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#5100 – sad sack

today was the first day of my new position on the executive relations team; they had a little team meeting to welcome me to the team and i got a lot of applause, and then they said that the guy who had the position before me (who never really “cut the mustard”, as the department’s manager said to me months ago) is now no longer employed with the company.

dad paid me yesterday for taking care of the cats and the house while the family was away, and so to celebrate this new position i went out to the apple store after work and got myself a new ipod classic — i had been annoyed for months that i’ve still got all these cds i’d like to import, but there’s no room on my ipod to fit anything else, so i got this new one to fit the rest of my collection and to give me plenty of room to spare. i haven’t figured out what to name it yet (my old one was named “the bismarck” so that when i’d connect it, it’d say “sync ‘the bismarck'”, bahaha). so now mom gets my old one, and dad gets her current one. bonus is that dad can use it with the FM transmitter we have to listen to his music when he drives down to houston to help feisty_fitz move in in a few days.

i’ve finally got my room looking pretty normal now after moving stuff back. i may have to go to ikea sometime in the near future too, since my table i use as a desk won’t fit in my room with my bed from the apartment, and the desk i’m using now that we have i don’t like too much… i’ll just get another ikea tabletop for $20 and 4 legs for $5 each for a nice small desk.

i haven’t had a chance to go through my emails in the last week (other than a quick glimpse with my blackberry while at work) or really look at lj too much in the last few days what with the move and school and all, but hopefully tomorrow i can start getting caught up on a bunch of things and getting back to people since i’ve got a ton of new messages in my inbox i need to get to. but first, things i NEED to remember to do (like, totally high priority):

  • call comcast
  • email my human / computer design professor about my project
  • call the fort meade office of umuc
  • see about ordering my last textbook (47 days to go!)
  • call the auto and dental insurance companies

once i get those done, then i can start catching up on my email and lj and getting other such tasks done. i’d like to do a system restore too if i can… i’d like to organize things on here a lot better and i’ve got a bunch of cruft i’d like to get rid of, plus i’ve installed the iphone SDK on here and i’d really prefer to keep experimental stuff like that on the macbook instead of my main desktop.

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#5099 – burning out

ugh, i’m getting to a point where i’ve got all this work to do, and am running out of motivation to do it. after typing up emails and stuff at work all day, i’m only really in the mood to putter around on the internet mindlessly.

this morning i saw this girl and guy walking together down a sidewalk in annapolis on my way out of the city — i think the girl was just walking the guy to the streetcorner to see him on his way to work, or she may have made a turn down the street after that and i didn’t notice. i did notice her legs, though, and since then i’ve had “legs” by zz top stuck in my head. unfortunately, that’s one song that’s NOT on the zz top “best-of” album i’ve got on my ipod, so it’s been quite the annoyance today.

i went to the grocery store tonight en route to domino’s pizza to pick up a pizza i ordered online for dinner, and instead of paying $3.49 for a 6-pack, i stopped at the grocery to pay about that much for twice as many cans. good thing i went there too, since my bathroom here at the apartment was out of toilet paper, and i found that they weren’t out of stock of razor blade cartridges for once. unfortunately, the cashier didn’t take the cartridges out of the anti-theft packaging, so now i’ve got this package that says “electronic alarm” on it and would appear to make noise if i do try opening it. on one hand, i’m curious as to what it’d do, but on the other hand i don’t want to hassle with it. though, it’d be weird to take it back with the receipt and convince them to open it up for me. maybe i’ll try opening it underwater and hope that shorts out whatever electronic alarm it has as a scientific experiment.

harm city homicide had an article in the baltimore sun today. i wasn’t able to go to the photoshoot at the sun’s office on monday since i was busy making my way to the auto dealership for my appointment, and besides i didn’t want to be stealing anybody’s thunder since i’ve been way too busy to dedicate time and money to skating. oh well.

this weekend is going to be nuts, it’s going to have to be a moving blitz to get everything out of the apartment.

that’s about it for today.

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#5098 – always be closing

tv: “i’m eatin’ texas beef brisket and i’ve got a texas ack-sent…. lemme try the st. louis ribs… listen to me, i’m from st. louis…”

me: “i’m eatin’ beanie-weenies and i sound like… a weenie.”

mom & dad: “YOU GOT THAT RIGHT!”

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tv: “the navy trusts me with multi-million dollar equipment, but when it came time to get an auto loan, most lenders looked at me like i was just another kid… navy federal gave me the new auto loan i needed – thanks navy federal!” *CHANGE FOCUS TO HAWT GIRL LOOKING HAWT IN PASSENGER SEAT WHILE GUY IS TALKING ABOUT HIS AUTO LOAN. DID WE MENTION THE GIRL IS HAWT? TOTALLY HAWT*

oh, navy federal. never mind that i got my auto loan through them both times.

