October 2004

Today was personally unfullfilling. I’m not sure what I would have ended up doing if it wasn’t promised to other people, but I can think of a few things: playing around with Photoshop and brushing up on my XML, processing dozens of pictures and videos from last night’s Halloween party, getting a few thoughts down in type, or simply racking up a few cat-naps on my couch. Maybe even finally getting around to fixing this site.

Instead, I was up at the crack of dawn. A constant beeping from outside pulled me from my bed and over to the neighbor’s house. I grabbed the discarded smoke detector making the noise and smashed it to bits with my bare hands then stomped on the pieces. It was damn satisfying but I cut my hand open in the process.

A few unsatisfying hours of sleep later we were on our way to help Chris and Lisa move. It wasn’t something I dreaded doing; in fact, just the opposite. But instead of getting a workout in, I spent most of my time split between playing real-world Tetris and sitting in traffic. Most of the heavy lifting was done by the others thanks to this stupid brain of mine. At least it earned a nice meal for my stupid stomach.

Next up was my leisurely round-trip drive to Davidsonville to fetch my parents’ computer. After all the work Tim did on it (computing isn’t their forte), a Dell guy recommended doing a clean wipe to cover up the fact that he couldn’t fix a hardware problem. Now to close out the fix-it job we started, I agreed to ferry the thing back and forth if Tim would be gracioius enough to deal with the fine folks at Dell and then set the machine up again. Everyone’s frustrated at the situation and communication got a little hairy for a while but we’re taking steps in the right direction. The only thing I don’t understand is how they could let me drive all the way to Maryland without a phone call or even a voicemail saying my sister was down there already — talk about an unnecessary trip. With Tim’s car I at least made the trip in record time.

My last day was sad and filled with goodbyes, football pool recruitment and talking with my dad about his broken computer. My first day was spent working on stuff I expected to be — and really enjoy — doing. Since most of my evening was spent working on our Aqua Teen Hunger Force costumes for Jay and Ali’s Halloween party tomorrow, I haven’t had much time to reflect on what I thought about my new job, let alone tell anyone else about it.

Dia got accepted to New York University today. She’s really excited, and I’m so proud I almost put an exclamation mark on that first sentence. For the past two months she was concerned about not even being accepted to her backup school (Temple University), let alone NYU.

Now she claims to have another problem on her hands — the decision whether to attend. Since we moved out of Levittown it is no longer a simple hour-long train ride. Tacked on to that is either a 40-minute drive across the turnpike or another 45 minutes of trains with two connections and down time. Not to mention that Dia is beholden to her employer for at least a few more years for picking up the tab.

Regardless, I’m confident Dia will be attending NYU in the Spring. She may claim to be wavering on the issue, but I know he only decision she’ll be making is the easiest way to reach New York every Saturday. I’ll miss her during the next year of hell, but I plan on being supportive in every way.

My boss wasn’t in today, but I spread the word and he’ll probably hear about it before 10 a.m. when I get in. I feel slightly bad about not being able to give them more notice but they’ve known for a long time that I was on my way out. Any help I was able to give them between August 1 and now was above and beyond. Who knows, maybe they’ll get stuck over the holidays and need me to come in at twice my current salary. It shouldn’t be necessary since I taught the new kids as much as I could, but I fancy myself being that important. In all likelihood they’ll be fine on their own. They already threw me a part back in July, so I wonder if tomorrow will be a normal day or if people will take me out to lunch or something. Either would be fine by me.

Our pride of little lions is infested with fleas. Rather, they were infested. Alright, we hope they won’t be infested now that we put medication on their tiny backs. And it had better: for only about half an ouce of liquid it stinks to high heaven; every time a cat enters the room I lose my appetite. Glad it’s only once a month.

The great cleansing comes in the nick of time. I’ve been imagining that every little itch and bump on my body is a flea bite. While I realize I’m being a little neurotic, there’s got to be a bit of truth to it as well. Though we haven’t seen a classic bite per se, with so many little buggers in their fur and some are bound to jump ship onto our bed or the couch. Anyhow, it won’t be a concern for much longer.

