Thursday, July 29, 2004

What is it about mom's?

Seems on all of my friend's blogs they're whining about their moms. Well, I want my chance too.

So now that I'm working again, I have to pay my car insurance even though I haven't really paid it since I've left for college, my parents have paid it. No biggie really, I can pay it as it's not that expensive and next month I'm going down to just PLPD and Medical on my car since the car isn't worth full coverage anymore. Anyways, my dad made a comment that my brother paid for his and I haven't paid for mine yet. I made a comment that I had to figure it out and mom asked me what there was to figure out. Now back when I got my contract phone with verizon our deal was that mom and I would share a plan and I'd pay for both phones but the extra $20 that it was to add her line would be subtracted from my car insurance. That's fair to me. So I've been paying for her cell phone and she's been paying for my car insurance and yet when I bring it up she says "That's not much" and expects me to pay all of my fricking insurance! No way. That's not the deal. And I just expanded our cell phone contract for 2 years, but if she's not going to honor her end of the deal then I'm going to cancel her phone

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Sunday, July 25, 2004

Darb's Rules

I was just searching my room for a silver chain (Nicky knows that story) when I ran across this card that Darb (my first swimming coach) gave us all the year that he retired. Usually they just went to the seniors.

College Rules
1. Sit in the front row
2. Never miss class
3. Every day ask a question you already know the answer to
4. Do not quit your sport

Life Rules
1. Before you marry
a. Have your degree
b. Have your job, car, home
c. Spouse have the same

When you are low, reread this card.

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Saturday, July 24, 2004

Motown

So you say that you're leaving
That's all right that's all right
Who'd I'd ever be to care?
Just like honey from the bees
So nice I'd like to do it twice
Who'd I'd ever be to care?

Just like way back in the days of Motown
We all used to get together and sing our songs of love
But they're all the same
But it sure has been a long time since Motown came to my town
My mom was still dancing Black man sing a song of romance that's all he needs
A little girl to make his life complete
Just like singing a serenade beneath your windowsill
Slow dancing on a Friday night

I've been dreaming of you all afternoon
The sun was shining
I near about fell in love
In the park with the woods to wonder
Do you wanna be my lover
Won't you cry when you miss me we fit just right I know because I saw it in your eyes
You look a little angry baby
But don't you know that's just the way I love you
Don't you know that's just the way I love you
So turn your lights down low Turn your love light up
Turn your lights down low Turn your love light up

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Friday, July 23, 2004

Music and work

Have y'all noticed that I write about music a lot? Good. You should have because I like music and it's important to me.

Ok, so work was crappy today. First off, I was late because people were driving stupid on the expressway and I almost got hit by a semi and then by another truck. What is it with people driving today? Then I got in the middle lane and got stuck behind someone going 65. HELLO! You're in a 70. If you're going to go 65, drive in the right lane. So, I swung out in the left lane and passed them. People were refusing to speed today. Figures, on the day that I'm running late to work, no one will go 5 over. So work goes ok for a few hours, one of our cashiers is a little slow so I was on the registers a bit more than I normally would have been. No biggie. About 4pm, I'm over by the boys fitting rooms and there's this large, dirty looking, kinda suspucious looking female carrying around 3 shoe boxes and just looking around. She asked me if she could try on pants in there and I said yeah, even though she didn't have any pants to hold. I wandered off elsewhere and was straightening up the department and ringing customers up. Probably around 5:30, I go over to boys and it appears that all the fitting rooms are full so I don't empty them, I just grabbed the stuff off of the rack at the door and put that away. 6pm, I'm back on the registers and Cita comes over and grabs the radio from me and calls for Loss Prevention to meet her at the boys fitting rooms. Yeah, there were 3 shoe boxes full of the clothes that someone HAD been wearing and they left with all new clothes for free. Now, Cita and I had both been wandering all of childrens all night and just straightening it up. That's what I like doing, I don't like being confined to one side of the department because then you forget where everything is. But after that, Renee (our supervisor) had me stay over on girls and Cita over on boys. I felt like I'd screwed up somehow. Meh.

