Crazy

Things have been sort of crazy lately. Holidays, ERs, driving around. But it has been lots of fun also. Hopefully I'll catch up on my blogging one of these days, but at the moment I've got too much to do. So, I'll try to get back into a regular posting on this in the next few weeks. Should be getting a new apartmnet soon, then I'll have all the free time I could possibly have.

Later

Nearly Christmas

You know it is nearly Christmas when you turn on the classical radio station and only hear Christmas music. I think I heard some brass ensemble this morning as well as Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker. Fantastic.

Things are going well overall, wish the weather would get better so I could get out and workout some more. Need to get some rollers to practice on, but that'll all come in time. Maybe next time I'm in Tunica I'll win some money for new training equipment. Or maybe when I'm back in Reno in two weeks I'll play some hands or something. Need to make the big bucks.

It is going to be wierd going home and seeing everyone again. I haven't seen most of them for over a year, and a lot has changed since then. Does anyone else ever feel that home never changes but you do? I get that feeling a lot. It always sort of wierds me out.

Alright, I should really get back to work.

Later

Fuck Blissard

Didn't get the house. Pissed off about it slightly. Have to start searching all over again. Damn that pisses me off. No one else has applied, and the house is empty. Apparently our money isn't good enough for them. I just don't understand.

later

Rollers

Did a little bit of spinning last night at The Ride. It was fantastic. Got to play around on rollers for the first time ever. Very hard to get started, but after that they aren't too bad. Erik pushed us pretty hard and I was hurting quite bad at the end. Not so much my legs as well, let's just say that when using rollers, lack of ability to readjust tends to lead to discomfort. It wasn't so bad, till nearing the end and I was struggling to finish. Next time it won't be so bad, but I definetely want to get a pair now. It really showed where my pedal stroke sucks.

Alright, friday, not as bad as thursday but still quite annoying. Going to Tunica tonight, and I'm going to try to be good and not lose a lot of money. We'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

later

Was supposed to publish this yesterday, but was having problems

Thursday is probably the hardest day of the week. Don’t really feel like doing much work, Friday is the next day, and then it is the weekend. Monday’s aren’t usually so bad since the weekend looms so far in the distance, but Thursdays, the weekend is right there. As a child you could smell the Saturday morning cartoons and eating dry cereal straight out of the box, your sticky fingers mashing the remote searching for the perfect cartoon. Now Saturdays consist of getting up early, grabbing my cold weather riding gear, and hitting the road. It is much like cartoons of the past, only I get to go out and adventure rather watching animated people live fantastic lives. Riding is far superior to cartoons on so many levels, but that is a whole other blog.

But yes, the weekend is coming up and I believe we are going to be hitting Tunica Friday night. That will be a lot of fun, going to casinos in the South. Won’t be like the great ones from back home. Those were amazing constructions of neon and horrible mind numbing music. I don’t know what to expect from the casinos around here but I doubt they will be as impressive as ones like the Silver Legacy, or any of the great ones on the Strip.

Anyways, if I was still in school this would be finals, so I gotta give props to all the friends still plugging away at finals, and papers, and projects that should have been started weeks or months ago but that have been put off to the night before. I’m sure we’d all like to lie and pretend we planned ahead and never waited to the last minute. But that would be wrong. Our kids one day will ask us if we studied much and worked hard on things and we’ll say we will. But we all know that senior projects were started the week before, papers the night before, and cramming for tests usually started the period before. Sitting in a math history class, with your physics notebook open rather than listening to what Dr. Barel has to say. We’ve all been there, thank god that that is over.

Alright, I’m done. No crazy long posts for me… *nudges Sean* Take it easy everyone, and if you happen to be studying, well I feel ya.

Later

Another day at work

Not having high speed internet over the weekends sucks. But it gave me time to work out way to much, so much so that stairs have become a major difficulty in my life right now. Joey, thank you for the brilliant comment on my last post. For everyone reading this, go check it out. Can't wait to have you back Joey.

Alright time for the meeting.

Later

Friday

I think this is the first full week that I've actually worked in quite some time. Well in the office at least. Quite the change from the last few weeks. A nice long weekend, some bike riding and just plan relaxing is going to be much appreciated.

Not much has happened these last few days. Hit the gym last night, plan on riding saturday and sunday. Might go for a run this evening though it all depends on how I feel after work and what my friends are going to be doing.

Think I found a place to finally move into. Nice little house in the middle of a quiet (seemingly) area of town. It is nice, quiant I guess, nice little hardwood floors, big yard, etc. I'm really looking forward to finally having a place other than crashing at friends. Place to hang my bikes and call home.

Anyways, looks like it is time for work... going to get back to it.

Later

Rock Climbing

Went rock climbing last night with some friends. Total blast. I really am thinking of getting a membership there so I can get better at it. My fingers are still a little sore from clinging to the little knobby things like a madman.. but other than that I'm not really sore. I think i'm doing something wrong. I'll have to ask someone more experienced.

Alright, time to get to work. Sean, sorry you couldn't come man.. it was awesome.

Later

ASBESTOS

New project at work: search through large stacks of documents and learn about a plant that was built 30 years ago. This job rocks.

Also, planning on going rock climbing tonight.. I'm excited about that. It should be fun.. actually, I should repharse, it will be fun. Nothing like a new way to work out.

Alright, I should get going.. though this was a nice little 5 minute break from weekly work updates from the 70s.

Later

Case of the Mondays?

Yeah, if someone said that to me they would get their ass kicked something serious. I would ruin their shit.. ahh, maybe I'll kill time later today with some Maddox, nothing cheers me up more than a man making fun of everything.

Did the tabata thing again yesterday, and I'm not really all that sore today. I'm going to try to do it again tomorrow.. just for fun. If the weather is nice this evening I might call Sean and see about a run. Or maybe sean will see this and post a comment.. hmm.. who knows. For some reason my trillian isn't working at the moment.. anyone else having this problem?

Alright.. the haiku madness must stop! Please people.. everytime I see one I have to count them out.. and that is frustrating. I know that it is 5-7-5.. but I have to check.. everytime. Curse my math mind.

Alright, time to work.

Later

Ahh, lazy sundays..

I think this is the first day that I've had that nothing has been planned. Though it is raining which might have caused me to decide not to go running or something today. It is so nice not to have to do anything today, though I'll probably end up going to the gym just so I don't feel like a complete sloth.

I went for a bike ride yesterday. Oh man, it was nice to be back on the bike again in the freezing cold not being able to feel one's fingers.. ahh. But the original plan was to ride 80 some odd miles.. and well, I couldn't finish. I feel pretty shitty about that. I'm not nearly in as good of shape as I was a couple months ago.. makes me feel bad. Need to get back into riding shape. I mean, the guys are planning on riding across Arkansas one of these days.. and that is a lot farther than 80 miles. Just need to start logging some miles on my bike... shame that I've let myself go. Stupid work keeping me from training as much as I did over the summer.

Sean got a dog, Indurain... very cool dog. Looks quite skinny at the moment, more so than it probably should.. but I hope it gains some weight. Being able to see his vertibrae is quite distrubing.. hopefully the tapeworm medicine will allow it to start gaining weight.

Let's see, not much else going on... I should get to the gym.. yeah, that would be nice. At the moment Liz is winning with her liberal Haikus. I was really hoping for more enteries.. come on people... how hard is it to make a haiku about something? HUH? Not hard at all.

Alrighty.. I'm out.

Later

Finally I'm in the Rock, but for how long???

Yes, Illinois turned out to be a joke. Literally, all we did was unpack, then sit around freezing in our busted trailer.. then repack most of the stuff. It was fantastically boring. But I got to play a lot of pool with a co-worker, felt good to play again. Still as streaky as ever... need to play more. Maybe if there is enough room where ever I end up living I could get me a table to practice on. I think an hour a day of pool would get me back to previous levels.. and maybe exceed them in no time.

Thanks Joey and Liz for the fantastic haikus on the previous post.. those were awesome. I think I'm going to have a haiku contest here in a little bit.. subject to be announced. Then everyone attempts to make the best haiku.. and the winner will recieve something... I won't pick a baltant gift straight out.. but it would be something special for whoever wins. Though I have a feeling that only Joey is going to enter.. so everyone better get on it. Slackers.

Alright, I should be working, but I've done everything I sort of need to for the day. I need to run to conway to pick up a lot of stuff at the house.. see evan and lil' tori.. maybe see the swimmers.. that would be cool. Stop by the pool.. mock the swim team.. mock the aquakids.. then see what else is going on. I'll see what I can do.

Alrighty then... I think I'm going to jam.. I'm sure I have a crapload of e-mails waiting for me.. plus I need to catch up on everyone's blogs.. I hate not having hours and hours of free time to read people's blogs and post comments all over the place. Maybe that is why no one comments on mine.. 'cept for Joey.

Oh, I found out last night that people who I don't hang out with all the time read this.. so badass.. though some people at work discovered my blogger address.. so the mocking and condescending comments about work will probably get more vague or less frequent.. I can't decide.

I'm out..
Later

Back in town..

Back in the Rock.. working.. maybe leaving again in a few hours.. I'll keep you posted.

Hear the hotel is really nice in Illinois. Can't wait.

Later

Not in Texas City anymore

Yeah, so we actually did get cut loose. Lovely feeling that was. And especially getting on the plane and leaving. Never knew how good it felt to leave a place. Like a huge weight lifted off my shouldars. But what really sucks is I got up to Austin to hang with the Licatino Family... and they are all studying and stuff. Man, it is great to not be in college anymore. Able to just hang out and watch them write paper and stuff.. HAHA..of course they didn't have to sit in an office for 4 weeks straight. Oh well.

