Apparently I look like something out of a GAP commercial

... or so I was told. I'm not sure that I'd agree considering the fact that I've never actually walked into GAP and purchased something. I also don't think I have the "look". Ok, so maybe sometimes I dress like someone that shops at the GAP, but whatever.

I've definitely been meaning to update for about a week now but something always seems to come up just before I do it and then till I get back to it I'm tired and need sleep or something along those lines. Then for a while I had been looking for a quote I heard on tv and had thought was a good one. Apparently it does not exist on the internet... ANYWHERE. I'm as dumb-founded as any of the rest of you might be. It would seem that everything imaginable is out there but this one quote. Luckily I still have the episode tivoed so I can rewatch it at some point and write it down.

Another reason I've held off on my blogging as of late has been the desire to keep from going too emo on your ass. I know it can get annoying and since the whole reason for having a blog is for people to read it I'd rather not turn everyone off to what I have to say. Yes yes, I know, it's my blog and I can write about whatever I want.

*I posted this 2 weeks after I satrted the post. I never finished it but Mendick decided I needed to post SOMETHING so he told me to us this. I know it's short but maybe I'll get back in the blogging spirit before too long and write something current.*

Over and out.

Eric

Look boobys!!!

Last night we went for milkshakes after dinner and dropped one off for my dad at work. When we went in I noticed that he had quite the pair of boobys on his calendar. Of course I had to say it... "Look boobys!" My mom gave me one of the strangest looks I think I've ever seen. Then when she realized I was referring to the blue-footed variety (it's a bird for those of you that are ignorant of such things, and yes it's spelled with a "y" when referring to the bird) she started to laugh and called me immature. It was funny if you ask me.

I think I'm going to get lung cancer. The past couple days at work I've been forced to inhale fumes from UV spraypaint. It sucks. This paint is cool though. It's completely clear unless you shine a special UV flashlight on it. We use it to mark the location of our wireless access points when they're up in a ceiling. I was sick of doing smiley faces like we're supposed to (yes I know it's gay) so I went artistic and painted some frowny face with angry eyebrows and a tongue. We'll see if they notice. We were saying that we should write clues around campus with this stuff and then tell people there's hidden clues to a secret treasure on campus but we won't tell them where the clues are or how to see them. Never know, it could be fun.

Two nights ago we came home to find our phone lines laying in our yard. It hadn't been windy, it wasn't raining, and there was no accident. Now I don't know about you but I've never seen a phoneline jump off the pole before. So we have no clue what took out our neighbor's line as well as our own. Of course even though it was reported to them sometime around 7 (my dad heard the call on the police scanner at work) they told us they wouldn't have someone there until the morning. So much for phone, updated TiVo channel guide, and internet. Thankfully it was fixed till I got home from work the next day.

Did you ever get so used to seeing something that it doesn't even register in your brain anymore even when you go somewhere else and should therefore be unusual? Let me explain. I had seen this girl around Bucknell a couple times and she kinda reminded me of someone I knew from Pitt (it wasn't that person though). So anyway we were installing wireless outside of the chem lab she works in. She walked by and smiled and I didn't think anything of it. As we continued to work I glanced in and noticed her shirt was blue and I could see a yellow "P" on it. Wait a sec... So I had to watch her till she turned around so I could see the front of her shirt. Sure enough it was a Pitt shirt. I didn't even realize it or I might have attempted to strike up a conversation earlier. I was wearing my resnet shirt so I don't know if maybe she saw that and that's why she said hi, or maybe she was like me and just plain didn't put 2 and 2 together about Pitt and was just being friendly. Hopefully she didn't see me sitting there outside the door watching for her to turn around or else I might be labeled as a stalker. Whatever, it was just kinda surprising to see another Pitt person, especially at work. It's also weird that I have no idea who she is since she is probably local. If I ever run into her again I'll have to see if she really does go to Pitt or if maybe her b/f does and she was just wearing the shirt...

Tonight I learned that I'm pretty good at throwing a ping pong ball into a plastic cup. For whatever reason I had never decided to try it before. I even made my very first shot (as well as the one after it). I am now undefeated lifetime. So now I can brag about my prowess... until the next time I play and lose horribly.

Remember, squirrels use crosswalks too.
Eric

Post with-held due to excessive content

Well here's the story, I have a lot to say. Now when I say a lot I don't mean 5 or 6 paragraphs, I have enough random thoughts to fill a season of Sienfeld. Yes, that is A LOT. I could talk about the baboons, or work, or my TiVo, or nosy parents, or good looking women, or bad movie experiences, or wings, or star wars, or upgrading to tiger, or apple's switch to intel, or my job, or my Rochester trip breakthrough, or eBay, or the "staff picnic", or people with ego issues, or walkie talkie fun, or the floor being an ice cream stealer, or working out, or people with crazy schedules, or Milton's takeover of Bucknell, or the excessive heat, or my opinion on "silly putty", or any of the bagillion things in my head right now. Since I'm having such a hard time deciding what to eliminate and what to include I'm going to try something new. I want you the reader to decide. If something I was just rambling about sounds interesting then by all means feel free to ask me about it. That way I can more efficiently meet the needs of you, the reader.

Sorry for the inconvenience,

Eric

(PS I'll post again when I have less to say)

Rochester or Bust!

Forgive me Blogger for I have sinned, it's been a week since my last post...

Now that I'm going to burn in hell for mocking confession (it might not count though since I'm not catholic) I can begin my story.

I now know why the transportation industry is having so many problems. THEY'RE COMPLETE MORONS!!! Let's see, I want to take a plane to Rochester from Philly, that'll be $600+ for a 7 hr flight and a layover in ORLANDO! Does this make sense to anyone else? Now obviously that was just an extreme (although real) example. It really is crazy though. Bus, plane, train... it's all that bad. Amtrak's routes in PA only go east and west, nothing north. I can either go west and take a train out to Pittsburgh then Cincinnati then Buffalo then Rochester, or I can go east via Philly, Trenton, NYC, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester. Either way it would mean traveling through 3 states in a circular pattern just to go directly north (more or less) of my present location. How about Greyhound? They use roads and therefore would be more direct right? Wrong. I'm looking at 13 hrs by bus give or take 2 hrs depending on route. I'd really rather not waste 2 entire days traveling.

So let's recap my options so far:

Bus - >$100 but ridiculously long trip
Train - >$150, not quite as long a trip (about half the time of a bus) but incredibly round-about route
Plane - $200 - $300 (avg), get there much faster but very few direct flights (I'd have to travel out of the way to get to an airport and then most likely I'd have to have someone pick me up in Syracuse or Buffalo)

Those aren't looking all the great. There is still the slimmest hope that I might be able to convince my parents to let me drive up there but that's not looking too good (even though it would be the cheapest/easiest solution). I'll have to check out AAA and see if they have any bus trips going upstate to see if I could use for a ride or something. It could work but you never know.

One last thing while I'm on the topic...
Why in the world are the online system of these places so screwed up? Greyhound listed a 12hr bus to Buffalo that actually stops in Rochester before it goes on to Buffalo, yet when I looked at the buses to Rochester that one wasn't an option. Planes were the same way. There was one from Harrisburg to Philly to Rochester but they didn't list anything when I checked for Philly to Rochester. Is it really that tough to make this crap work right and make sense?

I've come to the conclusion that personal transporters are the only easy way to get from point A to point B, since they don't exist yet we'll just have to suffer through more and more stupidity as we wait it out.

Mark my words though, I WILL set foot on Rochesterian soil (I'm sure one of the many of you will correct me if this is not the correct term for "your people").

Eric

It was fun while it lasted

I'm not quite sure how to say this to you. You've been good to me. But I just don't feel like I'm treating you right. I just don't feel like my heart's in it anymore. You deserve better than that. You're meant to be admired. And I'm just not able to get you the attention you deserve. It's not you, it's me. I just need some time to figure things out. I'll come back to you once I've had a chance to clear my head. Don't get me wrong, you're great. I just need to get some things straightened out before we can be together. Once I get this all worked out I should finally be able to treat you right. Can we still be friends? I hope so. I still want to see you from time to time. This doesn't mean it's over, it's just a break to make sure this is really right before things turn long term. Trust me, this is as hard for you as it is for me. I want you to know that I still care about you. If it's meant to be then I'll be back to you. I just have one more thing I need you to know... Blog, I will miss you.

Ok, now to the serious part. I'm writing to let everyone know (all 3 of you that read this) that I'm no longer going to be doing the whole daily update thing. I realized that the only people that read it are ones I talk to regularly anyway. So it just seems like wasted effort. Even the couple of you that normally read it don't even seem to be able to keep up sometimes so I think it should just back it off a notch. I'm still going to write from time to time when I get the urge, just not every day.

If there were actually those of you that enjoyed having something new to read daily then be sure to let me know. Otherwise I'll assume that no one really cares. I'll probably start updating daily again once I get back to Pitt.

Stay classy San Diego and thanks for stopping by,

Eric

Can't keep me down, I'm a fighter

JD Web tried to keep me from accessing the internets (the "s" is an inside joke) but I'm back. I really do hate them. If you ever hear their name run in the other direction. They are scum. Pure and simple. It's nothing new to try to connect to the internet and they deny you for absolutely no reason. Then if you call it's mysteriously your fault (even when I know they've been having server issues and nothing on your computer would cause the error it's giving).

Let's summarize: I hate JD Web. Any questions? Good.

My job still sucks. At least the other guys are agreeing so it definitely isn't just me. Rather than go on and on about it I'm just going to let it go and spare any of you that might actually take the time to read this.

