I think the plastic stick on lollipops, although a choking hazard, is a great idea. There's nothing that kills a lollipop experience more than a soggy stick at the end. :) That's why I always just end up biting the candy off before I get to the center. Now I don't have to :) Thanks Chupa Chups. :)

-Kirk

I know they're probably not hip anymore, but I wonder what ever happened to my refrigerator magnets that had words, letters and whatnot printed on them? You know, the ones where you could spell out random words and sentences?

I used to have them at my apartment in Ann Arbor. I think they may be lost in the blackhole of items that occurs everytime I move. Alas.

-Kirk

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...

Hey all,

Hope all's well. Just a few things to blog about today.

Tomorrow's going to be a pretty quiet day at work. More than half of the team is going to be out on vacation. Which is fine though, because I have to buckle down and get some work done tomorrow. Plus it's my favourite day, Jeans day. I think I may get paid tomorrow too.

I learned a a couple of things today, all quite interesting.


First:
I found out that the placeholder text (a.k.a greeked text) that I use in some of my information designs actually kind of means something! At my job, I always get comments from people regarding the Latin looking placeholder text that I use. Here's an example:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectateur nonummy lorenzino. Interdum volgus videt, est ubi peccat. Si veteres ita miratur laudatque poetas, ut nihil anteferat, nihil illis comparet, errat.

At first glance, it looks like regular text, but then the comments usually roll in, like, "it's all greek to me," or "is this some secret code?" Seriously, I'm not making this up.

Anyway, so people usually ask me what it means. And I usually just tell them that it's fake, meaningless text that I put in to make a page layout design more realistic. Apparently, my boss's boss and her boss saw some of my designs and were asking me about it today. So I turned to my trusty (but quite possibly shady) friend google and looked up stuff about the story behind the text. Again, the internet never fails. Behold, a site dedicated to the Lorem Ipsum text! Just now, doing another quick search (to find the url), I found another site as well. Interesting translation, I tell you. Not sure why it's so standard-ly used though :)


Second:
I have this "guideline" if you will, of car purchasing. I figure that I should buy a car that costs no more than the decade that contains your age. So in other words, if I'm 27 years old, I shouldn't buy a car that's more than USD$29,999.99. When I turn 30, then my max will be USD$39,999.99, and so on.

I'm sure some of you may think it's a stupid rule, but I figure it'll give me something to look forward to as I get older. I've also felt strongly about capping my car purchase at say, $55k to $60k. I think I'd feel weird driving around / owning a car that was so expensive (and not on a car lot or the auto show). I'd always be nervous about people molesting or violating my car somehow.

Well after today, consider the cap lifted. Well, at least raised :)

One of my neighbours had a company car for part of this week (she has to turn it back in on Friday). A "competitive analysis"vehicle, if you will. How's that for competitive analysis? I look at websites, she looks at cars from other companies. Anyway, the car that was under analysis? A black Mercedes Benz CLK500 coupe. I saw this car yesterday on my walk around the 'hood, but I didn't see who was driving it. I was definitely impressed though.

My neighbour had IMed me last night, and I asked her about it. I got a chance to check it out today after dinner. Damn, it was a nice car. Totally hot. Complete with the AMGizzle kit. Everything about the car was just excellent. The fit, finish, the smell. All the techno gear, fun gadgets, etc. Loved it.

Base price? about $53,000. As seen? About $64,000. And I wasn't that uncomfortable being around it ;)

Seriously though, I would probab ly feel a little uncomfortable at first buying and driving around a car like that, but I'm sure I could get used to it :) It's not like it's going to happen tomorrow, so I'll have some time to prepare...

-Kirk

Calling all asians..

heheheh... I am listening to the radio, and the DJ intros this tune from Train, Calling all Angels. And I could have sworn that he said the song title as "calling all asians" :)

-Kirk

I think I may have to spend some time at the shopping mecca this weekend. I feel the need for a trip coming on...

-Kirk

Hi everyone,

Looks like the high-flow filter dreams are going to be on hold for a bit. Alas. The supaflyride will have last a little bit longer with impaired breathing. What a bummer.

In lieu of treadmilling today, I decided to take a walk outside around the 'hood. My pedometer was pointing to "lazy ass" (~2000 steps) after work, so I needed to do a little exercising. It was such a nice evening, so I opted for the change of scenery and walked around outside. I don't get the incline of the treadmill, but it was good. Quite enjoyable. I think I get more steps per minute with the treadmill, so I may stick with that. but I guess I'll enjoy the outdoors while it's nice.

So yeah, the heat wave has ceased for now... Until next time...