Alright we are going to be driving back tomorrow.. I think it is going to be a lot of fun. Hanging out with friends, catching up, such a change from the routine of the past month. Little be nice..

Going to leave since people are watching me type this.. as I type.. sort of annoying.. knowing that she is critizing every mistake I make silently.. curse her.. yeah she knows who she is...

Later

Coming home

HOLY MOTHER OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND GRILLED CHEESEY!!! I'm coming home. This rocks. I'll talk to everyone later. I have a flight at some point in the near future.. going to hang with Michael for one night.. (I was hoping for more, but whatever..) and then driving back tomorrow morning. Then maybe Formosa on monday.. that would rock..

Later

WOOHOO!!!!!

Just kidding...

Oh yeah, I'm not coming home. The idiots have decided to mess with me once again.. stupid idiots.

I'll keep you updated. Hopefully eventually someone will have some sense and figure out how not to be stupid. Until then, I'll be here indefinetely... maybe longer. If they continue with what they are doing now.. probably at least another month. Oh man, I hope they figure out how to make it work.

Later

HOLY CRAP!!

Yes, I know, very Peter Griffen like.. but it is completely justified. I have just found out they we might be getting cut loose in.. as little as an hour. Then I'm going to break new packing records for getting all this shit together. It is going to be awesome. 5 ARs and 5 MRs all in 1 pelican.. it'll be like some expensive game of tetris... but instead of little blocks, I'm working with really expensive equipment. Do I care if I break it? Of course not. Not after the hassle and everything that it has put me through. A pox on the creator of such things.. a pox on you! I'm just dreaming at anyone from rae would ever read this website.. but whatever.. they still suck ass.

Anyways, I need to get going on packing stuff.. and printing off the FINAL REPORTS. Holy crap.. ahh Seth MacFarlane.. you beautiful genius.

Later

Friday, nothing new, just bored...

Well Thanksgiving came and went. Sort of a wierd holiday.. celebrating feasting with the Native Americans after coming over to this country... only to later pretty much destroy their way of life. But you know.. whatever. It is easy to look back and see how stupid we were back then.. but I'm sure in 400 years the people then will look back and us and shake their heads in shame over us constantly subjugating to reclusive hamburger people who had originally come in peace. Hmm.. that doesn't really make much sense. What i'm trying to say is that hamburgers are really incredible intelligent forms of life and by eating them we are sealing our fate when their warships come. Can anyone tell that i've not had much sleep recently.

Anyways things are actually progressing with the tank. The lack of safety precautions down there really worries me.. but I'm up here, watching the monitors. So, well.. I hope no one gets hurt. And if they could pick it up a bit, that would be much appericated. So maybe I'll get out of Texas City today, once and for all. That would be lovely. Now that my bike is gone the weather of course becomes excellent. I wish I was riding right now. I think it is 70 and windy... perfect training weather. Well, that and it'll be even more fun to draft behind cars.

Anyways, I'm going to bail. At some turkey that was in the fridge, and now I'm tired. Really tired. Maybe I'll put my head down, just for a few seconds. Nothing bad could come of this.. no.

Later

Happy Turkey Day

Well.. it is Thanksgiving. And I'm thankful for.. wait.. let's not go there. I'm still working.. so after today, that makes.. 4 straight weeks of working. No weekends, no days off, 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. Love it.
All the plans that I tentatively made for thanksgiving, travel plans, eating plans, etc.. flew out the window when I showed up to work this morning. It will be at least 48 hours.. possibly more. No big deal. I had originally planned on being here for 6 weeks.. so I have my gym membership through the 15th of december.. but what really sucks is I sent off my bike and a lot of clothes. So now I'm going to have to go buy more socks. Yeah, that's right. I sent home most of my good boot socks. Stupid work getting my hopes up. I just hope there is a work-boot store somewhere in Galveston. I'm sure I can find anyone.
Anyways, I hope all of you have a great thanksgiving. Eat some extra mashed potatoes and gravy for me.

Later

Still working.. still working.

At least one more day.. maybe more. Stupid work. Stupid cav people being unable to do their job. Now we are waiting for pieces of equipment that they were supposed to show up with... but didn't. Stupid people forgetting what they are supposed to have.

Hopefully once that one piece gets here things will progress rapidly. Who knows though. No common swear can encompass the anger that I'm currently feeling. Perhaps I shall invent a new swear. FUCITCHORE... yes.. that'll work perfectly.

Later

Incompetence

Alright, so the vac operators are idiots. Things aren't progressing at all the way they were planned. The likelihood we will be out of here today, slim to nil. This causes plans for thanksgiving to.. go to shit. Yes that's right. I think I'm going to walk over to their little scrubber operation and smack the crap out of some of these guys. Then I'm going to hook the freaking hoses up and make this damn thing work. My hopes for going to Austin are sort of out the window.. unless they finish before 9 pm tonight.. which would rock. But if they don't... I might still be able to make it out to Port Arthur for tomorrow.. but I don't know. We'll see what happens.

Ok, I need to go kick some serious incompetent ass. Is it really so hard to do one's job correctly. To understand the things going on with your job. Freaking dumbasses.

Later

Stupid stupid technology

Ok, the item below is a ToxiPro personal monitor. We have two on site here at Texas City... and they are the most annoying things ever.


I'm just sick and tired of dealing with their crap. They have lots of good features, like being small, light and easy to calibrate, I can only assume effective in monitoring for what we are looking for. Anyways, they also have the capacity to datalog. Nice feature, unforunetely that is where the nice features end. First of all, the radios we use around here interfere with the sensor... sending your readings through the roof. So if you have it clipped to your vest, and you decide to contact someone on the radio.. it start going off. Very annoying. Also, the datalog collects this data and records it. So sometimes the data says that you were exposed to 10 ppm or something like that. That's bad. Also, downloading the little bastards is a pain. They interface with IR port on your computer. Which I guess is ok.. if the damn things worked. For some strang reason They decide to "unexpectedly terminate' your connection every time. And not at the same place.. no they tease you by downloading a little bit more each time.. UNTIL THEY TERMINATE ONCE AGAIN!!! This is very frustrating. Now the optimistic among you might say, "Why Dave, just keep trying until it'll finally download." Well you know, I have been for the past 2 freaking hours! So frustrating. I got so fed up I even called Biosystems to see if they knew about this problem and how to fix it. So I called, and the gentleman I talked to said.. "oh yeah, the old monitors don't communicate with laptops very well, do you have a desktop?" First of all, I didn't know laptops and desktops used different IR ports or frequencies. I mean.. IR is IR right? I've connected my laptop to a printer using IR before.. maybe laptops just use a different frequency.. whatever. But yeah.. you know when these monitors I have sitting in front of me were made.. september.. 2004! So in the last two months they have determined the monitors they has been making were bad and didn't work with laptops and have since made new ones that do. So I went and downloaded all their latest software and firmware. Guess what, these monitors have the latest things on them. So where does the problem arise? Maybe it is too bright in the room.. though my understanding of physics made me want to cry when I turned off the lights and over up the little transfering unit with a piece of paper in hopes it'll work better. Result: nothing. Second thing I tried. Notice the little translucent window in the top middle of the monitor.. yeah that is where the IR comes out.


(fear the mad paint skills)
Anyways that "window" is more like a doorway into HELL. It doesn't seem to very clear at all. So I thought, why not just take it apart and expose the IR LED to all the glory of the IR port on my laptop.

(picture might not be safe for work)
I was about to allow these two devices to make sweet sweet invisible love.. taking the cover off one of them.. sliding it up next to my laptop.. putting on some Barry White (this is all in the manual I swear..) and just for decency sake I did turn the lights down and left the room. Anyways, I came back.. and one of them decide that it didn't want to get it on. Not sure which one it was.. but one of them decided to leave.. and the other just sat there shooting its lonely IR beams into the night.
I'm currently downloading the Beta version of the software.. apparentely there is a glitch in the programing which turns off the IR in the ToxiPro unexpectedly and thus what was creating my errors. I don't know why they didn't just tell me that the first 3 times I called. Oh well. The download will be done soon, I'll be able to call the office and claim victory over the dreaded ToxiDevils.. not all will praise me. That or my boss will just be like, good job, here is your reward.. being ON CALL! Actually I'm not on call.. and I should be able to arrange a way to stay with some friend over the holidays. I'll make it work.

Barge is still loading.. I'll keep you posted.

Later

Barge is loading as I type.

Well the day has finally arrived. They are loading the barge right now. So if all goes well they should completely empty the tank sometime this afternoon/evening. Then probably tomorrow they are going to clean out the tank, and then cut us loose. I'm going to try and see if I can still make it out to Port Arthur to hang with Michael and his family.. that would be a lot of fun. If not and I'm forced to come to Little Rock, then I'll probably hit Heather's place for thanksgiving. Or maybe I'll get my tiphoon and bust it on down to Seans and ride some doctors into the ground. That would be fun. My legs still hurt.. tabata is a freaking genius.

gotta go pretend like I'm working.. or at least pretend to pretend.

Later

Barge Scedule

Alright.. here is the latest, and I know all of you have been waiting on the edge of your seats to find out about my life. Well, you are aren't you? Else, why are you here... anyways. The final barge is sceduled to dock at roughly 4am on the 23rd. Yes, that is correct, 11 hours away. We should be able to offload the tank in about 12 hours.. scrub it out in another 2.. then I guess.. that means we are done. I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around that. Leaving.. leaving Texas? I've been here for.. nearly 6 weeks total.. nearly 4 on this last run. I've become accustomed to sleeping in a hotel bed.. drying off with a hotel towel, am I the only one that hates those things? Anyways.. if this does end in the next 24 hours, it is really going to be wierd to come back to Arkansas. I'm not going to know how to function in normal society again. Like.. seeing people I want to talk to.. and not sitting on my ass for 13 hours a day.. everyday. What will a day off be like? So many questions.

