Weather wise, it's been a weird week. Sunday and Monday it was cold and snowing. Wednesday and Thursday, it was gorgeous, high 70s. Naturally, I rode the bike in to work both days. Today, it's supposed to be in the low 70s. Riding to work this morning, it was cold, and there was patchy fog. My cheeks were freezing when I got here. I hope it does get to that promised 73 degrees.
I'm settling into my new role as QA tester type person. On my first "real day" of working as a tester, they gave me some stuff to test (naturally). Real basic stuff, entering difference values for different parameters for our new bug tracking software. I changed a few things, everything was good. Then I thought to myself "well, what if I did this?", and ended up breaking the whole system. I broke our bug tracking system, but not only that, I apparently broke the system it was based off, as well as created some firewall issues for the west coast people.
Man, do I know how to do my job or what?? What's even better is the fact that I get to break it and don't have to fix it. That rules.
Otherwise, it's spring. Flowers are blooming, Cody is in baseball and is starting to count down the days until Spring Break (so is Gail for that matter). Cody's Odyssey of the Mind took second place in their school and we're all headed to Newport News for the State competition next weekend. No one expected them to get placed, as this is the first year for their school, but they surprised everyone. We were pretty damn proud of him!
Sarah is starting to talk about going to school in the fall. I think she's looking forward to it. And I think she'll do well. She's one of those that really likes to please others, and gets very upset if someone becomes upset with her. Guess she might be classified as "teachers pet".
The dogs have been attention starved or something lately. They've been getting into the trash, getting up on the furniture again. So we've been letting them sleep in the room (They're really annoying in the middle of the night. For some reason, that appears to be their preferred time to wash themselves and at 1 in the morning, we're awaken by the sound of dogs licking themselves. Just nasty..). We even managed to all go for a walk last night. Hopefully, now that it's turning nice out, we'll do more of that.
I have a "diet buddy"! A good friend of mine is wanting to lose weight, and as I'm always bitching about how fat I am, she asked me to help her out, and in turn, she'll help me. So we've made goals, and we encourage (read: nag) each other about what to eat, what not to eat, when we've exercised, etc. Hopefully it'll work, and I'll be able to stick to an exercise/diet plan. I seriously need to lose some serious amount of weight!
And other than all that happy rambling, have a good Friday!
According to the weather reports yesterday, we were supposed to get a "dusting". There's about 2 inches on the ground now, with a forecast of 2-4 inches by this afternoon. Since when is 2 inches a dusting? You normally won't hear me say this, but I am tired of the snow. I want Spring. I want the trees to bloom, I want the grass to need cutting, I want to ride my bike on nice weekends. Hell, I'll even take the seasonal allergies that accompany Spring. I am just so tired of the snow.
Gail and I took the kids and Sarah's friend, Olivia, to breakfast this morning. Cody was asking me what the vents were above the cook's area, and that led to a discussion of how hot the ovens at the pizza place where Gail and I met used to get. I told Cody that not only is that where I met Gail, but where I got a crush on her as well. He said "Oh...so you used to body slam her?"
I choked on my breakfast, and I could see Gail hide the smile that was threatening to become an out right laugh. After coughing for a few minutes, I asked Cody if he knew what I meant by "crush". He shook his head, and I explained it to him.
I tell ya, kids sure can be funny without meaning to be.
Cody and I went to Whitetail yesterday with our Indian Guides group to do some snow tubing. In getting ready, I discovered that I didn't have a hat or gloves. As we were meeting everyone in the parking lot of Walmart, I figured that I'd just pick up a new hat and some gloves there.
Well, silly me, I forgot that it's February. I mean, geez, apparently Spring is just around the corner (mind you, as I type this there's 5 inches of snow on the ground left over from last week, and it's snowing now). They had all their tank tops and flip flops out. When asked about ski caps and gloves, they looked at me as if I was silly and said "No, we don't have any of those". I was almost stunned. Walmart, not HAVE something? sheesh
So Cody and I went hat-less, but the day was nice and neither of us was too bothered by it. We had a good time. I managed to find a tube that had a plastic bottom instead of a vinyl one. Got myself a good running start, belly-flopped down onto it, zoomed down the hill, crashed into the hay bails at the end and went through. It was awesome!
Also went and saw the new Jackie Chan movie, Shanghai Knights, this weekend. Oh man, I laughed my butt off. Hopefully, I'll get a review of it up and stuck in my movies section. I've let that part slack off a bit, but I'd like to get it up and running again, along with the Gallery script for picture management. Time will tell.
Yes, I know. It's been awhile. But I have a good reason!
I use...or actually, used to use Greymatter for my blogging needs. Unfortunately, there appears to be a bug in the code that allows a program called phpshell to be dropped into my archives directory, which in turn, allows the twit who uses it access to my site. Thankfully my brother, who hosts this site, caught it in time and locked everything down. Naturally, this meant my blog was locked down and I was unable to post. In fact, I am typing this in manually, as it were, instead of using the Greymatter interface.
