Time for a change?

I've been quite for quite some time now. It's certainly not from a lack of activity...

Over the past couple of months I have:

• Went to California and had an absolute blast with Dave at Comicon
• Made a trip to Errol to visit Jen's parents
• Went camping with Shane in Vermont and established a new camp site.
• Went to the final regular season game at Fenway (to go along with hitting the home opener earlier this year)
• Went down to Baltimore with Matt and Brian to visit with our friend Joel and catch the last 4 games of the season

While all of that has been going on, work had been pretty much the same. We've been struggling along with a crippled QA team while the contractors come up to speed and at the same time we've had an unusual amount of serious customer related issues. That's why when Matt told me about a position opening up at the Harvard-MIT Data Center, where he works, I jumped at the opportunity to interview. After two visits, they made me an offer I simply couldn't refuse, so at the end of the month I will be leaving my current position at Softech.

I'm really looking forward to this new position. I'll be able to work directly with people I genuinely like, have a short commute (at least when I'm not visiting Jen), and be able to get my butt in gear and start pursuing my Masters Degree.

Hopefully now that I'm winding down I'll have a little more free time to post here and get back on a regular posting schedule, but I've said that before so we'll see what happens...

I could get used to these long weekends

Due to the trip to Bar Harbor last weekend and the impending 4th of July weekend, this will be my second 3-day weekend in a row. This one will likely be less exciting than the first, however. I'll be spending tonight in Nashua with Jen and a good chunk of tomorrow as well. Tomorrow night I might go check out the Paul Oakenfold show at Avalon if I can find people to go with. Then on the 4th I'll be spending some time with the boys from NU and we'll get to some grillin' and gamin'. Monday will likely be a day recuperation in Nashua before getting back to the grind.

And to think, only a scant 2 weeks to the west coast excursion...

Back to Reality

Today was my first day back at work since Thursday. I took Friday off as part of my vacation in Bar Harbor. I had a pretty good time even though it rained both Friday and Saturday and didn't really clear up until I had to leave on Sunday. I got a chance to see my folks again and visit with my sister Sam and her husband Anthony and the new baby, Kaeleigh. I've got pictures that I'll post as soon as I get home tonight (didn't have the time or energy to do it yesterday). *UPDATE* The pictures are up.

I will be leaving work earlier than normal today though, as I have an interview at 3 in Cambridge. A company I had sent my resume out to through HotJobs finally got around to calling candidates (something I'm familiar with as we've done the same thing here) and I set up an interview. We'll see if this one works out better than the last. It's definitely a better fit for my skills I think and is a true developer position, as opposed to the other job I interviewed for. The company is actually located right down the street from the coffee house Sarah works at.

19 days and counting to my real vacation. It can't come fast enough at this point.

Another week in the books

Another work week is over. Didn't make it to the gym this morning as Jen convinced me to go out to breakfast with her instead. I probably should have considering I ate so many Krispy Kreme donuts yesterday (I picked up an order of 14.5 dozen yesterday, and I ate more than my fair share). I figured that the camping trip should offset that somewhat as I usually work my butt off while we're out there. Unfortunately, Shane and I are going alone again and he couldn't get Sunday off so it'll be just another overnighter.

Dave reminded me today that I'm just 4 weeks away from my trip out to the west coast. I'm really looking forward to this trip: a couple Sox games in Anaheim, a trip to Yosemite to camp, and a drive down to San Diego for the Comicon. Not to mention that the last time I saw Dave was when he was out here in the winter. I just have to make sure that I have all the money I need before I go, but it won't be a problem.

No, I'm not dead

I haven't posted much lately, but I really have no excuse not to. Work has been rather quiet to the point that I'm left to my own devices for most of the day. I've been trying to be proactive about certain upcoming projects, but that doesn't always work out. Personally, I've had a lot of free time as well. So much so, that I've polished off another game (Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga for GBA) in my "to play" pile.

The next coming weeks probably won't be as quiet. This weekend will be a camping trip to Vermont. Hopefully this time Shane and I will have some people to join us. I'm looking forward to trying out the new pack I got. Now I'll be able to carry a whole lot more up to the site (it's about a 10 minute walk from where we have to park). The following weekend Jen and I will be going up to Bar Harbor to spend the weekend with my parents and my sister Sam's family. It'll be my first chance to see my new niece (I'm such a horrible uncle sometimes...).

I'm going to try to make it a goal to post everyday this week, and hopefully a habit will follow from that. We'll see how it goes...

An interesting six months

Six months ago today, I went out on a date with a woman named Jen. Ever since we've been seeing each other fairly regularly. Most of you who know me well enough know that I spend about half my week at her apartment in Nashua. My moving to Somerville has made the relationship more difficult to maintain, but it has been worth it.

I've been severely burned in the past, which is part of the reason that this is the first time I've mentioned my relationship with her, but I feel comfortable enough with the permanency of the relationship that I can talk about it more publicly now. I don't want her to think that I take her for granted. She's a terrific, understanding, and loving girlfriend and I'm happy that I found her. So here's to six wonderful months, with hopefully many more in store.

I'm officially a Masshole

As of last Friday, I am now officially a resident of Massachusetts. Unfortunately MA vanity plates are restricted to 6 characters, so I didn't get a MA TURACMA plate, but I finally have a MA license that has a picture that looks more like me. My last updated NH license was taken right after I moved to Nashua and the whole fiasco with my-ex happened. I weighed well over 300 pounds at the time and was sporting a full beard. Of course, I've lost a bunch of weight and look much different now then I did then, so whenever I got carded people were always very skeptical that it really was my license.

I'm actually still waiting for my official license. All I have now is a temporary paper one (but it does include my picture). I should get the real one in the mail before the end of the week.

Get Busy Child...

So I haven't posted at all in the past two weeks, but it certainly hasn't been for a lack of anything going on. Last week I helped two friends celberate their 25th birthdays, caught the Crystal Method show at Avalon (where we got back stage! w00t!), and went to go see the Sox home opener (which they lost).

This week has been far lower key on a personal side, but work related issues cropped up, not to mention my taxes, that added some stress to my life. The whole thing has got me seriously considering moving on with my career. To that end, when a recruiter called me up this week I jumped at the opportunity to go on an interview next Tuesday. It's definitely a more cutting edge company, though it's a more solutions based company as apposed to a product. That would most likely mean the end of my t-shirt and jeans work outfit. I'm not sure exactly how I feel about that, but if everything else is too good to pass up, I'll get over it.

I'm looking forward to a somewhat lazy weekend. The weather is suppose to be sunny, which will be a nice change from all the recent rain. I'm sure Shane and I will be out playing Frisbee at some point this weekend. Otherwise I plan to plant myself on a couch and veg.

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.

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)

Get the Ball Rolling

I've gotten the ball rolling on my plans to move. I gave a formal letter of intent to move as of March 12th. I'll probably be out of Nashua before then, but considering I have to pay for March and April anyway, it's better to leave a little leeway. On a positive note, if someone does move in before the end of April I get refunded a portion of the rent they pay upon moving in.

I've also already submitted my change of address request with the Post Office (it's nice to see you can do this on-line now) and reserved a storage unit at the U-Haul across the street. I've got the new web space account set up, so I'll work on switching the site over to the new space next week (again, hopefully this should be transparent to you folks).

I'm excited about the change. I'm really looking forward to being back in the hussle and bussle of city life again.

