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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "avollme" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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10:17 am
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Conflict of a geek.
We saw Star Trek last night. First off, I just need to comment that we went to see Star Trek, and the previews were for Transformers, GI Joe, and Land of the lost. STOP FUCKING WITH MY CHILDHOOD! I know that these things were campy and stupid back then, but I liked them. What I don't enjoy is an update with CGI and shit blowing up just because you know people my age will get nostalgic for your destruction of our youth. (As a side, Tracy asked me what I thought of the first Transformers, which I foolishly watched thanks to netflix. I told her it was a Michael Bay movie. Shit blew up, then shit blew up. How bad does he suck as a director?)
Anyway.
( Warning - Spoilers ahead )
Tags: geekery, star trek
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11:50 pm
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Because it's not a circus without a clown
If nothing else, Blagojevich is putting on a good show.
I mean, he's not quite at the foaming at the mouth lunatic stage, but still, it's entertaining watching him on his public opinion tour. The only problem is that he really wants all of us to believe he's innocent, but he's still coming across as a self righteous dick. Today's example, "Maintaining his innocence in an NBC interview, parts of which were aired Sunday and others to be aired Monday, he said that upon his Dec. 9 arrest at his Northwest Side home, 'I thought about Mandela, Dr. King, Gandhi and trying to put some perspective in all of this.'"
It's not that he's maintaining his innocence. It's that there is some sort of disconnect, like head trauma.
You're fucking being charged for corruption, and you want to play the oppression card? No. The man is not putting you down. Try again, only next time, actually try.
Tags: dickishness knows no bounds, our glourious state
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12:21 am
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The vultures
The feeding frenzy was in full force today. You know the drill. Someone is let go, or even leaves on their own, and after the shock of it happening, everybody ransacks the office for usable supplies.
Which is perfectly normal, even if it feels extremely weird. But dear god was this guy a packrat. Reams of paper. Multiple packs of staple removers, gloves, giant wrenches...just drawers of stuff. He had more crap in that office, we've had at least 16 hours of looting of the office and it's still full.
I had no idea. Now whenever anyone asks where something is stored, I think I'll know.
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09:50 am
[Link] | We may have a date and place.
Not finalized yet, but it's still progress!
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09:25 am
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Another day, another dollar means there is still another day
Nothing like getting into work and being greeted with "Have you heard the news?"
That's just not going to go well.
Essentially the 3rd round of layoffs hit yesterday. The first was a couple of months ago, when a large chunk of customer service was consolidated with another site, letting most of those people go. The 2nd was the virtual one when I was promoted, as my job was never filled, leaving us down a person there (which continues to be a problem, but hey, what do I know. I just worked there). Yesterday one of the the other supervisors and several sales people were let go under the guide of the corporate "reorganization".
It feels strange. I feel secure in my position, despite being the lowest man on the totem pole by far. It obviously doesn't mean anything, the ax could fall at point if that's what it's going to come to, but the company itself is doing reasonably well, given the economy. The plant is doing well. We're a little slow in some areas, but others are doing fine. Like everyone else, we're working to hold down costs, etc, etc, etc. But I keep coming back to the fact that someone at my level was let go, despite having more seniority. I guess that's a compliment. Totally backhanded, but still.
Tags: job
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09:20 am
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Because I think more questions are going to be generated than answers
Even though we've only been a few potential wedding reception sites, I've noticed something that really surprises me. Yes, I was probably very naive when it came to how much this is going to cost, but all of the sites we've been to have all required a deposit (of course) and then several other payments, culminating at the final payment 3 days before the wedding.
They are all asking for the total bill BEFORE anything has happened. I don't get that. Other than booking a vacation (i.e. airfare), I can't think of any industry that demands payment to be completed before services are rendered. I'm sure there are others, but none are coming to mind.
Considering how much weddings can cost, and how much people are able to put on credit cards and the like, I just don't get this. I suppose in this credit poor environment they, like everyone else, wants to maximize their cash on hand, but several years ago why hadn't one of the larger hotel conglomerates or some 3rd party finance group say, hey, we know you want your wedding to be perfect. We know it's going to cost a lot, more than a car, and we want to help. You plan it they way you want, we'll help finance it. Throw together an auto-industry like package, 3-5 years, 5%-8% interest or so with decent credit, and run wild. Everybody wins. The hotel gets its money, and possibly more because people will run towards the high end of things with deferred payments, the credit group will have large payments coming in with interest to cover their costs, and the married couple will have the wedding that they want, not just what they can afford.
