For Those of You Who Think I Am No Longer:

I'm still here, at least I'm still breathing and as far as I can tell my heart and brain are still working. I'm in this half-asleep/half-awake but still walking around and doing work mode. We got back from Georgia the other day, and I didn't sleep much Sunday night, and last night I didn't even go to bed, so I'm a little tired. I'm on my 34th hour now, the last few compounds of caffeine still floating around my blood stream, latching onto my dendrites in the wonderful way that foreign chemicals do, keeping me from falling face first into my keyboaq034444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 HUH, what? I kinda like staying up really long, I just don't want to fall asleep because I know I'll go home tonight after work, lay down at 6:30 and wake up tomorrow morning at 7. I will have had no evening in which to do anything. But at least I'm done for the semester, aside from my Algebra final which will no doubt be a monster. I did a presentation in class today, I did pretty well except I said "um" about 2.46e^234 times and I was half asleep when I did it, so the clapping at the end of it woke me up. And also, we have a research paper due that is supposed to be 2000 words, but my prof. told me I could hand in what I had done so far (approx. 900 words) and that would be fine, because my "work has been very good, and normally twice as long as anyone else's anyway". So, I don't have to sit down tonight and tomorrow night and drill out another 1000 words.

ALWAYS ... no, wait ... NEVER Drive On The Interstate On The Sunday After Thanksgiving

To all of the people in Florida who decided to go North for Thanksgiving, don't ever, EVER do that again. You turned my 8-hour drive home from Atlanta on Sunday into a dizzying 13-hour trek which, might I add, robbed me of the peace and relaxation accumulated from my week-long vacation. My knee is actually in pain from the constant stop-and-go switching from the brake to gas pedal and back again. Awesome vacation, lousy 500-mile long traffic jam on the way home. Later, I shall regale you with more tales from my trip, but for now, I have a week's worth of catching up to do at work. Oh and I'm also kind of lazy and unmotivated and a bit of a procrastinator so it's harder than it seems. But that's all going to change, because I am setting out on a mission to be a better, faster and more motivated employee (right after I finish my blog entry for the day.).

New Year Resolution Numero Uno

Must remember to more regularly attend class. It's 2AM (not now - last night, this is one of those oooo-ey, spinny-soft-focus-recollection moments from memories past; just go with it for a minute). I have an exam the next morning. My brain hurts, my eyes held open with packing tape, and I can feel the rest of my body sound asleep because it's numb. The only life I have in me is struggling to make my hand write logarithmic functions and give my brain enough juice to keep me from falling face first into my notes. At this point I decide I've had enough and it's time for bed. Morning comes, I go to class, ALMOST on time except I get stuck behind traffic on my way to the interstate (it's true, I don't make this stuff up): A five minute drive from my house to the interstate turns into a 15-minute drive, half of which I am stuck behind a slow-moving truck with a trailer full of drywall, the other half behind a bus that decides it's going to stop every five feet to pick up millions of children who just take waaaay too long to climb aboard. I like kids, I love kids in fact, just have more of a preference for the ones that don't spin around and pretend they are airplanes, holding up the bus and making me late. I walk into class, listen to the lecture, and then, AND THEN, find out that the exam has been postponed for a week - a unanimous decision made by the class on one of the days that I was not there. Wonderful. Ah well, at least I'm ready for the test.

First Time For Everything

I just sneezed, and you know how your body tenses up when you sneeze? Well, I just accidentally punched myself in the lip when I did, and it kinda hurt.

Some Things You May Not Know About Me

I'd like to tell you some things about me that you probably don't know, and would have otherwise been afraid (perhaps deathly) to ask. Please enjoy reading from this list:

