Archive for the ‘Daily’ Category

Hrmm

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

Ok. So for the past couple of weeks I’ve found myself being trucked to work by Sean on a regular almost daily basis. Business is booming for him and im standing still in my shithole job. Its to a point where job number two is more than likely going to have to happen to get anywhere close to what he’s making so were back to being equal partners again. I’ve decided to see what I can find that will keep me busy on nights and weekends and give me the ability to at least make up another five hundred or so a month as I am now in desperate need for my own transportation.

When you factor in the cost of an auto loan plus the cost of even having your foot on the ground in new york…let alone a damn insurance policy…I figure it’ll cost about five hundred a month.  The loan itself would probably be in the three hundred range. Insurance is an easy one fifty thanks to two points on my license (fuck you nassau pd) and then the gas that goes into it. Im basically screwed.

So for the time being until something comes up ill be punching up my resume and floating around on freelance sites to see what I can bring in. I can’t possibly work out of the house seven days a week so an at home position will have to suffice for the time being.

With that being said-   how’s the paid to post industry doing these days?  I used to be able to bring in about $3g’s with no problem. Hoping to make even a percentage of that. Let me know!

Oh boy!

Friday, September 24th, 2010

Ok so its been a really, really long time since I had anything to do with this site. As you can tell I’ve let it go to shit.  I’ve not only stopped posting but I’ve stopped logging into my admin panel to even approve some of the three hundred pending comments (the bulk of which are spam I’m sure).  Hell even now I’m blogging from my droid2. I’m not even sure of where I want to go with this site. I’m considering letting it go but can’t bring myself to get rid of something that I’ve had for so long.

As far as life is concerned I’m working my ass off and getting no where (as usual).  Things at home are ok. Theres nothing bad going on but I’m ready to just be out on my own. I’ve been doing some research into moving out to suffolk county. The Coram/Selden area really lookss promising but requires finding a new job and I’m to a point with my current job where I’m really just too comfortable to go anywhere.  I’ll figure something out over time but for now I’m sure staying put would be a better idea.

Right now i’m just surfing the internet and watching ghost adventures on the travel channel.  I’ve got such a crush on Aaron its crazy. Its got me a little spooked tonight I have to say. But when you’re staying at someone elses house and not yet used to the house noises and by yourself it plays a factor.

I wont be alone for long though. I’ve got Sean coming over in a little while. And to follow him will be Colin and Hallie. So it’ll be an evenful night. For now i’ll just relax until they get here. I really need to clean up the chairs to bring em outside anyway. Oh if only there were more damn lights in the house. Ugh@freaky screams on tv lol.

Chaos!

Sunday, April 4th, 2010

The past week has been pretty crazy, it’s probably the only word to really sum things up for me. Hrm… where to begin…

So I bought a new bed last weekend because mine was on it’s last legs and slowly beginning to completely kill my back. So Sean and I went and laid down on probably 6 or 7 beds in our price range and decided on the more expensive model. I have this problem where if its expensive it’s probably comfy, you also have to factor in that you get what you pay for. When it comes to a bed, I’d rather be on the higher end of things because it’s something you’re going to be sleeping on every single night for at least the next 10 years, it basically pays for itself over time if it’s a good quality bed and requires little to no maintenance. (Yes, beds do require maintenance, they need to be rotated, vacuumed, kept dust free and lord knows I’m anti-bedbug!.

So on Monday and Tuesday we started clearing out the room to accommodate the fact that a larger piece of furniture was moving in. When it was delivered on Wednesday I realized that I had no access to my side of the closet which is bad for me considering I’m the one who works out of the house, Sean can just roll out of bed and he’s good to go for the day. I require clean clothes and lots of them haha.

So after a few days of keeping the room as is, we went out of our way yesterday to completely move things around. There’s a better flow to the room now, the only issue being the fact that we had to purchase a new mounting system for the TV so it’s now on a swing arm instead of a tilt arm and we can pretty much move the TV in any direction that we need to so that we can both watch it no matter where it is in the room. He typically doesn’t watch during the day but when he decides to he can swing it to where the desk is, or we can swing it back in the direction of the bed when we’re laying down at night. Even though we work completely different schedules we still manage to find time at night to lay down and get to sleep about the same time. It’s pretty nice, I have to say. I think making that change will just help us out in general.

Having all of the clutter taken care of also makes the room more appealing for me, I’d dread going in there because it was just difficult to move. The reorganization of everything, plus the new floor plan is cerrtainly going to cut down on all of the chaos for me, that’s for sure.

So yea, the bedroom is in order after about 10 hours of going crazy trying to fix the vacuum and issues coming up with mounting the TV on the wall. Now it’s time to sit back and focus on the important stuff – EASTER!

Sean and I are heading out to Deer Park today to spend Easter with his mom and his aunt. We’re hoping to get out of here within the next hour and a half or so but we’re a little side tracked on getting the TV and PC’s hooked back up on the other side of the room, yes we have two TV’s in the room. The larger one on the wall is strictly movie/tv kind of setup and my smaller one is primarily for gaming. This way I can still relax in bed while he’s blowing things up on the other side of the room and neither of us is inconvenienced. This will also help in the future when we can actually afford our own apartment and one TV will be in the living room with him… the other in the bedroom with me. But anyway – we’re going to head out there, enjoy the killer ride on the expressway for Easter Sunday (stuppppid move) and then relax for a few hours, enjoy family time and head home so I can get to bed at a reasonable hour to get up to go to work in the morning.

