This is my calendar. Until further notice, I will be home unless otherwise specified there. I apologize if I’m not talkative or seem unwilling to hang out for no good reason. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you owe me money, though, because the job situation has yet to improve.
Monthly Archive for March, 2006
One of the other Teen Directors from the Y came into the Teen Center while I was working and suggested that I go for Andy’s old position. Being the Adventure Director would put me in charge of Ropes, Ski Club, Earth Service Corps and probably LITs (next summer, since she’s been given that responsibility for this summer). I might be able to handle that. The consant hours and possibility of Benefits are really enticing. She’s gonna put some feelers out for me, and have the guy who’s covering most of Andy’s ropes stuff call me. I also found out that the sports director doesn’t have a college degree, so that makes me a little more hopeful about getting a position like that.
iPod died; Called the AppleCare number and went through some attempts to recover it by pushing certain button combinations… none of them worked. So I went to the Apple store in Braintree and they hooked it up to their machine and officially declared it dead. Then they gave me a new one. I’m cleaning up my iTunes library a bit, in preparation for loading the new iPod from scratch. While I’d like to blame the failure on the iGrip sticky pad in my car failing to hold the iPod and it flying off the dash to its doom… that simply isn’t the case. The sticky pad actually works really well.
I decided, today, that I probably will move over to the new web host, at least with most of the sites. I might as well leave something here… since it’s paid for as a “Lifetime” account. The price seems more than reasonable and I think I can pull it off with very little downtime, if I use some of my alternate domains to set up temporary mirror sites. Hopefully, you won’t even notice the difference… unless the upgrades add some new features, or force me to lose old ones.
On Monday, we had our first practice for the new band and I had a good time. The people are really nice, it should be a lot of fun. The writing part is always kind of tedious for me, especially in a really loud, full band, situation. Hopefully we can get together in a slightly more quiet setting soon, so I can actually start writing parts and remembering them.
| listening to: Pressure Chief Artist: Cake |
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I got an eMail today from someone who I truly admire. The host I use for most of my websites has had its share of problems. There’s been some nasty downtime, lost files, unfulfilled promises, some overcharging and mysterious upgrade fees… even after paying for a lifetime hosting plan. So I knew that they guy running the whole deal was just a bit shady. But it still seemed to be on the cheap, so I’ve stuck it out for a number of years at this host. At one point, I was so sick of webhosts that I bought a server and got a quote from a data center and was all lined up to have some reliable, self-run, webspace. Unfortunately, the job which was going to finance this adventure dried up and I sold the server on eBay.
This nice young man who eMailed me today has followed through with the plan, though. He was burned by the host and insulted by him over the phone and decided that he wasn’t going to sit back and take it… so he put the same plan I had into action for his own sites, and then, being the smart, young, industrious person that he is, started alerting other people using our host that he was a shady character and that he was offering web space at similar rates, in case you didn’t want to deal with the shadiness anymore. Here’s a link he sent me which really opened my eyes to just how many people this guy has messed with.
My dilemma, of course, is that rebuilding these sites takes lots and lots of time. I’d want to upgrade to the latest versions of some of the software that runs this site and Wormtown.org, if possible, and the thought of reimporting the database is just scary… and all the little modifications I did to each of those sites are hard to remember. But I do have a lot of time off in the next few weeks. Will my brain go numb from code if I attempt it? Are his rates really reasonable enough to leave this host… which has been eerily stable for the last few months?
I changed my text plan again… I know it was a bad idea, since they royally fucked me the last time I tried to do that, but this time they got really wacky on me. Firstly, I got charged adjusted month charges for the old plan and the new plan AND got charged the full price for the NEXT month. So I paid for two months at the same time, which makes no sense. If I changed my plan every month, I’d get charged twice every month and that’s just ridiculous. The big problem is that the partial monthly charges came with a pro-rated allowance. The reason I upgraded was because I was about to go over my allowance… so when they pro-rated that partial month, it appeared as if I had gone over, by quite a bit. So, now I’m on the phone with Verizon, arguing with them again. I wonder if they have a ton of notes on my account about what a bastard I am. Basically, I’m not going to get off the line until they agree to delete those charges… we’ll see how that goes.
| listening to: Teenager of the Year Artist: Frank Black |
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So, I survived the Ides of March, which is really no big deal since I don’t have a Caesar complex or anything… but it certainly wasn’t the best day. I was already feeling sort of uncomfortable when I wrote that entry and things just got worse after that. I was feeling like everything I was doing was full of unnecessary stress, and then I got my April work schedule. I’m working 4 hours a week for three weeks in a row. I cannot survive on that sort of income and Ropes is not starting until May, according to the preliminary schedule I got from my temporary supervisor. The timing on this totally sucks, since I just went through the last of my savings and I’m still not feeling confident enough to look for a new job or impress a new boss. I’m not feeling up to dealing with anyone, truth be told. I would be in my house every day, keeping to myself, sleeping a lot, listening to a lot of Eels, only leaving for work, if left to my own devices. But I’m still trying live a slightly less depressed and more normal life, doing the domestic thing, fumbling through a relationship, feeling exhausted 75% of the day and inadequate 96% of it. I’m upsetting old friends by neglecting them and I’m upsetting the people I do see by being distant. And the whole thing upsets me.
| listening to: Shootenanny! Artist: Eels |
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I’m gonna try playing music again. I dunno how it’s gonna go, but practices are on Monday nights. I think it’s sort of a side project for everyone, so there isn’t going to be any huge pressure or anything. I went to Mom’s and got my bass and amp and pedals. I really don’t know much else about it yet, but I’ll post all the details here when I know them. I hope my amp doesn’t give me problems. I hope my brain doesn’t give me problems, either.
