so i lied...

i know, i know, i said i wasn't going to blog.  well...  i'm not backtracking, at least.

yeah, work today...  cables, cables, and more cables.  20 70-ft phone cables (which we didn't get through because we didn't have enough phone cable...  stupid inventory lackage.  chris saw mini coax and thought it was phone cable.  what a confused guy...), 20 crossover cables (plus one for matt ;p), and we're working on about 800 regular ethernet for the modem farm.  my fingertips hurt =/

and did i mention that we're down to one ethernet crimper?  yeah, it's slow going...

oh, and i called sun again, and the sun guy *finally* showed up to fix the storedge (as in StorEdge, not a typo) 3510 (even though the front panel says 3500, it's a 3510...  go figure...).  anyway, it seems the reset button was stuck under the faceplate, which made the thing start up and shut down over and over again...  but then there was a software problem on top of that.  yeah.  great.  we didn't leave 'til like a quarter 'til, and the sun guy was still working with rob...  on ulyssees's computer ;p

anyways, i finally got home, then talked to matt on the phone until dinner.  he seems to be in a better mood, but...  i don't know, something's weird.

called matt back after dinner...  he's got his new dvd burner, which seems to make him happy...  so i'm glad.  plus, it's a dl...  so i'll be...  uh...  utilizing that ;p

and he had tuna helper for dinner tonight... i want tuna helper =(  tuuuuunaaaaaa... but at least he (really) cooks sometimes...  i'm proud =]

***

update: this is the false post. it's accurate, for the most part. and i went through to make it sound more me-like. the purpose of the false post was that the "oh oh oh..." section was supposed to be bait. guess he's not stupid enough to do it after i'm suspicious. but yeah, except for the bait line, it's kosher.

***

update: i've edited out the bait line. right after it was posted, i went through an made everything else sound like me... which is pretty much fine 'cause it's all truthful... but i couldn't do anything with that line. i didn't say it (in the blog or otherwise), and i couldn't make it me because it just wasn't. so now it's out.

<sigh>

yeah...  kinda mad about my previous long post being edited by not-me...

i think...  my blogging will be not-so-frequent for a while, until i get it resolved or...  i get over it, i guess...

oh, did i mention...?

forgot...  intern lunch! (yesterday)

steve always rides with me when i have the van because he likes to mess with the controls (and play with the doors).  well, this time, it was me playing with buttons that got me in trouble.  on the way there, it was soooo hot, so i opened the vents in the back...

last lunch for maseh.  we went to fuddrucker's.  soooooo good.  i put lettuce, tomato, onion, pepper rings, salsa, mayo, and tobasco sauce on my works burger (mushrooms, smokehouse bacon, and american cheese...  i could have done without the cheese, though...  i don't see the point of matching ground beef and cheese), and the tobasco, mayo, and mushroom juice combined to make this *amazing* sauce.  sooooo good.  the burger was huge, though...  and they all laughed at me...

anyway, when we got back, there were no spots on the building side of the parking lot (for those who've never seen where i work...  we're in a corner of the parking lot...), so i went to park far away...  and steve starts complaining.  so i went to drop him off in front of the building, at which point steve (stephen) starts driving straight for me.  so i stop.  lance commented that we were probably not the people that should be playing chicken...  but...  i wouldn't hit someone to prove myself...

driving back toward the far spots, steve's carload was walking down the middle of the aisle (lane?), so i drive into them.  slowly.  they're not scared of me like the people in the crosswalks =/  maseh did pretend that i ran over his foot, though.  stephen thought we left steven at fuddrucker's, too ;p

so...  remember the vents?  well, i forgot that i left them open.  and it rained...  and i still forgot that i left them open.  the parking lot was flooding when i got into the car.  yup, still forgot.  on the parkway, i heard someone drive by from behind me.  odd, rain driving sounds behind me?  (i don't know what part of the music this was in, but i'm sure it was quiet ;p).  oops.  water in the vroom vroom.

i would have never talked to youif i had known you was a popular thug...hey, popular thug

this blog is starting to match its title more and more...

and this new interface is getting annoying.  i like that it reads two spaces, but it messes up my typing habits, since it leaves an empty line every time i hit enter...

hmm..  it didn't do it that time....  maybe i pissed it off...

i got my first big personal project today!  okay, not really any of the above description, but...  yesterday we got a request to set up the test bed for video im.  we didn't have any specs or anything (they hadn't decided on stuff yet), so we could start on it.  well, when i started today, lance was working on the term server (that he somehow managed to fubar...), and ulyssees was duplicating a big blue (16-strand coax bundle) for chris...  so i started on it myself, and then steven came to "help" me 'cause his ldap was down (i.e. he couldn't do his own work)...  well, he slowed most everything down...  it took him like, half an hour to cap ethernet, and he did it wrong anyway (somebody's *special* ;p).  everybody in the office, plus keith, made fun of him...  it was great =]

oh, back to my project...  i did most of it myself =D  steven and ulyssees helped with parts, but i was...  responsible for it, i guess would be the best way of saying it...  a couple of times, when lance came by, i was up on the ladder running cable, and ulyssees was sitting in an office chair, "supervising."  lance thought it was hilarious...

oh, and i overslept this morning...  partially 'cause i was just sleeping like a log (slept through my watch alarm), and partially because nobody was moving around the house (they all had dentist appointments this morning, so they got to sleep in), so i didn't have my wakeup cue sounds...

