06/24/2002
please forgive this entire page worth of "blog" entries. they're compiled from IM sessions i sent myself, or emails i sent myself, or whatever ... that i never bothered to cut/paste or post. nevertheless, they should be interesting.

this one is a fun recounting of my at&t broadband drug test adventures.

so i get there and this woman is filling out paperwork for somebody else. and she starts saying "hmmm, what time did that happen?" and she realizes she doesnt remember. she looks on the sign in sheet, sees the woman came in hours ago. then says "i'll just figure out who she was in between." this is my first impression of the company.

then she starts filling out my paperwork. so she shows me the bathroom, and takes the soap out. tells me to wash my hands and leave the door open while i'm doing that. then she gives me the cup and tells me to fill it up to at least the mark, not to wash my hands afterwards, not to flush - to open the door and then she'll bring me the soap and i can clean up. so my head is spinning because she gives me all these details in like 2 seconds and i really have to pee, courtesey of all that water (i'd been drinking water for the past two hours.) so i go in and a start peeing in the cup. mid stream some woman OPENS THE DOOR ON ME because she thinks it's empty. afterwards i saw the woman and i think she was a junky there for her regularly scheduled test failure.

Song of the Day: Yeah right, like I'm gonna remember three months ago

7/4/2
this one is recounting our "vacation" to utah and points southwes.

i looked at the trail map when we started, verified that yes, it was a loop, and we were off.

ivan didn't bring his GPS (even though it was in the truck) nor did he look at the trail map. there were no paper brochures/copies of the trail map - the dispenser was empty. so we set off - we headed in the direction of Bell Canyon at the little marker. the first hour or so was pretty damned cool. the first hour or so is slot canyons - a few scrambles up rock - then we continue to follow the riverbed. the trail IS NOT MARKED. we keep following the river bed. wondering how far we are from the start. we see footprints so we think we're going the right way. we also see piles of horse poop and for some strange reason, evidence that a bike has come through. so we decide a few times to keep going even though we're not sure we're going the right way (because it would really suck if we turned around and the end is right in front of us.) but we finally get to the point where we can't go anymore. there is a really difficult climb up some rocks and we dont see any evidence that anybody else had climbed it (all of the other rocks we climbed had black marks-like on the gym floor in elementary school-all over them.) so it's now 2 hours and 45 minutes since we started. we both have about 3 sips of water left and we know we have to turn around. it's 5pm - we left the car at 2:15 pm. we turned around and went back the way we came.

got back to the beginning at about 7pm, totally out of water, where we ran into the park ranger, who was giving some other people a guided tour of the other canyon. apparently it *is* a loop, if you turn on the road - which we saw but didn't think it was the way to go - because A) it wasn't marked and B) the trail followed the river. the ranger guy says people get lost there all the time - and the tracks we were following were from a search & rescue mission a few weeks back, where they sent out some horses and ATVs.

anyway, we basically fled utah after that. we had planned on camping in the goblin valley campground, but instead forfeited our camping fee and drove back to moab to stay in a hotel. we scrapped plans to go hiking around the needles portion of canyonlands, and were in too much pain to attempt biking klondike bluffs. we did the drive through arches, but headed back to CO afterwards..

we stayed at the "Budget Inn" as recommended by the 2002 "Let's Go! Southwestern USA" book -- which was an adventure in itself. the guy at the front desk gave us room 135, the last double non-smoking room they had. room 135 is smack in the middle of the second floor. we load our bags onto our shoulders, stumble up the stairs, and open the door of room 135 - only to discover that the room is obviously currently occupied. ivan goes back to the main office while i guard the car. i hear the phone in the room ring, but nobody answers. ivan comes back and tells me that we've been assigned a new room, 117. just as he's walking back, a lovely looking couple has started the ascent up the stairs on their way back from the pool. the woman stops at room 135 and swipes her card. no luck. she tries again. no luck. her husband then tries his card - and ivan yells up that that probably wont work, because they just tried to give *us* that room. apparently they decided to stay another night but nobody in the front office wrote it down. we ended up in a 2-bedroom "mini-suite", with 3 beds, a mini fridge, and a microwave. for the price of a double. and a circa 1970s air conditioner, which we left on all night to mask the dripping faucet in the bathroom

on the way back home, we got stuck on a two lane highway for an hour. they were blasting for the new "wolf creek pass tunnel." traffic literally stopped for an hour. the people a few cars in front of us got out and played football. i saw this guy wearing a t-shirt that said "give blood. play hockey." i thought the shirt was clever. 3 hours later we make it to the great sand dunes. and i see this guy, wearing a t-shirt that says "give blood. play hockey." and i say to ivan "i saw that guy before sometime today." and he thinks i'm crazy. and then we figure out he was one of the guys playing football. i think he and his family were religious zealots though, so it wasn't that cool to keep running into them.

