rants by Ariane su kanji

On the weather

2009-03-10T09:35:00.002-04:00

I think I am getting crankier in my old age. As my close friends know, I tend to get migraines when these huge pressure fronts go through like they have been for the last several weeks. Now, I love a good spring storm, but man I could do without the headaches. The solution seems to be adding some benadryl or sudafed to my morning routine, but the grogginess from the drugs is not that much fun either.

I wish the weather would just stabilize or go a little slower, let my face stop being my barometer.

Otherwise, off to Orlando for a conference tomorrow and then San Jose for a family gathering.

Hmmm....

2009-01-30T16:37:00.002-05:00

Mel and I finally caught up with each other for lunch today (P.F. Chang's downtown) to rather belatedly celebrate her birthday. Hot topics were obviously my upcoming nupitals, but most of it was spent talking about job stuff. I was counting earlier today and have 5 friends that were laid off/downsized/let go in the last couple of months along with another dozen or so acquaintences.

The obvious problem aside, one of the big hurdles for anyone out here in the midwest is that everyone is looking for work, and there are really not many jobs. Hell, Caterpillar (only a few hours from Indy) is laying off 20,000 workers and that overlaps pretty significantly with a lot of my friends who are looking for work. Hopefully Alex is safe.... I should be unless a lot of people pretty much bail on paying us, but that is the same boat several other friends are in.

From what I have been reading and hearing, general prognosis is economic rebound in mid- to late- 2009 with the employment rebound following a year later. Good thing we could live off one salary if we had too, I guess

Long time no edits

2009-01-28T11:23:00.002-05:00

I have been slacking on writing this last couple of years with transitioning to Facebook and all for keeping people up to date.

Alex and I got engaged.
We still have our jobs.
Still live in Columbus, and have been remodeling a bathroom.

Maybe now with linking my blog to facebook, I will do a better job of making the occasional update....

Same rules for everyone!

2007-05-05T08:37:00.000-04:00

So this morning I took Greebo to the vet for a booster shot and on the way saw a police officer run a red light. That rubbed me wrong enough that I bothered to call the station and report it (after taking down plate number, location, and time of incident). This was a black and white police car, with rack lights and everything.

Coming back from Indianapolis Thursday night Alex and I saw a black and white doing about 15mph over, also without flashers.

Is it just me or should police officers follow the same set of traffic rules that we do? The only time I feel they can justify breaking those rules is when they have the flashing lights on.

Ahh... Romance

2007-02-17T11:28:00.000-05:00

Alex knows me too well sometimes. He has discovered that the fastest way to my heart is through the kitchen, and gifts tend to reflect that. For Valentines Day, he bought us a fondue pot, and selected the bright orange one since he knew that would have been my choice.

Anyway, since we have been inundated with snow, he did not manage to get all the stuff needed to make it on Wednsday, so we did fondue last night. We had bought an extra bottle of champagne for new years that was not opened, so we did fondue with candles, champagne and music while sitting on the floor. Probably one of the most romantic things I have done ever.

Recipe for those who want it:

2 cloves garlic, halved
1 bottle hard apple cider
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 T brandy (optional)
4 teaspoons corn starch
4 cups shredded cheeses of choice (I recommend equal parts cheddar and swiss)

Rub fondue pot with cut side of garlic, leave garlic in pot. Place on stove over low heat. Add cider, 1 T lemon juice, and brandy. Simmer 2-3 minutes. Mix shredded cheese with corn starch in large bowl. Add cheese by handful to pot, stirring until fully melted before adding next handful. When all cheese is incoporated, remove to table and keep warm using a candle or alcohol burner. Serve with blanched veggies, cubed bread, crunchy fruit like apples, and small pieces of cooked, warm meat.

Refrigerate any leftovers.

SNOW!

2007-02-13T08:26:00.000-05:00

Good morning. Writing from home...

We have a fair amount accumulated snow right now, about 4 from last week, and another 2 inches of slush that fell last night. There is an artic front coming down from Canada, picking up moisture, and dumping as much as a foot of snow in northern Indiana. We should only get another inch or two, the problem is tha right now it is above freezing.

I am not driving in to work- my car does not play well on slick conditions, and unlike most drivers, I recognize this. I am getting picked up by someone else that works in the office who has 4 wheel drive, so if nothing else, I will have company for the 2 hour drive to work....

I hope this clears up by the weekend since otherwise it will be miserable to help Audra move.

Time to remove some of the snow/slush from the driveway so we dont have an ice crust tonight.

Life lately is peachy

2007-02-06T10:39:00.000-05:00

I haven't said much about the job yet, so here is the short version:

My actual title is Tax Accountant but I have more of a consulting engineering role. There is a federal tax incentive, a direct tax credit, for doing research and development in the states. Since this can be a pretty big credit, the IRS wants qualification documents in addition to quantification documents. My company goes to these companies, does interviews, gets numbers, and pulls together both the qualifying and quantifying documentation for the credit. What this means for me is that I travel about 25% on average, do a lot of technical writing, and like it a whole lot better than my last job.

I work with some neat people. The whole company is about 20 including admin and execs, so very small, and we do fun stuff. The owner lives pretty close to me, so in inclement weather I may see about getting a ride in to work since my car does not handle very well on snow or ice. Lisa, one of the admin, is about my age and she and I have been doing sushi for lunch every couple weeks at a place nearby. Makes for nice girl time. She is really cool. I think everyone here is between 20 and 45 or so, with a bit of a bell peaking around 28-32. I do not feel young here.

One of the other fun things about working here is that we had this morning off. I think the original plan was to not enforce arrival time around 8am, but management decided that working hours were from 12-5. Since it was only 3 hours off, my best guess is that we would not have been very productive anyway and this was good for major points.

JP came to visit over the Christmas holiday and we had fun. I apparently 'kicked [him] to the curb' on New Years day according to his blog ( jpbergstrom.blogspot.com), but whatever. I was a wee bit hungover :-P He looks great. He did some personal development seminar recently that seems to have been amazing for him. I can't wait to be around him to see the changes.

Mel got engaged, finally. Don did the proposal thing outside a huge statue of the word 'LOVE' somewhere between here and Michigan, and she has this huge, fat rock that is sparkly that she can wear around and catch on things. We went looking at wedding dresses for her this past Saturday at the Posie Patch near the Castleton mall. We arrived about 25 minutes early to browse. Turns out it was unnecessary since they didn't get to us until 20 minutes after the appointment was supposed to start. Then they didn't have the dress Mel wanted to try. So we are going to look at stuff for me as the maid of honor. If you are not comfortable with a stranger touching you, do not go there. No offense, but I do not want some dried up old bag touching me, especially since I intend to have something simple enough to not need trained help. I wasn't going to play with that, so we left. The lady ran straight to the manager, I guess to play pre-emptive defense, but when he asked if he could help us, we just told him we were going to try someplace else. I guess the lesson here is to ask if the place is 'full service' before making an appointment, except that I do not think I would have reacted as badly if we hadn't started late, she had been nicer, and she had been younger. Oh well.

Audra moves into Indy in two weekends. She will continue doing forensic chemistry for the state, just here instead of Fort Wayne. I work Saturdays from like 9-2, so I will just go over after work to help her get settled. I think she and Columbo are going to have the place to themselves.

Ellen – or Luscious Nancy as I call her – is also moving to Indy. She got a job with a small company on the east side and is moving here when she finishes her master's up at Purdue late this spring. Last I heard she and her boyfriend were figuring out if she was going to let him move in with her. I wonder what has happened J

Alex and I are fine, the patio is still a pond full of gravel since it got cold before we got a chance to finish it, and the house is, as usual, in need of vacuuming. The cats are pretty cute: Greebo kept looking for a lap this morning when I was only going to be sitting down for a few minutes and was very annoyed each time I got up. Coconut saw a rabbit outside the window one day and that kept him chirping and Alex and me amused for close to twenty minutes. They play a lot, Greebo goes nuts for a laser pointer, and they like to sleep near our feet at night.

The Colts won last night, Indy is ecstatically pleased, and it is darn cold out.

job job job job job job

2006-12-05T13:20:00.000-05:00

New job starts on Thursday, the damn cat is batting at the cursor moving across the screen, so more updates eventually....

Turkey Day and Black Friday

2006-11-29T12:19:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving was a fun week. Alex and I went to KC Sunday afternoon after visiting his brother's family for a first birthday party. Long drive, but it helps to have the one hour time difference. Alex somehow got stuck driving through St Louis again, and I totally blew the exit for my favorite little pasta place. D'oh.

We helped my parents do yard work, did most of our christmas shopping (and wrapping, even without much christmas paper :-D), and spent some quality time together. My mom had the turkey smoked at a local smokehouse this year and it was (and still is) amazing. If you ever get a chance, I highly recommend it. Moist, juicy, and all you have to do is reheat if you want.

We also participated in Black Friday. Alex wanted to go for a couple things, so my dad and I tagged along. We rolled up to Best Buy at like 5:17 and the parking lot was already packed and people were leaving with carts packed with boxes. Turns out that people started lining up the day before around 8am and just camped all night. They were already out of the monitor Alex wanted, but we picked up some DVDs and a new hard drive, and even though the line was about 100 people deep, they had close to 15 registers going and we waited less than 20minutes. Circuit City on the other hand had only about 4 registers open, so we took a look at the line and didn't bother looking for the few items we wanted there. Breakfast and a couple more stores, and we went home and took a nap.

I came down with a cold/sinus infection Friday afternoon, I think as a combination of all the yard work being bad for my allergies and not sleeping well/much on Thursday. The drive back home was kinda rough, although I made the effort to drive St Louis and managed not to miss my exit this time. We rolled into our driveway at close to 1am, unpacked the leftover my mom sent us with, and went to bed. Said leftovers are mostly gone now, even though we came back with a cooler full including close to 5lbs of said amazing smoked turkey and a bag full of homegrown fancy lettuce (the kind that you get at the store for like $5/lb).

Otherwise, I am mostly better although I can tell I hadn't been to the gym in over a week, and am still waiting to hear back on employment.

Is it really almost December?

Today's Horoscope

2006-11-10T10:59:00.000-05:00

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) -- People don't always take note, but those in high places will recognize and acknowledge what you consider to be relevant successes. You'll not be overlooked at this time.

Hmmm... this could bode well :-)

Rent and Election Day

2006-11-07T14:59:00.000-05:00

First off - the job front. Things are going well. In the interest of not jinxing anything, I will say no more.

Alex and I went and saw Rent on Sunday night. His parents were in town all weekend since him mom just got naturalized, so we spent Friday night, Saturday evening, and they stayed over until Sunday. After they left, we went up to the Murat, bought tickets, and had some dinner. The original plan had been to buy tickets online, but when they have an extra charge of over $10 per ticket for the convenience of buying online... well, I got slightly peevish. Anyway, we bought them that night, got great seats, and even managed to get free parking since we got there so early. It was pretty cool. The show was amazing! Alex has seen it before but said he like the higher energy version they did here better, and neglected to tell me that it got sad and then laughed at me when I bawled like a baby. Anyway, we are going to look into going to more shows in the future since I like having the excuse to dress up and it is so much fun.

This morning I had a second interview, so I got up way early so I could go vote before I left to go to the building where I had my meeting. Last night I spent like 45 minutes looking up where I was supposed to vote, finally found the site, tells me my registration has been changed and it is like 2 minutes from my house. Great! So I go there this morning. They have 2 districts in the school, so I check the one, then the other, no good. One of my neighbors is in there, so I know I am where the website told me I should be (you can look up by name). Hmmm... I go talk to a 4th person who calls some centralized office, finds out that my registration was never changed and I need to go back to where I was. I never voted when I lived in the apartments since there was no general election, so I don't know where that is. So I drive across town, see people voting at the fire station, stop there, not it either. I pick up another mint. Finally, they do tell me where I need to go, turns out to be the club house at my old apartments. I get in, the line is 15 deep, do my thing, write down my new address, and get to vote. Yay! Then it is hightail it out of there in time to hopefully not be late for my meeting, which I got to before the woman I was meeting, so it is all good.

Hope you all voted if you could.

Interview time

2006-10-24T08:09:00.001-04:00

Well, here I go. I leave for my interview about a half hour away in a few minutes. I am nice and awake, haven't had too much coffee, and look smashing in one of my suits. I picked the lined one today since it is cold out and I don't feel like wearing hose. On the bright side, the skirt that goes with my pinstripe suit now fits again! Mama bought me this suit for my birthday my Junior year of college and I promptly put on enough weight that I have not fit in it since. D'oh. I would wear it, but I dont feel like wearing hose.

The company today does some neat things, it would be an interesting assignment, with a fair amount of travel, although I am not sure how much would be 'commuting to the site' and how much would be leaving for a few days or a week. Hmm.... I should ask that today.

Anyway, I am off! Lunch with Mel afterwards - since she is such a spaz and forgot about her best friend's birthday.

