I think window blinds hates yahoo

here's the story. I downloaded window blinds a couple of days ago. since then, everytime I pull up yahoo and click on the status button and then run the mouse over the yahoo icon in the icon tray, yahoo closes. here's the kicker. if I use the pull down window instead and change my status that way, yahoo works just fine. if anyone has any ideas on how to remedy this, let me know. oh yeah, I'm using the ATT Yahoo Messenger with voice thing if that makes any difference. on another note, tomorrow's my first day off in about seven days. what'm I plannin' on doing (doesn't "what'm" look strange...? but I digress...)? well, I'm plannin' on spending the night painting some pirate zombies and if I finish them off, I may start my box of normal zombies. sounds fun, ne? if I feel really ambitious, I may make tea. yeah...I like days off... on another note, Pickle's and my brother's birthdays were on the 25th so if you guys are reading this, happy belated birthday!

it's like christmas...but at 103 degrees...and I have to pay for my presents...

well, I went to check my mail today and I got THREE packages. that's the most packages I've ever received at once in my entire life. I think it's my box of pirates card, my other pirate ship, and my copy of band of brothers...I hope it is...well, off to find out.

catch up

well, it's been a while since I've updated the ol' blogbert so here I go. what've I been up to you ask? well, mostly work but I did manage to sneak in a little bit of fun. Andrea, her mom, sister, and I went down to Branson for a couple of days and played at Silver Dollar City and we stopped by a couple of outlet malls including a Disney outlet mall where we found a Davy Jones hat thingy. for the record, I didn't get much sleep the previous night and andrea put the hat on me which is why I look pretty drunk in the picture.

we also stopped by a fruit stand in Osceola on the way back. here's a picture of the watermelon we got. well, it's technically only half of the watermelon we got. the guy we got it from said it was 40+ pounds. for reference, to the right of the watermelon is a blueberry (also purchased from the Osceola fruit stand). it was HUUUUUUGE!!!!

after that trip there was a lot of work and then this weekend, shannon and nicole came up and we played pirates. here's a picture of my armada so far.

I'm still waiting on my box of South China Seas cards (ebay is a good thing). then this thursday, shannon, nicole, nette, chris, and aaron came up here to watch a concert and we (andrea and I) met up with them at Perkin's. more info at Shannon's blog.

disclaimer: the rest of this post is about work so feel free to skip it.

on thursday I got called into the office during work after I got back from lunch. let me preface this story a little bit. since april, corporate has been trying to increase production and collect 3.3 million liters of plasma so they've been doing a LOT of promotions and trying to get new donors in which has been keeping us very busy especially since we've been understaffed. well, back to thursday. I walked into the office and the manager tells me that the company made the 3.3 million liter mark and as a thank you gesture from corporate, all the employees involved get a cooler/picnic basket thingy complete with plastic plates, knives, forks which is pretty cool but in addition to that, everyone that has been working for the company since april gets a $100 american express gift check. so thursday was a pretty good day for me.

in other works news, I've been trying to get all my training done for the Compliance Specialist Alternate position but that's been kind put on the backburner since the reception supervisor has been gone for the month and I've been taking over for him in addition to signing off on the books, and training four people in reception, and screening, and taking care of new donors.

final work related news. we got paid today and I was looking at my check and it looks like I got a raise somewhere in between last paycheck and this paycheck. no complaints from me. I'm just not sure whether the raise was our annual raise or the raise was from me moving to a different position in the company. if the raise was from our annual raise, I may be getting another one in a couple of weeks when I start/get fully trained as a compliance specialist alternate.

well, that's probably more than you wanted to know so I'm off to bed now. got to get up early tomorrow so I can go in early tomorrow to train some people on opening duties.

rain rain go away

well, it looked like it was going to rain today so I decided to go out and take pictures of clouds (like the one posted above). to my disappointment, it never did. it may tomorrow, however, which isn't exactly what I was hoping for but we'll have to see. in other news, today was my day off. what'd I do? got car oil changed, did laundry, cleaned up a little bit. that was about it. now I'm off to bed so I can wake up at 7:30 so I can get ready for work.

silly freezer, humans don't get freezer burns or I love cherries

well, I managed to do it again. I was working in processing today and I was stupd and decided to try to open the freezer door without using the handle. what happens, you ask? well, the cold went THROUGH my gloves and to my hands. I took a good two minutes under warm water to thaw my hands back out. well, after work, I thought I'd cook dinner for andrea and I tonight and for that I need food or at least food-ish items so I stopped by dillons on the way home. while in the produce isle, I saw a mountain of bags of cherries and I said to myself, self eat it, eat it all. well, I managed to restrain myself and bought a bag (which I intend to eat and eat it all). cherries have always represented summer to me ever since my parents used to bring them with us to watch fireworks at the fourth of july so summer isn't officially summer without a honkin' (that's right, honkin') big bag of cherries.