Again, with the financial system right now, maybe that's not practical, but it seems like an untapped market, and one that makes far more sense to me than giving a ton of money to someone before they've done anything.
Tags: finances, wedding
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12:52 am
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Details
So.
Here's how it happened:
First off, it was not a complete surprise. We got the ring ordered together, and Tracy knew she had to 1) dress up and 2) have a bag packed that morning that I could take.
That being said, I had made reservations at the Signature Room for the meal. It was a bit of no brainer, as she had never been there, and really, it's on the 95th floor. It's pretty cool. I wanted something memorable, and that fit the bill nicely. I has some help setting up the details from one of the people where we got the ring from. (Robbins Brothers. I'll pimp them to anybody who will listen, I think they did a great job across the board.) Anyway, we set it up for a window view, for obvious reasons, and warned them that I would be proposing, and that there would be props. Then I reserved a king suite with a jacuzzi tub at the Hotel Allegro.
That morning, I took our bags, a couple of bottles of wine, and some snacks down to the hotel and checked in. Basically, just to get the room ready, I put the chocolates on the bed, and chilled the wine. When I was checking in they asked if I was down there for anything special, so I told them and the concierge told me that he'd have a bottle of champagne chilled in the room for when we got back. I didn't have the heart to tell him I already had a bottle, plus, I like getting free stuff. Then I headed back to my place to get changed and ready. This part became a little dicey because, for anybody who was in Chicago at the time knows, it was snowing. The roads were ugly, but fortunately, traffic actually wasn't too bad.
I went and picked up Tracy. I found out at this point that she had a surprise for me, which was basically that since I wasn't telling her where we were going, she wasn't going to show me what she was wearing (the answer wasn't nothing. It was cold outside and that sort of attire isn't really appropriate for upscale dining). We get into the car, dressed up and bundled in long coats, and headed downtown.
While I hadn't told her where we were going, it became pretty evident as we headed into the parking garage for the Hancock Building, and made our way up to the restaurant. As I mentioned, the weather was crappy all day, snow and fog, but by the time we got there it had actually cleared up nicely. We had a great view of the ground and off into the distance, plus, little cloudy kept floating by. It's impressive seeing the city like that, like dining while landing on a plane. You're so high up that the lights of the city seem to go on forever.
We got a glass of wine, Grilled Prosciutto and Buffalo Mozzarella for an appetizer, and Tracy got crab legs while I went with the roast duck.
After dinner, I had arranged for the server to bring in two fortune cookies on a platter. Tracy opened one, which said "Will you marry me". I got down on my knee and asked her if she would share all of the fortunes with me and if she would marry me.
It's a good thing she said yes :-) And the people around us gave us a round of applause, so hopefully they weren't too distracted by what we were doing. Even before that, we were being pretty touristy, taking pictures and looking at everything.
Several minutes later, the server came by with glasses of champagne that had strawberries with candles in them on a tray saying congratulations.
After diner, we went back to the hotel and relaxed the rest of the evening.
And some pictures (via snapfish, so let me know if there's a problem)
That's how it happened. Everything worked out great. :-)
Current Location: Chicago, Signature Room, Hotel Allegro
Tags: proposal, she said yes
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09:59 am
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Big News
Not sure if anybody still looks at this thing, hell, I mainly just use it as an RSS collection, but I got engaged over the weekend!
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09:22 am
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Update
The good news, I've been promoted.
The not so sure, it's into a production supervisor.
The bad news, it's still on 2nd.
So.
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12:01 am
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Missing the point
I've been trying to avoid the politics, because, you know, it makes me break out in a case of the rages, but obviously today was all about Colin Powell endorsing Obama. Predictably, the talking heads came out and claimed that it was race based, then that it was a not so veiled attack on the Bush administration and their treatment of him.
May I suggest that they're missing the point. Let's take Christopher Buckley as the example. Also a well known Republican. White and not directly related to the Bush administration, yet, he too came out in support of Obama. Both of them gave the same reason, that they were troubled by the rightward direction the Republican party had taken in recent years. Perhaps some attention should be paid to this.