I’m taking on a new position at work. I absolutely adore the department that I’m in but based on changes throughout the company there will only be a need for two members of the department to stay, with this I’m moving from Dispatch to Customer Service. The upside is that it’s more of a fast-pace environment with little to no downtime and I’m the kind of person that needs to keep moving during the day because I feel as though the time just moves quicker. The other upside is a $4 raise and considering the fact that Sean and I really do want our own place soon and we’re both able to put money into savings based on what’s coming in now, the extra couple of hundred dollars a month will make all of the difference in the world when we’re looking towards bigger and better things. I start training in the afternoon, after two weeks I may be moved back to dispatch until the position officially opens up but based on the fact that I’m taking over for someone who’s last day is on Friday I imagine that I’m just going to be moved directly into the position. :: crosses fingers ::

Another upside is I’m car shopping again, I know I’ve been doing it for a while but now is a time when I feel as though it can actually be accomplished. I’m sticking in the 2007 range because I would prefer to have a newer car, and I’ve found a few decent ones in my price range with really low mileage. I’m happy about that, really happy. Right now I’m going back and forth between a 2007 Chevy Malibu and a 2007 Saturn Aura, they’re in the same ‘family’ as far as functionality is concerned and either one would be a good thing for me. I did want a Cobalt for quite some time but the mileage found on the year that I want is a little high. My dream car right now is a 2010 Chevy Equinox but I know for a fact that I’ll never have the $30k required in order to own the car and I’ll just have to hold off for a few years. I’ve held off this long, I honestly think I can make it work.

So I’m going to talk to a loan rep at Wachovia this week and try to consolidate my current debts to numerous different companies down to ONE, and request an additional sum of approximately $15k on top of it and hope for the best. With that I’ll just head out, pay cash for a car, and then walk off the lot as a happy person. All I know is that I’ll be adding an automatic starter to any vehicle I choose if it doesn’t have it already. Key things for me are four doors, automatic windows, moonroof and automatic starter, other than that I could care less on the color. Wait no that’s a lie… I refuse anything other than black, white or deep red tones. Not a fan of green, ehh on silver/grey and no way in hell I’d over own an orange car!

In any event, time to hop in the shower, give Sean a quick buzz cut and get the hell out of here.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Weee

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

So, Optimum/Cablevision was having an offer where if you sign up for some triple play package you’re given an iPod touch as a ‘thank you’.  So of course we added a new phone service to the house which will actually cost us less being as the phone is an additional $20 a month and the land-line we previously had in the house was about $85 a month.  Anyway – it arrived a few days ago and I’ve been messing around with it ever since.  I’ve got more than enough apps loaded to it and considering I can add all kinds of VOICE based apps it could essentially be like having an iPhone being as bluetooth and voice are enabled on the new iPod touch’s.  

So since I plan on using it for all of my random internet BS, especially at work considering we’re restricted from doing just about everything I’ve overloaded it with just about every free app under the sun.  I’m keeping my 80GB iPod classic specifically for music, and I’ll keep the touch for pictures and apps.  Then I’ll just stick with my Voyager until its time for an upgrade.  I may wind up “upgrading” to the LG En-V Touch because I really do like having the flip/touch combination.  I would ultimately enjoy having a DROID but I don’t know how much money that would cost me considering I’d have to tack on a data plan.  For now I’m content with my massive amount of text/pix/flix hah.

So a huge band of weather blew through here over the course of the past few days and I was at my aunts house while my aunt and father were down in Atlantic City for a couple of days.  I didn’t check the basement until around midnight last night and saw that it was pretty much a complete flood zone.  I wish I didn’t spend all day on Saturday in and out of conciousness or I would have been down there sucking everything up before it got to be too bad.  However, I did spend over an hour attempting to clear it out and the water was just pouring in so there was no point in even attempting it.  A LOT of rain fell over the course of the past few days.  I know that Bayville is a complete flood zone and they lost power.  I also know that Locust Valley and Glen Cove lost power in a few spots and Long Island ( and the tri-state area) as a whole are just water logged right now.  Thank god it wasn’t snow, that’s really all I can say.  I absolutely freaking hate snow and knowing that it was just a lot of water, which is already starting to go away, it just makes me happy.  I can deal with a puddle, I hate going through 3 feet of snow every morning when I’m trying to get to my car.

I had a job offer this past week, unfortunately with my schedule at work there was no way of my going to the interview so I’m pretty sure I can say that my current job is now screwing me out of OTHER positions.  If they would allow us to freaking hire someone as a replacement to ANY of the 15 people we’ve lost since January 1st I probably would have been able to go so I can get myself into a better position but I’ll just have to wait until the next opportunity pops up.  It’s upsetting, everyone else can seem to just get up and go but I manage to be stuck there somehow – I just don’t get it.

