Thursday, July 29, 2004

I dropped off a resume today. It's never a good idea to assume that a business will still be in the same place it was 8 years ago. It's also not wise to assume that all Wendy's restaurants have a .99 cent menu.

The child came out of her room today! Just long enough to ask to spend the night at a friends house. I think she might have eaten dinner but I never wittnessed this event. However I did find an empty dish that I didn't use.

I'm helping a friend try to avoid eviction by signing her up at roomate.com and spent part of the evening contacting prospective roomies for her. I hope she finds a roommate!

I found out that I can get Launchcast Radio to work on my computer again! Best of all, it's free.

My friend J started her own blog. Check it out!

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

While you were out

I remodelled my blog site...really!

I'm learning what exciting things go on at home when I used to be at work. My 14 year-old daughter sleeps half the day and rarely leaves her room. She stumbles out of her cave ocasionally and wanders through the living room to stare blankly at the kitchen, then turns around and goes back into her lair.  The dog wanders throughout the house all day with a look of "what was I going to do?" on her face. Sometimes she notices I'm here and gets all excited and wants to be petted. This happens approximately every hour until it's time for me to get home from work. Then she goes all Border Collie crazy and wants to go on her walk. That and eating her dinner exhausts the poor creature and she passes out on the floor for the rest of the evening.

I spent most of the day agonizing over writing cover letters until I caved and bought a cover letter program. It came with a resume builder, job hunting tips, I learned some new things, so I think it was worth the money.

I'm reading a lot when not busy wasting time. My reads include PC World Magazine, Reader's Digest, Angels on Earth, Janet Evanovich books, and the Utah News. Life can't get much more exciting that this.

Note to self: do not drink and entire 2 quart pitcher of iced tea in one day

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Toss the fries

Started the serious job hunting today. What amazes me is that I can now do this all online. I don't have to leave the house or touch a newspaper! There wasn't much out there today but I will not despair.

I like to read the news online. I can't believe some of the stuff that happens!  Female rentacop allegedly executes alleged thief. This alleged story is bizarre!

Here's an alarming report. 73 Percent Of U.S. Livestock Show Signs Of Clinical Depression. As if Mad Cow isn't bad enough. I may have to go vegetarian. I have enough problems of my own with depression without eating depressed beef.

So...3 hours later I'm finishing my blog. Spent a little time chatting with a friend who's life is taking a similar path as mine did 5 years ago. Lots of hugs and support to S.M.

Now, to turn off the lights. My jaw aches from dental work today and bed time is long overdue. 


Monday, July 26, 2004

Lift the lid!

How exciting is it to read about my life? Do you feel like a virtual voyeur, lifting up the lid on my brain and peeking inside? That thought reminds me of Being John Malkovich.

Tonights teenage entertainment was "Freddy" movies. I didn't want to watch but I couldn't stop myself. I finally hid in my room and visited WheresGeorge and grow-a-brain.

Breath strips for dogs. What's next? I just hope my daughter doesn't mistake them for the Listerine strips. Maybe I should point out the little blue box and tell her they're for the dog...

Did I mention the Sanrio store I visited in Florida? An entire store of Hello Kitty stuff! There's even Hello Kitty kitchen appliances! Sorry Cricket...

Speaking of my dog, on my birthday I was coerced into building my own stuffed animal at a Build A Bear store in the mall in Florida. I didn't build a bear though. I built my dog!

What's NOT on the net? We went to Indiana Beach with a friend today. It was her husband's company picnic. He works at Indiana Packers. We had fun walking around while the girls (E and a friend) took off with the wrist bands and enjoyed the rides.

Last week my blog got 22 hits and no one leaves a comment???


Saturday, July 24, 2004

Error 404

Don't you HATE those 'Error 404 - file not found' pages? Who reads all that crap anyway? Here's an entertaining Error 404 page. It's worth taking 5 minutes to read the whole thing (yes, it does end eventually).

