Mild guilt

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening. On the last day of the weekend.

Of course, the weekend flew by as fast as the week did. But it's ok. I didn't do much anyway in respect to school. But I did do a lot of bumming around.

So the weekend wasn't a total waste ;)

Tomorrow I have part of a presentation to give for class - 3 minutes. Hopefully it won't be too painful. Not just my part - It goes for the presentations of all my classmates too. The last thing I want to do is sit through 1 hour presentations :P

Let's see, what else is on the mind tonight...

I've started using my electric toothbrush again this past week. I picked up some new heads at Costco so I'm good to go. So far so good. I'm not sure why I stopped using it to begin with. I think I just got lazy.

I think I'm starting to sense a recurring theme...

-Kirk

Sunday tears.

If this story doesn't make you cry, then you are truly dead inside.

Kirk

Hibernation

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well. I was so exhausted yesterday cause it was so late. I ended up sleeping in till noon today. I'm truly a lazy arse.

El invited me to go out with her homies this evening. But I declined because I was tired from the week. Plus it's cold outside. And again, I'm lazy.

I know, I know, I'm a lamer.

But we made plans to go out in the spring / summer though. So I'm down with that. She was telling me about how she and her homies go sit on a porch somewhere downtown and just people watch.

I talked to El on the phone today for a good 2 hours. It was fun to catch up with her and reminisce about old times.

(But sometimes I feel like I'm still in "old times")

Anyway, so where did I leave you last?

I think I was recapping the week, right? Blah. Fugghetabout it. It wasn't that exciting anyway.

Is it just me, or do those Ellen DeGeneres ads for American Express crack you up too? My favorite is the elevator segment where she and the other lady in the elevator are singing Respect.

So let's see...

Friday night I didn't feel like being lazy at home so I took my mom shopping at Costco and Marshall's.

I've been on this looking for work clothes kick. I am feeling like I need some new stuff to wear to work. Did I find anything? Of course not. It always ends up that way. I'll go shopping for a certain something, and come back with something totally different. What did I get this time? A bright yellow winter / spring or fall / winter jacket.

I really don't need another jacket. I have a closet full of outerwear already.

I bought a wool jacket with my Gap gift certificate a few weeks ago, and bought another wool jacket from Old Navy like two weeks ago.

So the moral of the story is that I need to stop buying outerwear.

Oh well. Next time I will have to go shopping for something else. Maybe then I'll find work clothes. (shrug)

-Kirk

Fast week.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well. And are staying warm. It's crazy cold outside.

I can't believe it's Friday already. This week has totally flown by. Cause it's been so busy.

I was supposed to be in training all week. Which is brutal in itself. But I ended up getting pulled out for a few hours each day to attend meetings and take care of production problems. Not fun.

And the ironing-out process continues...

Class this week was allright. I'm definitely not motivated to do much nowadays. The discipline to stay a good student has sunk to an all new low. But I can't believe it's been 3 weeks either :) So at least time isn't dragging arse like it did last semester.

So let's see, what's been going on this week...

What did I do Tuesday?

Yeah, so that's how crazy it's been. I don't even remember what I've been doing. How sad.

Maybe I'll remember tomorrow. (need to go to bed.)

-Kirk

Training with Frank

Hi,

OK, one other thing. A bonus post, if you will.

So we had content management training today. I'm not going to say much about the training itself but I was called away for a staff meeting (for like an hour). When I left, everyone was doing some lab exercises and whatnot.

When I went back, I open up the door and I hear Frank Sinatra playing on someone's laptop. It totally threw me for a loop. (The trainer dude was playing mp3s for us).

You usually don't hear Frank Sinatra in a business setting.

Listening to Frank while doing lab exercises was cool. But the whole shift of where I was listening was just odd. At work. I felt like I should've had a martini beside my laptop and my velvet smoking jacket on :)

Smoove.

-Kirk

Klaus and a flatbed truck.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

I paid bills this evening - woopee. And I forgot my login and password for one of the bank sites for the 800 millionth time in a row. So I g0t locked out. And then I have to spend 30 minutes of my life on the phone (seriously) that I'll never get back.

So quite a few random thoughts for today (and others if I remember them).

I was reading some materials in class today, and came across the name "Klaus." Not as a last name, but as a first name.

Please, not to be mixed up with Claus, from the bowl full of jelly fame.

I think Klaus is a bad-assed Caucasian name. That would be one of my first choices for names if I ever had to choose a new one. But if I were known as a Klaus, I'd have to have blonde hair and be ripped.

So maybe not.

Oh yeah, I'd have to drive a German car too. Like a Porkchop.

So what else...

