Wow.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

Just a few notes before I go to bed... (yes, I'm going to try and be in bed by 11:30 today).

Dell has thoroughly exceeded my expectations - My laptop's ship date was supposed to be 5/3. I checked their status system, and my laptop shipped today!

Kickass.

And the icing on the cake? It's coming on FedEx standard overnight :)

Tomorrow's the day! Woohoo!

It was supposed to come ground shipping, in 3 to 5 business days. So I am not going to complain at all.

My hope is that my new laptop will be as good as Dell's service so far...

-Kirk

Please don't ho me.

Bonus post.

So I went ahead and bought memory for my laptop (that I don't have yet). I took a chance this time and bought from a place that I've never heard of before.

Sketchy.

Normally I buy from places that I'm familiar with, or places where people I know have had good experiences. But this time I was the cowboy.

In their checkout procedure, they give you a blank to fill out comments or "special instructions." I wanted to write, "Please don't ho me."

But I didn't :)

-Kirk

Dry to wet.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

Looks like I'm going to be getting new neighbors at work. People are moving into the cubes around me, and one lady's moving to the other side of the wall.

I'm hoping I can scam a new dry erase board. Mine's turned from dry erase to wet erase.

-Kirk

Box like you've never boxed before.

I gotta hand it to the fine people at Dell. They really know their customers...

A link on the homepage to track your order?

Kickass.

Plus, the status thingy lets you know the different stages it must go through.

The little laptop that could is in production! It's gone through the following stages:

• Kitting
• Build
• Testing

Not really sure what kitting was - I'm guessing the system builder people are throwing the parts together? Who knows.

So now it looks like my laptop is in the "Boxing" stage - Box away, baby.

-Kirk

Only in Michigan

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well. Just a few notes before going to bed.

Only in Michigan can you have snow coming down continuously for two days, and then have it disappear and be able to roll your windows down the day after.

On the way home, I saw the oddest thing. It was a 2 door Ford Escort - The one from the 90s where it was that teal color? I think it was relatively "special edition" or whatever. Anyway, the driver's side rear window was missing. Instead of the standard issue garbage bag or clear plastic film, there was wood.

A big 'ol piece of particle board lookin could be plywood piece of wood.

It looked like the subfloor they put in new houses nowadays. But anyway, something told me that it was a fairly permanent fix. Why?

The wood was skillfully cut in the exact shape of the window. With rounded edges and everything!

Still not convinced?

The wood was painted to match the car body color.

Come on, throw me a bone here.

Love it.

-Kirk

Dude!

Hi all,

Hope you're had a great weekend. Like usual, I can't believe it's already over.

So when did I leave you last?

(I'm sure I was commenting unfavorably about school)

So for the first time in my school history, I've finished a paper well in advance. 4 days! It's due Thursday, but my schoolwork ethic is rather spotty during the week so I had to get it done during the weekend.

Of course, I put my final project on hold :)

Now don't get me wrong - I wasn't a model student this weekend either. I was supposed to start working on the paper all day Saturday but ended up doing nothing productive.

Well, I did buy a laptop :)

The last time this type of procrastination / impulse buy happened was when I was in grad school (the first time). I bought my bookshelf stereo at 1 a.m. I was writing a paper then too.

But that was during finals, so this purchase was pretty early in the whole scheme of things. I was mulling around the idea of getting a new pc, just not until after graduation. (shrug)

Oh well. Now I can't wait until it ships!

(tick tock, tick tock)

Let's see, what else...

It has been snowing all day. Ali called me from TX to verify - He said that it was 70s and 80s down there. He was taking his family to a fair downtown.

Must be nice.

I guess we had to pay somehow for the ridiculously nice weather we had for the 2 weeks prior to all the snow craziness, right?

-Kirk

3rd time's the charm.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

I think this final project is going to take years away from my life expectancy. I was going to work on some schoolwork after dinner but after reading more rejection e-mails I just couldn't.

I needed a break.

It's gotta get better, right?

Right?

What's up with this weather anyway? Snow? This weekend? Come on.

