Friday, July 31, 2009

Mini-Fridge

The scene is Summer, 2002. The nervous & excited tension hung in the air like a pair of plaid boxer shorts blowing in the wind on a clothesline in my parents backyard after I had done a load of laundry, but my mom needed the dryer, so I hung the clothes I had just taken out of the washer on the line in the backyard so they wouldn't start to smell all musty and gross, because the ladies don't like musty and gross smelling dudes - even if they actually ARE musty and gross...The ladies just don't like it. Trust me...one of my...uh...friends had a bad experience once...uh...yeah, one of my friends.

It was my last load of laundry to be done at home until Christmas break after my first semester at college rolled around. Possibly my last load of laundry in general until Christmas break. Quarters were hard to come by because everyone I know was saving the State quarters to put in their little State-quarter-holder-thingies so they could show it to their friends and hopefully make (let's see...$.25 x 50...carry the 7...$12.50) Twelve dollars and some change in the future by selling it to a budding novice coin collector on Craigslist who thinks he just scored a great deal, thus creating a laundry-quarter shortage for the semester.

Anyway, I found myself in the midst of packing my s*** for college. I carefully wrapped all my knick-knacks, doohickeys, and gizmos in tissue paper and bubble wrap to ensure their safety and inanimate peace of mind on the 4 hour van trip to Steubenville. I arrived at my new dorm room with visions of grandeur and splendid beauty, only to be confronted with the heart-crushing reality of a Wal-Mart style tile floor, painted cinder block walls, and bland, yet suprisingly durable furniture. Clearly, the comforts of home would be missed without the convenience of a big-screen TV, the fashionability of expensive curtains, and the sqare footage for my orange construction barrel collection.

This all happened before my roommate even arrived. He, surely as shocked as I at the lack of convenience of dorm-style living, provided a simple yet elegant solution to one of the glaring problems with our new-found living situation: a mini-fridge. In an instant, the outlook for the first 3 lonely months of college got just a little bit better. We now had a place to store our precious hot-pockets and canned lemonade. The size just happened to be perfect as well - it was mini, just like our room! It made me feel like I was living the the fake Geico reality TV show "Tiny House" - at least everything was proportionate.

Fast forward 7 years to the present - I just got a mini fridge in my cubicle here at work. An exciting prospect suddenly turned less so when I found out I couldn't store liquor in it due to company policy, but I quickly realized that I could store a 6-pack...of soda in it, or anything I wanted to keep cold, really. At this very moment, it's got a few bottles of water in it, and that's good enough for me.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Meaningful Relationships

You know, for all the talking I do, I've realized that I don't have a whole lot of meaningful things to say - at least here on my blog. I've never been one to alienate people by my viewpoints or stir the political or religious "pot", if you will. That said, I think most that come in contact with me know where I stand with regard to my beliefs and moral values.

This brings me to a question that's been nesting in the back of my head for a couple years now. I've always known what I believe as a Catholic, and I firmly believe that what the Church teaches is 100% unadulterated Truth. The question is: How does a Catholic in the workforce and social scene evangelize without alienating those around him who do not believe the same? Some of my closest friends have completely opposite world views than I do. Much of that stems from their childhood and relationships with their family/friends during formative years.

Maybe I'm just scared of losing friends, but I don't think that's the case. I have a problem with Catholics that only hang out with other Catholics and can't get along with people who don't share their same views. I truly value the many relationships I share with those who disagree with my beliefs, or just don't care about them. I feel like I'm supposed to be fostering these relationships into ones with more meaning and purpose than just a good time or decent company.

How does one evangelize without alienating or making the other feel uncomfortable?

Monday, July 27, 2009

I am an Idiot

It has been brought to my attention that I'm an idiot. This may not come as a suprise to some or most of you, but it has just been verified and confirmed that I am an A+ first class dumba$$.

I was messing around with the settings on this here site to email me every time someone posted a comment, and when I originally read it, I thought that it was telling me it would send me an email every time one of the people whose email addresses I entered decided to post a comment...Au Contraire. Instead, it emailed some of you every time someone else posted a comment - thereby clogging up your inbox with useless dribble that nobody really cares about anyway. For that I apologize.

I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive this slight "detail" that I missed...

You keep it real - people who I spammed!

Sunday, July 26, 2009

I can now post blogs from my phone. Technology is CRAZY!

Thankful

This has been one of the best days I've had in a while. Nothing extremely crazy, but I had the opportunity to go to Mass with one of my good friends, go with her to get her first tattoo, and engage in some wonderful conversation. I got a nap in during the afternoon and polished it all off with an amazing burger followed by some good bro-time at a couple bars with some pool thrown in as well. Today was a very welcome change of pace from the jam-packed life that I live.

I'm so blessed to have meaningful relationships with fantastic friends, and the opportunity to share my journey of faith & life with them. I don't think I've ever been this excited to go to Mass and thank God for all of the blessings in my life. Thanks to all of you who are a part of it (even if you are jealous of my sweet blogging skills).


