I hate holidays. If for nothing else, I hate them because it means the few days leading up to them are the longest days at work ever. This is because all of the people who have been here for a few years have earned enough days of vacation to leave about a week and a half before the actual holiday. I think most of my office has off for the entire month of December. Me, being a humble employee with less than one year of service, does not have this luxury. So I sit here, in my cube, in the deafening silence. Today wasn’t so bad. I had stuff to do and also had a meeting about the new profit sharing plan they’re implementing, so that took up some time. Tomorrow also shouldn’t be too horrible. Residual stuff to do from today. It’s Wednesday that is going to be absolutely terrible. My manager is off as is her manager. Actually, her manager is off all week. I am guessing there will be about 5 people here on Wednesday. And by that time I will have pretty much nothing to do. The middle of the month tends to drag because not much is happening in my world. I’m not looking forward to it.
Now about this new profit sharing thing here at work… Formerly they had a defined benefit pension plan. With my vast accounting knowledge, I can tell you that these kinds of plans are a pain in the butt. But actuaries like them a lot because they keep them employed, coming up with complicated formulas and pulling numbers out of the air and all. The company finally decided that it was time to change. This was not particularly a big surprise to me. DB plans are kind of like the original version Nintendo. Or maybe even the Atari. They’re old news. What’s big and hot are the DC, Defined Contribution, plans. Otherwise known as your 401(k). These are much easier to manage and a lot of the responsibility is put on the employee rather than on the employer. Of course, the employer is still responsible for ensuring that the money they say they’re putting aside for the employees is really there (there have been quite a few debacles around that subject lately), but there are no funky formulas and the company isn’t the one putting up all the cash. Pretty nice deal for their side, eh? Understandably, this is causing a bit of a ruckus among employees who have been with the company for a while but not long enough to be grandfathered under the old plan. This doesn’t affect me as I’ve been here less than a year. I am not even vested in the pension plan and will therefore not even be included in the people who will have their service years frozen.
I’ve digressed. My original plan was to talk about the new profit sharing program. Now, when I worked as an intern over at Presto Products, I was very familiar with their profit sharing program. Heck, I did all the payout estimates and booked the accrual each month for three years. I knew what elements were measured and what the payout percent would be for each level attained. I must say, they had a pretty good program. If the company did well, employees could get quite the bonus. This bonus was in the form of a check sent out in February. Cash. Moola. That employees could spend right away on whatever they wanted. Good deal. Now, this new “profit sharing” plan that Bemis has come up with is different. This incentive will come in the form of contributions to the accounts you have elected for your 401(k) to go to. You can’t touch this money until you retire. It’s based on % growth of EPS year to year. At a minimum, everyone will earn 2% (of your wages, that is.) At a maximum, 5%. I don’t know. It’s not smart to complain about “free” money, but it seems like we’re getting a bum deal somehow. I know Americans in general really need to learn how to save and it’s good that the company is trying to help secure comfortable retirements for their employees. I guess it’s not fair to compare one company to another, but it just seems like something is off. Maybe I came into this company with too much knowledge about what kind of benefits other people get…
In any case, I’ve bumped my 401(k) contribution up to 8% to get the maximum company match starting January 1st. That’s another point I could grumble about (they contribute, at max, 2.5%) but I won’t. I can’t complain too much or I might get in trouble. :)
Monday, November 21, 2005
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
I'm going to asphyxiate myself with my phone cord
It’s amazing that phones with cords still exist. Sometimes I would kill for a cordless phone at my desk at work. Over the past week or so, my phone cord has become a knotted mass of plastic. When I pick up the receiver to answer, the entire base of the phone scoots along my desk after it. I have to lean my neck down in order to talk into the phone at a distance where the person on the other end can hear me. It’s just ridiculous. So today I took action. I took the receiver off the base and dangled it over the edge of the desk. I watched it twist and turn for a few minutes. It didn’t get all the knots out, but it’s a vast improvement. Unfortunately I’m certain this is just a temporary fix. Stupid phones.
Not much has been going on lately. Can you tell? I’ll be up in Green Bay this evening for the joint IMA meeting. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night. If I get too bored, I suppose I could just sneak out and go to the casino that is next door. Heh. Adam is left to his own devices this evening, as he has the night off and I’ll be out. Tomorrow and Thursday I’ll be working up in New London on the fixed asset inventory I think I mentioned before. It should be interesting. The Plant Manager has assured me it will definitely be a painful experience. And he wasn’t joking. Between tonight and two days breathing in ink fumes, I should have one heck of a headache for the remainder of the week. Yay! Good thing nothing of much importance is going on. The monthly executive meeting is this Friday, so I’m looking forward to the free food that generally accompanies it. One of the perks of working at the corporate office I guess.
I bought Christmas cards yesterday while shopping at Shopko. I haven’t started working on a letter at all, but perhaps I’ll get on that this weekend. It’s still relatively early, so I’m not too concerned. I do like to get mine out early though. That way people who forgot I existed still have the chance to reciprocate the card before the time has come and gone. Aren’t I nice? Since my twice in a row computer hard-drive meltdowns, I have been backing my hard-drive up every couple of weeks. This means my address file should be safe. Of course, if anyone reading this knows for a fact that I don’t have your address or the address I’ve got is wrong, let me know. I don’t really plan to send out a “give me your address” e-mail at all. I figure if someone moved and didn’t bother to tell me, they don’t deserve a card. So there.
Now some random blogging about stuff in the news that caught my attention:
* As it has made national headlines, I’m sure most of you have heard about Steven Avery and Teresa Halbach. I just find it kind of fishy that this guy is released from prison in 2003 after it is found that he didn’t really rape someone and then he goes and (most likely) murders this woman, hides her car and possessions, and burns her body. It seems kind of suspicious to me. His previous conviction was overturned due to DNA evidence that proved it wasn’t him. This additional testing only came at the insistence of a group called the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which is associated with the University of Wisconsin Law School. Now, it’s not that I’m doubting the reliability of DNA evidence. It just seems odd that he is almost certainly responsible for this new crime. When he was released from prison 2 years ago, he appeared all over the news saying he had no hard feelings for the DA or the courts for their mistake. He is currently in the process of suing for wrongful imprisonment or something. Then he goes and does something like this? But apparently the whole family is kind of shady. They own an auto yard in Mishicot or thereabouts and even most of the neighbors are wary to talk about them on camera. He has been formally charged of the crime this afternoon after being held for a gun violation. It should be interesting to see how this plays out. His brother is already crying out that he’s been framed by the local police who apparently have it out for the entire family. But it has also been reported that some of the family loyalty is waning with all the evidence that is being released to the pubic.
* Last week an 18-year-old was elected mayor of a small town out in Michigan. He beat out the incumbent by something like 2 votes. And some people say their vote doesn’t count? Granted, this particular town only has 8,200 residents. It should be interesting to see if he shows up in more “important” races down the line or if this first taste of political action kills his desire to lead.
* They’re going to raise postage by 2 cents on January 8, 2006. Oh no! Thank goodness it doesn’t take effect until AFTER Christmas cards are sent. That increase could send some people into bankruptcy.
* The Advance Titan is the newspaper associated with the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I know a few people who are still on staff there and all I can say is that I’m embarrassed for them. The paper has been degraded to such low quality journalism that it isn’t even funny. Add to that the joke that is the comments section on their website and you have a perfect display of how colleges have been forced to admit just about anyone in order to make ends meet. I actually know the EIC, and although I can believe that he is doing some of the things he’s doing, it doesn’t seem like it would be good move, career-wise. He can’t just go and delete everything he wrote here when he decides to finally graduate and get a “real” job. I continue to read the online version every week because, let’s face it, who can resist a train wreck? What I’d really like to know though is where the faculty is in all of this. I know the paper is not associated with the journalism department, but perhaps they should be. It pains me to be associated with this level of moronism. But then again, if you think the AT is bad, you should check out Life and Liberty News, “UW-Oshkosh's #1 Source for Political Commentary,” (aka UWO’s right-winged newspaper wannabe.) It really is quite amusing and possibly worse journalism than the AT.
Not much has been going on lately. Can you tell? I’ll be up in Green Bay this evening for the joint IMA meeting. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night. If I get too bored, I suppose I could just sneak out and go to the casino that is next door. Heh. Adam is left to his own devices this evening, as he has the night off and I’ll be out. Tomorrow and Thursday I’ll be working up in New London on the fixed asset inventory I think I mentioned before. It should be interesting. The Plant Manager has assured me it will definitely be a painful experience. And he wasn’t joking. Between tonight and two days breathing in ink fumes, I should have one heck of a headache for the remainder of the week. Yay! Good thing nothing of much importance is going on. The monthly executive meeting is this Friday, so I’m looking forward to the free food that generally accompanies it. One of the perks of working at the corporate office I guess.
I bought Christmas cards yesterday while shopping at Shopko. I haven’t started working on a letter at all, but perhaps I’ll get on that this weekend. It’s still relatively early, so I’m not too concerned. I do like to get mine out early though. That way people who forgot I existed still have the chance to reciprocate the card before the time has come and gone. Aren’t I nice? Since my twice in a row computer hard-drive meltdowns, I have been backing my hard-drive up every couple of weeks. This means my address file should be safe. Of course, if anyone reading this knows for a fact that I don’t have your address or the address I’ve got is wrong, let me know. I don’t really plan to send out a “give me your address” e-mail at all. I figure if someone moved and didn’t bother to tell me, they don’t deserve a card. So there.
Now some random blogging about stuff in the news that caught my attention:
* As it has made national headlines, I’m sure most of you have heard about Steven Avery and Teresa Halbach. I just find it kind of fishy that this guy is released from prison in 2003 after it is found that he didn’t really rape someone and then he goes and (most likely) murders this woman, hides her car and possessions, and burns her body. It seems kind of suspicious to me. His previous conviction was overturned due to DNA evidence that proved it wasn’t him. This additional testing only came at the insistence of a group called the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which is associated with the University of Wisconsin Law School. Now, it’s not that I’m doubting the reliability of DNA evidence. It just seems odd that he is almost certainly responsible for this new crime. When he was released from prison 2 years ago, he appeared all over the news saying he had no hard feelings for the DA or the courts for their mistake. He is currently in the process of suing for wrongful imprisonment or something. Then he goes and does something like this? But apparently the whole family is kind of shady. They own an auto yard in Mishicot or thereabouts and even most of the neighbors are wary to talk about them on camera. He has been formally charged of the crime this afternoon after being held for a gun violation. It should be interesting to see how this plays out. His brother is already crying out that he’s been framed by the local police who apparently have it out for the entire family. But it has also been reported that some of the family loyalty is waning with all the evidence that is being released to the pubic.
* Last week an 18-year-old was elected mayor of a small town out in Michigan. He beat out the incumbent by something like 2 votes. And some people say their vote doesn’t count? Granted, this particular town only has 8,200 residents. It should be interesting to see if he shows up in more “important” races down the line or if this first taste of political action kills his desire to lead.
* They’re going to raise postage by 2 cents on January 8, 2006. Oh no! Thank goodness it doesn’t take effect until AFTER Christmas cards are sent. That increase could send some people into bankruptcy.
* The Advance Titan is the newspaper associated with the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I know a few people who are still on staff there and all I can say is that I’m embarrassed for them. The paper has been degraded to such low quality journalism that it isn’t even funny. Add to that the joke that is the comments section on their website and you have a perfect display of how colleges have been forced to admit just about anyone in order to make ends meet. I actually know the EIC, and although I can believe that he is doing some of the things he’s doing, it doesn’t seem like it would be good move, career-wise. He can’t just go and delete everything he wrote here when he decides to finally graduate and get a “real” job. I continue to read the online version every week because, let’s face it, who can resist a train wreck? What I’d really like to know though is where the faculty is in all of this. I know the paper is not associated with the journalism department, but perhaps they should be. It pains me to be associated with this level of moronism. But then again, if you think the AT is bad, you should check out Life and Liberty News, “UW-Oshkosh's #1 Source for Political Commentary,” (aka UWO’s right-winged newspaper wannabe.) It really is quite amusing and possibly worse journalism than the AT.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
PCD
Ok, a couple different things I want to touch on in this post.
