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#5319 – got what i need

i’ve been re-reading through old lj posts the past few days and have been finding old gems, like 2 years and now 2 days ago when i farted on someone by accident and cynicalscribe outed me (september 17, never forget), or when textureslut and i rapped out “just a friend” at greyplanet‘s going away party:

friday i finally got my dc license plates and registration. i headed over to the location in georgetown to get everything taken care of (which sucked, since traffic in georgetown is a nightmare, and while there was supposedly parking under the mall where the dmv branch is located, i couldn’t find it so i ended up parking in a lot just up the street. $14! i ask you!), and after about a 2 hour wait at the dmv it was my turn.

one kind of nice thing about the dc dmv is that they have these webcams set up so you can see the line at each location to help you determine which branch to visit. unfortunately, the one at the georgetown location doesn’t show all the people who got their number and decided to wait inside the mall rather than wait inside the actual dmv location for their turn. thankfully i got there before the lunchtime rush arrived.

i wasn’t even sure that they’d be able to take care of what i needed since i had requested my title to be sent to a different location, and i wasn’t sure if they would just keep it at the georgetown location or forward it to the southeast branch where i had requested it to be delivered. thankfully they had it, and $196 later i finally had my car registered and my actual dc license plates. it’s funny, now when i see other cars with dc license plates, inside i’m pumping my fist in solidarity. i’m not sure if it’s because now i know how much of a pain in the ass it is to navigate the dc dmv bureaucracy, or if it’s because of the “taxation without representation” slogan we have on our license plates, or what.

later on friday i drove to pick festive up and take her to work at the columbia mall on my way to baltimore. i also stopped by the maryland motor vehicle location in columbia to drop off my maryland license plates, so that made it two dmv/mva locations in one day. add in the narrative i was reading about being on jury duty for the new york “rape cop” case to the dmv/mva blues and i was hating life. not really hating life, but maybe a little. as if the dmv/mva wasn’t bad enough, i had to throw jury duty in there too.

went up to baltimore, parked not far from where the roller derby afterparty was to be held, then walked over to bad decisions to get my drink on and kill time before the charm city vs. boston bout was to start around 8. i hadn’t been to bad decisions in several months so i talked with john about what i’d been up to and watched the stream of derby bouts on his tv. walked back to du burns arena, met up with asavas, and festive showed up and we watched ccrg stomp all over boston with a final score of something like 191 to 88. i didn’t exactly mind being in the front row of the bleachers, especially when all the roller girls would go by in front of me – michelle said that i was going to hurt my neck the way i kept ogling them as they’d go by, and i figured i’d get whiplash, haha.

we went to the afterparty, but michelle and i were only the 3rd and 4th people there and it seemed pretty swanky for a derby afterparty. while we were there, i also had a bombshell dropped on me that i had suspected for a while but wasn’t so sure about; michelle was telling me how yes, carrie does have a new boyfriend and it’s probably a lot more serious than i might have thought – he’s one of her old coworkers, and that they had been seeing each other for longer than i had thought (they had both gone on her vacation out west together in late july, so it wasn’t like they had just started seeing each other before i saw her in mid-august). i had thought that someone else might have gone with her on her trip but wasn’t sure (we had started to talk about her vacation when we last met but were interrupted), so hearing this just made things a bit more real for me. i felt bummed out so we figured it was probably time to go. michelle felt bad for telling me, but i knew it was something i wanted to know and would probably discover sooner or later.

my sad mood continued for the rest of the night and most of the rest of the next day – at one point, michelle took my phone away from me during lunch at chick-fil-a and wouldn’t give it back until i finished eating, just to get me to stop moping and eat even though i didn’t have much of an appetite. i’m still trying my best to work out and talk about my feelings so i don’t keep it all bottled up inside me. mostly though this revelation makes me just feel like i’ve been completely replaced, no matter how true that actually is or not. there’s a lot that i know i’m reading into things and making assumptions about, and i’m trying not to read into things or make assumptions, but i still ultimately end up feeling pretty awkward and (to some degree) useless. :/ i’m feeling a little better about it today, though. still, it doesn’t help that any dates that i do go on don’t end up working out at all, so i end up thinking that it’s something to do with me, even though i know that’s a dumb thing to think.

