half a cat

Rules for Non-Pet Owners Who Visit and Like to Complain About Our Pets:

1. They live here. You don’t.
2. If you don’t want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. (That’s why they call it “fur”niture.)
3. I like my pets a lot better than most people.
4. To you, it’s an animal. To me, he/she is an adopted son/daughter who is short, hairy, walks on all fours and doesn’t speak clearly.

Dogs and cats are better than kids … They eat less, don’t ask for money all the time, are easier to train, usually come when called, never drive your car, don’t hang out with drug-using friends, don’t smoke or drink, don’t worry about having to buy the latest fashions, don’t wear your clothes, and don’t need a gazillion dollars for college — and if they get pregnant, you can sell the children.

I love the part about selling the children.

So, everyone is right - the waiting sucks. We are in week 3 of the great unemployment fest, and frankly I’m getting a bit annoyed. I’ve heard from 4 different companies that they are “interested in talking to me about an opportunity”, after which I send off the resume to be forwarded to HR. HR apparenlty stands for “Hole of Relinqushment” - kind of like getting put on “Ignore” on the phone. I am 99% sure that these delays are not due to any personal issue with me, rather the sheer volume of data and items that need processing in these said HoR departments…but that 1% is annoying - especially when one does not have much to do and ends up with his brain re-hashing events and scenarios ad nauseum. So, yes waiting is a real PITA.

In the meantime,I’ve uploaded a few more photots for your visual enjoyment:

• little man (Portana’s wearing his Seahawk jersey during the first playoff game. He’s a hillarious little kid — it was really interesting to see how he and the Bogart interacted. Talk about mutual fear for a while, but after the initial scare, some chasy-chasy and petting was had.

• Dr. Jacks’ No. 7 Go-Kart. What more fun can you experience than metal fabrication while drinking?

Layer One

• Name: Nic
• Birthdate: 12-21-1979
• Birthplace: Waterloo, Iowa
• Current Location: Billings, Mt.
• Eye Color: greeny-brown
• Hair Color: brown, tinge of red
• Righty or Lefty: Right
• Sun Sign: Sagicorn (last day of Sag)
• Innie or Outtie: Innie, no freak here

Layer Two

• Your heritage: German, Russian, Dutch
• The shoes you wore today: 23F outside and flp-flops
• Your hair: Still have it; farm teams are increasing their output year by year
• Your eyes: bad, glasses suck
• Your weakness: women, spending money, toys
• Your fears: snakes, seeing people eating raw dough (fuggin yuck, ok?)
• Your perfect pizza: one brought to me with a beer by female following hot monkey love
• One thing you’d like to achieve: extra million in retirement.

Layer Three

• Your most overused phrase: Groovy
• Your first waking thoughts: To shag or not to shag ?
• The first feature you notice in the opposite sex: the boobies.
• Your best physical feature: eyes - i got the michevious thing going
• Your bedtime: 10 or 11
• Your greatest fear: having my fears come true
• Your greatest accomplishment: college - from MT to Ivy
• Your most missed memory: how the fuck do you know what the most missed memory is? you are missing it for pete’s sake.

Layer Four

• Pepsi or Coke: Depends - pepsi for drinking, coke for mixing drinks
• Single or group dates: single - hard to work the Magick with a crowd
• Adidas or Nike: Neither - NB for working out, flip flops, cowboy boots, Murrel (the urban models…)
• Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Not usually a tea guy - if I do it is the green Arizona in the big assed can
• Chocolate or vanilla: choco
• Cappuccino or coffee: coffee, and it better be damned strong

