(no subject)
Here I sit, waiting for my car to get looked at… again.
What has been going on recently?
Well, let's see. Since the last entry I've been for the most part utterly blissful. They did a series of layoffs. These of course did not impact me or you would have heard about it significantly earlier. The thing that pisses me off is how the information was communicated to me. I was sitting there doing standard *stuffs* when I get an IM out of the blue from Tim with whom I still work with but he’s AT&T now instead of an IBMer. Anyway he pings me and asks if I was going to be impacted by the most recent resource action and sends me a link to the WRAL web page discussing it. WRAL if you aren’t from around the Raleigh area is the local TV station. Basically an insider leaked information that a whole slew of jobs were going up in smoke that day… This is not the first time that information about a resource action like this got to me from a news source that wasn’t say… management.
Back for the February whatnot where the entire network services, save for a few, were spun off into AT&T, I found out via a Forbes article. 27000 or so people no longer having their job, as they know it, and we find out first by a news article… How shitty is that? So here it is, deja vu once more. I ping my manager and ask him and he doesn’t have anything to say outside of “our team is not impacted,” which is of course a good thing since I am quite keen on keeping my job.
Speaking of jobs, I am in the process of doing two things. One is finishing up my apps for school which I should have had done say... three months ago. Secondly I am in the process of getting set up to move forward with going into project management. The days of technical BS work are limited. Joy.
But not all is joy in Mudville. Last week the check engine light came on… again. Again when it first came up it wasn’t particularly acting in any bad form. No leaking, no gauges going haywire, no odd sounds or smells or the like. *sigh* Those are the worst kind of issues; where you have no clue what the problem is. It’s in the shop at the moment, it took nearly a week to get a time where I could sit in house and not just drop it off.
Speaking of cars, Kim has yet to acquire an automobile and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a pain in the ass schlepping her… whoa, MS Word recognizes ‘schlepping’… hardcore. Anyway schlepping her tookus to work the past two weeks hasn’t been *that* bad, just an inconvenience; however, it *is* getting to be annoying. Is it that my eagerness to assist her has caused her to sit back, relax, and procrastinate? Perhaps, or perhaps not.
At this point it’s just as though I’m thinking and typing fast enough to keep up. Pardon the lack of cohesion, but then again this journal mostly is for me, not you.
I’m in the process of avoiding club life in general, or should I say I’m in the process of avoiding Aubrey in general. We had a talk a while back (see somewhat drama sounding post) and basically we can’t be friends anymore. It sucks but shit happens. A lot of people have been giving me shit here and there about the situation. Her and I broke up nine months ago, and it is still awkward. Part of me says I should go where I want, when I want and disregard her feelings on the subject, but part of me will always be mister nice guy who bends over backwards to accommodate others. There are certain things where I am moderately if not excessively selfish, and then there are other times where I will do anything short of murder to prevent discomfort in people around me.
Some days I think I should just be more of an asshole. I still care about her as a friend. I censor my blog, my actions, and other things just to avoid any discomfort she might experience. What has it gotten me? Nothing. Where is the value add other than me able to say, “Hey, I’m a nice guy.” By me staying away, the people I might be able to call friends by playing nice with her, I can’t call them friends because I never see them. For one point that was actually a driving issue for me. Everyone wants to be wanted, everyone wants to be accepted, and there had been quite a few peoples I’ve met via ‘the club’ that I would like to keep in touch with; however, I cannot help but feel some sort of defeatist negativity about it. Either they will not accept me because I’m not there or because I am there but upsetting a staple of the community. This is not unfounded worries, back when Lisa and I split up a whole section of the SCA community shunned me to the point where I fell off the map and simply didn’t go back at all. In time I found other hobbies/groups/whatever to kill time, and then I just moved on in my life. I want to move on from this but part of me keeps clinging. Worst of all, I don’t think that I can have that level of involvement in that community without her. I know I can. I know that there were more than enough people who liked me for me. Sure there were people who only tolerated me because I was with her, who now openly are like “Matt, I don’t like you. You suck. Go away.” Staying away isn’t going to help anything at all, in fact it will only reinforce the negative.
Holy crap. Salt ‘N Pepa just came on the radio and all I can think of it James Clark getting his groove on. Talk about random.
Speaking of JC, I’ve really missed going to out 120 minutes or other stuffs and running into him and Rick. Both are awesome peoples whom are among the ones I’ve really missed being around. In the past few weeks I’ve delved more into facebook than previously and I have been able to keep in touch more interactively with Rick at least. FB has taken up a bit of my time in retrospect. I wandered around and was able to add a plethora of peoples so I can e-stalk them on a regular basis. Its quick ability to throw up statuses, links, pix and the like makes it totally different from LJ, for the most part, and a totally different animal. For anyone who reads this that wants to friend me, simply search for my name, there’s only ten or so of me out there. Dragon Wars and other apps are entertaining, quizzes are as well, the invite system, for events, is worthwhile.
Speaking of events other events that have gone on since the last real post in no particular bulleted fashion:
*Missed the rave till dawn. *See avoiding Aubrey who may not have even been there*
*Went and saw Amanda Palmer’s last show for this tour last night. Talk about frickin’ awesome. The opener was a little weak but Amanda was fan-frickin-tastic. She played/talked with the crowd for nearly three hours. Very very much worth the price of the ticket.
*Started playing Dead Rising and already got the ‘good’ ending, and I am working on various achievements at the moment. It is very, very entertaining to run around cutting up zombies with various implements of destruction.
*I finally got around to seeing Repo: The Genetic Opera. It rocks. Go see it.
*Wanted to shout from the mountaintops about how lucky I am to have Darcy in my life. She’s a gem, a treasure, a bauble of joy and joyacity which isn’t even a word but fuck it. She’s most excellent enough to have made up words sung all across town at the top of one’s lungs in her name. To see her is a smile, to hold her is a warm blanket of bliss, to have her in my life is a gift.
I think that’s enough rambling for now. I’ll start posting dailies tomorrow and hopefully the first one will be how my car is awesomely yummy with little cost out of pocket.
Love Every Day.