuff done, that I had more than enough time to have taken care of all this at a leisurely pace during my vacation, and that the fact that I squandered that time alloted to me was completely my fault, and that the negative experience I was going through at that point can be directly attributed to the aforementioned squandering. I know that, and do not shirk from responsibility for my actions, my decisions.
Moving on.
I got everything out, got the last cleaning up taken care of, got out of there. I locked the door for the last time at 7:52 (remember, our goal was 8 am), and dropped the key in the drop box at 7:59. Last minute? Oh yeah.
Drove back to Mom's to return the vacuum cleaner, she was actually up. I sat and talked with her for a little bit. It was embarrasing, but I actually broke down in tears in front of her - I was just so tired, frustrated, etc. She understood, though - "I guess I won't be seeing you this Sunday, huh?"
I love her.
So yeah, moved in at the new place. Kinda. The stuff from that last load is still out in the back of my truck. Well, most of it - I'm slowly moving it in, one piece at a time. The lamp came in; that's now in the living room. I donated the bust of Mozart to work, since I didn't want it anymore. It's sitting in the office right now. Most of my boxes aren't unpacked; I've been pulling out what I need, when I need it. I've got two and a half days off, though, starting Monday, and I hope to make some progress on those days. I'm fairly happy with my room - there's curtains in front of the window, so it stays fairly dark even in the middle of the day, which is nice. Overhead fan, also nice. There are a few things that are less than perfect, though. My desk is in my room, which is fine, but we ended up having to put it in the corner next to the bed, so my back is facing the door. I know it's silly, but I don't like having my back to the door. Also, Ambra's room is right next to mine, so I can't play music very loud when she's asleep (I learned that one the hard way). And, I keep hearing that out pool is absolutely terrible.
Overall, though, not too bad.
Let's see, what else...? Hmm. Oh yeah, work. Work's, well, interesting. I have one closing shift this week, which starts in about nine hours. I've been working late inside shifts, mainly with Gina closing, which hasn't been terribly fun. Tuesday night, I closed with Gina; I set the till and did a deposit before I left. She calls me after close, 'cause we were a hundred and fourteen dollars short. Her exact words: "Do you want to tell me where it is?" That's highly, highly offensive. Now, certainly, that amount of money short is something to be concerned about, I don't challenge that at all. But phrasing it like that sounds *very* much like an accusation. Unintentional, I hope, but still. It ended up being a mistake Jimmy made when he checked out a driver, coupled with Jenn entering in her deposit with two digits transposed.
We had an MIT rally on Thursday at Dave & Buster's in San Antonio. Total joke. I rode down with Joe; Sergio and Jenn also went from San Marcos. Jess sent Mel and Trevor. Good times. Let's see... we split up into four groups and did the 'Domino's Cheer', which I didn't participate in. Well, to observers, I did. We sat while Jenn talked to us about various topics - the OER form, the new MIT eval form, the hiring process, leading our shifts, etc. By "talked to us", I really mean "read powerpoint slides". Joe said on the way down there that he was going to walk out if that was the case, but he didn't. They served us some lunch, but I didn't eat any, since I had some Taco Cabana that morning. Stan said we could go play in the game room as long as we were back on time. Sergio and I both did - they had PIU 7th edition. I hate PIU - I have the hardest time telling the difference between jumps and runs, since there's no color differentiation to help you, only spacing, and I have a tendency to hold my head at odd angles which makes it hard to tell when things are aligned horizontally. But yeah, came back into the meeting room all sweaty, which was kinda funny. Walked up to the bar to get some water, and all the supervisors, Jenn, and Mike were all sitting there. Speaking of which, she (Eileen) started dancing a little during the break.
Horrifying.
We played Jeopardy at one point; I got one question right - name the five guiding principles, in order. There was also an auction. Top item was an Ipod Nano, which Jenn ended up winning; there were also five pairs of tickets to Fiesta Texas. Joe, Sergio, and I won one. Not a pair each, but one pair between the three of us. Still don't know how that one's going to work out. But yeah. Murph came up and talked a little bit at the end of the meeting. Nothing terribly impressive there.
Overall... blech.
We also had a mandatory meeting - I don't quite remember what day it was, though I'm pretty sure I closed that night - at like nine. We didn't know what it was about initially, though there was a rumor going on that they had found something objectionable on the cameras. That later turned out to be false. Everyone was there for once, which suprised me. Gina brought kolaches from Shipley's, and orange juice, so it wasn't a total loss. She addressed a few store-wide conerns while we waited on Eileen (who had called Gina to tell her to hold the meeting, and was leading it), who ran about five minutes late. She then dropped one word about what the meeting was going to be about - 'Myspace'.
I couldn't help but break out into laughter. Gina asked me to make sure I didn't do that in front of Eileen. I said I'd do what I could.
So Eileen got up and started talking. Overall, she was very vague, didn't really say anything specific. She talked about employees writing derogatory things about the company, their job, and customers on personal electronic things. She never said 'myspace' directly, but I'm fairly certain that's what she was talking about. She told Ambra that she had seen her myspaec profile (Not at the meeting. I'm just throwing things in randomly, 'cause I do that). She reminded us that that was strictly against company policy, made us re-sign the electronic use agreement form, and tried to feed us some TOTAL BULLSHIT about it being for our protection - that if some customer recognized themselves, they might get angry with a gun or sue us for slander or something. At this point, Emily raised her hand, and said something along the lines of "I really don't want to be a smartass, but it's only slander if it's spoken; it's libel if it's written, and it has to be untrue." Which is true - it has to be untrue, the person saying/writing it has to know it's untrue, and they have to have some sort of malicious intent. I didn't bother arguing that with Eileen, though. She also said at one point, "If you dislike your job that much, the door's right there."
As far as Joe and I can figure, someone at the office was browsing Myspace and came across an employee's page, which set off this whole thing. And, as usual, older people are rushing into things without trying to understand what they're dealing with. It's similiar to the MPAA and RIAA dealing with p2p networking and bittorrent - for the most part, they have no idea what they're dealing with, are trying normal tactics, and it isn't working.
IT'S CALLED VENTING, YOU IGNORANT JACKASSES!
I mean, I'll concede that an employee that isn't happy at their job isn't really a great employee. Well, it's not an optimal situation. But if that employee shows up every day, works diligently, and doesn't have any problems at work, does it matter if they go home and vent on their personal space? Okay, yeah, that can be a warning sign that they might quit one day or otherwise express their disgruntledness, but when you're dealing with every store in the company being understaffed, can you afford to wait and *only* have completely optimal situations?
So anyway.
Ambra finally stepped down as GM of Seguin. That's not too suprising. What's suprising is that it took her this long to do so. I was worried about her for a long time, when she'd break down in tears in frustration over the situation. She seems happier now though, which is important.
Well, she would, if the company would stop fucking her over. It's really, really frustrating to watch, since I can't really say anything about it. They won't let her work in Seguin anymore, since they don't like former GMs working in their old stores. In general, it's a fairly understandable rule - avoiding things like power struggles and awkwardness in general. Eileen herself proved the validity of this rule when she bitched to Gina about everything they had done to 'her' store after she left. So yeah, I can kind of understand the rule. But in this situation, I think an exception would be warranted. Jess (who took over Seguin, even though she just wants to come back to San Marcos) needs another driver, Ambra's willing to drive, knows the town well, and can swing to cover shifts, line, etc., when she's needed. She never really wanted Seguin in the first place, and was glad to no longer be there, so it's not like she'd be trying to hold on to the reigns of power or subconciously undermine Jess or anything. That, and she conferred with Jess a lot even when she was GM, so it's not like the employees would be confused with them both being in the store or anything.
To complicate matters, Eileen won't let Ambra come work in San Marcos, 'cause "we're dating" - which we're not. There's nothing between us, there never has been, and I highly doubt there ever will be. I mean, if I hadn't said anything *way* back when, this never would have come up in the first place. Admittedly, I feel kind of bad about it now. I mean, like half the company thinks we're dating, including most of the upper echelons of power. I'm sure us moving in together didn't do much to help quell those rumors. I personally don't care what people think about me, what they say about me, but it does bother me when that spills over to someone I care about. From our conversations, I gather that it doesn't really bother her either, but it still irks at me. I mean, if I wanted, I could go off the deep end and say that it's Chelsea all over again.
Luckily, I'm past that.
I hope.
Jojo -- Leave
Anyway.
So yeah, I'm basically moved into the new place. It's pretty cool so far. Got the couch set up, got the TV hooked up with cable and the PS2. It's nice having composite input, instead of having to depend on RF adapaters. I even picked up an input box, so I won't have to depend on them anymore. I can hook up the N64 as well, whenever I have an urge to play Blast Corps or Ogre Battle 64. I still plan on hooking up my old box and having a media server, but I have to buy a hard drive to do that, and probably the center of a stereo system, so I'll be waiting a bit on that.
So yeah, the move. Came down to the last minute, as usual. Had those five days off in a row, and didn't quite put to them as efficient use as I could have. But yeah, our move-out day was Saturday. Naturally, when I left for my 5-10 shift Saturday night, I wasn't done yet. Of course, to be fair, David wasn't either. He talked to the lady in the front office, and she said that as long as the keys were in the drop box when she checked it Sunday morning, it was fine. We were guessing around eight am, that was our goal. The plan was that I'd meet up with David at the apartment after work, we'd finish up.
Of course, it didn't happen.
I ended up having to close, which wouldn't have normally been a big deal, except I was already tired, and was planning on finishing up moving after work. David came by about twelve thirty, after calling me a record *three* times. So yeah, we talked about what we were going to do; he was going to finish most of the cleaning, get all of his stuff out, and leave his keys somewhere for me - either come back by the store and drop them off, or something. It got kind of busy at close - not terribly busy, but busy enough that I couldn't really do any preclosing. I helped the drivers get out of there, did money. I just had inventory left, but I just couldn't bring myself to get up and do it. Most frustrating. *Finally* got up and did it, got out of there at like five. Yeah, I know. Shut up. Came home to change and stuff. I actually dozed for like half an hour or so. However, I came to fairly soon, ran over to mom's, grabbed the vacuum cleaner, and got back to the Cedars. I was really, really tired and frustrated by that point, just wanted to be done with the whole damn thing.
Of course, at this point, I'd like to interject that yes, I know it was my fault that I was having to scramble at the last minute to get this stuff done, that I had more than enough time to have taken care of all this at a leisurely pace during my vacation, and that the fact that I squandered that time alloted to me was completely my fault, and that the negative experience I was going through at that point can be directly attributed to the aforementioned squandering. I know that, and do not shirk from responsibility for my actions, my decisions.
