Dinner and a movie

Oops. Skipped the dinner part. But I had popcorn and water at the movie so maybe that counts? Went to see Twilight...finally. Enjoyed it. Thought they got the important part across. Didn't agree with all of the casting, but like I said. I enjoyed it for what it was and didn't compare the story line to the book but Edward was dreadfully miscast.

Lights! Camera! Action!

You know, a four-day weekend has got to be the only time I've got to make time to watch movies. Regular weekends are just too short and packed full of 'round-the-house shit that I have no time to do when I'm working a full-time job during the week.

So in addition to the movies mentioned yesterday, today I watched 27 Dresses, which I loved, and Charlie Bartlett, which I really, really loved. Dresses was full of pretty women and horrid fashion (I love horrid fashion). Charlie Bartlett was so what high school was like for me.

Why is it that we're so fascinated with reliving the high school years? OK, maybe it's just me that's fascinated by that... Do I think I'd do it better if I had a second time around? There's so much about it that I wouldn't change that it makes me wonder if the few things I would change would have changed the things I wouldn't change. Do you follow me?

Once I found my niche, high school was pretty easy but there were a couple of horrific spots that I won't dwell on here. Let's just say that on the years I do attend my HS reunion, it's more a "Fuck you, assholes. I survived you." occasion rather than an "OMG! It's so great to see you." event. Plus it's real fun to see the looks on girls faces when I tell them that ...yes, I really was looking at them in the shower...

She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes...

Did I mention who the company is that came to visit today? It was my current's ex. Yes, we sicko's just can't let go of the past and for some reason maintain ties that "normal" people cut, dynamite, or otherwise burn at the end of a relationship.

And the ex brought the exes current. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the ex. I mean, I obviously won here, right? And quite frankly the ex is a nice person and probably someone that I would have as a friend were it not for the prior claim on something I hold near and dear.

It was a nice visit. The dogs did not attack them despite the boot camp training and brainwashing I'd subjected them to this past week (which is probably good since the ex owns the sister of my dog). It was also a short visit because exes are like fish. Keep them around the house too long and they both start to stink up the place.

Watched two movies in the evening: The Bucket List (very good) and The Happening (not so good but not terrible either). And now I'm posting this. Night all!

Happy Thanksgiving

To everyone who reads this and the millions more that don't, Happy Thanksgiving day.


We had all the traditional ingredients for an American Thanksgiving meal, but the recipes were decidedly non-traditional. The Turkey was roasted in the oven (as usual, none of the deep frying $hit for us) but the stuffing was some decadent thing with bacon and pine nuts. Divine, I tell you. The green beans were stir-fried on the stove top with mushrooms and fresh thyme from our garden. The crescent rolls were rubbed with fresh rosemary from our garden and the cranberries were picked from out bog just two days ago---just kidding about the cranberries but anyone who's seen my pond would probably believe it.


I finally got out into the garden and planted the last few plants I should have planted last spring. I then promptly covered them up with mulch. And that means the mulch pile at the top of the driveway is no more. It's finally where it belongs. What motivated me besides the fact that it needed to be done? We have company coming tomorrow. I should have company come at least once a month to guarantee that I take care of the projects that are currently languishing around my house.

Unblocked!

Hey, they unblocked my blog. Hoorah! I'm not S*P*A*M!


Watched the news with horror and apprehension. My lady was just at one of the hotels and one of the restaurants that were targeted by terrorists in India. Interesting that instead of going to the heart of Britain and America they are now having to search out Western targets by going where the security is maybe not so tight and the surveillance not so pervasive. I thought we were rather lax here, but not counting the illegal immigration problem to the south we seem to do a pretty good job of keeping the bad guys out.


I really hope this is not something that escalates over the next few months and totally ruins my trip to Amsterdam and Paris. That would really, really suck

The wheels on the bus go round and round

I. Have. My. Car. Back. Finally.

It's been gone it seems like forever. I was on my way to Bonnie's on kitty duty and the tranny made a clunk. Then it made an unhappy spinny noise. It still went down the road but it was definitely not the vehicle it was five minutes before.

My mechanic took a drive by and said that it seemed to be low on fluid and I should top it off (drat, he didn't happen to have an auto parts supply store in his trunk) and give it a try to see what worked and what didn't. After adding fluid I proceeded to drive it down the block. First gear good and on into second. Never got up enough speed to hit the next shift. Unbeknownst to me, it was trailing fluid. When I got down the block to the turn around point I decided to put it in reverse. No reverse. So I safely parked it and arranged for a tow. And that was the last I saw of it until today.

