Song of the Month: Linkin Park - Crawlin (the Mike Shinoda remix)

- June 28, 2008 -

Carrie got married today- aside from a few minutes of sprinkling in the morning it was a great day. Last night we had a rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and then set up the reception hall (at the VFW), Motoko, David and Abuna helped us too- we were at that till about midnight. Carrie was freaking out the morning of the wedding, but that tends to be her default mood most of the time anyway... my wedding role was very peripheral (and I was happy for that!) All I had to do was usher Mom in at the start... and I had to go and let the DJ and caterer in to the wedding hall and logistical things, that and take some pictures at the reception. Carrie had a photographer that was shooting the wedding and the cake cutting , but after that they left so only took pictures later in the night.

- June 26, 2008 -

Jesse returned to work today from vacation so I showed off the new car to him- I really had been looking forward to taking him for a drive cause I think he thought like Teresa that I'd never buy a new car. I'm really starting to feel more comfortable driving it, I love the sound system, it's just a cool car all the way around.

Carrie's wedding is Saturday so tomorrow is the rehearsal- I don't have a part in the ceremony, which I'm glad for, but I know I'll probably have to do a lot of other things- always lots of things to do. I think tomorrow I might come home early and help out, wash my car too.

My life feels like it has been in complete flux for the last month, and I find difficult to explain. It seems I only sleep five to six hours each night, sometimes less... never more. I know Facebook has something to do with that as I've been talking more online with friends I've made recently and throughout school and this has kept me from going to bed at a reasonable hour quite often. The car also is a big part of it; through so much of it I felt like it was Christmas Eve and I had a present under the tree- there's that sense of anticipation and excitement that raises your adrenaline which makes sleep seem somewhat unnecessary and impossible. For a long time I've stuck to an orderly and safe path in life where change was an enemy, and now I feel things have changed; It's not the contacts, it's not my nifty new sunglasses, not the car either- It's me.

- June 25, 2008 -

I was really scared tonight! I had a great day showing off the new Scion on it's first day out and about, but when I turned the car on a "MAINT REQD" light blinked several times at me. It went off... and I was quite concerned.. and then half-way home it came on and stayed on. I had only a mild panic that something was wrong... and was progressively getting worse. So I got home and read the manual and it said that that meant it was time to change the oil so I called Geoff, and he said he changed it just 200 miles ago, so I googled a bit and found out how to turn it off.... it's mostly just a reminder that goes off slightly before each 5,000 mile mark.

- June 24, 2008 -

June 24 and that means it is Teresa's birthday! This year Teresa and Nikaela had a joint party at MaryLou's house to celebrate both of the 30th birthdays. There was a tropical theme, a moon bounce, shish kabobs, and great fun. I think the highlight of the evening was when Murl got in the moon bounce with Teresa and sent her flying in a completely discombobulated manner!

- June 23, 2008 -

I encountered an inordinate number of wasps today. This morning in the bathroom I heard a mysterious buzzing and I couldn't figure out what it was. There was a wasp in the light fixture- and it's enclosed, so it came from inside the ceiling somehow! I left the light on so it couldn't figure its way back out and it died. Craig: 1, Wasps: 0. At work in the afternoon I encountered my second wasp- it nearly attacked a co-worker by the copy machine who came running to my office (okay, I can understand when they come to me when the electronic stapler breaks... it plugs in and has a blue light, but pest control is not in my job description!) I kid though; I really like being a person that people ponder can be of assistance no matter what the emergency. This wasp met its end by being shoed to death (not in the manner of "Shew wasp, don't bother me" but in a "I shall beat you with my shoe". Craig: 2, Wasps: 0 -a bad day for wasps.

Yeah, I'm sure I did other good deeds at work, but the focus of rest of my day was picking up the Scion! Teresa took me out to Ottawa and I drove the new car home! Then she drove me back to Topeka so I could drive the other car back home... quite a few miles I traversed, and so much gas! I filled up Teresa's car for being so nice.. and then new car was nearly out... and I know the old car is going to need filled up tonight... $150 in gas in two days really hurts!

- June 17, 2008 -

After work... immediately after work Teresa & I went to Ottawa to look at the 2008 Scion tC I found on autotrader- Though it's been garaged they parked it out in the driveway for us to see when we drove up.... Oh, it looked awesome! We took it for a test drive... it has a manual transmission which I'm not very accustomed to, but I didn't have any problems driving it. The last time I drove a manual was like ten year ago, and not for any extended time. I think it's a pretty good deal... I meandered the car lots (on Sundays when the dealers are away) and I've seen similar ones going for $20,000, and those did not have a lot of the options that this one has. They are still paying it off, the couple that was selling it was doing so for their son who joined the navy, and since Toyota had the title there really wasn't much that I could do tonight so I came home only with some photos.