First of all, I broke down and bought an actual CD this past week. Normally I'd do the "borrowing from other people illegally" thing, but I decided to do the right thing on this one. It's the Pussycat Dolls. I'm not sure exactly what possessed me to go ahead and purchase this CD, but I'm kind of glad that I did. Now, the Pussycat Dolls appear to be the lead singer and then four or five backup ladies who dance around in their underwear, thrusting their hips, acting like hookers, asking whether you want your girlfriend to be a freak like they are. Surprisingly, very few of the songs on their CD are anything like their "Don'tcha" hit. There are a few tracks that even have a blues kind of mood. The lead singer, Michelle, actually has quite a powerful and amazing voice. Sometimes she sounds like Natalie Cole, sometimes like Christina Aguilera. If you can ignore one or two of the songs, the CD itself is pretty decent.
Secondly, we went and got a Christmas tree this past Thursday. It is sitting in the box in the second bedroom and will probably stay there until after Thanksgiving. It's a 7 foot Alleghany Pine or Fir or something. Fake of course. (I think the "it's in a box" thing should have given that away.) It's a cute tree. Hopefully it will fluff appropriately after being de-boxed.
As of now, it looks like we'll be going over to Adam's parents' house on Thanksgiving evening, after Adam is done at work. They're not quite sure what they'll be doing yet. It all depends on how his mother feels - she had shoulder surgery this past week and is hopped up on drugs. Adam works again the day after Thanksgiving, but not until 5pm, so we plan to have a quasi-Thanksgiving thing here in the morning or early afternoon. We saw this good looking recipe on Food Network yesterday morning for cornish hens with cornbread stuffing, so we're going to give that a try.
I admit it, I'm totally addicted to the Food Network. I recently got one of Rachel Ray (i.e. the lady who does 30 minute meals)'s cook books and made her pretzel coated chicken this afternoon. Yum-O! LoL.
Anyway, for Christmas, apparently it's a tradition to do a "secret Santa" deal with his family, so I'm included this year. It should be interesting. I'm not real big into the Christmas/holiday thing, so we'll see how well I handle this.
I'm going to make a concerted effort to go to the gym (or do Tae Bo here at home) everyday. I went alone on Friday and we went together on Saturday morning. Including Tuesday, I figure I did about 5.5 or 6 miles this week. *sigh* I need to be more motivated.
Anyway, I've spent the day cooking and cleaning up after myself interspersed with episodes of "Sex and the City" and some football. I can't believe the Vikings pulled another field goal out of nowhere to win. So awesome...
First of all, I broke down and bought an actual CD this past week. Normally I'd do the "borrowing from other people illegally" thing, but I decided to do the right thing on this one. It's the Pussycat Dolls. I'm not sure exactly what possessed me to go ahead and purchase this CD, but I'm kind of glad that I did. Now, the Pussycat Dolls appear to be the lead singer and then four or five backup ladies who dance around in their underwear, thrusting their hips, acting like hookers, asking whether you want your girlfriend to be a freak like they are. Surprisingly, very few of the songs on their CD are anything like their "Don'tcha" hit. There are a few tracks that even have a blues kind of mood. The lead singer, Michelle, actually has quite a powerful and amazing voice. Sometimes she sounds like Natalie Cole, sometimes like Christina Aguilera. If you can ignore one or two of the songs, the CD itself is pretty decent.
Secondly, we went and got a Christmas tree this past Thursday. It is sitting in the box in the second bedroom and will probably stay there until after Thanksgiving. It's a 7 foot Alleghany Pine or Fir or something. Fake of course. (I think the "it's in a box" thing should have given that away.) It's a cute tree. Hopefully it will fluff appropriately after being de-boxed.
As of now, it looks like we'll be going over to Adam's parents' house on Thanksgiving evening, after Adam is done at work. They're not quite sure what they'll be doing yet. It all depends on how his mother feels - she had shoulder surgery this past week and is hopped up on drugs. Adam works again the day after Thanksgiving, but not until 5pm, so we plan to have a quasi-Thanksgiving thing here in the morning or early afternoon. We saw this good looking recipe on Food Network yesterday morning for cornish hens with cornbread stuffing, so we're going to give that a try.
I admit it, I'm totally addicted to the Food Network. I recently got one of Rachel Ray (i.e. the lady who does 30 minute meals)'s cook books and made her pretzel coated chicken this afternoon. Yum-O! LoL.
Anyway, for Christmas, apparently it's a tradition to do a "secret Santa" deal with his family, so I'm included this year. It should be interesting. I'm not real big into the Christmas/holiday thing, so we'll see how well I handle this.
I'm going to make a concerted effort to go to the gym (or do Tae Bo here at home) everyday. I went alone on Friday and we went together on Saturday morning. Including Tuesday, I figure I did about 5.5 or 6 miles this week. *sigh* I need to be more motivated.
Anyway, I've spent the day cooking and cleaning up after myself interspersed with episodes of "Sex and the City" and some football. I can't believe the Vikings pulled another field goal out of nowhere to win. So awesome...
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Blogging about a blog
As I was perusing some other blogs on the blogspot domain, I came across a blog from an 8th grade teacher in Ohio. She posts questions and her students respond in the comments section. One of the questions posted asked whether you’d rather be a jock or a nerd. I found most of the responses laughable and filled with pathetic grammatical and spelling mistakes. 8th graders are typing these answers? What is the world coming to? Perhaps I was just an extraordinarily articulate 13-year-old.
One of the responses that made me laugh out loud was this one (with some liberties taken to correct spelling):
“I would rather be a jock because jocks play sports. Nerds read and do home work all the time and don't have fun. Jocks can become a famous athlete someday. Nerds could become the president. And for some reason everybody hates the president.”
Everybody doesn’t hate the president because he’s a nerd. Everybody hates the president because he’s an IDIOT with seemingly little or no knowledge of how to run the country. And there are absolutely no famous athletes that everybody hates…no…course not… And what about Arnold? He’s more of a jock than a nerd. And that guy from Minnesota…the wrestler who was governor for awhile. Politicians aren’t always the ones with the brains. ‘Tis a shame.
It just amazed me how alike most of the answers were. The kids who wanted to be a jock stated that by being the jock one could: 1) be popular, 2) play sports and thereby get a hot body, 3) get the chicks, 4) be famous. They didn’t want to be a nerd because nerds: 1) are losers, 2) get picked on, 3) have no life and sit at home doing homework all day and all night. The kids who went the other way and opted for the nerdish way of life said that nerds: 1) get better grades and therefore can get into college more easily, 2) are nicer than jocks. They didn’t want to be jocks because jocks: 1) are jerks, and 2) are stupid. Now, it looks like the jocks have a better argument going on here, which I find disheartening since the jocks are the ones who are supposed to be stupid…
I’m am, without a doubt, a nerd. I really don’t remember sitting at home doing homework all night. Then again, I never did homework at any time. I got picked on, but not necessarily because of my nerd status. I think it was more my fat status that prompted that. But I think there’s something to be said for the attractiveness of intelligence. There are plenty of people out there perfectly willing to look past a hideous outside in order to extort the smarts underneath. It’s amazing what people will do to get someone else to do their homework. In any case, I found this particular posting especially interesting. Full of stereotypes and generally bad for society, but interesting nonetheless.
These children are our future (jocks and nerds.)
One of the responses that made me laugh out loud was this one (with some liberties taken to correct spelling):
“I would rather be a jock because jocks play sports. Nerds read and do home work all the time and don't have fun. Jocks can become a famous athlete someday. Nerds could become the president. And for some reason everybody hates the president.”
Everybody doesn’t hate the president because he’s a nerd. Everybody hates the president because he’s an IDIOT with seemingly little or no knowledge of how to run the country. And there are absolutely no famous athletes that everybody hates…no…course not… And what about Arnold? He’s more of a jock than a nerd. And that guy from Minnesota…the wrestler who was governor for awhile. Politicians aren’t always the ones with the brains. ‘Tis a shame.
It just amazed me how alike most of the answers were. The kids who wanted to be a jock stated that by being the jock one could: 1) be popular, 2) play sports and thereby get a hot body, 3) get the chicks, 4) be famous. They didn’t want to be a nerd because nerds: 1) are losers, 2) get picked on, 3) have no life and sit at home doing homework all day and all night. The kids who went the other way and opted for the nerdish way of life said that nerds: 1) get better grades and therefore can get into college more easily, 2) are nicer than jocks. They didn’t want to be jocks because jocks: 1) are jerks, and 2) are stupid. Now, it looks like the jocks have a better argument going on here, which I find disheartening since the jocks are the ones who are supposed to be stupid…
I’m am, without a doubt, a nerd. I really don’t remember sitting at home doing homework all night. Then again, I never did homework at any time. I got picked on, but not necessarily because of my nerd status. I think it was more my fat status that prompted that. But I think there’s something to be said for the attractiveness of intelligence. There are plenty of people out there perfectly willing to look past a hideous outside in order to extort the smarts underneath. It’s amazing what people will do to get someone else to do their homework. In any case, I found this particular posting especially interesting. Full of stereotypes and generally bad for society, but interesting nonetheless.
These children are our future (jocks and nerds.)
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
The Blue Screen of Death
I’ve been slacking on this blogging thing. Sometimes it’s like days go by and I don’t even notice. Last week was pretty uneventful. Adam worked every night so I was left alone to my own devices most of the time. I went to the gym alone on Thursday, which was ok. It was kind of busy, but I did about 40 minutes on the treadmill, liking the incline feature. Adam had Saturday off so we went out to a bar for the first time in a long time. We slept in on Saturday morning, something else that hadn’t happened for quite some time. We took some time to go shopping, but didn’t really end up buying too much. He watched the Badger game (or at least as much of that as he could – apparently they got their butts kicked) and some Ultimate Fight thing later on in the evening while I took a nap and tried to alleviate my headache. He worked again on Sunday so that left me to watch the Vikings win and the Packers lose. All is right with the world. When he got home we went bowling (which had been the original intention on Friday.) I was able to prove that I do, indeed, really suck at the game. I bowled 60 or 70 something, 91, 47. Just pathetic. I did beat Adam on the second game though. Not quite sure how that happened. In any case, we stopped at Taco Bell on the way home and called it a night after watching (most of) Desperate Housewives.
