Hi all,

I went grocery shopping today. I was getting tired of eating strawberry preserve sandwiches with peas (not at the same time, thank you very much). So now I have food to eat. Woo hoo!

For the first time, I had turkey bratwurst for lunch. It was pretty good - Once you got past how it looked after it was cooked. In a way, it just looked unnatural. More specifically, the coloring. It was too white. Like an albino brawurst. (shrug) Whatever, right? As long as it tastes good.

Woo hoo! It's slowly getting warmer. It's supposed to be pretty warm this weekend as well.

-Kirk

Hi everyone,

I've just had the most saltiest frozen entree in the world. For those that know me, you're aware that my salt tolerance is extremely high. I was desensitized by the many years of living at the residence halls at Michigan. Anyway, I've just finished 2.5 servings of the saltiest mac and cheese dish in the world. I'm a little scared. Drinking tons of water. Never again.

So today I've widened the search net. I'm going to be open minded and look everywhere for new opportunities. We'll see what happens.

-Kirk

Hi everyone,

Hope you had a nice weekend.

So I'm troubled that I may no longer be MTV's main target audience anymore. What is the deal with the wrestling craze? Tough enough? Sunday heated whatever-athon? I was trying to catch up on some old episodes of the Osbournes and I think I saw a commercial for the wrestling program every break. Ugh. However, I am happy to report that I did see actual videos one of the nights that I was up late. It was very cool. Imagine that. Top 40 videos, and it wasn't on MTV2.

So today I got a taste of how rich people with interior designers get to shop. Very impressive. It was during a very special once or twice a year event where the "design center" opens its doors to the public. Pretty nifty. Imagine if you will a small mall, but instead of clothing stores and whatnot, it's all furniture, floor coverings, etc.

-Kirk

Hi all,

So as you may know, my mom's in the homeland visiting for the next few weeks. One thing that I dread when she leaves is that I have to take care of her plants. It's not that I dislike taking care of them, it's just that I don't think my skills are up to green-thumb par. There's a delicate balance for plants, between watering and over-watering. In the past, I've been notorious for overwatering. You see, plant pots (with the holes on the bottom and the overflow tray) are tricky. You water too much, and the next thing you know, you have water filling up the tray, and it eventually overflows to the floor or table it's on. Not good. As she was prepping me for plant care before she left, she made sure to stress that I not over-water her plants. So this time, I'm being super careful and just watering a little bit. I hope the plants will stay alive until my mom gets home. It'll be like the TV show Survivor, except it's with plants.

-Kirk

Hi Everyone,

Hope you're doing well. Today I'm working on my 3rd day of "freedom." It's an odd feeling indeed. It's turning me into a lazy mofo (maybe even more than before).

I am frightened by the price of prescription drugs for those that do not have insurance. Woo hah. I will not bitch about my copays ever again. Just for shits and giggles, I asked my drugstore people how much my stuff would cost if I were unininsured. Now I know.

The other day, I fell asleep on the living room couch in my parent's house. It was a catnap really. Anyway, as I fell asleep, the sun was kind of setting. I was pleasantly woken up by the sun shining on my face. It was pretty neat because it was light and I felt warm. Too bad I can't wake up this way in the mornings. My bedroom does not have eastern exposure. Also, with the overcast days that we've been having recently, finding the sun to wake you up may be a problem too.

I am in love with the delivery services where you can track stuff to its destination (e.g., FedEx). That way, there's no question whether or not something got to someone. And, if there's ever a problem, the company websites now let you e-mail the tracking information to anyone you want. Pretty nifty.

-Kirk

Hi Everyone,

2nd blog entry today.

Many of you have heard me singing the praises of Costco. Well get ready for another verse... Today, after running some errands in the area, I went over there to do a little shopping. I didn't really buy much, just a truckload of juice. Anyway, back to my point. There's something about a vendor bought hot dog that is just so much better than something that you make at home. I don't exactly know what it is. Maybe it's the foil/paper wrap. Maybe it's the huge bun that the vendors serve. Or the toppings. Or the tasty 1/4 pound of polish sausage. Whatever it is, it's very tasty. Today I had a Costco hot dog and it was excellent. And such a value - I was able to eat lunch for less than 2 bucks. It made my stomach and my wallet smile.

Finally, I want to tip my child care hat to the moms and dads that are out and about by themselves, taking care of business with their young kids in tow. I have trouble keeping my stuff together (myself included) when I'm shopping - I don't think I'd be able to work it while taking care of a child at the same time.