Song of the Day: See Above

7/8/2
status report of my first day at AT&T broadband:

5:45-6:15am: In between snoozes, I dream up the worst-case scenario for the day: Leave for the park-and-ride w/o getting dressed, turn around to get dressed. Leave again but this time dont bring money or cellphone so i can call home for help.

Get out of bed before dream gets any worse.

6:30am: Spill milk on counter instead of in cereal bowl

6:45am: free MK brushes shed all over me

7:05am: leave for park-and-ride

7:25am: arrived park-and-ride. waiting for bus. this sucks...am paranoid i will miss it.

7:44am: am safely on bus. fairly empty, air-conditioned and man does it feel strange to not wear a seatbelt

8:37am: bus driver drives by my stop

8:50am: arrive at building 10 minutes early. boss does not answer, left to wait in lobby until she retrieves me

9:00am: escorted to bosses cube by department's admin, who arrives on a rascal scooter. wait about 5 minutes staring at the walls of bosse's cube as she finishes up a meeting. short-form of tour ensues (so short it does not include bathroom locations)

10:00am: meet with team member to learn how to use publishing tool; already forgotten guy's name

10:50am: you need a badge to get back from the bathroom. i dont have a badge. Aforementioned team member (Stephen) lets me borrow his while he sneaks out with another team member (Greg) for a smoke break.

11:25am: i dont have a computer log-on yet because IS is backlogged, so my boss logged me in as her so i could browse the network and read up on the product line. while i was training with Stephen, the screen saver came on and the computer locked itself. need my boss's password to use the computer. flip through "Writing for the Web" while waiting for her return.

11:30am: boss comes by to pick me up for lunch. Going out with her and her boss (an executive vice president? a Director? not sure, but i know it's something important.) we go to a local hole in the wall. No business conversation, but we do talk about mullets, Mary Kay and adventures in corporate travel (aka drinking on biz trips)

one-something: shown around the currently empty HR department by our department’s admin. am able to get a temporary badge in exchange for my drivers license. temporary badge can’t leave the building and must be returned and checked out on a daily basis. hang out at the admin's computer for a bit while she discovers that all of her networked drives are missing and she can't find any of the files she'd hoped to walk me through. return to my desk with a few notes about how to check voicemail externally.

3:25pm: checked my personal email -- nothing from Bob -- which is surprising. currently reading style guide and documented process left by former employee. need to pee.

3:30pm: back from the bathroom. the temporary badge works!

4:10pm: it’s so unorganized my boss lets me know i can leave early... am now waiting for my chariot to take me back to my car

4:35pm: chariot (ok, RTD route “T”) arrives. within 10 minutes of departure, I’m suffering from motion sickness. Maybe this bus thing isn’t such a great idea.

5:45pm: get home just in time to reminisce about how in my former life, i’d be in kickboxing class right now.

Song of the Day: See Above

7/27/2
ok this wasn't written on 7/27/2, but that's when these events happened:

ok before i interned at the times, i had an training session at the university of missouri. a group of 6 of us spent that whole week partying it up. since then, we've kept in touch via email. one of them lives here in CO and i see him every 6 mo or so. i haven't really seen the rest of them since missouri.

so anyway, the virgin of the group got engaged and invited all of us to the wedding. and we were all supposed to meet up at the wedding. except it turns out only the guy in CO and I end up going. Tim (the CO guy) is supposed to get the directions to the wedding. he doesnt. so we get lost trying to find the church. tim also doesnt want to wrinkle his clothes, so he hangs it in the back and wears shorts and a t-shirt. we get there and of course he needs to change. he pulls around the corner from the church and changes in the street. goes into this story about how he goes to the grocery store in his boxers and he doesnt have any problems changing. i'm looking the other way, feeling weirded out and stupid because i cant read tim's stupid map and we've been driving around for 30 minutes... and this woman who walked around the corner before tim got out of the car is now walking back the way she came.

meanwhile, i've been to two weddings in my life, and i was 5 for one of them. this one is mega catholic. the usher wants to walk me in and i'm sooooo confused. it's an ancient church, no AC. stand up, sit down, pray, stand up, sit down, pray for 30 minutes, then the wedding's over. the only people i know are Tim and the groom.

