Randomness

The birthday went well. When I got to work, my cube was decorated and I had bagels and a really nice card :) I even got to leave early (except for that sky access person that called 1 minute before I was supposed to leave). I headed home and a few things happened that were kind of dissapointing, but I figured "hey, it's my birthday, I'm not going to let anything get me down." I ended up mailing my old endtables to my mom (it's about time I got those out of my house), buying the first love hina manga and a guitar method book, getting my hair cut and styled, and getting a manicure while Tom was at school in the afternoon. Later that evening, Tom and I went Japan West in findlay and had an amazing meal. It's one of those tappanyaki (sp?) restaurants where they cook the food at the grill right at your table and do a lot of showy kind of stuff. The food was *excellent* and plentiful. The beer was big ;) Good thing Tom drove home. Later that night I got to talk to some friends and family and got a really nice card from Tom. So far, I got some bath n body works stuff from Tom's parents, a dvd (the anime Metropolis w00t!)and a *very* nice card from Tom's sister Julie, and a few cards from Tom. We're having a little bday party in OK for mom, Larry, and I, so perhaps more presents will ensue ;) I made a really good cake, which I brought into work the next day. It was really good, but I had to get it out of the house, or I'd eat it all.

Tom is doing really well with school. His classes this semester are going to teach him a lot and really kick his butt. I think he'll love every minute of it though. He's got his own office and landed himself the assistanship of his dreams with Dr. Miller and CS 325 (the assembler design class). He even said that he wouldn't mind if I did a little coding and submitted it for similar review ;) I can't help but to be jealous. I *really* miss programming, and I wish I could've done more coursework at BG than I had. Oh well. My new plan is to re-work through Dietel & Dietel, so I don't lose my programming skills. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to take the GRE's and actually go to grad school, although I don't know which one is scarier.

Tom's done really well with our computer room too. It now emits a small humming sound if you walk by, which is a lot softer now that HAL9000 (the file server) finally has a home in a case (that kinda looks like the real HAL9000, hence the name). I still say that we need a few more harddrives in there though. Tom's busy working on mklinux on the pizza box macs, so that's his project. My next hardware project (next to getting my wireless working) is to do a case mod on my old AMD k6. Paint it yellow, put in a window, overclock it, water cool it... Yellow Submarine :) Oh yeah.

08.28.02 1:25pm(11 comments)

Happy Happy bithday baby…

Monday's my 23rd birthday.... wooopideedoo.

I can't help but feel, well, uninthused. I'm not bothered by the whole getting older deal. I am kinda dissapointed at the lackluster of the whole deal. Right, I know. I should get over it. Birthday's really aren't that big of a deal. Well, I guess there's a bit more to it than that for me. I was raised as a Jehova's Witness, so for about 12 years of my life, I didn't get to celebrate my birthday, you know, back when I was a kid.. when birthdays meant something. Ever since my mom and I left the congregation, birthdays and other holidays have meant a lot to us. Not only are they celebrations of specific dates or occasions, but also a celebration of our liberation and actual ability to celebrate. Yes, celebrating the ability to celebrate. So this year, now that It's no big deal, it seems as if that a damper has been put on that celebration. Heh, I don't even know if I'm going out to dinner or not. At least I found a good recipe for a cake (I even bought the ingredients today).

Well, I do get half a day off of work, so I'm going to get a manicure and get my haircut, and bake my cake. Perhaps I'll even give my friend from high school, Chuck, a call and wish him a happy bday too.

Next weekend, Tom and I are going to OK to see my mom and have a labor day shindig with the family. Since a bunch of our bdays revolve around the same dates, we're going to have a bday party out there too. It'll be nice to be with my family again. I miss them a lot...

The weekend after that is the black swamp festival weekend, so I'm excited to go to that. I haven't been there before, even though I've been here for 5 years). Now that Im a townie, I'm required to go :)

School Starts on Monday, kids. Welcome back.

As for me, my Japanese class starts on the 7th, so I'm excited for that :) It's nice to take classes just for fun.