Why is it that I always have planned out all sorts of stuff that I want to say but then when it comes time to sit down and actually say it that I draw a blank? I seem to be doing that a lot lately. Maybe it's a result of stress or something like that. Who knows. Maybe I'll remember at some point.

I saw something really disturbing tonight. My mom and brother were watching the muppet wizard of oz tonight so I sat there and watched it too. Now I remember watching the muppets as a kid. However what I don't remember was them making sexual jokes and using innuendo. For instance Toto (who was a giant prawn rather than a dog) walks up to the "TIN Thing" (Gonzo) and proceeds to say "What do these do?" and then reaches over to Gonzo's chest. Gonzo replies, "Nothing, those are my nipples." I could not believe what I just heard. A muppet use the word "nipple"!?!? Unheard of in my day. I can't remember any of the other blatant examples even though I know I had come up with a few more. Although at the end I know Miss Piggy grabs Kermit's ass. My how the times have changed...

I can't remember all the other good stuff that I had to say so I guess it's just going to be saved for later.

Ladies, gentlemen, and ambiguously gendered penguins,

Good night!

Eric

I guess I should be flattered

It happened again, someone wanted me fixed up with their daughter. I know this doesn't happen often but it's happened on a number of occasions. Usually it's my mom trying to fix me up with someone or trying to convince me that I should go for some girl even though I know for a fact that the aren't interested in me. Like I said, I'm used to that. For whatever reason she seems to be really over-eager for me to find someone and decides she should try to help rather than leave me to my own devices. I'm convinced that I'll come home for break sometime and she'll be letting me know when my wedding is (I'll of course have to ask her permission to meet my bride first).

So anyway back to people trying to fix me up with their daughters... Like I said, it isn't the first time it's happened. For whatever reason a lot of people's parents seem to decide that they really like me and think that I'm the type of guy they want their daughters to be with. Normally either the daughters have other opinions (unfortunately) or the simple fact that their parents like me and encourage them to give me a chance is enough to make them think otherwise.

Here's how it went down.

We took my mom out for a late birthday dinner. After dinner since we were in Selinsgrove already my dad wanted to go to the wal mart down there to try to find a battery for the lawn tractor. On the way in to the store I see some guy in a truck that was about to pull out of the parking lot waving at us to stop. It was a friend of my mom and his daughter. So he pulled off to the side and got out. Turns out he had needed to call her about something and figured this was just as good. So as they're talking he says something to me about how his daughter had decided not to go to Pitt for grad school and was going to Gannon (towards Erie) and told me to go ask her about getting lost when she was out in Pittsburgh. I went over and we talked for a few minutes. It had been a long time since I had seen her and wasn't even sure that she'd remember me. She did. After they leave my mom commented that "I don't think she's seeing anyone right now." Typical. Like I said, she's always trying to fix me up. I started to tell her to CTFO (if you aren't familiar with the concept you should ask Mendick about that one). She then informs me that it was the dad's idea. WTF!?! She said that he had hoped she'd pick Pitt for grad school because I was out there and I could "look after her". This is even more surprising because he's a hardcore Penn State fan (I think he bleeds blue and white) and therefore has always given me crap about how I'm wasting my time at a place like Pitt. So yeah, to want his baby to go to a rival school because of a guy is kinda major. Now obviously this was his idea, not her's. She's certainly an attractive girl as far as that goes but still... The idea of fixed marriages and such just don't really seem to suit me. I guess it's a compliment to me that he trusts me like that or thinks that much of me. Whatever though. Not like I did anything special. Maybe I just have that effect on some people?

I'm definitely gonna continue my own pursuits. I really don't think I need parents (mine or someone else's) to help me out. I think I can do just fine on my own (or with the occasional help of a friend or 2). All is certainly not lost just because I'm still currently single. That'll change, I know that for sure.

The first night I had the pager it went off. Was there any doubt? 2:30am and I get the little beep beep beep telling me there's a problem. It was blackboard (yes they use it too). But of course that's one of the systems that you aren't supposed to do anything about till 6. 3 minutes after receiving the first page I got a second saying the server was back online. It turns out that I was never supposed to get the notification in the first place. I wasn't pleased. Last night it didn't go off. It waited till this morning to go off and it was my.bucknell.edu that was down (yes they have the web portal too). I called my boss and it was scheduled but the notification system didn't know it.

Lunch break is just about over so I'm finished for now. I might post tonight like normal.

That is all,

Eric

I feel like Mr. Popular today

My cell phone never rings this much in one day. It's actually kinda fun. You know, feeling wanted and all. In addition to the phone calls I now have a pager for work. The number is... Do you really think I'd be dumb enough to tell you my work pager number? You know it's going to be right next to my head at all hours of the night so I can be awake if it goes off. I know someone would decide to be an asshole and page me at like 4 am just for fun.

It's not too bad from the sound of it. They said things don't go down all that often. So basically I'm being paid an extra $70 a check to wear this every other week. Not too shabby. It makes me feel like I have some power/responsibility or something. No, I'm not on a power trip. I can't stop playing with this stupid thing. And I keep checking it for no reason whatsoever. Well, maybe there is a reason after all... It's there.

I decided that I'm going to buy a wireless adapter for the TiVo I soon plan on purchasing. I know, I keep finding new things to buy or that I want to buy. It happens. I can't help it. At least the wireless serves a practical purpose. It allows me to have the channel guide on the TiVo without having to run wires all over the place. See, now that's useful. I figure as long as I can justify a purchase and will be able to use it whether I'm at home or at school then I should be good as long as I have the money and can afford it. Sounds reasonable enough to me. So I'll probably be buying most if not all of my list this summer... (I can justify anything).

Two of the new guys started today. They don't seem too bad. Hopefully they'll make for a better work environment, especially if we're all stuck doing stuff we didn't think we were signing on for. The guy that's supposed to be carrying the pager this week never showed up for our meeting so I got it this week even though I wasn't supposed to take a shift till next week. Who knows what happened to that guy. I can't do everything I'm supposed to yet because I don't have a computer account at Bucknell yet (I was lucky enough to talk to the right person about getting the WEP key so I could get on the wireless).

I need to make a note to remember to call the eye doctor to schedule an appointment to get my contacts looked at again so they'll let me order more of this new prescription. I keep forgetting about it. I guess I should take the number to work with me and call over my lunch break and schedule something for sometime after work this week so that can be out of the way. I haven't been wearing my contacts since I've been home because they are almost to the point of needing replaced so I'm rationing them so as not to have cloudy contacts when I go in to have them checked out.

Got my tax return today. My dad had made it sound like I wasn't going to be getting much of anything back. I consider $45 getting more than just a couple of bucks back. That's only because they didn't listen to me when I told them not to take out taxes in the first place. I don't see the sense in letting the government hold your money for you without giving you any interest just so you can get it all back at tax time. So instead I tell them not to take any taxes out and that way I either get a little back or I only have to pay in a couple of dollars. It's nice to have my money when I get paid rather than to wait till may to get a refund check.

Guess I need to go to bed a few min early so I can be up a few min early to check on Bucknell's system.

Hope the pager doesn't go off tonight,

Eric

Tech Junkie: Fun but expensive

It's true, we all know that I'm a tech junkie. I see something cool and have to have it. I can't help myself. I need to buy nice toys. So right now I'm looking at buying a TiVo for next year. Then I also found that I might really like to have an airport express. Then there's also the new DVD burner I want. We're only talking like $500 total... Yeah I know. It is a lot. The TiVo and the DVD burner have obvious uses, but the airport express is just cool right? Wrong. Picture this... I'm sitting in the living room listening to music on the stereo. The music is being streamed to the stereo from my computer. My computer is being controlled by my palm. Now that's a setup! I could also use it to share my internet connection wirelessly which would be nice. Probably wouldn't use it as a print server but I could. See, everything has a purpose aside from just being cool. Wow, the more I think about this stuff the more I want it. I'm like a kid only with more refined tastes (that also happen to be a lot more expensive than the typical $10 action figure).

Like I said before, today was my mom's b-day. It was pretty laid back. It pretty much consisted of making Speedie's for lunch (it's a sandwich made of marinated meat cubes, chicken or beef or whatever, on a steak bun). It's a Binghamton, NY thing and that's the only place you can get the right sauce from (good thing they have mail order). Making pancakes for dinner. And the rest of the day before and after dinner my mom was on eBay watching an auction for a ring she wanted that was her birthstone. Again, very laid back day.

I called that women she knows from school about fixing her computer but I guess I waited too long and she wasn't home today. I tried a few times but never got a hold of her. Oh well, I left a message so if she still wants me to than I guess she'll call, if not I guess that means less work for me.

Two new guys start tomorrow. I hope I get along with them and they aren't total morons. It would really make things go a lot smoother with this lousy job if I could at least like the people I'm working with. I got my meeting for SI Triage (my on call server monitoring position) moved up to 12pm. I hope I can take a late lunch because of that or if not maybe I could just leave an hour early or something. Maybe if I'm really lucky he'll order us pizza or something. That would be acceptable.

Peace out homies (since I'm now black according to Mendick),

Eric

Never a dull moment

I almost forgot to update this tonight. It's a good thing I remembered because to skip an update would have been a travesty... Or not.

I just finished watching Super Troopers. Funny movie. It was one of the bagillion movies I have on my computer (well the external hard drive to be precise) that I've never watched. I was sitting here talking to people and figured why not. So that's what I did. While watching the movie somehow my ex asked me if priests and nuns were allowed to masturbate. How about that for a random conversation. I would assume they probably could. I mean you'd think the catholic church would encourage it if it keeps a little boy from being molested. You never know with them though. After that we started debating the breast vs penis and which holds more power. I obviously won because there's no way that we have that much power. Women have us by the balls as they say.

