So much has been happening. Thankfully, so much of it seems to be winding down. My mega-huge, crazy-big, high-pressure project at work launched yesterday. And it appears it launched without any hitches. I celebrated by taking a shot of Maker's Mark and drinking a beer with my wife over some Wick's Pizza.
I'm sitting in the hospital right now with Jooj and her family. Her dad is about to have brain surgery. He suffered what they initially thought was a stroke but turned out to be a warning seizure. It will all turn out okay I'm really thinking. That's not just hope talking. I'm pretty sure that this will all be good.
My wife's ex-husband's cousin's middle daughter was taken off life support after suffering injuries in a car accident that left her brain dead. She passed away and the funeral is tomorrow. It is sad whenever anybody dies and especially so when the young pass away. Sarah Marie Bearden was only 22 - very sad.
I haven't painted since I moved the studio upstairs. Stupid Boba was sick last night. Doctor Obliteron dinged 50 (City of Heroes geek update there - all "normal" readers please ignore). Will started football conditioning. Kelsey is going to go for her license next week. Jooj and I are shopping for tile this weekend. Will is officially an 8th grader. Kelsey is one day away from being a Senior.
And life keeps on truckin'.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Happy Birfday Pac-man
Pac-man turns 30 today! Yay!
Where have I been? The question to ask is what have I been (doing)? And the simple answer is work. I could be clever and type the word "work", like, 50 times or I can capitalize it and type periods after each letter. I could say something about all work and no play blah blah blah. However, as you may have guessed, I have been working day and night and weekends for longer than I can remember.
All work and no play make Jack something something.
I need a break. I need a promotion. I need a nap.
Where have I been? The question to ask is what have I been (doing)? And the simple answer is work. I could be clever and type the word "work", like, 50 times or I can capitalize it and type periods after each letter. I could say something about all work and no play blah blah blah. However, as you may have guessed, I have been working day and night and weekends for longer than I can remember.
All work and no play make Jack something something.
I need a break. I need a promotion. I need a nap.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Happy Mother's Day!
Happy Mother's Day to all you moms, baby's mama, and ladies with lil' chil'ren running around!
We had a great Mother's Day brunch this afternoon. We had all the mom's over along with the rest of the family. We made a kick-ass breakfast and went through nearly 3 dozen mini-muffins from My Favorite Muffin (didn't even know that place existed until yesterday... now will never forget it). Future parties should *always* be brunch. Delicious!!!
We had a great Mother's Day brunch this afternoon. We had all the mom's over along with the rest of the family. We made a kick-ass breakfast and went through nearly 3 dozen mini-muffins from My Favorite Muffin (didn't even know that place existed until yesterday... now will never forget it). Future parties should *always* be brunch. Delicious!!!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
May the Fourth Be With You
This is what Kelsey txt'ed to me. I thought it was very cute. Get it? May the Fourth be with you... May the 4th? The Force? Get it now? Aw sheesh, we're such Star Wars nuts!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Oaks (andeverythingleadinguptoit)
What a week! Work, exercise, eat, paint, play, sleep. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Finished the "First Saturday" piece last night. Everyone at work loves it. We'll see how much it raises tonight at the Julep Ball. Excited. Drove Pat's Miata yesterday. Put the top down. Rides nice. Little cramped. Needs gas. Listening to new Wu-Tang album. Actually just Rae, Ghost, and Meth. It's good. Had coupons for Chik-fil-A breakfast items. Breakfast burrito sucks. Chicken minis are good. Chicken biscuit was the shit. Completed 6-week assessment for Heuser. Put on some weight. Lost some inches where it counts. Slightly improved on the physical aspects. Yay me. Work has been kicking my ass. It won't let up until the end of May. It'll only get worse. Thanks Jed. Keep missing getting together with Jed and Vian. Keep putting off lunch with Casey. Issue 17 for City of Heroes came out. It's so much fun. I love video games. I need to get serious about doing my comic book. Or I need to stop talking about it. I need to catch up on some sleep. ZZzzZZzzzzzZZZzzzzzz...
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Bike Incident
This story has been ongoing for a while. Every time I tell it the story is funny. As the story draws out, it almost becomes unbelievable. Well, the ending to the story happened yesterday and now I'm going to share it with you (as well as myself when I go back and read this entry... "Hello Future-Self!").
Since I started here at Genscape, way back in October 2009, there has been a bike sitting up here on the third floor. No one really noticed it at first because we have several guys who bike into work. So it kind of blended in.
Well, we happened to realize that the bike didn't belong to anyone up here on the third floor. We asked around a bit and decided it must have been left by the former tenants (kind of unlikely now that I look back on it). We saw that it was from Scheller's so I did the right thing and called to tell them about it.
They were very nice and appreciated my effort to find the owner but said that their computer system couldn't look up an owner by the serial number. They could look up a customer and see what bikes, by serial number, he or she owned but not the other way around. When asked what I should do next their response was, "Brother, it sounds like you have a free bike."