So let's see, what else. I got to leave the office at 1 today to drive out to a meeting at another buildilng about an hour away. I think it was kind of a waste, as I drove a total of 2 hours for a 1 hour meeting. (shrug) The things I do for the Man. The meeting got me out of the office though, so I shouldn't complain.

OK, so I wasn't that good of a corporate citizen. I blew off the last hour of work because I didn't really feel like going back, working for an hour and going home. So I went to the house in the city and hung out there for a bit. To lessen my guilt, I checked my e-mail too, so you could say I "worked from home" or something like that. Whatever ;)

-Kirk

Maybe I didn't survive the bo2k3...

Hi all,

Hope things are going groovy. Again, another night of unbearable heat. And September is on the way, so the hot days are limited, I hope.

School has started for a few people. I hear tidbits from parents at work. Of course like usual, my alma mater is taking its lovely time to get the schoolyear started. I can see why it make sense for out of state people though - if you wanted to go back home for Labour Day, you'd have to show up at school, and a week later, fly home to be with your fam.

So tonite I ordered my first semi-performance part for the supaflyride. I think the neon lighting dream is almost fulfilled. I had to get a new air filter for my car, as the one that's in there now is pretty nasty. I also don't remember when the last time it was that I had it changed, either. I didn't get anything nutty like a cone filter or anything like that :) Just a replacement for the stock one that supposedly has a higher airflow rate. For those curious, I ended up getting a K&N Filtercharger. I'll let you know what I think of it later on this week when I get it.

Let's see, what else...

Oh yeah, about the "subject" line...

Ever since the Blackout of 2k3 (bo2k3) I've been a little off. Heh. More than usual :) I've gotten this bad negativity vibe that I can't seem to shake. I am turning into "that guy." I really don't want to be "that guy."

During the bo2k3, instead of making the best of it (like I usually try to do), I just sat around and wallowed around in the suckiness that was the blackout.

So now, at work, I've become "old and crusty." The exact thing that I didn't want to be when I started. And it's only been 6 months! Damn.

Brizzai thinks that I just need a vacation. A real one. One that is at least a week. According to him, going 6 months straight without a real vacation is not healthy. I guess I've just not thought about it.

Unfortunately, with this new job, my vacation was cut in half from the amount I had in the the dot com binge days. I've been saving my days for a trip out to the homeland, but it's almost September and I still haven't planned for the trip yet. Grr. And even now I'm dreading the hellacious plane ride out there. That's probably not a vacation either :)

I tried to hook up a trip out to NYfor this upcoming Labour Day weekend, but I got on the planning wagon too late, so plane tickets were quite pricey. My brother was going to be out in the city, and I would have visited Geneman. Alas, maybe next time. According to Geneman, NY in the fall is very nice.

The thing is, I don't really know what to do on a vacation, I guess that's why I've not taken one. Oh well.. Hopefully I'll be able to recharge a little during the upcoming long weekend.

-Kirk

Hey all,

Damn, it's another hot one in good ol Michigan. When will it ever end?

Not much to report for today. I talked with JDizzle over IM for a couple of hours. It was good to talk to him again. I used to talk to him pretty much every day in grad school. Ahh, the good old days :)

Back when fewer of my friends were engaged or married :)

-Kirk

Oh snap! What are the benefits of home ownership again?

Hey all,

Hope you've had a good weekend.

When did I leave you last?

Hmmm. It's funny how a seemingly slow weekend turns into a pretty full one. Not saying it's good nor bad. Just interesting. I always feel so boring when coworkers ask what plans I have for the weekend. Usually I respond with a shrug and an "I dunno." Even though theoretically, these should be the "exciting years" of my life and I should be out at the clubs and the discotheques partying like a rock star. At least that's what I sometimes feel I should be doing (thanks to the media).

Anyway, I went to go see Drew's new house on Saturday. He also let me drive his MR2 turbo briefly . I think it was a bad idea though, because now I crave a little more power under the hood :) Plus I love that sound of the turbo blowoff valve :)

The extra bonus on Saturday was stopping by at the uniform store of the Man on the way home from Ann Arbor. I walked away with two pairs of jeans (perfectly sized for me) for 14 bucks! Imagine that. Nutty, I tell you, nutty.

Today (Sunday), I went up to visit a buddy of mine from grad school, Jingfuman. It was really good to see him. He was bringing up his sister to school at State, so we met up halfway in between.

Let's see, what else...

Oh yeah, the quote at the top. I just wrote out a crizazy check out to the city for my Property Tax. I feel like I just got kicked in the nuts and am still reeling from the hit my bank account took. Damn dude. So yeah, I have to remember the "benefits" of home ownership again ;) Riiight.

So my musing from Friday:

What is it about the new car smell that is so nice? I mean come on, the scent is so coveted that it's bottled! So you can continue to have that "new car scent" in your older skool ride.