What? Job search? Oh...yeah, that. That Zyrtec I took yesterday didn't help. 5 mg of Zyrtec and I'm a zombie. But at least I stopped sneezing! I'm working on it. Really. Sent out some resume's. Doing job searches online. Getting leads from friends. Not working is already getting OLD. My neighbors are a lot more interesting than I ever noticed before. They leave, they come home, they work in their yards...*yawn* I'm still out of it from the Zyrtec.

Have to run...ok, drive...to the store and get a few things. TTFN

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Bridge of Horrors

Florida was a lot of fun. Even though it rained a lot we did get to go to the beach for a short while. That was on Sunday.  We nabbed L at her apartment and dragged her to the Tampa Aquarium with us since it was storming. It's a very nice aquarium with a lot of unusual sea life and awesome displays. When we left the aquarium we noticed the sun was out! BEACH TIME!!! We headed south! On the way to Clearwater, while crossing the bridge (FYI - I HATE THOSE FRIGGIN BRIDGES) L decides she wants to change into her suit...now. She has me pull off the main road onto a small access road that is literally FEET away from the water. I stop so she
can get her suit out of the trunk. While she's in the car changing I'm frantically digging through my beach bag for my suit. It's NOT there!!! A truck pulls up behind us, tries to go around, can't, stops, waits. I get in the car and E is holding up a shirt to give L some privacy while she changes into her suit top. A car pulls up behind us. Did I mention both cars were driven by males? They're both smirking as they watch us like they know what's going on. As I take off L notices the vehicles waiting behind us. She freaks out thinking they got a peek show! LOL

Now is as good a time as any to point out to L & E that I don't have my suit. DUH!!! I packed everything in my beach bag BUT a suit! We stop at a Target in Clearwater and I buy the only suit in my size and change in the restroom. At the beach the waves were big & choppy and the water was on the cooler side. That plus the wind was really a little too cold for L but she was a good sport about it and got in the water for a few minutes. Of course, she was paranoid about sharks, jellyfish and other assorted wildlife. Us ignorant tourists ignored the dangers that lie beneath the surf & sand and played in the waves without a care. We didn't stay long because it was getting windier and too cold for L.

The next day L had to work and we stayed at home mostly. We did go see L after work to say goodbye, then stopped at the mall for a little bit before heading back to Aunt J's house. The next morning it was time to leave *SIGH* Remember how I said I HATE the bridges? And remember I mentioned the rain? It was POURING when we left for the airport. Our flight departed at 11:25. We left at 8 AM to get to the St. Petersburg airport from Tampa. Three hours should be enough time, even in rush hour traffic. Rush hour, pouring rain, I don't know  where the heck I'm going but I'm headed south and by some miracle I make it through the storms & traffic to the airport. I was AT THE FREAKING AIRPORT!!!!

Oh look! The rental car needs gas. We're WAY early so I head off to find a gas station. Find one, fill up, head back. OMG! All roads point north and where's the airport??? North means a bridge across the bay. Once on a bridge you are SCREWED if you're going the wrong way. Have to go all the way across the bridge to turn around.  If I get on that bridge it will take an hour to get back across. I'm so paranoid that I keet going south away from the airport to avoid the bridge. I get "lost". I put that in quotes because I knew where I was...I just couldn't find the airport! I knew I needed to head north but I was terrified I'd get on that bridge. I had a map! I used it! I followed it! And can you believe it? I ended up on the @%#@$#%^@#^#$@ bridge going back to Tampa!!!!!! Thank all that's good & holy that rush hour was over. We got to the airport literally just in time to check our bags, grab some snacks from a machine, get through security and find gate 11. The St. Petersburg airport is small. No enclosed gates for exit/entry onto the planes. Just stairs...outside. In the POURING rain. YUK! The flight home was relaxing and we had a nice salad for lunch which I guess made up for making a mad dash to the plane through pouring rain.

Baggage claim #7. E's bag ended up missing in action. Ahhh...lost luggage! We waited around at the Circle Center mall for awhile but finally went home. The bag showed up at the airport around 7 PM. We have to go pick it up today. Then we get our dog back from J. I miss our poochie!!! It's nice to be home and it was good to sleep in my own bed. Sometimes I think coming home is the best part of vacation. On the other hand, I can't wait to go back!!!