As of now, I'm not using anything but plain HTML. I'm currently writing a PHP based journal script, that I hope I can eventually use as a blog tool. I'm not especially talented at coding however, so this might take awhile.
In the meantime, I guess it's back to coding by hand!
I spent this past weekend in Cleveland, working. A coworker and I had to update a bunch of Internet Appliances that we support, that are all located in the luxury suites of the Cleveland Browns football stadium. So Friday morning I was up 3:30a.m., to catch a 7a.m. flight out of BWI. I say I was up at 3:30: Actually, my dumb dogs had started barking about 1:30 and as a result, I never really got back to sleep.
So the alarm goes off at 3:30a.m. I head for the shower, cursing the dogs for my lack of sleep the entire time. Get myself out the door and on the road in good time. Make it to BWI just before 5, only to realize that there is absolutely no parking. For some reason it never occurred to me to check on parking. Yeah, sure, I know this is the busiest travel weekend of the year. But do you think I stopped to wonder what all those people did with their cars while they were flying? Apparently I assumed they were magically transported back to their homes, leaving me plenty of parking.
Well, obviously not.
So every single parking garage is full, every satellite lot is full...and I'm running out of time to check in for my flight. I dial the radio to the local am airport station, and get directions to the Amtrak parking garage of all things. Manage to find it, grab a cab and get to the airport. Made the flight, and everything was fine after that. Except the landing; I think Captain Kangaroo was piloting the flight, as we bounced 3 times when we landed. That, or we were shot down.
Friday we spent all day at the stadium updating the appliances. We finally got done around 5, and started looking for our hotel. It's only a half-mile from the stadium. It took us over an hour to get there. Why? Because every friggin road was blocked off for some sort of winter festival. We ended up going through a police road block just to get to the hotel.
The hotel itself was damn nice. The Hyatt in Cleveland was pretty posh and expensive. Breakfast alone was 12 bucks. Eeep! But hey, the company is paying for it, I'll live it up.
Saturday was spent watching the winter festival parade, checking out the Cleveland Library which was right across the street from the hotel, and hanging out in our rooms. Sunday was game day, and it was our job to wander around the stadium by the luxury boxes, making sure no one needed any help. And truthfully, we spent a good deal of the time in the press box. We had these passes that got us anywhere in the stadium. Hanging out in the press box was pretty cool. It was neat to see faces I recognized from the TV.
So Sunday evening, we headed back to the airport for the flight home. It's a good thing it's a short flight, because the plane was CROWDED. I'm not a small guy, so naturally, I got stuck in the window seat. Which isn't as bad as getting stuck in the middle seat, like the guy next to me did. He was about my size, so already I knew it was going to be a cramped flight. I was getting my seat belt on, and putting my book in the seat back pocket in front of me, when I heard the guy on my right say "Oh geez, I hope he's not sitting next to me." I looked up the aisle, and here comes this 6'4", 300lbs dude. He was BIG. And sure enough, he sat in the same row as me and the other guy. I'm surprised the plane didn't fly tilted to the left.
As it turns out, the big guy was Kris Jenkins, who plays for the Carolina Panthers. He had some business in Baltimore, which is why he was flying this particular flight instead of flying home. He was a pretty nice guy and I even got his autograph.
So we finally landed (no hopping down the runway, thankfully), get on shuttle bus, get to the car, and start heading home. I-95 was bumper to bumper, but that wasn't a surprise. I finally made it home about 10:30, kissed the wife, and went to bed.
I think this is the first Thanksgiving I've ever spent on my own. Due to a last minute change in plans, Gail and the kids went down to see my folks in North Carolina. I'm flying out from BWI at 7am tomorrow morning to go to Cleveland for work related reasons.
Gail and I also celebrated our 10th Anniversary yesterday. Seems like it should be a big milestone, and I guess it is. We didn't celebrate it like it was one though. We exchanged cards, and then she left to go to NC. I spent my anniversary evening alone as well. How weird.
We have a gift certificate for Maggiano's though, given to us by a friend for our anniversary, and she's even going to watch the kids. So sometime this next week, month, whenever we find the time, Gail and I will sneak out and spend a quiet evening eating some very good food. It sure doesn't seem like it's been 10 years. I mean, that's almost a whole third of my life. It sure doesn't seem that long. I can't imagine my life without Gail, and I imagine if we weren't together, I'd be that much poorer. Not financially speaking, can't get much more broke than we are now. But I'd be so much less of a person. She's definitely become my better half, and I'm much better off with her with me. I love you Gail!
I had to go to the school last night to take a couple of tests for my Student Development class. One was called "Choices" and was basically a career placement test, telling me what I'd be good at. Seems I should be a writer, journalist or screenplay type, or maybe an educator. I think helicopter pilot was in there as well as financial advisor.
I think that test is full of prunes. Financial advisor? HA!
The other test was a personality test called "Please Understand Me" and after asking a ton of questions, it printed out this long report of myself, which, scarily enough, I found to be mostly true.
I had to run to Sam's Club last night to get some moose food for the perpetually hungry moose in our house. It was probably one of the more comical visits to Sam's Club I've had.
