Posts Tagged ‘Weather’

Busy…busy bee…

Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

Life hasn’t stopped in the past few weeks, I’m honestly surprised I have an ounce of downtime to even sit here and blog but I’m doing it, and the only way to get through it will be numbers…

#1 – A new pet…
While outside for my usual 4am smoke break I couldn’t help but hear excessive meowing coming from the lawn across the street. I believed it to be either a cat in heat, or one about to give birth. So, of course, you could imagine my surprise when there was all of a sudden a little face coming out from under my car begging for attention. Me, being an animal lover by default (one of my weaknesses), I figured she’s super tiny, more than likely a kitten and very thin so she’s got to be hungry. So I threw some of Bella’s food at her – she scoffed it and kind of went away but was lingering because she was clearly feeling us out (Sean and I were both outside at this point).  She lingered so much to the point that she wound up walking around on the deck while we were sitting there.  For an animal this social there was no way in hell she was a ferral cat because if they aren’t socialized within the first 2 months of birth they typically will never like people. Obviously someone was caring for this little thing in the past but lord knows where that owner is now (it’s been 3 weeks, and to date there’s been no one looking for her).  After she hopped up in my lap I instantly knew that this had to be someones cat, even if they were only feeding her outside, she absolutely had to be someones cat.  So all of us (Karen, Sean and myself) continued to check on her during the course of the next few days. She was easy to find, she never left the porch.  Karen and I brought her to the vet where she was treated with frontline and given a distemper. The vet confirmed my thought of her being between 6 and 12 months old, she’s way too tiny to not be a kitten – no matter how malnourished she potentially was.  We kept her, regardless of the fact that Sean’s allergic to her and she was scared shitless of Bella (bull in china shop that dog is, I swear).  We got her all setup in Karen’s room, she’s been overloaded with toys and the luxury of sleeping in a super fluffy King bed with Karen (who has a feather topper on it so it’s extra damn fluffy, like sleeping on a cloud).  There’s no way in hell this cat’s going anywhere, she’s too comfortable… even though none of us are…

Why?

#2 – FUCKING FLEAS
This cats infested with fleas, well – was.  Her time spent on the deck was enough for a few of them to jump off of her and go under the house and then I’ve been playing exterminator for the past three weeks.  My legs are bitten to crap from mosquitos because I was out on the deck every single day scrubbing it down with borax, bleach, dawn (which supposedly kills them) and ammonia.  Thank goodness I was outside considering I was technically making mustard gas just to get rid of the damn bugs.  Nothing I was doing was working and we couldn’t get the exterminator to the house thanks to the absolutely dreadful weather we’ve been having.  Thankfully I did start to get things under control, and damn do we have the cleanest deck in the complex.  Mother Nature, instead of working against us (in numerous different ways) decided to work in our favor this past week and on Friday the exterminator came in and sprayed down the whole exterior of the house. For two days I didn’t see a single damn bug, and they had plenty of opportunity to pop back up. THANK GOD FOR EXTERMINATORS!  The inside of the house was treated a week and a half prior to them treating the outside. The first guy showed up on a day when it was pouring and there was a moat around the house, but he got through it and got us started on killing everything off inside of the house.  It didn’t 100% do the trick because there was still the massive infestation outside. So thankfully with the second coat on the carpet, and the coat put on the exterior of the house and the whole perimeter of the property – we’re good to go… just a bit itchy from all of the bites but at least I know they’re gone!

#3 – WORK SUCKS
I’ve been non-fucking-stop with the tight deadlines. My eyes are burning from staring at the screen all day and each deadline is getting tighter than the last. The thing that kills me, and never ceases to amaze me… Clients will take 3-4 days to get back to you and then decide they want something done in 24-hours or they won’t pay for it. Listen up dickwads… your lack of ability to read your email instead of sexting with your wife/girlfriend would probably make ME less bitchy when you do ask for something… just saying.

#4 – Travel, Travel, Travel
I feel like for the past year I’ve spent more time in my car than I have anywhere else.  While this might not seem odd, for someone who works from-home… it kind of us. Either I’m up in Baltimore, or just over the MD border on Delmarva or up on Long Island… I feel like it just doesn’t stop and I should always be prepared for a long ass car ride. The most recent one was yesterday, Sean and I are up in NY for my father and sister’s birthdays this week.  We’re rushing back on the 30th so I can get Bella to the groomer on the 2nd, and hopefully have enough time to completely clean up the house for the 4th when our friend Colin is coming down to stay with us until the 9th. And yes, there are days in between but this isn’t like driving an hour out east to visit family like we used to do. It’s a 4.5 hour car ride and when you’re dealing with traffic that number has the ability to be doubled at any given time.  Case and point – driving up here yesterday took us over 6 hours. Why? We had a nice storm following us up and major construction on the NJ Turnpike so of course getting to Long Island in a timely manor was completely thrown out the window. To make matters worse, the poor dog is in desperate need of a grooming and it was a super muggy day so it took forever for the car to properly cool off so she could be comfortable.  I felt so bad for the poor thing, she must have had a full 20 oz. bottle of water just for the ride up – she never drinks that much but could not stop panting, and even though we’re in a relatively cool house now (being maintained at 68*) she’s still panting.  I can’t wait to get her shaved.

#5 – Heat Wave…
The official first major heat-wave of the NY season (to my knowledge) is starting tomorrow. Of course I’m extremely grateful that Colin helped me to recharge the AC in the car tonight because the amount of time it takes for the damn car to cool off was pissing me off to no end.  It should not take an hour before I’m comfortable in the car when the AC is running at full blast.  It does eventually get cold, 6 hours in the car yesterday my toes were turning purple because we were absolutely frozen trying to get the dog to cool off. So you could imagine my surprise when I went into the car just after he finished with the booster and it was already cold. THANK GOD FOR COLIN!  I could not have managed getting around while I was up here without that AC being taken care of.  NO WAY IN HELL.

#6 – The week ahead..
I know off the bat that there’s two major deadlines to complete, and to top that off I’ve tacked 3 deadlines onto it that are a little more on the tricky side but at least I’ve got help.  The two major ones are under NDA with the usual boss so I can’t discuss those, but the 3 smaller ones are two personal deadlines and one kind of big deal for me.  The personal ones are knu and agndesigns. I know I talk about that all the time but I’ve finally been getting off of my ass and doing something about it.  Adam, my bestie from the Westie, has created a base theme for me utilizing a few colors that I threw at him and I finally got around to coding it so that should be up on k.nu within the next week or so.  He also created a theme for AGnDesigns for me as well based off of a few themes I fell in love with but couldn’t quite figure out how to place the sections on the page without it looking completely off balance. He took care of both of them for me and I can’t help but thank him for it.

He’s part of my “Help”, we’ve partnered up and he handles the Photoshop stuff and I code everything.  Case and point would be his domain, rockchild.net, he came up with the concept – I made it work. jQuery is in every nook and cranny of that site but it made it flashy and that’s what he was going for.  He throws a few projects my way whenever they require coding – I would love to throw him design based stuff because he can get it done so much faster but when you’re under contract it’s hard to pass things off to someone else when you know you’re the one who’s supposed to be logging the hours and need to have the ability to answer every single question on the fly at any point of the day.

