A poor substitute for efficient recordkeeping
QOTD: "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."
Many days have passed since my last useful entry and equally many things have happened. Firstly, Daniel's mother, who has been battling cancer for several months, died Thursday afternoon. Deeply tragic, certainly. Admittedly, I did no know her well, but she was always very kind to me and from what I understand was the same to everyone. And while there is sorrow when bad things happen to good people, from the stories told of her, how she loved the people in her life and how she went about living, I find it difficult to come up with anyone I could say lived a life more fully in their allotted time. I feel terribly bad for Daniel's father. Also a good person, he is well-liked even in his own right and while people have turned out to pay their respects and check on him and provide some company, in the end he's the only one in his bed at night. Perhaps that out of all is what I find most wrenching.
Prior to Alicia and Daniel driving down to the coast, Alicia threw me and Sean2* into a group chat on Gmail. Sean's technically been on my network for years now at a third party distance. Several people I knew also knew him, but I'd never met him and other than possibly an LJ exchange here or there, we were never in contact. So this was really something of an event for me. Alicia, who claims we'd been complaining about the same things for days (weeks?) decided enough was enough and forged a connection. All chatted for a long while and Sean offered what I thought was a wonderful YouTube clip that Alicia couldn't bear to watch. Eventually Alicia succumbed to slumber and Sean and I talked about Orangina, which I found surprising as I wasn't the one that brought it up.
The next day, I went over to Daniel's family's house to visit and looked at old photos of his mom and we watched and talked about music videos. Quite a few people were over there and I felt a bit out of place not really knowing any of them (except maybe Cindi [sp?], who is about all I remember from the party where I got "beyond blitzed" since she was the one that brought the No Woman cheese and had talked to me about molesting sea oats) but Alicia was kind and showed me her new bunny, which effectively moved us away from the horde of people and improved my comfort considerably. Later we migrated back out and food was offered. I ate and we watched Last Holiday which was pretty okay, religious core notwithstanding. During the movie Sean showed up and a good while later so did Jeremy. I talked to Sean and Alicia a lot. This was the first time I'd ever seen Sean in person, speaking, and without the distraction of the wedding, so it was a good opportunity to evaluate communication and personality idiosyncrasies and essentially determine why my friends were friends with this person and if I thought he had any merit for continuing interaction. I think Jake would call that last sentence an example of my counterproductive, cold language. Results were mixed positive with lots of flags for neutral unexpected conditions.
On my way back from visiting at Daniel's place, I ran into a roadblock very near my apartments. Looked really bad. Patrol cars blocked the lanes with large emergency vehicles behind them. Lights were set up in the road. I learned a little more about the area I live in as I followed the detouring cars around the blocked off area. On my way back to Pass Road, I passed the trucks carrying the mangled vehicles. It was night, so I didn't get a good look at them, but they were very badly damaged. I'd never run into such a blocked off area like that.
The next day was the funeral services for Daniel's mom. I didn't have an appropriate shirt, so I went looking for one. I checked Van Heusen, which is usually where I look, but I've since figured out that my proper measurements are a neck of 15 and a sleeve of 34/35, a combination which apparently doesn't exist. Anywhere. I was running short on time, so I checked JC Penny and found something that was acceptable. I had considered getting just a white shirt that was "close enough" at Van Heusen that would've been more properly torso fitted, but I didn't and when I put on the shirt I did get (also a "good enough"), I regretted not taking the first choice. I think I could've cut a cover for the space shuttle out of the extra material I had. I didn't have an appropriate jacket, which made it all the worse. I got to the funeral home just in time for services, though I'd wanted to get there a little earlier. This was the first funeral I can remember attending, so it was interesting. Alicia's mom showed up, which makes sense, but I was glad to see her there in support.
