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March 22, 2005
motion
Just a lot of craziness going on lately. Kara's birthday was on Monday; I sent some stuff up and we're going to celebrate additionally on Friday. I can't wait to go to Boston!
My excitement for going up there honestly does wax and wane. There are times when I almost don't feel like going. Of course, once I get up there, I always have a great time. But it's like going for a run: getting started is always the hardest part.
Lots and lots of stuff is in motion. I can't talk about it necessarily in any detail until I get some things nailed down, for various reasons. But let's just say that I'm busy, and things are going very well.
MJP and Katie are going to be up there for Easter, and Kara and I are doing our first family holiday together, which is exciting. I have to say that Easter isn't the hugest holiday for my family, certainly not like Thanksgiving or Christmas. Because it's sort of awkwardly located near spring break, I didn't come home from college every year for it, at least as far as I recall. It's more one of those "nice to have" holidays rather than a real serious family together time. So it's a good "starter holiday" for us, I guess.
The parents came down here last weekend to see the place, finally, and we had a good day going out to brunch at Tonic and then walking through the Zoo. I got some neat photos of the pandas and sloth bears, although the best one I took came out blurry. I will post a few of them later on.
REI is going very well. I like having a little something extra to do with my time during the week, and before long, I'll actually be out on the floor selling stuff. They take their training very seriously. I have about 8 hours of training before I take my first real shift.
Posted by Mark at 03:30 PM | Comments (1)
March 18, 2005
on the bike
Rode the bike to work for the first time this year. It was like the first day you go to the pool in early Summer...still really a little too cold to be in the water, but you do it anyway because it's kind of like telling Mother Nature, "Ok, let's get moving with the warmth already." It wasn't terrible just going through the park, but once I got out on the highway and was doing 60-70, the cold started to get bothersome. I might take the pike home, which means I can ride a little slower, warm up at stoplights, etc.
Mom and Dad are coming down to see my place sometime tomorrow. I figure I'll take them for a walk up through the zoo, maybe do lunch somewhere around here.
I've been a little nervous and tense lately, and I think I'm not getting enough exercise again, so I'm gonna go down to the gym now. Work is unfortunately getting slow again. There is a project that has to be finished up before I head up to Boston for Easter...well, technically, it just needs to go into QA. It's hard to get motivated about your project when nobody really wants to use it, though.
Posted by Mark at 02:28 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2005
wow
These are some tight pants. They didn't look so...painted-on, in the picture.
I was going to go downstairs and have a snack. I don't think I'll be doing any snacking anytime soon.
Chris says I look like an actor from a bad 80's post-apocalyptic movie.
Posted by Mark at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2005
a slight touch of the nerves
Still feeling a little bit keyed up today, which is weird...it's like I drank a bunch of caffeine, but I haven't had anything of the sort since maybe a glass of soda this morning as I left the house. I'm guessing it's one of two things: either I'm coming down from being full of cold medicine all weekend, or I'm just, well, keyed up. It's been a pretty busy day. Nothing I can get into any great detail about right now, over the blog. But suffice it to say that there's plenty going on to keep me occupied.
I had a bit of a cold or flu or whatever this weekend, and I'd say I'm about 90% better now. I'm still sniffling and I'm going to keep off the treadmill for a few more days, but I'm nowhere near as bad as I was on, say, Friday or Saturday. I was even well enough yesterday to take the bike out for a short spin around Rock Creek Park.
My leather pants should be here soon. Fedex says they're in Lewisberry, PA, whereever that is. I do also need to pair that up with a leather jacket, but just getting a bona fide pair of riding pants is a good move.
Oh, right, big other thing, I'm going to do Easter with Kara this year. It was a very impromptu decision, since neither of us knew if she was going to be in Wichita or Canada or what. But it turns out that she'll be working normally, so I'm heading up there next Friday morning. I had a couple of free flights saved up, so I decided to use one of 'em. This will be our first holiday spent together. And I thought I had until Thanksgiving. Not quite.
I talked to Csopi tonight, and she's doing fine, if a little bit harried with work. Her honeymoon with Chuck was wonderful, and I'm excited to see the pictures, and the wedding video. I can't wait to head down to Florida again for a little mini vacation.
I can't believe it's mid-March already. I have training at REI tomorrow night, after which I should start getting some hours. I'm pretty excited about that too. Well, and a little nervous, to be honest. It's been quite some time since I've had a job of that sort. It's not a big deal; if I can design n-tier enterprise applications for real-time multi-user cross-browser web environments, I can sell backpacks to fellow yuppies.
Posted by Mark at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2005
on geekdom
I'm in a little bit of a better mood now, I think. I'm kind of excited for Mongolian BBQ in like 2 hours. Kara and I are trying to figure out our schedules for April, which looks to be a busy month.