Thursday, July 23, 2009

Netbooks

A couple months ago, I would have told you that I would never buy a Windows based computer. Admittedly, I was/am an Apple fanboy, and I truly appreciate the ingenuity, user interface, and just-work-ness of Mac OSX compared with any Windows platform. Especially that dang Windows 3.1.

I'm blogging right now from an MSI Wind netbook that one of my housemates is letting me borrow for a little bit to test out. I'm here to tell you that I'm pretty much sold on getting one in the near future. At first, I thought that it would be too small to get any real computing done, especially with my large fingers bumbling around a compact keyboard. I'm pleasantly surprised to be completely wrong.

As anybody who has read some of my previous posts knows, I can go on forever about one subject, so I won't give a whole review of this computer, but rather just a glowing endorsement. After all, I am a gadget freak. This passes the gadget test with flying colors.

You keep it real blogosphere!

Exploding Mind

Today's been a busy day for me, but it's got me thinking about philosophers and mathmeticians. I know my job doesn't compare to theirs in terms of deep analytical thinking, but I've been doing quite a bit of analyzing/negotiating/decision making today, and it's given me a headache. Not a bad one, but I just feel like my brain is the bodily equivalent of the Brent Spence Bridge - too much traffic for its construction to handle!

I know I'm not the smartest guy in the world (even if my blog is amazing), but I can't imagine how people who's lived are centered around finding the next big mathematical discovery or writing dissertaions on philosphical conundrums deal with the amount of information flowing in and out of their brains. I guess it points first of all to my own limited mental capacity (but sweet blogging skills) but in reality the amazing capabilities of the human brain to be able to deeply think and analyze things.

I'm probably preaching to the choir, but that just blew my mind thinking about it (and I'm using it for an awesome blog post). I'm proud to be mostly human (except for the superior blogging ability - that's SUPER-human ;-)).

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

It's Vet Time!

There's not many things that compare to this time of year. Steve had his first birthday in June, which I feel bad for mentioning now, because I completely missed the coverage of the birthday bash/shindig/box social that I threw for him in celebration of our lives merging in an accidental collision course of blissful companionship.

Although everyone I know absolutely loves Steve, they failed to show it by not sending a card, or calling, or dropping by to say hi - except one person...or company rather. He did recieve a birthday card from the vet letting me know that it was time for them to give him a checkup and update his shots and check out stool samples and all of those other completely relaxing activities that cats do for their birthdays.

If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited to be getting Steve out of the house/yard area and out into the world for once. I know he loves car rides (LIE) and he especially loves it when the vet puts him on the scale to weigh him and then holds him down to stick him in the side with a needle. To top it all off, he'll get a nice violent nail trimming.

We'll see what happens, but I bet that Steve won't be cuddling with me tonight!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Popularity Contest

I spent some time today on my lunch breaking pondering just how popular I really am. I mean, my blog has almost 1100 hits in the past 2 months. I got on yours recently and I didn't see that you posted anything since 2007. Probably because you don't have as many friends as I do. People like reading what I write - my linguistic capabilities are far superior to the useless dribble that stutters forth from your hunting-and-pecking fingers and mushy brain.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Power Outage

I just got back from my second lunch of the day. It's not quite "Fourthmeal", but fantastic nonetheless. At roughly 11:27 am on Monday, July 13th, half of the lights in the front office lost power. A woman quietly strode into the workspace area, the only sound being the click of her stiletto heels on the thinly carpeted floor with nothing separating it from the concrete subfloor below. Not really, but I thought it would be cool to make it sound like a detective story because Bill grew a mustache, and all he can talk about now is his first wife and Dennis Franz.

Pretty soon after the power went out, I decided to go to lunch because I was unable to actually get any work done at my desk. The midday meal was brief, as it only took a short while to eat my Big Mac and throw a couple of McDonald's Cokes down my gullet. Upon returning to the office, I learned that the other half of the electricity had gone the way of the sabre-toothed tiger and wooly mammoths of days long past and freaking died. All that remained was a warehouse full of medical devices, medical device paraphernalia, and an office filled with post-modern day computing equipment, left exactly as it was when the power went off almost a full 45 minutes earlier.

After a physically, mentally and emotionally draining half hour of sitting in the loading dock with some co-workers, the decision was made to make the trek to the local wing joint for what was most appropriately termed "Second Lunch". This meal is a close cousin of the traditional Hobbit "Second Breakfast", but as you can most likely devise, this meal consists of lunch instead of breakfast.

While I didn't actually eat anything on my "Second Lunch", the time spent NOT at work was a welcome addition to my day. For the time being, I am stuck at my desk with our email servers still down and my desk phone on hold with some unknown number playing all different sorts of Muzak through the external speaker. The voice that periodically interrupts and says "Please hold, we'll be right with you", also has a calming effect. I hope something happens soon, because I'm about to tear my ears out through my throat.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Phew!