The other help, which is connected to the last project, is actually my Mom.  I’ll be building the Fire Dept. website over the next few days and she’s comfortable enough playing around with just about anything you throw at her so she’s in the process of getting her bearings on WordPress as she’ll be responsible for all of the content that goes up on the site.  I’ve been able to come up with a fairly awesome template for them, jQuery up the ass, all kinds of galleries, custom post types, advanced custom fields, and fancy templates for the mailing lists that will be built into the site.  A lot of people don’t realize how advanced you can get with WordPress. It’s not just a blog, or standard CMS anymore – the possibilities really are endless.  Case and point would more than likely be Dover Downs, that site is 100% powered by WordPress.  Not many people believe me when I say it… but take a look at the source code – you’d be surprised.

In any event, it’s knocking on 1am which (oddly enough) is about two hours past my bedtime. My schedule has completely switched by 12 hours. Usually I was going to bed at 10am but now I’m ready to pass out by 10pm. I’m up by 8am (at the latest) and working all day. The plus side is I’ll be able to get myself to the beach more often this summer, I only live 2 freaking miles from it after all… and my pale ass is in desperate need of a tan.  My arms are nice and dark, but my legs (no matter what I do) are still pale as hell.  I always say that my legs are Irish and my arms are Italian, I’m typically burnt on the bottom and as dark as one of those Jersey Shore fuckers (without the Orange tint, obviously).

It’s all coming to an end…

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

With the Holiday’s winding down, I’m finally able to wind down long enough to actually knock out a post. I’ve pretty much been running around like a chicken with my head cut off since Thanksgiving. Work, as I noted previously, is coming in waves, but at the same time the tide hasn’t really gone out. It’s not the luxury of “Ok, I can take some time on this and then bounce back to this.” it’s been “Do it now, and faster!”

@AGnDesigns - Instagram @AGnDesigns - InstagramWhile that can get a little annoying, it also worked to our benefit this year.  All family members were well taken care of for Christmas, Sean and I did spend quite a bit of money on ourselves but it was on things that we both wanted (for a while) and desperately needed.  We know the difference between Wants and Needs – unlike anyone under the age of 16 these days.  We both were in desperate need of new desks.  I had my Mac sitting on a Rubbermaid folding table and being as the 27-inch iMac (2011) weighs about 40 pounds, it was starting to sink down in the middle. To avoid it completely caving in, we went out and got me a new desk.  It’s a super nice one, with plenty of storage and it’s even a little bigger than the previous folding table so I actually got the chance to organize things where I can still completely function without any issues at all. Obviously after Sean spent 7 hours putting this thing together (one warped piece was throwing EVERYTHING off) he gladly took a little nap.  I decorated the drawers with dollar store shelf liner so that they can list a super long time without getting destroyed. There’s more than enough room for the work phone so my boss can stay on my butt too heh. I had it across the room next to the TV because we didn’t have a long enough Ethernet chord, but that was taken care of with the addition of a ZyXEL wireless switch that now sits behind my monitor. It supposedly boosts the Wifi in the house, but turns the Wifi into an actual plugged in connection as well, so I’ve got the phone plugged into it and if I needed to I could plug a printer in to it. It was actually strong enough of a feed to handle Sean’s XBOX 360 for a few weeks as well, so obviously it works how it’s supposed to.

@leprakhauns - InstagramSean, after my desk was put together, began increasingly becoming annoyed with his desk. After drilling into him that he spends way too much time at his desk and needs a new one…. we headed back to Staples a little over a week later (this past weekend actually) to pick up a new desk for him.  The one he’s been using for years was a typical students desk with the metal legs, the pull-out keyboard and the thin table top. One you’d see in college students dorm, basically.  So it was creaking like all holy hell and we wound up replacing that one as well.  He found a nice wide desk that he was in love with, but it unfortunately was not going to fit in the room so he went with one that was closer to size (in comparison to mine).  He’s in love with it as well.  It’s very nice dark wood with a nice sturdy base, some drawers – finito.

While picking up his new desk we browsed around the store a little bit, and came across the Google Nexus 10″ – Android Tablet.  Of course I was instantly in love, this thing is more powerful than the Droid 4’s that we upgraded to in October.  The $500 price tag instantly turned this item into a “Want”. We’ve been bouncing back and forth about Tablet’s for a little while now.  Sean really wanted to see what the new Microsoft Surface was about, I personally had no interest in it at all being as I’m as anti-Windows as you can possibly get these days.  Upgrading to Mac has spoiled me rotten.  I don’t have to deal with excessive upgrades, daily virus/malware scans and the blue screen of death that Microsoft claims to have gotten rid of , but I’ve seen it on both Windows 7 AND 8 because it’s very easy – when you know what you’re doing – to trigger everything Microsoft claims doesn’t exist.

@AGnDesigns - InstagramEither way, we both were playing with the Tablet for a little while and found out when browsing through the Settings to get all of the stats that it was now possible (with Android – Ice Cream) to have multiple users.  This sparked our interest almost instantly, and we both looked at eachother and I was like “I want”, he said “Go get it” (cause he’s fricken awesome) and while I was pulling the car around (cause he was picking up his desk the same day) he paid for both. Turned into an expensive shopping trip on our parts, but we walked out of there with a want, and a need.

 

@AGnDesigns - InstagramWhile he was in the Bedroom for a few hours setting up his new desk, I was prepping the house for Christmas.  I did more baking in the past few days than I ever thought possible. Everything from cookies, to breads, to brownies – you name it, I probably baked it. I went all out for Christmas this year, because I actually had more room to do it. I know that sounds a little weird but it’s true. A huge living room and a big footprint in reference to the front end of the house, things just kind of happened.  The baking was really just phase two, we’d spent quite some time decorating prior to my even pulling the flour out of the cabinet.  So the tree was decorated, the bulk of the outdoors was draped in white lights and the rest of the house had random little touches here and there.  Thankfully, minus today, there was really no wet weather going on outside so my garland didn’t get all mucky and was nice and clean for Christmas. I was also really happy with the tree in the living room. With the combination of Karen’s ornaments and mine everything kind of came together that worked out really nicely.

Traditionally, families open their gifts on Christmas Day. Around here? Christmas Eve. I think it’s a tradition based on impatience but to each their own. Sean cleaned up this year, outside of the gifts purchased for ourselves of course. New shirts, plenty of toys and gadgets to keep him entertained and the guitar I bought him. I know I usually complain to him about how much noise he can make on his own (without an accessory) but at the same time we’ve both had a pretty rough year, him more than I, and it was something I know he always wanted. So I got him a nice stand for it, and a DVD so he can learn how to play and we’ll go from there.