 
(wednesday, 21)
yesterday, on the way home, i passed an orkin truck...  there was a sticker across the tailgate that said "CAUTION: this truck makes frequent stops.  do not follow too closely."  it was all in caps, but the only part of it that you could read at a safe following distance was the caution...  so... it's almost like the "if you can read this, you're following too close" bumper sticker...

last night, while on the phone with z, she was recounting a story of what happened at the restaurant...  they had run out of soup (which, incidentally, was what they'd gone there for, since z's wisdom teeth are killing her), and the waitress then told them, "well, you can have salad..."  z and i both exclaimed "but that's nothing like soup!"  hmm...  lots funnier when it happened...

 
(tuesday, 20)
just like me messing up time the day before.  matt said something about it being 8, and i said "no, it's not 8 yet..."  but i looked at my watch, which said 8:05 (my watch is four minutes fast), so i quickly covered myself with "it's a leap minute!"  it was quite funny at the time... no, really, it was...

earlier that day, when i was out of the office at lunch time, cong called me from lance's phone and left me a message...  telling me to bring him lunch.  and lance.  (bring lance lunch, not bring him lance...)  and then he went on to tell me only to eat half of what i order, and to bring back the rest...  only, i wasn't going out for lunch...

also...  that was the day i found out...  that divac will be a laker once again.  all say it with me now...  "eeeew"  damn bastard...  he's going to make me hate the lakers =(  but, but, but...    i guess i'll see after the roster gets set...  =/

 
(monday, 19)
monday, on the way into work...  i drove by some roadkill that i'd driven by on the way to vinny and huey's...  i'd forgotten, until i drove by it again, that it was a skunk.  eew.

at work...  we found out that a bunch of the bsr setup was wrong.  they'd given us the wrong specs.  so we had to fix that...  only, we found out at like, 4:30...  so i was at work until 6...  i wish they'd discover stuff like this earlier...

i needed to pee by that time, but i just wanted to get home, so i drove...  as soon as we left, it started raining.  i sooooo had to pee.  not funny.

also, there was this idiot protege.  ugly green.  like...  asparagus, mixed with teal.  yeah.  this guy sped down the merge lane, passed up a break in traffic in front of a corolla (the one in front of me), which was where he needed to be merging, since the lane ended there, and cut off the altima in front of the corolla.  could he have really been in such a rush that one car mattered *that* much?  well, the answer turned out to be no, since the guy ended up driving mph slower than the car in front of him the rest of the way home.  what a bastard.

 
(sunday, 18)
on the phone with matt...  "phil wouldn't come back to bed."  um, matt...  what?  okay, i know what that was about, but it was still funny.   and "boxers are as good as underwear."  uuh...  oh, but i got spam when i was on the phone, too...  for "climax cream."  yeah.

look! i'm not dead!

hmm...  been a few days since i've blogged...


they seem to have revved up the blogger interface.  spiffy.  the plus side for me being...  now, when i type two spaces, they'll actually show up as two spaces.  without me having to type "&nbsp;" for one of them.  'cause i'm lazy.  yes, properly formatted typing =D


sooo much to catch up on.  oops.  this might be monstrously long, or i might just skip over a bunch of stuff...


oh, i forgot to mention...  while we were at lunch, the guys were ragging on the interns that i don't like...  i always felt like such a bitch for not liking them.  i mean, some of the others seem to think that they're nice...  but...  yeah...  so the guys from lunch agree with me, and i feel better.  but then again, josh thinks genevieve is hot, and...  well, none of the rest of us did.  not *that* hot, at least ;p


so...  wednesday morning, i saw a touareg on the way into work, and i was thinking how they're a lot more common than i expected (for instance, keith drives one)...  then i saw it again, and thought "that's not round enough to be a cayenne."  yeah, hun...  that's because it's not...  <shakes head>  i was so tired...

at work that day, keith came to talk to us...  apparently the lady that yelled at us for using her vending machine went to keith and told him that we'd been cleaning out her machine every day since...  which is somewhat funny, 'cause neither of us had been to the 5th floor since then.  plus, she called us "a young lady and a hispanic guy."  um...  huh?  right...

i guess because of what happened, damkot later yelled across the office at me...  "hey, intern!"  so i wander across the office...  he says "get me some hohos," and hands me two vendos (one at a time, dramatically enough), so i asked the other interns to check their respective floors for me.  no hohos.  mike's reaction to that was... that damkot rang a bell, and i appeared.  so then he started ringing a bell in chat ("<rings bell>"), and i'd answer "yes, mike?"  it seemed to amuse many people.

leah then said something about getting mike's request to get his server racked, and that maybe she'd be the one to rack it...  which, of course, we all jumped all over.  so the joke of the rest of that day, as well as the next day, was that leah wanted to rack mike's server (which, btw, is just a 1u that's been on his desk.  and was still there when i said bye to him at the end of the day thursday...  yeah...)

that night, i went to brush my teeth, and the sink was covered in dry, yellow liquid.  it looked...  yeah...  ugh.  but it turns out that it was tomato plant juice.  it smelled soooo good coming off the sink.  yum.  too bad it had to turn my stomach first ;p

 
thursday, we had our last full intern lunch.  i'd invited jax (i figured it'd be good since he's cool with most of the interns anyway), and tried to invite alex, but i couldn't get ahold of him before we went.  anyway, we were all in chat, lamenting that we still had to wait for lunch...  when it got close to lunch, josh's away message went up with the message "lunch with the wifey."  which i didn't think much of, since he uses the same messages a lot...  figured he might have just hit a lunch message.  but when we got to the lobby, he wasn't there.  we were waiting on him, and i mentioned his message.  everybody got a bit ansy, 'cause he was kinda the reason we were having the lunch...  but he showed up with maseh right about then, so it was all okay then.