Layer Five

• Smoke: used to, LOVE me a good cigar. partial to Ashtons
• Cuss: Fuck no.
• Sing: Badly. very badly.
• Take a shower everyday: required maintanence for this model
• Have a crush(es): not currently, last one was in college
• Do you think you’ve been in love: Doi.
• Want to go to college: Yessir, graduated too!
• Like high school: Kinda - it was too akward to be tons of fun.
• Want to get married: someday, with the right person
• Believe in yourself: Yes, sometimes to a fault.
• Type with your fingers on the right keys: mostly, it is more efficient and I’m a lazy git.
• Think you’re attractive: I don’t scare people, but I’m not going to win any awards either.
• Think you’re a health freak: good god no. I eat somewhat healthy and workout, but not a freak about it. I have no qualms eating Wendy’s twice a day sometimes. I’ve been known to start drinking instead of heading to the gym too.
• Get along with your parents: Mom is the coolest.
• Play an instrument: Usedtacould - sax and piano.

Layer Six

In the past month, did you…

• Drink alcohol: Yes.
• Smoke: No
• Do a drug: nothing elicit
• Make Out: Yes
• Go on a date: yes
• Eat an entire box of Oreos: Sadly no, but not a bad idea for next week.
• Eat sushi: Nope, I don’t do sushi in landlocked states - bad joss.
• Been on stage: Thank god no.
• Been dumped: Thankfully no
• Gone skating: Nope
• Made homemade cookies: Nope, but my kitchen was the site of a nice production
• Been in love: yup
• Gone skinny dipping: Can we say shrinkage ? Not impressive and no.
• Dyed your hair: No, and not going to. Ever.
• Stolen anything: I can’t recall.

Layer Seven

Have you ever…

• Played a game that required removal of clothing: yes
• If so, was it mixed company: lets hope so - strip poker with a bunch of dudes is just wrong.
• Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Honestly..what kinds of stupid question is that ? But of course..this last friday night in fact.
• Been caught “doing something”: Good god yes - famously so. Spotlight with a crowd, cheers & jeers - the whole nine yard.
• Been called a tease: Heck no, I’m way too easy.
• Gotten beaten up: Nope, but given out a few thumpings.
• Shoplifted: Yes
• If so, did you get caught: Yup - mom busted me and made me return & appologize
• Changed who you were to fit in: Not on purpose, but one does adapt to enjoy life

Layer Eight

• Age you hope to be married: No hard limits - 30 is a nice number for now.
• Numbers and Names of Children: Bogart (dog)
• Describe your Dream Wedding: one involving a sailboat and an amazing woman. Supporting cast optional
• How do you want to die: In my sleep - like grandpa, not screaming like the other people in the car.
• What do you want to be when you grow up: Loaded and oversexed
• What countr(ies) would you most like to visit: Spain (again), UK, Canada (again), Brazil, Chile, Australia, Russia, Germany…

Layer Nine

• Number of girls I have kissed: Enough, no really.
• Number of girlfriends you’ve had: 20 something ?
• Number of drugs taken illegally: several…nothing too bad.
• Number of people I could trust with my life: < 10
• Number of CDs that I own: lots, TONs more from the magic iTunes
• Number of piercings: zero
• Number of tattoos: 3
• Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper: bunch- from sports to scouts as a kid, science fair, geog bee, conference papers.
• Number of scars on my body: tons, all worn with pride.
• Number of things in my past that I regret: only missed opportunities.

Thanks to the Sis for this treat in email. I laughed so hard that cried, good stuff wade.

• One Star Hangover: No pain. No real feeling of illness. You’re able to function relatively well; however, you are still parched. You can drink 5 sodas and still feel this way. For some reason, you are craving a steak & fries.

• Two Star Hangover: No pain, but something is definitely amiss. You may look okay, but you have the mental capacity of a staple gun. The coffee you are chugging is only increasing your rumbling gut, which is still tossing around the fruity pancake from the 3:00 AM Waffle House excursion. There is some definite havoc being wreaked upon your bowels.