In any event, it’s a little after 3:30 and I should probably get some grocery shopping done.  Or at least ANYTHING showing that I have some kind of a productive streak in me.

OH! I setup the mobile blog plugin so that I can actually view my site on the numerous internet ready toys that I have.  It looks really good and I highly recommend the plugin to just about everyone with a wordpress blog.  With the rise in internet ready phones/gadgets it’d just be a smart idea to set it up. It’s called the WordPress Mobile Edition. Highly recommended to EVERYONE.

Ugh n Stuff

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

I finally got rid of the tooth that was bothering me for the past couple of weeks.  I have to say it’s been an absolute blessing to know that the amount of pain I was experiencing has now gone away.  My issue is the fact that my mouth is really sore but I know in the long run it’ll work out for the best.  If you’ve been following me for a while you’d know that no matter how much time I spend in the chair, my issues just will not go away.  I’m to a point that I’m hoping to win the lotto so I can have every single one of them pulled and I can just replace them all with dental implants that can be easily fixed with a cap as soon as something breaks.  Either way I’m uncomfortable right now but I know it’ll subside over time and that’s just something to look forward to.

As far as the past week is concerned, a few interesting things have sprung up.  A girl was abducted a few blocks away from me on Monday.  While I was in a drug-induced coma I woke up to see the helicopters flying over head with the spot lights blasting the wooded areas around my house.  At first, I honestly thought that I was hallucinating because of the combination of sedation and vicodin in my system but that really wasn’t the case, it actually happened.  The girl was returned home a few hours after all of the activity sprung up which is good to know but I think she’ll make a better choice of boyfriends in the future considering her boyfriend and one of his friends were the two to actually play this out.   It really makes me question the relationships that some people have when you get to a point where you’re abducted by your OWN boyfriend.  I’m sorry it happened to her but I’m sure it’ll smarten him up a bit considering he seemed like a total low-life anyway.  They setup central command in the lot right next to my house so we all had a pretty good look at what was going on.j

In GOOD news, my boss had her baby.  She’s been uncomfortable for a while so a major congrats to her on the birth of her son.

Sean is in Manhattan today working for some guy, getting computers setup and whatnot.  I’m amused by the fact that he’s dealing with all of the snow that Long Island was supposed to get and it looks like the rain is holding on really well so hopefully we don’t wind up getting any snow.  I’m so sick of it, and I really miss sunshine, can’t wait for that to show up.

I’ve been spending all of my free time submitting my resume to numerous different companies.  It’s to a point where I don’t even know where half of them are located or what the job entails but anything is better than where I am and of course that’s all that matters to me right now.

I’m trying to figure out how to get some kind of photo and html program onto my Netbook without crashing it.  Considering it’s build specifically for internet and file storage, I’m afraid of adding too much shit to it.  I do still have my other laptop but I have a lot of work to do on it before I can get it up to the speed that it was in the past.  I can’t wait until I figure something out considering I’m sick of working with free premade templates when it comes to my own shit.  My portfolio is really out of date, a few projects have completely been overlooked and there’s just a lot of general maintenance that needs to take place before I can be happy with my internet footprint again.

In any event, I still have another half hour on my lunch break and I fully intend to enjoy it by doing absolutely nothing.  I’d love to be outside having a cigarette right now but it’s freaking POURING and just a crappy situation all together.

I think I’m going to call up the high school and see if they were able to locate my records.  It’s been a few weeks and I honestly am getting sick of waiting.

The Weekly BS

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

So I’ve wanted to actually post something for the past couple of days but things have been kind of hectic and I haven’t been able to sit down and accomplish anything. Since I’m on my lunch break and it’s a really nasty day outside I decided to stay at my desk and actually get it done.  So yay for having a 10+ day break between things.

Since the last time I posted a few things have happened but nothing overly interesting. For the superbowl I headed down to New Jersey for the day and while the day itself was relatively enjoyable the ride home was absolute agony. For some reason, out of absolutely no where, my tooth began to bother me so much so that I wound up screaming in pain for the bulk of the ride home. I have a broken wisdom tooth on my upper right side and I believe the nerve is now exposed so it’s been causing a problem over the course of the past week or so. After over a week of dealing with it I decided to call up my dental surgeon and book an appointment to have it removed. At this point it’s causing so much of an issue, physically, that it’s not worth trying to save the tooth at all. So on Monday I’m going to leave work early and head over there to get it extracted. The upside is I’ll get a prescription of antibiotics to start clearing up the issues with another tooth. I’m going to be enrolling in EDP Dental. It’s a $99 a year policy and the two dentists that I would prefer to use are both covered under this plan. The only thing I’m trying to work out is whether or not I need to have existing dental insurance because EDP is NOT an insurance policy, it’s a discount dental plan. If I don’t need regular insurance it will certainly work out pretty well for me. My surgeon is right at the top of the list for coverage which is great considering it’s going to cost me about $700 out of pocket to get my tooth removed considering I need to be sedated and they’re going to run a full work-up of xrays as well. So that gets that accomplished.

