well the excitement is friday. I'm not sure how that relates to anything. I don't really have any specific things to do at work besides waiting for things to get done, but hey, that could be considered a good thing. Oh, there's Stat class, but that's not exactly a big deal - besides it moving my lunch around a bit.

Other then that, I feel like nothing interesting is happening. And that means that its time to leave... once I find my shoe. I know its near me, but there's not a lot of light at the moment. I guess I should be happy though, it is almost dawn, very exciting stuff.

I do actually have a closet organizer. It got more organized about a week ago, and just last night, I added an extra shelf to it. That doesn't help though if the jeans with the belt are sitting in another room.

In other news, I'm tired for no good reason. Maybe I'm getting too much sleep. I find that hard to believe, but it could be possible. You never know with these things.

I got new wrist and mouse wrests at work at the end of the day. I didn't have time to open them because I was watching the cnc machine cut. (I didn't have much to do, because I need to wait until my stuff is machined on it, so why not watch). Oh right, the point. So staples sucks, because one of them is blue, and one is black, and I couldn't get them to actually match. But hopefully they'll be compfy, because I missed having them. Even if the computer and monitors are expensive, there's nothing like good stuff to rest your wrists on to make everything better. Well that and a new chair, but I'm pretty sure we'll get new chairs when we get new cubes next month. Very exciting stuff these days. And I have very little time to get to work on time, so I need to be leaving.

I seem to have missplaced my belt. Which wasn't much of a problem when wearing sweaters yesterday and the day before, but today it could be. I really should look into finding it I suppose.

In other news, its a bad idea to get donuts at 7:30, when the donut place closes at 8. very low selection.

In other news, I didn't do anything yesterday, because I couldn't access the site, as was correctly guessed.

I knew there was other stuff I was going to discuss, but now I can't remember it, at all. Very problematic. Ohh, I slept for a bit over 8 hours, which was nice, but then didn't feel like getting up at all. which was not nice. I'm confused, I guess I was just more tired then I thought or something. In any event, as I still need to get to work on time, I guess I just need to suck it up. stupid early work times.

I re-registered my car (tags expire on your birthday..) on Feb 1st, but didn't have time to go and change my address, so assumed they would get forwarded from the old place... Nothing yet. I wonder if I should start worrying... at least I still have a few more weeks, but it'd be nice to have the happy green sticker.

Oh well. I'm off to work I suppose, or at least to try and dig to find my belt.

So I got my prescription cards (I don't know why I got 2, I guess they expect you to lose one right off the bat, since they have my name on both) and the most interesting thing, (besides that I don't have a health plan card yet, since they're separate) is that they have an ID #, which is my social security #. Great, lets encourage either ID fraud if you lose your wallet, or people to not put the cards in their wallets. In which case why did they bother having cards if they're not needed? (or at least not past the 1st time)

In other news, the trip to the market on saturday was more interesting then usual, because instead of some homeless person pushing the grapevine (homeless newspaper) someone was handng out flyers for John Edwards campaign meeting something or other saturday evening. Odd it was a rather different item, so most people were still ignoring the poor guy. Or maybe that's people's view of politics? or maybe they'll all just vote for Kerry. Whatever.

Umm, I reorganized the sidebar thing, because I figured people would be more likely to use the links then the archives. However I didn't move the calendar. It looked stupid if it wasn't first. So you'll have to get marginal improvement instead of a superific wonderful big deal.

I have my work baseline physical today. In the event you get sick and sue the company, they have already tested you, so they know how sick you are. Really it means waiting in a urgent care facility while little kids cough on you for a few hours. reading old magazines of course.

So I was supposed to have more time for writing, but you know how things are, and the snooze button is to blame. The odd part of course is that I woke up an hour early to go to the bathroom, and was quite awake then, but when I actually had to wake up, it was problematic. Ohh well I guess.

In other news, there isn't any. Its friday, so I have a thing with current MEM students and Alumni, though I wonder how many will show up... I'll have to see I guess.