Apparently I was informed that I'm going to die and burn in hell if I don't make a trip up to Rochester this summer. Then I was told that the trip could be my ticket out of the eternal fires of damnation and into purgatory. I'm probably too far down to get quite that far. I'm sure they've created special circles of hell just to allow us to keep descending (right Royce?). I definitely want to get up to Ra cha cha though. I just doubt I'll die if I don't. Lose my mind maybe, death unlikely. Wouldn't it be crazy if you really could die just because you weren't able to go someplace? There'd be a lot of dead people.

We had our first big summer thunderstorm tonight. Now I realize it isn't summer yet but it was in the 70's today so I'm gonna count it. Of course since it was the first one I had to go outside and check it out as the storm was rolling in. I loving being outside during storms. It's especially cool right before the rain starts. It's all dark out, the wind starts to pick up, the air is starting to get heavy signaling the approach of rain. Good stuff. Then after it started really getting bad my mom decides to send me out in the storm to go get hamburger buns for dinner. Right as she was about to hand me some money we lost power for a minute. So after it came back on I had to run down the hill to get buns and skim milk. Now obviously I didn't actually run down the hill. It would have been kinda silly to go out in a raging storm and run a mile and a half both ways just to get buns and a half gallon of skim milk. When I got to the gas station I walked over to the milk. The one one the end was dated like 3 weeks ago (April 2x something) so I saw that the next one said May 15 and took it figuring it was current. It wasn't till I got it home that I realized the 15th was tomorrow (now today). So much for that.

I ordered my overly expensive sunglasses today. I found them $30 less online than they were at the Sunglass Hut. Mendick even said it was a "good deal" and gave them his stamp of approval so you know they must be good right? Well see. But for the price they better be.

It's my mom's 50th b-day today. Don't know what/if we have anything planned for her. She threatened us with bodily harm if anyone tried to do anything special like a surprise party or anything like that. So other than taking her out for dinner I doubt much is gonna happen. I think I'm supposed to go see if I can fix a computer for one of the women she works with tomorrow. Haven't talked to the lady yet so I don't know if that's gonna happen or not. If it does maybe I'll be lucky and it'll be a quick fix. Very glad I didn't have to get up and do that program this morning. Definitely would have been a waste of time in my opinion. I would have been beat. Oh wait... I am.

Don't let the door knob hit ya where the good lord split ya,

Eric

I am a wind-up monkey

I'm really sick of jobs where I have no rights. I'm just like one of those wind up monkeys, you point it in the right direction and expect it to do it's thing and that's that. I got explained to today that the donuts in the break room weren't for me because I was a "student". Newsflash, I don't go to Bucknell!!! Therefore I am not a BU student. I get all the crappy jobs that people want done so they don't have to do it. That's why I've spent the past 3 days moving and stacking and unpacking and unpackaging, and barcode scanning those 200 access points. It sucks. I shouldn't hate my job this much after only 1 week.

I finally got my internet access. I took my laptop to work and asked if I could get the WEP key. My supervisor said I'd probably have to go to the Lib and get them to do it for me if I was allowed to be on it. No thanks. So I asked her boss about it. He picks up a pen and hands it to me. It was that easy. Then my supervisor comes in and informs me that I won't be able to have my laptop there and use it at all once some of the other guys start Monday because she didn't want to have to deal with people fighting over my laptop. Is it just me or does that sound like it has a pretty easy solution? Oooooh oooooh, I know I know!!! (raises hand) I use MY laptop and they can deal with it. Problem solved.

I skipped lunch today and took my laptop over to the Lib and curled up in a bean bag. I almost passed out. That would have been bad. I skipped lunch because right after work we were going to meet some of the family who had come in for dinner. They took us to Hoss's and told us to get whatever we wanted. I got a nice big steak. Very tasty.

So today was Friday the 13th. I never even thought about that. Go figure. Years ago that would have been pretty cool. Guess I must have grown out of that phase or something. Happens to most of us at some point in our lives.

I really hope I can convince my mom that I don't have to go with her tomorrow morning. She agreed to go do a presentation at a program they're having at this one school and wants me to go. I just found out about it tonight and would really rather not. Besides, I'd have to get up early and go there for 2 hours only to come right home. No thanks.

Wish me luck,

Eric

NOW WITH PICTURES!!!

Let me start off by saying that I was a total moron today. Have you ever locked your keys in the car? I haven't either. But I did manage to lock my set of Bucknell's master keys in a room not once but twice today. I had never put them down and walked out before. I was so proud of myself. Guess I got cocky and that was my punishment. You'd think I would have learned after the first time I did it. But no, not even an hour later I locked them in yet another room. I'm an idiot.

I really don't like feeling/looking like a contractor. I'm definitely not cut out for it. Today I had to go around using CLK (caulk) and fireproof putty to fill in around conduits in the wiring closets. So that really sucked. It was messy and I didn't do a very good job. Definitely felt like I was in a different profession.

Apparently there's a rule at Bucknell that says "If any female is going to wear a polo shirt the collar must be popped." I don't think I've seen a polo shirt wearing girl yet that didn't have a popped collar. It definitely worked for them.

It was requested that I take pictures of the 200 wireless access points that I had to unpack yesterday. So I did. I'm now going to boldly go where no one has gone before and add pictures to my blog. (I know it's been done before, but not by any of my friends who have blogs so I'm the first).









That's them. If you can't tell there's a bunch more piled in that back corner too. Yup, it sucked.

After work I was walking out of the building and ran into a friend of mine who was at Bucknell to go garbage picking since it was move out day. I had my truck (suv but close enough) so I went with. I found a nice futon and it was in good condition so I took it. Don't know if I'll be able to get it to Pitt or not but it was worth a try. I had to take back roads home so as to avoid driving down Rt. 15 with the back open and a futon hanging out. Got it home alright so it's cool with me.

Tonight was my bro's band concert. Kinda odd being there, nostalgic and at the same time I was kinda glad I was done. I enjoyed when I was in the band though. Afterwards so friends of mine invited me out to Perkin's with them so since I hadn't eaten dinner yet I took them up on that. It was fun.

Work bright and early tomorrow morning.

Eric

Time to hit you with a hybrid

I'm dubing this a "hybrid" because I'm going to mix 2 posts into 1. Obviously I never updated after work to talk about the stuff I had wanted to last night but was too tired to do so I'm just going to mix it with today's stuff.

Let me start of by acknowledging how incredibly beautiful that last 2 days have been. It's been great. Today it almost hit 90... A little hot for me but definitely not complaining about the sun. There are also certain "advantages" to being on a college campus when it's that warm... ANYWAY I'm starting to get a little bit of color already even though I've been working inside all week. Watch out, if I'm lucky I'll come back to school tan and buff. Or not, but it's fun to dream. I've been trying to partially compensate for my lack of working out (due to my job) by cutting back on my portion size. Like today at lunch I only got the 6 inch sub instead of the 12. Maybe it'll help me keep from getting fat till I can make it back to the gym regularly. (Yes, I know that I'm not fat)

I wasn't feeling so good this morning. It happens every year as soon as it gets hot again. I have this thing about starting to get dehydrated. A gatorade and a powerade later I'm feeling better. In the summer I get compulsive about drinking. I drink water and gatorade constantly to stay well hydrated.

This morning sucked. I had to unpack 200 wireless access points. If I remember to take my camera tomorrow I'm going to take a picture of all the boxes, it's insane. I never want to look at another one of those again, but that won't happen since I'm part of the crew that's going to be installing them. Yesterday when the UPS guys delivered them he called the back of his truck the "red sea" because they came in red boxes. My legs and arms were definitely sore last night from unloading all those.

Aside from all the APs in the last 2 days I've ripped out several hundred feet of wiring from various buildings on campus (mainly the chem/bio building and marts hall). They re-wired the phone system so I get to go in and tear out all the old stuff. It's kinda fun in one of those destructive senses to walk into a wiring closet and just start cutting wires and ripping boxes off the wall. But after doing it all day it gets really old.

Yesterday I decided to check out Peking Garden for lunch. Trust me, for all you locals you need to check it out. I had only ever been there for dinner. It wasn't very busy at all. The owner was waiting on people. I no sooner walked in and he had me take a seat and was bringing me soup and a pot of tea. It's a pretty good deal if you ask me, bowl of soup, pot of tea, entree, rice, fried noodles (those crunchy cracker tasting things) with duck sauce, and a fortune cookie for $5.25. The service was good since it was the owner. He no sooner heard the clink of ice in your glass and was back with a refill. Because it wasn't crowed you got your food right away. I was there for 15min and already had my meal (that was including having time to eat the soup and munch on the fried noodles). The food was really good too. The General Tso's was tender and crispy with just enough spice and they gave you a couple big pieces of fresh steamed broccoli with it. Very tasty. I was pleased so I left him a nice tip.

I really need to learn to eat slower. I'm required to take an hour for lunch. I've been going out and still having time to eat without rushing and get back with 20-30 min of my break left. So I've been walking around campus with the extra time. Admiring the scenery as they say, walking around on the back part of campus with all the trees and such, watching the animals run around, etc. It's relaxing.

Today at work my iPod was definitely proving it's worth. I had it on all day. My day consisted of Straylight Run and Fall Out Boy. Suprisingly enough those 2 groups took the whole day to get all the way through. I didn't think I had that much of their stuff but I guess I do. FYI, you should all go out and listen to "Your Name Here (Sunrise Highway)" by Straylight Run. It's been stuck in my head so maybe if I'm lucky it'll get stuck in someone else's and leave me alone (good song though).