Time for a change

After a lot of thought on the matter, I've finally decided to move back to the Boston area. Shane and Sarah have an open bedroom in their apartment in Somerville which I'll be moving into at the beginning of the next month. It's just good timing all around. I'd been considering a move for quite some time, but cost was a big stumbling block. If I wanted to get my own place in Boston, I'd be paying much more than I am now, not to mention having to come up with a security deposit and first/last month's rent. I didn't want to just move in with someone I didn't know as I've had bad experiences with such moves. Shane and Sarah happened to have an empty room because their roommate moved out and the person who was supposed to move in had to back out.

So in the next month I have a lot of things I'll need to take care of. First and foremost will be getting more permanent hosting for the web site. As some of you may know, I host the site off of my home internet connection currently. The kind of traffic I generate is small enough that my DSL is more than adequate. When I move down to Somerville, I'll be on a cable modem which I don't believe has a static IP, so hosting the domain on that line would be problematic. So instead I'm going to use ipowerweb.com, the same provider Dave currently uses for HDTC. They have a reasonable price and offer all the things I need (CGI, PHP, MySQL). Hopefully the transfer over to new hosting should be seamless, as I'll do my best to set up the new site before changing over the DNS records.

The other big thing will be sorting through all of my stuff and deciding what to move, what to put in storage, and what should just be trashed. Most likely this will mean an end for the infamous couch that spawned HDTC in the first place. It's seen better days at this point any way, but it will be hard to part with it. It's a lot like those 10 year old T-shirts with holes you don't want to get rid of because they're so comfortable.

I'm awfully excited about the whole endeavor. I've missed the city so much this past year and a half. I'll be going back a very different person than I was when I first moved there freshman year. Who knows how long I'll stay this time, but I'm going to enjoy every minute of it.

Time to rededicate myself

Now that the holidays have long since been over, I have no more excuses, it's time to get back to the good habits I developed last year. I did not make any New Year's resolutions this year because I'm still working on the ones I made from last year. My weight is the lowest it's been my entire adult life (I'm pretty sure I haven't been this thin since middle school). I'm far more social than I've been in the past. I've been reasonably good about my finances (overall I think I'm at about the same level of debt that I had last year, but 90% is now on far lower interest rates so I should be able to knock it down faster). Over the holidays I managed to not put on any weight, which was a good thing. I didn't go crazy buying gifts for myself or anyone else (as I pointed out, I even hand made one gift).

I also need to get back to posting here. I finally got around to going through the back log I had in the Netflix Log, now it's just a matter of maintaining a regular posting schedule. I'm still trying to find a good time to do a daily post. I think it'll end up being the morning. I'll just add updating the blog to my normal morning routine when I get into work.

Daft Punk Delight

Thanks to Jake from 8bitJoystick, I discovered that Daft Punk had released the collection of videos for the album "Discovery" that Leiji Matsumoto produced. The DVD is entitled Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem . I absolutely loved the videos that were released on the music channels, but was always a little irked that they had stopped at "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger". I am now very happy, because I placed an order at BestBuy.com and if what they're on-line ordering system tells me is true, I should be able to pick it up on my way home. God bless the internet.

Planned trips for 2004

Sort of a list for sanity's sake.

1. Florida/East Coast Road Trip: Sometime in the February/March time frame
2. Chicago(?): April (not sure about this one actually happening yet)
3. Bar Harbor: Last weekend in June (one of the few firm dates)
4. LA/San Diego: Need to be in San Diego for Comicon, but not sure if I'll go early or stay later.

Those are just the ones that I'm going somewhere. Dave will be here end of January, and the Crew reunion is still tentatively planned for Memorial Day weekend in Boston. Now I have to figure out how much vacation time (not to mention monetary cost) this will use up.

Wrapping up 2003

Well, the hectic part of my holiday season is now over. At work, the new release appears to be on its way out the door before the new year (not without a few hiccups, of course). I'm looking forward to being able to work on some new stuff again, as this release was mostly bug fixes as far as I was concerned. Though we'll still be doing patch releases for the foreseeable future so I won't be getting completely away from bug fixes.

At home, Christmas brought it's own stress to the party. My 90-year old grandmother was visiting for the holiday. Everyone in my family loves her dearly, but she's gotten to a point now where you have to repeat things to her 3 or 4 times. She also made comments about my hair and how someday "I'd cut it off and feel good about it". Who knows that may be the case, but right now my hair is long and I'm not cutting it any time soon, so get over it. Add to this the fact that my father ended up in the hospital a few days before and it was a recipe for disaster. The actual holiday went off without a hitch; everyone got their presents (my nephew Andrew absolutely loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cross-stitch piece I did, and yes, I actually did make it), we had a nice breakfast, and no one killed anyone else. Dad unfortunately had to stay in the hospital for most of the morning, but the doctors finally let him come home in the afternoon.

This week will be pretty quiet work-wise and I'm not really planning on anything big for New Year's. I'll probably end up spending the night with Jen, the girl I've been seeing regularly of late. It's too early to say where this relationship will end up, but we're both looking for the same thing out of it, so it works for now.

A disaster averted

Next Wednesday is the premier of the the final Lord of the Rings movie, Return of the King. Of course, my friends and I planned to be there for the first midnight showing. I modified the script I used to try to find Matrix Revolutions tickets to check for LotR tickets. The script checked two theaters, the Framingham theater and the Fenway theater. Come the day before Thanksgiving, the tickets went on sale, and the script notified me. I was at a bar at the time, and made my way home. I bought 10 tickets (for me and my friends), and thought my job was done. I had obviously had too much to drink, because I accidentally bought tickets for the Framingham theater.

I didn't figure this out until a few days later, after the tickets for the Fenway theater had long since sold out. I knew that sometimes they held tickets back until the week before the premier, so I reset the script and hoped they would eventually be available again. Sure enough this morning around 10:30AM, the script notified me that there were tickets available again. I picked up the 10 tickets that I originally wanted and the disaster was averted. Now I just need to get down to Framingham before Tuesday so I can get a refund on the tickets I don't need any more.

It's that time of year

I've been so ridiculously busy lately. At work, we're trying to get the next release out the door. It hasn't been going particularly well so far. QA is going to be in the office this weekend doing testing, which will hopefully help us catch up. The only problem will be is if they find a ton of problems. With 2 weeks left, too many show stoppers will significantly delay the release, and if the release is delayed at all, it'll ruin everyone's holiday plans.

Speaking of the holidays, I'm quite sick of having to deal with the extra traffic in the neighborhood. All the people going to and form the mall has added 5 to 10 minutes on each end of my commute. I'll be happy when the traffic patterns return to some sense of normalcy, but that most likely won't happen until after New Year's.

This time of year also brings the snows, but that is definitely not a bad thing. We've already had one sizable snow storm this month and the forecast is for another coming Sunday. Hopefully all of the snow will translate into another good ski season. I know I won't be able to get to the mountain as often as I did last season, so I'm hoping that when I do go the conditions will be good. I'll be keeping my figures crossed.

A recap of my time off

So I spent Thanksgiving with my family at my parents place. My sister Sam and her husband couldn't come, but Mari and the kids joined me and the folks for a nice meal of turkey and other yummy goodies. We watched the holiday football games on the new HDTV my parents bought a few weeks ago. I took home some leftovers because as always there was a ton of food left over.