In preparation for my new schedule and lack of commute through Oxford Valley, I went to the Bally Fitness in King of Prussia tonight. It’s an impressive building, but only when we pulled around to the back did we see that it was four floors with twice as many weights and cardio machines as my old gym. It has a larger pool, an entire floor for locker rooms, a larger area for classes, longer track and even tanning booths. It’s probably because of all these things that its a lot more crowded but I can adjust my schedule to match the off-peak times easily enough. Other benefits include actual cleaning fluid (instead of water) in the spray bottles used to wipe down the machines, more attractive clientele — for the most part at least — and televisions too high for any old schlub to come along and change the channels. Just one more thing to add to my happy streak.

It’s an odd feeling I’ve had all day today — I don’t have to go to work tomorrow, and yet I don’t have to worry about waking up to look for jobs either. Tomorrow’s only obligations a dentist appointment at noon, working towards getting my windshield replaced, and dropping off my work contract down the street.

Once those papers are signed, it means that I’m done with the old company for good and this transitional quarter is officially over. I’m going to miss the coworkers who have become friends over the past two years; people I cared about have left before but losing so many in one fell swoop is going to be a bit difficult. I’ll likely never see any of these people again and I have two days to come to terms with that. I’ll get the important e-mail addresses and still be a part of the football pool that Ross is hosting for us. I may make the trek up to Cranbury when I win it or if I think I’m winning the weight-loss contest before that. I plan on inviting Scott, the guy that sits next to me and with whom I’ve become friends with, to game nights and other things until he finally says yes just once. He’s the only person I can picture getting together with outside of work since we share the most common interests, and if we don’t I’ll be disappointed — I still haven’t met his wife, Old Yeller, yet. Also, without him we wouldn’t have Aqua Teen Hunger Force in our lives.

Besides the dissolving personal relationships leaving will be a good thing. I’ve already enumerated the ways in which I’ll be professionally happy. Now I’m starting to think about the money I’ll be saving. I’m not only making more, but spending a hell of a lot less. Even before I moved to Conshohocken and started paying $60 for gas and $25 in tolls for my three-day-a-week commute, my drives from Levittown were costing me $50 a week. So in addition to avoiding a $200 monthly commuting expense, I’m also saving $200 each month on rent here. Our car insurance even went down. In the even-shorter term, I’ve accrued a little under 40 hours of vacation and personal time that get paid out in my last paycheck. After paying Dia back for the past few months’ rent and four months of COBRA bills (until I’m married), I’ll be able to start saving in earnest.

I matter now. I have proof. I found a company that thinks enough of my abilities to hire me. I’m so excited I’ve been beaming all weekend and barely know where to begin.

First of all, I’m officially hired for the contractor position (which is with a company literally less than three blocks away at a better salary than I’m making now) as soon as I drop off the contract Monday morning. I talked to the HR representative after work on Friday as soon as I received her voicemail. After a few scary moments that I was sure were leading to “But thank you anyway…” I learned that I came across confident, well-spoken, and energetic enough to land the job.

I’ll be doing graphic design work in three areas, though it will mainly be mock-ups for the sales department. As I understand it, the other two tasks include the preflighting and minor design of debit cards, as well as working with XHTML enough to tweak the cards’ accompanying website templates. Though it might sound dry, the job is absolutely perfect for me. First, I can state with confidence that for every task I’m either able to do the work or quickly learn what I need to. I’m also confident that there will be plenty to challenge me. I said flat-out that I don’t know XHTML, but stressed that I’ve built web pages from scratch and can read code well enough to design. The only areas where I might be a bit fuzzy aren’t my primary functions, so I’ll have room to grow without feeling like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I am going to earn my keep by doing what I’m really good at and grab at every opportunity to branch out and lear new skills.

