March 2006←

April 2006

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April 26, 2006

One-Year Anniversary Cruise

12:53 AM

Back to what got me started posting in the first place: Our trip to Florida and Cozumel. I took over 730 pictures (Dia helped, too) most of which were imported into iPhoto before I began the tedious editing process. In the end, I deleted all except 279 that made the cut. A lot of them tell pretty much the same story in different ways, and others didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped but I couldn’t bring myself to delete either. Anyway, the resulting hundred or so make up a pretty self-explanatory online album.

While our trip included snuba diving and a trip to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum in Key West, and riding ATVs through the Cozumel underbrush, I was surprised to find that my favorite part of our trip was the time we spent guiding ourselves around Miami. We focused mainly on the Art Deco district in South Beach, taking in as much as we could in what little time we had.

I’ll spare even myself the pointless regurgitation of events since my pictures — I’m quite proud of them — say enough on their own (albeit with a little help from titles and time stamps). And even though words could better describe the feeling of sharing our first sunrise together as a couple, I think I’d like to save those just for Dia.

Caution: Man Working

12:12 AM

It’s been over a month since Dia and I were soaking up the sun in Florida and Cozumel. I’ve always fancied myself as someone who can transition quickly from vacation mode back to my daily routine, but this time there were extenuating circumstances. Another trip, week of finishing work at Ecount, yet another trip, starting a new job — it all took its toll greater than I could have imagined.

I’d like to pretend that editing photos was the last thing on my mind, but the truth is that its been weighing so heavily on me that I started to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every time I walked by the office. I’ve been finding all sorts of activities, most of them mindless, to avoid having to use the computer at home recently; coding web pages as a full-time job is a lot more stressful than imagined it would be. It’ll take a while before I learn to shut off my brain when I’m not at work where I can hash out ideas immediately rather than revisiting them over and over in my head to no end. Unfortunately, it’ll probably only get worse as the new site layout will only grow more complicated until its debut.

At least the work is as rewarding as it is stressful. There’s something every day that I can sink my teeth into, and even if there are some days more technically frustrating than others, there’s ultimately an end in sight. One where my hard work can potentially be torn to shreds by our teenaged user base, but a tangible result nevertheless.


April 11, 2006

Gabrielle Chapais Turek

01:19 AM

My grandmother — my mom’s mother — died Saturday night. I find myself surprisingly numb about the whole thing. It has a lot to do with the fact that we weren’t really close, having seen her only about a dozen times in the past five years. In fact, I think her solitary nature prevented her from being very close to anyone; she’d lived alone ever since my grandfather died over 25 years ago.

She wasn’t a terribly fun person to be around — she was more than a little punctilious and a very, very fragile lady — but I respected her immensely. Though she never seemed to relish being a grandparent she was a role model in her own special way. She had incredible strength of will and posessed a lasting determination to remain independent. My earliest memories of her center all involve cigarettes, but she quit smoking (and, as I learned some time later, drinking) before I was in high school. She simply woke up one morning and quit both cold turkey, something that had always impressed me. Now that it’s too late, I realize I probably should have asked her to tell me the story while we still had the chance. Sure, she had her quirks, and as kids we’d sometimes hide in the closet to avoid being roped into a long conversation or fight over who would be forced to run outside for her weekly laundry drop-off, but I loved her.

My parents tell me that she likely had more fun in the last four months than in the past ten years of her life, and I’m happy for her. I visited her twice while she was in the hospital following her fall and it seemed to lift her spirits. Realizing that she’d never fully recover from her injuries was tough for us to take, but at least she didn’t deteriorate mentally — a firecracker to the end. An end to three trying months that had to come sooner or later.

Even though I’m more detached from this tradgedy than the rest of my family I still dread the funeral. Now that I know what to expect I’ll be slightly more prepared but it still won’t be any picnic. And seriously, if I don’t get the M&M dispenser to remind me of her I might suffer a complete breakdown.


April 04, 2006

Riding the Plane

10:45 PM

It’s been about a month since the competition ended — just an average month. I certainly haven’t continued with the weight loss but with the exception of the exception of my cruise, during which time I gained five pounds back, but I certainly haven’t done as poorly as I could have either.

I haven’t exactly been exercising as much as I should have. I’m not deluding myself into thinking that all the walking I did over vacation or the two days of skiing makes up for the missed workouts, but maintaining a healthy lifestyle goes a long way towards keeping the weight off. I’m still taking my vitamins and eating meals throughout the day, even if three of them have returned to normal portions.

It’s been a hectic return to the daily routine, with switching jobs and a short run of bad luck — our first bike cancelled due to inclement weather and tomorrow’s ride pushed back a day, it seems like I keep missing the gorgeous weather by a matter of hours. And I just can’t seem to get out of this rut I’m in. I skip the gym and come straight home with every intention of making some real progress on editing my hundreds of photos, only to end up on the couch playing Halo and watching television. This, of course, doesn’t help me avoid snacking and I end up going to bed every night slightly disappointed in myself.

At least I recognize that I’m off-track even if I don’t have what it takes right now to turn things around. After two months I expected some diet slippage but this exercise break has to end, hopefully sooner rather than later.

My Love

10:12 PM

It feels good to sit here and watch television with Dia (even if it is only Deal or No Deal). After spending the past two weekends apart she had to spend last night in Delaware on business. It’s been harder than her usual workaholism especially after spending that amazing week in Florida together, and I couldn’t bring myself to follow through with my plan to run past her and hug my car when she pulled up.

We don’t spend a whole lot of time together — she’s always busy working and I’m constantly busy running around having fun. Lately, we’ve also been arguing a little over the planning of our upcoming Hawaiian vacation. It feels good to sit back and relax, even if it means I have to beat her a little with the television remote once in a while for not paying attention.

My New[grounds] Job

09:23 PM

Even the name is fun to say, I love my new job so much. It’s not just the spacious, toy-filled, relaxed environment or the coworkers that make it great — previous jobs came pretty close in those respects — but the actual work.

It’s as rewarding as I had expected, and my first two days have been remarkably stress-free. I had no idea how nerve-wracking sales demos and debit cards were compared to what I could have been doing. It was a critical step towards what I’m doing now because of the knowledge I gained from working with Michael, but the work itself wasn’t terribly rewarding. Now, when I get to my desk in the morning I genuinely look forward to the day’s task of page design.

Who knows if I’ll still feel the same in a year or so about converting designs into functional page layouts, but for now I’m filled with excitement I really haven’t felt since my newspaper days. Even if things start to cool off Newgrounds seems to be the type of place where I could find a dozen other things to keep my interest, but I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.