I’ve basically already spent my tax returns even though I haven’t filed them yet. The cost for extraction is going to be covered by my father until I get my check, plus I owe him money from this weekend considering Bella had to make an emergency visit to the vet as there was A LOT of blood in her urine. She’s on a heavy dosage of antibiotics for the next couple of weeks until that’s cleared up. So figure I’m instantly handing him $1,000 when the check clears. I’ll also be using the rest to completely pay off one of my credit cards. From there I’m taking another financial route that I’m hoping is going to help me out over time. I’m pretty much done with HSBC and I’ve decided to consolidate my loan through Wachovia. I still have another $7,000 to pay off on my loan and about $2,000 for my credit card through HSBC, so I’m going to Wachovia to request a personal loan for upwords of $20,000 so I can pay off all of my debt and use the rest of the money on a car. I found a car for $11,000 with only 20k miles on it and while it’s not the Chevy Equinox that I’d absolutely love to own, it’s the 09 Chevy Cobalt, it’s close to my house, it’s got a very clean interior and absolutely no external damage. Power everything, anti-theft, the bells and whistles. Of course I would be happier if there was a sunroof but at this point, considering Sean’s car has slowly been on the verge of death for quite some time – a course of action needs to be made and damn it I’m making it.

Having to only pay the loan and car insurance (which can just fall under general liability as I won’t have a lean on the car since I’m paying cash) I should hopefully be able to save some money during the month in order to accomplish more important things in life – like attempting to ENJOY life for a change.

In two days it marks the one year anniversary of Lucy’s death and I have to say that the past year has not been a good one – AT ALL. I miss her terribly and still haven’t fully dealt with it considering the series of events that happened around the same time of her passing. I don’t know if I’m now rebelling against everything but I’m taking the bull by the horns and changing my life for my better. Having to deal with all of the issues going on with school has pissed me off on a daily basis, but I’m going to do everything I can in order to get that taken care of. Once I enroll in school I’ll hope that financial aid and student loans will assist me in working towards the degree that I deserve. Being in the design industry for the past 12 years has taught me alot about running my business and the overall wants and needs of people. While I haven’t actively been into it for quite some time, due to my work schedule, that doesn’t mean I don’t still have the drive. I want to say that Lucy is the one giving me this determination. She was always my muse in life, and the fighting force behind my straight-forward way of living. I believe that she’s giving me the drive and determination to reassure me that she’s still around and will help me in death the way she helped me in life.

I do believe in ghosts, and I also believe in angels. When it comes to her there is no difference between the two.

Bored as shit…

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

The past few days have been interesting but in the same thought… there’s really nothing new going on. On Monday the other dispatcher that we recently hired needed to quit during her lunch break because she has personal matters going on, but it kind of left us high and dry. Then yesterday one of our inputters looked at my supervisor and said “Yea, I guess I’m done here, I found another job”. I’m more amused with how he put it than anything. Who seriously says “I guess I’m done here” that isn’t a super hero lol.

On the drive to work yesterday I wound up getting pulled over. It was entirely my fault but at the same time it still sucked major ass. I was clocked doing 55 in a 40 and typically when I’m on that road I tend to do 50 with the rest of the flow of traffic but this guy singled me out and that just wasn’t very nice of him. The ticket is for $175 which is bogus but the issue of having points on my liscense just bothers the absolute shit out of me. I’m sure I’ll get over it, I have to pay for it either way because it’s not worth arguing it – by any means.

I’m waiting on my stuff to come in from Amazon and DecalGirl so I can start to deocrate my new laptop. The plain black is kind of boring and I’ve made it a point to keep the protective plastic on it just so I don’t have to ever worry about it getting scratched up. I do know that the nylon case that I ordered was shipped out yesterday so at least I’ll have a safer place to keep it. For now I’m using a sleeve from a purse that I purchased from target, it’s for 15″ laptops but it’s holding the mini with no major issues. I just want to be sure it’s property protected considering I intend to use it for as long as humanly possible.

I did also order myself an old school backpack. With the way my back has been treating me lately it was time for me to get rid of my bulky purse and just deal with the one bag to cover everything where it isn’t so much of a strain. I’ll then downgrade myself to a much smaller bag on the weekends just so I don’t have to truck my laptop around everywhere.

So yea – that’s pretty much all that’s going on right now. I’m honestly not even in the mood to blog but I’m trying to get myself back into the habit of writing up regular entries just so I can get back into floating around the web.

Rollin’ Rollin’

Monday, February 1st, 2010

It’s been a pretty productive evening for me. I’ve just ordered two skins from DecalGirl.com, one for my new laptop and the other for my iPod. I picked up the “Drama” skin for my laptop and “Her Abstraction” for the iPod. I also did some shopping on Amazon and picked up a new protective sleeve for the laptop as well. My laptop bag is WAY too big and I wanted to be sure that this new computer has absolutely no dents, dings, scratches or smudges.

