another walk, origmai progress, AARP

After my last post - I took another walk. This one was about 4 miles total, so I think I got in around 9+ miles that day - not bad. And I slept really well that night.

I spent a good chunk of my memorial day hanging out, watching "dead like me", and working on my origami project. Made some serious progress, one layer is nearly complete. Just gotta put the outside panels in place and I'll be ready to move vertical. It's also way more structurally sound - which is a good thing.

And finally, I got a notice from the AARP. Asking me to join. I want to call them up and scream into the phone, "I'm only 33! Leave me the hell alone!"

But that would be rude.

So, intead, I'm just going to get back to work...

gardens, butterflies, trains, and a walk

Yesterday, I went with some friends to Stan Hywet hall and gardens. It's a big old house that it was far to nice of day to go inside - so, we walked around the gardens and ponds, and checked out the conservatory. Where I half expected to see Mrs. Peacock standing over a dead body with a Candlestick in her hands.

The Conservatory had a pretty cool train set up - two tracks that looped around a large area with lots of waterfalls and quaint little log houses. Pictures were taken.

It also boasted a butterfly area - protected by a "butterfly" lock in the form of 2 sets of doors. There were strict rules about entering and exiting the area to protect the butterflies - but once inside, it was amazing. The area was thick with them, including some huge - and friendly - examples of the species. Pretty cool. It was neat to get up really close to them and watch them feed on nectar and pollen - or when they were just hanging out.

One species - according to the guide - doesn't eat. They only live a few days as a moth - the rest of their life is as a caterpillar. Sure enough, the one we saw fell off a branch and died right in front of us.

There was nothing to be done except make a quiet joke about "mouth to moth resuscitation" and then move one. One of my friends had one land on his back as we neared the exit and we had to have a little help knocking it loose - after pictures were taken, of course.

The rest of the time there was spent in the gardens trying to avoid the countless wedding parties that were having pictures taken there. It wasn't easy, but we managed to avoid being including in any "special memories"

Late that afternoon, I developed a massive headache that followed me home. I took some aleve and managed to quell it enough to get to sleep that night. It was still there when I got up to pee twice last night and the last vestiges were still there in the morning.

But, it faded enough for me to venture out and take what ended up being a 3 hour walk in the hot sun. I tried to keep myself hydrated and mostly succeeded. I'm still a bit tired, but a cool shower helped and I think it was good trip. I also tried out Fazolli's - a sort of fast-ish food italian restaurant. I had pizza - which was good but seriously greasy.

And I guess that's it for now. Later...

things that are odd...

1. Recently, I was driving along and the car in front of me suddenly slammed on their brakes as a hand extended out the driver's side window. After a slight hesitation, the hand extended a finger and pointed to the right, over the top of the car. They then proceeded to make a right turn.

There is a slight possiblity that their turn signals didn't work - however, the brake lights were fine and the car seemed to be in good condition. It's a little more likely that the person was simply a dork.

2. Yesterday, also while in a car, I saw a man mowing a lawn in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. How do I know that they weren't just light-weight sweats? Because I have a pair just like them. Very strange.


In other news... don't be fooled by subways new "garlic bread". Being a fan of bread in general and especially of garlic bread - I thought I'd give it a go with maybe a meatball sub. Ah, but no. "It's not garlic bread, " my sandwich artist tells me, but meerly a spread that can be added to the exisiting breads. Taken aback, I quickly changed my order to the very bland standard. If it had just been garlic butter, I might have gone for it, but the consistancy was all wrong and I avoided it. As the sandwich moved through the process, I had a difficult time convincing the artists to not put extra stuff on. I finally had to tell them "extra plain" - which got a slight laugh and let me move on with my life.


It's been fairly quiet here at work today. One of my colleages' last day here is next wednesday, so we've been trying to get stuff organized.

I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend - maybe even doing a little hiking if the crowds aren't bad. Almost makes me hope for rain since I'll walk in the rain and not many other people will.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Back to work...

wookieWear - summer edition

A quick post today - been pretty busy. But, enough time for a visit from everyone's favorite wookie - in his new shirt/beer bottle cozy.