@leprakhauns - InstagramI also got him some new Happy Feet, this is a brand that we were in love with long before Snooki put it on MTV. I’ve always had a pair, and so has he and his were worn to the point that his toes were going to start popping through the bottom. Knowing how comfy they are I changed it up a little bit and got him the “All Around” ones, they look like real sneakers and there’s about an inch-thick rubber sole on the bottom of them. They’re better than my usual outdoor slippers so of course I’ll have to pick up a pair for myself in the future but for now this was all about him and that’s what he got. So that was one pair, and instead of getting him the standard color variations I decided to take a look under the “Animals” section and got him the most ridiculous ones I could find – and his favorite animal – the Penguins. Watching him walk around in these is more amusing than the slippers themselves, but they bring a smile to just about everyone’s face so it was more than worth it.

I cleaned up pretty well myself. Karen got me the “In-Styler” which is a hair straighter I’ve always wanted. I’ve used a friends before and it was probably the fastest way to straighten my hair that I’ve ever used. Some people have mixed feelings on it, others use it totally wrong and wonder how their hair gets wrapped up in it. As long as you read the directions it works out exactly as it’s supposed to, so I’m bringing it up to NY with me while Sean and I head up there for New Years, and after I get a much needed hair cut (via Mom) and dyed (via my sister), I’ll be using it to style my hair. Mom and I are also hitting up the nail salon, I’m long overdue for a manicure AND I desperately need my eyebrows done it’s been almost six months and I just can’t fricken take it anymore.

As usual, I bought myself a few articles of clothing while I was doing some shopping for other family members and had Sean wrap them for me. There was a jacket at Old Navy that I’ve wanted for a while, and I was in need of new yoga-pants so I threw those into the shopping cart as well. He wrapped everything for me, knowing that he was supposed to actually buy the items for me for my Birthday back in October but never did (I oddly got a Christmas tree instead), so he switched Holiday’s but kept the wrapping paper basically lol.

@agndesigns - InstagramThe thing I was surprised about, however, was the ViewSonic 24-inch Monitor that was under the tree. I’ve been using a 17-inch monitor as my “Email Screen” for the past couple of months and it was working out pretty well for me. I kept my email completely on that window and when I was actually in Photoshop or Dreamweaver I would just load project free TV and watch television right on the desk, no complaints at all. So you can imagine my surprise when Sean upgraded me to a much larger screen. This was one of those items that wasn’t on my wants, or my needs – which then turns into a complete and total surprise. And that wraps up Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day was a completely different story – I was non stop in the kitchen. I was cooking/cleaning for a good 8 hours yesterday. I fired up the crock pots early in the day to get the sauce going, the meat balls and sausage wound up in the pot a few hours later and from there it was just the matter of getting the pasta in the water so I could get everything into the oven. I even managed to get a spiral ham in the oven with everything else going on. As soon as dinner was done, I had a quick cig and was back in the kitchen to clean everything up and start baking the brownies. Why? Cause for the most part the cookies from Friday were already gone and the ones that remained were a little on the hard side. I figured that some time of dessert was required on Christmas and I went the double thick double fudge brownie route – more than half of them are gone which – to any cook – damn good sign.

Then Wednesday comes…..

Today was supposed to be a day of packing, working and getting ready to get out of here bright and early tomorrow morning for the long drive up to New York to see friends and my family. Of course that hasn’t been the case at all. Even though I woke up relatively early, I’ve been doing other things (not sure what) but nothing that I had originally set out to do. I do know that a load of dishes was done, all of the laundry was folded but nothing was put into the suit case at all. I also needed to get about 8 or-so hours of Work completed because we’re losing an entire day tomorrow to the drive up to New York and lord only knows what kind of a drive that’s going to be considering the storm sitting over the Northeast right now. Thankfully, in southern Delaware, it’s just rain but unfortunately it’s A LOT of rain and the complex is completely flooded. This was heaps of fun when it came to walking the dog. I don’t mind the drizzle, that wasn’t the problem, the excessive amounts of water just sitting because the complex has absolutely NO proper drainage systems is 4 inches of just mud and twigs to walk through. Poor Bella wound up taking a swim on multiple occasions tonight just because we completely misjudged the depth of the puddles we were going in to. I also found out that my winter boots are absolutely NOT water proof. As soon as I was in up to my ankle, my foot was soaked and of course they’re too big for me so they were rubbing weird and my sock wound up slipping down – needless to say it was not a good experience for anyone involved and Bella only really went to the potty twice (usually she goes about 4 times) but she still wound up having to be thrown into the sink for a nice bath to get her color back to white, she’d turned into a muddy brown fur ball for the bulk of the walk, the puddles did help but it just darkened everything and I wanted her to be nice and clean for Grandpa tomorrow.

We’re hoping to leave here before noon, now no ones gifts are wrapped and I haven’t done any packing but that’s completely the plan for the morning so that we can get up there in a decent amount of time and have the time to stop somewhere on the turnpike to pick up a roast beef sandwich from one of the Roy Rogers along the way for my father because that’s his one and only request for my time in New Jersey on the way to Long Island. I’m also needing to make a stop while we’re down here to pick up some cigs (for peoples xmas gifts) and some fudge from Candy Kitchen as I promised other family members that I would.

I can honestly say… there’s no way in hell we’re getting out of here by noon…that’s for damn sure.

We’re only going to be up in NY for about a week. Sean’s father is staying down here with his mother while we’re up there, she’s got 2 Chemo treatments this week and then unfortunately she’s going to lose a week to sickness because she’s not getting the third day of extra fluids because they supposedly don’t do that on Saturdays around here, and she didn’t go in today – for whatever reason – to start the scheduled 3-day cycle. So now she’s going to lose a day and I just hope that George keeps pushing large glasses of water onto her so that she can stay hydrated enough to get through the nausea that’s going to completely consume her for the next week.

We’re ringing in the New Year and NY and I personally couldn’t be happier. Being down here for the last six months I’ve really missed my friends and family and just can’t wait to get home. Even if that means I’m not sleeping tonight just so we can get out of here tomorrow – I’ll do whatever it takes.

I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to get into my Dashboard for a while since the work is still piling up and this is a ‘mini vacation’ for me, so I’m wishing everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year! I hope 2013 is a hell of a lot better than 2012… at least we won’t have to deal with all of the Mayan Calendar bullshit anymore, heh.

It’s too early for this crap…

Thursday, November 8th, 2012

It’s the middle of November and I’m freezing my fricken ass off.  It’s not even like I’m in a state where this type of weather is expected (ie: Maine / Minnesota), I’m in Delaware!! It’s supposed to be boardwalk friendly weather until December 21st!

The “Noreaster” rolled through yesterday, it was pretty much a windy day with a drizzle.  New York got hit pretty hard, I know my mom had about 8-inches or so of Snow, which for November is completely uncommon.  And while the power did stay on in numerous areas, there are people from the last storm who don’t even have power yet. To make matters worse, those who just got there power back within the last 48 hours or so, are already out.  I wonder if LIPA has been holding all of their machinery together with duct tape and gum? How the hell do you fix a transformer to only have it stop working two days later? No wonder Gvnr. Cuomo is as pissed off as he is – you people suck.

