Mom won’t stop telling me to update when it goes more than a few weeks without me doing it. I always tell her that I will update my site as soon as she updates her’s. She always cheats by not having one. So whatever. I always mean to update, but I’m never in the writing mood.

Most important and notable things first.

Joe is engaged. He asked Kristen to marry him a few days after my last update, and aside from our immediate family and Kristens, they told everyone on Christmas. They are already in the midst of planning a wedding as they have already set a date of October 20th. He asked me just yesterday, officially, to be the best man, while he was in the middle of eating 50 Chicken McNuggets from McDonald’s. So if anyone has some killer ideas for a bachelor party, let me know.

So with that, Mike, Doug, and I are most likely (at least at this point) going to be moving out in October, when Joe moves out. Unless we can find a new roommate, that is. Which means that unless Brownie wants to move in, we probably aren’t going to find one, because frankly I don’t know that I’d want someone I don’t quite know as a roommate. So if anyone has some killer ideas for a place to live starting in October, let me know.

Work was slow during December, but has been very busy in the past couple of weeks. UDF came last Monday, and I had to have it done by Friday. I kicked its ass. So far, no problems have come about. I re-did a few of the parts of it Brian-style and it’s working out a bit easier for me and some of the other people. It’s also apparently still up in the air as to whether or not I’m going to get to ditch part of the process, which is good, because it sucks and detracts from me doing other work that needs done.

As far as work in general… I’m loving it still. I like the work, I like the people, I mostly like the attitude around here. I think I’ve found my niche. The people I work with are fun to hang out with, too. I bought everyone in my room a Nerf gun for Christmas and it was cool. A couple people broke the one rule I set of “not taking it home.” Those people will be shown no mercy should a full-out Nerf war erupt. Most Friday nights we go to a bar in Delhi and and forget about all the stupid things that happened that week… or totally rant about them. I took my camera a couple times and made some galleries, but was told I’ve been banned from taking pictures there anymore because people have a knack for embarrassing themselves while drinking. DUH.

Christmas came and went really fast. Most everyone agrees that it was probably because most of December was 50 degrees and sunny. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that it really got cold. We had our first snow since being on Drake avenue yesterday. Well, at least it was our first snow that wasn’t gone in an hour. I finally got to use the snow shovel I bought when we first moved in. I bought it anticipating not being able to find a decent one the second there were reports of a big snow coming, and in the end I could have waited a year. I shovelled most of the driveway, while the neighbor lady’s man-friend shovelled around her side of the back area and a little of inbetween the houses. That’s a lot to shovel! Thankfully, it wasn’t a very heavy snow.

So uhh… yeah. That’s all I got for now. Gotta get to work. Peace out.

See ya.

It’s cold. The predicted high temperature for the past few days has been well below freezing, and doesn’t seem like it’s going to come up any time soon. There is an impending snow storm today and everyone here is worried that it’s going to be a huge pain to get home, so there have been a few people leaving early. Wussies. The only concern I have is the gigantic hill that RPI is on… and making it across town with a few hundred stupid drivers in between me and home. So I might just leave early. Who knows.

Work is going dandy. We’ve had a busy couple of weeks and just when we get caught up I get UDF AGAIN. It’s looks pretty ugly this month. We just got done with a P&G product that involved designing a bunch of mock-ups for in-store displays. I’m told they take all of the pieces and actually set them up in a mock store and invited people to come shop there and see what they think. We got it on a Wednesday and it had to be done by the following Monday, so I had to work my first Saturday at RPI, and ended up with over 15 hours of overtime, which is cool… but in some ways also very not cool. Oh well. We made the best of it. We brought in Bagels, Juice, Milk… Pizza was purchased for us… we made some good progress, too.

I’m not at my normal computer now because there was a big leaking ceiling above it earlier in the day.

I’ve been feeling highly motivated lately, but I really need to find a project to do.

That’s all. I really have nothing better to say.

