Before...



and after...



IT IS GLORIOUS

(Sony Bravia 46" LCD with 1080p)

*tumbleweeds*

Whew! Apparently I haven't had much time to write LJ entries recently, because they've been few and far between. I feel like I need to catch up, even if it's only for me to keep track of all that's been going on in my life lately. So here's a list of stuff that's been going on since September that I should be writing about. Maybe I'll get to some of it. I just renewed my LJ membership for another year so I'm sticking around for now.

• I'm working on my Big Project full time now. Things were very busy during October and November, but becoming more manageable now. I don't work in Boston anymore (they gave away my cube), it's mostly at the client's office and a little bit of time at our Providence office.
  
• I went to Ann Arbor with Rob and visited Ollie back in late September. We went to the Wolverines (football) homecoming game, and I got these two giant foam wolverine claws. There was also Settlers of Catan.
  
• Dad has moved in with me (he gets his own subcategories).
  
• -----Dad freaks out about random things sometimes.
  
• -----Dad really really likes cutting coupons and going grocery shopping.
  
• -----Dad has a job as a security guard!
  
• -----Dad has a bed now.
  
• -----Dad is trying to train the dogs to poop together (rather than on separate walks).
  
• -----Dad is cold, but we're trying to conserve money and heat by closing off the front living room so we don't have to heat it (plus it's really drafty).
  
• I have been enjoying new and old TV shows, like House, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill (I know), Glee(!!!), Flash Forward, Supernatural, Fringe, and Smallville (no really, this is good again!).
  
• I got a new cell phone! It's a Droid Eris (not the Motorola Droid), and it is AWESOME in so many ways, I love it.
  
• I've seen a few movies, 2012 was so much fun with Kathy and drinks at Cinema de Lux. Where the Wild Things Are was awesome in IMAX.
  
• Speaking of Kathy, she works at Plimoth Plantation and we went to visit her a few weeks ago. It was rainy. She cooked pigs' feet.
  
• I went to a Patriots game for free and met Patriots cheerleaders while eating free food and drinking free drinks. Then I paid $8 for a souvenir cup filled with hot chocolate. Eh, totally worth it.
  
• I went down to Virginia to see my extended family in October so we could celebrate "Thanksgiving". There was much celebrating and it was very relaxing, and soon I will have another first-cousin-once-removed to buy stuff for.
  
• I went down to NJ/PA to see my other family members in November so we could celebrate the real Thanksgiving. My original first-cousin-once-removed Alec is still the cutest kid ever. Followed up by a trip to NYC to visit Rob and see Cornell and BU play to a tie in Madison Square Garden.
  
• I have a Christmas tree (though it's still undecorated, hoping to fix that tonight).
  
• I'm getting a new TV! I ordered it and it should be coming in any day now. Sony Bravia 46" LCD, 1080p, 60Hz, only ("only") $850.

That's probably enough for now. I am never gonna catch up on all that as it is. Is there other stuff I should be writing about? I'm sure I've forgotten a few things.

Dad found this recipe in his coupons a few weeks ago, and we decided to make it because it was just too ridiculous not to. It comes together surprisingly well!

Apple Maple Breakfast Bundt Recipe




( Hmm, that looks pretty good, but it's missing something. )

Shall we relive this sequence, which is one of the best that Gossip Girl has had in a while?

We shall.

Well, it appears that it finally happened. It seems as though my Big Project(TM) is really, truly, offically, and believably starting this week. We received the go ahead last Thursday, exactly 4 months from the day I started in New England. There was much whooping, clapping, backslapping, and even hugging going on between my coworkers. (Thankfully no one attempted to hug me. I mean, I enjoy a good hug between friends as much as the next guy, but not between people I hardly know at work.)

Today and tomorrow they're doing a pre-kickoff, which I was not invited to. But Wednesday is supposed to be the real kickoff which I am requested to attend, and probably the rest of the week too. And hopefully many more days from here on out! At least something's going well this month.

Does anyone else feel like LJ is kind of... dying? In the past few weeks, it seems to have gone way downhill in terms of post frequency. At first I chalked it up to people being on vacation, but now we're well into September. Sure, there's still very active communities (ONTD, etc.), and I've added a few RSS feeds to keep things moving along, but individual people seem to be posting over at Facebook and Twitter more than anything. On my Friends list, I have entries from two days ago that are still on the front page (in the 20 most recent). I'm guilty of this too, I haven't posted anything since the end of August. I've also been wondering, should I do that thing where my tweets get published here? That feels like cheating and I think it annoys people.