Today has been a long day. And it’s not even over yet. I planned to take the trash down to the dumpsters this morning on my way to work. On the way down the stairs, the handle on the paper bag in which I had stashed the old newspapers and cardboard boxes decided to rip off and the whole thing went tumbling down the stairs, spewing newspaper et al all down the stairs. I should have taken that as a sign… When I got to work, I turned on my computer and surveyed the mess that is my desk. As soon as I logged in and the startup scripts started running, I got the “blue screen of death.” Now, this had also happened last Friday, at which point I called the IT helpdesk and someone came down and looked at it. Apparently they forgot the part where they’re supposed to FIX it. *sigh* So, right away at 7:30 I called the helpdesk again. Got a different person and told him the lowdown. He said he’d inform the person I’d worked with on Friday what was going on when she came in (around 8:30.) Ok. Fine. I putzed around for a bit trying to find something to do that didn’t involve a computer. Hard to do these days. I decided to finally get rid of a bunch of file folders from 2004 that have been sitting on my desk since…well…2004. That done, I sat and waited. And waited some more. As 9:00 rolled around, I gave the consultant from Friday a call to her direct line. I got her voicemail (shocking, I know) and left her a message. Time ticked by with no response. Around 9:30, I called the helpdesk again and got a third person. I told her what was going on and she said she’d ask the other two how things were going and they’d get back to me. Sure. As I grew more bored, I decided to go offer my assistance to anyone who might need some (non-computerized) help. The first person I asked was Sue, the receptionist. Rather than give me any work, she decided to call the head honcho up in the IT department and get to the bottom of this whole thing. HH tells Sue that first IT person (from Friday) will call me. So I head back to my desk and wait for the phone to ring. And wait some more. Finally my manager is just as frustrated as I am so SHE calls the helpdesk. Surprisingly (or perhaps coincidentally) she gets the person I had worked with on Friday. Said IT person claims she didn’t know that no one had come down yet. Uhm, yeah. Ok then. I think the helpdesk needs to work on their communication skills. So, at about 10:45 I finally get someone to come down and look at my computer. It progressed throughout the morning to bluescreening as the login scripts started to bluescreening before I even logged on, to bluescreening about a minute after startup. I actually got a read an email once! Anyway, when the IT person got down here, it let me log in and gave her no problems while she read error logs, did diagnosis crap, downloaded and installed drivers. Pfft, I don’t know. I’m no IT person. I regained possession of my computer a little after 11. It appears to be working for now, but I’m not holding my breath that I’ve seen the last of the evil blue screen. I’m just hoping it doesn’t take 3 ½ hours to get it working the next time. You’d think the fact that I wasted that much time waiting around would have made the day go faster. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear to work that way.
Not quite sure what the plans are for tonight. Adam has off, so we’ll be going to the gym for awhile. After that things are pretty much up in the air.
The coming weeks don’t look too exciting either. Next week I have the IMA meeting up in Green Bay. It’s a joint meeting with another chapter so I’m hoping the meal collections aren’t too messed up. The meal choices leave a bit to be desired: shrimp scampi or filet mignon. I’m probably going to go with the filet mignon in the hopes that it comes with side dishes that are more appetizing than the shrimp. Adam tells me to eat at McDonalds on the way there and then bring the filet mignon home for him. We’ll see. I’ll be up in New London two or three times this month since I have to do a fixed asset inventory. I’m pretty sure 95% of the stuff on the current list is nonexistent, but I still have to wander the plant looking for it. *sigh* Other than that, not a lot is going on. It looks like Adam will be working both Thanksgiving and the day after. I’ll most likely be cooking a chicken on one of those days since I dislike turkey and I’ll have a lot of spare time.
That’s pretty much all I’ve got. I plan to start working on an “end of the year” letter at some point. That should be fun, given the reactions I got to the one I sent last year. Heh.
Today has been a long day. And it’s not even over yet. I planned to take the trash down to the dumpsters this morning on my way to work. On the way down the stairs, the handle on the paper bag in which I had stashed the old newspapers and cardboard boxes decided to rip off and the whole thing went tumbling down the stairs, spewing newspaper et al all down the stairs. I should have taken that as a sign… When I got to work, I turned on my computer and surveyed the mess that is my desk. As soon as I logged in and the startup scripts started running, I got the “blue screen of death.” Now, this had also happened last Friday, at which point I called the IT helpdesk and someone came down and looked at it. Apparently they forgot the part where they’re supposed to FIX it. *sigh* So, right away at 7:30 I called the helpdesk again. Got a different person and told him the lowdown. He said he’d inform the person I’d worked with on Friday what was going on when she came in (around 8:30.) Ok. Fine. I putzed around for a bit trying to find something to do that didn’t involve a computer. Hard to do these days. I decided to finally get rid of a bunch of file folders from 2004 that have been sitting on my desk since…well…2004. That done, I sat and waited. And waited some more. As 9:00 rolled around, I gave the consultant from Friday a call to her direct line. I got her voicemail (shocking, I know) and left her a message. Time ticked by with no response. Around 9:30, I called the helpdesk again and got a third person. I told her what was going on and she said she’d ask the other two how things were going and they’d get back to me. Sure. As I grew more bored, I decided to go offer my assistance to anyone who might need some (non-computerized) help. The first person I asked was Sue, the receptionist. Rather than give me any work, she decided to call the head honcho up in the IT department and get to the bottom of this whole thing. HH tells Sue that first IT person (from Friday) will call me. So I head back to my desk and wait for the phone to ring. And wait some more. Finally my manager is just as frustrated as I am so SHE calls the helpdesk. Surprisingly (or perhaps coincidentally) she gets the person I had worked with on Friday. Said IT person claims she didn’t know that no one had come down yet. Uhm, yeah. Ok then. I think the helpdesk needs to work on their communication skills. So, at about 10:45 I finally get someone to come down and look at my computer. It progressed throughout the morning to bluescreening as the login scripts started to bluescreening before I even logged on, to bluescreening about a minute after startup. I actually got a read an email once! Anyway, when the IT person got down here, it let me log in and gave her no problems while she read error logs, did diagnosis crap, downloaded and installed drivers. Pfft, I don’t know. I’m no IT person. I regained possession of my computer a little after 11. It appears to be working for now, but I’m not holding my breath that I’ve seen the last of the evil blue screen. I’m just hoping it doesn’t take 3 ½ hours to get it working the next time. You’d think the fact that I wasted that much time waiting around would have made the day go faster. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear to work that way.
Not quite sure what the plans are for tonight. Adam has off, so we’ll be going to the gym for awhile. After that things are pretty much up in the air.
The coming weeks don’t look too exciting either. Next week I have the IMA meeting up in Green Bay. It’s a joint meeting with another chapter so I’m hoping the meal collections aren’t too messed up. The meal choices leave a bit to be desired: shrimp scampi or filet mignon. I’m probably going to go with the filet mignon in the hopes that it comes with side dishes that are more appetizing than the shrimp. Adam tells me to eat at McDonalds on the way there and then bring the filet mignon home for him. We’ll see. I’ll be up in New London two or three times this month since I have to do a fixed asset inventory. I’m pretty sure 95% of the stuff on the current list is nonexistent, but I still have to wander the plant looking for it. *sigh* Other than that, not a lot is going on. It looks like Adam will be working both Thanksgiving and the day after. I’ll most likely be cooking a chicken on one of those days since I dislike turkey and I’ll have a lot of spare time.
That’s pretty much all I’ve got. I plan to start working on an “end of the year” letter at some point. That should be fun, given the reactions I got to the one I sent last year. Heh.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Weekend Past
So his parents came to dinner on Saturday. We stuck with the original fondue idea, using white and wheat french bread, apples, broccoli, and carrots as dippers. No pictures though. I didn't even think to take any. They got here pretty much right on time. Adam was still finishing up cutting the apples, so they kind of wandered around in a self-tour type thing and then ended up back in the living room. We ate dinner (which they seemed to enjoy) and then Adam and his dad retreated over by the computer to discuss televisions and cars while I sat on the futon with his mom and talked about a variety of things. They departed after 7 sometime. They seemed to approve of the house. His dad is a lot more softspoken about everything and doesn't tend to say much, so I don't really know what he was thinking. One thing that kind of miffed me (wow, retro word) was that his mom kept saying, "very nice, Adam" or "It looks good, Adam." I mean, I know she wasn't too hyped about the whole situation, but it's not like he's doing this alone. For Pete's sake, 75% of the stuff here is mine. *sigh* I know it's not something I should take personally, he is her son and all, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't hate me, but it was just something that bothered me. She could have said, "very nice, guys" or something else that would have included me. I'm pretty sure I'm making a big deal of out something that isn't a big deal, but I had it get it out there.
Anyway, the rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. We did some shopping, but generally spent most of the weekend doing nothing. This was the first weekend that Adam had off from Wal-Mart since he started working there. This caused a bit of tension since I'm not used to him being around all day. Every time there's a change in what's become "normal" it takes some adjustment. Every adjustment seems to lead to some flare up of someone's nerves. Usually mine. Meh. It's ok. We survive.
There's nothing of much excitement for the rest of the year at this point. I have a few more vacation days to use up, but I don't forsee any traveling worth mentioning since Adam will most likely be working on the days he'd otherwise have off (ie, Thanksgiving...) It's ok with me. I'm not big into holidays anyway, having worked in retail for 5 years. He still plans on getting a Christmas tree at some point. I guess I can deal with that but he knows it is his responsibility to decorate it.
And now for a comment out of the blue: Sometimes I wish I had more female friends or actually more close friends regardless of their gender. I don't really have anyone to talk to about, well, anything, and I'm not sure that's a good situation. *sigh*
Anyway, the rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. We did some shopping, but generally spent most of the weekend doing nothing. This was the first weekend that Adam had off from Wal-Mart since he started working there. This caused a bit of tension since I'm not used to him being around all day. Every time there's a change in what's become "normal" it takes some adjustment. Every adjustment seems to lead to some flare up of someone's nerves. Usually mine. Meh. It's ok. We survive.
There's nothing of much excitement for the rest of the year at this point. I have a few more vacation days to use up, but I don't forsee any traveling worth mentioning since Adam will most likely be working on the days he'd otherwise have off (ie, Thanksgiving...) It's ok with me. I'm not big into holidays anyway, having worked in retail for 5 years. He still plans on getting a Christmas tree at some point. I guess I can deal with that but he knows it is his responsibility to decorate it.
And now for a comment out of the blue: Sometimes I wish I had more female friends or actually more close friends regardless of their gender. I don't really have anyone to talk to about, well, anything, and I'm not sure that's a good situation. *sigh*
Monday, October 24, 2005
Oh, Celine...
I must admit I was quite amused by this headline on Yahoo! news this afternoon – “Celine's Spawn Will Go On” – a story about how Ms. “I married a guy twice my age who I should have been able to trust because he was my manager” wants another child. Since she’s almost 40 *GASP* she’s decided that she’d better “bring the frozen embryo to life pretty soon.” That’s not the weirdest thing she said in this article. She apparently wants to become an actress (because, let’s face it, what “singer” doesn’t) because she wants to win an Oscar. For the love of… Ok, so she’s won a few Grammys (one for the awful, awful Titanic abomination) but this does not mean she can act. Especially not to Oscar levels. Stick to Vegas, Celine. The smoke and mirrors can mask the fact that you can’t sing.
In case you couldn’t tell, I’m feeling particularly crabby today. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and in general, my whole body hurts. After work tonight I get to go and pick up the next wave of Seasonale which means I get to drop $120 in a matter of about 30 seconds. Thanks a lot Express Scripts, for covering a whopping $5.99. Stupid insurance plan… I suppose it’s cheaper than a baby though. *sigh*
I really don’t have too much to say. Haven’t been doing much these days. I’ve started watching Sex in the City again. Third time through now. It’s just such a good show. I recently got the first two issues of my Games! magazine subscription so that might keep me entertained for a while. Perhaps it will stave off Alzheimer’s disease as well since I think that’s the one that can be avoided by doing crossword puzzles. I really need to find a hobby, something to do on nights when I end up at home, alone and bored.
I feel like such a boring person sometimes. I used to be interesting. What happened?
In case you couldn’t tell, I’m feeling particularly crabby today. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and in general, my whole body hurts. After work tonight I get to go and pick up the next wave of Seasonale which means I get to drop $120 in a matter of about 30 seconds. Thanks a lot Express Scripts, for covering a whopping $5.99. Stupid insurance plan… I suppose it’s cheaper than a baby though. *sigh*
I really don’t have too much to say. Haven’t been doing much these days. I’ve started watching Sex in the City again. Third time through now. It’s just such a good show. I recently got the first two issues of my Games! magazine subscription so that might keep me entertained for a while. Perhaps it will stave off Alzheimer’s disease as well since I think that’s the one that can be avoided by doing crossword puzzles. I really need to find a hobby, something to do on nights when I end up at home, alone and bored.