Well, hope to see everyone in the next week or so. So close, yet it seems really far away.

later

Update on Texas Life

Well, the last Barge is scheduled for tomorrow. Likelihood it'll happen.. I'm going to give it 35%. I mean, it could happen, but it also could be that they don't want to come on a holiday week, and are going to postpone it for next week. When the sun rises tomorrow over the bay, and the barge is there.. coming in to dock. I'll believe it. When I show up tomorrow morning and the hoses are getting ready to pump off the last of this shit.. then I'll do my little dance. I'm supposed to ship some stuff off, but I don't have any forms, or envelopes. Sort of pisses me off. I would just go to a mail center, oh but wait I work during the hours that they are open. I might call my partner and have him pick me up some while he is coming here to relieve me. I think I filled out an online shipping label for one package.. I'm almost positive that I requested it be picked up at the same place I want it delivered. But who knows. I bet if I request a pick up at the hotel they'll take it to the right place.. hopefully. Stupid not having any forms or envelopes. Should have planned ahead and picked them up a few days ago.. but I didn't know I was out. Oh well.. life goes on.

Worked out like crazy last night. Legs still sore. They are more sore than I think I've ever had them. Need to squat more. Need to lift legs more. Gotta stop focusing so much on the upper body. I guess I've just become a typical gym rat. I have to resist hitting the bench first thing. Seems like that is what they always do. Of course I look like any idiot, doing all these wierd lifts.. but whatever. I'm stronger, faster, and more fit than probably anyone else in the gym. I know that might sound sort of boastful.. but you haven't see some of these people. Damn. Sure you can bench 300 pounds.. but let's see you run up some stairs. Of course, there are the exceptional athletes like Richard Green and John Saxton that make me look like a lightweight and can kick my ass in races. Not for long though... everything about the 2005 season is going to be different.

So hopefully one way or another I'll have some place to eat over Thanksgiving. Hope I know who is coming up here in the next few days so I can start grovelling and try to switch back to nights.

Alright.. props to Sean for his brilliant post about the beauty of drafting. Very insightful.

Later

Quick note

Everyone who reads this needs to check out the Bunny comic from this date. Very funny indeed.

Later

Saturday evening... still working.

Alright, work is almost through. Less than an hour to go. I think the pool is in my near future.. yes.. yes... that would be nice. No lifting today, but a nice long swim would be welcome relief for my currently destroyed muscles.

I think I'm going to have to get Half-Life 2 soon. I keep hearing really good things about it. And if you've played the game and think it would be funny to tell me something really important and thus spoil playing HL2 forever.. rest assured that my wrath shall know no bounds. I'm talking finger breaking, arm dislocating, eye gouging torture here. And everyone knows that I'm perfectly capable of doing that. And since Joey states this game "transcends 'gaming'" I'm very excited. Soon.

Work has been uneventful today. The rain died down, then came back, then died down, then came back.. I guess you get the picture. We get torrential downpours about every hour or so, and they last about 5 minutes. Very interesting. But I only got soaked coming to work. Had to get batteries. I love buy lots of batteries, the old ladies checking you out at Wal-Mart are always looking at you strangely. I need to come up with some good ideas to explain buying hundreds of dollars of batteries. Any ideas people? I've come up with a few, but I'm sure our combined intelligence will come up with some really good ideas. So, think people.. I want to freak out the people at stores when I buy the batteries. Joey.. I'm really relying on you here.. sicne I know you are going to go way over the top.. which is what I'm looking for.

Alright.. Joey is attempting to spoil the game for me as we speak.. all a ploy to get me to come out to AZ to kick his ass.. clever joey.. clever.

I'm outta here..
Later

Saturday.. rainy and depressing

So I awoke to crappy weather this morning. It was raining quite hard, streets were flooded, people were huddling under their umbrellas and some fool was building this huge wooden boat thing. But no, the weather is at the moment either not raining, as is the case now, or raining so hard I am worried the building is going to get flooded away. Working days isn't that bad when I don't have the option of working out. I really hope I get to switch back to nights when someone comes to replace my partner at the moment. That would be nice. Might even be able to make it to a friends place near here for Thanksgiving. But also, the barge is supposed to be back Sunday.. I know, that does seem funny. But who knows I might be out of here at the early part of next week. Logic would dictate that it won't be here anytime this week, and I won't be getting home until December. Either way, we'll see.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do today to pass the time. Palahniuk? Maybe.. that would be nice. Get some GYBE playing and read some. hmmm.. I got me some pistachios and I've been eating them like crazy. Lunch should be getting here soon and who knows, maybe I'll watch a movie or something. I wish I had more cycling movies, well actually I wish I had one cycling movie. Gotta get me down to Hastings and see if they have The Hard Road or something. Hmmm, cycling documenteries.. even better. :-)

Alright, I'm going to bust a move, the book is calling me. Come to me Diary.

later

Here is the scary cat that lives in the chemical facility. I think it has scary mutant powers. It cries all the time, and can fly. Seriously.

Updated Profile

Finally got a picture in my profile. Stupid profile, not wanting to do what I want right away.

Anyways, the barge filled up nice and fine today. Supposedly they are going to be back by sunday. Which means, I might be back by who knows monday? Holy crap that would rock. But I have a feeling that that isn't going to happen. We'll see. I think the client is finally starting to figure out that he is just burning money daily as we are sitting around down here. Oh well.. I'm not complaining.. much.

Hope to hit the gym tonight.. and then probably just crash. Though I might go see The Incredibles. I don't know though. I've been sleeping so well lately, don't want to try to cut into my sleep by staying up really late watching a movie by myself. Everyone has really liked it though, and I feel left out not having seen it. Who knows.

Let's see, what else is going on. Nothing much. I'm going to try to get a picture of the cat that lives in the plant on here eventually. I think I have the picture in my phone.. just need to download it.

Alright, I'm outta here.

Later

Excitement

Well, not really. Got some cross hits on one of our sensors this evening. Up to 32 ppm.. pretty exciting. First time we've got a hit in 2 weeks. WOOHOO.

So my evening wrapped up excitingly enough. What would be even better is if I had a sweet ass laptop here so I could play some half-life 2. Oh man, that would rock.

Ahh, time to pack up.. have you ever noticed how you change your speech patterns depending on the people you are around. I talk much differently around these guys here than I would around my friends. It is wierd. Am I the only one that does that? Makes me feel phoney.. and I think I spelled that wrong.. but I don't care.

Later

Laughing

Alright, so Jessica sent me this CD of a comic that she really likes. Dane Cook. Freaking funny guy. If you go to his website, linked above, you can listen to some of his clips. Very funny guy. Also a good way to pass time, Albino Black Sheep... lots of fun stuff to do there. Sort of a little like e-baum, but probably less popular.

Does anyone remember that program from way back when. That little program that would drop sheep all over your desktop. They would land on top of open windows, and run around doing fun stuff on your desktop. I remember that. I liked that program. I would always have a few running around on my computer. Then, I don't know, I got bored with them. Just wondering if anyone else remembered that program or if it was one of those things that wasn't really that popular.

Hmm, I could really go for some Mitch Hedberg right now.. it would be really awesome if someone would say, burn me a CD of his stuff so I can laugh even more. Actually any spoken word comedy is more than welcome. I like music and all, but you know, I'm enjoying listening to comedians at the moment. Sort of want to listen to more.

Food is almost here. One of the Haz-Mat guys is going to get it right now. I sort of am getting spoiled here. They get food for me everyday. Dang, this being waited on is going to end at some point. That is going to suck.

Alright, I'm going to go back to Dane Cook.. and laugh some more.

Later

Forgot

I was going to link this so people can see what makes me laugh so hard I cry. Everytime I watch it. Poor dumb fool.

Ebaum is a freaking genius. Another that falls into the genius category... Joey... for his blogging skills and away messages on AIM. who's the law and the lash? Well I guess I should really credit Chris Onsted for his genius. Shoot, there are a lot of people out there who are geniuses.. but Joey.. well Joey introduced me to Achewood.. and well.. he is a genius for that.

Later

End of the Day

Currently experiencing the worst headache ever. I guess swimming might not be happening tonight. Today is a rest day anyways, so I might just go rest. Maybe get some food on the way back, then just get a book and read until I fall asleep. Sounds like a good idea actually. Stupid freaking headache.

Saved Stuart from getting lost in St. Louis today.. who is the man? Oh yes, that is right, I'm da' man. Delorme and me got him to where he needed to go. I feel like freaking On Star right now.

Alright, going to go calibrate my personal monitor... no monitors went out today, which was awesome. Read a lot of Instant Classic comics. Pretty good. I like the art, and the writing is quite clever. Check it out if you got the chance.