On Saturday, I attended the wedding of my good friends, Michael and Sabrina. I've known Mike for a long time, and we've been friends since our high school days. I didn't meet Sabrina until she and Michael began dating (again, they had dated briefly when they were teenagers) last November, but we became fast friends. It was a very nice, simple ceremony. The reception was in the same building and there was an open bar. It was very nice to see some old friends, some I had not seen in over a year. Somewhere floating around there is a video of me and a few other other guys making asses out ourselves dancing to YMCA.

Unfortunately, the vacation didn't last forever, and I had to go back to work. On Tuesday however, a snow squall rolled in just before the morning commute and turned every road in the Northeast into a sheet of ice. The highways were backed up, the back roads were backed up. I heard a report saying that there were over 200 accidents that day. My normally 20-30 minute commute turned into a 90 minute nightmare, though I had it lucky as some of my coworkers took 4 or 5 hours to get into work. Needless to say, it was not the most productive day.

Otherwise, things have been pretty normal. Though I am sitting here this morning expecting some more snow to drop. The initial forecasts were for over a foot, but as of now there's probably only about an inch or two. I'm hoping for a good snow fall so the ski mountains will open up. I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

Extremely Conflicted

I've been pretty quiet lately, mostly because I've been thinking about the blog and what I should and shouldn't post here. In the past I've posted whatever was on my mind, even if it was personal in nature. That's gotten me in trouble more than once, so I started to censor some of the content I put up here. The blog has also soured a few friendships from my posting of things better left for private conversation.

So what does this mean? It means I'll probably be taking a break from personal blogging for the next week until I can figure out some sort of posting guidelines for myself. I originally intended for this to be a fun place for my friends to come and find out what I've been up to and for me to tell them without the requisite mass e-mail. I hope that after some time off that I can get back to that point. Until then, I'll be updating the mini-blog and the netflix log as I find stuff to post in them, and expect a return of the main blog some time in early December.

Finally Got The Plates I Wanted In The First Place

My new vanity plates showed up today. When I originally got vanity plates, New Hampshire only allowed 6 letters/digits so I couldn't get Turacma. I settled on SSJVEG, a reference to Dragon Ball Z (which was an obsession of mine at the time). Well this summer I started noticing NH plates with 7 letters, and sure enough, the state had expanded the vanity plates. So when it came time to renew my registration this month, I made sure to ask for new plates. As my dad would say "It set me back a few shekels", but it was worth it. I now have the plates I really wanted in the first place.

Thinking happy thoughts

This morning I got a call from my mom telling me that dad had to go in for bypass surgery today. This wasn't completely unexpected. At my birthday party he had mentioned that he would be going in for tests today and if they indeed found a blockage (as the expected they would), they would send him over for immediate surgery. Apparently he had a 97% blockage in one artery and 65% in another, so they may do both on this try.

My dad being in the hospital is nothing new to me at this point. During my life I've seen my father go through many stays in the hospital; 4 back operations, 2 rotator cuff surgeries, pins inserted in his feet twice, not to mention countless panic attacks related to his PTSD. He's also a walking pharmacy, with medications for pain, potassium deficiency, PTSD, etc, plus he takes insulin for diabetes. I love the man though, so it's still hard to see him in the hospital and especially now going through a serious (but at this point almost routine) surgery. So I'm just trying to think happy thoughts until I get the call from mom telling me he's out of surgery and everything is OK.

Update: Got the call. Surgery apparently only took 13 minutes. Dad's awake, doing well, and should be home tomorrow.

This lack of sleep is going to catch up to me eventually

Who knew having a personal life could be so difficult? After going out almost every night for the past week, and not getting much more than 4 or 5 hours of sleep (last night was less than 3), I'm starting to drag pretty severely. Last night, the boys from NU + Bill and myself caught the last showing of Matrix Revolutions in Boston. We played some pool at Boston Billiards before the show and the guys bought me a few drinks in belated celebration of my birthday. The movie was good, but after making sure everyone got home safely (i.e. not driving home drunk), I didn't end up back in Nashua until 3. Today I have lunch with Britni as another belated birthday present, but my evening is free, so I think I'll take the chance to catch up on some sleep seeing as I already have plans for Friday and Saturday nights.

A Quarter Century of Fun

As many of you know, I was born 25 years ago today. I went over to my parents' house today to celebrate where the whole family had a nice dinner and cake and ice cream for desert. I've never been a big fan of birthdays, just another reminder that I'm no longer a care-free kid and I have to play the adult. This birthday has even less significance, because the only thing that's really changes is my car insurance rates, but I suppose that's something to be happy about.

At the same time, I look back and realize that I've had a pretty good life. I have a great family, friends I know I can count on no matter what, and a ton of great stories. So here's to another quarter century better than the one before.

What's my excuse this time?

I've been pretty quiet lately. First and foremost was the disheartening collapse that was game 7 of the ALCS. I had gone down to the city to watch the game with Matthew; I wanted to be there in the city when the Sox finally put the Yankees in their place. The game started off well enough; the Sox chased Clemens early with some good hitting, Pedro was battling but managed to keep the Yanks off the board. They made into the 8th inning with a 4-run lead. I figured for sure we'd see Timlin and then Williamson and was shocked when Pedro came back out. It became readily apparent he was tiring, and when the first run of the comeback scored I was screaming for Grady to take him out. When he didn't, I knew it was over. Grady had left pitchers in too long all year, mostly because the bullpen had been suspect. In the post season though, it had been the one thing that had rescued us when the offense was struggling. So when the Yankees tied the game, I literally passed out, I was so exhausted from cheering (not too mention a few too many beers), and literally sat down and passed out. I was woken up by Matt hitting me with his hat, right after Aaron Boone's homerun. I was upset, I screamed, I yelled, I even punched a wall hard enough to bruise my hand. I drove home and talked to Dave the entire way, bemoaning yet another year of baseball flushed down the drain.

Sunday's Patriots win was enough to mend the wound slightly, but hardly made up for the crushed spirit from Thursday. When I got home that night however, I had received an e-mail from a woman I had recently become very friendly with. She's leaving to move back to Florida this week, and not knowing when she would see me again, she wanted to let me know how she felt. I was completely taken aback; in all the time we had spent together we had never really discussed any sort of romantic relationship. There was occasional flirting, but I took it as just that. So when she told me that she often thought about what could have happened if we had met at a different time, under different circumstances, what could have been, I was floored. Last night I spent a night out with her (our last for the foreseeable future), where we both came to the conclusion that as much as we both would like to pursue the idea, the fact was she was moving back to Florida for the winter, and neither of us wanted to torture ourselves trying to make something work long distance. So we've decided to just remain friends for the time being, maybe to pursue the possibility somewhere down the line. Just another case of my life being full of bad timing.

Needless to say, the emotional roller coaster has left me a little drained, and with work still going full tilt, I have not had the time nor energy to write in the blog. I think I'm finally coming out of it, and hopefully I can get back to some sense of normalcy again. Only time will tell though.

On the losing end of a knife fight... with myself

So I was preparing my lunch yesterday I was trying to separate two frozen salmon burgers. I was using a knife to pry them apart when they split apart suddenly, allowing the knife to slide down and puncture the center of my hand. It was a very small wound and it didn't bleed very much, but I think I hit bone because my hand ached for a few hours. I decided it didn't warrant a trip to the hospital, so I picked up some gauze and bandage tape and cleaned and dressed the wound myself.

Today has been full of people asking, "What happened to your hand?". The response that garnered the most laughter was "I was in a knife fight, and the knife won." It's hard to tell people you work with that you were a complete moron.