And we have reached a new low

2006-10-17T11:28:00.000-04:00

College was a wonderful time for me - I learned a lot, made new friends, had a ton of fun, and made just enough money in my work study to pay for gas, car insurance, and beer. Did I say beer? Yes, I think I did. Combined with a pre paid, all you can eat cafeteria buffet loaded with deep fried carbs, I managed to put on some weight.

I got to college weighing a measley 115 pounds, lots of it muscle from yoga, running, and working in clay in highschool. The cross country team kept me stable until homecoming when I quit seeing as being in constant pain seemed abnormal to me, but not to coach. Of course, in the mean time, I got used to eating icecream at least once a day, french fries, grilled cheese, and pasta. When I quit running, I kept eating. My metabolism saved me from the freshman 15, but I did get the freshman 10.

Sophomore year I was studying too hard to do more than break even, but I turned 21 my junior year and started going out. In addition to the house and frat parties on the weekends, now there was Monday margaritas, quarter beers on Thursdays, and spliting a 6 pack on Sundays while watching the game. Hello 10 more pounds. I was doing well on my co-op with going to the gym 3-4 days a week, but then got sent on a business trip and all that went by the wayside. It is hard to manage portions at a restaurant.

Senior year was tough in terms of homework, so I would get back from a study session and be too tired to do any cooking. Thankfully or not, my roommate had a deep fat fryer and it was painless to toss in some chicken wings and jalapeno poppers and make a quick salad. There is another 10 pounds, putting me at about 145 pounds and not very happy about it.

After graduating I got my own place, this sweet little one bedroom apartment on the third floor of the building with a nice view of the woods. I found a racquetball buddy to go with me to the local gym, and did not buy a fryer. When they say 'diet and exercise' they meant it! This morning, I weighed in at a whopping 129.0 lbs, which is the smallest I have been since about 3 years ago. Yay! Huzzah! I havent really changed clothing sizes much, but I no longer have to suck in to button my pants, and have to wear a belt to keep my pant situated the way I want them. And of course the muffin tops are gone.

I like being happy about my shape again. I go with Alex to the gym about 4 times a week, do some heavy cardio on the eliptical machines while watching Food Network or some home improvement show, or maybe jog a mile and hit weights. I can see the muscles along my back and arms, my obliques, and I am starting to see the different muscles in my legs from both the cardio and the leg press exercises. Now to work on flexibility....

Also, from Audra:
1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current street name) Nikki Queensbury

2. MIA

3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your middle name)A Bau

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)Blue Tiger

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)Bauer Kansas City

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom's maiden)Levarba

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink(alcoholic or non alcoholic) put "The" in front of your answer) The Sunflower Mojito

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first name of your grandfathers) Charles Edward (similar to Ricky Bobby)

9. FUTURISTIC NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne and the name of your favorite kind of shoes) Tresor Sketchers

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother & father's middle name ) Madeleine Andrew

The hunt is on

2006-10-02T14:16:00.000-04:00

Ahh, the joys of being unemployed. I was let go from my previous employer at the beginning of September. While the announcement was itself a shock since I was not expecting it, I have come to grips with having to search for a new job. I am fortuate enough to have received a severance package and have the luxury of re-evaluating what I want to do.

I have been hooked up with a local company that does career counseling through some reading material, web based training, and teleconferences. The hope is that this will help me focus on what I am good at, what I want to do, and help me polish the skills to go out and nail the next job. This is not a placement agency. I started working though the program today and it should be quite the growth tool.

If only I could decide what I want to do. I think I would do well in management eventually, but I will need several more years experience before I feel ready to take the step to that level. I also want to get my MBA. I was thinking I could do a good job in technical sales, or maybe training. Unlike Alex, I do not want to do design, and I would love to travel up to about 35% and not be stuck behind my desk all the time.

Any suggestions?

2006-06-12T19:06:00.000-04:00

And I have no faith in the medical system. I bought the least expensive medical insurance at my company. Sounds decent: I cover first $1000, the company has a pocket out of which they cover $1000, then I get the next $1000 and after that the insurance company and I go 80%/20% respectively until I am out $4000 for the year where they start covering all of it.
That was when I was still thinking I had something remotely like when I had my mom's insurance and was paying less than $20 for the doc, $50 for the ER, and almost nothing for prescriptions. I got food poisoning back in February at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Indianpolis eating the linguini with clam sauce. Turns out that in a whole bowl of dinner, one bad clam has enough of the toxin needed to get me amazingly sick. Alex and I spend some time talking to the member advocate for the insurance, the doctors office, and Prompt Medicine (local urgent care facility) and decided that since I have been unable to get down and/or keep down any fluids, I need to get an IV. Prompt Med can't do that, and of course it is 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon and I have been sick since about 1 or 2 in the morning. So we go to the ER. $500 to walk behind the counter. $180 to get 2 bags of fluids. $400 for x-rays that were most likely not medically necessary. Several more things to get the total bill up to around $1600. *My share* of this after the negotiated lower rates was close to $1100...
Lessons learned from this round: 1) ask "is this medically necessary" before agreeing to procedures. 2) suck ice cubes to try to get fluids 3)put more money into flexible benefits.
Then, in April, I went in for my yearly. Apparently my *annual preventative in-network* only covers the doctor's time, not the resulting lab work. Hello another bill for $300 after negotiated lower rates. At least now I am getting reimbursed since I have already spent over $1000 out of pocket. So results come back, and I get to go back for another procedure. great. I forget to ask question number one from above and go. Not much fun. Then I get the bill... really not much fun now. $310 for my doctor's time. $850 for the labwork, then an additional $720 for a pathologist to analyze the results from the lab. *Fortunately* my share of these are $150, $193, and $604 respectively. I am now up to $2500 out of pocket. I have been calling the doctors office, the pathologist, and the insurance, try to get some of those reduced, but since I am sure that there will be more of this with follow ups, I think I am now in a race to fulfil the secondary deductible, and I wonder if it is worth all the time. Either way, a supervisor in the claims department of the insurance company is supposed to call me back today or tomorrow, and we will see. If I hit that point, I think I will see about getting everything done for next year I can think of since I will only be paying for 20%...
Next year I am doing PPO. Costs $1200 instead of $600 per year in premiums, but it is flat fees for co-pays and ER visits, and would make me feel better. I would be way ahead this year doing that, I am sure... We get to re-elect this fall for insurance, and I will call and get a bit more help on what co-pays cost and what else there is involved in the plans. And I will put more into my flexible benefits. As much as drugs cost...

Tuesday is the new Monday

2006-05-30T18:52:00.000-04:00

Current Status: zzzz....

Current Location: in the air conditioning.

This weekend was nasty. Hot and humid and we don't have the AC funtioning properly yet. I think it may be out of freon or something... not really all that sure, just that it took about 3 hours to get the house cooled 5 degrees yesterday from 87 to 82. My apartment would take about 3o min to do that, and while it was smaller, the system should have been scaled appropriately to at least cool the house reasonable quickly. At least it helped drop the humidity down.

We have a beautiful honeysuckle bush growing right up agains the outdoor box, so I had to trim some of that back, but I left most of it there for the shade. Every little bit helps... I need to get around to buying a wheelbarrow and hose so I can get a couple of bushes to plant out front. I also need to get those couple of blubs into the ground. They will need watering too, and it would not be fun to do it with a bucket.

Updates on my life

2006-05-25T14:30:00.000-04:00

I promised, so here it is.

Work: I have been working almost 11 months now, still like it, still learning. For those that don't know, I am working for an engine manufacturer doing applied controls. That translates to doing 'tuning' on things like Cruise Control and testing that things work the way they are supposed to. For example, one wants cruise control to hold a pretty steady speed instead of oscillating at +/- 3 or 4 mph like my old Honda. Stupid car.

Anyway. My group is pretty cool, there is a lot of joking around and silly stuff. I was going out of town and trying to reset my voicemail to reflect that, and one of my coworkers kept throwing in-shell peanuts at me resulting in my voicemail briefly saying the generic "This is name with company... I hate you all." We do group lunches a couple times a month and generally have a good time.

Love: My first day at work I got invited to a party and met a guy named Alex. I thought he was cute, and he was wearing one of those Order of the Engineer rings, so I walked up and gave him the finger. The pinky finger to be precise. I thought I was being funny, but I had been drinking, so who knows if I was at that point. Anyway, he must have been thinking the same thing since we started talking. Turns out he is also a Rose grad, 2 years ahead of me although he is 3 years older since he did a year long co-op, also studied Japanese, also did the study abroad program (the year before I did), and we have a ton of friends in common. I spent a lot of time at his fraternity house my freshman and sophomore years, and have no idea how we did not meet on the campus of 1600 students...

We started hanging out since I was doing my typical 'I am making dinner tonight and having people over, you want in on it?' thing and did lunch a couple times. 2 weeks later, he was supposed to go up to Detroit, was kinda looking for an excuse not to go, and I was going up to Mel's lake house and talked him in to going with me. We end up squished into the back of the speedboat, somehow his arm was around my shoulders, I did not mind, and when we had more space, we did not take it. We ended up sleeping in the same bed (not sex - there is no sex at the lake house, and I don't do that before the first date). We went out to dinner the next night at Johnny Carino's, sat on the same side of the booth, and that was pretty much it. I think I officially became his girlfriend in the middle of August, but for accounting purposes, we use July 16th.

We just hit 10 months and are co-parenting 2 cats, a 1 year old named Coconut who was a foster for about 8 hours before adopting Alex and the new kitty Greebo who is 3 months old and a snot. Too cute.

Life: Is good. I just moved out of my super sweet apartment (I gave the keys back yesterday) and have been working on settling into the house. Oh, I guess I should mention that I bought a house with Alex. We have almost 1500 square feet on about 1/4 acre on a corner lot. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath with cathedral ceilings, gas fireplace, gas stove, deck and generally nice space. We have painted the kitchen this awesome, cheerful, sunflower yellow, and the living room is a nice, subdued blue. Since we have an open floor plan, the dining room ends up in the corner between them and so is half and half. We have picked out the colors for most of the rest of the house, but have not done much of that painting yet. We will get there. What is done looks great, but the weather is so nice, and the time is right to be outside planting. Since the house was a rental for 3 years before going onto the market, the landscaping is a bit neglected, and very overgrown. I have been suckering several of my friends into helping rip out shrubbery in exchange for food or beer, so it is starting to look better.

Alex and I took a week off in December to go on vacation in Mexico. I highly recommend Cabo :-) We did the all inclusive thing, and it was great. The weather was fantastic: warm but not hot, not too humid, and the ocean is beautiful out there. We had a great time. You can get pics here.

Friends: Been making a lot of friends down here. I knew a couple of people when I moved out here so I never had that awkward phase of not knowing anyone. I have since expanded and shifted my primary circle, meeting new people, introducing them to my friends and things. Current group is usually Alex, my friend Joe who works as a technician, Steve who started here back in January, Kha who is Vietnamese and teaching me to cook some of the dishes he grew up with, and Tara who lives up in Greenwood, but sometimes sticks around to hang out. I see Mel every couple of weeks and she is finally dating someone again. He is nice. I give him a 2-thumbs-up.

Anything else...? If I forgot something, leave me a comment.

2006-05-24T13:02:00.000-04:00

Hey all who still read this!

Found my password and username, finally! Updates to be soonish.

2005-09-20T15:19:00.000-05:00

Some of what I have been listening to:

Daddy Yankee, Gasolina (which google cannot translate)
Dirty Vegas' self titled album
and the new Tommy Lee

The opening track is pretty cool... Lyrics :-)

Put down the magazine and get off the phone
Cuz theres a place I wanna show u and it wont take long
Take a ride
Take a ride

Its lookin like we're getting there
Over here, comin clear
Place that has no rhymes, or times, or crimes
Just good times
Just good times

(Chorous)
Take me away
To a place where the good times good times roll
Don't let me stay
In a place where this hate can steal my soul

Got myself worked up over nothing today
All this trash in my head I gotta throw it away
Its alright
Its alright

Its lookin like we're getting there
Over here, comin clear
Place that has no rhymes, or times, or crimes
Just good times
Just good times

(Chorous)

This is it, I'm finally here
And all the blurry lines are clear
And everything that I cant see
Seems to make more sense to me
Why the hell cant I just let it go, let it go, yeah

(Chorous)

2005-08-24T13:50:00.000-05:00

This is Hank. He is a stray who recently showed up at one of my co-workers houses looking for food. He has recently been neutered and is currently living with me until he finds a permanent home. He is a super friendly kitty, likes to be petted, eats like a horse (he's about a year old and has been foraging all summer), and likes to squeak at the birds that come to my deck to eat out of my bird feeder.

If you have any ideas, leave a post and I will get back to you.