-Kirk

Hi everyone,

Hope you're doing well. It's been a while since I've written. It's been kind of zooey for me career wise, but I think in a good way.

Today is my first day of what we'll call "freedom." This is the feeling I think I'd have if I were in prison for a while. You know, minus all of the stereotypical "tomfoolery" that is associated with prison life. So I get out (on good behaviour of course) and here I am. I sign my papers, and then I'm let out. Kinda like in movies where the double doors open up, and I just kind of walk out with a small bag, wearing th same clothes that I was wearing when I went in a few years ago. I may kind of look the same, but I'm definitely not the same person that I was however many years ago.

So I am outside of the walls of the complex, right? Now what?

That's exactly where I am now... (sigh)

-Kirk

Hi everyone,

It is cold. Way cold. Windy too. I can hear the wind whistling through the windows and coming into the house. I'm glad I'm not outside.

As we speak, my mom is on the plane to the homeland. She left this afternoon from CA. She'll be in Taiwan tomorrow morning our time. That's a long-assed time on a plane, let me tell you. Last time I went over, I think I grew a beard by the time I got off the airplane. And let me tell you, to grow that much facial hair is a miracle for me.

Today was a very administrative type day. I paid bills, bills, and more bills. Kind of like the name of the Destiny's Child song. And that's not the end of it either. I'll have more coming towards the end of the month too. Paying bills is never fun. I'm trying to streamline the process and set everything up to automatically pay.

I tried watching the big awards show that was on today. There seems to be a category for everything. I want to be nominated and win for the random guy that went to the movie theater and propped his feet up on the railing in front of him award. And of course, I'd have this huge list of people to thank when I won. I get bored during those times... "and I'd like to thank the hot girl who sold me the tickets, her manager, and the other guy that was running the booth..."

Onto the weekday!

-Kirk

Hey all,

Hope you're having a good weekend.

I miss Ann Arbor. I was there on Friday, and again this evening. Totally cool. Dinner at the local mexican food joint, dessert at a local bakery, and bubble tea at the bubble tea place. You can't beat that. This evening, we ate at the Union. Brought back some good memories of Ann Arbor and my academic career there.

So my mom has been gone for a day now. Stuff that she can do in a few minutes takes me 10 times as long to do. She's a model of efficiency for normal household processes, like cooking, cleaning, etc. I salute her. :)

-Kirk

Hi,

I'm a big fan of punctuality. For the past few days, I've been in lack of punctuality hell. It's ranged from, "Yeah, we'll be there anytime from 8 to 4 that day. which translated in customer-speak means "Yeah, we'll get there sometime after lunch, or maybe before we go home for the day. But be ready at 8." And then of course the other one, "yes, we'll be there after 2" which translated means, "I'll be there between 2 o'clock, and the time you go to bed at night." Lovely.

So yesterday, my friends and I went to the auto show. Very cool. Saw some fly rides, picked up some info, etc. Nothing too unexpected, just lots of cars, but tons of trucks and Sport-utes. Surprise surprise. I got a chance to see the new Mitsubishi Evolution, Mazda RX-8, and the Beetle Convertible. Pretty swank. And very un-truck-like.

My mom left for the homeland (with a short stop in CA) this morning. She'll be gone for a few weeks. It's going to be weird not having her around. But she'll be hanging out with her parentals, so that should be good.

If you get a chance, you must buy / rent Undercover brother. It's on dvd at a store near you ;)

It looks so sunny out today! Like it would be nice and warm. Looks can be deceiving though, my friend. Do not be fooled. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. It's way cold outside today. The minute I drove out of the car wash, the water droplets turned to ice. Wacky.

-Kirk

Hiya all,

My elbow hurts. While trying to cruise down the stairs at quasi-light speed, I caught a step too close to the edge and lost my footing. Luckily I landed on my back, or else I probably would not be writing this to you right this minute. Maybe later though.

I'm feeling mighty tired today. I don't know what I was doing last night, but I didn't get to sleep until maybe 1:30 a.m. or so. Just poking around the house, being on the phone, not doing too much. But I was up by 7:30 today because the condo people are supposedly supposed to come to fix some stuff at my place, and I'm supposed to be "available" from 8 to 4 today. They must think that they are the phone company or something.

I'm bummed I missed the Osbournes last night. I totally forgot to tape it. I think I missed last week's too. Hopefully one of these weekends, MTV will run another marathon and I can be caught up..