Moving on.
I got everything out, got the last cleaning up taken care of, got out of there. I locked the door for the last time at 7:52 (remember, our goal was 8 am), and dropped the key in the drop box at 7:59. Last minute? Oh yeah.
Drove back to Mom's to return the vacuum cleaner, she was actually up. I sat and talked with her for a little bit. It was embarrasing, but I actually broke down in tears in front of her - I was just so tired, frustrated, etc. She understood, though - "I guess I won't be seeing you this Sunday, huh?"
I love her.
So yeah, moved in at the new place. Kinda. The stuff from that last load is still out in the back of my truck. Well, most of it - I'm slowly moving it in, one piece at a time. The lamp came in; that's now in the living room. I donated the bust of Mozart to work, since I didn't want it anymore. It's sitting in the office right now. Most of my boxes aren't unpacked; I've been pulling out what I need, when I need it. I've got two and a half days off, though, starting Monday, and I hope to make some progress on those days. I'm fairly happy with my room - there's curtains in front of the window, so it stays fairly dark even in the middle of the day, which is nice. Overhead fan, also nice. There are a few things that are less than perfect, though. My desk is in my room, which is fine, but we ended up having to put it in the corner next to the bed, so my back is facing the door. I know it's silly, but I don't like having my back to the door. Also, Ambra's room is right next to mine, so I can't play music very loud when she's asleep (I learned that one the hard way). And, I keep hearing that out pool is absolutely terrible.
Overall, though, not too bad.
Let's see, what else...? Hmm. Oh yeah, work. Work's, well, interesting. I have one closing shift this week, which starts in about nine hours. I've been working late inside shifts, mainly with Gina closing, which hasn't been terribly fun. Tuesday night, I closed with Gina; I set the till and did a deposit before I left. She calls me after close, 'cause we were a hundred and fourteen dollars short. Her exact words: "Do you want to tell me where it is?" That's highly, highly offensive. Now, certainly, that amount of money short is something to be concerned about, I don't challenge that at all. But phrasing it like that sounds *very* much like an accusation. Unintentional, I hope, but still. It ended up being a mistake Jimmy made when he checked out a driver, coupled with Jenn entering in her deposit with two digits transposed.
We had an MIT rally on Thursday at Dave & Buster's in San Antonio. Total joke. I rode down with Joe; Sergio and Jenn also went from San Marcos. Jess sent Mel and Trevor. Good times. Let's see... we split up into four groups and did the 'Domino's Cheer', which I didn't participate in. Well, to observers, I did. We sat while Jenn talked to us about various topics - the OER form, the new MIT eval form, the hiring process, leading our shifts, etc. By "talked to us", I really mean "read powerpoint slides". Joe said on the way down there that he was going to walk out if that was the case, but he didn't. They served us some lunch, but I didn't eat any, since I had some Taco Cabana that morning. Stan said we could go play in the game room as long as we were back on time. Sergio and I both did - they had PIU 7th edition. I hate PIU - I have the hardest time telling the difference between jumps and runs, since there's no color differentiation to help you, only spacing, and I have a tendency to hold my head at odd angles which makes it hard to tell when things are aligned horizontally. But yeah, came back into the meeting room all sweaty, which was kinda funny. Walked up to the bar to get some water, and all the supervisors, Jenn, and Mike were all sitting there. Speaking of which, she (Eileen) started dancing a little during the break.
Horrifying.
We played Jeopardy at one point; I got one question right - name the five guiding principles, in order. There was also an auction. Top item was an Ipod Nano, which Jenn ended up winning; there were also five pairs of tickets to Fiesta Texas. Joe, Sergio, and I won one. Not a pair each, but one pair between the three of us. Still don't know how that one's going to work out. But yeah. Murph came up and talked a little bit at the end of the meeting. Nothing terribly impressive there.
Overall... blech.
We also had a mandatory meeting - I don't quite remember what day it was, though I'm pretty sure I closed that night - at like nine. We didn't know what it was about initially, though there was a rumor going on that they had found something objectionable on the cameras. That later turned out to be false. Everyone was there for once, which suprised me. Gina brought kolaches from Shipley's, and orange juice, so it wasn't a total loss. She addressed a few store-wide conerns while we waited on Eileen (who had called Gina to tell her to hold the meeting, and was leading it), who ran about five minutes late. She then dropped one word about what the meeting was going to be about - 'Myspace'.
I couldn't help but break out into laughter. Gina asked me to make sure I didn't do that in front of Eileen. I said I'd do what I could.
So Eileen got up and started talking. Overall, she was very vague, didn't really say anything specific. She talked about employees writing derogatory things about the company, their job, and customers on personal electronic things. She never said 'myspace' directly, but I'm fairly certain that's what she was talking about. She told Ambra that she had seen her myspaec profile (Not at the meeting. I'm just throwing things in randomly, 'cause I do that). She reminded us that that was strictly against company policy, made us re-sign the electronic use agreement form, and tried to feed us some TOTAL BULLSHIT about it being for our protection - that if some customer recognized themselves, they might get angry with a gun or sue us for slander or something. At this point, Emily raised her hand, and said something along the lines of "I really don't want to be a smartass, but it's only slander if it's spoken; it's libel if it's written, and it has to be untrue." Which is true - it has to be untrue, the person saying/writing it has to know it's untrue, and they have to have some sort of malicious intent. I didn't bother arguing that with Eileen, though. She also said at one point, "If you dislike your job that much, the door's right there."
As far as Joe and I can figure, someone at the office was browsing Myspace and came across an employee's page, which set off this whole thing. And, as usual, older people are rushing into things without trying to understand what they're dealing with. It's similiar to the MPAA and RIAA dealing with p2p networking and bittorrent - for the most part, they have no idea what they're dealing with, are trying normal tactics, and it isn't working.
IT'S CALLED VENTING, YOU IGNORANT JACKASSES!
I mean, I'll concede that an employee that isn't happy at their job isn't really a great employee. Well, it's not an optimal situation. But if that employee shows up every day, works diligently, and doesn't have any problems at work, does it matter if they go home and vent on their personal space? Okay, yeah, that can be a warning sign that they might quit one day or otherwise express their disgruntledness, but when you're dealing with every store in the company being understaffed, can you afford to wait and *only* have completely optimal situations?
So anyway.
Ambra finally stepped down as GM of Seguin. That's not too suprising. What's suprising is that it took her this long to do so. I was worried about her for a long time, when she'd break down in tears in frustration over the situation. She seems happier now though, which is important.
Well, she would, if the company would stop fucking her over. It's really, really frustrating to watch, since I can't really say anything about it. They won't let her work in Seguin anymore, since they don't like former GMs working in their old stores. In general, it's a fairly understandable rule - avoiding things like power struggles and awkwardness in general. Eileen herself proved the validity of this rule when she bitched to Gina about everything they had done to 'her' store after she left. So yeah, I can kind of understand the rule. But in this situation, I think an exception would be warranted. Jess (who took over Seguin, even though she just wants to come back to San Marcos) needs another driver, Ambra's willing to drive, knows the town well, and can swing to cover shifts, line, etc., when she's needed. She never really wanted Seguin in the first place, and was glad to no longer be there, so it's not like she'd be trying to hold on to the reigns of power or subconciously undermine Jess or anything. That, and she conferred with Jess a lot even when she was GM, so it's not like the employees would be confused with them both being in the store or anything.
To complicate matters, Eileen won't let Ambra come work in San Marcos, 'cause "we're dating" - which we're not. There's nothing between us, there never has been, and I highly doubt there ever will be. I mean, if I hadn't said anything *way* back when, this never would have come up in the first place. Admittedly, I feel kind of bad about it now. I mean, like half the company thinks we're dating, including most of the upper echelons of power. I'm sure us moving in together didn't do much to help quell those rumors. I personally don't care what people think about me, what they say about me, but it does bother me when that spills over to someone I care about. From our conversations, I gather that it doesn't really bother her either, but it still irks at me. I mean, if I wanted, I could go off the deep end and say that it's Chelsea all over again.
Luckily, I'm past that.
I hope.
Jojo -- Leave
2006-03-18
Every time I see you, I try to hide away
So I was feeling really crappy, and Jess said she'd stay and close for me. That sweetheart. She's also going to Seguin instead of me. I didn't really want to; the only reason that I was willing to without putting up any sort of fuss was that it was to help out Ambra. It's much more convenient for Jess, though, since she lives right there and won't have to drive half an hour to work anymore. From what I hear, she's going to be there for two months, and then there'll re-evaluate the situation. Gina was saying something like if things don't get better by that time, she'll go out there with Jess, and Ambra and I will run San Marcos in the interem. That kind of scares me, but I don't think it'll happen. Had some new drivers come on board, they're doing okay so far, which is good, because I'm about to smack Wes. We're about to get mandatory random drug testing, which will probably cost us a few people. Most of the people I know we'll lose, I'm not sorry to see go one bit, but I don't know the full extent that we'll face. Supposedly, we're getting a 16" pizza here shortly, which is going to suck hardcore. Really, really hardcore. Have (had) 6 closing shifts this week, Tue - Sun (well, except for tonight, since Jess closed for me). Probably have about the same next week, because although we're getting Joe and Jenn back, we're losing Jess for a while. So things are going to be interesting. I'll be eligible for a week of paid vacation here in about three months, which will be cool - an entire week off, and pay for 40 hour that week. There's a chance I might end up spending it with Carrie, which would rock hardcore. There are a few other things I might end up doing during that week, but Carrie remains my number one choice.
