anniversary

this week is my quitting smoking anniversary... actually, it was last sunday, i just haven't had time to blog since then. december 9, 1999, it's been 8 years, whew... and i don't miss it at all, can't believe I used to do that... Blech...
well, the snow was fun this weekend! today it looked like it was snowing Inside my house... i was sanding drywall mud on my living room walls all morning, see the pics in my house folder. i'll put some actual house pics in there when i get time to go thru them to find some good ones.
MikeY

oh, a little xmas note:
a severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer!
~Mitch Hedberg

workout

Yay! i finally got in a full workout tonight! i haven't been able to with this headache that i've had for a few months... i'd try, then my temples would start kicking like a bass drum, have you ever seen the movie scanners???
they (read as "the overlords at work") sent out an e-mail about not going overboard with xmas decorations in your cubicle, they're not to extend to the outside of your cube, etc... so i bought a big stuffed santa, and put him on top of my book shelf, sticking completely out the top of my cube walls... heh! i was looking for a tree to put in my cube, but i couldn't find a free range, uncaged, humanely slaughtered tree anywhere... i'm going to work on some stuff this weekend to put up monday morning. i'm going to make a bunch of paper ring garland and staple it all over the ceiling over my cube, like will ferrell did everywhere in elf. i'm also planning on pulling down one of the ceiling tiles and wrapping it like a present with paper, ribbon and bow, and put it back up in the grid. normally i wouldn't be all gung heaux about it, but since they sent out that e-mail... i'm just sayin...

cheese

i've had a very productive weekend. friday i took my car in for baby's first oil change, i get 3 free ones from the dealership, they washed it too, nice! i got home and trimmed and mowed the yard, hopefully the last time for the year, but i'll probably have to mow at least once more because it's still green and growing, well, except for the big areas where my winterizer weed & feed killed all the weeds, they're a nice brown death color. then i got up on the roof, because half of one of my xmas lights on the front of the house was not working. i head up there with my baggie of replacement bulbs, and figure i'll swap out the one where the string is dead, and it would all light up. well, not so much. so i start working my way along, replacing each one with my good bulb... 30 or so from there, i'm comparing how long it will take me to get to the end of the string to how long it would take to go get a new strand for $3.50. then all of a sudden, it all lights up! threw the bad one out and shazam! i'm at full xmas spirit potential! saturday, i brought the ladders in and scraped all the high spots and flaws from my ceilings. sunday i was up filling all the dents, hammer marks and low spots with drywall mud. i took a break around 2:00 and made a sandwich, i also heated up some cheese dip for some fritos. after heating it up in a little glass bowl (i didn't read the caution, will be hot after heating warning) i dropped it on the way from the microwave to the counter. i've never tested the explosive properties of molten cheese before... man, can it fly! i immediately noticed how the splatter streak up my leg was burning my right leg thru my jeans, and the skin melting from my left arm... it was all over the floor, cabinets, my shirt and in my hair. luckily i had the ladder in the living room, it allowed me to clean the cheese and green pepper stuck to the ceiling... a little spackling can fix anything... so next weekend will be sanding fest, i'm sure it'll be a bigger mess than the cheese dip.

good weekend

well, i had a pretty good long thanksgiving weekend. i went to pujols 5 with some buddies wednesday night, it was okay. went to big paul and bonnie's (my parent's) house for thanksgiving day, ate too much of granny's chicken and dumplings (awesome), and put a new video card in paul's computer. yanno i can't to go anywhere without fixing something. friday got up early, picked up dr. mike and went to the guitar center, cuz i had a special 20% off coupon, and had my eye on an ovation 12-string. the coupon was only good for in stock items, and they didn't have the one i wanted, so i saved some $ and didn't buy anything. then i set big paul up with a laptop since the new video card didn't fix his computer, it's the motherboard... which i have to try to find on ebay. when i got home i put up my xmas lights all the way around the roof. then i went to see my friend margi's band in st. charles, that was fun. saturday i put up my xmas tree, got the lights and ornaments on it, but i need to get some garland or something, it's pretty boring. saturday night was paula's surprise birthday party at jive & wail. that was awesome! had a blast there... till everyone left me, all i had was the shot girl trying to get me to buy the rest of her tray of shots, which was nice. sunday i scraped my living room ceiling, i still have to do the dining room & kitchen half, then re-mud the whole thing, which will hopefully happen next weekend.

lost?