Friday, July 16, 2004

Orange Surrealism Surprise

Flight to Florida was nice. Florida is wonderful! Great to be here. Spent the first day relaxing and took a short trip to the mall. Fixed Aunt's computer (put XP on it!). Today E and I went to the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg, FL. Talk about WEIRD art! For a taste of Dali go here http://dali.karelia.ru/html/dali.htm Hit a speed trap on the way to the museum and got a ticket *sigh* but the cop was nice and didn't actually give me a speeding ticket. Just a violation, which was cheaper than the ticket. We hit rush hour traffic (which lasts longer than an hour) on the way back. Then we stopped by our friend, L's apartment and with J's help in calling L for us on the sly we figured out which apartment was L's. But by the time we found it, L had already gone to the pool. So we walked to the pool, found a resident who let us in the pool area and there was L, at the far end of the pool. The look on her face when she realized who we were was awesome!!! Her eyes got big and her mouth dropped open. She got out of the pool and gave me a big, soggy hug :-) If the weather is nice tomorrow we're going to the beach and taking L with us. Aunt J took us out to dinner tonight at a great seafood place. I'm in a post dinner stupor now...full and happy!

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Airport exposure

Here's a story! Here's hoping we don't get as much exposure as the people at that airport got!!!!

Brains across the water

Oh for pity's sake! I'm supposed to be able to post to this thing through email. Not working!

A baby was scalded with hot coffee on an airline flight a few weeks ago. Now
we have hot coffee to worry about while flying.

I am sending out a resume today for a state job. Wish me luck!

A friend just reminded me that we DO have a beach in Indiana. Well, duh..
yes, we do. It's only a national lakeshore! I meant the ocean when I said
beach. Let's see her find an ocean in Indiana! ha!

I gave a friend a sick dog to take care of while I'm on vacation. I feel
horrible!!!! I'm a mean person...a bad dog mommie, a terrible friend. *sigh*

So...after I fix my Aunt's computer I'll make another bloggie post. TTFN!!!

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Penguinized

I've been bitten by the Linux penguin! Days 2 & 3 have been 75% Linux. I've used Windows only for things I haven't quite figured out how to get working in Linux. I'm bummmed that .wma files won't play in Linux, meaning I'll have to convert all my .wma files to .mp3 files and reburn them to CD's which is irritating because I just used up my way cool "vinyl" blank CD's. They look like little records!!! And I can't get my CD writer to write in Linux nor can I get the wireless networking to work. Both minor problems since the word online is that those things should work...or have for other owners of the same computer.

Silly me! I forget that I should wear my glasses when using the computer a lot and then wonder why I get so sleepy! DUH!

Vacation time is almost here. I'm so broke in an "I can't afford to spend the money I have" way. It will work out...it will. Who needs to eat or buy gas for the rental?

And yes, I'm working in Linux right now...in case you were wondering. Oh, the job hunt. Well, with vacation in a few days and being gone for a week I'm putting that on hold until I get back unless someone gives me an awesome job lead that I can't pass up.

happy birthday to me, I'll be 40 in 6 days, I'll be 40 and unemployed, happy birthday to me!

Y'know, with all the other crap that's happened in the past 6 years...I really don't care! I think back to the divorce, the grandma funeral, the dad funeral, the "friend" from hell, to depression and back and now the job thing. It's nothing in comparison. Oh yeah, it'll be tight until I find something else but it could be worse.

Back to my Linuxverse where things like gimp, xmms, mounting drives, Konquerer, and other weird terms are becoming familiar.

Saturday, July 10, 2004

I cleaned out my office today. There's a few things left but not much. It's all in my car now. I could tell it bothered people to see me clean it out. I didn't seem to care...I just focused on what I had to do. Besides, I didn't want to leave anything extra for the state to try & claim as theirs and take. At night, when I go to bed...that's when it hits me. That's when it gets to me. I'm not worried about finding another job or about paying bills. That will work out. What gets to me is leaving a place I enjoyed going to every day. I'll miss everyone. And I can't stand how the clients are being treated during this change. It's disgraceful. Makes me wish I didn't live in Indiana.

