'the more I scream, the more it seems, that now I'm through, with the new you...'

Well the last week was fairly uneventful, as is this weekend so far. Most of my time is spent at work, or at home watching movies, and playing Oblivion or the Civilization: Revolution demo. I'm at work right now, bored as hell, and hope to get off in about an hour. Kaylea invited some people to hang out at her place tonight, so I'll probably stop by there and hang out for a couple hours.

It's Father's Day tomorrow, and Dennis' birthday, and somehow I'm going to have to find time to sleep, hang out with Dennis, hang out with Mike, and call my parents, all before going to work by 10pm again. Also need to pick up a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4, which came out Thursday. The reviews for it look pretty good, so hopefully it'll be something I can get in to.

50 more minutes... Yeah, I know you're not supposed to watch the clock... but there's literally nothing else to do right now... thank god I don't have to be here the full 8 hours...

Edit: Ugh... it seems they're not letting any of us go early :(

'I hate you so, but love you more I'm so elastic...'

Well, I've now been working seven days a week for over a month, and will be working every day at least for another week, if not the week after that as well. Still managing to hang out with friends though, or at least trying to. Have a busy weekend ahead of me. In between sleeping and working, Friday I'll be heading to The Family Values Tour, featuring Korn, The Deftones, Stone Sour, Flyleaf, and a bunch of other bands. Saturday I'm going to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Sunday I'm going with some friends to take a tour of the new Arizona Cardinals (NFL) stadium. I guess the tickets for the tour were free, which is pretty cool. Hopefully I'll be able to check out a game this year as well, as I've never been to an NFL game (or NBA, for that matter). Hopefully either Saturday or Sunday I'll be able to make some time to hang out with Mike and Tiffany as well, as we haven't hung out in a long time. Monday is the Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert. I also have to re-sign my lease this weekend. I didn't really want to, but I'm not really sure where I want to move yet either, so I'll sign another 7 month lease. That should give me enough time to look around some, and it'll be cooler temperatures by the time I move.

Put some subwoofers in my car the other day. Dennis had a Kicker 120w amp, and three MTX 10" subwoofers in a box that used to be in his Cavalier. When he traded in his cavalier, he didn't really have any use for them anymore, so I bought everything off him for $100. We installed it ourselves, and it went fairly easy, as the previous owner of my car already had the car wired for subwoofers, so we just connected the wires, and it worked. OK, well it sounds simpler than it actually was, but it wasn't too difficult. I need to do a little better job at connecting the wires together though. Right now they don't have the strongest connection, and are sort of just hanging around. The box is also about 1.5" too long to fit all the way in the back of my trunk, which sucks, but it fits, and I can still fit my toolboxes back there, as well as a few other things. Here are some pics if you want to check it out. 120w doesn't sound like much, especially when split between 3 subs, but it sounds damn nice, so I'm happy, especially for a mere $100.

Insomnia...

My last day off from work was February 3rd, which was the day before my brother went back to Washington. I've worked every day since then, a minimum of 10 hours every day except the weekends, which I worked 8 hours per day. Sunday I worked my full 8 hours until 6am, went home, got 3.5 hours of sleep, hung out at Dennis, went to work at 4pm, stayed for 10 hours, went home, went to bed, went back to work, worked 13 hours, went home and to bed, accidentally didn't set my alarm, woke up 2 hours late, went to work, worked for 14 hours, and now it's almost 11:00 in the morning, I've been home for at least 3 hours, but I can't sleep, and I'm due back at work at 4pm....

'And I seem to lose control, with you...'

Well, I finally got my gauges working yesterday. It seems a fuse blew out when I was messing with things the day before, and after replacing it, and making sure all my wires were connecting, it worked without problem. Here are pics of the new gauges in the daytime (left) and the night (right).



Looks like I'll be working some more overtime this weekend as well, covering for another person. We start proxy season next week as well, which means 50+ hours per week. A good thing, because apparently I owe the IRS around $1500, and another $500 in state taxes.

More pictures from Texas

Here are some more pictures from Texas. These were taken over the weekend. I rented an SUV, and we drove down to Space Center Houston on Saturday, and then drove down to an island/city called Galveston on Sunday. There's a place called Moody Gardens there that we visited, that has contained ecosystems inside of 10 story pyramids. One of them was a rainforest ecosystem, that had plants and animals from four different types of rainforests. The other was an Aquarium, that had plants and animals from four different oceans. It was a lot more interesting than the aquarium we'd visited earlier in the week. Quite a bit bigger, with quite a bit more to see.

Pictures 2

'You see my wrist, I know your pain...'

Only a couple days until I leave for Houston. It seems I'll be working in the afternoon/evening, from 3-11pm, which is pretty nice, because I don't have to worry about getting up early and rushing to work. Apparently their job site is a lot smaller than the one here in Phoenix, and there might not even be any supervisors for my position there, and if so, then I'll have to call back here to Phoenix just to get help, so that should be interesting.

Christmas was fun. I went to Church on Christmas Eve with Mike and Tiffany, for a candlelight service. Christmas day I spent the morning at Dennis house, opening presents and eating breakfast, etc. Then just after noon I went to Mike and Tiffany's house and opened presents with them and Tiffany's family. We went to her grandparents for dinner, which was really good. They had the standard Christmas dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, veggies, cranberry sauce, etc; but they also had chicken and dumplings, which I haven't had in years, and it was extremely good stuff. For desert they had three different kinds of cheesecake, and ice cream.

For gifts this year I got a Linkin Park hoodie, and a Boondock Saints t-shirt from Dennis; a Tool hoodie from DJ, a Fantastic Four DVD from Stacy, Mario Kart DS from Dennis' parents, Battlefield 2: Special Ops from Issac (which I exchanged for Battlefield 2, since Special Ops is just the expansion, and I didn't yet own the game), a Bentley BMW Owners Manual from my parents, a $25 AMC Movie Theater gift card from Tami, and a Bible from Angie (she hasn't yet given it to me though). Mike still hasn't given me his gift yet. I asked for a watch, but I don't think he want's to spend that kind of money, which is fine with me, but that's all I could think of at the time. Not sure what he's going to get me though, and I don't think he does either, which is why it's taking so long.