Alright, I'm outta here.

later

Lottery Numbers and Pump Faults

So today has been very uneventful thus far. I'm currently helping one of the Haz-Mat guys pick lottery numbers. So, who knows, tomorrow I might be a multi-millionare. Of course, I don't want to break it to him that picking numbers that relate to birthdays really isn't going to win him any money. But you know, whatever. Odds are that he won't win.. but he can buy as many cards as he wants. I'm amazed how many people play the lottery, I mean the big hit this time is 126 million. That is just so tempting. Think of what you could do with 126 million dollars. Even after the gov't takes a big chunk out of it that is still a crap load of money.. probably 40-50 million if you opt to take the lump sum at the beginning, which you'd be crazy not to do. But still.. 40 million in your pocket.. what couldn't you do. New house, new car, new BIKES, travel some, take all your good friends with you.. that would be nice. Almost nice enough to want to spend a few bucks every day on. But let's think about it. You play lottery since you are what, 25.. spend 5 bucks a day on quick picks or using some theory of yours. Play 250 days a year... that's a 1250 a year right there. Say you play for the next 40 years of your life. 50,000.. that's a lot of money to waste on a dream. Now, suppose you invested 1250 a year every year for 25 years in a mutual fund, or an IRA, or something. Let's see, a modest calculation yields 491,774. Hmm, so you could throw away 50 grand trying to win something that you might not be able to ever see, or be guarenteed nearly half a million when you retire. Hmm, who knows. I'm sure the guy that wins the lottery would scoff at me. But have you ever met the person that won a lottery? I haven't, but I've met a lot of people who wished they had planned better for retirement.

Of course the above arguement takes a lot of things for granted. I mean, 5 dollars a day for 250 days a year.. that is a little excessive. And it is sort of fun to spend a few bucks on a few picks every now and again right? Well.. I personally won't be tossing money down tube.. but if I help someone pick the numbers, they win big, and give me.. say.. 1 million bucks. That's cool. I'll live with that. So if you ever want to hire a mathematician to pick your lottery numbers for you, in exchange for a percentage of your winnings, let me know. I'll guarentee that you win as much as the median player does. What is that? Zero?

Pumps have been faulting all morning. Well, not all morning, but enough to tick me off. It rained pretty badly yesterday, so I bagged all the pumps. Just a matter of time before we start getting faults. Luckily none happened to the new guy so I didn't get woken up in the middle of the night to explain how to reset a pump.

Anyways, I think I'm going to jam. Going to go watch some Bebop, waiting for pizza to get her for lunch. I love this job.. free food every day. Excellent.

Later

Wrapping it up for the day.

Report #3 is printing. It always seems to take the longest. The other guys in the "office" are discussing global politics and I'm just shaking my head. Some of the stuff they say makes me laugh. They are intelligent guys, just very opinionated. Great guys, sometimes they say really profound things. Of course, I was sort of surprised when I showed this one guy what google was, yeah he didn't know about google. Now he is constantly finding really interesting news stories from the BBC and other news sources. His opinion of the American news military has changed drastically in the last few weeks. It is amazing what free information can do to a guy. I mean, a few weeks ago he was talking about how we needed to be over there do to terrorism and stuff.. now he thinks that we are basically stealing the oil from them. Hmm, I wish everyone could just get on google, read some unbiased reports about what is going on in the world, and then have the power to make their own decision. Ahhh, I think a well-informed public should be the thing the gov't fears the most. I doubt they would like the average american to know how many US soliders have been injured over in Iraq. We always hear about the number of deaths, but what about injured. I think it's above 8000 at the moment. hmmm.. 8000 people injured, plus the 1000 plus that have got killed. You know, add that up, that's a small town somewhere. Now add up all the deaths from all sides.. well you know.. that is probably a few small towns. Oh well.. price of freedom right? I don't usually express my personal opinions.. but damn. Let's just take over the freaking world. I mean, we have an army that can do it right? And if we start getting deserters we can always just reinstate the draft. Let's do it. Make some really rich guys richer.. gas cheaper so fat people can drive their SUV right up to the front door of wal-mart and buy his genetically modified foods. Nothing wrong with that. Let's just get it over with. Let's nuke the freaking planet.. that'll make it all better.
Report's done printing. I'm going to go pack up my shit and try to work out my frustration at the gym. Right after work.. just like I like it.

Later peoples.

Half-Life 2

Anyone want to take bets on if HL2 is actualy going to come out tomorrow? I'm thinking no, though it is long past it's original release date. I remember drooling over videos of it nearly a year ago. Holy crap. This game had better kick so much ass or I'm going to give up on video games forever. Also, I think it is going to be time to upgrade my ol' computer. Thinking about a Voodoo laptop. Those look nice. Sort of want something small and portable, especially with my current job of sitting around in some office for hours on end by myself.

Oh yeah, Jennifer Garner is starring in a new movie "Elektra." I believe thist movie is going to rival Daredevil as worst comic book movie ever. When will they get it through their heads that, sure, some movies like X-men and Blade will rake in the millions and spawn sequels. But throwing a bunch of ninjas and a scantily clad Garner into a movie won't generate huge support. Wait, I just read what I typed. This movie is going to ROCK! Ninjas and scantily clad females should be in all movies. Seriously though, this movie is going to crash and burn like Daredevil.

Can you tell that I'm freaking BORED! 'Cause I am.

Later

Ok, so it wasn't the last day

So I'm still here, in wonderful Texas City... living in Galveston. Probably for another week or so. Really not that bad. I enjoy it here, the weather is crappy at the moment but I'll survive. I might go to the gym again tonight. Going in the evening is nice since there usually aren't that many people there. I've always been amazed that there will be more people at a gym when it opens (usually long before 6am) then there are when it is closing (usually around 9 or 10). I can understand this to some extent since working out usually pumps me up but I also sometimes have trouble getting the drive to go in the morning. It is true that it is also hard to convince one's self that after a hard day of work to go and lift weights or something. I find working out after work helps me work out a lot of my frustrations through gruesome physical activity. So I would suggest to all those reading this, yeah I know, like all three of you (thanks by the way) that you try working out in the evenings rather than the mornings. You'll already be up and you can get rid of that anger towards your boss through weights or those machines that I never use. I've also found that the more insecure people come in the evenings, while the more harcore gym snobs come in the mornings/weekends. So if you are worried about being mocked or scolded by some huge guy that has skinny legs (what is up with that anyways, yeah you can bench 400 pounds but you can't do a 100 pound calf raise.. dumbass) then go in the evening. Usually just a bunch of middle aged women trying to lose weight and a few skinny guys like myself who try not to make eye contact with other gym members. I'm sure there is a whole psychology behind when people come to a gym. One could almost write an essay about it. I would probably let Joey handle that since I don't really want to delve that deep into my own psyche.

Alright that seems to be enough ranting about the gym this morning. Work is going well, the barge should is here waiting in the harbor. Once the dock is open it'll come in and start the second to last transfer. Then when it gets back in 5 days I'll be gone. Hopefully before Thanksgiving I'll be out of here. WOOHOO! Though sort of sad, it is good, easy money.

Illiopilis starts up the week after Thanksgiving. So if I play my cards right, I won't h ave to be in the office ever again. That is sort of nice. I like this whole living on my own, while getting paid. Feels so different compared to college. Though I'm actually surfing the web more and doing less work than when I was in college. Which is quite amazing.

I discovered yesterday that Joey is supreme internet stalker. Finding phone numbers of people who were in early nineties Nickelodian shows. Sort of scary. I challenged him to find a picture of a mutual friend of ours... and like 4 minutes later he had it. So if you ever need some random picture, or information about anyone, from anywhere, just link on over to his site, drop him a line and he'll probably do it, just for the challenge of it all.

Alright, I should start printing things out. Take it easy everyone.

Later

Last day... maybe.

Alright, so today might be my last day. Of course, if you knew anything about the company I work for you wouldn't be surprised that I have no clue what's going on. They seem to enjoy keeping their employees in the dark about things.. such as travel plans. I would really like to know when I'm coming home. I have to pack a lot of stuff, get my bike packed and shipped off. So I'm going to be very ticked off when they call me tomorrow and say something along the lines of "yeah, you're coming back, in one hour your flight leaves." Or something like that. They piss me off so bad sometimes.

So the new guy that got sent down here. Slowest person I've ever worked with. Still can't finish the generating the report until at least an hour after he starts it.. so the responsibility for printing it out falls upon my shouldars. That sort of ticks me off. But I show up at our sceduled transition time, which by the way my boss says is "impossible" to change. And he isn't ready. So I just sit around twidling my thumbs while he slowly copys and pastes stuff from file to file. It is absolute agony. I wish I could just be the only person working here. Get me a cot and I could sleep in the freaking office here. Wake up to change out monitors or something. Wouldn't be too bad. We have a week to go. I could change out all the monitors, then go take a shower somewhere. Oh man.. that would rock. Working a 23 hour day.. talk about bank.

So yeah, I might be here until it is over, or I might be leaving tomorrow. Tempted to call my boss for confirmation about it, but really want him to show some managerial balls and do it himself. He should know how to manage people, but doesn't. So frustrating at times. Knowing that it could be so much better if just a few simple things changed. But oh well, I've felt that way at every company I've ever worked for. So maybe it is just me not being able to accept the half-assed way things are done, or maybe this is really as good as it gets. If that is the case, well, time to become a professional athlete since this worse than getting a tattoo removed with a cheese grater.

Alright, enough bitching from me. I'm going to try to hit the gym tonight, but might take today off too. If my partner gets here at the proper time to do a switch out, then I should have a good hour that I could lift. If he pulls another shitty thing like last night, then I won't be able to make it to the gym at all. If he is late again, oh I'm going to take a piece out of him. Hopefully work won't care if i beat the crap out of an idiot employee. And what really gets to me, is that he gets paid more than I do. I doubt he will ever be as competent at this job as I am, and that's what really gets me. He has years of "experience" and can't even pronounce chemical names correctly. WTF is all I have to say.

Ok, so I know I said no more bitching, so to hold up to that I believe I have to end this post.

Later

Last night shift?