While driving home today I thought about how driving a flatbed truck would be pretty neat. If money were no object, I'd drive one of those around. Not for coolness. but just for shits and giggles. It would be perfect for me. Whenever I go out with some friends, it's usually pretty free form cause we never have a plan per se. So here's what would happen. We'd decide to meet up somewhere to eat, right? Well what to do afterwards? Not sure? I dunno, what do you want to do? Should we drive separately or carpool? Worried about unnecessary driving and wasting gas? Not a problem. I'll just put my buddy's car on the back of my flatbed and we could drive wherever we wanted in the truck. That way, both vehicles are together at all times.

Not just that, once we were getting ready to go our separate ways, I just lower the flatbed and off we go.

Neat, huh?

Oh yeah...

Last week, I had the oddest dream. I was chilling with some people and I was eating a neverending bag of potato chips. It was one of those "Big Grab" bags - you know, like vending machine sized. Crazy. I just kept on eating and eating, but the bag never got empty.

I've also had other odd dreams, but I can't remember them right now. Maybe it's better that I don't. I'm sure this post sounds really wacked already.

-Kirk

Rock to roll.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well. One last procrastination before getting to work...

I took some time to clear off the driveway again. Some areas had about 2 or 3 more inches of snow just from the wind blowing stuff around.

I was on my way out, and predictably got stuck at the end of the driveway. Nobody had driven into the driveway from the street so that's where I got stuck. As an added bonus, we live on a part of the street where little traffic passes.

I think I was rocking the car back and forth for like 10 minutes before I got to the subdivision street. Once I was there I slipped and slid (controlled) out to the main road, and all was good.

Come on come on spring.

-Kirk

Snow bitch slap.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well on this very snowy day. I haven't seen this much snow in what seems like years. The snow (drifts) were higher than the input part of the faithful snow thrower. So much that I had to go over the driveway twice.

With the wind blowing as strong as it was, you would have thought I had forgotten to clear some areas.

I'm glad all this snow happened during the weekend. There's no way I could have made it to work today. The supaflyride would be stuck at the end of the driveway right about now.

Anyway, last night I got almost 12 hours of sleep. I've never done that before. I was watching TV around 11ish, and I was starting to get sleepy. So I just shut the television off and I was out like a light. I got up once, but I slept straight through to 9 this morning. I was contemplating getting up, but I fell back asleep for 2 more hours.

I was fighting a cold last week, so I think I needed the rest.

Anyway, so enough about sleeping. What else is up...

Today we launched a new application at work. Everything worked except for one thing. And that one thing won't be taken care of until Monday morning. It's kind of minor in the whole scheme of things, but I know it's going to be remembered.

Ugh.

So I haven't done any schoolwork since last Monday. I've been really really bad. And I have no motivation to start, sadly.

This whole school thing is becoming a real drag. (even more than before)

I can think of 10 million other things I'd rather be doing. Ahh well, as my buddy told me, 19.5 weeks left until graduation.

-Kirk

Untrendy.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

Today I was hanging out with El after work - My Thursday class this week is online, so instead of being a good student, I went out to dinner and went to the shopping mecca afterwards.

I got to see how the truly trendy shop.

For some reason I have this fascination where I like to see where and how people (that I know) shop. Especially for clothes. I don't know what it is - I don't know if I feel like I get to know them better or what. I am just curious to see what people like, I guess.

So El and I went to all of these (what I'd call trendy) clothing stores. Like Bebe, Guess, Lucky, and a whole bunch of other stores. I even went into some shoe store I hadn't heard of.

I guess the super-trendy don't shop at the Gap.

But I don't know if some of the super trendy clothes are work friendly though ;)

-Kirk

Serendipity.

Over 180 stores in the whole place.

And we happened to be at the same one. How's that for chance?

She's absolutely lovely.

Now I just gotta figure out what else to say to her (other than the normal hi and goodbye).

-Kirk

My Chingy.

HI all,

Hope you're doing well on this long weekend :)

Besides being cold, the past few days have been great - we've seen the sun! And the sun makes me happy.

Anyway, when did I leave you last?

So I've been wanting to see the movie In Good Company. Because it has the lovely Scarlett Johannson in it. (you may remember her from the movie Lost in Translation - which is where it all started for me)

You see, Scarlett is my Chingy.

There is this lady at work - and she would do anything for the rapper named Chingy. Cause he's so hot, so talented, yadda yadda yadda. She would pretty much drop everything for him.

Just like that.

Anyway, please excuse my Teen Beat moment. I was telling El about how I wanted to go see a certain movie. It just turned out that she had time on Friday night, so we went.

On opening day.

The theater was packed. We took what seemed like the last two adjacent seats.

