Wassup?

Driving home recently (when the BMW was on the road), I stopped to fill up with gas. Everything went in the usual way, so there's nothing to speak of there. As I was pulling out, I saw myself pull in. Turns out there's a guy who owns bmw like mine in my neighborhood. We exchanged some platitudes while poking out on the street, then pulled into the lot to get more up close. Turns out his car is a year newer than mine, and a slightly different model as he has a 3.5 litre engine to my 3.2. The color and interior of both cars is identical. Turns out he owns a foreign auto shop and does all of his own work on the car. Nice to have "run into" him.

We have a mouse in the house. He's a brazen little fella, and has been spotted loping through the kitchen. I'm sure he won't eat much, unless he figures out how to open the fridge. I hear that the Great White Hunter is planning some trap implementations.

Had a good night at volleyball last night. We dropped 2 out of 10 games. As a team, we are all playing better together, and we've all made great personal improvements. When we were out drinking last night afterwards, one of the team members said "We used to spend a lot of time apologizing to each other."

I spent last weekend in Boston. The reason for the trip was threefold: Visit my Grandmother, see some sites, and see Arc play in a bar out there. Saturday was spent walking through the North end, from the USS Constitution (which I boarded) to the Bunker Hill monument (which I climbed), and then walking from the Commons down to Quincy Market. Lunch was taken at the side of the wading pool in the Commons while watching a group of young kids interact. One of them never took the phone away from his ear. He wasn't talking that much, either. It was as if it was implanted there. Two rather humourous jugglers entertained the crowd in the market. They juggled lawn chairs in the open position, and rode unicycles while juggling knives. Watched a couple of artists draw caricatures. Was tempted to get one, but didn't. Got lost while trying to find Cambridge Avenue (turns out there were two Cambridge Avenues), but made it to the bar in good time and watched the band. I had a really bad headache so I just drank a few sodas and took it easy. I skipped the after party, in favor of sleep and food. By the time the show was over, though, it was too late to find a place to eat so I ended up with pizza slices from a gas station. The pizza was surprisingly good. Perhaps everything tastes good when you are hungry. Checked out the hotel on Sunday and met some friends at a cute diner with great food for brunch. We decided to go down to Harvard Square and window shop, but when we got there we were surprised to find a huge crowd of people. They were having an Oktoberfest. Turned out to be a perfect day for walking around, listening to bands, and perusing the traveling marketplace that seems to be the same wherever you go. You would think these people would get sick of schleping this junk from city to city. A radio station intern stopped us and asked if we wanted to win a t-shirt if we answered a trivia question, so we waited while he got 10 people to play the game. I won the shirt when he asked who the lead singer for the Pretenders was. Seeing my Grandmother again was very nice. We sat outside for a little while catching up, and had dinner together in the dining room of her residence. When she felt that the visit was over, she ushered me to the door with gifts for my parents.

Band practice got cancelled tonight, but we arranged to do it on Saturday. We are also making arrangements to go into a studio, or have a guy bring a portable DAT in to the practice hall to record us for a demo tape. We're looking to get a lot of bookings.

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The saga of the Great White Hunter continues. The traps were set last night, loaded with peanut butter. It didn't take long. Mickey.1 was found right before bedtime. The great sun rose over the horizon this morning to illuminate the fact that Mickey.2 was fooled by the same apparatus of death. Two down. How many more lurk in the dark spaces? How many more will be fooled? How many more will succumb to the temptation? Time will tell.

Since band practice was cancelled yesterday, I was able to meet up with LoaferX and the Faul Guy for a couple brews. I walked home and picked up "The Thomas Crown Affair" at the video store. Not a bad movie.

Found Mickey.3 in the trap this morning. Another big one. Maybe we got both the adult mice now, and that will put an end to the influx. I'm the one in the house that gets to clear the trap, and dispose of the body. I wish I had this machine.