• We have this toilet at work, and well, sometimes it doesn't flush properly; if you even so much as blow your nose and put the tissue in the toilet and press the flush lever, it makes noise, and the water spins around in circles (counter-clockwise as we are situated North of the equator). And then, after all that, it just keeps spinning and spinning and never goes anywhere - sometimes it takes 3 or 4 attempts. Also, our water pressure for the toilet is really low, so it takes about five minutes for the tank to refill and collectively, it's not unheard of to spend 15 minutes in there. So, while I am waiting, I make stupid faces and sexy-me GQ poses in the mirror, or I practice karate, or I stare at myself in the mirror, annoyed, wishing the toilet was a pet so I could scold it.
• When I'm driving on the interstate, I'm one of those annoying individuals that will sometimes cut in front of people who I think are "driving too fast". It's not so much that they are driving fast actually, but more so that they're driving recklessly, and well, stupidly - even I have been known to hit the 90mph mark. So, I cut in front of them as if to say "Hey, I'm the law, and it's MY road, if you want to drive like a buffoon, go get your own interstate". And when people do that to me, oooooh I tell you what, watch it crazies.
• As long as I can remember, ever since I was probably 0 years old, I have had this recurring song in my head which I am sure I have never once heard. The interesting thing about this song is that the words are just "baby, baby baby baby, baby ... etc." and there are no other lyrics. And often I find that when I am singing another song in my head, I replace many of the words with the word "baby". I don't know why I do it, but I would be willing to bet I have said that word more than anyone has ever said any other word in the history of words. I should call Guinness Book about this, get me a spot on the back page somewhere.
• I am late for school, every day, every single day, but it's only because I get stuck behind slow drivers all the time. I have an hour-long, 50-mile drive to work, and if I get stuck behind a slow driver for 10 minutes, I literally lose about 20 minutes; there's a lot of margin for error and I seem to be well within that.
• I tend to fall victim to the "scope/feature creep" wrench far, far too often at work. If you don't know what scope creep is, please look it up. If you also are susceptible to this, drop me a comment and let me know, because I feel like I'm the only one.
• I can go to bed at 5AM and wake up at 10AM with no problems (five hours of sleep). However, even if I go to bed at 9PM it is nearly impossible for me to wake up and get out of bed at 6 or 7AM. I don't know why, I get lots of sleep, and I sleep well, but getting up that early, forget it. It's like, painful, and my body feels like I took a bath in novocaine.
• In the winter time, when I'm very cold, loud noises freak me out. They make me shivery and they just seem thousands of times louder.
• I will probably keep going to school until I'm too old to get to class, at which point I will likely take internet courses. By the time that happens I estimate I will have probably 30 degrees in every area imaginable (and some not imaginable, really!).
• I'm very hungry right now and I want a bowl of cereal.
• I have actually eaten chocolate until I was sick, literally.
• I have actually drank coffee until I was sick, literally.
• I'm working on eating mellowcreme pumpkins until I am sick, literally.

So, there you have it. Me, in some sort of shell.

Imperfectionist That I Am

Those who know me know that I'm generally a strict advocate of proper grammer, punctuation, spelling and the like. However, I have just now noticed that I have been spelling "mellowcreme" with an "a" (as "mallowcreme"). I will leave the original spellings as they were, to remind myself that I am not perfect ... stupid letter e ... or a, whichever one is the cause for my wrong-spelling. From now on, NO vowels. And the song on the radio sounds like Dragon Warrior from the NES, very nostalgic.

I Win!

Stupid mallowcreme pumpkins, why must you tempt me so? I can't stop eating them; my body has grown a physical dependency to them and when I stop eating them I get headaches and lash out at people, and perspire a lot. Overall it has been an exciting week, or not, I don't remember. Next week however, my wife and I are going on a trip. I like trips, very much. I would also like to say, I have a beautiful wife. We had some good professional photos done of us this weekend and they came out great. She's soooo bling.

Excitement Of The Day

I don't really have anything exciting to write about today. However, I will say this: I love sneezing when I have a mouthful of sandwich. Man I'm glad I put my hand over my mouth. Oh yeah, and just so you know, there will be some pictures of me and Kim coming soon, can't reveal too much about what they are, but they're pictures!

Am I Part Gorilla Or Something?

I think I am the wrong shape, or I am disproportioned. My dilemma is that a medium-sized shirt fits me really well, so well in fact that it makes me look really cool (no matter what shirt it is). However, when washed, it will shrink, and ergo, I will not look so cool (in fact, I just look like a fat guy trying to fit into smaller clothes in an attempt to bandage my ego.) So, I wear large shirts, which are too big sometimes. Sometimes after I wash them, they shrink to the perfect size, other times, they do not shrink at all and they are a bit big. Better big than small though, right? Yet another thing that haunts me is that I have recently discovered that my arms are too long (OR, everyone else's arms in the world are too short) because every long-sleeved shirt I buy has arms that are about an inch too short. The one I'm wearing today isn't too bad however. I do have one that looks like those girl-midsleeve-shirts, and I love the shirt, but I can't wear it due to the sleeve length; people throw things at me when I do. Should really make a note to calculate the mean and standard deviation of arm lengths for people in the UniteARGH!! STATISTICS get out of my HEAD!!! THE END