driving out to the chinese buffet, we were supposed to follow leah, but she disappeared.  josh saw stephen drive off, so he went after him, and i saw josh go off, so i went after josh.  i don't know where stephen ended up, but josh and i were stopped at the light ourselves.  i was looking around for leah, since she said we could follow her, but i had no idea where she went.  well, we turned at the light, and josh was driving so fucking slow (in the left lane, too!  i would've hoped that he at least had an idea of where the restaurant was...), then leah sped by on the right...  so i sped by josh on the right.  he switched into the middle lane just in time for leah and me to swtch back to the left...  and leah doesn't signal very often...

anyway, at the restaurant, they gave us an entire section (linda was smart enough to call ahead...  yay for linda =D), and the tables formed kinda funny.  the girls (except me, of course) were at one table, the left over tech people (except me) were at another... and then there were four more tables.  one was just josh.  geoff was nice enough to move over to keep him company.  how cute =]  josh had to jet early, though (to take his wifey to lunch, of course), so geoff ended up moving back to the tech table.

stephen grabbed a bunch of chopsticks and distributed them among the tables.  they somehow ended up pretty much with the right people (except for ajax...  he didn't get sticks).  i have no idea how to explain it, but i thought it was somewhat cute =]

we were busy racking stuff when we got back (they'd been talking about it since before we left, but they still weren't sure of the details), and i didn't get back to my desk until 4:15 or so...  at which point josh told me that i had to get my butt downstairs if i wanted to see him, since he was leaving at 4:45.  i went downstairs, and we talked some.  he didn't actually leave 'til nearly 5, though...  at which point i ran upstairs and said my goodbyes to weymouth and mike, since i was taking friday off for...


king's dominion!  yeah, dad's company tickets (soo cheap ;p) were going to expire...  well, today.  so we had to use 'em friday.  'cause lines suck ass on weekends.  on a weekend, we definitely wouldn't have been able to go on every coaster 4-5-6 times like we did...  anyway...  michael's grown up soooo much =D  he now loves coasters.  grizzly (michael "we went over the tippy-toppies of the treesies!")  =D  yay for wooden coasters ;p  he also went on anaconda (which i kept confusing with the avalanche...  name-wise, at least) with me a few times, and...  he's so funny.  he makes funny noises the entire time.  it's really him going "eeee," but because of the movement, he's like...  a vibrating "eee" ;p  coupled with dad's fake screams the first time we rode (me and dad in the back car, michael and mom near the front...  'cause michael's still a bit of a wuss and won't go straight to the big drops in the back...), i don't think i rode the anaconda once without cracking up the entire time.  giggling madly.  no, i'm not delirious.  really...

oh, and there was this little kid in line for the scooby doo in front of us.  he was probably between 1 and 2.  and he was super excited to go.  i mean, it's a kid's coaster, but it's a real one.  it's a real wooden coaster with real hills.  and this tiny little kid couldn't wait to get on it again.  amazing little kid...

we went on a few water rides...  they made me so hungry (being in water nearly always makes me hungry...  unless i swallow a lot of water while i'm in it.  then it's anybody's guess when i'll be hungry again ;p  anyway, i'm still disappointed that they took down the monsoon chutes.  yeah, the 80 ft, nearly vertical drop waterslide.  the one with two drops was the most fun, i think, since you'd pick up speed on the first mini-drop, and then fly off the ledge for the second one (at least i would), so you'd be free-falling for maybe 60-65 feet before the slide catches you again to curve around to the ground.  if i ever wore a bikini on that, i'd definitely lose the top.  since i'd lose my straps sometimes anyway.  and the water hurts a bit 'cause of the speed.  oh well, it was fun, and it's gone, so there's no use talking about it anymore anyway...

i didn't get to go on drop zone, volcano, or xlc 'cause nobody would go with me, and i didn't want to make people wait around with me (those are the rides with longer lines, since they're newer and stuff).   thing is...  i didn't really care that much =/  i've gotten somewhat jaded with most of these rides...  not that i don't enjoy them.  they're just not as...  exciting as they should be.


saturday, matt showed up later than he told me he was going to, but it was alright since michael was still at his swimming lesson.  he was also invited to go to the pool with a friend while he was there.  talk about being tired out...  did i mention that he slept until mom woke him up for swimming lessons?  anyway, after they got home, michael showered, and called his friend back...  then we went out for pho.  we dropped michael off at the pool on the way home, and then matt and i crashed on the couch and loveseat.  oddly enough, matt was on the loveseat, and i was on the couch.

by the time we woke up, it was time to head out to peter pan (yay for peter pan!), and so...  we set out =]  i called vinny like i promised i would, but they were still at the park.  when we got there, the oysters weren't in their normal spot.  michael asked to try some, so dad got him two, and he liked them.  there weren't any more then, so we just continued eating.  matt came back with a plate of crabs and mentioned that there were more oysters,  so i asked him to get a plate...  he returned with a mountain of them.  we ate them all =]  i got more later, too...  yay for raw food ;p

we watched some naruto that night, but matt was behind me, so i was just watching old eps.  gave that up after a while...