everyone needs to keep an eye on me and my stuff... if my dreams last night were trying to tell me something. i usually don't dream at all, or don't remember them or however you see it... i just wake up. well last night i was dreaming, first one, i was on a camping trip with most of the people from the drunkfest float trip. there was a big bonfire, and a stack of hay bails that everyone was sitting on. i see a cute girl walk by, and just sit there and watch her go by. then i say to myself, you need to go ask her out, and stop being worried about getting rejected. so i catch up to her and start talking... and here's where the far fetched part starts, she's actually gonna give me her phone number... so i reach to get my phone (my brain and life-line) to write it down, and it's Gone!!! so i guess the dream me gave up on the girl and went frantically looking for my phone in the hay bails where i was sitting and all around the camp grounds... then i woke up in a panic, reached over to the night stand, and there was my phone... ahh, i'm better now, it's 3am so i go get a drink of water and go back to bed. then i start dreaming again... i'm driving my new car out highway 40, then down highway K, and i'm in a hurry for something, not quite sure... and i'm almost out of gas (like i won't even make it to where i'm going). so i pull into a gas station and go to fill up... the pump won't take my debit card, and you know how patient i am with electronics and machines that don't work... so i have to hit pay inside, and fill the tank. i go in the quicky mart, and have to stand in a line of about 8 people buying soda and smokes, one hooshier had a nascar calendar... their internet is down, so they can't debit or credit inside either, so i have to spend almost all of my cash on the fillup, and go out to my car.... where's my car??? it's gone!! someone's stolen my new car with a full tank of gas (which pissed me off to a whole new second level). then i woke up again, it's now 4am. i went out to get another drink of water, checked to make sure my car was in the garage... it was, everything's fine, back to bed and don't wake up till 8 when my phone alarm goes off (no dreams in the last sleep period). hit the shower and worked on my brother's house all day... we'll see what tonight's sleep brings....

motivation

i'm having a serious lack of motivation lately, i don't know if it's the change in weather or what... i haven't practiced guitar in a few months, i haven't worked out for the last 2 or 3 weeks, i keep putting off my painting project in the house... i think most of it is due to this sinus bullshit i've had going on... i've had a headache for about 2 months straight, intensity varies from day to day, but it's really starting to wear on me. i've been sleeping even less than usual, which isn't good, my usual amount of sleep isn't supposed to be healthy. i took 2 weeks worth of antibiotics and musinex stuff, and neither did anything, i have no drainage at all, and the sinus pressure is still there, so it might not even be a sinus infection. i know nothing of these matters, only that it hurts and it sucks. so i played a guitar for about 15 minutes earlier, i was going to really try to work out tonight, but lifting is just going to make my headache pound... i'm going to make a big push on the living room this weekend. i need to mud the ceiling and sand all the walls, and hopefully start painting my texture coat of primer this weekend. we'll see how it goes, i'm sure i'll have to work on something for somebody else, or i'll sit around and just not do anything, and waste another entire weekend... we'll see.

birthday

so today was my 37th birthday, i got a good glimpse of what getting older is like right off the bat. well, as previously blogged, i got up at 5:15, went and got donuts, went in to work. paid for a parking meter next to the building, so i could go to my meeting at 8. my boss sent me an e-mail late monday about this meeting, he was going to be out of town, and could i go? sure, i don't know much about the project the meeting was about, but i could go and answer the electrical contractor's questions. so i get to the architect's office at 5 minutes till 8. pay for an hour's worth on a meter right by their building on washington. their freaking office door is locked. it's a glass storefront office, so i'm looking in, there's nobody anywhere... freaking architects are always late. so i start to think... and open the appointment on my calendar from my phone... it's supposed to be at the contractor's office, not the architect's. so i call in to my office to find out where the contractor's office is, i have no idea, never been there. our receptionist is on vacation, and i guess nobody was covering the front desk, because nobody answered the office phone, i tried calling in until almost 8:30... at which point i was already at my parking garage. so i make the hike to my office, pissed at myself for completely missing this meeting, and not having their address or phone number to at least call them and tell them i wouldn't be there. so i get to my desk and there's an e-mail from the secretary that i was trying to call for directions... i had e-mailed her to let her know i was going to be out of the office and wouldn't be at our engineering meeting... she replied "isn't that meeting for next tuesday?" so i re-read the e-mail for about the 6th time now... Yes, it is for next week. I had the wrong Date and Location for this meeting. holy crap, getting old sucks so far.

rant in e-minor

well, i'm in a bitchy mood. someone started this stupid tradition at my office that when it's Your birthday, You have to bring in donuts or bagels or something. so tomorrow, i have to wake up Early-ER so i can go buy donuts to put out in the kitchen... you've seen piranha swarm on a side of beef lowered into a river, right?? then i have to go to an architect's office, and pay to park, for a meeting by 8am, so i won't even get to play "how many donuts till i throw up"...
update on the garage door opener, i called my sears today, and mistakenly forgot to ask the lady that answered if she had a brain, told her my opener problems, so she could put me on hold for 10 minutes, so i could explain the whole thing again to some other moron who had no idea what he was doing. he told me to call the support number, that he had to look up, so i'll try that tomorrow. i guess i haven't ever thought about the knowledge a sears employee should have, i've never had to ask one of them how to do something... i always thought that'd be a cool job for me after i retire, because you know i'm not going to sit around and relax... but i'd be Way over qualified, because i own and have actually used most of the equipment and tools they carry... the nerve of me...
i have some mexican neighbors... don't get me wrong, they're all really nice, the ones that don't speak english at least wave... more than i can say for my asshole neighbors... anyways, there's about 14 people in a 3 bedroom house, and they have at least 9 cars... so every night from 10 to around midnight, there's a circue de solei de mexico acrobatic car maneuvering show. they have 2 that don't run in the garage, 4 in the driveway and 3 or so, given the time of day, up farther in the court. well, the last ones in have to pull in the driveway so the others can get out early... it's kinda funny to watch. the cat gets all up in a snit while this is going on, i don't know if he doesn't like the headlights dancing around in circles, or if he just doesn't like the neighbors... is there some on-going fued between china and mexico that i don't know about? he is siamese, you know... i don't know how deep he's involved in his heritage, when i speak chinese to him, he acts like he doesn't know what i'm talking about...

