Last week I got an email from iPay Technologies. They wanted to do a phone screening for their interviewing process. I accepted. I had my phone screening on Thursday, and Friday morning there was another email in my inbox stating they wanted to call me in for an interview. Zach went through the same thing. And now we both have interviews with them. Good thing they have two job positions open , maybe we’ll be the ones filling them. The only thing i’m concerned about right now is the compensation. They never said how much or what range the pay would be. I’m hoping they’re not going to try to hire me for what I’m being paid now.

Depending on how the interview goes, I may or may not be giving my boss a two weeks notice here in the future.

In other news, my dad got his M1 Garand. It’s beautiful! I could only imagine lugging that thing around through a combat environment though. It’s quite heavy. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to go shoot it! I kinda want one now. ^_^

Over the weekend I played lots of Left 4 Dead 2. I’ve finished all the campaigns on normal, and am now working on some of the achievements. The game really takes the feeling you get from when you first played Left 4 Dead and refines it. The chills, the excitement, the freak outs. They’re all there! There were a few times where I actually yelled/screamed like a little girl! The new zombies really do add a whole new dynamic to the game, by not letting you take advantage of the tricks that you could in L4D. The new melee weapons are also awesome, there’s nothing like beating a zombie over the head with a guitar or frying pan. And Realism mode.. oh so awesome.

I also finished reading Helix by Eric Brown. It was a good read. It really sucked me in, which is probably why i finished it in two days (or so). The characters were really believable, and the environments were well detailed. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s into science fiction and likes a story about a mission gone bad, crash landing on a strange alien structure filled with thousands of different alien races.

Saturday we took a trip to Bardstown to the Heaven Hill Distillery. My goodness, I didn’t realize that they bottled for so many different companies! Elijah Craig, Evan Williams, Fighting Cock, of course Heavenhill, and others. We got a quick history of how bourbon was accidentally discovered and why you can only make bourbon in Kentucky with certain ingredients. We did some taste testing of some different bourbons and then went on a tour of one of the warehouses. Every time the guide would talk about the ricks i would think, “I bet this is where the term Rick rolled initially came from” (refer here)  Once the tour was over we hit the gift shop and I bought myself a bottle of Elijah Craig 18 year old Bourbon. I really don’t think i’ll open that any time soon, mainly since i’m not a big bourbon drinker. Plus.. it’s a bit on the expensive side. Nothing near the 500 dollar bottles of 27 year old bourbon they had for sale though! After we got back to the house Nick started to cook. He made two pasta dishes, bruschetta, and cucumber salad. We ate outside and it made the whole atmosphere so much better! Man was it delicious!!

Today (Sunday), we took things a bit slower. I came over around 2 and we hung out a bit, went to the lake, came back and played cornhole (or bean-bag toss for some of you) for hours, while dad was grilling up the pork tenderloin, chicken, and steaks. Mom and Granny made their mouthwatering potato salad and cornbread salad (respectively).

Man i’m so tired right now.. waiting for some laundry to get done and then head back home.. I just want to crash already

Pictures will be posted as soon as they’re made available for me!

While at the parents house I did some perusing of the internet music archives. I found some new and exciting things, as well as some old bands that I’d long forgotten about. I also discovered that I’d let my ratio get way low, almost under 50%!! So I need to do some serious seeding! Hopefully I’ll be able to get back up to 60-70% pretty quick. I hope.

Well, time to get back to catching up on all the processing we missed last week.

Oh god.. Brad’s sleeping again.

We arrive at Wal-Mart, and by now it’s just raining, even though it’s 20 degrees or something. We go inside and the place is practically deserted. We see a few people doing some midnight shopping, while we see others scurrying about with carts filled with the craziest combinations you could imagine. We pretty much make a b-line for the camping section. But we’re too late! All the propane is gone! So we head to the candle isle and pick up some of the big three-wick candles. After we purchase our candles we decide we’re hungry and don’t feel like going back to a power-less house. So we head to J-Boy, since their lights are on.

