YAY!
Black Friday Ads (bfads.net) has updated some of their stuff, and has information on the Black Friday sales of the following stores:
Ace Hardware
fye
Harbor Freight
Old Navy
Sears
I'm sure more will come, soon, but the one I was most interested in, Sears, is posted.
There's a lot less of the $10 stuff in the advert this year, but I'm sure there will be spiffy stuff in the store.
"Everybody dies. What matters is what you do between now and when it happens to you."
I need to start figuring out what I'm going to do with the time I've got left.
Granted, I've got a while (or so I assume), but that's not really the point.
What is the point, you might ask?
Well, it's that I'm going to hit 30 in a little less than a month, and I'm not satisfied with my accomplishments.
I don't have any assets, to speak of.
I haven't started a family.
I haven't traveled abroad.
I haven't made my "spiritual journey of discovery".
In short, I simply exist.
"Get busy living, or get busy dying."
Decisions need to be made. Things need to be done.
I'll be damned if I know what they are, though.
Fuck the War on Terror.
We need a War on Colds.
This SUCKS.
I wasn't about to call in sick today, even though I feel like I've been hit by a freight train.
My head is pounding, my sinuses alternate between being plugged solid to running like a broken faucet, my throat is raw, and I can barely stand.
One one hand, thankfully this happened at the end of the week.
On the other hand, thanks for ruining my weekend, asshole cold.
I better be able to make it to Sears to get my cool screwdriver ratchet socket things on Club sale.
If not, I'm going to be really pissy.
I'm going back to bed now, if I can sleep more than 15 minutes.
OK, so, I rule.
This job is going to rock so much!
Things are pretty steady right now, so I got a "technical" tour of the place I've been working, which is great. I know where everything is, but I didn't know what everything was.
I'm really going to enjoy this.
Of course, my cubicle could be better. It's among the smallest cubes in the office, and they're right on the main path to the conference rooms and the coffee machines. Oh joy.
All is not lost, though - with any luck, rumors of expansion in the department will hold true, and they'll be forced to either reorganize or move us to larger quarters (the preferred solution).
We shall see.
So, I think we get compensated $0.485/mile for travel.
Given that I get about 20 miles/gallon on average, and assuming gas costs $3.00/gallon, that's a consumption of about $0.15/mile.
Yeah, yeah, I know, wear on the engine, oil, tires, other consumables, whatever.
I just got done driving the new dude all over the coast, showing him the different sites. I easily put a couple hundred miles on the Vic today.
I can't wait until the expense check comes in.
Two more days at the coast, and I'm in my new job.
Of course, this is when the anxiety sets in.
I'm don't have any misconceptions about my skill. I know where I'm at, and I'm confident I'll do well.
It's just that I can't help but worry about it.
What if I'm overestimating myself? What if I seriously suck at this stuff?
And why do I have these irrational fears?
Idiocy, I think. When in doubt, bet on idiocy.
I need to hurry up and get into my new job, dang it.
Police Make Arrest In Fatal StabbingSALEM, Ore. - Police say a man has been arrested for the fatal stabbing of a Salem man in a McDonald's parking lot.
Officers responded to reports of a disturbance just after midnight Oct. 13 at the McDonald's located on Lancaster and Devonshire NE. They found Esteven Zapata had been stabbed during the incident and died shortly after.
Evaristo Antonio Tenorio, 18, was arrested in connection with the stabbing Tuesday. He is due in court Thursday.
So, don't get me wrong - one more dead, another one in jail. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
I'm curious, though - is murderer now a job that nobody else wants?
It's sitting in our office, 100 miles from me.
I have to wait until FRIDAY to get it.
LAAAAAAME.
ARGH! :(
I had fully intended to do all of my travel laundry yesterday, to have it folded, packed, and ready to go, so I wouldn't be up late again tonight, but I'm only about half done.
I'm going to go throw another load in here in a minute, and I should be good, but, damn, I was tired.
I really hate that I've only got the two days off, and I spent most of them catching up on sleep.
I did run the couple errands that needed running, so we're good there, but I'm still disappointed.
Oh well.
1.5 weeks to go!
So, I "lost" about $90 last night, which sucked. I'm still ahead, overall, and it took me about two hours to lose that much on a $5-minimum table, so it's not too bad.
I'm also going to be at the coast ANOTHER two days, so I can briefly train the new guy, and the guy who's going to finish his training.
Jolly good fun!
My new laptop better hurry up and show! :)
Got to go to Olive Garden for their never-ending pasta bowl tonight, and I was really unhappy.
Alfredo, as always, was good, but I just wasn't all that hungry, the 5-Cheese Marinara sauce sucked, and I left my leftovers at the table.
DAMMIT.
OMG THIS GAME ROCKS!
So, today, several of my co-workers from various departments in the valley were over at the coast for work, and everyone decided to get together and come to Lincoln City for dinner and drinks.
Afterwards, a couple of the guys and myself decided to head over to Chinook Winds Casino.
Now, I've never been to a casino before - ever.