where to start?

wow, where do i start? it's been forever since i've blogged. the livestrong bracelet that i've worn for 6 or 7 years broke this morning. i bought 20 of them way back when, so i got a new one out, holy crap had the old one stretched out, this one fits right and everything. i have had a sinus headache and ringing ears for about 3 weeks now. i called my doctor, and he couldn't get me in for about 3 weeks, but they called and moved that one back 3 more weeks. so i went to an urgent care place friday, and low and behold, i was right... it's a sinus infection, and they prescribed me some antibiotics, which my doc could have easily done over the phone, but no... since i haven't seen him for 6 years, he has to see me as a new patient and all my records have been put away in storage. so i might still go and get a whole physical and blood checked, etc. when my appointment comes around. the really cute nurse asked me if i knew when my last tetinus shot was, and i said about 6 years ago, the last time i saw a doctor, when i put a large hole in my wrist with a flat claw (with big pointy nasty teeth). then she asked if amoxicillin usually worked for me, and i told her i had no idea, i don't think i've ever had it... so i've been taking this crap, and she told me to get some mucinex too, for 3 days now, and i still have a headache, dammit. this is why i don't have faith in most medicines, because they never do much for me. most of these pill pushers are just witch doctors with co-pays.
i've been fighting with my garage door opener for several months, it had a broken wire or loose solder or something that would make it's power shut off. with a swift punch or smack, it would turn back on and be fine. so a few weekends ago, i had it open, poking around, trying to find the bad connection, and Zap! a puff of smoke and a spark or 3, and the opener was fully dead. at least i found where the bad solder was on the power circuit board. (it was the one with the black char marks shooting out from it, sorry, i didn't take a picture). so i went to sears and got a new one, same one, just the 5 year newer version. of course i couldn't just replace the motor part, they've completely changed the design of the rail and chain, etc. so i had to take down the whole deal and assemble and put up the entire new opener. i have to call sears tomorrow, because either it's haunted, or somebody that lives around me has the same remote code. it keeps opening or closing on it's own. so i have it on lock, so the rogue remote can't open it, and i have to keep getting out to use the keypad (which had to be replaced as well).
well, there's more, but i'll put it in other posts... i tend to not read the really long blog entries anyways... maybe this will give me a reason to blog more often.

DrunkFest

well, made it through another drunkfest float trip... the tent is all hosed out and dried and put away, laundry is all done, what exactly is it that makes river clothes smell like rotten ass? the float was awesome, weather was perfect, beer was cold. i ran into some friends from last year and met some new ones this year. hopefully i remembered a phone number correctly, i would say my math skills might have been a little fuzzy at the time. i'll try calling some night this week. my only injuries are matching big cuts and bruises on the front of my shin bones from dragging into underwater trees. i was trying to map them out, i think i found them all. i took out my car battery for the radio box, mine was used on the second half of the float. in doing so, it cleared my stupid engine light i've been worrying about lately, and it didn't come back on through the whole ride home, so that's a good thing. so a big thanks again to my good friends that set up, organize, and make happen... the drunkfest!

crappy day

well, today pretty much sucked... work really dragged on, and i didn't get this job as done as i wanted to for a printing today... i didn't go over to dr. mike's for tequila shots, because i thought i had too much to do. i was going to go do some more shopping, but didn't go. i had to fill out about 50 forms because my work changed our insurance... i would rather have my fingernails pulled out one at a time than fill out forms... especially the same crap on multiple forms like tonight... and then there's all the boxes and questions that i don't know the answers to. it was about 2 hours of my life that i'll never get back, and it's not done yet.. i'll have to sit with the accounting lady that runs our insurance, and go thru it all and fill in the missing crap... with today's technology, couldn't our accounting lady give our basic info in a database to the insurance company... which could run a script to fill in all of these stupid forms, and save it all as a pdf, and not waste an entire folder of paperwork that i will never read... in fact, i'll probably put it in a drawer with the last huge packet of worthless info from the insurance company we just switched from... i'm just really tired lately of people doing things the old way, let's re-evaluate and find better, more efficient ways to do the things we do every day...

