Will I shut up already?

Sunday

Greetings from the unpacking zone. I made it back to Pittsburgh and am in the process of multitasking, watching the Sunday Night Football game, unpacking, blogging and occassionally eating as well. Sorry I wasn't around to do all of the seasonal greetings that I should have done Christmas Eve, but my mom's computer is all kind of sucky, taking as long as 5 minutes to bring up a single page, despite the fact they have DSL service. I tried tinkering with it to see if I could figure out what was actually wrong, it seems like either a modem or cable issue, it could be they need a new modem, it could be they need new cables, as they have one of them spliced underneath the computer and I have no idea if that cable is even making proper contact at this point, it could be they just need to resync their modem with Verizon, or it could be that they have everything in one power strip, a bunch of plugs for the computer as well as a phone line and two outgoing lines, one for the computer and one for the satellite TV. It is a proverbial clusterfuck. Worse was Mike, my mom's husband, wanted to take everything off of the computer and reload everything. Talk about a nuclear option, that would be my absolute last resort, after all, if it is a modem problem of some sort, then all you risk is messing things up more than they need to be.

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Monday

So since I am on a slightly more productive computer, a little about what has happened since my last posting, many many moons ago. Okay so not so many moons ago, but given the rate of speed with which things were happening, it does still feel like it. When last we left, Richard Kimball was still The Fugitive and I was gearing up for an interview downtown. All I can say is that the person who interviewed me was not too hard on the eyes, so if the worst that happened was I was trapped in a room with an attractive female for a little while, well I can live with that. Actually I thought the interview went well, and my new found flkexibility in scheduling definitely helped, but being out of town for a few days may not have. The dillio was simple, Dee, who interviewed me, still wanted to talk to her brother in law about hiring me, but he was going to be on vacation till Jan 7th, while the two new newsstands they are opening are set to open on the 5th, so they need to staff them, but they also would like his approval before hiring anyone. I gave them my mom's phone number if they wanted to contact me while I was out of town, but they didn't call. Mind you, they may still call, there is still at least a week before anything opens, though I imagine they would like me to have a day or two of training, then again, after my last job experience, maybe not. If I don't hear anything by tomorrow, I will call and see what is what.

I did receive my two day paycheck from the Original Hot Dog Shop, so I have some cash on hand should I need it, and I imagine my severance check from the radio station should show up either late this week or early next. And I did receive my unemployment claim handbook from the state, so absolute worst case scenario my benefits from them should begin shortly, something to tide me over while I seek gainful employment. I really am mixed about it though, I have never filed a claim before, and I am not sure I really want it to be honest, the whole pride thing and all that, but by the same token I have been paying into the system in one job or another for 23 years now, and technically it is there just for this purpose, so I probably should make use of it.

I am getting ahead of myself however, either that or I am throwing chronological order out the window in favor of some other retelling of events that would make no sense whatsoever, so back to Tuesday post interview we go.

After the job interview, I did a little more Christmas shopping downtown. It is probably my favorite place to shop, just being able to get caught up in the city bustle and actually being forced to walk from store to store as opposed to being trapped in some suburban mall . If you are going to Christrmas shop, you have to be willing to brave the elements, though Tuesday was a tad bit warmer han it had been, so it wasn't all that bad. Plus I was just looking for a few last minute items, so I had an idea of where I wanted to go, just not what I wanted to get. A quick duck into Burlington Coat Factory deprived me of about $50, but it was well worth it, I came out with a set of serving bowls, an appetizer tray, an electric window scraper and a web camera. I almost went for the set of Christmas dishes that were marked down to $15, but I hate buying dishes that only get used one time a year, just seems like a waste of cupboard space to me, so I passed on them and set about getting back to the apartment and preparing for when my family would come that night to pick me up and take me home for the holidays. It is a good thing I said Tuesday night, because I still had bundles to do. I managed to toss out about two full bags of trash, get the majority of my dishes washed and gather up laundry to do when I got home, about three loads. Trust me, I could have brought more home to wash, but I didn't want the holiday to be nothing but doing chores, so three loads of clothes seemed to be a good cutting off point.

