What's going on with me?

9-20-05 - Well, I gave blood again today. This was my 24th donation, which puts me at 3 gallons now. Yikes!

I've decided to make my DDR parties weekly events, Thursdays at 7:30. I know this affects none of you as those who read this live far away from me and the ones that live here don't read it. I still only have one good friend up here, and a couple that are very close, though I have many acquaintances. I only have a few people that I would feel comfortable calling just at any time and saying, "Let's go do something." Luckily for me (selfish again, as I stated last time) one of them will not be going to Wisconsin...but she's in Taiwan for two weeks starting yesterday. Bleh. She's been traveling a lot because of her job lately. She's going places (har har).

I realized a day or so after I made my last post that the day I was planning on taking my extra time off, next Thursday, is the day I'm heading home for the weekend. I'm stopping off in Cookeville for a good while on my way through, so I'll have a few extra hours there which is gonna be great. After work, I go to the dentist, let him tell me I have 983745 cavities, and then I can tell my friends where they are. I'm gonna see the play at the Arts Guild next Friday and I'll probably see the corpse bride Saturday morning with some friends. I'm excited :-D

Last time I was in Cookeville, some of us talked about how "lawyer" and "liar" sound very much alike. The person that invented English was quite intelligent. Yes, one person invented it...alone...in one week and three days...and 5 hours...and 9 minutes...and 28 seconds...and 5 years...and I'm an idiot.

Why are some things held so highly given names so bland? Take the Heavens, as they're called - this encompasses all three of my examples. Io, Callisto, Triton, etc...all are names of moons of different planets in our solar system. But what's the name of ours? "The Moon." Ooooh, scary! Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. There are the planets. Ours is called Earth, which really means nothing (I could be wrong on this one - maybe "Earth" does means something special). Why couldn't it have a cool name, too? I guess it is better than being called "Planet." My examples above are also the names of Roman gods, for those that didn't know. Then there are the Greek ones: Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Juno, Hera, Hades (I forgot the corresponding ones for Uranus and Neptune...Triton = Neptune? I'm not sure). Then there's "our" god, "God." Wow. Such a threatening name. At least the ancients were creative, instead of having one called "Deus."

I almost started ranting about something there. Maybe I'll save that for another day, when I have a week of vacation ready to burn so I can spend it arguing with people.

9-17-05 - Bleh, I had to go in on my day off yesterday to get some junk signed. It was a really easy 3 1/2 hours. Though I didn't do a whole lot, it wasn't bad. Time went by relatively quickly, so yay. And the last working day of the month will be a half day because of my extra time. Woo-hoo!

There was a little game party at Andrew's tonight. It was fun. He always has fruit salad or brings it whenever someone has a party, and I always eat a lot of it. Today, he declared that there's a reason why it's so good. Apparently, he drizzles a concoction over the fruit, consisting of fruit juice, sugar, and some type of wine. It's amazingly awesome!

Well, it turns out that my friend Juliana won't be moving to Wisconsin, which is good. I don't think I said anything about this, but she was thinking about taking a job up there. I know it's kinda selfish, but I can't lose a good DDR buddy!

I went 18 days without buying gas, I think. That's not really that long of a time, but it's a lot better than what I've been doing.

I hate Jodie for succeeding in talking me into playing World of Warcraft. Grrr...

I need to write more often so things that are actually pseudo-important are still fresh on my mind. I can go all day thinking about what I need to write about, but the second I sit down to do it, I draw a blank and we end up with this junk that you just read.

9-10-05 - So tonight was my first experience with karaoke. I figured that it would be a group of people I didn't know and it would be a lot easier. Sure, there were a dozen people in the room for my first song (which was "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind), but I knew one of them. It made things a lot easier. I got hot and sweaty and shaky and what not for the first three, I think, but after that, I was fine. At some point I did "Hey, Leonardo!" by Blessid Union of Souls and Laura, the lady of the house where the party was held, told me that was a good song for me. I laughed heartily after she said that (yeah, that'll mean more to some of you than to others). I think, all in all, I did 8 or 9 songs. My throat is very sore. I just took some NyQuil-esque stuff which helps to soothe my throat and will help to prevent an infection, which inevitably happens after strenuous use of my voice. I will get loopy very shortly and then I will sleep.