I can't think of anything else, except that I have no idea what to do this weekend so perhaps I should think about that during some free time. Its probably best to attempt to plan somewhat ahead I think. Or maybe not, whatever...

I think I'd be more likely to eat a 5 gallon bucket of joint compound. Its at least better packaged and more appetizing looking then that cheese stuff. Yech.

I did have a checking account, but not in OH was the issue. And you never know when you might want to deposit something (since people still have habits of sending me checks). I guess there's some other features I'd do in person, but I can't think of any at the moment. Anyway, most banks had like 8-5 and 8-12 on sat hours. Which makes it a requirement to go on saturday, when its all stupid and busy and I have better things to do. (There aren't any banks especially close to work, more of 15 min away, so a trip to those during lunch would take all of my lunch). The grocery store bank - besides having an atm 3 blocks away, and at the market is open 10-8 M-F 10-5 S and 12-4 S. Seems like a bit better deal for me.

So today is blood donation day. I'm wearing a short sleeve shirt to faciliate, but I hope I don't freeze my arms off...

Nothing else really exciting happening along here, I think my coffee making skills are getting better. Perhaps I should get a spoon so I can measure instead of dumping, its difficult to see how much has been dumped at the bottom of a cup, so I usually err on the too much side, which makes it hard to press down.

There's some plastics salesman (no relation to polyone) meeting me at 8, I hope he brings donuts.

so I could bother to calculate this, but you'd think that with 5 lotto games, and each game having 6 numbers, the odds would say that more then 1 measly number out of all 30 should match....

at least I think so... 1/52 numbers, chosen 6 times, over 5 games. So 30/52 that a given # will be chosen. So well fine, screw you and your odds makers.

Ok, enough excitement about losing $5 because I can't do math. I'm not sure what the other excitement should be about, there isn't anything interesting happening. The most exciting activity was going to Friday's yesterday for dinner, because it seemed more interesting then other options. I don't officially classify that as interesting though.

Oh Kerry seems to have won in wisCONsin... I guess that shores up the old JFK vs GWB thing. (Why is one sharing initals with and important former president (no offense to millard filmore) and the other with a bridge? whatever..)

I'm hungry, i think this means I should put on my shoes and leave, because then I can go get some food.

Oh, I started brewing my own coffee at work with starbucks (rebranded bodum) french press. I haven't decided if its worth the effort, I'll update in a few days on how its going, at the moment the biggest problem is squishing it down during meetings without being too loud.

the downside of a three day weekend, is that tuesday suddenly is much worse then one would have normally hoped for. I really didn't feel like waking up. generally a blechy day.

in other news, a moderately productive weekend, which is always a good idea, but mostly there was a lot of relaxing. sad though that I don't think I get any more time off until memorial day, so I guess I need to be careful about what days I use. well I guess there's always vacation, but that's a different issue.

so i finally got my safety glasses, after they sneakily took the demo frames (because the normal frames were on order for 2 weeks) and made them. I haven't actually measured, but I think the lenses are almost 1cm thick at the edges. At least I'll be protected I guess....

I know there was other stuff I was going to mention, but clearly I've totally forgotten it. This is sad for many reasons. we'll just assume its not because i can't remember anything and I'll try to fit it in tomorrow.

I opened a checking account, it was exciting. I ended up choosing a bank based on the fact that they actually had hours later then 5pm M-F. I still don't understand how banks expect you to go during the day... its just not very logical. oh well, off to work, for the happily short week I guess.

So for some reason, I have president's day off. This is good news. I will be sad that I can't drive in the less traffic of the day (MLK day was quite nice in that respect) but let's be realistic, not driving is even better. I'm not sure what i'm going to do yet, but I think it'll involve some excitement of dealing with the hall and getting it ready to be painted.

Umm, yeah, so that's about that. I need to get ready for running, running a tad late..

I stayed late yesterday after my System 1 training, it wasn't very fun to come home expecting less traffic, and then there was an accident, so there was even more then if i left on time. oh blech.

ok, time to go, need to get ready for a fun weekend.