In other news, I’m sick of this up and down weather. Someone tell me where the weather is like the fall or spring of New England, all year long, and I will gladly sell them my soul for a house there. I like New England, and I love my apartment, especially since I finally moved into my own room and stuff. We’re even treating ourselves to a new toy at the apartment… a countertop dishwasher. Oh yeah, four-place-setting capacity, and hook-ups to the sink. I don’t remember the last time we did the dishes, or the last time I dirtied a dish there, but I’m very excited. Counter space is limited, but who needs a drying rack when you have a dishwasher, right? But I would give up the dishwasher and the green room and the feeling of absolute home-ness that I have there, for a shack with a pillow and a toilet in a place with nice weather all year. I used to crave that sort of weather for the chance to work my ropes course stuff all year, now I’m just looking for more comfort.
No more savings; it was fun, while it lasted. It almost got me through this winter, probably the lowest paying winter I’ve been through yet. I wish I could just go and get another job, but the kind of jobs I could do and the time I have available, come spring, makes it almost impossible: A night job… evenings, not so many hours or so late or overnight so that I can’t work a normal camp day in the summer or a ropes day in the fall and spring. It also can’t require me to get a new wardrobe, because I can’t afford such things and won’t make myself uncomfortable for any amount of money. So, suggest away… remembering, of course, that this is lay-off season for department store dock and back-room departments… I know because I’ve been in those positions at this time of the year twice in the past. In the “items I spent money on but shouldn’t have” department are things like my new sneakers. They make me happy, though. I hate money so much, it makes sense that I get rid of it all as fast as possible when I get it, right?
It took a couple days, but I now have my Sirius and my iPod in my new car… through the stereo. I’m still sort of undecided on what kind of mount to use for the iPod, but I’ve got two pretty good options. One costs me a cupholder and the other just looks a little weird. It only feels a little ghetto to be using a tape adapter after the cool little auxiliary input I had going on in the wagon. The Sirius interface isn’t too bad. Luckily I’m into it for the quality of music and not the ability to browse the channels or time-shift or see the artist and track at the same time, the way the plug & play units let me, in the past. I’ve got my favorite channels, and they’re already mapped to my presets. It wouldn’t be a great introduction to Sirius, but it’s great for me.
Still feeling the super tired-ness that started this weekend. Still worried about work. Still slowly going broke. Still fumbling around and feeling inadequate in various ways. But at least my ride is rockin’ now.
Sorry that I haven’t taken pictures of my car yet, I’ve been pretty busy and tired. No, not busy with a new authentic project of being or anything like that… still trying to fit into some sort of domestic lifestyle. I thought it would be a lot easier than trying to take on a new project, with my current state of not being able to focus. And it is easier in some respects, but it is also physically draining… or maybe I’m sick, ’cause I’ve been dog-tired since Saturday or so.
The car has been pretty cool. The dealership was a little quirky… actually, right from the beginning, they were a bit weird. We had a rookie salesguy, and I’ll give him that point, but even the sales manager didn’t have very good knowledge on the Mazda5 and its options. The rookie tried to offer us some deals that didn’t quite happen, but I’ll blame that on the rookie-ness. We ordered some accessories and add-ons when we purchased and were told when the parts would be in, so that we could come in and get them installed… but they didn’t schedule us with the service department and didn’t tell us that we had to do that ourselves. I’m sitting at the Mazda service department, now, on their wireless network, and I’m being told that the parts, that the sales team told me would be in yesterday, are not here yet, and might come in by noon. They are offering me a rental car, though. I might have to call out of work in order to pick it up this afternoon… and that’s sort of ridiculous. If I do, I’ll at least take advantage of the daylight and take some pictures of the car. My camera is right in the back, I have no excuse.
Tried to give the Olds wagon to Brian, Alicia’s cousin, but we had an issue with the Douglas police while trying to drive it home. FYI: driving a car with a Bill of Sale and the plates you plan to transfer to it, is not legal… no matter how many times my dad and I did it over the course of our lifetimes. Even though he didn’t have a license (another issue the Douglas police didn’t particularly care for), it would’ve been nice for Brian to have a car, since he is Alicia’s main babysitter. It’s not that I don’t love sitting around the apartment and playing nintendo [emulators on the computer] or watching consecutive episodes of old Stargate seasons, it’s that going out and doing things is fun, too, and the car was probably worth some extra babysitting time… not to mention making it easier for him to get here on his own.
They gave me a rental car, so I’m back at Alicia’s, but I neglected to take any of my keys off the ring before giving it to Mazda, and I did some errand last night where I took Alicia’s keys. So our plan to bring her son to the new daycare for an interview is no good ’cause we can’t get back in her apartment unless we go all the way to Worcester to get one of the sets of keys.
Reading over it all, it seems like a lot, but it’s not the physical activities that are so draining. I’m not really putting a lot of focus into any of them… it’s obvious to me, since I’m messing up little details like leaving all the keys in Worcester. And that’s what bothers me most. I think I might even be getting worse with the focus issue. It’s affecting things I didn’t even realize. As if I wasn’t concerned enough about Ropes in the spring with Andy gone, now I may have to impress a new boss, and I don’t know if I can do that. Should I start looking for a mindless job? hmmmm