There are crews in from all over the United States and Canada to aid in relief efforts, but then you see arial views of all of the LIPA trucks just sitting around doing nothing while all of the out-of-staters are pretty much handling everything.  The North Shore of Long Island has been taken over by Kentucky and Tennessee power companies and there isn’t a single LIPA truck to be found.  It blows my damn mind.  These states are coming in to be kind enough to help you out and you’re just going to sit back and do jack shit in it’s place? I’m sure there’s some kind of a union bullshit thing involved here. From what I’ve heard LIPA is still pissed about a remaining bill of like $75,000 from Irene so they’re taking their sweet time.  Meanwhile, just based on billing periods, they can make that in two hours since there a damn monopoly anyway.  No one wants Con Edison to be involved with Long Island, the rates are absurd and the quality of service is just as bad, if not worse.

I think they should just take the innovative approach and put all of the damn power lines under ground to help keep things moving.  It would not only put A LOT of people to work, but you wouldn’t be dealing with the bull shit of “Oh no, it’s a windy day – I think I’ll be dealing with ANOTHER blackout”.  That’s the one thing we’ve never had to worry about down here.  Even with all of the damage that’s been done by storms in the past there’s never been a major blackout due to a storm.

But, going back to my main point.  I’M FUCKING COLD!!  I have no idea where any of my jackets are, mainly cause I’m too lazy to look for them.  I’m amused at how the dog is sitting next to me panting away like it’s the middle of the summer and I’ve got a chill going up and down my spine that just won’t go away.  All I want to do is lay down in bed and go to sleep but I know I need to put in at least 8 hours tonight (starting now) to complete a site for a client.   There’s still about 8 pages to convert from HTML to WordPress, and of course there’s the issue of needing custom fields all over every single template file so needless to say that puts a damper on things.

I also need to figure out a conditional tag, I don’t think is_blog() would actually work the way I need it to.  The site has two backgrounds, the initial one for the home page, and a more compressed one for the content pages.  Now using is_front_page() and is_home() are working to display the correct background on the index page, and the content pages, but when you think it’s going to carry over to the blog you’re sadly mistaken and all it does is display the background located on the index page.  I’m going to have to spend quite a bit of time figuring that one out tonight.  Not to mention I’m also going to be dealing with the issue of the fact that the site was so poorly coded it’s not even looking the way its supposed to in any browser lower than IE9.  Whoever the client paid (originally) to code this thing was a total waste in money, and now it’s a rush job to get it done by tomorrow morning (Friday AM).  We told them 24 hours initially because we thought it was just going to be loading the template into WordPress and creating a few custom fields here and there. I didn’t realize it was going to require a complete and total recode because the moron who coded it for WordPress took the Twenty-Ten (not even Twenty-Twelve) and copied and pasted the WRONG areas into the WRONG template files.  STUNAD!! 

This is NOT a good time!

Wednesday, November 7th, 2012

So even though I’ve got my own little office and a nice comfy ‘managers’ chair to make me feel important – it still doesn’t void the “my back sucks” issues I’ve been experiencing.  As many of you know I suffer from sciatica, unfortunately with all of the weather changes and the constant up and down all day long I’m pretty much in the “heh, you’re screwed” category.  I don’t want to do it, but I have no choice – I’m officially working from bed.  My laptop is on the verge of death but I’m hoping it holds on long enough for me to actually get something accomplished before this client begins ripping my head off.  I used my dual monitor setup for ONE fricken night (last night) and now, not only am I only on ONE monitor, I’m also only on a 17″ screen.  That’s a big drop for someone who’s accustomed to working on a 27″ screen.  The biggest draw back would be switching back from Mac and downgrading to Windows for at least a few days until I start feeling better.  It’s driving me up a damn wall, but what choice do I actually have?

Bella and I took a nice COLD walk through the wind storm going on outside. Its been raining since about 5am this morning, it slowed down around 7:30 and even though everything is flooded, she still needed to go.  Poor thing was being knocked over with every gust of wind to fly down the road.  I felt bad, but she needed to do her business and that’s just the way things go.  I had her bundled up in two coats.  The one ‘sweat shirt’ type of coat she has to cover her stomach from all of the muddy grass, and then the cape looking coat to actually keep her warm.  I don’t condone dressing up animals for personal gain just because one thinks its adorable to put a tutu on their Pomeranian (you’re an asshole if you do it so just admit it).  However,  I do condone making sure that if you’re going to make it a point to put on multiple layers to walk your dog, the least you can do is make sure they’re warm too damn it! It bothers me whenever I see someone bundled up like they’re going out to climb Mt. Everest but their short haired dog is chattering in the cold and running back towards their homes because they need the warmth.  It takes two seconds to stick a cover on the dog, why is it so hard for people to do that?

In any event… time to boot this piece of shit – all the damn updates finally completed.  Hoping to be able to get this thing up and running without the ability to take a half hour nap before completing the work for tonight.

Screw TV…

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

I’m so sick and tired of all of the damn Political commercials that I’m making it a point to have absolutely nothing to do with the idiot box next to me until Wednesday. Everyone is pushing to get their last cry out for todays elections and I’m done with it. I think, no matter which way you go, America is pretty much fucked anyway.

So I’m sitting here with headphones on and pretty much saying “Fuck it” while throwing myself into some pending projects. I’d prefer to be sleeping, but that never happens when I want it to anyway, so why would it change now?

I bought a bed this past weekend. Random right? I know! I literally went into Sleepy’s with the intent of just looking around because my back has been completely screwed up since we’ve moved back down to Delaware and the biggest reason behind it rests heavily on the bed that was gifted to Karen.  It was a used full-sized bed that was pretty much shot.  We tried to modify it by adding a good quality 4″ thick foam piece on it. It isn’t a low quality foam topper that you’d get from Walmart, she’s had this foam for god knows how long and it’s held up pretty damn well for at least 10 years.  It had minor use as an extra cushy dog bed on the floor.  But it was basically just folded in half for the density. It’s a full-sized topper and did pretty well on the bed for Sean and I but there was really no way it was going to work as a long-term solution considering it offers more support as a mattress on the floor than it does as a topper on a crappy mattress anyway.

So, Karen and I ventured out on Saturday to do some minor shopping and see what Sleepy’s had to offer. I found a bed on their website the night before and wanted to see if I could find something similar in the store considering it was an online-only deal and there was no way I was buying a bed online without laying in it first.  So we walked in, met the salesman and he pointed us in the direction of the bed that was close to the one I’d found the night before.  After two seconds of laying down I knew it was going to be “The Bed”.  I ventured around the store a bit, don’t get me wrong, but I kept coming back to this one.  It’s a Simmons Beautyrest, typically around $3500 for a Queen size.  So, I showed him the paper I printed out that morning of the one found online, which was close in price / make / model but it was on sale for about $1050, taking about 60% off the cost.  He was able to price match everything to the point that I went for the King size instead of the Queen.  (Go big or Go Home – right?).

The bed as a King was $3800 for the mattress/boxspring, he price matched down to $1450.  That’s like what, 60-70 percent off?  We added about $50 for the mattress protector that the manufacturer requires in order for the bed to be replaced (if needed). I always thought that was a Sleepy’s thing, but it’s the Manufacturers call – they just have to throw it down your throat.

