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.