Bringing the Drama

The past two nights my internet has been down at the house, so I have not been able to upload a picture of my new glasses. I’ve also not been able to job search, but at least I found the last version of my resume and will be able to update it. work’s been full of drama lately, and I’m anticipating more drama coming up this fall, so I’m going to see what my options are. And I know I’ve said it before about job searching, and I have looked before, but this time I have a goal to send out 5 resumes by the end of the week. I have no idea what the results will be, but as far as internal job postings, my friends have had it take at least a month before you hear back anything. I was able to find some pretty cool jobs yesterday morning though, so I’m interested to see what happens.

While I have to go without posting pictures, I might as well air some grievances. My car’s cd player has been broken for about a month. I’m talking when you put a disc in, there’s a grinding noise. It’s sad, because now I’m relegated to listening to the radio. The radio isn’t so bad because I really like listening to WWOZ, but sometimes I need some rock music, or at least something different. FM radio in the morning reduces the number of listenable stations by 3 at least, and the same talk show is on TWO different stations! The other station that turns to talk is like listening to an issue of maxim, a complete waste of time that serves no purpose. Then interspersed in the talking, he’ll play a rock song from 1994. speaking of, the supposed “Rock Of New Orleans” has issues with playing anything from within the last 10 years. On a recent trip home last week, we listened for what songs they were playing….5 out of 6 were from BEFORE 1996. i understand if they think the greatest time for modern rock was 1991-1995 (which is still debatable), but who are they to determine that? the Foo Fighters have put out albums since 1995, nobody cares about Silverchair much anymore, and Beck has done better songs since Odelay. the ‘classic’ rock stations are okay, but they play a lot of the same songs. So the past couple of days, I’ve been listening to the country station, getting back in touch with my love for country music that I left behind in 1997. i don’t know when I’ll get the cd player fixed, but right now I’m getting by on songs from Brad, Keith, and Carrie….but I wish I could hear some more Reba. The one thing I don’t like about country, is the songs sometimes are pathetically sad. Sure, I could write a song about how my tractor broke down, my wife left me, my dog got run over by a car, and I ended up passed out drunk in a recliner, but that doesn’t seem to me like a song I want to listen to a sunny day with my windows down.

As an update to the carpool, things have been going pretty well. I have not missed yet! I also enjoy getting home early because I’ve been able to make a few matinee movies. However, I have to deal with an intersection at a truck stop to get to our carpool meeting place every morning. I have seen truckers completely disregard the red light or just pull out and block half the road. I don’t ask much from people when I’m driving, but simple common courtesy would be nice. Of course, in both instances, I flipped them off. It’s not so much that people are doing that to me, but that they care so little about other people, that someone should at least try to hold them accountable. Sitting there patiently while some guy blocks traffic doesn’t teach the guy anything! And of course, the guys who ran the light, they honked their horn at me like I was the one forcing people to slam on their brakes because I was too arrogant to wait 90 seconds at a red light….my bad!

And finally, last night I went to walmart to get some groceries, when I noticed an older gentleman drinking one of those single chocolate milk bottles while he was shopping. When I saw him on the soup aisle, he was almost finished with it, and I thought “I bet he’s going to finish that milk and throw the bottle away before he gets to the front of the store!” (I’m kind of cynical when it comes to the general public) I did not follow him to see if that actually happened, but I figured it did after I talked with the cashier. The walmart by my house is being renovated, so they’re updating the freezer section, redoing the floor, etc. I asked her if we’d finally be getting self checkout machines, but she told me we would not because there’s too much theft. I told her about the old guy and the milk, and she said “you wouldn’t believe the kind of stuff we see here”. Again, I don’t ask much from people, but for crying out loud, take the time to buy the 99 cent bottle of milk! And why….WHY do those thieves keep self checkout out of my walmart? Isn’t someone supposed to be watching the self checkout stations to make sure people aren’t stealing anything? At least gas prices went down 10 cents yesterday, so I have that.

the last time i had gotten glasses was probably 2004 or 2005. i normally wear contacts all the time, but the past year or so have been wearing my glasses once a week. i’ve gotten compliments on them, even though when i originally went to get them, i was getting the cheapest pair i could get because i was also getting contacts. my love for thicker framed glasses began sometime last year or the year before after i noticed several of my friends had them, and they looked very good with them. i was able to try my friend Chrissy’s pair on when i was in Ireland (!!!) in March which resulted in this picture taken by my friend Lori:

due to having to wait for insurance, i had to wait 4 months before i could get glasses like that of my own. i went to my eye doctor yesterday, and he gave me my new prescription, and told me that my contacts prescription would not need to be updated, which meant i could use the insurance money for glasses. after a couple of empty trips to two places, i ended up at Sears where they had several pairs i could pick from. i went back today and finally went with a dark dark brown pair that was neither of my two choices from yesterday. i should get them within two weeks….just in time for preseason football.