I feel like such a boring person sometimes. I used to be interesting. What happened?
Friday, October 21, 2005
What is my problem?
There’s something about myself I can’t explain. My boss has been gone at the doctor all day today. Pretty much everyone else on my side of the building is out of town at sales meetings or on vacation. In fact the only people anywhere near me are my boss’ boss and the president’s secretary. Everyone else is gone. My back began hurting yesterday morning and continued to do so this morning. I’ve also been sneezing a lot and my nose is running like a faucet. I’m still tired from about a week of sleeping poorly. So why am I still here, sitting at my desk at work? Adam tells me repeatedly, “Just go home and sleep.” I have plenty of vacation left and in all reality, I could probably just pick up and leave (without taking vacation) and no one would care.
So, once again, why am I here? It’s not like there’s any pressing need for me to be here right now. I accomplished the important A/R stuff this morning and what I’ve been doing since then is stuff that is relatively flexible when it comes to completion dates. It’s like the bank thing. Why do I find it so hard to switch banks? There’s no logical explanation. Back to the work thing though – sure, in the past I would have come to work unless I was dying just because if I didn’t show up, I didn’t get paid. That’s not the case here. I would get paid whether I am here or not. It’s a strange situation that I haven’t quite gotten used to. In the 9 months that I’ve been here, I’ve called in sick once. That was due partially to having stayed up late into the night crying and having important conversations with Adam and partially due to the fact that I had a killer migraine (probably caused by the other factor.) I’m not sure it’s a work ethic and since it’s no longer motivated by money, I’m not sure what the problem is. It’s not like if I leave, the whole place will fall apart. There’s no way I make myself out to be that important. It’s not that I fear being fired if I leave every once in a while. The people here are incredibly nice and understanding and appear to bend over backwards to help people out whenever possible.
So, I ask again, what is my problem? I even have problems when I’m requesting vacation days. These are days that are included in my compensation package. If I don’t take them, they vanish at the end of the year and I’m technically working more hours than I need to. Being a salaried employee, the whole idea of a 40 hour work week is kind of a non-issue and I suppose that causes problems too. I work 8 hours each day. Usually I don’t really need to be here for all 8, but I stick around in case something comes up. I guess the whole thing just confuses me. Why do I have such a problem with not going to work for a day or two? After I’ve decided to do it and actually leave or don’t go to work, I seem to be ok with it. It’s just the initial “I’m going home and there’s nothing you can do about it” thing that I can’t seem to get over most of the time. *sigh* It’s annoying.
Because then I end up like I am right now. Sitting here on a Friday afternoon, mostly alone, bored out of my mind, cursing myself for not leaving at noon. And my streaming radio doesn’t work so I’m sitting here in silence, which is even worse.
Wow, I really went off on that, didn’t I? On to more pleasant things…
This weekend should be pretty low-key. There’s nothing much planned. I, of course, have a list of things I’d like to accomplish, but as is always true, that doesn’t mean those things will get done. I’ll be stopping at Shopko on the way home tonight to check out getting a second set of sheets. It never occurred to us that we might want to wash the ones we have sometime…ha ha… I also need to stop at the grocery store to get some more sweet & sour sauce. Sweet & sour chicken just isn’t the same without sweet & sour sauce. It’s kind of just, well, chicken chicken. We slacked off on the gym thing yesterday because of my back so we’re going to definitely go tomorrow morning. Hopefully for longer than a half hour like last week. I got off the treadmill I was on to go talk to Adam who was on a bike behind me and the crazy bitch who had been running next to me hopped off of her treadmill, got on mine, and continued the program I was on. WTF? Perhaps we’ll go late enough that I can try out the step class. We were there too early last week because we wanted to go grocery shopping before Adam had to go to work. Meh. Always so much of that to worry about.
I was informed this afternoon that his parents will be coming for dinner next Saturday. Now that we got a decent looking (i.e. not a cheap Kmart card table) dining room table, it’s ok to have them over to tour our fantabulous apartment. This means I have to do some cleaning. Adam insinuates that his mother is very good at noticing things that any normal person would just skip over. This means I’ll also have to do some hiding of things. Tee hee. As things go now, we’re planning on doing a fondue thing. I’m not completely sure it’s how I would have chosen to spend one of the only Saturdays that Adam has had off since starting at Wal-Mart, but what can you do? It should be interesting.
So, once again, why am I here? It’s not like there’s any pressing need for me to be here right now. I accomplished the important A/R stuff this morning and what I’ve been doing since then is stuff that is relatively flexible when it comes to completion dates. It’s like the bank thing. Why do I find it so hard to switch banks? There’s no logical explanation. Back to the work thing though – sure, in the past I would have come to work unless I was dying just because if I didn’t show up, I didn’t get paid. That’s not the case here. I would get paid whether I am here or not. It’s a strange situation that I haven’t quite gotten used to. In the 9 months that I’ve been here, I’ve called in sick once. That was due partially to having stayed up late into the night crying and having important conversations with Adam and partially due to the fact that I had a killer migraine (probably caused by the other factor.) I’m not sure it’s a work ethic and since it’s no longer motivated by money, I’m not sure what the problem is. It’s not like if I leave, the whole place will fall apart. There’s no way I make myself out to be that important. It’s not that I fear being fired if I leave every once in a while. The people here are incredibly nice and understanding and appear to bend over backwards to help people out whenever possible.
So, I ask again, what is my problem? I even have problems when I’m requesting vacation days. These are days that are included in my compensation package. If I don’t take them, they vanish at the end of the year and I’m technically working more hours than I need to. Being a salaried employee, the whole idea of a 40 hour work week is kind of a non-issue and I suppose that causes problems too. I work 8 hours each day. Usually I don’t really need to be here for all 8, but I stick around in case something comes up. I guess the whole thing just confuses me. Why do I have such a problem with not going to work for a day or two? After I’ve decided to do it and actually leave or don’t go to work, I seem to be ok with it. It’s just the initial “I’m going home and there’s nothing you can do about it” thing that I can’t seem to get over most of the time. *sigh* It’s annoying.
Because then I end up like I am right now. Sitting here on a Friday afternoon, mostly alone, bored out of my mind, cursing myself for not leaving at noon. And my streaming radio doesn’t work so I’m sitting here in silence, which is even worse.
Wow, I really went off on that, didn’t I? On to more pleasant things…
This weekend should be pretty low-key. There’s nothing much planned. I, of course, have a list of things I’d like to accomplish, but as is always true, that doesn’t mean those things will get done. I’ll be stopping at Shopko on the way home tonight to check out getting a second set of sheets. It never occurred to us that we might want to wash the ones we have sometime…ha ha… I also need to stop at the grocery store to get some more sweet & sour sauce. Sweet & sour chicken just isn’t the same without sweet & sour sauce. It’s kind of just, well, chicken chicken. We slacked off on the gym thing yesterday because of my back so we’re going to definitely go tomorrow morning. Hopefully for longer than a half hour like last week. I got off the treadmill I was on to go talk to Adam who was on a bike behind me and the crazy bitch who had been running next to me hopped off of her treadmill, got on mine, and continued the program I was on. WTF? Perhaps we’ll go late enough that I can try out the step class. We were there too early last week because we wanted to go grocery shopping before Adam had to go to work. Meh. Always so much of that to worry about.
I was informed this afternoon that his parents will be coming for dinner next Saturday. Now that we got a decent looking (i.e. not a cheap Kmart card table) dining room table, it’s ok to have them over to tour our fantabulous apartment. This means I have to do some cleaning. Adam insinuates that his mother is very good at noticing things that any normal person would just skip over. This means I’ll also have to do some hiding of things. Tee hee. As things go now, we’re planning on doing a fondue thing. I’m not completely sure it’s how I would have chosen to spend one of the only Saturdays that Adam has had off since starting at Wal-Mart, but what can you do? It should be interesting.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Adventures in furniture shopping
Did you know that today is “Credit Union Members Appreciation Day?” Yeah, well, neither did I until I went to the bank at lunch today to cash my security deposit reimbursement (we’ll get to that subject in a bit) and was told to take some free food from their ample spread. Apparently not many members had stopped in to be appreciated during the morning. Good cookies though… Now if only they’d appreciate me enough to be open past 4pm or on Saturdays. And maybe even update their online banking site more than once a day. Although just the fact that they have online banking is a huge improvement since that just came into existence about a year ago. UWO CU sucks. I think I mentioned that before…
Anyway, back to this security deposit thing. I got the letter from my former landlord yesterday. It said (and I paraphrase,) “Oh we just LOVED having you as a tenant. You rocked! Here’s a list of things wrong with the way you left your apartment…” wherein it continued on listing stupid things like the carpet was dirty and I didn’t defrost the freezer. Bah! Thing is, they didn’t deduct anything from my security deposit for these “discrepancies.” I’m not going to make a big deal about them libeling me or anything since they didn’t charge me for any of it. But why bother listing that stuff if you didn’t take money from me? *sigh* I just don’t get it.
Continuing on with the stupidity that was my Wednesday, I got a bill from Time Warner (my favorite people these days it seems) forwarded to my PO Box from my old apartment. It was a bill for road runner service from 10/16 to 11/15. Hmmm. Seems to me I moved in September. I also got another bill at the new place for the cable/internet package deal thing we’ve got going on there. Funny thing is the credit I was supposed to get for a partial month showed up on the bill for the new place and they still went and charged me for the next month at the old place. Idiots. So I got to go to TWC at lunch today. I managed to sneak in right before the big lunch rush. There was only one teller there (kind of reminded me of the DMV) and she was pretty rude. They really need to work on their customer service. And their tech support. All in all, Time Warner really sucks. But there’s not really any other option for cable around here, so we’re stuck. Anywho, it all got taken care of. Who wants to take bets on whether I get another bill from the old place next month?
Adam got a call from his manager and was told he didn’t have to work at Wal-Mart so we decided to run up to GB and take a look at what the Furniture Seconds outlet had to offer in terms of a dining room table. After missing the exit, driving all the way through De Pere, and being caught by a very slow moving train, we arrived at the store. At 6:05. They close at 6. Luckily Adam had called them while we were waiting for the train to get out of the way and the guy there agreed to stay open a few minutes longer. We actually had to go in through the back door. Fortunately we found exactly the table we were looking for at a great price. I would have felt kind of bad if we had made the guy wait around for us and then left without buying anything. In any case, we bought it last night and Adam went and picked it up this afternoon. He should actually be putting it together as I type this. It was very similar to the one we had liked at Ashley except it was a lighter color, it had a formica heat-resistant top, came with 6 chairs rather than 4, and cost about $150 less. It is still a 42” round table that becomes a 42” X 60” oval when the leaf is in. I’m sure I’ll take a picture of it later.
Anyway, back to this security deposit thing. I got the letter from my former landlord yesterday. It said (and I paraphrase,) “Oh we just LOVED having you as a tenant. You rocked! Here’s a list of things wrong with the way you left your apartment…” wherein it continued on listing stupid things like the carpet was dirty and I didn’t defrost the freezer. Bah! Thing is, they didn’t deduct anything from my security deposit for these “discrepancies.” I’m not going to make a big deal about them libeling me or anything since they didn’t charge me for any of it. But why bother listing that stuff if you didn’t take money from me? *sigh* I just don’t get it.