Chewie! Not so close! Back up a bit...



Okay, that's a little better...



Great! Now, put your arms down.

Hmmm...well, you can put your arms down when you get to school.

Back to work...

ex-roomate, car wash

I had a call last week from my ex-roommate's mother - she told me he was getting married on Friday. For his tearful apoligy and an attempt at a renewed friendship - I would have thought that an event as important as this would have warrented at least a solicitation of gifts.

My thoughts on this:

1. I also found out that it's with the woman who moved in with us and ultimately led to him moving out. And I guess, in a way, it's a good thing. At least something good came out of that. I think I would have been more annoyed if he's broken up with her and then moved on and was suddenly getting married.

2. I'm kinda wishing that his mom stopped keeping me in the loop. If things are done - and I think/hope they are - then I don't need to be in this loop anymore.

In other news, I got a message from my sister on my answering machine on Saturday. She was calling to tell me how annoying the "free car wash" was just down the street from her apartment. Strangely enough, I missed her call beacause I was going for a walk - to a walmart in my area where the girls soccer team was having a free car wash. There were two girls holding signs and shrieking at passing cars. They were also shrieking in my general direction - though if they thought a pedestrian would be interested in a car wash, they were indeed as stupid as they looked - and sounded.

I'm going to have to blame car dealers for this situation. Car commercials are still frequently populated with screaming salesmen - as though the only way we'll listen is if we are yelled at.

In those cases, I stop listening and ignore them. As I ignored the shrieking car wash girls - and as I hope my sister was able to eventually do with her own neighborhood free car wash.

I guess that's about it for now. Back to work...

lunch, $5, highlander trench coat

I went out to lunch with some co-workers/colleagues. We had a pretty good time and one of them bought lunch for the rest of us - which was very cool. Coming back into work I saw a $5 bill on the grass - so, I went to lunch and made $5. Didn't even have to dance on a table for it or anything.

The past couple of rainy days I've been wearing my gray trenchcoat to work - and since my attention to proper attire has waned recently, I've also been wearing my jeans and sneakers. Which, I've realized, is the same outfit that Duncan McCloud wore in Highlander. Unfortunatly, I don't have a job that lets me carry around a sword, but if that changes - I'm ready.

I guess that's about it for now - I had some weird dreams last night, but I can't remember them. Time to get back to work...

visit, zoo, zips, totebag

Last Friday morning I woke up early to the sounds of my next door neighbors getting, umm...busy. Apparently I heard only the tail end of the festivities since within about 5 minutes of the last hurrah, I then heard their car start up and one of them drive away. So much for the afterglow.

I got up and got ready for work - and packed for my weekend trip to visit my folks. 8 hours later (after work) I'm on the road. The trip was mostly uneventful - though I did encounter a problem in columbus with a lane that I needed closed due to a semi stopped on the road. There were a bunch of people milling around the truck - as though they expected it to transform into a giant robot and run away. Or maybe they were just practicing putting up orange cones.

Finally got to my folks and had pizza while we watched the latest Harry Potter movie. Pretty good, but a little uneven.

Last Thursday I'd gone to a silent auction and won a gift basket - which mom really liked along with the hot tub pillow I'd gotten for her before. So, I scored a bunch of points this Mother's Day weekend.

On Saturday morning, Dad and I went and got some mulch and toured his garden. Both my parents have put a lot of work into the landscaping and it shows.

Saw my sister for a bit before she had to get ready for a wedding - then mom, dad and I headed north to the zoo. The gibbons were amazing, and the river otters are always fun. We didn't get to see too much before the sky opened up and rain started coming down. We made a quick exit and while waiting for the car, someone went past and said "Go Zips" to me since I was wearing my akron jacket. It was a little weird to see a zips fan outside their native enviroment.

From there - half priced bookstore. I was a little disappointed in their sci-fi selection, but the comics were excellent. I ended up spending slightly over $30 - which entitled me to a free tote bag. It was a neon yellow/green. I think it may have also glowed in the dark, but I haven't checked it out yet.

