existential fashion disaster

Sarah’s mom reminded us that we passed the two year anniversary of our first date. She then started to ask me whether this was my longest relationship and I had to think about it. It turns out that it definitely is. The longest possible definition for my last long relationship was from November 1992 to September 1994… and it was a long distance relationship, only seeing each other on weekends and school breaks, and, for at least one year, it wasn’t an exclusive relationship… and it was in high school… so really, does it count at all? While I was sitting here, bored at work, I figured out that Sarah might also be a record holder for the longest “friendship that turned into a serious relationship,” since we started talking back in 2003, on photoSIG… as long as I don’t count the weird girls who I had relationships with in high school, lost touch with, off and on, for 5-10 years and then had another relationship with. All those years of non-contact don’t count, right? I dunno the rules for these kind of things. I wouldn’t say that two years flew by, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been two years. I know time flies when you’re having fun… but what do you call it when you’re happy and in love and two years doesn’t feel like two years? I guess it’s the same thing, fun just seems like too general a word to sum up the last two years. It’s been wonderful.

In other news, my phone started doing weird things and “rebooting” itself, so I brought it to a Verizon store and got its software/firmware updated. It seemed to help. Apparently, I’m eligible for $100 towards a new phone at the end of August. I looked at what’s available, now and wasn’t overly excited by anything. And I’m certainly not going to double my bill [to get unlimited calling to anyone on any service] just so I’m eligible for the new iPhone rip-off. I may not do anything in the phone department until I find out what carriers the Nuviphone will be on. That would satisfy my new GPS urges and hopefully quash any iPhone urges. I don’t really want to rearrange the family phone plan, though, so if it can’t work with Verizon, it probably won’t happen. What’s nice is that my current phone has been pretty good to me for almost two years. My current little laptop with GPS has been adequate, for a little over two years, but it’s not nearly as convenient or nice as those little portable units. It’d be cool to do some one-stop shopping, but I have to be patient and let the cool new devices hit the marketplace.

Now, I’ve just gotta survive through the rest of the boring front desk gig at the Y… not that I’m complaining - boring work on the weekends is fine with me, but relaxing at home is nicer.

I tried out a different Mazda dealership when I needed to replace my headlight, a couple weeks ago, and I liked them, so I’m at their place, now, using their free wireless connection while my car gets a full inspection/fluid change and gets the seat belt retractors replaced. I mentioned the dimming lights when operating windows and the wind noise from the door/post right behind my head, but I doubt much can really be done about either. I’m still considering buffing the paint off from where the ground wire meets the body. One of the fitness instructors at the Y is trying out a Mazda5 for a couple days and I told her about how much I like my car. I guess she’s having troubles convincing her husband that the 5 is the car for them. I did my part, to help, I feel.

I’m back on a normal schedule, this week, at work. Last week was daytrip week. We did three in a row, and had good weather for the first, but rainy/snowy freezing temps on the second and a cold start on the last one. It tired me out pretty good.  We’re moving on to bigger and better problem solving initiatives. The boss is throwing some weird rules at us, that I really feel are hindering the natural progression of the groups… but apparently, we’re all about skills this season, not teams. Yet, we’re still experiential… so wouldn’t building a good team and forming naturally and working together in the best team possible be the best way to experience the skills needed in a community or team? Whatever. The daytrips were a great environment, but I’m glad that I’m back to the schedule that I’ve sort of grown accustomed to. I do have to start getting the stats from the initial surveys entered this week, but it shouldn’t take too much extra time.

I also made some eMail changes this week. I was playing around with Google Apps, and it really made me realize the superiority of GMail. I now have GMail retrieving (and then deleting from the server, thus solidifying my committment) all my POP accounts AND I’ve got the old HoTMaiL (I like to pretend that Microsoft didn’t take it over and ruin it, and therefore still spell it with the, admittedly obnoxious, capitalization that it originally debuted with) account forwarding there. Right now, I have them filtering into separate labels for each account, but I’m sure I’ll make up a set of labels and filters like the folders I have in Thunderbird now. I also enabled IMAP for the whole GMail account, so I can still use Thunderbird and see all my old mail and my new mail in one program, though in separate inboxes. I’m happy with it so far. Next web project: upgrade this blog to Wordpress 2.5.

Now that Michigan is behind us, we’re rapidly approaching our Seattle trip. Sarah and her mom are all about having a good plan, so they’ve started asking around and researching attractions “not to miss” in the Seattle, Victoria & Vancouver areas. My first thought, when Seattle is mentioned, is Kurt Cobain. While I appreciated him as a songwriter and musician, I’m not enough of a fanatic to go seeking out any of his old hangouts or the house he died in or anything creepy/weird like that. We’ve got a week there, so I guess one of my goals is to find some great places to eat. I’ll definitely be using Yelp to see what the locals think.