Yes, I’m one of those anal retentive people that likes to keep everything nice and clean. Granted, you couldn’t really tell that by looking at my room right now but it’s hard to keep things in ship-shape condition when you have two people living in a small room. It’s been my goal, for quite some time, to get myself motivated enough to do some cleaning but that just never seems to happen for me. It’s really just the matter of straightening everything up, it’s just a lot to organize and I don’t personally own enough containers and a label maker in order to get the job done to the degree I’m interested in.

I called my old high school today to request my transcripts so I could get things squared away with Phoenix, since I waited 8 years to get back into school they’ve had to go to the archives. The lady I’ve been speaking with is very helpful and seems happy to help as well. Hopefully this will get me back on track considering the hiccup I’ve had to deal with over the course of the past couple of weeks.

FYI to anyone even remotely considering picking up ANY kind of degree from Stratford Career Institute (scitraining.org) or Penn Foster (pennfoster.edu). These are both BULL SHIT schools and any degree that they provide to you can not be used to further your education ANYWHERE ELSE. Prime example – My sister recieved her high school diploma from Penn Foster and while they claim to offer associates degrees after high school, their diploma is not valid to ANY OTHER SCHOOL ON THE PLANET EXCEPT FOR PENN FOSTER! The exact same thing is going on with my diploma AND certifications recieved from Stratford. So I’m trying to get everything squared away with my physical high school here in town to see what I can do to get the transcripts and call it a day. I may wind up having to go back to complete like one course but for the most part I don’t see that as being much of a problem at all considering I’m motivated as all holy hell to have that Bachelors.

In any event, it’s getting to be that time when I’m sick of looking at a monitor considering I’ve been looking at a computer since 9:30 this morning at work. I also have to consider that this one is much smaller than the one I get to use at work (20+ inch wide screen set on the maximum resolution available), needless to say my eyes are SPENT.

New Toys

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Ok, so I’m blogging from my new HP Netbook and I have to say it’s proving to be a little bit more difficult than I thought it would. See, I’m used to having larger keypads and while the screen size is actually pretty decent for me, it’s going to take a little while to get used to the keyboard. While it’s a standard full-sized keyboard, for me it feels a little ultra small so once I’ve retrained myself, I think I’ll do pretty well.

I picked it up from Microcenter, it was $299 and with the $175 worth of gift certificates that I had to work with, it really didn’t cost me very much at all. Of course I picked up a few extra things being as we made a few changes in the house. We signed up for Optimum voice so we could get rid of our Verizon land line, considering the phone was hardly ever used there was really no point in spending $60 a month on a phone that only had unlimited local and long distance. The biggest issue was the fact that we had absolutely nothing else other than caller ID. With Optimum we get just about everything but we also wanted to clean things up in the house as well so we just purchased a new phone system where we have the main base in the living room with the router and the expansions in other areas of the house. There’s finally a phone in my bedroom again and while I don’t really need it, it’s good to have.

Sean was able to figure out that there is an intercom system with the phone, and Maureen was able to figure out that the phone had a spoken caller ID option as well. When we called the new phone line with our old phone line it clearly noted my fathers name after two rings and then his name also popped up on every single TV in the house (as is offered by Optimum voice). So essentially it was a major upgrade day for just about everyone in the house.

With the laptop I even picked up a cute little mouse to have for when I don’t feel like doing anything. Unfortunately I think it’s going to be too small as it’s about the size of a mouse you’d give a cat, for the sake of travel it will certainly get the job done and I think that’s all that matters.

In a few days I’m going to head over to CVS and pick up a side table for my bed. It’s one of those carts that you’d see in a hospital that you can pull right up to you. It’s only like $25 and it’s specifically for laptop usage. You can adjust the table top to different angles depending on how you feel c omfortable and a small section off to the side will stay flat so you can put your mouse there. I figure that since I’m going to be purchasing a larger bed soon and I’m going to have to downsize things a bit, I can’t afford to lose the ability to be comfortable when attempting to do homework so I’m going to make it a point to pick that up as soon as possible.

I didn’t even realize that it was WAY past my bedtime. Usually I’m asleep by midnight (at the latest) on Saturdays, being as it’s about 2am I think it’s safe to say it’s time for bed for me! I figure sometime over the course of the next few days I’ll take a picture of all the new toys. Not to mention the mouse, it’s smaller than the palm of my hand.  Overtime it’ll probably just be a mistake on my part but for the time being I’m 100% happy with everything.  So for now I’m going to head to bed but I’m going to experiment with the camera thing that’s on here first… haven’t figured out which program to boot that up with yet.

Interesting Week

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I have to say that minus the fact of my being under the weather – as usual lately – it’s been a really interesting week and luckily I’ve been attentive enough to remember just about everything that’s gone on.

A big congrats goes out to my friend Alicia as she had her first baby, Jaymie Lynn, on Sunday and I have to say that this kid is absolutely adorable. She’s a really cool baby too, I saw her for the first time on Tuesday night and even at two days old she was very alert and responsive to just about everything going on in the room. She knows when you’re talking about her cause her eyebrows raise up a little, and anytime someone curses around her she smiles. I also told her “give daddy the finger” and she just kind of waved at him. In my book, she’s bound to be an awesome kid. I’ll try not to corrupt her too much but isn’t that what aunts are for? Seriously now.