The BMW is almost back. Today, most likely. I stopped by to give my alignment guy some cash on the way into work this morning. Of course, I had to stop and get cash first. I wasn't sure how much he was going to charge me so I wanted to make sure I had enough to cover. It's all under the table work. Cheaper in the long run for me. So he starts off by telling me about his trials and tribulations- working late, had to heat the parts, got misinformation, blah blah blah. He added 10 bucks to his usual fee and I paid him. One strange thing about the BMW alignment. For a properly balanced car they either suggest or require you to load 3 of the seats with 150 pounds of weight, and fill the gas tank before you put the car on the lift to do the alignment. I suppose this is the sort of thing you need if you are driving the autobahn at 130 mph every day.

I'm still planning on pulling my boat tomorrow. If it rains, it rains. I'll take a towel and a change of clothes. I normally wear my bathing suit to haul out. The lake level is still so high that I'll have to dunk the wagon pretty deep to get the trailer under the boat. I guess a lot of the bigger boats can't be pulled yet since they can't get the hydraulic trailer deep enough without sinking the tractor. It's getting colder fast.

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I just got back to the office after taking lunch. I bought a CD a little while back, and it has a skip in it. Has since I bought it. I took it back yesterday, and the guy there cleaned it up and told me to give it a try. He is trying to blame my players, thinking they might need cleaning. (Oh, so I gotta buy a cleaning kit from you now?) So, I agreed and tried it in 3 different players and they all skipped. I took it back today and was unable to return it since he had never trained his staff on how to do a return. She said that he was talking after I left yesterday, and pretty much blamed me for scratching it. I'm getting a little pissed about his attitude. I may not be one of his most consistent customers (I buy 2 or 3 CD's there a month. Nothing to write home about), but this is no way to act. Why would I lie about this? I don't see the point. Does he see the big picture here? I know losing my business won't kill him, but am I supposed to suck it up and say "Oh, bad disc. My loss?"

Somehow I got drafted to work on the annual holiday party for my office. Someone at corporate headquarters in California thinks that I am the "point" person for all interoffice communications. I tried to forward the budget announcement along and ended up on the committee. Balloons, anyone?

Another thing that really frosts my cake is people who take their young children out to eat and don't control them. While I was trying to eat lunch, a small boy and a smaller girl were running around, screaming, yelling, occasionally crying, and dropping food. The two Mothers were obviously more interested in their little catch-up-oh-we-have-to-do-this-more-how's-you're-husband-in-bed gab fest than watching their demon spawn terrorize the other diners. Now, I'm not saying that they have to beat their children into submission, but they do need to learn a little common courtesy. God, it was annoying. Freaking rude people.

I won't mention the self-important jerk off in the Jeep Cherokee who ran the red light at 155 and Western Avenue when I was turning left. Nice one, idiot. Oh, rats. I said I wasn't going to mention him. I think I may start posting these moron's license plate numbers on here. At the very least, I'll get some satisfaction. Perhaps a whole page dedicated to them?

The beginning of another week is upon me. I'll get up in 7 or 8 hours, shower, skip breakfast and drive into the office for 8 hours of fun and excitement. There are 2 new people starting tomorrow. Because of complete and utter disrespect on the part of the people who hire staff in my company, I found out about the new hires late last week. I never did get a chance to set up their workstations and phones. They'll just have to wait till I get around to it. For libations, I had 2 Guiness stouts.

