What's going on with me?

3-30-06 - A new game starts on this page on Saturday!

So I�ve started playing racquetball with Chris and Blake. Holy crap, that is fun. I think it�s going to become a regular thing. If so, I hope I don�t do a repeat of what I did yesterday any time soon. Trying to mimic Chris, who�s gotten good at hitting the ball off the back wall and into the front wall, I slammed the ball into the wall with an underhand shot from about a foot away and it came up and scored a direct hit directly under my left eye. He died laughing immediately. It, surprisingly, didn�t hurt; and I started laughing, too. Good times.

Sometimes when I call home, Liz will pick up and use Mr. Burns� telephone greeting and say, �Ahoy-hoy?� It gets me every time � I can�t help but laugh. Actually, now that I think about it, she doesn�t say it meekly like he kinda does, she picks up and gives a definitive �Ahoy-hoy.� He asks a question, she makes a statement.

A little more than a week ago, Tameka and I were in Kevin�s office looking at a drawing or something. Kevin is intently checking for errors, and just out of nowhere I looked at Tameka and said, �Is it true that you�re from Canada?� She gave me the weirdest look. I don�t think Kevin really paid attention, but Ty heard it from his cubicle and came over and started making comments about Canadia (heh). The next day, Ty asked her if she watched the hockey game from the night before. Other people have said things about it. On Thursday mornings, Ty usually blasts music for a little while before most people get there. He came over to my half-a-cubicle and was talking to me and I told him that he needed to play some Alanis Morissette and Nickelback to make her feel more at home. A week later, the joke has pretty much died, but an occasional reference is made to it. I love dumb things like this :-)

I�m going to Cookeville this weekend, which should be mucho fun. The Drama Troupe show will be going on, and that�s always a good way to see a ton of people.

3-18-06 - Ok, not that there's anything special in it, I feel I must mention that I wrote an entry on Wednesday and just now posted it. I just didn't want anyone to miss the boringness that is my life.

Ok, so I did something insanely nerdy today. It's kinda like the coconut thing from November of last year. Go here to read it.

You know, I'm happy that I'm nearsighted and not farsighted. This is true for various reasons, but the one that made me think about that is because if I head to my car and forget to put on my glasses, it's immediately obvious once I open the door to my apartment and can't see anything.

So I did something dumb at work the other day. I was talking to a pump vendor in Georgia and I asked him if a certain pump was UL-listed. He wasn't sure, so he said he'd have to call me back. I gave him my name and number so he could return my call. I didn't hear from him until I was driving home the next day. He had left a voice mail on my cell phone. Apparently, I gave him that number without thinking about it. Why's that so bad? Well, anyone who's heard my message knows why. If you haven't, then you should call my phone and listen to it or else I can just send you an mp3 of the message.

There are a couple songs that I've been able to play for at least five years that I can play the guitar and bass part at the same time. It's nothing spectacular, given the simplicity of the songs, but I think it's kinda neat. They're "Californication" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and "Zombie" by The Cranberries.

Oh yeah, and I added another funny story.

3-15-06 - Man, I think this might be the longest I�ve gone without updating my blog. Yeah, plenty has happened, but for some reason, I�ve just not written. Oh, well.

I added two new funny stories two days ago, I think, and I have a few more to write, so hopefully I�ll be posting those before too incredibly long. In typing one of them today, I learned that �babysit� is not spelled correctly. It requires a hyphen.

Saturday was an incredibly good day. First off, Ethan stopped by on his way back to school. I hadn�t seen that lug in a couple months. It was odd seeing him without a beard, but �twas all good. Then another friend stopped by and that was great :-) Afterwards, I made a trip to Sevierville to go visit with Kris and his girlfriend and sister. Not a whole lot happened there, but that was fun, as well.

I bought GTA: San Andreas on Friday. Despite Kate thinking that it�s ghetto, I love it. Those games, though kinda tough at times, are quite the fun.

So the other night, I had an odd dream. Where I work, there�s a program for new hires called the mentoring program where different fun activities, as well as sessions to help learn about where we work, are scheduled. We�ve already had our �graduation� from the program, but that didn�t keep me from dreaming that they took us on a field trip to Iraq. We were touring some facility there and after a while of walking around, I and some other people sat down. After a little while, for no reason at all, Saddam Hussein walked out and sat in a booth in front of us, just minding his own business. He was in shackles and prison attire, but they brought him out just for a change so he could socialize with some people, I guess. I don�t know.