no gas day / walmart

well, i filled up the p.o.s. with gas on my way home from dave's tonight, mostly because it was empty, but partially because the asshole in me wanted to thwart the efforts of the mindless idiots who passed around the mass e-mailing of the "don't get gas on this day" e-mail again. what small thinking... the little band of nitwits think they will crush the giant oil and gasoline companies... then those same people, who thought they were actually affecting the world, will all need to fill their gigantic sport utility or minivan up tomorrow or the next day, and average the week back out perfectly for the giant oil and gasoline companies. idiots! gosh!

after i got gas (heh! still chuckling to self) i stopped in at wal-mart to return some jeans i bought late last night. i was on a supply run, i go late in order to avoid the mad sea of wal-mart shoppers. so i grab all the stuff i went there for, and went by the clothes section and looked at the discount racks, and they had some jeans on sale, in my size, so i grabbed a dark pair and a light pair. turns out, they use a different size inch on their tape measures in malaysia. they were too tight, and not long enough, either that, or i'm just built like a circus freak. so, it's almost 10:00 and the lady at the door puts stickers on the jeans and tells me to hurry, the return desk is getting ready to close... i haul ass, well, my normal walking speed, thru the store, back to the return counter, and there's some lady there... returning a Stack of clothes... that she had obviously shoplifted... we're not talking about a few shirts that "made her look fat" she did that naturally... she had men's clothes, kid's clothes, bathing suits, women's pants and shirts, in all different sizes and colors and styles... we're talking about 35 to 40 items, and guess what... no receipt for any of it... so the poor worker bee finishes zapping all the tags, and tells the lady she needs a manager's approval because it's such a large return amount, without a receipt. a few minutes go by... she tells me, sorry, i have to wait till this goes thru to deal with you, even though there's another perfectly good register on the counter... a few more minutes go by, manager #1 shows up. she's all of about 18 1/2 years old, with her little manager badge, probably needed to get out of there because she's got homeroom at 8am... she punches some buttons, makes "shady" explain the whole scenario again... then calls manager #2. another few minutes of my life click away... #2 gets the rundown from #1 and the worker bee, takes #2 around the corner for a huddle... they come back and tell her that "they'll allow the return but next time she's gonna need a receipt" read as "you can still shoplift here, but you'll have to go to a different wal-mart to commit the actual return money crime". i walked up to the counter (faking like i was getting impatient) just to try to see what they printed for her or how much they gave her back, but i couldn't tell. so, she heads off to buy her crack and my return of 2 pairs of jeans takes all of about 45 seconds, and i'm outta there...

softball

well, we lost the softball game tonight, not terribly badly though. the first couple of innings they had me playing center field, and i only got to chase 2 big hits down and throw them in. then i switched to 3rd base, and in my first inning there, i made all 3 outs. i caught 2 line drives, then someone grabbed a base hit and threw it to me to force the runner out at 3rd.. it was pretty cool. i made one more out in the next inning, then i messed up. i got the ball and had someone trapped between 2nd and 3rd, so i quickly did as braxton's old coach told them, held the ball up and charged the runner, then as they turned to run and were almost back to second, i threw it to the lady playing 2nd base. the runner turned before she could tag him, so she threw it back to me, i was in perfect position and should have just caught it and tagged him.... but i had to stretch way out to catch her throw, and fell and dropped it... as the guy runs past me and makes it to 3rd... i suck... but my good plays outnumbered my screw ups by far, i only didn't make it on base one time, and that time was because i just barely got beat by the throw. had some excitement about half way thru the game, one of our older players started spitting up and fell on his face and was convulsing on the ground right next to me. he was totally unconscious for a minute or so, just acting like he was choking, except i could tell he was breathing. i kind of propped him up and all of a sudden he came to, and started telling the 2 people who were already on cell calls to 911 to cancel the ambuli (plural?). he had just taken a swig of a beer, and he's got some kind of throat condition, he gets a bubble if not paying attention while drinking (anything, not just beer) and his oxygen level bottoms out, and he passes out... it was weird. he sat in my chair for a few minutes and was completely fine... he pitched the rest of the game... until we lost... not entirely due to my error on the run down... oh well.

what's this?