So yeah, that's work. Let's see, what else...? Well, WoW's going okay. Up to rank 7 on Gnometastic, making a strong push for rank 8 this week. That'll get me the PvP Tier 1 robes and legs, and replace the last two auction house greens I have (Update: Just got the Dreadmist Leggings on a Baron run, bringing me up to 6/8 Dreadmist (2 of which I actually wear, until Tuesday, when I drop the leggings in favor of the PvP ones)). I'm debating whether or not I'm going to make a serious effort to get rank 10 and complete the Tier 1 set. I'd really like to - the helmet would be a definite upgrade, though I'd do better with the Crown of the Ogre King. The shoulders would be a good upgrade too... but mainly, I think both pieces look frickin' AWESOME. The whole set does, really, though slightly less than the mage set, which I think looks EVEN MORE AWESOME. There's no chance of me getting the PvP Tier 2 set, and I don't care about the epic mount, since I just have to do DM West with another lock that has the mats to get my epic mount, so after 8 or 10, I'll just be grinding rep with the BGs for gear. I'd like to hit Exalted with WSG for their Tabard, but nothing else - seriously, their rewards suck. I wouldn't be surprised to see Blizzard revamp their rewards a little soon. The Ironbark Staff, at Exalted with Arathi Basin, is definitely my most attainable staff upgrade, since I'm not likely to get a MC or BWL staff until the expansion. Speaking of which, went back to MC with Grief tonight on the freak 'having-Friday-night-off thing', which was nice. Didn't get anything (naturally), but if I'm able to attend a few raids, I think the chance of me getting stuff is decent. By stuff, I mean pieces of Felheart. Ihatebrooms is coming along nicely, 46 now. She's still shadow, but I'll be going disc/holy after 1.10 hits. I haven't touched Ereneda in a while now, since the renewed interest in Gnometastic and her starting to advance again. She's basically just a farming character - skinning, herbalism, and AoE'ing (which I absolutely *love*, btw).
After those two categories... not sure what else there is, really. And yeah, that's really sad. Our lease is up May 31st, at which point we'll be parting ways. David wants to live on his own, which is cool, and not very surprising. It might eliminate the joy that is playing WoW with someone right next to you, but we don't get to do that very often anyway, what with our current schedules and what-not. I'll be moving in with Ambra during that one month period between her roommate moving out (early May) and my lease ending (end of May). We'll another two-ish months 'til her lease is up to see if we can stand living together, and if we can, then we'll find a place. I think it'll be okay. I'm not terribly worried about anything developing between us, which would make things kind of awkward anyway, but yeah. I'm looking foward to living much closer to campus and being able to go play DDR every day, which will be really cool, even if it's during the summer.
Haven't seen any movies recently, so I can't really comment on that. We were going to see Ultraviolet, but Ambra was completely exhausted and fell asleep fairly soon after getting here. (Remarked David, "Did she come over here just to crash on our couch?")
So, what else, what else? Hmm... still ardently single. Ardently? That's not the right word. Stringently? Nope. Hopelessly? Eh... not quite right. Unflinchingly? Now I'm just being silly. Something along these lines, though. I don't think I'm co-dependant or anything - I certainly don't feel I *have* to be in a relationship, that I *have* to have someone with me to be complete.
It'd be nice, though.
Mysterio -- Fading Like a Flower
So yeah, that's work. Let's see, what else...? Well, WoW's going okay. Up to rank 7 on Gnometastic, making a strong push for rank 8 this week. That'll get me the PvP Tier 1 robes and legs, and replace the last two auction house greens I have (Update: Just got the Dreadmist Leggings on a Baron run, bringing me up to 6/8 Dreadmist (2 of which I actually wear, until Tuesday, when I drop the leggings in favor of the PvP ones)). I'm debating whether or not I'm going to make a serious effort to get rank 10 and complete the Tier 1 set. I'd really like to - the helmet would be a definite upgrade, though I'd do better with the Crown of the Ogre King. The shoulders would be a good upgrade too... but mainly, I think both pieces look frickin' AWESOME. The whole set does, really, though slightly less than the mage set, which I think looks EVEN MORE AWESOME. There's no chance of me getting the PvP Tier 2 set, and I don't care about the epic mount, since I just have to do DM West with another lock that has the mats to get my epic mount, so after 8 or 10, I'll just be grinding rep with the BGs for gear. I'd like to hit Exalted with WSG for their Tabard, but nothing else - seriously, their rewards suck. I wouldn't be surprised to see Blizzard revamp their rewards a little soon. The Ironbark Staff, at Exalted with Arathi Basin, is definitely my most attainable staff upgrade, since I'm not likely to get a MC or BWL staff until the expansion. Speaking of which, went back to MC with Grief tonight on the freak 'having-Friday-night-off thing', which was nice. Didn't get anything (naturally), but if I'm able to attend a few raids, I think the chance of me getting stuff is decent. By stuff, I mean pieces of Felheart. Ihatebrooms is coming along nicely, 46 now. She's still shadow, but I'll be going disc/holy after 1.10 hits. I haven't touched Ereneda in a while now, since the renewed interest in Gnometastic and her starting to advance again. She's basically just a farming character - skinning, herbalism, and AoE'ing (which I absolutely *love*, btw).
After those two categories... not sure what else there is, really. And yeah, that's really sad. Our lease is up May 31st, at which point we'll be parting ways. David wants to live on his own, which is cool, and not very surprising. It might eliminate the joy that is playing WoW with someone right next to you, but we don't get to do that very often anyway, what with our current schedules and what-not. I'll be moving in with Ambra during that one month period between her roommate moving out (early May) and my lease ending (end of May). We'll another two-ish months 'til her lease is up to see if we can stand living together, and if we can, then we'll find a place. I think it'll be okay. I'm not terribly worried about anything developing between us, which would make things kind of awkward anyway, but yeah. I'm looking foward to living much closer to campus and being able to go play DDR every day, which will be really cool, even if it's during the summer.
Haven't seen any movies recently, so I can't really comment on that. We were going to see Ultraviolet, but Ambra was completely exhausted and fell asleep fairly soon after getting here. (Remarked David, "Did she come over here just to crash on our couch?")
So, what else, what else? Hmm... still ardently single. Ardently? That's not the right word. Stringently? Nope. Hopelessly? Eh... not quite right. Unflinchingly? Now I'm just being silly. Something along these lines, though. I don't think I'm co-dependant or anything - I certainly don't feel I *have* to be in a relationship, that I *have* to have someone with me to be complete.
It'd be nice, though.
Mysterio -- Fading Like a Flower
2005-12-14
Hear that voice, it's the calm of your heart
This post is going to be sporadic and jumpy. Deal with it.
So I finally got to see my store. It's very much still under construction. When I was there, they were putting in the lights in the cieling, working on the walkin, all kinds of stuff. There were maybe 20 or so people working. I ended up just cleaning up the makeline (It's just like the one at Diana's store, blegh!!) and the oven (which is at a 45-ish degree angle to the cut table - double blegh!!). Eileen rode around in my truck a little, which was, well, fun. Not really. I ended up not being able to go to the work party, which Murph was quite adamant that I had to go to.
Oh yeah, Chelsea's in the shop right now. Transmission problems, which should be fun. So I'll be taking Mom's car to San Antonio tomorrow, which I'm not sure about. I guess I'll just show up about 9 or so, see what's going on.
So yeah, things are getting off to a great start.
Tried to download and run the D&D: Stormreach Online beta stress test, got a horrendous framerate - downright unplayable. Didn't help that David's ran flawlessly. So I can't really comment on the game just yet. Got my video card and processor overclocked now, though I'm waiting on an update of the Rage 3D utility for the 5.12 catalyst drivers. It's kind of annoying - I can pull 60+ fps in WoW, even with Windows Media Player playing a full length movie in the background. Update: Just hit 99 fps. Yeah.
So anyway. Talked to Ambra a little today. Kinda. I don't really remember what was said - I was half asleep the whole time. So for all those people asking me what's going on with that, yeah, I don't know. Probably nothing. Which accurately describes both my current social life and any prospects.
So I'm in kind of a holding pattern right now. I can't really start looking for a place in San Antonio until I find a new roommate for David. I really don't want to, I'll admit - we seem to get along so very well. It'll be a shame to lose that. But, ah, well. And I probably won't be able to find anyone until the students start coming back in January. That, and he's going to be gone for a few weeks, which makes things hard. Then I have to find a roommate and/or a place in San Antonio, preferably near the store. Once I take that step, it gets a lot harder to undo things. It'd still be really cool if Carrie moved down here and we got a place. Kind of random, but really cool.
So, yeah. Blegh. Can I get a reset button? That'd be nice.
No idea -- I wish I knew
So I finally got to see my store. It's very much still under construction. When I was there, they were putting in the lights in the cieling, working on the walkin, all kinds of stuff. There were maybe 20 or so people working. I ended up just cleaning up the makeline (It's just like the one at Diana's store, blegh!!) and the oven (which is at a 45-ish degree angle to the cut table - double blegh!!). Eileen rode around in my truck a little, which was, well, fun. Not really. I ended up not being able to go to the work party, which Murph was quite adamant that I had to go to.
Oh yeah, Chelsea's in the shop right now. Transmission problems, which should be fun. So I'll be taking Mom's car to San Antonio tomorrow, which I'm not sure about. I guess I'll just show up about 9 or so, see what's going on.
So yeah, things are getting off to a great start.
Tried to download and run the D&D: Stormreach Online beta stress test, got a horrendous framerate - downright unplayable. Didn't help that David's ran flawlessly. So I can't really comment on the game just yet. Got my video card and processor overclocked now, though I'm waiting on an update of the Rage 3D utility for the 5.12 catalyst drivers. It's kind of annoying - I can pull 60+ fps in WoW, even with Windows Media Player playing a full length movie in the background. Update: Just hit 99 fps. Yeah.
So anyway. Talked to Ambra a little today. Kinda. I don't really remember what was said - I was half asleep the whole time. So for all those people asking me what's going on with that, yeah, I don't know. Probably nothing. Which accurately describes both my current social life and any prospects.
So I'm in kind of a holding pattern right now. I can't really start looking for a place in San Antonio until I find a new roommate for David. I really don't want to, I'll admit - we seem to get along so very well. It'll be a shame to lose that. But, ah, well. And I probably won't be able to find anyone until the students start coming back in January. That, and he's going to be gone for a few weeks, which makes things hard. Then I have to find a roommate and/or a place in San Antonio, preferably near the store. Once I take that step, it gets a lot harder to undo things. It'd still be really cool if Carrie moved down here and we got a place. Kind of random, but really cool.
So, yeah. Blegh. Can I get a reset button? That'd be nice.
No idea -- I wish I knew
2005-12-12
Please hold me, don't walk away
So I'm officially a general manager today. Go me, I guess. It's funny - I don't really know *anything* right now, and I'm going to be going in fairly blind Tuesday. I'm much more worried about the housing situation than the work situation. I really need to find David a new roommate to finish out my lease, and one that he gets along with really well. Then, I have to find a roommate in San Antonio, or figure out if I want to get my own place. Which would be interesting, to say the least. Carrie jokingly told me she'd move down here with me, which would be awesome! I'm having trouble focusing on anything right now, so I'm going to cut it short here.
Oh, got a myspace thingy: ajackalope. Let there be much rejoicing.
