Bound for So Cal

Well the day has finally arrived where I pack up my holiday gear and take my kids to see their grandparents in Southern California. I'm semi organized this year...I've at least plotted out when I'm picking them up as well as when I intend to arrive in SD. The rest...well, I excel at improvising!

A normal trip from my home to my parent's house is somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 to 9 hours depending on the traffic. Given the time I'm leaving, I'll probably avoid traffic completely unless others are also leaving today. The drive itself is mostly straight and the only time it deviates is when I reach Eastern Los Angeles County...a mecca of winding freeways/highways.

I will probably be able to blog while I'm down there, but just in case I don't, I hope you all have a great Holiday Season. Get laid/drunk/stoned/knackered/etc, but make sure to be responsible when you do!

I hate being Sick

The last few days, I've been at home coughing up like the time I bought my first whole ounce of pot. What's worse is that I had to miss being at work for it. I suppose things could be worse...my company could just deny us pay on those days we don't attend.

I wish I could say I've been resting properly, but I can't really sleep all that much considering I'm coughing all the time. I thought about taking meds, but I can't even motivate myself to goto the local store. Still, after leaving early from work yesterday, I think I have done my best to stay comfortable. My diet of Orange Juice and soup (with Tobasco!) has at least kept me from getting worse.

This pretty much screws my weekend unless I miraculously make a recovery sometime today, which I don't think is gonna happen. Oh well, I can catch up on my blog since I've only been nibbling at it lately. Hope you all have a nice weekend!

The poorest observer

I remember a time when my friend and current carpool buddy informed me that I was incredibly unobservant. You see...we drove the same route every day for what must've been almost a year before I noticed that someone had trimmed their tree to look exactly like a T-Rex. True to his nature, Grif then brought it up as many times possible, no matter how vague the reference, when I demonstrated my uncanny ability to not notice things. This eventually led to the inside joke that anything I didn't notice was therefore a 'Tree shaped like a Dinosaur', or later just 'Dinosaur' because when you spend time in the car for as long as we did together, you can use far fewer references to share jokes of this caliber. Coincidently, inside jokes are the best of their kind because they require the least amount of energy and sometimes they don't even require you to even say anything at all.

The best way to get to know someone

I believe that the best way to know if you are compatible with someone is to be stuck in a confined space with them. It forces you to talk to them even if you have nothing to talk about. Today, I asked the black haired woman in my office if she wanted a ride home. Earlier in the week, I found out that she didn't get a new car after all. Apparently, she's been taking public transportation to and from work. Anyway, she accepted and I took her to her daughter's place, which wasn't too far from where I live.

From our conversation, I would say that I was dead wrong about a number of things with this woman. Specifically, she is not married even though she wears a ring on her appropriate finger. She does, however, have a relationship she's 'trapped' in which she gave me enough info to know that it's best that I keep my mouth shut about being attracted to her.

After I dropped her off, I am convinced that I should never believe my first instincts until I have all the facts. They were so off the mark that I laughed out loud when I imagined her reading the note I left for her and if she even knew it was me. The only thing I was right about was that she had a history of chemical abuse~that was obvious from how erratic her speech was during our conversation. Needless to say, the 30 minutes I spent in the car with her proved to me that my attraction to her was only superficial at best. I guess things did work out for the best, didn't they?

Hang-overs and Sleep-overs

I went to the usual Pub last night to mingle after a weekend with the kids. Things were busier than normal from past experience, but it ended up being an over-all good night. I usually go there, drink a few pints, evesdrop, and listen to music I haven't heard in a while, but this time was different.

Outside, while I was engaging in one of my bad habits (damn if alcohol makes it hard to resist the temptation of smoking), I met a few of the 'regulars' that I have seen on a few occasions in the past. They were friendly bunch and even invited me over to their table. The conversation turned to Homosexual intercourse almost immediately as I arrived. Methinks they were testing me? I quickly learned that the woman that invited me over to the table was trying to be the meat in a Guy-on-Guy sandwich with two of the men at the table. She really likes gay men for some reason, maybe she likes the prospect of turning them straight?

Anyway, this woman was really trying to get involved in the two men's sex later. So much that she was even trying to kiss the taller one outside while they were smoking. This woman was pretty cute too, I would've definitely gone home with her if she had asked me. I guess I wasn't gay enough for her? Or as she put it, 'too easy'. I've been called slutty, but never 'too easy'. I think maybe next time, I'll put that theory to the test. She could potentially be a fuckbuddy with how forward she was being.

The thing I like about this Pub is that the majority of the people are into their 30's. The atmosphere is very mellow and everyone i've met so far seems to be pretty 'normal' by my standards. Along the way, I met a lovely dark haired woman in her late 30's who seemed interested, but I didn't think about asking for her number until after I left the pub (at freaking midnight on a Sunday night).

Note to self: Don't stay out late at the Pub, especially when you need to be up at 5am for work.