What's this? you say... it Can't be?!?! a Mikey post 2 weeks in a row?? Yes, it's true.

had a good time at the Cinco de Mayo party, many coronas and tequila poppers were consumed... which leads to me spending the night at the party... so i barely slept 30 minutes on the couch (combined total for the night), left at 6:30, took an hour nap at home. then got up, took a shower and headed over to belleville to install a dishwasher for my buddy Rut. it took a long time, had to fit it into a cabinet that wasn't meant to hold a dishwasher, but it turned out looking and working great. so i leave at 11pm, get to the end of the street and can hear a tire growl... hang my body out the door and can see a flat back tire... shit... so i drive back to rut's, he's still cleaning up the kitchen, fire up his compressor in his garage and make a big ruckus in his neighborhood, and fill my tire... and see the huge nail sticking out of it, spray it with some water and see it bubbling a slow leak. screw it, i've gotta get home, so i leave at 11:30. half an hour into the ride home, i'm right by shit-ville st. louis, around the goodfellow/lucas & hunt exits, and i hear this ricochet ping, ping, bang, zing, out the back something goes... i think, holy shit, there went my nail, and this tire's gonna deflate and blow out on the highway... at midnight.. in the middle of crapville. i've got a butt load of tools (probably worth more than the car) that i didn't want to leave stranded... but nothing happened, it was just a rock or something that i kicked up, no flat... so, after a quick nap, it's time for work.. tire's flat, so i pump it up with my compressor and drive to work. get out of work (of course too late to make it to the tire shop) and have to pump the flat up with this toy roadside cigarette lighter powered little compressor... noisy little sonofabitch, especially in an echo chamber like the underground garage. took about 10 minutes running to fill it to 30psi, and drove home. went in late today after being the tire shop's first appointment at 7:30, got the rest rotated and balanced while they were at it...
tomorrow night is my first softball game for the office team. we lost our first game, i couldn't go to it, not that i could have probably affected the outcome... so i'm bringing my ugly purple shirt with the stupid ardvark, or groundhog, or whatever our mascot is on the front... of course i got number 37 on the back... we'll see how it goes, i won't be the worst one on the team, i can hit, catch and throw, and i remember most all of the things that the ex-almost-step-son's baseball coach used to yell at them all the time, so i should do fine... as long as i don't break a toe.

update

So, it's time for my... now, bi-monthly update... i haven't had time to look at anyone's blogs, much less write in my own...
Last night, it's almost 3:30am, i wake up because i hear a loud noise. i sit up and look at a silhouette of the cat, he's sitting in the open window (on where the window sill will go if i ever finish trimming the windows out). he then starts shrieking and hissing, there's a crash against the screen, and he jumps down and goes screaming down the hallway, still making a horrible howling and hissing noise. i jump out of bed, and can see a whirl-wind of action in the back yard, Thing 1 is chasing Thing 2 around in circles in the back yard, and there's more shrieking and hissing out there. i don't know if it's Oliver (the cat) or not, so i felt the screen, and it's still intact (i thought he jumped through it and was getting his ass kicked by something) so i know he's still inside, and whatever is outside is still outside. so the battle heads across the back yard and goes away into the night. i go to find Oliver without turning any lights on, cuz i didn't want to rattle him any more... he's standing in the middle of the hallway, in a full karate stance! back arched way up, tail is about 3 inches in diameter, and straight up, and i can hear him panting... so i got down and reached out toward him real slow like, cuz i didn't want him to kick My ass again... he eventually calmed down, but didn't come back into the bedroom the rest of the night. this morning, i went out back to see what i could find, and there were little piles of rabbit tail fur all over the back yard, mostly right under my window. i'm assuming it was my new neighbor's cat, she lets it run loose at night. Oliver heard it attack and was scared to death, it was a riot. i don't know if he was trying to jump out, or if the one out there tried to jump in, but one of them ran into the screen really hard.
what else is new??? the lawn is looking pretty good. my neighbor Damien (i not only call him damien because that's his name, he is also the evil one, and has better grass than i do) threw down the gauntlet by fertilizing his yard one weekend before i could get to mine... so my fertilizer and weed killer are taking effect, and it's looking descent. after mowing saturday morning, i walked back and forth thru my mowing lines with weed-b-gone in one hand and dandelion/clover killer in the other. i looked like the Wyatt Errp of Lawnsville!!! man, were my trigger fingers tired.
i turned in all the paperwork for my passport monday. i went and got my picture taken for it at walgreens sunday, well, first their camera didn't work, then the scanner machine wouldn't work, then their photo printer wasn't working either. so i drove down the street to the next walgreens and got it done there. he even made me put on one of their blue "photo guy" lab shirts, because i had a white t-shirt on, and against the white background, it looked like my head was floating in space. i take all my stuff to the post office downtown because i'm close the the expedited shipping deadline to have it in time for the trip, and find out they don't do passports there, so i had to walk to the post office at olive and tucker (remember this is the first 90 degree day of the year). my postal worker said that expedited ones are only taking 3-4 weeks, which is shorter than i had heard, so i should have it in plenty of time...
i need to get back to work on the house, hopefully i'll get a bunch done this weekend. i need to frame out and drywall the shadow boxes, i've now got my LED lights, so i need to test and see how many i need for each shelf, and get that all wired up...
well, that's all for now