After work I got a call about going to see a movie. I hadn't eaten dinner yet and they had so I said if I was back from getting pizza before they left I'd go with them. Well I got back just as they left so I wasn't able to go. Although I didn't really feel like seeing Miss Congeniality anyway so I guess I saved myself some money. I guess in a sense I'm glad I wasn't going with them cause not only did I avoid a movie I didn't feel like watching but I also got to watch Lost, that and I also feel very scummy from work today and wouldn't have been able to shower.

I asked yesterday if I could get access to a computer for when I have to kill time at work. They said no... Even though they spend all day on e-bay... They said it would be too much of a time waster. Let me just say though that I had to sit there for 45 min yesterday morning waiting for my supervisor to get there. She's late for everything. Late in the morning. Late after lunch. (And with my luck she's gonna google me and find this blog and then fire me after reading it. Oh well, free speech.) So today I went to the library (where they have the tech support desk) and asked about getting a temporary student account. Silly me thinking it was only fair for me to have access to the wireless network I'm helping to install. I mean seriously, why would a computer guy have any reason to use a computer?!?

Steve told me last night that he is getting a grill from his bro so now I don't need to buy one for the apartment next year. Time to move on to the next item on my list. I'm still definitely thinking about that TiVo. It was pretty nice having access to TiVo's this past year. I'm also still looking at that new DVD burner... And then there's the airport express, that looked pretty nice although I'm not completely sure if we'd use it enough to justify the price. Have to do more research. Maybe I should just start out by buying my sunglasses. I know I definitely NEED those. (I don't need that specific pair but I need a pair to wear with my contacts.)

Congratulations, I think you should all be caught up with my life now!

Ciao,

Eric

This is a token post

I waited too long to update this tonight. I have a ton of stuff I'd like to say but I'm really tired and need to go to bed. I might update with the stuff from today sometime after I'm done with work tomorrow. I'm just so beat right now that it wouldn't be a good one anyway. I just wanted to put something up so I didn't break my stride or else I might forget more often till it gets to the point where I just don't bother anymore. Not good. Anyway that's all for now. Look for an update sometime tomorrow.

Eric

Bucknell is not Pitt

I started work at Bucknell today. Very different from Pitt. For starters there are more squirrels than people. I kid you not. There's millions of the little buggers frolicking all over the place. I might be afraid if they weren't so darn cute. I saw one trying to climb up a building as if it were a tree. He didn't make it. Stupid squirrel.

They also have grass and trees everywhere. There even a little stream thing! WTF!?! An on campus stream? Crazy I tell ya! It was dead. (Campus that is, not the stream.) I couldn't believe the lack of people. It got a little busier on campus as the day went on (and people awoke from their alcohol induced comas) but nothing like good ole' U of P. I like having people around. Trees and squirrels are nice but activity and people are much more interesting. They also lack something that we have a lot of. Culture/diversity. Bucknell is all rich white kids. Ok, so not ALL of them are rich, a couple of them were lucky enough to get big scholarships. But back to my job.

I got there in plenty of time. Found a nice place to park in front of the union. I had looked at a map to see just where I was going. For starters I must not have read the map very well cause I ended up taking a 15 min walking tour of most of the campus. I finally find the building right as the clock ticks 8. I walk in and introduce myself. I'm asked if I have a parking pass. No. Shit! I forgot my vehicle registration! 10 minute hike back across campus to my truck. Got the registration. Went back. It was now starting to get warm. Walk back in to the office. I'm told to go register my vehicle. Walk to the public safety building... it's closed. Walk back to the office. Time to try to get my paperwork filled out. I asked if I was to go to the human resources building. They say yes. I go to the HR building and guess what... wrong building. I need to go to payroll. Walk to the top of the hill and find the right building. Walk all over it. Can't find the offices. End up in the mailroom and ask for directions. Wrong floor. Finally find payroll. They want a cancelled check to set up direct deposit. That's nice but I've never written a check for my PNC account. That's what they make check cards for. Luckily I had my little card from them with my routing number and the account number so they could get the info they needed. On to the W-4 form. I fill it out as I always have and turn it in. The woman tells me I can't claim no dependents and also be exempt. WTF?!? I meet the criteria for both so why don't I write them down. I mean they are separate questions on the form. After going back and forth with this woman she finally tell me what I wanted to know (i.e. what I CAN put down). Get that done and have to go find the registrar's office to get a photo ID made. It was just a few doors down so that was easy to find. Get that made. Have to trek all the way back to the office. Now to try to register my car again. It's all good. Then she asks for my Bucknell ID#... I don't have one. Yes you do she says. I kept trying to explain that I wasn't a Bucknell student and therefore didn't have one. Finally I find out that they'll assign me one through payroll so I just need my boss to email it to her. Get my parking permit and go back to the office once more. It's now 9am...

That was my first hour (or so) on the job. I definitely wasn't too optimistic after all that hassle. Then they give me my first assignment. I get to sit in a dirty wiring closet and physically follow wires from the switch to the patch panel. It was a mess in there. 5 switches needed done and each switch has 24 ports. Oh yeah, it sucked. Till I finished it was lunch time. I got home and didn't have much time left before I needed to be back so it looks like going home for lunch isn't gonna be very good option. I got back and Gene took me out and showed me how to install the wireless access points. He was asking me all sorts of questions about what I knew and telling me all sorts of things about why things were they way they were. I'll probably learn more from him in a week than I learned in telecomm and internet construction all year. He was kind of annoyed that I hadn't made perfect right angles with the wires... That's pretty darn anal if you ask me. After that they showed me how to do some various other jobs for the remainder of the day.

I found out something that kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. The rest of my crew starts over the course of the next 2 weeks. They brought me in a week early because none of the other guys have any experience. It sounds like I'm pretty much going to have to be a supervisor and that they want me to train these guys. I'll be making the same amount of money as them (very little). Also 2 of them are still in high school and 3 of the 4 are the sons of Bucknell employees. That means they may not even want to be there, they may have just gotten the job because of their parents pulling some strings so they'd have a job this summer. That would really suck so let's hope that isn't the case.

Hopefully this job gets better. It's not looking real good right now but maybe that'll change. It would certainly be nice if it did. I definitely need to bring my iPod tomorrow or else I might lose my mind if I get stuck in a wiring closet again.

After work I convinced the rents to go to Wendy's for dinner. A taco salad and a frosty really hit the spot. Good stuff.

This is really long and I need to be up early.

Hugs and hand-pounds everybody,

Eric

Mum's the word

It is if your in England that is. Here it's just Mom. So anyway it was up early to get over to Catawissa for lunch with the extended family. It was pretty good. On the way there we saw a bald eagle fishing in the river. That was pretty darn cool to see in person.

It was a really nice day today. So nice in fact that I wore sandals, yes sandals. I never wear sandals. I guess I just decided to do something different today. I thought about broadening my horizons and trying the popped collar but my mom quickly hit me and snapped me back into reality. Sometimes I do it just because I know it annoys her. But today was mother's day so I thought it was my duty to put it back down. Although had I actually tried the pop it would have worked well because I was wearing a new shirt that had yet to develop the collar crease... Oh well.

We stopped at the Super Wal-Mart on the way home to pick up a few things. I definitely yet another reason to avoid the local strip club like the plague. There was chubby, middle-aged woman walking around in a half length t-shirt with the "Mustang Sally's" logo on it. Good thing I had some time in between then and eating because it made me sick and I had to walk by her extra quick so I wouldn't have to see any more. I guess it was kinda like the girl last night at Dunkin' Donuts with the teeth that stuck out a mile. That was kinda freaky too.

Earlier we had swung by the cemetery to put some flowers on my grandparents' grave. It was the first time I had been there since my grandmother had died (since I had to be back to school before we had the funeral). It was really windy and was blowing everyone's flowers around. They still haven't come to carve the date on her stone, guess they're waiting till it gets warm and stays that way.

Tomorrow morning is gonna be kinda rough since I have to be up at an ungodly hour to go to work. Hopefully I can find where I'm going. I'm thinking tomorrow will be a whole lot of me getting my bearings and finding out what the summer is gonna have in store for me. Hopefully it'll be cool.

Guess I'll keep it short tonight.

Eric

Order carefully, there's a big difference between French vanilla and vanilla bean

I thought I was ordering a vanilla bean coolata. Much to my chagrin I got a French vanilla coffee collata instead. Now I'm hopped up on caffeine and I'll never be able to sleep. And of course I have to be up early tomorrow morning so we can go all the way to Catawissa (I know you guys probably don't know the area, all you need to know is that it's a bit of a drive to get there) for our Mother's Day meal.

So like I said in my last post, my brother's band banquet was tonight and of course I had to be there. I realized that I really don't know many of them anymore. There are also a lot less people in the band when I was still in it than there are now. Back in my day we had the entire church auditorium filled with tables and chairs because there were so many people. This time only half was completely filled. We used to have to use 2 rows of tables to fit all the food that people brought, this year a single row was enough to suffice. My how things change. As expected it was long and boring. I managed to use my napkin to wear down all the teeth on my plastic nice to the point where it was perfectly smooth. I was that bored. I even attempted some origami with my napkin... It was quite something.

Afterwards I took a friend of mine (who's now a senior in high school) to Dunkin' Donuts. We were meeting up with a friend of mine from high school who was home. He told me we had to go pick her up so we went all the way to her house only to have her mother tell us she had already left. I'm not letting Jay take care of logistics ever again due to the fact that her house was in the complete opposite direction from where we were headed.