My mom's husband arrived about 10:30 pm and we loaded up the truck with the gifts I had bought as well as my laundry and other stuff I would need for the holiday, like my camera and cool stuff like that and off we were. It started raining a little on the way home, something that wouldn't have seemed possible a few days earlier with the sub zero wind chills, but it was getting warmer as the week went on (it would actually reach 70 degrees by Saturday), and all was fine until we got about halfway back when we realized that the rain was hitting the road, which was still colder than the air temp, so it was freezing on the ruads, which meant we had to slow down a bit, but we still arrived in one piece.

Sorry, stepped away from the computer for a bit, had some errands to run, fetch my mail, and order some din din. Found a new place on campusfood.com, and if the grub pans out, I may order from them more frequently. 10 whole wings, fries, cole slaw, slice of german chocolate cake and a 2 liter of pepsi for 13.38. Hopefully it will be money well spent.

Anyway back to our story. So I make it back home Tuesday night and unload all of my stuff form the truck, which basically meant I ice skated into the house, as the porch and the driveway were also frozen, but I managed to not fall on my ass which is a good thing. I am pretty good at not falling on my ass, mind you I might slip and slide and do some horrid herky jerky white boy dance moves to keep from falling, but I take pride in the fact that I rarely end up on my ass.

Rather than make anything, we just ran out and got a pizza for dinner, given how late it was when I got home, that just made things simpler. Plus it was Papa Johns, probably my favorite of the chain pizza places, with Dominos a distant second, then Vocelli, Fox's and Pizza Hut bringing up the rear.

With my belly full, I watched a little TV, they now have satellite TV to which I have found if I ever get it, I may never get off of my ass again, there was always something I could watch someplace out there. Of course I had to suffer through some rather bad TV choices during my stay, like that god awful Zoom, a stupid Dosney movie for which I felt dumber after having watched it, and some schmaltzy holiday stuff on the Hallmark channel, but when I had the remote, I was watching stuff I hadn't seen in ages or always wanted to see, so it was good in that regard.

So after late night munchies and some TV watching, I headed off to wrap the Christmas Eve gifts for the family gift exchange. I drew my cousin Brandi's name, of course I already told you the big help I got in trying to figure out just what to get her, but never fear, I did come up with something. I did get her a $25 gift card for Aeropostle, but I also snagged a jewelry box and a nail polish kit with 6 diferent polishes, a electric cuticle, nail filing thingy and studs for her finger nails. As luck would have it, it turned out she had my name also, and ended up getting me two gift cards, $25 to Barnes and Noble and $25 to Wal Mart. I never know what to buy for Christmas Eve, because there is an unwritten rule about how much to spend, but by the same token you never want to be that guy that is el cheapo, so the fact she and I ended up spending about the same amount alleviated some fears on my part.

So Christmas Eve I stumble out of bed, had my coffee and bagel for breakfast, tried fixing the computer, with little to no luck, installed some virus software that Mike bought for the computer and got ready to spend time with the family. Mind you this was a more problematic venture than it needed to be for the simple fact that my mom and her husband have some sort of boycott going on. Last year when we did the family get together, they decided they didn't want their names in the drawing for this year. They used some excuse at the time that they were going to be out of town visiting Mike's parents in Arizona, but given Mike drives trucks for WalMart, I can't see them giving him extended time off during their busiest time of the year, so I am betting their was some other inane reasoning involved but that is just the type of stuff I don't want to get involved in, so whatever the petty disagreements may or may not be, I want no part of them. The problem arises though, that since I am a city guy by nature and haven't had a car in ages, due to the damage that comes with street parking in Pittsburgh public transit comes much cheaper than the costs involved with numerous insurance claims. That being said, it does leave me at the mercy of others when I go home, a position I don't like being in all that much. So while my mom and Mike weren't doing the Christmas Eve thing, I was still relying on them for a ride to it. Mind you, they were going to do some visiting with other members of the family that live nearby, so they would have been in the area anyway but it meant they dictated when I came and went, which ended up sucking because we were all having a good time just being us, which is probably the best way to describe it, when my ride showed up and I had to leave. We hadn't even drawn names yet for next year, thankfully they tossed my name in in absentia and drew one for me as well. As long as we are doing the Christmas Eve thing I want my name in. The only bright spot to leaving early was that I did get to see my cousin Melanie before we went home for the night. Mel was up from Dallas where she works for Gamespot and the travel arrangemensts she had to make to be home for the holiday required her to be flying out late Christmas morning.