Kate Ryan -- Head Down
Oh, got a myspace thingy: ajackalope. Let there be much rejoicing.
Kate Ryan -- Head Down
2005-05-12
Rock, you rock!
Troy rocks.
Seriously.
I'm a sucker for huge, historical war-type epics. Huge ensemble casts, beautiful costumes, tremendous sets, battles... love 'em. I mean, not unconditionally - Alexander was atrocious, no redeeming factors. In terms of movies, it's down there with The Hulk. Troy, on the other hand, was fantastic. I don't have an opinion either way on Brad Pitt; I tend to evaluate him in each role he plays; but I've not seen many of his movies.
Oh, moving in on Monday. That's exciting. Been packing like crazy, got about four boxes of stuff ready to go. It's just so overwhelming. Started going through one of two massive boxes in the garage; one of them held a cache of pictures - a *massive* stack. Going through them was quite an adventure. Even found a few pictures of Mindy - thought I had gotten rid of them all.
Seriously.
I'm a sucker for huge, historical war-type epics. Huge ensemble casts, beautiful costumes, tremendous sets, battles... love 'em. I mean, not unconditionally - Alexander was atrocious, no redeeming factors. In terms of movies, it's down there with The Hulk. Troy, on the other hand, was fantastic. I don't have an opinion either way on Brad Pitt; I tend to evaluate him in each role he plays; but I've not seen many of his movies.
Oh, moving in on Monday. That's exciting. Been packing like crazy, got about four boxes of stuff ready to go. It's just so overwhelming. Started going through one of two massive boxes in the garage; one of them held a cache of pictures - a *massive* stack. Going through them was quite an adventure. Even found a few pictures of Mindy - thought I had gotten rid of them all.
2005-04-19
It took three whole hours, and five long days
Lots of stuff going on right now. Definitely gonna move out, as soon as David is ready. Might be sooner than initially expected, which is good. Lilie came back from Houston with a huge headache, I took her some aspirin at like 1 in the morning after work, and was invited to crash there, but I couldn't because of stupid Dave and the crew he gave me Sunday night. Argh.
Lego Star Wars: The Video Game is ridiculously awesome, and the entire design team deserves, at the very least, copius amounts of oral sex.
Janelle's also going to be moving out, probably a month or two after I do. I'm not sure how Mom's going to handle it. I think she'll talk to Gip a lot. Or call us all the time. Or both. She's also throwing a 'Moving-out Party' for me, which is... odd. It'll be bearable, though, 'cause both Jarrod and Lilie are coming. Terri's going to be down for a few days in June, going to a cousin's wedding in San Antonio. Sounds like she'll probably stay a few days in town as well. That'll be cool, get to see her again. Ooh, just realized I'll probably have moved out by then. Interesting.
Dave might be leaving the store, which would mean Javi would become GM, and I'm pretty sure I'd become first assistant. That'd be cool, if it wasn't so sad.
Kind of a sporadic update. One of these days, I'll get a massive update together.
Possibly.
Lego Star Wars: The Video Game is ridiculously awesome, and the entire design team deserves, at the very least, copius amounts of oral sex.
Janelle's also going to be moving out, probably a month or two after I do. I'm not sure how Mom's going to handle it. I think she'll talk to Gip a lot. Or call us all the time. Or both. She's also throwing a 'Moving-out Party' for me, which is... odd. It'll be bearable, though, 'cause both Jarrod and Lilie are coming. Terri's going to be down for a few days in June, going to a cousin's wedding in San Antonio. Sounds like she'll probably stay a few days in town as well. That'll be cool, get to see her again. Ooh, just realized I'll probably have moved out by then. Interesting.
Dave might be leaving the store, which would mean Javi would become GM, and I'm pretty sure I'd become first assistant. That'd be cool, if it wasn't so sad.
Kind of a sporadic update. One of these days, I'll get a massive update together.
Possibly.
2005-02-05
Still working on saying goodbye to you
So I tried googlin' this one, but didn't get anything:
"You make me feel like a dog standing on a toolbox in the back of a pickup truck doing 90 round a corner just tryin' to hang on for dear life..."
However,
"So baby run
Cut a path across the blue sky
Straight in a straight line, you can't get here fast enough
Find a truck and fire it up
Lean on the gas and off the clutch
Leave Texas in the dust
I need you in a rush
So baby run..."
came up as "Run" by George Strait. Well, except that it says "Dallas" instead of "Texas". I can't help but believe that these are about Scott (we'll learn about him later). Anyway.
I don't know how much of this I'll be able to go through, since I have to leave for work in twenty minutes, but we'll see. I just feel like getting it all out now.
So, that was the backstory. A couple weeks ago, Lilie said that she was taking a vacation. She didn't want anyone to know where she was going, but she did this fairly religiously twice a year or so, to get away from the world. I accepted it at the time, didn't really say anything about it. I mean, the thought crossed my mind that there was something else involved, but I dismissed it - generally, when thoughts like that come up, they're just me being insecure, so I don't lend them any credence. The only real force allowing me to do that, though, is trust in the other person. More on that later.
So, last week. I think it was... Monday night? Somehow, Lilie and I ended up talking about us - probably my fault. I think I was asking her about her kissing me or something; I don't really remember, and it's not terribly germane. She said something about just having issues right now, and used the phrase "commitment/relationship/monogamy". Now, the first two, I could understand, but the third one really threw me for a loop. I replied with something along the lines of 'And here I was going to make a joke about how I was so afraid you were leaving this weekend to go see some guy, 'cause I'm really afraid that you are.' I was giving her every chance to deny it. I mean, if she wasn't, there really wasn't any reason not to. She didn't. She said, "I really wish I knew what to say to that." (Maybe "respond"? Not sure.) Now, reading that, I concluded that was, in fact, almost an admittance that she was going to see some guy. I was crushed. I thought things were over between us at that point, and was prepared to tell her as much Tuesday night.
Tuesday night, I went over there. I was joining her RP guild on Feathermoon, but couldn't access the website from my computer for whatever reason - that reason being Grande, my ISP, sucks. Anyhoo, for most of it, I acted like nothing was wrong. In fact, we even kissed a few times, kinda like the old days. Except - I was kissing her goodbye. I wanted to be something special to someone, which I didn't think I was anymore. So, eventually, I started crying, and she was a little worried, and finally got me to start talking. I explained what was going on, and my reaction to that, and how how I felt. We ended up having a really long, heartfelt (at least I thought at the time), sincere (again, I guess that was just on my side) conversation. What it boils down to is a few differences between us. I'm very open - when I like someone, I don't hold back; when I trust people, I do so without any reservation. I don't mind sharing just about any detail of my life, and feel that knowledge is always better than ignorance. She, on the other hand, is "bitter and cynical; a selfish bitch" or something along those lines. She told me that she wasn't used to explaining herself or justifying herself to anyone, as she hadn't had to in over six years, whereas I was probably more used to it, since I still live with my mom.
I don't really remember how long we talked for... half an hour? Forty five minutes? We did end up on the dining room floor, lying there and talking. I know I cried somewhat; I don't remember if her eyes misted up or anything. I told her that I wanted to be special - and I'll explain what I mean by that later - and she told me that I was. She'd always smile when she saw a DDR machine, 'cause it reminded her of me. (Yay.) She talked about how she wasn't sure if we could ever really just be friends, and was worried about how I'd handle her dating other guys. I explained that I know I'm young compared to her (in terms of life experience) and naive and idealistic, but I'm not stupid. I *know* she'll date other guys. I can deal with that. I just can't deal with this behind-the-back type stuff about it. She told me that she wasn't going to see some other guy ("Do I really come off as that much of a slut?") and that she didn't deny it then 'cause she just wasn't used to explaining herself.
So I felt way better after this conversation, and left, feeling like an ass for making such an out-there assumption, and taking this action based on it.
This will, of course, blow up in my face in two days. But you already knew that.
Wait... I went over there on Wednesday, I think. 'Cause we were going to hang out the next day - Thursday - except she had to go to work early.
I'm confused on what happened on which day. But the order is right, and that's really all that counts, I s'pose.
Friday morning.
So the morning that she was going to leave, I burned her four CDs for the trip - two dance compilations, a dance megeamix, and a Jewel compilation. I also made copies of the first two for myself. Went over there 'bout 6:30 am, but she had already left. Darn, I figured I'd give them to her when I got back.
Friday night.
So, Rose's lease expired on Monday, and I was going to help her move out over the weekend. Except, I worked 5 - C Saturday and Sunday, so we were going to do it in the mornings. Rose was asking if I wanted to come up there and crash that night, then wake up early and start, but I figured I'd just wake up early and drive up there in the morning. There was also a Sonic party going on, but I didn't really want to go.
Kristin calls, and I talk to Bruce, and apparently, Leslie is going to be there, so I decide to go a little later. So I'm lying at home, bored, when I pull up Lilie's old LiveJournal while going through my bookmarks. It has a new post (first time in over a year), which reads as follows:
"No, I don't update my journal.
I have another one.
But I'm not telling you what it is.
Muahahahahahahaha*cough, hack*hahaha!
Or something.
2004 sucked. Let's hope 2005 is better."
That flips my memory, and I remember her mentioning that she had started a blog, but didn't want anyone to read it. So I decided to look for it. Now, before you criticize me for that decision, keep in mind several key points:
Took me... three minutes, maybe. Probably not even that. My third guess was correct, and I found her blog. Now, I won't post the address or anything terribly private, but several key excerpts:
"Dating B technically, but S, who I've known since the dawn of time, is all acting interested again...it's kind of disturbing. We won't talk for six months or so, but when we do, we have such a connection. Only problem is that he lives in NY. So that's kinda not really feasible...but anyway."
Note the "six months". And she takes her vacation(?) twice a year or so? Probably just a random coincidence, but something to note anyway. That's dated Dec. 19th.
Jan. 01
"Split with B didn't help...I didn't mention that, did I? Right. So yeah, we broke up. I couldn't handle it. What the hell makes me think I can handle dating S instead? There's like...twenty-six states between here and Troy"
"But...I dunno what I'm gonna do about this thing with S...I'm goin to visit him end of the month, it's kinda scary."