As we walked up to the door I saw one of my best friends from high school sitting at the table with the girl we were meeting. Definitely a nice surprise. I hadn't expected to see him any time soon since he was going to be staying at Shippensburg this summer. He was home for his sister's graduation. It was a lot of fun as always, telling stories and catching up. Can't go wrong with that. One thing's for sure, I have some good new stories for the next story time. I also hope the coffee stains come out of this shirt. (Thanks Jay) It would really suck if they didn't cause I like this one.

I know I know, Dunkin' Donuts isn't much of a coffee shop, it's close though and close counts in my book (in addition to horse shoes and hand grenades). I was happy to get some coffee shop time in with some of my friends. It was definitely nice to do that from time to time at Pitt this past year so I'm glad I was able to somewhat continue it.

Maybe I should leave my cellphone on more often. I've been shutting it off at night because I figured no one would ever call me. I was wrong. I turned it on this morning to find that I had missed out on a lunch offer. I definitely would have gone with you guys if I had gotten the call. It happens I guess.

tomorrow is gonna be rough trying to wake up after all this caffeine (if I ever get to sleep that is).

So long farewell, auf weidersehen good-bye,

Eric

I have found the scum of the Earth and "dial up" be thy name

I hate dial up. I REALLY hate JD Web (my provider). They're great if you like frequent disconnects whenever you try to do something online, random outages, and lousy support. If only we had a better option...

I would have posted last night but we had no internet access from just before 10pm till now. That's ridiculous. I'm very pissed about that. I tried repeatedly last night to get back on. Finally around 4am I said screw it and went to bed. I had a pretty good entry all planned out but now I have to try my best to remember what I was going to say.

I've definitely had my Taco Bell craving satisfied for a little while. Yesterday I went for lunch and had a chicken grilled stuft burrito. It was good. Then for dinner my mom, my brother, and I went to another one. That's where my bro wanted to go for dinner and didn't know that I had already been there. But I didn't mind. I'm a big fan of Taco Bell and since Ken-Taco Hut closed I can no longer get my fix while at school. Two steak gorditas, a steak soft taco, and a regular crunchy taco later I was satisfied. Now I won't have to go there for a while.

While I was out yesterday we went to Ollie's Discount Warehouse. I normally hate that place. It usually stinks and they hardly have anything that I'm interested in looking for. But yesterday was different. They gave me a great idea. When we get back to school we're going to do a themed cookout. They had these little mini tiki torches for .99 each. I could pass it up. Not sure how the cops are going to react to seeing our patio ringed with mini tiki torches but I think it'll be fun. Besides, if they tell us to put them out we will, no biggie. But think about it, tiki torches, Hawaiian shirts, maybe a string of tiki lights over the door? I see fun. Of course I'll have to check with the other guys first but Steve thought it sounded like a good idea too.

Having been to 3 malls in 2 days I'm starting to notice a very disturbing trend. Most of the girls I'm seeing are either obese or they're 13. I also figured out a fun game to play. This one's for the guys to try: If you're walking around in a store and there's a young couple near you (we're talking somewhere around 15 or 16 year olds) pretend to be checking out the girl and then look over at her boyfriend, I bet you just about any money that the first thing he does is reach over and put his arm around her and then make her give him a kiss. It happens the same way almost every time. They must feel pretty insecure. Definitely makes you miss the real women at college. Everyone back here just seems so young in general. To be 20 years old and to feel old is not a good thing. I found out that half my team at Bucknell is going to be high school kids. Hopefully I don't end up babysitting cause they definitely aren't paying me enough for that. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be working with some other college age people as well and they'll be cool. If not this could be an even longer summer. I guess it seems that I'm going to be starting work earlier than most people. A lot of them aren't even out of school yet. So I'm thinking it's probably good to get started and get the money coming in sooner than later since I'm not going to be making all that much.

Got the old hair cut before going back to work for the summer. It was nice to have my normal person do it rather than let Supercuts screw it up again like they did last time.

On the way home from Taco Bell they had our road closed. We stopped and asked the fireman who was directing traffic if we could get to our house and he knew us and let us through. We found out later that there had been a head on collision within sight of our house around dinner time, guess it's good we were out. Lifeflight came in and everything. It was pretty bad from the sound of it. There seem to be a lot of accidents out here by our house lately. I don't remember it ever being this bad. Speaking of accidents, it's good my mom and I went the back way to Bloomsburg to get our hair cuts. There was a deadly accident on the highway about an hour before we would have gone through that section. We probably would have been held up waiting for them to clear the scene. People should really learn to be more careful on the road. I know accidents can't always be prevented but they're often the result of carelessness.

This post isn't very chronological. I noticed that I've been skipping around a lot. I must just not be awake enough yet to think clearly. That's about all I've got right now. I'll post again tonight like normal to let everyone know how much "fun" I had at my bro's and banquet... Ugh.

Until next time,

Eric

Hi, my name is Eric

... And I have an addiction. It's been going on for a while now. People are starting to notice. It's getting expensive. I can't help myself. I just need more and more...

So what's the addiction?

Is it sex?
No.

Drugs?
No.

It's rock and roll. I can't stop getting music. When I'm home I buy CD's like crazy. (Today I went to Circuit City and bought 5 new CD's and got a free one.) While I'm at school I download it. It's getting ridiculous. I'm running out of room to put CD's and free space on my hard drive to store more songs. All I have to do is look and I always see something I want. I needed a new iPod just because I couldn't fit all of my music on it. Is it wrong to love music? Is there something wrong with me? Maybe there's a good 12 step program for that. Maybe I should just find a woman to spend all my money on... But then again I could still download it. I guess it's a hopeless cause. Good for the RIAA I guess. Anyway...

Before I forget I just looked at the Warped Tour site "http://www.warpedtour.com/pre05/index.html" OMG!!! I need to go! Let me know if anyone else would be interested in either Pittsburgh or Scranton. It would be great.

Ok, enough talking about music.

I got a shirt today. Big deal right? Get over it. My blog, my content. It's kinda sad though. As I was looking around I'd pick something up and be like "Nah, Matt has one like that" or "I think Rob has that one." I guess that means I have well dressed friends. I thought guys were supposed to just be able to pickup any old t-shirt and jeans and it was cool? Guess not, maybe that's why women buy so many clothes. Maybe they buy something and then realize after they've already worn it (and therefore can't take it back) that one of their friends has the same outfit so they have to buy something new. That's just silly, I should stop trying to rationalize the behavior of women... (j/k gals)

Grades came out today. I guess 3.0 isn't anything to be upset about. Still didn't bring my cumulative average up as high as I had hoped. Guess I'll just have to wait 1 more semester to make sure before applying to SIS (School of Information Science). Need to talk to Prof. Chessler at some point about my econ grade. I just need to get it from a "minus" to just an even c so it'll count. He seems like a good guy so I might be able to work something out with him. Don't know whether I should just email him or go see him in person once I get back to campus in August.

Gotta gets the hairs cut tomorrow. Who knows what after that. Guess I just have to wing it.

Eric

Thinking is bad for you

Ok, so thinking is actually a good thing. Sometimes, however, it's kind of a downer. Maybe that isn't thinking that's to blame, maybe it's being realistic that's at fault.

Here are some examples:

I was looking at new plans for my cellphone and realized just how many features I'm going to lose once my plan expires in August and I have to switch to a new plan.

I was talking to a friend of mine today and realized just how many of my friends aren't coming home this summer.

I was thinking about the new job I took this summer at Bucknell and realized just how overqualified I am for it and how underpaid I'm going to be.

I was looking at sunglasses but the ones I liked were over $150 so I looked at another pair and they were $180.

See what I mean? I guess you just need to learn to be realistic without letting it be a downer. There's always a brightside right?

Wow I'm sore from working out today. Maybe tomorrow I can convince my dad to take his car to work so I can have the truck and actually go do something (even if it's just the mall). That would be nice since I start work on Monday.

OH OH OH!!! Stanley (my IS 1066 prof) posted our grades today... I got a B-, could have been better but I'm not complaining. It was crazy, the midterm and final were both so hard that the averages on both were below 50%. So there was a pretty nice curve. I'm happy. Tomorrow I get to find out how I did on the rest. Hopefully everything turns out as well as it's starting.

As a great man once said... err on second thought it was only Mendick,
"Peace out homies!"

Eric

Just another day

Things seem much less eventful when I'm home. At school I can always come up with something to write about for that day. I'm finding that tougher now. I can turn nothing into something. I mean if Seinfeld can do it why can't I?

I really didn't do much of anything today. I was quite lazy. You'll have this I guess. Got up about 1:30 or so. No biggie. My dog tried to get me up at 7:30. He came up and sat next to my bed as sweetly as he possibly could and put the tip of his nose on my elbow. Let me tell you, a person wakes up pretty darn quick when your dog pulls something like that. Not cool. So I had a hard time getting back to sleep, but I finally did. Had some real good dreams after that, but of course as fate would have it my dad decided to wake me up just as the one was just getting to the best part. Figures.

Went for pizza tonight like we normally do. If anyone watched Real World: Las Vegas, Frank's dad is the one that owns the place. He's a friend of the family. Anyway... Must have been someone new making the pizza tonight because it was a lot sloppier than normal. After that we hit up Wally world. No not the amusement park from the movie summer vacation but wal mart. I was looking at grills for the apartment next year. Think I found a good one. Might have to go pick that up sometime soon before they sell it. Thinking of the grill got me thinking about "the list" of all the stuff we need/want for next year. So I sent out an email. Within minutes Dennis had replied and then Steve replied to his 5 min after that. I was impressed. It's already looking like we'll have quite the setup next year. Can anyone say party? I definitely need to buy a "4square ball" or as some of us call it a "playground ball" (Mendick corrected me on that already).