Continuing on with the stupidity that was my Wednesday, I got a bill from Time Warner (my favorite people these days it seems) forwarded to my PO Box from my old apartment. It was a bill for road runner service from 10/16 to 11/15. Hmmm. Seems to me I moved in September. I also got another bill at the new place for the cable/internet package deal thing we’ve got going on there. Funny thing is the credit I was supposed to get for a partial month showed up on the bill for the new place and they still went and charged me for the next month at the old place. Idiots. So I got to go to TWC at lunch today. I managed to sneak in right before the big lunch rush. There was only one teller there (kind of reminded me of the DMV) and she was pretty rude. They really need to work on their customer service. And their tech support. All in all, Time Warner really sucks. But there’s not really any other option for cable around here, so we’re stuck. Anywho, it all got taken care of. Who wants to take bets on whether I get another bill from the old place next month?
Adam got a call from his manager and was told he didn’t have to work at Wal-Mart so we decided to run up to GB and take a look at what the Furniture Seconds outlet had to offer in terms of a dining room table. After missing the exit, driving all the way through De Pere, and being caught by a very slow moving train, we arrived at the store. At 6:05. They close at 6. Luckily Adam had called them while we were waiting for the train to get out of the way and the guy there agreed to stay open a few minutes longer. We actually had to go in through the back door. Fortunately we found exactly the table we were looking for at a great price. I would have felt kind of bad if we had made the guy wait around for us and then left without buying anything. In any case, we bought it last night and Adam went and picked it up this afternoon. He should actually be putting it together as I type this. It was very similar to the one we had liked at Ashley except it was a lighter color, it had a formica heat-resistant top, came with 6 chairs rather than 4, and cost about $150 less. It is still a 42” round table that becomes a 42” X 60” oval when the leaf is in. I’m sure I’ll take a picture of it later.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Steve...and other musings
So I ran into Steve today. Well, sort of. I don’t think he saw me. In case any of you are wondering who Steve is, refer to “making out in the Polk library elevator” entry of October 3, 2004 (oh, I’m sure there are other entries that refer to him, but that was the most recent one…) I was on my way to Hardee’s for lunch and as I pulled into the parking lot, a blue car pulled in after me and parked right in front of the door. I thought to myself, “Hmm, that car looks familiar…” When the guy driving got out, I only saw him from the back but I thought to myself, “Hmm, that back looks familiar…” When I got inside, I caught a glimpse of his face and thought to myself, “Oh shit.” Now, my “relationship” with Steve was sordid to say the least. We met in a questionable fashion and things just continued on from there. (Steve is the guy who had a girlfriend who he neglected to tell me about. I only found out about her existence when she started threatening me.) For one reason or another, we kept in touch (muahahaha) on and off for 4 or so years, most recently during my last semester at UWO. He was the bad influence who kept convincing me to skip my History 102 class. In any case, it was interesting to see him this afternoon, although not entirely a desired meeting. I don’t think I really had any reason to freak out. He always had a bad habit of not acknowledging my existence in public. *sigh* Anyway, that was my exciting moment of the day.
Tomorrow is the first IMA meeting of this year that I’m actually going to be at. If you recall, I accidentally scheduled my vacation during the week of the first one back in September. I went to the bank to get some change for the cash box (that’s one of my jobs: collecting money for dinner tickets.) Someone had the brilliant idea of changing the meal price from $15 to $18, so now I’m sure everyone will just give me a $20 so I had to get some $1s. When I asked the bank teller for $50 in singles, she gave me a weird look. Was it really such a strange request? It’s not like I asked for $50 in pennies… I really, really, really, really, really don’t like my bank. Oh wait, sorry, Credit Union. It sucks for many reasons. What can you expect though? It’s part of the UW System, which inherently sucks.
Speaking of that, I got a window cling that announces that I’m an alumnus of the UWO College of Business. Adam asked me if I wanted him to hang it up in my car. I was like, “Pfft, hell no!”
I know I should switch banks. I don’t really have any valid reasons not to. My current excuses are that I want to use up my checks and that I don’t want to go through the hassle of changing my direct deposit stuff. Ok, so checks cost, what, $12? *sigh* And I can change my bank distributions myself through the intranet now. So I have no excuse. Grrr.
Tomorrow is the first IMA meeting of this year that I’m actually going to be at. If you recall, I accidentally scheduled my vacation during the week of the first one back in September. I went to the bank to get some change for the cash box (that’s one of my jobs: collecting money for dinner tickets.) Someone had the brilliant idea of changing the meal price from $15 to $18, so now I’m sure everyone will just give me a $20 so I had to get some $1s. When I asked the bank teller for $50 in singles, she gave me a weird look. Was it really such a strange request? It’s not like I asked for $50 in pennies… I really, really, really, really, really don’t like my bank. Oh wait, sorry, Credit Union. It sucks for many reasons. What can you expect though? It’s part of the UW System, which inherently sucks.
Speaking of that, I got a window cling that announces that I’m an alumnus of the UWO College of Business. Adam asked me if I wanted him to hang it up in my car. I was like, “Pfft, hell no!”
I know I should switch banks. I don’t really have any valid reasons not to. My current excuses are that I want to use up my checks and that I don’t want to go through the hassle of changing my direct deposit stuff. Ok, so checks cost, what, $12? *sigh* And I can change my bank distributions myself through the intranet now. So I have no excuse. Grrr.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Random Comments
All I can say to this is "WHY!?!!?!?!?" It's not a freakin' clown car lady! And she wants more! *shakes head* I can barely imagine having one or two. I guess I could just say "to each their own" but this seems to have gotten out of hand. If they were all born naturally (and I'm assuming there were) they must just be sliding out by now. Eww.
And then of course there's the TomKitten (blech) fiasco. *sigh* I'm not even going to comment further on that one. What is it about having children out of wedlock that has become so popular and even acceptable lately? I mean even BRITNEY SPEARS got married before SHE got knocked up. Once again, is birth control not in 90% of the countrys' vocabulary? Geesh.
On a completely unrelated topic, we went to see Wallace and Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit on Tuesday. It was better than I had expected it to be with plenty of sight gags. My favorite had to be near the end of the movie where (for reasons I can't explain without giving too much away) Wallace is naked and Grommit throws a box over his private parts and the box has a label that says "May Contain Nuts." I just cracked up over that one. That and the band-aids on Lady Tottington's hair after it gets pinned to something in her garden with a pitchfork.
Tee hee. Anyway, It's a movie I'd suggest if for nothing else but for the short featuring the penguins from Madagascar that preceds the actual film. Hilarious.
And then of course there's the TomKitten (blech) fiasco. *sigh* I'm not even going to comment further on that one. What is it about having children out of wedlock that has become so popular and even acceptable lately? I mean even BRITNEY SPEARS got married before SHE got knocked up. Once again, is birth control not in 90% of the countrys' vocabulary? Geesh.
On a completely unrelated topic, we went to see Wallace and Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit on Tuesday. It was better than I had expected it to be with plenty of sight gags. My favorite had to be near the end of the movie where (for reasons I can't explain without giving too much away) Wallace is naked and Grommit throws a box over his private parts and the box has a label that says "May Contain Nuts." I just cracked up over that one. That and the band-aids on Lady Tottington's hair after it gets pinned to something in her garden with a pitchfork.
Tee hee. Anyway, It's a movie I'd suggest if for nothing else but for the short featuring the penguins from Madagascar that preceds the actual film. Hilarious.
Anniversary
So we celebrated our 6 month “official” anniversary yesterday by taking the day off from work and getting a room at an expensive hotel in downtown Appleton. Of course, we couldn’t check into the room until 3 pm, so that gave us a good chunk of the day to do other things. We started by sleeping in. Until 8. Hey, it’s better than nothing. Then Adam finished building the bar stools. We took the boxes down to the trash area and were accosted by an old man who asked Adam if we were the neighborhood “alarm clock.” We were both confused until we realized he was accusing Adam of being too loud in opening and closing the dumpster lids. By this time it was after 9:30, so I really didn’t see the problem with making a little noise while depositing trash in the dumpster. Apparently we got the “crabby sleep-in-late old person” neighborhood.
After snickering a bit about the stupidity, we headed off to Club West to sign up for a real membership. Turns out the person we needed to talk to was busy when we got there so the lady at the front desk told us to go do our workout stuff first and stop by on our way out. I hit the treadmill again and did only a mile before Adam got bored and took me into the weight room. We did various things in there, mostly working the arms since the treadmill takes care of the leg portion. My shoulders are so sore today. Eh. We’ll be going back tomorrow and I’ll be checking out the step class. No really. We will. Now that we’re paying for it, we might as well go and use the equipment. It’s scary…I have a gym membership. It’s like we’ve entered a new dimension or something. (Twilight Zone music)
After going home and showering we headed up to Appleton to do some shopping. Adam was looking for a costume for his Halloween parties at both his jobs. We also stopped a few places to check out what was available for a dining room table. So far it appears that a round (made oval by a leaf) table out at Ashley Furniture Homestore is in the lead spot. We hope to hit up a few other stores before the final decision is made, but the salesperson told us it takes 2 or 3 weeks to get the table in after it’s ordered and Adam wants it by Thanksgiving so that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time.
By this time it was after 3 so we headed over to The Copperleaf to check in and relax a little. I took pictures of the hotel room, so check them out over on photobucket. Adam was enthralled by the alarm clock in the room – a HoMedics sound spa. It projected the time on the ceiling and awoke us to the roar of a waterfall. He decided he wanted one so I decided to get him one for Sweetest Day (tomorrow). But shhhh. Don’t tell him. We watched some tv and Adam sat in the whirlpool tub for a while before we went to dinner. We ate at Sal’s Pizza, a smallish restaurant right across the street from the hotel. They serve pizza by the slice. The slices are equivalent in size to a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. I had chicken parmesan. Their breadsticks are wonderful as well. Just the right hint of garlic. After dinner we hit up the liquor store down the street for some (cheap) champagne and then headed back to the hotel. We watched The Apprentice and then kind of fell asleep. We’re so sad.
We woke up at 5:15 this morning to get ready for work and grab some breakfast at the hotel. We totally weren’t thinking when we took Thursday off but not Friday. *sigh* I was slightly dismayed to discover that the shampoo and soaps in fancy hotels suck just as much as the ones in your el cheapo Excel Inn types. My skin is so dry today it’s not even funny.
Then we went downstairs and got into a discussion with the guy behind the front desk about the payment for the room. Originally the reservation was made under Adam’s name using his debit card. When we checked in, the machine wouldn’t read his card. It kept coming back with some kind of read error. The front desk called us in the room three or four times. We eventually gave them MY card number and apparently it worked. When they slipped the express checkout slip under our door this morning it had my card number with his name. So we went down to the desk to change it. We learned that it couldn’t be changed. I informed the man that theoretically I could refuse to pay the bill when it came through on my account. They had no proof that my card had ever been in their hotel and they had no proof that I authorized any kind of charge. He went and double checked the number about 3 times (yet never asked to see the card!) I told him that really made no difference because they had gotten that number over the phone. I could have just made it up (funny enough, he STILL didn’t ask to see the card.) It didn’t seem to get through to him and we never got it resolved. I’m still torn over whether I want to make a big deal out of it or not.
The same thing happened with the U-Haul truck when we moved. Adam signed the paperwork since it was under his name and he was driving, but it was my card number – and I signed NOTHING. It really concerns me that both U-Haul and a rather respectable hotel are so lax about this kind of thing. I mean people could be using anyone’s credit card if they wanted to. They never saw the card that they charged this morning. They never saw any kind of identification from me or Adam. I could be someone completely different from who I say I am. It worries me, this complete disregard for all the security measures that could be in place. This is also why I watch my accounts like a hawk. Who knows who could have gotten access to my accounts and important information? It’s crazy.
Anyway, we sat and ate breakfast, meeting the owner of the hotel (on his day off – he said he couldn’t stay away) in the process. Then we went our separate ways to work. I stopped at the apartment on the way to drop off the bags and take my pills. We’ve both been very tired today. Every time he calls me he’s yawning. I’m going to go home and take a nap. I’ll need my energy for tomorrow morning.