Back from Sin City

Well actually, I got back Monday night just in time to see the Red Sox close out another 0-2 comeback in an ALDS (hopefully we won't have a repeat of that ALCS). I had to go back to work yesterday and had a busy day. When I left I headed straight to a bar and I didn't make it home last night until sometime at around 11. Today has been fairly relaxed, though I do have to make a stop at the grocery store to restock some things (a weekend away really throws a monkey wrench into my normal shopping patterns).

I had a wonderful time in Vegas. This time was much more enjoyable because I had a little more freer reign to gamble. The first day we were there, we actually took in a show at the Flamingo called "Bottoms Up". It's a "nude comedy review" which basically means it's a comedy routine interjected with topless women dancing (not exactly my cup of tea, but it was nearly free). The second night, a few of the guys and I ended up at Jaguar's, a strip club not too far from the hotel we were staying at. Let's just say it was a totally different experience than I was used to, but well worth every penny I spent. I also managed to get plenty of gambling in, and came pretty close to breaking even after a huge run of luck at the black jack tables Sunday night/Monday morning.

Probably the one thing I didn't do enough while I was in Vegas was sleep. I'm still pretty drained, and I've gotten a good nights sleep the last two nights. I need to take a vacation to recover from my vacation!

It was fun while it lasted

Shane's in the process of moving back in with Sarah in Sommerville. It's been good to be able to split expenses as long as I have, but I always new that it was a temporary arrangement. I don't think I'll try to fill the room with another preson. I don't want to take a chance on a crappy roommate. I'll just use the money I've saved up while Shane was living here to pay off a little more credit debt and then convert the empty room to a guest room over time. I plan on staying here a while, so there's no sense in just leaving it empty.

A busy weekend

This past weekend was rather busy. I only ended up at my apartment to sleep. Friday night I headed down to Boston to go see Underworld with my friends from NU (take my advice, wait for video). We had a few beers at Boston Billiards and we were all on our cell phones trying to get Red Sox playoff tickets. We couldn't get through for about 30 minutes before we gave up and got a pool table. After the movie, I made my way back to Nashua to go to sleep.

When I got up Saturday, I had some breakfast and then headed back down to Boston to hang out with Shane and Sarah. We went over to the Commons to check out the Freedom Rally. It was rather hot, and there wasn't all that much to do there besides check out some vendors so we bagged that idea and went for some dinner in Arlington before playing a little frisbee in Fresh Pond Park. After I got home that evening, I took a quick shower then headed over to my friend Michael's parents' place in Merrimack. He and his fiance, Sabrina, had a few people over for some drinking and assorted fun. I ended up getting home at around 2:30AM.

When I finally managed to get up on Sunday, I met up with my mom at Best Buy because she and dad were getting a new Receiver. The one they have is probably 15 years old at this point, so it was about time. She picked out a good Sony unit and we brought back to the house and I hooked it up for them and did my laundry at the same time. Dad's got Sunday Ticket, so I took full advantage of that to get my Sunday fill of football (the Pats looked sluggish, but a win is a win). After a good dinner, I finally headed back to my apartment and watched the late night game on ESPN before falling asleep.

This week should hopefully be less stressful. The "critical" pile is gone, and the "need to do soon" pile is getting smaller and smaller so I can finally start to work on the stuff that's 5-6 months out. The things I do to collect a paycheck...

Could I please have my sanity back?

So I haven't posted much to the main blog lately, though I did manage to put up some new links and a new review. It's due at least in part to much more work than I usually have to do. The company I work for is small enough that everyone has to wear multiple hats. Well I also have to work on multiple concurrent releases of our products, so when things go wrong on every release I'm working on, in various areas that I'm responsible for, I tend to get overwhelmed. I'll have 3 things that are "urgent", 2 things that aren't urgent but need to be done in a short time frame, then a pile of stuff that has a long time frame. The real problem arises when the urgent pile grows faster than I can handle it.

All that work usually means the last thing I want to do when I get home is even look at my computer. The end result of course is no updates. I need to get into a better habit of posting at the end of the day, but I'm not quite there yet. At the moment I post when the urge strikes me, or when I see a lot of empty space on the MT calendar (like today). But I think what I really need is some sense of sanity back to my day. Work is in a down cycle, so I can go home with some "fuel left in the tank" so I can stand to look at my computer when I get home.

I am definitely ready for some football

As I'm writing this I'm watching the Jets and Redskins playing on NFL's season opener. This is the second season the NFL has had an opening night seperate from the first weeekend. I think that it was the best and worst thing that has happened to football. The benefits are of course that because there is only 1 game on opening night, there can be more pagentry. The problem is the pagentry they chose. This year's opener was headlined by Mary J Blige and Britney Spears. Now I'm no demographics expert, but I'd be willing to bet that the people that are watching football don't want to see those two. But I suppose that's the point, to get more people to watch, sort of like the Super Bowl half time shows.

Of course this game has some significance to me, the Jets are in the Patriots division, but to me the season won't start until Tom and the boys play in Buffalo. Of course now that Lawyer Milloy has signed with the Bills, the game has even more intrigue. Here's to the beginning of best 4 months of year.

A great discussion

Abbreviated transcript of a conversation I had with Dave after talking about our love-lives, or lack there of:

Me: why can't I find normal girls?
Dave: 1. they don't exist
Dave: 2. if they did, they'd be boring
Me: you know Dave, when you're right, you're right
Dave: hahaha
Dave: I try
Dave: but, yeah, I've come to accept the truth
Me: ?
Dave: unless a girl has a seriously fucked up past, I'm just not interested
Me: hahahahaha
Me: I laugh because I think I have the same problem
Dave: see, Bob
Dave: normal girls like things like Britney, and mainstream music
Dave: they think cheerleading is a sport
Dave: they say shit like "Why can't I find a guy like you?"
Dave: and frankly, I don't want that
Me: yeah, you and I have seen enough of that shit to last a million life times

But really, I'm not bitter... honest...

The final cord has been cut

So it's only taken a year, but I'm finally financially clear of my parents. Obviously when I was in school I was covered by my parents insurance (both medical and car). They also footed the bill for my cell phone for the first 3 years I had it (I originally didn't want one, but since they offered to pay I got it). Eventually I wanted to get a new phone and the best deals meant getting a new plan. So I signed up through Let's Talk, and got a phone for $50 and got a $50 rebate for signing a one-year contract, and other for trading in my old phone. They actually gave me money to get a new phone! It ended up being perfect timing, because not 1 week after I ordered my new phone, my parents got new phones, which again meant getting a new plan.

When I got my full-time position at Softech (then it was still Workgroup Technology Corp), I got health coverage through the company, but my car insurance policy through my parents still had a few months left on it. Of course, I lost my job before the policy was to expire, and with my job opportunities slim to none it looked like I might have to move back to Merrimack. So my parents renewed my policy through their carrier. Well. that policy expires as of the 19th of the month, at which point my policy through Geico will kick in. At that point I will no longer have a financial obligation to my parents. I've always considered myself fairly independent, but I would always lean on my parents from time to time, so it's nice to remove the last of the financial crutches I was leaning on. That doesn't mean I won't still go over there to do free laundry though...

Stadium Bliss

Last night my dad and I went to Gillette Stadium to watch the New England Patriots play the Chicago Bears in their final preseason game. This was the first time either us had been to a Pats game in almost 8 years. Neither of us had even seen Gillette up close.