I’ve changed some things around with the site. You probably won’t notice. I’ll be adding more galleries in the next few days (yes, galleries. plural.)… (and not just Friday night galleries.) If you’re clever you can find then before they go public. Or just ask me for the links. hah. I spent this evening setting the coding of the site up so I can theme it from time to time. One such theme JUST MIGHT come about next week. Maybe a little earlier. Go me. If you notice anything weird going on let me know so I can fix it.

I’ve turned comments on, so you can tell me to shut the hell up if you want. Pretty much it’s going to be mom telling me she loves me… which is cool, but it’s also cool to know who is actually reading this stuff.

Edit: Okay, the galleries have been added and I started off the themes for the site. I’ll probably do one for every holiday… at least that I’m keeping up on the site for. Hah. Don’t miss the Panoramic Shots of Ireland that were tucked into the Ireland galleries.

Edit #2: I finished up my Ireland blog and posted it for the world to see. I replaced the “Portfolio” section with “Travels” since for over a year I just had a message saying I was too lazy to put a portfolio up. Although looking at it now, Travels should be next to Photos on the menu, but I’ll save that work for another day. Mom can’t tell me I need to update for at least another month and a half now.

I’ve been feeling really weird lately. I can’t figure out what it is. Whether I’m asleep or awake I keep feeling like something is missing and I don’t know what it is. I’m constantly bored, but I don’t want to do anything. I’m constantly feeling lonely, but I keep feeling like I just want to chill out by myself. I have lots of big ideas I want to try out but I they’re gone the second I get the idea to act on them. I feel very relaxed, very spirited, like I’m ready to run a marathon… but then I just sort of feel dejected, like I’m charging into a battle that isn’t happening I want to get out of the house and do something, but I’d rather just sit here and think about it. Then I think about all of the other aforementioned things.

Call it being in a funk… in a slump… whatever.

I haven’t been sleeping well because of it. I wake up after an hour of sleep and find myself fighting to sleep until my alarm gives me the okay to stop… yet somehow I just find myself wanting to go to bed early in the night.

Whatever it is… it doesn’t feel good… or right. Like something is very, very, wrong… or about to go wrong. It’s bringing me down in a bad way. Something is missing here and I really don’t know what it is.

I keep finding little distractions here and there to sooth it a bit, but it feels like a sunburn… you know how you get burnt to hell, and you’re uncomfortable for a few days before you start feeling better. You just wish you could stay asleep for a few days while your body works things out… kinda like the emotional version of that.

The part of me that has learned from life’s little experiences will always tell me that things are gonna get worse before they start to get better, but it’s like I’m being pulled in so many directions that I don’t know where I can possibly go with this… whether it be good or bad.

So yeah. That’s what’s going on with me. Do me a favor and help distract me from it if you can. Apologies in advance if I don’t seem like the life of the party anytime soon.

I’ve done some fun things I wanted to talk about in the past couple weeks… but I’m afraid my lack of pep is going to make them sound less exciting, so maybe I’ll save talking about them for later.

See ya.

Seriously.  I’m so sick of it being ugly and depressing outside.  Freak snowstorms yesterday that were crapping out tons of snow for a whole 5 minutes just weren’t awesome.

Anyway.

Work has been busy.  Partially because I’m making it that way.  The comment was made that our department is apparently not working at capacity because nobody is getting overtime.  At any job I’ve ever had, it’s always been expressed to me that overtime should only be given/taken/earned when it was expressly told to be done by anyone with the authority to say so.   Some of us have families, some of us just don’t want to spend their life at their computers, so if they aren’t telling us to take overtime, we’re going to leave at 5 o’clock.  So with that said, if to prove to the higher-ups and people making these comments that we are, in fact, staying busy and working at or close to capacity, I racked up the overtime this week.  I topped out at nearly 60 hours and I didn’t even stay late everyday this week.