It's like a Breathe Right strip for my wallet. This is only about the 5th time I've taken my car into the shop this year, and I've already spent over $1600 in fixing/maintaining it. The last time I took into the mechanic a couple weeks ago, they said they couldn't fix it and that I needed to take it into Honda because it was something to do with the Emissions Control Board (sounds like a government agency inside my car - they were preventing my charcoal canister from making any headway in the quest to be "green" by saying it didn't meet the required zoning regulations - or something to that effect - I did really well on the analogy part on my SAT's, if you can't tell).

The mechanic who last looked at my car told me that I was looking at roughly another $800 in repairs, mixed in with a bunch of other jibber-jabber, gobbeldy-gook, & flim-flam. Thankfully, I speak all of those languages, so I could filter them out and listen to only what I wanted to hear.

After being freaked out for having to take my car to the dealer, and expecting them to come up with a laundry list of things that are wrong with my car, not to mention it having to take 3 weeks for me to get it back, I was pleasantly suprised to be wrong. I got a phone call today from the mechanic at Honda who told me that the repairs would only (ONLY!) cost me $325 and my car would be nearly perfect thereafter. Given the fact that the dang thing has 190,000 miles on it, I was ecstatic.

Despite the fact that in an hour or so I'll be $325 lighter in the wallet, it sure as hell beats $800+ additional issues. Praise God!

Monday, July 6, 2009

A Roommate Named Bill

A Roommate Named Bill is finally off the ground! I was able to finalize the contract for the domain name last night after nearly a month of price-haggling with it's original owner Dwayne Noisewater, who moved out of his house and now owns the domain name I Live By Myself Now. We were finally able to find some common ground other than the fact that we both have lived with roommates named Bill. He also has a cat named Stefan, but his cat is ugly, so I couldn't relate to that.

Either way, the site is up and running, and ready for you to read. I'm having my web designer mess with the layout a bit, but cash has been a little tight lately since I purchased the domain, so once I am able to build the funds back up to pay my guy, he should have a sweet layout set up for me. If you would like to donate his $20 flat fee to help me finish the design, I won't complain - just paypal me the money and wait for that site to be updated.

Anyway, I should get back to work. Let me know what you think of the new blog - I'll still be updating regularly here, so bookmark both of my sites!

You keep it real Mexico!

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Hallelujah!

Well, I am proud to say that I have made it through yet another Independence Day with all of my appendages still attached.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Memo

Apparently I missed the memo. All week, I've been putting the new cover pages on the TPS reports and dealing quite well with the PC load letters and making sure that I cleaned up my own mess in the break room. You might say that this week I've been "above the line" or that I've "refused to lose". It's been a satisfying week, even uplifting with the prospect of a 3 day weekend and a holiday filled with cookouts, cornhole, beer & things blowing up. Not only are those 4 things some of my favorite in the entire world, but being able to experience them in conjunction with one another and simultaneously is downright thrilling.

The reality of the matter, however, is that I did not realize that Thursday was in fact, the New Friday. As a result, today defaulted to the usual "Casual Friday". This morning, I went through my usual routine - Feed Steve in my underwear, make coffee, shower, get dressed, distract Steve from the front door so I can get out and shut him in, drive to work...etc.

It was only after I arrived to work and was gracefully released from the clutches of a 2 hour morning meeting that I realized the gravity of my oversight only hours before. I was the only person in the office decked out in my usual (but extremely classy - Dress For Success!) working attire, while everyone else had taken both the initiative and liberty to wear their most comfortable pairs of jeans and trusty 3 year-old shoes accented by faded t-shirts with stretched collars.

Despite my oversight in the chosen wardrobe for the day, I've realized a few things - 1)people will still talk to me, even though I look better than they do, which must mean I have a fantastic magnetic personality, & 2)The fact that I forgot to wear jeans proves the fact that I am human, despite what most of the populous believes.

Well, I'm off to convince my boss that since I'm such a fantastic dresser, he should let me off early for the holiday. After that, I'll be preparing my gullet for the influx of hot dogs & beer, and my ears for the sound of holes being blown in my parents backyard - illegally, of course. You keep it real America!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Canada Day!

Well, here we are. It's been a full year spent waiting for this very day and specifically, this very moment. For those of you that don't know, it happens to be one of the most important days of the year on my calendar - Canada D(Eh?)! (Lame, I know...)

I'm all dressed to the nines in my best Canadian-style clothing (made in Taiwan) and I've made a pledge to eat exclusively authentic Canadian cuisine today. Before I left my house, I poured the 2 full gallons of milk I had in my fridge into a couple Ziploc© bags, so I could truly get into the spirit and the tradition of the great country, whose glorious and nearly magical day we celebrate today.

This day is one for the ages. A day to celebrate the rich, diverse culture of our Northerly neighbors, and their fantastic contributions to our world. While their actual positive contributions may be quite scarce, we should take time to recognize their contributions in general, and deal with them accordingly. One example would be the band Nickelback, another would be William Shatner, Avril Lavigne would be a 3rd. as you can see, not many good things come from Canada, but today is a day to forget all of that. It's Canada's day people! Get on board!

Anyway, I'm off to Tim Horton's for some Timbits and a coffee spiked with some Newfie Screech. You keep it real Canada!