So, as I have mentioned on several occasions, I am a coordinator for our charity here at work. We are raising $60K to build a water purification system for the small village of Asiento Viejo, Nicaragua. As a coordinator I am charged with coming up with ways to raise money for the project. An idea I have babysat is an auction site where people donate items and we auction them with all proceeds going to our charity.
I put the bike up for auction and it didn't sell. It didn't even receive a bid. WTF?! I put it back up. Afterwards I noticed that there was something terribly wrong with the auction site. I fixed the problem (after Steve Akers bought the bike for $25 [and graciously returned it]) and happily watched the price skyrocket from $25 to an ending price of $250.
The winning bidder was Azim from the Boston office. Hooray! Everybody wins!
Yeah right. What kind of story would that be? BORING!
I was warned that Azim was a dick. And that any transaction with him should be handled quickly if I had any say in the matter. I fired off an email and Azim paid that day. Things were going so smoothly.
A few of us discussed shipping options (should have thought about that before I put up the auction). It was decided that we were going to break down the bike and ship it in a bike box. The bike box guys were called and the box was on its way. A Genscape employee named Mike just happened to walk by right about that moment.
"That's my bike."
I wasn't there for the conversation that happened after he uttered this. But I can imagine how it went and am pretty sure that is how it started. It turns out that Mike had purchased the bike many months ago, ridden it a few times, and "stored" it up on the third floor.
Are.
You.
Serious?
Okay, okay. So it's Mike's bike. Shiiiiiit. I called Azim but he did not answer. I emailed him with a vague message about a "development" about the bike. Well, he called back yesterday. And to say we had a nice little chat would be about the opposite of what happened.
He chewed me a new one. But I knew it was coming and I can't really blame him. I would have been a little upset myself. I just kept my cool and repeated the facts. He eventually calmed down and I promised to send him a check.
So that's the Bike Incident story. Sometimes I just can't make this stuff up :)
Since I started here at Genscape, way back in October 2009, there has been a bike sitting up here on the third floor. No one really noticed it at first because we have several guys who bike into work. So it kind of blended in.
Well, we happened to realize that the bike didn't belong to anyone up here on the third floor. We asked around a bit and decided it must have been left by the former tenants (kind of unlikely now that I look back on it). We saw that it was from Scheller's so I did the right thing and called to tell them about it.
They were very nice and appreciated my effort to find the owner but said that their computer system couldn't look up an owner by the serial number. They could look up a customer and see what bikes, by serial number, he or she owned but not the other way around. When asked what I should do next their response was, "Brother, it sounds like you have a free bike."
So, as I have mentioned on several occasions, I am a coordinator for our charity here at work. We are raising $60K to build a water purification system for the small village of Asiento Viejo, Nicaragua. As a coordinator I am charged with coming up with ways to raise money for the project. An idea I have babysat is an auction site where people donate items and we auction them with all proceeds going to our charity.
I put the bike up for auction and it didn't sell. It didn't even receive a bid. WTF?! I put it back up. Afterwards I noticed that there was something terribly wrong with the auction site. I fixed the problem (after Steve Akers bought the bike for $25 [and graciously returned it]) and happily watched the price skyrocket from $25 to an ending price of $250.
The winning bidder was Azim from the Boston office. Hooray! Everybody wins!
Yeah right. What kind of story would that be? BORING!
I was warned that Azim was a dick. And that any transaction with him should be handled quickly if I had any say in the matter. I fired off an email and Azim paid that day. Things were going so smoothly.
A few of us discussed shipping options (should have thought about that before I put up the auction). It was decided that we were going to break down the bike and ship it in a bike box. The bike box guys were called and the box was on its way. A Genscape employee named Mike just happened to walk by right about that moment.
"That's my bike."
I wasn't there for the conversation that happened after he uttered this. But I can imagine how it went and am pretty sure that is how it started. It turns out that Mike had purchased the bike many months ago, ridden it a few times, and "stored" it up on the third floor.
Are.
You.
Serious?
Okay, okay. So it's Mike's bike. Shiiiiiit. I called Azim but he did not answer. I emailed him with a vague message about a "development" about the bike. Well, he called back yesterday. And to say we had a nice little chat would be about the opposite of what happened.
He chewed me a new one. But I knew it was coming and I can't really blame him. I would have been a little upset myself. I just kept my cool and repeated the facts. He eventually calmed down and I promised to send him a check.
So that's the Bike Incident story. Sometimes I just can't make this stuff up :)
Monday, April 19, 2010
Panties
A have a new trainer down at Heuser that I've been working with. His name is G and I had heard stories about his taskmastering ways. Well, the stories are true and he is a punisher. To make matters worse, I made the mistake of telling him that I rarely push myself out of my comfort zone. He made sure that I pushed. In fact, he started calling me "Panties" because I couldn't push my heart rate to 170. I explained that I was a cross country runner and I can breathe pretty efficiently. He didn't want to hear it. He pushed me hard. And my heart rate peaked at 168. That was close enough for him. Afterward, he referred to me by name... and called all the other guys in my class "Panties" :)
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