renovation

today i started on my painting project. i'm going to paint the dining room, kitchen and living room in this phase. so i started by scraping off all the high spots, patches and broken corner beads everywhere. ladder day is tomorrow, i only went up as high as i could reach. it's got kind of a middle eastern look to it... like a bomb went off in my living room. there's huge black scraper marks everywhere, plaster is all chipped off of the corners.. it's lovely. after i'm done scraping down the high walls and ceiling, it'll be patching and a skim coat of mud over the whole thing, a full sanding, primer coat over the whole thing, then the paint.
well, i'm off for the races tonight, my company is having a work function over at fairmount parks... it's a little early in the evening to promise that i'll be "goin crazy" every 18 minutes, but i'll see what i can do...
i went to see my old friend Linda from the Ultraviolets last night at the new J Buck's out by winghaven, it has been a long time, we talked alot between sets. as usual, every time i hear someone play a guitar i get all ramped up about getting good enough to be able to sit in for a few songs... that'll just take time that i don't have.
well, gotta run... maybe i'll stop by and get some carrots to throw around the track.

ugh

well, at least tomorrow's friday, my thursday kinda sucked. going back to work at the office sucked, i got to work from home all day wednesday. i got so much more done than i would have at the office. our supreme revit being came over and we worked on revit mep engineering stuff all day. the house was buzzing with a high level of geekiness. today i was in the office, back to the usual unavoidable hearing of personal phone calls on all sides of me, the dick-weed that sits next to me, who smacks while eating, and chews with his mouth open, snacking all day... i want to throw up on him from over the cubicle wall. sounds like he's giving head over there, it's disgusting. so i put on my headphones and crank them way up, it still doesn't drown out cell phones ringing and the paging system. i listened to Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique on repeat today, one of my favorite albums of all time. that made the day a little better.
i thought i was going to cash in on the american idol dead pool. there is a pool where we picked our top 6 winners, and we get points for every round our people are still in it. there is also a side bet (the dead pool) for 5 bucks a week, where if you guess All of the people to be voted off, you get the pot... i was feeling very confident, because the 4 i had picked to go tonight all gave stellarly horrible efforts this week... well, the pool's still growing as of tonight because of the big upset. i have Sabrina to win the whole show, and she was voted off tonight. what a crock of bullshit!! she's been among the top 4 performances each week... gone. and sanjai (mowgli from jungle book) is still alive?? i wish they would post actual stats, such as exact number of votes each, age and sex of the actual voters. this is the first season i've actually watched american idol, i've always stood by my theory that they are all collectively not worth a shit as far as real music (what i like) goes. sure, the winner will cut one fake teeny/pop/dance shit shingle, that they didn't write, or play an instrument on. and all the teenage girls will make their parents buy it, so it will sell alot. but in the big scheme of things in the rest of the musical world, they will still just be an overrated kareoke singer. so i actually gave it a chance, and am being greatly disappointed, this will also be the last season i watch this non-musical popularity contest.
so, after watching the show, and an episode of south park, and general conversation, i head home at around 10pm. i was telling everyone how excited i am, because i'm getting my car window fixed friday afternoon. i haven't been able to roll down my window for almost a month. i remember on the way home that still have a 2x4 in my door holding the window glass up in place. so, not wanting to be the idiotic picture of the month on the car dealership's website, i took apart my door panel again, took out the lumber, and put the door back together. it didn't take too long, it's the third time, i'm getting pretty good at the whole door panel process.
i've also had a sinus headache all day, and developed a sneeze and runny/stuffy nose today. so like i said, at least tomorrow's friday.
if anyone's interested in looking at someone who has more musical talent than all the contestants from every year combined, check out my friend Jimmie Bruhn.

weekend update

well, i got my first filling ever yesterday at the dentist... cool tools, i want one of those drills. i liked the big needle into the gums shot! he kept moving my lip and trying to distract me from concentrating on how much he was pumping in there and the grinding back and forth. i was looking almost crosseyed and could see it all. my lip was all numb for a few hours, that was kinda fun. the whole thing only took 10 minutes, and cost me 5 bucks, can't complain. i sounded weird, and thought i was drooling, i kept slurping like the elephant man to keep spit from running down my face, so that pretty much put the kabosh on firing on the dental assistant, who was incredibly hot! oh well.
monday night i had to replace a headlight in my p.o.s. car. chalk up one more reason to leave it on the side of the highway with a road flare burning in the back seat. what a pain in the ass!! i think the designer of that car had a mechanic screwing his wife, and having to work on this car is his payback. i couldn't figure out how to get to the light bulb. i had to go inside and look it up on the net. i learned the whole procedure from some punk-ass who has a "how to" on how he "modded" his headlights and actually likes dumping money into his car. he took the time out of his day to dremel out the whole back of the assembly to make those blue-white headlights fit into the original headlight assembly. thanks dude, what an asshole.
well, i'm off to do some shopping. then it's right back to learning this new software for work, it's kind of my date for the weekend. i'm putting alot of time and effort into learning what it wants out of our relationship, only to have it keep pissing me off.