I didn't realy tell her what the movie was about - just the title. Apparently she read the synopsis and was a little confused why I wanted to see it. It wasn't until we were pretty close to the theater and I finally disclosed the real reason why I wanted to see the movie.

(So now I owe her a Johnny Depp movie.) A small price to pay.

The movie wasn't terrible. It wasn't the greatest cinematic experience, but I thought it was allright.

Of course, I may be a little biased.

-Kirk

Indulgence. Just for a second.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

The weather has gone from oddly warm to crappy - all in one day. Gotta love Michigan weather.

So let's see, what's been going on...

Wednesday I played hookey for the last hour of the day - I went to get my oil changed on the supaflyride. And of course, I had to stroll through the dealership.

Got a chance to check out the Toyota Solara Convertible. A little big for my taste, but it was nice.

But then of course, there was the Scion dealership inside :)

The sales dudes in the Scion part were really cool - A total 180 degrees different from the old skool stereotypcial high pressure sales dudes. I had to escape one on the way to the Scion part of the dealership. He was clinging on to me so hard I was afraid that he'd start humping my leg for a sale.

Whatever dude.

So I was chatting with the Scion sales dude for a while - After all, I had about 30 to 45 minutes to kill. So we were talking about the models and how they were selling. Apparently his dealership had the best sales figures in all of Michigan and the surrounding areas.

Anyway, we were talking about my fav Scion, the tC. And guess what? They had a demo car, and a few were due to come in later on in the week...

Oh no.

He was telling me about the mods you could get on the car. Well to make a long story short, he told me about the aftermarket exhaust. And how I should hear it.

Next thing ya know, I'm behind the wheel of the demo car, firing the car up.

Exhaust sounds good.

And then he says that I can take the car for spin if I want to. And it took every ounce of restraint to say no - Cause I knew if I drove it...

I'd be hooked.

And I was good. For the first few minutes. And then I started to cave in. Well, maybe just up and down the street :) After all, I was in the car already, and it was already warmed up...

How disrespectful would it be to start up a car just to rev the engine a few times and then shut it off?

I think it would destroy the car's spirit.

So I drove the car for maybe 5 minutes - tops. Just up and down the street. And I had a huge grin on my face after I pulled the car back into the parking spot.

So much for restraint.

-Kirk

I love a fat tongue.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

Had a surprise snow this morning - Luckily, the neighbor's snowthrower woke me up a little early to give me the preview of what was in the driveway.

I figured out if I haul ass, I can clear off all the snow on the driveway and the walks in 20 minutes.

So now I know I just have to wake up 25 minutes early and I can still make it to work in time. If I was a good corporate citizen, I'd make it 30 minutes and make it to work a few minutes early :)

So tonight the topic of discussion is new shoes. (Zapatos - if I wanted to be bilingual.) I was at Target on Sunday and happened to see some nifty hiking boots on sale that I decided to buy. Pretty swank. And I always forget how nice and comfy new shoes are. I'm not talking dress shoes - I'm talking the best shoes of all, the casual ones.

All the cushioning on the side is all puffy, nice, and really supportive. And best of all, the tongue is nice and fat. So you get a really nice fit when you lace the shoes up.

I know you know what I'm talkin' about. Don't act like you don't.

I'm not going on any 100 mile hikes soon - but all that comfort goes a long way when walking from the car into to the office.

If only they could make a work shoe as comfortable as an athletic shoe...

-Kirk

Another reason to stay away from shopping

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well on this Sunday evening.

I thought it was a fluke when I saw it before at the one stop shopping joint, but it happened again - this time at Target.

Valentines Day stuff is out. Cards, candles, candy, cheesy clothes, fuzzy "things," etc.

Lovely. Please, torture me some more.

-Kirk

Defining lazy

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening. I don't know what it was about this past week, but it was tiring. I was very ready for the weekend on Friday. Despite all the lateness, I was actually pretty productive in the latter part of the week.

Today was interesting because when I woke up this morning, about 2 to 4 inches of snow had fallen. It was nice to shovel and clear snow without having to worry about getting to work on time for a change. It wasn't too cold out either, so that made it even better.

In fact, after I was done, I actually wanted to sit outside, relax and enjoy the weather. Except that there's really no place to sit. I ended up using the rolly stool thing in the garage that my mom uses when gardening.

Well, I use it to rest whil waxing the car too :)

Anyway, that was pretty much the extend of the excitement for today. Which is kind of a bummer, because it was actually sunny outside all afternoon!

So yes, I was pretty lazy all day long. Watched TV, surfed the Internet, and ate snacks. That pretty much sums up the day.