Work Holiday Party/Mixer

Today happens to be the Holiday Mixer/Happy Hour. Apparently a lot of companies are choosing to do it this way so they can save some cash on headcount. This year, instead of a Holiday Party at some club/winery, we're having it at the office~neat, huh? Not really...at least there will be alcohol, right? The idea is to serve us alcohol just after we finish a rough day at work and then be cut-off once we get a nice buzz because we still have to drive home afterwards. In some ways, this eliminates some of the problems of people getting too toasted to drive home, but isn't the whole point of a company holiday party to get shitty and talk about your coworkers?

At said mixer, I hung out with some old friends I haven't seen because they're on the opposite side of the building and are generally too busy to come visit. Still, sharing old stories and pranks was memorable enough to consider this a pretty worthy event to attend.

Later in the evening, I picked up my kids and we headed to a friend's house to char some meat. Although there were no other children at my buddy's house, mine seemed to have enjoyed themselves. I was also pleased to see that they get along well with the other people at the party who had never met my offspring before. This occasion always leads to people telling me I don't look old enough to have kids~who doesn't like flattery?

What do you think? Old enough to have kids? Needs to shave his poor excuse for facial hair? It doesn't even grow in all the same color! I blame Genetics~thanks mom and dad!


This was taken right about when I just got my glasses. You never know just how blind you are until you get a pair of glasses, huh?

Hat Trick

Last night was one of those significant evenings where I found a number of things I had misplaced in one box. In a search for spare blank checks, I found my Digital Camera Software and the USB cable for said Digi Camera.

What does this mean? It means that I will provide pics once I condense them otherwise it will take forever for you to view them. When I checked the memory on my camera, I saw pics from the Summer as well as Halloween shots with me and the kidlings.

No more excuses that all my pics are out-dated or that I can't find the cable to upload them to my upload, so the only thing left is for me to say I'm just lazy.

Okay, so maybe I'm not so lazy...I guess it's easier to condense these than I remember.


I'm only bad because I'm so good...


Imagine all the odd looks I got being that I was dressed up with my kids to Trick-or-Treat. The green pillow case on my shoulder was for all the candy I was collecting for the Poor;-). It's a shame more parents don't dress up for Halloween.

Nerdity in review

Thanks to some desperate brainstorming yesterday, it appears that I am now the owner of a nearly functional computer. I guess I didn't put much thought into why it wasn't working, but my first guess was accurate at least. The problem was that I didn't want to go through the trouble of opening up my case and pulling components. Yes, I'm that lazy when it comes to troubleshooting my own computer. I blame the fact that I work on a computer every day for my reluctance to fixing anything outside of it (work I mean).

After pulling out my video card and replacing with Big V's antiquated hardware (which he still insists is bigger than mine), I found that all of the problems I experienced with the original disappeared. This means I'll have to eventually replace it since the damn thing is making my game play shit.

Productive or not?

Being that I am in a production environment, there's always the ruse that people are working while doing absolutely nothing. If I had to add it up, I'd say there's at least 30% of the staff that 'fluffs' their way through their daily workday. What do we produce? We provide Support, which isn't exactly like factory-work, but we're expected to touch/annotate a specific number of tickets per day in order to continue to be employed. We're still expected to achieve a magic number and there are those that simply reach that goal without actually fixing anything.

These are the people we call fluffers because they:

1. don't know how to do their job but manage to keep high numbers so nobody suspects they're incompetent.
2. add notes to a ticket without actually taking steps to resolve something (see number 1).
3. do enough work just to not get noticed by the people that really matter (namely the ones that sign the checks).
4. hate their jobs and can't find anyone else that would pay them to do nothing.
5. never 'fix' anything, yet they receive unwarranted praise for maintaining good numbers.

This kind of environment is really starting to wear me down mentally speaking, especially if I have to be compared to these people. It just sounds like I'm pointing out their short-comings to make my own accomplishments sound more productive. When I was younger, I probably wouldn't have cared, but now, I have some pride in my work. I enjoy hearing I did a great job because I know I put some effort into it and i'll do it again without question.

Anyway, my vent is over now. I'm just going to go back to my world of fixing things and pretend like those people don't exist. DenialRoleplaying is fun!

Broken

Fortunately, not many of the Nerd world actually know I blog, so I feel okay about sharing this with those of you that do.

Saturday morning, I slept in till about 9am (this is sleeping in for me) and decided to get my game on for a few hours before I ventured to Japantown (it's in San Francisco). At first, things seemed to be okay, but after about 15 minutes, I noticed these strange static lines moving all across my screen. 5 minutes later, my monitor shuts off and I have no idea what the hell is going on. After many minutes of attempting to restore things, I decide that the case (and myself) could use a good blow-off. Fortunately, my roommate has a can of compressed air for just such a purpose (to blow the dust from the components, you filthy minded people).

Much to my disappointment, after I give it the CO2 enema, it still responded the same way~ Powered it on...waited...saw the num lock key light up then watched the monitor power itself down again. Shit.

So there you have it...I've been computer-less until this morning when I came to work. I wish I could say I was anxious about getting it repaired, but I'm not. Sure I'd like to have it functional, but I know this means I'll have to drop some cash into it~fuck that...at least for now.

At least Japantown was entertaining as always. Leave it to legions of Asian girls to remind me that there are more interesting things than my computer. It's a shame I have no game.