Let's see, the weekend, the weekend. Friday night dinner was homemade pizza. Cheese with peppers. Then off to see a local band play (Ok, it was Arc again). I did stick around for a few songs of the second band, Dr. Jah and the Love Prophets. I've been wanting to check them out for years, but never made it to a show. I know a guy who used to drum for them and he's a scary stalker type dude. Probably why I never went out. Anyway, I'm glad I did see them to satisfy my curiousity. Their bassist is really good. Saturday was boat pulling day. I drove my wagon over to my parents house and met up with my Dad for a little convoy action. In keeping with the food theme, my Mom made fried egg sandwiches for us to have before we left and had packed tuna fish, cokes, chips and reese's cups for lunch. I hitched up my little trailer to my wagon (Dad already had his big trailer hitched to his rig) and we drove up to the lake. The leaves are in full season right now. Very pretty. The water was a little warmer than the air, and there was a strong breeze blowing. Since it was Saturday, we worried that the ramps would be busy all day long. We briefly considered dropping my Dad's mast while the boat was in the water, but the launch ramp was clear so we went for it. Haul out of both boats went very easily. Nothing got broken or bent which is always nice. I got a little wet straightening my boat on the trailer. A sad day, indeed. I hung around in Gloversville for an hour or two and read while I waited for band practice. We had another good practice, adding 6 tunes to the ready to play out list. If our female singer can make it, we're going to practice again on Monday night. I slept in this morning, but got up in time to make it to a noon baptism and house party. I dropped by the Costumer, a local costume store, to check out the latest and greatest in Halloween costumes and decorations. I am beginning preparations for my house party this month. I checked out the seasonal Halloween store in the local mall. It sucked, really. Don't waste your time there. Dinner was homemade sauce and spaghetti. During dinner, I watched the 49ers finally win a game. Then I played on the computer during Millionaire and put some pictures up on Arc's website. Left to my own devices this evening, I started working on my halloween costume while I watched the evening football game.

The house is dark and quiet. I think I'll turn in and see what dreams may come.

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Oh man, this day is draaaaaging. Is it just me? I am ready to leave work right now. I'll try to hold on for a few more minutes. I had a hard time crawling out of bed this morning. I think I am coming down with something.

Picked up the BMW yesterday and took it for a ride. I am so pleased that it is working well. On my way to band practice I passed a roadside pumpkin stand, so I stopped to price the merchandise. They had good sized pumpkins for just 3 dollars each. I bought 10 of them from a nice little old lady, and loaded them in the car. In restrospect, I should have driven the wagon to practice.

I was able to swap that messed up CD for a used copy of the same thing at the CD store. Wish the guy would have just given me a new one instead of a hassle. What's up with that? What would have happened if he didn't just happen to have a used one there?

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Hey, Happy Friday the 13th! For you superstitious folks, I'm sorry. Can I show you a nice rock to hide underneath? I embrace days like this in spite of the negativity.

I've been keeping the new Barnaked Ladies CD, Maroon, in my car player this week. I gotta tell ya, that I'm really starting to like it. A lot.

Busy weekend! I'm supposed to be at 3 completely seperate activities tonight. Looks like I'll be able to make 2 of them. I'm going to take pictures of Arc at this huge new music store in the area (they have everything!), and then go to a housewarming party. I'll be missing out on a happy hour for the second to last of our RIF'd coworkers. Actually, it's the second happy hour for him, and I did go to the first, so I'm off the hook. Tomorrow I plan to wash and winterize my boat after I attend a birthday party for my friends daughter. Happy Birthday, A.R.! On Sunday, I plan to go to my first Hound and Hare run. If you want to learn more, visit this link.

I spent some time bettering my mind today and installed a Red Hat Unix Server. Then I played with configuring the Apache Web server and created a virtual domain of my very own. I can't get to it from the internet (yet), of course, but I can surf to it fine from inside my LAN. It's good to learn.

The Linkfest

Nnuuhhh..... Blink blink. Monday already? Oh man. I caught some hell over the weekend for not updating my journal everyday. I really do think about it everyday, I do. But it comes down to being near impossible to finding the time to sit and reflect and write down something half way meaningful. I was all set to make an entry on Friday, before the weekend started, but I got waylaid at work and found that it was time to get to band practice before I could clean up the entry and post it. Therefore, I bring you THE RECAP of the last two weekends and the week in between.

Friday (October 13th) - The end of the work week found me back at Mars Music to take pictures of Arc on the in-stage store. I saw too many people I knew there, and made some new friends. While I was waiting for the band to go on, I played about $10,000 worth of acoustic guitars. Trouble is I only touched 3 of them! Expensive! I gotta admit, I liked the sound of the Taylor the best. I made it out of the store by spending 26 dollars on 24 sets of strings. A close call.