2005-08-24T13:49:00.000-05:00

Life has been good (in no particular order):
(*) I eat Japanese at least once a week, if not more, since there is a nice little place not too far from here that does a fairly inexpensive lunch.
(*) I will be fostering a little kitty, well I think he is little, he's a year old and I should have him for a week or two.
(*) I play racquetball at least twice a week with my good friend Kha, who also shares my amusement with the funniest video game ever:
(*) Kung Fu Chaos - you need to see it to believe it.
(*) I am looking to buy a new (to me) car and have been toying with the idea of getting something that is less practical and more fun than the sedan I have now. I was thinking about something with 2 doors, a stick, and a sunroof...
(*) I have recently started dating this awesome guy who seems as into me as I am into him
(*) I may get to go to Paris over Christmas. Taking 2 days off work nets me an almost 2 week long vacation.

2005-08-16T09:14:00.000-05:00

I am totally loving Columbus. The work is interesting, and the people are fun to be around. To illustrate: I ended up out and about yesterday with my boss and two of the guys in my department over at the verizon wireless store so they could get their new phones up and running and decided to run by the ATM to drop off a couple of checks. Of course, when I get back to the VZW store, they are gone, and have taken the car and moved it. Grr. So I call my boss: "where are you?" sounding more bored than annoyed. They had moved the car and gone to Circuit City to look at holders. Grrr.

Also, I like what I do. I spent most of last week in training, but the week before that I spent writing Matlab (TM) scripts to deal with data maniuplation. I have never really liked programming, nor have I ever really enjoyed working with Matlab, but when I finished, I felt good about what I had done and pleased with the way the coding had ended up being pretty clean. Also, the Mathworks helpdesk is actually helpful, so don't be afraid to call them, unlike the helpdesk at work. That still makes me angry that the helpdesk and the software guys were basically just kicking my help tickets back and forth. grr.

2005-08-02T13:13:00.000-05:00

Too Funny:

2005-08-02T13:04:00.000-05:00

Yay new job!

I started about a month ago at my first salaried position in a smallish town in central Indiana. Work is going well, though I still spend a lot of time fighting with the "help" desk. The best part was last week when I was having computer problems and the help desk was down.

Anyway, life is going well. I have made a lot of new friends through the network I have here: there are several Rose graduates here from within the last couple of years, and I got to meet their friends, and they became my friends. Now I watch softball on Thursdays, play racquetball several times a week, and have about a dozen people over for dinner on Sunday or Monday nights. It is a ton of fun. I really like that I came here and did not spend the first several months somewhat lonely like I did when I was on co-op last year. It was nice sleeping 10 hours or more a day, but at a certain point, I really enjoy the social interaction.

I have ended up really sunburnt the last several weekends. I went up to my best friend's lake house near Indy and was out all day tubing and waterskiing and on the jetski and in the boat and swimming several weeks ago with one of my friends from work. Then two weekends ago, I went with about 25 people down to Patoka Lake and spend two days on the water. I was fluorescent pink after that one. Last weekend I was at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio standing in the sun all day. I am starting to have a decent tan, even with all the sunscreen :-)

2005-06-13T11:15:00.000-05:00

Well, I am about 1500 miles into my vacation now.

I left Terre Haute last saturday for Fort Wayne, then headed to Detroit to pick up some people at the ariport. I was in Detroit for most of a week for a conference involving my senior project (check out the stuff at www.challengex.org) and took people back to the airport Thursday afternoon.

I crashed at my uncle's place near downtown Detroit after a nice dinner, then headed up to Waterloo, Canada to spend time with some friends that are also in Challenge X. They have a very nice school: we spent most of the afternoon just chilling on a deck where I got pretty sunburnt and where we had an Indian-off. These are Indians with dots, not feathers, and the two guys are Canadians of Indian descent and get a kick out of doing the cliched Indian accent (Thank you, come again) for the rest of us. I headed out of Canada, stopped at Niagara falls on the Canadian side, and drove along the southern coast of Lake Ontario through New York. Saturday night was spent in the third smallest incorporated village in the state of New York, and Sunday morning was driving through the amazingly beautiful Adarondiac National Forest. It was cloudy and misting a little, which added to the surreal beauty of the area. I was going to get to Vermont via Hwy 17, but couldn't find the bridge, so I ended up taking a ferry across. I think it was the better choice.

I got to New Hampshire last night and met up with my friend Brian who just finished his BE at Dartmouth College. He was supposed to join me for a trip to Maine's Acadia National Park, but his girlfriend wigged out when I got here and basically gave him an ultimatum of 'me or this trip' and he wussed out. I just wish she had done so a few days earlier when I was still in Detroit and hadn't driven an additional 1000 miles to get out here. Since I really don't feel like going to Maine alone, I got ahold of one of my friends who has a job in Boston, and I get to go help him look for apartments tomorrow, and then we will head down to NYC to stay with my sister Wednesday night and head back to Indy starting Thursday afternoon. I figure we make 7 hours of the drive on Thursday and get back to the Indy airport Friday afternoon.

Once I get back, I will probably spend a day recovering from all the driving since it will be well over 3000 miles when I am done, and then finish moving out of my apartment and down to my new one. I have a lot of my stuff, it is just that a fair amount of what is left is either too big for my car or too heavy for me to lift of both. I need a boy (or several) with trucks and muscles :-)

Going to be interesting :-) girls and boys are silly. grr.

2005-06-07T09:25:00.000-05:00

Wow. So graduation, moving to a new city (in process), and the end of year competition currently in Detroit for my senior project.

I have been feeling underappreciated with this team and my roommate. I feel that they do a lot of wasting my time and re-doing the things that I have actualy spent a fair amount of time working on. Grr. I would really rather be drinking a beer with the guys from UC Davis than watching the first run of a presentation done by people who have only a minimal understanding of the equipment they are talking about. That was a painful event last night. I was especially miffed since I had been called down to give a presentation 'now' and when we went to bed 2 hours later, I still hadn't. Turns out that the team had been waiting for me for like 15 minutes without telling me. Again, grr.

On the bright side, the new Black Eyed Peas CD came out yesterday so at somepoint in the next day or two I want to find a best buy or something and go get it. Yay. Then I get to deal with my cell phone which will hopefully be done with in the next couple of days. Anyone have any idea what being in 'Download Mode' for 2 days means?

2005-06-02T02:30:00.000-05:00

wow. I am now a full fledged member of the adult working class.

Graduation was last weekend, although I feel like it was some sort of weird joke and I will still have to report to campus in the fall. Joke is on them I guess: no more school, no more $40,000 a year to attend classes, no more grading papers for $7/hr, no more homework on that green engineering paper i have come to know and love over the last 4 years.

I spent most of yesterday moving a first load of things to my new place and unpacking a large part of my kitchen supplies: I have a hell of a lot of stemware. I own about 50 glasses, at least. I think I will end up packing my dozen or so 'special occasions' glasses like my fancy martini and margarita glasses just so they dont take over my limited cabinet space, and then who knows. I have such fun, cute things for my kitchen :-)

Speaking of the kitchen, I need a slightly bizare set of appliances for my new place. I have a nice vacuum, blender, and some of the small things like a coffee grinder, but I still need all the random things that I have either been surviving without like a hand mixer, or using my roommates like his coffee maker. And of course I need the little stuff such as sponges and dish soap and duct tape and to find my nails so I can hang all my artwork around my place, although I think I will wait until my parents come down for the July 4th weekend to do that. I always felt that a place goes from feeling like a place to sleep to being home when you put things up on the walls.

Wow. I just looked over the last paragraph, and my sentence structure is all over the place. I can't even tell if I have been consistently writing completel sentences: when I am tired (it is 2:40 in the morning) my ability to use grammar goes out the window.

2005-05-13T09:36:00.000-05:00

one more week.

Yesterday afternoon was graduation practice, so after they tell us to find our seats and such, they talk about how we walk in and up to the stage and about how we can give back to our alma mater and stuff. After this, we get our picture taken, they give us a box of glasses that say 'class of 2005' and give us food and beer (I have been reading too much MegaTokyo lately: I wanted to write that b33r). Yay.

I had my last assignment due this morning so my partner and I worked on it til late while killing a bottle of wine, and then when we got done we decide to celebrate with shots... oops. I had 2 beers at the graduation thing, half a bottle of wine, a washington apple, a red headed slut, and one that we made up called a white orchid. Then... we went and attempted to play pool while drinking more beer. Bad idea. I think today is recovery day. I don't usually drink much, but lately my pattern seems to be binge drinking about once every other week.

2005-04-30T20:06:00.000-05:00

I did a bad bad bad thing :-)

Sooo... I haven't actually bought a CD in a while: I think I last bought Basement Jaxx's Kish Kash over christmas since I found it used for like $7. Most of what I get is from going: 'ooh! I like that! who is it?? would you make me a copy??' to my friends or my dad. Anyway, I was on my way back from Chicago with my then boyfriend and one of our friends after most of a week of goofing off down there and this song comes on the radio that I had never heard before. I do that "Ooooh!" thing I do when I relly like something about as soon as the base line comes on, pump up the volume and procede to tune out the boys for the next several minutes while I car dance at 75mph. They laugh, but eh, who cares.

So I hear this song on the radio a few days ago and decide that I need it in a bad way (I think the guy in the apartment across from mine was playing it loud). Last night, I went to a scholarship dinner at my school, and my guest had popped the button off of his jacket and I offer to fix it so we go out to get buttons. Well, we were already out in that part of town, so I stop at the FYE in the mall and procede to get royally ripped off. Who the hell pays $19.99 for a single CD??? Good Lord. If I had not needed it and been heistant to get it off Kazaa or something, I would have just paid the eleven bucks or whatever on Amazon. Grr.

So the song is called 'Sugar' and it is by Trick Daddy with CeeLo and just has a groove that rox my world. Oh well. Ill post part of the lyrics:

Sweetie you look so incredible
So delicious and so damn edible

Honey, you look like a honeydew melon
Or strawberry with the whipped cream filling
Of the top part of the peach cobbler
But uh, the fruit platter ought to do me better

Yeah. Makes me feel sexy.

Tschau.
~Ariko

2005-04-29T22:28:00.000-05:00

Yay!
I have a job!
I will be staying in Indiana, but the company is going to be fun to work at and the social life will rock :-)

2005-04-14T09:31:00.000-05:00

Ok. So Ive been lazy...

Again, lots has gone on since my last update. I tried to get in here yesterday to post and the blogging site was down. oh well.

I spent a week in Cancun Mexico about a month ago and that was amazing. I went down with a bunch of my sorority sisters and in a week slept about 22 hours. We landed about midninght on Friday and hit the clubs. A bunch of us had bought inclusive passes and went to CocoBongo and watched this crazy show with people dressed as Michael Jackson, and X-tina, and all kinds of celebrities. I got back to the hotel around 4, and then hung out on the beach until about 6, crashed for a few hours, and then went and napped on the beach for a few hours. Around noon, we all went out to a place that had free beer, had some lunch, and chilled in the pool.

Again, we go out, find free drinks (we had open bar at another place) came home late, spent a few hours chilling on the beach, slept for a bit, and went to the beach with the sun. I was dark by the end of the week... and it looked good. Most of that week, the most I wore was a bikini and a pair of shorts or a sarong. When I got back to the Haute, I just threw all of my suitcase into the wash since everything that was not dirty when I got on the plane was nasty with sand by the time I got back :-).

I have also had several interviews, one of which was in Germany (didn't get that job), with various companies and will be accepting an offer from one of them by this weekend (YAY!). I am looking forward to going down there and doing the apartment search thing. I know what I want as far as price and space, and I just need to find it :-D It is crazy to think that in a couple of months I will be an enineer and in a few I will be working in industry... wow.

2005-01-30T19:59:00.000-05:00

I miss blogging. There is a lot to be said for the release I get from just putting things in words and writing them down and sending them out for anyone to see. It is very cathartic.

The job search still goes. School had it's winter job fair last week and I left interviews with about a dozen companies. Many of them were like "Thanks! Now go online and put it in the system for real." I did score interviews with two companies, one of which I would really like to work for, the other - it would be nice to get a job offer. I saw the interviewer for the company I interviewed with a couple of months ago and when I asked he did say that I had interveiwed well, but someone else had been better for the job. That was encouraging. I had walked out of that one feeling like I had done well, and it bummed me out to get the e-mail with the Phi (Rose slang for rejection letter). My big just started working after graduating last year with a BS Chemistry. She is up in Ft Wayne, and I think I'll try to go visit her in the next couple of weeks.

The boy... yeah... that is a long story. Still dating, but its been a rough couple of weeks since we got back from Christmas break. We do have different expectations about a lot of things, and that confuses issues in bizare ways. anyway, talking to my parents helps a lot. My dad does a good job of grounding me, and my mom, now that I don't live at home anymore, really do a good job communicating.

Ok, time to go make plans ;-)

2005-01-16T01:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it seems that the old sayings are the correct ones: when it rains, it pours.

