…why they put braille lettering on a DRIVE-UP ATM?

I was running some errands today, and had to stop by the bank.  As I was waiting for my receipt to print, this caught my eye, and I laughed out loud.  I’d never noticed it up to now.  I had to take a picture.

This might explain some of the horrible drivers that were out and about today.

I slowly see myself turning into one of those grouchy old men.  You know… the old geezer whom the neighborhood parents warn their kids to stay away from because he eats children.

I had class this morning.  Next week is the last week, then I’m done for good.  I’m more than ready to be through with it.  It’s taken me four years to get a two-year degree in a field of IT that I have little interest in.  (I’ve moved around some, and also have about half of a bachelor’s degree.  Long story.)  Anyway, I woke up this morning at 4:30 to finish all of my homework from the past six weeks of class (because that’s how I roll).  I went to class, turned it in, did my stuff, and left.  On the way home, I was hungry, so I stopped by the local Arby’s to get some lunch.

I always go inside when I go to Arby’s.  That’s because I like to put their spicy three-pepper sauce on my chicken/bacon/swiss sandwich, and for some reason, they don’t have it in the little packets.  You have to get it from the dispenser things inside.

As I was ordering, I heard a commotion behind me.  A few moments later, I glanced back to see four 12-14 year-old girls carrying on like fools.  I positioned myself at a table as far away from them as possible, hoping to avoid listening to them.  My efforts were futile.

You know the type.  They giggle uncontrollably at everything, and every sentence ends with a question mark, regardless of whether or not it is an inquiry.

“SO… um… we were in biology the other day?  And we were like… dissecting a frog?  And it smelled SO bad?  I was like… UH… EEW?”

“UH… I KNOW, right!?!?” responded her friend across the table, gesturing dramatically with one hand and drinking her soda with the other.

This went on for some time.  As annoying as it was, I couldn’t help but smile to myself, and think of what might have happened, had my fiancee been with me.

Julia tends to be “one of the guys.”  A lot of girls get on her nerves.  That especially includes teenaged, loud-mouthed girls who can’t put three real words together without collapsing into laughter.

When in the presence of girls like this, she tends to (loudly) strike up conversations with me.

‘SO… UM… MIKE?  YA KNOW… I GET SOOOO TOTALLY PISSED OFF AT STUPID PEOPLE?  ONES WHO ARE, LIKE, SO LOUD AND GET ON PEOPLE’S NERVES?”

She makes my heart smile.

“I’m anti-prissy,” she’s informed me matter-of-factly on several occasions.

Things like this concern me, though.  I ate my lunch as quickly as possible in order to avoid being stuck in the same room with them any longer than necessary.  There’s no way I could have one of these girls living in my home.

What if Jules and I have a daughter one day?  She’s going to grow up and become a teenager eventually.  If she ever starts talking like that, I’m afraid you’ll find my name in the newspaper.  It’ll be under the heading, “Local Parent Arrested For Beating Child.”

Anyway, my sandwich was good.

Remember when you were young, and staying up all night was the cool thing to do?

I have to say that work is going really well.  I absolutely love my new job, and the more I learn, the more I love it.  I couldn’t be happier.  The biggest challenges, though, stem from the lack of others doing their job.

Within two days of being added to the email distribution list for our group, I said to my new boss, “I’ve noticed a trend here.”

“Oh?” he inquired.

I went on to explain that I see a lot of the following two scenarios:

• “This customer is getting really impatient.  They needed all of these servers configured yesterday.  I know that our sales team just got the order to your group five minutes ago… but that doesn’t matter.  You guys need to drop everything you’re doing and take care of this now.”
• “Hey!  Thank you so much for all of the hard work and many hours you put into building these.  Unfortunately, though, I gave you the wrong information.  So I’m gonna need to ask you to undo everything you just did and rebuild them this way.”

It’s all good, though.  You can’t help but laugh at most of them.  My boss, although one of the most laid-back people I’ve ever met, is quite good at defusing these folks.

We got a bomb dropped on us last week, though.  An email went out to our team from our boss who explained that we have a huge customer coming in.  They needed their entire environment (which consisted of about 30 servers of various species) built out by Monday.  We got the email at 3 pm on Friday.  He had explained to his superiors that this wasn’t a realistic expectation, but he was instructed to ask for volunteers.

Me and the other new guy jumped at the chance to prove ourselves, as well as make some serious overtime money.

To give you an idea of the overtime I put in, I worked for about three hours Saturday night.  Then, I started back up again on Sunday morning at 10 am and didn’t stop until 7:45 am on Monday morning.  My only break was when I pulled myself away from my laptop for about an hour and a half as Jules and I went to eat dinner at the local Mexican place.

