The Cat's Nuts

It’s Monday again. The Dolphins performed wonderfully on Thanksgiving, so that was a nice way to kick off the long weekend. The weekend on the whole was uneventful. Laura and I went up to my parents house and hung out for Thursday and Friday, but we came back to the city on Friday evening so that Laura could take a practice LSAT on Saturday.

The way that I figure things, I have about another two weeks left working in Jersey, so that’ll be nice when things finally close up here. While I don’t mind working here, it’s a pain to make the drive every day. Hopefully, when I get assigned to my next project, they’ll have me traveling or working in NYC. That would be really nice, but I gotta wait to hear about that. I think that at some point today I’m going to write an Email to the HR person that originally hired me, and see if she has any ideas of places that I could move and still retain my job. Currently, my plan is just to move in with my parents, seeing as how that’s free housing and all, it seems like a decent idea for a few months.

When Laura and I got back from my parents house, we decided that it was time to look into undertaking a project that we have been preparing for since we moved into our apartment. We have always wanted to take all the beer caps that we collect and lay them into our coffee table and cover the caps with Epoxy. To start this process, Laura and I went out to Home Depot and purchased a router this weekend. $60 later, we were at home, routing out a piece of practice wood that we had gotten. I think that the project will go off without a hitch, but at this point, Laura and I realize that with her upcoming LSAT looming on Saturday, it may not be the best time to launch into something like that, but come next Sunday, we’re going to go crazy on it. 

In the past year, Laura and I have been less than regular in our working out. It’s actually been pretty bad for us in terms of weight loss. While I haven’t lost anything in the past year, I haven’t gained either, so I suppose that’s a plus. Hopefully, within the next few months, I’ll be able to shed some weight, but I suppose that means jumping into a better workout routine. The gym that we go to no longer allows you to sign up in 3 month blocks, so I’m stuck getting a month long membership for the next two months. It just irritates me so much when I pay $55 for a month long membership and then I go 3-4 times. Ugh. Misery.

One of the bright spots of the weekend was a windfall of money that I may or may not have received. With my job, I have lots of expenses, so I tend to get theses checks in the mail for $1000’s of dollars. Well, on the 20th, I got a check for around $1300. Dutifully, I transferred this money straight from my account over to American Express. Yesterday, I went to my bank account and saw that the money was still in there. Baffled, I went to my American Express account, and sure enough, the bill had been paid. Now… I don’t know if this is going to stay like this, but the people that I spoke to on the phone from both companies assured me that all the transactions that were pending had transferred through. Not that I really like the banking system is going to allow a mistake such as this to go unfixed, it’s nice to hope.

I think that tonight, I’m going to work on putting away all my clothes that are kicking around the house. This weekend, Laura and I did around 50 lbs of laundry, and it’s now sitting on the living room floor, so I figure that I can take care of that tonight while Laura is studying for her LSATs.

I just found out from my boss that I’m going to be driving down to Titus, NJ today, which is a 45 minute drive. While normally I wouldn’t be pleased about that, it may be nice to just get out into rural New Jersey, especially because it’s so nice out. I don’t know when we’re heading out, but I guess it’ll be after lunch some time.

Anyway, it’s about time I did some work.

Posted by Michael at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is Thanksgiving and the original plan of the day was for my brother, father and me to go mountain biking, but upon waking up, it was raining and just super gross outside, so we decided against going anywhere.

This morning has been pretty lazy. Laura is talking to my father about her job and showing him the software that her company works with. Recently, Laura submitted a retooled version of my father's resume to her company in hopes that we can get my father a different job. Currently he's working on putting together a training program for new hires, but he would really like to be working in a more tech based field. My father is very similar to myself in the fact that he's very comfortable working on computers, but he's not a programmer at all. According to HR, they are going to be giving him a call, but as of last Thursday (today is Thursday) he has yet to hear back from them. i figure that he'll hear something on Monday, well...that's the hope.