Why don't they bottle other "new _______" smells? Like new house smell? Where it smells like fresh paint and drywall? Yeah, I dunno.

-Kirk

Hey all,

Blog entry part 2...

So the lady at work drove in the yellow MR Spyder that she was trying to sell (earlier this year). This time, the For Sale sign in the window was gone. Her vanity plate is still on the car though. So I'm not sure if she just gave up on selling the car or it's been sold (and is waiting for the buyer to take delivery). Unfortunately, I don't know her well enough to ask, so I guess ithe fate of the car will continue to be a mystery.

Tomorrow's jeans day! Woo hoo!

Hopefully the weather will cool off eventually.

-Kirk

Hi all,

I can't believe it's Thursday already. And, I can't believe how freakin hot it is today. 90s? With the humidity it's in the 100s? Nutty. I think 90 degrees F is my threshold. For the first time this summer, I drove home with the windows up and the a/c on (while it's not raining outside). Spending all day in a nice air conditioned environment is super nice, up to the minute where you open the door to get out to your car. Ugh. It feels like someone had been boiling a blanket, and wraps it around you the minute you step out. Sheesh.

I'm extremely tired. Let me tell you. It's just this crappy heat, I think. Otherwise, I think I'd be fine.

Very odd though. Yesterday (Wed) I had this odd feeling that something wasn't right. It was like I was in one of those old skool V8 commercials where people were walking funny because they hadn't had their V8 for the day. It was totally like that.

Things were a bit better today - Just the heat and humidity that put a damper on things.

-Kirk

Did you check out the link from the blog entry below? (How Everyday Things Are Made) You should.

After watching how the car was built, it made me envy my engineering homies who are working for auto companies and are designing stuff on cars...

Hey all,

Just a shorty today...

Not much to report. I did not see the "lovely one" today :( I tried to e-mail her yesterday too, did I tell you that? Just trying to start a conversation. No such luck. Didn't respond.

Alas.

I must have scared her away.

but all is not lost though. I was reminded of the true attraction that I like (and have missed). The search continues...

-Kirk

P.S. 10,100 steps today! Woo hoo!

From my Yahoo Picks of the week:

How Everyday Things Are Made

I love stuff like this...

Lovely. Just Lovely.

Hi everyone,

Wow, 2 days of blackout really changes things. At least it seemed like it. Getting back to work, I felt like I had been gone for a long time. But the oddest thing upon returning was that I hadn't relized that I left so much stuff out. As if I had still been working. Because of the power outage, I had left the office without doing my normal ritual of desk cleanup, water cup disposal, etc. So I still had the water on my desk from last Thursday, my popcan from that day's lunch, and random papers strewn about.

But anyway, yeah, it was odd going back. Not necessarily the same feeling I have when I get back from a 3 day weekend. But I felt as if I had been gone a little longer. No worries though, I a few hours later, I had resumed my position in the machinery of the Man.

I think I'm becoming more jaded though. Just like everyone else at work... Today I was in "cage rattling mode." I was the "aquarium tapper." Trying to shake stuff up and cause trouble. I wasn't sure what had gotten into me. (shrug). Hope I'm not starting some weird trend.

So the highlight of today: I was reminded of an old emotion that I haven't felt in a while. Seriously. What was that feeling? Real attraction. Don't get all excited though. This is probably not going to lead to anything. I didn't really talk to her, just noticed her - I'd never seen her before, but today (I guess it was my welcome back gift from the Bo2k3 or something), she was in 2 of my 3 meetings today. What are the odds? She was absolutely lovely.

So you're probably wondering - That I don't experience "real" attraction often? Yes.

Let me explain. For me, there's a few levels of "first sight" attraction for me.

There are the garden variety good looking (a.k.a. hotties) men and women where you just stop and say "damn." And then that's it. Life goes on.

Then somewhere in the middle between hottie and "real" attraction, there's the people that you see once in a while that have more of a lasting affect on you. Something about them. A certain style, maybe some sort of interaction, perhaps some sort of behaviour, etc. Common to the first form of attraction (a.k.a. the hottie) the feeling also will eventually pass.

Finally, rarest of all, the attractive, but has a certain special something something that you just can't explain person that just defines lovely. The whole package, if you will. One that stays and lingers in the head, similar to how a high carb meal that you eat after 8 p.m. leads to extra "energy stores" for the long haul.

Sadly, I've only felt the elusive "real" attraction a few times in my life. And today I was reminded about how nice it is.

-Kirk

How Stella got her power back...

Hey all,

It's been a while, but I'm back on the blog scene.