Of course I've already seen the bootleg of tonight's Episode III trailer, and it looks promising. I know that's been true of pretty much every prequel trailer so far, but, what can I say? I'm a sucker for Star Wars. I can't help but hope that the acting won't be so terrible that it overshadows what is, IMHO, a pretty interesting story.
And I do maintain that the storylines of Ep I and II were not that bad. There were flaws, to be sure...I hated the whole midichlorians thing, and I just didn't see on-screen where Anakin and Padme went emotionally from being acquaintences to a married couple. But that's not a big storyline problem, that's either a script problem or an acting problem. It's like saying, "Anakin and Padme fall in love." That's established. The problem is that the process by which this happens is poorly-scripted and unbelievable. The storyline is fine. The specifics are just lacking.
I mean, you have a situation where a senator (Palpatine/Darth Sidious) stages a civil war (the Clone Wars) and uses that instability to seize power over the galaxy, and destroy his most hated enemies (the Jedi) in the process. And the kid (Anakin) whom Sidious uses to further his own ends by twisting Anakin's fear of loss--by manipulating his feelings of love--is ultimately redeemed by the product of that love (Luke), and manages to put things somewhat right in the end.
See? It's a good story. It's a sensible story. It's just the middle bits that get screwed up. Which is why George Lucas shouldn't be directing. And why Han shot first. But that's another story.
It feels good to be a geek. Even a 27-year-old geek.
Posted by Mark at 04:59 PM | Comments (1)
27
I got a cool Cat's Meow of the Newhouse building at Syracuse from Mom yesterday, plus a care package from Kara and a card from Kara's mum. Kara got me some shirts from the Gap, amongst other things. I'm wearing one of them now. It's one of those cool vertical stripey ones that are popular now.
I just ordered myself a little present. New Enough had a great deal on leather motorcycle pants--only $140 shipped! So those are on the way. I still need to get some mesh pants for summer, but these are a step in the right direction. I've been riding around without adequate leg protection for too long now.
I'm feeling stuffy. That, coupled with it being my birthday, coupled with some other things, has me feeling pretty down. I know I should just relax and things will work out; they always have. But it's hard.
Posted by Mark at 10:39 AM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2005
sun
I love having a south-facing window. I opened the drapes and I'm sitting here at the computer with that 3 o'clock sun streaming into the room, just loving it. I can feel Spring is just around the corner; I went for a walk a couple hours ago in Rock Creek Park, and despite the snow, there were subtle hints that the weather is about to turn warmer and hibernating things are getting ready to wake up. It was funny noting where the snow hadn't melted yet. The snowy areas were almost some kind of shadow map showing where the sun tended to appear, and where it didn't get warm enough.
I bought over a hundred dollars in groceries yesterday. I would estimate that I will have enough food to last me until the end of summer. But I was really running low on supplies and also I had a five-percent off coupon which I kinda wanted to use. Five bucks isn't much, but between that and my Safeway card, I saved about 50 dollars. So that's like saving a third of your total bill thanks to smart shopping. I know it's basically selling your demographic information in order to get a discount, but if selling that same information means more frequent sales on pickles and frozen pizza, I'm all for it. There is that whole other side to the privacy argument: sometimes, you WANT people to know your preferences.
Snacking words of wisdom: whatever you're munching on, put it in a little dish. The worst thing you can do is have the entire bag sitting in front of you.
Posted by Mark at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2005
running is hard
I'm doing Matt's running thing on a smaller scale. Mine was to try to do 10 miles by March 10th. So far I'm up to 6. Not bad.
Setting realistic goals is hard. All I can think about is the fact that 6 minute miles are much harder than they used to be. And they never were that easy.
Off home for the weekend!
Posted by Mark at 05:39 PM | Comments (0)
March 02, 2005
who wants hiking boots?
Guess who just got a job offer for a part-time position at REI? I'll give you two clues: he rides a motorcycle, and he's not a toaster.
Speaking of toasters, the heat is back on. Theoretically, the apartment should approach 60+ temperatures at some point this evening.
Posted by Mark at 08:09 PM | Comments (2)
lists
I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed at this point. Lots of stuff going on.
We ran out of heating oil two days ago. Chris suspects that Yoni was running the heat way up during the day, when the rest of us were at work...we burned through what should've been enough oil to last the rest of the winter in only 2 months. Not too happy about that.
Yoni has moved out and Paul has moved in. Hopefully that will work out okay. We have to meet with the landlords and get him formally taken care of, fill out his application, and figure out what we're doing when the lease is up this summer.
Kara's birthday is coming up, and I need to figure out what to get her. I have some ideas.
Really what I need to do is sit down and make a list of all the stuff I need to do.
Posted by Mark at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)