I forsee a long working relationship here; this is more than just a stepping stone to another design job. However, even in the worst case scenario where I don’t last more than a month or two it will have helped me in the long run, because besides having a lot of fun and padding my bank account, I’m once again adding to my portfolio. And in the day-to-day sense, it will be more rewarding than working on insurance forms all day.

It’s 4 a.m. and I’m in my parents living room with Pat and Tim (Dia’s asleep). We’re hanging on to the final minutes in a weekend of solid amusement — games, food and the Maryland Renaissance Festival.

Tonight was the best. Dre, Molly, Hager, and Maria (and Alice too) came over to join the four of us already here for a night chock full of games: Seafarers of Catan, Mama Mia, Spite & Malice, KKK, Bang!, and Liar’s Dice. I think Pat was the only person to play every single game as people came and went at different times and Tim was reformatting my parent’s computer, but it was the best variety and most staying power that we’ve seen for a game night in a long time — even played a few twice. We didn’t limit ourselves to tonight, either; Friday night Ian and Julie dropped by to play Rummikub and clean everyone’s clocks at a six-player game of Settlers. Plus, the next morning we played a little Mama Mia while Tim cooked and we ate breakfast.

The actual focus of the trip was the Renn. Fest, which never fails to entertain. I would have liked to see a few more shows but I’m largely content (no pun intended) as long as I eat a variety of faux Renaissance foods. Al, Mary, Chris and Lisa made the drive down to join us for the afternoon, and I think everyone agreed that thespian/magician/hypnotist Bob Garman was the best part of the day. A few people decided not to join us for the mini-vacation which was slightly disappointing, but I had a great time nonetheless.

My birthday came and went October 14. Some people remembered, some people had no idea, and either was fine by me. I got a few cards and a nice spaghetti dinner with a birthday cake before I went camping. Tim cooked, and Dia, Sean, and Dre were there for the unofficial celebration. We were supposed to be on our way camping but since it turned out to be only an hour and 45 minutes away we could take our time. So… 27. There it is. Time keeps on slipping.

Here’s a quickie. I’m still the Arkanoid leader at Barcade as of yet and Ross is right up there on the chalkboard with me, too. A bunch of geeks, we are.

It was a nice day-before-my-birthday present to myself and it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

This afternoon before I headed out to Levittown for my dentist appointment and the gym, I hopped in the car to a feeling I get only once in a while. It was what I can only describe as the sense of being a new driver. Not “new” in the sense that I was foggy about how to do it, but in how excited I was to get behind the wheel. Different from, better than, my usual love of driving. Commuting over two hours for three days a week hasn’t lessened the frequency of this new driver feeling — it was rare even in college. However, when it hits me and I realize just how much fun it is to be racing around in a car, it’s fantastic. Like walking through the park on a sunny Spring day. I was still revelling in the excitement all the way along the turnpike; it was gone by the time I left the dentist’s office, but that was to be expected as the pure love of driving is as fleeting as it is infrequent.

New Deck cancelled quizo, the rotten jerks. I disagree that there would have been a riot had we played our trivia game while the Red Sox were whooping up on television. Sure, we were all watching it, but the speakers were too low to hear anyway. Dia and I stuck around until the seventh inning or so and split so I could rest for my interview this morning. Speaking of which….

My interview down the street went better than I expected. I went in thanks to April’s recommendation and wishful thinking, but I came away with the confidence that I could handle the work and find it enjoyable as well. I’m afraid they won’t think I’m qualified for the position, but I did my best to convey that I’m a hardworker who’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep my employer and its clients happy. I hope I hammered the point home by mentioning how I still work for my current company over 50 miles away, but if not I made sure to illustrate my point a dozen other ways. And if ability to make it in to work at a moment’s notice counts for anything, I’ve got that going for me. I’ve learned my lesson not to get my hopes up; I just have to write my thank-you e-mail and hope for the best.