08.24.02 3:44pm(0 comments)

I WILL CRUSH ALL SKY-ACCESS

I survived the weekend! Hooray :) Not only did I work (at Sky) on saturday, but I also worked my butt off at home and on sunday morning. I had a bunch of stuff to do to get the apartment ready for Tom to move in. That went well too; it only took us about 20 minutes to unpack his and his parents' car. I got some fun bath n' body works stuff for my birthday and finally got to give Tom the presents that I had been hiding for a few months (a bag that has NERV embroidered on it, a copy of "ender's game" signed by the author, and a linksys wireless nice). We all went out to lunch at el zarappe(yum!) and his parents took off from there. The rest of the day, Tom and I worked on unpacking his stuff. For the most part, he's moved in. There's still some crates, but we'll get to that sooner or later. So far, living with Tom is going really well. Tom seems really excited about grad school :) I'm so happy for him! Fortunately for me, he came home from grad step at just the right time yesterday because I had a little run-in with the rental company. It's was really nice of them to tell us that we didn't owe them anymore money when we asked about it and that we could pick up our keys anytime. It was also nice to discover that they had lied to us when I went to pick up Tom's keys yesterday over my lunch break. AND the lady at Preferred Properties was a total bitch. I realize that I signed the lease. However, when I ask someone if I owe anymore money, I expect an honest answer. If one doesn't know, then one needs to find out. Fortunately for us both, Tom went over to preferred and took care of everything and avoided late fees. I can't wait until I can move into a real apartment. Preferred Properties with their brown carpet, their circa 70's decor, moldy windows, and overpriced apartments can bite me.

On a sad note, I had to cancel my mp3 player order. They were on backorder, I didn't want to wait a month for the thing, and I could use the money now. So sad... It was my present to myself for walking everyday and losing some weight. Oh well, I walk without music now, I can do it for awhile longer :) I've been taking an early morning walk consistently for almost 3 weeks now and they say it takes 2 weeks of an activity to make it a habit. I do quite enjoy my morning walks; it's always so quiet and cool outside (except when it's raining, that's when I do a lot of jogging). Either way, I'm doing a very good job and I'm proud of myself :)

I've been doing my share of moving also; I moved to a different cube at work today. Now, I have the pleasure of not having a window, not having much light, sitting by the back loading dock door, and sitting much closer to the speaker so that I can hear the easy listening much better. Gee, thanks. If I have to hear Kenny G one more time, I'm going to go postal. "I hope you daaaaance," well I hope you shut the hell up. Fortunately for me, the web is saturated with lovely little things called webcomics and I read the lot of Diesel Sweeties today. Funny stuff :) It was difficult to supress laughter while reading during some of the more assanine sky-access calls today, but I managed :)

My birthday is in 6 days and I get to see my mom in a week and a half! Hooray!

08.20.02 4:31pm(2 comments)

Kristy has left the building….

I'd like to have a moment of silence in rememberence of the King....

....

Ah, thank you. Thank you very much..

08.16.02 1:05pm(1 comment)

And this bird you cannot change….

Last night as I was driving up to toledo, I had NPR tuned in on the radio. Let me tell you how much I love NPR, especially their programming last night. On marketplace, there was commentary by a lady named Delia, who spoke of wall street in intermittent french with the ease of a socialite in uptown manhattan gossipping over martinis about the latest dangerous liasons. It was *fabulous* and I am going to try to track this one down, but they blocked NPR from work :( Perhaps some other time.

Delia was enjoyable, but what really got me last night, was the segment on the origin of yelling "free bird" at concerts. First of all, who comes up with this sort of idea? "hey! I know! Why don't we do an expose on how that 'free bird' thing got started!" Odd as though it may seem, it was quite an interesting story about a man who adored lynard skynard and decided to just yell out a request for free bird at a concert. The tale went on to include how he had made an exact science of when to shout free-bird at concerts, but was often interrupted by other free-bird shouters. I guess this man even had a few momentous occasions, where he shouted free bird at a pianist and offended the pianist so greatly that he walked off stage and refused an encore. However, the man's last free-bird shouting was at a jazz concert, when the actual jazz group did an impromptu version of free bird (Which they then played on npr). That has to be the single best npr segment I've ever heard.

Oddly enough, this free-bird shouting expose leads me to other thoughts pertaining to the actual song...How I saw the aged harley biker riding down wooster blaring it from his radio... How my mother used to embroider eagles on my father's jeans... How it's a song about, well... you should know what it's about. This song is put into my hands on the eve of my boyfriend moving into, what shall be, our apartment. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way a free-bird. What is going on this weekend is a step in quite the opposite direction. The truth is that this is quite a big step for both of us and I'm nervous as hell. I've never really had a good roomate experience, and I don't want the amazing relationship that I have with Tom to change because I suck as a roomate. It doesn't help that a few of my friends are just leaving, or have recently left, long term, co-habiting relationships and are quite openly bitter. I say that I think everything will go well (and for the most part, I do think that) and they tell me to re-evaluate in a few months and say what I think at that time. Perhaps my worries are unfounded. Tom and I have a really great, open, communicative, loving, relationship. And it's not like I'm worried about him being a bad roomate. I'm worried about me. Regardless, I have a lot of work to do before sunday, cleaning, hanging drapes, and whatnot. If I keep myself busy, I worry less.

08.16.02 11:29am(0 comments)