I think we got home around 11pm or so, which was fine, I still had plenty of gifts to wrap and put under the tree. My mom always goes crazy at Christmas, so unlike Christmas Eve where I was worried about how much I should or shouldn't spend, I knew there would be no way I could spend the kind of coin my mom would drop, so I didn't try. And given when I asked what her and Mike wanted I was told nothing, that is just free reign for me to buy whatever I want. Some years I will buy one big gift for them both and just a few smaller items, this year I just bought a bunch of medium sized gifts instead. I managed to get them all wrapped and under the tree by 1am or so, though my wrapping of presents leaves a lot to be desired. My mom asked if I needed bows for any of my packages, yeah, something else for me to fuck up. No thanks, my wrapping is very much unbow-worthy.

Christmas morning was the day of the unwrapping of gifts and the stuffing of faces and even the free coffee at Sheetz, which they do every Christmas and New Years Day, but something tells me the amount of money spent on the season would be greatly diminished if it were called Coffee Day instead of Christmas. Still it is a nice treat for the patrons stopping in for last minute items on Christmas day to be able to grab a coffee on the house as well. Anyway, my mom went about making a big Christmas dinner, turkey stuffing, the whole nine yards, and she asked if turkey was okay, since I had tuna noodle stuff and microwave burritos for Thanksgiving, turkey was quite fine with me. We had to stop back and my grandma's house Christmas day, so we could drop off the stuff we had for her, and she usually gives us all cards with money in them. I could do a checklist with the stuff on my list and tell you what all I got. Let's do that, shall we by journeying into the Wayback Machine, circa Nov 25th, 2008.

 

My own radio show - no, I didn't even get a nibble on the resumes I sent out before I left for Christmas.

Money - I got $20 from my grandma, so this gets checked off of the list.

Groceries - Mom did pack up some food for me to bring home, but we didn't do a specific trip to the store just to stock my cupboards. That being said we did visit the grocery store on Saturday, as my mom wanted to get a few things for dinner. She was going to make spaghetti and meatballs, though in actuality she used rotini but lets skip the pasta semantics for the time being. As we wandered through the store, I was the ulitmate in used car salesmen. She is pawing through the meat section, looking for ground beef to make meatballs, when I, in my smarmy mode, said, "You know, they have these 3 lb bags of premade meatballs here,buy one get one free. What can I do to get you into these meatballs today? No hassle, and probably cheaper than buying ground beef and making your own. Please join us in the 21st century and embrace the brave new meat world." Needless to say, we bought the premade meatballs. Then I was switching out bagels she bought for cheaper ones. I am just like that when it comes to shopping for food. Had I caught it in time, I could have saved her a dollar on the italian bread, but she grabbed it on our way out of the store and I didn't have time to run to the back of the store and get the cheaper stuff, I guess you can't win them all.

A haircut - No, and I am thinking I will be needing one here in the very near future, so it is off to Supercuts for me.

A quiet breakfast of an bagel with cream cheese, coffee and a copy of the Washington Post - I had coffee and bagels most days for breakfast, though my mom always buys that flavored cream cheese. Since no one else there eats bagels or cream cheese I know she gets them for me, but really, plain cream cheese is just better. It goes back to the fruit in the beverage argument, same rule applies for cream cheese. No WashPo with breakfast, but I did keep my head in Pittsburgh Post Gazette's when possible, so I wasn't without a paper, but if given a choice, the WashPo is just better.

The West Wing on DVD (any season but the first and last, whcih I already have) - No DVDs this year, which is fine, I watch so little TV that they aren't necessary and most of the West Wing episodes are on surfthechannel now, so I can watch them whenever I want.

Pogo stuff (membership, albums or gems) - No Pogo stuff either. I did find enough points to get a second free month off of Coke caps, and I have found another 25 points since making it back to Pittsburgh, so I have a very outside chance of getting a third free month.

A Philly Cheesesteak - No, but we did order hoagies Friday for lunch and I got a steak then, but not a Philly steak, and trust me, there is a vast difference, it is like eating wings and eating Buffalo wings (from say the Anchor Bar) and saying they are the same. They just aren't.

A good set of HD rabbit ears for my TV - I did get new rabbit ears, but I want to move some of my furniture around including my TV which may end up changing their relative effectiveness.

