Not a Wonderful Time

Yesterday afternoon and today haven't been too great.
A lady at the apartment complex backed into my car today. She ran off before I could get her insurance information, but she told me she would get it to me. Hopefully that will happen today.
I'm about to leave work to go to the body shop to get an estimate, then see if I can find her. I'm 95% positive that she is one of the ladies that works in the realty office, which is right in front of my apartment. Hopefully I can get most of this handled today.
At least I should get a paintjob out of the deal. And considering someone has keyed my car in the past, that's pretty good. They will quite possibly have to replace the driver's side door, leaving me only one original door on this car. And I haven't even had an accident that was my fault!

I should have called in dead after lunch. It was a BITCH. I got slammed, and the phones got slammed. So the boss comes up on me about that while I'm with the VERY LAST of my in person customers, so he's tiffed with me about the phones getting backed up. OR, at least, it feels that way. It could just be the depression thing again. I have been slightly paranoid lately. I'll admit it.
And I almost did call in dead. I think it was Chuck's suggestion...(Lunch is slightly fuzzy. Must be the water...) But I decided not to.

Shaun was late again coming in. He called and got me at a few minutes before 11 and said he had forgotten to set his alarm clock again. It's been a few weeks since the last time, maybe he'll be around through the Fall Rush anyway.

Our new bookstore will hopefully open tomorrow. Hopefully. I can start buying books on Thursday. I'm going to be sure to be in the 2 weeks before classes start just in case a class gets cancelled. I don't want to be stuck with books I can't use. And I want to get in the new bookstore early too. I want to see if before it gets full of kids. It's supposed to be nice.

New Pet

Yes...I'm dumb enough to get a virtual pet. I saw one on somebody's blog and clicked the link. Then I decided to make one just for the hell of it.
Mr. Tadakeichi is the name of Chiyo-chan's big dog in Azumanga Diao. One of these days I will finish that series. It's very funny.

Today has been something of a boring day. iTech has a new word. Sekecting. I'm not exactly sure what this means. It might be a synonym for selecting. Or it might be a way of cussing out students without their knowledge. I'm not really sure.

Well, now it's almost five and time for me to go home. I'll be counting down for the next three minutes. Three minutes to life...

You KNOW it's been a long day...

...when you put the dial tone on hold.

Smokers

I don't have anything against smokers in general, I PROMISE! I have several friends that are fairly heavy smokers. I'll even stand around talking to them while they are smoking. It really doesn't bother me at all.
What does bother me is someone who smells strongly enough of cigarettes to nearly knock me off my chair from ACROSS the counter. I've stuck my nose in full ashtrays that didn't smell as bad as the guy that was just in my office. I have a headache from just being in his presence for a minute and a half.
How can people stand to smell like that all the time. Have they never heard of taking a bath?!? I actually prefer someone with terribly strong cologne to the STRONG smell of cigarettes...

Disappointment

I was eagerly awaiting having the money to pick up Patricia Cornwell's new novella At Risk. I shouldn't have bothered. I was disappointed that it came from one of my favorite authors. While it does have some interesting points in it, it isn't her usual caliber of work. If you just HAVE to read this book, go to your local library or borrow it from me. I hope she comes up out with a new, better novel soon. It doesn't have to be a Scarpetta novel to interest me, it just has to be good.

I should have saved my money for Dragon's Fire, the new Pern novel by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey. It's a sequel to their first collaboration and is bound to be terrific. I've never read a Pern novel I didn't love. It hasn't been out long, maybe BAM has it marked cheap...

I found out this weekend that a movie is coming out based on one of my favorite books, Eragon. It comes out December 15. I'm almost scared that they will have ruined it. While they did well and used an unknown in the title role, there are several names in it that I recognized. Ok, so I only recognized the name of Jeremy Irons. When I started checking out filmographies I recognized some of these people. So, it has a decent cast. The question is, have they pulled off a good adaptation, or have they ruined the first novel by one of my now favorite authors. And when is Christopher going to release the end of the trilogy?!? Can't he see that we are all impatient and want to know what happens next???

One More Day!!!

Yes, it is only one more day til weekend. I'm thrilled. I think I can survive Friday.
I think I did fairly well on my final last night. I won't say that I made an A on the final, but I definitely did well enough to manage an A in the course.
I bought a ProBodX book today for a dollar. It seems pretty interesting. I might have to consider getting some of the equipment as I have money to spend. I spent part of the afternoon ready about the results and how it works. It really seemed like it might be very beneficial to me because of my back problems.
Well, I'm off for the day. Time to go home for the nap I've been wanting all afternoon...and to see Josh's new monitor.