• Three Star Hangover: Slight headache. Stomach feels crappy. You are definitely not productive. Anytime a girl walks by you gag because her perfume reminds you of the flavoured schnapps shots your alcoholic friends dared you to drink. Life would be better right now if you were home in your bed watching Lucy reruns. You’ve had 4 cups of coffee, a gallon of water, 3 iced teas and a diet Coke — yet you haven’t peed once.

• Four Star Hangover: Life sucks. Your head is throbbing. You can’t speak too quickly or else you might puke. Your boss has already lambasted you for being late and has given you a lecture for reeking of booze. You wore nice clothes, but that can’t hide the fact that you only shaved one side of your face. (For the ladies, it looks like you put your make-up on while riding the bumper cars.) Your eyes look like one big red vein, and even your hair hurts. Your sphincter is in perpetual spasm, and the first of about five shits you take during the day brings water to the eyes of everyone who enters the bathroom.

• Five Star Hangover: You have a second heartbeat in your head, which is actually annoying the employee who sits in the next cube. Vodka vapour is seeping out of every pore and making you dizzy. In fact, you are probably still drunk. You still have toothpaste crust in the corners of your mouth from brushing your teeth in an attempt to get the remnants of the poop fairy out. Your body has lost the ability to generate saliva so your tongue is suffocating you. You don’t have the foggiest idea who the hell the stranger was passed out in your bed this morning. Any attempt to defecate results in a fire hose like discharge of alcohol-scented fluid with a rare “floater” thrown in. The sole purpose of this “floater” seems to be to splash the toilet water all over your ass. Death sounds pretty good about right now!

Ok, so last Monday was a bad day - I got laid off. Fuck. I’ve delayed writing about it as I wanted to get my thoughts in order and just hang out and scratch in front of the TV for a few days. (Just going to toss this in here — save me the comments telling me to “hang in there”, etc — I’m doing pretty good :P) It was put to me as a “shift of resources” - I will take that at face value and not ponder why it was me specifically. It was a pretty pleasant conversation — save for that bit about me not getting paid to do stuff any more — and I am not harboring any ill will towards the company….yet I reserve the right to be bitter at some future date.

So! What does this all mean? New job time - of course, and a very likely relocation. Salaries in Billings are no where near what I was making and it would be a huge hit to my career as a whole. I would love to find another job that would allow me to work from home (no matter where I call home, like the Pub with free wirless during WorldCup games… just warning you…), but they are very rare. I do have two very promising opportunities and a few others that I am looking towards for future imployment. One of which is a “lifeboat” from CFS that I am really really really hoping works out. I would be working in the same field on the same software with some of the same customers — a trifecta for me if you ask. Here is the teaser for those regular readers: I’m crossing my fingers for a move to the Twin Cities area or Seattle. The former being slightly more desireable for traffic reasons (riding the Sledeghammer or HD in Seattle does not sound fun). I’ve also got a bit of family there that would make the transition so much easier. I will keep you folks posted if any paperwork gets involved. Right now I have nothing in writing that makes me think I won’t be working at UPS come March.

The next job is going to have to be better than the last — getting laid off is not going to change my opinions on what I value in a job. I am almost looking to have an office to go into — working from home is great, but I truly do think that it is less than optimal in anything but a very small company where the level of communication is low. I also want benefits. Call me crazy (crazy!), but medical, dental, etc are not an option anymore. I also want a bit more mature company that the last one, perhaps with better management. I really enjoy the self-driven work environment, but I feel that coupled with working from home it devolves into a situation where I was getting burnt out too easily and disenchanted with the work. Personal problems? Oh sure - but I do think that either closer management — or at least involving the employees into some sort of structured environement — would help alleviate these issues. If nothing else, they would be noticed and dealt with a bit earlier. I have some strong opinions on the former company that I will not voice here, it would be massively inappropriate and probably harmful to all of those involved. If people from that company wish to hear what I have to say, email me offline and I can flesh out my thoughts there.