Books (ask for specific authors/titles) - No books, but I have been struggling through my last radio station book, I am about a third of the way done, I just don't find it compelling enough to be one I can't put down. I have put it down and haven't bothered picking it up in better than a week now.

Pants - two pair of jeans and a pair of dress pants

Socks - two packages of socks

Shirts - two dress shirts

Sleep - This wasn't nearly as needed after losing my job as it was when I first added it to my list.

PAT bus pass - No, but I doubt anyone in my family really knows what one of these are, as they are well out of the typical Port Authority bus area.

Miroslav Satan Penguins jersey - No, but given how he has been playing recently, no goals in 6 games, he isn't worthy of having his jersey worn by someone as cool as me.

Bookshelf - Actually got two of these, which is part of the reason I want to move my furniture around. Maybe after I get them put together

A maid - no, and let me tell you, cleaning is not fun.

A pliable female - no and let me tell you, solo sex is not fun.

Gift cards (Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart, Giant Eagle) - Well I mentioned two of them already, a $25 B&N card and a $25 WalMart card, my mom also gave me a $100 WalMart card and a $200 Visa gift card, which I wasn't sure if I should call cash or a gift card, but I will call it a gift card for purposes of this list.

Chad Vader DVD - No but again, all of this is available online, and I doubt anyone besides blog readers and internet geeks knows who Chad Vader is anyway.

Hockey tickets - No, but Fred did tell me he gets free tickets from his job from time to time and asked if I would liek to go if he has one that he can't get rid of. If it happens that would be cool, but hockey tickets in Pittsburgh aren't the easiest thing to come by, as most of the games are sold out, so if it happens grreat, if not, that is fine too.

A homemade pie - No homemade pie, but mom did send back with me some slices of store bought stuff, one slice of cheesecake, three slices of chocolate pie and a slice of pumpkin, so no complaints from me.

Better results for my fantasy hockey team - Yeah, like this was going to happen. Another 2-7-1 week and I have a firm grasp on last place now. The only redeeming thing fantasy wise was after winning my first fantasy football playoff game on the second tiebreaker 78-78, I won my semifinal matchup 103-75 to reach the finals and I won that game too, 112-68, due in large part to the fact I had the Philadelphia defense which got me 47 points in the choke job the Dallas Cowboys pulled on Sunday, meaning I am the league champion. Woohoo, I am officially all that and a bag of chips, at least until next year.

Postage stamps - I didn't get stamps either, mind you about the only thing I mail is my rent, so they weren't a priority or anything, but when people ask what I want, don't be surprised to see that the stupid little practical things are as cool if not moreso to me that the big showy gift that will sit on a shelf collecting dust.

That should conclude the list I posted earlier this year. Brief dinner update, the fries were okay, but they were those seasoned fries that I don't like all that much, just not a guy that likes eating breaded or battered stuff all that much, plain potato is fine thank you, the wings were good, I didn't expect whole wings, usually places cut them down, I prefer them whole myself, and they didn't put sauce on the wings, which was good as the hot sauce they sent on the side was very pedestrian, the cole slaw was okay, nothing spectacular but good and the oddest thing was they put two slices of bread in the bottom of the box with the wings and fries. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but the bread did a fine job sucking up the excess grease that comes with fried food, so it actually worked. If it was intentional then I wish more places would do it, if it wasn't, they might have dumb lucked themselves into something there. The cake was okay too, not homemade or anything, but it has been so long since I had German Chocolate cake, so I didn't care, it was good eatin. All told, probably about 2.5 out of 5 stars.

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Tuesday

Okay, I am on my third day of working on this blog, how about I just finish it already? I would but life continues to get in the way, today I had to run out and buy some groceries, not a lot, but I needed the New Years Eve fixins and what not and I don't have them on hand, so off to the store I went. I actually did the WalMart thing, so I could use the gift card monies, rather than spending greenbacks. So a few bags of food later I am back here in my apartment hoping that I can get geared up into continuing my ongoing holiday saga.

When last the story left off, it was Christmas Day and other than the normal holiday stuff not much happened. The only thing that happened was me being stupid, and leaving my camera at grandma's house when we went out to visit, which cut down on my picture taking a little, as it is harder to do without a camera on hand.