I was watching the Nightly News (I think it was Thursday or Friday) and saw the story about charities and finding out what they do with your donations. The article lists 3 resources you can check to see how your favorite charities rate - I liked the Charity Navigator - it has some pretty interesting information.

I was on the American Red Cross Donation Site and was surprised at how many possible Titles people can have.

How does one become a "Rear Admiral" anyway?

-Kirk

The snow dance

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

Today is the last day of my school vacation - Classes start tomorrow. And my coworkers are bracing for me to get grouchy again :)

We're supposedly going to get quite a bit of snow tonight - So similar to how kids do the snow dance to entice the powers that be to cause a school cancellation, I will probably do the same thing tomorrow night. But unlike grade school, we have to make our snow days up :)

We had a few inches on the ground this morning - Which caused me to be like 45 minutes late for work. I had gotten a late start to begin with, and I had to shovel snow and get gas (to make my car heavy so it handles better in the snow). 45 minutes. bleh.

I'm sure that will do wonders for my annual review.

-Kirk

Tempted by the fruit of another (in muzak)

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

Ahh, the first day back to work. Gotta love it. And, in typical fashion, there was a welcoming production problem (minor) that was waiting for me when I got in.

And it wasn't even an extended weekend!

I think a majority of people and systems weren't ready to come back to work yet - Cause the phone support line was overloaded. I spent 45 minutes waiting on hold to open a trouble ticket that I found out someone had already opened.

Right when the phone support person came on the phone.

The creepy thing was that the lady wouldn't let me just hang up (I'm guessing for call statistics or something). So she asked for my name and whatnot. I was going to hang up, but I figured she could just look at my caller ID :)

Anyway, so I got to listen to instrumentally muzaked versions of hits from the 80's. Most notably, was the Squeeze song, Tempted.

Come on, you know how the chorus goes (sing it with me):
Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
What's been going on, now that you have gone
There's no other

(If only I were a muzak musician.) I would try to turn rap and hiphop songs into muzak. You know, something to nod your head to while you're riding up the elevator.

Brian brought up the best elevator music tune of all, The Girl From Ipanema - thanks to him, I had the song in my head the entire day. And it would start playing at random times. Like when I was trying to do stiff. I think Brian had it in his head too, so he would start whistling it.

And of course, I'd have to join in.

Anyway, enough of that silliness.

What else...

Ever since Cali, I've had this sporadic dry cough. I specify "dry cough" because I want to make it clear that it's not the yucky phlegm laden "cough of death" that a person usually has on a bus or the airplane seat next to you. Or standing in line in front of you.

Anyway, so this afternoon the cough got worse. Like I had to cough every few seconds. So one of my coworkers hooked me up with some orange Cepacol lozenge that looked like really good candy.

It certainly looked better than it tasted.

Anyway, I had forgotten about this stuff - It's the same company that makes that funky spray that you use when you have a sore throat. You know, the one that makes you all numbed up, and it makes you feel like your tongue is two times bigger than it actually is?

I love that feeling.

I was definitely sold - The cough went away for quite a few hours. Was I concerned that I didn't really have a sore throat? Nah.

-Kirk

Starting the new year off by being lazy

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

This whole holiday during the weekend thing is has wacked me - If it weren't for the extra day that I had taken off, Christmas would have felt no different that any other weekend. New Year's is the same way. I miss the holiday long weekends :)

Today I hibernated in my sweatpants all day. I slept in, read the paper, watched some of the Rose Bowl (bleh), watched some other random television, and sifted through my Cali pics. And that's pretty much it.

I secretly want to go to the shopping mecca, but I'm still afraid of the crowds that will be there. I can't wait for everything to return back to "normal" where I don't have to circle the parking lot looking for a parking space like a hawk searching for food. I may try to go tomorrow if I get too cabin fevery.

Here's hoping that everyone's all malled out. :)

-Kirk

Happy New Year!

Hi everyone,

Hope you're having a great start to the year :)

I realized today that school starts next Thursday. I can't believe how quickly these 3 weeks have passed. The silver lining is that there's 6 months left of my program and then I'll be set.

I have to give props to the newspaper delivery guy. Now that's a job that I could never do. I wouldn't be able to wake up that early in the morning. You'd work 365 days a year. (Well, at least someone has to).

I will leave it to the professionals.

For the past few days, I've been waking up in the middle of dreams - and they're so lifelike that I still feel the effects of them after I wake up.

Last week (I think it was Wednesday or something) I felt like I had to write a check and send it off to someone. I had been dreaming that someone had called me and I promised that I would write it out and send it off. This feeling stayed with me all day.

I'm guessing it was because I was paying bills the other night or something.

Anyway, so I need to make the best of my 5 remaning days of freedom before school keeps me prisoner again.

What to do, what to do.

-Kirk