So we went to the Cavs game, well 3/4 of it, after they were leading twice and managed to blow that by losing by 12 points at the start of the 4th quarter, it just seemed dumb to stay. was also getting close to bedtime, and oddly I'm tired today. anyway, so it just supports that people who have money, don't pay for many things. Like getting free tickets from your company, which gives you a mediocre buffet, and then halftime (which was better) cookies and hot dogs, and an open bar. vs. the peons who pay $5.50 for beer. just odd the way things work I guess.

Uhh, so I though I had training all day today and tomorrow, but after checking yesterday, its next week. oh well, just screws up some other plans I had. So besides that, it means today and tomorrow are rather free. Uhh, what else. more random comments today, but I think the new version of MT solved that problem nicely, and a random AIM virus thing is going around, which is odd. Get im'd links from people... weird

uhh, I'm tired, and need to find my ID card, because I took it off before the game, and am not sure where I put it. so I should find that stat. or quickly, or whatever you want to call it.

well, so the excitement of yesterday was that I got actual business cards, which is cool, so now I don't know what to do with them, but I can carry them around. which is important.

Also, I got it ok'd that if I came in at 7:30, I could leave at 4:30. Which is also good, since it allows me to avoid more traffic. The downside - I'm not getting to work 30 minutes early every day, so I worry more about the fact that I need to leave in 7 minutes, which probably means I should get up earlier, but getting up earlier sucks. So I'll have to work on balancing that.

About it, I'm debating taking chinese food to work... it'd be my first time bringing lunch, but It could be a popular idea... such decisions.

And oh, the convertible Cooper S will probably have 180 hp instead of 163, to attempt to make up for the 'oof factor'

its tuesday. This isn;t especially exciting, and I got up 5 minutes later then I should have, which means that I have 5 less minutes for things like blogging. Or finding my shoes, I'm not sure where they went, but I can't seem to find them, so its annoying.

No news on the leaving work at 4:30 front, we'll see where that goes today, but you never know.

Umm, I'm hungry, so I should probably get something to eat before I leave, which could work, but I do think I'm getting tired of apples, because I keep eating them, because I don't have much else interesting. Not that I could buy something, apples were the most interesting fruit at the market. stupid season should hurry up and change. We live in a global environment. I want fruit all the time.

ok, enough ranting about fruit, but I am not sure what else to discuss now. There are some new pictures of the MINI convertible, in the event anyone wants to see them, there's here:

Otherwise, nothing to see here, move a long, get to work, all of that other not very exciting stuff. and ohh, see if you can find my shoes.

Well so I pondered getting snow tires for the 7, but that seems dumb if this is the last winter I'll have it. Especially since, even though it has skinny balloon tires (185/70/14 IIRC) Blizzaks would have been over $300 or something, which just seemed stupid. Besides, its generally OK in the snow anyway, since the all-seasons are reasonably new, they have a lot of tread left.

But I guess I do need to save up for MINI snow tires, but that's a different issue.

Uhh, yeah so this is the exciting start of week 5, nothing very exciting except I'm making progress on switching my hours to 7:30-4:30 so I can get home faster, and not spend so much time at work. Of course I'm not sure if I lose brownie points for working extra hours, its difficult to keep track of, but then it still would be helpful. And as I stopped for coffee from starbucks I guess on thursday, and it took like 15 minutes for no good reason, mostly because there isn't one on the way, its not like there's much else I can do in the morning.

Uhh, maybe I'll just bet all the money on the march madness pool. That way I can be like a true gambler..

I'm not sure where my shoes went, I moved them last night because they were downstairs, but I can't remember where I put them. I should sort that out, which is probably what I should do now. But I'm comfortable, so I guess that's problematic.

well technically this isn't a fried day, since fried food was like 2 days ago, but its somehow more appropriate. anyway, so end of the 4th week, very exciting, at least if you keep track of such things. if you don't, why did you keep reading until now?

i'd ponder buying more Fiji with the money, but its not like its very expensive anyway, at the current trader joe's price of $1.59/1.5L bottle, and going through about 1 case every 1.5 weeks, that's $12.72/week, which is pretty low compared to other expenses, like gas, which costs a bit over $20/week. I feel I should do something more exciting then buy water.. (Though I guess if there was some expensive water I wanted, but I haven't found anything worth the $ yet)

anyway, I think it semi-snowed yesterday, but probably isn't too bad, in any case, I'd like to leave a bit early to allot time to salt the driveway if necessary. You'd think a small hill wouldn't make much of a difference (its only maybe 3' high) buy oy, it does... well and my not having snow tires I guess. stupid problems.