the weekend thus far

currently down in mahattan right now. what have we been doin' you may ask? well, here's the weekend in pictures:

on friday night/saturday morning, we played battlefront LAN style. yesterday, we stopped by the salvation army to get pirate clothes. here's chris sporting his new duds:

later that day, we played some disc golf. inevitable, when disc golf and construction meet, climbing generally ensues:

then we spent the rest of the night playing Dawn of War, LAN style but before we did, we needed something to drink, something good and about 100 ounces of it:

and then we got to the game itself

'I am that merry wanderer of the night'

well, I currently am, and have been since about 10:30 this morning, working on my laptop. in fact, I'm posting this from my laptop right now. it's working pretty swell (that's right, I said/typed 'swell'). it took awhile to get the wireless internet thing to work on it but after half an hour I figured that out. now all I have to do is figure out how to set up my network. the lappy is finding it fine, it's just not connecting to it for some reason so I may just be typing in the wrong password. so I'm off to install programs onto my lappy. I'm working on photoshop right now. speaking of lappy, guess what I named it. I was trying to think of a name that combined my love of literature with something else I love and then the name 'puck' came up. who would've thunk it, right (that's right, I typed 'thunk')? does this mean that shakespeare was a hockey fan or that the nhl is a shakespeare fan? I'll leave you to ponder that.

techie

I got my 200 GB hard drive from ebay today. spent about an hour figuring how to install it onto my computer but I finally figured it out. now I'm gonna have to spend another four hours transfering my music files to the new drive. I'll probably be spending that much time transfering my photos to the drive tomorrow as well. that's all right. it'll give me something to do while I wait for my laptop to show up. here lappy, lappy...

I believe

I believe that as we get older, we appreciate our parents more and the sacrifices they've made for us whether it is as simple as denying themselves the last cherry so that we may have just one more or something as big as not purchasing that new set of golf clubs they've been saving for so that we can get braces. things they think we don't even notice or appreciate (which we probably didn't back then) but when the years come back and we look back on our memories, we do and treasure them all the more because they made those sacrifices back then, not to get a 'thank you' or to be honored on a day. rather, they did it because they did, and still do, love us.

I also believe that as we get older, our parents become more human. we no longer see them as the supermen or superwomen they once were. instead, we see them as two people, flawed as they may be, trying their best, to give us what they could. and even though they didn't always have the answers (or at least the right ones), they'd make something up that sounded semi-plausible just to make sure they still had your awe and respect, at least for that short while that we called childhood.

and that is why, for all of these reasons and for all the secret sacrifices that you parents make, I, on behalf of all children, on this father's day, want to tell you thank you and we love you.

the lakehouse

just got back from watching "The Lakehouse". same old story about boy meets girl, etc, right? well, not quite. the twist is that they communicate through a mailbox at the house that they both lived at at different times. I have to admit that I was kinda weary about going to see it 'cause it has keanu reeves in it and his movies have a habit of being either uber awesome or hyper terrible. in any case, without giving anything away, I'd highly suggest seeing this movie if you enjoy sappy movies and/or movies that deal with the time continnum. if you do see this movie, keep in mind that it is a movie and don't think about the time continuum thing too much.

hello chaos warrior

a pic of my latest choas warrior.

one in a million

I just got an email from my health insurance company thanking me for being 'one in a million' and then I got to thinking about it. is it really a compliment to be one in a million? 'cause that can be taken in two different ways meaning completely opposite things. one the one hand, it could mean that you're the only one like that, special, unique. on the other hand, it could also mean that you are one of a million or the same as all the others. just another way the wonderful english language screws with your head I guess so the next time you say something idiomatic, make sure what you intended to say only has one meaning.

S KMCTCGBFB NBPQJVBW SIW S NRMWBI KGSOBW

well it looks like I didn’t get the supervisor position. we were pretty slow today so someone had to be sent home. everyone else needed the hours so I volunteered to go home. I had to tell the managers that I was leaving. before I could leave, they told me that they wanted to talk to me. apparently, they had made a decision on the supervisor position. they decided that they were going to give the position to someone else because apparently, they had me in mind for another position before the old supervisor had even announced that he was leaving. it's a Compliance Specialist Assistant position. it's more of a managerial position and my pay would no longer be determined by hours worked which is good and I think I would get paid more than I would have as a supervisor. well, I'm off to look at laptops and spend my raise which I haven't officially received yet. in case you're interested in the title of this post, keyword: snowbuffs, shift:0.

pirate-y awesomeness

for our negative one year anniversary, andrea got me this book of pirate automata that you put together. you crank the shaft and this one "duels". actually, it looks more like it's doing a jig than dueling but it's still cool. I'll post more pics of the others when I finish them. these things take longer than painting models 'cause you have to wait for the glue to dry afore you can work on the next step. I think I spent about 6 1/2 hours on this one (including glue drying time). in case you can't tell, there's a cutlass in his right hand and a pistol in his left.

