My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.
My week, in a nutshell:
Sunday:
I woke up to the sound of splashing and my parents arguing. Curious, I went into the kitchen to find that both sink basins were stopped up and not draining. My dad was going on and on about having to call a plumber on a Sunday and how much that was going to cost. My mom said we should just sit down to breakfast and worry about it later. During breakfast, my dad spilled his glass of orange juice all over the floor and ended up going to work out because he was just that upset over the whole thing. After I was done eating, I decided to take a look at the sink and I determined the problem. So, I unplugged the garbage disposal and stuck my hand in there. It was full of plastic and rubber bands and black goo. After cleaning that crap out and plunging that sink a couple of times, both sinks drained. No plumber necessary. Go me. Needless to say, my parents were pretty impressed.
After that mess, my mom and I went to Ulta. I was just going to buy headbands, but my mom wanted to buy eye shadow so we ended up hanging around the Bare Escentuals counter. I'm always pushing my mom to get more adventurous colors and there was someone there doing demos, so I picked some out for her. The make-up artist was really cool. The strange thing was that she flirted with me the whole time. I'm not quite used to that. She actually insisted on doing my eye make-up as well and she went out of her way to touch my hair and cracked jokes about taking showers with me. Strange.
Also, I managed to get most of my website built. Yay!
Monday:
I was all set to go to work. Alas, Metra was not. The 7:28am train was parked at the station. I take the 7:43am. When I asked what was going on, someone told me that someone on the 7:28 pulled the emergency brake valve in hopes of opening the doors to let someone on who was running for the train. Unfortunately, pulling that valve makes the train completely inoperable. So, the 7:28 was parked on Track 1 and the southbound train to Joliet was parked on Track 2 and my train was parked behind the 7:28 on Track 1 and then the 8:01 showed up behind that. Metra's plan was to have the northbound trains back up to the switching station, which is all the way back in like New Lenox or something and switch to Track 2 after the southbound train passed to Joliet, and then switch back to Track 1 at the next switching station. Of course, this would take a couple of hours. I was like, hmm. By the time they figure this out and cram three trains worth of people into two trains, we won't get downtown until like 10:30 at the earliest, which makes it kind of pointless to even bother to go to work, since I then have to take the L to the West Loop. And I have 10 sick days to use by the end of the year. Let's use one of those!
So, I called in sick and stayed home and caught up on laundry and housework. Oh, and I bought a bunch of cute stuff at Target.
Tuesday:
I voted on the new touch-screen machine. It was pretty cool. And a lot better than the last time I voted, which was in New York, where they were still using the lever system.
As I was walking south on Clinton to go to lunch, these two women approached me. They wanted me to be a model for the open house for their store over by the Merchandise Mart. I was like, what? I looked at the flyer and the sizes they were looking for were sizes I wore in high school in pants and a size I've never, ever worn in shirts. I was flattered, but I was like, umm, no thanks. Ha.
Wednesday:
Free product day! The company I work for catalogues every product ever made, so when the department that does that is done, they give them away to the people on their floor. I'm on their floor, lucky me. This time, I got free socks. Last time, it was free make-up. Before that, free dog toys. I love it.
Also, Dems win! Can we get a hells ya?
Thursday:
My dad had to go downtown for some seminar, so we took the train together. When he was done with his thing, he swung by my office for lunch. I took him across the river to Salad Spinners. Their Mexicali salad is to die for. He was very impressed with my workplace and cubicle. He says it's bigger than his, ha!
Friday:
Payday!
Usually, I go to the Au Bon Pain on Clinton and Madison for lunch. One of the sandwich makers, Joe, once accidentally put tomatoes in one of my wraps when I specifically wrote down that I didn't want any and he was really upset about it, but I was like, hey, it's cool, whatever, and he has remembered me ever since. Sometimes, if it's really busy, he'll pull my sandwich pad out of the pile and do mine ahead of time. I like to think it's because I was nice to him and didn't throw a fit when he made a mistake, unlike the other high-powered business people who eat there. Anyway, on this day, some woman finally noticed that he was doing this and threw a fit. Until she realized that he was making her sandwich at the same time, talented man that he is, and she wasn't being inconvenienced. So all her loud-mouthed bitching about the wait-time was for nothing. I'd really like to know when people started to feel so entitled.