Weakend

well, the weekend is not starting off so good. the weather is pretty crappy and rainy. i have two different schools to finish the electrical design on this weekend, i'm working on one today and i'll do the other one tomorrow, probably 5 hours each. i'm on break right now. fun.
i just made the worlds ugliest bacon and cheese omlet. it started out okay, but i couldn't flip it because it wouldn't hold together. so when i was finally able to get under it, it half flipped and tore into 3 main pieces, and was already brown on the bottom (i hate anything even remotely close to being burned or fully done). so i tried to reassemble it hoping that the uncooked part, now on the bottom, would chemically fuse it back together... in the testing of my theory, i broke it now into 5 or 6 different pieces. so i put my velveta on the biggest piece and stacked the smaller pieces on it like it was folded over. i put the burned sides to the inside thinking they wouldn't taste as bad if i didn't have to look at them. so i flipped it one more time, not wanted the outside to burn too, waiting for the cheese to melt, and my puzzle piece top just fell apart even more. good thing was that the cheese melted faster, because now most of it was laying directly on the skillet, so i just poured the whole mess off onto my plate. i'd give it a 3 out of 10 on taste, the velveta was 2 of the 3 points. i'm usually pretty good at making omlets, maybe i'll just stick to sunny side up or scrambled, i never mess them up.
friday afternoon i went to the dentist for my normal 6 monther (i've never had a cavity before, ever) and my little scraper & picker girl starts to lean in and really stare at this one spot, so after she's all done, the real dentist comes in to give me a look over. he has to ask which one she was talking about, i think it was number 12, which made my tooth feel kinda just like a number in stead of a part of the whole mouth experience. so he leans in to stare, and starts sticking a pick axe in to the side of my tooth. "well, there's definately something there, i don't know if it's a cavity though" he says. so i have to go in next friday, he's going to put a white fitting in the hole he was making worse. i guess he's going to drill it out some first? i didn't ask how much this was going to cost me...
the friday after that, i have to go to the car dealership and get my window fixed... while i sit there... for who knows how long... he said they could get it done in an afternoon, for somewhere between 3 and 4 hundred dollars.
that's all for now, unless something else bad happens, then i'll append...

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras was awesome!! i stayed at my friend's loft right in soulard. we went to the parade and froze our asses off, it was alot of fun, caught alot of beads, saw some boobs. you can't bring bottles or cans out to the parade, so i poured a bunch of beers into a huge QT mug, and brought spares for reloading stuffed into all my coat pockets. i kept having to chip the ice out of the drinking hole in the lid, it kept freezing shut. i didn't know if anyone was going to be flashing, being that it was below freezing, but there were some real troopers out there saturday! after the parade, we warmed up for a bit and had lunch. then we went and watched the They Might Be Giants concert. it was at an outdoor stage, totally free! they started at 6:30, right after dark, holy shit was it cold, it also got very windy, making it worse. i was even kind of dancing around, just to stay warm. it was a Fantastical show!! they were awesome, i had never seen them live before.

something new

well, i learned something new tonight. i did laundry tonight, overly full load of darks and jeans was first, got thru it without issue. next was the lights and whites load, getting them out of the dryer, i noticed something about my pillow case didn't look quite right. <> back several months ago, i got some wicked nice sets of pottery barn sheets. they're like a zillion thread count white sheets with matching pillow cases and such.... <> so this pillow case is half turned inside out, and there's this extra flap on one side. you put the pillow in the case like normal, then this flap goes around the other end of the pillow to hold it in place. all you other house wives are probably saying "Duh!!" well, shaddup and let me have my little moment of revalation. i've learned my new thing for today, so i'm done... till next time...
i'm going down to soulard for mardi gras, my buddy has a kickass loft down there. so he's having an all weekend party-fest with a bunch of people...
but now i'm gonna play some guitar for a while, then go to bed... using my pillow cases to their full potential for the first time

i'm dreaming of a white valentine's day

yanno the best thing about shoveling the driveway this late at night??? there's absolutely no chance in hell your beer will get warm!! unfortunately, my fingers were colder than my beer, but they're thawed enough to type now, so i'll live. my neighbor and his kids were out playing in the snow when i got home, so i gunned the car and jumped the great wall the plow left in front of my driveway. his kids cheered, he wasn't impressed, as he has all kinds of 4-wheel drive vehicles. i wanted to go tear shit up in his jeep, but he couldn't come out and play.
what else has been going on? mailed the taxes off today, i had them done last week, but my ink is crappy, so i waited till i could print them at work.
well, i still haven't had time to call the dealership about my window. not that i have time to spend any time without my car anyways, but at least i'll know how much it's gonna cost me. stupid car.
happy valentine's day to all the ladies... and some of the men
MikeY