After the service was over, I talked with Jeremy, Noel, and Sean outside. Sean and I went with Noel and Jeremy to Noel's parents' house where we were offered chips & dip and brisket. The brisket was very good. Jeremy's beer had something in it, which was mildly amusing. The event was amusing, not the something. The something was described as "gross." We were mostly football ignorant, so we proudly traded our limited knowledge of the day's Super Bowl. When we left, Noel stayed behind to work on biochemistry schoolwork and the rest of us went to Jeremy's family's house. We encountered his dad, who offered us recently made cookies. Sean was polite in his review. I abstained from comment. Sean and I talked to his dad for a while as Jeremy changed from funeral garb. His mom returned from walking dogs and she joined in the conversation. She offered more cookies. On our way out we were given slices of pecan praline king cake. We ventured from there to Rouse's to get a king cake just like it, but they only had pineapple, lemon, and Almond Melancholy Joy. We ended up getting pineapple, which was probably the wrong decision.
We took the king cake (the g-forces!) to Daniel's family's house for the after-funeral gathering. We stayed there for quite a while, outlasting the Parrotheads, even. We were the last to leave. There were many highlights, such as Jeremy's awful can of Clamato beer given to him by Cindi. Again, a late arrival back at my apartment. I had voicemail when I got back and it was Mary Ellen, who was calling me to let me know that Suzy, the painter (illustrator) at work, had her husband killed in a car accident the night before while he was delivering pizzas. I later discover that his accident was the one that I encountered the previous night near my apartment. The story of the accident is gruesome:
The husband was active duty with a 20-year service record. He was due to receive some medals of some sort in three weeks and the package arrived on the squadron secretary's desk the Monday after his death. He delivered pizzas to supplement the family's income. They have three sons, the oldest being 21 and the youngest in high school. He was on Pass Road and was in the turn lane (presumably to turn into the apartment complex set where I live) and a driver hit him head-on on the turn lane. The vehicle was totaled and burst into flames. A friend of one of the family's sons saw the accident and recognized the car. He called the sons and since they don't live far away, they piled in the car and arrived at the accident as the emergency workers were doing their thing. The youngest son has a heart condition and passed out and hit his head on the asphalt. He was in the ICU for the following day. Just a messed up series of events. When they pulled one of the people from the other car, her legs stayed in the car. Both of the other car's occupants were in critical condition.
I was up really late talking to Sean the other night and went to bed two hours before my alarm was supposed to go off (this wouldn't have been a problem if I'd've had the Mardi Gras holidays off) and I apparently just shut my alarms off when they went off in the morning instead of snoozing them. I was an hour late for work. And sore. My back, mostly. Still is kind of sore. My terrible posture right now isn't helping matters.
Today at work, I had a location shoot for a commander's call. Allow me to explain something about the military. When a command officer comes in the room, everyone is supposed to jump up and stand at attention. When there's a ceremony, a person is usually designated to announce such an officer's arrival. Well today everyone was waiting around and Andrea, the secretary for this particular general, comes in and two captains jump up, which got a good laugh out of some people, but then the general comes in unannounced from the back and says, "Well, now that Andrea's here, we can get underway." People were jumping out of their seats. It was great. This general is one of the best I've seen and he plays around with protocol a fair share and it makes things really lively.
My location shoots were badly spaced today, so I got no real work accomplished. I lamented the absence of some people on gmail, who would've been a good excuse to have not gotten work done. So tomorrow will be a heavy editing day. Two ALS flights came in today, so that's 26 people right there I have to have done in three days. Then I'll shoot the ceremony itself next week at the IP. It's a free meal, but I'm not looking forward to it. I'm always forced to talk to people I don't know at my table. It'll be better than the after-hours shoot in one of the hangar bays the next week, though. I want to delegate, but I need the money. Hopefully they won't try to flex time me since those are on separate pay periods.
I had a meatloaf disaster the other day. I forgot to include tomato sauce, which is a big ingredient in this particular recipe. I realized this after it had been in the oven for about 15 minutes. Fortunately, it was edible. So a few days later, I tried again and remembered the sauce. The stuff wouldn't cook. I've never seen anything like it. I cooked it and cooked it and cooked it. I cooked it three times longer than I should've needed to, and the top got pretty burned, but the inside was still just as raw as it could be. I was baffled and eventually gave up, defeated by meatloaf. It's still a mystery to me.
Okay, that's enough from me tonight. I've been up really late every night this week and some last weekend and I'm about to pass out.