on saturday after getting my new license plates on my car, i wanted to see what zenmetsu and bruno_boy were up to, but dan didn’t answer his phone and when i called dave he said that he and dan were planning to meet with our friend william for dinner to catch up since they hadn’t seen william in about a year or so. well, just then he got a text from dan saying he was sick, so michelle and i ended up meeting with dave and the three of us headed downtown. i wanted to stop in bicyclespace, but we would arrive shortly before they closed, so we walked through town to get smoothies. the smoothie place ended up closing about 15 minutes before we arrived, so we settled for coffee before we headed over to bethesda for dinner with william. we told him how we were doing and what we’ve been up to, and filled him in with details about dan and tom. i pretty much told william about everything from my year-in-review entry.

after dinner, william headed back home and the three of us headed back to my apartment. as we arrived at the catholic university metro stop and walked past a gaggle of college girls, michelle yelled at me “NO, GLENN! DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT! THEY ARE 10 YEARS YOUNGER THAN YOU!”

we thought about going to meridian pint for drinks, but it was getting late and dave wasn’t feeling 100% and i didn’t want to be out too much later or spend much more money so i took michelle back home.

today i was planning on going back to bicyclespace, or going to baltimore to bad decisions, or running some errands, but after waking up later than planned and with the weather getting colder i figured i’d be responsible and head home to annapolis to pick up my jackets. turned out i arrived home just in time to help mom and dad unload groceries from the car (free lunch!). dad and i watched this movie he got called “woman in the moon”, and after seeing how they were wondering in the film what’s inside the moon, i thought it sounded a little like GRAIL, and it seems like there might be an interest among some of the NASA tweetup attendees i know a

round the dc area for me to host a movie night.

mom and dad asked me to stay for dinner (free dinner!), and i thought it was funny how dad said how they probably eat better when i come home to visit and they said that i should come by to visit more often. mom keeps saying i should buy this house for sale in the neighborhood, hahaha… my response was “but you just told me i had to live in dc for a long time now that it’s taken me this long to get my license plate from the dmv!” mom also suggested trying to get involved in some of the student events at catholic university (i dunno, it made no sense to me), and i joked that maybe i can find a class to join for kicks and have my work pay for my tuition. i also told mom how michelle was all “NO THOSE COLLEGE GIRLS ARE 10 YEARS YOUNGER THAN YOU” and mom’s reaction was “what’s wrong with that??”, which i thought was funny since it was pretty much my reaction anyway. she also thought it was funny that michelle was thinking of following her on twitter and was wondering if my mom would end up following her back. yes, my mom is on twitter, and my friends think it’s hilarious and awesome.

…and now it’s about 90 minutes past when i originally wanted to go to bed, so i ought to get my sleep on. i need to call feisty_fitz sometime soon too before she has to go back on her boat! maybe i’ll do that today after work.

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#5318 – it's not the equipment, it's how you use it

everything seems to be bothering me today.

this weekend (friday through sunday) is the “nightmare on 95” eastern regionals roller derby tournament, hosted by the charm city roller girls and the dc roller girls. at first i was interested in seeing if i could be a photographer for the weekend – i had been a photographer for a few other championship tournaments before – but since my schedule was and is still up in the air for a bit of the weekend i didn’t want to try to get credentialed and possibly take up someone else’s spot who would be able to shoot more of the weekend than i could. getting credentialed is also usually a pain in the ass. i’ve had times in the past where getting credentialed meant that WFTDA had rights to all my photos i took (and i don’t mind that if i get my admission comped, but it was weird one year when i noticed a photo of mine on the front of some WFTDA brochure with no credit or anything, but whatever), but there are always forms to be filled out and papers to be signed and so on. lots of hoops to jump through.

a week or two ago i asked cynicalscribe if there was a photographer’s list for eastern regionals since she had mentioned that there’s a list now for ccrg’s bouts, but she wasn’t sure. since the website just said that info was coming soon, i reached out to the nightmare on 95 twitter account to see what to do since the event was fast approaching and was told that i should get in touch with WFTDA directly and the dc roller girls. at that point i figured that it was going to be too much work to bother, and realized that even if i was accepted that it wasn’t likely that i’d be able to make it for much of the weekend, so i threw in the towel. i thought about buying a ticket for the weekend, but at $75 for questionable attendance over the weekend that was a bit steep, and even $30 / day was a bit much. i ended up buying a single-game ticket to just the ccrg vs. boston bout friday night for $15 though. i figure that if i really want to see more then i’ll probably catch the broadcast feed over at bad decisions.