I can see the t-shirts being printed in Ann Arbor now - "I survived the blackout of 2003." Love those guys. The ones that had a t-shirt printed out for every occasion and were always trying to hock them in front of the Union.

Anyway, so I guess I'll start with the rest of the week, then go onto the Bo2k3 (Blackout of 2003).

To be honest, I don't remember that much about the rest of the week since Tuesday. Was I that traumatized by the Bo2k3? Perhaps. I remember thinking that it was a pretty easygoing week, but to be honest, I can't really back that up either way.

I forgot my pedometer on Thursday, so I have no readings.

Friday was a wash too.

Saturday I walked my ass off. But we'll get to that later. I'm going to take the 16k from Saturday and average it over Fri and and Sat.

OK, so Thursday. When it all started.

Around 4:15 or so (somewhere in the ballpark of) the lights flickered, and shut off. It was odd. The monitor flickered, but stayed on. The computer never skpped a beat. So I was a good citizen and kept working. Come on, I had stuff to do. :)

A few minutes later, all was lost when everything went dark, and the emergency lights went on. Huh. Laptop was fine, as it kept chugging along cause it had it's battery groove on. A slight minor inconvenience was that I couldn't get the LCD panel back on, but whatever. Everyone was kind of confused, as it wasn't raining, the weather was beautiful, etc.

We thought we'd be good citizens of the Man, and see if we could just wait it out to see if the power outage was temporary or not. Once we did our due diligence of waiting, we decided to get the hell out of dodge. As we were walking out of the building, one of Brizzai's friends told him that a lot of the East coast had gotten hit too. As much as I hate to say it, we had thought it was some terrorism shite going on. (It really bothers me that terrorism was the first thing that I thought of. How times have changed.) I just wanted to get home.

The drive home was painful... The four-way stop action was slowly draining my will to live. Luckily, I was spared the excitement of the gridlock that other intersections experienced.

After the power outage, out of my 6 radio presets, only 2 stations were broadcasting. Nice. My celly only worked about 10% of the time I tried to use it. I was able to call my brother in MA, and he had told me that he wasn't affected. He was still working :)

Fast forward to home. That's when the major suckage of no electricity began. As an added bonus, the water pressure was steadily decreasing every hour.

During the outage, I had no idea what to do. Everything I usually do requires good ol' electricity. Grr.

I even resorted to reading an old magazine Steve had given me. :) Shen I was done, I started reading old car magazines my brother had given me in March of 2002. You getting the drift of how ofen I actually read? ;) I was reading about the upcoming cars of 2003. Wow, that's really cool :)

So let's see what did I end up doing? I listened to the radio a lot. Talked on the phone a little. Took naps. Talked to my parents (briefly).

That's pretty much it. That's all I did. It was just so hot, and everything seemed to require effort and energy that I didn't have.

I think Friday was the most painful. I was so bored I was going to cry.

I kept on listening to the AM new station. Again, another thing that I rarely do. I think I listened to more AM radio during Thursday and Friday then I ever have my whole life.

I was trying to listen to the news of what communities were getting power, hoping that we'd be next.

Alas, the magical power did not return until Saturday morning, at 1:30 a.m. It seemed like all the cities around us were getting power. But we were the city that was getting neglected. A bunch of my friends in neighbouring cities had gotten power, so I was totally jealous.

After going to the house in the city to unplug the appliances, I had noticed that the Target nearby was open, so I thought I'd go and check things out. It was the weirdest thing. It was like business as usual at Target, but just with 10 percent of the lights :) I felt like a priviledged shopper, being able to buy before the store officialy opened. Or shopping "after hours." Wacky stuff, I tell you. People were shopping for clothes, food, just like it was a regular day. Just an odd experience, to say the least.

So let's see, a few lessons learned from this ordeal:
-Fill up with gas once the tank gets to about 1/2 to 1/3 full.
-Always have bottled water on hand. After all you never know when a rave will start. :)
-Canned Spaghetti O's cold are really not that bad.
-I need new hobbies that don't rely on electricity (other than reading, of course)

Fast forward to Saturday - Things were much better.things were a tad more normal. Saturday was the Woodward Dream Cruise/Parking Lot.

Drew had drven up from Ann Arbor, and we attended the event. The cool thing was that we actually participated in the cruise/parking lot with his car :) We were dwarfed by the heftier american muscle cars, but we had fun anyway. The import cars were representing, but totally outnumbered and out-noised by the American cars. Oh well.

We walked around quite a bit, and drove a while. Saw some cool cars. A few highlights:

A parked red NSX. We were unable to locate the owner, but we definitely did our share of checking out the ride.

We saw a yellow Lamborghini Diablo parked and as the driver drove away. The sounds from the 12 cylinder engine was music to our ears.