At some point this summer I might want to think about cleaning my room. I know I know... Maybe I'll just move some stuff around and pile it a little better to give the illusion of having cleaned. Yeah, that's the most likely prediction. I really don't want to clean. That just means I'll have to get rid of things. I'm really bad about that. I hold on to absolutely everything. I've become quite the packrat. I think I'm starting to get better about that though. We'll see.

Maybe I'll get up early and go work out tomorrow morning with my dad. That would definitely make sure I went to bed before 4 tonight. Even though I've often started the day on 6 hours or less of sleep a night. I'd just have to take a nap. That's very doable so I'm not gonna worry about it.

See what did I say? I knew I could turn nothing into a respectable blog entry. Just gotta have faith in me and my abilities.

And with that we must part ways
... For now.

Eric

I was a witness!

I find stupid drivers hilarious as long as they don't come anywhere near me. I went for wings with my dad and some of his friends tonight in Sunbury. As we were sitting there I look outside and watch some genius try to use a parking space as a turn lane and got hit because the guy in the actual lanes was turning as well. This isn't the first time I've been sitting there and witnessed an accident. Kind of odd how that works out. I definitely think it was the guy turning from the parking space who was at fault. The guy in the focus was at the light first and definitely had his blinker on. The other guy came out of his blind spot and got turned into so I say that he's wrong. His mother was the one who got out of the car after it happened. He just kinda sat there and let her take care of it all. When we left I definitely think she was trying to convince the cop that it was the other guys fault even though it wasn't. I didn't want to get involved though so I kept walking.

It's always weird to walk outside at night when I come home. There are a ton of stars up there! Back in the 'Burgh you never get to see them. But out here in the middle of nowhere on top of the hill you can see billions of the little buggers. Some times I stand there looking up and start to get dizzy. Not cool, maybe I should sit down or something if I'm gonna do that. Eh, whatever.

My brother has discovered my PS2. I brought it home from school and he's been playing it since. He sat down yesterday and played completely through a game I had barely even had a chance to start yet. I guess I should also keep in mind that he has it on easy mode so it's gonna be a lot quicker to beat than how I play it. No biggie. I have plenty of time to play things when everyone goes to bed. I guess I'll have to stop that though once my job starts and I'll need to be up early.

Speaking of jobs, I had to turn on down today. They were offering more than twice what Bucknell is gonna pay me and they also give you gas money. Only problem was that it starts tomorrow, not to mention being only for 4 days and being just outside Harrisburg (an hour away). So maybe I'll take some time off from Bucknell here and there to work some of these jobs just to make some extra money. That could definitely work since they want me to take off at least 3 weeks anyway. We'll just have to see how things pan out.

Guess I should go to bed before 4 am tonight...

Eric

PS I hate typing on my mom's keyboard. Keys get stuck and I miss keys and it just doesn't feel right. I should stop being lazy and walk upstairs to my room and use mine.

And it happens once more

Well I'm home and already not liking it. What else is new right? Summers kinda suck anymore. I remember when I was younger I couldn't wait until school got out for the summer. Now I'm in college and I dread summer more than any exam. This year may actually be worse in some respects. What's different? For starters people. A number of my friends back here won't be home this summer. They chose to stay at school (whatever that school may be). So pretty much the ones that are left are the few that commute to local schools. We also get out a lot sooner than a lot of colleges. So I sometimes have almost a month till others start to come home. I guess it's kind of a double edged sword though. Had I stayed in the 'burgh this summer it wouldn't have been much different than it is here (except for things like faster internet and lots of things to do a lot closer). Most of the people that helped to make this past year so much fun won't be there. I'd probably be lonely out there as well. Summer only seems to have 1 solution: Work. You have to get yourself as wrapped up in work as you can to occupy all your time. If all your time is devoted to work there won't be a lot left over to be bored. Also that lesser amount of free time makes it easier to make due with having less people around and not as much to do. Guess I'll see how that approach works for me. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get the opportunity to take a road trip or 2 this summer. That would be nice. Who knows, just have to go with it I guess.

Alright, on to other important matters. I'm going to take a minute to do some complaining for a friend of mine, that way he doesn't have to post anything that might get him in trouble down the line (don't worry buddy, I got your back). Someone should really explain to me why women are so retarded. They almost always go for (and stay with) the jerk. Do they like being made to feel like crap? Is it a challenge to see if they can get him to change? I don't see the logic. More often than not they have another guy (who would definitely be worth the time I might add) waiting around for them to ditch the loser. But they don't. They might lead you to believe that it'll happen sooner than later and that it's been a long time coming... but guess what, it doesn't. Ladies, why is that? It happens all the time. I've been in the same position a few times myself but always the same result: Asshole gets girl in the end. There needs to be a scientific study done to prove my point. Yes, every so often you will come across a girl who actually has a b/f that cares about her and treats her properly but it seems rather rare anymore. I'd be willing to bet that for every one of those you found there'd be 10 of the lousy kind. The only ones winning are the assholes. The decent guys and the girls are both losing out. Seems like that would be a good enough reason for me. Let's do the math shall we? 1 unhappy girl + 1 nice guy finishing last = 2 unhappy people and a jerk that's probably getting everything he wants OR 1 nice guy + intelligent girl = happy couple and lonely loser undeserving of what he had. I don't know about you guys but I think the second one sounds like the winner to me. Everyone gets what they deserve. I've been told by quite a few girls that they all have a "bad boy phase" and just need to get hurt before they realize that they have better choices. I must be dumb because that doesn't seem like a very good plan. To make it worse, we usually still sit around and wait for that girl to come around and it just makes us even more unhappy. I can sympathize 100%. It sucks. I think they should teach a mandatory "asshole awareness" class to all women as soon as they hit puberty. Maybe then we could finally start to solve some of these problems.

How long will it take? Like they say in the Tootsie Pop commercials... "The world may never know."

Eric

Year end retrospective

It's that time. The end. Classes are over. Finals are finished. We're going home. Some are graduating, never to return. We never thought it would be over but the time has come. It's an odd feeling as I sit in my own living room writing this. It's home but then again it isn't. Things are so familiar yet so different. A lot has changed since last summer so I'd like to take a little time to step back and look at the year that's been.

My year started early. Two weeks before the rest of the students moved back in to be exact. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Once I got settled it was time to go to the first day of training. Wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to meet the rest of the guys (and girl). When you think ResNet, you probably think a bunch of stereotypical computer nerds, a bunch of smelly guys with thick glasses that are out of place in sunlight or with other people. Not the case at all. There was a cloud of "geekiness" hanging over the room but as I looked around you definitely wouldn't have known it. It was a bunch of normal people. Ok so there may be an exception here or there but overall everyone was really pretty cool. Great group of people.

Then came the end of training. The band had moved in right before they left for camp... The people reading this probably already know the story so I'm not going to spell anything out. If you don't know I might tell you at some point but you're probably better off not asking.

As classes started I was on quite a high. Everything seemed to be going right with the world and I had a really good feeling about things. That quickly faded as classes started to get going and other personal issues started to take a different turn. Definitely nothing even remotely close to last year but it doesn't always take something big to kill your enthusiasm. It was a very long semester. Don't get me wrong, there were definitely some good times in there and plenty of good people but there was just something else... Can't really put my finger on what it was but I know it was there. By the time Christmas break hit there was a definite slide going in my grades, I definitely did not do nearly as well as I had hoped. But it was completely my fault. Then just after Christmas the unexpected.

I awoke one morning to my mother crying. "Eric, you need to get up and get dressed, Mom-mom (my grandmother) had a heart attack and she's in the hospital." Not a very good way to start the day. We found out later that it hadn't been a heart attack but rather her heart had just stopped. Thankfully she was already at the hospital to get checked up on and there were doctors and nurses there to rush to her aide immediately. They were able to revive her before there had been any brain damage. We were told that had she been anywhere else it would have almost certainly been fatal.

The week or 2 following that will probably be with me for the rest of my life. Everyday was spent at the hospital. First Bloomsburg, then Geisinger. No one was really sure what the problem was. Finally they realized that one of the heart valves that had been replaced only a few years before was blocked. They needed to operate immediately to remove the blockage. They moved her into the Cardio ICU to prepare for the surgery. We were all sitting around waiting to go see her before she went in. When they finally let us into the room she was in good spirits as they started to prep her for surgery. The nurses joked with her and she seemed very comfortable. We all felt optimistic about the surgery. As I stood by her bed it came time to say our good byes before the procedure. I couldn't really talk. I just held her hand. She smiled at me as her hand slowly slipped out of mine. That was the last time I saw her.

We had gone home to get some sleep so we could return again in the morning to see her after she had gotten out of surgery. I had a very tough time sleeping that night. I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. Then a little while later I heard the phone. I knew before I got downstairs that she was gone but I still held out hope. As I saw my parents huddled in the dining room I relished that the worst was true. The operation was successful but they were unable to restart her heart afterwards.

By all accounts she had been ready to go. It was said that only days before my grandfather, who had died on Easter only months before my little brother was born, had come to her in a dream. You never think of life being quite that poetic, so much like a movie or any other story, but some of this really does happen. It was comforting to know that she didn't have to suffer.

I was unable to be at her funeral. I had to come back to school the day of her viewing and was not even there for that. Sometimes I wonder if I should have been there, but then again, I don't think she would have cared. I think she would have been angry if I had been late in coming back to school for something as "silly" as a funeral, after all , it's not really the person anymore anyway. I said goodbye while she was still with us and that's all that would matter to her.