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i can’t be the only one to want it to be the 4th of july already just so i don’t have to hear that kid singing off-key in the southwest airlines commercials anymore.

also, i have no idea when it arrived – dad found it while going through mail that arrived while he was away, but i never saw it so maybe it arrived today, or maybe feisty_fitz put it in the box of mail – but i just got a letter from the auto dealership saying now that they’ve changed ownership from tate to group 1 (the actual change took place about a month or so ago). they seem to realize that a lot of folks didn’t like tate much, so they’re offering any one of these three as a new customer to group 1:

  • 20% discount off next scheduled paid maintenance
  • $1200 discount off of next vehicle purchase
  • your first 2 monthly payments up to $600 are on them when purchasing any new or pre-owned BMW

hmm… $1200 discount?? i hope i can get them to work this in to the order, because this deal is getting sweeter and sweeter, especially since i got $1500 more than i expected to get for the car!

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#5097 – and so it begins

today i was extended the job offer for the position on the executive relations team that i had been interviewing for. it’s a 3% pay increase (works out to be something like $50-$100 extra per paycheck), so it’s not much, but every little bit helps and at least it’s a new position with hopefully a little bit of variety in my work. that starts on monday.

i went to the mini dealership after work and they had already placed the order and removed the license plates from my car and everything already. what we’re actually doing is they’re going to send me a check for $11k, and then i endorse that over to them so they can apply it towards the new car, so it’s already ordered without putting down any actual deposit as of yet.

i was still debating on some other changes during the day, but the biggest one is the color — it’s now going to be laser blue instead of mellow yellow. i figured that if i got the mellow yellow version, i’d keep comparing it to my first mini, but if i got a different color then i’d be able to appreciate its own personality. it’s like having a girlfriend, and then after breaking up with her you hook up with her twin sister that has a different fashion sense, and you expect her to like your fart jokes just like your first girlfriend did, but only because they look kind of the same.

anyway, here’s the deets! even though they had already placed the order, it wasn’t a problem to change some of the options since the big thing was to at least get it put into the order system.

i think they actually put my car in one of their regular slots for dealership lot cars; if i go to the owner’s lounge online and put in my production number, the owner’s lounge says that it’s a 2008 mini cooper s, but it’s sparkling silver in color. so, i’ll have to try again in a day or so once it’s updated. the nice thing about that is my motoring advisor confided that the build date has been pushed up about a week, so i guess i can expect to take delivery of my car a little sooner.

no idea about a name for it yet. it’s blue, so i guess that makes it a “blue”smobile? ha! ha! actually, if i go with the film “the blues brothers” as inspiration, i may call it “our lady of blessed acceleration”, or “OLOBA” for short, haha…

i was a little sad when i took the car there yesterday and gave them the title and the lien release forms (mom didn’t make me feel un-sad by saying “but that was your buddy, you went everywhere in that car!!” – thanks mom :P), but today was all excitement. i can’t wait! 🙂

now i need to see about taking my license plates to the mva by the end of the month. it’s kind of funny, instead of renewing my car’s registration, i’m just going to get a whole new car instead. (great, now i’ll need to memorize a new license plate number!)

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#5096 – it just never stops, does it?

so sunday was a day of hanging out around the house, and by “hanging out around the house” i mean “working on homework from early afternoon until almost 11 pm, and hoping that it was done correctly since the instructor was a bit vague and unhelpful regarding this project.” mom, dad and anne arrived back home in the evening, and we talked for a little bit about their trip around the mediterranean.

today i had a second interview for this position with the executive relations team, so thus far i’ve had:

  • phone pre-screen
  • project
  • interview 1
  • interview 2

they say that HR is pushing them to fill this position soon, so i should hear something within the next week or two. i hope i get it, especially if there’s a pay raise, but i don’t really care a lot one way or the other.

after work i stopped at the apartment and grabbed a few more things to bring to the house. it was practically monsoon season on I-97 on the way back to annapolis to take care of trading my car in at the MINI dealership, and i didn’t get there until just after 7. it actually didn’t take long today since they started to work on the paperwork to trade in my car and put the value towards the bill of sale for a new one, but due to some confusion with how the new owners of the dealership would process such a transaction they didn’t complete it today — they took my keys and my title and lien release, and they’re going to get the paperwork all set tomorrow, i just need to come by after work to sign the paperwork and get my license plates and we’ll place the order then. in the meantime i’m driving the family saturn (which also doesn’t have proper air conditioning, but also doesn’t blow hot air into the car constantly). my passenger window also went kaput on me again today, after it fixed itself a few days ago. blahh.

i spent this evening cleaning off my old bed and cleaning up my bedroom at home so i’d have a place to sleep tonight that isn’t on the couch. i know the room is small and all, but man do i need more storage space in here. once this move is complete i’m going to start seeing what stuff i can box up and store and how i might be able to organize things better.

i’ve got a ton of emails (ok, 59) to go through. most of them i’ve read already, i just haven’t had a chance to take action on any of them yet, stuff like CCRG website updates with info from last week’s bout that are long overdue, radio krud emails, all sorts of stuff. i’d feel bad about it, but i just don’t have the time to feel bad right now between school, moving and new car ordering. i can tell you this: my ass is going to be getting KICKED from july 9 – august 13 if this keeps up, since that’s when class #4 comes into effect.