I’d come upon reviews on Yelp while searching, but never realized what a big and active site it was, until Friendfeed tempted me to sign up for my own account. If you’ve got an account on Digg, Google Reader, Reddit, del.icio.us, Furl, Google Shared Stuff, Ma.gnolia, StumbleUpon, Gmail/Google Talk, Jaiku, Pownce, Twitter, Seesmic, Vimeo, YouTube, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, SmugMug, Zooomr, Tumblr, iLike, Last.fm, Pandora, Amazon Wishlists, Disqus, LinkedIn, Netflix, SlideShare, Upcoming, Yelp or a blog with an RSS feed, you should sign up for friendfeed. Then we can be friends and I can get updates about your stuff without having to make up an “imaginary friend” feed for you… and you can see updates from all your friends’ stuff on one page. I think it’s a brilliant use of RSS technology.

Next week, not this week, is Spring break for Chicago public schools. Sarah has just given notice at her job (seems like a sinking ship, doing what it can to cut costs by cutting hours). We think we should take another road-trip/vacation… last year was our trek across Missouri. Where should we go this time? Sarah wants to go somewhere “green,” so I guess maybe we need to head somewhat South-ish? At some point, we want to go see Mom, with Sarah’s mom, but that’ll wait until we all make some time at the same time and Mom has her guest room ready… and New England is probably no more green than it is here.

I walked around the Y and changed all the clocks, again, today. Last time the time changed, I was late for work when my clock changed on the wrong weekend. It was too smart for its own good. My new clock has a daylight savings time mode, so I got there with no problem… and I think we only had one guy show up late because he hadn’t changed his clocks.

And yes, the amp and equipment and stuff all still seems to be working great, I’ve got a couple opportunities to go play with some people in the city this week… to try some stuff out, see if there’s a good fit. I plugged my bass into my computer and played along with some tracks yesterday. It was fun. Looking forward to playing with people… hoping something comes together.

Cookie week has come to a close. The cookies are being packed into boxes to be sent to friends and family across the country. I need to bring them to the post office tomorrow, after work, I guess, and get them all in the mail. Round three included chocolate covered pretzel rods, in white and semi-sweet chocolate, with lots of fun decorations like itty bitty snowflakes and candy cane pieces, icing and putting sparkly sugar on the gingerbread snowflakes and the chocolate and almond slivers to finish off the Czech bear paws. The bear paws only called for a little bit of choclate, but we decided that more chocolate is always better. They turned out adorable and delicious. It was a mostly decorative day and quite a fun one. I put more pictures up yesterday and today, and you can see all of Sarah’s pics together with mine, since we tagged them all COOKIEpalooza 2007. Most of mine are wider shots with many, many cookies in them and Sarah’s are detail shots on a couple cookies. Peanut watched the whole thing, but had no comment.

Kinda sad that I have to actually go to work in the morning. It’s been a fun week of being a total bum. Not that I did nothing… we did plenty …but I’ve totally pushed off all the other work-related stuff I should’ve been doing. Adventure Ed stats aren’t done yet; gotta finish those this weekend and make a nice presentable summary file. I definitely blew off a staff holiday party tonight, probably gonna blow off one, if not both, tomorrow night as well. Might work one long day in the city, on Monday. I need to turn in the stats and help pass out t-shirts.

I had a couple little geek triumphs this week when I successfully added reCAPTCHA and tinyMCE to the simple blog script running Sarah’s site. Technically, I just got reCAPTCHA working and displaying the simplest of custom themes, we haven’t tweaked it to the way we actually want it to look yet… and the tinyMCE is running on my testing site until I get a chance to add it to Sarah’s code. It truly makes me appreciate all the work that goes into a CMS package, when I try to integrate a seemingly simple feature… meanwhile, my old friend and bandmate, Shana, is putting my web adventures to shame with her new site, Stylastic. It’s kind of like Hot or Not for style. I signed up. Those rating sites are a guilty pleasure, always have been. I know what your thinking… shouldn’t an existential fashion disaster be the arch-nemesis of such a site? Well… maybe … but we all know that’s just a witty name for my blog and it has nothing to do with fashion or clothes (of which I have a lot) or style (of which I have only a little). My Threadless obsession doesn’t count.

Work early tomorrow… should be sleeping. Off I go.

a to do list, for my upcoming trip back east… or maybe a hopefully do, or should do, but might not get to it. We shall see:

√ Dinner @ Mom’s (Monday night)
√ Go to Hava Java (on the way back from the airport, with Mark)
√ Go to Java Hut (for the last time … ::sniff::)
√ Get remaining gifts for people in the area
_ visit the teen center
hang out with:
√ Mark (ride home from airport, no Raianne or Scrabble, though)
√ Kristin
√ Drew (at Numark party)
√ Sara (at Numark party, no Tyler visit)
_ Jess and Erika
√ Karen and Cousin Mark

I guess I also need a packing list. A things not to forget list:

_ Tim Horton’s coffee mug didn’t fit, not important
√ laptop (little one)
√ camera
√ ipod and mount (maybe cupholder-mount)
√ stocking stuffers for Mom’s house
√ phone and charger (both car and home)
√ sunglasses
√ gloves

Ooh, and a things to not forget to bring/ship home list:

√ stocking stuff from Mom’s and other gifts
√ hard drives that need rescuing (out of the barn and shipped to Gillware)
√ Just For Sundae CD (haven’t found it yet)
_ Peggy Lawton cookies, Devil Dogs and other local foods (not this time, I can always get stuff shipped)

I may be adding to this.

edited on 12/25

I don’t get paid enough to train people. I don’t get paid enough to empty trash and walk the building, either… I barely get paid enough to sit here and stare at a computer, though that really isn’t my job. There’s supposedly a new girl coming in this morning, who has never been here, and who I need to train. She’ll be sitting over at courtesy desk, so there isn’t a whole lot to explain to her. That half of the job is pretty simple, watch the check-in screen for notes, greet people, refill coffee pots, hand out towels, start loads of towels in the washer, file guest sheets. I almost get paid enough to do that job… but I’m not here for the money, I’m here so I don’t lose the retirement fund I’ve contributed to for the past however many years.