This coming week is the last week for Laura to study for the LSAT before she takes the plunge and actually takes the real test. She's been scoring around a 170 on her practice tests, so hopefully she can do that well when she takes the actual test. Because she's applying so late (December/January), she has to score on the upper tier of applications in order to be accepted. We both have our fingers crossed, but I know that she's going to do fine.

Last weekend, Erik and I got together to bottle up the beer that we had sitting around the house. We have a smoked porter and a regular porter that is now all bottled and almost ready for consumption. I have a feeling that the smoked porter isn't going to be that great, because when we bottled it, it had a funny smell to it, but when we had a taste, it wasn't so bad, so hopefully it was just the fact that it was sitting in the carboy with all the spend yeast and hops and that's what was causing the issue. Once again I left the beer in the primary fermenter for much longer than it should have been and I think that's the difference. Any beer that we have brewed where I have been diligent and moved the beer out of the primary after fermentation, the beer has been decent, but when we leave it in there, all hell breaks loose. So we'll see.. if it's bad, it's bad. Nothing lost. I am just hoping that the porter that we brewed is going to be tasty. I am half way tempted to crack it open tonight at Thanksgiving dinner, but I don't know if it's worth doing because it's yet to even have a week in the bottle. We'll see.

After the Holiday, I'm going to eventually have to make my way into the HR office and let the head HR person know that I'm planning on moving out of NYC. The plan that I had originally had, prior to the merger, was to move up with my brother outside of Boston, but I doubt that is going to happen now. With the merger, I have a whole lot more incentive to stay with my job until at least July. As of now, the most obvious option for me is to move back in with my parents in their home in Upstate, NY. While moving in with my parents is a poor option, it will help to save massive amounts of money, thus enabling me to possibly move elsewhere in the country with ease and possibly even purchase a piece of property. Who knows. At this point, I am really just waiting until the beginning of January to really make the final call as to where I'm going to be going.

Laura and I are about to head out to town to gather up some food stuffs for Turkey Day.

Posted by Michael at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I want everyone out there to please read this CNN article...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/22/woman.shot.ap/index.html

92 year old woman, opens fire on 3 DEA agents that have a warrent to enter her home and detain her. Not only does she fire at them, but she hits each of them. She happens to be black. So what is the reaction from the people around her?

"I'm sure she had good reason to shoot them"

What the fuck!??! When a police officer busts down your door, yelling "POLICE!" that's when you lay on the ground, not go and grab your gun and start shooting at them. I don't care what your age is, if you fire on an agent of the law, you deserve to be shot. Simple as that.

Awhile ago, Laura and I were out eating at Lodge in Williamsburg. We were sitting outside, minding our own business. I casually glanced over at a street light that was covered in posters. One of the posters was advertising some warehouse party that was titled "Kill Whitey". Now... I wasn't shocked or appalled, but when it comes down to it, why is it that the black community can foster, what would be considered extreme racism if it were in the white community, and that's okay? If I were to throw a Wine Tasting Party called "Kill Blackies/Monkeys/Pick your racial slur" I would probably be shot or arrested, (and I wouldn't shoot at the police while they were doing it). I just hate the hypocrisy. The black community wants to be treated equally and without prejudice, yet they foster racism in their own communities, and outcast themselves from the high income jobs by looking and speaking like thugs. Yes, I know I'm generalizing, but it just pisses me off that someone can shoot and maime 3 police officers and then the "community" says the family deserves an apology. How about they send an apology to the three DEA officers that were shot.

Fucking world.

Yes, I will blog more. I've been really busy, but it's a nice 4 day weekend, so I'll have some free time.

Posted by Michael at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(See "new" previous entry...I had written it and forgot to post it....so read that first.)

