The Cat's Nuts

You know, no matter how much money I ever make, I feel like I will always be spending to my means. This month is a perfect example. I didn't buy anything that I can even remember, but I am anxiously waiting for my paycheck to come so my bank has some sort of modest number next to my checking account. Ugh. Oh well.

To combat this phenomenon, I posted up my blackberry on Craigslist in order to sell it, and guess what? I sold it this morning to a gentleman in a chevy impala with red flames on the front. Gotta love Atlanta. The guy was nice enough and the transaction went smoothly, so I was pleased. Although I sold the blackberry for significantly less than I would have wanted to, it's okay. I've not got $100 in my pocket, and that makes me happy.

I was thinking about what other things around my apartment are no longer needed, and I think this weekend is going to be the ideal time to start looking into offing some of them. Not that I REALLY need the money that badly, I just think that it's about time to liquidate some inventory.

Melissa is in Boston for the next week at SIBOS, which is a gigantic conference for her industry, so she's going to be crazy busy, so I expect to have some free time on my hands.

Anyway, It's almost time to head to work, so off I go.

Posted by Michael at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maybe its just my own olfactory sences, or maybe there is really somethng to it, dont know, but a solid 0 percent of the time i get onto the atlanta subway, its smells like stale cat urine. Now, i am not suggesting that there are rogue cats going around and pissing on the subway when no one is loking, letting out little snickers of laughter at their own craftiness, but i wouldnt put it past sme homeles guy taking a leak down his legwhen he was all fucked up (Note: homeless person is interchangable with college student in that hypothesis).

While i agree, its disgusting to have to think that someone would actually piss ON the subway car, i think the true person to blame for the ode du cat urine is the dumb bastards that desgned the trains....i mean what person in their right minds thought that carpeting was anything close to a god idea on a public transportation vehicle? Its just amazing what happens when you dont think about the details.

Posted by Michael at 02:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Saturday, I did absolutly nothing. I didn't do anything for work, anything around my apartment, and even missed a comedy show that I bought tickets for. I ended up going and watching an exciting Georgia game and recovering from a hangover. I knew that I had a bunch of stuff to get done, so I did what anyone else would do. I packed it in early...and sober. It took great restraint to watch an entire day of college football and get through it having only two beers the entire day. I was proud of myself.

Today, I was uber productive. I got up around 8:30 and was into work by 9:00am. Worked for 2-3 hours and came home to clean up. I was able to totally clean my apartment (well...not the bathroom) but it was a good day. Watched the Dolphins game, cooked lunch for myself, made dinner (which will be lunch for the next two days), fixed the SRS light on my car (FINALLY!!!) and overall had a good day. The Phins lost (shocking I know), but the day was still enjoyable. I've got a bunch of stuff on my list still to do, but overall, it's been good.

Work has been...ummm...busy to say the least. I'll keep the story short because I don't feel like rehashing it all that much, but what ended up going down was that prior to our latest software release, a defect was discovered that ended in a "no-go" decision. There ended up being lots of conference calls, lots of finger pointing and lots of my team and me struggling to figure out how to fix the defect. In the end, we found an excellent compromise that allows for the business to get the majority of their release put into production, didn't piss off IT all that much, and allows for everyone to be happy. My team got some pretty nice accolades from the Directors in our company, so it was nice to turn a bad situation into something a little better.

Every weekend where I don't get to spend it with Melissa is a hard one. This weekend was no exception. With this past week being so busy and the both of us having our own stuff going on, we hardly got to talk at all this week, and by the time the weekend rolled around, tensions were high. After some good conversations this morning and through the day, it's been great.

There's been lots of talk between the two of us about what's going to end up happening when the time comes for Missy to get out of New York and how that will all work. I figure that one of two things will happen. Either she's going to move to Atlanta, and we'll get a nice apartment right in Midtown, or we're both going to end up going somewhere new. Either way, it'll be fun and exciting....too bad it's going to be quite some time before that happens, but I'm patient.

Anyway, I am going to run out to HomeDepot and see if I cant find a cap for my car....don't ask.

Posted by Michael at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Work has been a little difficult recently. I think I go through this every time that UAT (User Acceptance Training) comes around. During this time, our latest software release is given to testers and they log defects against the various changes that have been made during the latest construction phases. Well, normally, this consists of fixing defects and addressing other small issues. Not this time.

During this past construction phase, the client’s manager that runs the business side of the operation was switched, so the process didn’t go nearly as smoothly as we had hoped. So instead of hashing out all the issues with the design of the dashboard during the appropriate phases, we were…well…actually I was, forced to make massive changes to the structure of the dashboard during testing. There are about 1000 options on each dashboard, so making sure that each of them is correct and uniform is a lengthy and time consuming process. Anyway…all the construction work is done, and now I can finally get to work on attacking defects. We have about a week and a half to work this all out, so hopefully we can make some good headway today.

This weekend I am going up to New York to visit with Melissa and to attend the wedding of my cousin, Kevin. The plane ticket was rather expensive for a flight between two east coast cities and honestly, I’d rather not have to go up and spend two nights at my parents house, but I took off on Monday, so I get to spend a little bit of extra time with Melissa, so that’s really nice.

Last week, the Fantasy Football season kicked off. Whoo hoo. Actually…I’m really not all that excited about Fantasy Football this season. I’m much more interested in just watching the games and enjoying the football. We’ll see how it all goes. I’m sure that once we get into it, I’ll be chomping at the bit.

Anyway, it’s about time that I start hacking away at these defects.

Posted by Michael at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Often I find myself writing about the trivial day to day happenings of my life here in my own personal web space, and that's all fine and good and frankly, more often than not, that's all that I feel like writing about. Occasionally, I'll run across something on the internet that truly inspires and brings a smile to my face.

Yesterday, I ran across the blog: www.Michaelrighi.com and during an entry in early September, he writes a story about his arrest.

The really short version is that he refused to show a Circuit City employee what was in his bag, and because of this, the cops were called which subsequently led to his arrest when he failed to comply with the requests of the officer.

In the end, his story isn't about being defiant or bucking the trend, but it's about being fed up with giving up civil liberties and finally saying "No...You don't have that right and I'm not going to let you take mine". I couldn't agree with him more.

To Michael and all the others like him, I am glad that there are people out there willing to put themselves out there and sacrifice their time and energy to stand up for the freedoms that have been gained throughout the history of the United States.

"Liberty and Justice for all..." That's how our Pledge of Allegiance ends, and that's what he's standing up for, and for anyone out there that things you should just roll over and hand over your liberties because someone asks you to, you are a sad excuse for a citizen.

Additionally, I think that Michael brought up another good point. He said that for anyone that doesn't understand why he did what he did, to go and read The Fountain Head, and I couldn't agree with him more. It's an excellent book with a great message and I've preached about it before, and if you haven't read it and Atlas Shrugged, please do. It'll change the way that you look at the world.

Anyway, I think that's enough ranting for the day.

Posted by Michael at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)