My sister and her boyfriend came over on Sunday for lunch - we did a little origmai and comeserated with mom's dog - who it turns out doesn't like the boyfriend and tends to bite - so the dog had to wear a muzzle. I thought she looked like a ninja, but it was clear she didn't like it - though eventually she got used to it.

The drive back home was uneventful - other than some rain. And the week I expect will be mostly ordinary. But, I'd better get back to work...

slightly better today, getting my ear re-done, work

My mood has improved a bit today - at least partially since I can't seem to maintain a bad mood for too long. Tires me out.

After work yesterday, I went for a walk and headed up to the nearby tattoo and body piercing studio - with the full intention of getting my ear re-pierced. I've been to the company before - though not at their current location. The first place was a little seedy, the second was pretty classy - well, as classy as tattoo and body piercing studios go. The new location - extra seedy.

Strike 1. Door propped open = no air conditioning. The equipment generates heat and a busy place with lots of people generates heat as well. Not going to be comfortable if a person is there very long.

Strike 2. Cash only. The signs were everywhere. Having a credit card machine takes time and money to establish. Cash only is a little more "fly by the seat of your pants". And since some tattoos can be a lot of money, that's a lot of cash to carry around.

Strike 3. The owner came out, and he was looking like hell warmed over. He did one of my first tattoos and later one of his employees examined the work and didn't have anything good to say. I dunno if he was on something, but I got a bad vibe. Especially if he was going to be the one to re-do my ear.

I asked him the price for getting my ear redone - he said it was $40.00 and that it included a silver hoop.

Strikes 4 & 5. $40.00 seemed pretty high, especially since it was redoing an existing piercing - it's not like he would have had to aim or anything. And a hoop? A hoop means the hole is going to heal around the shape - and I don't want a curved hole in my ear.

So, I said something about needing to go to the ATM and made my escape.

Back to my car and then to get my hair cut - and then to the mall. I've done enough research to now be a little disdainful of getting my ear pierced in the mall, but I got it done the first time there and figured it might not be bad. Well, I looked and looked and couldn't find what I was really looking for in either kiosk - nor could I find it in spencer gifts or even the painfully girly claires. By this point I'd decided I was just going to do it myself and needed a simple post. I settled on a pair at claires and made my exit.

Later in the evening after a little pizza, a couple episodes of Lost season 1, and a little work on my origami - I decided to get to work on my ear. I started to push the post through and it started to hurt. So I went downstairs to discover I was out of ice. Back to the bathroom, I took it slow and gently worked the post into place. It bled a bit, but not too bad, and I got it cleaned up and took a shower.

It seems fine today - but it also seems like a lot of work to get a piece of metal in my ear.


In other news, nothing new on the work front. One of my colleagues may or may not be resigning - which is stressing all of us out since we're already short handed. Getting a little tired of muddling through.

Well, I guess I should get back to the grind...

pandora

I was using Wikipedia, one of my favorite sites, to look up info on the video game God of War. One of the items in the game is Pandora's Box - and Wikipedia had an article for the myth as well.

According to the site, there's some confusion as to the real story. Might have been a box, might have been a jar - might have been that the box and the woman were one.

In one version, Pandora opens the box and all the evils escape - but closes it so that only Hope is still trapped. In another, she traps Hope and lets it out later - with the idea that Hope is in the world, but it has some catching up to do.

The real question, I think, is what was Hope doing in a box of the evils of the world? I don't think they really answer that in the site article, but I believe that in some circumstances - Hope itself is evil.

No matter how terrible a person may feel, there's always Hope - and always a chance to have that Hope dashed. There's always a chance for things to get just that much worse.

So, I think by this point it should be clear that I'm not having a good week. Hell, I'm not sure that it's even been a good year - or any other band of tire.

Family: There's an underlying tension anymore and every time we talk about it - things get just a little bit worse. So, we don't talk about anything of consequence and the banality continues.

Relationship: I tried to show some honesty and caring recently - it went badly.