When the CTA put in the Pink Line, they had it take over some of the Blue Line stops, which is fine for me going to work. However, coming from work, it's a pain in the ass. I have to ride all the way around the Loop. Some days, this takes 15 minutes. Other days, a half hour or more. On this day, I decided to try to see if there's another route that's faster. So on the way home, I got on the Pink Line at Clinton, rode it one stop to Clark/Lake, got off and transferred to the Blue Line, which is a subway, and rode that west/south to LaSalle. This cut a good ten minutes off my commute and allowed me to catch an earlier train; one that I never would have been able to catch in my dreams before. Wicked sweet.
Ran some errands after work in the torrential downpour. I took my laptop hard drive to Best Buy where one of the Geek Squad guys was nice enough to look at it without charging me. He figured out that it was an ATA like I thought, it's just that it had a trick cover on the pins! So now I can hook it up to my ATA to USB converter and download all of my old files. I actually hugged the man. Then I bought Shaun of the Dead and The Batman seasons 1 and 2, plus Say Anything's ...Is A Real Boy. Afterward, I met my parents for dinner at Outback where we had the world's crabbiest waitress, but it did not matter. All is good.
Saturday:
ATA to USB works! Now I can finally update my damned iPod. I also got my hair trimmed and my nails done. My checking account balance after paying bills and such is very sadface considering that I just got paid yesterday. I'm planning on transferring most of my savings into a 5 year CD soon. This will prevent me from transferring balances back and forth. Plus, the interest rate is way higher. Good deal.
I also bought my dad's birthday/xmas present. Tickets to the Bears v. Green Bay Packers game on New Year's Eve. Now, normally, these tickets are hard to get anyway, even if the Bears are playing like crap, because it's a big rivalry, but now that the Bears have a 7-1 record? Umm, hello! Impossible! But, I managed to snag two tickets in the north end zone, and they only cost me half a paycheck! Who's his favorite child? Yeah, that's right, me.
This week, I'm reading Into The Wild by Jon Krakauker. It's pretty fascinating. I didn't like his other book, Into Thin Air, so I didn't think I'd like this one either, but it's actually very interesting.
Sunday:
I woke up to the sound of splashing and my parents arguing. Curious, I went into the kitchen to find that both sink basins were stopped up and not draining. My dad was going on and on about having to call a plumber on a Sunday and how much that was going to cost. My mom said we should just sit down to breakfast and worry about it later. During breakfast, my dad spilled his glass of orange juice all over the floor and ended up going to work out because he was just that upset over the whole thing. After I was done eating, I decided to take a look at the sink and I determined the problem. So, I unplugged the garbage disposal and stuck my hand in there. It was full of plastic and rubber bands and black goo. After cleaning that crap out and plunging that sink a couple of times, both sinks drained. No plumber necessary. Go me. Needless to say, my parents were pretty impressed.
After that mess, my mom and I went to Ulta. I was just going to buy headbands, but my mom wanted to buy eye shadow so we ended up hanging around the Bare Escentuals counter. I'm always pushing my mom to get more adventurous colors and there was someone there doing demos, so I picked some out for her. The make-up artist was really cool. The strange thing was that she flirted with me the whole time. I'm not quite used to that. She actually insisted on doing my eye make-up as well and she went out of her way to touch my hair and cracked jokes about taking showers with me. Strange.
Also, I managed to get most of my website built. Yay!
Monday:
I was all set to go to work. Alas, Metra was not. The 7:28am train was parked at the station. I take the 7:43am. When I asked what was going on, someone told me that someone on the 7:28 pulled the emergency brake valve in hopes of opening the doors to let someone on who was running for the train. Unfortunately, pulling that valve makes the train completely inoperable. So, the 7:28 was parked on Track 1 and the southbound train to Joliet was parked on Track 2 and my train was parked behind the 7:28 on Track 1 and then the 8:01 showed up behind that. Metra's plan was to have the northbound trains back up to the switching station, which is all the way back in like New Lenox or something and switch to Track 2 after the southbound train passed to Joliet, and then switch back to Track 1 at the next switching station. Of course, this would take a couple of hours. I was like, hmm. By the time they figure this out and cram three trains worth of people into two trains, we won't get downtown until like 10:30 at the earliest, which makes it kind of pointless to even bother to go to work, since I then have to take the L to the West Loop. And I have 10 sick days to use by the end of the year. Let's use one of those!