You wanna talk about “gittin’ er done.”  Everything was handed over to the customer on Monday, as expected.  I was also glad to see what a hard worker the other new guy is.  He kicked some ass.  Not only that, but my boss, and my boss’s boss were working right there with us too.  I had a lot of respect for that.  Most bosses would push something like this on their subordinates and go play golf.  Not these guys.  I was very impressed, to say the least.

Apparently, so were a lot of other people.  My boss came over to my desk today (since I obviously got to take yesterday off to sleep), and told me that “this really opened a lot of eyes, and there are a lot of people who are very impressed with the work we did.”

I told my co-worker that I was pretty impressed as well.  “For being the new guys, I think we kicked some serious ass,” I informed him.  He agreed.  There was sooooo much that didn’t go as planned (not related to anything we did), but we worked as a team quite well if you ask me.

Anyway, I’m gonna get to bed.  Hopefully, I won’t be pulling any more all-nighters anytime soon!

You will remember my mental image I had of the woman upstairs.  She walks like an elephant, so Jules and I both naturally assumed she was overweight.  She also pisses us off by slamming things around upstairs and vacuuming non-carpeted floors at ridiculous hours in the morning.  That just made my hideous image of her that much more satisfying.

In my stick-figure drawing earlier this week, she was more of a “log” figure.

You can imagine my surprise, though, when I discovered that the picture I had in my mind’s eye was not even close to accurate.

I was walking out the door the other morning, when I heard familiar thundering footsteps above me.  As I got outside and locked the door, I happened to look up (we live on the second floor of a three-story apartment building), and see the culprit directly above me through the small spaces between the boards in the floor.  She had walked out of her door at the same time I had.  I took my time walking down the stairs, as I wanted her to catch up so that I could get a good look at her.

This is actually a better image of her.

She was a normal-sized gal, probably in her late 30s.  She was dressed pretty decently, and actually wasn’t that bad looking, aside from the scowl on her face.  It was a cross between “I haven’t been laid in ten years,” and “I have to poop.”  She looked like she would eat the head off of anyone who crossed her path.  She also had on some of the biggest heels I’ve ever seen, which I attribute to the commotion we always hear above us.

I don’t understand high heels.  I mean, they look sexy (on certain women), but they cannot possibly be comfortable.  Therefore, I can’t understand the need to wear them at all times while residing in the apartment above us.

My fiancee has recently informed me that she’d rather wear heels if she’s going to be on her feet all day.  When I turned my head to the side and gave her my quizzical look, she went on to explain.  Something about the way it shifts the focus of her weight to from one part of her foot to another.

Whatever.  My preference?  No shoes at all.  The first thing I do when I get home is kick my shoes off at the door.  The first thing I do when I get to work is kick my shoes off under my desk.  Keeping my shoes on all day is completely unfathomable to me.

Maybe she does it just to piss me off.  Some people are like that, ya know…

I had today off in observance of the holiday.  I was pretty happy about it.  President’s Day is one of those holidays you don’t want to work, since it’s not a “real” holiday.  Many people are still in the office today, but my employer runs on “holiday staff” during President’s Day.  For that reason, it’s usually just as busy as a regular day, except you have about half the number of people to do the work.

Since I knew I had the day off today, I ended up staying up until about 2:00 in the morning working on stuff.  Exhausted, I flopped into bed next to an already-sleeping Julia and fell asleep, looking forward to waking up whenever I wanted to.

Fast forward four and a half hours later.  I was awakened suddenly by the sound of the fat cow who lives upstairs vacuuming her linoleum at 6:30 in the freakin’ morning.  Seriously… who does that?  I was pissed.  Standing up on the bed, I beat on the ceiling as hard as I could, and the commotion stopped a moment later.  Stupid bitch.

Using my incredible Microsoft Paint abilities, I have created this drawing to express my displeasure. 

I lay back down to attempt to go back to sleep, but it was pointless.  I was wide awake.  Defeated, I got up and wandered into the office.

I piddled around for most of the morning, expecting to become tired again soon.  I figured I’d just take a nap for an hour or two later to make up for my lack of sleep the night before.  To my surprise, I was full of energy… and stayed that way.

Let’s be honest here… I don’t get the urge to be productive on any kind of regular basis.  I figured I should probably take advantage before the effect wore off.

Within a few hours, I had taken a shower, run to Walmart to get a few needed household items, went to the gym and worked out, came home, and cleaned the whole apartment.  In the light of having planned on this being a lazy day, I was most proud of my accomplishments.

Maybe I should stop sleeping so much.  This seems to work out rather well.