Quick update on me:

Work: Still, still, STILL waiting for my project to start. You know, the one I rushed back across the country and moved here to start ASAP on June 1st. The contract was signed before Labor Day, and maybe we're starting next week. Or maybe not. GAH! During my performance review last Friday (which went well enough), we discussed the new project and how much we don't know about it. What are the hours, what kind of setup will we have, am I getting a laptop/Blackberry, how busy will it be, who will be there and when. And if the damn thing would just start, these questions would be answered quickly. But until then, I just have no idea what the rest of this year will look like, and I'm hesitant to make too many plans.

Fun: Speaking of plans, Rob and I are going to Ann Arbor a week from Thursday to visit Ollie at UMich. We're going to a football game there at one of the largest stadiums in the country (100K), so that should be fun. Plans are also in place to go to the Chesapeake shores of Virginia in October to celebrate "Thanksgiving" with the extended family (no, we are not Canadian). Uhh, it's going to be kind of an ordeal to get there, but it should be fun too. Then... I guess I need to start thinking about real Thanksgiving. Heh, I'm sure that will be filled with drama.

Me: As for me, I'm doing pretty well, just trying to be patient for things to be more settled. I'm happy that fall is here, and cooler weather, and my favorite month soon enough. Last Wednesday I was really tired, feeling kind of emotional and heard a sad song on the way home, and almost posted a really depressing entry here about it. But then, I watched the Glee season premiere, and it was so enjoyable that it picked me right up, and the next day it felt silly to post about being depressed about anything. So... yeah, up and down.

This weekend I went around and got dimensions for the whole apartment. Why? To create a floor plan, of course! I love Microsoft Visio. Also, it was kind of fun figuring out how everything fit together. It's not always obvious that the protrusion in one room is actually the closet in another.

From my measurements, it seems like the apartment is roughly 1150 square feet, which is pretty big for just me, certainly bigger than any of my previous apartments. (That's excluding college, when I had roommates. Actually, this is probably about the same size as my senior year apartment in college. It has similar "character" too.) As you can see, my stuff is kind of S-P-R-E-A-D O-U-T, haha. One bedroom is completely empty, the "office" bedroom and dining room are pretty sparse. Oddly enough, my actual bedroom is crammed with stuff. No balcony furniture yet. Heh, the living room is nice, it just needs a bigger TV, and maybe a nice recliner/comfy chair. The reason the stairs look kinda weird is because they're spiral staircases (my place is on the second floor).

If you want to compare to my Atlanta apartment, or try to match it up with the pictures, or just tell me my Feng Shui is all wrong, go right ahead.

( Click to see the floor plan. )

Me: i kind of love how the dems are spinning this into "we must pass healthcare"
Me: like, i can envision teddy as gandalf
Kathy: hahahahahaha
Me: throwing himself at the balrog of republicans
Me: so that tiny hobbit barry will win the prize
Kathy: YOU SHALL PASS!
Me: exactly!!
Me: like, as my dying act, i will throw my body upon this healthcare bill!
Me: and then at barry's second inauguration, Teddy the White will appear
Kathy: heeee

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TedKennedy/story?id=8420408

In my first "what the #&*$ is wrong with new england" post, I noted that "I hate that I feel myself just adjusting to the way they are, sort of as a defense mechanism. You snap at me, and I snap back. It makes me feel more stressed, and kind of out of control." What follows are examples of this behavior that I've noticed in myself.

• I overreacted when people put down Seattle, a city I only lived in for a few months (but really enjoyed).
  
• One weekend I seemed to just shut down mentally and couldn't bring myself to do anything but watch movies and eat pancakes all weekend. Beforehand, I told several people that I wanted to "make, like, a thousand pancakes and drench them in syrup." Who in their right mind says such a thing?
  
• I've had increasingly dark thoughts about the assholes that run stop signs on my street (like, don't even pretend to slow down) when I'm walking the dogs at night. I kind of want to run up to their car windows in my old man slippers and shout, "HEY JERKFACE, DON'T YOU REALIZE WE HAVE CHILDREN IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. SERIOUSLY, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM."
  
• When Amy suggested that I seemed tense, hopped up and twitchy in recent emails and blog posts, and maybe needed to cut back on my coffee (you might need to know Amy to understand how funny this is), my response was along the lines of, "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT CAN'T I POST WITHOUT BEING QUESTIONED GODDAMN LEAVE ME ALONE." Thankfully she did not take it personally.
  
