titansphere.com

Me: “…aaaaand I’m going to grab an elf.”

Robert: “Don’t you think you should ask him if that’s okay first?”

My new girl, Jasmine, started on Monday, and she’s doing very well so far. Brant is excited to be getting into IT, so her speedy inclusion into our processes is good. For me, for her, for the limey, for the print shop.

Not the point. Jasmine’s husband, Jon, teaches in the theatre department at Willamette (my alma mater). I took one of his classes – Acting for Non-Majors – and got a terrible 3-month living hell concussion in his class. He was a great teacher and a fun person – I totally dug his class, and we’re both from Montana. In fact, I would’ve taken his Stage Combat class the following semester but I was worried that I’d injure myself further, thus ruining my softball season.

Needless to say, it was a real trip when this realization hit. Since I know him better than her (two days a week for an entire semester of goofiness and tomfoolery), its really weird for both of us for me to know things about her that she hasn’t yet revealed.

So here I am on this cloudy Sunday: I have two monitors, two computers, two keyboards, and two mice on one desk at my geeky little fingertips. On one I’ve got Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, in which I’m messing around with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 with the intention of writing some software linking a C# GUI application to relational databases. The other is my research lackey…using the internet to hunt down questions to my answers answers to my questions, database related or otherwise (i.e. Q: what vines to plant on the shady side of my house. A: climbing hydrangea). And of course my email is open too.

68 cents?!

Yes, folks. We bought new copies of Devil May Cry 4 for the Xbox 360 and the first Tenacious D CD (a $72 value) for a mere 68 cents at Best Buy. We went in with $15 worth of Reward Zone coupons and a 10% off any normally-priced item coupon, and left less than a dollar poorer.

The receipt is total madness. It claims we had $60 worth of coupons, but even if we legitimately had such an amount the other $11.32 is completely unaccounted for. Since the cashier didn’t manually enter anything, we’re guessing a software glitch.

At any rate, the Tenacious D rocks while Devil May Cry 4 kinda sucks, so at least we can go exchange it for another game and make money on the deal. *grin*

Handsome and I don’t do the ultra-cliche romantic thing for Valentine’s Day…the hearts, the rose petals, the cheesy romantic movie, the wine and chocolate covered strawberries. Somehow it just seems too forced; instead of feeling all ooey-gooey inside, I want to throw up. We also believe that we should recognize our relationship more than once per year, so we don’t go “all out” with the gifts and such. He did send me an azalea plant for my desk, which is beautiful and I love it. Everyone at the office thought it was cute.

Valentine’s Day to us means remembering those first couple of Valentine’s Days when they were really special and meant a lot, and doing things together that remind us of whence we’ve come. So when I came home Thursday after work, we still hadn’t formulated a plan. The beach sounded more anniversaryish. Portland – ehhh. Nothing too exciting came to mind. So we piled in the 4runner with El Muttamus and drove to Woodburn, planning on the outlet mall.

We never made it. Pizza Hut sidetracked us – romantic dinner, right? heheh – but also brought back a lot of memories of our younger days (we worked there together). From there we went for a drive east and south…just driving through the rural communities – Monitor, Mt. Angel, Silverton – and the surrounding countryside. The journey was the destination. We just talked about whatever came to mind. Us. Them. Society. Relationships. Memories. Funny stuff. Whatever. It was wonderful. I really had a great time. We got home around 8:30 and then started putting together the Lego castle set Handsome bought as our joint gift. We put it aside and went to bed when I could barely keep my eyes open.

I don’t think I could’ve asked for much of a better Valentine’s Day.

Side Note: George the Licker got plenty of action…he tongued the window for well over an hour and a half on the drive.

I did decide to go to the doc about my finger last night – this is why I have insurance, right? I arrived at the Salem Hospital around 7:45pm and left at 11pm having not yet seen a doctor. Just getting into triage for basics and check-in was like an hour, maybe an hour and a half (they purposely do not have clocks in the waiting room). A mess, so I just stopped at Safeway and bought a finger splint. Poor George was in the car the whole time since all of my roommates are at a bachelor party this weekend.

Today (Saturday) then, I went back around 3pm and they said it was at least a 3.5 hour wait – screw that, I don’t need to know that badly. So I went to Target for some basic household crap – maybe 20-30 minutes – and then decided what the hell, I’ll go to Silverton Hospital (Silverton is about 8-10 miles from Salem with a pop. of about 10,000). By 6:30 – 3.5 hours later – George and I were in Salem on our way home, having stopped and gotten my prescription filled and also eaten at Taco Bell.

Coincidentally, Silverton Hospital has been rated as one of the top 100 hospitals in the country, and Salem sucks yet again.

Oh, and I didn’t break it; just crushed. I should take a picture or something, huh. Check my flickr account for the pretty bruising. That is after the camera returns from the bachelor party.

UPDATE: Think I’m going to the hospital, things are getting worse in the swelling and internal bleeding parts. *sigh* There goes this evening.

I mentioned TJ and I are fixing his car. We go to put his new alternator in today and I smash the tip of my right pinkie finger between it and the car frame. This was around 5pm. It instantly swelled up and turned purple and hurt a WHOLE LOT. Like I can’t stand still so painful, so I’m pacing and trying to give TJ verbal assistance with the alternator installation. There’s definitely a broken blood vessel and now, at 9pm, it still throbs and hurts to think about touching anything with it. And forget about typing…putting that much pressure on it sends waves of pain up my arm.

Maybe its broken?

Most of the time I don’t like running. My body type isn’t made for running. I’m not fast. I don’t have much endurance. I have torque, not grace. I do it, though, because it keeps my circulatory and respiratory systems healthy, improves my endurance, and keeps me in “shape” (although sometimes I question exactly which shape that is).

However, when I get stressed out or anxious (or pissed), running is my relief. I can work off all that excess energy and nervousness and forget about running while I’m focused on the stress source. Usually I wind up mulling the matter(s) over so much that I either find a solution or decide I’ve thought plenty about it and drop it. Then I’m physically beat too, and all is well.

We are oh so close to getting TJ’s car operational. It’s now road legal – it has an Oregon title, registration and plates – and it only took about 1/2 hour at the DMV. Shocking, no? Furthermore, the brakes sound much better than they did the first time we took it out…I think they’d (c)rusted up a bit and just needed a little use to clean themselves some. I’m hoping this means we don’t have to replace them.

Our final challenge is the electrical system – I believe the alternator’s bad, which is causing the 6-month-old battery to lose its charge. So I spent the better portion of an hour bear hugging the engine of a Geo Metro in an attempt to get the final bolts off the alternator so we can go have it tested Monday after work without having to drag out the jumper cables to start the car. I’ve now really begun to appreciate a working electrical system. I’ve also gotten pretty quick at the jump start…let’s see, just today: twice to leave the house, twice at the DMV, and once at Les Schwab.

People look at you funny when you go directly for the hoods & jumper cables without even testing a normal startup.