I felt like something snapped inside of me when I read that post. Now, I know she's going to date and/or be with other guys - I can handle that. It's going to hurt, sure, but that's something you accept when you date someone. Or rather, you should, or you're just being childish. But the way she lied to me about it - trying to turn it into me accusing her of something - "Do I really come off as that big of a slut?" - like I should feel guilty for even considering the possibility? I mean, we had this big conversation about it, and she was lying to me about it even then. It wouldn't be such a big deal, if she didn't claim to like me, that I was special to her. I'm so insecure, and when something like this - the vacation, I mean - comes up, the *only* thing I have is my trust in them. That's it. And she broke it completely. She was trying to tell me how she'd rather not know, but she was using some weird example of some ex-boyfriend who started dating someone else. That's a... little different, and I think she knows it. For example, when I made the post about being all sad about missing the chance to make a real commitment, (the post about WoW), she called me that night and wanted to know what I was talking about. I didn't want to tell her, to surprise her, but she got really upset when I wouldn't - "Left to my own devices, I get all paranoid about things like this, like it should be something that's going to upset me, or make me sad, or jealous...". Right. Double standard?
Looks like I have to go to work now - I'll finish up that weekend when I get back.
"You make me feel like a dog standing on a toolbox in the back of a pickup truck doing 90 round a corner just tryin' to hang on for dear life..."
However,
"So baby run
Cut a path across the blue sky
Straight in a straight line, you can't get here fast enough
Find a truck and fire it up
Lean on the gas and off the clutch
Leave Texas in the dust
I need you in a rush
So baby run..."
came up as "Run" by George Strait. Well, except that it says "Dallas" instead of "Texas". I can't help but believe that these are about Scott (we'll learn about him later). Anyway.
I don't know how much of this I'll be able to go through, since I have to leave for work in twenty minutes, but we'll see. I just feel like getting it all out now.
So, that was the backstory. A couple weeks ago, Lilie said that she was taking a vacation. She didn't want anyone to know where she was going, but she did this fairly religiously twice a year or so, to get away from the world. I accepted it at the time, didn't really say anything about it. I mean, the thought crossed my mind that there was something else involved, but I dismissed it - generally, when thoughts like that come up, they're just me being insecure, so I don't lend them any credence. The only real force allowing me to do that, though, is trust in the other person. More on that later.
So, last week. I think it was... Monday night? Somehow, Lilie and I ended up talking about us - probably my fault. I think I was asking her about her kissing me or something; I don't really remember, and it's not terribly germane. She said something about just having issues right now, and used the phrase "commitment/relationship/monogamy". Now, the first two, I could understand, but the third one really threw me for a loop. I replied with something along the lines of 'And here I was going to make a joke about how I was so afraid you were leaving this weekend to go see some guy, 'cause I'm really afraid that you are.' I was giving her every chance to deny it. I mean, if she wasn't, there really wasn't any reason not to. She didn't. She said, "I really wish I knew what to say to that." (Maybe "respond"? Not sure.) Now, reading that, I concluded that was, in fact, almost an admittance that she was going to see some guy. I was crushed. I thought things were over between us at that point, and was prepared to tell her as much Tuesday night.
Tuesday night, I went over there. I was joining her RP guild on Feathermoon, but couldn't access the website from my computer for whatever reason - that reason being Grande, my ISP, sucks. Anyhoo, for most of it, I acted like nothing was wrong. In fact, we even kissed a few times, kinda like the old days. Except - I was kissing her goodbye. I wanted to be something special to someone, which I didn't think I was anymore. So, eventually, I started crying, and she was a little worried, and finally got me to start talking. I explained what was going on, and my reaction to that, and how how I felt. We ended up having a really long, heartfelt (at least I thought at the time), sincere (again, I guess that was just on my side) conversation. What it boils down to is a few differences between us. I'm very open - when I like someone, I don't hold back; when I trust people, I do so without any reservation. I don't mind sharing just about any detail of my life, and feel that knowledge is always better than ignorance. She, on the other hand, is "bitter and cynical; a selfish bitch" or something along those lines. She told me that she wasn't used to explaining herself or justifying herself to anyone, as she hadn't had to in over six years, whereas I was probably more used to it, since I still live with my mom.
I don't really remember how long we talked for... half an hour? Forty five minutes? We did end up on the dining room floor, lying there and talking. I know I cried somewhat; I don't remember if her eyes misted up or anything. I told her that I wanted to be special - and I'll explain what I mean by that later - and she told me that I was. She'd always smile when she saw a DDR machine, 'cause it reminded her of me. (Yay.) She talked about how she wasn't sure if we could ever really just be friends, and was worried about how I'd handle her dating other guys. I explained that I know I'm young compared to her (in terms of life experience) and naive and idealistic, but I'm not stupid. I *know* she'll date other guys. I can deal with that. I just can't deal with this behind-the-back type stuff about it. She told me that she wasn't going to see some other guy ("Do I really come off as that much of a slut?") and that she didn't deny it then 'cause she just wasn't used to explaining herself.
So I felt way better after this conversation, and left, feeling like an ass for making such an out-there assumption, and taking this action based on it.
This will, of course, blow up in my face in two days. But you already knew that.
Wait... I went over there on Wednesday, I think. 'Cause we were going to hang out the next day - Thursday - except she had to go to work early.
I'm confused on what happened on which day. But the order is right, and that's really all that counts, I s'pose.
Friday morning.
So the morning that she was going to leave, I burned her four CDs for the trip - two dance compilations, a dance megeamix, and a Jewel compilation. I also made copies of the first two for myself. Went over there 'bout 6:30 am, but she had already left. Darn, I figured I'd give them to her when I got back.
Friday night.
So, Rose's lease expired on Monday, and I was going to help her move out over the weekend. Except, I worked 5 - C Saturday and Sunday, so we were going to do it in the mornings. Rose was asking if I wanted to come up there and crash that night, then wake up early and start, but I figured I'd just wake up early and drive up there in the morning. There was also a Sonic party going on, but I didn't really want to go.
Kristin calls, and I talk to Bruce, and apparently, Leslie is going to be there, so I decide to go a little later. So I'm lying at home, bored, when I pull up Lilie's old LiveJournal while going through my bookmarks. It has a new post (first time in over a year), which reads as follows:
"No, I don't update my journal.
I have another one.
But I'm not telling you what it is.
Muahahahahahahaha*cough, hack*hahaha!
Or something.
2004 sucked. Let's hope 2005 is better."
That flips my memory, and I remember her mentioning that she had started a blog, but didn't want anyone to read it. So I decided to look for it. Now, before you criticize me for that decision, keep in mind several key points:
- If you don't want something read, DON'T post it online
- Even if you do, don't tell people about it
- And especially don't make a "Haha, I'm not going to tell you where it is" type post. That's a challenge, pure and simple.
Took me... three minutes, maybe. Probably not even that. My third guess was correct, and I found her blog. Now, I won't post the address or anything terribly private, but several key excerpts:
"Dating B technically, but S, who I've known since the dawn of time, is all acting interested again...it's kind of disturbing. We won't talk for six months or so, but when we do, we have such a connection. Only problem is that he lives in NY. So that's kinda not really feasible...but anyway."
Note the "six months". And she takes her vacation(?) twice a year or so? Probably just a random coincidence, but something to note anyway. That's dated Dec. 19th.
Jan. 01
"Split with B didn't help...I didn't mention that, did I? Right. So yeah, we broke up. I couldn't handle it. What the hell makes me think I can handle dating S instead? There's like...twenty-six states between here and Troy"
"But...I dunno what I'm gonna do about this thing with S...I'm goin to visit him end of the month, it's kinda scary."
I felt like something snapped inside of me when I read that post. Now, I know she's going to date and/or be with other guys - I can handle that. It's going to hurt, sure, but that's something you accept when you date someone. Or rather, you should, or you're just being childish. But the way she lied to me about it - trying to turn it into me accusing her of something - "Do I really come off as that big of a slut?" - like I should feel guilty for even considering the possibility? I mean, we had this big conversation about it, and she was lying to me about it even then. It wouldn't be such a big deal, if she didn't claim to like me, that I was special to her. I'm so insecure, and when something like this - the vacation, I mean - comes up, the *only* thing I have is my trust in them. That's it. And she broke it completely. She was trying to tell me how she'd rather not know, but she was using some weird example of some ex-boyfriend who started dating someone else. That's a... little different, and I think she knows it. For example, when I made the post about being all sad about missing the chance to make a real commitment, (the post about WoW), she called me that night and wanted to know what I was talking about. I didn't want to tell her, to surprise her, but she got really upset when I wouldn't - "Left to my own devices, I get all paranoid about things like this, like it should be something that's going to upset me, or make me sad, or jealous...". Right. Double standard?
Looks like I have to go to work now - I'll finish up that weekend when I get back.
2005-01-29
Save tonight, and fight the break of dawn
I knew it. I hate being right all the time, of being able to decipher things and understand how systems work. It's a gift at times, and something I wouldn't give up, because it's part of who I am, but that doesn't mean that it's always a good thing, nor does it always lead to favorable results.
Additionally, I'd like to reaffirm my belief in the power of knowledge. Knowledge is always better than ignorance.
Those things aside...
Went to a Sonic party last night, lots of old faces there (as you can see in the pictures) - Devon, Leslie, Marny, Leah, etc. I didn't stay very long, though - my SAD (I'm not entirely sure that's what I have, but the description fits, so I'm going to call it that, for lack of a better thing to say, and out of a desire to avoid having to repeat myself all the time) was kicking in really bad. That, and I really hate crying in front of people. I almost didn't even stay long enough to see Leslie, but Kristin managed to convince me to stay at least that long. After that, I really didn't want to be alone, so I headed up to Austin to crash with Rose. She told me that when my eyes are all bloodshot from crying, they're a really pretty shade of blue; sparkly, even. I was going to help her move in the morning anyway, so it worked out well. We got a load of stuff down here and unloaded into her room (requiring no fewer than 16 trips up her stairs on my part), and her storage unit taken care of, so I'll be heading back there tonight after work, and we'll move a load or two of stuff, which should finish getting her out of the apartment. She's not terribly happy about moving back in with her parents, but it won't be for *that* long, just while she gets her life back together.
It was nice seeing Katie again; haven't seen her for a couple of months. Turns out not only do we have the exact same phone, but we also use the exact same ringtone, and even the exact same background picture. Go us. It was... kinda weird.
Forgot about the work meeting this morning; they called while I was up in Austin. Talked to Adam briefly. Dave can kiss my ass.
So, things are... things, I guess. Not sure where to go from here.
Additionally, I'd like to reaffirm my belief in the power of knowledge. Knowledge is always better than ignorance.
Those things aside...