i woke up early this morning, even though i asked matt to set an alarm for 9.  i was all ready to leave and everything, and mom made us eat breakfast.  matt wasn't feeling so well, so i ended up eating his breakfast as well.  we didn't leave my house until nearly 10, which was when we were supposed to be there.  i thought i was going to cry with matt following me, since i head the jetta.  i had to slow down at every light to make sure it didn't turn between me going through and him approaching it.  and at random other times too, since...  he's afraid to get a ticket.  oh well...  i guess it's good for me to drive a bit slower...

on 66, i saw the sign for exit 47, and i started panicking.  when phil gave me directions (directions he got from mapquest), he told me to take exit 47...  but mapquest did not give a or b...  and there was definitely an a and b to exit 47.  vinny's phone wasn't ringing through, so...  i took the first exit as a blind guess, and it was apparent pretty quickly that it was wrong.  the first left was supposed to be 0.3 miles from merging only sudley, and...  sudley had pretty much turned into a backroad right after the first light.  so we turned around in a parking lot, and found the right intersection...  and then i had to pull into every left-turn lane to read the street signs.  i don't think matt liked that too much.  we eventually found our way to huey and vinny's...  about 10-15 minutes late.  sk wasn't there yet, though.  and vinny wasn't awake (huey said he'd only slept a few hours in the past few days).

huey offered us breakfast, but, of couse, we'd already eaten.  then he asked me (jokingly) to cook them breakfast.  i agreed ;p  i asked them what they wanted, and huey said bacon and eggs.  i told them about my bacon in eggs.  they liked the idea, so i cooked that.  they each requested three eggs...  six eggs is a lot of work to beat ;p  so...  i served up a massive coronary for breakfast =]  but bacon makes *everything* yummy!

sk showed up at around 11...  apparently she woke up at 10 ;p  phil had looked up movie times (we were going to see i, robot), and told us two different times for two different theatres...  huey thought they were both for regal (formerly hoyts), and we headed there for the 12:10 (12:15?  something like that) showing...  except it was showing at 12:30 there...  so we wandered border's after we bought our tickets (matt's brilliant idea...  to buy the tickets first, not to wander border's), and everybody went into a scifi discussion.  i felt so left out...  even sadder that they didn't have a toy section there.

movie kinda sucked.  but it was worth seeing.  especially with matt's pre-movie statement.  "i get to see will smith's ass for my birthday!"  he also tried to grab phil's ass after that, when sk was taking a picture outside of the theatre...  uuh...  okay...

we went to uno's afterwards for food, but i missed the turn.  vinny told me just to drive until i saw uno's, but there was no sign for it.  and nobody told me to turn.  so i ended up all the way back out at sudley.  thanks guys, really.

speaking of them riding with me...  i got lots of complaints about how fast i drive.  phil was convinced that i was trying to kill him...  first the unhealthy breakfast, then trying to give him a heart attack via driving him around (notice that he said heart attack, not car accident...  don't start with me on the asian female driver stuff...), and he and vinny were joking that they'd vote me for scariest gl driver.  i don't think we have any basis to vote for that, but...  anyway...  not a title i'd mind having, i don't think...
 
oh, and at lunch...  matt pointed out that the hostess's ass was huge.  i was in the bathroom when they were seated, so i didn't ge to see until later.  yeah, it was...  all bubble-like.  it would have been soooooo nice, but it was somewhat cottage cheese-ish.  through thick pants.  what a waste =/

after lunch, we went back to vinny and huey's, and we all got online...  and then vinny went and took a nap.  and we all talked to cait =]  we all posted (except for matt...  he just sat at one of the computers), and eventually matt left for bburg (nearly two hours later than he'd anticipated).  when i got back inside, we played spades.  well, phil taught me how to play spades, and then we played spades.  and phil and i kicked ass =D  it was mostly luck (hands that were easy to read) and phil being able to pull off nil bids.  i pulled mine off by luck on the last hand.  sk had run out of everything but spades near the end.  <whew>  sk and i both left after we finished the game.

 
i've been noticing bruises all over my legs and a couple on my arms.  just as some of them started disappearing, i got two bug bites at king's dominion.  so i'm still somewhat spotted.  kinda funny, but definitely hurting my sex appeal.  <rawr>  or...  not...  but at least i'm filling back out...  i'm now officially like, 108 =]


and how am i remembering so much to blog about?  i've been making voice notes for myself.  yeah, talking at my phone.  and you know what?  while it's useful...  i hate my voice.

"bonding is good... i love bonding... we should bond more often..."

yeah, so sometimes really random things come out of my mouth. like earlier, when i was the phone with matt. i made a comment about it being really hot upstairs, and matt told me to take an ice bath. without even thinking about it, "but then somebody will take my kidney!" flew out of my mouth. it makes me wonder... does laughing then count as laughing at me, or with me?


i also realized today that i get made fun of a lot. i used to think that it was just because i made fun of myself, and people would join in. but i'm coming to realize that people make fun of me because they know i don't get offended. i was addressed by my name in all caps in chat today, because josh is still stressing that he actually knows my name now.