On Monday we had a pretty nasty storm roll through here. Approximately five minutes after I left for work on Monday morning a very strong gust of wind wound up taking the roof off of my patio, now this wasn’t a small roof it was approximately 10ft by 30ft and it’s been attached to the house for god knows how many years. It always rattles and bounces around when we have heavy wind but the wind just happen to have enough force and it was blowing in the right direction for it to completely detach itself from the back of the second story of the house, fly over the main roof and land across the street. Of course I have a few pictures of the aftermath because its a pretty BIG occurance.

Awning Awning

You can tell by the pictures that not only was it a very LARGE awning, it also took four 3 foot cement blocks with it when it lifted off of the porch. There are three blocks still on the porch that were just knocked off of the ledge, which is now a major hazard because there was some structural damage where the blocks were ripped off of, meaning the dog isn’t even allowed outside because I think the pressure from her trying to just look over the ledge would cause it to collapse completely. On the other side of the porch (closest to my apartment) there is a block of cement completely missing where our connection to the roof once was. The interesting thing about it is that it landed right where my car would have been if I’d taken the few extra minutes to warm up the car before heading to work that morning. Even though it was a relatively warm day (for winter at least) the car instantly started up and it didn’t feel sluggish for the first time all season. With this I had the “get in and go” mentality and left as soon as possible. Thank goodness for my doing that because a 100lb 3foot cement block would have come flying through the windsheild… I certainly think that someone was looking over me on Monday – there’s no question about that.

As far as work is concerned, we’ve been pretty slow for the past few days. So much so that I haven’t had to work any major overtime hours like I’d been doing in the past because I’ve been getting out of the office as 6:30 as I’m supposed to. I’m not too sure as to why it’s been so slow but for the sake of being on a decent schedule when it comes to having dinner, relaxing and being able to sleep through the night… I’m certainly NOT complaining!

Almost there!

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

I have to say that it’s been a pretty productive week for me. I’m surprised at how much has been accomplished and how absolutely nothing has gone wrong. As you know, on Sunday I got all of the FAFSA stuff taken care of and on Monday I submitted a request to speak with a representative at Phoenix. By Tuesday evening I was on the phone with Dan S., and I have to say he’s answered every single one of my questions and addressed every single one of my concerns. As of right now I’m about 78% complete with my application. There’s the matter of asking a few questions in regard to previous schools and finances that I need to get in touch with my representative about but for the most part everything should be squared away by Monday afternoon. Since I’m unable to get in touch with him during the day I’ve had to stay in contact with him through Email as I can not access any Educational websites through the servers at work (stupid blocks on just about EVERYTHING!). Either way it will all work out for the best and that’s all I care about right now.

So school is pretty much squared away, Sean is doing well with multiple clients right now and I’ve managed to complete all make-up time on the two days that I missed last week and right now I’m only 2 hours short of doing that and I know I’ll breeze through that by the time I punch out on Sunday. I know Sunday is going to be pretty busy because I’m going to go back for a few weeks through archived emails and make sure everything was handled and with the new system we use at work it’s really more of an “easier said than done” kind of thing considering it takes an average of 30+ seconds to search for a file in the system and I know there’s about 2000 or so claims to go through. This should certainly be interesting.

Tonight I’m hopefully getting out of here at a reasonable hour so I can get some light packing done. I’m going to be staying at my aunts tonight and then tomorrow it is my ultimate goal to clear out my bedroom and give it the deep-down clean that it’s needed for a few weeks now. I can only deal with the chaos for so much longer and considering I received my course breakdown last night I’m going to need to do a major overhaul on the room so I have an area where I can fully concentrate on everything.

I’m working on getting myself a smaller laptop to use temporarily so I can get a decent amount of homework done while I’m on my 1-hour break at work. I refuse to pick up a netbook because I’m sure that with some of my courses I’m going to have to load something off of a disk and as far as the design aspect of things are concerned I’m still going to use the Mac that I have at home so I’ve been poking around TigerDirect for a small laptop but the prices really aren’t that great. I will consider looking into one at Microcenter only because the bulk of them are on sale right now AND I have about $125 worth of gift certificates that can be used towards it and with the sales, rebates, coupons and gift certificates – I think I can get a half-way decent one that one cost me very much money at all.

:: crosses fingers ::

Non Stop…

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

This week has been the week from hell and unfortunately it doesn’t look as though it’s going to let up any time soon.  On Wednesday it was announced that we’re switching over to the new system at work that has been in the ‘creation’ process for the past couple of months.  The problem with this is the fact that there has been absolutely no training put towards this system so everyone is basically lost right now.

We had a little bit of a ‘training’ session on Wednesday and come Thursday morning we were all kind of thrown into the system that has so many errors it’s unreal.  It’s heavily coded with ASP/AJAX and with the way it’s trying to read the database things just aren’t working out the way they’re supposed to.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much choas at work as I have in the past few days.  We’ve wound up switching over to the old system mid-way through the day on both Thursday and Friday because the productivity that we usually have with the old system was well beyond what we’re able to accomplish with the new one.  So it’s my hope that we’ll get to use the old system a little longer just so we keep moving at the pace that we’re accustomed to.  This new one has slowed us down so much it almost feels as though we’re wasting our time with it.