Went to a Sonic party last night, lots of old faces there (as you can see in the pictures) - Devon, Leslie, Marny, Leah, etc. I didn't stay very long, though - my SAD (I'm not entirely sure that's what I have, but the description fits, so I'm going to call it that, for lack of a better thing to say, and out of a desire to avoid having to repeat myself all the time) was kicking in really bad. That, and I really hate crying in front of people. I almost didn't even stay long enough to see Leslie, but Kristin managed to convince me to stay at least that long. After that, I really didn't want to be alone, so I headed up to Austin to crash with Rose. She told me that when my eyes are all bloodshot from crying, they're a really pretty shade of blue; sparkly, even. I was going to help her move in the morning anyway, so it worked out well. We got a load of stuff down here and unloaded into her room (requiring no fewer than 16 trips up her stairs on my part), and her storage unit taken care of, so I'll be heading back there tonight after work, and we'll move a load or two of stuff, which should finish getting her out of the apartment. She's not terribly happy about moving back in with her parents, but it won't be for *that* long, just while she gets her life back together.
It was nice seeing Katie again; haven't seen her for a couple of months. Turns out not only do we have the exact same phone, but we also use the exact same ringtone, and even the exact same background picture. Go us. It was... kinda weird.
Forgot about the work meeting this morning; they called while I was up in Austin. Talked to Adam briefly. Dave can kiss my ass.
So, things are... things, I guess. Not sure where to go from here.
2004-12-08
The Move
I'm on a roll today. Here are the (few) pictures from the move. This took place the day before Thanksgiving.
 |  |
| Here's Lilie, standing in front of her house. | My truck bed, all nice and clean and empty. Those leaves and crap had been in there for way too long, and I was glad to have an excuse to get them out of there. |
 |  |
| Stuff. | The computer. That's gotta go in the first load. |
 |  |
| I like that jacket/sweater/hoodie thing (whatever it is you kids call them these days) on her. She looks cute. | Stuff in the truck. |
2004-11-26
Alas, my love, you do me wrong to cast me off so discourteously
I need to break this habit of only posting once a week or so. The feeling of having to "catch up" is annoying.
So.
Friday went okay. Well, not really. We'll get to that. Lilie came over and we tried to decide what to do with the evening. Janelle mentioned that she was going to play in the orchestra that night for a production of Romeo & Juliet, so we decided to go watch it. Lilie has a fondness for high school drama, having been in it herself, and I have a fondness for her. So we went and watched it. It was... interesting. Sterling's little sister was Juliet, opposite Nathaniel Thurman, the guy from The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged. U g s bi usw U q a fiubf ri vew j yo qurg gwe k rwe rg r bufgr, It went okay. I guess. Lilie felt our drama department was sorely lacking, and I'm not inclined to argue that point. The musical, which is put on by the choir, should be a lot better. In fact, I think I'll be going to that - they're doing You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. I might even invite Lilie to watch it with me. We'll see.
So we came back here and chilled for a bit, then she had to go. That's when it happened.
U g sb;r ew kkt rgiyfgr viyr vew jubf yo qurg gwe ub qgukwm bs swduburwkt susb;r ok b ib siubf ur rg r bufgr, Ur hyar aier id x nw iyr qgukw qw qwew wnve xubf ub deibr id gwe x e, U arukk dwwk ew kkt v s viyr ur U susb;r si cwet fiis hiv id a tubf qg r ur q a U nw brm bs U jbiq agw q ab;r dikkiqubf nt ub bw e nvkubfa, U sus aier id oyag gwe v xj kurrkw qgwb agw q a arukk giksubf nw cwet xkiawm qguxg q a arwo ub rgw eufgr suewxruib, U riks gwe rg r U q a ruewsm rg r U xiyksb;r si ur btniew, U rgubj, U sib;r ew kkt ewnwnvwe qg r U a us, U sim rgiyfgm ewnwnvwe gwe ewaoibaw U sib;r q br rgubfa ri xg bfw, Qguxg awwnws jubs id dybbt ub o ubdyk q tm r rgw runw,
It was kind of weird, because the people across the street were packing up their car or something the whole time, and they eventually drove off. But anyway.
I was really miserable the next day - I had to work something like 12 - 5. Dave saw through my brilliant plan to get 50+ hours that week by having Adam come in for me 3 hours early on both Saturday and Sunday, which meant I got out at like 2, which was kinda cool. I just kinda hung around all day, then Lilie and I started talking on AIM that night.
U qib;r oiar rgw xibcwea ruib cwev runm vyr U qukk xicwe rgw gufg oiubra, U sus vwrrwe hiv id wzok ububf qgt U sus qg r U sus rg r ur dwkr rii nyxg kujw vwubf ub ewk ruibaguom rg r ur gyer ri vw ai xkiaw ri gwe bs twr birm rg r U diefir ainwrunwa rg r qw qwewb;r rifwrgwe, U kai agiqws gwe giq ri ew s rgw arydd qgwb ur;a qeurrwb kujw rgua tiy hyar agudr tiye g bsa ibw jwt ri rgw eufgr bs rtow qg r tiy aww, Ur;a g es ri wzok ubm vyr ur n jwa awbaw, U kai f cw gwe rgw h c oo rg r siwa ur yrin rux kktm ai agw x b ew s btrgubf U x b rtow kujw rgua, Biqm rgw ibkt ew aib ri xibrubyw siubf rgua ua vwx yaw id Agwkkwtm krgiyfg agw qib;r g cw ubrwebwr xxwaa die nibrg ie niewm ai U;n bir ayew, U;kk g cw ri aj Kukuw qg r agw rgubja,
btq t,
Ai qw r kjws few r sw k viyr iye aury ruib, U kw ebws kurrkw vur niewm vyr bir nyxgm viyr gwe bs Aw b, kk ub kkm ur q a cwet fiis xibcwea ruib, U sus aj gwem oiubr vk bjm viyr qg r qw agiyks si viyr iye aury ruib, Bir g bfubf iyr uab;r fiis usw l v xjubf idd ogtaux kkt ie awrrubf kunura Ij tm qw x b gyfm vyr x b;r juaa ie ainw ayxg rgubfa siwab;r qiej, Qw v aux kkt hyar swxusws ri fi qurg ur, U rgubj, U sus a tm r ibw oiubrm U;n bir fiubf ri oikifu w ud qw wbs yo n jubf iyr f ub, Agw ewokuws qurgm U bwcwe ajws tiy ri, U kai riks gwe viyr giq ruews U q a viyr ya wbsubf yo a s ie ub rw ea ie qg rwcwe qgwb qw sus kwr iyeawkcwa ubsykfw ub w xg irgwe, Rg r siwab;r awwn ri vw g oowbubf btniew wurgwe rgw duear o erm U nw b, U kai diybs rg r agw siwam ub d xrm kujw nw, U nw bm kujw nw kujw nw, Kujwm aier id giq U kujw gwe, U kq ta rgiyfgrm ie ayaowxrwsm vyr bwcwe jbwq, Ur;a kiq awkd warwwn rgubf, Tiy dubs ur cwet w at ri xibareyxr axwb euia ri wzok ub qgt owiokw sib;r kujw tiym vyr xr kujw rgwt si, Ur;a ainwrgubf U;s vwwb siubf qurg gwe die qgukw U rgiyfgr agw nufgr g cw kujws nwm vyr xiyksb;r wcwe xry kkt vwkuwcw ur,
U si biq,
Don't really remember much of Sunday, except that it started raining.
It kept raining Monday, and I used that an excuse to not go to my Probability test. I told him I was rained in, so I'll be taking it next Monday. I looked kind of funny - I was wearing my traditional black shorts and cotton single color t-shirt, listening to music on my gigantic headphones, in the pouring rain. I had to walk from the water tower parking lot to the music building. I ended up getting soaked. I don't mind, though - I love the rain. And my headphones didn't have any problems, either. As I was walking by Alkek, I saw a short girl wearing a spaghetti strap pink top that barely covered her breasts start running through the rain without an umbrella or any other substantial protection from the rain.
Opened Tuesday. I'm sure I did something else, but I don't recall what... Oh wait, I do. Lilie and I went and watched The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. The evening wasn't a total loss, though, as I did catch a major power nap during the movie. Before that, though, we ended up out at her house, so she could begin packing and on the off-chance that she was able to get the keys that evening and we could begin moving stuff in. I was supposed to get off at 2, but I had to stay late. They showed up, coincidentally, about 1:45 or so, and I told them to wait for me, 'cause I'd be getting off soon. They did, suprisingly enough. About 2:15, they left, which was suprising. Not that they left, but that they waited that long. Flattering, but suprising. Lilie did leave a note that they were going to sign the lease and what-not, so when I did get off, I joined them. From there, we went to her house. That whole narrative was a little backwards, but that's how I remembered it. Anyway, I finally saw her room, and met her mom, her step-father, and her son, Will. We played some with two little toys he had, both from The Incredibles.
Wednesday, I spent a good six hours or so helping Lilie move into her and Shelley's new apartment, on the south-bound access road north of Aquarena. We took one load from her house to the apartment, then went to the storage facility which was on RR12 just past my house, and took another load. After that, we took one final load, but without her car. We both kinda crashed for a bit after that, until Shelley, Shana, and Wayne showed up with Shelley's stuff. We got that up as well, then lay down for a while and watched The Princess Diaries. I had to leave before the end, though, to go to work.
There was a wasp or something on their window, and they both freaked out. I ended up having to kill it with a video cassette tape. It was... humorous.
Kukuw g a rgua gyfw xkiawrm bs qgwb qw qwew duear oyrrubf arydd ub urm agw ryebws bs juaaws nw, Rgwb agw riks nw rg r U fir rgw duear juaa ub rgw bwq o ernwbrm bs rg r Agwkkwt qiyks oeiv vkt fi ib rgubjubf rg r ur qiyks vw Xgeua, Ur kai x nw yo rg r qurg ya aowbsubf runw rifwrgwe ub rgw o ernwbrm bs bwurgwe id ya qukkubf ri fucw yo qg r qw g sm rg r Agwkkwt qiyks kw eb id ur r ibw runw ie birgwe,U rgubj U kai g cw b ubcur ruib ri xe ag rgwew ainwrunw, U n t hyar r jw rgwn yo ib rg r,
I was really tired, though. I had opened Tuesday, then taken that short nap during the movie. I actually went to sleep around 2 or so, but Luke called and we talked for a bit, then I went back to sleep. And Rose called - she was in major tears about some stuff going on with her roommate and their situation. I felt really bad, because I couldn't really offer any advice - this was completely beyond me and my experierence. I listened to her for over an hour or so, and she said that that did help. I finally went back to sleep, then Adam called at like 6:40 to ask me about opening the safe. He called again like an hour later to ask again. After that, I just stayed awake until 9:30 or so when Lilie and I got in communication about moving.