Occurances in the last month:
(*) worst grades ever - college, high school, elementary, whatever
(*) best test scores (it was a new term) since the start of high school
(*) first time in New Mexico
(*) first time in a year 'trying' to ski - and by 'ski' I mean 'fall down the mountain'
(*) Lasik: I have gone from counting fingers at 6 feet to 20/15
(*) actively worrying about my relationship with my boyfriend (long story, maybe some other time)
(*) first time coming back from a party after being there for less than 30 min, and not because it sucked really badly.

The school job fair is next week, and I would really like to get employed. I will have next term to deal with this as well, but I feel like I am falling behind with the search even though I don't graduate until May. Several of my friends alreay have jobs (yay job keg), but most of us do not yet, and the pressure is really on now. One of my good friends graduated last year in May, and started her job just last week. As much as I love going home to visit my parents, I really don't want to move back in.

Bedtime. I don't know how I feel about my man coming home... something feels wierd there that I can not get a grasp on.

2004-11-27T22:33:00.000-05:00

Wow. I have spent my turkey day break in New York and man do my feet hurt. My sister is going to school out here on Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn several stops out on the train. It is awesome. It is all up and down and up and down with the stairs to the subway and little vendors with the knockoff label shades and purses and those almonds with the caramel on them. Yummy. She managed to score a pretty awesome apartment on the second floor of a building on a corner so they have tons of windows and with the weather still so nice, they can keep the windows open.

With turkey day itself: we went and caught the 'tail' end of the Macys parade (I have pictures of Clifford's and Big Bird's asses) then headed home after grabbing lunch somewhere to cook dinner. I had managed to find a 12 lb turkey since there were only four of us, and we did the mashed potatoes, gravey, stuffing and the rest. Very nice.

If anyone who reads this is out in the city, there is this awesome restaurant over on 2nd avenue and 4th st called Ovo with awesome linguine with clam sauce.

2004-11-14T20:25:00.000-05:00

wow. It has been a while. While I was in Europe I wrote several posts, but since the site was being kinda screwy they never got up. If I get a chance, I'll go find them and put them up.

Update on my life:

I am almost done with the first term of my senior year! yay! My classes are a weird mix this term: Senior design which doesn't meet, but I end up putting more time into that then anything else, Communication Systems from 10-11am where we are learning the principles behind broadcast media among other things, Applied Linear Algebra for Engineers which is watered down lin alg and neither challenging nor interesting except for the teacher, and Electromagnetic Waves which is kinda interesting, but the book really sux.

Aside from that I have been putting a lot of time into my sorority with setting a good example and all, helping my best friend through having her wedding postponed, cancelled, and then dumped, and trying to get out at least once a week to spend time with some friends (usually alcohol is involved). I also grade about 15 hours a week and tutor calc once a week for fun and gas money.

Monday nights are becomming my favorites though. After chapter, several of us will go out to Tumbleweed for $1 margaritas ($1.50 if it is flavored) and generally get kinda roudy and hit on/harass the wait staff. Lots of fun. Tuesdays are fun too. I usually meet with the kid I tutor - not that at 18 he's a kid - around 7, and before we meet, his parents have taken to inviting me over for dinner. I miss home cooking so much. I feel so spoiled :-)

2004-11-10T20:57:00.000-05:00

More fun stuff offline. Identify the body part!!!

* It can be up or down. It's more fun when it's up, but that makes it difficult to get any real work done.
* In the long-distant past, its only purpose was to transmit information considered vital to the survival of the species. Some people still think that's the only thing it should be used for, but most folks today use it for fun most of the time.
* It has no conscience and no memory. Left to its own devices, it will just do the same damn dumb things it did before.
* It provides a way to interact with other people. Some people take this interaction very seriously, others treat it as a lark. Sometimesit's hard to tell what kind of person you're dealing with until it's too late.
* If you don't apply the appropriate protective measures, it can spread viruses.
* It has no brain of its own. Instead, it uses yours. If you use it too much, you'll find it becomes more and more difficult to think coherently.
* We attach an importance to it that is far greater than its actual size and influence warrant.
* If you're not careful what you do with it, it can get you in big trouble.
* It has its own agenda. Somehow, no matter how good your intentions, it will warp your behavior. Later you may ask yourself "why on earth did I do that?"
*Some folks have it, some don't.Those who have it would be devastated if it were ever cut off. They think that those who don't have it are somehow inferior. They think it gives them power. They are wrong. Those who don't have it may agree that it's a nifty toy, but think it's not worth the fuss that those who do have it make about it. Still, many of those who don't have it would like to try it.
* Once you've started playing with it, it's hard to stop. Some people would just play with it all day if they didn't have work to do.

2004-10-31T20:46:00.000-05:00

The engineer in me could not resist. For the record, I am 85% impure,but only by dint of engineering and having way too much homework. Atleast I am that much, but alas; DiffEq and then the Digital series gotme most of the way there.

Enjoy, there are 60 questions:

MATHEMATICS PURITY TEST
Count the number of yes's, subtract from 60, and divide by 0.6.

The Basics
1) Have you ever been excited about math?
2) Had an exciting dream about math?
3) Made a mathematical calculation?
4) Manipulated the numerator of an equation?
5) Manipulated the denominator of an equation?
6) On your first problem set?
7) Worked on a problem set past 3:00 a.m.?
8) Worked on a problem set all night?
9) Had a hard problem?
10) Worked on a problem continuously for more than 30 minutes?
11) Worked on a problem continuously for more than four hours?
12) Done more than one problem set on the same night (i.e. bothstarted and finished them)?
13) Done more than three problem sets on the same night?
14) Taken a math course for a full year?
15) Taken two different math courses at the same time?
16) Done at least one problem set a week for more than four months?
17) Done at least one problem set a night for more than one month(weekends excluded)?
18) Done a problem set alone?
19) Done a problem set in a group of three or more?
20) Done a problem set in a group of 15 or more?
21) Was it mixed company?
22) Have you ever inadvertently walked in upon people doing a problem set?
23) And joined in afterwards?
24) Have you ever used food doing a problem set?
25) Did you eat it all?
26) Have you ever had a domesticated pet or animal walk over you whileyou were doing a problem set?
27) Done a problem set in a public place where you might be discovered?
28) Been discovered while doing a problem set?

Kinky Stuff
29) Have you ever applied your math to a hard science?
31) Done an integration by parts?
32) Done two integration by parts in a single problem?
33) Bounded the domain and range of your function?
34) Used the domination test for improper integrals?
35) Done Newton's Method?
36) Done the Method of Frobenius?
37) Used the Sandwich Theorem?
38) Used the Mean Value Theorem?
39) Used a Gaussian surface?
40) Used a foreign object on a math problem (eg: calculator)?
41) Used a program to improve your mathematical technique (eg: MACSYMA)?
42) Not used brackets when you should have?
43) Integrated a function over its full period?
44) Done a calculation in three-dimensional space?
45) Done a calculation in n-dimensional space?
46) Done a change of bases?
47) Done a change of bases specifically in order to magnify your vector?
48) Worked through four complete bases in a single night (eg: using\the Graham-Schmidt method)?
49) Inserted a number into an equation?
50) Calculated the residue of a pole?
51) Scored perfectly on a math test?
52) Swallowed everything your professor gave you?
53) Used explicit notation in your problem set?
54) Purposefully omitted important steps in your problem set?
55) Padded your own problem set?
56) Been blown away on a test?
57) Blown away your professor on a test?
58) Have you ever multiplied 23 by 3?
59) Have you ever bounded your Bessel function so that the membrane did not shoot to infinity?
69) Have you ever understood the following quote: "The relationship between Z^0 to C_0, B_0, and H_0 is an example of a general principle which we have encountered: the kernel of the adjoint of a linear transformation is both the annihilator space of the image of the transformation and also the dual space of the quotient of the space of which the image is a subspace by the image subspace." (Shlomo & Bamberg's A "Course" in Mathematics for Students of Physics)",1]
);

2004-08-17T03:20:00.000-05:00

Long time no post. France is fun: I had a blast in Paris. I was staying with the son of one of my mom's college buds whom I met 3 years ago when we were both staying with another of her buds from college out near LA. Anyway, I was able to finagle staying at his apartlment for most of a week and since he works during the day I had time to run around the city and do touristy things like the Eiffel Tower, The Arche de Triomphe, Place de la Bastille, the Louvre (with mandatory viewing of La Jaconde) although the Salle de l'Etat was under construction and I was denied viewing of The Last Supper. I saw three paintings and one sculpture of Saint Sebastian who was Martyred vai shot through by several arrows. If I remember it was about 6 or 7 that it took to finally pin him to the tree where he was left to die. Okay, I stand corrected: he survived being shot and ended up getting beaten to death. I think I want to name my first son - given that there is one - Sebastian, and call him 'Bastian for short.

Back to Paris. I did climb the Eiffel Tower, but only to the second level. Somehow it wasn't worth Euro 10.50 to take the elevator to the top, especially with the exchange rate right now. It has been a major case of Sticker Shock the entire time I have been here. And money goes quickly. Lunch time.... mmmm... tomato salad.

2004-08-03T09:16:00.000-05:00

Long time no post.... oh well.

Yesterday I began my final month long vacation as a college student: I will be spending a week in DC with a friend that graduated in May and then off to France to visit more friends and family until the end of August. This is going to be sweet.

Leading up to the fun, however, has been some pretty crazy stuff. I interviewed for my first after degree job last Tuesday about two hours from where I work(ed) and that went pretty well except for spending all my time prepping for that instead of moving. By Wednsday I was feeling amazingly unmotivated to do anything, so I would go to work, come home and nap or something instead of getting all my stuff packed up. Not so much. Friday night I got invited to go have a beer or two with one of the guys from work, but he works second shift so we didn't start until midnight and two beers turned into 3 beers... and a shot of bailies.... and a blue kamikaze... and a shot of goldschlager. Man I was trashed on top of not having eaten enough to mitigate the overdose of alcohol.

Dave and I stagger up the next morning (he had as much to drink as I had) to attempt to pack up the apartment before one of our friends shows up with his trailer to help us move all our (read 'my') crap back to the Haute. We were supposed to be ready to load up at 10 to leave at around 1pm. We arrive back at the other apartment around 7, after buying me jumper cables and jumping my car since my lights had been left on the night before and the battery was beyond dead. We went to wal-mart and I basically looked at the 4 kinds they had and bought the nicest/most expensive ones - for all of $19.99+tax. Buffs b-day is this week, and since I wasn't going to be around, I took the guys out for dinner to say 'happy b-day and thanks for helping me move my crap.' We went easy on the booze, though I was not feeling like my head was made of soggy cotton balls anymore which was a major improvement.

Sunday we emptied the trailer, took a shower, goofed off at the mall and watched the Big Lebowski. Then yesterday I caught a flight out of Indy a little before noon to arrive here in DC. Little tiny plane too, only 3 seats per row and I somehow ended up with the single on the left. Turned out to be a good thing since as we were coming down along the Potomac to land at the DC airport all the neat stuff like the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Georgetown and whatnot were along that side. I was picked up by the aforementioned friend, and given the quick and dirty tour of the city. The weather sucked, but this looks like a pretty neat place to be. I took another nap (flying tires me out) and we went out for dinner. As we were moseying along across the street from his apartment, I hear movement to my left and look down to see a rat that had to be at least 14" from nose to ass scurry across the sidewald. Blech. Dinner was great. We picked up the car and then went to see 'Harold and Kumar go to White Castle' which turned out to be hilarious. I was not expecting much, but I laughed my ass off most of the movie. Definately a 'Funny more than once' kind of movie.

2004-07-14T01:07:00.000-05:00

Picture this: almost one in the morning in a nice town in Indiana. I am finally coming home from the overtime we had to/got to work tonight.
Picture this: I have just walked out of the building when I see a flash that fuzzes, I blink twice to see if I am just having trouble with my contacts.
Picture this: walking to my car, past the gate, I see a puddle of rainwater. Reflected in it is another flash, this one bigger.
Picture this: driving home watching the streamers of lightning play across the southern horizon. Some of the bolts are behind clouds and light them up from the inside. Some rake across the sky from one end to another, bright sizzles the illluminate then dissappear.
Picture this: Arriving home, but not ready to sleep yet, though the bed calls. A drink in one hand, the taste of smooth liquor, the feel of the breeze in my hair. Again watching the play of God's Fireworks along the south, prettier than a postcard, and I stand rapt as if hyptonized.
Picture this: A single street lamp standing lit along the road, shinning against the backdrop of the amazingly lit clouds. Steady in its glow against the manic flashes of lightning behind it.
Picture this: The solitary figure of a woman, turning her back on the beauty to reclimb the hill she has descended for the view, only to glance frequently over her shoulder to continue marveling at this amazing sight she has been allowed to witness.

2004-07-09T20:58:00.000-05:00

Speaking of amusing - i just ate a Dove chocolate with the message: chocolate before bed makes for sweet dreams. The look I got from one of the line workers suggested that eating it out of the wrapper may not be the most fun way to do it. :-) Long days and pleasant nights, if it do ya.