Gifts I bought for other people include a Creative Zen Nano Plus 1GB MP3 player, and an Atari Flashback 2.0 game system for Mike; a 512MB PC2700 SO-DIMM RAM card, two Denver Broncos hats, and a Denver Broncos magnetic dart set for Dennis; a Kodak CD40 digital camera for Stacy; a $50 Hollister gift certificate for Tiffany; Age of Empires III for Ron; a Makita 18V Drill and Flashlight set for my Dad; pearl earrings for my Mom; a Motorolla Bluetooth headset for my brother; Bubble Bobble GBA for Issac; a "Chocolatte" hot cocoa maker for Dennis' mom; an ASU zip-up hoodie for Dennis' dad; Gilmore Girls Season One for Nicole; a Reggie Bush jersey for DJ; a shirt, remote control car, and Power Rangers SPD toys for both Dylan and Dennis Jr.; a musical walker for Marisa (Dennis' daughter); and the same walker, a blanket, and some car window shades for Anna (Stacy's daughter).

Bought myself a gift today to; an Olympus E300 8mp DSLR digital camera kit. Got a pretty good deal on it for buying it at a retail store to. It came with two lenses, one for close shots, and one for shots that are farther away. I was looking at a couple other cameras as well, but Fry's Electronics happened to have this one on sale for quite a bit less than the others, and I wanted it before I leave for Houston, which ruled out ordering something online. I told Dennis about it on the phone and he gave me a bunch of shit for being interested in photography and spending so much on a camera, so I gave him shit for buying an $1800 washer and dryer set, and he tried to blame that on his wife. He mentioned that I could've built a new computer, but the computer I plan on building is going to cost around $1500. This camera should last me for years though, and it'll never really have to be upgraded. I'll probably still end up building a new computer around February anyways, as long as I don't owe too much in taxes to the IRS since I've been claiming exempt for six months or more.

Played a bit of Battlefield 2. Seems like a decent game. My computer's still a bit slow in running it though, even with the GeForce 6600GT I just put in it. This of course is due to the old ass processor and slow RAM in my PC. A 266FSB only goes so far... I can still play at 1024x768, but only with all the details set to low. Mario Kart DS is awesome though. I already beat the Classic cup, and about half of the other one, both on 50cc. Seems pretty damn easy to play, but then, it's only the 50cc races, so I'm sure the 100 and 150cc will be quite a bit harder. Looking forward to unlocking more characters and cars though, which is definitely a nice feature that wasn't in the SNES and N64 versions (never played the GCN version). This is one of the few games I bought my DS for, and I'm definitely not disappointed.

Well, that's all for now. I'll post again from Houston, hopefully with some pics from my new camera!

'I could've lied, I'm such a fool...'

Wow, it's been nearly a month since I've made an entry! Not sure how much I have to catch up on, so I'll just start typing...

Vacation was good. It was definitely needed to. Unfortunately I was only able to go snowboarding once, and there wasn't any fresh snow when I went, so I didn't have quite as much fun as I did last February, even though I did better at the beginning of the day than last time. The snow was packed hard and frozen though, so every time I fell, which was quite a bit, it hurt like hell. I'm still too scared to go toeside though, so I pretty much just scrape down the hill sideways. Once I get toeside down, I'm sure I'll improve quite a bit. I did a lot better getting off the lift, as well as getting up after strapping in or falling down though, so I was happy about that. I haven't uploaded very many pictures yet, and the ones I did can't be accessed because MS is temporarily down, so I'll post those in another blog at a later date.

Some good news work-wise. My employer is sending me to Houston, Texas for two weeks, starting January 2nd. That should definitely be an interesting experience, being somewhere completely new, and for the most part, all alone. I should have plenty of internet access while I'm there thanks to Dennis letting me borrow his new laptop, and the Hotel will surely have free wireless internet access. Someone else from work on a different shift is going as well. I've never met him, so hopefully he's pretty cool. This is a pretty big step for me as far as work goes as well, since I've been there less than a year, and they're already sending me other places to help out. I think it's a definite sign of their confidence in me, etc. Maybe someday they'll send me someplace really interesting, like Paris or London. Everything is paid for by my employer as well. They've already reserved the flight and hotel. Everything else will initially come out of my pocket, and I'll be reimbursed once I get back on the 14th. They allow up to $60 a day for food! I spend about that much in a week normally, so I'm definitely going to take advantage of that =P.

As usual I've waited to the last minute to buy Christmas gifts. So far only bought four gifts, and still have about 8 or 10 to go. I'm looking at spending just over $1,000 this year, though it could end up being a bit more than even that depending on what I can think to get for some people. So far I've bought a Makita 18V Drill and Flashlight set for my Dad, some pearl earrings for my mom, a bluetooth headset for my brother, Bubble Bobble for GBA for Dennis' brother, and an ASU jacket for Dennis' dad. I'm probably going to get Stacy a digital camera. It'd definitely be useful in the future to take pictures of her daughter. Right now she's using a scanner to make them digital. Going to try and get DJ a Reggie Bush jersey off Ebay. I have no clue what Dennis wants. Probably going to get his wife some perfume, just need to find out which kind she wants. Not sure what to get his kids either. Dennis said I should just get them gift certificates to Industrial or something (a skater clothing shop), which would be fine, but I want to get them something that they'd actually enjoy, which means toys of course, as they're 5 and 7 years old. His daughter is turning one year in January. I thought about getting her a doll or something, but her mom got her a ton of those, so I'll have to find something else. Maybe I'll get Stacy's daughter a doll though. Not sure what to get my sister. I thought about yet another season of Little House on the Prairie, but that's what I've been getting her for like, two years in a row, so I'd like to get something different. I need to think of something for Tiffany as well. The only thing I know she'd really like is a new PS2, but that's a bit spendy. I thought about getting it as a combined gift for her and Mike, but he doesn't play video games all that much. Still, he did ask for one of those classic game systems that have like 20 games stored in them that you just plug into a TV and play, so if I got the PS2, and like, Midway Arcade Treasures or something, that might be good. Also thought about getting him an MP3 player, or a new video card for his PC, because he was talking about getting a new PC so he could play newer games, but I told him that'd be a waste, because he just needs a new video card (he's using an old 32MB GeForce 256 if I remember right).

I've been working a ton of overtime since I came back. Both last weekend and this weekend I worked both Saturday and Sunday night, and worked some overtime during the week to. All that extra money will be nice. I need to get the heater fixed on my car. Doesn't work at all. It's been getting pretty cold here in Phoenix at night; even down to near freezing one day, but mostly in the low 40's.

So anyways, that's all for now I think. Probably add another entry in a day or two.

'The secret is out; goodbye, goodbye, goodbye...'