but even though i’m not going to be officially taking photos, i still was thinking about bringing my camera. why not? well, the nightmare on 95 facebook account put an end to that idea by noting how videography rules were going to be stricter than usual and that while point-and-click cameras would be allowed, more “professional” style equipment wouldn’t be allowed in, which i have always thought to be a really bullshit thing to do. i know professional photographers who do professional work with cameraphones and toy plastic holga cameras. i also have seen people with digital SLRs who had no idea about what they were doing and still produced crappy photos. to use the vague term “professional equipment” to restrict what people can and can’t bring in is ridiculous.

i suppose i should just go there and shut up and enjoy the bout since i wasn’t going to worry about taking photos anyway, but policies like this really annoy me.

i think i’ve been slowly coming down with a case of allergies. either that, or i’ve been slowly getting sick. the past few days i’ve been feeling more and more congested and more stuffed and more nasal-drippy, and i’ve noticed myself coughing and sneezing more as well. today i figured it had to be allergies since i wasn’t feeling sick, just suffering from a bunch of symptoms. well, a little after i declared it to be allergies, i got a headache that was really bothering me and i think i might have been running a small fever. after work i came home and took some medicine and i’m feeling better now, but i hope i’m not getting sick in time for the weekend. besides the eastern regionals bout all weekend, there’s also the h street festival in dc, helping with yardwork for money off rent (since my landlord is in canada and can’t exactly help with condo upkeep, if i volunteer with the landscaping committee then i get $25 off rent for each hour of work up to 4 hours per month), and a dc metro minis meet-and-greet, and probably a few other things to keep me occupied too.

i took off of work tomorrow, but i still have to wake up early so i can go to the dmv to try to get my license plates. why do i have a feeling that even with the bout tomorrow night that tomorrow is just going to be a bad day for me? here’s one thing that’s neat, though – one of the guys who controls the mars rovers “spirit” and “opportunity” now follows me on twitter:

ok, i think i’ll make it an early bedtime tonight. tomorrow’s going to be a long and possibly rough day, and if i’m starting to get sick then i’m going to need my beauty sleep.

eta: oh yeah, i had a dream last night that i was greyplanet. in any case, i lived in austin and kept telling people how i have an awesome dog, so i must have been the joseph grey, there’s no other explanation.

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#5317 – more feasible than i thought

on monday i ordered a bicycle helmet and a bike lock. correction: two bike locks. i ordered one, but then later i saw a second lock that was similar but a little smaller that also came with a cable to help lock the front wheel, so i tried to cancel the first one and order only the second. turned out it was too late to cancel that first order, so i got both items in the mail. unfortunately, even though i’m sending back the larger one, amazon will deduct the cost of return shipping (about $7), which is lame. you’d think that amazon prime members would get free returns or something.

i planned on monday also to visit the bike shop where i’ll be buying my bike once i get around to it. on mondays they do a pay-what-you-can yoga class, and since i believe that it might help me (with what, i don’t know, but it can’t hurt), i thought i’d give it a try. i planned to bike down via capital bikeshare too since it was such a nice day out. unfortunately, i ended up scarfing down a sandwich probably a bit too fast and ended up feeling like i had to use the bathroom as i was walking to the station. so, my walk to the bike corral ended up being just a brisk walk around the neighborhood back to the apartment. oh well. there went my chance to see girls in yoga pants. 🙁

yesterday i went home to pick up my packages and see mom and dad. i seem to be visiting them about once a week for some reason or another, heh.

when i moved to my apartment, i was a little curious about if it would be possible for me to get to and from my office via public transit. there used to be a commuter bus that stopped right next to my office, but a year or two ago it modified its route. still, i don’t think it would help me much since i believe it was more designed to take people into the city in the morning than out of the city in the morning, and out of the city in the afternoon, and not take people from the city to the suburbs in the morning and reverse in the afternoon. i did some thinking today and realized with a bike and the bike racks on metrobuses it would be possible to take public transit to the park-and-ride near my office – i say “near”, but it’s about 5 miles away. i did some research, and there’s a few different routes to take:

– bus from apartment -> metro station -> red line to silver spring -> bus to park-and-ride -> ride bike rest of the way