Tonight’s a big night, a return to quizo after a week off plus the baseball game will be a good one as well. Normally I don’t give a turd about the game but you can’t help but feel hopefull for the Red Sox fans out there. Either way, the bar will be packed with fans and non-fans alike, and best team name will be especially hard to get this week because following a baseball theme is probably necessary and that vein of humor is our weakness. Hopefully one of the irregulars among us tonight will have something funny up their sleeves, I’m coming up empty. (Maybe along the lines of how A-Rod is a rod or a tool somehow.)

Found some cat pee on an old myfootballpool.com printout by the coffee table tonight. When we looked a little closer I noticed that there were multiple stains around the coffee table both wet and dry. Csoki Tej has been pissing in her secret spot among our junk mail, spare cables and other clutter; for how long I have no idea. Either way, it lit a fire under our asses tonight. We cleared the table to sop up the urine, throw out anything soiled and disposable, and bag some cables for later cleaning. Once finished, I laid down a supressing fire with the Febreeze and now we play the waiting game for the urinator’s next victim.

“I’ve imbibed a bit too much”

I’m excited. Regarding the title, I don’t feel like I had enough to keep me from typing properly, but clearly I’m mistaken. Tomorrow morning I’m going to send out some resumes after first loafing around all morning.

Rob’s party was a lot of fun. Tim drove six of us back to Conshohocken in his car, which is a good thing because I had a bit too much rum and Diet Coke. I didn’t stick to my diet too well past my second drink, shoveling fried food into my mouth; though I was at least able to avoid any desserts. On a completely different topic, I noticed that I’m tied for first place in my work football pool. On another completely different topic, I’m going to bed now. Dia really doesn’t care that I’m being loud and boisterous as she simply went to bed. I’m right behind her since my muscles ache from camping anyway. Back to my first topic now, I vaguely remember posing for a few photos with a toy doll, a clear indication that I probably didn’t handle myself as well as I could.

It suddenly smells funny in here and it’s causing me to feel ill.

Bob

Wohoo!!! Apparently, not drunk enough to keep me from working a computer or using the delet key to correct my mistakes. Tomorrow is going to suck because I have to send out resumes — which means fixing up cover letters and stuff — to friends who have job leads for me. That is, those who aren’t ashamed of me already for not getting back to them about said jobs yet.

Rob threw a hell of a party tonight. Just drove back inj Tim’s Civic with Tom, Andy, Sean, Dia, me, and Tim of course. It was cramped, but it meant that I coudl drink to my heart’s content which was fine by me. A ton of my friends was there (the singular “was” agrees with “a ton”) and I adhered to my self-allowed Bicardi and diet cola drinking regimen (though it was Captain Morgan’s instead of Bicardi) in keeping with my diet. Though I had a boatload of fried critters from some warehouse club which is most definitely not. Anyway, I’m doing welll in my football pool and wit6h that I’m hitting the sack. Dia doesn’t seem happy that i’m drunk and I’m tired from camping anyway. I wonder what all I said at the party. I feel like I handled myself well despite taking a picture of myself taking advantage of one of Alice’s dolls on Rob’s bed, but I keep thinking I might of done something embarassing.

Oh my god Tim justt farted and I’m going to puke.

Boib

Beat that, New York. I have a dozen excuses why I was off my game and just as many positive things to say about the new bar, but it’s time to hit the sack. I’ve got a lot of stuff to do tomorrow before my trip. I’ll sleep well tonight — a slot on the high-score chalkboard is mine for at least a month.

[For frame of reference, my all-time high was just over 830,000.]

It’s almost time to set the high score for Arkanoid at Barcade, Tim’s brother’s new bar in Brooklyn. There are those who don’t appreciate just how much time I spent in front of my machine and therefore doubt I can hold the high score for very long. I tend to show the world that if I have at least one tangible skill it’s using a paddle to aim a ball at bricks to earn capsules. A very handy pet to have in arcade-within-a-bar settings, let me tell you. We’ll probably be in New York until midnight, that is if Ross, Brian, Tom and Tim ever get here (I’m at work.)