My headache disappeared sometime shortly after I got home yesterday. We put the tree up. The stand is a bazillion times better than those old overgrown ashtray with a retaining ring stands I remember from my childhood. Got a little tree sap on my arms and a lot on my hands. Getting it off my arms reminded me of the days at Camp when I was climbing evergreens for ropes course work almost everyday. I stopped wearing shorts and started wearing a long sleeve work shirt to avoid getting that stuff in the hair… it takes so much effort and/or so much really abrasive cleaners to remove it. Getting it off my hands was easy, but I’ve still got a couple little marks on my arm that I didn’t put enough effort into. The tree smells nice, though. I hope it lasts until Christmas, it doesn’t seem to be taking up as much water as I expected for the first day. It could just be a different kind of tree than I’m used to. Obviously, my “lottery tree” didn’t need water, and that’s all I’ve really dealt with for the past 6 years or so.

Back to the boring.

Mornings at the Y are especially boring when the basketball league takes the weekend off. The height of activity, so far, was selling a 24″ wreath. We’re pretty sure that our tree grew while it was up on the roof, on the ride home. I think we’ll be pushing furniture around this afternoon and putting it up. If my headache goes away, that is. I woke up with a little headache, and it has grown into a ridiculously painful mess. I tried drinking a bunch of water, thinking that I might just be dehydrated. When that had no effect, I tried some coffee. I don’t think it’s working, either. I’m in the home stretch, now, though.

I was late for work this morning. My Emerson “SmartSet” alarm clock still believes that this is the weekend that we change the clocks… as does this computer, here at work, along with about half of the electronics of the members here at the YMCA that I’ve talked to. This automagical technology starts to lose its charm when it’s just plain wrong. Added a new clock to my amazon wishlist.

I want to start writing more. I used to use this as a journal, of sorts, and I kind of miss writing in a journal, but don’t want to actually carry one around with me. So there may be a whole lot more entries, here. And there may be some really short ones… which I may or may not try to designate as more of a note than an entry.

I’m also considering phasing out the existing photo gallery and going completely Flickr. I’ll have to move a few photos over, but I hesitate to move any that I don’t actually have the original, full-sized files for… or maybe I’ll put them in a special set - “Lost Originals” or something like that. Here’s my first attempt at flickr integration . There were a couple more snazzy plugins, but the server needs libcurl installed to use them, and apparently, it’s not installed.

Managed to avoid the rain on the whole drive out. It took 15.45 hours total and about 35 gallons of gas. I listened to the audiobook version of Clash of Kings for the entire ride. Hopped off the highway to avoid traffic with little detours (guided by the GPS) around Buffalo, NY and Erie, PA. Stopped at the first Tim Horton’s I saw along the highway (somewhere in NY state before Buffalo, I think) and grabbed a coffee milk and a devil dog at the first rest stop in Massachusetts. Got in to Dudley at around 11-something.

Yesterday, I visited Camp Foskett and Camp Elmwood and the Hockomock Teen Center. I’ll probably make some time to go out to Hockomock again next week, since Dawn and Rebecca were out at Leader’s School. It was good to see some old familiar faces still hanging around Foskett and nice to get a warm welcome from a lot of the staff and kids at Elmwood.

When I got home, Mom pointed out all the yard sale stuff and what her goals were for pre-sale day set up (after a small distraction by some local raccoons) and then we showed each other pictures of our recent adventures.

Today, with the help of Mark, we tore through a bunch of stuff in the garages and got a few aisles full of sellable stuff and tables to display it all on. We also went to Jimmy’s Pizza for lunch.

Things that I’d like to accomplish back east:

• help Mom with stuff for the Yard Sale
• visit Camp Foskett
• visit the Hock Teen Center & Camp Elmwood
• catch The Bangles @ the Woodstock Fair (sweet)
• take pictures @ the Woodstock Fair (hopefully better than theirs)
• see some Wormtown music (maybe a Wormtown Wednesday)
• hang out with whoever says they miss me

Northeast Stuff to acquire and bring home:

• Devil Dogs
• Peggy Lawton Cookies
• Coffee Syrup
• Moxie & other Polar Sodas
  

Find and bring home:

• folding chair with footrest
• last year’s Nalgene bottle with the good lid

Before I leave:

• make sure I have coverage at the Y
• get new sneakers
• load up iPod with audiobooks/new music
• get new iPod mount for car

What’d I forget?