Thanksgiving was fun, but I'll get to that later - it's time for me to go to work.
So.
Friday went okay. Well, not really. We'll get to that. Lilie came over and we tried to decide what to do with the evening. Janelle mentioned that she was going to play in the orchestra that night for a production of Romeo & Juliet, so we decided to go watch it. Lilie has a fondness for high school drama, having been in it herself, and I have a fondness for her. So we went and watched it. It was... interesting. Sterling's little sister was Juliet, opposite Nathaniel Thurman, the guy from The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged. U g s bi usw U q a fiubf ri vew j yo qurg gwe k rwe rg r bufgr, It went okay. I guess. Lilie felt our drama department was sorely lacking, and I'm not inclined to argue that point. The musical, which is put on by the choir, should be a lot better. In fact, I think I'll be going to that - they're doing You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. I might even invite Lilie to watch it with me. We'll see.
So we came back here and chilled for a bit, then she had to go. That's when it happened.
U g sb;r ew kkt rgiyfgr viyr vew jubf yo qurg gwe ub qgukwm bs swduburwkt susb;r ok b ib siubf ur rg r bufgr, Ur hyar aier id x nw iyr qgukw qw qwew wnve xubf ub deibr id gwe x e, U arukk dwwk ew kkt v s viyr ur U susb;r si cwet fiis hiv id a tubf qg r ur q a U nw brm bs U jbiq agw q ab;r dikkiqubf nt ub bw e nvkubfa, U sus aier id oyag gwe v xj kurrkw qgwb agw q a arukk giksubf nw cwet xkiawm qguxg q a arwo ub rgw eufgr suewxruib, U riks gwe rg r U q a ruewsm rg r U xiyksb;r si ur btniew, U rgubj, U sib;r ew kkt ewnwnvwe qg r U a us, U sim rgiyfgm ewnwnvwe gwe ewaoibaw U sib;r q br rgubfa ri xg bfw, Qguxg awwnws jubs id dybbt ub o ubdyk q tm r rgw runw,
It was kind of weird, because the people across the street were packing up their car or something the whole time, and they eventually drove off. But anyway.
I was really miserable the next day - I had to work something like 12 - 5. Dave saw through my brilliant plan to get 50+ hours that week by having Adam come in for me 3 hours early on both Saturday and Sunday, which meant I got out at like 2, which was kinda cool. I just kinda hung around all day, then Lilie and I started talking on AIM that night.
U qib;r oiar rgw xibcwea ruib cwev runm vyr U qukk xicwe rgw gufg oiubra, U sus vwrrwe hiv id wzok ububf qgt U sus qg r U sus rg r ur dwkr rii nyxg kujw vwubf ub ewk ruibaguom rg r ur gyer ri vw ai xkiaw ri gwe bs twr birm rg r U diefir ainwrunwa rg r qw qwewb;r rifwrgwe, U kai agiqws gwe giq ri ew s rgw arydd qgwb ur;a qeurrwb kujw rgua tiy hyar agudr tiye g bsa ibw jwt ri rgw eufgr bs rtow qg r tiy aww, Ur;a g es ri wzok ubm vyr ur n jwa awbaw, U kai f cw gwe rgw h c oo rg r siwa ur yrin rux kktm ai agw x b ew s btrgubf U x b rtow kujw rgua, Biqm rgw ibkt ew aib ri xibrubyw siubf rgua ua vwx yaw id Agwkkwtm krgiyfg agw qib;r g cw ubrwebwr xxwaa die nibrg ie niewm ai U;n bir ayew, U;kk g cw ri aj Kukuw qg r agw rgubja,
btq t,
Ai qw r kjws few r sw k viyr iye aury ruib, U kw ebws kurrkw vur niewm vyr bir nyxgm viyr gwe bs Aw b, kk ub kkm ur q a cwet fiis xibcwea ruib, U sus aj gwem oiubr vk bjm viyr qg r qw agiyks si viyr iye aury ruib, Bir g bfubf iyr uab;r fiis usw l v xjubf idd ogtaux kkt ie awrrubf kunura Ij tm qw x b gyfm vyr x b;r juaa ie ainw ayxg rgubfa siwab;r qiej, Qw v aux kkt hyar swxusws ri fi qurg ur, U rgubj, U sus a tm r ibw oiubrm U;n bir fiubf ri oikifu w ud qw wbs yo n jubf iyr f ub, Agw ewokuws qurgm U bwcwe ajws tiy ri, U kai riks gwe viyr giq ruews U q a viyr ya wbsubf yo a s ie ub rw ea ie qg rwcwe qgwb qw sus kwr iyeawkcwa ubsykfw ub w xg irgwe, Rg r siwab;r awwn ri vw g oowbubf btniew wurgwe rgw duear o erm U nw b, U kai diybs rg r agw siwam ub d xrm kujw nw, U nw bm kujw nw kujw nw, Kujwm aier id giq U kujw gwe, U kq ta rgiyfgrm ie ayaowxrwsm vyr bwcwe jbwq, Ur;a kiq awkd warwwn rgubf, Tiy dubs ur cwet w at ri xibareyxr axwb euia ri wzok ub qgt owiokw sib;r kujw tiym vyr xr kujw rgwt si, Ur;a ainwrgubf U;s vwwb siubf qurg gwe die qgukw U rgiyfgr agw nufgr g cw kujws nwm vyr xiyksb;r wcwe xry kkt vwkuwcw ur,
U si biq,
Don't really remember much of Sunday, except that it started raining.
It kept raining Monday, and I used that an excuse to not go to my Probability test. I told him I was rained in, so I'll be taking it next Monday. I looked kind of funny - I was wearing my traditional black shorts and cotton single color t-shirt, listening to music on my gigantic headphones, in the pouring rain. I had to walk from the water tower parking lot to the music building. I ended up getting soaked. I don't mind, though - I love the rain. And my headphones didn't have any problems, either. As I was walking by Alkek, I saw a short girl wearing a spaghetti strap pink top that barely covered her breasts start running through the rain without an umbrella or any other substantial protection from the rain.
Opened Tuesday. I'm sure I did something else, but I don't recall what... Oh wait, I do. Lilie and I went and watched The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. The evening wasn't a total loss, though, as I did catch a major power nap during the movie. Before that, though, we ended up out at her house, so she could begin packing and on the off-chance that she was able to get the keys that evening and we could begin moving stuff in. I was supposed to get off at 2, but I had to stay late. They showed up, coincidentally, about 1:45 or so, and I told them to wait for me, 'cause I'd be getting off soon. They did, suprisingly enough. About 2:15, they left, which was suprising. Not that they left, but that they waited that long. Flattering, but suprising. Lilie did leave a note that they were going to sign the lease and what-not, so when I did get off, I joined them. From there, we went to her house. That whole narrative was a little backwards, but that's how I remembered it. Anyway, I finally saw her room, and met her mom, her step-father, and her son, Will. We played some with two little toys he had, both from The Incredibles.
Wednesday, I spent a good six hours or so helping Lilie move into her and Shelley's new apartment, on the south-bound access road north of Aquarena. We took one load from her house to the apartment, then went to the storage facility which was on RR12 just past my house, and took another load. After that, we took one final load, but without her car. We both kinda crashed for a bit after that, until Shelley, Shana, and Wayne showed up with Shelley's stuff. We got that up as well, then lay down for a while and watched The Princess Diaries. I had to leave before the end, though, to go to work.
There was a wasp or something on their window, and they both freaked out. I ended up having to kill it with a video cassette tape. It was... humorous.
Kukuw g a rgua gyfw xkiawrm bs qgwb qw qwew duear oyrrubf arydd ub urm agw ryebws bs juaaws nw, Rgwb agw riks nw rg r U fir rgw duear juaa ub rgw bwq o ernwbrm bs rg r Agwkkwt qiyks oeiv vkt fi ib rgubjubf rg r ur qiyks vw Xgeua, Ur kai x nw yo rg r qurg ya aowbsubf runw rifwrgwe ub rgw o ernwbrm bs bwurgwe id ya qukkubf ri fucw yo qg r qw g sm rg r Agwkkwt qiyks kw eb id ur r ibw runw ie birgwe,U rgubj U kai g cw b ubcur ruib ri xe ag rgwew ainwrunw, U n t hyar r jw rgwn yo ib rg r,
I was really tired, though. I had opened Tuesday, then taken that short nap during the movie. I actually went to sleep around 2 or so, but Luke called and we talked for a bit, then I went back to sleep. And Rose called - she was in major tears about some stuff going on with her roommate and their situation. I felt really bad, because I couldn't really offer any advice - this was completely beyond me and my experierence. I listened to her for over an hour or so, and she said that that did help. I finally went back to sleep, then Adam called at like 6:40 to ask me about opening the safe. He called again like an hour later to ask again. After that, I just stayed awake until 9:30 or so when Lilie and I got in communication about moving.
Thanksgiving was fun, but I'll get to that later - it's time for me to go to work.
2004-07-17
Pictures from a couple things - D&D, Helping Rose and Katie move, and work
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| We all bought some Giants of Legend minis. These are some of the giant ones, (from left to right): Don't know, Formian, Treant, Bulette, King Someone or other, and a Nightshade. | The party was attacked by a group of wolves, two of which turned out to be werewolves. Lorm would later contract Lycanthropy from one of them, and willingly accept the transformation. |
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| Be very quiet... I'm hunting humans. | No idea. |
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| Michael and Luke. Again. | None here either. I need to start posting these while they're still fresh in my head. |
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| Rose's house, as we're getting ready to move. | Her chair, drafting table, and dinner table. |
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| Rose loves her blanket. Seriously though, it is very comfortable. | Chelsea's all loaded up and ready to go. |
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| From another angle. | And another. That green duffle bag is full of... fabric. 'Cause that's what you need when you're moving into a new home, on the first night - fabric. |
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| Ray being a manager. | Becky (right) and Jenn (left). |
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| Kenny. | Becky. She has dimples. |
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| Jenn. | Jenn, part two. |
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| Becky, part two. | I hate you, Joel. |
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| Mark. Don't care for him either. | Mom and Jerry chopped off a bunch of branches from the trees outside our house. Looks like a big fort, especially with the flag for July 4th. |
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| Another angle. | And another. |
2004-06-29
I did it... well, not really
So last night, I went to Jarrod's show with Michael and Myca. They did pretty good - everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I played a little DDR beforehand - Can't Stop Falling in Love (Speed Mix), Kick the Can, Afronova Primeval, Drop Out, Abyss, and Rhythm & Police (KOG3 Mix). After the concert, I stopped by to say 'hey' to Katie. She seemed sincerely happy to see me - we talked in the kitchen while she cleaned a blender. Nothing substantial - she told me about the various issues they have with their place at the moment, what she'd been up to, that kind of thing. We went outside eventually, as I was leaving; she saw Myca getting out of my truck, and freaked out momentarily - "Billy, there's someone getting out of your truck!!" It was kinda funny. She also mentioned about how she wasn't sure it was me when I knocked, 'cause I was turned around, and she could barely see me out of the peephole. "I don't trust peepholes." I, however, thought she said "I don't trust people." It was kinda funny.
