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#5314 – rain rain go away

it’s rained off and on (mostly on) for the past week. i wish it would stop already. i don’t really mind the rain as much as i mind the leak in the roof over my utility closet. thankfully i haven’t seen any signs of water damage in my apartment anywhere else, and i’m able to contain the leak in the utility closet, but it’s getting to be such an annoyance. i thought about going to fashion’s night out over in georgetown tonight just to get out for a bit, but unless the fashions were going to be wet t-shirts and galoshes i figured it was going to be pretty pointless, so i stayed in and worked on my website and didn’t end up doing too much else. i planned to watch a movie or two (i’m trying to watch all of akira kurosawa’s films in order), but ended up getting sidetracked.

last night when i went to bed there was a lightning storm just starting, but it was far enough away i didn’t pay it any mind at all. at least, not until i closed my eyes, and seconds later i saw a bright flash and got all freaked out. it was as if someone shined a flashlight in my face, and this was through windows that had the blinds down and weren’t even directly facing me – that’s how bright it was! it took several seconds for the thunder to catch up, and when i heard that i knew what it was, but it really had me weirded out for the few moments between closing my eyes and a moment later seeing a bright flash and hearing the thunder. it’s crazy, but the first thing i thought of was exploding head syndrome, even though that’s all about loud noises and not bright flashes of light (although apparently flashes of light by themselves are known as “visual sleep starts”). so what if maybe i just like the term “exploding head syndrome”.

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#5313 – hey man, jaws was never my scene, all i want to do is bicycle

my jaw aches. usually it feels like this if i haven’t been wearing my nightguard for a while – i grind my teeth in my sleep – but since i’ve been wearing it i don’t know why it’s just starting to bother me now. usually when it does bother me it’s in the morning when i first wake up, not at the end of the day. this is probably going to mean bad news when i go to the dentist in a month or so.

i went home to mom and dad’s today. i didn’t have any plans in particular for labor day, and since i had wanted to clean up some more of my stuff in my bedroom there i figured today was as good a day as any to do so, especially since it was supposed to rain off and on all day. nobody was home when i got there, but soon after i arrived mom and dad returned from a wine festival. i ended up going through a bunch of old books in my bedroom and sorting them into ones that i really wanted to keep, ones that i didn’t care if we got rid of, and ones that amazon.com was offering to give me store credit for (mostly old textbooks, but a few dvds as well, and if they really want to give me $130 for these 5 books and a few dvds then who am i to say no?). i figured that the ones that i didn’t care about, if i really wanted to read them again, i’d just get them on my kindle and that it’d be much easier and simpler to manage them on there if i ever decided i wanted to re-read any of those books rather than have the physical books take up space and have to figure out what to do with everything just in case i wanted to read them at some time.

i also organized a bunch of old stuff, tossed out a bunch of old class notes (really, why would i think i’d need my old class notes from 10 years ago? why? the only ones i decided to keep for now were from my history of rock and roll class, and my class on the history of espionage.), and took these photo albums i have and put the pictures in these plastic containers thinking that not only do these containers take up less space, but i can label the contents much easier, and they’re a bit more protected in these containers as well. i plan to eventually scan in these photos, and i want to order prints of digital pictures i have that i don’t have physical copies of. eventually.

i felt a mix of emotions while going through my old stuff. nothing i really need to write about here now, though.

i also brought my bicycle from home back to my apartment. i’d like to go cycling around town, and i thought about joining the capital bikeshare program – you pay anywhere from $5 for 24 hours to $75 for a full year, and you get unlimited 30-minute bicycle rentals from their automated rental kiosks during your membership duration, with additional 30-minute periods starting at $1.50. i still might at some point, but for now at least i have a bicycle i can use. i just need to get an air pump of my own and a bicycle lock.

this will hold me over until i can get a new bike… the one i have is a mountain bike hand-me-down from one of my dad’s coworkers, and it’s an ok bike but it could really use a tune-up and new handlebar grips and a new bicycle seat, and it also needs a headlamp. i stopped in to this bicycle shop in town to see what they had that i could use to fix up my bike, and conveniently the next day they had a groupon deal where you could pay $20 for $40 of bike maintenance, or pay $80 for $200 towards a new bike. well, i would want to get the full tune-up since i don’t know when this bike was last given a good going-over, and the full tune-up with cable replacement and everything would be $250 (-$40 groupon + $20 paid = $230 total out of pocket). the cheapest new bike i saw they had was $390 (-$200 groupon + $80 paid = $270 out of pocket). so, i could either get this bike all fixed up and still have to pay for replacement handlebar grips and a new seat and so on, or for $40 more than the full tune-up i could have an entirely new bike. only catch is that i have to buy it before the end of the year.

ok, it’s raining like crazy, my laundry just finished, and it’s time for me to try to get some sleep.