LINUX DAY ONE: I installed Mandrake Linux on my computer today. I tried it a few years ago and couldn't quite catch on to it. The newest version is much easier to use. I'm using it now. I still have to figure out how to get the wireless net to work on it but beyond that it seems to be working fine. It takes some getting used to though.

My dog won't stop whining! She's making me crazy! I wish there was a Border Collie version of Linux. Then maybe her OS wouldn't make that 'critical error' whining sound as often.

I need to go to bed. It's already tomorrow, which means this blog will not show up in the reality of my today but instead it will invade my if I want to post tomrrow when tomorrow really feels like today and today feels like yesterday.

I'm hungry! I hate that!

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Welcome to my world

After giving my website address to all of my soon-to-be former co-workers I thought it might be nice to welcome all new visitors to my blog.

I post something new several times a week. The archives don't exactly work right. They should look the same as this page, but for some unknown reason the formatting is stripped away. Go figure.

You can add comments at the end of each of my posts.

For anyone who dares to come back to steal more peeks into my life and mind...look out. It's going to be a wild ride! Who knows what direction my life will take after July 30th :-)

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Tatoos While You Wait

A friend saw "Tattoos While You Wait " on a sign while on vacation. What the
-?  Is there any other way to get a tattoo??? Is the alternative a drive by
tattooing?

Today was exhausting. All the phone calls, the reactions, the clients, the
heat, my office. It's different when something has a definite end to it. I
look at everything I've collected in that little room and wonder how to fit
it into life without my office. I'm still sorting it all out in my head,
fitting this into my new definition of reality. And yes, I've worked on my
resume, and no I haven't written a cover letter yet because how do I sell
myself when I feel like I've been slammed into a brick wall? And just
because it's over doesn't mean it stops. The clients still have problems to
solve, needs to meet, questions to be answered so what is my role now? What
do I do? I have "work" to do...tasks that need to be done before I leave.
Decisions to make. Like what to do with my little plaque I got for being
there 5 years? It hangs on my office wall and shouts to me, "5 YEARS", more
as a symbol of an end than an accomplishment. And where am I going to put
that stupid doll house now?! It's too big to put anywhere in the house!

I'm trying to download Mandrake Linux. It's free. There's 3 disk images (translation=huge files) to download. Can I get them to download? NO! I'm about ready to buy...YES, buy a copy of the FREE download off of eBay. When I first saw people selling copies of the free version I thought anyone who bought it had to be a complete moron. NOPE. I've concluded that anyone who tries to download it is a complete moron! So, gotta go try to download it again...

Friday, July 02, 2004

Feet on the coffee table

New look & added comments. Please comment

Take a walk on the wild side

Life is exciting and adventuresome! As of the end of July I will be 40 years old and unemployed. One single parent out of work due to the funding carpet being yanked out from under my program. What a golden opportunity this is (or so everyone tells me). When one door closes, another one opens! Ok, I looked through this new open door and all I saw was a deep abyss. CAN I CLOSE THE DOOR NOW? I don't want to leave my friends, clients and comfy little office! Those in power at the agency were kind enough to give me 30 days notice even though the funding ended as of July 1st (and that's the day we found out too). I appreciate the extra time (and paychecks). I'd appreciate another JOB at the agency even more. Oh, but they did "rack their brains" to think of something else I could do. For what? 5 minutes? My termination letter was printed and signed long before I came into the office to find out what my supervisor need to discuss ASAP "in person" (on my sick day no less). And the clients? I don't want to talk about how they're being treated by the state. It hurts too much. I'll cry and short out my laptop keyboard and I can't afford to do that. I'm going to miss all of the clients and I wish them the very best.
I've noticed a pattern in my life. Every single time I allow myself to be happy with my life something bad happens. I'm turning into a cynical old fart. When I get old I will beat on people with my cane when they piss me off. I'll fart loudly in public and then claim it. I'll belch at the dinner table...constantly. I'll be sure to tell everyone about all that ails me. I'll turn into a reclusive, anti-social old bat and collect tons of junk. Then someone at Area IV will become my case manager and I will be their worst nightmare.
Lexapro don't fail me now!

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