Happy Friday the 13th!

Had a rather long day yesterday, but it was good. Worked some overtime again (big surprise, may happen again today), but made a concerted effort to get to the gym afterwards. Succeeded, then had my ass handed to me by said gym. Politely, but firmly, declined to pay an extra $300 - $600 for a "Personal Trainer Package" as (barring profit from the sale of my organs) I am not made of money. For the time being I'll simply have to try & muddle through figuring out the machines & their use on my own.

Raced back to the apt.to clean up & change, then sped over to meet people (albeit late) for wings. Didn't have a whole lot to eat earlier in the day and after the gym I was SO very hungry. Had grilled chicken fingers w/the sauce, though, instead o/buffalo wings. Go me.

Slept better last night than I have in a really long time. I think I only woke up once, which is kind of a big deal considering I usually do at least twice, usually three or four times a night. Got up this morning and, though I was a little tired for about the first 1/2 hour, felt great after that and have since. If this is what going to the gym makes a person feel like every time they visit, I can see why it's so addictive. Can't wait to try out the yoga class next week. :)

Have a ton to finish today before I leave work. Depending on when time that is may actually be able to hang out w/Katiedid for the first time since last week to run around Georgetown & do some window shopping, which would be supah-keen as I've not been down there in awhile.

All righty, must head back to work before I become all distracted again. More later.

~E.

A very busy Tuesday...

Few quick things, then back to work for me:

1. Petunia's to give birth @ some point today and I'm trying very hard to concentrate on work because I'm terribly excited to meet the little man. She was originally scheduled for inducement at 7a, but it was pushed back a bit & (I believe) it should all ready have taken place about an hour ago. I can't WAIT to see the Cups after work. :D
   
   
2. I have one HELL of a lot of expense reports to do today & am really, really, *really* hoping I don't have to stay late to process them so I can still make it to the hospital after work by a decent hour.
   
   
3. I also have as much procurement to handle. Good Lord.
   
   
4. I'd really like it if my co-workers would quit dropping things off on my desk, (ranging from empty shipment boxes to computer parts to discarded batteries of all kinds), expecting that I will simply "take care of it" and make it go someplace magical they apparently can't possibly visit themselves...like the trash bin. These are grown men. Usually they've longer legs than mine as they're often taller, which means it *should* be even easier for them to traverse the extra 10' it takes to put whatever-that-is in its proper place and not in my workspace. Geez o'flip.
   
   
5. I’m excited to do fitness things this week. Also, depending on my paycheck & subsequent bills, I may be able to overhaul my diet which would be excellent.
   
   
6. I'd also like to actually hit the club this Sat.as I've not gone the past two weeks.

That is all. More later.

~E.

Never enough time or coffee...

I’ve a lot to do & am re-prioritizing as I type this, so I've got a few minutes. First off, I can't believe it's all ready freakin' Thursday. The Hell? Could someone please tell me where the rest of the week went? Damnation. I need an extra day or so before everyone & their mother comes back to the office. Come Monday, soon as they all walk back in that door, I'll be immediately swamped with last-minute requests and "crises" (which almost never are) and everyone will again be under the mistaken belief that they are each the most important and unique little snowflake on the planet right then, when the only one who's ever really right about that is the über-boss. But I'll have to pretend like they're each #1 on my list (they often are, different list), which means getting a ton out of the way before that starts.

I feel like being quieter for the next few days. Was considering club stuff this weekend, but I've been out an awful lot lately. Even though I didn't go out at all last weekend, I still haven't spent enough time back @ the apt.on personal stuff or just dumb, quiet things I like to do. Think the only plans I'll make will be wings this evening (probably), seeing my family @ some point this weekend, and a friend's b-day party Saturday night.

Aside from those three things, I need to do/would like to do at least some of the following before next week starts:

• ALL of my laundry as opposed to little snippets of it here & there.
  
  
• Clean the bathroom again.
  
  
• Vacuum my room (it's been awhile).
  
  
• Find all of my pajama pants, then wear them (not all at once). I don't have that many, I've misplaced two pair, it's winter, I miss them & I've just ripped a hole in the leg of one of my favorites, damn it.
  
  
• Spend an entirely unacceptable amount of time on my computer doing things of absolutely no importance whatsoever.
  
  
• Reorganize files on laptop, delete extraneous crap, and move as much as possible off the hard drive & over to my external.
  
  
• Use part of previously mentioned, completely ridiculous amount of time on comp.doing nothing but adjusting, renaming, and uploading a bajillion & 1/2 LJ icons, because messing around with pictures and icons is one of my favorite things to do.
  
  
• Adjust music currently loaded onto my iPod, then acquire more as I do not have enough hip-hop/rap or classical, but I DO have too much 'Blondie' and I don't know how that happened.
  
  
• Play ‘Guitar Hero’ (I will not get to do this). Staniel taught me how to play bass and even though it’s only a fake, plastic, mini version of a bass AND I have to put it on the “5yr.olds play better than you” level (yes, this means the only thing I do is strum in time with the little clicky thing) I still had fun and felt a little like a very silly living room badass. :)

Okay, now I am hungry & have to go back to work. That is all! More later.