• Similarly, when my cousins were trying to figure out where to host our annual reunion via email, I had to stop myself from sending out an email that basically stated, "HAS ANYONE DECIDED YET WHATS TAKING SO LONG I HAVE OTHER PLANS TO MAKE." As you can tell, the capslock is a key indicator.
  
• Speaking of coffee, my consumption IS way up. I started a little heavy on the coffee when I first started working out of college (2 mugs a day), then noticed it was giving me withdrawal headaches on the weekend, so I started scaling back to no more than 1 mug a day, and not every day. When I got to Boston, my consumption went up again, and the weekend headaches returned. Then Kathy pointed out the problem wasn't that I was drinking too much coffee, it's that I wasn't drinking enough. You see, if your system caffeine level is sufficiently high, you can just coast through the weekend! Genius!
  
• On one particularly busy week, I remarked to Kathy, "I was dreading this week, but started to feel a lot better once i was buried in work today." She responded that it's par for the course living in New England. I should expect to "drink your vat of coffee, then you go in to work and don't expect to come out possibly for weeks."

I feel like there should be one of those health class videos for everyone who moves to the area. It would say things like, "When you move to New England, you may notice certain changes in your body and mind. These are perfectly natural and part of the assimilation process."

I just called to setup TV service for my apartment. Since I moved in, I've only had the internet hooked up. The guy did try to sell me more stuff (like phone service), but wasn't overly pushy. He started out by asking what I wanted ("uhh... really just the network channels in HD and a DVR") and set me up with a plan that gives me exactly that. He also helpfully gave me the price difference for going up to standard cable if I choose to upgrade later (but again, not pushy at all). He suggested they schedule the technician to turn on the service on Friday (from the outside, I don't have to be home) so it's ready to go on Saturday when I pick up the box.

I'm... kind of happy about this? I feel like I got good customer service and I'm not being screwed in any way. How will this go wrong?

Don't get me wrong; I enjoy my work. But I don't enjoy it more than my real life.

People in New England? Do not understand how to leave work. They're here late almost every day, working on some meaningless deadline. Granted, a few years ago when I was starting out, I didn't understand it either. I'd try to be in before the boss, and stay a little after he left. Sometimes I wouldn't get home until 7pm, for no particular reason. Thankfully, my boss gave me some good advice back then. He said, "Don't bother, kid. No one notices. If you stay late in a pinch to support the group, people notice that. But on a normal day, when there's no looming deadline? Go home. Staying here will only make you hate the place. Work will be here tomorrow. Life is waiting for you at home."

And he was absolutely right, although it took me awhile to realize it. I think part of it is just being assertive. You have to stop thinking, gee I'll look like I don't love my job if I leave at 5pm every day. But you have a life and other obligations, and your boss should respect that. And I might add, having a wife and kids is not the only kind of "other obligation." A few weeks ago, my coworkers asked me what I was doing Wednesday night that week. I responded, "I have plans to be in my apartment in Pawtucket." They guffawed at this. After all, I'm a young, single guy! What do I have to do? Hey, I have to do all the work that you get to split between your spouse and 2.5 kids! You know what being single means to me? I GET TO DO WHATEVER I WANT, even if it's spending my Wednesday evening at home doing laundry! (As my cousin would say, that's singles discrimination!)

The best example of this is vacations. It's always tempting to try to schedule your vacation around work. Oh, we have that big deadline at the end of July, so I'll take my vacation in August. You know what? That never works. There's always another deadline, and it will most likely change or be superseded. You can't schedule around these things. My personal time is precious and fixed, and work constantly moves around. For a while earlier in the summer, I was told that I might have to work on Labor Day weekend, because we would be too busy. There's big deadlines, we'll be rushing to get them done, blah blah blah. My Labor Day plans are pretty flexible, so it wasn't a huge deal if I had to cancel (although I didn't want to). But that concern completely evaporated due to forces outside my control, so I worried about it for no reason at all. Coming up in September and October, I've got two more trips planned, and these can't be canceled easily because I'm flying out. I started to worry about these too. Would they be in jeopardy? But eventually I just thought, screw it. My plans are fixed. Work is fluid. Life isn't gonna wait forever.

I'm thinking of doing a series of posts about life in New England. I'm going to call it "What the #&*$ is wrong with New England?!" Because really, the people here are nuts, and the worst part is, they don't know they're nuts. They think their behavior is perfectly normal, and probably don't even realize that things are different in other parts of the country. And I hate that I feel myself just adjusting to the way they are, sort of as a defense mechanism. You snap at me, and I snap back. It makes me feel more stressed, and kind of out of control. So before I become fully assimilated, I want to have a record of the nuttiness. I want to remember that once upon a time, I lived in a place where things were different. Hardly a day goes by when I don't scream out "SERIOUSLY, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM." Usually this is to myself, or in an angry blog post/text message/tweet. Someday I'm going to scream it out at the offender, because they'll fucking deserve it. See, there I go again. New England brings out the Angry Dan.