Timewarp to oh 8:15. I'm over in girls 4-6X (girls is divided into infant/toddler, basics (socks, underwear and bras), 4-6X, girls plus, and girls 7-16) and I'm by this lady who's standing near a table and her daughter is standing by an autopole (which is just like a tension pole that goes from floor to ceiling and holds up signs), one of the signs fell and hit her on the head. Yay! What a great day. Her daughter bumped into the pole and I think that's what caused it to fall, but we went and filled out all the necessary paperwork. I was just feeling fantastic by that point of the day (Author's note: preceeding statement should be read dripping with sarcasm).

So where does the music part come in you must be asking yourself by now, because, afterall, I did title this entry "Music and work"...

I love music. It has the ability that nothing else has to cheer me up or even fit my down moods. Tonight, music cheered me up on the way home. They played 2 songs with great rhythm and beat on the way home and just had me grooving and smiling again. I just love a tune that you can just jam to. I want to feel the beat from my head to my feet and be able to just let go and move. I want it to inspire me to move and when it does, I'm happy. Music makes me happy

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Operation weight loss

Operation weight loss starts today. 40 or so pounds will come off. Here's to some hard work

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Saturday, July 17, 2004

Beware the hoardes

Eesh, it's been sidewalk sales at the mall since Thursday. Today, Chris (my manager), kept having me take more clearance items down to the mall enterance. I swear that I spent a quarter of my day today in the elevator going back and forth between children's and the sidewalk sales. It was scary down there. We've got major clearance right now with 60% off of original prices. In some spots, stuff is 80% off. We had girl's capri's marked down to $4.77. With the extra 20% off of clearance prices, they were $3.82. So as the big H-fixture that we had down at the mall became more bare looking, I'd take more capri's down off of the sales floor. Wow. I got rushed every time that I took more capri's down there. Half of what I took down never made it to the H-fixture. It was best just to back away from the stock cart and let people do as they please and then hang up what's left. Wowsa

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Thursday, July 15, 2004

I just love retail

I'm only 3 days into my job and I can't wait for the end of August already. I think in the past 3 days, I've had about 10 different schedules given to me. I got given to juniors last night to help clean out their disgusting fitting rooms (you people are disgusting pigs you know), I got asked to stay 2 extra hours tonight, and now I get to go in at 7am tomorrow instead of 11am. They might as well just lock me up and throw away the key.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Sign of a true geek

Lil bro: http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2003-10-29
Lil bro: lol, check it
Me: they spelled tosche wrong
Lil bro: WOW
Lil bro: WOW
Lil bro: only you would know that
Me: me and 5 million other SW geeks

Funny comic this time, but spell Tosche correctly!

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Monday, July 12, 2004

Bringing back some memories

I've caught some glimpses of the US Olympic team swimming trials this past weekend and that's brought back some memories. The early morning swim practices, the long practices, swimming on the days where you even felt like you were going to be sick. It takes a lot of dedication to be a swimmer, if you don't have that, you're not gonna make it. I wasn't the best person on the team when I swam in high school, but I had the dedication. I was up at 5:00am three times a week so that I could make it to practice and be in the pool at 6:00am, and then go through a full day of classes before having another 2 hour long practice afterwards. I was the one sneaking out of church a few minutes early to make it to noon practice on Sundays. I swam all year round to stay in shape for varsity season, and club swimming isn't any easier than varsity. In the winter and spring we swam at my HS (except for when the pool sprung a leak and we had to swim at Western for a few days). Summer was when it'd all change though. We'd go from swimming indoors in a 25 yard pool to swimming outdoors at 7:30am in a 50 meter pool, and I'll tell you what, those extra 3 inches really do make a difference. And in the summer you swam rain or shine. The only thing that got us out of the pool was lightning, while our coaches stood in the shed and watched us.