Over the course of the day on Thursday we were able to input about 100 assignments with the new system – this took us 8 hours.  However, when we got fed up and switched back to the old one we managed to put in about 150 assignments in the course of 45 minutes.  This has to tell you something when it comes to how things are going to look within the next few weeks.  As of right now I’ve got about 6 hours of overtime, this includes the two hours I’ve just spent at the office this morning (Yes, I also go in on Sunday mornings for a few hours – I told you this place was sucking the soul out of me!) – so my next paycheck should at least be for something decent which helps me considering there are a lot of bills to be paid in upcoming weeks.

On Friday I left at 6:30 – when I’m actually supposed to leave – and ran home in time to wash up and wait for Alicia and Dave to get to my house.  We were treating Dave to dinner for his birthday and went to Friendly’s.  Yesterday Alicia and I were out for a few hours at KMART and Dollar Tree to pick up stuff for the surprise party we’re holding for him later this afternoon.  So right now I’m finishing things up at work and Alicia’s going to pick me up and then we’re going to head back to her house to finish getting things together.

We have this pretty elaborate plan in order to keep Dave out of the house for the afternoon.  He keeps wondering when Sean and I are going to get married.  So I said “RING SHOPPING!”  So I gave Sean my dinky $7 walmart ring and said “Here, this is a half size too big for me, go to Zales and do some ring shopping – take Dave with you and then I’ll text you when I want you guys to head back to Alicia’s house”.  Alicia thought it was a great idea, Sean was confused (as usual) and Dave is completely clueless as to what’s going on so it’s working out VERY WELL right now.  As of my last text from Sean he and Dave are eating lunch at Johnny Rockets and then probably surfing through a few jewelry stores in the mall to see what he can ‘find’.  So that gets Dave out of the house and gives Alicia and I plenty of time to get the rest of the stuff setup.

I also told Sean to throw his bathing suit in the trunk of the car cause it’s a rather warm day and I know the pools open at her house.  Granted there really isn’t anyone going in the pool but I know Sean will more than likely dive right in anyway so at least it gives him something to do.  We more than likely won’t be there for that long, everyone has work tomorrow so she’s expecting things to clear up around 6:30.  Which is fine for me, I still have some things to do to prepare myself for the week ahead.

We’ll be down one person in Dispatch tomorrow, she’s taking a much deserved day off.  But Monday – unfortunately – is one of our CRAZY BUSY days.  So on top of going to the new system plus all of the claims we’re bombarded with on a Monday morning/afternoon – I’m hoping things run smoothly!

In any event, Alicia’s on her way here to pick me up.  Sean just sent me a text where he sounded surprised because the waiters/waitresses dance at Johnny Rockets during certain songs.  Boy is it going to be an INTERESTING day!

Yea….ok

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

So I know I said that I had every intent to update more, but as you know – reality tends to take over internet.  I’ve been floating around some blogs – some new, some old – and it’s shown me that the internet really just hasn’t changed.  I’m to a point now where I’m just questioning as to whether or not I really want to be involved anymore.  Working on a Bachelors in Multimedia is starting to seem like a waste of time considering I don’t have the drive to do it.  I don’t even have to drive to finish a template I started on over a month ago for this domain – why even try?  It’s not like I’ll ever get back to where I once was, and that was my own stupidity with all of the paid content and not enough real-life content.  On top of that…when it was non-sponsored content it was basically drama because there are people in this world who were just never meant to get along.

Since then…I’ve grown and stepped away from that.  It’s not my fault that some people are still holding onto bull shit but when they’re stuck in their little houses all day long with nothing better to do – it seems – it’s hard for them to let go of it to.  So basically – leave the house, enjoy the fresh air, summer’s right around the corner and a few of you could seriously use a tan, don’t burn though – that would suck.

On real notes – Work is taking it’s toll on me, I’m to a point of extreme exhaustion and I could seriously use a day off.  Unfortunately I don’t have enough PTO (paid time off) to even consider a vacation without screwing up my finances right now.  So while I’m at work all day, Sean’s at home trying to pick up as many clients as possible and right now they’re coming out the wazoo ever since he applied (and was accepted) to NYIT.  It’s going to cost A LOT of money for him to get his Bachelors in Computer Programming so he’s doing everything he can to bring in as much money as he can.  If he gets lucky and can load up on scholarships and loans, plus work study, he should be able to swing it.  It’s just going to be rough for a little while because I believe his everyday work will suffer and I feel like I’m going to be the one picking up the slack.  My monthly income is limited and being as I have no drive for design the only option is sponsored posting so I can bring in the extra $1,000 a month we need to live.