Finally, we saw a red 91 Ferrari 348 TS. Talked to the owner a bit, checked out his car, etc. And as he drove away, Drew and I shed a tear - The engine sound was like the most beautiful symphony in the word. :) Loved it.

I must have gotten a little dehydrated yesterday from walking around. I don't feel as well today.

-Kirk

Wow. I guess I should run windows update more often :)

46 megs worth of updates? Sheesh.

-Kirk

Hola,

How's it going? Another rainy everywhere else but here evening. I'm serious, for the past few days, we've had these truly scattered showers around here that have caused random floods and whatnot. It's good and bad. It's good because the rain has cooled the temps down. Bad because the lawns and whatnot need water pretty badly. Ahh well, whatever. It's supposed to be pretty hot the latter part of the week though.

So one question has been weighing heavily on the mind tonight.

Does one have to sell out and be all serious (i.e., businesslike) to get ahead in corporate america? I'm afraid that the answer is going to be yes. I always like to help people loosen up at meetings by cracking a few jokes here and there, and kinda seeing how everyone reacts. And I guess that's why I like to be the lower man on the totem pole. I don't have to be as serious, and can pretty much be like myself. My cohorts that I deal with on a regular basis know me pretty well, and they know when I'm joking, and I know that they completely understand how my jokes are. But the people that don't know me? I'm sure they just think I'm just the young punk in the office :) Up to no good.

Cause that's the thing - Do middle and upper managers get silly on a regular basis, make jokes and whatnot? Not just in meetings. You know, just around the office, talking to people and whatever. Or are managers just limited to corny kid/family friendly shite that everyone laughs at because they're sucking up? You know what I'm talking about (the office meeting laugh just to be polite because you don't want the boss to think that you don't think his jokes are funny). I guess management has to be careful though, as they can't offend, make innuendoes, and whatnot, because they have to set an "example" for their peeps and whatnot. Ugh. Maybe you do have to sell out and grow up to succeed in corporate america. That blows.

I guess that's why I'm not management material? Maybe I'll feel the need to sell out later. Who knows. Right now, I'm just having fun being a small cog in the man's machinery. :)

-Kirk

Hey all,

Hope things are going well.

We got a surprise visit from our former admin assistant today. It was very good to see her. She got a new job and became the admin for the head of the company (how's the for a promotion?)

Anyway, she showed up today and we got to chat with her...

In my typical rockstar fan / gossip junkie, I asked her some questions about the head dude (as a sidenote, the Q's and A's are not qhotes):

Q: What does he drive?
A: Apparently, he doesn't drive. he gets driven in his Caddy.

Q: What does he eat for lunch?
A: He goes out a ton, but when he's in the office, he goes for a chicken Ceasar salad. Huh.

Q: What does he drink?
A: Cold beverage (unknown) with ice, in a styrofoam cup. Apparently, not a coffee drinker.

Q: What are his hours?
A: He gets in about 6:30 a.m., and leaving by 5:30 is considered "leaving early" for him. Sheesh.

I'm sure there were other not so exciting questions, but It was funny to ask. It was like those cheesy questions that you'd see answered in Teen Fortune or something. ;)

Anyway, so I was watching snippets of some show on either VH1 or E!, I forget now. They were talking about the brand names of clothing the stars wear. I was most disgusted when I saw that the stars buy Dolce & Gabbana gear for their kids, and other toity shit like that. I even saw a Burberry shirt. 60 bucks? Come on. For a shirt that's eventually going to have food and dirt stains on it? Or like stuff for toddlers that they're going to have baby urp on? Puhleeeze. Some people have way too much money. Please send the excess my way.

-Kirk

Hey all,

Hope you had a great weekend.

Got to spend some time at the house in the city today. Did some light shopping, that's pretty much it. I did come away with a frivolous purchase though. I bought some neon for the supaflyride. Heh. I installed it today, and I think it looks pretty good.

I laughed pretty hard when my mom said it looked like a club inside my car. Who would have known that my mom would know what a club looked like? :)

I also washed the supafly ride today. One step wax. Love when my car is super clean like that.

Just a shorty blog entry today. Gotta make a few phone calls.

-Kirk

Hi all,

Hope the weekend is going well.

I spent the afternoon at Dodge Park today. The local radio station was playing music there, so I got to experince the party-like atmosphere. Once they left, I got to experience the relaxing sounds of children playing, and the waves of water washing upon the beach. Pretty cool.

Now I really want to get a watercraft of some sort. Jet ski? Jet boat?`Something. I want to be one of the dudes that drives the boat close to shore, anchors, and then gets out to chill on the beach. Coolness.

