Confirmed.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

It's a nice feeling to know that people are looking out for you. Especially when they hear stuff that you want to know :)

-Kirk

Cleaning out my inbox.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

Since I finally got my final grades for my classes this semester I did the quarterly cleansing ritual of getting rid of any e-mail that is school related.

Only 455 messages.

My inbox was getting out of control. It was turning into an e-mail black hole. Now I have to go back and answer the e-mails from people that I've been ignoring for the past semester.

And it all starts back up again next week.

So it was super nice outside today. And for some reason we decided to stay in for lunch. Huh. But I was able to drive home with the window down, sunroof open, with no jacket on. It was just barely warm enough.

Ok ok, so I had the heater on too ;)

Driving home I saw people with their convertible tops down. Just jealous!

Spring is definitely coming. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy it and not just pass it over and go directly to summer :)

-Kirk

Large print edition.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

Just a few notes before going to bed. It's late because I was shopping and ordering my school books online.

Hundred dollar books that I probably won't read...

I realized that I need to read over some of my blog entries before I click post. I have a few misspellings and some missed letters here and there that look odd.

It's partially cause I'm too impatient to wait for the web based spell check.

I'm spoiled by those Microsquash products that give me red squigglies when I type somthing incorrectly.

Anyway, yesterday (Monday) I went to Ann Arbor for a doctor's appointment - I was sitting in the waiting room and picked up a Reader's Digest to thumb through while I was waiting. It was the large print edition :)

I couldn't belive how easy it was to read! I was comfortably reading with the magazine sitting in my lap. Imagine that.

All magazines should come in large print version. Textbooks too.

-Kirk

Chinese buffet for 4.

Hi all,

Just a quick note. Today I went out with my mum for dinner. The original plan was to get some sushi at the Japanese food store, but they were closed.Since it was Easter Sunday, so everything was pretty much closed.

Except of course, Chinese restaurants :)

I'm sure there were other places open, but I wasn't surprised at all that I could get Chinese food on Easter Sunday.

My mom had seen an advertisement for a restaurant around where I work, so we decided to check it out.

We pull up to the restaurant, and there's seriously like 4 cars in the parking are closest to the buildling. When we got inside, there was one couple eating in a booth. That's pretty much it.

During our meal there were people coming to get take out and whatnot, but nobody really came in to eat. As we were leaving, there was one dude.

The whole thing was kind of eerie and cool at the same time. Eerie because it was like a ghost town. It was like we were there after hours. And of course, that was the cool thing as wel. I liked being able to get up to the buffet, scoot around without ever having to wait in line for anything.

One takeaway though - If I had my own Chinese restaurant, I would definitely not play that stereotypical twangy music in the background.

-Kirk

3 to choose from.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this weekend. The sun is out for a bit today so it's all good. :)

Friday was pretty quiet at work - We were allowed to leave a couple of hours early, but like usual, I never take advantage of it. Just too much stuff going on.

As usual, Fridays are kind of laid back, so we were just taking a break at the end of the day just chatting about the weekend and whatnot.

So it brought up up an interesting phenomenon. Why do some women call their women friends girlfriends? I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I don't really call my homies my boyfriends.

If I did, it would surely raise a few eyebrows at the office, I'm sure.

Anyway, is it more of adding a certain qualifier to the friend thing? Does that cheapen the whole boyfriend thing? Since for women, calling someone your boyfriend is theoretically on the same level as girlfriend?

Maybe "main squeeze" works better.

And then what do same sex couples call their significant others? Do they do the boyfriend and girlfriend thing too? And their friends of the same sex? Boyfriend or girlfriend?

Confusing, huh?

We also discussed that crazy people are a challenge to work with.

Let's say I had to work with 2 people. One's a killler, and one's just plain crazy. I would much rather work with the killer - At least I know, going into the working relationship that he's trying to kill me. So I could take the proper precautions, right? You know, I'd very cautiously disagree, wouldn't stay in the office late, etc.

Now the crazy person, on the other hand, you really don't know what you're getting into. Work with me here. Is he going to bust a cap in your ass? Is he going to just hug you and call you George? How exactly would you protect yourself? That's exactly it.

You just don't know.

So the moral of this story? When you're trying to get people to stop bothering you, don't act like a killer. Act crazy. The unpredictability is going to throw people off.

A nuggget of wisdom.

Saturday was a fighting with technology day. It's many hours of my life that I'll never get back. Hours that could have been better spent doing other things.

I would like a refund.