Oh man, I'm getting switched over to day shifts, I guess tomorrow technically. I have to come in this afternoon and help train up the new guy and sort of hold his hand, then I get a night off. I'm sort of ticked since I was actively enjoying the sunlight hours, and now I won't get that pleasure. I'm going to try to convince the new guy to do shift changes around 9 or so, rather than the 7:30 since that'll give me an extra 90 minutes of riding time. Which is basically all I need. Joey suggested I bring my lights down here but I don't feel 100% confident on these roads to use my lights. Though that would be fun to ride like crazy in the dark. I can run in the evening after I get off work, bike before, and hit the gym when I can. Need to double check the hours and make sure that it is open late in the evening. If it is a gym worth its salt then it will be.

Getting the biking tan back. So nice to have a good solid tan line in the middle of November. I'm going to really have to tried to ride hard this morning, and long, so I incase I can't ride again while I'm here I'll have some sort of tan to hold me over. I miss having people ask me about it.. it was a badge of pride that I wore. Especially when teaching swim lessons, I'd often get, are you a farmer. So nice.

Ok, the reports are printing, the report I was proofing is finished. I've written all the e-mails that I was going to tonight. I guess I could calibrate up some instruments before I head off to ride my legs off. Planning on riding to the Northern end of the island today. Rode to East beach on Tuesday and took yesterday off. So I should have more than enough energy to get a few more miles past. Who knows how far it really is. I guess I'll find out the fun and exciting way.

Take it easy everyone. Keep on riding. And if it is raining where you are.. well.. keep on running or swimming.

Later

Barge has arrived!

Alright, the barge has arrived at Texas City. That means, possibly, that I'll be able to be home in at minimum 11 days. Though I'm guessing it won't be nearly that early. I'm thinking that it'll probably be early December before I'm back in Arkansas. Well, won't be so bad. The temperatures here in Galveston look like they are going to be nice for the next few weeks, and the riding is nice, the pool isn't so bad, and I like the gym. So I'm not too worried about it. Though it would be nice to be back in town with my friends, but I'll survive. Perhaps even come out in better shape.

Alright, not much else is going on at the moment. Watching Super Troopers, which is a fantastically funny movie. I remember when I first saw this movie. I believe I was in Jonesboro with Joey, and the first scene made me laugh so hard that I was in tears. Stayed that way for almost the rest of the movie. I'm eagerly awaiting Shaun of the Dead to come out since it pretty much did the same thing to me. Freaking hilarious.

Alright, I'm going to get outta here. Take it easy peoples.

Later

Drafting

Today have been a fantastic day. I rode my bike like crazy around Galveston. Still searching for the hot girls, I have come to believe that they don't exist here in Texas, or at least in this part. People I've meet at Hendrix prove that hot women come from Texas, but I've yet to find any. When I was coming back into town I got behind this car, and drafted it through most of the city. People were totally staring when I was kicking ass down the street. At one point a couple in a car passed and motioned for me to follow them.. I almost did, but they ended up turning almost immediately. Nearing the end of the road there was a stop sign, and I out sprinted the car too it. I don't think they knew we were racing, but I still kicked their ass.

At another point there was an RV.. but they weren't in the correct lane for me to draft, but I could have probably reached around 40 or so behind that thing. I think I was holding over 30 behind the car.. it was awesome. The other bikers around there don't seem to be doing it for anything but fun, while I guess I'm a little bit more hardcore. I wish I had the tiphoon here, I could really tear it up, doubt anyone around here has seen a tri-bike let alone the best one ever.

Work is going to be stupid tonight. Probably just going to watch some movies, play some Evil Genius at some point, surf the web. I still have trouble believe that I get paid for this. Such as easy job, it is just staying awake for 13 hours and not really leaving a room. It is more mental than anything else. All you have to do is believe that you can finish.

My friend Sean ran in a half-marathon and kicked some serious ass. You should go check out his page to see how he did. I think I heard his time, but he got 2nd in his age group and 22nd overall. Go Sean. Congrats.

Ok, I'm going to bust a move on outta here. Going to go listen to some music or call people or something.

Later

Real quick post

Oh yes, saturday morning. Bike wasn't there yesterday, so it might be there today. I'm probably going to go back to the hotel, eat a bowl of ceral, sleep for a bit, then see if I can't get the bike up and running. Maybe ride along the beach and show these Texas people riding is like. There seems to be a lot of riders in the Houston area and I'm sad that I can't get up there and do a group ride with them. That would be a lot of fun I think. I really want to start riding with groups again, maybe moving to Little Rock was a bad idea. Don't really want to ride with the Carve guys.

Work was actually busy tonight, yeah I know, go figure. Had hits on some stations all night, and kept getting stupid pump faults on the other side of the plant. So had to keep driving over there to reset the damn thing. Then I'd get back and another monitor would have gone down again. Stupid work, making me work. I just want to play Evil Genius more. That game rocks by the way.

Ok, time to do the reports. Going to probably do legs today, so I might have trouble getting up the stairs tonight.

Later

Lactic Acid

So I've been hitting the gym pretty hard lately. Trying more weight less reps and it has been tearing me up. I'm having trouble moving just about any appendage at the moment, my biceps are on fire, my back feels like someone has beat me with a stick repeatedly, the back of my legs hurt so bad I don't want to move. And I love it. Maybe it is just my masochist tendencies or something, but oh man do I love it. This type of pain is not annoying in any way. I feel so good when I try to walk up stair and my calves scream in protest. It makes me want to lift more. Call me crazy all you want, which I'm sure most people will, but there are people out there that understand me. You know who you are. I could go on, but what I think everyone who understands me would know what I would say.

So my bike should be sitting in the Holiday Inn's lobby when I get back in the morning. I'm sort of pissed since I don't have a bike pump here. I'm hoping wal-mart might carry a pump that has a gauge on it and the ability to pump up a presta valve. Though I'm thinking I'm going to have to find a bike shop in Galveston. I'm sure there are some, since Galveston seems like a pretty cool town and all cool towns have to have a bike shop. After I find a pump, I think I'll put my bike together, sleep, wake up early and rip up some roads. I don't know if it'll be worth it riding along the beach, I'd have to ride on a sidewalk, and that would feel wierd. But I'm sure there are roads somewhere with little traffic that I could ride for miles and miles on.

My friend Sean just started a blog, go check it out, he should be in with my other friends here in a few minutes.

Heard that I might be moving to days next week. I'm sort of confused if I like that or not. I mean, I love working nights, I don't really have to deal with anyone and I can work out in the days. But if I'm working days, that'll mean my bike riding time will be significantly cut short. I might be able to convince whoever is coming out to change up the shift change times to afford me a longer morning bike ride, or I might just stick with running and swimming. Though then I'd have sent my bike down here for only a week of riding. Which would be sort of unacceptable.

Talked to my boss tonight. He says that he would see no reason to bring someone in who wants to be in the field. So that means I'll get to stay here until, well until they need me back or it finishes. Hopefully I'll be able to stay here for another 4 weeks or so.. which would be nice. Maybe all the way through December, and then lots of apartments opening up next year. Which would be cool. Hoping to get a nice flat somewhere.. nice and large.. big enough for a pool table and all my bike paraphernalia. I've always wanted a pool table. That would be cool.

Just heard that the barges which is coming to get the stuff here might be 3 days out or so. Which means the 14 days trip is going to be more like 17 days or so.. maybe even three weeks. Which would be.. lets see.. (3 more trips) x (17 days) = 51 more days. That isn't even taking into account the day or so it takes to load the barge, or the fact that it isn't even here yet. I guess I'll find out more.. NEVER! But I don't care. Making money, having fun, working out... I love this job.

Alright, I'm going to run. Need to play some evil genius and catch up on e-mails. Sorry that I've been so bad about those lately. Though I think only three people ever view this site, still, I would like to pretend everyone I know (and some I don't) read this religiously.

Later

Rain, holy crap

There is a crap load of rain here in Texas. I'm not really enjoying it too much. My bike isn't here yet, though if it was I'd be even more pissed. Having to put out air monitors sucks, you get soaked, have to walk through flooded areas.. I'm just soaked. But i guess it could be worse. I mean, I could be stuck in an office or lab somewhere doing the same crap every day. I'm enjoying this job still. Tomorrow is a rest day for me so I get to take some nice time off. Sleep, eat, and relax. I got my exercise ball all inflated so I might go crazy on that. Going to try to find firefly, it isn't at the local walmart. I think there is a block buster around Galveston somewhere, maybe even a best buy. Or a Hastings type store. I'll have to check around before I leave here. maybe if I find a cheap external DVD player I'll pick that up too.. maybe if I can find a cheap external DVDR or something. Who knows.

I have about 6 minutes before I can start writing my reports for today. I hope everyone who reads this is going to get out and vote today. I really don't care who you vote for as long as you get out there and vote. I could go into great detail about who you should vote for, but I don't think anyone wants to hear any more about this. I like to imagine that tomorrow is going to decide who are next president is going to be but I have a feeling that another debacle will soon occur. I don't see why the person who gets more votes doesn't automatically become president. I mean, that would make more sense right. But then states like CA and FL would get all screwed up.. since many of their votes would be split. Such a stupid system. I just want it to be over, the excessive mud slinging and black and white commercials are getting to me. Hey, who knows, maybe another draft will happen. That would be cool, though I have a feeling the governement would really regret giving me a gun and the knowledge of how to use it.

Ok, I have to go start doing the only real thing I have to do all night. Go out and vote, and take it easy..

Later

Happy Nevada Day

For history buffs, and friends from Nevada, you'll realize that this post is a few hours too late to truly be about Nevada Day (Oct. 31) but you know, it'll have to do. Ever since moving from Nevada I've missed the great Nevada Day celebrations. Dressing up as ghost and ghouls, going around asking for candy. It was such a great feeling to know the rest of the country was celebrating with us. Actually what I really missed was getting the day off from school, knowing Hendrix, I probably wouldn't have gotten the day off from school anyways.