Oh well, off to friday, I have such excitement planned, well close to it, I think my safety glasses will come in this weekend.

Oddly, I had a difficult time waking up, but now I'm sorta hungry. I'm not really sure why, its a bit odd..

In other news, we got DVR yesterday, which is the scientific atlanta thing that adelphia started providing. Its not the spiffiest (its actually rather stupid at some things) but it works, and its economical, and there's nothing to buy. Which is good, since Tivo should come out with something or other in a few months, and maybe we'll get that, assuming of course it doesn't require a phone line, since Vonage doesn't play nice. In any event, its handy to not stay up watching a show, just click record, and deal with it later.

nothing else very interesting, I've almost gotten through 4 weeks of work, though its a bit boring still, so hopefully I won't accidently annoy my coworkers by trying to see what they're doing. Other then that, uneventful really. I managed to avoid my first traffic messup yesterday, went around downtown I guess, so it saved me a reasonable amount of time. (though still longer then if I came home straight, it was under an hour to get back) time to get some food and get going...

so I noticed I still have my superbowl away message up, I guess with band on monday after work and a haircut yesterday, there isn't much time for changing... blah

Uhh, I got my boots. I think these are them. Pretty good deal. (They were on sale, with tax I paid $42 or something that wasn't covered by work) just odd walking around in Docs with steel toes.

Uhh, what else, someone at work was amazed I had my credit card # memorized, since I needed to pay for the extra part of the shoes.

There's a bunch of messages, how exciting.

Except according to the egullet foodblog (which I may note is a perfect example of 'me-tooisms') someone 'isn't a fan of chipotle' yet if I recall correctly, they've never even eaten there. though I guess it wouldn't make good blog news to eat there, (unless people didn't know about the quad salsa special)

uhh, I need to get going because the website was being screwey 10 minutes ago, so I didn't do anything then, and now I must get leaving. well after I get a piece (mmm, like half) of the coffee cake thing, so I have some exciting food for breakfast. I bought donuts for work to make them feel happier about getting fleeced of $250.

I dono what I'm going to spend it on, besides the fig candle and the donuts that is. I need to think of something, since a wad of cash on the night table isn't effective financial management, though it looks kinda cool. (there's a lot of 5's so it looks big)

Oops, I forgot to update yesterday. I got downstairs as I was leaving for work, and realized I didn't. It was sorta problematic, but I had also ran out of time, and Its not very good to blog at work, so I didn't update then.

The excitement of the day (weekend I guess) is I won the football pool. For 2 quarters, since they didn't score anything during the 3rd quarter I won that. Which equaled $250.. Not bad for a $20 investment, though I need to buy doughnuts (lets hope they're open in 15 minutes) to make the work people feel happier.

Uhh, what else, its raining out, this should be cold. I hope it doesn't get the donuts wet. Umm, I need to get going, but I knew there was other stuff I wanted to talk about. I still need to sort out the getting to work at a normal time, it seems dumb to get there 30 minutes early, but its about all I can do. We'll say it will be good for my future career I guess. Or I should just save up a few pennies and buy a house in Mentor. I guess someone's commute to Avon lake would be exceedingly crappy then, so that's probably not nice of me.

Anyway, time to go to the real world again, assuming I can find my shoes...

Oh, I got a labcoat finally, (2 actually, a backup I guess) so now it has my name in it and everything, and then I don't need to randomly borrow one with someone else's name in it, that never really fit well. Now I just need my glasses and shoes and I'll be all set.

And MINI2's down to move servers, amazing how much faster I can get ready when I don't read any of it.