2004-07-09T17:05:00.000-05:00

This weekend is going to be hella fun! After work (ie around 12:30) I am going back to the apt to fortify myself with alcohol, then Dave and I are meeting up with about 6 other people downtown to go clubbing - well, as much as you can go clubbing this time of year since school is out for IU. Then we are getting up at a decent time, although i am not sure that giving Dave carte blance to wake me up whenever was the smartest thing ever. Going to the Haute to move all my stuff out of your room into the Living room so 'Brina can move out of mine and I can take care of that stuff later this month, then to Mels lake house for another beating on the tubes (I can lift my arms past my shoulders for the fist time this week) and hopefully a sunburn too, then dinner in Indy and back to B-town. Sunday is church and work on my sewing and maybe a round of drunken scrabble (dave can't spell for shit) and then back to work on monday. I am now on hours for sleeping that some of my friends would like - seeing as i dont get off work til 12:30 and dont usually have to be in til 4 or so unless I have meetings. Silly CS majors. anyway. back to the line - stupid thing is still being retarded. Im going to be on second most if not all of next week too.

2004-07-02T17:37:00.000-05:00

FAVORITES...

1. Slumber party: I think the one back in elementary or middle school where jaki came over and around 7pm for new years and where she and I got the giggles until after midnight. We were sitting in my dining room and my dad kept coming in right as we were winding down and setting us off again.

2. Color: Blue, most shades tho I am a bit pickier about the shades I wear. I am rather partial to the one I hex coded for the background of my blog.

3. Movie: I like a lot of the animated stuff lately: Shrek, Shrek 2, lots of the old Disney's, Anime (only with subtitles tho)

4. Book: I'm re-reading Stepen King's Dark Tower series, about 2/3s of the way through book 3 so I can get to the new one - Song of Susanna. I just got past the spot where she conceives the child that is the center of the sixth book, so while it has taken Stephen King a number of years to write the next 5, it is only about a year and a half in the real timeline.

5. Subject in school: Controls and Japanese (ill pick two)

6. Juice: White Cranberry Peach, though I found a recipe for a White Peach Sangria that sounds as if it could be deadly :-)

7. Car: I ::heart:: my Honda. For a new one, I would probably upgrade to the new one which is a hybrid - especially if I could get it in stick shift.

8. Ice cream: Not much of an issue anymore since I am lactose intolerant, but I still love a good vanilla bean.

9. Holiday: Thanksgiving and Passover - planting and harvesting festivals celebrated with lots and lots of good food with my family.

10. Season: The middle of spring when the trees are budding but not leafed out (red buds and dogwoods for example) and flowers are blooming but it isnt too hot to wear jeans out and it is nice to have a sweater.

11. Breakfast food: french toast and over easy eggs, unless it is mother's day - then it is crab benedict on english muffins with coffee, fruit salad, and mimosa.

12. Place to go with your honey: walking in a park - preferably a nice one where I can take my shoes off and put my toes in the grass.

13. Makes you laugh the most: watching my cats be generally silly.

14. Makes you smile: The little things - good food, compliments, a sunny day with a nice breeze, dancing...

15. Gives you a funny feeling when you see them: define funny. those guys that are old enough to be my dad but that still leer... yeah... creepy.

16. Has a crush on you: This is one of those things that I am subconsiously completly oblivious to.

17. Do you have a crush on anyone: I don't do crushes. Unless you count Brad Pitt.

18. Who can make you feel better no matter what: My dad, his best friend and my tattoo artist. Somehow they all have my trust, even having never asked or really earned it, though they have never violated it. No matter how mad I am at the world or life or whatever, they can sit there and listen and give me a hug and it's all right again.

Enough for now of this for now... where did that crossword go???

2004-07-02T17:25:00.000-05:00

Mel, I have a new name for your pup: Baron von Fluffenstein :-) To all those who don't know this bundle of fun, Baron is a Yellow Lab with a fun sense of humor who is slowly learning that a 'walk' is not the same as a 'drag' when we go to the park. He was about this big ::holds fingers about 8 inches apart:: when she got him over christmas (?) break and is now a force to be reckoned with. I cannot imagine how much he has grown in the six weeks it has been since I played with him. Hopefully for Sunday I can play with him when I go out to the lake with my Posse for the 4th. :-) yay, more boozing it up with my best friend!

2004-07-01T19:39:00.000-05:00

Okay. Beyond the company, second shift really sucks. All of my projects and trial runs are in the morning. The other half of the company is on Eastern and therefore when I finally get to work, they are already going home. Makes it darn near impossible to get anything done. There is the nice fact that working these hours does let me do meals with DJ (you know who you are and yes I am saying something nice about you in here). Of course I bail on breakfast, but that didn't happen when I got up at 7am, and it won't when I get up at 10am either. I'll do that one on my own time. However, driving over to meet DJ at work a couple days this week has been pretty cool and he comes and gets me for dinner (usually get the page about 5 minutes ago that he is in the visitor lot) and we run and get food and I try and fail miserably to make the whole thing work in less than 30 minutes.

On another note, I am kinda ticked with amazon.com. I ordered the new Stephen King and the new Clive Barker (yet to be released). The latter doesn't come out until late August, so they are holding the former until the next has been published. I got too impatient and just cancelled and bought it for real. grr. wanted to charge me almost $10 instead of giving me free shipping to do it. grrr...

on a more pleasant note, i had a nice dinner tonight.

2004-06-29T22:06:00.000-05:00

I think my favorite part about this whole blog is the responses. I love being able to vent and get things off my chest with what is ticking me off, but when something is bugging me and I get feedback that helps, that makes my day. Sometimes it isn't what I want to hear, but then what ever is always what you want.

I got into the discussion with DJ sometime in the last couple days (my time sense is kinda screwy right now since I am sort of working second shift, but I go home and take naps in the afternoon) about how I don't think it is realistic to expect to be happy all the time. Nor would I ever want to get what I want all the time. How could I know the difference between happy and sad? It doesn't help that I am listening to 'Timequake' by Kurt Vonnegut (Jr I think) and he was talking about implications. Like to have nothing, you must have something to compare it to; dark implies light, up implies down, good implies evil, and happy implies sad. If I was happy all the time, how would I really know what happiness was and how could I appreciate it? I want the choice to be sad or angry or hurt so that when I feel good and am happy and excited, I have something to compare it to. Is that too much to ask for? Sometimes I wonder. But then, as an almost Engineer, I will be expected to wonder to get paid. yeah... back to work. I really don't like working second shift when I have projects that all happen in the morning.

2004-06-25T12:48:00.000-05:00

Man, this sucks. I did my yearly get poked and prodded at the girl doctor last week and this week I go off and get sick. Grrr. I left early Wednsday by a couple hours to go get checked out at the local clinic, of course it takes me almost two hours there, then go get prescriptions filled for another while. I decided not to wait for them and just get my nails done for the wedding this weekend, so I can't pick things up and I was feeling sorry for myself. My new roomie calls me around 5, wakes me from a dead sleep and I tell him I am sick. Somehow he can make people feel better just by having him around, and he tells me this, which I flatly disbelieve. It's kinda like how getting kicked in the shin makes your headache seem like less. So he is sitting there telling me what I can and cannot do, and at a certain point, I decide I'm better, just so I dont feel trapped. Damnit, I'm 21, just let me sleep. I also am apparently completly incoherent when just awakened from a nap, much to his amusement. Completly unable to follow a train of thought past the first couple of sentences :-) fun for me to hear about later, tho.

I really wish the guys installing the new equipment would hurry up and get things ready so I can go haul liners around and be a little less bored. zzzz.... too much MSG at lunch.

2004-06-23T08:09:00.000-05:00

Below is part my response to something someone sent. Not to make this rather personal subject available for all to see, but I feel a lot better for knowing that I have the support of you, gentle readers. Here we go:

"I really dont know what to do about you.... I want to see you so much, but it really hurts me when I feel that you would rather see me for three days instead of more. I wanted to be around you, I wanted to come see you instead of going home to see my family, and I kind of felt like you were just saying you wanted me around because it was
what I wanted to hear.

"I am sorry I played hard ball. I have been learning to pursue what I want, and one of the biggest mistakes I have always made with you was being TOO available. Unsurprisingly, you go the other way and back off your time availability ::sigh:: I still don't have a ticket, but I hurt too much right now to give you the option of me visiting back. I don't want to believe that letting you in was a bad decision: I
think it was one of the few things I ever did right with you, but....

"I can't handle this with you right now. I don't know if I ever will be able to. Trying to have a relationship of any kind over 600 miles of distance is hard for me to begin with, and with our technological problems between my shady wireless (it died last night) and the verizon network, I don't feel like I can ever reach out to you. I need that. That is why I pushed so hard for a week. Everything I could have was all I wanted. :-/

"I won't call. That is for you to do now. I'm tired of feeling like crying when I get voicemail and know that I won't get the return call. I will not settle for a whisper of a ghost of a relationship, when I had something getting close to the real thing, no matter how badly I want to."

Are we being too harsh? Should I just let go and move on? Comments are welcomed :-)

2004-06-22T15:27:00.000-05:00

I’ll tell you how my day has been
How the sun has caught my face
How I lul myself to sleep
Waving shadows on my face
Chasing dreams that just passed by
Broken Dreams’I’m just too late
Chasing’Broken Dreams
If only you could keep my warm
If only you could keep me from harm
Chasing dreams that just passed by
Broken dreams’I’m just too late
Chasing broken dreams

2004-06-22T07:35:00.000-05:00

Man, no comments lately. ::bummed:: I guess I haven't been writing too much: been doing too much stuff to have time to write :-) Off to go bug contractors about safety glasses.

2004-06-16T12:48:00.000-05:00

Two of those I read have been talking about the delightful idiosyncracies of home speech in their writings. Both women are English majors in Southern Universities and seem to be stepping far away from life at home to do so. Some how, with cherry blood all over my hands and staining them from pitting pounds of the blood red delights, I have been contenplative today. It's the little things, really, that make the difference: walking into the restaurant 3 minutes before the lunch rush, the way my mom says 'Its costing me a leg and an arm,' knowing that tomorrow night I can curl up with a little bundle of fur named Winslow and barely feel his heartbeat under the purring, playing phone tag with one of the important people in my life due to the un-reliability of cell phones but getting all the fun messages anyway. ::sigh:: where does all the good prose go?

2004-06-15T15:51:00.000-05:00

"If you aren't getting in trouble, you must not be doing much." - One of my supervisors. I like to ask questions, lots of questions. This keeps me into other peoples business for one, and well informed for another. Both of which are good things as far as I am concerned. The good part is that as an intern, I get a lot of leeway from my co-workers with questions. I can go and ask pretty much anyone in my department for a little bit of help, or for advice, or just a little about how their weekend was and family are, and they will make that extra effort to keep me informed so I can do my job. And the way I repay them is with an additional question: "What can I do to help?"

2004-06-14T11:56:00.000-05:00

I love to follow several of my new friends in the 'Blog-o-verse' with their writings. One in particular is a treat to read when she posts: she goes by 'Fuego' with the spanish exclamation thingys around it that I am incapable of doing. Today I read hers - and if you look at her profile she is a grad student doing lit or writing - and she has an amazing poem up.

I commented on it: Your writing is as always a pleasure to read, but today especially so. It irks me to distraction that the focus of teaching in this country is so narrow (I've got dual citizenship) as to not include some of the more amazing 'non American' texts. Are we so shallow as to no longer be able to appreciate the depth and breadth of experiences available to us beyond our own rather narrow heritage? Must it have been originally written in American English to be valid? I need to go write more.

And am now doing said writing more. Go follow the link on the right side of my page, you won't be dissappointed. Not ever with her.

2004-06-14T11:43:00.000-05:00

"Cats know how to obtain food without labor, shelter without confinement, and love without penalties" - W. L. George.

From my daily calendar with quotes about and photos of kittens. Somehow seems a lot neater and cleaner than the human way of living: we can't not work, confine or penalize for those things, yet they do it easily, almost trivially.

Happy Birthday Jaki and everyone else born on Flag Day.

2004-06-11T08:17:00.000-05:00

Oh, speaking of restaurants, there is one particular thing that can really tick me off about going out: a lot of places the food is great and the service is mediocre at best, or the service rocks and the food sucks. Why can't places just be more consistent. Is it lack of training on the servers part? I figure that if I will be spending $50 for two people at dinner, I damn well better get service to match. Makes it so frustruating to go out sometimes... couple of restaurants around town that I have that with.

2004-06-11T08:04:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting dinner last night. My new roomie and I went out to buy dinner and got completly sidetracked again as usual. Getting gas and money were the easy parts, then to Sams to pick up what we had missed earlier that week plus more, TJMaxx to try to get baking pans (we failed, but I got a pair of capris), then to Bed Bath and Beyond to actually get said pans, along with a vegetable chopping knife, a corkscrew, and wine glasses. By this time we were in no mood to cook, so we went out.