After snickering a bit about the stupidity, we headed off to Club West to sign up for a real membership. Turns out the person we needed to talk to was busy when we got there so the lady at the front desk told us to go do our workout stuff first and stop by on our way out. I hit the treadmill again and did only a mile before Adam got bored and took me into the weight room. We did various things in there, mostly working the arms since the treadmill takes care of the leg portion. My shoulders are so sore today. Eh. We’ll be going back tomorrow and I’ll be checking out the step class. No really. We will. Now that we’re paying for it, we might as well go and use the equipment. It’s scary…I have a gym membership. It’s like we’ve entered a new dimension or something. (Twilight Zone music)
After going home and showering we headed up to Appleton to do some shopping. Adam was looking for a costume for his Halloween parties at both his jobs. We also stopped a few places to check out what was available for a dining room table. So far it appears that a round (made oval by a leaf) table out at Ashley Furniture Homestore is in the lead spot. We hope to hit up a few other stores before the final decision is made, but the salesperson told us it takes 2 or 3 weeks to get the table in after it’s ordered and Adam wants it by Thanksgiving so that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time.
By this time it was after 3 so we headed over to The Copperleaf to check in and relax a little. I took pictures of the hotel room, so check them out over on photobucket. Adam was enthralled by the alarm clock in the room – a HoMedics sound spa. It projected the time on the ceiling and awoke us to the roar of a waterfall. He decided he wanted one so I decided to get him one for Sweetest Day (tomorrow). But shhhh. Don’t tell him. We watched some tv and Adam sat in the whirlpool tub for a while before we went to dinner. We ate at Sal’s Pizza, a smallish restaurant right across the street from the hotel. They serve pizza by the slice. The slices are equivalent in size to a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. I had chicken parmesan. Their breadsticks are wonderful as well. Just the right hint of garlic. After dinner we hit up the liquor store down the street for some (cheap) champagne and then headed back to the hotel. We watched The Apprentice and then kind of fell asleep. We’re so sad.
We woke up at 5:15 this morning to get ready for work and grab some breakfast at the hotel. We totally weren’t thinking when we took Thursday off but not Friday. *sigh* I was slightly dismayed to discover that the shampoo and soaps in fancy hotels suck just as much as the ones in your el cheapo Excel Inn types. My skin is so dry today it’s not even funny.
Then we went downstairs and got into a discussion with the guy behind the front desk about the payment for the room. Originally the reservation was made under Adam’s name using his debit card. When we checked in, the machine wouldn’t read his card. It kept coming back with some kind of read error. The front desk called us in the room three or four times. We eventually gave them MY card number and apparently it worked. When they slipped the express checkout slip under our door this morning it had my card number with his name. So we went down to the desk to change it. We learned that it couldn’t be changed. I informed the man that theoretically I could refuse to pay the bill when it came through on my account. They had no proof that my card had ever been in their hotel and they had no proof that I authorized any kind of charge. He went and double checked the number about 3 times (yet never asked to see the card!) I told him that really made no difference because they had gotten that number over the phone. I could have just made it up (funny enough, he STILL didn’t ask to see the card.) It didn’t seem to get through to him and we never got it resolved. I’m still torn over whether I want to make a big deal out of it or not.
The same thing happened with the U-Haul truck when we moved. Adam signed the paperwork since it was under his name and he was driving, but it was my card number – and I signed NOTHING. It really concerns me that both U-Haul and a rather respectable hotel are so lax about this kind of thing. I mean people could be using anyone’s credit card if they wanted to. They never saw the card that they charged this morning. They never saw any kind of identification from me or Adam. I could be someone completely different from who I say I am. It worries me, this complete disregard for all the security measures that could be in place. This is also why I watch my accounts like a hawk. Who knows who could have gotten access to my accounts and important information? It’s crazy.
Anyway, we sat and ate breakfast, meeting the owner of the hotel (on his day off – he said he couldn’t stay away) in the process. Then we went our separate ways to work. I stopped at the apartment on the way to drop off the bags and take my pills. We’ve both been very tired today. Every time he calls me he’s yawning. I’m going to go home and take a nap. I’ll need my energy for tomorrow morning.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
A Virtual Tour...
So, I finally got my act together and took pictures of the apartment. They should be posted on my Photobucket page. I think most of them are self explanatory. It's an apartment, not an abstract work of art... So, yeah, that's the new place.
Not much else to say besides that. My weekend is to be filled with many naps and perhaps some baking. When the weather goes from 85 one day to 48 the next, some baking is in order.
Not much else to say besides that. My weekend is to be filled with many naps and perhaps some baking. When the weather goes from 85 one day to 48 the next, some baking is in order.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Well, since I'm already sitting here...
I might as well post a little something here. I had to log in to change my "location" to Neenah anyways. The apartment is pretty much unpacked and in order. In fact, I think it's just as unpacked and in order as the last time I wrote... Heh... I need to get my act together and finish going through the stuff I brought back with from my mom's house as well as taking care of all the extra cordage from the computer. I'm debating about whether it's worthwhile to hook up the ol' webcam and mic or not. It's not like I ever use them. Hmm. Decisions... I guess the point of this entire rambling paragraph is that I don't have any pictures yet. I don't want to post pictures of a messy house. :)
Well, we started our one week trial period at a cute little gym here in Neenah. Adam gets some kind of corporate discount rate and since I live with him, I'm considered his spouse (what, huh!?!) so I get a membership for like $10. I went on one of those elliptical trainer things and lastest for a whole 10 minutes. Those things are hard on your knees! Then I stuck to the good old treadmill for 45 minutes. I was at 3.3 mph for the majority of the time. (Go me! LoL) I was unaware that you're not supposed to just hit "stop" when you're done, but you're supposed to slow to a stop, so I stopped abruptly and my body kind of kept going. It was a weird feeling. Then we hung out in the swimming pool and then the hot tub for a bit. We're going to be going back again on Thursday (Adam's other night off.) It seems like a nice place - not too crowded and most of the people are older...and not in fantactular shape... so I don't feel like such a huge blob.
Hmm. What else can I type here? Really, I've got nothing. My evening tonight will involve getting a pair of shoes that don't hurt my feet so much and perhaps cleaning (unless the tv demands my attention...which it might...I joined the "Wheel Watcher's Club" last week and I just KNOW they're going to pick my SpinID one of these days on Wheel of Fortune...)
Yeah. I know. Loser.
Well, we started our one week trial period at a cute little gym here in Neenah. Adam gets some kind of corporate discount rate and since I live with him, I'm considered his spouse (what, huh!?!) so I get a membership for like $10. I went on one of those elliptical trainer things and lastest for a whole 10 minutes. Those things are hard on your knees! Then I stuck to the good old treadmill for 45 minutes. I was at 3.3 mph for the majority of the time. (Go me! LoL) I was unaware that you're not supposed to just hit "stop" when you're done, but you're supposed to slow to a stop, so I stopped abruptly and my body kind of kept going. It was a weird feeling. Then we hung out in the swimming pool and then the hot tub for a bit. We're going to be going back again on Thursday (Adam's other night off.) It seems like a nice place - not too crowded and most of the people are older...and not in fantactular shape... so I don't feel like such a huge blob.
Hmm. What else can I type here? Really, I've got nothing. My evening tonight will involve getting a pair of shoes that don't hurt my feet so much and perhaps cleaning (unless the tv demands my attention...which it might...I joined the "Wheel Watcher's Club" last week and I just KNOW they're going to pick my SpinID one of these days on Wheel of Fortune...)
Yeah. I know. Loser.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Hidey Ho!
Alrighty! Are we all picturing Mr. Hanky sitting on the edge of the toilet bowl? Woo!
Anywho, the photo situation has been resolved and all the photos from the trip are up there. They are not in order at all so it might be a bit confusing, but all the animals are cute and interesting and all that jazz so enjoy them.
Second order of business is our new apartment. I got everything out of my old one last Thursday. Finished cleaning and turned in the keys right as the ladies were walking out the door on Thursday evening. Things here at the new place are pretty well unpacked and organized. There are a few disaster areas, but those will be fixed up soon enough. Hopefully. We've got three flies who have decided to make our apartment their home. Oddly enough, they totally disappear every time we get the fly swatters out. The bastards... The cable and internet was installed with only a few minor blips yesterday morning and our queen size bed was delivered yesterday afternoon. Who knew there was such a difference between a full and a queen? I no longer fear being elbowed in the face. As much. This morning, Adam had wrapped himself up in the comforter instead of getting under it and I called him an "Adam taco." I still find that hilarious and I am snickering as I type that. I wish I had taken a picture of that. Too cute!
I'll get pictures of the apartment up soon.
On Friday night Adam made me stay awake until after 10 when he came home from work. He told me he had a surprise for me. When he gets home he makes me sit up on the futon and close my eyes. He places a Jared jewelry store bag on my lap. Inside is a box. Inside the box is a ring. Now don't go thinking what you're thinking. That's not how it is. It's not that kind of ring. Was not accompanied by any type of question. Anyway, I can't for the life of me get a decent picture of it. It keeps turning out fuzzy.
Oh well, you get the idea.
So, things are going well. The neighbors I've met so far seem to be nice (and quiet, and non-smoking) enough. Hopefully we can manage to keep it down enough as to not annoy them. Heh. The drive to work isn't too bad, but we'll see how things go when it starts snowing. The Butte des Morts bridge always sucks when it's snowy. Sadly enough, it only takes about 4 or 5 minutes longer to get here than it took to get to my other apartment. It's all highway driving here while before it was all start and stop frontage road driving. Weird.
Anywho, the photo situation has been resolved and all the photos from the trip are up there. They are not in order at all so it might be a bit confusing, but all the animals are cute and interesting and all that jazz so enjoy them.
Second order of business is our new apartment. I got everything out of my old one last Thursday. Finished cleaning and turned in the keys right as the ladies were walking out the door on Thursday evening. Things here at the new place are pretty well unpacked and organized. There are a few disaster areas, but those will be fixed up soon enough. Hopefully. We've got three flies who have decided to make our apartment their home. Oddly enough, they totally disappear every time we get the fly swatters out. The bastards... The cable and internet was installed with only a few minor blips yesterday morning and our queen size bed was delivered yesterday afternoon. Who knew there was such a difference between a full and a queen? I no longer fear being elbowed in the face. As much. This morning, Adam had wrapped himself up in the comforter instead of getting under it and I called him an "Adam taco." I still find that hilarious and I am snickering as I type that. I wish I had taken a picture of that. Too cute!
I'll get pictures of the apartment up soon.
On Friday night Adam made me stay awake until after 10 when he came home from work. He told me he had a surprise for me. When he gets home he makes me sit up on the futon and close my eyes. He places a Jared jewelry store bag on my lap. Inside is a box. Inside the box is a ring. Now don't go thinking what you're thinking. That's not how it is. It's not that kind of ring. Was not accompanied by any type of question. Anyway, I can't for the life of me get a decent picture of it. It keeps turning out fuzzy.
Oh well, you get the idea.
So, things are going well. The neighbors I've met so far seem to be nice (and quiet, and non-smoking) enough. Hopefully we can manage to keep it down enough as to not annoy them. Heh. The drive to work isn't too bad, but we'll see how things go when it starts snowing. The Butte des Morts bridge always sucks when it's snowy. Sadly enough, it only takes about 4 or 5 minutes longer to get here than it took to get to my other apartment. It's all highway driving here while before it was all start and stop frontage road driving. Weird.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Argh
Looks like I've gone over my storage space limit over on photobucket. I have to decide what I want to do, so right now only part of the pictures are up.