anyway... so josh invited us (people in chat) to his cube for doritos, and i was the only one that showed up. heh. but... i haven't had doritos in forever, so i had to go. i ate like, half his doritos (super bag), and then he talked me into going to lunch with him and the guys (weymouth, stephen, maseh, mike). yeah, all three of the guys that are leaving on friday (josh, weymouth, mike). i'm kinda depressed about the intern group dispersing =(


when i got back from josh's, the laptop that lance was reformatting was on my seat, so i moved it to the desk (made room my sliding my keyboard out of the way), and... managed to drop the power cord. and the laptop turned off. damn old-ass thinkpad. anyway, since lance was installing windows at the time, that ruined it... so i took it over, until i went to lunch...


i was actually planning on having two lunches, but i wasn't really hungry for my first lunch until after 12 (too many doritos), and we were meeting at 12:40, so i just ended up taking my lunch to mr. hero's. i wish i'd managed to finish my food before we went, 'cause everything seemed so good... and i still had room when i finished my food. oh well, it was fun. lunch, they were just talking like i was one of the guys =] i hate having to establish that, and i hardly had to with them. they just asked a few times if i was getting offended. and they actually believed me when i said no! probably partially because i was participating in some of the conversations... (wow... that was a lot of p words...)


when i got back to the laptop, the damn thing had issues with its ethernet adapter... it took me hours to install the damn thing. it would randomly disappear from the device manager (as well as the pcmcia manager), or it would tell me that the drivers had been installed, and that i needed to restart... and then still have no drivers after restarting. finally, it decided not to start up properly, and i forced it to restart again... it froze halfway through restarting, but it went on and started up fine, with the card installed.

then came the problem of opening ie. when i tried to open ie, it would open up the msn start. it was incredibly annoying. no, i do not want to subscribe to your isp, i'm *inside* the roadrunner building! eventually, i deleted the msn sign up thing off the desktop, and it magically fixed ie. great... i went to work updating and patching after that...

restarted a couple of times after i was done to make sure the issues from earlier had gone away... got the computer back to hieu, and it wouldn't start up anymore. yeah. so i'll have to work on that tomorrow...


i got random compliments in the lab today. it was strange... when i brought the laptop back to the cmtg, hieu wasn't there, but raj was, so he took it from me. he made sure that it was just 98 on the computer (since the request had said 98 and nt)... he called it "just plain ol' vanilla 98," and i added "se..." he said it was great how detail oriented i was (the ctmg modem database was for him). when i came out of the cmtg, jon called for me, just to say hi. then he said that i had a smile that lit up the lab. so random. such a happy comment. i told him that it was probably 'cause i'm like a little kid, though. i seriously skip and bounce around that place. because i like being there. like i said this morning =]


went to damkot about that project he said he had for me, since i had nothing to do. lance was too busy to watch naruto... but damkot said that we don't even have a box for it yet, so probably wouldn't start until thursday-friday. he visits the cube more often now, though. i assume i'll hear something about it ;p


so... z's getting her wisdoms pulled on the 9th. and she's going to the same guy that pulled mine! it took is forever to figure it out, but... yeah, definitely the same guy. too funny.


and alex just told me that he knows linda and steven. went to high school with them. oooh...

<yawn>

had some trouble getting up this morning. finally. i guess that sleeping four hours thing has caught up with me (even though i'm sleeping more than four now...)

so i got ready for work, and grabbed a couple of cds for the road... but it turns out that, since the siding guys didn't show yesterday (it rained... duh...), dad's staying home today to meet them. which means... more jetta for merc! i was somewhat disappointed that i wouldn't get to listen to noir on the way in to work (which is what i was planning on...), but... not disappointed enough to keep me from skipping out to the car ;p

did i mention the guy i met at the gas station yesterday? when he pulled up behind me, i was checking out his beamer, but he thought i was afraid he'd hit me... we got to talking a bit ("what? don't like your jetta?" "i wish it were my jetta..."), and he said he was looking into buying a used jetta for his kid (hs-aged). hmm... german car connection.

i also forgot to mention the "accident" that happened in front of me yesterday. the car in front of me stopped short, and i was thinking "way to brake," but, as it turns out, he hit the car in front of him. which hit the car in front of her. all i saw was doors opening on the two closest to me, drivers getting out, and both pointing to the median, where the front car had already moved to... as i drove by, though, there didn't seem to be any damage to the cars. we were going pretty slow, so i guess it was just tapping on both counts.

which reminds me... the same abandoned vehicles are always on the side of the parkway. the bronco's gone, but... well, i guess they rotate. after a while, they gotta go, right?

at least it seems that people have stopped hitting deer. last couple of weeks, it seemed like there was a dead deer on the side of the road every day. and in different places, so, unless someone was playing "move the deer carcass," it was a different deer every day. i think the most morbidly amusing one was the one that had managed to walk over to the walkway (which is a windy thing maybe 20 feet from the parkway) and die there, looking as if it had been hit by a bicyclist or a pedestrian.

hmm... and on that lovely note, i'm going to... um... not work? sure...

mr. clean, mr. clean, mr. clean...

so... intern presentations today. ulyssees put the finishing touches on our presentation this morning, and emailed it to heather... so the rest of the morning was basically spent waiting to go to the meeting. lance and i started watching naruto, and i saw keith's reflection in the window when he walked into the lab, and i kinda thought i saw something wrong. keith... was bald. it was strange.

