Just Call Me Mr. Krispy Kreme

There's a big meeting at the office all this week. Our sales reps from all over the world are coming in. And where there's a sales meeting, the free food is not too far behind. Coffee and soda have already been deemed free (though normally they're only a quarter each any way) and a big company-wide lunch has been scheduled for Wednesday. There's also the left overs from their lunch meetings that will be left for the scavengers (and yes, this includes me), not to mention bagels and muffins in the morning.

Thursday morning is the one I'm looking forward to the most though. Now because of my proximity to one of the few Krispy Kremes in the Northeast, I've been charged with picking up an order of donuts for the entire company. We've done this before, though someone had to drive down to Medford to pick them up. This time I'll be the one to pick them up, plus the inevitable side orders everyone else will want. I've become the de facto Krispy Kreme delivery man. Not that I mind all that much, gives me an excuse to go there and get a free warm donut.

3x Thursday: 03/18/y2k+4: St.Patty's Green

It's time again for 3XThursday, compliments of Missy

1. What's your most memorable St.Patty's Day event?
   That would probably be the one I celebrated in the fens. We had just signed a lease on our apartment in Brighton and we all crammed into Dave's and my tiny apartment and drank ourselves silly.
2. Do you believe in the whole wearing green thing for St.Patty's Day?
   Well technically I should wear orange, because I was raised in a Protestant church, but aside from that it's fun to wear green and celebrate my Irish roots.
3. Without doing a Google search, can you honestly tell me why they call it St.Patrick's Day?
   Well it's named after St. Patrick (obviously), who according to history/legend drove the snakes out of Ireland.

Bonus: What's your drink of choice on St.Patrick's Day?
Guinness, Guinness, and more Guinness

There's a reason I don't work in customer support

Recently at work I've been working a lot on customer related issues. Most of the time a customer calls in with a problem and if it's necessary the customer support people ask me to take a look at a problem. Recently though, there's been one particular customer who's been making a lot of noise, complaining about this or that. It's gotten so bad that I had to sit in on a few conference calls with him to help explain what's going on.

I used to work in customer support, so I know how to put on the happy face, but at the same time I stopped working in support because I drop the happy face to easily. Some people just really get under my skin and will cause me to lose my cool. This guy is one of those people (though he annoys everyone, not just me). So for the past week he's been complaining that something doesn't work the way he wants it to and basically telling me how to do my job. I have no problem taking criticism from a co-worker or my boss, but when some schlep out in the Mid-West starts telling me how to write software when he doesn't know the first thing about it, I lose it. A couple of times I had to get up and walk out to clear my head it was just so frustrating.

I think we've finally appeased him enough that he'll leave us along for a little while. Some people are just never happy.

Kiss me I'm Irish

So today is that most wonderful of holidays, St. Patrick's Day. It's day when everything is turned green (even the water in Boston). As I type this, I'm enjoying my yearly Shamrock Shake. Tonight I'll be having a few Guinness tonight with the boys from NU at a local Irish pub where we will also partake in the corn beef and cabbage. I don't imagine I'll be making into work too early tomorrow.

No rest for the weary

Well after a mad dash up to Nashua during my lunch hour, I am now officially moved out my apartment. Mail forwarding has started and my keys have been dropped off. Now comes the matter of unpacking all of my stuff. I've actually made some pretty good headway already, unpacking my books and DVDs. I have still yet to set up my computer, but it's mostly do to the fact that I don't have all the hardware I need to do what I want to do.

I've owned a D-Link wireless router for over 2 years now. Shane's planning on using it to replace the old windows PC with WinRoute that he was using for a router. But in order to get to my room, we would need about 50 feet of cable. I actually have a 100 foot cable already, but I'd rather not have the wire strewn all over the apartment. The solution? A wireless bridge in my room connected to a switch that then services all of my machines. I've been trying to decide on the best way to handle it. Matt suggested getting another router and running it in infrastructure mode. That might be a more cost effective solution as bridges tend to be more expensive.

I won't really have time to play with it this weekend though because Shane and I will be heading on a little road trip. We'll be heading down to Columbia, MD to deliver his Jeep which he sold on eBay. Coincidentally enough, my friend Joel from Northeastern (aka "the hippy") happens to live in Columbia so while we're down we'll pay a visit to him. I haven't seen Joel since he moved last year.

Hopefully next week I'll actually have some spare time...

A new addition to the family

My sister Sam gave birth to her second child, Kaeleigh Leone, this morning at 10:30. She was 5lbs 14oz (she was 3 weeks premature). Both mother and baby are doing well. This makes a matching pair for both of my sisters; Mari has Amber and Joey and now Sam has Andrew and Kaeleigh. There's also something about my sisters and March babies, both Amber and Joey were born in March.