Work has been quite uneventful. For some reason the stations are staying up much longer and not requiring my much coveted battery changing ability. I think it is because we got rid of station 10. That might not have anything to do with it, but I can't imagine another reason why things would be working the way they are. I'm not complaining, just mentioning that I'm having a much harder time staying awake knowing that I only have maybe 1 unit to change in 13 hours. I only just changed out my first unit of the night at 0430, so that means I could have slept for a good 6 hours. But, I stayed awake. Read some Fast Food Nation and chatted with both Joey and Heather for quite a bit.

Joey seems really taken by the short lived TV series "Firefly." His choice in movies and TV shows at times has been poor, but I think in this case it'll be a good assumption that he knows whe he is talking about. So I might pick it up on DVD one of this nights and ask if I can keep my co-workers laptop. She has been working with CTEH longer, thus has a DVD player in her laptop. I'm hoping I get a new laptop soon. This one is nice and all, but I want more memory, and a plasma screen. As long as I'm dreaming, I guess I also want work to give me a huge raise. Well I have my fingers crossed.

Hung out for a while at Ebaum's World. Lots of funny stuff over there. But one can only look at humourous pictures for so long. I read a lot of Questionable Content last night. Well actually, I read all of their previous posts. It is a pretty funny comic with a long continous story line and character development. I sort of like that. I mean, comics like Sinfest and VGCats with their lack of any major continuation will always have a place in my heart, but it is refreshing to read what basically could be described as a graphic novel.

The gym in Galvaston is quite nice. Sort of a hole in the wall place, I don't think it'll ever be as hugely popular as say a 24 hours fitness or whatever, but it has it's charm. Lots of regulars and slightly older machines and weights. The pool is outdoors, which I'm not familar with swimming in. Backstroke is pretty hard when you can't swim in a straight line. The walls are also incredibly slippery, but I'll survive. Anyways, I'm really glad I picked it out of the other available gyms. I think I'll be able to achieve all of my fitness goals in no time.

I'm outta here. Maybe a monitor will go down and I'll get to do more work. Only 3 more hours to go.

Later

Friday, early evening

Deciding to drop a quick blog at the beginning of the shift, rather than at the end when I'm dead on my feet. My hotel room rocks, nice view of the beach, and on the 8th floor. I'm pleased. 2 beds, would have prefered just one, but two works for.. well the second one holds on my stuff.

Took a nice little run on the sidewalk by the beach. It was freaking awesome. The wind was pretty intense going west, coming back it was nice.. wind at my back, but then the sweat was just dripping off me. I can't wait to get my bike.. the wind will make a good work out one way, then it'll help for laying it all out when I come riding back. I'm not sure if I want to ride on the sidewalk, or brave the incredibly busy roads. I guess I'll just have to wing it.

Started reading Fast Food Nation, feel a little like Sean, though i'm not becoming a dirty hippie. It seems good. I'll probably take a big chunk out of it tonight since I forgot to bring any of my movies. I plan to watch Cowboy Bebop in it's entirerity, maybe Lain also. I wish I had all my Family Guy episodes, but they are somewhere else. I've got plenty of movies to keep me occupied, and I can always get more. Got the latest Palanuik book back in my room, looking forward to digesting that. Always a trippy read.

Well I'm going to go and see what Eric Schlosser says is wrong with fast food, other than everything.

Later

So incredibly tired

Yeah, the title pretty much says it all. I'm going to go back to the hotel and crash. Might not even run this afternoon. Though I probably should. Need to work out, it has been nearly a week since I've worked out.. and honestly, that is unacceptable.

Later

Back in Texas, again

So I'm back in Texas City once again. I'm actually excited to be here this time. I've brought a much more positive attitude this time, plus all my work out equipment, and my bike is on it's way. Hopefully it'll get here before the weather gets worse. I think it is supposed to get into the 70's next week. That is just way too cold to right. :-)

I think it has been in the 90's lately and that'll be perfect for running and riding. Going to get the biker tan going on again, or at least I'm hoping that I will. Got a different hotel, and it is right on the beach. There seems to be a nice little running path that runs the entire length of the beach, so I'm thinking I'll be hitting that a lot with my running shoes. Not sure if it is long enough to get any good rides in. I might take my bike up to some frontage roads outside of town and ride my miles up there. As I've said before I want to get in lots of running miles, so I think that running will probably happen at least 5 times a week. That will be fun, especially running near the beach all the hotties on the beach will have to pay attention.

What else is going on.. still looking into getting an apartment down in the Rock. But since I'm staying in Texas for an indefinite amount of time, I'm not really all that worried about it. Maybe if I can stay here for a while then I'll be able to get an apartment downtown, there are some opening up in the next few months, just none are ready right now. Maybe I'll get a really cool apartment, get it all swanky, lots of triathlon stuff, all my bikes all over the place. Oh man, that would totally rock.

I've been talking with Pip, he is helping me get a good workout plan going. Found what appears on their website to be a really nice gym. One big selling point is they have a lap pool. I need to swim more, and I think this assignment will allow me to swim to my heart's content. Maybe get off work, and go swim for an hour or so. Then grab some breakfast, I should have a fridge in my room, get some ceral and milk. Eat breakfast. Then get to sleep. Wake up about 4 or so, run for an hour, then hit the gym and lift for an hour or so. Hit the showers, head back to the hotel for more healthy food, then off to work for 13 hours. Then repeat. Of course on days that i'm not lifting I'll probably be biking for 2-3 hours, working on that tan and really getting to know how flat this part of texas is.

I've got a lot more to say, but I'll talk about it later. I'm having trouble concentrating at the moment.

Later

Subtle Hints

So yeah, last couple days have been very interesting. I'm still trying to get into a normal sleeping routine, but I passed out in a chair at Stuart's last night and slept for like 3 hours. Then went up to my bed, and sleeped until 5:30. Then couldn't for the life of me get back to sleep. It has been very crazy lately. I also didn't eat dinner last night, which is totally crazy for me. I've always eaten constantly, so I don't know what that means. I'm going to try to eat EXTRA today to make up for it.

I'm hoping to run up to The Ride and pick up my road bike and get my pedals off my Roo. I'm not going to get the Roo just yet, going ot wait till I get a place where I can keep it indoors, and I don't want to just sort of leave it laying around in Stuart's garage. I'm hoping to get in some miles today, then do a 60 tomorrow with the guys. Haven't seen much of them lately.. so that should be fun, though i'm thinking it is going ot kick my ass since i haven't riden in 3 weeks. Oh well.. always gotta get back into it. I don't think I've not riden in three weeks, shoot, since last winter... crazy.


Here is a picture of what happened to my car yesterday at work. One of my bosses backed straight into by car, twice I believe with his huge F150. If I was more attached to my car, I'd probably care, but I'm just hoping I can get it fixed without it being too much of a hassle. Just more of an inconvience than anything else. Though I'm thinking this might be a subtle hint from him about my current employment.

Yeah Amanda, in reference to my last post, I'm sorry my cubicle looks stupid, but just wait till I get a bunch of triathlon posters and stuff around. Maybe I'll hang up all my racing pictures, and a picture of my bike so I recall what I'm working for, and why I have to eat Ramen noodles every meal. ;-)

I should get back to work, they really shouldn't allow me to be able to do fun stuff on the web while I'm supposed to be working. But yeah, I should get back to it, since pollen won't count itself.

Later

Ok, I've now completely figured out how to post pictures. This is a picture of my cubicle. Sorry for the poor quality, I had to use my camera phone to take the picture. So yeah, notice "The Ride" nalgene bottle to the left of my laptop. Gotta represent the local bike shops. Later

Yeah, so this is a picture of my bike. Well I don't have the HED 3 wheels, and my set up is a little different. I have a different cockpit set up, with Vision bars rather than those Syntec bars.. Though I wish I had those wheels.. those wheels are sweet.

PICTURES!

This is a spider I saw when I was down in San Antonio under a train bridge. I'm just trying to post pictures at the moment. And it works.. so I'm happy now. Now I'm going to have to start publishing all the cool pictures of train wrecks and the such. Excellent.

Back to work...
Later

Back home, well sort of...

Well they let me come back from Texas yesterday. I'm very glad that I don't have to work nights anymore, I mean, it was fun to just surf the net for 13 hours a day but I honestly was getting tired of it. So I'm back home and really glad to be back. Going to be moving here in a few days, if I can find an affordable apartment, until then Stuart has been nice enough to allow me to crash at his place. So that is going to be nice, now I don't have to spend over 2 hours of my life driving to work everyday.. oh man, I don't know what I'm going to do with that extra time. Actually I'll probably just end up working out or something, but you know, it is better than sitting on my butt driving to work. What really is going to suck is not being around the gang of triathletes who I've become really good friends with. But with it being the off seaoson I guess it is ok, and I'll get up there a lot next season, maybe even move back up there.. but we'll see what happens.

Work is really slow today. Just a lot of crap going on. Lots of people's realatives dying and the such. I'm currently trying to figure out pollen counts from years back, and it is incredibly frustrating. I'll figure it out eventually. It is just frustrating that all my Googling is giving me the answer. I believe the frustration arises from the fact that I whole-hearted believe that if I could merely word the question perfectly that I would find what I was looking for. Curses. If anyone knows how to find an archived list of pollen counts over the past 5 years for Hattiesburg MS I would really appreciate it.

I should probably get back to work, but you know, I don't really want to. My boss isn't here, and I'm all about not really doing any serious work. I got all my crap together, moved to my new desk and office. Going to put up my little name plate here in a minute. Trying to drink lots of water, feel that i'm coming down with something and I don't really want to be sick. So, water and vitamin C is flooding my system at the moment.