so yesterday i went to early church at 8:15 am and was again subjected to another boring sermon. i’ve been pretty frustrated with my home church, but have tried other local churches to no success. so i have started going to my home church since i am also helping out with the youth group. it’s not only that the sermons are boring, but most of the subject matter is low hanging fruit type stuff, and i expect more. also, it’d be nice if the pastors didn’t read all of their prayers instead of just speaking from the heart. more on this later….

i got home and made french toast again, and took Adriene’s suggestion for the strawberries ON the french toast. i didn’t exactly do that, but i did buy powdered sugar to use on half the french toast, and the other regular syrup. the strawberries were placed on the plate as a sort of Maginot Line between the two. if there was an Iron Chef French Toast, this would be one of my five dishes.

i went to youth group, and part of the evening was spent playing charades. not only charades, blind folded drawing charades. when coming up with the topics for the other team to draw, i used movie and tv show titles, like Field of Dreams (which one of the dad’s COULD NOT DRAW) and Reading Rainbow (which the other team got right). however, other suggestions were harder for the kids including Rocky Balboa. i heard more than one kid go “who is that?” WHO IS THAT? WHO DOESN’T KNOW WHO ROCKY IS? oh, that’s right, they were born AFTER the original four movies came out. ouch.

while at church, i was invited to the newly formed young adult group. i’ve been in young adult groups at the church before, even tried leading them. we never got support from church leadership, and the last time i tried to lead one 3 years ago, nobody came. so i had kind of given up, but apparently a new group has formed, and they have a similar opinion of the current pastoral leadership. i’m going to see about it, but i’m not going to get my hopes up.

i came home to a roast in the crock pot, which was the first time i had used my crock pot ever…..even though my mom had given it to me at least a year ago. the roast came out fabulous, and the folks who ate it enjoyed it. success! (sorry, no pictures)

in other news, i’m going to get new glasses (!!!)…..story about that tomorrow.

so Sunday i had gone running in the evening, around 7:15 to be approximate. i needed to run, because i had not run in a while, and wanted to wait until i thought it was cool enough. it was still 90 degrees. NINETY DEGREES! i still went, and probably lost at least 5 lbs by the end of my 3.31 miles. i got home today with thoughts of running, but it was still 91 at 7:00 pm so i waited. i ate dinner (spaghetti using wheat pasta) and checked the weather. it was 83 degrees with sub 40% humidity about 8, so i left about 8:45. it was so much different from Sunday. i turned in a faster time, which was cool. not sure if i’m down with running so late, but if it avoids the insane heat going on this week, i might be okay with that.

i’ve stayed up entirely too late thinking i’d see the end of the baseball all star game, but this is getting ridiculous, so i’m going to bed. hope the NL wins because the defense i saw the past few innings has been fantastic.

so this morning i woke up and wanted to make something to go with the fresh strawberries i had cut up last night, so i thought i’d try to make french toast. i’ve been on sort of a roll lately, i made an omelet the other night that came out fantastic. i cut up a tomato and added some cheddar cheese for the insides. it was marvelous. sorry, i didn’t take a picture, but i should have, because it came out that good.

[sidebar: the two skillets (hard anodized calphlaon, the 10" and 12" were packed together at the store) i had bought at BBB about a month ago have been great to have since the move up to stainless steel cookware. using a stainless steel skillet for eggs was just too hard.]

anyway, this morning i looked up how to make french toast. i had never made it before, even though i’ve bought the ingredients before. i usually go with the Vive La French Toast at IHOP by default, but i don’t know if i’d call myself a french toast connoisseur. i found a recipe that included something like 6 different things, a couple of which i did not have. i picked out the ingredients i thought would be good (ground cinnamon and vanilla) and used those. i didn’t measure anything, because i’m trying to be a ‘good’ chef like that. i scrambled two eggs and added the ground cinnamon and vanilla.

i used the wheat bread i had, and realized after the first piece that i’d have to flip and remove the bread almost instantaneously because the bread started to fall apart if i left it in too long.

the first piece i didn’t really let the excess egg completely drain off, so i had a little bit of fried egg in the pan. no matter, the piece still came out fine. i had enough egg mixture for three pieces.

the cinnamon and vanilla added a great flavor to the french toast (i feel like Bobby Flay saying that). i pulled out the strawberries and had a great Sunday morning breakfast.

and now that i know french toast isn’t that big a deal, i figure i can make it more often. it’s way better than slumming it with frozen waffles, even if they are Eggo.