~E.

Holy Hannah, I've been busy...

Y'know, after being off work since the afternoon o/Christmas Eve, it's taking some serious work to really get back into the swing of things. I'm having a really awful time concentrating on anything today & it's a struggle not to roam the internet. I'm compromising by running an industrial Pandora channel in the background and typing this entry up in Notepad during breaks from today’s tasks.

My holiday time off was actually *way* more social than I originally planned, which was fantastic. I spent very little time @ the apt., returning briefly to do laundry or grab something before going back out again. Stayed w/the folks Christmas Eve & Christmas Night, then headed back to the apt.on the 26th. I was supposed to hit one or more of three Christmas parties to which I'd been invited, but for some reason I was feeling kind of off-kilter so I didn’t follow up on either. Had it not been for Michael's unrelenting insistence that I get over to the ALL Tower & hang out w/the crew for once, I'd have likely just stayed home & watched movies 'til I crashed, but I listened to him & ended up having a really good time & feeling better as a result.

Sat.night I just stayed in, apparently the *same* night that everyone else on the planet decided to head out to Spellbound that evening. ::chuckles:: I guess it was a shame I didn't know about it, but honestly I was perfectly happy to just go home, fall over, curl up & sleep that night b/c I was exhausted.

Sunday I hit the folks' house, helped my Mom, then went to Katiedid's where we stayed up *far* too late making 2 mammoth vats of stew while bouncing around the kitchen being rowdy & ridiculous to industrial and hair metal. I was supposed to stay the night in Rockville, but about 6:30a I got a call from Pat. The poor guy'd accidentally locked himself out o/the apt.& no one else w/a spare key was in town, so I jetted (have to remember to get a few things back from Katie's house) & headed back to let him in just before he headed out to work.

Tuesday I went to Hampton w/Katie & Nicholas to visit their friend Johnny & hit up a club. I haven't had that much fun at a club in forever (it's held @ Wave on Wednesdays for anyone reading this). The turnout was full, the dance floor was never mostly empty, the music was good & most importantly it didn't seem that anyone really had much of an attitude about club status/popularity/whatever-the-Hell, etc. The crowd was comprised of a *lot* of new blood, there were all kinds of diff.people enjoying the Hell out o/themselves on the dance floor and I didn't really notice any of the disdainful looks being flung one way or the other that's a bit more obvious in other scenes. It was a great time and I'd love to go back.

Party at Johnny's after the club, crashed out around ??? o'clock, then packed up & headed back to No.VA the next day after a quick stop at Waffle House (hash browns!). Went to Kohl's for my first time on the way back, met Nicholas's parents (they're great & make me want to make them food of some sort), then back to Reston. Showered, changed, then back out to the ALL Tower w/Katie, Nicholas & Dave to hang out for a bit before returning to Reston for movies & pajamas. Good stuff.

Last night no one was really feelin' like wings, so Nicholas, Katie & I decided to see 'Gran Torino' instead, meeting up w/Dave beforehand. I loved this film. I really like Clint Eastwood, always have, but the film itself was fantastic in so many ways and I think there were some pertinent facets of this movie that weren't necessarily advertised as strongly as others. It made me laugh, it made me tear up, it made me slap my hands over my mouth & my eyes but out in shock. I don't really want to go into more detail about it at the moment, so I'll simply say I seriously recommend it.

After the movie we were hungry as Hell, so off to the 24hr.Korean BBQ in Annandale. Sushi wasn't available (damn!) but the food we got was pretty damned good. I got the Jap Chae (basically sliced beef w/sauteed vegetables over glass noodles) w/boiled dumplings as an appetizer and there was NO way I could finish everything, not even close. Everyone seemed to like what they got & went home full & happy.

So that was my holiday! Good times for everyone & far too much food. I'm actually making a New Year's resolution this year (I never bother with these usually) to join a freakin' gym & ACTUALLY GO. I'm tired of feeling blech about my physical appearance b/c I weigh too much and I want to actually do something about it. Plus, even though getting into an exercise routine is difficult for me, I *always* feel better once I've started, so my goal is to've decided on a fitting membership by the end o/Jan. I think I can do that. I'd also like to look into yoga. :)

That’s all for now. More later.

~E.

Hm...

Got a few different options for socializing this evening but think I may stay in after all, not sure yet. Not feelin' quite the thing but I'll see how the rest of the day goes.

Christmas with the family was lovely & it was nice seeing everyone in one place for more than just a couple hours. It's harder these days to see the older of my siblings since they both have crazy schedules between Bri's school & bartending and Kev's theatre tours. It'd be nice to figure out a way to keep in touch with them on a more regular basis. Maybe that'll be something I can work on in the new year.

I hope everyone's had a lovely holiday thus far. :) Now I'm off to take care of some dishes & such.

More later.

~E.

Please allow me to adjust my pants, so that I may dance the good time dance...

In case you were wondering, I've been listening to a lot of Clutch in the past few days, specifically 'Blast Tyrant', 'Beale Street' and 'Robot Hive/Exodus'. Day before yest., "The Mob Goes Wild" got stuck in my head for no reason & wouldn't leave, so I've been playing the band since (interspersed with various bits of punk and faster-paced indie) while driving around and running work errands.