Let me tell you, this place is absolutely amazing, especially when you compare it to the old Schafer (Foxboro) Stadium. The first thing is that the stadium seats quite a few more people, but not only that, but all the seats in the stadium are actual seats. No more sitting on frozen bleachers that numb your ass. The seats are super wide to allow even the fattest ass plenty of room. Probably the most amazing thing about the new stadium is the concessions. When the Kraft's built Gillette, they invited in area business to open concessions inside the stadium. So now as opposed to have just burgers and dogs, they have Seafood, a sandwich vendor, and buffalo wings (which I decided to have). The choices are not all though, as the concession areas are open air, so while you are waiting in line for a brew or some food, you can still see out on the field.

Both my dad and myself agree that we want to go to a regular season game this year, even if it's in the nose bleeds. The stadium is just so good, that it's practically impossible to have a bad experience at a game, no matter where you sit.

Sometimes it's nice to be busy

Last night was the first night I've been home for something other than sleep for 4 days. Thursday and Friday I spent out with some friends and didn't get in until late. Saturday I went down to Connecticut to visit Mike and Sibi, who recently announced their engagement. I hung out with them, had a few drinks and thought it best to spend the night. Sunday afternoon I headed home, only to grab my dirty clothes to make a trip to my parents' house. I go every couple of weeks, do my laundry, get a good meal, and in return I do some things around the house for my mom (usually it's fixing their computers). As soon as I was done there, I dropped off my clothes and headed out to a bar to meet up with a girl and again didn't get in until late. Last night I ended up falling asleep at about 9:30 but my body certainly needed the extra rest.

Today's been a pretty stressful day, so I'd imagine it'll be another early night for me. I'll probably just stay in and give poor Tenchi some attention. He's been awfully lonely the last week with me out and about and Shane off to Burning Man. Not to mention I'll be at the Patriot's game tomorrow night, so I should take the opportunity to placate him or he'll start trying to shed everything in site again.

A couple of anniversaries

These past two weeks saw two anniversaries. First, as of August 10th, I've lived in Nashua for a full year. This is now the longest I've ever lived in any one place since I graduated from high school. I don't really forsee me moving in the very near future either. I have a good job, and I'd need to save up some money if I were to buy something.

The other anniversary isn't so pleasant. Some time this week (not sure of the exact date), will be the one year anniversary of Kate leaving. I wish I could say I'm 100% over that whole mess, but it still pops into my mind every so often, but more in the sense of a "what in the fuck was I thinking?" sort of way. As I've discovered, you're willing to put up with a lot of shit when you think you're in love. The lessons learned, though, have made me a better person and hopefully the next go 'round will be better.

Last Week Redux

So I promised I would write about my great week last week, but this week has been the exact opposite, so I haven't had any time to do so! I finally have a free moment, so I can finally post about it.

The week didn't really get started until Tuesday when the boys from NU and I played a little poker. We got quite drunk and I lost all my money (luckily it was just $20 in change). I drank a little bit too much, because I overslept Wednesday morning and didn't get up until almost 9:30 (6 is my normal alarm setting).

The only problem was that Wednesday I was suppose to give a short training class at work in XML/XSLT to our consultants. I developed the reporting engine in our product, so they asked me to give a day long presentation on it for them. Luckily I didn't have to be in until 10, so I jumped in the shower, got dressed, booked it to work and made it with about 10 minutes to spare. The session went off pretty much without a hitch, and I got a free lunch out of the deal to boot. That night, Shane and I hung out with our friend Dewey. I hadn't seen Dewey in almost a year; the last time being when Dave came out from CA for a full couch crew reunion. We went out to eat at Hooters and had a good time just catching up.

On Thursday the company had a cookout for the employees, so again another free lunch. I had my fill of burgers, dogs, and pasta salad. Then, after work there was a get together at the Lowel Brewery Exchange. We shot some pool, had a few beers, and I got a chance to get to know some of my new coworkers (since they were the only ones there, I was the only developer from WTC there).

The weekend was actually pretty quiet. I spent a lot of time around the apartment; Shane and I slightly reorganized the living room to make it a little better for entertaining; I put together the file cabinet that came with my desk (it had been sitting in pieces for almost 2 years) and I'm using it as a bed side table. I also went through an old pile of documents and other assorted things. I found a few buried treasures in there like:

1. The $50 savings bond I mentioned earlier
2. The picture from my senior year experience on FIRST
3. A web browser tutorial I wrote for new secretaries at the law firm I used to work for (I'd link to them, but they closed their doors this summer).
4. An autograph book I had that had notes from people in my 6th grade class. I either had more friends than I remember back then, or a lot of people were just patronizing me... I'll just assume it was the former
5. My old handwritten journal I kept for a couple of years in high school. A lot of note so good memories in that thing.

But of course, this week has been hectic. I've had to do a lot more work since the other developer on my team moved to Seattle. Speaking of which, the build is done, so I should get back to my testing.

Found money

I've been finding money left and right lately. First, I got 2 $50 rebates I'd forgotten about from when I got my new cell phone. Secondly, while going through a box of old papers and things I found a $50 savings bond my grandfather got me about 15 years ago. Then yesterday when I put on my new Hawaiian shirt, I found $10 in the pocket. And soon enough I should be getting a $70 rebate from the hard drives I bought. This is definitely a good thing as I was starting to hit the bottom of my bank account and I won't get paid again until the 15th.

Time for a little gambling

After a rather productive day at work (for a change), I'll be heading down to Waltham to hang with the boys from NU. We'll be having a little poker game and I'm sure there will be lots of drinking and other assorted nonsense. It ought to be a good time, even if I do lose all my money.

Camping Hangover

So Shane and I went up to Vermont for a night over the weekend. We camped at our usual spot and had a really good time as usual. It was dry, so wood was easy to come by and the fire was easy to maintain. The bugs weren't that bad either.

The only problem was when I got back on Sunday I had a hard time motivating myself to do anything. I did manage to get my laundry done thankfully, but I mostly just sat and watched TV all day. Then yesterday at work I had an extremely difficult time focusing and getting any work done. Hopefully I was able to shake it last night, but only time will tell.

30,000 and counting

So, my car just rolled over 30,000 miles on my way home from work yesterday. It's interesting to think that I've driven that far in only 2 years. This is quite a bit farther than my last car made it. The car's been all over New England and even made a trip half-way across the country. I have some grand plans for a few more road trips, so who knows, before it dies it just might see the whole country.

I'm not lucky in love

This is starting to become a disturbing trend...

I met this girl on-line through a personals site I had listed myself on after the breakup with Kate. Obviously I knew she was interested in me because she started the conversation. I wrote back, and a tentative relationship formed. Things progressed to talking on the phone on a regular basis, trading photos, the typical getting to know each other stuff.

Everytime I would bring up getting together in person, she would sort of pull back, and I wouldn't hear from her for a day or two. I figured she was just a little shy, so I didn't push all that hard. 2 weeks ago, she headed off to Canada with her family for the week and then was heading to South Carolina, but promised that when she got back we would finally get together and see what happened. I found out later that the reason for the trip to SC was to visit her ex, who was graduating from a military academy. At this point I'm starting to get a little suspicious; I still talk to Kate occasionally, but I don't think I'd go on a trip to visit her for any reason.

