Tag Archives: beach

Scheduling Conflicts

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goddammit… My friend’s wedding is this weekend, at the beach. This is a good thing. Annie and I made plans with my parents to go to the beach cabin for the weekend, and they’ll drop us off at the wedding. I don’t want to learn to drive, but this bumming rides off people sucks. Anyway, so we made these plans like a month ago, and about two weeks ago, I asked my boss for Friday (today) off. He said no problem.

Last night, I get an email from my whiny bitch supervisor, Mr. Beamer, announcing that we’re doing the scheduling for finals week at the tek meeting on Friday (today). Sense the conflict?

So I send him a polite email informing him that I won’t be at the tek meeting because I have the day off, and here is my finals schedule, could he please try to get me some hours? I need in the neighborhood of 20 hours, and I would prefer to not work weekends. Other than that, I left it open. Not a big deal. I’ve seen Beamer do scheduling for other people who couldn’t make meetings.

So I wander into the tek office this morning to print something out for the class I have to attend before leaving for my beach weekend, and beamer wanders in.

“Beamer, did you get my email?”
“Yeah, how come you won’t be at the meeting?” (accusing tone)
“I have the day off.”
“Okay, well, I’ll see if I can get you some hours, but no promises, since you couldn’t attend the meeting. It is mandatory.”

WTF???

“Beamer, I’m going to the beach for my friend’s wedding. I’ve had these plans for a month, and I’ve already gotten the day off. I’m not slacking here. You just announced this meeting yesterday, and it’s too late for me to change my plans.”
“Did Shem give you the day off?”
“Yes. Like two weeks ago.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll see what I can get you then. Shem really needs to tell me these things.”

WHAT??? I felt like blowing up. Shem doesn’t need to tell you SHIT you cock master! You power-tripping mother fucker! HOW DARE YOU come at me with an accusing tone like that! I had the day off. I am correct. YOU are the one in the wrong here! Oh my god! You arrogant fuck!

He’ll TRY to schedule me some hours. Well thank you! It’s very kind of you to go so far out of your way for me! I’ll be grateful for whatever piss-ant amount of hours you choose to a lot to me!

I swear, if I come back to find I have less than 12 hours on the schedule I’m going ballistic. As is, I think I’m going to complain to my (and his) boss.

:: HATELIFE IS BEAMER ::

Death Star Comedian Dream

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I’m a stand-up-comedian on the death star. I’m “entertaining” hoards of young children, all dressed like Darth Vader. I’m aware of the fact that these children are trained to infiltrate the normal ranks of troops and report suspicious activities. They start out looking like Darth Vader, and each year, they get demoted a rank until they’re cadets and no one suspects them.

I’m not a very good comedian, and I’m kinda nervous that the kids might do something to me, so I start taunting the one kid who doesn’t have a uniform. He glares at me darkly.

* * *

I’m at the beach cabin. I’m running circles around it outside for some reason, and it’s really dark. The grass is wet and I’m worried about how I will get back inside, though I can see people in there. I’m back inside, and we’re all really nervous about something, and we’re getting ready to run. I remember something about a train. My girlfriend asks me to bring the VCR. I’m trying to talk the people who are sleeping in my bed into coming with us, but they won’t. There’s two couples in the bed and one single girl, who I know very well and I really want to run with us (staying behind is bad, somehow). She doesn’t want to come. We pack up our stuff, including an alarm clock and a VCR and lots of other stuff and run. The train again? As we’re running we’re pounding on the door of a woman’s house. As we’re waiting for her to answer, I notice that there’s an amazing cliff under the fence right next us. There’s a big gap under the fence, and I can see a huge grassy cliff going down to a river way way down. I fall, somehow, and am nearly hysterical for fear of my life when I manage to scrabble back up to where my friends are standing (I don’t know who these friends were… I must have known them in the dream, but here in the waking world I can’t place them). I wake up remembering that I was in a shooting range trying to buy ammo for my gun, and I have a hunting knife in my belt.

Beach Trip

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Well, I haven’t made an entry in two months. That’s a bit too long for an update, I think. Hmmm… what’s been going on with me… Annie and I are still getting along great, and life in our apartment is awesome. We’ve finally gotten over the debt that accompanies a move, and have gotten to a point where we can start splitting the bills equally and still have some spending money leftover at the end of the month. We had enough money this month that I finally hooked up cable. I’m so sick of bad reception, but there’s really not much you can do living in a concrete box. The cable company hooked us up with digital cable. The cable box has a modem built-in to contact the company (not sure why it would have to do that… maybe they’re keeping track of what we watch?). The first month we get everything free, so I’ve been having a blast flipping through all 500 channels (still nothing on, though). It’ll be nice when X-Files starts and I can actually read the little readout that says where they are.

I got hired for the job on the tek team! Not sure if I mentioned that before or not. The job is awesome. They started us out doing grunt labor, but we quickly graduated to real jobs, and I’m enjoying myself. I’ve got cool coworkers, and a good boss. We do work in a concrete bunker underground, but it’s kinda cool… there’s no sunlight at all (no windows), so I’m going to buy some posters to hang up in here… a few Star Wars posters, and maybe a good looking nature shot. Speaking of posters, we finally broke down and bought some sticky tabs to hang up posters in our apartment. Nothing would stick to the walls, but I really didn’t want to get these tabs, since they hardly ever come off posters cleanly. But now they stay up, and I think it’s worth it.