So, apparently Stefanie really does have a boyfriend. It wasn't who I thought it might be, which is a good thing. It's actually one of her ex-boyfriend's best friends. I've met him a couple times, and he seems like a pretty cool guy, which is surprising, because Stefanie, like most other females, always seemed attracted to assholes. I'm actually happy for her, that she finally found someone she likes that, hopefully, won't treat her like shit. I still haven't talked to her. Dennis actually called her up yesterday to find out what the hell was going on, even though I'd repeatedly asked him not to when this all first started. In a sense, I'm kind of glad he did. I would've rather had Stefanie tell me in person, of her own will, but it's clear to me now that she literally may never speak to me again. I guess she told Dennis she thought I was going to commit suicide.

She thought I was going to kill myself, and still she couldn't bring herself to call me. How fucked up is that?

So anyways, I'm going to try my best to let it go. It's not as if this isn't going to happen again. Unfortunately I realize that this is now one less person keeping me in Arizona.

Watched Doom and Saw II this weekend. Doom was better than I expected. Not a blockbuster, but probably worth your money if your not overly critical when it comes to movies. Saw II was excellent, easily just as good as the first. The ending was very, very unexpected, and a really cool idea. Looking forward to seeing Jarhead next weekend. I may go watch The Weatherman this weekend or later this week, as it's been given pretty good reviews, and I'm starting to appreciate Nicholas Cage's acting skills more.

Finally received my Infinity Kappa Series 50.7 speakers on Friday, and installed them yesterday. When I removed the old speakers from my car, I discovered that the kick panel 5 1/4" speakers, and the rear 4" speakers were not stock, but pairs of the cheaper 2-way Pioneer's. Not bad, but I can already tell the difference with the Infinity's in there, even though they're not even getting half their RMS in wattage. Their RMS is 85w (max 255w), and my Alpine deck only puts out 25wx4 RMS (50wx4 max). Hopefully later I'll get a dedicated amplifier for those, as well as one for whatever subwoofer(s) I plan on getting. Probably be either Rockford Fosgate or MTX.

My employer is requiring mandatory overtime starting next week, through November 16th (which is the day I leave for vacation), so I'll be working at least 50 hour weeks until then, which is nice. Oh, and my cell phone bill went over it's minutes for the first time this month. Unfortunately it happened to be way over, and instead of the usual $55, it shot up to $170. Good thing I happen to have a decent amount of cash at the moment. Had to loan my brother $400 as well, cause he just switched jobs, and isn't getting paid much until his training period is over with.

'Peel me from the skin, tear me from the rind...'

Another boring weekend gone by. At least I got paid well though. This paycheck was my biggest yet, and I ended up taking home $1,973.45 after taxes. My normal paycheck is about half that, but I had tons of overtime on this one, 21 hours of time-and-a-half, as well as 12.5 hours of double time. Plus I claimed exempt on my taxes, so they only took out a couple hundred for Social Security, Medicare, and my medical benefits. My next check probably won't be quite as large, but it'll have quite a bit of overtime as well, so it'll still be nice. At some point I need to find out exactly how much money I've saved. My bank account says $4,500, but that's not accounting for bills, etc for the next two weeks. Dennis still owes me $400-500, and a couple other people owe me a little bit, so $4,500 is probably fairly correct. I'll need at least $5k to get the car I want (likely a BMW 325i or 325is) and another $700 for 6 months of insurance, as well as any money for repairs, etc. I'd like to get a stereo right off the bat as well, but that may have to wait.

I can't remember what I did Saturday. I may have hung out at Dennis' in the morning, then probably slept all day, as I had to go to work Saturday night (more overtime!). Last night I went to see Chevelle and Taproot. The concert was excellent. The opening band (The Black Maria) wasn't too bad either. Kind of similar sound to AFI. Chevelle probably had the best light show during their performance that I've ever seen. The lead singer of Taproot came down and walked all through the standing-room-only crowd while Taproot was playing the song "I" (excellent song BTW). That was really cool of him, and thankfully nobody tried anything stupid to fuck it up. Unfortunately I have no pictures. I thought they would pat us down at the entrance like they did at a previous concert, so I didn't bring my camera, and just my luck, they didn't even search us.

Went to work after that, though by that time it was already midnight. I'd originally told the supervisor I'd be in no later than 11pm, but he didn't seem mad that I was late. So then I sat around for the next 8 hours doing practically nothing. In fact, I was so bored I went back and read every one of my blog entries from the very first one, and after that, read a bunch of other peoples =/. Ah well, brought back memories, some that I wish I'd written down in more detail.

Got my $60 rebate from my 120GB hard drive in the mail today. I always think of rebates as free money, since by the time I get them, that's basically what it is.

Anyways, haven't posted any pictures lately, and I don't have any new ones to post quite yet, so I went back through my pictures folder and decided to post a few older ones. The first is a hill on the way to Montana from Washington back in 2003. The snow being only on the one side made it look pretty weird. The second is a picture of the beach on Whidbey Island in Washington where my parents live, and where I grew up. The third is a picture from Fort Casey, which is also on Whidbey Island. The fort was built during WWII for protection against the Japanese, as there is a major naval base on Whidbey Island. Although there were soldiers there, it never had to be used during the war. Only a couple of the cannons remain. The Fort itself is quite interesting to walk around in though. A few years back I posted some video footage of me and my brother there. The fourth is a pic taken around the same time that the first one was. This one near the Columbia River in Washington. Number five was taken on Lake Washington when I was up there last summer. The weather was excellent while I was up there, and provided some nice sunset pics. None quite as good as the last one though, which was taken at Rosario Beach, on Fidalgo Island, also in Washington. I went there on the last day of my vacation that summer specifically to get some sunset pics. I took six or eight, but I think this one looks the best, as the light goes all the way down the water to the camera.

'I sure could use a vacation from this, stupid shit...'

Well, it's been a couple weeks since my last entry. Nothing new as far as Stefanie goes. She actually called me a couple times last week wanting to talk face to face, but never showed up when she said she would. I'm still letting my hair grow out. I'll give it until my birthday, which is in a couple weeks, until I give up on getting her to cut it, then I'll either get it cut at a salon, or just end up shaving my head again.