Saturday - What a beautiful day. Started the afternoon off at a one year birthday party for my friend's daughter. I never saw so much Tele-Tubby stuff in my life. After serving cake, I drove out to my parents house to wash and winterize the boat. With a little help from my Dad's pressure washer, and some great acid called "On-Off" the jet boat is showroom bright. I didn't winterize the boat, though as I forgot the key! Argh. Will have to do this next weekend. Hopefully, the weather will be as good. Since Saturday night is the time to go out, I went to see 3 bands at Valentine's. Turns out to be a "chick night," as the majority of the artists appeal to the lesbian community. I was certainly the minority sex that night. The music was great. I saw a local act called MK4 (a couple friends of mine play backing parts in the band), a NYC act called Antigone Rising, and Boston based Melissa Ferrick

Sunday - I finally got to participate in a hash! Luckily, I screwed up at the end and finished second instead of first. Since it isn't officially a race the first place finisher has to chug a can of beer. Not that this is a bad thing, but I was already going to have to chug one can for being a new boot (first timer.) Sunday afternoon found me at another birthday party, this time for my brother and at home. After the party, everyone played cribbage and I watched football. I was feeling pretty drowsy due to my cold, and fell asleep early.

Monday - Went to work, don't know why. On the way home, I stopped at the store for supplies and worked on my costume until I died.

Tuesday - Turns out that I didn't die. Woke up alive and stayed in bed. My first sick day in 6 years. My housemate brought me breakfast in bed, which really helped. I slept until some CUNY student rang the doorbell and ran away. I think that they were doing an opinion poll on Lazio and CLinton. My house is fairly close to the university, so we get a lot of young poll takers dropping by. I felt better after the rest, so I worked on my costume and went to volleyball. Sweating it out with a little white ball. We won most of the games, only dropping 2.

Wednesday - Band practice got cancelled and moved to Friday night, so I went to Mars Music with my brother so he could spend his birthday certificates. I made sure that I didn't take my wallet or check book into the store with me. This is an important safety precaution that all musicians should take before entering this store. I played a $4,000 electric drumset that was very nice, and a $2,000 Roland guitar and amplifier combination that was very sweet. You could make this thing sound like anything with the touch of a button - even change to an open tuning with one key press! While I was sampling the guitar, an Afro-American woman asked me some questions about starter electric guitars for her son. The boy looked all of 7 years old. She told me that they were buying a drum set for their other boy at the same time. Man, I hope they have a sound proofed basement. I made it home in time to be late for dinner, and watched a great old movie called Hollywood Knights on video.

Thursday - Back to work. Did little. Went to a job fair after work downtown, and met some people. Had a psuedo church night. Since everyone was feeling under the weather, we thought we should meet in a hospital. I got home early, still feeling sick and tired, but couldn't go to bed due to a way too late at night band practice in the basement. So I worked on a web site until the din died down and then crashed.

Friday - Work, again. Actually got to make a web page that was work related. I used my camera to shoot photos of network gear and published on corporate intranet. I went to band practice, and then went to see the Tyson fight on pay per view at a friend's house. The fight was a real bust. Golota, the opponent quit and walked out after just 2 rounds. I learned that he has since been hositalized for a concussion.

Saturday - Up early to go to a yacht club work party. The house is now closed up, and the docks are all in. A sad day, indeed. Some lucky bastard was out sailing while we worked. Perfect. For him, anyway. We did get another great day for outside work, so I stopped by my parents house and winterized the jet boat (remembered the keys this time) and covered the sunfish. Went to a friend's house for a World Series party. They had rented a big screen projection TV for $55 from Rent-A-Center. Lots of food and a good time.

Sunday - Spent the whole day carving pumpkins for the party this weekend. Watched football all day, more baseball. Got them all done. Man, is my butt supposed to hurt this much?

I do believe that I'm caught up.

Preparations for the Hallowe'en party fare well. There's plenty left to do, including finishing my costume. I go to the store (again) tonight on the way home for more stuff.

I'm still fighting this cold. Now it is located in my chest. I can breath through my nose again, but the coughing hurts like heck. My voice is starting to get a little raspy.