The food there was good, and the place was warm. Sean and I talked about strategies about getting more people from our Eve Online corp into 0.0 (Zero-Zero). Every once in a while a new group of people would come in looking for a warm place to eat. After we ate, we stayed and talked and watched people for a while longer. After about our second or third refill on sweet tea we paid and headed back to the house.

On the way there we encountered multiple downed trees and power lines in the road. The trip back took us far longer than usual. It seemed that only the city center had power, all the outlying areas were dark.  Driving over downed power lines is scary stuff.  You never know what’s going to happen. I probably should have taken pictures of all that. I bet they would have come out great.

The house was still surprisingly warm. I guess anything would be warm compared to the outside temperatures.  I curled up in my bed, lit a few candles and read a book I’d been reading for a good while; Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. I finished a few pages and then went to sleep. I woke up a few times during the night only to find that the power was still out and that it was colder outside my blankets, so i curled up tighter and went back to sleep. The next morning the house was still without power, but still warmer than what i was expecting. That didn’t last too long though. The longer I was up and moving around the colder the house seemed to get. I texted Zach and called my Dad to see if they had power. Zach didn’t, but my parents had just gotten it back. Zach let me know that for those people with Nolin Utilities it could take up to a week to get power fully restored. I HAVE NOLIN!! oh noes. I started packing a few days worth of clothes and packed up my laptop. Sean did the same and we headed over to my parents place. Sean stopped by his girlfriend’s mom’s house to make sure she was ok  and then met up at my parents place.

Dinner was absolutely amazing. Hot goulash on a cold day really hits the spot. We hung out and watched the weather channel and the news to see what the rest of the area was like and what we could expect over the next few days. More cold, more snow, and more ice, that’s what.  I took the opportunity to take advantage of the hill in our backyard to do some sledding. I haven’t been sledding in ages! It was actually pretty fun! If only the hill was taller We all went to bed around midnight, Sean had headed back to Radcliff to check on the house.  I watched a few episodes of Dexter and then fell asleep.

Today, I plan on checking on the house and Sean, to make sure he didn’t freeze last night. And then.. i’m not sure. I guess hang out for a bit longer?

This is starting to get really annoying.  I’m surprised i haven’t gotten sick from the massive tempurature changes.

In other news the weekend is over and i’m back at work. Nothing much happened over the last three days. I spent time relaxing, playing Eve, and going out to celebrate my brothers’ birthday.

Friday was grocery shopping. The fridge was filled and now there’s plenty to munch on in the house. I also made some pretty good granola bars. They’re awesome with a glass of milk, heh. It’s kind of like eating cereal in a bar We also went to Barnes & Noble, and i got a book on RegEx (Regular Expressions). So far it’s been very helpful in my quest to learn the way of the code ninja.

Saturday evening we went to Buca Di Beppo’s for Nick’s birthday and man it was delicious! It’s an Italian family-style restaurant, where a small portion is enough to feed two people. There were about 10 of us and we all ordered something different. After all the food was out, we were barely able to try a little of everything! So much food!! All i have to say is that i didn’t have to make anything the next day for lunch. Plenty of leftovers

Sunday was hanging out at the house and then going to my parents’ place to do some laundry and eat dinner. I picked up some mail that was still going there and played with the dogs. Man, it’s like i’ve been off on an expedition to the far side of the world when i come over. One more sign that dogs are loyal. Such excitement can rarely be encountered elsewhere.

Well, one more hour to kill at work. Time for more Professional Development

If you’re like me, when you get your paystub in the mail, you quickly make sure that it’s the same as the last one, making sure that it’s not drastically higher or lower. You don’t sit there any calculate every last thing to make sure it adds up, that’s not your job, that shouldn’t even be a thought.