Frowny Faces All Around

I took my Calculus final last night. And I waited the forever until she had our grades ready. Lots of people gave up on that front.
I made an 80 on the final. :( I think she was disappointed that the grades were so low. I know I wasn't exactly thrilled with my grade. Several of us that were really hoping for an A didn't make it. But at least it's over. I just hope everyone managed a C. Or they're screwed and have to take it again. We all had to have a C in it because of our major.
Tonight is the Accounting final. I'm as ready as I intend to be. I'm not worried about doing incredibly well. I'll easily manage the required 48 for an A.

On a completely different note, I think I'm doing ok with the Effexor. I had a complete of small panic attacks yesterday, but none today. Hopefully it will stay that way. If I have one tomorrow I will go back to the doctor. Well, if I have another one period I'll go back. Especially since I wasn't having them to begin with.

I'll let everyone know how tonight's test goes. Although it will be nearly two weeks before I have a grade for it.

It's only Tuesday, but WHAT A WEEK!!!

Ok. I've had a killer beginning of a week. And I haven't even taken any of my finals yet.
I went to the doctor yesterday morning because I'd been feeling all around yucky for a while. He asked questions, did tests, and promptly decided that I have an anxiety disorder. Wonderful. Talk about a great way to start the week...So he gave me some meds to start taking, told me to come back in a week, and to have an assessment done.
Then, as soon as I get back to the office my phone is ringing. Another of my tests have come back. He wants me to do a fasting glucose test when I go back. WOW...more wonderful news.
This morning I went to the Counseling Center for my assessment. After waiting forever and getting fidgety in the small crowded waiting room someone comes to get me. She asks a lot of questions and says some stuff. Then pulls out the BDI. For those who don't know, that's the Beck Depression Inventory. I spend some time filling it out and after some bad math we both agree that I have scored a 29.
Ok, this might sound bad or good to some of you, depending on the orientation. Well, I wasn't sure I felt so good about this. After pulling out her score card we discover that I apparently have borderline moderate/severe depression. She said that 30 is severe.
Now, that's what I'm talking about! That's the way to start my week of finals. At least I have discovered that I will be happy with a 63 on my calculus final and a 43 on my Accounting final. That would give me a B and an A for summer.

Hello World

I'm having a good day. I'm not really sure why today is such a great day, but nothing terrible has happened yet.
Ms. Bell broke her own record last night. She came to class 45 minutes after the bell. Somehow I had a feeling she would break it. It had previously been 35 minutes.
We recieved our test grades. While there were still 5 Fs, she said that the grades were good. I made a 96. I'm rather proud of myself. I need an 87 on the final to get an A for the semester.
Mr. Moody still hasn't posted grades for the last accounting test. I'm trying to wait patiently. I have finished the homework for the semester. I think that is a major accomplishment.
I've started trying to figure out a schedule for finishing my degree. At 6 hours a semester, it's kinda strange. I'be figured out that it will probably be Dec. 2012 when I graduate. If I can get the classes when I want them. The later semesters have more electives because the classes just don't fit into my work schedule. Which is kinda funny because I already have plenty of electives. I'm hoping for the degree program to just take off and the courses start being offered so they fit my schedule better.
Work has been pretty quiet today. We've had some busy moments, but nothing nerveracking. Hopefully the afternoon will stay that way.
I also got my scholarship form back from the boss lady. I'll be putting it in the mail tomorrow. YAY! My scholarship stuff will be finished for the fall.
Hmm, I can't think of anything else right now. Except maybe that I have nothing pressing that has to be done tonight. Other than laundry. But that doesn't really put any pressure on my time.

Bank Officers from Hell

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my bank. It has it's slight problems, but nothing too terribly major. And it's hard to beat free checking. But sometimes you just realize that the bank people are only here to make your life difficult.
After Josh and I got married we put his name on my checking account. I already have free checking. And my pay check was already direct deposit into that account. And I had a couple of payments on draft.
Well, we ordered debit cards and checks when we changed everything else. We recieved the debit cards, but never the checks. Well, I finally got a chance to check on that. Apparently they were returned to the company. And no one thought to call to say 'Hey, these were returned.'
Then, she goes to place another order. She couldn't look at one screen, see it was different from the other, and change it. Or even notice that it was different. Completely and totally useless. AND she looked like she had went on a bender last night. She was a bit glassy eyed. And slower than Christmas.
Nothing personal against the bank, but that isn't exactly the kind of person I want to see handling my accounts. There's no telling what wrong thing she will do!