So her expected return date came and went, I e-mailed, tried calling her but she was nowhere to be found. Then yesterday morning I found the following in my inbox:

Bob~
hey what's up? Nothing much here. How are you doing? I'm doing well. However I have some good news and I have some bad news, the bad news is when i went to go see my ex graduate, it was very sad because I realized how much I missed him, and loved him, and regret not being with him However, I guess he felt the same way, because when we saw each other, it was an instant connection, and we kissed and made up, and then later that day he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.... and I said yes... I guess he was planning it, and he called my parents earlier that week... I'm sorry... i know you'll probably not want to be friends ... but i hope we do....stay friends..

So now I'm back to square one and feeling a little down. Hopefully work will help get me out of the funk.

Poison Ivy

Last friday I noticed what looked like a bug bite on my right ring finger. It was quite large though, it almost looked like I had been bitten multiple times on the same spot. I didn't think much of it until I woke up the next day and noticed I have some similar red bumpy, itchy skin on the right side of my face. Having had a history of weird skin rashes, I decided to go have it looked at. Imagine my surprise when the doctor told me it was poison ivy! The doctor gave me some meds to help with the swelling and itching and all that, and it's already started to make a difference. Thankfully it was never really bad to begin with.

I live in an urban area surrounded by malls and car dealerships, but my apartment complex is fairly isolated and actually has quite a bit of greenery, but I never thought I'd get poison ivy mostly in part to the fact I'd never had it before. I guess I'll have to be more careful walking around in the woods now.

Congrats Shelly and Craig!

On Saturday, I attended the wedding of my long time neighbor and friend Shelly. Shelly's without a doubt the nicest person I have ever known. She never has a bad thing to say about people and always manages to be upbeat in every situation. Craig, who I've only had the opportunity to meet a few times, is hilarious guy especially when he's singing and dancing.

The other good thing about the wedding was it gave me a chance to see some people I hadn't seen in a while, not to mention to meet some really cool new people. After the reception, Heather and I hung out for a while, and ended up in Manchester with our friend Luke for a night of drinks and fun.

Yesterday was much needed down time, but I did manage to do some cleaning in between my naps to shake the hang over (I started drinking at noon on Saturday...). So now it's back to work, we'll see what I can get accomplished today.

A weighty problem

Those that know me or have perused through my photos know that I'm overweight, and have been for quite some time. Over the years I've tried different diets, whatever my parents were doing at the time (Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc). Nothing every really seemed to work. As I grew older, I grew bigger. By the time I graduated high school I weighed over 250 lbs. At the end of college I was pushing 300. It wasn't until late last year that I finally realized why I had had such a hard time.

To refresh your memory (or to catch you up, depending), in August I moved to Nashua with my girlfriend of some 5 months, Kate. Shortly there after she broke up with me and headed off to New Zealand to marry some guy she met through Everquest. In October, the company I was working for announced that they were selling the company which meant layoffs were around the corner. Sure enough, at the end of the month I was one of the many that got laid off (2 days before my birthday no less). Now at this point I'd already started to take anti-depressants and see a therapist, so I managed to take that fairly well. The longer I stayed on the meds, the better I felt, even with my situation.

It was right around Christmas that I finally made a decision. I had made a conscious decision to change my life, to get help with my depression, so why not make the same decision to lose weight. So I got rid of all the crap food in my kitchen, got a scale, and started on a new regiment. At first all I did was keep a log of everything I ate, not for calorie counting, just to look at what I ate on a regular basis. This alone was extremely enlightening; the more I thought about what I was eating, the less likely I was to overeat. I made more smart decisions about the kinds of foods I ate; less carbohydrates, more vegetables, less sugars. The pounds slowly started to come off, my clothes started to fit better, I was feeling better about myself. Eventually, as the diet was starting to lose its affect, I added more physical activity, walking, skiing, and eventually a full cardio/weight training program at the gym, all to keep my metabolism up. The pounds are continuing to come off, and as it stands today, I've lost about 50 lbs.

The thing I realized during this period is this: All the times I had tried to lose weight before, I was never really committed. I wasn't willing to change my life in order to get the results I wanted. I was hoping for an easy fix to the problem. It wasn't until I realized that it was my lifestyle that was the problem, and that my weight was just a symptom that I was able to lose any weight. I'm sure most people who've lost weight will tell you the same thing. Until you're ready to change you're life, you're not likely to succeed.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Today happens to also be my parent's 34th wedding anniversary. My mom's got a funny way of celebrating though; she's having surgery today to repair her shoulder which is totally devoid of any cartilage at all. They will get up to Bar Harbor however, for their annual trip to the family house in a couple weeks once she's feeling a little better. In an age when so many of my friends have had their parents break up for whatever reason, I'm thankful I've had such a great example of what a good relationship should be. That's not to say it isn't without it's problems, but the fact they talk about the problems with each other goes a long way to helping to resolve them.

My parents were separated in the mid 70s before I was born because my dad was an alcoholic and my mother could no longer stand to be dragged down by it. She told him that he needed to leave and get his head on straight before she would take him back. Thankfully, this was just the kick in the ass my father needed; he sobered up, readjusted his priorities, and came back a better man for it. My parents got back together not too long after, and I became the fruit of their reconciliation.

Well that was probably more than you wanted to know, but I just wanted everyone (including them), know how much I care about my parents. So happy anniversary mom and dad, and get better soon mom!

Moving Day

Shane's started moving his stuff into the apartment. Tomorrow I'll be borrowing my mom's truck to give him a hand. Unfortunately it's hotter than hell in New England this week, and as always, the humidity is high, so exerting yourself becomes that much more dangerous. Just going to have to take it easy, I guess.

Got my book...

...but not without some effort. I ended up not even trying to go to B&N last night, I was too damn tired. I tried to go today, it was a no go. They were only giving them to those who had preordered. Thankfully during a stop at Best Buy while I was out (I was trying to see if the Gameboy Player was available, didn't realize it was out next week) I found a table full of Harry Potter books. Paid a little more for it than I would have on-line, but for instant gratification, I'll do it. Already over 100 pages in, and so far it seems Rowling hasn't lost her touch. I read all of the previous books, including Goblet, in under a week, so we'll see how long this one takes.

I'm such a dork

So it's a beautiful night, but I'm not outside. Where am I? I've been sitting at my computer since I got home from work. I've been working on a few new things for the site, and for myself. Some of them you'll get to see now, but I'm going to hold some stuff back till I get the kinks worked out. To make things even worse, tonight is the release of the new Harry Potter book, and I'm considering going over to B&N and see if there are any copies left.

Stupid Busy

Blah.... a week lag in the blog. This last week has been fairly hectic in terms of work, to the point where I have no desire to do much of anything when I get home except possibly drink a beer or smoke. It's finally let up so I have no excuse not to post!

Shane will be moving in a scant couple of weeks. This is very welcome news to my wallet. The money I gain from splitting rent with him will all go towards paying off the monsterous credit card debt I'd accumulated (almost $20k). It's now about 15, and a lot of it is at or near 0% interest, so doesn't hurt quite as much as it used to. I figure by this time next year I should be credit debt free, at which point I can focus on paying off the car early. It'll be a long road to get out of the hole I've been in, but I can honestly say that I'm better for having gone through this myself.

A decent weekend

This weekend was a reasonably good one. Friday night, Shane and I headed up to Vermont for a little camping. Unfortunately, because the ground was so wet, we had the damnedest time getting a real fire going. We just couldn't find enough good wood that was dry enough to burn. We still had a good time, and we came back Saturday afternoon. The weather also contributed to my not going to the Cannons game that night. My dad and I had no desire to sit out in the rain on a cold metal bleacher. It's too bad because the Cannons made a terrific comeback (3 points in the final 90 seconds), and won the game in OT. Finally, on Sunday I was suppose to hang out with Mike and Sibi before they headed back to CT. But yet again, the lousy weather forced them to head home early.