Here’s something I thought I’d never, ever say: Time to camp in New Jersey.

In defense of The Ugly State, the Appalachian Trail does run through it in the north. And while the Trail runs across highways and along roads in a lot of places up and down the eastern seaboard, I’ve visited New Jersey where it borders Pennsylvania and New York and it’s actually quite lovely. Specifically, we’re hiking along Dunnfield Creek where I-80 intersects the Pa.-N.J. border.

I’m not exactly sure the quickest way to get up there, but it appears to be a good halfway point for Lex and [EZ] Steve, who are driving down from the north, and Dre who is already driving up from Maryland. For us southerners, it looks like I-476 to I-80 might be the quickest even though it’s not direct. Dre won’t get up here until 5:30 Thursday afternoon when we’ll get right on the road even though we’ll get to the trailhead first by an hour or two.

There’s an overnight parking area there where we’ll be spending the first night in the Element (and Outback) to get an early start the next morning. We’ll be doing an 8-mile loop with three options for off-shoot dayhikes and an extra two-mile loop if we breeze through too quickly. We’ll have two complete days of hiking, and since we can walk over four miles a day those are good to have as options. The trip is listed as “strenuous” as we’ll be climbing l,000 vertical feet in 3.7 miles; I’m not sure how that compares to what we’ve already done but there it is.

It should be a beautiful walk despite being late in the season. An excerpt from the book states: “Within seconds of exiting the parking area, the trail leaves the bright, harried human world behind. Highway noise is replaced by the comforting sound of a rushing mountain stream as the AT crosses Dunnfield Creek on a rustic wooden bridge.”

My largest concern however is that while pretty our route won’t be remote enough. Sunfish Pond is the halfway point on our loop where we double back on a trail that parallels the Appalachian. The book claims it is “one of the most popular hiking destinations in New Jersey” because of the “rocky shores of this crystal clear glacial lake [which] are postcard perfect”. I’m hoping this late in the season we’ll be alone, but we may have company up on that lake.

At any rate, I’m glad for the opportunity to camp even if only for a weekend and at a measly 1,500 feet. Who knows? Maybe this will be the new location for future camping trips.

The car accident I witnessed right before walking in was a telling omen; my interview didn’t go well. Thankfully, it was for a boring job and neither the position nor our meeting interested me in the least. My mind kept going back to how different I felt during my interview a week ago and the things I should have done differently. I didn’t worry about avoiding those same mistakes this time, that’s how nonplused I was with this place. The interesting thing was I’d been in the building before since it is where Tom keeps his servers; the company I was at today owns it.

My name was on page T31 of today’s Inquirer, in the M to R edition of the Pennsylvania Treasury Unclaimed Property List. It turns out that I have two paychecks coming to me from when I worked for Aramark.

I agreed to work two days a week after my co-op ended in September of 1999, but I got so depressed in December after the breakup with my girlfriend that I simply stopped showing up. I felt like I wasn’t doing any real work up to that point anyway so I didn’t care if I got paid or not. As it turns out, Aramark is a pretty stand-up company; rather than let the checks expire when they were returned from my old address (Van Rensselaer hall, from which I moved out months before), they turned my unclaimed wages over to the state. I dont know why it took them until March of this year to do it, but I’m happy. Even without a job I’m raking in the dough.

The next step is to find some sort of proof that I lived at 3320 Powelton Ave and copy my driver’s license, then send them along with the reclamation form off to Harrisburg.

I have another interview tomorrow at 2 p.m. with a publishing company in Center City. I’m nervous about it because if this one falls through its back to the drawing board. Every other lead I had dried up on me and I have to start planting an entirely new crop of resumes; everything I sent out has been accounted for. The chore ahead of me isn’t as upsetting as the fact that I misread the one interviewer I was excited about working for. The Pep Boys guy didn’t write back and that was cool, the phone interview with the Philadelphia Gay News went pretty poorly but wasn’t so bad since they seem like a pretty poor place to work for — I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the prospects. However, I’d have taken either one to prove I can land a damn job and put an end to this adventure in unemployment that I set myself on.