steve came down around 11, and ate lunch with us while watching naruto (and now he's stuck too! ha!). ulyssees's email to heather got bounced (i assume because it was around 25 megs), and then keith came back by and paid us a visit. i took a picture of him posing as mr. clean. and stuck him in our presentation =] ulyssees transferred that to heather over aim, and we were good to go =]

finally went down to the presentation, and the guys and i got split up... i sat in the back row with steve, maseh, and josh, but lance and ulyssees got redirected to the front row 'cause they thought we'd all fit in the first two rows. since we didn't, those of us that already sat down got to stay... oops ;p

presentations were... eh... karl gave the most amazing presentation on voip. seriously awesome. not so technical that "outsiders" wouldn't be able to understand, but not so dumbed down that it wasn't informative. and not boring. no wonder this guy goes to cornell... yeah...

all the mentors showed up to our presentation, but keith was nowhere to be seen. well, off the screen ;p damkot dragged cong down at 1:30... so early for us. we were scheduled for 1:50 and we were running late anyway, and then they moved the break from after our presentation (they forgot to have the break take up any time, too ;p) to before karl's. yes, the amazing voip guy. he went right before us. i'm sure we looked competent ;p

during the break, we (the lab team) visited with our mentors. damkot was still threatening to heckle us, of course. and then we told him that we'd left his "custom titles" for us in the presentation. so that meant... lance was "sr. intern pimp," i was "superstar" (no, i didn't do the sniffing thing), and ulyssees was "sr. intern pimp/superstar wannabe." todd shook his head when he saw our title page. i have the coolest mentor ever =D

anyway, by the time we presented, cong was dozing. i should give him credit for trying to wake up, but... he was gone. there was some giggling to the titles (no, we didn't present ourselves by the titles), and at some random things, like the picture of me in the lab.

josh worked that into his presentation later, when he was talking about his department (accounting and finance... he's actually finance, i think, but he works accounting projects as well) watching purchases or something like that. purchashing things like "those big machines that [merc] and them move around." he seemed so proud of himself ;p

sitting in the back row was a bad idea, though... we were dozing by the end of the presentations... well, not everybody. steven seemed to stay pretty much awake. which is weird, 'cause i'm used to sitting next to him and watching him just slide onto his face. not that i did that, but... guess we swapped ;p

which reminds me... it's kinda funny... nova josh in hampton is going to new york and then going back to nova, and hampton josh in nova is going to florida and then going back to hampton. it's a josh swap!

it's funny how things work out...

so... dad stayed home today 'cause the siding guys are coming, and so mom and i were the two drivers of the day... so i've got the jetta...

with a flash flood watch. last time i drove the jetta with a flash flood watch, i ended up driving home in giant hail and getting swept two feet to the left when i drove past the burke centre intersection on the parkway. we'll see...

left for work so damn late, dad was all happy and free... i'm glad i like my job. not that dad doesn't... he wasn't elated or anything. but yeah, if i had driven away wishing it were me instead of him... i would hate my life...

saw a camry on the way in; it's license plate said "whyyyyy" (i estimated the number of y's)
i think... if i were to do something like that, i'd have it say "yyyyyhw," so people that cut me off will see "whyyyyy." yeah, that's all.

idle thoughts, part 1

i'm sure these will come as installments, so... part one. mmhmm...

okay, first of all... how is "50 first dates" so easily confused for "51st state"? seriously...

and...
never name your car. ever. it will be totaled.

that's all.

as STARS draws to a close...

today was... not necessarily slow, but... weird. only work-related thing was when i helped lance move three raid machines out of the lab. and by "helped," i mean "opened doors for." okay, so i did slightly more than that, but not much...

afterwards, we watched some naruto (as of about yesterday, lance has started watching with me. not just random parts anymore. he's really watching now ;p), and then went to the meeting... if i'd gone straight there, i would have been fine, but... i had to pee. so i was slightly late. i came up as todd was closing the door. great way to impress the vp... especially a super-cool vp like ours. he gets around the building on a scooter! and he's just generally cool. and approachable. and he seems to have that brutally honest thing going, as well.

his presentation was basically the same "we're a great company to work for" pitch with a little "how to survive in the workplace" mixed in... but he's such a dynamic speaker that he keeps your attention pretty well. i guess it's the charisma that got him to where he is today.

aaand... he also provided lunch =D yeah, that's right. our meeting was catered. and the (strawberry) cheesecake was soooooooo good. and i didn't eat it until after i had a full lunch and a half a slice of chocolate cake (way to sweet to finish). was so full... and then had the cake ;p jeff king (vp) ate lunch with us and talked with us the whole time. he's so... personable.

the guys (cong, damkot, don... people whose names i don't know...) went to scavenge when we came back ;p damkot ate in our "cube" (i call it a hallway, dammit!), and cong was making fun of me for all sorts of random stuff. i feel like i'm fitting in =] they're not all... formal around me anymore ;p

anyway... watched some more naruto, and had lots of issues with the computer being too slow. 'cause i had more message windows open than normal. yeah... anyway, so lance started installing codecs on his computer, and i got restless... 'cause, well, i had pepsi with lunch. yeah, stupid. anyway, so i went for a walk and visited josh, 'cause he's leaving next friday... he and weymouth are the only ones i know of that are leaving at the "official" end of the program. maseh isn't extended either (finance didn't extend anyone, apparently), but he started late, so he'll be here for another week. so yeah, talked with him a bit (will visit weymouth before he goes, too. after i figure out where he sits ;p). by the time i got back, lance had continued naruto without me!

still so full... had oreos (mint 'n cream!) at like, 9... but still... shouldn't be this full. haven't been un-full since lunch. i need to digest! or burp ;p

what a day...