I'm not ashamed to mention that I'm bawling like a baby as I type. This hit me very hard. It still doesn't seem like it's true. I keep expecting to hear her voice or see her sitting in the living room of her house, but that's all just a memory now.
Not exactly the best start to the second half of the year.

As the semester progressed I seemed to be getting back into the swing of things with my school work and such and things we going along fairly smooth. Occasional bumps along the way but nothing too big. I'm not quite sure why but a couple weeks ago I noticed myself go through a big change. I started hanging out with Matt and Tony more, and of course you can't have Tony without Sarah (you guys are kind of a package deal and you know it ;) ). I also was introduced to Dave and Paul along with various other acquaintances (Nikki, Marilyn, etc, etc, etc). All very cool people. But I really started to notice a change in myself starting the night of "Phat Jam". After the concert Matt called to invite me to an after party that the Pendulums were having. It was a great time! I was singing and dancing, really letting myself go and having a good time. If you have known me for any amount of time you know that I'm not a fan of making a fool of myself. But I didn't care, so yes for the first time I was actually willing to loosen up and do things. Who would have known it would be so much fun? Since then I've been meeting all sorts of really great people and have had a blast. I haven't felt this good in a long time. People have even commented about the change they've noticed in my attitude so I know it isn't just me. For whatever reason I think there must have still been holding me back. All I know is that it's gone now and I'm a better person for it.

I know next year is gonna be a blast and can't wait. Who knows, maybe things will get even better. It could happen. With a wingman at my side or the entire squadron backing me up it could be quite the ride and I plan on enjoying every moment of it.

That being said there are some other very important people that I need to mention, without them I probably would have never survived the year. Ben, Josh, even Dave and Nick, I want to thank you guys for being around. I defiantly benefited from your mentoring and advice, and you certainly helped me stay sane. I'm glad I met you guys and it's disappointing that I didn't meet you sooner. We had a lot of fun as well. It was defiantly nice to have you around. I mean your suite was pretty much my second home. I was sometimes there more often than my own room.

I know this is pretty long. I could go on and on but I think I'm going to wrap it up.

Mainly I want to say a big thank you to all my friends, even those of you that I didn't specifically mention. Without you guys I would not have had nearly as much fun as I did. You are all great people and can't wait to see most of you when we get back in the fall. To the ones how have now graduated and I may not get to see, I wish you all luck and please feel free to stay in touch.

It was one hell of a year. Lots of good, some bad. It started on a high note, dropped down in the middle and then shot back up higher than it had been before at the end. Hopefully the momentum continues into next year.

It's been fun kids.

Eric

Gotta take the good with the not so good

I think we all know that life seems to dish out experiences in 2 scoops, 1 good, 1 not so good. Best course of action is to start with the bad scoop and swallow it down. Get it out of the way and don't think about it (or else you might puke due to the nasty taste). Anyway then you'll be free to enjoy the good.

Enough being philosophical. So the past 2 days have been kinda interesting. Finals are finally out of the way. Those buggers can be deceiving. I really have no idea how I did. I don't think I bombed either of them but then again you never know. Hopefully I'll get my B's and that'll be that. I wouldn't complain. It's kinda weird how jobs work for me. I had no sooner called one guy to tell him that I was gonna take a full time overnight on call position (only pays for 10 hrs a week since it's on call) and I got an email telling me they wanted me for something else. Hopefully I can keep this trend going after I graduate. I've definitely gotten lucky when it comes to that. I'm gonna be working for Bucknell. They aren't gonna pay me all that well but I was at Little League for 4 years and they wouldn't give me any more money either. Next year I think I may have a pretty good shot at one of those well paying Geisinger internships though so that would be nice. But this year I'll be doing the over night on call thing for them monitoring servers via pager and internet and then in the day I'm going to be on a crew installing wireless access points all over campus among other things. It's like my high school job all over again. Not sure if it's what I really wanted to do but it's just more stuff to add to my already long list of work experience in my field. Who knows, maybe it won't be bad. Just have to find out.

So tonight we went to an "interesting" little shop... It was kinda funny, definitely a new experience. Anyway I'm really pushing it. It's almost 3:30 and I need to be up early to finish packing, move out, and run some errands. I'm gonna post that big "year end retrospective" once I get home so you guys will all have that to look forward to. I warn you though, it's gonna be long.

Eric

PS To everyone I don't get to see before I leave I hope you have a safe trip home and a great summer. I hope to talk to you all soon.

Today goes in the "good day" column

The day started off with 5 hours of work. Out of those 5 hours though I was only scheduled for 2. Out of that 2 hours I only worked for about 5 min. (In case simple math confuses you 5hrs - 5 min = 4 hrs 55min of unused work time, aka free time). So that wasn't too bad.

Then I came back and saw my friend Katie online (she spent most of the last year in France). She said she was down in the cathedral so I walked down to say hi. We sat and caught up for a little while and Liz ran into me. So I talked to her for a bit and she told me she was going to remember to unblock me when she got back. More positives.

After saying good bye to them I came back to the room and copied some games. Free games are good. Especially when they would have cost anywhere from $20 to $50 a piece.

Then we decided to go to Quaker Steak and Lube for wings. I went with Matt and Simon and we met some of the Pends (and various others). Good times as usual. Ken is my hero. Somehow we got into a discussion about Zelda and I mentioned that I had been stuck on this one part for a while. From the top of his head he explained to me (complete with napkin diagram) what I needed to do to move on to the next part. I was so excited that I had to come back and try it. Sure enough he was exactly right. Very cool.

All in all I think it was a pretty good day if I do say so myself.

Eric

I'm making this a habit

Even though I have little if anything to post tonight I still feel obligated to do so. I figure that if I don't update just because I don't have anything to say that soon I'll just end up not posting at all. We just can't have that can we. But c'mon, this is me, I can always find SOMETHING to talk about even if it's pure nonsense. So here we go...

Did you even have one of those mornings where you wake up way too early and you're so tired that you just can't fall asleep again so you lay there in a half sleeping stupor thinking about the most random things? I know everyone does it. This morning was one of those times. All sorts of crazy things went through my head as I laid there. I came up with a special rule for four square in case I ever get to serve and can pick my own rules. I would make it so you can catch the ball. I know some of you are probably thinking "that's just dumb". But here's the thing... If you caught it you couldn't just throw it and easily get someone out. If you catch it you can't get someone out when you put the ball back in play, someone else has to touch it first. So it kinda gives you the option to save the ball and keep yourself from getting out but at the same time you can't use it to try and pick someone off. I think it could work. So then as I continued to not sleep I came to a realization. I really AM a "pendugroupie" (I was told it was official). I completely forgot that Katie was a Pend as well. I t was one of those things that all of the sudden just clicked. Things that she said last year in away messages and such that I thought was just here being silly actually had meaning! Go figure. So yeah, apparently I've been friends with Pends the whole time I've been at Pitt. Then later I guess the 4 square thing led me to think about squaring numbers (don't ask me why). I have never thought about the reason why a number to the 2nd power was "squared" and to the 3rd power was "cubed". I had never thought of it geometrically before. I realize that this means absolutely nothing and you're probably just shaking your head saying to yourself "Way to go Eric, you're a friggin' genius...". But I felt as if I had realized some profound truth. How bout you just lay off and let me enjoy my moment will ya?

I didn't have to work today. I was actually pretty surprised. But I certainly wasn't going to complain. It gave me time to take care of some crap that I've been meaning to do. Josh wanted to copy my music and such so I transferred everything to his server along with the files on my external hard drive so I could reformat it. It just needed done so I figured I'd do that while the resources were available to me. I think I'm gonna use the smaller partition to install Tiger onto once I get my copy so I can test to see that all my programs work before taking the leap and upgrading my laptop.

Tomorrow I need to call Mike from Bucknell about some final info for this job they offered me. It isn't really anything special, just carrying a pager a couple hours a week in case the network or servers go down. It's not enough to count as a summer job so I need to keep looking, but at least it'll be a little extra money and it'll look good on my resume.

I think tonight we might try to hit up Quaker Steak for wing night one last time this year. Mendick thought it sounded like a good idea so hopefully people will be up for it.

Wow, sometimes I even surprise myself. All this from what started as nothing to say. Pretty good if I do say so myself.

Time to hit the sack so I can start it all over again tomorrow.

Eric

Get ready for a double shot

Yup, it's my second post today (even though the bottom will say tomorrow). I submitted my last program for C++, it didn't really work but most of the pieces were there at least. Now assuming I pass the final I should never have to take another programming course again!!!!! But then again things have a habit of surprising you. So here's to being done for the moment!

Well I've no got some free time till my finals on Thursday. I moved my work hours all around so I have to work till 3 on Monday and Tuesday and till 2 on Wednesday, then I'm done with ResNet for the semester and can concentrate on my 2 finals. I guess I need to find time to pack in there too.

You know the end is approaching. It seems as if everyone has a countdown, or an away message about their last *insert any word*, or their profile says something about being happy or sad. It's everywhere. So I bet now you're expecting me to start into the big year end retrospective that I warned you was coming. Well....

Gotcha! Don't know why I mentioned that but no big deal. Since I posted earlier I can't come up with a whole lot more to say right now.

Guess it's time for bed.
Night all.

Eric

Pardon the delay

It's been a couple days since I last posted for various reasons. The biggest reason was coming back late and not really feeling like it. Oh well.