Tonight, I don't know what is going to happen tonight. I might go play poker with some guys from school.. if I do, I really hope to kick their ass. :-) Math majors in the house!!

Ok, I'm gone, going to go call some allergists.

Later

Stupid work

It appears that I might be here for a few more days. I was supposed to be relieved today, but much to my dismay, I've been recruited for tonight, and most likely tomorrow night also. It all depends on who is going to be coming in to relieve me. If it is someone who has been here before, then I don't have to stay. If not, then I have to sit through an entire shift with them and hold their hand.. much like what Zach did for me on my first night. So hopefully it'll be someone who knows what they are doing so I can merely go home and forget all this hassle of Texas.

Not much really happened tonight in the way of work. Just sort of sat around. Started reading Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson, who by far is one of my favorite authors. I'm really looking forward to this reading experience. I hope I can find lots of time to read amongst all the other activities I have planed for myself over the next few months. I read a lot this summer, and I had forgotten how good it felt just to read for fun for hours on end. I'm still debating the issue of a TV in my apartment, hopefully I will just move in, and see what happens by not having one. I've just always lived in a place where there was a TV to watch, I honestly can't remember a time, except for some of freshman year I guess. But that doesn't count since I never spent any time in my room anyways. But yeah, I would really like to get away from the norm of everyone having a TV. I don't know, we'll see what happens with all of that.

Talked with Stuart for awhile tonight. That was fun, mocking the idiots of the nation in our continuing futile attempt to understand the average individual. Honestly.. most people are just idiots. I don't want to offend, though I'm guessing the 4 people or so who might actually read this won't care. Yeah.. people as a whole are just freaking stupid. Very annoying.

Ok, I'm going to sign off now before I start talking about why I hate stupid people and what I believe should be done about the problem. So yeah, hopefully the next time I get online will be in Little Rock, and actually I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get online as regularly anymore. I know I won't be surfing the web 13 hours a day, that's for sure.

Later

EXTRA EXTRA

I was just informed by Joey, that if the Yankees suck cock, he would play for them. I hope they see that.. since I would love to see Joey try to play baseball.. wouldn't enjoy all the cock.. but.. man.. Joey playing baseball. It would be freaking hilarious.

Fried food is disgusting

I hate fried food. I despise everything about it. Nothing healthy is ever fried, unless you think that catfish and chicken are healthy to begin with. But, I guess some healthy things can be deep-fried, but then suddenly they become instruments of obesity. For dinner tonight, I was forced to choke down fried catfish and chicken. Now, I normally wouldn't have eaten such terrible things, but those are the only options that I have sometimes. Larry goes out, and buys fried food. Dave needs to eat, so he eats it. Sometimes I curse my body.. having to constantly devour food to stay active. I guess it could be worse. I could be overweight and disgusting. Oh man that would suck.

Luckily it is the off season and I don't really need to worry about what I eat. Not that I normally do, but I'd like to think that I eat reasonably healthy. I stay away from fast-food as much as I can, though I occasionaly love having a nice sandwich from subway. I mean, one needs to indulge one's self every now and again. I guess if I really wanted to be in peak fitness that I should probably eat better, but I just like food way too much and use way too much energy to try to survive off completely health foods. I guess I eat a lot of fruits and veggies.. but I do indulge in candy and sweets all the time. I realize that high fructose corn syrup is the devil.. but man, skittles taste so freaking good sometimes. But yeah, I guess I'll never be 100% due to my diet.. but at the current moment, I'm not going to be running in the olympics, and I mean.. triathlons are sort of a hobby, not my life. Maybe when I start being able to live off racing (doubt it'll ever happen) but at that point I'll start eating correctly. At the moment.. I just eat what I want and enjoy it. Never really been able to gain weight.. though i bet that'll change one day too.

But yeah.. off-season time. I want to get in great shape in the next 5 months or so. Run some 5k and 10k races, swim a lot, hit the gym like I'm some sort of maniac, and really just whip myself into a good racing shape for next season. I'll probably hit it really hard come March.. bump up the training and get ready for Memphis in May.. I think that'll probably be the first race this season. I also want to see if I can get out West and visit the family as well as run some races out there. I've always wanted to do the Death Ride, or Escape from Alcatraz.. though maybe I should train more before doing any big races like that. Maybe 2006.. who knows. But yeah, I want to get stronger legs.. never been completely happy with my bike splits. I feel they could be much much better.. I just haven't been riding long enough. I think with a good few months of training I could really knock off the minutes. Erik says it is just all about experience.. so maybe I just have to be patient and continue training. With the new bike.. I feel I need to work harder so as I feel that I deserve it. Ahh.. I'm looking forward to the winter. Now without school, though work might mess it all up, I'll be able to train. I don't know.. we'll see how it works out.

Oh yeah.. Yankees suck.. stupid Yankees. I bet I could have a really good ball club if I had hundreds of millions of dollars. Of course, then I bet everyone would hate my team too.

This post has gone on way too long. I should probably run. Enough rambling for one night.

Later

Hockey Fan Fiction

Thanks go to Joey for showing me this.. uhh.. interesting link. Beware, not for the weak at heart. Joey and I had fun mocking the individual who wrote it, then I began to think a little deeper. What causes a woman to write slash? I mean, I guess guys could write slash too, but I don't imagine it happens nearly as much as women do. I don't understand why some of my friends even, who shall remain nameless, enjoy such slash as that from LOTR and Harry Potter. I don't understand why anyone would want to read about guy on guy action, espically that of 14 year olds. Just seems sort of odd. One girl told me once that women want to see certian male individuals in a sexual situation, but can't imagine them with a woman, so they just throw in another male character and viola, crappy, disturbing, homoerotic action. No offense, but that is just freaking crazy to me. I think portal of evil has lots of good sites, or eventually. They find all sort of wierd things. You can find them here, they are a really good site for entertaining oneself while not at work.

Let's see, it has been raining like crazy here. Very annoying for those that had to go out in it. One of which wasn't me. I took it upon myself to rise above actually doing much real work tonight and delegated completely to the damn co-worker who I don't like at all. He had to walk through so much rain today, ahh it made me feel good knowing that he was going to have to suffer. I was tempted to make him randomly go out into the rain, just to do stupid shit.. but I thought that would be almost too evil. Plus, I was busy surfing the web, and chatting with friends.

Talked with Pip a lot tonight.. I really miss hanging out with him. So many good memories, at the gym, playing video games, getting kicked out of the Hilton. Man, those were the days. Hoping all the advice he gave me works.. if anyone knows about that sort of thing, it is Pip.

Joey almost had another "bottle of wine night" but he never picked up a bottle of wine. Which is probably for the best since there were times during the last "bottle of wine night" I had trouble understanding what he was trying to say. So it was freaking fun. I talked with amanda tonight, and she said Joey and her were going to be getting drunk together sometime in the next few months, should joey ever come and visit. I'm definitely going to have to try to be there when that happens. I imagine the absolute craziness of drunk joey, and well.. amanda is crazy enough as it is... so I'm curious to see what happens when both drunken individuals get together. Absolute craziness.

Three more nights and counting. I'm really ready to be out of here. They should start off-loading the tanks next week, but honestly I don't care since I'm not going to be here. It is time for this damn project to be over. Naw, it has been fun.. I've been getting paid to sit around, read, watch movies, listen to music, catch up with old friends. It has been lots of fun. But, 13 hour days, everyday, without a break, and without any friends out here is starting to wear thin. Soon, I'll be back in Little Rock and I can start looking for an apartment.. somewhere to live.

Ahh, I think I need to start making my reports.. well, not right now, but I'm going to start printing off the maps.. then I'll start making the reports at 6:30. So stupid.. nothing happened tonight, no hits.. just.. crappy.

I'm off.. take care all.. don't read any fan fiction.. it is bad.. espically when it involves furries.

Later

Holy Crap

I would have to say that tonight has been one of the worst nights working here. It has been a compliation of being tired, having to work with assholes, and just plain being bored with everything that I've been doing here. I love the internet and all, and not in a sick, wierd way, but more in the way that I love riding my bike.. only not nearly that intense. But I've usually enjoyed the internet in small doses. Like, catching up with e-mails, looking at some news, humour, reveiw sites.. etc. But I've sort of gotten tired of staring at the screen, and playing stupid games, and writing e-mails to people who I know will never respond. It is wierd. I've sort of become burned out on it I guess. I need to get out of this room, I need to run, swim, bike.. something. I've determined I need to purchase a set of stretch cords or something, something so I can swim in the tiny ass pool they have at my hotel.. and I need to remember to always pack a pair of running shorts and some running shoes. Very important. But, there are all things that I've learned and hopefully my next 2 week trip somewhere will be slightly more productive.

Tonight also sucked since around 12:34 pm (yeah, that is the middle of my "night" in case you were curious) my boss called. I don't know why he called.. since I was sort of asleep when i answered the phone.. but I know that a few minutes later he was asking if I was willing to stay in Texas a little while longer. I'm pretty sure I said no... I hope I didn't say "NO FREAKING WAY"... yeah, so that was that. I'm actually sort of pissed about it. I know he knows that I'm working nights, so that means he knew that I was sleeping, but he called anyways. I don't know. Sort of ticked off about that. So that woke me up, and then I had an even harder time getting back to sleep.

I also had an odd urge to talk to people tonight. I tried calling just about everyone I knew to talk to them. I ended up talking to three different people tonight, and even leaving wierd messages on some phones. I was surprised, but some people mailboxes were full.. I didn't know this could happen. But now that I know.. I think I'm going to start calling people in the middle of the night and leaving long rambling e-mails.. maybe I'll find a random manual for one of our monitors lying around around I'll just start reading out of it. I'm sure everyone is curious how an AreaRAE works.. I know I am. Or how one changes out the sensors on a multiRAE.. ahh fun times indeed.