Work: After our 4.25 hour long meeting yesterday, we've finally got a plan of attack for our future - and given the current staffing and other resources, it's utterly impossible for us to succeed. Which, in a way, makes it a little easier- all we have to do now is fail with a little bit of style.

But hey, there's always hope, right? All I have to do, apparently, is keep my head down and shut my damn mouth and everything will work out.

---

(later)

Well, the relationship thing is little better after some email exchanges. Still not entirely comfortable at how things have gone, but it'll work out. Work is much the same - still in the dark, still up in the air, still doomed.

I've got an hour to go before I head out today - thinking about trying to get my ear done, get a haircut, and some new pants.

I guess that's it for today...

card, ear, contacts, game

This weekend, I decided to pick up a couple of Mother's Day cards - one for my mom and one for my grandmother. I was in the grocery store card aisle and picked up a card with snoopy on it. I'm not big on mushy cards and I usually go for humor unless it's a card for someone having died. So, Snoopy is usually a non-mushy choice and I figured I was half-way done. To my horror, I opened the card and a literal shower of glitter poured out. The lights above the rack made it almost glow - as though Tinkerbell had been by earlier and had taken a crap in the card.

I hastely put the card back though the damage had been done. A woman standing nearby asked, "Bad card?" as though I'd taken the time to see the written content and been troubled for some reason. I simply replied "too much glitter" and spent the next few minutes trying to brush myself off. And as my sister will attest - it's a futile exercise. She has a glitter-phobia.

After much careful searching, I finally found two cards with a minimum amount of glitter (i.e. none) - though since the cursed stuff had already eaten its way into my skin, my perceptions may have altered.

Overall, tramatic.

In other news, I think I'm going to get my ear re-pierced today. I haven't worn one in a while and the whole has closed over. Hoping they can "re-activate" the existing hole with a minimum of pain.

My contacts are bothering me again. My eyes seem really dry and I'm begining to wonder if the "cold" is really an allergy springing up. Get it? It's spring time and the allergy is "springing up"? Yeah, I didn't think it was that funny either.

Playing Prince of Persia The Two Thones last week. Had to race a chariot though an obstacle course and once I'd finally survived that one, faced off with two huge monsters. Got my ass royally kicked. Tried a couple more times, got frustrated and stopped. Fired it up later and had to restart from the chariot race. Ass kicked, again.

Went online and looked up the cheat section on how to beat the two monsters. Tried to follow the advice - ass kicked again, though I did get a few hits in. And this is on the heels of a huge and complicated puzzle - and while on the "easy" setting. I dunno know about this game - I think it's stopped being fun - which means I'll stop playing it and most likely sell it. It's too bad, the time travel elements are pretty sweet.

Well, I guess that's about it for now - got a busy day ahead of me and a potentially 4 hour long meeting this afternoon. "Alex, I'll take 'Things that suck' for a thousand"

later...

sick, sore, hating traffic, meeting

Still sick. Not much more to say about that.

Strangely sore. Got a weird ache on my left side, just above and below my collarbone. No idea why it's sore, but I've tried stretching and rubbing it to no avail. I noticed it yesterday and thought I'd slept funny, but it hurt when I went to sleep last night and it's still hurting this morning. Shouldn't another nights sleep cancel it out somehow if that was the case? I'm going to try heat tonight if it's still bothering me.

So, I'm driving into work, heading down a four lane one-way street. Well, three and a turn lane. I'm not turning and I'm in the correct lane to proceed forward, fully aware that we've only got two lanes across the interection to work with since one is closed for the musuem construction. I'm stopped at a light behind several cars and though it seems like it's taking forever, there's at least a good song on the radio and I'm doing okay. Light turns green and we start across the intersection, only to get stopped halfway. Turns out that the construction is now taking up two of the three lanes - including mine.

I freaking hate that. Just freaking hate it. Streets are for cars to drive upon. Don't block my lane to unload mulch or deliver a precious moments figurine - get out of the way and park. Seems like freaking common courtesy to me.

Anyway, I'm stuck out in traffic until the only open lane clears enough to let me through. And then, joy of joys - I arrive at work. We've got two meetings today - 3.5 hours total. Dramatic sigh.