One of the biggest problems the current Republican leadership has is that it's no longer the Republicans (My favorite was this old blog post about missing them) (hmmm...A bit off topic...actually completely on topic, is his post about the crazification factor)
But as I was saying, they are no longer Republicans in the classic sense, their base is social conservatives. We saw this over the last 8 years. Fiscal responsibility, gone. Logic and scientific reasoning, ignored. Personal responsibility, smaller government, states rights, personal freedoms, all gone, gone, gone. The only plank of the traditional Republican party to survive would be free market deregulation, and that's been happily sold out in the last month with the economic bail out. The current base has been voting on a platform of being against abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, and obviously "national defense" as it relates to closing the borders and bombing Muslims. This is a gross oversimplification, but I think that these are the issues.
And that's the point. These two, and many other Republicans who are crossing the line are getting fed up with that party demonizing anyone who doesn't believe in their moral agenda. They want logic back. Integrity. Rationality.
I don't blame them.
Tags: crazification factor, who has the big tent
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07:47 am
[Link] | So the big work news is that my boss has taken another job (we'll call it a promotion, because it is, but it's in another facility, so while he's not per say leaving...he's leaving).
This is going to be interesting. He's the best boss I've ever had. Mind you, after the last one, that doesn't take much, but he lets us do what we need to, doesn't question, meddle, bother, cajole, check up on, or generally harass us, he just wants to be kept up to date on what's going on, and expects us to do our job. Radical concept, that.
But, he's going to be off soon, and here's the kicker, he and several other people have point blank asked me if or suggested that I apply for the job.
So...
This scares the bejesus out of me. It'd be a good thing, so I need to apply today. Not that anything is going to happen immediately, but wish me luck.
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10:33 pm
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I still hate Comcast
AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHH!
Comcast finally gets the Big Ten Network, so I can finally watch Hawkeye sports. This is great, right?
Not so much. For this coming weekend, they are only showing one game during the 11 AM slot, OSU vs Youngstown. One of five that are scheduled. ONE! When I emailed asking about this, they responded that "Currently we only have one official Big Ten Channel. There's no current solid plans of adding any extra overflow channels at this moment to your lineup."
What the hell kind of truncated channel lineup is this? So basically, they got the PR boost from saying they they have the BTN, but we, as customers, are still screwed.
I hate them.
Tags: fucking comcast, hawkeyes
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09:43 am
[Link] | RIP Snot.
Not that they ever did a bit on Hamlet, but I can't think of anything else to say than...alas, poor Yorick...
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12:56 pm
[Link] | I'm not sure what struck me as more odd. That someone painted a pigeon purple or that the ASPCA spokesperson implied that it might have been an accident.
Let me raise a third possibility. The pigeon painted itself. Because it's an arteest.
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09:37 am
[Link] | There's a guy at work that I've come to respect a great deal. He's got a great attitude about people, about life in general, but what we talk most is music. Over the course of the night yesterday everything from Miles Davis to Hank Williams Sr., the stones to Kraftwerk. I've given him some Santana and John Coltrane, he's given me some Miles Davis. It's been nice talking to someone who is a huge fan of multiple styles of music, who can give me some stuff I don't have.
No real point, but what I'm trying to say is, I love "Spanish Key" off of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew.
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09:51 am
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What is the worth of a closer?
Jim Caple over at ESPN has an interesting article on the closer position being completely overrated. The main point is that statistically the amount of games won while leading hasn't changed over the years, despite the closer role being a recent invention.
If nothing else, he makes a good point, why handicap your bullpen by designating your presumably #1 guy, the one person you trust to get you a couple of outs, as someone who will only be used under the strictest of circumstances, only in the 9th and only when you are winning by 1-3 runs. Why not use that guy, in combination with the rest of your bullpen to do what you, as the manager, are supposed to do, play the percentages to get the win, or to minimize the damage if losing? If you're in the 7th and the starter is melting down, why not get him in there to stop the bleeding? If I'm reading the save rule correctly (if wikipedia isn't lying to me), one of the possible conditions for a save is "He enters the game, regardless of the count, with the potential tying run either on base, at bat or on deck". Doesn't have to be the 9th, and depending on the way the order is stacked, it probably shouldn't.
