Song of the Month: Bayside - Devotion and Desire (Acoustic)

- July 31, 2008 -

I took the day off today and went over to Teresa's... Alex also came over and we played Nintendo for a while, and then we took my car in for it's complementary oil change and tire rotation, and while that was going on we ate at Tumptim Thai. It was a fun afternoon. After that Alex and I went over to Bob's house and replanted irises.

- July 29, 2008 -

Today is Mary Lou's 70th birthday! After work there was a small gathering at Linn's house- Lou didn't want anything big to celebrate the occasion, but it was a nice evening.

- July 25, 2008 -

A group of us from work went to trivia night at the public library, we were put into two teams, and I wasn't really all that familiar with a number of the topics... we did okay, but were not in the top three.. the other team from work did place third though, so we did make a showing. After trivia Teresa, Bob & I went to see the X-Files movie... It was okay, but lacked a lot of the "X".... no aliens, no ghosts, no monsters... the only paranormal thing was a physic bond between a murderer and a priest. The part that really bothered me was the scenery.... It was all filmed in Vancouver, but supposedly took place in D.C.... so Mulder and Scully would be in D.C. and then suddenly go outside, drive a bit... And I was left pondering how on earth they got to Alaska. It'd just flip back and forth that way from D.C. to the Alaska setting and I found it confusing.

- July 18, 2008 -

It was Letha's last day at work today- she'd been packing up and taking her stuff home throughout the week, and having all of her Mickey stuff gone really made it seem final. She gave me a plant which had the final Mickey item (a plant stake) in it, so I'm happy to have that of her. In the evening there was a going away party at Pat's house, which Lin made everyone a set of Mickey or Minnie ears for.

- July 13, 2008 -

This morning I got up and started to create a "When I buy a house" budget- but right now I'm not really sure what will be affordable. After buying the car, and after I pay the property tax for it this week, what I have left will probably not be enough for a down payment on a house- but I'm really thinking that is going to be the way I'm going to go sooner or later, to buy rather than rent.

After budgeting and using the treadmill I went and picked Teresa up and then went to Jesse's house where Teresa practiced driving a standard transmission on his old pickup, and then his car. She did pretty good, not too many problems- so maybe sometime she'll get to drive Raider... but I'm not sure. After that we ate pizza and played MarioKart.

- July 9, 2008 -

MaryLou had to put her Abby down today because of her feline leukemia and problems it brought on, and Mom & Dad told me that they had decided to put Yuki down- we've had her forever and she has a lot of health problems.

I came home early today to get my teeth cleaned.

- July 7, 2008 -

Paycheck data was released today, it's my first post-raise check so that was great to see and I also got the bill for my car insurance today... The first payment is $384, but thereafter all my payments will be $312- They quoted me $353, so that's great by me- that's less than what Carrie pays for her '98 Monte Carlo. I ponder the next thing I need is an iPod Touch. This represents something I said I'd never do... I've always berated Apple for their overpriced iPrefixed everything since they started making the iMac. Now that I've embraced change in my life, and have developed a love of the hip and cool I ponder it's time. I need a new mp3 player, I also need an organizer, it can also play video, and you can surf the web when you're near a hot spot. Raider is also ipod ready.... Oh... Raider is the name of my car... It's a BSG thing... the Cylon fighters are called raiders, and since the car is Scion... I really liked the name.

- July 5, 2008 -

This morning I went to visit Eunjoo in KC. She came to the wedding, and wanted help with her laptop, but I didn't have time then so I told her I'd visit today instead. I uninstalled the anti-virus software and put AVG on both of her laptops, and showed her a couple things about resizing images for the web. Then we went out to eat Korean food... I've really missed my Doh Sol Bimbibap! Troy is now four going on five, and he's quite the terror... He tears up anything he gets his hands on, and he constantly hung from me; It wore me out! He cried when I left though so I guess he had a good time.

After that I stopped and saw Beca & Andrew at Mount Vernon. They just moved there since they got burnt out of the Pines. They lost everything, including two dogs and a cat, and they didn't have renter's insurance. We went out to eat and then played mini-golf.

- July 2, 2008 -

Jesse got the backup tape system all squared away today, I was able to get further instruction and software for doing a Department of Defense recommended wipe of a hard drive, so all data is completely destroyed (the stated did an audit of computers that state surplus was selling and many still had data, some sensitive data, still on them in tact). They have had poor communcation about what policy to follow, some state agencies wouldn't even repartition and reformat the computers, they'd just send them out the door. But now we should be fully compliant.

I ponder I will go back to school and take computer courses at Washburn- just one night class at a time I think. I never really feel fully competent at my job- I'll focus on the areas I'm good at and neglect those that I'm not. In a way it's a forced neglect though; There are a number of things that could stand improvement- but with my knowledge lacking I'm more likely to cause harm than bring about a big advance... Spam filtering, e-mail, DNSes, network connectivity in general, server administration.... I did very well in my review- I still view myself at the other end of the scale though. I've always been down on myself for this- I thought about not even applying for this job because I didn't see myself as qualified; I have learned a lot from it- but I feel I really should do more to make more progress. I now have a renewed motivation.