Tying Up Loose Ends

Yes folks, it’s that time again…my next Kansas vacation is literally days away! I’m taking half a day off of work tomorrow to take care of last minute details and then leaving on Thursday morning. Quite obviously, you won’t hear from me until I return on the 21st, but I’ll make sure I update you all.

Before I go, I wanted to let everyone know about all the stuff that has been going on in my world lately.

My internship search is beginning to gear up. I got a letter back from the paper here in town saying that I was not chosen. Apparently, there were 42 applicants for one sports position…and as these things are concerned, I am vastly less experienced than a lot of my competitors.

I sent some more applications out, including to the paper in Wichita, so we’ll see how that goes. If I do land one of them, the new problem will be that I need a car, which I don’t have. As always, I’ll keep you posted.

I may have written about this in the past, but the university I attend is continuing to anally rape me. First, one of my required classes is full…it’s the only section being offered…and adding it will be difficult because of it’s nature.

I planned to take it next semester, but the instructor says it’s not being offered, since he is going on hiatus. That presents a problem since it IS required…so I have to go to the department chairperson’s office and basically beg him to add a section.

More on this situation as it develops.

To top it all off, California’s budget crisis ($34 billion shortfall) means that my tuition has gone up. After spending over $1,000 bucks just for classes, I have to pay another $72.

Bastards.

I am currently rebuilding my homepage. I started it in 1996 or something, and continued it until 2000. Then I lost interest, so it went dormant. I expect it to more accurately reflect who I am when it is done.

Lilly will be a year old in March. It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since she was born. She’s VERY close to walking on her own at this point, and she REALLY wants to talk, but that looks to be a bit further off.

She has a couple favorite toys right now, including a highly annoying “Banana in Pajamas” doll that sings the theme song, and a motion activated cat that meows when you pass in front of it.

She is fond of crawling into rooms she is not supposed to be in, arrowroot cookies, basketball, football, and boxing. She’s afraid of trees and bushes for some reason and hates having her feet tickled and not being able to stand.

A few nights ago, while on the phone with Marci during the National Championship game, a commercial came on for a smoking patch. In it, this guy is trying to ignore this cigarette dispensing machine. It proceeds to fire individual cigarettes at the back of his head. Upon seeing this, Marci starts to laugh. She knows that I cannot stand the fact that she smokes and I told her that the habit would have to be kicked once I moved to Wichita.

So she laughs at the commercial, at which point, we have the following conversation:

“Don’t laugh, that’s going to be you.”

“Okay, I can’t hold it in any more.”

“What?”

“I haven’t had a cigarette in 33 days.”

Needless to say, I was shocked, and happy. This had long been my only bone of contention with her in our relationship. Only days before, I had been thinking how much I wished she didn’t smoke because I didn’t want her to die and leave me. As it began to sink in, I began to cry.

I asked her what prompted her to quit. She said she was concerned when a cold she had hung on for two months. Other reasons included the fact that her brother and his wife quit, (although he still chews), and she wanted to start being healthier overall.

So I asked her why she hid it from me. She said she wanted to be sure she could do it, so as not to disappoint me. Thankfully though, she said that as proud as I was of her, she did NOT quit for me.

More work drama. Thank God for vacation.

Poor Annette. First, she has to deal with a long first semester at school…then three of her family members die in the same month…then she comes down with a cold…there is some drama surrounding the two weeks noticed she just served at her side job, and then there’s this:

She parks her car at a local apartment complex during the work day. Parking is impossible to find downtown without forking over a fortune, and she has the permission of the complex manager to do so, as long as she’s out by 5pm.

Yesterday, coming to work, she saw a man in the parking lot who got in her face about parking there. Apparently, he is the manager of the complex next door. She told him in no uncertain terms to mind his own business. When she got to her car last night, two 24 hour removal notices were plastered to her window…you know the type…the kind that leave the residue behind when u take them off.

Not only that, but her doors were keyed.

She first went to the complex manager of the lot she was in, and was told they had nothing to do with it. So, she went to the neighboring complex and confronted the man. He admitted putting the notices on the window but played dumb in regards to the keying.

She has filed a complaint with the police for vandalism and harassment and plans to call the man’s property management company to complain further.

I don’t know what, if anything, will come of all this, but I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Whew! Now, I feel much better!