Friday was pretty uneventful, at least as far as I can remember. Mike called off of work, apparently he wasn't feeling well, my mom and I did the laundry I brought home, other than that it was a quiet day on the home front. That's fine with me, every now and then we all need a day to just gear down and do nothing.

Saturday Mike headed back to worked that morning, mom and I went out to visit my grandma again before I headed back to Pittsburgh on Sunday and to grab my camera that I left behind on Christmas. We then headed to Mouse and Mary's, one of the places I hadn't been yet since getting home and I didn't want to leave the area without stopping by for a visit. When we got there, Bob and Scott were in the driveway working on one of Scott's cars, taking off one set of rims and putting on another, and Bob's dog was running around the yard. When we got out of the car, it was still being hyper so Bob grabbed his dog so it didn't chase after everyone, my mom went inside and I stayed out to talk to Bob and Scott. I held out my hand thinking Bob's dog would calm down a little and instead it mistook my fingers for finger sandwiches and proceeded to gnaw on one. Mind you, I got my finger out of the dog's mouth relatively easily, it didn't clamp down too hard or anything, but is still managed to break skin in about 4 or 5 places. I just jammed my hand in my coat pocket, simply because I am not good at the sight of blood and as long as I couldn't see it, it didn't bother me all that much. It didn't hurt per se, but I knew if I saw blood it would seem worse than it was. We chatted outside while Scott changed all four rims, then headed in, which is when I took my first look at my hand, it looked far worse than it was, but at least it had quit bleeding. Bobby apologized profusely, asking if I needed to go to the hospital and what not and it really wasn't that bad. He was panicking more over it than I was. I just cleaned it up with a little soap and water and was fine, yet Bob, and then Mary, tried to get me to put antesceptic and bandaids on it, I refused, so they gave me a stack of them to take home.

With the Drama of the Bitten Finger out of the way, we sat around for a while an talked. I showed them by blog page, which they hadn't seen yet. Scott showed me some of the stuff he was tinkering with in World of Wacraft, though I think he is tired of the game, as he keeps running into assholes while playing the game. Assholes, on the internet? Surely you jest. He has been playing the game for over three years now, so I imagine just game fatigue may also be setting in.

Anyway, we left and did the shoppng venture that I mentioned in the Christmas list portion of the blog and had dinner. I tried again with no effect to fix the computer, I did get a service ticket number from Verizon, they are supposed to call within the next couple of days to see if they can fix the problem on their end if it is a modem problem. Other than that, the evening passed quietly.

Sunday we packed up the car and I headed back to Pittsburgh. Lots of stuff awaited me in my mailbox, my paycheck from the "O" , my booklet from the Unemployment office, a card from Leslie (thank you again) and a few pieces of junk mail. I started the unpacking detail, attaching my new anteena to the TV, putting food away, putting clothes in the dress and closet, and just being my ever productive self. We stopped on the way back to Pittsburgh for lunch at Kings. I saw they now have eggs on hamburgers as an option, so I ordered one of those, my mom got her usual, turkey sandwich with fries and gravy, and when we went to leave mom was going to leave a small tip, but since she wouldn't let me buy lunch, I threw an additional 5 bucks on the table for our waiter. He wasn't spectacular, but competent enough, and I know how much those jobs suck money wise, so it was money well spent.

Finally we get to stuff more recent, like since I started typing this blog. Monday was when I found out that I won the fantasy football league, which was cool and all, I didn't brag too much to the people I beat, after all, if they start talking smack, I can now just point to the scoreboard. That says it all. Anyway, Monday I cashed my check, and actually got my password from the unemployment office, so I filed my first two week claim online. I was hoping to hear from the newstand people, but no such luck. Not that I am in panic mode yet on the cash front, but it would be nice to be ahead of the game as opposed to behind. Still, with the owner out of town till Jan 7th, it could simply be that he doesn't want to hire anyone while he is away. I can dig that if that is the case. Other than that, Monday was pretty quiet, it is almost like the vacation I had scheduled I am taking anyway, which is good, had I still been at the radio station even while I would technically be off, I would worry about shit not getting done in my absense. Now, that just isn't a concern.

Oh well, I have posted the Christmas pics already, so I will not add them to this entry, rather I think we are done here. Bout damn time too.