Well Friday night was another "penduparty". As usual it was a lot of fun. I told Mendick that I feel as if I'm becoming a "pendugroupie". (Sorry for the "pendu-" words, it just refers to Pitt's co-ed signing group, the Pendulums of which my friend Matt is a member of) Like I mentioned before, it was a good time as always. I have no clue what game we were playing for most of the time. Every time I asked a question about what was going on they said I was breaking a rule, so yeah, Eric had no clue what it was or what the rules were. Like normal there was music/dancing, and yes some collars got popped. Unlike the last time when I sadly knew almost all of the words to the 2 N sync songs they played, I was at a loss this time and didn't know many. I had to apologize to Leah since she didn't remember the words either and I couldn't help her out this time... Yeah, so it was fun. Tony and Sarah left before the rest of us so our group was down to Dave, Paul, Matt, Marilyn and I. We listened to Rick play the guitar for a bit. Then I went out in the other room and got my chat on... Dave and Paul decided we should leave so I had to apologize for running out so abruptly (sigh) and do the proper wingman thing and leave (I guess in this case it was more of a squadron than just a wingman). Anywho...

Yesterday I did a whole lot of nothing for a while. Then we went for coffee in Shadyside. Just sat around chatting. It's always a good time. When we got back the network was down so I called the NOC (Network Operations Center) to report the outage. Apparently it was "scheduled" and therefore no one knew about it. So then we watched "Pirates of Silicon Valley". It had been a while since I saw it. Classic geek flick.

Can't believe I spent over an hour writing this... Guess that's what happens when I get distracted with talking to people.

Squadron leader this is Red...
Requesting permission to return home.
Copy that squadron leader.
Red out.

I'm scraping the barrel today

This is probably the hardest I've had to think yet for a blog entry. Maybe I'm just tired. Don't know. Well, here goes nothing.

Classes are finally over. Kinda... Still have a C++ assignment to finish and 2 finals to take. And of course I found out that I'm going to have to leave right after finals end which really sucks cause I was hoping for some downtime to "chill with the homies" before going back home. But, I guess it doesn't always work out the way you want it to.

Dr. Kabara (the guy who normally teaches IS 1066) gave a talk to us today during the second half of class about grad school, jobs, etc. It was kinda interesting. It made me want to think about grad school. Definitely gonna wait and see on that one though. I definitely wish we had him for class instead of "Stanley". He told us about the 3 B's that we were all looking for "Beer, Bucks ($$$), and ... You all know the third". It was great, not to many teachers will come out and say stuff like that. I also never knew that Pitt has the best telecomm program in the country. Who knew? Kinda cool when you think about it.

I found an Easter egg in the fire extinguisher cabinet on the first floor. It had candy in it. I guess people never bothered to look in our building for the Easter eggs that were randomly placed around campus. Oh well, I felt special.

So we were having some "guy talk" tonight with Dave, Paul, his brother Vince, Tony, Matt, and myself. It was quite... "informative"... Anyway to make a long story short Mat and I realized that we need to find some ladies. I offered to be his wingman. I know, I know, it sounds like an unstoppable dynamic duo right? So maybe not. But who knows, I put the offer out there. Good things come to those who wait right? Well I'm willing to wait my turn so you never know.

If rumors are true and tomorrow night is anything like the last time, the next post might be a good one. So keep checking back. I'm not going to tell anyone to hold their breath cause that would just be silly.

The sandman beckons...
Eric

I cheated on this one...

Like I said, I cheated. I set the time back so it would look like I posted before midnight even though it's now sometime after 2 am. At least I didn't say it was 1/1/1990 and claim to have invented the internet... *cough* mendick *cough*

Before I go any further let me take this time to wish everyone a happy 4/20 (all one of you that read this...).

Went to bed early last night, I figured it would be the smart thing to do since I had 2 finals today. Then I got up early to study. I had just enough time to read through all of my econ notes before taking the exam. Ugh... It wasn't fun. Much harder than the practice final had been and even though they said the test would be very similar it wasn't. So I had to guess... a lot. That's never good, especially since it was the final.

Next I came back and had just enough time to read my geology notes before taking that final. That one went a lot better. I thought it was actually easy. They definitely screwed up the tektite question. It's definitely a piece of the earth's surface that was melted by a meteorite and then hardened into "impact glass". It doesn't go back into orbit although the answer listed would beg to differ. So I asked the TA's. Yup, they agreed it was pretty stupid. I felt special cause I knew something. It's a good feeling, trust me.

I heard somewhere that you're supposed to wear yellow to stimulate your mind or something like that on a test day. I hope it was yellow cause that's what I did. Right now I'm hoping and praying that I got my C in econ so I can just move on, maybe if I'm lucky I did better than that but I'd definitely settle for passing cause I didn't feel so good about that one.

Earlier tonight I had some really good idea for what I was going to post about. But of course I don't remember it anymore so I have to stick with one of those boring old "write about my day" posts. Sorry.

We had a pretty big storm go through this evening. First one I've seen in a while so it was kinda cool.

I got an email today about a job at Bucknell. I'd be working SI Triage. That basically means I get to put a pager next to my bed and if it goes off I have to wake my ass up and start calling people to see what's going on. I'd only be getting like 5 hours a week so I definitely need to keep looking. I can't exactly pay my tuition for the fall with the money I get monitoring servers with a whopping 5 hours a week. Maybe I'll hear from one of their other departments about getting something with them. If nothing else it's one more thing in my field that'll look good on my resume.

Well better think about bed soon since I have classes tomorrow and still have to do most of that big C++ program that keeps getting pushed back. Maybe I can call in a favor and get some code from one of my friends to get me caught up a little and go from there. It's bad because at this point I really don't even care. I need to. I need to finish strong in this class cause I'm doing decently and could really use the B. Just have to see how that goes.

Eric

I'm Mr. Brightside

Ok, so I'm not always Mr. Brightside. I've been so more often as of late, but certainly not all the time. At any rate thank you Mr. Mendick (jackass) for getting that song stuck in my head for the past 2 days. At least I already had it and didn't need to go download it (see, there's the optimism again).

Last night I only got 3 hours of sleep. I went to bed late and layed awake thinking of this and that. (WARNING: I feel a year end retrospective coming on shortly...) Like I said, I did a lot of thinking. Then I had to get up at 7:45 for my wonderful early econ recitation. It was the last one so that's a plus. After class I saw a guy get busted by the port authority police for refusing to vacate a bus stop, the cop flew up the bus lane going the wrong way and parked right in front of a bus to deal with this guy. Then the offending dude started kinda slapping at the cop. Well slapping at a cop gets you a ride in the back of a police car. So remember that kids, don't slap at cops.

Back I went to my room to get a nap since I didn't have anything assigned to me for work. I was so tired I layed here awake for 2 hours... Go figure. Then I went to my next class and had to fight pretty hard to stay awake. Not pretty.

On an unrelated note, I think someone drugged the squirrels up here. I've never seen a squirrel that lethargic before. He was crossing the road as slow as he possibly could. He didn't look hurt so someone's probably been slipping him a little "somethin' somethin' " on the side.

I picked up a permission slip to take Human Info Processing in the fall but here's the thing... I thought I had a Tuesday/Thursday night class and would have to take it as external studies. Well I was wrong. Now I have to go back and get the right slip on Thursday.

We got another extension on our C++ program so that's good since I have 2 finals tomorrow. I think I might be alright on both of them as long as I make sure to look over the econ stuff more tonight. Maybe I should try to go to bed early tonight and get up early to study... I know, doesn't sound very likely but stranger things have happened.

There's more I could say but it's already starting to get kinda long so I'm gonna cut myself off.

Mr. Brightside signing off.

I have a blog and I'm not afraid to use it!

So yeah, the title was a little corny. Think of it this way, now that I've used it you'll never have to read it again (assuming you read it this time).

So it's almost midnight and I have yet to accomplish anything. It seems that the more I have to do the more things I find to distract me. Guess this is probably one of those distractions... Anyway.

I downloaded a new beta of my IM client. The first thing that probably comes to mind is "Why do I care about some program you downloaded?" Well truth be told you don't have to care, but you're reading my blog so you're gonna have to suck it up and deal with it. I'm happy because it does a much better job of handling file transfers so I shouldn't have to switch back and forth between programs anymore just to receive a file from someone. Good stuff.

That last part of this week and the beginning of next week are probably gonna be the best chance I have to enjoy some class free time off. I just found out that I'm going to have to move out on Friday and I work during finals week. I'll have to move some of that crap around so maybe I can get out and do some stuff. If anyone wants to go have some fun or has ideas of how we could do so please let me know. Hopefully this weather holds out. Although it's not like I often take advantage. Take today for example. I woke up, went to class, got lunch, went to class, went to work. That was my whole day. Now it's nighttime and I'm back in my room. Translation: Beautiful day wasted.

I know people have a habit of complaining when things get too long so I guess I'll just bring this to a close, although as I mentioned before, it is my blog so it doesn't really matter if people complain.

Eric

I finally broke down

I didn't break down in an emotional emo sense, I broke down and started a blog. I hear you gasping... (Not really since I know that no one really cares or is all that surprised.) Who knows what to expect from me in here. I don't know what this will become or how often it'll get updated but that's not the point. Here's to trying new things! If anyone recognizes where my title came from you just earned yourself some bonus points. For those of you that don't know it's a line from the song "Poem" by Taproot. It was stuck in my head and sounded like a good title so I ran with it. Not sure how the length works on these so I think I'll end this now to see what I have. I may use it as a model to base my future posts on. We'll see. Anyway if you reading this thanks and hopefully you enjoy from time to time. If not I guess that's just the way it goes.

Eric