so then we have three hours to kill before the reception. Tim tries to get a haircut but the only place we can find in BFE Champaign Illinois is closed. we end up driving around for a while. we cant kill anymore time so we go to the country club where the reception is at and just hang out in the parking lot. we can't take it anymore and head into the reception. and quickly realize we're an hour late! people are finishing up eating ... they're about to cut the cake ... EVERYONE is looking at us because we came in late, we're sitting by ourselves, nobody knows who we are. the groom keeps glancing at us as he wanders around the room but never says anything. i am feeling worse and worse about this whole situation ... i mean i got on an airplane for this! finally, we decide it's time to go and that we have to say hello before we leave, i mean, we came all that way. and of course, you guessed it, the groom doesn't recognize us he's shocked we're there at all.. and his lovely wife is smiling and says "i showed you the guest list and told you they were on it!" then the groom gets pulled away because it's time for the garter toss. i stop to go to the bathroom because it's a 2 hour drive back to chicago, where our hotel is. and tim apparently gets accosted by the groom's grandmother into the "catch the garter" crowd of men. and wouldnt you know it, he catches it!

Song of the Day: the wedding march

9/6/2
ok so last weekend i got a haircut. i know, it doesnt sound like a blog-worthy event, but trust me, it is. i dont like to pay people to cut my hair. i'd rather suffer with the split ends and frizz than deal with the "oh god what do i want them to do to my hair" panic that inevitably overcomes me every time i think about how i need a haircut. see i grew up getting haircuts from my mom. never had a trim. don't understand the process of trims. so every time i go to a salon (ok, great clips) i frantically flip through the three-month-old women's magazines to find something i like.

so saturday morning i decide to go to the mall to try to use my $15 off a $30 purchase coupon before it expires. and i cant find anything i like that also fits, so i leave without buying it. this leaves me feeling unfufilled. so i decide i'm going to go get a haircut from the salon, if the wait isn't too long. so i stop by and ask when the next appointment is. "11:00" the sickly-sweet woman says. i say "no thanks" and walk away. then i look at my watch - it's 10:45. what the hell was i thinking? i walk away and go upstairs to another haircutting place, feeling extremely stupid. i dont want to go to this new place. i want to go to that other place. i trust them. they colored my hair years ago, and it didnt suck. so i swallow my pride and walk back down to the first salon, which still has the 11 am open. and i begin the frantic flipping. the stylist catches me and literally tells me to calm down.

then she gives me a lecture. on how i need to come in for trims every 4-6 weeks (although i've convinced myself she said 6-8) and that i shouldnt pull it back when it's wet and i cant believe you shake your hair in the towel when it's wet but at least you use a comb and not a brush. we decide to just trim a few inches off my hair to try to clean up the mess 12 months of no-trims have done. (wow, it really had been a year - i got a haircut right before starting at GORPtravel)... anyway, she does the idle chitchat, and asks me about my family. i tell her i'm the only one that made it to college and she misunderstands. she thinks i said "through college" and says "well at least the other ones tried. they made it through highschool" and suddenly i'm faced with a dilemna. correct the stylist on the intimate details of my family life, or continue on with stories that are made up on the fly. i go with the latter. "so what do they do?" well, one brother still lives at home with mom and dad, doing the Gen X thing. my sister is raising a family, and my brother just started one. i was flabbergasted at how i could be accurate, and still not be truthful. the rest of a conversation is a blur, as that section stuck with me most of the day.

the haircut was over, i got talked into buying salon hair products, and suddenly before i knew it, the stylist was ringing me up. which threw me off guard because i didnt want her to see how much i was tipping her. the whole tip thing threw me off guard because i cant do math. and then to have to do it quickly?? i really screwed up and gave the woman a 50% tip. no wonder i've been penny pinching till payday!

then it was off to mom's, because it's my brother's girlfriend's birthday. my sister has planned to take her out to lunch. at 2pm. by noon i'm starving, as i've been up since 7, which on a saturday is completely unlike me. we kill the 2 hours inbetween by going to sam's club. 2:30 the birthday girl finally shows up. my mom, sister and i are starving. we learn that birthday girl has already eaten. it's 3:30 before we finally decide to head out to Gunther Toodys. the birthday girl spills her entire glass of water. which rolls across the table into my lap. then, she gets mad at us for embarassing her by telling the waitress it's her birthday. (at Gunther Toodys, they don't just sing to you, they make you wear a birthday hat hand-signed by the staff, and they make you do the twist... after they've told everybody in the restaurant it's your birthday)

apparently, she got so mad about that, she never came back to my mom's house to collect her birthday gifts, and hasn't spoken to my mom or my sister since. it's only been a week, but hello! can you say petty?

Song of the Day: happy birthday (marilyn monroe version)