Low humidity sucks. Whenever I walk around, I have to ground myself every so often to discharge my built up static electricity. I'm not shifting my feet, but I do wear fleece which is a harbor of static electricity. Once in a while if I'm not managing my static electricity, I'll shock myself pretty badly. Needless to say, I don't get a "charge" out of it. Heh.

-Kirk

Hey all,

Again, the weekend draws to a close. The 48 pure weekend hours seem shorter and shorter every day.

One thing that's good, is that I think that we're getting more daylight hours now. Still not as nice as the summertime, but every little bit helps. But man, it was colder than a mofo today when I went out to get dinner. Sheesh. Just being outside from the car to the store and back, I could feel that tingling sensation in my hands and whatnot. I'm glad I had my fleece lined sporty spice pants on, because my legs felt no chill at all.

I think the concept of a resume is very interesting. I wonder where it all started from. It's a document, one or two pages (maybe three), and it pretty much sums up your working and educational life. However many years your career has been, that's it. Two pages. All the times you busted your ass, the late nights, etc. are summed up in a few lines, and that's it. My 4 years undergrad? Summed up in 1 line, 5 words. Nuttiness. Those were some damn good times by the way, and that one line doesn't do it much justice. But if I guess I wrote about all the stuff that I did, it wouldn't be very job worthy. :)

-Kirk

Hi Everyone,

Hope you're having a good weekend.

So since the new year, I've been trying to stay a little bit more fit by doing about 45 mins or so on the treadmill every day. Nothing hardcore. I'm not doing sprints or anything with the maximum incline ;) For real though, I read somewhere that if you walk "quickly" for about 30 minutes a day, it's adequate to help you raise your metabolism and burn off some extra calories. Who knows. I've beem gpomg a little more, because I figure with my very sedentary lifestyle, I could use it. My longest stretches of walking during the day are to the bathroom and out to the car. Heh.

Why did I bring this up? Oh yeah. I think it's kind of working, because my lower right hip (where the leg joins the pelvis if you know what I'm sayin) was achy all of Thursday and Friday. I'm not sure if I just slept wrong, or I was actually experiencing muscle fatigue. Who knows. But it was just the right side though, so I must just let my left side slack off and just come along for the ride

Last night for dinner, I gave in to the marketing seduction of the fine people at Toxic Smell and got their well-advertised 7 layer nachos. They were pretty tasty, but at the same time, I feel like it's a scam. I think they count the chips and the admosphere as 2 of the 7 layers. I'm sure all alleged 7 topings were there, but when there's so much going on, it just gets mixed in with the morass of the other stuff that's going on. Does anyone remember the good old days when the 7 layer burrito rocked your world? Now that's what I call 7 layers. I should check next time to see if they still have that fine product.

Tonight, is sushi night. I can't wait :) It's gonna be TASTY!

Catcha later,
Kirk

Hey all,

Today, while driving home from a client site, I listened to Sarah McLachlan's Mirroball cd, for the first time in many many months. Don't know why, I just did. Mirrorball and Surfacing have been sitting in my car since summer but I've not listened to them. Haven't been in the mood, I guess. I used to listen to those CDs over and over back in the day. I remember the summer when Mirrorball came out. I had to drive 30 minutes out of town to get it because the town I had my internship in didn't have a Best Buy (they had a 2 disc special edition). After that came the boy and girl bubblegum teen pop bands. Then came rap and R&B. To this day, I still can't resist a good rap or R&B song with a good beat. My music tastes come and go in cyclical phases, but I never lose appreciation for any of it. Well, except maybe for twangy country. There's not much excuse for that. ;)

I was watching some televizzle while treadmilling today. I was pretty surprised that the local public tv station was showing Austin Powers 2. I only saw maybe the first quarter of it, but it didn't look/sound like they edited too much of it. I guess the disclaimer that they show after every commercial break is enough, huh. I love that movie. And even though I actually own it and can watch it continuously without commercials, I was tempted to continue watching the entire movie on TV just becafuse it was on.

-Kirk

Hi everyone,

There is something so alluring about how new electronic equipment smells. That fusion of plastic, metal, paint, and technology. It's like that new car smell that many covet at the car shows and at the dealerships. Good stuff I tell you.