Pirates

Josh and I went to see Pirates of the Caribean Dead Man's Chest yesterday. It was a pretty good movie. Definitely worth seeing. For those considering see the movie in the theatre, a good choice, there is an after credits. However, it's nothing that great. Especially considering how long the credits are. Actually, you think about the after credits shot during the movie. Or, at least, I did.
Josh describes this movie in a simple phrase. The Empire Strikes Back. After you watch the movie, ESPECIALLY if you saw the first one, you will probably understand the reference. However, I can't tell you. That would ruin the movie. So, GO SEE IT!!!

Company!!!

We're having company over tonight. The other married couple in our group, Joe and Lynn, are coming to visit. Joe is supposed to help Josh make a Magic deck. I wish them fun.
On the other hand, I hope I can stay awake. I was up at 5 this morning to get the apartment cleaned and start on supper. I found a recipe for roast beef sandwiches. I picked up the roast and stuff last night and put it all in the crockpot this morning. I hope it's good. I even went to Wal-Mart before 6 this morning when I realized that we didn't have any Soy Sauce!
Jan, the other 2nd level tech at work, has been moved up to the front counter to work with me. I'm not terribly sure how well this is going to work. Because she is pissed to have been moved up here. And I'm obviously not someone anyone wants to work with. She's the 7th person to share the front counter with me this year. And it's only July. I was going for a record number on people, but I think Robin wanted to put an end to that! I just hope she gets adjusted to things.
I'll have to take pictures of the apartment tonight now that it is kinda clean. There are still small areas of discord, but that will eventually get cleared up. And there are still a lot of boxes in the back room, but it all looks kinda neat now. I'll try to post those next week.
My goal for the morning got a good start. I wasn't really planning to finish it before lunch, so I'm happy to have gotten almost done. I'm putting together a package, complete with detailed instructions, on spyware removal for our students at the University. This way they can do this work themselves. They all need to learn it anyway. I wrote up detailed instructions for 8 pieces of software. Complete for installation and use. I even did pictures for some of it. If they can't do this, they have major problems and probably shouldn't have made it into college.
We'll possibly be going to see Pirates this weekend. Our friend Shaphan was apparently going to ask us to his house for movies and Magic, but we already had the plans with Joe. Including me cooking. But they want to see the movie tomorrow. And I guess now that Shaphan has gotten paid he and Dee have the money to take the kids to a movie. I'm sure it'll be fun, and it's supposedly a really good movie...
One of the couples in my department at work are having a baby in September. There shower is coming up. I'm going shopping tomorrow to get gifts. I'm not sure what I want to get them. I'll probably go for a combination of stuff they registered for and some other misc. stuff. But I'm sure I'll have fun shopping for them. And deciding what to buy for my new neice or nephew! :)

Staff Council

Well, I'm finally involved in something at work. Today I have my first Staff Council meeting. I'm both excited and scared. Kinda funny, huh? I'm scared I won't do well on it. There are at least two other people from my department on the council. I find that amusing. And that's out of the new members. I don't know if there are any existing ones. I'm leaving in about 35 minutes to go to the orientation session. And I won't even be back to my counter until after lunch. Except to clock out for lunch. I'm not sure if that even really counts. It'll just be in and out.

Josh has his interview this morning. He left the apartment early and was heading over to his parents. He was going to call the lady about his interview from there. Then sit around their house until he had to leave. Lucky prick isn't even going into work until after lunch. I hope he does well on his interview. He looks nice anyway!

Grant, one of my coworkers, had a birthday on Saturday. We got him a cake and card yesterday. He turned 23 this year. And, the quote from the birthday boy 'One step closer to the grave.'

YAY!!!

Ok...I know I've been a bad blogger, but it's been a very busy few days. But, I dont' want to talk about that. There are other very good things.
JOSH HAS A JOB INTERVIEW!!!
He's been applying for jobs in the area as they have appeared, but hasn't had any luck so far. His resume was handed in this morning for this job, and he was called just after lunch. He has an interview first thing in the morning. And they say they are really in a bind and need someone immediately. They did say that if he HAD to provide a weeks notice for his current job, they would let him work at night for a week. Which would be really good so that he could always have SMBM as a good reference. And there's also rumor that they would be willing to pay $31,000! That's a WOW. We might could buy a house around Christmas with that and settle halfway between our jobs. It would be kinda nice to have a house. And not have to worry quite so much about paying for school books.
OOOO, this is a good day! I can't wait to see how good tomorrow is.