Haven't done much the past couple of weeks other than work. Last weekend I worked both Saturday and Sunday night, and then Monday night as well, which was actually a Holiday (Labor Day). My paycheck should be really nice though, and definitely help me get my car by October. They called me in to work tonight as well. Unfortunately they wanted me to come in early (8pm instead of 10pm) which means that even if I work for 8 hours, I get off by 4am. Luckily the first bus starts at 4:30, which isn't too long of a wait, but my transfer doesn't start until 6:30, which means I'll probably be walking home half the way. Oh well, it'll give me time to think, as if I don't have enough of that =/. My supervisor gave me free tickets to the Diamondbacks game on Wednesday. I called Stefanie and left a message asking her if she wanted to go. It's pretty unlikely that I'll even hear from her by then though, so I told Dennis he could come if she didn't get back to me.

Anyways, that's all I have to write for this entry. However, while reading a friends blog, he had one of those little survey things posted up, somewhat like the one I did not too long ago. A lot of people found it interesting and posted their own, so here's another one you can feel free to copy and edit for your own blog

LAST:
01. Last Cigarette: Never smoked
02. Last Kiss: my best guess is ten years ago. =/
03. Last Cry: When my grandpa died a few weeks back
05. Last Movie Seen In a Theater/Drive In: The Skeleton Key
06. Last Book Read: Last book finished: The last book I read was "Seor". Haven't read much of it yet. The last book I finished was "Cracked", by Dr. Drew Pinski.
07. Last Cuss Word Uttered: Considering how often I swear, and how little I notice it when I actually do, I couldn't tell you. Probably shit or fuck
08. Last Beverage Drank: Pepsi
09. Last Food Consumed: A burrito from Chipotle. That shit is the best
11. Last TV Show Watched: Hmm, probably the Bronco's vs The Patriots game, American Football. Is that considered a show? If not, then it was The OC.
12. Last Time Showered: Two hours ago
13. Last Shoes Worn: I have a pair of black and yellow DC's. Probably buying some new shoes soon though. These went through quite a bit of wear back in my JCP days, even though I didn't have them for very long before getting my new job.
14. Last CD played: Wow, it's been so long since I've listened to an actual CD, that I would have no clue. However, the last album I listened to was Primer 55's "New Release" (yep, that's the title of the album). So far I only like two songs, but I'll give it a couple listens to. Sometimes things grow on you.
15. Last Soda Drank: Pepsi
16. Last Thing Written: Wrote a draft of a letter I was going to send to Stefanie about a week ago. Was advised not to send any letters =P.
17. Last Words Spoken: "No problem"
18. Last Annoyance: Having to take the bus to work. Only two more months...
19. Last Time Scolded: Probably a few months ago when Stefanie "scolded" me for not calling enough. How ironic life can turn out...
20. Last Web Site Visited: Google!

BODY:
01. Piercings: None yet. I've thought about getting my ears pierced.
02. Tattoos: None, and I don't plan on ever getting any.
03. Height: 6'6" (or 203cm)
04. Shoe size: 14US
05. Hair color: Light brown. Recently considered dying it black. Not sure if that's going to happen still...
06. Siblings: One older sister, Julie, who just turned 25, and a younger brother, Peter, who will be turning 22 in December. How time flies...

DO YOU
01. You have a crush on someone: No? I like Stef quite a bit. I consider it more than just a crush. Crush's are just infatuation I think.
02. You wish you could live somewhere else: Absolutely. I hate Arizona. Mainly the summers, but in general as well, it's not the greatest place to be. Washington is much better, but my friends are here, and thus, I will stay.
03. You think about suicide: As a serious consideration? No. I've thought about it in general though, as far as things that keep me from committing suicide. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be very many keeping me =/
04. You believe in online dating: It's not something I would consider at this point. There are plenty of people in my general area. I need to get over the whole fear of being social. IMO, internet dating is the easy way out. It may solve meeting people, but it won't help my anti-social problems.
05. Others find you attractive: Apparently they do, though I don't see what's especially attractive about me, but I've had a comment or two from a couple girls. One at the mall about a year or so ago, and then some girl at Dennis' work wants to date me. Too bad she's still married (in the process of divorce) and has 3 kids. I guess as I get older that's what I get to chose from though =/
06. You want more piercings: As said above, I've thought about getting my ears peirced.
07. You drink: Alcohol? Never have, never will. Don't have a problem with people who do though, that's certainly up to them, it's just not for me.
08. You do drugs: Pot on rare occasion. Otherwise, no, nothing ever.
09. You smoke: Cigarettes? As with alcohol, never have, never will.
10. You like cleaning: Do I like it? No, but I don't mind doing it when it needs to be done.
11. You like roller coasters: I'm actually kind of scared of them, though I don't know why. I've never been on one though. Definitely something I'll have to do in the future.
12. You write in cursive or print: Print. It's pretty rare that I actually have to write something though. Other than the letter mentioned above, and checks, I can't remember the last time I actually wrote something. Typing is much faster, and nicer looking.

FOR OR AGAINST...
01. Long distance relationships: Against in that I would never want to be in one, and would highly suggest that people not attempt it unless they're already in the relationship before it became long distance, but even then, they usually fail. I was in one a long time ago, and I barely ever talked to her. You really couldn't even call it a relationship at all.
02. Teenage smoking: Against it. I'm against adults smoking to, in that if I could wish it away, I wouldn't hesitate. Smoking is horrible for everyone. I don't believe all the hype about how "second hand smoke kills", but it certainly smells horrible, and can look horrible to, as it dyes the persons teeth and fingernails yellow. I don't take any bullshit excuses about how it "relieves stress" either. Fucking deal with it, I do. Your going to go through a hell of a lot more stress when you get diagnosed with lung cancer or some other horrible smoking related disease.
03. Doing drugs: I don't have a problem with marijuana as long as it doesn't become a problem. If you can smoke pot, and it doesn't directly affect your life in a negative way, awesome. IMO other drugs are pretty horrible though, and have a very highly likelihood of ruining your, and others lives.
04. Driving drunk: Against this completely. There's no reason you should ever have to drive drunk, ever.
05. Soap operas: I'd never watch them myself. The drama is way over-exaggerated, and the characters are fake as hell.
06. Abortion: Hmm, that's a tricky one. I would never, ever make the choice to have an abortion, and I would never want someone to have one. However, if a friend of mine became pregnant, and made the decision to have an abortion (and this has actually happened) then I would support whatever decision she made. It is hard enough for a woman to make that kind of decision, and extremely hard for them to get over the emotional trauma after having one. There's no reason why I should make it even more difficult for them.