We decided to go to O'Charley's and got seated in a booth at the bar with a nice waitress. I was pretty amused by the table behind me - seemed to be a first date, he seemed to be a real idiot, and she didnt seem that much better. This impression was confirmed shortly thereafter when as she was clarifying that there used to be a land bridge between Alaska and Russia, he asked if that was near the Equator. Wow. Anyway, at some point he asked our waitress (theirs too) if since it was his date's birthday, they would come out and sing. Her comment, much to my amusement, was 'Now aren't you nice always bringing out girls for their birthdays!' and watching him attempt to do damage control was hilarious. After they had left (since the roomie wouldn't let me until then) I remarked upon it to the waitress who enlightned us to the fact that he had been in for the last few weeks on Thursdays, each time with a different girl, and each time saying it was their birthday. She seemed tickeled that her off hand comment had registered. I think I would go back and ask for her section.

2004-06-09T06:43:00.000-05:00

A - Age: 21

B - Best quality: I guess I should say intelligence, but I get a lot of compliments on my eyes.

C - Choice of meat: On the rare side of medium rare, unless its lamb, then its rare.

D - Dream guy/girl: smart, funny, treats me well and makes me laugh.

E - Ex (most recent): How do i answer this? the most recent ex-boyfriend, kiss, friend??

F - Favorite food: SUSHI

G - Greatest accomplishment: I think that my 4.0 that one term...

H - Happiest day of your life: ummm... not going there...

I - Internal conflicts: 'to trust or not to trust'

J - Jolly good time!: good food and good company

K - Kool-Aid: Cherry!

L - Love: can be the most amazing thing. Honestly tho, if it is important, he'll make it happen though.

M - Most valued thing I own: i would say my mind, but im not sure that i own it... it seems sometimes that it owns me, but then i get confused in this loop somewhere.

N - Name: Ariane, occasionally Ari or Ariko, but usually just Ariane.

O - Outfit you love: anything that I can wear with stilettos

P - Pizza toppings: pineapple

Q - Question you want to ask: I like "why?"

R - Radio station: 101.1 the Fox when at home, otherwise book on tape all the way baby!

S - Sport to watch: Ill watch college basketball and pro football on TV, baseball, soccer, and hockey if I am at the stadium.

T - Television show: I do not own a TV

U - Unique habit: 'I bite the skin on my fingers to the point that it's probably borderline canniballistic' was on the guy's I got this from, somehow it seems amazingly appropriate, though hardly unique anymore.

V - Vanity, yes or no?: My eyebrows

W - Winter: is nice in Florida

Y - Year born: 1982

Z - Zodiac Sign: Libra

2004-06-08T14:15:00.000-05:00

I think I have been having too much fun with my new roommate. He and I get along fantastically, which is of course both good and bad. I have fun, but then I stay up too late and getting up for work is kinda tough. Last night I noticed something interesting in the way I interact with him: I don't talk nearly as much as I do with most people. He does a lot of the talking with me doing the occasional prompting for details, and somewhere in this process he ends up sharing a lot more than he normally would with a friend. I find it amusing, especially when he starts on some story and interrupts himself halfway through to ask himself why on earth he is telling me this. I just bat my eyes and ask that he continue....

2004-06-07T14:50:00.000-05:00

Wow it has been a crazy week. From a trucker calling back to Verizon to ask for my phone number to being rescued not once, but twice by a friend of mine... yeah. New Roomie too. The old one moves out at the end of the month and the new one needed a place to stay that was less than a 45minute commute, so here I am. Hes a lot of fun too. Been drinking a bit too much, but oh well, I've been staying out of trouble.

Back to the rescueing though: Last tuesday we got some new interns at work and I was taking one of them to get his car worked on at Sears and we get the paperwork done and call his parents and they are cool with doing it and we go to unload his stuff into my car and he promptly procedes to lock his keys in the car. The mechanic at Sears was beyond worthless and we end up trying to use a coat hanger and the security guard comes over and we are making zero progress. I call my friend in town and he comes over and somehow manages to break into the damn thing. That is hard work by the way. Then Friday I went out and got stranded (long story) and he was there and was able to call me a cab and spot me the $10 for the ride. Thank goodness. But c'mon, that was twice in one week that he was the knight in shining armor to my damsel in distress!

Saturday morning I was sitting out on the patio at a coffee shop downtown talking to my parents and about every couple minutes a pack of people on bikes drove past, completly obliterating my ability to converse. I want me one of them! No more spending money on clothes or expensive food, need to get a vehicle with good mileage :-) and of course the helmet.

2004-06-03T16:08:00.000-05:00

I ::heart:: my commentors! It makes me sooo happy to know that someone is reading the drivel I post, even if it is to bitch that it pisses you off (Adrian). I really like reading what other people write, and it gives me the warm fuzzies to know that someone, anyone cares enough to take the time not only to read it, but to say something about it. Oh, and I tested the post from a couple days ago, seemed to work ok.... dunno, maybe blogger was being weird again.

Again, thanks for commenting. If nothing can make me smile all day, that will.

2004-06-03T16:01:00.000-05:00

Hmmm... So when I was in Detroit the friend I was staying with was talking about a course he had taken to prep for the transfer and mentioned (after I untied his shoes a couple of times) that he found out that he had been tying his shoes wrong for years. I had been mildly curious what working had done since I used to have to work harder to be cutely annoying with his shoes since he kept them double knotted. So, after getting some ribbing from the few of us that were over, he decided to demonstrate. Normally people are taught to make a granny knot between the first knot and the bow, but this doesn't hold very well - you are supposed to make a square knot. This is as simple as crossing the strings over the other way when you start, but it makes a big difference, expecially on waxed dress laces.

I don't own any shoes that use the waxed laces, but i do have several shirts with ribbon ties. I decided to further test this theory today wearing my new work shirt (green stripey with lightly ruched pockets and ribbons on the sleeves) by tying the left bow the old way and the right the new. Surprisingly, the left is still holding and after re-tying the right several times before 10am, I decided to convert the other to that way of tying. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks :-)

2004-06-01T22:03:00.000-05:00

IMing with a friend:

AlexYoshi (10:02:41 PM): I do volunteer tech support. I got this message on a forum:

LMAO AlexYoshi, I think I screwed up the install. my cosmos has none of that and every time I start up WoW I get a popup: "Critical error in front of the monitor: #ID10T"

so, which any key do I use to fix it?

2004-06-01T21:37:00.004-05:00

Wow. Every once in a while, I realize how lucky I am. A friend of mine asked me how I liked work, and I was able to respond that I loved it. Not only is it a lot easier and more fun than school, but I "like what i am doing, where i am doing it and with whom. every day is a new challenge, and i can go out on the floor, be recognized and greeted, and the occasional thing where i can say 'i did that.'" Life is good. One of my friends moves in Thursday, so i have the feeling that my imbibing habits are going to rise, but it will be a ton of fun. One of the new co-ops is pretty cool and has a pretty sweet setup at his new place, so we are going to re-instate dinner and a movie with his movies and my cooking. it should be great. life is not just good, its great!

2004-06-01T21:37:00.003-05:00

2004-06-01T21:37:00.002-05:00

2004-06-01T21:37:00.001-05:00

2004-06-01T21:37:00.000-05:00

2004-05-31T20:33:00.000-05:00

hmmm... been a crazy weekend. the short, bulleted version:
*friday 2 friends came over, drank a bottle of vodka between the three of us with dinner (stir fry for the 3rd time that week)
*we went over to another co-ops house where I got to smoke my first cigar (interesting method of bonding)
*went out to several clubs where for the first time in a while i was in the mood to 'seduce the room' and only damped slightly by the fact that several co-workers were there too
*got up way too early after staying out way too late to have coffee then book it to commencement
*commencement was sad - the president is retiring after 28 years, and 3 of my really good friends just graduated so i was feeling kinda lonely
*head to detroit for the rest of the weekend to help a friend move into his new house. he was stressing about things not being set up yet (duh brand new) so he wasnt spending time with me like i wanted him to. oh well.
*i feel like im growing up, and im not sure if i like it....

2004-05-28T15:36:00.000-05:00

Cardio For the Brain
Stuck for an idea? In a creative slump? Here are some ideas to shake things up.
What is creativity? Where does it come from? How do we get it? We may or may not ever get a precise answer to those But we do know this. The brain is a muscle. And like any muscle it works better, faster – and yes – more creatively when it’s in shape. Here are some exercise tips.
* Listen to music by Johann Sebastian Bach. If Bach doesn't make you more creative, you should probably see your doctor.
* Brainstorm. If properly carried out, brainstorming can help you not only come up with sacks full of new ideas, but can help you decide which is best.
* Always carry a small notebook and a pen or pencil around with you. That way, if you are struck by an idea, you can quickly note it down. Some 90% of your ideas will probably turn out to be dumb. Don't worry, that's normal. What's important are the 10% -- or maybe just one -- that might be brilliant.
* If you're stuck for an idea, open a dictionary, randomly select a word and then try to formulate ideas incorporating this word. You'd be surprised how well this works. The concept is based on a simple but ironic truth: freedom inhibits creativity. There are nothing like restrictions to get you thinking.
* Define your problem. Make notes, and define your problem in detail. Chances are, the ideas will follow.
* If you can't think, walk. A change of atmosphere is good for you and gentle exercise helps shake up the brain cells.
* Read as much as you can about everything possible. Books exercise your brain, provide inspiration and fill you with information that allows you to make creative connections easily.
* Argue. A little debate can be like wind-sprints for brain cells. But remember: Arguing about the best movie ever made is good. Arguing about who does more around the house is not.

2004-05-28T10:03:00.000-05:00

Ouch, I hurt! Yesterday was the spring volunteer event at work and about 20 hourly and salaried people got together to help out a local food bank. We emptied out the place, took up the carpet, painted the walls, put down lineolium tile, re-assembled the shelving, and put back the foodstuffs in a little less than 12 hours. I was pretty amazed what all we got accomplished and the place looks lots better. Stairs right now are painfull, even with the addition of several aspirin to my system. Lifting stuff, waliking, breathing... man, that was a killer all day workout. Good for quads and hamstring, traps, and shoulders.

On another note I was talking to one of my friends who reads this (yay for you guys and me not just writing to the air - i love my commentors) about my post from last week, the Dirty Vegas 'All or Nothing' song lyrics, and we are chatting along and I mention that "'all or nothing' doesn't leave much room for emotional distancing." I really think that is a rather astute observation on my part as far as how I deal with relationships. I am willing to go so far emotionally, but no further, and when I start to sense trouble, I am pretty quick do pull back emotionally. Found myself thinking about that a little more than I expected.

2004-05-26T20:22:00.000-05:00

Cheesecake RB stronger than Lactaid.

2004-05-26T10:38:00.000-05:00

This is going to be a neat week. Dinner tonight at my place with a friend, tomorrow one of my friends that graduated is moving from Texas to Michigan and is passing through, so is going to stop by, Friday night another friend is coming down from school to go hit the town, and Saturday is commencement. After that I won't stick around - all my friends are already gone home for the summer or are graduating and will be busy doing family stuff, and instead of coming back home to Bloomington, i get to go help the aforementioned friend move in to his new place in MI. yay for labor day weekend! Gonna be busy...

2004-05-25T08:20:00.000-05:00

I went back to TH over the weekend and was able to pick up my most recent online purchases. I heart Amazon.com. There was a small padded envelope with my new pedometer - a fancy way to say 'device that counts the number of steps I take' and a ginormous box. This box was something like 28"x24"x18" and inside was a lot of packaging and my new rice cooker (dimensions appx 16"x16"x12"). What a waste of cardboard... good lord.

Anyway, I bought the pedometer to see how much I actually walk in a day (feels like 3 or 4 miles somedays at the plant) and yesterday I walked 9355 steps, or assuming a 2.5 foot stride (3 seemed a bit big) about 4.4 miles. wow. You (meaning people) are supposed to walk 10,000 a day for fitness.... I'm curious to see if there are any trends.

2004-05-23T00:01:00.000-05:00

Dirty Vegas - All or Nothing
I have been out of my head/Hanging on by a thread/To the world I'm missing
Did I fall asleep at the wheel/Get the looks that could kill/'Cos I'm not listening
There must be a better way/There must be a way to change/All of us were scared to say.../So this is all or nothing
Never know what the future will bring/Leave the past 'cos it don't mean a thing/So this is all or nothing/Never know what the future will bring/Leave the past 'cos it don't mean a thing/So this is all or nothing
Did I beat myself up again/Hide it all from my friends/I can hear them whispering
There must be a better way/There must be a way to change/All of us were scared to say.../So this is all or nothing/Never know what the future will bring!