-Kirk

Dogs bite back.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

I had some really good coney dogs for lunch today. Complete with all the trimmins - the sauce, onions, ketchup, mustard - topped off with onion rings.

Next time I'm just going to have one.

So I now have 2 hours before bedtime. What to do, what to do? I've gotta resubmit some documents (again), and go over some chapters for my class tomorrow.

So much fun, can you feel it!?

3 months.

-Kirk

Travel itch.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

I finally got a chance to catch up with Suzy this evening. It was good to talk to her even though I didn't really have much new news to share. I don't think I've talked to her since seeing her around December.

After chatting with her, I've begun to get the itch to travel again. Not sure where or when exactly, but I just know that I'd like to go somewhere again.

-Kirk

Who are Juku girls?

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening. Here we are again on the last night of the weekend.

So I've successfully cleaned parts of my car. The interior and the wheels. That's about it. I didn't have time to do the real hand wash and wax. I know, it's lame, but that's all I could do today. At least I got that winter salt and grime off the wheels.

So this morning I was listening to the Gwen Stefani song Rich Girl. It's a great tune - I'm sure you've rocked to it one time or another. Anyway, so in the song, Gwen and Eve talk about these Harajuku girls.

Apparently, Harajuku is a very trendy entertainment and shopping area of Tokyo (that seems to be heavily inhabited by teenagers).

So now I know.

This weekend I got work for one of my classes done. But have yet to touch my final project. Grrr.

-Kirk

I fought the prof...

(and of course, the prof won)

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this weekend. It's sunny oustide, and it looks warm too :) You can't complain much about that.

I should be doing schoolwork now. It's secretly eating away at me. It's like the howevermany thousand pound elephant in the room. But I'm just ignoring it for now.

(In denial)

I'm a little schooled out after this week. After a few e-mail messges were exchanged and new stuff submitted, I finally got the proposal approved. Oh yeah, I met with him too.

I've also decided that I'm not going to attend the graduation ceremony.

So now, the work begins...

Work that I'm not starting on yet.

Anyway, so yesterday was the first time I drove home from work with both windows down - No jacket or anything. It was pretty perfect. I was even inspired to do some spring cleaning in the car. Totally vacuumed everything out, wiped down the interior, and changed out my seat covers.

It's the end of an era.

The snow tiger fuzzy seatcovers are taking a few seasons off, being replaced by less fancy velvet ones that don't seem to fit as well. I am hoping that I will no longer get a huge static electricity shock everytime I get out of the car.

We'll see.

What else... My mum and I were at Costco the other day. And I saw this dude that's been working there for as long as I can remember. And it made me wonder - Does he like working as mujch as I like shopping there?

Let's put it a different way - For instance, if you worked at say, Starbucks - Would you want to go hang out there, buy the coffee, and chill when you're not working?

Probably, right?

Anyway, so that was my mildly deep thought for that day.

-Kirk

Fighting the good fight.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well. I'm exhausted.

I got the crushing blow today that the proposal that I worked on last weekend wasn't worthy enough.

Grrrr.

I'm going to try and appeal. But I don't know if I'll be sucessful or not.

-Kirk

Fasting.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this morning.

This morning I'm fasting for blood work at the low self esteem fair (the voluntary health screening they have at work).

I never realize how much time I spend in the morning just eating.

I've had time to check e-mail, blog, and write out a check.

-Kirk

Blogging for class.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

So I get to blog for class now! How exciting. Instead of discussion questions, we get to blog about stuff. A very cool concept. If you want to see me get academic, you may want to read Kirk-isms Too.

(shameless plug)

I decided to go with a separate blog because I figure that way, I can continue to bitch about school in this one ;)

I spent most of the weekend doing school stuff - I'm not all the way done, but whatever. It's almost 11 p.m.

My dreams of a clean car have been foiled. There's always next weekend, I guess.

This afternoon, I caught curling on TV - I kind of miss it. It's too bad we didn't continue with it last year.

I'm also finding that when I channel surf, I'm pausing to watch more and more of the different QVC channels. Like Bob in the Kitchen (or whatever).

I never thought in a million years I'd be shopping on QVC.

But don't worry - I haven't actually bought anything yet. Even though they had a neat looking featherbed and the Foodsaver on last time.