I looked outside and saw that it was snowing again earlier.  I wasn’t happy about it.  It had finally stopped snowing earlier this afternoon, and they were just starting to get things cleaned up.

One of my Walmart purchases today was a big ice scraper.  Looking at the weather forecast, it appears that I’m going to be needing it some more.  Let’s face it.  Drinking cup lids aren’t exactly ideal for this type of situation.  That’s why I bought this beast. 

I’m definitely ready to NOT need it, though.  My poor truck, which is ordinarily black, is starting to become this dirty, slate gray color due to all of the salt and grossness on the roads.  I would love to wash it, but it wouldn’t really do any good.  It would look the same as it did within a half hour or so.

I do love my truck.  It’s my baby.  I bought it new last March.  I was a little concerned at the time, though, because if you will observe, there is a decal on the back end of it that says “OFF ROAD.”  That would lead one to think that the truck has four-wheel drive, wouldn’t it?

Well… guess again.  My truck is not four-wheel drive.  In spite of this, though, it’s done remarkably well on the few icy mornings we’ve had so far.

Anyway, I’m still feeling a little more ambition left in me, so I think I’m gonna get off of here and get a few more things done.  I hope you all had a great President’s Day.

When I got my new position at work, I had to move to a completely different building.  I came from our help desk, where there are workstations set up, and anyone can sit pretty much anywhere they want.  Since I got my own desk in the other building, they gave me my own computer.  For that reason, I had to transfer all of my files over to my new machine.

As I was doing so,  I happened across a lot of things I had forgotten I’d saved over the past few years.  One file I found contained IM conversations between Jonny and me.  Some of them made me laugh, and I thought I’d share them.

You will notice that Jonny keeps his status set to “Away” at all times.  He does this to keep people from IMing him and asking him questions.

Also, he likes to send me a thousand lines of gibberish whenever he wants my attention.  (It chimes every time you get a message, so his rapid-fire technique is usually successful.)

Here were some of my favorites.

Well, today is Valentine’s Day.  There are pink heart decorations everywhere.  All of the major retail outlets have a couple of aisles dedicated to candy, flowers, and love-stuff.  Hallmark’s CEO is watching the revenue pile in by the minute.  Millions of flowers are being delivered all over the country.  Everyone is scrambling to get that perfect Valentine’s Day gift for their special someone.

Kinda makes you want to vomit, doesn’t it?

As much as I hate to be negative, I think Valentine’s Day is a stupid holiday.  I’m sorry… but I do.  Call me Scrooge if you wish, but I truly feel it’s a load of crap.  Why, you ask?

Valentine’s Day is a day set aside that you’re supposed to show your significant other how much they mean to you.  My thoughts on the matter?  If you truly love someone, I hope to God that you go out of your way to show them more than one day a year.

I have to chuckle at the guys who are scrambling at the last minute to find that “perfect gift” for their lady-friend.  The ones who sputter, “If I don’t get her exactly what she wants, she’s going to break up with me!”

Yeah?  Well then your girlfriend is probably a bitch, and you’d be better off anyway.

That’s what irritates me as well.  The holiday isn’t really about love anymore either.  It’s become commercialized, just like most of the rest of them.  It’s about buying people stuff to keep them appeased.

Now… let’s turn our attention to MY beautiful fiancee.

I love Julia more than anything in the world.  She’s beautiful.  She’s smart.  She’s determined.  She is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met.  She puts up with me, which is a feat in itself.  She would do pretty much anything in the world for me.  She has an amazing smile.  She’s not materialistic.  She’s a hard worker.  She’s made me a much better person.  …I could go on.

Every day, I tell her she’s beautiful.  Every day, I tell her I love her.  You know why?  Because that’s how I feel, and I don’t need a retail holiday to tell me to do so.

Neither one of us are doing anything for Valentine’s Day.  Julia’s suggestion?  “I say we just get Chinese and hang out.”

Now… a friend of mine did make a very valid point.  There is one cool thing about Valentine’s Day.  The price of candy sinks like a rock at the end of February.

That’s also why I’m about 20 pounds heavier than I used to be…  :-/

Well, I’ve made it through my first week on the new job.  I love it.  I’m still the new/lost guy… but I’ve learned a lot already.  It’ll just be a matter of time before I’m up to speed with the other folks on the team.

Yesterday evening, I had a maintenance call I had to get on at 6 pm.  It only took about five minutes to complete the job.  I had to change the network connection speeds on four servers, but the customer wanted to do it after-hours.  Since I’m the new guy, I volunteered to do it.

When I got home, I talked to Jules for a little while.  She had been asleep on the couch prior to me walking in.  I did most of the talking.  When she’s tired, most of her communication is carried out via grunt/whimper and pointing at things she wants.