There's a general theme: people are always in a rush. This might be the underlying cause of most of my complaints. I HATE being rushed. I don't do things fast, nor do I want to learn how. Everything is done at the last minute (hence the rushing). Communication is abbreviated and curt (due to the rushing). I always feel like things are done half-assed. We get it right eventually, but when you don't plan something out, don't adequately communicate about it, and then rush through it at the last minute, it just means you missed a thousand little things along the way. And then you have to deal with the thousand things quickly, because you're already past your deadline. You get the idea.

And it applies to a whole cross-section of life here. Work is hectic - okay fine, probably everyone says that about their job. How about driving places is hectic. I'm not talking lots of traffic, I've seen plenty of that everywhere I've lived. I'm talking about batshit nutjobs all over the road. I've never spent so much time in the "slow" lane before I got here, because even there I feel like I'm going too slow. Even talking to people is hectic. People do that thing where they try to finish your sentences, apparently because I'm talking too slowly. This flusters me to no end. I have a tenuous enough grasp on conversation skills as it is without you trying to finish my sentences. Is eating hectic? I don't think I've experienced that yet. But it often involves driving somewhere and talking to someone, so there you go.

More to come.

This is so silly, but I love it.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/08/68497426/1

The best line of President Obama's exchange with Philadephia talk show host Michael Smerconish actually came before the two went on air. Making chit-chat as they waited for their cue, Smerconish kiddingly asked the president if he could reveal anything from the "book of secrets."

(...)

After telling Smerconish that, "I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you," Obama added that he didn't want the radio host messing around with any of the buttons on his presidential desk.

I can't take credit for this, and don't know if all of it is 100% true, but I like it anyway.

I found it posted by commenter Len_RI in an AJC article about Barney Frank's recent outburst at a healthcare town hall meeting.

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by socialist electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the socialist clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the socialist radio to one of the FCC regulated channels to hear what the socialist National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using socialist satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of socialist US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the socialist drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as kept accurate by the socialist National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my socialist National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the socialist roads build by the socialist local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the socialist Environmental Protection Agency, using socialist legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the socialist US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the socialist public school. If I get lost, I can use my socialist GPS navigation technology developed by the United States Department of Defense and made available to the public in 1996 by President Bill Clinton who issued a policy directive declaring socialist GPS to be a dual-use military/civilian system to be managed as a national socialist asset.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the socialist workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the socialist USDA, I drive my socialist NHTSA car back home on the socialist DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the socialist state and local building codes and socialist fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the socialist local police department.

I then get on my computer and use the socialist internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and browse the socialist World Wide Web using my graphical web browser, both made possible by Al Gore’s socialist High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991. I then post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

It was time for the dogs' annual checkup, so I took them last Friday. I took them to Banfield, which is a chain of clinics associated with Petsmart. I was impressed with their thoroughness and the time they took to get full medical histories on both the dogs (all kept electronically). Other than being kind of a handful to have them both there, plus having to fill out all the new patient paperwork, it was mostly uneventful. They both got all their vaccines and the usual tests (ka-ching, ka-ching). Duncan seems to be in perfect health, more or less.

Dino is somewhat less healthy, but that's always been true. When the vet questioned the age I put down for him (5 years old), I told her I didn't know for sure, that was just based on what his last vet guessed. She said it was likely he was much older, maybe closer to Duncan's age (10). That would certainly explain his old man tendencies.

I told her he's always been a pretty lazy dog, content to sleep all day, although he'll run around to play if given the chance. He also seems to have constant skin issues. Even when fleas are controlled, he has really oily skin, and is always scratching. She thought this might indicate a thyroid condition (lol), and recommended getting some blood work done to check. She also noted that he has a heart murmur, and is "kind of lumpy," also indicative of him being older. Poor little guy, he will bankrupt me one day, I just know it.

On Saturday we took a nice ride in the car, down to the kennel I'm taking them to for Labor Day weekend. It's a nice place: secluded, quiet, with nice big yards to run around in. The staff seemed friendly. It's a bit of a hike, but it's on my way out of town so not too bad. Even if I was flying somewhere, it's at least on the same side of Providence as the airport.