Clever Buy-Out Companies

I used to use the site DeletedDomains.com a lot to find expired domain names, for things that interested me, or otherwise to add to my collection. Well, I went to look up a name yesterday, and out of nowhere, the site is new, the look is new, and it is now a paid service - bought out by another company looking for another source of profit. My Email: WHY WHY WHY did you have to go make this site a paid service. THAT SUCKS. I have used your site almost every day for probably a half year now and have probably triggered thousands of banner views, and now I can't even do a search anymore. Very, very sad. The Response: Thank you for the feedback. A great deal of money has been spent on purchasing this site and rewriting the code, plus developing relationships with 3rd parties to provide enhanced features in the coming months. All of this takes money. DeletedDomains has been costing significant dollars in hosting expenses and development, and with this, along with the benefits to the user, membership fees were in order. (Translated: Well, we have simply moved into the next step of a very common marketing technique. We get users to become addicted to our website, then after they're good and needy, we add a usage fee - after we have already accumulated ridiculous amounts of advertising dollars from banner CPMs.) The Email I Should Write Back: You sir, are not very nice. Give me a free membership or I'll never use your site again.

When Do I Get A New Page?

Hah, I just heard my boss call AOL users "AOLians". I thought that was pretty funny, but of course you don't have to be a conformist to humor me; if you don't think it's funny, then, well, you can just stop reading because I'm sure the rest of this post will be about as exciting as being the non-conformist that you are. That's not the point of this post though, just thought it made a great intro. I want a new page for my blog entries, because they just keep going and going forever on the same page. By the time I do get a new page, this one will take too long to load because there will be like 5MB of text on it. (Beware, those of you on dial-up). And why don't clients pay on time. Why do they say on Friday: "Check is in the mail." and then here we sit, on Thursday, NO check. We could have driven there to pick it up, their office is only about 10-15 minutes away, I drive by it every day, I could have picked it up, but they insisted on mailing it. You know what I think? I'm sure you know what I think. It does not take mail four days to get from one end of town to the other. Enough is enough, now pay up crazies.

Copious Amounts of What?

Goo. Yes, that's right, goo. Eye goo to be more precise. My left eye has been a busy little factory for processing eye goo today. I am either coming down with conjunctivitis, or my body is purging itself of mallowcreme through my tear ducts. (For those of you not in the know, mallowcreme is the wonderful synergy of corn syrup, sugar and colors that they use to make candy corn and candy-corn-related-products with.) So this is what I get for eating a diet of nothing but candy corn for three days. I will never forgive Target for putting their Halloween candy on sale for 90% off and forcing me to buy 4lbs. of it. And, why I ever decided to put off a full literary analysis report (including reading the book) until the night before it's due, is beyond me. I thought I was done with these all-nighters the first time I graduated college.

Adrenaline For Sale, I Have Too Much In Stock

Imagine this: It's about 3AM, and you're half asleep, half awake, drifting in and out of that mode of sleep in which you are aware enough to hear everything around you, but asleep enough that none of it makes any sense. The house is completely quiet aside from quiet drops of rain and a gentle breeze against the trees. *BANG* A sudden noise, akin to that of a baseball bat against the steel door of our garage quickens me from the twilight zone I was in, to panic mode and "THERE IS SOMEBODY TRYING TO BREAK INTO THE HOUSE" mode. I just lay there for a minute, listening for the sound to echo through the house again, or for any noise for that matter; my heart about to leap out of my chest for a number of reasons: 1. That noise scared the crap out of me 2. Our house is not very secure 3. We have no alarm system 4. The only phone we have in the house is probably out in the kitchen and I'm not about to press the page button; calling 911 just isn't an option 5. The closest thing I have to a weapon anywhere near me is my XBox, or a lamp, or a pillow All of these thoughts are spinning through my head at an alarming rate, I can't even think, let alone formulate a contingency plan. *BANG* There it goes again, so I jump out of bed, ready at a moment's notice to pounce on an intruder and mangle him while still in my pajamas. Peeking out of the bedroom door, I see the cat in the living room, trying to mate with another cat through the glass panel doors (yes cats really are that stupid - and apparently that noisy). This weekend ... I'm going to WalMart ... and I'm buying a baseball bat ... to keep beside the bed.