* subscript omitted for remainder of entry
Many days have passed since my last useful entry and equally many things have happened. Firstly, Daniel's mother, who has been battling cancer for several months, died Thursday afternoon. Deeply tragic, certainly. Admittedly, I did no know her well, but she was always very kind to me and from what I understand was the same to everyone. And while there is sorrow when bad things happen to good people, from the stories told of her, how she loved the people in her life and how she went about living, I find it difficult to come up with anyone I could say lived a life more fully in their allotted time. I feel terribly bad for Daniel's father. Also a good person, he is well-liked even in his own right and while people have turned out to pay their respects and check on him and provide some company, in the end he's the only one in his bed at night. Perhaps that out of all is what I find most wrenching.
Prior to Alicia and Daniel driving down to the coast, Alicia threw me and Sean2* into a group chat on Gmail. Sean's technically been on my network for years now at a third party distance. Several people I knew also knew him, but I'd never met him and other than possibly an LJ exchange here or there, we were never in contact. So this was really something of an event for me. Alicia, who claims we'd been complaining about the same things for days (weeks?) decided enough was enough and forged a connection. All chatted for a long while and Sean offered what I thought was a wonderful YouTube clip that Alicia couldn't bear to watch. Eventually Alicia succumbed to slumber and Sean and I talked about Orangina, which I found surprising as I wasn't the one that brought it up.
The next day, I went over to Daniel's family's house to visit and looked at old photos of his mom and we watched and talked about music videos. Quite a few people were over there and I felt a bit out of place not really knowing any of them (except maybe Cindi [sp?], who is about all I remember from the party where I got "beyond blitzed" since she was the one that brought the No Woman cheese and had talked to me about molesting sea oats) but Alicia was kind and showed me her new bunny, which effectively moved us away from the horde of people and improved my comfort considerably. Later we migrated back out and food was offered. I ate and we watched Last Holiday which was pretty okay, religious core notwithstanding. During the movie Sean showed up and a good while later so did Jeremy. I talked to Sean and Alicia a lot. This was the first time I'd ever seen Sean in person, speaking, and without the distraction of the wedding, so it was a good opportunity to evaluate communication and personality idiosyncrasies and essentially determine why my friends were friends with this person and if I thought he had any merit for continuing interaction. I think Jake would call that last sentence an example of my counterproductive, cold language. Results were mixed positive with lots of flags for neutral unexpected conditions.
On my way back from visiting at Daniel's place, I ran into a roadblock very near my apartments. Looked really bad. Patrol cars blocked the lanes with large emergency vehicles behind them. Lights were set up in the road. I learned a little more about the area I live in as I followed the detouring cars around the blocked off area. On my way back to Pass Road, I passed the trucks carrying the mangled vehicles. It was night, so I didn't get a good look at them, but they were very badly damaged. I'd never run into such a blocked off area like that.
The next day was the funeral services for Daniel's mom. I didn't have an appropriate shirt, so I went looking for one. I checked Van Heusen, which is usually where I look, but I've since figured out that my proper measurements are a neck of 15 and a sleeve of 34/35, a combination which apparently doesn't exist. Anywhere. I was running short on time, so I checked JC Penny and found something that was acceptable. I had considered getting just a white shirt that was "close enough" at Van Heusen that would've been more properly torso fitted, but I didn't and when I put on the shirt I did get (also a "good enough"), I regretted not taking the first choice. I think I could've cut a cover for the space shuttle out of the extra material I had. I didn't have an appropriate jacket, which made it all the worse. I got to the funeral home just in time for services, though I'd wanted to get there a little earlier. This was the first funeral I can remember attending, so it was interesting. Alicia's mom showed up, which makes sense, but I was glad to see her there in support.