-Kirk

Hi all,

Man, those telemarketers are getting mean and agressive. I've received 2 calls today, one for my dad and the other was for me. The first caller, once I told him/her that my dad was home, wanted to get off the phone, so he/she rattled off this 800 number so quickly so it sounded like, "if youhaveanyquestionspleasecalleighthundredmumblemumblemumble..." I was very tempted to be obnoxious and just ask them to repeat the number a few times, verify that I've written the wrong number down a few times, and then ask them to tell me the number again. Heh. That would be funny.

This next caller was from some credit card company, trying to push off the ultra super deluxe better than platinum, uranium card. This thing was going to do everything for me: Free hotel stays, to bonus points, and a backrub every night. Without asking if I was actually interested, the telemarketer just went on, rattling off my information to "verify" where to send the card to, and all of that stuff. So, I gave them the same 800 number from the lady I talked to this morning. Just kidding. I gave them my well rehearsed "thankyouverymuchI'mnotinterestedhaveanicedayandthanksforcalling" response.

Maybe next time I'll just be creepy and tell them I like how they sound on the phone and ask if they have any children...

-Kirk

Hi Everyone,

The weekend draws to a close... I really will need to get to sleep early tonight. I was up till 4 a.m. this morning, doing miscellaneous computer stuff. (no, it wasn't porn). I was unable to get out of bed until noon today.

My gripe of the day today is the cost of natural gas for heat. Man, I thought natural gas was supposed to be more cost effective. What's up with that?

You know that you've been too "plugged in" to work computer systems when every password you want to automatically type is your work password. (sigh). I did that when logging in to do a blog entry today.

Oh yeah, my phone line buzzing problem is finally gone. After quite a few days of coaxing the local telco to swing on by, two trips later, things are finally fixed. It no longer sounds like I'm shaving while talking to people on the phone. How happy. As an added bonus, I was able to connect to the internet at 40 kbps, which is a definite change form my earlier all time high of 16.8 kbps. I can't wait for my dsl though, that should be nice. The cablemodem ISP is slower than molasses today. Even my text based e-mail is crawling!

Catcha later,
Kirk

Hi Everyone,

Hope you're doing well and are having a great weekend.

There's something about being attracted to someone that is unlike any other feeling in the world. It's totally great. I've missed it. It adds an extra spring in your step and it produces a smile every time you think of or talk about the person you're attracted to. But the game of attraction isn't all sunshine and daisies - It can throw you curve balls too.

Like for instance, a boyfriend. :)

-Kirk

Happy New Year!

It's been quite the holiday season. Much busier than I thought it would be, that's for sure. I thought it would be a lot of sweatpants time, TV time, PS2 time, etc. I've actually done more family stuff than I have ever done. Pretty wacky.

As you probably read from before, my cousins came over, but their car broke down on Saturday - it just wouldn't start. After trying different "guessing what's wrong" techniques, we gave up and called the fine people of the triple letters. A quick tow to Acura, and that was that. Unfortunately, the dealership would be closed until Monday. So we used the dealership's nifty key drop system, and that was that. On Monday, we talked to the dealership service people and the estimated time of completion was going to be Tuesday. Well, the car service powers that be smiled upon us, and the car was actually fixed on Monday. So, my cousins got a little unepected extension on their vacation... Hopefully they won't be scared off and will never come back. :) I'm sure they were very happy to get home though.

So yesterday, we met some more family friends for lunch. I'm telling you, the people at the Buffet of the Homeland are starting to think that I'm some sort of mafia boss. I've been there at least 2 times this past week, all the time with "family friends," each time with fairly large parties. Good stuff. I don't think I'll be going back there anytime soon, so sorry E.

Last night, we went to another family friend's place for New Year's Eve. I think it's the first time that I've not been at home for quite a while. I'm surprised I stayed awake until 2 a.m. I thought I'd be feeling sleepy around midnight. But hey, never underestimate the power of tea, right? ;)

Oh yeah, wasn't sure if I told you - I finally got a phone line at my new place! Woo hoo! Just one glitch. There's an annoying buzzing sound that occurs in the background (from my end, it sounds like I'm shaving with an electric razor.) Craziness. Well, it's pretty bad. When I try to connect via modem, I get a blazing 16.8 kbps! Woo hoo! That's fast ;) I might as well throw away the 56k modem, huh? I've put in a call to the fine people of SBC, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully they will fix it, and not just tell me that it's an "inside wiring" problem and just leave me to suffer.

I can't believe how fast these 2 weeks have gone by. At light speed! Tomorrow it's back to work. Craziness, I tell you.

Catcha later,
Kirk