I Just Remembered ...

The other day, well, more like two months ago, I saw two Mexican guys steal a shopping cart from Target and I think I was an accomplice. Let me explain. It's closing time at Target and my wife and I are just grabbing some last minute things before they lock us in. At a certain time, the store's ENTER doors are locked, and only the automatic EXIT doors are operational, so at that point, that's the only way to get into the store if for some crazy reason you needed to. So we are on our way out and of course the EXIT doors open up for us and as we walk out, some Mexican dude quickly walks in, grabs a shopping cart from INSIDE THE STORE and walks out with it, meeting up with another guy outside the doors. My thought is that he's probably an employee and needs it for something. When we later saw him two blocks away from the store, still pushing the cart, I was convinced he wasn't a Target employee. I couldn't understand why he didn't take one of the about 8734598 carts that were still outside in the parking lot. Guess it's the thrill of the chase, right? Dude must have thought he was a super-sly ninja or something, or maybe he was working for his "Steal A Shopping Cart From Inside A Department Store After Closing Hours" merit badge.

Who Can Concentrate When There's Blood On The Table?

A client calls a couple weeks ago, asking if we do websites. It's a common question: "Do you do websites?", and the answer is always "Yes we do actually." So, this client wants a website, and I agree to meet with him the following Monday, regardless of the fact that he wants to spend only a couple hundred dollars to create it (to which I wanted to answer: "Well, that will get you a year of hosting, a domain name, and about 15 minutes of my time to design, develop and upload it; that will provide for a very interesting final product. Maybe a blank page with a title that will probably be misspelled due to the fact that I wouldn't have time left for corrections."). Monday comes, and the client shows up. A very kind man who wants a small, simple website as a tool to help him promote and sell his personal essays. (yes, you heard me right ... essays). So a mere minute into the conversation it's clear that he doesn't know what he wants on the website, in fact I question whether he even knows what a website is, but he knows he needs one (also partly due to the fact that I emailed him two times with links to about ten websites that he could not open for some reason). At this point, we have to figure out what kind of website we can develop for $500. Now the fun begins. My boss lacerates his arm on the glass table top, there is blood everywhere, on the meeting notes, on the glass, the client is freaked out, it's pandemonium, and all the while everyone is trying to act like nothing happened. Really, who can keep their head when there's blood on the table. I'm trying to keep the client preoccupied while the boss cleans up the mess, but to no avail, the meeting ended shortly after that. Surprisingly, he still wants us to work on his site! He just called today. Thankfully television has numbed our senses and a table full of blood no longer steals our concentration.

Quantity, Quality ... Irrelevant.

Phone call from a while ago: Not Me: "You guys do websites right?" Me: "Yes we do actually." Not Me: "Okay, can you give me a round-about estimate for a website, it will probably have a couple hundred pages." (?????) Me: "Um, well, what exactly is the site for?" Not Me: "... well, I’m not really sure to tell you the truth." Me: "ummmm ... Okay, well, we do a couple different types of websites here, we do smaller static websites which are basically just informational websites, and we do larger dynamic websites with more functionality that you may need." Not Me: "Well, I don’t know what all of that means, I don’t understand any of it, but I do understand money, so if you could give me even just a guess, an estimate of what it would cost to do a site like this that would be great." Me: "Well, a small to medium site with average functionality can be in the 3-5000 dollar range depending on what you're looking for, if you’d like I could email you some samples of sites we have developed and maybe you could take a look at them and see if there is something similar to what you are looking for." Not Me: "Well ... um, I don’t actually have an email address that I can use, my Internet is not working right now because my modem is broken." It ended with me telling her a bunch of websites we developed, one at a time, spelling them out: "w-w-w-dot-dayspas-dot-com ... no no ... it’s dayspas, with an S at the end ... no it’s not for a lady who owns a day spa in Estero ... yes, that’s right, with an S." Synopsis: A few hundred pages, no idea what for. A summary of what would the conversation would have probably been like had I chosen a different career: Not Me: "Yes, could you give me an idea of how much it would take to construct a building?" Me: "Certainly, what size and kind of building would you like us to build." Not Me: "Oooooh, I dunno, haven’t thought that part out yet ... but how much you think?" Me: "Well, that really depends, could be a small 2 bedroom house, or it could be a 53-storey skyscraper with a parking garage, a rooftop swimming pool and a dog spa." Not Me: "Yeah, well I don’t really understand what that means ... but, how much?" *click* ... *SLAM* *SLAM* *SLAM* Stupid phone.