They’ve been doing interviews to find a new person for our department, but I think they are jumping the gun here.  At this point, all of our workstations are tied up.  They CAN’T add anyone without purchasing more equipment.  So whatever.  It’s Sunday.  No more talk about work.

I’m working myself out of my funk.  Still can’t explain it.  I think I just need some attention or something.  I need to try some new things.  Change things up a bit.  I wish I had some vacation time or something so I could take a short  trip somewhere, change things up a bit… you know.

C’est la vie.

See ya.

The month has pretty much blown by! Seems like just a few weeks ago it was cold and the sky was spitting out a mix of snow and freezing rain… probably because it was, but yeah. We’ve hit 70-80 degree weather already and everything outside is turning nice and pretty!

St. Patty’s day was a blast. Aunt Reenie and Uncle Brian rented out the upstairs room at the Crow’s Nest and had the whole family up for a good time. The E-Men all came along, Lindsey and Danielle joined me with their manfriends as well as Rachel dropped by too. Pictures are in the gallery, of course!

Which brings me to my next item of news… I switched to a new gallery script that allows users to add comments, post pictures of their own and vote on picture, it also lets me add captions to pictures and a whole bunch more.

This past weekend was Stephanie’s birthday and Myself, Joe and Mike accompanied her and some of her/our other friends to the Mt. Lookout area. It was definately a fun time. I drove everyone, so I didn’t drink, but the band that was playing made it worth the time. I didn’t really feel like drinking, partially because I just didn’t want to and partially because I didn’t want to spend money at the bar, but they paid my cover and bought me a slice of delicious pizza on our way out, so all in all, I was happy happy!

Work has slowed down a little bit, but we also haven’t gotten much of the big display pieces from P&G in the past couple weeks. We’ve had some, but not 40 piece jobs. Unfortunately, I think we’re about due for one of the jobs. UDF has been long and drawn out this month. The signs were actually supposed to be to their stores TODAY… but I did not have the pricing for some stuff until I was walking out the door Friday. Sorry about your luck, but I’m not hanging around on Friday because I couldn’t get that pricing until the end of the day. Just like the P&G work, I just know that i’m going to have a new sign list in only a week or two. That sucks. Otherwise, we’re moving pretty steadily. We have a table in our room that holds all the folders of work that need to be done, and we’re doing good enough that for at least a few minutes out of the day, the folder racks are clear. As good as having them clear all the time and only have a little bit of work to do all day sounds, I’m glad the work is coming in steadily. It makes the days go faster and right now it’s moving at a pace that we can keep up with.

So. Pretty run of the mill with me.

I guess that’s all I have for now. I’ll think of other things later.

See ya.

Swear it. So where to start? How about some comments on the weather?

Seems like winter wasn’t ready to be over with. Just as soon as things got nice and warm, we dropped back down to 30 degree temperatures for a week. Now that the temps are starting to come back up, we’re hitting the part of Spring where it’s windy and rainy. Bummer. Guess we’ll be waiting until mid-May for some casual weather. Probably be too hot by then. :-\

Work Stuff: Been keeping busy at work. I’ve been picking up that spare overtime here and there but it seems like the work we are getting just doesn’t want to quit. I got handed a couple of rough projects on Thursday that pretty much tied me up until today. I’d get to a stopping point on one, the other would come back and need some work, and then right back to the other. In between I’d eek in some time with UDF. We’re doing okay with UDF this month, but the easy part is over. Somehow I know that train is going to derail and screw me over somehow. At this point it should be entirely out of my hands. Whatever. Friggin’ nightmare. I feel bad for Tonia because she’s been tied up with the same project for over a month now and it’s beyond ridiculous. I don’t mind if I have to stay every now and then because most nights I just have an empty house to come home to, but other people in the department want to see their families. They hired someone new, but it seems like kind of a crock that it took this long. I don’t know. I don’t run the place and I get paid either way, so I guess it’s pretty fruitless to waste my time worry about it. I just wish that people would realize we don’t just press a few buttons and the work is done.