As I was watching the trials I was thinking about that stuff. I really admire the swimmers that are Olympic caliber. Especially since swimming is the hardest sport to qualify in. You have to finish in the top 2 to make it to the olumpics, and sometimes you have to swim the same race 3 times to make it to the olympics. I miss swimming. I wish that I would have been good enough to continue swimming in college. Ah well, what's meant to be happens...

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Saturday, July 10, 2004

New look

I got sick of the old background. And actually, this one is more fitting to the title of the blog. I just felt that it was time for a change here, kinda like I just changed the look of my room. It's just time for changes all around. Feedback on the new look is more than welcome

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Power Shopping

Wow. Haven't shopped like that in a long time. Went from 11am til 7pm. Ah well, got some cool new stuff, feet hurt, am now really broke but thank goodness I'm starting work soon *crosses fingers*

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Thursday, July 08, 2004

And it's semi-official

I have a job. It's not the best job in the world, but it's money. Monday, I called JCPenney's and talked to the manager of the children's department. I've worked there before over Christmas break and even though I didn't particularly like it, I did a good enough job that when I talked to Chris, she said that yes they did need help for back to school. Now it's just a matter of waiting to find out when I can start because I went in today and filled out the application. *shudders* I have a feeling that Christmas was nothing compared to back to school.


Ah yes, and my uncle came home from the hospital yesterday and is doing fine. Good news there

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Monday, July 05, 2004

Sail away sail away sail away

Ahh there's nothing like spending a day out on the bay with just the feel of the wind rushing past your face and the sound of the waves hitting the sides of a sailboat as you're nicely heeled to the wind.

If you couldn't tell, I went sailing out on my aunt's boat for the first time in over a year today. We just went out for a couple of hours, but it felt so nice. I love the moment when you turn the engine off and hoist the sail (I'd forgotten how much work that is). It was just so relaxing to be out there, trimming sails, getting bruised knees and pulling 6 knots. Unfortunately, the weather in Michigan has a propensity to change every 5 minutes or so, and soon the winds were gusting above 15 knots and it looked like a storm was rolling in, so we decided to head back to port and not get drenched and be a nice lightning rod in the process. I got to take the helm for the return trip. My steering of a sailboat needs some work, but hey, it's been a while. On the way back we saw a boat that looked real familiar (there's only so many 65 foot blue hulled sailboats in the Saginaw Bay) and my aunt was commenting on it, thinking that it was only a 45 or 50 foot boat until I caught the name of it on the back. It was Dolphin, the fastest boat on the Bay, she always wins the races, but she's built to race. So in order to help me steer, my aunt just told me to follow Dolphin. Yeah, easier said than done, but we eventually got back into the harbor, after another brief lesson for me on how to lower the mainsail. Ah well, my sealegs will come back eventually. Of course, the most interesting part of the day had to be when my oh so serious aunt started dancing to "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice. She can't dance! I was successful in not laughing aloud though. I was doing pretty good towards the end of the lil trip. And I remembered my knots fairly quickly. I just gotta get out more. I can't wait to have my own boat someday. I've already decided to be a lab geek and name it Staph sailicus, since people name their boats the darndest things. Gotta just go with the flow. I'll have my own boat...


...someday

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Sunday, July 04, 2004

Things always happen for a reason

It's just been one of those weekends. You know, the ones where nothing ever happens like it's supposed to.

I was hoping that at least one of my friends would be able to make it up and hang out this weekend because Bay City is just such a cool place to be for the 4th. Well, none of them could but that must have happened for a reason. Thursday and Friday, I went down to the park with my family we watched the lil shows of fireworks, the 15 minute ones. Those were cool.