battle jacked

well, yesterday was a half-day at work and that in conjunction with it being memorial day led to the conclusion that a bbq must be had and that it must be had in manhattan so that's where I drove to yesterday. we did the traditional bbq thing and then played battle jacks. chris (lizardmen) and I (high elves) were against shannon (tomb kings), nette (goblins), and nicole (chaos). generally, the results of the game can be summed up in three pics:

here is my mage fleeing from some rather nasty goblins:


here is one of chris's lizardmen being defeated:


here is a high elf head on a pike (you get the idea):

does lawrence have a sperm bank?

believe it or not, someone actually asked me that at work yesterday. I'm not sure if it was because it looked like I was knowledgable about such places or if it was because I worked at a place where you donate stuff and so I should know of other places where you could donate stuff. yup, that's the kind of people I associate with at work. keep in mind that this is a rare occurence. most (about 98%) of the donors are really cool and I wouldn't mind spending time with them outside of the center but there are those in the 2% which really make you wonder if they could possible pass a bill that requires permits to have offspring fast enough. at my lunch break yesterday, one of my male co-workers and I were talking about the strangest question we've been asked at work and that was my answer. at about that time another co-worker, a female one, came in and said that she had just been asked the same thing but she thought that it was a pick up line so I'm not sure if I should be relieved or scared that I was asked the same thing... well, in any case, the answer, if you were wondering, is no, lawrence does not have a sperm bank. it was such an intriguing question that I had to pull out the phone book in the center and look it up. on to other news, I got my car back yesterday so no more walking three or so miles in the heat for me. I may still bike to work though. it's usually pretty nice in the morning when I head out to work and it's actually faster since I can cut through parking lots on the bike. also, I officially turned in my application for the supervisor position at work this morning so I should be hearing about that sometime in the next two to three weeks. on a totally unrelated story, I headed off this morning to walmart to get ink for the printer (I was messing with photoshop and had a pic I wanted to print). anyways, while there, I saw that they had Rampage for the PS2 (a childhool favorite of mine) so I had to pick that up and the Perfect Storm (which I hadn't seen but everyone else seemed to love so I had to pick that up to). well, in any case, I didn't get any ink because I couldn't remember what flavoer of hp printer I had and wound up with two things not on the list. so, I'm off to watch the perfect storm.

changes at work

a couple of days ago, there was an announcement that the reception supervisor position was open because the supervisor was leaving in two weeks to stay home with his newborn baby. today he came up to me and asked me if I was interested in taking over for him and he convinced me to try for the position because I had practically filled in for him for the two weeks he was gone while his wife first had the child. anyways, I went to into the manager's office and asked for more information on the position. now I'm not sure if I have the position yet and I haven't turned in my resume for it yet but three hours after telling the manager I was interested in the position, the supervisor was showing me how to take care of supervisor-y duties. I think that's a good sign. now all I have to do is actually fill out the paperwork for that... we'll see how it goes though.

well, it's about time for my semi-monthly walk around lawrence again (yes, my car's back in the shop. for details refer to previous post titled 'why do things keep throwing themselves in front of my car'). today's little romp included a jaunt to the bank and then downtown to get new tire treads for my bike (which I will be riding for the next week or so thanks to a furry little animal which shall remain unnamed). on the way back from the bike shop, I saw THE coolest moped. EVER. below is a picture.

if you look close enough at the handle bar you'll see that it's "for official use only".

why do things keep throwing themselves in front of my car?

well, you know things are going to be bad when you show up to work and find a dead bird in front of the door. what kind of carnage ensues after that you may ask? well, my friend, I'll tell you. I was supposed to meet my parents in wichita today for my cousin's graduation. on the way there, I hit a deer. immediately after I hit the deer, this light showed up
(the service vehicle soon light, not the change oil light.) so that basically cancelled my trip to wichita for the day. and that's not even the best part yet. so, I turned the car around and headed back to lawrence. on the way back, I noticed two deer carcasses on the northbound lane of I-335 as well pretty close to where I hit my deer. and here's the kicker, on my way back to lawrence, I hit two birds, one big bug, and countless smaller ones. I think I'll stay in my apartment for the rest of the night so I don't kill anything else. what kind of damage does a deer do to a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am? this kind:

'Canes win the cup!

just based on the playoffs that the hurricanes are having, it looks like I'm going to have to go with the 'canes to win the stanley cup this year. they've got a great team and they seem to be working together flawlessly. who's gonna make it to the big dance? I'm going to go with ducks vs. 'canes and as we all know, ducks don't fly too well in hurricanes...