House stuff: I’ve been getting really upset the past few weeks. Ever since we had our BIG IMPORTANT ROOMMATE MEETING back in November or December, it seems like I’m the only one that has given a rat’s ass about anything that was said. It’s really disappointing that we could all sit there and attest to how big of slobs we are, and yet no more than a day after I clean the kitchen up (which is at least every other day) there are dirty, greasy dishes in the sink, the same clean dishes in the washer waiting to be taken out, countless pieces of trash and recyclables left on the counter… It’s apparently way to fucking hard to open up the back door that’s 4 feet from where people set their beer bottles and other crap and toss them in the bin that’s literally RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOOR. Who am I kidding? I mean, why make the effort of opening a door to toss your trash in the garbage can when you can leave it sitting around? Okay, I get it, I’m not the best and cleanest person in the world. I have my bouts of laziness but if there is one thing I can’t stand it’s living among piles of trash. Chips in the carpet and on the couches, wrappers and beer bottles sitting around… you pass the damn trash cans at some point, TAKE IT WITH YOU. Again, I know it’s mildly hypocritical of me to complain, but I’ve been doing damn good since our wasted meeting. I’ve cleaned at least one room in the house every weekend. Nobody else can say that. Then I’ve been let down when I clean that room and it can’t be kept that way for one damn day. It’s aggrivating. Why should I bother?

Roommate issues: So in the quest to figure out what we were going to do come October when Joe moves out… we hit a few rocks. A couple weekends ago, I talked to one of my cousins who might be interested in taking over Joe’s end of the rent and really had no complaints about the price, situation, etc. Then the very same night I find out that Doug is “90% likely” to move in with Kate when Joe moves out. That really, really sucks. Regardless, I’ve decided that if the situation with cleanliness doesn’t improve by the time Joe moves out, I’d rather pay a little more a month and live by myself than spend all sorts of time cleaning up other people’s messes. To me, it’d be worth it to spend an extra $100 a month on a nice apartment than to live in a filthy house. So yeah. There it is. I’m not living with anyone that can’t clean up after themselves. Sucks, but if I wanted to live in slop, I’d go spend my nights in the street. We have a great house and we’re slowly destroying it by not being pro-active about things. Whatever. I’m going to end up giving myself an aneurysm about it if I don’t change the subject… because it sure as hell doesn’t seem like things will change soon.

I think I just need to hang out with other people more often. I need excuses to get out of here for a little while. I mean, its obvious to me that I’m the most different of the 4 of us. Whenever I want to do something, they always kinda roll their eyes at my ideas or shoot me down, but then they get upset when I hang out friends who do want to do those things. Whatever. I’m going to do what I want to do so there’s no point in getting worked up over it.

See ya.