New York
Here's an upfront warning: This is going to be one doozy of a post so you might want to go to the bathroom and get something to drink before you start reading :)
We left at around 5:45 on Sunday the 18th, stopped for gas at the Kwik Trip right off the highway and then headed south. Throughout the entire trip we had fabulous driving weather and fabulous weather all around. Sunday was pretty much just a driving day. A few missed exits in Chicago made things a little interesting, but all in all it was an uneventful drive. We got to Jamestown around 6:30. Set up camp there, had some dinner, and called it a night pretty early.
Monday morning Adam forgot to save the new alarm time so we were rudely awakened at 5:45 by the incredibly loud alarm on his cell phone. Since there was no way we were going to go back to sleep after that we got up, showered, and went for a walk around the neighborhood. My mom was downstairs when we returned so we headed off to Chatauqua for the morning, stopping at various little places along the way. We toured Chautauqua for awhile and I think my mom was pretty much oblivious to the fact that Adam and I were bored out of our minds. Good exercise though. We then headed out to Panama to check out the rock formations there. Adam had fun climbing all over the rocks and we all got a workout on the uneven rocks and tricky tree roots. We stopped at a cute restuarant place called "Julie's" in Panama. We headed back up toward Chautauqua to go to Webbs to get some goat milk fudge. Then we headed south of Jamestown to a cider place. I got a funky looking gourd, Adam got some New York maple syrup, and we all got to feed the goats they keep on site for goat milk fudge (if we had known they had that we could have saved some time and gotten it there instead of at Webbs. Oh well.) After all of this we headed back to my mom's house and spent the evening there.
Tuesday morning we headed into Canada to Niagara Falls. Adam was originally pumped to be able to say he was going 100 km/hr until he realized that this translated into just over 60 mph. Luckily it turns out that Canadians don't follow their speed limits any more than Americans do. We spent perhaps an hour at the Falls after we figured out the whole parking thing. It was a great day and the mist was really in full swing. But really, how long can you stand there and watch water go over a rock? We headed back to Marineland, a zoo/aquarium/amusement park we had passed on the way up to the Falls. We spent the rest of the morning and the better part of the afternoon there. Adam got a lot of really cool pictures so be sure to check out the photobucket album. It's a really cute park. It has a medieval theme so the buildings are castles and renaissance music is piped out from unknown sources throughout the park (think the singing rocks at Great America.) It's currently undergoing a whole bunch of construction and it was an awful lot of walking, but it was a fun time. We headed back to Jamestown and got back pretty much around the time my mom's students were done for the day.
Wednesday was the long day. We left Jamestown and headed up to Buffalo for the day. The first stop was the Original Kazoo Factory in Eden. We checked out the museum and factory and Adam even made his own kazoo. After arriving in Buffalo we headed to the zoo. Apparently Buffalo has this budget crisis thing going on and all the good animals got shipped off to parts unknown or something. I have to say I was pretty unimpressed with the whole thing. Parts of it were under construction and the rest of it was kind of shoddy. Once again Adam got some great pictures of the animals that WERE there so check them out. After standing in line for damn near 15 minutes to get lunch at Wendy's we headed to the Museum of Science. Once again, I was completely unimpressed. There was a pretty interesting exhibit about pulleys, but other than that it was not worth writing home about. Since we still had time before we had to meet Catherine we drove out to East Aurora to find Fowler's Chocolate. Picked up some good (but bad for you) stuff there and headed back to the SUNY campus to pick Catherine up for dinner. We ate at some Chinese restaurant (pretty good food), had a itsy bitsy birthday hurrah for my mom and then went back to Jamestown.
My sister wrote about this on her website and I think what she wrote merits a response. Since she doesn't blog, I can't link, so I'll paste the text here:
"My sister and her 6'7" "boy toy" Adam came out to NY to spend a few days with my mother. They managed to spend about an hour and a half with me, nearly all of which was at a restaurant eating dinner. Martha didn't speak to me, and though Adam tried, a Wisconsin native who works at Wal-Mart and whose main claim to fame is that he's shacking up with my apparently estranged sister is not likely to win me over in an hour and a half. Why is our family so pathetically ridiculous? Anyhow, it was weird. I did get some good Chinese leftovers out of it, though."
Now, let's go through this one issue at a time.
1. Adam is not my "boy toy." He is my "boyfriend", and if things go according to plan, will someday be my husband. I dislike the connotation that "boy toy" carries.
2. We only spent an hour and a half with her because of her busy schedule. If she had had the time we would have been willing to do other things with her, but as it happened, a birthday dinner for our mom seemed to be the only option.
3. She's right - I barely spoke to her. This is because she was generally pretty caught up in talking to our mother about things that I was not interested in. Why be rude an interrupt their conversation when I really have nothing to say to her anyway?
4. True, Adam works at Wal-Mart but this is not his real job. He works there part time in the photo lab to make some extra money. His real job is at Cisco Systems in sales. He recently won a whole ton of awards during their fiscal year-end banquet. While there is nothing wrong with working at Wal-Mart, I think it's unfair to mention it in a way that is obviously meant as a put-down. Saying he works at Wal-Mart would be like saying that (when I still worked there) I work at K-mart. Both my K-Mart and his Wal-Mart jobs were/are secondary and shouldn't be put ahead of our real careers.
5. We are not "shacking up." At the time of this dinner we weren't even living together.
6. He had no intention of trying to win her over. Why would he? I'm the one he should be concerned about getting to like him. And if he had no way to do it in the alloted time (as she states) why should he even try? I'm not quite sure what she was looking for here.
7. I don't know why our family is "pathetically ridiculous," but I sure enjoy being around Adam's family a whole lot more than around my family. At least they don't criticize my life choices and act incredibly pretentious when, in reality, their shit stinks just as much as mine does. Being around most members of my family just reminds me how much I like the fact that most of them live far, far away from me. I was so glad that he was there. That way I didn't feel so completely excluded when my mother and sister proceeded to have conversations that were of no interest to me. I think I fell more in love with him every day of this trip.
I was really ready to go ahead and give my sister a "not as bad as I'd expected" marking for this trip. This journal entry ruined that though. I can't wait until May!
Anywho, we left on Thursday morning to head to Canton and the Pro Footbal Hall of Fame. I was kind of bored, but Adam appeared to enjoy it and I got a Vikings shirt out of the deal. We headed back across Ohio and got about halfway through Indiana before calling it a night. After looking for some Notre Dame merchandise unsuccessfully, we had some dinner at the bar and restaurant attached to the hotel we were staying at. After dinner we had a few beers and played some darts. I think I won once. :) Our hotel room kind of reminded me of home: the toilet ran constantly because the stupid plunger thing was retarded. After fighting with the narrow shower in the morning, we had breakfast at Perkins and headed back to Wisconsin.
Since we returned so much earlier than we had anticipated (we got back to Oshkosh around 1:30), we decided to pick the keys up Friday afternoon and get the furniture moved into the new place Friday evening. I've spent all of yesterday and today packing up the rest of my apartment and I think I have about one more trip out to Neenah and I'll be done. Needless to say, my body is bruised and sore and I really, really, really hate moving. It doesn't help that Adam has been at work all day yesterday and today. Oh well. I'm almost done. Then I get to clean again before I get rid of this apartment. That should be a blast.
Well, that's all I've got for now.
We left at around 5:45 on Sunday the 18th, stopped for gas at the Kwik Trip right off the highway and then headed south. Throughout the entire trip we had fabulous driving weather and fabulous weather all around. Sunday was pretty much just a driving day. A few missed exits in Chicago made things a little interesting, but all in all it was an uneventful drive. We got to Jamestown around 6:30. Set up camp there, had some dinner, and called it a night pretty early.
Monday morning Adam forgot to save the new alarm time so we were rudely awakened at 5:45 by the incredibly loud alarm on his cell phone. Since there was no way we were going to go back to sleep after that we got up, showered, and went for a walk around the neighborhood. My mom was downstairs when we returned so we headed off to Chatauqua for the morning, stopping at various little places along the way. We toured Chautauqua for awhile and I think my mom was pretty much oblivious to the fact that Adam and I were bored out of our minds. Good exercise though. We then headed out to Panama to check out the rock formations there. Adam had fun climbing all over the rocks and we all got a workout on the uneven rocks and tricky tree roots. We stopped at a cute restuarant place called "Julie's" in Panama. We headed back up toward Chautauqua to go to Webbs to get some goat milk fudge. Then we headed south of Jamestown to a cider place. I got a funky looking gourd, Adam got some New York maple syrup, and we all got to feed the goats they keep on site for goat milk fudge (if we had known they had that we could have saved some time and gotten it there instead of at Webbs. Oh well.) After all of this we headed back to my mom's house and spent the evening there.
Tuesday morning we headed into Canada to Niagara Falls. Adam was originally pumped to be able to say he was going 100 km/hr until he realized that this translated into just over 60 mph. Luckily it turns out that Canadians don't follow their speed limits any more than Americans do. We spent perhaps an hour at the Falls after we figured out the whole parking thing. It was a great day and the mist was really in full swing. But really, how long can you stand there and watch water go over a rock? We headed back to Marineland, a zoo/aquarium/amusement park we had passed on the way up to the Falls. We spent the rest of the morning and the better part of the afternoon there. Adam got a lot of really cool pictures so be sure to check out the photobucket album. It's a really cute park. It has a medieval theme so the buildings are castles and renaissance music is piped out from unknown sources throughout the park (think the singing rocks at Great America.) It's currently undergoing a whole bunch of construction and it was an awful lot of walking, but it was a fun time. We headed back to Jamestown and got back pretty much around the time my mom's students were done for the day.
Wednesday was the long day. We left Jamestown and headed up to Buffalo for the day. The first stop was the Original Kazoo Factory in Eden. We checked out the museum and factory and Adam even made his own kazoo. After arriving in Buffalo we headed to the zoo. Apparently Buffalo has this budget crisis thing going on and all the good animals got shipped off to parts unknown or something. I have to say I was pretty unimpressed with the whole thing. Parts of it were under construction and the rest of it was kind of shoddy. Once again Adam got some great pictures of the animals that WERE there so check them out. After standing in line for damn near 15 minutes to get lunch at Wendy's we headed to the Museum of Science. Once again, I was completely unimpressed. There was a pretty interesting exhibit about pulleys, but other than that it was not worth writing home about. Since we still had time before we had to meet Catherine we drove out to East Aurora to find Fowler's Chocolate. Picked up some good (but bad for you) stuff there and headed back to the SUNY campus to pick Catherine up for dinner. We ate at some Chinese restaurant (pretty good food), had a itsy bitsy birthday hurrah for my mom and then went back to Jamestown.
My sister wrote about this on her website and I think what she wrote merits a response. Since she doesn't blog, I can't link, so I'll paste the text here:
"My sister and her 6'7" "boy toy" Adam came out to NY to spend a few days with my mother. They managed to spend about an hour and a half with me, nearly all of which was at a restaurant eating dinner. Martha didn't speak to me, and though Adam tried, a Wisconsin native who works at Wal-Mart and whose main claim to fame is that he's shacking up with my apparently estranged sister is not likely to win me over in an hour and a half. Why is our family so pathetically ridiculous? Anyhow, it was weird. I did get some good Chinese leftovers out of it, though."
Now, let's go through this one issue at a time.
1. Adam is not my "boy toy." He is my "boyfriend", and if things go according to plan, will someday be my husband. I dislike the connotation that "boy toy" carries.
2. We only spent an hour and a half with her because of her busy schedule. If she had had the time we would have been willing to do other things with her, but as it happened, a birthday dinner for our mom seemed to be the only option.
3. She's right - I barely spoke to her. This is because she was generally pretty caught up in talking to our mother about things that I was not interested in. Why be rude an interrupt their conversation when I really have nothing to say to her anyway?
