Work has been pretty stressful these last few weeks. Not so much the workload, more so the constant inability to achieve consistency.  I like being able to have my boss give me a task to complete, which i then complete and return the results. What i don’t like  is being told to do something, spend a week or so on this task, just to have it thrown away because certain people don’t like the results (not because they are wrong, but because they didn’t show the high numbers they were unrealistically expecting).  So basically i’ve been throwing my work down the drain no matter what i do.

whatever though. I’ll just do what they tell me to, collect my paycheck, and not take any initiative on anything since it never pays off anyway.

Last week i was pretty sick, I guess I’d caught the flu sometime the week before and it then went active the night after Halloween, I guess the constant temperature change from going in and out of bars was enough to lower my immune system so it was susceptible to attack. I spent the next week in bed pretty much. Sunday through Tuesday were pretty much a blur of half-consciousness, headache, and sleep. I stayed home on wednesday too just to make sure i didn’t get sick again. Thursday i went to work and wished i’d stayed home. And then there was the weekend again. I took it easy this weekend and stayed home. Friday and Saturday were just filled with chilling on the couch and watching TV shows and Anime. I ended up reading an entire book this weekend too. The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove wasn’t too bad. If you’re into that kind of story. It was a little hard to wrap my head around a world where the ancient Egyptian gods were real and the whole world was ruled by them. Other than that though it was a good read and worth the 7 dollars or whatever i spent on it.

On sunday i went to the range with my dad to shoot stuff down range. It was lots of fun, even though i’m still not a fan of his rifle Kicks like a mule! Instead of going to Knob Creek like usual we went on Post and used French Range. It was a lot nicer than where we’d shot before and fewer rednecks too!  We also shot my dad’s new ERMA, i think it’s a KGP-69. It needs some cleaning, and probably some parts replaced, but it was neat to shoot something different.

Michelle got a new contract, and is shipping at the end of the month (she’s joining the Navy). I’m pretty excited for her, even though it seems that she’s not as excited as I am.. makes things a bit weird. I don’t see how it’s not exciting, especially for her. It must really be really tough not even being 21 yet and already having the financial burdens of someone who’s finished a master’s degree. She’ll also be well on her way to being who she wants to be. I think right now being here in Radcliff has stagnated any progress she wants to be making with her life. I just find it awesome that she’ll be going out doing things she’s never done before..

So, i’m installing the windows 7 release candidate. It’s been installing for about 20 minutes now, and looks like it’s getting close to being done. Things are going quite smoothly, even though it’s on a macbook pro (i’d imagine i’d run into problems since i have to use bootcamp), but so far so good. If Windows 7 is everything i hope it is i might actually buy a copy! If it’s not, and it’s still better than Vista, I’ll have to stick to the tried and true way of “acquire from the intarwebs”.

You know that scan i mentioned? Yeah.. still running, still making my computer run like shit

As anyone who programs will tell you, Google is probably the best thing since sliced bread. Many of your issues can be resolved by searching for what you’re trying to accomplish, in most cases someone has probably already done it and written up a nice forum post about how they’ve succeeded where you’re obviously filled with fail. Guess what? Half those sites, which are filled with golden goodness, are blocked by Websense. I know we could probably just have exclusion lists or something set up for those of us with special needs, but we don’t have the rights to do anything like that. We’d have to get approval from 100 different people to get us the stuff we need. I understand that there are spies everywhere trying to steal the secrets of your mothers pancake recipe. (OK, seriously, i do understand.) But come on, let me get to forums. Please? With sugar on top?

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.