This weekend seemed like a big realization of the changes that are about to happen in my life. I’ve been anticipating the eventual move from our current location when Joe gets married and moves out. As mentioned before, Mike, Doug, and I can’t pay for the house by ourselves. Or at least it would be stupid to do so. It’s been made entirely clear that Doug has little to no desire to live with Mike and myself again and that he will be moving in with Kate at the earliest convenience. So I’ve been looking in to the cost of rental properties in the area just to have a better idea of what Mike and I can expect when we begin looking for a place to live come late September or October. Joe and Kristen made an offer on a house this past weekend and it was accepted. The house is pretty much their’s, but there’s nothing that looks like they won’t close on it. I wish I was financially able to buy a house… even a condo. I just hate the thought of moving into a another place where I will piss money away and have no return investment on it. As such, I really don’t want to pay anymore for a place than I am now… hopefully I’ll pay less, but the prices on places I’ve looked up on the internet don’t seem to agree. I’d like to be able to move into a more house-like situation, even if it was a two family or something of the sort, but I think I would be satisfied with an apartment. I think Kristen’s roommates are feeling the same way. Maybe we can find a situation that could benefit all of us, like both sides of a two family or something. That would be pretty cool. &br;&br;The big day of doom is fast approaching for Joe. It’s hard to believe that Joe and Kristen have already been engaged for over eight months and that the wedding is only two and a half months away. It makes me so happy to be around them because I’m so excited for them. &br;&br;Work has been great. I hit a pretty low point a few months back when some foul crap was pulled on me for a reason which still has yet to be made crystal clear to me. I don’t really care to go in to details, but all in all I think someone acted on a grudge against me without thinking clearly and in the process made my job both harder and uncomfortable for a while. But since then things have been on the up and up. I’ve gotten a sort of a “promotion” which is more of a way of saying I won’t be working on the lousy jobs, and that the stuff I that I will be working (almost) exclusively on the big projects. &br;&br;So I’ve been working on a couple of big projects for the past few months and they seem to be coming to an end. They kinda seem like the projects that won’t die. But it’s fun. It’s a challenge, but it’s pretty exhausting. The company as a whole is booming and it’s really exciting to be here for it. I’m kinda worried about what is going to happen when these projects are completed, but as they say, worrying is like a rocking chair. &br;&br;Life outside of work has been pretty dull, house/living arrangement things aside. I’ve all but begged people to give me something to do and it seems like I spend most of my nights and weekends alone and bored. It’s kinda disappointing as a whole. It does seem like my roommates have been around a bit more lately, but it makes a person feel kind of worthless when you get to work on Monday morning and everyone tells you about all the things they did over the weekend and all you have to offer is that you watched shitty second-rate movies on TV one after another. It kinda bums me out when the only person that wants to hang out with me some weekends is my mom. (No offense mom.) I’ve gone to movies by myself, I’ve played so many games that I’m bored with games, I’ve invited people over, I’ve invited people out and it still seems like most nights I’m alone. Hmm. &br;&br;Site stuff… I had to set the gallery to allow comments from registered users only. Please don’t be dejected by this. It takes only a few seconds to register and you can actually post your own pictures to my gallery when you do. Spammers had overrun the commenting system posting porn links and stupid crap and I actually had to hose a dozen or so comments to take some of their’s out. I fucking hate spammers. &br;&br;There. Now you can stop hassling me, mom. Hah.&br;&br;See ya.

The burden of taking care of a simple website is getting to be a real pain in the ass. As mentioned previously, bot-spammers started abusing the hell out of my photo gallery, attempting to post link to everything from the standard Viagra, porn, and “free gift certificates” and other shit that no one wants. I had to require registration to stop it. Spammers now found their way into my news script and are trying to do the same thing. I really pisses me off. To top it off, some random asswipe thought it would be a fun idea to use an exploit in my gallery scripts and gain access to my database that stored both the information for the gallery and ALL of the data for the forums. They just deleted the whole thing. It would have been one thing if they had just left their mark and considered it done, but they deleted it all for no reason other than to be an asshole.

I’ve seen things like that done to people, and messing with them a bit is funny. I probably would have just fixed the problem and moved on if they had done something funny or left their mark, but their intentions were entirely malicious and now I have to go through and reinstall a bunch of crap. That’s really just not fair.

So yeah. If you are looking for the forums you aren’t going to find them. If you were one of the people that used to hang at the forums and you wanna put them back up, let me know and I’ll set you up with the webspace to do so. But right now I really don’t feel like starting them from scratch and don’t care to put up with the bullshit from spammers and assholes.

So It’s been a few months since I’ve made a post. The webscript I used for news was great for a while, then they had an upgrade that pretty much sucked. Hard. I backed up my files and everything, but somewhere in there they got deleted or overwritten. I still have them, but the news script was incorrectly listing dates as being in 1970, saying that I had hundreds of comments, all sorts of crazy crap. Some of the posts just flat out weren’t showing up. So I finally decided to say screw it and switch scripts. I’m working on the new one right now. It’s a bit more mainstream so it should work much better. With any luck I can go through my old posts and add them in, backdated. We’ll see. But whatever.

Okay. See ya.

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