I have been working at Y-12 for three months now. I'm past my 90-day probation period and they have decided to retain me as an employee. Yay! I've gotten no complaints from my supervisor as of yet and his only suggestion in my three reviews I've had so far was to pay more attention to detail. That's a bit difficult when I need to give detail to things I know nothing about, but I'll learn at some point in time.

It's sooooo nice to not have to worry about homework and what not.

I bought gas two nearly weeks ago and I think I can go another week or week and a half before I'll need to buy again. It's nice having a carpool to work. There are four of us in it and we only have work four days a week. It takes a gallon or a bit more for me to make a round trip.

Speaking of four-day weeks, the union has voted to do the same 13-week trial period for 4-10s that the non-union people are doing. We'll be on it for a nother 13 weeks after our trial ends on October 27th. I sincerely hope that they agree to stay on it. I really like having three-day weekends!

9-5-05 - The weather was very nice the past couple of days. Don't you wish you could just take a picture of the weather or a smell or taste and experience it later? I do.

I went to Boomsday yesterday. For those that don't know, it's supposed to be the best fireworks display in Tennessee. It's held in Knoxville every Labor Day weekend. It was pretty cool. I got to see Flea, Jasmine, and Mr. Kuliasha, as well. It was a good day! It's nice to not take your morning shower until around 4:30 or 5 pm :-D

I played laser tag with a few people Saturday night. It's fun to run around like a moron and shoot at little kids. Sarah's name was "YOUR MOM" and at one point, she was chasing down this little girl that got separated from her mom. Sarah kept shooting her and her display kept saying she was hit by "YOUR MOM." After a few hits, the girl started sobbing and said, "Mom! It's me! Mom1 Stop!" Sarah told her that she wasn't her mom, shot her one more time for good measure, and then ran off. Wow...

9-3-05 - Yeah, so I know it's been a little while since I last updated, and I had someone whining to me about it. She'll live. The sad thing is that I can tell I'm getting older. Time's flying by so quickly. This week just disappeared, and I know this 4 day weekend will, as well. I really love the 4-10s schedule. I hope the stupid union votes to adopt it...

Last Saturday was such a great day! I went to Cookeville and saw a ton of people I know! All except for one made me feel loved, but he was just being a stupid. I said something to him in front of his girlfriend about an incident concerning the two of them that happened last semester, so that made me feel better :-D We sat around and chatted, I got free food all day, we played DDR and In the Groove, I took lots of pictures, etc. I never realized how much people there grew to like me over the past year, though. Michelle, Ian, Lauren, Lauren, Liz, Martel, and Julianne especially seemed to miss me. I miss them all very much. I took a cheap shot at the RA episodes (no one outside of Cookeville will know what I mean about that) to Martel's face, but at least he laughed about it. He knows I'm just picking. I even talked with some people that I was never that good of friends with and they seemed pretty happy to see me. Yay for that day! It was one of the best birthday's ever.

I miss Roy from high school.

So my mom called me on Sunday, which was good because I needed to ask her something. She said hi and I said, "Hi, how are you doing?" and she said, "Not good." I could tell in her voice it was something serious. I asked what happened and she said "Grandma and Grandpa got in a car accident...and Grandpa didn't make it." I think I was the first person she called about this, so I had the tough job of calming her down. It was her parents that were involved. She went on to tell me that they were on their way to a funeral and Grandma made a left turn and didn't see the car coming and it hit his door. He had just turned 92 or 93 two days earlier. Grandma had to go to the hospital for some swelling on her face. She broke some bones in her arm and pelvis, but was alright overall. This is the first one of my grandparents to die. I'm not close to any of my relatives, as they're all in Michigan and I haven't seen most of them in 4 years. It was a also a few years before that. Even so, it was still hard and I dealt with things in the way that works for me - I just took my mind off it. Whenever I'd think about it, I'd get really sad. He was a good man. He and Grandma had 13 (holy crap) kids. In comparison, my dad has a brother. Anyway, I think everyone's handling the situation fairly well. He had a long, good life. He was in good health. We all kinda knew that it would have to be something other than old age that would get him, and we were right.

A lot of people don't know this, so I guess I'll go ahead and make it known: something relatively funny happens if you mouse over the picture at the top of this page. It's been like that since last November.