So, I called in sick and stayed home and caught up on laundry and housework. Oh, and I bought a bunch of cute stuff at Target.
Tuesday:
I voted on the new touch-screen machine. It was pretty cool. And a lot better than the last time I voted, which was in New York, where they were still using the lever system.
As I was walking south on Clinton to go to lunch, these two women approached me. They wanted me to be a model for the open house for their store over by the Merchandise Mart. I was like, what? I looked at the flyer and the sizes they were looking for were sizes I wore in high school in pants and a size I've never, ever worn in shirts. I was flattered, but I was like, umm, no thanks. Ha.
Wednesday:
Free product day! The company I work for catalogues every product ever made, so when the department that does that is done, they give them away to the people on their floor. I'm on their floor, lucky me. This time, I got free socks. Last time, it was free make-up. Before that, free dog toys. I love it.
Also, Dems win! Can we get a hells ya?
Thursday:
My dad had to go downtown for some seminar, so we took the train together. When he was done with his thing, he swung by my office for lunch. I took him across the river to Salad Spinners. Their Mexicali salad is to die for. He was very impressed with my workplace and cubicle. He says it's bigger than his, ha!
Friday:
Payday!
Usually, I go to the Au Bon Pain on Clinton and Madison for lunch. One of the sandwich makers, Joe, once accidentally put tomatoes in one of my wraps when I specifically wrote down that I didn't want any and he was really upset about it, but I was like, hey, it's cool, whatever, and he has remembered me ever since. Sometimes, if it's really busy, he'll pull my sandwich pad out of the pile and do mine ahead of time. I like to think it's because I was nice to him and didn't throw a fit when he made a mistake, unlike the other high-powered business people who eat there. Anyway, on this day, some woman finally noticed that he was doing this and threw a fit. Until she realized that he was making her sandwich at the same time, talented man that he is, and she wasn't being inconvenienced. So all her loud-mouthed bitching about the wait-time was for nothing. I'd really like to know when people started to feel so entitled.
When the CTA put in the Pink Line, they had it take over some of the Blue Line stops, which is fine for me going to work. However, coming from work, it's a pain in the ass. I have to ride all the way around the Loop. Some days, this takes 15 minutes. Other days, a half hour or more. On this day, I decided to try to see if there's another route that's faster. So on the way home, I got on the Pink Line at Clinton, rode it one stop to Clark/Lake, got off and transferred to the Blue Line, which is a subway, and rode that west/south to LaSalle. This cut a good ten minutes off my commute and allowed me to catch an earlier train; one that I never would have been able to catch in my dreams before. Wicked sweet.
Ran some errands after work in the torrential downpour. I took my laptop hard drive to Best Buy where one of the Geek Squad guys was nice enough to look at it without charging me. He figured out that it was an ATA like I thought, it's just that it had a trick cover on the pins! So now I can hook it up to my ATA to USB converter and download all of my old files. I actually hugged the man. Then I bought Shaun of the Dead and The Batman seasons 1 and 2, plus Say Anything's ...Is A Real Boy. Afterward, I met my parents for dinner at Outback where we had the world's crabbiest waitress, but it did not matter. All is good.
Saturday:
ATA to USB works! Now I can finally update my damned iPod. I also got my hair trimmed and my nails done. My checking account balance after paying bills and such is very sadface considering that I just got paid yesterday. I'm planning on transferring most of my savings into a 5 year CD soon. This will prevent me from transferring balances back and forth. Plus, the interest rate is way higher. Good deal.
I also bought my dad's birthday/xmas present. Tickets to the Bears v. Green Bay Packers game on New Year's Eve. Now, normally, these tickets are hard to get anyway, even if the Bears are playing like crap, because it's a big rivalry, but now that the Bears have a 7-1 record? Umm, hello! Impossible! But, I managed to snag two tickets in the north end zone, and they only cost me half a paycheck! Who's his favorite child? Yeah, that's right, me.
This week, I'm reading Into The Wild by Jon Krakauker. It's pretty fascinating. I didn't like his other book, Into Thin Air, so I didn't think I'd like this one either, but it's actually very interesting.