The issue I have with the protector is it’s basically mandatory  BUT – if there’s a single stain on the bed, even if it doesn’t bother you, it voids the warranty   Now, even if there’s a 5-inch deep hole in the bed because the springs are fucked up – if that stain is there and you didn’t get the mattress protector – you can consider yourself shit out of luck.  How fucked up is that shit, seriously? Because it’s 100% possible to not get a 5-inch deep hole in the bed as long as that covers on – give me a break.

Anyway – by the time everything was said and done and this guy made his fifty phone calls to see if any of this was even possible – he factored in that I already had a credit card through Sleepy’s that had a full $1500 limit on it, he was able to price-down just about every aspect of my purchase.  For a whopping total of $1499.98 (two cents to spare), I got a King Sized Mattress/Box plus a free bedframe, and free NEXT DAY delivery.  I woke up at 10am on Sunday and they were knocking on the door at 10:30 to deliver the bed.  Everything happened so fast I couldn’t help but be completely overjoyed to the point that I laid down after putting the sheets on and passed the fuck out LOL.

Now, nine times out of ten they’ll give you a free bedframe for spending over $1200 anyway. BUT – he tweaked the system a bit and got me the most expensive one that has it’s own 20 year warranty. It’s some fancy frame that usually costs like $300, I got it free. Doesn’t even look like a normal one but just based on its appearance you can tell its a hell of a lot more sturdy and I’m actually comfortable with the fact that Bella occasionally likes to be sleeping under the bed, I don’t think this thing COULD actually break.

So yea, with two cents to spare Sean and I have been completely upgraded and let me tell ya – minus the fact that my back is completely fucked – this bed is comfortable as shit.  I took the “Sleepys Comfort Zone” challenge and fell inbetween the Comfort Level 3 and 4 ranges.  This means that while I prefer a medium firmness, I also like luxury plush tops. So this bed (the Avondale model) is a slightly firm (good support) mattress with a two inch thick pillow top to keep everything nice and cozy. So softness AND support? My back should be feelin pretty good in the next few days.

My issue, cause we all know Sciatica is a bitch, is the fact that there’s ANOTHER pressure change in the atmosphere so I feel just about everything.  My back started acting up just before Hurricane Sandy started destroying the east coast, but now there’s the potential for another noreaster to take out the eastern seaboard again and I’ve noticed that as the “Holy Crap – Gonna do this shit again” day approaches, my back just keeps getting worse and worse.  To make matters worse, it’s not even really going to affect Delaware other than just some rain (as experienced with Sandy), it’s going to hit NY and NJ dead on, and there are still hundreds of thousands of people without power.

Mother nature sure is on the fucking rag this Fall. I swear to God.

 

Safe and Sound…

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

Hurricane Sandy came ripping up the Eastern Seaboard this past weekend.  Numerous homes from New York down to South Carolina were completely destroyed because of the high winds and even higher Water.  Three storm cells merged on a full moon in the Atlantic Ocean and the rest is pretty much going down in history as one of the more devastating storms in the past 100 years.  I find that outlook amusing, we so quickly forget how bad those along the Gulf got it during Katrina.  It’s the fact that it happened in the North East that’s causing it to be such a media sensation.

From where I was – this wasn’t much of anything.  We got very lucky here in Rehoboth.  Yes, there’s quite a bit of property damage throughout the entire town but the complex that Sean and I live in, the only clean-up we’re doing is the leaves that were blown off the trees with a few small twigs. Things were much different on the South Bound side of Route-1 though.  Dewey Beach down to Ocean City was pretty much one big flood zone (Note Dewey is only 1 mile south of me).  If you know this area of Delaware, you’d know that once you start going South after Rehoboth the road goes from “Damn, look at all of these stores!” to “Wow! Take a look at those two huge bodies of water that we’re driving through on this thin four lane road!”.  It’s not so awesome when that Bay and the Atlantic Ocean decide it’s time to merge and the only thing stopping it is a tiny road in the middle.  The levels rose, and the rest is history.  There was no roads in or out of this area of Delmarva and it left a pretty devastating aftermath to the numerous homes and businesses along the route whom are now pumping 4 feet of water out of their storefronts and basements.

We had no property damage here, not even a shingle taken off the roof. I almost feel guilty when I see the pictures of all of the devastation up in Long Island where my entire family is.  My father said that there’s trees down everywhere, excessive flooding and power outages pretty much across the board.  I told him, during our call, that I’m sitting here surfing the Internet because there’s been absolutely no issues down here other than the usual flooding that would occur with any substantial rain – or even a damn drizzle – in this area.  He was then amused when I told him about the only drain in the entire complex.

Bella, like any unusual dog, decided that she would prefer to be outside in the wind and the rain instead of hanging out in the window (as she would prefer on nice warm sunny days).  So I bundled us both up and took her for a walk around the complex so she could do her business. After a few hundred feet into our walk  I noticed that I wasn’t just chugging along anymore and was actually starting to walk through – what I thought – was a fairly decent sized puddle.  I didn’t think about it because I had my boots on, but as I turned to begin pulling us both towards the right side (away from said puddle) I then noticed that my dog – who hates water and has never swam a day in her life – is now doggy paddling towards the big hole in the ground.  If she wasn’t on her leash she would have been somewhere floating in the Delaware sewer system right now.  I pulled her to the street, she shook off and looked at me like “What the hell Mommy, why didn’t you warn me!”  Needless to say, she got a nice warm bath when we got home and then sat in a blanket the rest of the night to warm up (this was Sunday – before the storm by the way).

The eye approaching us on Monday actually caused the rain to stop and the winds to pick up, we then had round two outside with the dog but I went in the other direction as far away from the drain as humanly possible.  Of course this meant that every time she plopped her little butt down to squat she wound up getting blown over mid-piss but while she was frustrated I couldn’t help but laugh being as she was barking at the door to go out – making it completely her choice to deal with it! She needed a second bath to rid her of the effects of that one.

The “worst of the worse” was supposed to happen between 7pm and 12am on Monday.  Yes, it got pretty windy here but after doing a drive around town today and comparing it to what we saw on Monday when taking stroll around the complex – we got close to nothing as damaging as predicted.

Numerous people did go to shelters, and there was A LOT of flooding along the shore. I’ll bet all those million dollar homes have quite a bit damage to them and at that point all I have to say is “Was the waterfront property even worth it?”, but that’s cause I’m middle class and wouldn’t ever spend the kind of money that millionaires spend if I had that unlimited-funds-debit-card myself.

The thing that pissed me off the worse, throughout all of this, is the POLITICS going on behind everything.  I’m not someone who usually discusses them, mainly because I don’t care, but could the Republicans seriously come up with ANYONE better than Romney?  To go on record and say “States can take care of themselves, don’t send FEMA”, or “Have everyone go to their second homes, they’re safer there” thinking that anyone who lives along the coastline is a multimillionaire, is the most fucking ignorant thing anyone could say.  A few other “supporters” of him have also gone on record claiming that because of Gay Marriage – mother nature aka GOD is fighting back.  Give me a damn break you biggott bitches.   Even Honey Boo Boo isn’t that damn ignorant – and have you SEEN that show!?