finally put the in-use tags on the mpc's in the client area... then ran a crossover across the floor of the lab (big no-no, but i was told it was *extremely* temporary, and that i should just do that... <shrugs> whatever...) and then i went to help the guys clear out a conference room. it was in use as a storage room for brand-new servers, some from as far back as november 2002 (the earliest tag i saw). those things are expensive, so having them sit around like that is... yeah... but we were just told to move them from the conference room to our storage room downstairs...

anyway, so we get to work with the pallet jack 'cause the servers are all palletized, but we still have to lift them out one-by-one 'cause they were too wide to fit through the door in the direction the jack would have taken them (as the guys and chris figured out while i was running the crossover... which is why chris tried to take off the door, but that didn't work out...), and eventually ulyssees went and got the dolly as well (the pallet jack could take 6 at a time, while the dolly could take 2... but at least it was more than 6 per trip...).

we broke for the pizza lunch that josh organized (it's funny how much he's organized since i accused him of being antisocial... i take it back ;p), which was fun... todd and heather both showed up, but heather didn't eat with us 'cause she had a meeting at 1 (we met at 12:30). she didn't leave 'til way later, though ;p

i don't think josh has matched me up to my name yet, 'cause he treats me like two different people, somewhat. when i took lance down so he could pay josh for the pizza (chris had lance's badge), i told josh i was just walking lance, and he goes "you're not joining us?" um... according to his email, i was joining with my own food. he even commented that he finally put my first name down (he'd been confused by my emails, since most other emails within the company show up with the name formatted "last, first.") he's not gonna be around for much longer... leaving next friday, so... no big deal, i guess ;p

after lunch, we tried to go back to work. but when we opened up the door to the conference room, there were people inside. and we were told, rather rudely, that they were in a meeting, and that they wouldn't be done for fifteen minutes... well, half an hour later, we ran into keith, and informed him that we were kicked out of the room. he was rather unhappy with that, since the whole operation was do their department a favor. so he went upstairs to talk to them, and then came back and told us that they'd cleared out of the room (which meant that they were still in the room... fifteen minutes my ass...). on the way up, we recruited abdullah and steve (stephen: panda) to help, and the rest went soooo much faster.

anyway, we finished the whole thing, and were un-busy again, so ulyssees and i went vendo-ing. well, the lady that keith had kicked out of the conference room earlier saw us using the vending machine, and asked us where the food was going. we had no idea what she meant, so neither of us really answered, so she repeated herself, adding "i'm serious" to her question. um... what? we both just kinda stared at her, dumbfounded. "is it going to the conference room?" yes, lady. we're gonna get you kicked out of a conference room so we could have a party with vending machine food. but anyway, we told her that we were going back to the third floor, and she goes off on us, saying how she wished we wouldn't use *her* machine, because it takes forever for them to fill it up... and stuff like that... it put us in a rather bad mood...

after we got back from vendo-ing, and damkot asked if we saw any ho-hos... and ulyssees handed him the pack that he got. damkot then said something like, "there's just something about ho-hos that makes you happy." conversation turned to what we found in the vending machines, and we mentioned the hostess golden cupcakes. and then damkot wanted some. so ulyssees and i go back around for food, and i brought back the golden cupcakes... damkot was so happy. he said he loved me. then, when i laughed, he followed with "seriously, when you want to get married, just let me know." something about guys i know saying stuff like that. it's happened so much. but i guess it would scare me if a guy i didn't know said that ;p

(hmm... is it appropriate for a mentor to say that to his intern...? ;p)


tomorrow, we have the executive speaker thing with jeff king. he's providing lunch after his presentation, so that means i will have two lunches tomorrow... mmhmm...


also, we got an email this morning about intern presentations... on monday. we've got to give a 10 minute presentation on our role in the company, as well as our projects. um... we don't have projects... we have tasks. very different. and as for our role in the company... um...? yeah... we're talking about just bringing down materials and showing them how to make cables (cat5 and coax). probably not serious, though. i hope.

oh, we were also talking about taking a picture of me pretending to hold up heavy equipment. which would work even better now that abdullah and stephen have seen me help with some of the heavy lifting (ulyssees: "she can handle that herself. she's the one that brought it over." <flexes> =D)

damn dvds...

yeah, so copying dvds over the weekend... two bad quality compressions, and one tagged copy (dvd x copy... which prevents further copying. and it's tagged with a 7-second spot. crap), and... yeah, that's three discs of trigun, one test trigun disc (that sucks worse than the one i have now), and one coaster from matt trying to burn ilife (he tripped over the firewire cable and pulled it out while it was burning. yeah...)

it turns out that the best compression engine was the one that was crashing on matt's computer. which runs fine on my computer. 'cause matt's computer's pretty fucked right now...

wasted dvds... five of them... that's a fifth of my current stash. depressing...

it's the little things...

today could have been such a bad day. between the lack of sleep and me forgetting my badge, it wasn't coming out to be such a good day...

i didn't know how to do anything cong asked us about. i still don't know some of it... we're so screwed. none of us know what's going on with the sun box... not really... i kinda wish i took notes, but... if i took notes, i wouldn't have been able to see half the stuff that happened...

i asked ulyssees to check with ajax about me getting a temp badge, but they were all out (there are a certain number of preprinted badges that are distributed and recollected)... but ajax hooked me up anyway... 'cause i know ulyssees, basically ;p (or so i assume...) printed out a brand new one. yay for knowing people that know people =] and yay for ajax =] it's nice not having to get someone to open the door every time i have to pee...