HAVE YOU...
01. Ever cried over a female: I'm kind of surprised I haven't yet actually. It's bound to happen eventually though. On the outside I appear pretty emotionless at times, but believe me, I'm full of emotion.
02. Ever lied to someone: Is this a trick question?
03. Ever been in a fistfight: No
04. Ever been arrested: no

WHAT...
01. Shampoo do you use: Garnier Fructise (I think that's how you spell it)
02. Shoes do you wear: Right now, DC's. Going to get a pair of Lakai's soon though.
03. Are you scared of: spiders, rejection, the inevitable death of friends and family, being alone for the rest of my life

NUMBER...
01. Of times you have been in love? Never
02. Of times you have had your heart broken? Hmm, so far twice, i guess. Working on the third as I type...

'Under the bridge downtown, I gave my life away...'

Well, I'm back from vacation. Other than having to go for a funeral, I had a great time visiting friends and family, and getting out of the heat. The weather in Washington couldn't have been better. It was sunny and mostly cloudless almost the entire time I was there; usually temps of low to mid-80's. Only started to cloud up on the day that I left. While on vacation, on Saturday night, I went to a party at a house that apparently nobody knew who lived there. Not much happened there, so we left after about an hour or so. Then on Monday my brother, myself, and a friend, drove up into the Cascade Mountains to shoot my brothers new .40 cal pistol (Walther P99), as well as his .308 rifle and our friends SKS. Unfortunately due to the heat, the bugs were out in full force, and it took a while to find a spot where we could at least tolerate them. I got my mom to play a bit of Gran Turismo 4. It's quite entertaining to watch old people try to play video games. I had to buy her a 24hp car just so she could stay on the track for more than 5 seconds =P.

Made a few more plans for when I come up in November. My brother said he can get rooms at the hotel he works for at around 1/4 of the price, so about $50-60 a night, for what normally is a $220/night room. He figured it'd probably be best to get Stefanie a hotel room while we're in Seattle so she doesn't have to sleep on his couch =P. It'll probably only be for one night anyways. I'll probably rent a car the week she's there as well. All this will severely cut into my car fund, but it'll be worth it. I was able to sell my System of a Down ticket on eBay. I actually made an extra $10 on it as well, which was nice. Dennis and DJ said the concert turned out really good. They weren't too impressed with Marz Volta though. I've only heard one song by them, and wasn't really impressed either, and Dennis said that was their best song. I'm not quite sure why they were touring with SOAD.

Now that I'm back in Phoenix, it's back to work. I guess they stopped mandatory overtime starting today, which, although is bad for my paycheck, I'm kind of relieved, cause I'm extremely tired. I feel like I need a vacation =P. Unfortunately sleep will have to wait though, as Dennis wants us to hang out with him this morning after work. It's nice that I only have three days of work until the weekend.

I have a few pictures to post up, but they're at on my camera at home. I'll post them up once I get home from Dennis'

Getting off this Wisconsin death trip...

This weekend started off slow, so I prepared myself to waste it sitting around my apartment being bored, but thankfully, that wasn't the case. Friday night was my last night in the mentoring program at my work, so Monday night I'll be a full fledged employee, which comes with no additional benefit, in fact, quite the opposite. While in mentoring, if I screwed up, it didn't matter quite that much, as I had someone to turn to and ask questions, as well as take the blame or make up a story for the Supervisor, so that I wouldn't get into too much trouble. The next couple weeks should reveal fairly clearly if I'm going to be able to make it through the year without getting fired.

Saturday I did nothing, just sat around the apartment. DJ called me up and said he was planning on going to see "The Longest Yard" with Dennis, and wanted to know if I wanted to come, which I did. Unfortunately Dennis couldn't get his mom to watch his three kids while we went to the movie, so we ended up not going. I stayed up Saturday night until about 5:30am, as I figured I probably wouldn't get any phone calls to do anything until at least 10:30-11:00am. Turned out I was wrong, as Dennis called up at ~9:30, so I only got four or so hours of sleep. I didn't feel all that tired though, so wasn't too bad. I got up, shaved my head and got ready for the day, and walked over to his house, which is about a mile away, in the 95 degree heat. Thankfully there was a slight breeze, so it wasn't completely horrible. August can't come any faster though... Played six or eight games of pool at Dennis' with him and DJ. Only won once, but came extremely close every other time. I'm getting quite a bit better at it lately. They used to win with nearly all of my balls still on the table =P. After that we watched "The Aviator", which was a pretty decent movie, though slow at times. Probably wouldn't hurt to cut at least 30 minutes of footage from it, being a 3 hour movie. After that we went to Blimpie for subs, and then Blockbuster and rented "Finding Neverland", (also a decent flick, especially for one tailored to children) and another movie, which I forget the name of, as we haven't watched it yet.

Dennis dropped me off back home around 11:00pm, and I decided to give Stefanie a call so she wouldn't complain about me never calling. Turns out she lost her job as a server at The Olive Garden on Thursday, just for not ringing up someones desert, so that sucks. She was going to go get something to eat at Taco Bell, but asked me if I was hungry, and wanted to go to TGI Friday's since their appetizers were 1/2 off. I wasn't particularly hungry, as I'd just eaten a foot long sub only a couple hours earlier, but I'd rather hang out with her than sit around my apartment, so we went. Originally she was planning on just buying some cheap $2 appetizer, since she just lost her job, and was trying to conserve money, but I thought that was pretty ridiculous, and told her to order whatever she wanted, as I would pay for it. She objected of course, so while we were looking at the menu, I just asked her what she thought was good to eat, and I just ordered a few things she said, which ended up being chili cheese fries, mozzarella sticks, and some giant salad, as well as an alcoholic drink (called a Tidal Wave) that she suggested I should have if I ever started drinking alcohol. So we just shared all the food (except the alcohol, which was hers of course) and talked for a long time about her old job, school, friends, etc. Good times.

Yesterday I was thinking about how hard it seems to be to maintain more than a couple of friends as an adult, particularly with a schedule that's completely the opposite of everyone you know because I work nights. I have roughly six friends that I like hanging out with, none of them which work with me, and none of them hang out with each other. I used to spend every Saturday with Dennis, and Sunday's with Mike, and the others pretty much got neglected, as I have a hard time calling people to just talk to unless they're a really good friend (which are the two people I already hang out with). Week days and nights are virtually impossible to hang out with anyone because I sleep during the afternoon/evening, and then go to work at night. Having to work on Friday nights certainly doesn't help either. Thankfully Stefanie's sort of a night person herself, so after I'm done hanging out with Dennis or Mike, there's still a chance to hang out with her for a few hours on the weekends even if it's around midnight. My friend Richard, who, before today I hadn't spoken to in three months, recently bought a house and sent me the pictures a couple days ago, so I called him up to say Hi and congratulate him, and catch up, etc. He'll be going to Texas next weekend, but he wants to buy and install a new surround sound system in their house for their new 52" HDTV, and asked me if I'd help him out with it in a couple of weeks, so that should be fun.