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will notice how much I have fallen off the wagon in terms of producing numerous blog entries. It’s true, I have really gotten away from it. I used to post almost every day, and usually got out around 15-20 postings a month, but that’s significantly changed. I’ve been pretty busy at work recently, traveling around, and pretty much just not having the time to sit and write. I’m going to make more of an effort now that things are starting to really heat up in terms of “life activity”.

Next weekend is Thanksgiving, so it’s a short week. My job has me commuting out to Bridgewater, NJ every day, so I am looking forward to the nice 4 day weekend that accompanies Turkey Day. The one nice thing about working in North Jersey is that I was given permission to rent a car for the entire month that I am scheduled to be out here, so that’s nice. It means that I now have a zippy Mazda 3 at my disposal over the Thanksgiving holiday, making it unnecessary for me to take the terrible NJ Transit train up to my parent’s house. Laura and I have also been looking into doing something for the holiday, but at this time, we’ve yet to really figure out what we’re going to be doing, if anything at all. In the next two-three days, we’re going to really have to settle down and figure out what we’re going to do, because at the start of next week, it’s going to be a little late. We’ll see. Laura and I are going to talk about it tonight and come to a conclusion.

Last weekend, I went up to my parents house for my induction into my High School’s wrestling hall of fame. The dinner was nice, but nothing too special. I got up and gave a much more mild version of the speech that I wrote in my last entry. I pretty much just went up there and thanked my parents and coaches and talked about work ethic. Nothing too special, and nothing too bad either.

Laura and I stayed up there at my parents house until Saturday morning when they came into the city with us to spend the beautiful day in the city. We walked around SoHo for a bit and eventually found out way over to d.b.a. over on the lower east side. Everyone had a few beers and we all had some good conversation. Laura and I were pretty toasted, but we had a nice time. After d.b.a., the four of us headed into Brooklyn to go to Peter Lugars for a 2:45 lunch/dinner type thing.

A meal at Peter Lugars, no matter your intention, always ends up costing around $300, and this was no exception. We ordered a tasty Porterhouse for 4, a few slabs of bacon, and various vegetables and fries. It was really nice, and I totally enjoyed myself. My father agreed with me that it was some of the best steak that we had ever consumed, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from Lugars.

After our meal, we decided to walk the mile or so home to our apartment in Williamsburg. Frankly, after drinking a bottle of wine at dinner, and having the beer at d.b.a. I think that each of us was reeling from the over indulgence. Laura doesn’t even remember talking to a friend of hers on the phone, and I don’t remember much of the walk home.

What happened next is what you would expect when you have an early alcohol laden dinner and then go and sit and watch some TV. Both of my parents passed out on the couch, and Laura wasn’t too far behind. After catching a nap, my parents eventually decided it was time to head home.

Through the course of the evening, the topic of my father’s job came up. Laura and I both decided that he should look into doing consulting. After a little convincing, Laura and I have been able to convince my father to submit his resume (or at least let Laura do it for him) to Laura’s company. While the chances of him actually getting a job from one resume submission aren’t all that great, it’s worth a shot and the worst case scenario is that he has an updated resume that he can use to send out to other tech based jobs. I think that’s an important step for him, even if he doesn’t get an interview. Tonight, Laura and I are going to work on his resume and see if we can’t get it straightened out so that Laura can give it to her boss.

Tomorrow morning, Laura is heading out to Reston, Virginia for a night. While she is there, she’s going to be meeting up with the boss of her boss, and that’s who she’s going to pitch my father to. With any luck, he’ll get an interview.

I am currently at the client site, and frankly, it’s pretty boring. Yesterday, I worked straight through the entire day and didn’t stop once. Today, I worked till around 2:00, non-stop and then ran out of things to do, so since 2:00, I have just been hanging around, not doing a whole lot. Supposedly, the project manager was supposed to come back to the office, but she’s yet to return, so I can’t get any more instruction. I think that I’m going to wait till around 5:15, and then head out for the night.