They had a few casino-style poker games going - some crap like 3-card Poker and Pai Gow Poker (nothing that I wanted to bother trying to learn and play), a fuckton of slot machines, and Blackjack!
They had some $10-minimum tables, and a couple of $5-minimum tables, which is where I found myself at.
I played with $60, and ended the night up about $200, which was pretty fucking sweet!
I'm going back tomorrow night, to see if I can recapture the magic!
As we enter Week 4 of my coastal visit (one more week to go!), I'm finding myself bored out of my gourd.
There's really not that much to do around here, unless your a touristy-type person. Having lived at the coast, I've done all the touristy crap, so it doesn't appeal to me.
Chuck and Heroes is on TV tonight (soon!), so I'll be watching that, but other than TV and the Intarwebz (and slow hotel Intarwebz, at that), that's all I've got. I'm not a solo-movie or solo-dining kind of guy, so, bleh.
Oh well. I just need to power through the next couple of weeks, and I'll be home!
So, I changed the oil in the Vic for the first time today.
Wow, if that isn't a bit of a pain in the ass.
Jacking up the Explorer is easy. I can get my jack under the Vic easy enough, but I have virtually no swing for the lever, so it takes forever to jack it up.
The drain plug is accessible, easily enough.
The filter though - wow.
So, I bought the new filter, and was surprised that it's about half the size of the Explorer.
Explorer = 4.0L V6
Vic = 4.6L V8
Wouldn't you expect the car to have the bigger filter?
Then, when I get under there to replace it, I discover that it's mounted sideways.
Who's brilliant idea was that?! It's always been my habit (and I thought it was recommended) to fill the new filter with clean oil before installing it.
Kinda impossible with the way it's mounted.
Then, there's suspension/steering components in the way, and there's little clearance at the end of the filter. Conveniently, the only filter wrenches I have are the end-cap style, not the traditional, so it's going to be a pain to get a ratchet/breaker up in there.
Thankfully, I went on a ratchet-buying binge a few months back, and the awesome Craftsman Offset-Handle Flex-Head ratchet was just the thing to get up in there with my filter tool.
Once that was loosened, I had to do the Hokey-Pokey with the filter, and jockey it around the components to get it out of there.
Wow.
All in all, it didn't take THAT much time, it was just annoying.
On the plus side, the Vic is now running on Mobil 1 Synthetic, just like the Explorer - it should be MUCH happier now.
Now, it's time to do laundry in preparation for packing, for yet another week at the coast.
Yeehaw!
Found out that I also get a new cellphone, since my current craptacular phone is going to my replacement.
Woot!
I truly hope I get something half-way decent. It'd be so badass to get a SmartPhone or PDA deal.
My first phone when I joined the company was a retarded Samsung, with the world's worst user interface.
You know how most phones have a "Call" button (usually green) and an "End Call" button (usually red)??
Yeah, this one used softkeys - those buttons that change depending on the context/feature you're in. Completely retarded. I don't know if the developers at Samsung thought they were being smart, but, seriously - way to go, fucktards! Let's change the most basic features of, what, EVERY SINGLE OTHER CELLPHONE SINCE THE INVENTION OF CELLPHONES?!
Morons.
My replacement was a semi-nifty (for being cheap/free) Nokia flip deal, and it worked pretty decently, until, for whatever reason, I didn't receive half of my calls. Not great.
So, I got them to replace it. I asked for a RAZR, since that's what I've got for my personal phone, and I know it works. They claimed they don't have them, but that's bullshit - they just didn't want to buy me a new phone, so they took whatever they could get for free/cheap. It's a Motorola, so it uses the handy mini-USB charging adapter, but it's still crappy - and this one has no camera, which comes in REAL handy for a lot of things.
Thankfully, I'll soon be rid of it, but, knowing my luck, I'll get another one of the same. Yay.
So, this is pretty sweet.
My new position as a Network Administrator means that I get a laptop!
Woot woot!
Since the company doesn't seem to recycle too much in the way of old hardware (not that there's all that much to recycle, as it is), a brand new system is being purchased for me!
I'm going to be the proud pseudo-owner of an IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad T61!
It's not exactly what I would have purchased for my own personal stuff, but this is a pretty killer sweet machine.
The specs of the one I'm getting:
2.0ghz Core 2 Duo CPU
4GB RAM
14.1" SXGA+ LCD (1400x1050)
128mb discrete Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M
80GB HD
Wireless, Bluetooth, Fingerprint reader, all kinds of other goodies...
I'm pretty stoked...
The video card is about equivalent to a GeForce 8400GS mobile, so, while not super-great, more than adequate - I should be able to do some gaming on this bad boy, not that I'd ever take advantage of work equipment in such a manner.
The other cool factor is, now that I have this for my job, there's really no restrictions on me taking it wherever I go - vacation, etc.
Obviously, there's all the associated risks with personal use of company equipment, so I'll have to behave myself, but, all-in-all, it's not too bad.
This means I can put off buying a personal machine - at least, for a little while.