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#5312 – interesting person, dull personality

i think this is probably the only mustache-themed icon i have on here, and it’s fitting that it’s used today for freddie mercury’s 65th birthday.

for the past few days i had been talking online with this girl, and we met up for coffee yesterday. she was definitely a much more interesting person online than in person; she’s interested in the sciences, thinking about going for her phd in physics or astronomy, going whitewater rafting today and learning to fly an airplane next week. but, in person, she just seemed dull. that’s not to say that we didn’t have a nice 2-hour conversation, but she just seemed boring in person.

protip: when you suggest someone call you to schedule a time to get coffee, try to sound enthusiastic. maybe have a place to meet in mind?

also, protip: if you’re meeting with someone, and you keep yawning, it’s very disconcerting. at least excuse yourself for yawning. 😛

also also, protip: don’t do a lot of talking about finding things to do with singles groups or researching singles cruises, et cetera. it makes you seem pretty desperate, and makes me suspicious.

so, except for the bad vibes i got from that, and that she was a lot shorter than i would have preferred – lump me in with randy newman here…

…but i like my women like my coffee: tall (which is technically a smaller size, so there goes that joke… in any case, i’m 5’10”, so while i can overlook [ha!] height differences it’s still going to be a distraction to me) – while she seemed nice enough, i don’t think i’ll be trying to see her again. i say “trying” because it turns out that she lives in the same apartment complex as zenmetsu, and i go there on a regular basis, and it’s not like my car isn’t distinctive what with it being a MINI with a UMBC window cling on the back. so, that’s awkward.

saturday i went to the dc brau brewery – it just opened up earlier this year (for some reason i thought that it had opened a year or two earlier, but i guess time flies when you’re getting drunk), and for a while they weren’t able to offer tours or tastings at their brewery. well, they petitioned the dc city council to pass a special law to allow breweries in the city to allow tastings at the brewery. i should really update the wikipedia page with that info.

anyway, they came out with a special limited-time beer called “el hefe speaks”, a hefeweizen beer, and while it was available at some bars around town i figured that since they offer free tours and cheap growler fills on saturdays, and since i wasn’t doing anything in particular at that moment, and that the brewery is only a 10-minute car ride from my apartment (seriously! i live 10 MINUTES AWAY FROM A BREWERY! 20 MINUTES AWAY IF I HAD A BIKE AND WANTED TO RIDE IT THERE! HOW IS THIS NOT AWESOME!?), and that they have free tastings, well, free tour + free tastings at the brewery > no tour + paying for beer at a bar.

so, i went on their little 20-minute tour – it was the first time i had been in a brewery since touring some in portland with homodachi, and at one part the guy leading the tour mentioned how they can use volunteers. afterwards i got to thinking, and i was talking with one of the two guys who started the brewery about their need for volunteers and how i enjoyed visiting the breweries in portland and how it just got me thinking how people get started working in breweries. he said that generally they can really use the help on fridays when they do their canning since they need people to ring 6-packs of beer together. it’s not paid work, but they do give the volunteers free beer off the canning line, and since i’m trying to find things to do to keep me occupied and get me out of the apartment more i signed up as a potential volunteer. so, who knows, that 6-pack of dc brau you might buy may just have been ringed by killer glennuine draft. i also bought myself a 64 oz growler of el hefe speaks while i was there as i really enjoyed the taste of it. now i just have to drink a 64 oz growler of beer before it goes bad. such a hard life!

now to figure out what to do with the rest of my labor day.

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#5311 – it's a toss-up between "lonely" and "discontent"

i miss the old me.

friday nights should not be spent looking at job postings and getting discouraged. i’ve got a master’s degree that i did quite well in, but everything either seems to require a security clearance upfront, or certain skills i don’t have.

i should be out having fun – i don’t have much cash to spare, but i just saw two free dance nights here in dc advertised on twitter – but i’m not in the mood. and to think that i thought that being in the city would encourage me to get out and about more!

*grumble*

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#5310 – hood in the 'hood

one thing that i forgot about my last post about work: one of my ol’ buddies from when i worked in the store channel just left the company – he was one of our in-store techs, and since we didn’t renew our contract with his company, yesterday was his last day. also, while i was bored at work the other day i also was wondering what one of my buddies was up to – she was hired around the same time that i was, and we both went through the initial wireless training together. she stayed in the store channel all these years, but we’d always email each other every few months just to see what’s up. i was confused though when i looked her up in the office address book and didn’t see her name listed, so i looked through her old facebook posts and saw she quit the company back in may. so, it’s weird now that lots of my old buddies are leaving the company.

today i saw something in the news about a convict escaping from police custody in annapolis. i didn’t think too much of it, but while i was out grocery shopping after work i got a text from mom that apparently the escapee went basically straight to our house: “Dangerous criminal escaped fm courthouse at noon. Has ‘ties to Dewey Drive’ and Admiral Heights is completely surrounded with police. Cannot get home without escort by police at this time. Waiting it out at the mall, wishing I had my gym bag”… i found a news article about it, and from chatting with stueypark it sounds like they last saw him at the corner of farragut and dewey (right where my family’s house is!). mom and dad are spending the night at my aunt and uncle’s place in silver spring instead. hope the cats at home are ok!