-Kirk

Value of personal space.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

The semester has finally ended (for the most part). Just waiting for grades now. Hopefully everything's allright. It was getting a little sketchy at the end there when I was waiting for the test scores from the final to come back. But I did ok, and the exam was curved.

So it's all good.

I've been watching the Thusday night shows on NBC again. Like the first season of the Apprentice, I've gotten hooked again - not sure why I skipped the second season.

And that show (the Office) that premiered after kind of sucked. Maybe I need to see a few more shows, but so far I'm not diggin it.

What else is on the mind today...

Just another day at the office, and my personal space was severely compromised while talking to a coworker. He got a little too close.

Too close for comfort.

I needed to step back a few feet. Or I needed him to step back a few feet :)

But no such luck.

So anyway, now I'm on break again until the beginning of April. What to do, what to do...

The summer adult education catalog came out a few weeks ago. I was mulling over taking guitar lessons, and maybe trying yoga, just for shits and giggles. Just to see what it's like.

-Kirk

Waiting for the Sudafed train.

Hi everyone,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

Looks like the class of semester past is still going to haunt me. The professor for my exam last Sunday has finally broken down and has offered us an opportunity to get bonus points.

What ever happened to the good grading curves? Where have they all gone?

So the extra credit has been offered up. Of course there's always a catch. It is due Thursday. The instructor gave us the assignment today. And he won't release how we did on our final exam until tomorrow. See an issue here? It's kind of a bummer because I am not going to do extra credit unless I actually really really need it. That means I'll have one evening to write this extra credit monstrosity if I decide to take the prof up on the extra credit offer.

We'll have to see.

I caught a cold again. I think it may have been from running around being cold and in the rain when my brother visited me last weekend. Or I've somehow acquired somone's germs. I'm feeling very under the weather.

I'll be riding the Sudafed 12 hour train tomorrow.

-Kirk

Dirrty!

For some reason all of a sudden at work today, I get that Christina Aguilera Dirrty song in my head. The version with (I think it's Redman) the rap. Good stuff.

Maybe it was the Taco Bell talkin.

What ever happened to her anyway?

-Kirk

Life imitates art. Or something.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

Where does the time go? It's almost midnight again.

This weekend was one of the busiest I've had in a while. My brother Mark (yes he does exist) was here for about a day and a half. We were able to hang out for a bit in between hanging out with parents and family that had come to visit.

It's really too bad that I don't see my brother more often - But the powers of the internet and mobile phones definitely make the distance seem a lot shorter.

While we were hanging out at the city home and talking, Mark made reference that if we lived closer together, we'd be like the two Crane brothers in the TV show Frasier.

Well, not exactly like, but similar.

Although I wasn't sure who was Niles and who was Frasier.

Maybe it'll happen one day - but the whole uprooting and settling down somewhere else for either of us is kind of unrealistic at this time.

But it would be cool to just do the famous "drop by" or just chill and do nerdy stuff.

On a more fun note, he'll be back here in 2 weeks for a bonus visit. It'll be a 2 to 3 day visit this time.

We had to leave for the airport Sunday morning at 4:30 a.m. Which was totally brutal. I came back home, slept, did my final, and then went out to dinner with Ali - who I haven't seen in what seems like a year. We had dinner at the outdoor mall. It was super good.

And our server lady was cute and had a very high pitched voice.

Fast forward to today...

I always find it funny when people that have annoying traits say certain things (of other poeple) are annoying. It's like they have a low tolerance for things that annoy them when they themselves do things / have traits that are annoying to others.

Make sense? ;)

-Kirk

Weekend recap preview.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

I'm super super tired. It's been quite the weekend.

I will have to write more later about the weekend that was chock full of busy-ness.

The most notable right now?

I'm done with school until April.

I took a 4 hour final on Thursday. I took a 4 hour final today. And reviewed my final project.

We'll see how I did...

Until later :)

-Kirk

Big Mac attack

Hi all,

Just a quick note before going to bed.

Today I had my first McDonald's Big Mac in what seems like over a year.

It was kind of a change today because we got out to lunch a little late and we had to be back in time for a 1:00 meeting.

Plus someone had to get a Shamrock shake :)

Anyway, so after lunch the Big Mac value meal sat in my stomach like a rock. And made me feel like a slug.

I guess that's why I don't go to McDonald's anymore :) I can't believe we used to eat these at least once a week in high school.