Work....

Sometimes I hate my job. I have once again lost the person I trained for the front desk. I get someone good and trained, and they are taken away. Today makes 5. Since Christmas. They took Brandi away and gave me Vicki. They took Vicki away (thank God!) and gave me Thomas. They took Thomas away and gave me Nick2. They took Nick2 away and gave me Michelle. I wonder who is next...
I never have anyone very long, and they leave me alone for so long it's not even funny. I wonder what I will do next week during Preview. And who will cover my lunches now? And what happens if I get busy at some other odd time? This is getting ridiculous. I just hope that Robin moves someone up here soon. Not only does it suck if I get busy, but I get lonely too. I guess I'll have to used to that again....

Farewell To Scary Backpack Guy

Brandi had already told me that Bruce had passed away earlier this month. I never really expected the following update on the situation.

As you all now know, Bruce Lefferts (the scary backpack guy) died. You may recall that Bruce used duct tape on his backpack (and everything else) quite liberally.

A report from his graveside service at the VA in Biloxi: The chaplain had 15 minutes to conduct the graveside. To start the ceremony, he asked all the males in attendance (about 15) to step forward and line either side of the coffin. The chaplain whipped out a roll of duct tape, and the guys passed it back and forth 'til the tape ran out, round and round Bruce's casket. Apparently, most of the graveside was spent wrapping the casket with the tape and laughing with sweet recollections of gentle ole' kooky Bruce.

Now, that's going out in style.


At least my workplace sanity level will not spike quite as much.

This is what Mondays are SUPPOSED to be like

Today hasn't been too bad a day. As a matter of fact, only one bad thing so far. I couldn't find my keys this morning and was a whole 4 minutes late. There are people in this office that are NEVER that early.
The morning kinda flew by. After Michelle got here I went and got some breakfast. (I had trouble sleeping last night, so DEFINTELY no time for breakfast!)
It was nearly 9 before I got around to logging into the Helpdesk phones. That's not too bad because I have the morning round of e-mail and such to deal with. Then, next thing I know, it's 5 til 11. I've been bored all morning, but the time has FLOWN!
I ate lunch at the apt with the honey. That went fine.
I got back from lunch and things hadn't exploded. Just a little catch up work to do. Then back to the slow boringness. I've only had one upset customer and one that couldn't describe her problem properly. But we got through both of those and got off the phone in good moods.
Then I was working on a laptop with some spyware problems. The battery dies. I check again in the bag to see if the cord is there, no cord. So, I call the girl to ask her to bring it. Here is the jist of the converstaion...

Tech: Hi! I've been working on your laptop, but the battery died.
Client: The cord is in the bag.
Tech: Could you tell me where, because I've found your socks...but no-
Client: Oh! I'm sorry. It's right here. I meant to put it in my bag.

Ok. So there was more to the conversation, but not much. That was ten minutes ago and I'm still laughing over it.
Ok. She just brought it in. Definitely a dumb blonde!

I hope the day gets better. At least we have a departmental meeting this afternoon. Those always sport something to laugh about. Even if it isn't really a good laugh.

>>6/22/06 - 4:45 p.m. UPDATE- E-mail service outage


News Description:
4:45 p.m. Update - Due to an equipment failure, e-mail service continues to be experiencing an outage. The iTech Systems Team will be working throughout the night to restore service as quickly as possible. Please continue to check the iTech Web site for further updates.

2:55 p.m. - Southern Miss e-mail service is currently down. iTech is aware of the problem and is working diligently to restore service to campus. Please continue to check the iTech Web site for further updates.



The above is from the iTech Website. They took our mail server offline around 2:30 this afternoon. They finally put the old dog to sleep....

Interview Thing

1. As a guestimate, how many times are you and J-chan gonna go at it this weekend?
2. What is your favorite anime?
3. What is your favorite manga?
4. How many times, in a week, do you want to strangle me for asking silly questions?
5. If you could be anyone else in the world, who is alive today, who would it be?

1.Uh, maybe a lot. Depends on how much of the time we spend at home.
2.I like Bleach and Chrono Crusade the most I think.
3.Full Metal Panic
4.I never want to strangle you for asking questions.
5.Uh, I don't know that I would want to be anyone else. I'm used to my own problems and eccentricities. I don't feel like getting used to anyone elses!

If anyone else wants to participate, just post a comment asking me to interview you, and I'll post some questions. Then you can answer on your own blog or in my comments! I was interviewed by ruggerchuck.