Thankfully it appears the skies will remain clear for the next couple of days. This rain was really starting to get on my nerves.

Home again, home again

Back from the visit to SLC. Saw Guinn graduate, and a good time was had by all. Actually got home last night, but I was so tired I slept till some time this afternoon. Needless to say, I haven't done much today. Might head over to the 'rents on Monday for a little barbeque. It'll be my last day off before I truly have to go back to work. Time flies when you're having fun.

Everyone's moving

So, last weekend I was helping my friend Sibi move down to CT. She's got a place right near Michael, another friend of mine (and her boyfriend). Joel moved to Maryland today to take a better paying job. Shane's going to be moving in to the Nashua apartment for a while, and of course that means Sarah will be finding her own place.

So many of my friends are moving, and after helping one of them, I realize how much I don't want to move again. When I was going to school, I lived in 6 different apartments in 5 years. Add the fact that I moved home to Merrimack the summer after my Freshman year, and I moved 7 times in 5 years and I haven't been in one place for a day longer than 1 year. Contemplating moving again any time soon just makes my cringe. I'm back in a good position, and I really don't see myself moving unless one of two things happens:

1. I get a job offer outside of a sane driving distance from Nashua
2. I somehow manage to buy a house/condo

#1 is a lot more feasible than #2 at this point, but I still don't think I'll be moving for at least 6 more months. My lease rolls over in August, at which point I'll be a tennant at-will. That will give me a lot more flexibility should something funky happen. But I suppose only time will tell.

Getting paid is a good thing

I got two checks from Softech in the mail today. It'll be a nice little boost to my bank account. Tomorrow will be somewhat busy, going to the gym with Dad in the morning, then have a physical before lunch. Then I would like to get a couple things done like closing out my Fleet account before I head down to Boston.

I'll be meeting up with the boys at Boston Billards as a send off to Joel. Apparently he's moving to Maryland for a new job, this is the first I've heard about it. I'm losing my friends one by one it seems. Though on the bright side, the reunion may rekindle a few friendships along the way. We shall see.

This feels like unemployment

Was suppose to go to the gym this morning with my dad, but I got a call this morning just as I was getting up from my mom. Apparently Dad didn't get to bed until 5AM, and had developed a fever. Part of me wonders how much of it is just psychosomatic. I'm going to have to come up with a contigency plan if he's going to do this to me once a week.

Ended up not really doing much at all today. Watched a little more anime, still trying to catch up with the stuff I'm actively downloading, haven't even thought about the backlog yet. Need to get more motivated tomorrow or this two weeks is going to end up like my unemployment.

A very nice mothers' day

Had a very nice get together with the family today for moms' day. The children put together a meal and brought it to the house and we all sat down and had a very nice family meal. Got to sit down and talk to everyone again, which we haven't done since Christmas.

Looking forward to seeing Matrix Reloaded this week. Otherwise I plan to play a whole lot more Zelda in between working on the website. I plan on enjoying my time off damnit! :-P

Life lessons...

The blog is back, but not without some issues in between. I've learned a few lessons in the last couple months. First and foremost, ALWAYS backup your time-sensitive data, like your website. My firewall/web/ftp/etc box had a critical failure around July/August, which all but wiped out 1.5 months of work getting the site to look the way I wanted it to. I'm now using a D-link router for my firewall needs (the thought of setting up ipchains again gave me hives), and I'll be running weekly backups on the new web server.

Secondly, don't trust anyone. Thinking everything was hunky-dorey with Kate, we moved to New Hampshire to begin our new life together. Not one week after we moved, Kate dropped a bomb on me and said she thought I wasn't connecting with Laura. This lead to her leaving me a little less than a week later, leaving me an emotional mess. I later found out she hooked up with some other guy she met on-line in Ohio. I got royally pissed, broke into her e-mail account, generally rifled through her stuff, did some other not so nice things that got her real pissed with me. We've since been able to patch things up to a certain extent, though b/c of logistics, we haven't been able to talk much.

Otherwise, things are proceeding as normally as they can. At work, we're wrapping up the initial development of our next release. I wrote reporting engine for this release that is heavily based in XML/XSL technologies, which meant I had to teach everyone how it worked. Dave's visiting from LA for a week so he can tie up loose ends here in New England and become a full-time CA resident.

Mind the clutter while I once again attempt to get things in order around here.

Keep rollin', rollin', rollin'....

So Yet another 3 month gap in the blog has occured, what a surprise... That happens when you move and hate using dial-up I suppose.
New in life:

1. Living on my own in a one bedroom in Allston
2. Actually productive at work, I've fixed bugs in the product as well as creating a tool for generating internal reports
3. New car (took a while to clear everything with insurance what not), financed this time, no lease
4. Still no love life to speak off

The side effects of this are that: a) I have no money b) I have no life
More to come...

Come on big guy, give me your best shot <SLAP> OUCH, that hurt...

OK, I think I've come to the conclusion that I shouldn't tempt fate that much. Yesterday was quite the day. The checks cleared thank fully, so no worry of bounced rent checks. I did receive crappy news later however; the appraisers called and told me that my car had been designated totaled (i.e. it would cost more to repair than to replace). This sent my mind into a tizzy. I left work early to get my personal affects and license plates and to go over to the realtor's to pay off what I owe on next year's apartment. Now I'm just hoping that the reimbursement check from the insurance company covers what I owe the lease company, because if I have to pay a grand or two just to get out from this lease, trying to float a new car lease is probably going to be entirely unfeasible.

Was suppose to go to see Final Fantasy yesterday, but I was super sleepy and I wasn't all that excited about the people that were going with, so I passed and will go with Fred on Saturday. Hopefully Sunday will be our first real session of Vampire; I've been putting a whole lot of effort into this thing, so I'll be kind of peeved if it falls flat on its face again.

Work is getting more weird by the day. Hopefully next week I'll be able to sit in on the training class I should have had when I first got here some 8 months ago. After that I can actually attempt to make some sense out of where I need to go on this next project. Bleck....

Money sucks

Money problems have been my predominant thought of late. Still waiting for my grandparents' check to clear, which would solve 90% of my problems. Unfortunately, I banked on it already having cleared, so I sent out the rent check (albeit late), on Friday. I figure they probably got it yesterday in the mail, and will likely try to deposit it today or tomorrow (if they haven't done so already), meaning that if the check I deposited thursday doesn't clear by tomorrow, I'm looking at a bounced rent check, eek. Plus, the realtors were breathing down my neck about the rest of the money I owe them for the new apartment, and it all hinges on that one check... Damnit all to hell.

Took Dave's car to work again today; stalled 3 times, getting a little too cocky. Everytime I say to myself "I got it, this is a piece of cake" I manage to stall out trying to start up in first gear, bleck... Work should be interesting, I think I'll attempt to put together a browsing interface for the project report generator, it will most likely be a good stepping stone to the BOM Export tool.

Things looking up slightly less downward

Well, Friday's commute went off without a hitch, 2 hours in, 2 hours out. I've developed a nice little blister party on the heel of my right foot because of how I was wearing my shoes last week. My foot is extremely better this week, but still slighly swollen and sore from walking too much on it.