I like it when Tim’s away for a weekend; it allows me to record data regarding toilet seat and flushing preferences. It’s happened twice since Tim’s been gone, pretty much closing the books on Travis’s guilt (though he’s still a good guy — this is his only fault so far). Tim, however, is still not in the clear since I have to record a few control measurements when the conditions are switched.

I suppose I didn’t do as well as I thought on my last interview, as no one has called me back yet. I sent an e-mail and left a voicemail, but nothing so far. If I didn’t have yet another interview set up for Monday I’d be even more depressed than I already am. I put all my eggs in one basket last week and pretty much lost the job hunting frame of mind. I thought my days of sending out resumes were over for the time being.

Instead, I sent out some mail, rode with my grandmother while she practiced driving for the first time in 10 years, and played another level of Halo before Sean and Lara came over to watch the reality shows. Matt was supposed to join us, but I’m used to his flat-out lying by now. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that he does it or that I don’t say anything even though I now recognize them as they’re coming out of his fat, freckled face.

This weekend should be equally unproductive. I’m making a concerted effort to reconnect with people I don’t see enough. Last night’s Quizo was a great start since Chris, Mitch and Mullen showed up; now I just have to keep my hot streak going.

Last week we started another weight-loss contest at work that goes until the end of the month. Basically, that means Scott and I duke it out hardcore and one of us will win money from whomever else we were able to sucker in. Both of us tanked up on water before weigh-in and stick to strict diets at least at work. Compare that to the two other contestants: one has been feasting on foods like spaghetti and peanuts every day and even cheated by eating one of the doughnuts I brought in as a joke to kick off the competition; the other is maintaining a diet of sorts but his only exercise consists of walking once around his block every day.

At 217 — I gained 5 pounds in water weight the morning we got on the scales — I’ve technically lost 10 pounds in the first week and there are still three more to go. Even Scott is going to have trouble topping that, with or without dehydration. It really is too bad that losing weight isn’t lucrative enough to be a profession because I’m raking in the dough.

I also got word that I officially lost the Bally competition. I received a certificate of participation and a letter that congratulated me for “proving to myself what I was capable of.” It was worth the money since most of the entry fee went towards free diet food, but it was most definitely not worth the time I spent wondering if I won or not. I’m vaguely considering entering again, this time with before and after photos that change from slightly beefy to muscular. It would mean a lot more work, but I had to have come close to winning even though I realize now my essays didn’t tug on the heartstrings enough.

People have begun to congratulate Dia and me on our engagement, but this was particularly touching:

The inevitable has arrived: Dia and I are getting married.

I can’t talk my way out of it any longer, and since I can’t I decided to make it as much fun as possible. We’re doing it in Las Vegas.

There are still a bunch of kinks to work out, like parents and flights and entertainment, but anyone who knows us and can catch themselves a flight to Vegas is invited. No fancy dress-up, no gifts. The event is scheduled is set for the evening Friday, March 25, and we’ll be sending out an official wedding evite this weekend.

I technically proposed over Labor Day weekend in the proximity of a waterfall near Lake Moxie. We’ve been hashing out the details ever since but finally agreed to say our vows in Sin City and nailed down a date. Dia’s first and second rings were a lock washer and one carved from a toy gun’s foam disk, but my grandmother graciously offered us her engagement ring and now its officially official. (Not that either of us were worried about not having a diamond, but now that it’s on Dia’s finger it should be easier for her to put up with everyone’s ring-mongering bullshit.)

I encourage everyone join us for four fun-filled days in Nevada (Wednesday morning to Saturday night). We’ll tour the Hoover Dam, take in a show or two, gamble at $5 tables until we’re nice and sauced, and buffet it up at at the all-you-can-eats until we burst. Plus, we’ll take 15 minutes out of our Friday afternoon to get this wedding thing over and done with.