Joey won an iPod tonight.. all since he knew who Steve Jobs was.. lucky bastard. I totally would have won it had I been there, but no.. basically this job stole an iPod from me. DAMN! Feel free to check out joey's sight and watch him gloat all about his brand new apple toy. Lucky lucky punk.

Hmm, what else is going on. Oh yeah, the blast wall. For some reason, in the area of the plant that I am in, there is a huge 20 foot high, 3 foot thick wall encircling most of the area. There are also huge doors that look like they could be swung shut. Now, I don't know if I should be scared that they think they might need this huge doors, or happy that if a zombie revolt comes while I'm working here I'll be extra safe. I mean, I have huge ships docked to my rear (the ships are those scary kind that are really big. Like a floating city, but no that scary scienctologist one) and pratically invulnerable walls for safety. I'd be a little worried about food supplies.. but we have rail access... and I think a train engine could make quick work of many zombie hordes. So, two possible escape routes, saftey, and lots of chemicals that we could use to burn the zombies should the need arise. I think there is some nasty acid in some of these tanks, and I've always been curious if 800,000 gallons of acid would kill a throng of zombies, or merely melt off their flesh and make them scary skeletons. Yeah, can you tell that it is 5:30 in the morning and I'm tired as all get out. Damn needing sleep.

Coworker has been decent today.. and I mean he has only tried to start talking with me a few times. Conversation topics of this evening: Hooters, Strip Clubs, and why Windows 98 is better than XP. I understand the first two, but why the need to talk about them eludes me, but the last one. There is the wrench, it is big, and I think it is going to be going on a magical journey to this idiot's knees. Then we'll see what is up.. HAHAHA

Ok, I should go. Maybe I'll play some annoying music and see if I can't get him to leave the room. I can't wait to get the hell out of here.. so much that needs to be taken care of in Little Rock. So much that I've missed out on, and so much more that I'm missing out on as I type this. Curses.

later

Chocolate Love Bunnies

Tonight was just another night. Nothing really exciting happened, 'cept for all the monitors going down simultaneously, and then not wanting to work the rest of the evening. That was sort of hectic. Talked with Jessica until my cell phones battery almost went dead. That was a lot of fun, catching up with friends who you've lost touch with seems to be a very rewarding experience. Though I have a feeling that if some people I remember from high school randomly called me and wanted to "catch up," Well I'd probably set a world record for how far I could throw my cell phone. Hopefully no random individual who used to know me is going to stumble across this website. That would really be wierd. Also chatted with Pip for a bit, before dumbass coworker took my internet. Gotta get back in touch with with good friends from back home. Also gotta make it out there for a vacation sometime soon.. too many peeps there that I need to hang out with again, and hit the gym with again. Ahh man Pip, so many good times hanging at the Y.. those were the days. Easy ass school in the day, and the gym all afternoon.

So what else is going on, not much. Once again I must state that American Express sucks.. I know I don't have credit.. but I need a larger limit. I don't understand what the problem is, I guess I'm probably just a risk for them. But I'm not.. maybe someone at American Express will read this and approve me for unlimited credit. One can only hope.

Joey's plan to mess with random camgirls isn't coming along as well as I hoped. I believe tomorrow night I'll have to place another comment on her page.. and I think Joey had some good suggestions, over-the-top is far superior to sane comments. I mean, we are messing with them and not trying to get to know them. Sometimes I wonder if messing with people is wrong, since i know I'd hate it if someone did it to me.. but then I realize I don't care about crazy people who post crazy things on Joey's webcam page... man joey.. how do you attract those crazy bitches. Like, are you wearing crazy bitch attracting cologne or something? Is it called Aqua Bitchla or something? Just wondering.

Alright, time to copy and paste some data, mess around in SigmaPlot (which is like Excel on steriods with as many arms as a hindu god, all constantly doing scary shit with graphs) use up all the ink in some ink cartridges, and then hit the hotel for hopefully waffles... oh I forgot to mention, I've been eating waffles every morning. The hotel has this really badass waffle maker, one downside is that it makes the waffles in the shape of texas, but the waffles are really good. The last two mornings, the waffle maker has been GONE! The BASTARDS. Apparently some idiot broke it, and now I'm forced to eat healthy stuff for breakfast.. WTF? Oh well. Oh yeah.. I found this cool site with some funny flash shit. Check it out if you are bored, like I always am. They also have some cool movies of a guy playing mario music. I'm sure I got the link from another site, like Anticlown or something, but whatever.

I'm outta here..
later

Messing with Co-worker

Ahh, this morning was excellent. Larry (good co-worker, not the idiot) and I were concerned that idiot co-worker was going to fall asleep out where he was watching a crew do work. So we called him up on the radio and asked that he go check out one of our monitors and make sure it was working. Well he goes and is looking at it, but on my computer it shows that it just went offline. So Larry and I are racking our brains trying to figure out what the hell he did. I get on the radio and ask some questions, like, what are the lights doing, what switches are where.. etc. So we figure out he did, but we wanted to mess with him a little more. On our tranmitter, there are little lights that flicker every time they upkeep the connection with the host here in the office. So they are flickering pretty fast. So I ask him to count how many times it flashes in a minute. Larry immediately starts cracking up. There would be absoluetly no reason for needing to know the number of flashes, just that it was flashing, but the guy is an idiot so I didn't care. And he doesn't wear a watch, which made it even more fun. So, every 10 seconds or so I'd radio him again asking for the current number, knowing that would mess with his count.. oh yeah, by this time the monitor was back online. So finally he got a count of 42 or something.. not really important. And I'm all, "good, since if we don't get 39-51 flickers per minute the machine gets overloaded and stops working. Larry all the while is practicly on the floor he is laughing so hard. Now Larry is asking him to walk around and check to see if the units are transmitting the proper numbers back here. Oh man, just a bit of advice for all of you.. don't ever be an idiot at work, it'll just lead to trouble.

Anyways, I'm out, gotta go start making some reports. Take it easy everyone. And feel free to argue all you want. I'm mainly saying this to allow Joey and Amanda to continue posting wierd messages all over the place.

Later

Occupying Time... aka My Day Thus Far

Hidee Ho everybody. How y'all doing other there? Hope every is having as good of a day as I am. Actually today has been just like every other day, sleep, work, find out that Wal-mart doesn't sell stamps. Watch annoying co-worker attempt to read supermarket novel and laugh as he fails and tries to sleep in the world's most uncomfortable chair. Ok, so that is an exageration, I'm sure there is a chair out there in the world that is more uncomfortable. I imagine the chair would have spikes on it instead of cushions, and everytime you sat in it, the chair would eat part of your soul. And if you stayed in it too long you'd be forced to eat a kitten. That chair would be far less comfortable than these but none the less these chairs are completely uncomfortable.

So work today has been uneventful. Rain threatened, so I had to wrap the stupid monitors in ziplock bags or garabage bags.. then there was a problem since when I sent coworker out, he let the bag go over the intake, so I was getting pump faults all over the place. Just goes to show that one should never send a completely idiot out when a trained monkey would suffice. I swear, I'm guessing most people would have listened to my explanation of what not to do with the bag. I told him quite explictly not to allow the plastic to cover up the inlet, but no.. apparentely that didn't get through his thick skull. Actually I'm surprised he didn't end up sufficating on the plastic bag. I can just picture myself, standing over his body.. contemplating giving him CPR or not.. all the while remembering the total pain in the ass that he has been. Now, I know some of you are thinking, "but Dave, every life is precious.." and I completely agree. But i also believe that if you are a complete waste of space and organic material, that there should be a serious reconsideration over whether or not what he had should really be considered a life. But enough of my crazy sadistic thoughts.. on to more cheerful things.

Joey sent me a link last night, to a comic that I've really fallen in love with. It is www.toothpastefordinner.com. A very fun site that I've been reading a lot of over the past 24 hours. My current favorite at the moment is this one. Man, I totally would save that account. Ahh, polar coordinates, brings back memories. I really hope Stuart sees this one... I think he would enjoy it too.. not nearly as much as he enjoys NOT WORKING *cough* slacker *cough* but still, it is funny. Check it out.

Enough of fun happy facts. At the plant this morning, the power went down. Honestly, totally freaky. Alarms start going off, I'm afraid that tanks are going to start exploding and ruining my shit. But nothing serious happened. The power came on 5 minutes later and everything is fine. But as I'm walking out to the car to drive back to the hotel, I look across at the other side of the facility (keep in mind the facility is huge!!) and there area huge towers of flame coming out of a bunch of release pipes. I'm talking, maybe 50 feet high, and billowing thick, black smoke. I believe they were burning off excese gas from their holding tanks. I thought it was a little odd, since normally I don't think they are allowed to do that, so I continue on and start driving. About 2 minutes outside the plant, I notice a thick haze hanging over the ground. Then I notice a new smell that I hadn't smelled on the plant since i got here. So I immediately started the AC on recirculate rather than pull in fresh air and just continued driving. About this time I noticed a bunch of vehicles on the side of the road from the Texas Department of Environmental Health, and they were using all this really fancy air monitoring devices. That is when I sort of start to get wierded out. But I just kept driving, through a haze for about another 10 minutes. So, that was the strange incident of my last 24 hours.. well that and the coworker not killing himself on a garbage bag.

Ok, this has rambled on more than long enough.. I must go change some batteries and pretend like I am working for the next... crap.. 5 hours. Night is going by incredibly slowy tonight. And Joey just signed off.. crap. No more interesting conversation from the man in AZ.

later