Hi, You Don't Know Me, But ...

The email that appeared in my Inbox goes kinda like this: "Hello _____, Congratulations on the website, it is very nice! I'm not too involved here yet, but I would like to work on your website and keep it updated. I have 2 years experience as a webmaster among other skills. Give me a call and I'll stop in to see how I can help." The email wasn't spam, I know that because it had a lot of specific information about the company, stuff that wasn't on the website, but that I did know about. See, my not-so-tricky, tricky-trick, is that the contact form for the website currently directs to me, not the owner of the company. This is standard procedure for me when a site is still in the development phases. So I proceed to reply (without using my real name) with something such as: "Hi, I'm not sure I fully understand the reason for your email, could you please elaborate? Thank you for the compliments on the website." And of course a reply comes and blah blah blah blah "I want to help with the website, I have one year of experience with FrontPage (one year experience with FrontPage, but two years experience as a webmaster? huh... weird), blah blah blah something about how the goals for the website are all about creating a great first impression and to serve as an effective communication tool" and it goes on and on. So finally I write back saying something like (modified slightly): "You have mistakenly reached the company in charge of the design and development for the website, not the actual client. So it's going to go down like this: We are going to finish the website that we started, and if and when you want to be a part of the process with your one year of experience with FrontPage, you have to wait until we are done with it (you know, before you get in there with your code-mangling FrontPage boo-blickity editor and mess up all of my pretty HTML.)". The email that came back kinda went like this: "If you had used your name in the previous email I would have known that you weren't the owner of the company (my goal exactly), but don't worry about me, I already have a full time job and I don't have any time or interest in doing any serious website maintenance." I thought that was the intention of the original email ... To work on the website? All I said is wait until we're done with it, then you can break it. He did sound a little heated that I "pretended" to be the owner of the company. I guess omitting my name from the email is cause to accuse me for trying to pretend I'm the owner of the company. I mean, that's exactly what I did, in a more implicit manner of course, but don't accuse me of it. Arghh, this post is getting to be too long, you get the idea. If you're as confused as I am, raise your hand ... good, now put it down before the teacher calls on you.

First Phone Call of the Day

Me: "Hello?" Not Me: "Yes, I would like to know if you have a dark green writing pen." Me: "Umm, I'm not sure ... may I ask why?" Not Me: "I need a dark green writing pen, not a light green writing pen though, a dark green writing pen." Me: "O... kay, who are you calling for?" Not Me: "I'm not calling for anyone, I need a dark green writing pen." Me: "Let me check, can I put you on hold for a moment?" Not Me: "Sure." At this point I press the hold button, place the handset down on the phone base, and not a moment too soon; hysterical laughter instantly turns me into a helpless fool (a combination of way too much "90% off the original ticketed price" candy corn, and rocket-fuel coffee). I mean seriously, I sat there for a good five minutes, laughing with my head on the table, pounding my fist like a judge. If I pick up that phone, I'm going to burst out laughing in that lady's ear, this has got to be some kind of joke, who do I know that would call me up and say this? Okay, I'm ready now... Me: "Hello m'am, are you still there?" Not Me: "Yes." Me: "I wasn't able to find a green pen, in fact to be honest I'm not exactly sure why you're calling this number looking for one." Not Me: "Well I have been calling all over town looking for a place to buy a green pen and nobody seems to have one in stock, anywhere, so I was told to look at some of the graphic stores." Me: "Well, I'm sorry I misunderstood you, but we are a web development and graphic design company, have you tried Staples or Office Depot?" I can understand why at this point you might think the caller would apologize and hang up, but instead hounds me to see if I know where to buy a dark green writing pen. I offer the best advice I can: Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot - apparently she already investigated all of these stores. I have no idea, I told her to call an art store, that they'd probably have one. Guess you kinda had to be there...

What's a Smatter? More Importantly, Where Can I Get One?

Well, a smatter is nothing more than a mutter, foolish speaking without rhyme or reason, often without a hint of fluency. That more or less sums it up. I hope this blog will be a place where I can reflect, vent, and entertain the masses. And if nothing more, it can be a place from whence I can exude the many blubberings that make up the mind of me. So in short, welcome to my brain, have a nice trip, try to keep your arms and legs inside and please, no loud noises ... there's already enough of those in here.