Apparently, though, (according to Matt and Michael) she now knows I like her - because I stopped by to see her with two other people in the truck, and didn't have them with me. Or something like that. I don't know...
Apparently, though, (according to Matt and Michael) she now knows I like her - because I stopped by to see her with two other people in the truck, and didn't have them with me. Or something like that. I don't know...
2004-06-26
I'm really tired
Well, after two 14 1/2 hour shifts and two days of moving, I'm *really* tired. I have to go to a meeting at work in like half an hour, then work 'til 5. But after that, I"ll be FREE!! Well, at least for a while. Don't work tonight or tomorrow; the only thing I have going on is that I have to take Mom and Janelle to the airport tomorrow morning. There is a small possibility that Rose will need some help moving some more stuff up, but I called her last night, and it doesn't feel like she'll need any help. Or something like that.
So yeah, they're basically all moved in. Katie has all her stuff there, with the notable exception of all of her art stuff, which couldn't go in my truck and never had room for in her car. Her dad will be bringing it up sometime later (if I understand things correctly). She's got her room basically set up (until she decides to start rearranging things, of course). I called Rose last night to see how the hot water and downstairs carpet issues were going - neither has been resolved - and she tells me she's finally got her room looking like a room. So it sounds like things are going well. I'm probably going to go up and play DDR tonight, and I may or may not stop by and say 'hey'. We'll just see how things are going. I'd also like to go see Dodgeball, but I don't have anybody to go see it with. That's going to be that much harder to find someone to see it with, now that Rose and Katie are in Austin. Drat.
There's also some other stuff with that (and her) that I need to write down, if just to get it out, but I have to to a carhop/fountain meeting before my shift. That'll be fun.
So yeah, they're basically all moved in. Katie has all her stuff there, with the notable exception of all of her art stuff, which couldn't go in my truck and never had room for in her car. Her dad will be bringing it up sometime later (if I understand things correctly). She's got her room basically set up (until she decides to start rearranging things, of course). I called Rose last night to see how the hot water and downstairs carpet issues were going - neither has been resolved - and she tells me she's finally got her room looking like a room. So it sounds like things are going well. I'm probably going to go up and play DDR tonight, and I may or may not stop by and say 'hey'. We'll just see how things are going. I'd also like to go see Dodgeball, but I don't have anybody to go see it with. That's going to be that much harder to find someone to see it with, now that Rose and Katie are in Austin. Drat.
There's also some other stuff with that (and her) that I need to write down, if just to get it out, but I have to to a carhop/fountain meeting before my shift. That'll be fun.
2004-06-06
I should have known better...
but I didn't. So I got my hopes all up. And she called while I was in the shower, and said that she was really tired and wasn't up for going, but that she really did want to go.
It's weird, because I want to believe her. She even said "I really wanted to go". But ever since Chelsea, I can't really just believe that kind of thing. Even if it makes perfect sense, and everything corolates it, I just can't fully accept it's not that they just didn't want to hang out with me.
So yeah, I'm just chilling at home now, instead of going to that thing with Katie. I'll see her before too long, though. I hope she gets some rest - she needs it. She sounded really bad on the message she left - like she had a throat virus or something. I just want her to be happy. Even if that's with Tom or something like that, whatever it takes.
I've had a great weekend (except tonight, of course). Thursday, worked 5 - 10. I got out about 11, since we were really busy and had some issues with filtering the fryers. I went and played DDR after that, and took Freddie to hang out with Laurin. Came back into town, went and hung out with Katie for a while. Then I went and picked up Rose, then went back to Red Roof. Katie's dad took her home, then Rose and I hung out some more. We went to Joe on the Go's and had some Italian Cream Soda, then went and got my truck inspected, then moved the couch to my mom's work (Rose rode on it (in the back of my truck) the whole way there), then went to Colloquium so Rose could buy some poster tubes. Saw Christina there, that was cool. Then I took Rose home, went home myself, and crashed. Hard.
Woke up 'bout 5, and went in to work at 6. We were really slow, though, and I was out of there by 8:30. Turned around and went and played DDR again. At one point, there was this 'punk-ish' couple playing on the 5th mix. I watched a bit (they were doing Dam Dariram, KCP Mix). Later, the chick was about to go by herself, and I asked if I could join in (not trying to hit on her or anything, just wanted to play some DDR). She was like 'Sure!'; it was suprising, though, because she sounded a lot younger than she looked. She was already on the mode select screen, so I had to ask her which button she had pressed, and she told me (the wrong one), so I ended up choosing 'singles' instead of starting the other button as well so we could play versus. I stepped back so she could play, but she insisted that I play, as she had just played. I did Rythym & Police, My Summer Love, then Drop Out. I failed Drop Out during the final run, but almost maxed the other two. She was like, 'Whoa!' I came back, and it was raining hardcore. There were some awesome flashes of lightning - one of them just streaked across the sky, then splintered out into like five other strikes. There was also one that hit like five times right in a row in the same spot. It was *really* bright. Went to Red Roof again, and hung out with Katie for like four hours. We even had a little picnic, with Burger King and Taco Cabana stuff. I eventually went and got Rose, then we went back to Red Roof. The three of us drove around for a while - stopped by Sonic to double check when I went in that day (noon), and they got some breakfast. We sat on the tables on 31 and at it. Then we drove around some more, and put a note on the jeep on Post Road Katie wants. Stopped by my house to put my uniform in the washer, then we went to a few garage sales; they bought some cups and a few other things. I eventually took them home and went into work. I was *really* tired at this point, but it went okay. Got off work, came home, and took a nap. After waking up, Cullen and I went to Le Fun (again!) to play some more DDR. I saw the punk people again, but didn't play with them or anything. I did take their picture - expect a massive picture post sometime soon - possibly this evening, depending on how frustrated I get with Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (I'm on the last level). Had some fun; came home, then went and took Rose home again. She also asked me about giving her and Dagmar a ride to a Prince concert on Wednesday, which I can. I just have to find somewhere to go play DDR while they're at the concert. I'm doing the truck that morning, so that'll give me a chance to take a nap or something like that between the two.
Been getting some weird music lately - Squirrel Nut Zippers, Mighty MIghty Bosstones, Aurora Borealis, and the Brian Setzer Orchestra.
It's weird, because I want to believe her. She even said "I really wanted to go". But ever since Chelsea, I can't really just believe that kind of thing. Even if it makes perfect sense, and everything corolates it, I just can't fully accept it's not that they just didn't want to hang out with me.
So yeah, I'm just chilling at home now, instead of going to that thing with Katie. I'll see her before too long, though. I hope she gets some rest - she needs it. She sounded really bad on the message she left - like she had a throat virus or something. I just want her to be happy. Even if that's with Tom or something like that, whatever it takes.
I've had a great weekend (except tonight, of course). Thursday, worked 5 - 10. I got out about 11, since we were really busy and had some issues with filtering the fryers. I went and played DDR after that, and took Freddie to hang out with Laurin. Came back into town, went and hung out with Katie for a while. Then I went and picked up Rose, then went back to Red Roof. Katie's dad took her home, then Rose and I hung out some more. We went to Joe on the Go's and had some Italian Cream Soda, then went and got my truck inspected, then moved the couch to my mom's work (Rose rode on it (in the back of my truck) the whole way there), then went to Colloquium so Rose could buy some poster tubes. Saw Christina there, that was cool. Then I took Rose home, went home myself, and crashed. Hard.
Woke up 'bout 5, and went in to work at 6. We were really slow, though, and I was out of there by 8:30. Turned around and went and played DDR again. At one point, there was this 'punk-ish' couple playing on the 5th mix. I watched a bit (they were doing Dam Dariram, KCP Mix). Later, the chick was about to go by herself, and I asked if I could join in (not trying to hit on her or anything, just wanted to play some DDR). She was like 'Sure!'; it was suprising, though, because she sounded a lot younger than she looked. She was already on the mode select screen, so I had to ask her which button she had pressed, and she told me (the wrong one), so I ended up choosing 'singles' instead of starting the other button as well so we could play versus. I stepped back so she could play, but she insisted that I play, as she had just played. I did Rythym & Police, My Summer Love, then Drop Out. I failed Drop Out during the final run, but almost maxed the other two. She was like, 'Whoa!' I came back, and it was raining hardcore. There were some awesome flashes of lightning - one of them just streaked across the sky, then splintered out into like five other strikes. There was also one that hit like five times right in a row in the same spot. It was *really* bright. Went to Red Roof again, and hung out with Katie for like four hours. We even had a little picnic, with Burger King and Taco Cabana stuff. I eventually went and got Rose, then we went back to Red Roof. The three of us drove around for a while - stopped by Sonic to double check when I went in that day (noon), and they got some breakfast. We sat on the tables on 31 and at it. Then we drove around some more, and put a note on the jeep on Post Road Katie wants. Stopped by my house to put my uniform in the washer, then we went to a few garage sales; they bought some cups and a few other things. I eventually took them home and went into work. I was *really* tired at this point, but it went okay. Got off work, came home, and took a nap. After waking up, Cullen and I went to Le Fun (again!) to play some more DDR. I saw the punk people again, but didn't play with them or anything. I did take their picture - expect a massive picture post sometime soon - possibly this evening, depending on how frustrated I get with Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (I'm on the last level). Had some fun; came home, then went and took Rose home again. She also asked me about giving her and Dagmar a ride to a Prince concert on Wednesday, which I can. I just have to find somewhere to go play DDR while they're at the concert. I'm doing the truck that morning, so that'll give me a chance to take a nap or something like that between the two.
Been getting some weird music lately - Squirrel Nut Zippers, Mighty MIghty Bosstones, Aurora Borealis, and the Brian Setzer Orchestra.