2004-05-22T23:47:00.000-05:00

uh oh... tonight promises to be fun... but tomorrow promises to be painful... mmmm tequila

Yes Daddy, I know you dont necessarily approve of my drinking and I dont always promise to make quality decisions when it comes to quantity. But I promise that I will maintain a safe environment and know my limits. I also accept the consequences of the occasional decision to get completly trashed :-)

2004-05-21T23:11:00.000-05:00

Interesting evening this one. I found out that the nasty-o-gram sender has been a complete spaz lately and who knows what I did to trigger this attack, but I was in all likelyhood just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Feel my wrath or something I guess. Still not going to go to that part, but it is good to get confirmation that I was not inadvertantly doing something harmful or hurtful.

On a second note, I saw Shrek 2 this evening. Go see it! That was a lot of fun, definately a repeat performer if I may say so. Dreamworks has been doing a nice job with this series, hopefully the next one is as fun as this. Oddly enough, about two minutes before the previews started, my ex Court walks in. We both have approximately the same reaction of "Holy crap, this is a new one" which is weird since hes already finished his course work and graduated in Feb and I live an hour from school right now for work. So to see him at the theatre was kinda odd to say the least.

2004-05-21T08:56:00.000-05:00

The heading: Lakers Fans of the Week.
The quote: "Snoop Dogg, left, with giant foam finger, and Bishop Don Magic Juan, right, with giant pimp cup, cheer on the Los Angeles Lakers at Game 6 of teh NBA Western Conference semifinals against the San Antonio Supurs Saturday in Los Angeles"
Is it just me, or should the words 'pimp cup' not be in the entertainment of a small newspaper....

2004-05-20T19:00:00.000-05:00

Todays rant: Nasty-o-grams
This one gets a 'wow', a couple of blinks, and another 'wow' when I think about it. I get home after working out planning on cooking some dinner and cleaning up. Of course, Rose tool that I am, I check my e-mail after unloading my groceries, 13 new e-mails. Junk, Junk, Junk, Junk, WHOA! A nasty-o-gram that is not only a slap to the face, its a disinvitation to a party too! From an invititation that was sent to my entire chapter.

I quote (or at least cut and paste) "I know that you got the chapter email about my job keg, but I want to let you know that you're not welcome to come. I don't appreciate the
way you treat me or my friends, and I don't want you at my house. This is not just my party, there are 4 of us and we are personally inviting a small group of people. If you do show up, you will be asked to leave." Somebody, anybode have a clue??? I sure as hell don't as to what I apparently did to piss her off. Yes, she is friends with Will and I did not handle that particular situation anywhere near as well as I should have, and she is friends with my Sunday morning coffee buddy who is one of my favorite people and whom I would never say a negative thing about. And I haven't even talked with her, like sat down and talked with her, or her little sis, in at least a year. She lives with my big sis who I havent spent enough time with, but again, nothing negative. No clue what is going on, but I know I wont even bother going to a 'private party' with at leat 60 people invited (real small) and an open invitation on her profile.

Pisses me off - I haven't seen this kind of stupid, unncessary shit since I started falling out with the guy I dated Sophomore year of college. And I honestly think that was only partly my doing then. ::noise of frustruation:: grow up! you graduate in barely more than a week, do you really want to leave this kind of bad feelings behind?

2004-05-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

I love fruit :-) My dad and I have a saying at home that goes: This is my favorite kind of fruit - peeled! My mom spoils us of course with oranges, apples, cantaloupe, cucumber, the list goes on and on. When I was up in MI one of the gents I was with got me started on the naval oranges the hotel had out front and every time I start to peel an orange now I remember the surprise and the smile on his face when I produced the last two from my bag and gave him one. I liked those people.

2004-05-20T15:54:00.000-05:00

Cool, I think this means that I don't have to log on to the hosting service anymore to post and publish, I can just send an e-mail... which incidentally will allow me to spell check :-)

So that was me all excited... and here is what I got: Your message could not be posted because of the following reason(s): puckloki.password@blogger.com, Invalid Content Type
Grrr. I wrote Blogger and we'll see what they have to say. Wish I could type.

2004-05-19T19:26:00.000-05:00

This really pisses me off. Some asshole decided it would be a good prank to hack into one of the admin staff's email account and spam the entire campus nude pictures of one of the professors and his wife as a prank. I mean, goldfish in the shower, jello in the pool, those are one thing and not really harmful to anyone, well, the golfish, but that is besides the point. So somehow they got these pictures of him and his wife and the password to the staff member's account and sent these pics to everyone! Everyone! The tech center guys caught the first one and were like 'hmmm... what is this?' but waited too long and another copy got sent out and they missed it that time. I haven't heard anything from admin since, but I am really dissappointed that someone, anyone would think this hurtful thing was funny.

2004-05-16T23:37:00.000-05:00

Is there something about me that says 'use me'? I am tired of being the tissue for people (read boys) when things aren't going right. Suck it up! If it isn't working, fix it! You're 2 weeks from being an engineer damnit! I sure as hell didn't step out of your life like you requested to have you come to me snivelling that life sucks. Suck it up, if I thought you were a spineless lump, I would not have put up with you in the first place, but do not expect me to have sympathy when you are stuck in the hole you have buried yourself in. Like I said, good luck, have faith, and remember D=Diploma while F!=Diploma. Oh, and I am proud to be a tool.

2004-05-15T13:48:00.000-05:00

You know that:
You know you have been working too much when sleeping until 6am is sleeping in.
You know you have been working too much when a 10 hour day is a short one.
You know you have been driving too much when 50 miles is a short jaunt.
You know you have been away from home too much when you are afraid to open the fridge for fear of what you will find there.
You know you have done too little cooking when you're glad to cook on an electric stove.
You know you have been around fridges too much when you can tell what kind one is in a movie (yay product placement).

2004-05-15T13:47:00.000-05:00

yay for being home! my room is of course trashed, but hey, I haven't lived there in almost a month. I got to go grocery shopping last night for the first time in three weeks.

2004-05-14T07:46:00.000-05:00

Hmm... I am both kinda excited and kinda sad. This is my last post from MI, short term or long term, I am not sure which. I am not going to miss the drive up here, the long hours, the grease baked into my skin, and living in a hotel. But I am going to miss the people, both from the company I work for and our supplier. They are some incredible people, and I have learned a ton about being corporate. I am going to miss the random dinner conversations, especially since the showing of SNL Celebrity Jeopardy ("it's funny, yeah, because it's bigger than a normal hat"), the friendly rivalry about athletic prowess, the agression on the go-kart track when we finally make it there at 7:30 for those few minutes of unabashed release of testosterone. I am going to miss the quiet moments splitting an orange with Pat, and his smile of surprise when I remembered to snag one for him. I am going to miss the feedback about my growth as a young professional engineer and that kind of closeness I feel from the man who stepped up and did some mentoring, even though it was not in his job description. I know I have grown and learned a lot, and I learned that I still have a long way to go, til I can command respect and earn respect, and be able to go into a mess and come out with it a little less chaotic, a little more efficient, a little more streamlined, and a little smarter. Hey, I get to go home. :-)

2004-05-13T07:59:00.000-05:00

Hee hee, office conversation quote: "Now that is a man who can tell the flavor of icecream by sitting on it"

2004-05-10T16:26:00.000-05:00

Hmm.. That is irritating. My tag board died. Sorry guys :-/ I'm going to give it a few days and then if nothing has happened get a new one.... 5 Minutes Later... Yay for blogspot! they have comments now! go buh-bye tag board, hullo comments. schweet.

2004-05-10T14:01:00.000-05:00

Wow, it has been a busy weekend. I managed to escape MI before noon on Friday and head home to b-town where I promptly proceded to pass out until 8 am Saturday. Last week one of my friends had called at like 2am because he was bored and couldn't sleep (in his defense -sort of- it was only 1am his time). I called him on Friday night and told him I was a much better person for not retaliating and calling him when I got up that morning at 4:30 his time and left him a 'nice' message. I got up the next morning to a message from him vowing that since I really was a better person, he would have to make it up to me by buying me a slice of cheesecake. It really starts a day off nice to wake up to promises of sweet gooey deliciousness.

Saturday I headed to the Haute for lunch chez Will where if we had been dating he would have broken up with me, but we weren't, so we didn't. Kinda frustruating to have someone you like but where you have such different expectations from the future and the possibilities for anything are so small. Doesn't help that I am an hour away and he graduates in like 3 weeks. oh well. dunno what will happen there.

Anyway, after that I headed over and Dylan and I did a second lunch - he had a sandwich and I had coffee - and then headed to the mall where we tooled around buying earrings for me and PS2 games for him... I was really close to buying Dynasty Warriors 4 and making him loan me his console for the week. Probably a good thing I didnt. For dinner we dragged a bunch of the Skinner voles (or do I mean moles, or maybe hermit would be a better word) out for Thai and then all went and saw Van Hellsing. Definately a good time. The special effects were of course amazing, although the plot and character development left a bit to be desired. They also left plenty of room for a sequel. I am really getting tired of Hollywood's current tendency to sequalize everything. Some things, yeah, I can see, but dont write the damn things for one. Grrrr.

Sunday morning was of course coffee with Matt and Baron, who is now just about too big and wild to be able to go with us. I decided to walk him the additional mile and a half to Matt's but even still Baron was pretty wired when we got back to his place, tho he promptly proceded to crash when we got back to Mel's. I'm kinda pouting since Matt is also graduating and will no longer be the best thing about Sundays. Again, Grrrr.

Sunday afternoon I then went to the opera. Rigoletto. Pretty cool. New definition for 'nosebleed seats' but hey, they had the supertitles, voices with no need for amplification and these funny little dots playing at having lots of sex on stage. I was amused since I was not used to seeing that kind of thing outside of Alvin Ailey or Carmina Burana, well, any ballet at least. I guess I was under the false impression that since the opera was for the upperclass, they would not have approved of such low class behavior. The damned bus driver got lost on the way there tho. Took almost an extra 30 minutes, and I know I could have done it in half the time he did. Stupid man and not asking for directions. At dinner, finally, Marcus (my date for the day) and I along with Martin and Alfred were discussing the performance and how it would have been different if a woman had written it. All other things aside, I felt that the women would have been less dumb and the man-whore (the Duke) would have gotten his come-uppance instead of the girl dying for him even though he had been sleeping with another girl and she knew it.

Second dinner was me, Marcus, Todd, Dave, and Andy finally making good on a promise standing since October or so to go out and have sushi. We went to the place I used to work and I just asked the waitress to have the sushi chef make us a platter with $75 worth of sushi. I knew he would make us something way cooler than we would order, and be a lot more than you would get a la carte for that kind of quality. So we are waiting for our 'boat' and it comes up - again - about Dave's "conquest" from the evening before. The girl had come over and even though he had given her what I would consider to be 'I'm not interested' signs, when he had pretended to pass out she still was trying to get him up for stuff. Wow. He was very thankful that a couple of his friends had come by and shooed them out, otherwise that could have been a large sticky situation. hee hee. poor dave. The sushi was awesome, the sake delicious, and the company better than all of it. I really miss being around those guys, the friendly banter, the jokes about which m-sys problem sucks more, a little bit of japanese thrown in for good measure. ::sigh:: I like working and making money, but I will be glad to get back into school. Not for the work, but for the company.

2004-05-05T17:44:00.000-05:00

I am really tired of every day being pick on Ariane day...

2004-05-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

Saliva - Always

I hear... a voice say "Don't be so blind".../it's telling me all these things.../that you would probably hide.../am I... your one and only desire.../am I the reason you breath.../or am I the reason you cry...

Always... always... always... always... always... always... always.../I just can't live without you.../I love you.../I hate you.../I can't live without you.../I breathe you.../I taste you.../I can't live without you.../I just can't take anymore.../this life of solitude.../I guess that I'm out the door.../and now I'm done with you...

I feel... like you don't want me around.../I guess I'll pack all my things.../I guess I'll see you around.../Inside... it bottles up until now.../as I walk out your door.../all I hear is the sound...

Always... always... always... always... always... always... always.../I just can't live without you.../I love you.../I hate you.../I can't live without you.../I breathe you.../I taste you.../I can't live without you.../I just can't take anymore.../this life of solitude.../I guess that I'm out the door.../and now I'm done with you...

I love you.../I hate you.../I can't live without you.../I left my head around your heart.../Why would you tear my world apart.../Always... always... always... always...

I see... the blood all over your hands.../does it make you feel... more like a man.../was it all... just a part of your plan.../this pistol's shakin' in my hands.../and all I hear is the sound...

I love you.../I hate you.../I can't live without you.../I breathe you.../I taste you.../I can't live without you.../I just can't take anymore.../this life of solitude.../I guess that I'm out the door.../and now I'm done with you...
I love you.../I hate you.../I can't live without you.../I love you.../I hate you.../I can't live without you.../I just can't take anymore.../this life of solitude.../I pick myself off the floor.../and now I'm done with you.../Always.../Always.../Always...

2004-05-03T14:14:00.000-05:00

I've been saving up :-)

I am really not used to getting hit on this much! It is hella flattering, but c'mon, a girl can't get too full of herself, right? Naw, the guys on the floor are really nice, and makes for a much shorter day to boot.