So …you ask…what have I been up to? A lot of nothing on some days — boy is that a luxury! I’ve also been quite glad at my recent re-budgeting, I think that will allow me to track and spend in a much more sane manner now that I’ve got a limited income. I took a whole day yesterday to go help work on the ’shop’ go-kart - I did a ton of welding and got the new front-end all ready to rock. That was SO much fun, save for laying on my back and welding overhead — slag burns fugging hurt. I’ve got a good swat at the laundry and the regular house cleaning too — for once I’ve not got a huge backlog of those types of things to do. I’m also starting to cleanup and start packing — might as well get ready for the inevitable. If nothing else, I’m looking at moving to a less expensive place come June. Oh yeah, and going to the gym. It burns us!

Well - that does it for now, more TV to watch.

Funny stuff

Sunday was a day for the books. There were crepes made (for me, not by me), during which I got the house vaccuumed, picked up, fire made, and the dishes done. The crepes were fantastic, exactly like I remember having from the Crepe Truck on Penn’s campus, sans the choices of fillings. Sigh, food trucks — I miss you but not your cholesterol elevating sauces. Thanks babe for cooking!

After the gorging was done, sat down in “my chair” by the fire with a nice hot cup of java, watching the TV, reading the WSJ. Doggie was the usual cute morning self - lounging around and sleeping. Football was on soon and I spent the better part of the day making sure my butt had ample time to caress the leather.

It was one of those days where you sit there watching TV in the middle of the morning completely content (and quite warm, thank you Mr. Fire) with the mornings progress on household chores and just enjoying the relaxation. I even did a bit of work, well work in the sense that it was work related, but I was really just fiddling around with debugging some arcane problem I hit, just to see if I could get it figured out. I did, at least to the point where I emailed the original author of the code asking “WTF is this supposed to do here?”

Tangent .. so the birds. Yes I have birds. Deal with it — I have. Since moving back, and honestly getting the dog, I’ve been less than thrilled with them. The make a damned big mess. I had resolved to take less than full care of them (I’m sooo not cleaning the cage every week, etc). It turns out I was just being a bad person. I’ve started to enjoy them again, even cleaned up their cage and bought them some new shredding toys and nesting house. They are pretty cute and seem to be enjoying themselves a bit more now. Even the dog will sit in the office and just watch the birds — not sure if he is just curious or watching them like we do the lobster tank in a seafood restaurant. “Mmm, that looks good, gonna have to order that one day”. End Tangent

So — the gf is out of town this week. This likely means working late every night — a secret and disturbingly fun event for me on occasion and eating poorly. Not that I eat healthy just when she is here — I ususally cook good food anyways — but more the ‘heh, gf out, boys play’ kind of mentality that I’m going use as an excuse to make steak or deep fried mumblmumble some night. I’m likely going to be bored with myself too — Mom & Sis watch out, I’m probably coming up for dinner one night to stave of the alone-ness (different from lonliness). I’m not sure what I amd doing next weekend other than watching more football (playoffs are getting good). I should find something good to do — probably going to launder the Harley cover and give it a good bath if the weather holds above freezing. It needs it and I don’t want to ride out a dirty bike the next time it is warm enough. I just got the new J&P cycle catalog and I am having a tough time finding something that I want for the bike. There are a few minor things, but I’m sadly lacking in the gratuitous spenditure area. Saaad.

I want one. Sadly the first thought through my head was “Oh #@$# I bet the is lame ass cable company here won’t have CableCARD support until 2050. Reason #442 that I am going to have to move somewhere in the next few years.

So, this seems to have all the features I would want in a new Tivo, well except a DVD burner — but I can live without that. The dual tuners is specatcular, especially now that they use CableCARD — no more anoying cable boxes, IR tents or serial cables. HDTV would be cool. I’ve yet to take the plunge for a new TV — just bought a Wega last year, and I can’t afford the ~46″ or so DLP that I want. BTW — what is the difference between LCD and DLP TVs these days?