Well, maybe you should. A coworker has been getting paid COLA (Cost of Living Allowance), which is basically something to help someone pay for insurance, etc if they don’t go through the company to get it.  He just recently (in the last year) got married and even more recently had a child. He changed his insurance options (because he previously didn’t have any) to cover himself and his new family. After his changes finally went through, which took about a month and a half (absolutely rediculous if you ask me), he noticed they were still paying him the full amount of COLA. He notified his manager who notified their boss (and so on and so on) until it reached someone who looked into it a bit deeper. Turns out that the coworker had been getting paid too much COLA even before he put his changes in!!

HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?!

So, the company was kind enough (sarcasm) to let him pay the money they had paid him back over the next six months.  We’re at work today and check our paystubs online. They paid him the full amount of COLA again. WTF. So next check they’ll be taking that back, plus the amount for what he’s got to pay back anyway.

WHY IS NO ONE GETTING FIRED OVER THIS?!

What makes things worse, our medical and dental premiums have gone up. So, he’s now barely making enough to cover just his mortgage on the first paycheck. That doesn’t include any of his other bills. For the next six months he’s going to be scraping by, and why? Because someone couldn’t pay attention to their job. Granted, I make mistakes in my programming, and yes, sometimes they’re pretty bad (causing productivity drops). But I’m always right on it, to get that shit fixed! How can a company be so lax when it comes to someone’s livelyhood?

Needless to say, we’re both hunting for new jobs again. There are a lot of things that get me frustrated, even angry, but incompetance just takes the cake. No one should be in a spot where they’re doing more harm than good, and if management can’t see that, then they need to be replaced as well.

It’s not even my issue and i’m pissed off. My hope that people aren’t as stupid as I think they are has been obliterated.

btw, i love the Science Channel. It’s awesome. It’s totally not annoying like what’s on all the other channels with their “Christmas Cheer shows”.

I think i’m gonna go play some Left 4 Dead with Nick.

Today was saturday. I guess technically it still is, but it’s more than halfway over already . I played some Eve this morning; we went to Geminate and killed people. Fun stuff. My Rail Deimos actually worked! I think our ratio ended up being 7-0. No losses is always good

I found out on thursday that my grandfather passed away. To be honest, i’m not really that torn up about it. I hadn’t seen him in years, and we hadn’t really had quality time in much longer than that. He’d also been quite sick for the last year or so, so his passing wasn’t unexpected. It’s much worse for my father. He flew out today to attend the funeral on Monday. The whole ordeal made me think about what i’ll be feeling and going through when my dad does eventually pass — yes, our parents aren’t immortal and will eventually die. Really i don’t want to think about stuff like that. but in actuality i think it’s better that i do this now instead of later — or keep putting it off until it’s too late. I guess this way i’m somewhat prepared for it.

Work has been ok. Right now we’re pretty much on autopilot. Go in in the morning, do our processing and data retrieval, run any reports that are needed, and then surf the internet till it’s time to go home. It’s pretty cake right now. I’m just waiting for the motivation to hit to start on a new big project.

On Saturday I slept in and after waking up started reading a book i’d been meaning to start a long time ago, Ringworld’s Children. I read a few chapters and then was drawn back to my computer to play more Eve. I log in to discover that there are red gangs all over Wicked Creek, instead of risking my ship and implants i jump back to Empire space to help with our newly started war effort against Goodfellas (which as of this writing isn’t going too well, efficiency-wise). So i decided to go and make isk the old fashioned way, by running missions and hitting up complexes. Then company came over, and i had to go prep the grill. We cooked and man was it delicious! I grill some whiting fillets and my dad grilled up a pork tenderloin and some brats. Mom made potato salad and tiramisu. Nick made his famous bruchetta, and Andrew kinda chilled out

mmmm, just thinking about it is making me hungry again.

So, today is monday, the last day of this glorious 4 day weekend. I hopped on eve for about an hour this morning, and then spent the rest of the time browsing the internet looking for neat things to do, or inspriation for what new features i could add to any of the websites i work on.

And here’s to me chillin’ for the rest of the day. Ah relaxation, how i love it