I really like that the people here are allowed to listen to music while on shift. The jobs I have had over the last 6 years (wow, has it really been that long???) have all had a varying degree of freedom allowed when it comes to music, and i have invariably liked the ones that allow that small thing more. Maybe it is just the implied freedom to express some small amount of individuality, or that the places that let you are more relaxed with some of the more corporate type standards, but still. There is something really nice about being able to groove along to whatever happens to be on the radio while cranking through something, be it homework, miles, or parts. I got to drive to LA (the state, not L.A. the city) which is 13 hours from my school, and in silence I can do maybe an hour at a time before I am mentally worn out, less if it is late and I am physically tired too, but I had the brilliant idea to get a casette player and headphones and I could cruise for 3 hours easy. The mental fatigue was no longer an issue... very nice on that one. I was pretty proud of myself. And of course the best kind of book on tape is a trashy romance :-) anything that involves "heaving bosoms," "his manhood," and "wrapping his big hands around her corseted waist" is going to be a good time. These are the kinds of books that Fabio would pose for covers with some half uncovered woman with her bosoms mostly showing. These are the books that can be easily written in a couple of weeks and sell thousands of copies across the country to people like me who just want something kinda fun to read. So yeah, I like that stuff, not to read all that much, but for a 6 hour drive in the car, makes it feel like just a few moments, no matter how bad the traffic is.

So Friday I am about to head home to Indiana at around 3. I had waited that late instead of leaving at noon since I would get home only a little later and miss all the traffic in Indy, and put in a couple more hours helping out. I go to my car, toss my stuff in and grab my sandals, take off my docs, put the sandals on, grab my purse and promptly procede to lock my keys in the trunk. doh! I call Enterprise, no help what so ever. Maintenance ends up helping me since they have a lock pick and jimmy kit and we spend 2 hours trying to break into my car. Of course GM vehicles are the hardest to break into (go Honda). Finally we get smart and realize the keys are in the trunk so all we have to do is get that trunk button pushed and we are golden. About 4 minutes later we have assembled a long pole and are in. Whoo baby! I've never had to break into my own car before. Quite an interesting situation with 3 people in various levels of dress clustered around a Buick doing what had to look like something highly illegal. Fun stuff.

Then Saturday I have a Pansy Brunch, a wedding shower, bachelorette party, and a frat party, all of which I was either late to, or missed. grrr. Was not a good day, but getting in to TH as late as I did was of no help. Sunday was coffee as usual with the addition of Baron this week (he is getting soooo big! strong little pup), then lunch with 'Naka and the culture fest at school. Sunday was also Kubota Sensei's Birthday, so we had the mariachi band play happy birthday for her and gave her a present and then invited her out to dinner with a handful of us that had planned to go. Lots of food... mmm kaizeki bento...

Then this morning was hit the road at 5:50 (EST) to get to MI, arrive at just after noon (EDT) and get to work.

2004-04-28T10:27:00.000-05:00

I guess it has been a while since I posted anything. It's been a pretty crazy time honestly. I have been putting in long hours chez the supplier doing my downtime stuff and getting to know some of the people here a little better. DP is the guy who is in charge down (or is it up?) here and he and I get along pretty well. I was trying too hard to proove to myself (and them I guess) that I can handle this when I was up here last week, and this week I am not doing that anywhere near that much. I know what I am here to do, and I do it and help with the rest of the team in the meantime when I am not babysitting this piece of machinery. Anyway, DP and I get along well, and he has stepped into a mentoring position for me, help polish me for corporate when I get there so I don't stick out too much in a bad way. I kinda figure that I have one thing a lot of engineers don't: an outgoing personality :-) so i can work off some of the rougher edges and have something to work with afterwards. I also keep DP pretty amused, I am a little (read 'a lot') mouthy, and I can be pretty quick with a comment that stays within the bounds of what is appropriate but be on the edge. What gets really bad is this new (to here) guy, used to be a co-op and is now full time, is here and he and I get along well also, so lunch with me, DP, and RR was entertaining yesterday.

Dinner last night was fun too. There are 7 of us here doing QC and we all went out for Italian last night at a pretty nice restaurant after going go-karting for about 30min at 7:30 and ordered drinks and appetizers and way too much food. I had a sangria and it was goooood. I need to find out what all they put into that stuff, could be pretty lethal for me. But YUMMY! It was awesome with the bread and dipping sauce they have, and incredible with the grilled scallops I had as my entree.

I was kinda peeved last night. I am staying at a pretty nice hotel here and they have a hot tub and pool that I am usually the only one using. I am not sure what happened, but I know that they have way too much chemical in there. I came out with my eyes burning and smelling terrible. I go up to shower and I am scrubbing with a washcloth and see that instead of being my blue-white bubbles, I now have a cloth with a hand shaped yellow spot.... hmmm... ok.... That damn pool left a scum layer! tarnished the carp out of my ring and I hope I did no damage to my phone from the vapors. I talked to the clerk and told her they had too much chemicals, but I dont know if anything will come of it. It's an automatic system and I think it was set wrong or miscalibrated or something, but it was bad and it was gross.

I am also pretty amused by the dynamic on the shop floor. Part of it is that I am really not used to being hit on as much as I am here, used to the Rose guys who dont have a lot of nerve or something, but it is pretty flattering to hear about it from some of the other guys on the floor that some other guy has been staring at me for the last 30min. I really need to work on adjusting my mental picture of myself to not include the glasses and braces and add a couple years. But then I remind myself that its ok to know know that and I dont worry.

Hm... a little wordy today, oh well. I'm sure there will be more later.

2004-04-22T21:18:00.000-05:00

You know, I really expect better of some of my friends. Will spent a year on co-op doing business trips and now I am up here, all alone for all practical purposes, and the @$$ can't find 10 minutes to say 'hey, I was thinking about you and wanted to say hi.' Jerk. Even my new buds from last week are taking the time to just check on me... first business trip and 6 hours from home. Jerk. Its after 10, I'm tired, and I am going home to the hotel to take an institutional shower.

2004-04-22T10:10:00.000-05:00

Wow... this was unexpected: I go into work Tuesday morning after being up til rediculous thirty Monday night with the full expectation that I will be able to get off work at 5 and go home and nap. BUT NO! I walk in and am promptly told to go back home and pack to which I respond "Hunh???" Turns out that I am being sent to Michigan to be part of a team working with a supplier to get some handles into spec and enough of them to make production happy. So after a dozen phone calls to get the name of the place I am going, a hotel and car (which took for-ever) I was merrily, albeit a bit hungover, on my way.

It was almost a 6 hour drive with pretty decent radio stations and once I got a double shot of espresso into my system it went pretty well. I met one of my co-workers that night and the rest the next morning and they all seem fairly entertaining and amazingly competent. There is a huge difference between the way people work in the different base plants for my company and the corporate culture is quite different, and I was a bit worried about fitting in, but no worries. As long as they feel that I am contributing to the team and I am able to provide what my boss wants, I will be a happy camper.

2004-04-20T07:44:00.000-05:00

I thought I had a topic for yesterday when I was tooling around work and got to e-mailing back and forth what should have been an IM conversation. I was going to talk about failure and how some people seem to skate past it and others can't seem to do anything right (no, this is directed at no one I hang out with, I promise). And then I got to go out riding last night....

I haven't been on a motorcycle in almost 2 years, and I definately still want one. The wind in my face, feel of the engine between my legs and under my feet, the back of the driver when I hold on tighter to take a turn... amazing. I want me one of them! So anyway, last night I was out riding and we go out for BBQ at a new place in town and are tooling around downtown just making noise and I am having a blast. My hair was a tangled mess and I've got some tension blisters from my jeans and getting on and off the bike in them, but man that was fun. Hee hee, get to go out again when JJ gets his bike fixed. The only rough part was that I got to get up way too early this morning after being out way too late last night....

2004-04-18T22:34:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about my dad earlier today... Probably havent been calling enough or something. I was remembering his habit of announcing his arrival times to the minute: "I'll be home in 13 and a half minutes" and others along those lines. Once I started going to college it really started to seem really funny, and I think that was about the time I started to use the egg timer: "Daddy! you're 43 seconds late, shame on you!"

Wow. I am on IM, just typed GFY attempting to mean 'Good For You' and not 'Go F#@& Yourself' Whups.

2004-04-18T16:14:00.000-05:00

I think the reason I have been dreaming so much is that for a change I am actually getting enough sleep. I do the work thing and get up at 7am + or - 15 minutes depending on if i showered the night before, get there before 8, work til 4 or 4:30 unless I am working OT, and then head out. Most days I am now training myself to go work out immediately even if it is just for 45 minutes, every day is what I am going for. Then I get home and have some dinner, shower, and am basically done for the day. Yeah, I talk to my friends online and post stuff and call my family, but there is only so much to do so I have been doing a good job getting to bed before midnight even if I read for a while. I'm loving it, this whole 8-ish hours a night. Back to the dreams: I have been reading an amazing series of graphic novels by Neil Gaiman called 'Sandman - Book of Dreams' Check it out on amazon or something. The funny thing is I am reading about the Kind of Dreams and I have been having much more vivid dreams as of late - seeing baby gargoyles and circular dreams that go everywhere at once. I tell myself that I am just thinking too much and I should put the book down, and I go and finish the story and the next day I just HAVE to go buy the next in the series. I have curbed my reading of that for at least a little while though... it will take a week or two for them to arrive :-) And I always knew that a credit card would get me into trouble... just too easy to go and get what I want sometimes.

2004-04-15T20:53:00.000-05:00

I am so difficult sometimes. My father and I have this great relationship (I'm a daddy's girl) that involves about 3 million inside jokes that occasionally translate to others, but usually dont. Whenever I end up driving his car for whatever reason, be it my car is in the shop, or just moving it on the driveway, he can rest assured that the next time he gets in, ALL the mirrors, the seat positions, lumbar, steering wheel and whatever else I can think of has been moved. It's fun for me, and he knows it is coming, so he allots a few extra minutes to put his car back together after I have had it. Last time I went home the joke was "I'm with stupid" usually accompanied by a stupid face and a finger to the nose. I think, I'm not sure but I think this stems from the fun we used to have being stupid out in public with my sister when she was younger in a usually fruitful attempt to embarass her. I guess me and daddy did a lot of that... no wonder she does it now too... amazing what the little things do :-)

2004-04-13T12:25:00.000-05:00

I have discovered one thing about myself: if I go home after work, I lose any and all motivation I may have had for working out. Grrr. So today I packed my gym stuff with me and I will not allow myself to go back to the apartment until I have spent at least an hour working on my bikini body!

I talked to my parents last night for almost an hour, lots of catching up to do even though I was just there last weekend for Passover. I kinda trained my parents starting early on in HS that if I bring a guy home for dinner, they really aren't to think a whole lot of it since I had a ton of guy friends. I guess this can kinda make the guy nervous but it is no big deal at my house and it makes it pretty easy for me to go meet parents since I forget to be nervous. So over the years my parents have met a lot of my ex-boyfriends and have been able to give me some pretty good insight. Not that I always listen of course, but hey, what are kids for afterall. I had a couple of guys that came over that my parents basically told me they didn't like, and as much as I was into the guy at the time, I have always come to see those flaws that I was blind to and my parents hinted at. So I called them and asked them what they thought of Will who did in fact have the time to come to KC with me and told my mom that I would go ahead and bypass the whole hindsight thing and just get her opinion on him now and not bother waiting. As little credit as I have given them they are damned perceptive when it comes to me and relationship drama.

Speaking of drama, my big is single now and my best friend is now engaged. I'm definately happy for my big: the guy was being waffly about what he wanted from her and jerky and was kinda irritating me since he would do things he obviously was not interested in doing to make her happy, but then he didnt seem to care about that either.... hmmm. About my best friend, she and her boyfriend broke up not too long ago (maybe a month) and hes been wierd since, but apparently decided that he couldn't live without her and proposed and she accepted. I am happy for her, but I can't see myself engaged now: I am way too young and have big plans for myself and the whole family thing is still a ways off. A LONG ways off. Not that I am opposed to getting married while still this young, I just don't understand it. But hey, I never claimed to be normal and I take after my parents way too much in some ways.

On a last note for now, I think I have figured out how to graduate early :-) If I can take one class this summer or do my independent study even though I no longer plan to go to Japan in the fall, I can do 20 hours this fall (ece 310, 341, 351, 460 and MAxx) at school, then 18 (ece 379, 414, 461, and 497) and in the winter and be done at the end of February. Kinda cool, and I could save myself the $10K per quarter that my school costs. AND I could go travel for a couple months if I already have a job and get to Japan and France and see my family and friends. So we'll see. I'm pretty tempted.

2004-04-12T19:38:00.000-05:00

Schweet, transitions. Leave me a note on my post-it if that is too annoying, but man that was cool. I am the r0x0r. Back to dinner.