First off, don't go at night, or on weekdays. You really should visit Sam's Club (or Price Club/Costco) during the day on the weekend end. Yes, it's crowded. Yes, the checkout lines are long. Yes, parking sucks. But! There's a much better variety of free samples during weekends, and you can practically feed the whole family a well-balanced meal just by going through the different isles.
So anyhow, I'm standing in the checkout line at the local Sam's Club, when a rather nondescript woman comes up behind me with a tire. She sees me watching her and says "I had to get a membership here so I could get this tire. This is the only place that sells my size tire." I thought that rather odd, and noticed the tire itself wasn't anything out of the ordinary. She didn't seem too upset by having to join, she just said it as a simple fact.
While we were there waiting, a young girl, no more than 4, came up and patted the tire and said "Tires are fun!" and took off with it. She was rolling it on down the aisle ahead of her, while the lady and I just sat that there. I started to giggle and the child's dad managed to intercept her and made her bring the tire back. When he got closer, the tire-lady said "Do you go to Patriot Harley Davidson?" He was wearing a Bike Week shirt, so I guess she figured he must be a biker. He said "Pardon me?" She repeated herself by saying "Patriot Harley Davidson?" It was obvious he hadn't heard the first time because he looked at her blankly and shook his head showing he didn't understand. So she repeated herself, this time adding "Do you go there?" He said he'd been there a couple of times. She told him that on Memorial Day he should go down because she was a clown and she spent every Memorial Day down there making balloon animals. He kinda nodded and walked away.
When she turned back to me, I smiled and said "You're a clown? I've probably seen you down there then, as I visit Patriot HD quite a bit."
She said "Professional Clown!" in a rather haughty tone. She paused, and then said "Well, I think I'm more of a Balloon Artist than Professional Clown..."
I had to run outside at about 5:30 this morning to chase my dog around the house. He was barking his head off, and I didn't want him to disturb the neighbors. What he was barking at, I don't know. We did a couple of laps around the house before I managed to catch him, and he barked every where he went. I guess he was just telling the neighborhood to get up. It was also damn chilly outside this morning. Didn't help that I was chasing after the dog in just a t-shirt and light cotton shorts. Fall is definitely here.
My old roommate, Mike, called last night. It was great to hear from him. Being outside in the cold this morning reminded me of when we roomed together in his house back in Flagstaff. The house was pretty nice; 3 bedrooms, a huge deck, and right on the dog-leg of the 6th hole on the Country Club golf course. And the price was right (though I was always behind on giving him money for bills and such). The house was originally built as a summer cabin, and as such, wasn't insulated against the cold weather we got in Flagstaff.
Mike and I would sit in the living room, playing Nintendo (Legend of Zelda!) and would literally have blankets and comforters wrapped around us as we sat on the couch. I imagine it was a pretty strange sight: two big lumps with the wires for the controllers snaking under the blankets, and just our eyes and noses sticking out (and even then, it was debatable on the noses). It would be late November, we'd both be blue, the soda in our cups would be slushy, and you'd see our breath before we'd kick the heat on. And that's because once the heat started, it never seemed to turn off. Talk about no insulation!
At this time, we'd usually go back to my bedroom to watch TV, or movies. For some strange reason, my room was the warmest in the house. And it got warm. Toasty warm. Sit around in your shorts warm. Not that I complained too much. I was able to crack a window, and usually left it open all winter. But it wasn't unusual for someone to come visit, and find everyone else crammed into my room watching my little TV.
Heading to class last night, I decided to stop at the friendly neighborhood 7-11 to get a coke. I needed the caffiene, as I had gotten precious little sleep the night before. One of my moose (read: dogs) had decided to poop on the rug in the basement rather than go outside and get wet in the rain. At 1 a.m., I was woken up by the smell of dog poop. Wonderful. After cleaning it all up, and locking the dog in the mud room, I was wide awake, so I started to read a bit. I ended up finishing the book I was reading and didn't get back to bed until about 4. But anyhow...
So I stopped at 7-11 to get a coke. Now, I'm sure many of you have been in a 7-11, and know how they have their fountain machines set up. Cups all loaded in spring-loaded canisters, so there's always one there for you to grab, right below the fountains themselves.
Well, I go in, grab my cup of choice (only a 32 oz. Trying to cut back ;), and noticed that the other cups tried to launch out of the cup-holder canister there. I noticed that these things are right at crotch level as I wrestled to get them back in there.
You can see what's going to happen here, can't you?
So, I get them back in, all is good, load the cup up with ice, start pouring my coke, the cups in the spring-loaded canister slip, they shoot out, and wham! get me right between the legs. My legs crossed, my eyes crossed, all the while, I'm trying not to spill the coke. I managed to fill it, grab a lid and straw, and shuffle over to the register.
I thought the guy behind the counter was going to split his turban trying not to laugh at me. He mumbled sorry, gave me my change, and as soon I was headed out the store, he started to chuckle.
Next time I go to 7-11, I'm wearing a cup to protect me from their cups.