-Kirk

My toothbrush knows that it's going to be replaced.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

So since college (maybe even high school) I've had one of those Oral-B electric toothbrushes. My dad bought it for me so I thought I'd use it, right? Well, I got a lot of crap for it - Like people didn't see why you needed an electric toothbrush, how it was a waste of money, or comments about being too lazy to brush my teeth.

(fast forward to today)

So electric toothbrushes are pretty popular now - and pretty affordable. How do you like them apples?

Who's laughing now, bitches.

Anyway, enough about being traumatized, let me get to the point of my post.

So I've had that same electric toothbrush since college-ish. I stopped using it for a while, but within the last few months, I tried using it again. It's pretty old so it wasn't working the greatest - I think the rechargeable battery was showing its age.

After a few weeks, the toothbrush totally stopped working. Or it would just swish back and forth lazily at a quarter of the speed it was supposed to.

So I started shopping for a new one.

Today I was at Costco and picked up a new Oral-B Professional Care 7000 series electric toothbrush. It's pretty swank. I'm talkin special blue handles (with sparkles), extra brusheads and whatnot.

Before breaking out the new one, I decided to give the old toothbrush one last try. Flipped the switch...

Nothing.

I took off the brushead and tried to move the turning thingy...

It started working!

Imagine that.

-Kirk

The key.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

I am terrible keeping track of my keys. House keys, car keys, you name it, I've lost them. Well, maybe not lost. Just more misplaced.

I have bad key management, if you will. Even though I have key hooks in the house (by the door), or I bought a key box from Ikea (that I never put up). I am still very lax about putting my keys where they belong. Usually they're in the last jacket that I wore, or in the summer time, upstairs in the last pair of shorts or jeans that I had on.

For the 8 billionth time this morning, my car keys weren't on the key ring. They were in my other jacket. Of course I had to put my stuff down, take off my shoes, etc., etc. So in a moment of frustration, I came up with a solution...

Make copies of my keys, one for each jacket.

That would solve my problems for good. In the winter time, at least.

I'll never actually do it - Knowing me, I'd probably misplace them anyway, or I'd be paranoid that I'd have to keep track of say, 4 sets of keys, instead of one.

Oh well, nice try.

-Kirk

Walk down credit card lane.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well. Just a quick note before going to bed.

After looking over some stuff on Consumer Reports, I became inspired to look at my free annual credit reports on AnnualCreditReport.com - the whole process was fairly painless, for the most part. (I had address issues so 2 of the agencies didn't want to recognize me at first.)

So it's pretty cool. It's your whole personal financial history condensed onto a document less than 10 pages. Kind of wacky. Not exactly a historical thriller, but you get the idea.

Of course it starts with your delinquencies.

You know the story, I was young and naive at the time... Just kidding. I was delinquent on paying a few bills when I moved from my aparment to start grad school. In my defense, I never got my final bills after I left. And the utility companies claimed that I didn't give them a forwarding address - which I'm pretty sure they would ask me for it when I shut the electricity and phone off.

Oh well. I'll be stuck with those black marks for a while, I'm sure (they were from 1998). It'll end up biting me in the arse when I'm applying for credit on the BMW dream :)

If it ever happens.

-Kirk

Nuts for cashews.

Hi all,

My dad bought a big ol jar of salted cashews from Costco last week. The jar is pretty huge. And the nuts are damn good.

I could sit there and munch on cashews all day long. They are definitely one of the best members of the nut family.

Who is the big poppa, baller extraodinaire?

Macadamia nuts.

-Kirk

Old skool.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well on this fine Saturday.

Days go by and I have no idea what I've been doing. I don't know what it is.

On a better note, I've been sleeping well at night - haven't been getting up 3 times a night like I usually do.

(knock on wood)

I've been managing to get to sleep before midnight as of late too. So that's been just groovy.

So what's been going on this week...

Monday's class was ok - I got to see a glimpse of what I can do if I get tired of working with technology. We had a guest speaker come in and talk to us. He was a information security guy turned real estate office dude. Kind of interesting.

But it's nice to know that there's other career paths you can take and still apply what you've learned in your tech field.

2 weeks left of the semester. That means finals and the final project. 2 weeks left.

During the week I found my one beef with Target - Their pharmacy is not open late enough. It closes at like 7 (around me). Which kind of blows, especially when I get out of work at like 6. I would have to haul ass over there because of travel time and the requisite 15 to 20 minutes that they always make you wait.

So mark one up for the local one-stop shop, Meijer, where the pharmacy closes at 9.

We've had overnight snow for the past couple of days - just like an inch or two. Since it's been light, I've been going old skool and trying to shovel shovel (as opposed to using the snowblower). I must say, going manual isn't so bad.