I have been driving a motley and not-so-motley collection of rolling stock since it died. I've been in a Dakota truck, a Jeep Cherokee, and a Sebring convertible. Mostly the Dakota. Now I don't want to seem to be complaining 'cause I'm not. It has four wheels, windows, and now that the seat belts are fixed it's probably pretty safe. But nothing is located in quite the right spot like the Jimmy. You sit low, the stereo buttons are totally different from what I'm used to, and I have no clue how to turn on the windshield wipers or make a left turn without blinding oncoming cars with the high beams. For no good reason the cup holder is some dual contraption that inexplicably pulls out of the passenger side dash.

And I can't complain about the time it took to fix. When it's costing me half what it would cost to get done at the shop I can wait quite a while. Especially when I have driving alternatives. But it's good to have it back. I know where everything is. I know how everything works. My world is right again. Thanks Jess!!!!

Weekends were made for Michelob

Not really. At least not for me. Weekends were made for laundry, dishes, and vacuuming (the ten pounds of kitty litter that's no longer in the litter box).


Also for working on a friend's laptop. It's a puzzling, recurring problem. The wireless adapter stops "seeing" available networks. I don't know why. There is nothing in the logs to show that there is a problem with the adapter. I've disabled and enabled it. I've un-installed it and re-installed it. I've done system restores, and even backed up everything and re-installed the OS (Windows XP). The only thing that's worked immediately is the OS re-install but I for shit sure don't want to have to be doing that every three months! The last time he brought it to me with this problem I basically just left it alone running in my office for a week while I ran different diagnostic tools on it and it just suddenly started working again on its own. Hate this.


Weekends are also made for dinner and a movie with friends. My best is in town for a change so she threw a pot roast in the crock pot and we had dinner and watched a DVD-Tropic Thunder. Funniest f-ing movie I've seen in a long ass time.


And this from the Known Issues blog at Blogger:

Users that have requested an Unlock Review for their blog are experiencing a longer wait time than usual. We are working to review these blogs as quickly as possible.

Wood I, could I?

Saturday was woodpile day. Time to shake out all the mice and snakes that are in the 1/4 cord left from last year and fill out the other 3/4 with new(er) wood. Was able to pull another 1/4 cord up from the far stockpile but to fill in the other 1/2 will require pulling out the chainsaw to cut the long logs left over from the ice storm into stove length and then half or quarter them. Not a job for today since daylight expired before my energy did.

I'll have to find some time for that on the long holiday weekend since I'm able to make a 4 day break from work out of it. I'll also have to find some time to go in tomorrow to replace a DKSC card in the phone system now that I know the secret trick to disconnecting the connector.

Oh, and according to my dashboard, my blog is still under spam arrest

About last night...

Friday was a slow day. It's that time of year when things at work start to crawl from a production point of view and heat up from an expansion point of view. This year is no exception. The business of making and selling and delivering wanes and the construction begins. If course it will stay busy for IT because of all the new infrastructure that comes with the construction. We're also taking advantage of the slow time to expand our server room and bring back into our domain sites and services that we've outsourced in the past.

HUH???

So I got this email from The Blogger Team:

Hello,

Your blog at: http://whatthehellhappenedlastnight.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at ~link omitted~

Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected.

We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

P.S. Just one more reminder: Unless you request a review, your blog will be deleted in 20 days. Click this link to request the review: ~link omitted~

So waddaya think folks? Spam I am?

Sunday (Saturday)

As Saturdays usually go, it was marathon laundry day. Lots of stinky clothes brought back from India. We may be freezing in Kansas, but it's hot, humid, and stinky in India. The missus had an awesome trip. The last day was a tourist day rather than a work day and she was taken to see the marvelous Ajanta Caves. Of course no one in the United States has much of a clue about this national treasure of India.

We don't seem to be too concerned with history beyond our own young history and that's a shame. It's a World Heritage site that brings in visitors from all over the world. I guess it's pretty cool how she travels for a living and gets to scope out all these cools sites and see what's worth returning to when the two of us have an opportunity to travel together. Right now we're mulling a trip to Amsterdam and Paris.

In a break from laundry we met up with our neighbors for dinner at Ramblers in Wamego. It was nice to get together with them. We always enjoy each other's company and owing to the fact that the four of us are always so busy we just don't do it enough.