So, I guess I should get back to work and try to get something productive accomplished. I have high hopes that the sun will come out tomorrow (tomorrow) and that I'll have a better day.

later....

still sick, hostel, meeting

I'm still sick - and the tylonal is just not quiet doing the job. I'm considering shoving a couple of pills up my nose all the way into my sinuses. None of this "bloodstream" crap - I want them to go to work right freaking where the problem is. Do my toes hurt? No, so there's no need for the drugs to even head that direction. It's plan. Not a great plan, but a plan none the less.

I watched part of Hostel last night - but not all of it. There was T, then there was A, then there were drugs, then gorey and pointless violence. Lather, rinse, repeat. Stopped watching after the first 45 minutes - it was terrible. Hellraiser had just as much gore, and it had a plot as well. This, this was just crap.

In other news... our Monday meeting, postponed until today - has been postponed again till tomorrow. I think we may have to rename this thing.

And that's it for now, back to work...

mucus, on the highway, getting gas, stupid little girl

This weekend I was sick. Headache, sore throat, sinus pressure - and mucus. More mucus than I realized a human being could produce. It was terrible. I filled a small trash can with klennex in no time at all. So, I've been jamming on Tylonal cold medicine most of the time and I think I'm getting better. Maybe.

I was driving on the highway on Friday and the far left lane - where I'm at - suddenly comes to a halt. I swear for a bit - but hold my ground in the hope that it will eventually clear instead of creating a problem in the next lane over by everyone moving to it.

Eventually, after much stop and go - I see a truck with one of those ------> signs on the back. Indicating that we should all get over. With some difficulty, I do. We finally go past the obstrutction and find that it's...

1. The truck with the arrow, parked in the lane with the driver in the cab.
2. Two police officers standing next to their cruisers. Unhurt. Just chatting.
3. One motorcycle, upright and undamaged. The rider was just getting on the bike, he was unhurt. His helmet was on resting on the ground, undamaged.
4. One woman, also unhurt. Walking over to her undamaged car.

Now, I clearly don't have the whole story. But at this point - everyone that was still there at the scene should have gotten away from there and freed up traffice - instead of standing there chatting. You want to chat? Go to Starbucks.

After this incident, I'm near my destination, but running on fumes. I pull into a gas station and see two pumps open on the right side of my car. I started to pull forward to go to the far one - as a courtesy - but notive a kid standing on the far pump's island. He's trying to direct a woman in a huge car to that pump - she's making a wide loop to bring the left side of her car into postion. Now, I've never needed anyone to direct me to a pump to fill my car - but even with help she wasn't doing a good job. I backed up to get away from her to the point where I wasn't sure I could reach my gas tank at the second pump. She ended up vaguely near the pump, but mostly out in the isle. The kid proceeded to pump the gas. I pumped my gas and got out of there well before they were done.

Later that weekend I find myself traveling down a residental alleyway, one lane, and encounter a little girl on a bike. I've had dealings with this little girl before and based on her previous behavior I know her to be...

1. Arrogant
2. Foolishly unobservant
3. Annoying
4. Stupid

She's on her little pink bike, riding right down the middle of the alley, coming right towards me. I slow down to a crawl and wait for her to get out of the way. I reach the cross intersection before she does, and I don't deviate from my course. Still, she keeps coming. I slow even further, prepared to stop and let her hit my car. Might be funny.

At the last possible moment, she darts into a single car parking space at the back of the building. I figure she's going to wait until I get past - which would be the sensible thing to do. Instead, she turns around and darts right back into my way - now headed away from me but still in the way.

What had been a game of chickcn or some kind of mind game has turned into rampant stupidity. As she pedels along she keeps looking back to see:

1. if I'm there. Duh, it's an alley, where am I going to go?
2. how close I am. If she was worried about me hitting her, why did she get in front of me again?

She reaches an intersection of a main street and, without looking, darts into traffic. She looks back one last time as I turn onto the street and I raise my fingers to my forehead in the international "loser" symbol.

We both survived the encounter - but I doubt either of us will be the same.

Back to work...