As 6:00 approached, I went to get my laptop.  I pointed out that it’s pretty satisfying to have a job where I can sit on my couch in comfy pants, covered up with a blanket, and work.  With that, I said, “I need to go put my comfy pants on before I start on this.  You know… priorities.”

She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, then wrinkled her forehead, looked up at me, and said, “Can I be a priority?”

I swear to God, she’s so freakin’ adorable.

“Of course you can, sweetheart,” I responded.  As I settled in on the couch and got ready to dial into the conference call, she cozied up next to me, still wrapped in her blanket.

“I’m a priority,” she informed me proudly, smiling from ear-to-ear.

She went into the kitchen to cook dinner while I did my five minutes worth of work.  She turned her music on and started singing.  I just listened to her and smiled.  We’ve been together for a year and a half… and I still find her antics unbelievably cute.  She sang away while I worked together with the network guy on the phone.  When we were done, I hung up, documented what I did, and went in to join her.

“What’cha doin’?” she asked me.

“I came in here to see you… because you’re a priority.”

She smiled proudly.

One thing about girls is that they don’t forget much.  Jules has become quite proud of her “priority” status.  This evening we went out to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner (delicious, by the way), and we were talking about what we were going to do when we got home.  She asked if we could play a game or something… like Scattergories.  Then she added, “You should play with me because I’m a priority.”

On the way home, she randomly said to me, “We should go shopping!”

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

She just smiled her million-dollar smile and said, “That makes me happy.  Most guys would complain if their girlfriend wanted to drag them out shopping.  You, however, like to please me.”

“…And I think that’s good,” she added smugly.

I can’t lie.  I do love seeing her happy.  And you know why?

Because she’s a priority.

I don’t follow many blogs. My schedule is pretty full, both with things I need to do and things I want to do.  Therefore, if you want my attention, you’d better be able to entertain me.  You can see the list of blogs I follow over on the right.

Lately, I’ve been falling behind in my “loyal reader” duties.  I’ve spent my downtime over the past couple of days catching up on all of the unread posts stacked up in my Google Reader.  One of them in particular, though, caught my attention.  It was a post from Nancy’s F8HASIT blog called “Obscurity Bliss.” I ended up reading it twice.

My blog has evolved over the past several years.  I started out blogging on my MySpace page (back when MySpace was cool and everyone had one).  I’ve always loved writing, and realistically, if I was any good at it and capable of producing quality content on a consistent basis (and make any money in the process), I would do it as a profession and be perfectly content.  I then moved my blog to my website, which I maintained in various forms over the past few years.  Finally, I lost interest in maintaining a website and moved my blog here so I could just focus on the part I really enjoyed.

Looking back over my posts over the years, there are a lot of memories there.  I can see how I met my best friends… started dating my now-fiancee… moved… taken on new jobs… laughed… cried… bitched… and everything in between.  Over the years, though, you can see a change in my blogging style as well.  I don’t really have a lot of readers.  I greatly appreciate those who do take the time to read my stuff, but you’re never going to see this little blog of mine in a magazine or anything.  And I’m cool with that.

I did start to develop some readers, though.  And as I did so, I started to wonder “what is my audience going to think about this?”  When I first started, I just said pretty much whatever I wanted to say.  Later on, though, I began to “censor” myself a little.

In her blog, Nancy describes the same type of thing.  Putting down thoughts, then editing them in order to avoid pissing anyone off or losing readers.

Now, it’s natural that things would change some.  I mean, we all change as time goes one.  We grow up a little every year, learn new things, etc.  And when you put something out on the Internet, you need to remember that anyone in the world has the ability to find it and read it.  Your parents… your boss… your friends.  That’s why I’m kind of glad I have such a small following.  As Nancy so nicely puts it:

If you’re huge, with a gazillion followers, your social network could possibly generate revenue. But if you’re small, you’re just chatting with pals.

Obscurity can be beneficial.

Because you’re not talking at people, but with people.

That’s not just cool, that’s awesome.

I love that more.

It’s nice to be somewhat obscure, hiding in the shadows so as to not be judged. But known enough in certain circles that your thoughts don’t fall on deaf ears. It’s a big world out there. Overwhelming in scope.

But it’s you guys…my BlogBuds; it’s the banter, the comments, the camaraderie, the connection with those that I’d not had if not for this blog…

That’s what makes all this (gesturing at the web site) worthwhile.

I was low on gas after work today, so I stopped at a nearby gas station to refuel. As I was getting ready to lift the handle off of the little thing, I noticed a sign above the screen on the pump. I wasn’t sure what to say. I have no idea what circumstances would’ve prompted a disclaimer like this, but I was both amused and disgusted nonetheless.