– bus from apartment -> metro station -> bus to silver spring station -> bus to park-and-ride -> ride bike rest of way

i did the math and it’d cost anywhere from $15 / week (if i stuck to only buses) to about $30 / week (mix of buses and trains) with a couple different price points in the middle depending on timetable and mode of transportation. it costs me around $25 or so per week in gas to drive to-and-from work, so it was interesting to see how there are ways that i could get to-and-from work that would cut that cost in half. unfortunately, public transit would significantly increase my commute time. right now i leave the apartment at about 7:30 AM and arrive at work around 8:10-8:20, and i leave work at 5 PM and arrive home around 5:45. if i were to take public transit, i’d leave the apartment from between 5:15-5:30 AM, arrive at the park-and-ride around 6:30, and then arrive at the office probably around 7:30. i’d leave the office at 5, hop the bus at either 5:45 or 6:25, and then get home around either 7 PM or 7:45.

so, while it’s feasible, the amount of time it’d take to commute would be prohibitive. pretty much it’s interesting as an idea – what if my car broke down and i needed to get to work? – that sort of thing. i also did the math – if premium gas reaches $4.70 / gallon, then it’d always be cheaper for me to take public transit. i’m almost thinking of trying it on september 22 (world car-free day) just to see how feasible it is. i’m not sure.

other than that, i’ve just been job hunting. not really many leads. woohoo.

also, someone hacked scarlett johansson’s phone and/or computer and leaked naked photos of her online. sure i think she’s hot and all, but it wasn’t me. 😛

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#5316 – limbo

this morning i was in a pretty good mood on my way to work, and the workday went by pretty fast, but the rest of the afternoon/evening has been slowly falling apart and bringing me down.

today at 7 i was going to go to a pay-what-you-can yoga class (wait, what? me? yoga?) at bicyclespace after work. i wanted to get out and get some exercise, i’ve heard of the benefits that you can get from yoga, and i figured it was such a nice day out that i’d rent one of the capital bikeshare bikes and ride from the metro station near my apartment downtown and give it a try. well, that didn’t work out like i planned – i thought about hopping on a bus to the metro station and then biking from there but since i was scarfing down a sandwich for a late afternoon snack i knew i wasn’t going to get the bus in time. no matter, it’s only about a 15-minute walk from my place to the metro, but since i was already running a little later than i would have liked i ended up eating fast before i ran out the door. about a block away i started thinking that i should have at least stopped in the bathroom before leaving, and then my walk to the metro station ended up being a brisk walk around the block back to the apartment to take a dump. oof. it was a pretty decent length of a walk, though, but i missed out on possibly seeing cute girls in yoga pants. OH WELL.

it’s not like i won’t get a chance to go back to bicyclespace later this week – i ordered a bicycle lock and helmet today online and those should be delivered to the house tomorrow, so i’ll pick those up then, and then i’ll be ready for thursday’s weekly social in that neighborhood. maybe i’ll see about trying out bikes then to figure out what i should order with my groupon deal i got.

so instead i stayed in and i’m trying to search for jobs, but i’m not really having much luck. i hate job searching – i wish i had a better idea of what i’m looking for, or what jobs would suit my skills and personality. everything i find seems like it either needs skills i don’t have, or it needs skills i do have but don’t want to pursue, or it’s something i’m interested in and i have some experience in but it’s geared toward really fresh college graduates with no experience, or it is geared for my level of job experience but it requires an active security clearance. sigh. don’t get me started about the ones that i think i’d be perfect for and so i apply and never hear from them. i’d almost consider putting out a general call for help on twitter or something, to see if anybody i know is aware of any job openings that would suit me, but i feel like i’m 1) not that desperate, and 2) not that good at networking. double-sigh.

i also noticed while working on this job search that my right wrist is making crunchy noises, and i don’t like the sound of it.

i should just go to bed.

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#5315 – moving on, or trying to

i’m sitting at home, watching the redskins game on tv. i could have gone to the harm city homicide derby bout at 6, but i know it wouldn’t make me feel very good. i already feel like i’ve been punched in the gut today: i turned on the tv at one point and saw some september 11th coverage/memorial show and a few other references today online as well, so i don’t need any help with feeling uncomfortable. sigh. besides, i already spent more this weekend than i planned to spend, so it’s going to be an evening in.