We’re trying very hard to save up money so we can finally get into our own place.  Unfortunately bills just keep showing up around us that we have no control over.  I was just hit with some BS penalty from HSBC for my loan because they claim that I’ve made late payments and it’s a $150 fee.  I’ve paid my loan between the 11th and 15th since the day I got it (about 2 years ago) so I really don’t understand why there’s an issue now and of course everytime I call I wind up having to talk to someone in India.  I went into the bank and was told that being as it’s a different department I should just call the customer service line.  Either way I’m sitting here about to rip my hair out because they’re shooting this shit to me and I honestly don’t even feel as though it’s legit.  So money is tight, tensions are high, it’s just been a crappy freaking year.

Not a good day….

Monday, April 27th, 2009

I haven’t even really started my Monday but I know for a fact that it’s just not going to be a good day in general.  Last week while I was organizing things I found Joe’s mass card.  To my surprise I was completely thrown off by what I was reading.  For a long time I was convinced that his birthday was the end of May.  Leave it to me to screw up the dates….

I found out that his birthday actually fell on April 27th.  The reason I’m in a funk right now is because Lucy also has the same birthday.

Joe – April 27, 1981 -> March 7, 2006
Lu – April 27, 1985 -> February 17th, 2009

There’s too many 7’s involved, and things are just too damn close together for me to be even remotely comfortable about it, it’s one of those freaky things that just kind of hit you very hard when you make the discovery that you certainly were NOT expecting.  I was just happy that I was finally able to find Joe’s mass card so I could put it on my mirror, the way I’d had it before it was boxed away and shipped down to DE with me.  I was just taken back when I actually put two and two together.

So, I already know for a fact that it’s going to be just a really bad day for me.  I’ve put those whom I actually give a crap about on warning to just not bother me today…with anything.  To those whom don’t already know…they can deal with  my being a bitch and I couldn’t give a shit about their feelings.

The Goals…continued

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

So there was a bit of a bump in the road last night that I certainly wasn’t expecting.  The ideas that I had for organization and shelving were a bust because of the size of the space located directly next to my desk.  The shelves we have on that side now are hanging over on the top of the hutch on the desk so it’s really not a wise choice to add more shelving below because that would require cutting compressed wood and that’s just never pretty.  So, instead we’re figuring out what to do with all of the other sections.

Our first step – the closet!  Sean is going through all of his clothes and seeing what he can throw out and what can be compressed down into a vacuum bag.  He really doesn’t wear all of the clothes he has and if he does it’s typically something he’ll wear seasonally (ie – the jackets) so he’s working on his side and I’ll go in and begin working on my side as well.

Instead of getting rid of the dresser I’m just going to better organize the one we have.  It would be great if I could find a taller one with just one more drawer in it but since that’s not going to happen there’s really nothing I can do about it (IKEA & Walmart were also a bust for shelving/cases).  I want to figure out a way to get the bucket-o-pajamas into another section of the room.  I’m thinking of a box under the bed or compressing the seasonal ones (you don’t need heavy fleece pants in the summer).  So that will cover that section.

Our desk is horrible.  It’s poorly organized and I was lucky enough to find some small low-profile bins to put on the shelves so that will instantly clean things up and that’s always a great thing for me.

So yea, it’s really not a matter of cleaning things up it’s just a matter of organizing things better.  The ultimate goal is to get all of our stuff out of the tub but I imagine with a new bed that’s higher off the ground I’ll just be able to fit the bins underneath and that will clean up a lot of the clutter.  So basically find a hidden hole and stick it in (but label it first) HA.

Busy Bee

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

I’ve been pretty busy for the past few days. I came home on Friday night and managed to get all of my laundry done with time to spare so I could just sit back and relax for a little while. Yesterday was pretty productive for me too.

Valentines Day Candy I like to do little things for just about every holiday and since I haven’t made any candy in a while I figured Valentines Day was the absolute perfect excuse for it. So I melted down some chocolate and filled molds and put everything into cute little baggies and I have about 4 pounds of candy to keep on my desk at work for anyone who wants it. I’ve also got a few just for home too, mainly the white vanilla ones because they didn’t set up properly for some god forsaken reason. Either way they look really cute!

Stained Glass Butterfly Then I started working on some of my arts and crafts projects. I’ve been putting them off for a while but that’s only because I didn’t really have the time to do them. I picked up a stained glass kit from AC Moore and it’s got a really pretty butterfly on it that comes with a stand and everything so I have something visually appealing to look at all day that isn’t fake flowers from the dollar store. It’s my way of dressing up a very drab office. I’m still waiting for it to dry so I can draw in the detail work but for now it’s looking pretty good so-far. It’s still tacky which is why the wings are so dark. They’ll lighten up within the next few days, and there’s also not enough light in the kitchen right now – even though the sun is shining bright outside it’s just on the other side of the building heh.

My goal for today is to head down to staples to pick up a few things, put gas in the car, pick up a cute chinese food container from Walgreens to put the candy in and then it’s time for the grocery shopping. I’m waiting on Sean to get some of his goals accomplished for the day so we can work on getting out of here. I hate going to the supermarket on a Sunday but I was so busy yesterday with the art project and the candy that there was no way that I was going to be able to get out there in time. Now it’s time to battle little old ladies who stand in the middle of the isle and just about everyone in the meat section since it’s 50°F right now and all the snow is melting! It’s definetly a BBQ evening and I just hope there’s some chop meat left!