superbowl

Hey, Indy won the SuperBowl!!! one of my favorite cities other than st. louis, well, just because "i'm with the band" when i'm there. Go Punch Judy!!!
well, i was hunting for the perfect e-card, but nobody makes one... so Happy Belated Groundhog Day!!! i wasn't able to post on the actual day... have you hugged a rodent today?
So, i fixed my car window by bolting a 2x4 into the door panel and the window bracket, to hold the window all the way up. nothing like doing a little auto repair with some lumber, it's almost as good as Bill's wooden snow plow attachment for the 4-wheeler... i'm going to call the dealership tomorrow and see how much the part is, and how much the labor will be, and when i can schedule it to get fixed, i'm hoping i can drop it off on a thursday night and have them fix it friday while i work from home. i'm also hoping this isn't going to cost my entire tax refund, which i'm mailing off tomorrow by the way, you slackers...
we'll have to see what the repair bill is going to be, there's also the incessant engine light, and any of it's 4 or 5 different codes it gives me when i scan it... i took it's title out to the garage and shook it in front of the car, letting it know that it was disposable... but then i started looking at cars, and realized that i can't afford a new, or even used car right now... i'd really hate to have to stretch out the money even more to buy something i don't really like or want just because my current p.o.s. forces me to get rid of it... we'll see, i'll post any updates.

cold car

this morning was a cold ride in to work. i was running around shopping last night, and had my drivers side window down about an half inch. this morning, i got out to highway 70 and my car was reading 18 degrees, so i went to roll the window up, there was a big pop noise from the guts of the drivers side door, and no window movement. so then, brianiac engineer that i am... decide i'll try rolling it down a bit, and then all the way up. so now, it's down an inch and a half, and won't roll up... i'm still not out of st. charles, mind you... so, it was a cold ride in to work today. after i parked in the garage downtown, i was able to pull up on the glass and roll the window up, so at least the car was locked. the window has just jumped off it's track, the motor is still moving the linkage, the glass is just not attached. so i won't be able to fix it until this weekend, so i'm going to be one of those idiots that has to open my door to swipe the card reader, or go to the drive up atm... oh joy!

Anniversary

today was the anniversary of the closing day on my house, it's been 2 years now. this morning i went to brunch with dave & emily, then pretty much worked overtime all afternoon and night, in order to keep making the payments... i sent off the escrow balance payment, a whopping $3.60. and then i noticed, with my brilliant math skillz that my house payment is actually coming down by 9 dollars a month.. go figure. so i'll keep my autopay the same and eat a little extra principal each time... oh well, i'm tired, need sleepy.

things

well, the snow was fun today, i got up around 8:00, i had a sleepover, because i didn't want to drive home in the snow, it was coming down pretty good. so, i brushed the snow off of 3 cars, then went and got bagels and donuts for breakfast... then when i got home, i got to shovel my driveway (free workout), and helped the neighbor kids build a big snowman in my back yard (it's the best sledding hill in the court).
what else has been happening? i've been working alot of overtime again, usually log on to my work computer and put in an hour or two each night (which i'm going to do in a few minutes).
i got my car fixed friday, i tried to tackle an 18-wheeler about a month ago... the truck won. i scuffed his back tires with my passenger side front fender and door. he didn't even know i was there. so it wasn't bad, but there were some dents. my buddy Ferd at Dent Squad (the best paintless dent removal shop in town) fixed them right up, it looks great. well, that side is now clean and doesn't match the rest of the dirtyness... he's a really cool guy, he used to play bass for john cougar mellencamp.
so, enough fun, back to work...

the wake

kind of a bummer day, today i found out that a really good friend of mine's dad passed away on new years day. i'd lost touch of my buddy for about 2 years because he got re-married, changed jobs and moved, we used to be really tight, i was his best man for his first wedding. his dad had had a few heart surgeries, and alzheimer's was starting to set in pretty bad. he died of a stroke, which Frankie said was probably better for him than suffering for a long time. so i went to the wake for a few hours after work, i hadn't seen anyone in his family for a few years more than the last time i saw him. they didn't remember my name, but most of them remembered me. i generally get people to smile around me, i don't insite a clingy crying response. not like i was cutting up jokes, well, i was when i went outside to not smoke with Hoosh (Frankie). i dunno, i hope i made an unpleasant situation go by a little bit easier for those i talked to. so, Salute to Frank Senior where ever he is now.

New Years

Hey everyone, Happy 2007!! this year has gotten off to a very slow, low light level start. i've half slept through discovery marathons of mythbusters and futureweapons all day... Thanks Dr Mike and Paula for hosting the "quiet, relaxing" new years eve bash... never had such a hangover from being so quiet and relaxed before, but that's okay, it was a Great party!!! i'm glad i got to spend it with such great company. perhaps i did have some of the rules of beer roulette wrong after all...
well, i'm off jan. 2th as well, so i'll hopefully get the tree and christmas lights taken down (unlike my hoosier neighbors, who still have theirs turned on, which started the week Before thanksgiving, by the way) i think there should be rules against crossing over holidays with you xmas lights. oh well, that's my cent and a half.