I will have one of these little babies soon, sooner if Bresnan supports CableCARD anytime soon. No word on price yet…

Ever since the second semester of freshman year at Penn, when I was rooming with the Rascob, I’ve laughed my arse off at this song. It really is funny. It was even better seeing it live too — and man we were HAMMERED (ok, side tangent from original post for a second) at that concert. “Handle” of Dr. Jimmy Bean, 30pk of Busch, and some other recreational substances make for a good weekend. Sigh, mispent youth and all. No wonder I got fat that year.

Anyways.. there is a lyric in there that is “give me back my money, you bitch” or something like that. So, I’ve always had a wee bit of a problem managing money. I can spend like you wouldn’t believe. Yes, I do have some very nice furniture, guns, computers, Harley (that wasn’t a impulse buy…), kitchen stuffs, etc from my shopping trips — but most of the issue is the amount of cash I can blow through. You’d think I have a serious drug problem, where in fact I have only a small one. Err, had. I do make a pretty good chunk from my job but I never seem to be able to save much, and always seem to be scraping by that last week of every month. As one of my housemates put it “You can program the Linux kernel, run clusters, and get through school but can’t balance a checkbook???”. I always imagine him saying that with the Genie from Aladdin - ” Phenomenal cosmic powers! Itty bitty living space.” Yeah. Good times. BTW — Thanks mdog for the fun times, too bad you couldn’t make it to Spain for the conference — as much your work as mine!

SO! I’ve taken the initiative (once again..) to use a computer program to manage my moola. I’ve made past attempts with M$ Money and GnuCash to keep track of expenses, loans, retirement accounts, etc. I started with the best intentions each time, but only to fade out of sync after a few months. I think this was due to how badly lacking each of those programs was in ease-of-use. To tackle this problem again, I have installed Quicken Deluxe 2006 and…well to make a very long story a little shorter - it rocks. I am able to download my credit card, retirement and checking information with one click — right over the web (This Internet thing is SO going to be cool once it takes off). There are fantastic tools for visualizing your balances over time, including a completely amazing (for me!) transaction scheduler. The TS allows you to put in all of your deposits and bills, giving you a graph of the daily balance. The retirement account (Investment Center) interface is fantastic. It collates all of the monthly purchase for each security and shows the loss/gain and %return for each one — so you can see where your return is coming from. There are also built in interfaces to hit Yahoo! for charts and research — not to mention comparing performance against the big market indexes.

The big new feature for me is the budget planner. I have NEVER made a budget before, and let me tell you — it is a painful process. One of my fatal flaws is the complete hatred at being restrained — personally, physically or mentally. Want to get me mad? Just prevent me from doing something with out talking to me about it. Very unpleasent, as I can be quite mean. So, restraining myself in the forms of spending when there is still 100s of dollars in the account is just hard, we are talking a completely foreign idea here folks! I started with what I usually spend per month on things and then with some fantastic help I started to prune down the discretionary items. It turns out that a few things are obvious — I have a metric ass-barn load of “mandatory” bills - Harley, student loans, utilities, rent, insurances, gym membership, pet food, etc - that I had no idea took up that much of my salary. I honestly had more bills than I realized. At the end of the day — I’ve pruned out spending totaling 25% (!!) of my net salary. Holy Shit. If I can (and I really realll really want to) stick to this budget, I will be able to pay off all of my credit cards by July and start to save for things that I want — like a surround sound stereo and leather coffee table. I might even pay off some other bills a bit early too!

So — cheers to Quicken, I guess that is my personal N.Y resolution, besides shagging more.

I almost fell out of my chair when I saw this on CNN. It is possible that the car designers respsonsbile for the SUV disaster have some true skill left? BA! This car had better be good — you put the “Challenger” moniker on it — no pussy assed 4 cylinder engine, quiet exhaust or traction control shit. This baby better BURN rubber and gas - not like that half-assed Charger.

–Update– Better site with more photos