I’m so over this election, I’m about to vote for Ms. Piggy and call it a day.  She may be the epitome of Vanity but at least she’s consistant!

Before the Storm…

Monday, October 29th, 2012

Knowing that Hurricane Sandy is on her way, even though I felt as though it wasn’t going to be THAT big of a deal, I took a little ride on Saturday to see what I could pick up in lieu of supplies.  I went out for batteries – mainly cause my wireless keyboard was dying and needed them anyway.  I headed down to the Dollar Tree (because it’s a shame to spend $10 on a pack of batteries that die just as quick as the $1 ones) and saw a gentleman holding an ice pack on the side of his face while waiting in line.  The cashier was nice/curious enough to ask if he was OK and then preceeded to ask “What happened” which was on my mind being as I’m so nosey.  He went on to note that he’d just gotten in a fist-fight in Lowes over the last package of D-Batteries (apparently the last in the state of DE).  Some douche pushed this mans wife out of the way (practically throwing her across the isle) to then rip this package of batteries out of the mans hand.  That turned into a full blown fist-fight and that’s pretty much where the ice pack came from after the charges for assault were placed on the other man.  The woman, typical fucking woman, was crying about how its the most traumatic experience of her life and how the husband shouldn’t have come to blows. He simply responded “Another man placed his hands on you, what else did you want me to do?”  A few people said “Damn right!” she continued to cry about it and he said “Fine, next time I’ll let your ass hit the floor, heaven forbid I protect my wife from harm.” An older man standing in line behind me whispered to himself “If she was my wife, I would have left her on the floor”.  I laughed because he spoke what everyone else was thinking (based on body language and how everyone kind of stared at each other .  It just blows my mind how people would seriously get into a fight over batteries!

Then heading over to Walgreens I witnessed a younger man screw over a 90 year old woman who just asked for help getting a case of water into her shopping cart.  She said to him “Would you mind putting those cases in the cart for me?” He said “Sure, no problem.” put one in the cart and then picked up the remaining two and rushed to the register. She said “Hey, my carts over here”, he said ‘Fuck off, I need water too” and continued to attempt checkout. Thank god the cashier saw everything and refused to ring him up. The kid got frustrated and left the store. (I saw this guy get out of his truck, he’s stocked up on water for the next ten years!)

The thing that’s most shocking to me, throughout all of this, is the fact that I’m in Delaware – not New York. In NY you can expect to be treated like shit and walk away from it unscathed.   Delaware is supposed to be nice caring people, and for the most part it has been. Apparently though, when a storms a-brewing, that’s not the case. It breaks my heart to know that some guy needed to get into a fist fight and then to witness a poor old woman getting screwed over by some dumb 17 year old piece of shit with two fucking teeth in his mouth – is where the world goes during times of ‘chaos’.

The more amusing aspect to my afternoon outing was in Kmart.  I knew that with the potential for no power, it was time to pick up a few things to keep me busy. I’d already gotten coloring books and a word-find from the dollar store but you can’t find any puzzles in the dollar store that contain more than 10 pieces.  Kmart always has a stock of puzzles so I figured that would be the best place to go. That and the fact that I love walking through toy isles.  So I walk into the isle and there’s a lady standing there with her two screaming children.  They don’t understand why they aren’t in the electronics department picking up a new video game. She explains “If there’s no power, you can’t play a game – you’re gonna learn what a puzzle looks like!”  I’ve never seen a child hit the floor in a tantrum that fast IN MY LIFE.  You’d think their puppy was being taken away from them with this tantrum.

This is proof that how I intend to raise my kids is going to be the lesser of the evils.  I don’t believe in spoiling a child, primarily because I wasn’t. I didn’t have every brand new game console or toy as soon as it came out. Hell, I had to beg for a furby and I was 18! They came out when I was 12! I wound up buying one for myself in a second-hand store just cause there was one that kind-of-worked on the shelf!

I’m just dumb-founded on how things happen the way they do.

For those looking to ride out the storm, just know that I’m doing the same thing and my little candle and word finder are at my side to keep me company!

Absolutely Fricken Fantastic!

Thursday, April 19th, 2012

I woke up in a mood today.  There’s a few things going on around the house that are slowly beginning to take their toll on me and I had a moment this morning where I completely blew up and just couldn’t handle things anymore.  I called Muir and basically said “Get your ass over here, NOW!”.   She showed up, I got to talk things out and we then got everything setup outside so we could work outside for the remainder of the day.  We hung a few tarps up around the gazebo to block out the excess sunlight so the glare on the laptops was almost non existent, it definitely did the charm – that’s for sure.

She got a lot done out of her task manager, the big one was getting Dreamweaver setup on her MacBook.  After 40 minutes of transferring it to her off our in-house server and then installing it – we found that it wasn’t acting right.  Sean did a quick assessment of it and came to the conclusion that her hard drive is corrupt.  We thought of the numerous different ways that this could happen and settled on the diaper bag.  There’s a magnet on the front pocket and we think that the laptop may have gotten to close to it and now we need to work on fixing everything.  From there we also were able to figure out why her cellphone is so screwed up – magnet strikes again.

Needless to say, minus the fact that Sean, Muir and I enjoyed our time working today – when you include my morning bull shit and her laptop – it’s just absolutely fricken fantastic.

Hi Saturday! I’ve waited for you all week!

Saturday, April 14th, 2012

I’m always excited for Saturday, even if I really don’t have anything planned. It’s by no means a ‘day of rest’ for me, but I’m happy when email slows down and I get the chance to sit down and close things up for the week.  This is one of the benefits to working with clients overseas, considering in some cases it’s already Sunday for them, and who wants to work on Sunday?

I’ll admit to getting a very, very late start today.  Last night we had our friend Colin over to hang out for a bit and we all spent quite a few hours playing Words with Friends on our phones (our newest addiction) so we wound up ending the night around 4am, and with some other issues going on around the house I didn’t actually get to sleep until about 5:30, so waking up around 1-ish really wasn’t much of a surprise to me.  Thankfully the dog wasn’t pawing at us to get out the door.  Upon finally realizing I was awake she did her usual “pounce on Mommy cause her eyes are open” morning routine.  So of course it was time to walk her while my coffee brewed and then sit down and relax outside with a cig to soak up the sun, that vitamin B really does help to wake you up – that’s for sure.

It’s in the low 70’s today which is surprising considering it was in the low 40’s when I went to sleep this morning.  Tomorrow’s going to be even warmer, and possibly over 80 on Monday so my only issue is trying to figure out how to get some cool air to my little corner of the living room so I don’t wind up shooting myself based on the heat coming off of the Mac AND the overall heat in the house. I don’t know if it’s the size of the screen or just iMac’s in general but if anyone else has the 27″ iMac and wonders why they’re sweating their ass off – know that you’re NOT alone by any means LOL.