i had a dream friday night that i was visited by tupac and biggie smalls. saturday night at one point i saw these two girls walking by as i rode with friends out to get some pizza, and one of my friends suggested she open the sunroof so i could poke out and chat with the girls. my response: “no! that’s how tupac got shot!” obviously it was a premonition. if jim morrison appears to me in a dream, good luck trying to get me to take a bath in the future. 😛

yesterday i planned to go to the dmv to get my dc license plates. everything needs to be done in a very specific order: had to get my car inspected, then once it was inspected then i had to get my driver’s license, and then once i had both of those done then i could get my car registered in dc and get my dc license plates. well, when i first went to the dmv after getting my car inspected, i waited around for 2 hours to be called, and once i was called i hadn’t been up at the desk for 5 minutes before they had me look in their machine for the eye test and everything overlapped – i tried to squint and make out the letters, but it was just impossible. my eyes aren’t even that bad! it happened with me once before when i was getting my license renewed in maryland years ago, and i had to go to the eye doctor to get my eyes tested simply because my eyes don’t work well in those machines. here’s what some other people said about their experience.

so i went to the eye doctor (just as well, i needed a new prescription anyway) and got my form signed that says yes, my eyes aren’t that bad and i’m ok to drive. brought that back to the dmv with all my paperwork and got my driver’s license, and they were able to give me a temporary registration for my car so my car won’t be towed (i had received a few warnings in the previous few weeks that my car had been spotted parked on residential streets in dc, and that i should either register it in dc if i’m a resident, or prove that i’m an out-of-state resident and get the appropriate exemption – they do this because if you’re going to be residing in the district for more than 30 days then they want you to have your car registered in the district too. they couldn’t give me my dc license plates though since i had my half of the title, but mini financial services has the other half as they’re the lienholder, and they need both halves to issue me a new title and registration.

i mailed a form to mini financial services about 3 weeks ago to have them send the title to dc, and there’s a form on the dc dmv website where i can check to see if they’ve received it yet. well, it still says online that they haven’t received anything. i called mini financial services on friday to see what the status was and they were able to give me a fedex tracking number that showed it was delivered 2 weeks ago, although the branch they said it was sent to was a different dmv branch than the one i had requested. no matter, i’m just glad that i know where i need to go. i planned to finish everything at the dmv yesterday, but i woke up later than i planned and checked the website – they have a webcam set up so you can see what the line is like – and figured that i’d rather spend the first day without rain out and about rather than at the dmv all day. i’ll probably take a day off of work sometime this week to get things taken care of instead.

it ended up being a good thing that i didn’t go to the dmv yesterday – mom and dad’s basement got damp from all the rain we’ve had lately and they needed this big fan that i had brought from home to the apartment back so they could dry out the basement. it gave me a chance to go home, pick up a few things i wanted to bring back home, pick up my portrait of me and cynicalscribe from michael’s arts and crafts, and run another errand or two before heading back to the apartment for a date.

it was a nice date, though. this girl – laura – had messaged me online a week or two beforehand and we had been chatting back and forth, and finally decided we should meet. she had mentioned going to meridian pint, a bar that’s not too far from my apartment (the bus route that goes right by my apartment stops right across from meridian pint, and it’s only about a 30-minute walk from my place too). i’d heard a lot about meridian pint and had been wanting to visit it sometime, so i suggested we meet there. nice place, good beer selection, and we had a nice chat for an hour or so before she had to go to meet up with friends for a full-moon bike ride hosted by one of the local bicycle shops. hopefully we can meet up again sometime soon. even if we can’t, i need to go back to meridian pint on a regular basis… nice beer selection, knowledgable staff, and it certainly didn’t hurt my opinion of the place anyway that our waitress was a cute redhead.

today i headed out with bruno_boy – we walked about 2 miles to ihop for brunch (probably our first and last time at this ihop. i don’t know which was worse, the service or the clientele – there were definitely some crazy folks there), picked up some stuff at bed, bath and beyond, and took the bus back. i also rigged up a contraption with a disposable plastic food container, some plastic fish tank air tubing, the cylindrical casing from a retractable pen, and some superglue epoxy to seal the hole where the casing fits into the container to help catch any drips or leaks from my ceiling into my utility closet. this way it’ll automatically empty down this drainage pipe in the closet next time there’s a big rainstorm, and i won’ t have to worry about putting a bucket up to catch the leak and won’t have to remember to empty any buckets so they don’t overflow.

i’ll tell you what, though. i am feeling SUPER HORNY lately. tmi, i know, but DAMN, SON. everywhere i look when i go out i see cute girls and i am going crazy. SIGH. i need a booty call. 😛