While at Dennis' I talked to my parents for an hour or so about various things, including taking a trip up to Alaska next summer. I get three weeks of Paid Time Off a year, and since I'll have my car in a couple months, I really want to drive up to Washington, which is about 2.5-3 days of virtually non-stop driving. If no one down here wants to go up with me, then I'll probably end up flying my brother down or something so we can take turns at the wheel. I'm extremly excited about that, as the longest "road-trip" I've been on was only about 13 hours, from our house in Washington to my Grandma's in Montana. Plenty of opportunity for pictures though, and thankfully, my battery recharger came with a car adapter =P. The Alaska trip would probably have to be separate. My Dad said it'd be best if we had at least two-weeks of time to do it, and that's probably best, as it's about a 2-2.5 day drive non-stop my parents house to Fairbanks, where we used to live. Then we'd probably head past Mt. McKinley, and to Anchorage, and possible a couple other places, then head back. I really want my parents to come visit Phoenix again as well, and I told them if they could find the time, I'd have no problem paying for the tickets.

Catching up...

Wow, it's been over a month since my last entry. Might as well catch up on a few things. Work isn't too bad so far. I think I'm getting a lot better at everything, so I'm a little more confident about being able to keep my job once I'm out of mentoring, which is in a week or two. No one's talked to me about anything in particular that I need to work on, so I'm taking that as a good sign. One thing I really hate is that the two-facedness of this job is much worse than my previous one. It's not real wide spread, which is good; but the people that are two-faced are really horrible. It's literally like one minute your having a friendly conversation with them about something you have in common, and the next they're over at the supervisors desk talking about how "John can't do this" or "John's not staying on task" or some other bullshit, when they fuck around much more than I do.

I'm definitely liking the pay though, which makes everything else completely worth putting up with. I'm able to save about $800 a month towards my car, which should keep me on track for early to mid-August to save up ~$5000. The month of June is going to take a huge chunk out though. I have at least four birthdays, plus Father's Day, so I'll probably end up spending ~$350 or more for all of that. Something else that got me really excited is that apparently I have 3 weeks of PTO to use up before the end of the year. For some reason I thought I only had a week, and what's even better, is I can use it all at one time (if approved). I'm really planning on going to Washington around Thanksgiving, my brother's birthday (Dec 5th) or Christmas, for three weeks. I love surprising my parents, so although they know I plan on coming up around that time, they think it's only for a week, so I'm going to keep the three weeks part from them until the last minute.

I went out to lunch with Stacy the Friday before Mother's Day, and got to see her new daughter for the first time. Had a good time. We went to Applebee's, and talked for two hours or so, which was really cool. Was also able to hang out with Stefanie a couple times in the past few weeks. She got a new 2004 Cavalier and was all excited about it. It's a much nicer car than she's ever had before, and she got a pretty decent deal as well. The dealer actually took her old Grand Am at Blue Book value, which was pretty crazy.

My best friend Mike and his girlfriend are going through some pretty rough times. Probably the worst since they got together ~3 years ago. Tiffany's parents aren't real fond of Mike because he's not religious, and they claim that Tiffany's "mixing the yolk" by being with him. They're such fucking hypocrites. Their family didn't even go to church until right before Mike and Tiffany got together. This is a huge reason why I don't believe in Christianity, even though I was brought up in it. 90+% of the people don't practice what they preach in the slightest. I'm not talking about the people that lie on occasion. I'm talking about the people that make conscious decisions to push someone away simply because they don't believe in their religion, rather than using it as an opportunity to reach out to them. To top things off, she blames herself for me and Mike not hanging out as much as we did before they got together. To be honest, I used to think the same thing, but not so much anymore. Me and Mike used to hang out a lot because we worked in the same department at the same store, and many times, on the same shift, so we could work out our schedules much easier. Now we work different jobs, with much different schedules, and it just doesn't work out as well. She also feels like the 3rd wheel when all three of us are hanging out together. I think this is mainly because she can get irritated at Mike fairly easily (and often, with good reason) and when she gets mad, Mike tends to ignore her, and thus, the feeling of being the 3rd wheel. We didn't hang out last weekend, so hopefully they've worked some things out.

Dennis isn't doing well with his wife either. Although they're still together, he recently talked about divorce again, and about how he can't forget some of the shit she said when they were going to get one last year, and that he can't see things ever being the same. I try to tell him to have patience, as it hasn't even been a year since that all happened, and it's obvious he's not going to snap right back to where things were a couple years back, but I don't think he's really listening. Fact is, he and his wife got married for the wrong reasons (their first kid) and way too young (19). He claims he loves her, but fact is, if it weren't for the kids, he'd have divorced her long ago (had they have gotten married even without her getting pregnant first). He said before his wife had their first kid, he had never planned on getting married, ever. Of course in my opinion that kind of mindset can easily be changed if he met the right person. I'm not even sure if he's ever actually been in love. He was extremely upset when his wife first wanted to get a divorce, but I think that was more over the thought of losing his kids than the thought of losing her. It's too bad. His wife's really cool, and when they're getting along, it actually seems like they might love each other, and that things never went wrong in the first place. Unfortunately that doesn't happen as often as it should. I have a bad feeling things aren't going to last another year.

Pictures and electronic music

Well, I finally started working on the floor this week during 3rd shift, so it's back to sleeping in the afternoon again, which I prefer so much more than sleeping at night. Besides, I'm making my shift pay now =D. Since last week was the last week of training, we took class pictures, which I've uploaded, and posted below. Pretty much everyone in the class was pretty cool.

Anyways, last weekend I went two a couple of Rave's. Neither was quite what I was expecting. I'd never been to one before, and I was expecting something much larger as far as the number of people that showed up. The one on Friday night was pretty pathetic, with a whole 50-60 people there, including staff. It was held in an empty, but not abandoned, warehouse the sponsors had rented out. There were two turntable setups, one on each end of the warehouse. Throughout the four or so hours I was there, one of the "stations" blew the fuses for that side of the warehouse what seems like seven or eight times. Considering no one was really dancing anyways, and the music wasn't what I would call "great", no one was particularly mad (except maybe the DJ's), and I thought it was quite funny. Usually people get pretty pissed off if a record so much as skips a beat, let alone goes dead altogether. I had fun hanging out with my friend Ron and his new g/f anyways though. Also met a friend of Ron's who does some light DJ'ing as well. Got a free CD from him which mostly had trance on it, which is cool, cause that's what I like listening to most (out of all the electronic sub-genres anyways). Pretty decent CD. Liked all but one track.