-Kirk

10 to 15% return?

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

I don't know what it is about this week. It's been hell. After lunch today, it felt like my batteries were just dead.

(beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep) (flatline)

I couldn't leave work fast enough. Come 5 o'clock, I was a bad corporate citizen and was walking towards the door.

The brightest part of the day was during lunch when the soup of the day was New England Clam Chowder.

Mmmm... Tasty!

I think my lunchmates were quite amused (and mildly disturbed) at how excited I was over clam chowder. It was as good as expected too :)

This evening I was doing some poking around the internet for retirement and investment information. Quite a few of the diagrams used for illustrating things like stock market growth and the power of compound interest when you start saving early were very interesting. The resources were calculating growth based on an average of a 12% return.

Is that for real?

I am no Steve Forbes or Donald Trump, but is that common? Returns ranging from 10 to 15%? It just seems really high. It would be great to get those types of returns, but I am not sure if it's actually probable.

I think after I get out of school, I will try my hand at investing, just for shits and giggles...

What else has been going on...

I've been extremely terrible this year about keeping up with everyone's birthdays. I've missed sending messages and whatnot out to quite a few of my friends.

I have a lot of friends who were born in March :)

I had my second class on Thursday. It seems to be ok - for the parts that I was awake for. I've been getting into the nasty habit of falling asleep in front of the TV again after dinner. Grrr. I'm sure my nightly sleep patterns are being disturbed and are becoming wacked as well.

Anyway, about school - A part of our first assignment is to create a blog. Imagine that. So I was kind of torn - I wasn't sure if I should start a new one, or just publish this one. I decided on the former, since I'm sure I've bitched enough about school through my past year's blog entries ;)

Plus, I'm sure you could give a rat's arse about ecommerce and whatnot. If you are, I'll post the new url once I get everything setup on the other side :)

-Kirk

Troubling

This evening, I caught the last third of an episode of I Want a Famous Face by accident.

I was troubled.

This lady wanted to do the plastic surgery thing to look like Carmen Electra. I just don't get it. The whole elective plastic surgery thing just doesn't sit well with me.

-Kirk

Roadkill and the return of the geese

It's crazy the amount of roadkill I've seen while driving around town.

Natural selection at work.

It's like animals forgot how to properly cross the street while they were hiding out for the winter time.

Also, the dreaded geese are back. They're lounging around the parking lot. They're chilling on the lawn. And of course, they're milling about the sidewalk.

Why is it that geese are able to fly, but they always walk when crossing the street?

-Kirk

Saving is sexy.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well.

It's no secret that I'm pretty thrifty (cheap, frugal, whatever ya wanna call it) :) I wouldn't say I'm extreme, but I try to keep a good eye on my finances. But when I hear that someone else is the same way, that's pretty hot.

Way hot.

That's probably up there with the good sense of humor thing.

-Kirk

My brain says 10:30. The clock says 11:30.

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening.

The whole time change thing is kind of wacky. But I like it because it means more daylight for me.

Anyway, so Mark (my brother) was visiting this weekend again. 2 times in one year! It's a record. I probably haven't seen him this much since the late 80s (seriously).

We did some hanging out, poked around town, visited people, and did some gaming.

Nerdy stuff.

Like usual, we stay up pretty late, and I feel totally wiped out now. I'll have to go to bed early tonight (so the blog entry's going to be short).

An opportunity came up to buy one, so now I'm a happy PSP owner :) The screen is incredible. The gameplay is equally impressive. The whole system is very nifty. I highly recommend it if you want PS2 quality gaming to go. I ended up getting Need for Speed Underground Rivals - so far so good.

-Kirk

Legit or Phish?

With all of the weird phishing messages I've been receiving from financial institutions, I'm becoming super skeptical of all e-mail that I receive from businesses. It's kind of sad, but true.

These phishing messages look so authentic I'm paranoid that I'll delete something that's actually for real.

Bastards.

-Kirk

Bonnie & Clyde

I've had the Jay-Z and Beyonce Bonnie & Clyde song in my head all day today...

Not sure why...

-Kirk