So as I said, it’s time to clear things out for the week.  I’ll be in Photoshop for the next couple of hours but may wind up completing scratching that idea until later tonight because I really, really need to go grocery shopping.  We’re down to almost no food in the house, and even the leftovers are almost completely gone.  And I don’t know about you but when an Italian house hold has bare shelves – something is seriously wrong. LOL

I guess I’ll finish going through email so I can finish listing to the new Halestorm release and then get my butt in gear to get to the store.

Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Holy Wind Batman!!

Monday, April 9th, 2012

When I went to sleep last night I knew it was going to be relatively windy, but I certainly did not expect the extreme zipping that was going on while I was asleep.  I woke up this morning and went outside with my cup of coffee to start my day and noticed that the gazebo now has a huge hole where the support bar was supposed to be.  Other than the initial “Oh shit” reaction, I jumped back in the house and was trying to figure out ways to fix it.  Dad’s idea was to drill holes through, the bar that’s still there and brace it, but of course the drill is half-dead so now we’re kind of waiting for it to charge.  In the meantime, the roof and the cap are completely off and inside, I don’t need those blowing down the street considering we just bought them a few weeks ago as replacements to the ones that originally came with the unit 3 years ago.  I’m also thankful that all of my outdoor lighting and table torches are still in tact.  I don’t know where all of this wind came from, but mother nature can gladly take it back.

On today’s agenda there’s plenty of emails to follow up with.  I’m still waiting on responses from the actual ongoing work, but getting the potential clients out of the way is always a good idea.. gotta bring in the benjamins after all.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Monday!

Weee

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

So, Optimum/Cablevision was having an offer where if you sign up for some triple play package you’re given an iPod touch as a ‘thank you’.  So of course we added a new phone service to the house which will actually cost us less being as the phone is an additional $20 a month and the land-line we previously had in the house was about $85 a month.  Anyway – it arrived a few days ago and I’ve been messing around with it ever since.  I’ve got more than enough apps loaded to it and considering I can add all kinds of VOICE based apps it could essentially be like having an iPhone being as bluetooth and voice are enabled on the new iPod touch’s.  

So since I plan on using it for all of my random internet BS, especially at work considering we’re restricted from doing just about everything I’ve overloaded it with just about every free app under the sun.  I’m keeping my 80GB iPod classic specifically for music, and I’ll keep the touch for pictures and apps.  Then I’ll just stick with my Voyager until its time for an upgrade.  I may wind up “upgrading” to the LG En-V Touch because I really do like having the flip/touch combination.  I would ultimately enjoy having a DROID but I don’t know how much money that would cost me considering I’d have to tack on a data plan.  For now I’m content with my massive amount of text/pix/flix hah.

So a huge band of weather blew through here over the course of the past few days and I was at my aunts house while my aunt and father were down in Atlantic City for a couple of days.  I didn’t check the basement until around midnight last night and saw that it was pretty much a complete flood zone.  I wish I didn’t spend all day on Saturday in and out of conciousness or I would have been down there sucking everything up before it got to be too bad.  However, I did spend over an hour attempting to clear it out and the water was just pouring in so there was no point in even attempting it.  A LOT of rain fell over the course of the past few days.  I know that Bayville is a complete flood zone and they lost power.  I also know that Locust Valley and Glen Cove lost power in a few spots and Long Island ( and the tri-state area) as a whole are just water logged right now.  Thank god it wasn’t snow, that’s really all I can say.  I absolutely freaking hate snow and knowing that it was just a lot of water, which is already starting to go away, it just makes me happy.  I can deal with a puddle, I hate going through 3 feet of snow every morning when I’m trying to get to my car.

I had a job offer this past week, unfortunately with my schedule at work there was no way of my going to the interview so I’m pretty sure I can say that my current job is now screwing me out of OTHER positions.  If they would allow us to freaking hire someone as a replacement to ANY of the 15 people we’ve lost since January 1st I probably would have been able to go so I can get myself into a better position but I’ll just have to wait until the next opportunity pops up.  It’s upsetting, everyone else can seem to just get up and go but I manage to be stuck there somehow – I just don’t get it.

In any event, it’s a little after 3:30 and I should probably get some grocery shopping done.  Or at least ANYTHING showing that I have some kind of a productive streak in me.

OH! I setup the mobile blog plugin so that I can actually view my site on the numerous internet ready toys that I have.  It looks really good and I highly recommend the plugin to just about everyone with a wordpress blog.  With the rise in internet ready phones/gadgets it’d just be a smart idea to set it up. It’s called the WordPress Mobile Edition. Highly recommended to EVERYONE.

Interesting Week

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I have to say that minus the fact of my being under the weather – as usual lately – it’s been a really interesting week and luckily I’ve been attentive enough to remember just about everything that’s gone on.

A big congrats goes out to my friend Alicia as she had her first baby, Jaymie Lynn, on Sunday and I have to say that this kid is absolutely adorable. She’s a really cool baby too, I saw her for the first time on Tuesday night and even at two days old she was very alert and responsive to just about everything going on in the room. She knows when you’re talking about her cause her eyebrows raise up a little, and anytime someone curses around her she smiles. I also told her “give daddy the finger” and she just kind of waved at him. In my book, she’s bound to be an awesome kid. I’ll try not to corrupt her too much but isn’t that what aunts are for? Seriously now.

On Monday we had a pretty nasty storm roll through here. Approximately five minutes after I left for work on Monday morning a very strong gust of wind wound up taking the roof off of my patio, now this wasn’t a small roof it was approximately 10ft by 30ft and it’s been attached to the house for god knows how many years. It always rattles and bounces around when we have heavy wind but the wind just happen to have enough force and it was blowing in the right direction for it to completely detach itself from the back of the second story of the house, fly over the main roof and land across the street. Of course I have a few pictures of the aftermath because its a pretty BIG occurance.

Awning Awning

You can tell by the pictures that not only was it a very LARGE awning, it also took four 3 foot cement blocks with it when it lifted off of the porch. There are three blocks still on the porch that were just knocked off of the ledge, which is now a major hazard because there was some structural damage where the blocks were ripped off of, meaning the dog isn’t even allowed outside because I think the pressure from her trying to just look over the ledge would cause it to collapse completely. On the other side of the porch (closest to my apartment) there is a block of cement completely missing where our connection to the roof once was. The interesting thing about it is that it landed right where my car would have been if I’d taken the few extra minutes to warm up the car before heading to work that morning. Even though it was a relatively warm day (for winter at least) the car instantly started up and it didn’t feel sluggish for the first time all season. With this I had the “get in and go” mentality and left as soon as possible. Thank goodness for my doing that because a 100lb 3foot cement block would have come flying through the windsheild… I certainly think that someone was looking over me on Monday – there’s no question about that.

As far as work is concerned, we’ve been pretty slow for the past few days. So much so that I haven’t had to work any major overtime hours like I’d been doing in the past because I’ve been getting out of the office as 6:30 as I’m supposed to. I’m not too sure as to why it’s been so slow but for the sake of being on a decent schedule when it comes to having dinner, relaxing and being able to sleep through the night… I’m certainly NOT complaining!

What the hell?