I went to see (500) Days of Summer yesterday. Really great, fun movie. I've said it before and I'll say it again. We really need more movies and TV shows that spontaneously break out into singing/dancing numbers. I dare you to watch this and not smile and laugh.

Well, my first summer in New England continues to fly by. I was going to say I can't believe it's August already, but really it's like the middle of August already. Even my exclamations of time flying by are dated!

On the work front, I'm still doing the long commute to Boston 3 days a week. The Big Project(TM) was on track to start August 10. Then it was on track for August 17. Now we're pushed to August 24. They keep trying, though. I have reached a state of zen buddha-esque calmness on the subject. Okay, not really, but most days it does not bother me. I was thrust into a 2-week maelstrom of a project recently, and it was hectic and stressful, but a good learning experience, so I'm grateful for that. I made cool diagrams! Seriously, I want to frame one of them, it's so cool.

On the subject of friends, Kathy finally got a job, so that was reason to celebrate at Luxe Burger last week. I had guacamole, salsa and pepper jack cheese on mine, with a side of the gorgonzola tater tots (*foodgasm*). Also, it was Liz's birthday over the weekend, so we celebrated that with a BBQ at her new (and really great) apartment. You know what? It's awesome to be able to celebrate random special (or not-so-special) occasions in my friends' lives, and for them to be close by to celebrate the ones in mine. I'm grateful for that too.

Speaking of friends, this week Susan is making her annual pilgrimage to the east coast. She's flying into Providence on Thursday night and staying with me, then off to Boston, Maine, and NYC to visit other people, and eventually to the annual Labor Day Weekend in the Poconos, which I'm looking forward to as well. After that, there's a trip to see Ollie in Ann Arbor in late September, and a trip to the Chesapeake Bay in late October with the extended family. And then, BU/CU game in NYC over Thanksgiving? I guess that's next. So much stuff in the pipeline, it's crazy! The apartment is still kind of a mess, half moved-in, kinda dirty, and in need of repairs/decoration, but whatever. It's too hot to do that stuff, and there's more exciting things going on!

And finally, y'all, I have a problem. Like, a serious addiction. It's out of control. ( It's a cappella. )

It almost passed by unrecognized, but last Saturday, July 25th, was the fourth anniversary of me becoming a grown-up! That was when, in 2005, I reported for my first day of work at Edwards and Kelcey in West Chester, PA. The office is still there, although people have come and gone, including me. I am still with the same company, albeit in a different location, and we no longer call ourselves "EK" since we were absorbed by a much larger beast corporation. At four years, this would be the second longest commitment I've made in my life (the first being Cornell for 5 years). During Summer 2005, I also bought my first car, rented my first apartment by myself, and started this blog.

Perhaps this is why last Saturday I seemed to regress a bit and, unable to bring myself to do anything productive, simply sat around watching movies and eating pancakes all weekend. No, really, I had this insane craving for like a thousand pancakes drenched in maple syrup. New England is doing strange things to me. Here's what I watched:

( Netflix Instawatch is evil )

I'm getting a little tired of hearing people in New England talk about "all this rain" and how "this is how it must be to live in Seattle."

Ahem.

In June, Providence received 4.03 inches of rain. It rained 19 out of the 30 days in June. A rainy month, to be sure! But you know what it was like in Seattle? SUNNY AND DRY! It only rained 4 DAYS, for a whopping total of 0.29 inches! That's a little over 1/16 the amount of rain we received in the northeast.

Okay, I hear the objections. That was "rainy June" in New England. A common occurrence, one of the few months when it does that, etc. And it certainly was rainy in Seattle earlier in the year; I can vouch that it rained quite a bit in March because I was there.

So June's behind us, right? Except when you consider that in July, Providence has received 8.19 inches of rain! That's double what it received in "rainy June" AND THERE'S STILL A WEEK LEFT IN JULY. It's rained 10 out of 23 days in July (so far). But you know what the weather was like in Seattle? SUNNY AND DRY!!! It's rained a grand total of two days in Seattle so far this month, for a staggering total of 0.06 inches!! We've received over 130 times more rain in Providence than Seattle in July!

Is it another fluke? Skewed because of the nor'easter we just received? The 10-day forecast in Providence (taking us into August now) shows a decent chance of rain on 8 out of the next 10 days. Average high somewhere around 78-82. In Seattle, the average high over the next 10 days is pushing 90 degrees. And you know how many days out of the next 10 are forecast to rain in Seattle? ZERO.

So everyone just needs to STFU about Seattle right now.