It's weird that spammers are what bring me back here.  Mostly, it's so I can zap their comment spam, and then turn the spammed entry in question to a friends only post.  The funny thing is, it's a random selection of times in my life, reminding me of where I came from.  I almost wonder if I should in fact keep it wide open for that reason.

Anyway, not sure why else I'm posting here.  I read friends' posts, and use private posting to unleash some thoughts from time to time, but really, that's about it.  Hardly anyone reads this, and I have another outlet, Google+, for my actual thoughtful public discourse (Facebook is practically dead to me save for other people's birthdays, weddings and kids), but here I am.

So, what's the state of life right now?  Tired from driving 11+ hours yesterday home from Michigan.  It was a great visit, which I haven't always said about family, but it was a long time nonetheless.  Work has decided to make me a whipping boy right at this moment.  Did something break on the crappy turd pile that you are paid to polish?  Check.  Does it hold up everyone's work for the month, because this place is that flimsy, based on a boss who's not here anymore, but leaves his mark? Check.  Am I expected to work on two of those items, and forcing a good data model into matching a shitty one because nobody who pays the bills wants to recognize it?  Check.  And was I given a special super high priority project with no fucking requirements on top of all this?  Yep. 

Would this all be way easier if I wasn't tired, stuffed up to high hell from allergies, and worried about a party we're trying to throw at the end of the week, when the apartment is currently a fucking disaster zone?  Oh hell yes. 

On the up side, allergy meds. are an upper.  And there's free coffee.  And the work Christmas party is at the end of the week, with us having a shots party the night after.  So yeah, there's booze at the finish line.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to blow my fucking nose and stare at a database to figure out which fuckwad before me fucked up my fucking day.  As a note, the fucking idiot from the past is sometimes myself, six to nine months ago who didn't know that he was working with a fucked up system and made it more fucked up.

So, in closing. . .

Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you! You're cool.  Fuck you!

~EEE~

Today's entry was another piece of ill fitting clothing going straight to the charity bag. 

Here's a quick roundup of stuff I've gotten rid of so far this month. 

Days 1-4: Old club shirts I don't really wear anymore as I haven't been to goth night more than about once every two years (or less!) since around 2004 or so.

Day 5: Concert shirt I have never worn, don't really remember buying, and will probably never wear. I should've bought a CD instead.

Days 6 and 7: Free tshirts from volunteering and a booze advertisement shirt from a bar.

I've also listed a bottle of rare beer for sale on Ebay at a price I've seen it go for in the past. Can't guarantee that, so if it's not gone in a week, I'll drop the price and try again.

Day 8: A belt and drank a bottle of Firestone Walker Reserve Porter (I have a LOT of beer and wine in the apartment, and need to consume/share/gift before it turns - I think some of the wine has turned already.)

Day 9: Tossed out old copies of TurboTax.

Day 10: Sending a magnet to someone who I bought it for in November.  Since the person just had a birthday, it's time to get it out of the house and to the recipient.

Crossposted from Google+ and Facebook.  I'm using G+ primarily to track this, and posting occasional updates to FB and now here. 

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For the new year, instead of trying to make resolutions, I'm doing a 30 day challenge for this month. If I like it, I'll pick a new one next month and so on. I picked something easy for January (i.e. nothing diet related or to stop drinking or something), so that I don't give up in a week.

This month's challenge is to get rid of one thing a day. It can be anything that I wouldn't normally get rid of anyway, and I can remove it any way I want, as long as it's gone by the end of the month (no 30 trips to Goodwill). So basically, yes to throwing out or donating clothes, yes to gifting or finishing a bottle of alcohol or some fancy sauce or something, no to throwing out bad produce or using up the last of the milk.

Yes, this does mean I could just drink a beer every day for 30 days and feel successful. No, I'm not doing that, because while that would clean my closet a bit, it's not the spirit of the challenge, and frankly my liver wouldn't approve. I'm not trying to do a 30 day challenge of not buying anything, but I will try to limit replacing anything I do get rid of, especially consumables. I'm going to keep track of the whole thing here, to keep me honest.

I really need to dust this thing off and actually post occasionally.  Maybe it'll help me clear my head. 

Anyway, 2011 kind of blew for me, and I'm hoping 2012 evens out a bit.  I get that some things are what I make of it, and it wasn't entirely bad, but I'm still ready to be past it all.  So, here's what happened. . .

On the bad side:
-- Seema's stepmom passed away at the beginning of the year, after fighting with liver failure (long standing liver problems) and a second bout of cancer. 

-- After a crapload of work in 2009 and 2010 to get my mom diagnosed, on disability, seeing specialists, etc. just when she was starting to get in a more manageable spot (she had Parkinsons, so she was never going to get better), she passed away in April. 

-- As if flying to Arizona to arrange a funeral, clean up years worth of hoarded crap in my mom's place, and generally having to deal with it all wasn't enough, on the last couple days out there, I had to fix a flat tire on my dad's truck in the desert, and then the next morning run him to the hospital with a case of gout.  This adds to his array of other medical issues that worry me.

-- Shortly after my mom passed away, I got a giant middle finger in a major path of my career, and found out months later that it was mostly due to my own sheepishness about some stuff I did once upon a time, and can't really fix now.  Also some stuff that I'm working on fixing still.

-- Drama in some personal relationships that I can't really get into, and am working on.

-- Found out a bunch of previously unknown (to me) family history, challenging a bunch of assumptions I've lived with for years. 

On the plus side:
-- We finally set a date for the wedding.

-- Went to four weddings, including one I was in that involved a very good friend.

-- Managed to connect more with my family as an adult, even if it was under crap circumstances.

-- My initiative in trying to leave a crap position at work, while shot down, ended up in me being taken seriously enough to actually get some interesting work.

-- Said interesting work stoked the fire, and I got off my ass and actually leveled up in salary and title by leaving Lockheed after 11 years and finding a new job.

So yeah, it wasn't all bad, but I really hope this year pans out a little better than last.  I really don't need any more death or sickness for a while, and I'm working on fighting my own demons.

Yes, LJ, I'm alive, but there are days I wonder.

Had a very, very weird dream last night. . . I was standing in a swamp for some weird reason, watching alligators try to eat explosive tennis balls (no, I don't get it either) and then one of them got out of the water and came after me.  It got me, and sort attached itself to my side (very cartoonish), and started eating it's way up to my arm and hand while I walked around (either it's a small alligator, or physics didn't apply here).  I remember being in a foreign country, yet oddly, everyone I asked for help as an American tourist, but none of them had working phones or any idea how to call a hospital.  Eventually, I woke up when the alligator was going to eat my hand, which scared me most since unlike chewing my side or something,  a missing hand is irreplaceable.  Dream logic is weird . . .

Anyway, I don't remember dreams much, and don't think I have a lot of nightmares, but damn, that was weird enough to note.

So yeah, wonder what all that means.

~EEE~

Due to real life stuff I need to post here and get off my chest, with a healthy dollop of maturity added on, I am not really as hardcore about St. Pat's (aka The White Guy Holy Day of Drinking) this year.  That said, this still needs to be posted, because it amuses the crap out of me.

( The real story of St. Patrick's DayCollapse )

I seriously laughed for like 10 minutes straight.  I so want to do this.

http://xkcd.com/576/

~EEE~

It's an instant coffee and microwave popcorn kind of day.  It's only Monday. . . I hope the rest of the week doesn't keep up like this.

~EEE~