4. True, Adam works at Wal-Mart but this is not his real job. He works there part time in the photo lab to make some extra money. His real job is at Cisco Systems in sales. He recently won a whole ton of awards during their fiscal year-end banquet. While there is nothing wrong with working at Wal-Mart, I think it's unfair to mention it in a way that is obviously meant as a put-down. Saying he works at Wal-Mart would be like saying that (when I still worked there) I work at K-mart. Both my K-Mart and his Wal-Mart jobs were/are secondary and shouldn't be put ahead of our real careers.
5. We are not "shacking up." At the time of this dinner we weren't even living together.
6. He had no intention of trying to win her over. Why would he? I'm the one he should be concerned about getting to like him. And if he had no way to do it in the alloted time (as she states) why should he even try? I'm not quite sure what she was looking for here.
7. I don't know why our family is "pathetically ridiculous," but I sure enjoy being around Adam's family a whole lot more than around my family. At least they don't criticize my life choices and act incredibly pretentious when, in reality, their shit stinks just as much as mine does. Being around most members of my family just reminds me how much I like the fact that most of them live far, far away from me. I was so glad that he was there. That way I didn't feel so completely excluded when my mother and sister proceeded to have conversations that were of no interest to me. I think I fell more in love with him every day of this trip.
I was really ready to go ahead and give my sister a "not as bad as I'd expected" marking for this trip. This journal entry ruined that though. I can't wait until May!
Anywho, we left on Thursday morning to head to Canton and the Pro Footbal Hall of Fame. I was kind of bored, but Adam appeared to enjoy it and I got a Vikings shirt out of the deal. We headed back across Ohio and got about halfway through Indiana before calling it a night. After looking for some Notre Dame merchandise unsuccessfully, we had some dinner at the bar and restaurant attached to the hotel we were staying at. After dinner we had a few beers and played some darts. I think I won once. :) Our hotel room kind of reminded me of home: the toilet ran constantly because the stupid plunger thing was retarded. After fighting with the narrow shower in the morning, we had breakfast at Perkins and headed back to Wisconsin.
Since we returned so much earlier than we had anticipated (we got back to Oshkosh around 1:30), we decided to pick the keys up Friday afternoon and get the furniture moved into the new place Friday evening. I've spent all of yesterday and today packing up the rest of my apartment and I think I have about one more trip out to Neenah and I'll be done. Needless to say, my body is bruised and sore and I really, really, really hate moving. It doesn't help that Adam has been at work all day yesterday and today. Oh well. I'm almost done. Then I get to clean again before I get rid of this apartment. That should be a blast.
Well, that's all I've got for now.
Friday, September 16, 2005
More
I completely forgot to post about the Cisco/Convergys banquet thingy that Adam brought me to on Wednesday. The end of their fiscal year was August or something so they had a big hoopla to celebrate a great year and hand out awards to their top performers. I think there were 10 or so categories and Adam won awards for probably 6 of them. He won practically everything he was eligible for. It was amazing. I’m very proud of him. It’s wonderful that he has a job that he’s obviously good at that he also seems to enjoy (most of the time.) It was an interesting evening. We sat at a table with his sister and her fiancé (who I already knew) and three other couples. They were all very nice people. Chris cracked everyone up of course. All in all it was an entertaining and enjoyable evening. The whole award thing went kind of long and by the end I was yawning and had a headache. Adam also got picked in the prize drawing and ended up getting an electric griddle and a single serve coffee maker (which he has since returned for cash so we can buy other things since we already have 3 coffee makers. Yes. 3.) It’s so annoying how he wins everything. I never win anything. Grrrr. Oh well. It’s for the common good this time at least. Muahahahaha.
I’m not sure what kind of opportunities there are for him to tag along to business type things with me. I know Milprint has a Christmas party but I’m not sure how that works. IMA has a “bring your SO” night in December, but I’m not sure he’ll be interested in coming to hang with a bunch of accountants. LoL. I just think it’s interesting to see another side of a person. I don’t usually see his “I’m at work” side or meet anyone from that part of his life, so it was neat.
I was thinking last night while boxing up most of the stuff in the living room. I’m going to have to get used to having a roommate again, although this time will be completely different in that I actually know the person and like them (double benefit!) I don’t think it will be too hard to accept the fact that it’s not going to be “my” apartment. It’s going to be “our” apartment and therefore I can’t just boss him around to do things the way I want them done. This might be kind of difficult given that I’m a control freak with a minor case of OCD… I’m sure there are going to be things he does that drive me nuts. In fact, I already know what a few of them are. I’m sure there are going to be things I do that drive him nuts too. And I hope he’ll tell me about them. I don’t want the fact that we’re roommates to cause problems because every roommate relationship I’ve had up to this point has gone to hell eventually. In fact I only keep in touch with one of them (Catherine) and we’re much better friends now that we don’t live together. I think a potential problem may be that both Adam and I have a touch of passive-aggressiveness in ourselves. We’re more likely to avoid talking about something that bothers us and just grumble about it inside. Eventually that causes bigger problems though. I know this from experience. This is why I’m going to try and attack any problems that arise as soon as possible. I really want this to work and I’m pretty sure he does too. He’s been spending more and more time over at my apartment and things have been pretty smooth sailing. I’m not sure how much is going to change once we’re living together all the time. I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes.
I’m not sure what kind of opportunities there are for him to tag along to business type things with me. I know Milprint has a Christmas party but I’m not sure how that works. IMA has a “bring your SO” night in December, but I’m not sure he’ll be interested in coming to hang with a bunch of accountants. LoL. I just think it’s interesting to see another side of a person. I don’t usually see his “I’m at work” side or meet anyone from that part of his life, so it was neat.
I was thinking last night while boxing up most of the stuff in the living room. I’m going to have to get used to having a roommate again, although this time will be completely different in that I actually know the person and like them (double benefit!) I don’t think it will be too hard to accept the fact that it’s not going to be “my” apartment. It’s going to be “our” apartment and therefore I can’t just boss him around to do things the way I want them done. This might be kind of difficult given that I’m a control freak with a minor case of OCD… I’m sure there are going to be things he does that drive me nuts. In fact, I already know what a few of them are. I’m sure there are going to be things I do that drive him nuts too. And I hope he’ll tell me about them. I don’t want the fact that we’re roommates to cause problems because every roommate relationship I’ve had up to this point has gone to hell eventually. In fact I only keep in touch with one of them (Catherine) and we’re much better friends now that we don’t live together. I think a potential problem may be that both Adam and I have a touch of passive-aggressiveness in ourselves. We’re more likely to avoid talking about something that bothers us and just grumble about it inside. Eventually that causes bigger problems though. I know this from experience. This is why I’m going to try and attack any problems that arise as soon as possible. I really want this to work and I’m pretty sure he does too. He’s been spending more and more time over at my apartment and things have been pretty smooth sailing. I’m not sure how much is going to change once we’re living together all the time. I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
T-2(ish)
Well we leave for New York on Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning. I’ve got pretty much everything under control at work and I’m ready for a vacation. It should be an interesting experience. Hopefully fun as well, but it’s always nerve-wracking introducing someone to members of my family. We’ll see how it goes. The way I see it, we’re not going to see any of these people more than once a year anyway so if they really don’t like each other, it’s only a temporary inconvenience every once in a while. Heh. How’s that for a bad attitude? I’m sure it will be fine. Adam is a pretty likeable guy and he tends to get along with most people. I’m not asking him to be best friends with my mom or sister. That would be scary. Even I don’t get along the greatest with them. I just want him to know that they exist and be able to put a face and personality with the name. I’ve met many members of his family already. It’s easier to go that way because many of them live in the area. My family, on the other hand, is spread far and wide so it’s harder to get everyone together. Anywho, it will be a fun trip. That was the point of that whole rambling thing there. I’ve had an icky sinus thing going on for the last week so I’m hoping that will go away before we leave.
We have an appointment to pick up the keys to the new apartment on the 24th. This is the day after we return from New York. Given Adam’s work schedule, I’ll be moving a lot of the littler stuff throughout the day on Saturday, he’ll be moving most of his stuff early Sunday morning, and my bigger stuff will be moved Sunday evening. I should have no problem getting everything out of the apartment by Wednesday and perhaps I can get it all cleaned by Thursday so I can drop the keys off early. Depending on how things go during the weekend we’re also considering taking Tuesday afternoon off to finish moving big stuff. A lot of this is up in the air and we’ll just have to see how things go. I am excited though. I’m really looking forward to it. Well, not the moving part. The living in a better apartment with Adam part.
I’m heading to the DMV tonight after work to change my address and get a new driver’s license. I figure it’s worth the $4 to have an address that isn’t in Sheboygan. And to get rid of the horrible red box around my head that screams “UNDER 21 UNTIL 02-09-01.” I wonder if they’re going to make me take a new picture. I’m not looking forward to that, but if they tell me to I guess I don’t have a choice. Other than that all the address changes are taken care of. I went to the bank yesterday and all the others were already taken care of. Woo. I’m so organized.
That’s about all I’ve got. I’ll be taking lots o’ pictures and will be sure to post them when we get back.
We have an appointment to pick up the keys to the new apartment on the 24th. This is the day after we return from New York. Given Adam’s work schedule, I’ll be moving a lot of the littler stuff throughout the day on Saturday, he’ll be moving most of his stuff early Sunday morning, and my bigger stuff will be moved Sunday evening. I should have no problem getting everything out of the apartment by Wednesday and perhaps I can get it all cleaned by Thursday so I can drop the keys off early. Depending on how things go during the weekend we’re also considering taking Tuesday afternoon off to finish moving big stuff. A lot of this is up in the air and we’ll just have to see how things go. I am excited though. I’m really looking forward to it. Well, not the moving part. The living in a better apartment with Adam part.
I’m heading to the DMV tonight after work to change my address and get a new driver’s license. I figure it’s worth the $4 to have an address that isn’t in Sheboygan. And to get rid of the horrible red box around my head that screams “UNDER 21 UNTIL 02-09-01.” I wonder if they’re going to make me take a new picture. I’m not looking forward to that, but if they tell me to I guess I don’t have a choice. Other than that all the address changes are taken care of. I went to the bank yesterday and all the others were already taken care of. Woo. I’m so organized.
That’s about all I’ve got. I’ll be taking lots o’ pictures and will be sure to post them when we get back.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Posts from 2003-2004
I just wanted to let everyone know that I added my blog from my other website to this blogging site. I basically copy and pasted from the other webpage to this page so the formatting really kind of sucks. The other site went back to January of 2003 so I figured it made sense to put them all together in one place for some kind of continuity. It's strange to go back and read them and see all the crap that has happened in the last two and half-ish years. *sigh* It's so unfortunate that a great deal of it revolves around what was going on between John and I. I still can't figure out why he was such an important person in my life given the fact that the whole relationship was completely messed up. Oh well. I barely even speak to him at this point. He always tells me he'll call me but I know he won't. And that's ok. I don't get messed up about it at this point. I have Adam who actually calls when he tells me his will. And takes me out in public. And reciprocates feelings. Wow. Who knew a man like that existed?
On a completely different topic - it appears I have begun to get spam comments so I'm going to look into how I can stop them. Yeah, no one is interested in your insurance website. Geesh. For the love of. As I was typing this sentence two more of them showed up. That's just ridiculous. I'll see what I can do about that. That should keep me entertained until Adam gets home from work. *sigh*
On a completely different topic - it appears I have begun to get spam comments so I'm going to look into how I can stop them. Yeah, no one is interested in your insurance website. Geesh. For the love of. As I was typing this sentence two more of them showed up. That's just ridiculous. I'll see what I can do about that. That should keep me entertained until Adam gets home from work. *sigh*
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