Then yesterday happened. Grandma called at 9am, Uncle Tom had been vomiting and in pain since 6am. They were on their way to Covenant Med Express. 11am comes around, they're sitting in Covenant's ER because Med Express doesn't have lab services on the weekend. The doctor's weren't sure what it was because he had groin pain. CT occurs around 3pm, the result: kidney stone! A nice 2mm one at that, which is small enough for him to pass, so they decide to send him home. Doc leaves the exam room and minutes later Uncle Tom starts puking again, this time it's the dye from CT scan. So they give him an anti-nausea shot straight into his IV (which it took the nursing staff 7 tries to start) and then some pain med that starts with a T and Dilauded (or however you spell it). Five minutes later, he's snoring. At that point they decided to keep him overnight in observation. This is at 4pm. A few resident's took their observations (one was on her first day of residency and was from India and went to med school in Texas, boy was she hard to understand). Now we got there around 1:30-2ish and figured that we'd be there for a few hours and they'd either send him home or admit him. Well, by 7pm, he still didn't have a bed. I was getting anxious because I wanted to get back home to see the fireworks because it was going to be the best show ever. By 8pm, he still didn't have a bed, I was bored as hell, and just couldn't stay there anymore because there was no sign of a bed any time soon. So I left mom there with grandma and uncle Tom and left for home. I got home and dad and I left for the fireworks (he didn't want me going down to the park on my own). Luckily we were able to get a decent parking spot at my neighbor's daughter's house since everyone and their brother goes to the Bay City fireworks.

Dad and I got settled in on the hill at about 9:30. At quarter to ten, two F-18 hornet's made their prep flyover. That was cool in itself. But at 10:01 they went back over the park, just 500 ft above the bridge and lit their afterburners before going vertical into the sky. Then we had an Army General read off the names of all fallen Michigan soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Then was the cool part. In less than 60 seconds they shot off 1,000 4-inch mortars into the sky. That kicked ass. Then started the rest of the 45 minute show. I swear it was like ROTK, you thought that it would be over 4 times before they ended it. For the grand finale they launched gold fireworks from both sides of the river and it formed an arch over the river. It looked SO cool. After the show was over Dad and I went over to the carnival side and bought 3 elephant ears and took those home so that mom could enjoy one too. She got back into town about 10 and watched the high fireworks from a church parking lot since she knew that she wouldn't get down into the park that late. Dad and I got home a little after 12, we hung out with the neighbors for a bit and let traffic clear some before we braved the roads.

This morning when dad woke me up for church I was so out of it that I didn't even know what day and time it was, I was just so tired still. I could barely stay awake through Mass. Got home from church and laid down for a bit before mom and I were going to head up to the hospital. We got ready to go around 1 and Uncle Tom called and said not to come up because he was being discharged (yay!). So I did a few things around the house and just relaxed. Mom had brought Uncle Tom's car home last night so around 3 we were going to leave for Saginaw and take it back home and see how he was doing at home. Well, that just wasn't meant to be. Grandma called a little after 3 and the internal medicine doc decided that uncle Tom couldn't go home because his blood pressure was still majorly high. So that changed our plans.

Mom and I rushed around Bay City and Saginaw and made him a care package with some of his favorite candy, a teddy bear, and a couple of mylar baloons. Got up to the hospital about 5ish and got him walking around some to help the stone pass easier. He ordered dinner around 6ish and so mom and I took grandma to go get something to eat. We got back to the hospital a little after 7 and uncle Tom had eaten but wasn't feeling quite so hot then so we walked up and down the hall some with him and tried to get him feeling better before we left at around 8:30.

And now, I'm just plain worn out. What a weekend...

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Thursday, July 01, 2004

How do you make a craptastic week even crappier?

The answer to that question is very simple. Have your dad wake you up at 8:20am and tell you that if you want a shower today that you need to take it now because there's a leak in the house and he's going to go get the part and when he comes back, he's turining the water off. Yay! What a great day. At least I have waterless hand sanitizer. Can feel a little cleaner that way...

Ah well, at least the fireworks start tonight, gives me something to look forward to

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