so this week, the desk next to me has now become the desk of one of the new employees at work, a girl from MN. it was a close call last week because for about 30 minutes, none other than “guy with BO” was going to be sitting next to me. i was very thankful for that, because how much work can you get done without breathing? my new neighbor is quiet, which is awesome, however, the other employees in her specific group have been coming by to talk to her. it has been quite frustrating, esp that i’m trying like crazy to get a model done to meet a schedule deadline. (the deadlines really don’t mean anything, because mine’s already been pushed back 3 times, but still…) for some reason they gave the least experienced analysis person the hardest part to analyze, which is why it’s taking me an extra long time to get it done.

anyway, today about mid afternoon, no less than 4 different people came to my new neighbor’s desk to have a meeting of some kind. i had my headphones in and turned up the new Beck (i’m still forming an opinion) to drown them out. it was borderline tolerable until the unthinkable happened. “guy with BO” came and stood right behind me to talk to someone. omg…it was awful. i was trying to work, trying to concentrate, but….THE SMELL! i had to get up and walk around, and went and talked with my friend Laurin about our 401k’s. hopefully tomorrow the impromptu meetings will not happen so i can finish what i’m doing and move on to the next assignment.

so this morning i went to cut my grass since it was nearing the “abandoned house” height. i casually looked out one of my bedroom windows to check out the backyard when what meets my eyes but the horror of dead wildlife. is it bad that the first thing i thought of was “omg, i need to get a picture!” regardless, i got my camera, and opened by back door to take a photo. below is the view from my window…i’ll spare you the closeup.

it appears that the cause of death was “collision with house”, but with no witnesses, the cause really cannot be determined. i gave a fleeting thought to having a funeral pyre built, but instead went with the triple plastic bag into a large black garbage bag was the way to go. i knew i could not just move it and let nature take its course because nature still is taking it’s course on an egret along the route i run along. feathers apparently take a while to “disappear”.

other than the dead bird found on my patio, my weekend celebrating America’s 232nd birthday was great. it seemed very long. i realized today that it seemed like a week since i had been to work, but it had only been Thursday. i hung out with my parents on Friday, checked out their new tv that they got last week. i got home and watched “There Will Be Blood”, which in the end was rather good. Saturday i talked with my friend Len who is now home (!) then went for a long bike ride. too bad the weekend has to end and i have to go back to work.

Wednesday at work, my friend Travis stopped by my desk to give me a gift. he had been to a local Big Lots and spotted a small can of peanuts that was decorated as though they were made by someone from Clemson. the can is shown below:

look at his orange shirt, look at the backdrop of the football stadium….you would think at some point in his life he had either played on the football team or i don’t know, COACHED them in some capacity. we looked up the current list of football coaches but did not find him listed. we then looked up the peanuts themselves in hopes of finding out who the guy is, because it did not say on the can at all.

our searches turned up three things…..the man’s name is Joe and he actually WAS a football coach, but did not coach at Clemson. he graduated from North Carolina A&T. the reason he is wearing orange and is standing in front of a stadium backdrop is because he’s friends with Jeff Davis who is a FOOTBALL LEGEND at Clemson. through his friendship, he has donated profits from his seasoning (including the peanuts) to a Clemson teaching recruitment program.

i found it all very interesting, esp how he donates profits for his business (which seems he started from scratch) to Clemson. though we wondered if there was an edition of the peanuts where he’s standing in front of a North Carolina A&T backdrop. and we weren’t sure about the tagline on the can because i’m not really giving peanuts limitations, but i appreciate the sentiment.

this past weekend i not only stood in my friend Chris’s wedding, but i also bought a new Clemson hat to replace a tried and true member of my wardrobe. i had bought the old hat in November 2002 when i had gone up for the south carolina game. i remember the game well, esp when freshman QB Charlie Whitehurst ran in for a TD with his arm held high. the hat has seen several wins over the years and a few losses. it’s greatest year was obviously 2006 when it saw wins over FSU, Wake, and NC State. i made a new group on my flickr containing nothing but random pictures of the hat, like this oldie from 2003.

the hat was loyal, the hat was faithful, the hat was stained in the end. days of playing golf in NOLA heat and humidity, sweating over football games, sweating over basketball games, sweating at concerts….and the occasional machine wash. since the hat is undefeated at the georgia dome (1-0), i am not sure if it will come out of this new retirement for the clemson/alabama game in august. i feel as though the new season deserves a new hat, much like when i started the 2007 saints season anew sans the joe horn jersey. i have a couple of months to decide. i don’t think i’ll throw the old hat away, because it is lucky in a sense. when good luck is needed, it will be there.