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I spent an hour at Walmarts on the way home tonight. I bought all sorts of goodies and supplies for my costume. I was looking for a specific item, and one of the girls literally led me on a mad dash through the store. I thanked her for the whirlwind tour. They didn't have exactly what I wanted, but they had something better. I won't tell you what it is, but now I'll be able to hold my beer while in costume. This is a crucial point, trust me. I've been painting and getting things ready since I got home. I also rewired (a la Tim Allen, "Ar Ar Ar") my PA system for a good dance sound. Now it might be time for some football!

I just remembered that Frasier starts tomorrow night. I'd better find a videotape. So many things, so many things to do...

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Ahh! My pumpkins are already starting to lose it. I'll have to take pictures of them tonight. I hope that they make it to Saturday. I spent a few hours on my costume last night. It's starting to shape right up now. I asked for, and got, Friday off. Now I have a little extra time to get things done.

Just found out that a member of my volleyball team is leaving the area for good in November. She was really good, too. We have to play shorthanded tonight due to injury.

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My cold has been reduced to a cough. Not just any cough, mind you, but a full body, deep in the chest, oh-my-god-I-think-a-lung-is-coming-up-with-the-next-heave type of thing. Fun!

Today is Thursday, but it's my Friday. I took tomorrow off so that I could clean the house (and finish my costume). Tomorrow night I roll it out at a friend's party. I can't wait. Tonight is a normal church night for me, so I predict beer and wings in my future. It has been a freaking busy week. Volleyball was good. We won a few games but played really well. The games we lost were close. My band has a gig this Sunday for a combination 40th anniversary and birthday party. We ran through our set list last night. I am excited about the project. Where we used to have way to many slow songs, we have tons more fast songs. We have 58 songs ready to roll right now, and another 40 or so that we have at least played through once. I also have a list of some 20 tunes that we want to do, but haven't done anything with them yet.

There's chocolate on my desk this morning. I love Halloween.

If you haven't noticed already, I have changed the style of my journal page. I also decided to make the link off the main index page bring surfers directly to current month instead of to the log index. I found that I liked this feature on other online journals that I frequent. I don't know if I will go back in time and change all the other pages. I doubt it. I might change a couple of the more recent ones, though. I welcome your comments!

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Happy Hallowe'en! I am still working on getting the photos from my party online, but I was able to get the shots of my costume up last night and and the 2000 Pumpkin show up today. I'll get it all online soon. Sorry for the delay! I had a great time at the party. Everyone who came had great costumes, and I think everyone had a good time. The basement was set up as a spooky disco complete with mirror ball, the garage was transformed into a smoking chamber, and the foyer became a haunted entry way. I set up a strobe light and played a CD of scary sounds to set the mood. There was lots of socializing, laughs, eating and drinking, and a possessed twister game. I went to bed at 4:30 and got up at 8:30 to clean and do dishes.

On Sunday, my band played our first gig out with the new bass player. It was nice and went well, I think. We had a professional light show provided by a friend of the family we did the party for, and I think we will book the lighting rig for other parties. It really helped set the tone. It was a cold, cold day. In fact, it snowed! I felt so tired when the gig was over. More from the pitch black darkness that descended at 5 o'clock. I really hate setting the clocks back. I'm already officially tired of winter and ready for spring. This is going to be a bad year, I can feel it.

I just coughed so hard that I got dizzy. Still fighting the cold, I guess.

I said goodbye to a friend last night. I met him through work a few years back. His position here was eliminated when we got bought. He is moving some distance away in search of a new life. He gave me his old entertainment center because he didn't want it anymore, and I needed one for the TV that my big screen displaced. A group of us went out for dinner after we grabbed the furniture. Another friend brought along some silly wigs so we all tried them on right in the bar. A really nice time. Good luck to you, sir!

I did wear my costume to work today. I was one of two people who dressed up. The company was nice enough to declare today a dress down day, and gave out cider and donuts (yum!). In the spirit of the day, here's a Hallowe'en link for you: The Cabinet of Doctor Casey.

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