Miyako, my host sister, had a baby boy! She got married early last year and moved to a city near Fukuoka on Kyushu. She named him Junsei.

Jesse left on vacation to California and won't return until next Wednesday, so I'm on my own for a while. It was a very good day though, we got several things resolved before he left for the day and I got my annual evaluation- seems I'm doing an okay job, and people seem to value my assistance, so it was a positive evaluation.

- June 16, 2008 -

Loads of fun today!!! In the morning I went to the optometrist and got contacts again. I've worn glasses for a number of years and I was quite ready to be rid of them. After that I went with Teresa to get new tires and eat lunch. After lunch Teresa got a call from Chipotle that her burritos were all ready... We got twenty comped burritos for people at work, which we were supposed to get tomorrow- but they made them a day early on accident so we went and got them and just put them in the refrigerator at work.

After lunch I went with the Library Archives division on a Capitol Dome tour. The historical society runs a gift shop and the dome tours at the Capitol. When you're in the Capitol and look up you see a glass inner dome, above that is the exterior dome, and lots of stairs up to the cupola on top which you can go up and walk around outside.

I fear I probably didn't get too much work done today; Teresa, Bob & I went to see the Incredible Hulk in the evening- Teresa thought it was the greatest movie ever! I thought it was certainly a good movie, but I don't know if I'd consider it the greatest.

- June 13, 2008 -

Tim Russert died this afternoon from a heart attack at the age of 58. I religiously watch Meet the Press and think that Russert was the best political journalist out there.

I got a package from TigerDirect today with RAM I ordered for various people and my new 8GB flash drive... It's a Transcend with a retractable USB port, which is way cooler than one with a cap. I have a 1GB red one that I've had for years and it's been through flash drive hell and back. I've sent it through the washer and the dryer (and it came out pipe'n hot!) and it's be dropped and stepped on, now it's held together with tape, but it still works like the day I got it so I pondered this one would be good too. I have a 4GB one as well, but every now and then it's just not big enough for everything I want to take.

Teresa and I played tennis tonight again and my winning season continues! I'm getting pretty darned good at serving too!

Tonight was the end of the first half of season four of BSG, with them arriving at Earth and our questions were answered just what sort of Earth they would arrive at. It was also revealed that the final Cylon was not in the fleet- which leads me to think that it was someone that was killed; Admiral Cain, Cally, or Ellen Tigh.

- June 12, 2008 -

It was a MarioKart lunch and today I was victorious again! With Matt's help... well.. he told me how to do mostly everything, I got CRDNAS1 (Cultural Resources Division Network Attached Storage) server to auto-convert raw digital camera images into tif files- there still are a few bumps, but it's mostly good to go for production work.

Last night a tornado went through Manhattan. I woke up just seconds before the sirens went off here... I had just enough time to look at the alarm clock before they began. It was raining outside, but it wasn't overly windy- I'm normally too nervous about bad weather, but the power went out, and since there didn't seem any reason for it to go out, other than something that was on it's way that could have done so I did find it a little disconcerting.

Last weekend Teresa, Bob & I had a cookout on Teresa's patio- I think I impressed them both with my yummy taters.... We spent the rest of the night playing GameCube.

- June 7, 2008 -

Hillary gave her concession speech this afternoon and she a very good job I felt. She threw her support behind Obama, and now the real campaign can begin! While I watched the speech I did some origami... I repaired one that got dripped on at work, and made this one.

I think the only thing of note that I did today was to paint one of the porches, after that was nap time, then I gave the porch a second coat, walked on the treadmill for just one episode of DS9. A good day.

- June 3, 2008 -

Tonight Teresa & I went and played with the Cultural Resources Division (at least the HPO side since Archeology is conducting their field school right now) in a cut-throat game of bowling. It's been at least a couple years since I've been, and I did quite well! I got several strikes and scored a 143.

- June 1, 2008 -

This morning I slept in until 8:00, though I didn't go to bed until after 1, it still seemed like more sleep than I've gotten in weeks. It was a basic no-plans Sunday for me; I walked (at a pace just short of jogging) on the treadmill and watched two episodes of Deep Space Nine which took me nine miles and then I listened to Linkin Park and ran another two miles before the treadmill automatically shutdown since I had been on it for 99 minutes, 99 seconds. I guess it ponders no one should use it longer than that. I spent the afternoon chatting and messing around with Facebook- it's really quite addictive and amazing how people can come out of the woodwork.