Saturday (Friday)

Worked a long day. The Friday after patch Tuesday is always a long one. All the servers needed to be restarted and I was anxious that my automatic log in hack work on the server that had to be replaced last month. It did so even if the never-ending battery backup they sold us fails, the server will log itself back in without human intervention once power is restored.

Ya know, the phone system won't work if this server isn't logged in. You would think that the company that sold us this bill of goods would configure the auto log in but no. Guess that's how they rack up service calls...

On the plus side, getting the servers rebooted last night means I don't have to go in this weekend. On the plusser side, no servers crashed this time.

Friday (Thursday)

The missus got home from India last night (early afternoon). She has some great pictures of a true natural wonder of the world. Her last day in country was a tourist day. They had two stops planned for her on the way back to the airport in Bombay. She was so fascinated with the first stop that all her tourist time was spent there at the Ajanta Caves. We did a little catching up at lunch and she managed to fight off jet lag long enough to greet me at the end of the day. One more day and she should be back on Kansas time. I'm looking forward to more tales of India.

Thursday (Wednesday)

When I picked that book back up today, it seemed I must have read a few pages last night while sleeping as none of the text at my bookmark made sense. I didn't bother to re-read anything to reorient myself to the story since none of the book made much sense anyway.

I have a feeling that the author is mentally ill as following the story was sort of like trying to make sense of the actions of a friend of mine who is mentally ill. Medication helps my friend, maybe the author should consider it too?

Wednesday

Well, I'm almost daily here again.

I enjoyed my last night of bachelorettehood. Fast food (but good fast food) and trying to finish off a book that I am loathing reading. The last time I read one of the books in this series, I swore I would never read this author again. The way all the characters have been twisted around makes for a very disturbing read. However this book was loaned to me and I figured maybe the last one was just an aberration. Wrong. The writer's lost it. Still, it's like a train wreck. I find myself unable to look away. Picking through the wreckage and wonder what fresh horror awaits under the next piece of debris.

I was unable to finish it last night, the eyelids refused to remain open.

This just in...

The missus just called from India where it is already 9 am tomorrow. She has some amusing monkeys-in-India stories and says that as a second-time visiting VIP she's gotten double the red carpet treatment she received last time. Still, she's looking forward to coming home. The question is, am I looking forward to the same thing...

Sick?

...not sure. Sore throat and stuffy nose this morning. Not sure if I snored all night and the sinus shit is a by product of the season change or not. As the day progressed, did not feel any worse than I felt on waking.

Know when to quit...

So I'm half-way through the most recent (and hopefully last) Indiana Jones movie. It doesn't help that I can't abide Cate Blanchett and Harrison Ford is far too long in the tooth to be whoring himself this way...

I am watching it with an open mind. I loved the first two and once I got past Sean Connery, the actor, I enjoyed the third one. But if it can't keep me so engrossed, so on the edge of my seat, that I can't step out for a smoke at the half-way point, I can't really recommend it.

At least it's not as bad a Snakes on a Train.

So...WTH DID happen last year?

I worked. Far more and far harder than I ever wanted to. Watched the company grow and grow beyond all reason, beyond all expectations, even in this $hitty economy. Unless they're cooking the books, it's still growing...

Watched my animals age. My lab will not live the full life expectancy for her breed. She's got crappy hips and a bum knee...and one mommy who refuses not to spoil her with excess treats so she's morbidly over-weight (hmmm...just like that spoiling mommy). All this conspires to shorten her life span and guarantee that the end will be painfully unpleasant. If I'd followed through on breaking up with my partner two years ago rather than staying to pick up the pieces-of-her after the tragedy, my dog would have had a chance at a better, longer life.

Watched my father age. Painful. The unstoppable giant of my youth is not immortal. He will die. I'm not sure how that will affect me given our history...

Watched my partner drift further and further from reality. On medication, off medication, back on it—where she belongs. Lying to herself about the true cost of being off her medication. The cost being that there's only one person on the planet still speaking to her. One person on the planet that still gives $hit whether she still sucks air into her lungs...me. And quite honestly some days it's hard to give a $hit.

Watched myself become resigned to life as it is today. Fooling myself into thinking how some of the things I do are so selfless, yet always knowing deep down, where it really counts, that I've always been in it for me. That nothing, not one thing I ever decide, not one action I ever take, is ultimately without benefit to me.

Dark? Yes. Deceitful? Not where it matters.