Saying goodbye to NH

Well after taking another load of stuff down to Somerville yesterday, I'm that much closer to being completely moved out of my Nashua apartment. Tonight I plan on doing a little cleaning around the apartment (not that I really need to, I'm not getting a security deposit back because I didn't pay one). I still need to run over the last of the stuff to the storage unit, but I might not get to that until Friday.

Unfortunately I have not had time to really unpack much of anything. Between work and having to go to Nashua to do the last of the moving out there I haven't had the time or energy to unpack. My room is now just a pile of boxes with some furniture. I really need a whole day to just sit down and unpack.

Good thing I was driving a tank

The move to Somerville is almost complete. At this point there are a few things that still need to be boxed and put in storage or make their way down south. Shane and I managed to get all of the furniture and the vast majority of other things moved over the weekend. Everything went pretty smoothly with the exception of one trip down to Somerville. We were driving my mother's truck with a load of furniture, including my entertainment center. The backing on the entertainment center was starting to come off again on the ride down. Shane noticed and said we should pull over. Shane started to pull over on a ramp, then realized it was actually an interchange to another highway so started to speed up again. Apparently the the people behind us thought we were pulling over and as we started to pull back into traffic they plowed into the side of the truck.

Now, this was not the first time Shane had been in an accident with my mom's truck. When he moved up to Nashua he borrowed the truck to move his stuff and backed into a car in Boston. He was quite pissed about being in this situation again. The two teenage girls in the Honda Civic that had hit the truck got out and started screaming at the both of us, so we thought it best if we just waited for the cops to show up. We assessed the damage to truck and were shocked to find that outside of two small dents in the wheel well there was no major damage. Compared to the Civic, whose entire front right side was crushed, we were lucky. After the cop showed up he gave us both a lecture before we were finally sent on our way. It probably cost us about 30 minutes or so of time, so it could have been a lot worse.

I'll be making another trip up to Nashua tonight after work to do the last of the packing and some clean up work. Then on Thursday I'll put the last of my things in storage and do a final round of cleaning. I'm due to hand in my on Friday, so there's plenty of leeway.

3x Thursday: 03/04/y2k+4: Sickness

Once again it's time for 3XThursday, compliments of Missy:

1. Do you consider yourself healthy? How often do you typically get sick?
   I wouldn't consider myself super healthy, but I don't get sick very often. I probably get 2 or 3 colds a year and the flu usually hits right around Christmas.
2. When you *are* sick, do you stay home and let your body do its thing, or do you fight it and keep going? Depending on which method you subscribe to, does it work well?
   I'm definitely a fighter when it comes to illness. I've actually been set home on multiple occasions because I refused to call out. Until about 3 months ago sick time counted against my vacation balance, so I sure as hell didn't call out unless I was on my death bed.
   Rest is always the best medicine, but if you can't get that, there's always (Day/Ny)Quil. (I love you, you giant fucking Q!)
3. In an office, airplane, or any other type of public setting, do you believe people share illnesses? Gimme an example.
   My current cold was given to me by a co-worker. And if you have kids who spend time in day care your kid brings home all sorts of nasty bugs.

Bonus: What's the worst illness you've ever had?
One Christmas I had the flu so bad I had a temperature of 104 for 3 straight days. I was pretty much completely delirious, but I do remember telling my mom not to take me to the doctor. On the 3rd day she said if my fever hadn't gone down by the next day she was going to drag me to the doctor. I woke up the next morning and my temp was normal.

Not exactly the greatest timing...

Well as of today the forecast for moving day is for the possibility of rain. I'm still crossing my fingers for a clear day seeing as I'll be using a pick-up to move everything. Add to this the fact that I've had cold symptoms for the last 3 days and I worked a 12-hour shift yesterday and I'm starting to wear out. I might end up calling out tomorrow to recuperate and finish the last of my packing.

I certainly could use a day off. I have to save my vacation up for the two big trips I'll be taking this summer (one to California for Comicon, and the other for Burning Man). As it is I'll barely be able to pull it off with my current vacation allowance, so it's no days off between now and then.

Moving plans moving along

The move is progressing as well as it can. I went through all my video games over the weekend and pulled out a fairly substantial box of games and accessories that I'm going to trade in at the local GameStop. It's mostly my Dreamcast games and accessories, as that's the one system I don't play any more. I'm still hanging on to my NES and SNES, because emulation may be cool, it just doesn't beat the real thing.

The hardest part of this move has definitely been deciding what to store and what to toss out. It saddens me a bit that the couch is one of the things that needs to go. It's lived a long and useful existence. It was originally in my parents house until my 3rd year at Northeastern when I took it down to Boston with me. It's been in my possession ever since. It's been thought to have mystical powers (don't ask), and has been slept on by just about everyone of my friends. It even spawned its own comic strip (well, sort of). It is, however, showing its age. It's dirty and dingy and with the lack of space I have in both the Somerville apartment and the storage unit it just needs to go. Shane and I will have to give it a proper send off this Saturday before it gets sent to couch heaven.

*RIP* "The Couch" (1984-2004)