The weekend was interesting in some ways. Saturday I slept past noon, getting some much needed sleep. Then later that night, Dave and I watched a bit of the Jackie Chan marathon on TBS while getting all sorts of messed up. Sunday was up early, learn how to drive Dave's car, then off to meet Heather, Mike and Luke for dinner and some random fun. After I got home, spent a few hours helping people create characters for the Vampire game I'll be attempting to run. Now I just need to figure out a story to tell, eek!

Then this morning, I drove Dave's car to work, and I finally understand the appeal of driving a car with standard transmission. I didn't stall at all on my way into work today (this after stalling some 15 time driving around a parking lot on Sunday), and there's something a bit satisifying from having more control over what exactly your car does. Dropping the car into 3rd gear to make it up that hill, rather than having to slam the gas to get the auto trannie to downshift. I definitely think I'll investigate a standard for my next auto purchase (which will be some time in 2003). I just hope I can use Dave car for the majority on the time I'm sans-car, because 2 hour commutes suck big ass.

Momma said there'd be days weeks months like this.

Well let's see, in the 2 months since my last post:

1. I finished the Spring quarter of classes with 3 B's and 2 A's, my overall QPA dropped a whole .02 of a point.
2. Back to work full time at WTC. Working on an interesting project, though having to dress up is kind of a pain.
3. Jenn and Gary moved out June 1st, luckily they got someone right in their room. They do however still owe me entirely too much money.
4. Signed a lease for a one bedroom less than a mile away from 35Claymoss

Of course, this week started off on an entirely shitty note. On Sunday, while attempting to walk down the stairs to do my laundry, slipped, fell, and nearly broke my foot in the process. Instead, I just severely sprained it, it's a nice shade of purple. Monday, on my way home from work, I tried to get a little too cute trying to take a short cut, tried to take a turn too fast, didn't make the turn, and my car suffered the conciquences. So on Tuesday I took public transportation to work. This involves taking the Green Line all the way into Park Street, then the Red Line all the way out to Alewife. From Alewife, it's the 62 bus out to Lexington, and a bit of a walk down Hartwell Ave. Only problem with this is of course, getting on the correct bus, which I did not do on Tuesday. I ended up on the other side of town, and only through the wonderful help of some very nice people I was able to get to work some 3 hours after I left the house.

Today however, it only took 2 hours, I took the correct bus this time. Part of me is glad for the time in the morning to catch up on my reading, but the other half of me wants to get my stinking car back ASAP b/c a 20 minute commute is a lot better than a 2 hour one. I'm hoping I'll have it by sometime next week or possibly the week after. I can deal with the commute for a couple of weeks any way.

No more excuses

Well I finally decided to stop making excuses and went to the gym this morning. I even tried to make excuses this morning like "3 hours isn't nearly enough time." After kicking myself in the head a few times, I finally followed through with my New Year's resolution, only about 5 months late. Better late than never I suppose.

Midterms are coming up this week and next. I'm a little anxious about some of them because the lack of work that I've done for them. I suppose this weekend I'll have to crack the books.

My right front tire is continuing to leak air at an annoying rate. Filled the tire yesterday afternoon, and today it is already soft, looks like I may have to shell out some dough to get a new tire, wonderful....

Wednesday I will start a new project at work. I'll be working with the Training Department in order to develop some new interactive tools for new hires possibly in flash. While not really my cup of tea, I am interested in UI design, so this ought to be a semi-good experience.

Snow everywhere but here

The big blizzard-like storm has yet to hit MA too hard yet, so I made the trek into work. Unfortunately it looks like I won't being doing much seeing as the most the people I need input from won't be here b/c of said storm. I'm working puting the new php counters around the site just so I can see if I'm getting anytrafic, I doubt it, but we'll see. I've done multiple searches for my name and the web site, with nothing to be seen. I guess I'm a little too unknown at this point, which is fine by me, I'd like the site to look a little more professional before I start getting a major amount of hits.

This weekend was a booze and drug filled haze. Sarah and Shane moving their crap out all weekend made it a little tense around the house. I discovered last night that they mistakenly took my plates, leaving the house with about 5 plates total for 5 peoples, not a good thing. I'll have a little talk with sarah about that... all things considered they've done a decent job being respectful of other people's stuff during their move, except for the occasional loud door slam while I was trying to sleep.

Went to the store last night, that was an adventure. Everybody and their grandmother was stocking up for the coming storm. Still managed to get out there without too much trouble.

I need to find something to do....

Time flies...

I just realized today I only have 3 weeks before the beginning of spring quarter. Where the hell did the time go? At least I'm nearly done with my project at work. I'd expect that I'll be cleaning it up and helping the Release Engineer put into the build scripts for the next couple of weeks.

The person who was suppose to show up last night to look at the room never showed. Cindy is the front runner as far as I'm concerned, we'll see what other people think at the house meeting tonight.

Here's to a rent increase!

Well, Shane and Sarah have decided to move out. I guess 6 months of living with Dave was enough for them. Well that among other things. What this means for me? Another new roommate and a rent increase.

Went to NH today to get my car inspected and serviced. Saw Ellie, the girl that sold me the car and it made me remember why I was so anxious to purchase the car ;-). Don't tell me sexy chicks don't help sell cars, cause god damnit, they do. Mom is in Florida by now visiting her parents, Dad is in Durham, North Carolina for 8 weeks, Mari is staying at the Merrimack house till her house is doing being worked on, and I'm sitting here with a thumb up my ass (figuratively speaking of course).

Been trying to get all my computers back in working order again. Fixed up the Linux box, rei (the artist formerly known as vegeta), and now that I've got all the data off of faye I can rebuild her as a 98/Red Hat dual boot. After that, it's on to the new (well new to me any way) machine, which I've decided to call iria. I'm going to make her into my file server. As soon as I have the money to get the RAM upgrade for Faye and a new hard disk to replaced the dead 40GB, I'll have over .1 Terabytes at my disposal from anywhere in the network (netfs and samba rule!).

Think I'll put off rebuilding Faye tonight. Dave said he had a 98SE CD I could burn, much more stable than the 98 version I have.

Link for the day:
Powerpuff girls wa nihongo o hanashimasu

You'd think I was 90 with the memory I have

I completely spaced having my car inspected. Now I have 5 days to get it done, which means I have to make an unexpected trip to NH this weekend... grrr. Hopefully I can get an appointment to do my quarterly maintenance at the same time, preferably this weekend, otherwise I'll have to do it Wednesday after work.

Interesting Vid for the day:
It can turn on a dime!

Another day, a little further in debt....

The night with the boys ended up being a bust b/c I never got the phone message. Stupid cell didn't tell me I had voice mail until I was almost at work this morning. Didn't sleep much, went to bed at around 2 from a combination of good television (Survivor 2/Smack Down is a tough decision, thank the lord for VHS) and computer issues. Downloaded all the rpm's to update the server. Most installed after a little finagling, but some of the packages want ssl and crypto libs that I thought were there, but apparently aren't. Going to NH for the weekend to ski, yea! Fun fun fun...

Back to the grind.

Wow....

A blast from the past has entered my life yet again. Britni, the girl down the street, the girl I can honestly say I loved, wrote me an e-mail out of the blue today. Now she called and wants to get together tonight. What brings on this sudden burst of attention from my once unrequited love? How the heck should I know... all I know is that I'm gonna have to bail on my friends to see her. Life breeds tough decisions, I hate making these kind.