While I was at the park, I realized how much of Michigan I still hadn't seen. It's really too bad. I've loved here for 27 years, and still haven't seen that much of it. I will have to do more exploring.

-Kirk

Wow, I just realized that my High School reunion is coming up in 3 months! Sheesh.

I remember when I first heard about it, November seemed like soooo far away... I'd better get cracking if I want to show up as a pop star or something ;)

This means that I'm 3 months from turning 28 as well... (sigh)

-Kirk

Last week, I found out that another one of my femaile friends from undergrad is engaged...

She was a hottie too. Indeed.

Ahh well, what can ya do?

What's up?

It's the weekend! Woo hoo!

I tell ya, it was so quiet in the office today. Of the 9 people in my group, only 4 were in the office. Lotta vacationing going on. I'm jealous.

At my previous job, work seemed to stop at noon on Fridays. Well, at least lighten up. But at my present gig, work goes all the way till 4:30 or so... Not that I'm complaining, but for some reason, I still expect Fridays to be one of the lighter days of the week. There's been sometimes where that's the case, but more often than not, Fridays are just like any other day. But I get to wear jeans, so I'm a little more relaxed during the day.

So the question weighing on my mind today. Do bar people and non-bar people mix well? (just fyi, by bar I mean pub, club, establishment to imbibe, whatever you want to call it). So seriously, do they mix? Or is it going to be like oil and water? Inquiring minds want to know. I am not a bar person. I think it's just too loud and smoky. I'd rather spend time in a boldly decorated Starbucks than a joint where I have to scream to hear the people that I'm with. Plus, you stink afterwards. :)

Then, do people grow out of the "hey, let's meet late tomorrow because I'm going to be hung over" stage? (shrug). Who knows. It'll be a mystery to me.

-Kirk

There is a housefly on my laptop screen. Ugh.

Hey all,

blog entry part 2:

So we were out in the sun today, and I forgot to bring along the sunscreen. Luckily, Wendy (the coworker's house that we went to) had mega extra bottles of sunscreen in the house... Ranging from tanning oil (what is that, spf 0?), spf 6, up to spf 30. I decided to go with the spf 30.

That stuff was like rubbing extra thick Elmer's school glue on my body. It took me quite a bit to finally thin it out where my skin wasn't white. Craziness. Well, we'll see if it works. In fact, I can still smell the sunblock on my skin. Kind of a nifty smell - Like summer.

Lesson learned for today. Whenever you're going to a company function, be sure to have a clean car. Everyone checks out what everyone else is driving. Seriously. I pretty much notice what people are driving on a regular basis, but it was a topic of conversation today, since everyone could see who drove what to the party. Unfortunately, the supaflyride was a little dirty (from the rainstorm we had a few days ago), so it was not feeling its best. Dissed.

Ahh well, I will remember for next time.

-Kirk

Hi all,

I have had quite the swanky day. If it were not one small glitch at the end, it would have been perfect :)

I worked from about 8:00 till noon - About 12:30, I left for a coworker's house that was about 30 minutes away from work. It was a beautiful day, so I took off the sunroof of the supaflyride. Open air cruising, with the radio blasting - good stuff.

Once we got to the house, it was almost like I had gone to an up north cottage. A nicely sized ranch home, with walkout basement - and of course, the jewel of the crown, lake frontage on a private sports lake. Awww yeah baby!

All afternoon we lounged at the pool, rode the jet ski, went on boat rides, had great food, good conversation. Totally fun. I've not had a day like that in a long time.

Of course, now I want a jet ski :)

Unfortunately, I don't have a lake to put it in, nor do I have the car to properly pull one around... Oh well, one day my toys will come. But that is some good stuff to look forward to!

So I ended up rolling back home in the supaflyride - With the sunroof off, of course (foreshadowing here)...

I noticed that the sky was looking a little dark towards the direction of home. So I was driving from the brignt sunny skies into darker, more ominous looking sky. I was feeling pretty good, so I thought I'd chance it and see if I could make it home in time before any nasty weather hit me (more foreshadowing).

The rain hit me like a slap in the face (literally). 2 exits from my normal exit, the skies just opened up and it rained like hell. Here I am, a mile away from the nearest exit, and it was seriously pouring water into my car. I'm glad I was going on the highway, because most of the water went into the back. Well, that was until I stopped at the next exit, slowed down, looked for a place to slow down and get out of my car to put the sunroof back on.

I think I managed to get out of my car, open the trunk, get the sunroof out and put it back on the car in record time. I was in super fast motion! Alas, even though I seemed to work really fast, I was totally drenched. Not fun.

So here I am, driving home in a wet car, in a crazy-assed rainstorm.

Once I was 2 miles away from the country home, I crossed the magic line, and there was not a drop of rain anywhere. At all. Needless to say, I was a little unhappy. Crazy-assed Michigan weather.