Saturday night was much larger, this time with 150-200 people, give or take any given amount, since I really have no idea. The music was quite a bit better though, as was the location. This time it was in a club called The Starlight Lounge, which was smaller than the warehouse, probably about half the size actually, so with four times as many people (or more) it was packed pretty tight. Since this was a much more professional setup, there were plenty of lights, etc to make things look cool. Tons of good looking women there, most in considerably revealing clothes like mini-skirts, etc, so that was definitely a plus. Of course there were plenty of not-so-good-looking women as well. One of which came up to me and saw I wasn't dancing, so as usual, she felt obligated to tell me to lighten up. I responded with a smile, and a simple "No". People at clubs don't seem to understand that it's possible to have fun without dancing, drinking, and drugs.....quite odd how those all begin with "D". Anyways, I go to clubs purely to hang out with friends and listen to music I'm not going to hear on the radio. If everyone else wants to do all the rest, then great, it certainly provides an entertaining atmosphere, but it's just not for me.

Starved of the internet for 2 days...

Well that sucked. Just as my internet at my home goes down, my work also puts a ban on the internet for this week due to excessive filing to the SEC. Finally got my internet at home back today, and according to the cable guy, 99 channels of free cable TV, though I've yet to actually see if this is true or not. Apparently someone in the complex was feeding a signal back through the cable line and it was screwing with more than just my service. I also found out that the cable lines in my apartment are low-density cables, and that I'd never be able to get digital cable here, and that I could possibly have more problems with the internet. However, since I've had my internet for over a year, without problems, I'm not worried, and since I rarely watch TV, I'm not worried about the digital cable wither.

As many of you may or may not know, got my PSP last thursday, and as I've barely done any actual work at my job, I've been playing it quite a bit. I bought Ridge Racer, Wipeout: Pure, and Untold Legends. I mostly play Ridge Racer, and split time evenly between Wipeout and Untold Legends. A coworker has Lumines, and that's basically a very odd version of Tetris. It is quite fun though, especially when the music and graphics change after a certain amount of time/points. Great for those that like puzzle games like that. I bought a pair of clamshell style UMD cases as well, since it's probably not the best idea to stick the UMD's in your pocket. Each case holds 3 UMD's, and still fits quite comfortably into your pocket. I can even fit my PSP and the UMD case, and my cell phone all into one pocket, though the pockets on my pants are pretty large. I managed to fit quite a bit more files than I thought I'd be able to on the 32MB Memory Stick that came with the PSP. At the moment, I have 4 saved games, 17 pictures, 4 MP3's, and two MPEG4 videos. There's almost no space left at all though, and the videos are only 2-3 minutes long each. I really want to buy a 1GB memory stick, but anyone that's not sold out is charging $150 or more for them. MWave.com is selling them for $110, but they won't be in stock until Friday. I'll have to make sure I order as soon as it says they're in. I had considered a 512MB card, but 1GB will store 2 hours worth of near-DVD quality video, so I can rip DVD's and put them on there.

I also bought a USB 2-in-1 cable that will not only act as a normal USB transfer cable for the PSP, but it has a power jack so you can charge your PSP off the USB port while it's plugged in. This is a much more portable way of keeping your PSP charged if needed rather than lugging around your AC adapter. Not as good as a car charger perhaps, but I don't yet have a car, and nearly everywhere I go for long periods of time (work or friends houses) will have a USB port nearby. I highly recommend this to anyone getting a PSP. You can pick them up for $7-12 on Ebay, and I know that BestBuy carries them, and I wouldn't be surprised if places like GameStop, Babbages, or EB Games do, or will sell them in the future.

Tomorrow at work is supposed to be an entire day of review for "the big test" on Friday, which covers all the chapters we've learned about the BITS coding since I was hired. I've done relatively well on all previous tests, mostly averaging 95%, with a couple in the mid-high 80's. You only need 80% to pass, so I'm pretty confident, and I know which areas I need to study already, mostly some of the stuff I had trouble with before, or that I haven't used in a few weeks. The test is on Friday, and although we will have 5 or 6 hours to finish, I'm expecting to be done in under 3. What's great is that we get to go home as soon as we're finished, and still get paid for an entire 8 hour day.

I've been meaning to upload pictures of my vacation to Washington last February, but I'm lazy, and haven't got around to it, but here's one I picked out just for fun. I'll try to upload the others later. This one is of Mt. Shuksan, which is right next to Mt. Baker, where my brother, myself, and our friend Justin went snowboarding. This was an extremely rare winter day in Washington where the sky was completely clear of clouds as far as the eye could see.

Bored

This job seems like it's going to be easier and easier all the time. We did our largest "project" last week, and after it was completed, the instructor said that nothing on the floor would be that difficult..but it wasn't even difficult! I told her I didn't understand why we were going to get paid so much, and she said that if I wanted, we could work it out to where I would get paid less if i really wanted =P. Took my first test yesterday, passed with a 95%. The 2 problems I missed were little minor things that I just didn't happen to catch.

The benefits they offer here are pretty nice. 8 paid Holidays, plus 2 rolling holidays (basically just 2 days we can choose to have a day off), a week of PTO (Paid Time Off) after 6 months, and another week after 12 months. If we work on a holiday, we get triple overtime. That's over $47 an hour! O_o Pretty good medical benefits as well.

The 6 weeks of training is extremely slow paced. To me anyways. We basically take breaks all day long if we're finished with our work, and even our hour long lunch is paid for.

Stacy had her baby. She actually had it the Monday after I came back from vacation (Feb 21st), but I didn't find out until a week later. She (the baby) weighs 6 pounds, 6 ounces, so she's pretty small. Haven't gone to see her yet, maybe this weekend. Stacy was going to name her Anna Karine...as far as I know she stuck with it. She pronounces the middle name "Karen", which I tried to correct her on, but she insisted that's how it was pronounced, so I didn't argue with her. It's her kid after all =).

Done, and done...