We went to the beach for labor day, and it was awesome. Good group of people. KT and Annie, with myself, Jester and Miles. Jester and Miles, we just discovered recently KNOW each other! I was talking to Miles one day, and he mentions juggling… “yeah the little brother of one of my friends in high school was a really good juggler. He ended up at Princeton… probably on a juggling scholarship.” A little commotion followed, and we discovered that Jester and Daniel were the same person. A brief email later and Jester knew about it. I had already invited Jester to the beach, so I invited Miles too, and it was cool! We all got along great, and spent the whole weekend babbling about computer games to each other (much to the women’s disgust). The weather on the first day was gorgeous, and we spent a good chunk of time on the beach. The next day was horrible and rainy, so we went to the cheese factory, but it lightened up enough for us to have our bonfire and s’mores, and then naturally the day we left was beautiful. Still, a great weekend. We enjoyed ourselves.

I’m not sure where the summer went. I had so much planned to get done this summer, and I got hardly anything done. I’ve been working really hard, but I haven’t read the books I wanted, or beaten my computer games or anything. *sigh* oh well. Maybe next year.

I’ve been reading Whitley Strieber books lately. He’s the guy who wrote Communion, the creepy book about a guy who discovers that he’s been visited by what would appear to be aliens ever since he was two. I got the book at a yard sale for a buck, and ended up buying the next three books. They’re fascinating reading. I don’t think I really believe it, but it succeeds in creeping me out whenever I read them.

Okay I think that’s enough for now. I’ll try to write more frequently!

Spring Break

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Wow… been awhile since I last wrote. Spring Break happened. Good break. Spent the entire time with Annie. We went to the beach, hung out at her place, then hung out at my place, and generally had a grand time. I had a psuedo-job interview after Jester referred me to a coworker, but they were looking for someone with .asp experience, which I lack. Annie had an experience at the beach, involving a log and high tide, and just about everyone had a heart attack. It was dumb of us all to be playing on the logs, especially after I grew up hearing all the horror stories every year, but there we were and next thing I know, I’m seeing this wave wash over her, and I felt really guilty, because she didn’t know better. I was the first one on the log, and she was just following my lead, so it was really stupid of me to be out there in the first place. The whole thing just makes me feel stupid, but everyone’s okay, so I guess it doesn’t matter. Still…

School started again today, and as usual, none of the professors have anything important to say on the first day, so we all sat around bored as the prof tells us every detail of how she’s going to run the course. Then I looked to my left and there’s a pair of girls playing pocket scrabble. The little magnetic road game kind of scrabble. It really weirded me out. I would have never thought of bringing a board game to class in case I got bored.

I played Star Wars Trivial Pursuit last night, and may I say, I rocked. It’s a good thing everyone there was about my knowledge level, though. If Alex, or any of the other freaky Star Wars fans had been there I would have gotten reamed. But as it was, I did quite well and I was proud of myself, because I suck at Trivial Pursuit, normally. I know lots of trivial stuff, but not the kind of trivial stuff they ask in the game.

Rachel got married. That kinda made me feel strange to think that someone I was dating once is now 8 months pregnant, in the Army, and married. I think Annie got sick of me mentioning her. I was trying to figure out how I felt about it, though. I mean, I don’t miss Rachel anymore, so it doesn’t bug me that she got married, it’s just strange that someone I was once really close to is MARRIED now. It seems so far away that it’s strange to see it happen to someone I know… Hmm… I sound like I’m talking about someone dead…

I got a new video card for my computer. It’s the Monster Fusion, which has the Voodoo II Banshee chip. It rules. It’s also a full-fledged 3D card, not an add-on card, like I thought. I know Monster cards used to be the kind that plugged into your existing video card, so I feel like I just got $250 worth of card for free, since I only paid $150. :)

Lots of stuff to get done over the next week or two. I want to finish up the new Y5 site, get some updates done to my personal site, and redo the bug design site. Then I have to write a paper for a class I took an incomplete in. Then I’ve got plenty of reading to do for classes. *sigh* Welcome to college.

Well, I better go. I’ve got to close the lab down so I can go home and sleep for awhile before I come back to open the lab tomorrow morning.

Gonzaga University

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Question: Am I the only person who snickers when they see a “Gonzaga University” sweatshirt? Surely someone else must have seen Encino Man!! Maybe it’s just me.

There’s something strange about today. The world just seems kind of… off. It’s like everything got shifted three inches to the left while I was sleeping, but when I woke up, everything had been moved, so I didn’t notice it, other than just a strange feeling. I can’t put my finger on it. I just feel strange. It’s one of those days where you look outside and it’s bright and sunny, but cold and overcast at the same time. We had a lightning storm last night, which is pretty rare here, so it was cool. I got to bed early, so it’s not lack of sleep (maybe I got too much?). I woke up and the curtains were open, which was odd. Aaron never opens the curtains in the morning. So it was strange to wake up to a really bright room (our window faces east).

I really can’t figure it out. Things are just strange. I bet people are wondering why I’m wandering around campus peering suspiciously at everyone, as if any moment I might find out who did this. But since I don’t know what “this” is, all I’m doing is peering suspiciously.

Oh man. This is just going to be one of those days.

Life is busy. There are two weeks left before finals, and I’m hitting the usual choke point, where I’m starting to realize exactly how much work I have to complete in that time. I’m not worried, because this happens every term, and by now I know that this is when I start getting things done, but it is stressful.

I’m looking forward to Spring Break. I’m taking a bunch of people to the beach cabin. My family has a cabin in Twin Rocks, a nice little beach near Tillamook that no one’s ever heard of, so it’s a great place to go. We’ll head up and do the usual. Stay the whole weekend, make a big spaghetti dinner one night, visit the cheese factory, and have a bonfire on the beach. I can’t wait to get down there and take a long walk down the shore with Annie. It’s funny how little things like that begin to sound infinitely appealing when you don’t have access to them.