The drive to get here is an hour and fifteen minutes, so it’s not that bad. Hopefully I can get home without incident. Yesterday on my way home from work, I kind of got lost. Well…not “lost” more of took a detour into suburban Staten Island. I hate that miserable island. It’s almost as bad as long island.

Let’s see…what else is new… well… I got paid yesterday, and I finally paid off my credit cards. I am 100% debt free (not counting student loans), so that’s a good feeling. I also did my expenses today, and found out that once I get my check for those expenses, I will be able to pay off my American express bill in full, so that’s a nice thing too. It’s nice to finally be in a position where I can start to save money.

Anyway, I’m going to pack up some stuff and head out of here. There doesn’t seem to be much of a reason to stay.

Posted by Michael at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tomorrow, I am going to be inducted into my High School’s wrestling hall of fame. What that entails is entirely unbeknownst to me, but what I do know is that when I get up there in front of the 100+ people, they are going to be expecting me to say something. Tonight I learned that my old wrestling coach is going to be introducing me and one of the other inductees. This coach was by far one of the greatest influences in my life. Not that I learned a whole bunch from him, but I think that he taught me how to take it easy. How to take something that can be very stressful (wrestling) and make it into something fun.

Along with accepting the award, I have to give a little speech, nothing major, just a 3-5 minute blurb about what wrestling has taught me. I was talking about it with Laura the other night, and when it comes down to it, the best thing that I can do is to tell a story. I figure that what better way to figure out what I’m going to say then to write it on my blog.

During my sophomore year, I had just come off a summer of working out at the gym, playing a solid season of football, and spending many hours in the wrestling room over the summer working to get better. I knew that there was an upperclassmen in my weight class (171), and that I was going to have to beat him in order to get a starting spot. During one of the first few practices, coach put my in a drilling session with him.

Now this wrestler wasn’t the nicest of folks, and frankly, he was a damn mean person and didn’t like to get beaten. For some reason, whether it was him having an off day, or it was my hard work finally paying off, I was really giving him a run for his money. I took him down and he couldn’t get away. I was thrilled, totally exhilarated. In the split second, I lost my focus and Graz turned and punched me square in the face. At that point I quickly ran into the locker room, not because I was hurt, but because I was a pansy and I started to cry. I didn’t know why I was crying and I wasn’t hurt, but I felt wronged. I had worked really hard and was wrestling according to the rules, and no where in the rules did it say that Graz could punch me in the face when I was kicking his ass.

After calming myself down for a few minutes, Harry came into the locker room to talk to me. He said to me

“You know Mikey, life isn’t fair. No matter what you do, there are going to be things that aren’t going to work out the way that you planned them. Now, right now, you have two choices. You can pack up your stuff and go home, or you can suck it up and go back out there. I know what the harder choice is to make, but you gotta make it.” Or something to that effect.

At that point I knew two things. #1) I had to go back out there, that wasn’t even a question. #2) I had to yell at my parents for not beating me when I was a child, because perhaps if they had, I wouldn’t have cried like a sissy in the first place.

As it turns out, Graz moved up to the next weight class, probably because he didn’t want to cut the weight to stay at 171, but I always told myself that it was because he was scared of me.

What I really took away from that experience, even more than the fact that I need to beat my kids, is that hard work does pay off, even if you get punched in the face for it. That work ethic took me through the section 9 tournament and onto place 4th at states. More than that, it took me into collegiate wrestling at Columbia.

For those of you that have ever watched me wrestle, you will quickly realize that I wasn’t what you would call a “finesse” wrestler. Other than a fancy spin Russian, I didn’t have much in the way of technique, but what I did have was a solid set of lungs and determination. I can’t tell you how many matches I won, not because I was the better wrestler, but because I knew, without a doubt that I was in better shape and had worked harder. I may have looked like crap doing it, but I more often then not got my hand raised at the end.

Without a doubt, the worth ethic that I learned through wrestling, and the determination and self confidence that that brought me, was by far the greatest thing that I ever got from wrestling.