Just finished my last night at JC Penney. I'm actually going to miss working there. Last week I was trying to think of a way to work part time at JCP while still working for Bowne full time, but it just wouldn't work out too well, especially not until I had a car. I'm extremely nervous about my new job. I had loads of job security at Penney's, and since I'd only worked at my first job (the one before JCP) for 3 months, JCP has essentially been my only job, so I'm not really sure what to expect at my new one. Hopefully everything will turn out as good as I hope it will though.

Attended the graduation of the girlfriend of a friend of mine. She graduated from DeVry University with a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering Technology. Some of you might remember that I originally came to Phoenix to go to DeVry. Anyways, the degree has a lot to do with computers, but my friend (Richard) said that she barely knows the basics about computers (she couldn't even help him install a fresh copy of WinXP Pro, which practically installs itself). He came up with a good analogy for it, saying that it was as if he learned how to tear apart an engine, and put it back together again, but didn't have a clue on how to change the oil =D.

Played GT4 at Dennis' house yesterday in 1080i mode. Makes quite a bit of difference in the quality of the visuals, and it comes really close to looking like the screens I posted in a previous blog entry. I wanted to try it in 480p mode as well, but didn't have enough time before we went to work.

Wish me luck!

I'm off to a job interview at Bowne. Applied for the Typesetter position, which pays $13.27 an hour, plus shift pay. If I get 3rd shift, I'll make just over $16 an hour right off the bat, which is far higher than my current $9.65 at JC Penney. In addition, this job will be much closer in relation to the information technology field, which is where I want to be when I finally decide on a career. I have a friend that works at Bowne, and he has some bargaining power, so I have really high hopes that I can get this job. I exceed the qualifications by quite a bit as well. Anyways, I finally dressed up for the first time in about four years.

Good luck pays off...for once =P

Ok, I should be sleeping right now, but I can't go back to sleep because about an hour ago one of the people that interviewed me called me back and notified me that I got the job. This is the biggest thing to happen to me since moving to Phoenix four years ago. I can't even express how much this job could change my life for the better. Well...I suppose I can.

First thing on the list is a car. For now I'll settle for a used car, probably going to spend $2,000-4,000. Later on, after all my credit cards and school loans (which have a grand total of ~$7000) are paid off, I'll think about getting a new car, or at least something a little newer than whatever I get for the 4 grand. After that, it's back to school. I figure that will be about the year 2007. Hopefully I'll have a better idea of what I want to do in life by then, and I can make a solid decision on what degree I should get, and where I should go to school.

The job itself is pretty nice. I'll get paid ~$550 per week, for the first 8 weeks, which is the training period. After that I'll be making $15.80 an hour, which comes out to just over $30,000 a year. In comparison, I made just over $20,000 last year, so I'll be making ~50% more at this job, but that's only if I work the standard 40 hours each week. If I work six days, the entire sixth day is all time-and-a-half, regardless of how many hours I work that day. If I work a seventh day in a week, all of those hours are double the hourly rate, nearly $32 an hour! To top it off, I start getting paid time off at 6 months. Most companies don't give you benefits like that until at least 9 months to a year.

What I'll be doing is basically taking earnings and stock reports from companies, and converting them into a special format that the company (Bowne) uses so that they can place text, graphics, etc onto a page down to the millimeter. The language they use is very similar to HTML, and actually, similar to RPGCode as well. They also use HTML for a different part of the process. After the documents are converted, we send them to a printing press to be printed, and distributed to stock holders. All of the programming is through an editor similar to WordPad or MS Word. They don't use WYSIWYG editors unfortunately, but because of that, it could probably help my coding skills quite a bit, especially if I'm using HTML a lot. Unfortunately they don't use any other web programing languages like PHP or Java. It would've been nice to learn those as part of my job.

Anyways, I'm extremely happy, and nervous all at the same time. Thankfully the guy that hooked me up with the job knows less about computers and HTML than I do, and he was named employee of the year last year; so that keeps my confidence high that I'll be able to learn and perform well. I aced the crap out of the typing test. They require 45wpm. I hit 71wpm for the 1 minute test, and 73wpm for the 3 minute test, both at 100% accuracy. The lady that gave me the test looked pretty surprised. I also did really well on the test they gave me that dealt with some of the stuff that they do, including how well I understood how their programming language works after reading a couple paragraphs on it. Only got a couple things wrong, which the guy said they didn't really matter anyways.

Now to go put in my resignation for JC Penney. I'm going to screenshot it. Maybe put it as my desktop wallpaper =P.

Feeling good...

Turns out I'm getting over $900 back from my Federal and State tax returns. Last year I got a pathetic $230 from Federal, and owed $50 to state. The year before that, I got $1 back from Federal, and owed $80 to state, so apparently I'm doing something right with my tax management.

I may finally be leaving JC Penneys. I've been trying to get a job at a friends work for months, and it looks like a position has finally opened up. He's been talking to his boss about trying to hire me for a while, and although it's not the position I originally wanted, it may actually end up being better, since it pays more, and it sounds easy as hell. The position is a "Typesetter", and basically I sit on my ass and type stuff all day, which if you've known me for more than 6 months...that's pretty much all I do anyways. The position starts at $13.27 an hour, but goes up 10% if I do the 2nd shift (afternoon) and another 10% if I go to 3rd shift (late night). I'm definitely going for the 3rd shift, because that tends to be the least wanted shift in all jobs, and that's pretty much what my shift is now, and I'm a night person. If I get the job at that shift, I'll be making roughly $16.06 an hour, which is way more than the $9.65 I'm making now, plus it's a guaranteed 40 hours I think. Only problem is that it's a bit far away, but with all that extra cash, plus my $900 tax return, I could get a car in no time.

Today

Bought all my snowboarding gear the other day. My brother still hasn't got his vacation approved, so I can't buy the plane ticket just in case he can't get the time off. If he doesn't get it approved soon, the ticket price is going to go from $220 to probably well over $250.

Managed to make another manager at my work mad at me. Apparently she told my friend/boss Dennis that I'm "stuck up" and that I walk around like I'm "God's gift to women". Isn't that some BS....how the hell do I act like I'm God's gift to women if I never speak to any of them.... Apparently all this came about because I won't say hello to her unless she says hello first; but if I'm the one always saying hello to her first, rather than vice versa...does that make her stuck up instead of me? That's some pretty retarded logic she has... I'm just going to continue acting as I always do though. I'm not going to force myself to say hello just to make her feel comfortable. Besides, even if I did say hello, she'd complain that I didn't say it with a smile on my face. I hate when people act fake, as if they're in a good mood, or as if they don't dislike you, when you can tell it's all bullshit. Managers do this all the time because they have to look professional. I hate it.