After the service was over, I talked with Jeremy, Noel, and Sean outside. Sean and I went with Noel and Jeremy to Noel's parents' house where we were offered chips & dip and brisket. The brisket was very good. Jeremy's beer had something in it, which was mildly amusing. The event was amusing, not the something. The something was described as "gross." We were mostly football ignorant, so we proudly traded our limited knowledge of the day's Super Bowl. When we left, Noel stayed behind to work on biochemistry schoolwork and the rest of us went to Jeremy's family's house. We encountered his dad, who offered us recently made cookies. Sean was polite in his review. I abstained from comment. Sean and I talked to his dad for a while as Jeremy changed from funeral garb. His mom returned from walking dogs and she joined in the conversation. She offered more cookies. On our way out we were given slices of pecan praline king cake. We ventured from there to Rouse's to get a king cake just like it, but they only had pineapple, lemon, and Almond Melancholy Joy. We ended up getting pineapple, which was probably the wrong decision.
We took the king cake (the g-forces!) to Daniel's family's house for the after-funeral gathering. We stayed there for quite a while, outlasting the Parrotheads, even. We were the last to leave. There were many highlights, such as Jeremy's awful can of Clamato beer given to him by Cindi. Again, a late arrival back at my apartment. I had voicemail when I got back and it was Mary Ellen, who was calling me to let me know that Suzy, the painter (illustrator) at work, had her husband killed in a car accident the night before while he was delivering pizzas. I later discover that his accident was the one that I encountered the previous night near my apartment. The story of the accident is gruesome:
The husband was active duty with a 20-year service record. He was due to receive some medals of some sort in three weeks and the package arrived on the squadron secretary's desk the Monday after his death. He delivered pizzas to supplement the family's income. They have three sons, the oldest being 21 and the youngest in high school. He was on Pass Road and was in the turn lane (presumably to turn into the apartment complex set where I live) and a driver hit him head-on on the turn lane. The vehicle was totaled and burst into flames. A friend of one of the family's sons saw the accident and recognized the car. He called the sons and since they don't live far away, they piled in the car and arrived at the accident as the emergency workers were doing their thing. The youngest son has a heart condition and passed out and hit his head on the asphalt. He was in the ICU for the following day. Just a messed up series of events. When they pulled one of the people from the other car, her legs stayed in the car. Both of the other car's occupants were in critical condition.
I was up really late talking to Sean the other night and went to bed two hours before my alarm was supposed to go off (this wouldn't have been a problem if I'd've had the Mardi Gras holidays off) and I apparently just shut my alarms off when they went off in the morning instead of snoozing them. I was an hour late for work. And sore. My back, mostly. Still is kind of sore. My terrible posture right now isn't helping matters.
Today at work, I had a location shoot for a commander's call. Allow me to explain something about the military. When a command officer comes in the room, everyone is supposed to jump up and stand at attention. When there's a ceremony, a person is usually designated to announce such an officer's arrival. Well today everyone was waiting around and Andrea, the secretary for this particular general, comes in and two captains jump up, which got a good laugh out of some people, but then the general comes in unannounced from the back and says, "Well, now that Andrea's here, we can get underway." People were jumping out of their seats. It was great. This general is one of the best I've seen and he plays around with protocol a fair share and it makes things really lively.
My location shoots were badly spaced today, so I got no real work accomplished. I lamented the absence of some people on gmail, who would've been a good excuse to have not gotten work done. So tomorrow will be a heavy editing day. Two ALS flights came in today, so that's 26 people right there I have to have done in three days. Then I'll shoot the ceremony itself next week at the IP. It's a free meal, but I'm not looking forward to it. I'm always forced to talk to people I don't know at my table. It'll be better than the after-hours shoot in one of the hangar bays the next week, though. I want to delegate, but I need the money. Hopefully they won't try to flex time me since those are on separate pay periods.
I had a meatloaf disaster the other day. I forgot to include tomato sauce, which is a big ingredient in this particular recipe. I realized this after it had been in the oven for about 15 minutes. Fortunately, it was edible. So a few days later, I tried again and remembered the sauce. The stuff wouldn't cook. I've never seen anything like it. I cooked it and cooked it and cooked it. I cooked it three times longer than I should've needed to, and the top got pretty burned, but the inside was still just as raw as it could be. I was baffled and eventually gave up, defeated by meatloaf. It's still a mystery to me.
Okay, that's enough from me tonight. I've been up really late every night this week and some last weekend and I'm about to pass out.
* subscript omitted for remainder of entry