So that’s my speech. Pretty decent I think. It’ll be short, sweet, mildly finny, but still have a solid message.

Currently, I am on a flight home to New York. This is going to be my last flight for awhile as I have been put on a new job in North Jersey. I finally got the address today, and went to figure out how long it was going to take me to get there every morning. To my disgust, I figured out that it was a solid 2.5 hour round trip in order to get to where I needed to be. I knew that wasn’t going to fly, so I sent out an email to one of the project managers and they informed me that I should go and rent a car. At this point, I don’t know how well that’ll even work, seeing as how I’m going to have to travel through Staten Island in order to get to where I need to go. I have a feeling that I’m going to be doing a lot of sitting in traffic in the near future. I’m thinking that some days I may just say fuck it and go spend the night at my parents place, just to avoid the traffic.

From what I hear, this project could end up lasting for a significant amount of time, and therefore, it may be in my best interest to look into just buying a crappy car to drive. The way my company is set up, they will pay me $0.52 per mile I drive in my own car. At that price, I’ll drive anywhere. We’ll see though, gotta see if that’ll even be worth it.

Anyway, I think that I’m starting to piss off the person sitting next to me, so I’m going to go and get working on a secret project. Yes, I will tell you what it is later, but not right now…it’s secret.

Posted by Michael at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nothing. You know that I'm not a real political person, and I don't tend to really get riled up by political statements and all those rallies and junk, but this time, I think it's really gotten out of hand. If you are an American Citizen, then you NEED to watch this so that you know what your government is doing while you lie complacently on the web or in front of your television.

America needs to wake the fuck up and impeach this horrible President.

Posted by Michael at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I feel that in the past 7 days, my life has gone through more changes than most people typically do. I suppose the reason for those changes can be directly attributed to the fact that I work in a job where I can be sent anywhere at any time to fulfill billing requirements and couple that with the fact that come January 31st, I have no clue as to what I'm going to be doing.

I have found out that after next week, I will no longer be coming out to the glorious Columbus, Ohio for the project that I am currently working on. Apparently, a large pharmaceutical company in Northern New Jersey is handing off all their Business Intelligence needs to my company, and I am going to be part of the team that goes into the offices and finds out what kind of needs they have. It sounds like an interesting project to be working on, and it could be quite good for me, considering that it's fairly centrally located. Technically, I could travel there from my parents house with reletive ease. Although it may be a 2 hour drive, that wouldn't be that big of a deal to do for a month or so, especially if I were able to save tons of money by living with my parents for a month or two. It’s just strange to think that in about 3 months, I am going to be out of my apartment that I have been living in for about two years. More than that, I don’t even have a plan for where I’m going to go or what I’m going to do. It’s kind of scary actually, but I think that I’ll be able to deal with it. As my mother said, and I tend to believe this, everything will fall into place and become clearer as the time approaches.

Other than the changes that are going on at work, which are huge, things are pretty much the same at home and between Laura and I. Pretty calm and sedate. We were planning on doing this whole Beer Golf kind of outing on Saturday, but we both feel that we don’t need to be drinking that much and we both should probably use or money and time more effectively. Seeing as how Laura is going to go and take an LSAT the next day (practice), I will tag along with her and just hang out on Saturday night.

Although I was saving a ton of money by traveling all the time, it is going to be nice to finally be able to come home and sleep in my own bed at night. I just hope that the traveling won’t get the best of me while I am still having to live in the city. I will have to check and see how that all works out in terms of train schedules and stuff. I figure that if it takes me around 2 hours to get there by train, I should be able to get the company to foot the bill for a hotel room for one or two nights during the week so as to allow me to not travel back and forth every day. I think that I’m getting a little ahead of myself. I haven’t even really heard much about the positions that they have there or what we’re going to be doing, so we’ll see.

Patience is the name of the game I suppose. Ugh… I feel like I’ve been saying that for years.

Posted by Michael at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)