When I got home, I had to dry everything off - I'm glad I had my camera in the Pelican case. I had forgotten that the camera was in the passenger seat so the case was pretty rain soaked.

(sigh)

So other than that minor downpour on the trip home, I had a very enjoyable time. I'd like to go jetskiing again sometime.

I can't believe it's Friday tomorrow! hopefully I'll sleep well tonight.

As a sidenote, my step count right now is 12,500. But I think this number is a little skewed. I did walk a ton today, but think the pedometer was counting the bouncy bounces that I was getting from the jetskiing. Oh well, now it's noted.

-Kirk

Random blog I got from the blogger.com homepage that I clicked on because of the title:

not intended..... for microwave use

Hiya,

Another cool evening. Perfect for sleeping. :)

I can't believe it's 10:30 already. Where does the time go. Once I finish dinner and treadmilling, it's pretty much 10:00 p.m. It's good and it's bad. I want to stay healthy, but at the same time, I want to have time to do "stuff."

That's the other thing. I'm trying to define what "stuff" is/will be.

I'm on the hunt for a new hobby. I stuff to do that doesn't require a computer and a net connection as it's main thing. i'm jealous of Brizzai who goes fly fishing, hunts, and other stuff like that. Make no mistake. I could not do the outdoors thing, unless my tent looked a lot like a motel/hotel, and being outside means sitting in the shade or with a fine atmosphere of cool air conditioning. I can do the outside thing, just in smaller quantities. I may want to try fishing one day. There seems to be something theoretically calm about it. sitting out on the water, being fairly quiet, etc.

Which has now led me to think about boating. Boating, while fun, seems to be quite the expensive sport, hobby, whatever you call it. There's the cost of the marina / boat slip, maintenance, gasoline, winterization, etc., etc. Craziness. But then, that same amount of money put towards a boat could be put towards the convertible dream. I just want the toys now, when I should theoretically be saving. Isn't that how it always is? Both the boat and a convertible are seasonal items, only used during the few months of the Michigan weather when it's warm and fairly nice outside. Ahh well, I'll have to file these into the"long term" folder.

I was a walking fiend today! Right now, the count is 16,200 steps. That's gotta be my all time high for the past week and a half. Nifty.

Diversity Jeopardy was fun. We didn't win, but I at least beat Brian's team :) I felt bad for the group who put it together though - I think the turnout wasn't as great as they would have liked. Ahh well.

Tomorrow's the department outing. We're going to our coworker's house which is on a lake. Should be fun. It'll be weird to see my coworkers in regular clothes :)

-Kirk

Hi all,

Hope all's well tonight on this nice cool (but kinda rainy) evening.

Unfortunately, I hadn't properly recovered from my early Monday morning - I was ok at work, but I just totally crashed after dinner. I fell asleep on the couch for about an hour and a half or so. I couldn't wake up. I tried to get to bed early, but I was up late again last night IM'ing my brother.

When I did manage to wake up, it was 8:00 p.m. I hadn't exercised in a little less than a week, so I had to exercise. Once I started treadmilling, I was good to go. I caught up on some of the reruns of the Osbournes. Of course, in typical fashion, I will have to watch the episodes a few times to catch everything. I've not been keeping up with the show for these last 2 seasons. It's not that I don't like the show anymore, I just seem to forget to watch. My TV habits have finally changed. :) At least until the new shows come up in the fall :)

I was very forgetful today. I managed to leave my celly and pedometer at home. So I didn't register any steps at work. (not that I had that many anyway). So, right now, the counter's at 8100. Crazy that it's mostly just from treadmilling. I forgot to report what the step cuont was yesterday. I don't have my record thingy here (the lady at work has it and she didn't give it back to me).

So I have a minor gripe. Yesterday I spent a good amount of time washing and waxing the supaflyride, right? Well, I parked in my usual spot at work under a tree (for maximum shade). Well, it rained pretty hard today. Luckily, I ran out and closed my sunroof before stuff got all crizazzy.

So after work, I get out to the car and was just so shocked. The front of my car was just covered with bird shit. I'm talking all over the hood, on the winsheild, and on the bumper. Just turds all over. Everything must have gotten washed out of the tree - totally disgusting. I guess the positive thing is that it was just solid stuff, and not the fun stuff that usually accompanies bird droppings.

Some of the stuff flew off on the drive home. Once I got home, I had to bring out the garden hose and do some freshwater rinse :) My neighbours must think I'm nuts. OCD baby! He washes his car on Sunday, then Tuesday, after a rainstorm, when it looks like it'll rain again. Heh. Anyway, after some high pressure water rinsing, all is good in the hood (no pun intended) :)

Tomorrow, our umbrella organization is doing some diversity activities, and I will be playing "Diversity Jeopardy" on a team against my boss. It should be fun. Hopefully all that diversity stuff that I learned at umich will somehow help me :) We've convinced the whole department to show up and cheer us on. A house divided :) Should be fun though.