after that, we turned in timesheets. lance and ulyssees both had extra hours on their sheets, to make up for some of the hours we missed out on 'cause monday was a holiday... i just had down 8 hours a day for the days that i was there... keith called lance a liar, and commented on my honesty... said that i'd get credit while the other two got docked (keith's a funny guy =]). the difference, though, is that lance showed up last and left first, and ulyssees showed up first and left last. yeah...

other than that, though, my day was spent watching naruto and working on the flower ball. ulyssees disappeared once while i was in the bathroom or something, and i think he was doing work (he had a request window up on his monitor), but i didn't get the request... so either someone requested something of just him, or i was left off again (big surprise... since i started late ;p). oh, and keith had lance help somebody mail an explorer back to scientific atlanta. i... didn't do any work. i feel so useless when that happens...


michael's so cute =] we were all saying goodnight to him and stuff, and something was brought up about him growing up... so i put my foot against his to compare sizes, and foot was burning up. his comment? "your foot is so cold... so refreshing." i love my brother...

getting back on the right track...or trying to, at least...

so tired last night that my thoughts weren't all making sense... yet i still decided that i should talk on the phone in bed. yup. no idea what i talked about ;p

so... i forgot my badge again. yeah... i'm soooooo smart.

and the idiot of the day is... the lady in the white car (sorry, don't remember what it was... yes, i'm *that* awake...). she kept leaning over and fluffing her bangs in the rear view mirror (what? did she not have a vanity mirror?) even though she had no bangs (anybody else confused?). more than that, though, she was cutting everybody off. "oh, you're moving? ha! not anymore!" yeah... she eventually ended up in front of me again (yeah, jumping from lane to lane got her real far...) and tried to get into the right lane in front of an isuzu that just didn't want to let her in. so she stopped in the left lane trying to get in front of the damn thing. and i was right behind her, watching the car in front of her disappear off into the distance... eventually she realized that there was a huge gap a few cars ahead (partially because there was a civic that couldn't resist driving down that open lane), and jumped around.

i'm getting ready to fall asleep now, though, so... if anybody sees me up past midnight tonight, kick my ass. and if you're talking to me and it gets to be midnight, refuse to talk more. i need help getting to bed =/

help! i'm being eaten alive!

yeah, so my thighs are covered in bug bites from earlier tonight, when michael was setting things on fire (only got fountains... =/). no bites anywhere else... just on the thighs... yeah...

so didn't do half the things we planned to do this weekend... but i guess that would be expected. i mean, we never do everything we plan to do. but! we did go to the thai place on saturday. the one that's only open for dinner. mmm... tom kah gai and panang... the tom kah gai could have been milkier (yeah, yeah, coconut milk makes *everything* yummy!) and the panang could have used more chili (... and i wouldn't have minded more milk in that, either ;p), but it was yummy. so much yummer than expected. i wish i could have had more =/ they were closed on sunday, and i left today before dinner time =( oh well, probably better at sakoontra's anyway... (not that i ever go there...)


sunday, after the chinese buffet (yay for unlimited crab legs), we went to watch fireworks. there were soooo many fire flies at the park. not as much as at the duck pond in norman, but it was enough to be pretty neat. and then the fireworks were okay... the managed to set off happy faces upside down and sideways (nobody realized that they were faces until one finally came out right side up), and i couldn't get any video of the wild ones (none would go up while i was taping). oh, and one went off on the ground. that was interesting... glad they were fired remotely...

but on the way back from fireworks, we ran into a traffic issue... it looked like someone got hit by a car. but nobody at the scene looked too disturbed, so i'm guessing it wasn't too serious. just... weird. you expect people get get burned on the 4th, not get hit by cars. but i guess it wasn't a stretch, since people were walking away from the municipal center en mass... spilling over into the streets and stuff...


oh, i also discovered the switch while i was down there... soooooo good. brought back a few bottles of citrus blend, but wish i brought some of the cranberry stuff too. but those were for matt. and there are way more flavors on the website... no raspberry, though, so i'm still gonna have to find hansen's...

i also took smash lessons... yeah... i can now almost play like a normal person. i still can't always do what i want to do, though. apparently, my perceived axis doesn't line up with the actual stick, so i'll have to work on that. but i got better =] joe's a good teacher, though i suspect that he just wants to strangle me sometimes... 'cause, really, i'm that bad ;p


oh, oh, oh... i gained fiiiiiiiiiive pooooooouuunds =D not over the weekend, of course, but i'm five pounds heavier than when i started work. yup =] so yeah, i have a cute little tummy now... but it still hides and flattens pretty well ;p how convenient =D (i know, not prefectly... but i want my arms back first! then we'll talk about the tummy...)

running on empty...

literally and figuratively ;p the empty light's been on since i was driving home yesterday, but dad says that i should wait until we're on our way to costco to fill up. um... sure...

but i know that the odyssey's empty light comes on really early, and the fuel gauge drops way below the empty line. we'll see. if i don't get home at a reasonable time today, i'm probably calling people to help me on the side of the road...

i was so peeved two nights ago. at everything. yeah... so if i yelled at you or was just generally not nice, i'm sorry. even if you deserved it...

and, and, and... building's getting off at 3, but keith told us that we could go home at 1 =] so i'm free ;p