Again, it's that shoveling is enjoyable when you're not in a hurry mentality.

Anyway, I'm trying to think of anything else that's noteworthy...

Come on spring, come on!

I long for the days when it's warm enough to thoroughly clean out my car. It doesn't have to be hot - I'll settle for warm-ish weather. When my car can shed it's salty sheen and its true colors can show through.

Plus the inside is filthy.

I also caught a great Amazon.com promotion on dress shirts this week. I'm really digin' them - A little thinner than I expected, but they'll be good summer shirts. But now I want to go to the next level.

French cuffs.

Not that I'd ever need a shirt with cuffs. But it's the latest line item addition to my list of things to get sometime in the near future.

It would clearly be on my path to becoming the Man.

-Kirk

Here and hear.

It bugs me when I read stuff from people and see postings on the internet where the authors confuse words like here and hear. Or site and sight. The list goes on..

My personal favorites (not) are there, their and they're.

It's a pet peeve of mine. But is something like that a dealbreaker?

Or should I say deal braker?

-Kirk

Not as planned.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well on this sunny weekend. It's nice to have the sun out. What's that odd feeling? Oh yeah, warmth.

So instead of waiting until school got out, I had a moment of weakness and bought Gran Turismo 4.

Not too shabby :)

Although the jury's still out whether it was worth the however many month/year delays that we had to endure waiting for the game.

Seriuosly though, so far so good. I've watched the intro movie, played a road and a rally course. :)

I don't know why I broke down - What can I say, I was weak after taking that 5.5 hour exam yesterday.

Also my brother's coming to visit at the end of the month so I should be all practiced up and ready to race when he arrives ;)

So now I want to play the game but of course I have to do "schoolwork".

-Kirk

Dream twist.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

Like usual, a few notes before going to bed. I am just dying at work. I wake up at my regular time, usually getting like 7 hours of sleep. And I feel like sleeping as soon as I start work.

What's up with that?

Anyway, so what else has been going on. It's always nice to hear that you're missed at work. Not necessarily for the work that you do, but just for being there. I know, it sounds odd, but it all goes back to my theory that it's the people you work with that make work fun, not just the work itself.

So this morning, I had a very odd dream. It was like nothing I'd dreamed of before. Seriously.

(begin dream recap sequence)

So I was sitting at my cube at the other building, just doing my work. Next thing you know, one of my coworkers comes up and just chats with me for a few minutes. We finish our conversation, and she walks away...

Like 30 seconds later, she comes back and asks me out.

I am totally flattered (so this is what it feels like) and of course I say yes!

(end dream sequence)

I woke up after that, but I really didn't want to. I wanted to savor the neat residual feelings. It's kind of random, but I'd never considered what it would feel like to get asked out. Is that weird?

Perhaps.

I don't know if I mentioned before, but I don't see faces in my dreams. I just know that it's a certain person. And this person wasn't who you might think. It was someone else - just to clear things up.

So that was my randomness for this morning.

I am not sure where the root of the dream came from - I usually can make some sort of loose association. The walking away and coming back is something that I could see myself doing :)

But it's not like I was thinking of asking anyone out recently. So I thought that was odd. As far as the actress in my dream I don't know where that came from either.

(shrug)

-Kirk

Happy Birthday Mark!

It's my brother's birthday!

-Kirk

Enjoyable shoveling.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this week.

Last night the snow plow dudes put up a 2 foot wall between the driveway and the street. So this morning I spent a good 10 to 15 minutes digging a path just wide enough to get the supaflyride out. We're talking ice and snow chunks that you can't snowthrow. But I finally made a path.

Half assed.

So this evening after dinner, I went back outside to clear out a bigger path. And you know what?

It was fun.

OK, maybe not themepark fun, but it was actually enjoyable shoveling snow. I really didn't mind it. Who knew, right? It was nice being outside and not in a blizzard. The wind wasn't blowing super hard, so all was good.

I enjoyed it so much that I decided to shovel some other areas that had gotten covered by snow drifts.

So the key thing is not to shovel when you're in a hurry.

Which rarely happens, but still. It reminds me why I didn't mind shoveling during those few weeks 2 years ago when I was unemployed. I'd roll out of bed, do the morning thing, and shovel after lunch.

Huh.

Oh yeah, so come the middle of the month, I will have been at my latest gig for 2 years. I can't believe time has gone by that quickly.

Sometimes it feels like 2 years, sometimes it feels like 20.

-Kirk