-Kirk

Dubs - Not just for rappers anymore. :)

The Detroit Free Press has even joined in on the craze...

I wonder if they'll cover neon next ;)

-Kirk

Hi all,

How's it going? (yawn) I got to work around 6:45 a.m. this morning - We were doing some stuff on the website, so a few of us had to go in early to make sure everything was groovy.

So, I got to come home at like 4 today! I could have left earlier, but I couldn't get my act together in time. I was afraid it was going to rain today, so I left my car all closed up. Well, as typical Michigan weather would have it, it was sunny as hell during most of the day. When I got into my car to come home, I almost passed out from the heat. I am not kidding. The interior of my car was still hot to the touch after driving home with the windows down. With some water, I could have slow steamed some good food in there in time for dinner. Sheesh.

I forgot to remark what the pedometer reading was for yesterday - 6650 steps. I didn't exercise or anything - but I did wash the supaflyride and wax it. Yesterday I went back to using my old car wax by Zymol. The car looks and feels good. The surface feels smooth as glass. I had forgotten how nice that wax was.

Anyway, other than that, I did very little. Surfed, talked on the phone, caught up with a few friendcs, etc. Other than that, not much to report.

Man, am I tired.

-Kirk

Hey all,

Sorry, about that last post - I'm just excited about my site counter :) Ahh, it's the little things...

I've been a lazy ass all day. For real. I'm about 300 steps away from breaking 4,000 today. Only 3,700 steps. Bummer dude. I am very not healthy today. I'll have to see what the average for the week will be. Although I have to say that today's pedometer reading is a little inaccurate. I didn't wear it for about 2 hours today. I didn't remember that I had taken it off until a few hours later. I was lying on the bed watching MTV, and I had taken it off because it was jabbing me in the side.

So I'm walking around, and I notice that it's quieter than usual. The pedometer makes a "swishing" sound whenever it's counting. That's how I know that it's working. So anyway, I probably lost a few steps there.

Speaking of the swishing sound, it's kind of funny - You can tell who's on the 10k a day program at the office. When it's quiet, as people walk around, you can hear their pedometers counting the steps that they take. Others walk around silently.

So I think I may be turning into a MTV Made junkie. For some reason, I really like the show. (shrug). I saw parts of the lifeguard one and the one with the bmx rider. Maybe it's because I appreciate seeing people succeed in something that they've always dreamed of.

I'm not sure what's on the agenda for tomorrow. Another low key day, probably. Not that there's anything wrong with that ;)

I've been poking around the blog scene today. Blogarama is a directory of blogs, if you're interested. That's how I got my counter thingy.

-Kirk

Sweet!

Now I have a counter, courtesy of BlogPatrol :)

From an old Yahoo Picks of the week:

Molested Cars

I have the old blogger input interface again.

Isn't technology grand? Heh.

How's it going? At last, the weekend is here...

Back to the technology thing. Love it when it works, hate it when random shite happens. For instance - My desktop computer shuts down properly only every other time it's on. Seriously. So when it doesn't shut down, I have to manually shut the computer down by turning off the power strip during the "please wait while Windoze is shutting down." Lucklily, when I shut off tonight, it will be a smooth shutdown. Day after tomorrow, I'll have to go through the silly scan disk software again. And the message during that screen is so condescending - It goes something like "if you want to avoid doing this scan in the future, please shut down the computer properly..." No shit, Sherlock - That's what I tried to do :P

Anyway...

Yesterday I forgot to remark how many steps I had: 11,380. Without exercise. The higher count is attributed to a Costco trip. Walked around the entire store. :)

For today, I have about 11,100 steps. I didn't walk much at work today - I was pretty much at my desk doing junky tedious computer tasks. So that # is including a 30 minute treadmilling session.

I guess I'm in potpourri mode today.

Last night, I was outside fixing some stuff on the supaflyride, when some dude drove by blasting some old skool Michael Jackson. I think it was a track off Thriller. So when I was surfing yesterday, I had some MJtunes going in the background. Billie Jean, PYT, Don't Stop 'till you Get Enough, etc. Good stuff. Back in the day when he was more known for his music than his other affinities.

This evening, I spent a little time reading Laura Lewis' Life Files, a weekly columnist for clickondetroit.com. Her writings on dating and relationships are pretty good. I spent a while reading her archives.

Oh well, better sign off for now, it's getting late...

-Kirk