Anyway, after a while of silence (we weren�t even talking before he got there), he started talking to me. We talked for a short bit before I went over and sat in the booth with him. We had a good old time, just talking about stupid things. He seemed like a really cool guy, despite everything.

Before I knew it, we were all running back to make it onto our buses because some armed militants swarmed the complex we were touring. I think our bus filled up before long, but there were still a few of our people inside and though they had a clear path to the buses, they didn�t want to run to them for some reason.

We were about to leave (not sure if they made it back onto the buses or not), when I got a phone call and woke up. Stupid Ethan.

3-3-06 - Man, I did a lot of junk last night and yesterday seemed sooooo long, and today seems like Saturday because of it, but it's not! Yay!

Bad news for me: we're probably going back to a regular work schedule (off 4/10s) starting in May. That sucks, but at least we will have had 9 months of three-day weekend bliss.

I fixed my PS2 again today. The last time I had to mess with it was about a year ago, but this time I think I did it better. Woo-hoo!

I think I'm gonna give up on the game already. That sucks. I figured this one would be easier, but apparently it's not. The answer's up, though.

3-2-06 - I�ve really liked the song �Fred Jones, Pt. 2� by Ben Folds for a couple years now. Today, something happened that made me kinda reflect on it a bit. I�ve known for months that this guy, ironically named Fred, was going to retire around the end of February. I thought that Tuesday was going to be his last day, but then I saw him yesterday and again this morning.

I walk by his office fairly often, and I�d noticed things slowly disappearing from it when I glanced in. I also noticed that his door was closed a lot more often than normal.

So this morning, I had to give something to Tony, who is in the office next to friend and works with him quite a bit. I asked him, �When�s Fred�s last day?� He said it was today. I said that I was surprised that I hadn�t seen any notices about his retirement posted anywhere and Tony said that Fred just wanted to slip out quietly and not have a big deal made about it. That explains the closed door: he doesn�t want people to see him packing his things. I walked past him in the hall right after that brief conversation with Tony and I said hi to him like I always do. He just smiled and said hi back to me. He carried himself like it was any other day, cuz today�s just a day like the day that he started.

I know that this will mean nothing to most of the people that read this since the song wasn�t a single, but I know of at least one person that�ll really appreciate it.

Typing that made me think of something that I realized a few months ago, but I don�t think I ever wrote about on here. I�ve known only a few other people named Tony in my life, and I think I only ever talked to two of them. They were a father and a son, and they moved away when I was in 7th grade. Within 30 feet of where I sit at work, though, there are a Tony and a Toni. Needless to say, I�m really not used to this. It�s made for a few chuckles, though.

It�s nice to have new weekly activities that I can depend on for being social. DDR night�s been gone for a month and I don�t know that it�ll come back. It depends on a few things. But I�ve started playing pool with Jodie, and I�m getting better at that. I�m turning into a barfly, now. Yeah, whatever. But I�m excited about slowly getting better at pool, because even though I�ve known what my problem is, I�ve been terrible at pool all my life. We might have to change the night of pool night, though, since something else might be coming up on that night. I think changing pool night would benefit a bunch of people, though. Jodie and I went to play last Thursday and we ended up spending 6 hours there because we invited a few people to come hang out with us and we just had a good time. I just hate the fact that my clothes smell like smoke afterwards.

I went to a swing dancing lesson for the first time since August. This one made my fifth ever. I went to two back in August, and I was going to make it a weekly thing, but then the whole Katrina thing happened and I cut out all unnecessary driving. I just realized over the weekend that I could start going to them and have fun and meet people and all that good stuff. So I went, the instructor said, �Ok, we�ve got a new guy,� and he seemed to cradle me by directing all instruction toward me during the lesson. I think I surprised him, though, because he kept commenting on how well I was doing, which is great (I didn�t hear them say it for the other three or four guys, not to brag...honestly). That happened back in August, too. One thing that really made me feel good, though, was that I was able to help the gals I was dancing with understand what they were supposed to be doing. So yeah, I met a couple good people and I hope to see them again next week.

My �Smoke� recording is coming along quite nicely. All I really need to do is add singing and some background things and rerecord the very small trumpet part I�m putting in there. Maybe I�ll record it in tune this time...