Things've been busy as Hell in the past several weeks, which is great but hasn't given me a lot of time to catch up w/people I haven't talked to in awhile. I've started a new job doing admin.& operations work (similar tasks to my last job) with an engineering company over in Chantilly that designs and builds flight simulators for the Navy & USMC. It's a smaller company with the HQ in Chantilly and three other offices in Jacksonville (NC), Orlando, and one that's basically just a guy in CA working from home with occasional outside help. They’ve pretty keen benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k, PTO, etc.) that started 12/1 for me, which is fantastic considering I’ve not even been here a full mo.yet & I been w/out for almost a year. The pay's not bad either (or won’t be once I get my first check) and my supervisor seems to be pretty nice so far.

The keen thing about starting here around this time of year is two-fold. First, there are a lot of company holidays right now, like the 4-day weekend I got for Thanksgiving right after starting, then being off from 12/25 - 1/1 for Christmas. (Sweet!) Second, there's not really anyone in the office at the moment. See, right around this time of year, every year, there's a big convention down in Orlando called IITSEC where all the owners of the co.(and a good number of our engineers) go to promote what we do, which means that for about 4 or 5 days straight there are very few people in my office.

When I'm starting in a new place, something like this is freakin' fantastic. I get almost a full week to put in as much OT as I like while I overhaul whatever space I'm working in, reorganizing everything to suit me, and starting on personal projects and initiatives I'd like to get going in the office while everyone's away. In short, I'm not interrupted often (unless the guys call from the Con, which does happen sometimes) and I can work on WHATEVER.I.WANT. Love. Also, though I've made sure to keep her updated on whatever I'm doing, my supervisor seems to trust me thus far to find something useful to do and get things together, pretty much leaving me to my own devices, which is ALSO something I appreciate more than I can say in a workplace. (I despise micromanagement and have never understood the thought process behind it.) She goes for a couple of hours at a time w/out coming by or calling at all, so I’m able to get a jump on things I normally might not be able to touch if I were constantly interrupted. Hopefully this won't change completely when the guys come back tomorrow/Monday.

There are some other nice things about this place, too: Being able to listen to music (though at a low level) on speakers by my comp., even when I'm covering phones; the insistence that even if we choose not to take a break away from the office ea.day, we at least step away from our work & do something on the internet for a little bit so we don't get cranky and stressed; and getting mileage reimbursement for any work errands we do (which is not nearly as common as you'd think). All in all, not bad thus far. We'll see how things progress.

Aside from that this weekend should be nice. Tonight is wings for the first time in forever (provided it's happening this evening), Friday I'm celebrating a friend's birthday and Saturday I'm to head to a third Thanksgiving gathering, which should be pretty keen. No clue what else I might be doing, but it’ll probably be local as I’m not getting my first paycheck for a bit yet. If you’ve any ideas, hit me up.

More later.

~E.

Updates on things of late & a lovely Obama superhero shirt...

First off, I think this Alex Ross shirt is awesome.


It can be acquired over here if you are interested.

Okay, now on to more important things. Life hasn't been incredibly interesting of late but it has been busier, which is good. I've had more interviews, which has been taking up a lot of my time considering the driving & all. The down side to this is that the past few clients decided to go w/other candidates for their positions (often ones they ended up finding in-house). Honestly I can understand that, though, because the positions for which the temp.agencies are submitting me only sort of parallel what I've done before. They've not yet managed to nail down an actual admin.position yet, only jobs that are sort of similar in nature to my background. The second-to-last position for which I interviewed was something along the lines of assistance in event coordination. While I'm a quick study & a hard worker, the fact is the company was actually about 2 mos.behind in even searching for someone to replace the previous employee (I found this out a bit afterwards), so though they like me and were impressed with my background, what they were really looking for someone they didn't have to train considering their rather close deadline.

There are a few up sides, however, the first being that ea.o/my interviews have still gone extremely well, and each of the companies with whom I've interviewed have asked if I'd be available in the future for something in another department. Another is that I'm still getting far more interviews than I was just on my own and I've had slightly steadier temp.work in the meantime, which is good.

In addition, my most recent interview on Wed.evening seemed to go rather well. I spoke to the president of a company over in Herndon for just shy of an hour, after which point she said she'd like me to come in again this evening to meet with two more people who weren't available for the panel interview she tried to schedules on Wed. It would be an 8a-5p, M-F job, the position (Production Manager) sounds to be a combination of admin., operations, and cust.svc., and the location isn't too far from the house. The benefits are okay and the salary would be an improvement over anything else I've yet seen. Either way, however, we'll see how things go this evening & what kind of response the company sends back next week. With this economy & the job market the way it is, I'm not putting my eggs all in one basket.

Aside from that, this weekend should be fun. I've Petunia's baby shower on Sunday afternoon & a trip to the National Gallery of Art planned for Saturday morning. Other than those two things, I'll probably just stay home for the remainder of the weekend. Much as I'd like to socialize, that would require extra money that I can currently only allot to go in the tank of my car.

All right, have to go take care of a few things before the interview.

More later,

~E.