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

I went to blog earlier this morning and was then interrupted by a “Welcome to WordPress” message.  I’m sitting here thinking “Crap, either I was hacked or there’s some kind of database malfunction”.  Sure enough it was the database but seriously now, why did that come out of absolutely no where?  Maybe it was a sign from someone that I needed to reconsider the template that I had in my head, I really don’t know.  All I know is I’m dead set on doing something light and airy and when I did finally have the idea in my head? Someone else already did it!  I wanted to just do a simple sidebar/blog combination that didn’t take up much room but was primarily a CSS only layout with no images at all.  Why? Cause simple is always better and I can code a CSS template on my laptop while I’m on my lunch break and not totally kill my battery being as I’d only be using Notepad anyway.

It’s a gloomy day today.  We had four days of sunshine and then magically the clouds came back and now it’s just…blah…. I’ve noticed on days like this that weather really does play a factor in not only MY mood, but the over-all moods of those around me.  Everyone is coming across as really grumpy today, and it sucks!  The lack of oxygen in this place doesn’t really help either.  There really is no point in having so many windows and none of them can open.  If I ever had my own office area, the biggest requirement would be the ability to crack a window!

Sun….where are you?

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

For the past 5 days it’s been raining and it’s absolutely taking it’s toll on just about everyone I know. Now, I don’t know about you but I don’t think April is really supposed to be damp and cold. The weather lately has been so screwed up that I don’t even know what season we’re in! For a few days it reached 85*(F) now it’s down in the 40’s? Last night was so muggy and humid that I wound up cranking the air conditioner just so I could comfortably sleep.

I hate driving in the rain – no that’s not true – I hate how OTHER people drive in the rain! Ok the ground is damp it’s time to do 10mph! GET OFF THE DAMN ROAD IF YOU’RE THAT UNCOMFORTABLE!

All I want to do is wake up one morning and see the sun shining for more than just a few hours (as it did yesterday). I want everything to dry up so I can just sit outside and enjoy the nice weather. I understand the concept of April Showers brings May Flowers – HOWEVER – When said April Showers have killed your flowers, that theory goes out the damn window.

GRR @ YOU RAIN! GRR @ YOU!

Back off Frosty!

Friday, October 24th, 2008

October is almost over, I celebrated my birthday on Wednesday by not really doing a damn thing but going to work, getting to choose which fast food joint was going to be dinner and then I was fast asleep soon after, oh well it’s only my 24th, still have a year to go before that pesky auto-insurance drops down a bit.

Work has kept me pretty busy, I’m used to the hours now, to the point that I just can’t seem to do a damn thing when I get home from work.  At this point I just don’t care anymore.  I know there’s shit to do around the house,  and I should probably make an ounce of effort to maintain my sites and what-not but I truly couldn’t care too much about it these days.

As for the title – It’s freaking October – why is there a sheet of ice on my windows?  Where is this possible lake effect snow coming from, and why the hell is there NOT a scraper in the car to get the damn ice off!

So I’m going to be late to work so the sun can do the job of melting the ice down for me.  Overtime is out the window! :ugh:

Not sure what’s going on…

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

This past week was a bit better than last weekend but not really by much.  September is just turning into one of those months that could probably be wiped off of the planet as far as I care.

WORK
Things have been going OK.  I’m learning a lot of new things and it’s a lot to take in but thankfully I pick up on things pretty quickly so I’ve been OK so far.  For the past week or so I’ve been in the training process by an uber-cool chick who’s had a lot of patience with me, even though I took over her desk.  Supposedly when I go in tomorrow I’ll have my own desk and computer but who knows if that’s going to happen because the one making it happen keeps changing his mind on things.  Either way I hope to be less of an inconvenience to her soon.

I know for sure that I’m going to keep this job, while I would prefer to be doing something in the design field, I guess I can handle just having a decent desk job for the time being.  The people are all nice, it’s relatively easy work (once you get the hang of it) and the downside for me is the amount of time I’m probably going to have to spend on the phone but eventually I’ll suck it up and get over it.

DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS
Everyone is sick.  A kid at work had walking Pneumonia, I had my abscess kicking my ass for a few days, colds and germs are flying around all of the schools right now thanks to whoever was incapable of covering their mouth when they coughed.  Lu got pretty sick this past week as well, but her’s was more chest pain than anything.  Sean’s allergies have been kicking his ass pretty bad this week as well.  I really hope that there’s enough medicine in the world to cover everyone else that’s sick.  Thankfully I was able to steer clear of the Pneumonia because of the antibiotics that I’ve been on.  The downside is the abscess is coming back on the other side AGAIN.  I don’t want to live on antibiotics the rest of my life so I really need to get my teeth straightened out.

I want to hold off until I have Insurance this way I’m not shelling out $2k per tooth considering the three root canals that I need as of right now.  I kind of wish everything would just fall out and then I can worry about implants or something.  At least they wouldn’t hurt as bad as the real ones.  I’ll take a screw over an infected nerve any day!

STORMS n SUCH
Alicia was in New Orleans when the hurricane hit this past week, and upon evacuation she made her way up to Mobile, AL which was currently under tornado warnings.  Thankfully after a lot of shit she was able to make it home so she’s at least safe and sound right now.

The storm that was supposed to be “oh so bad” for the Island was a total dud last night.  It moved itself further north than originally anticipated so we were hit with some minor wind but I’ll admit it was a fairly decent amount of rain.  I was soaked to the bone TWICE before I picked up an umbrella and all of the wind managed to knock that out of play within a half hour of it’s purchase.  Why can’t they make them stronger the way they used to?  Dad had a huge umbrella for the last 20 years or so that finally gave out on him, it was solid wood and never once had an issue.  I know you can get them for $3-$4 but Jesus…make them last  a little longer!?

AGN STUFFS
I’m a week behind on email, I know it’s pissing a lot of people off but the lack of time does play a major role in things right now.  I’m trying to figure out how to schedule everything so I have a few extra hours during the day so I can maintain my own business but I’m not sure how that’s going to happen if I can’t change my hours at work.  I’m doing 10-7,  I’d like to do 8-5 or even 9-6 this way I’m home at a semi-reasonable hour where I can sit down and have dinner and then work until I have to go to sleep to do it all over again for tomorrow.  I don’t personally see that happening right now though.  Maybe in the future I’ll be able to do it, but not too sure as of right now and trust me when I say that’s getting on my nerve.

I have three accounts to complete – to my knowledge – and the only REAL time I have for them is on the Weekends. I look at a computer all day long but I’m not permitted to check personal email at work. I can understand their reasons for it, most of the sites are actually blocked anyway, as far as I know.

CELL PHONES n SUCH
Within the next couple of weeks Sean and I are going to get the cell phone stuff situated.  We’re going with Verizon because they have better coverage on the Island (mainly due to the slew of cell towers, on the north shore at least.  I know for sure that I’m picking up the Voyager and slapping a data plan onto it for unlimited browsing and what not.  My second choice is the pink BlackBerry Curve (8330).  Either one would give me all of the options I need.  Sean is looking to pick up a flip phone but he does want the ability to get online so I have no idea of what choice he’s going to make.  Either way we should have all of that taken care of soon.

In any event, time to check my email. – oy!