Don't get me wrong, I love Woody in the closer role for the Cubs, I feel comfortable that if we're leading and he goes in, we'll end up winning. I just can't silence the voices in my head questioning now if seeing him in the 9th (or say Marmol in the 8th) should be as automatic as it is. After all, didn't Lou just talk about using the guys as the situation dictated?
Tags: closers, cubs, what the hell are you doing with the bul
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09:41 am
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Baby, if you ever wondered, wondered, whatever became of me
I got sucked into facebook a while back. Not so much doing anything with it, just created the profile and linked a couple of people. But now I'm wondering if I'm at that age where people are trying to reconnect, to see "how you've been" or some such crap. I've now gotten the second friend request from someone I didn't ever expect to hear from again. For the record, does the name Dallas ring a bell. Not a bad thing (well..for this one. Not so much the first).
I've learned that my pattern recognition skillz are...what's the opposite of mad? Fucking horrendous? Lousy? Not good. I've been trying to play the Find Mii Wii game, and I just can't. I'm bad, then I'm frustrated, then I quit. It's not so much fun.
Here's your math question of the day: If you were going to buy a bottle of, let's say, rum. And this bottle would cost around $25. Now lets also say that they have package that includes a 375 ml bottle of the same particular rum with a bottle of crappy mojito mix. For $7. I'm no expert, but that seems a bit, shall we say, stupid. So I bought them out. Eh, it was only 5 of them.
Lastly, storms blew through Chicago last night, and in particular, hit the north side during a Cubs game. 2 hour 45 min rain delay, plus a later delay that canceled the game. I was watching Headline News this morning and they had video of a lighting strike on the scoreboard at Wrigley. If anybody happens to see a picture or screen grab of this, point it my way, Google images has failed me.
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05:50 am
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Messed up
I was on third shift last week and the thursday and friday before.
While I'm not a fan of that shift, I can do it, and it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it did. Which might be a problem.
Since Sunday, every day except for 1, I've woken up at 4 am. Most of them I've been able to get back to sleep pretty quickly, but twice now I haven't. So I'm up for an hour, wide awake, until I give in and just get up.
Best part is, I'm back in third in another week.
This just isn't right.
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10:44 pm
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Oh, Des Moines Register, you make me laugh
So remember those links I put out about the Iowa flooding? Those linked to the Des Moines Register site where they had videos. I found out them from my good friends at Black Heart Gold Pants, a Hawkeye blog. They had one of the videos embedded (I tried to embed them...but couldn't get them to would with LJ or myspace. And by couldn't, I mean, pasted the code, that didn't work, so I was lazy and said screw it). Apparently today they got a cease and desist letter from the DMR telling them to take down the video or else. I'll let them describe the stupidity (as they are much better writers than I. And funnier. And surprisingly, I would be more likely to use profanity. Which is saying something from a blog that was awarded the The Kevin O'Neill Award for excellence in profanity from a Northwestern blog. But I digress.
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We shit you not. Consider the following facts:
1. The page on which the video was originally posted provides code for blogs to embed said video;
2. Nowhere on the page (or anywhere on the path from DesMoinesRegister.com homepage to the destination page) is there listed any terms of use, much less anything related to copyright infringement;
3. The footage was being used to call for donations to charity in the wake of a local natural disaster, in hopes that a visual representation would further stir the emotions of viewers;
4. We linked back to the Register in the original version of the article, well before the C&D letter arrived;
5. The Register provided the embed code (Sorry, but it bears repeating).
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Ok. So there is some profanity. Deal. Anyway, they did get a semi-apology from a suit at the Register...but there is some debate whether or not this happened before half a dozen higher powers called for a boycott of the DMR and anything else owned by that parent company. And many Iowa jokes were made (I did really like the one comment about how it's "Hard to embed when the tubes are flooded")
So. I know stupidity coming from the Register is hard to believe, but there it is.
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09:16 am
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This is the face of Captain Tollway, created by the Illinois Tollway to, and I quote, "Help Drivers Reduce Stress and Have More Fun This Summer Travel Season".
Obviously they don't use the tollways. What they've created is a Superman-dickish character that's just going to fly overhead, back and forth, laughing at those of us forced to travel at a crawl through the one lane that's not dug up.
Fuck that. You want to reduce stress, use your damn powers to fix the roads faster and in any sort of a logical fashion (that means don't dig them all up and then start working on fixing them).
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