the jumbles! the jumbles!

this post, like the remains of my mind at this moment, will be all jumbled. today i received my box-o-Meguiars-goodies in the mail. after i finish writing this POSt i will open it and gaze upon its beauty. kinda stoked, really. vegas is in less than three days. oh my. bryan found it humorous to test the effectiveness of the jpl network sniffers by IMing the word 'bomb' intermixed with the word 'president' to me several times this evening. tomorrow i'm totally fuXX0rD if that stuff actually works. my drive home tonight was really REALLY fast. less than fifteen minutes. i hardly made a dent in hot fuss. i left jpl behind a large liquid nitrogen delivery truck, like that one that dumps LN2 all over the T1000 in T2, y'know? it was giving of great white plumes of thick nitrogen gas. yeah, sometimes i realize i'm actually working someplace cool…then i look at my watch and i'm leaving work at a quarter to 11 and, well, shit. i passed that f00. ha. that's about all i got. i'll be waking up in a little over six hours to go back to work tomorrow morning. i don't think that i'll be staying late, tho. i need license plate frames. and coffee. and python. hmm, two out of three wouldn't be too bad, either. anybody know where i could manage that? that was a rhetorical question.

*whew*

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must…focus…

i've impressed myself by actually working for several minute-long periods today without thinking about thursday. on thursday i'll be driving to vegas for a weekend of MINI-flavored debauchery.

it's so on i can't believe it.

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It's all in the details, really

A few hours of 'quality time' with Bertie and he's lookin' sharp once again. I gave him the once-over with some wash soap, then onto the NXT Spray Wax, which is meant to recharge an existing wax coat. Very easy spray-on, wipe, wait, wipe off. It did a beautiful job on every surface but the boot, which feels like it needs to be clay-barred anyway. Interior detailer for the dust and dirt inside. Stoner's Invisible Glass for the windows, inside and out.

This will keep my car on the verge of clean until my order from Meguiar's comes and I can get to work with my own random action orbital buffer and put on a new coat of wax.

Gotta look good for Vegas! (four days!!!)

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strikeout

I just got home from running some errands around the Valley. First I dropped Bryce (my brother, for those just tuning in) off at CSUN for a little weekend schoolwork. On the way down Nordoff to CSUN I passed by Steve’s Auto Clinic, source for performance mod installs for the local MINI community. Tim’s vibrant and highly enstickered electric blue S was sitting in the driveway. So I dropped off Bryce at school, turned around, hightailed it back to Steve’s, and the MINI was nowhere to be found. Bummer. Strike One.

From Northridge I sped at perilous velocity to Costco in Van Nuys to try to get several things: the I (heart) HUCKABEES Special Edition DVD, some microfiber towels, and a case of either Red Bull or Amp energy drinks (caffeine = good). Turns out they had only the regular edition of the DVD, they had only sugarfree Red Bull, and I was totally going to get the microfibers and a copy of the SAW DVD, I had both in hand in a looooong line at the cash register, I got up to the front, and realized that I was holding the FULLSCREEN edition of SAW. Son. Of. A. I stomped out of line, flung the DVD and the towels in their respective places, and left Costco. That’s, like, several more strikes.

My final stop was at Beverages and More, one of my favorite stores. Previously I had gone there to get some of their wide array of beers (and, yes, I got several of those today, as well…) but I was mainly looking for wines. Reds, to be exact. I had several labels that I was looking for in particular, found none of those, and settled for four bottles of random varietals of reasonable price.

By this point I was pretty much Out, but I got a little boost by being totally passed and left in the dust by an Astro Black Cooper S Convertible. Awesome.

Time to wash this car o’ mine.

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A Beautiful Day

Yesterday was a pretty awesome day. After my eerily-peppy trip to the bank, I was home for a little bit before heading out to Burbank to meet Julie at Starbucks. There was coffee. There was coding. When we got tired of coffee and coding (hard to imagine, I know…) it was off to the Media center for dinner, a short bout of Mallratting, and dinner at the C-to-the-P-Kizzle. Because we were fairly early to go into the theater yet for the evening's cinematic goodness (10:15 showing of The Aviator) we grabbed Cold Stone's. We then walked the ice cream directly into the theater, watched the movie (which had a great sound track, was filled vibrant characters, and has finally convinced me that Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor).

I belted out lyrics from Janet Klein and her Parlour Boys all of the way home (several songs that they covered were featured in the movie…) and, though I was wired, fell asleep not long after 2am.

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untitled

i just got home. coffee. code. dinner. aviator.

tired.

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'this is your lucky day, erik'

So far, so good!

I woke up late today feeling, for the first time in a week and a half, healthy.

Shower. Bowl of cereal. Carnation Instant Breakfast.

After my sumptuous meal, I looked at the pile of gift checks from my birthday and *groan* Christmas, and finally decided to take them to the bank for deposit.

To the womBatmobile!

[spinning wombat head transition]

Bertie felt especially quick this morning. Up to Wells Fargo. Park. Looooong line for the tellers. Oh well. But then one of the bankers got up from her desk and announced:

"Anyone with straight deposit, checks only?"

Nobody moved in the quarter-mile-long line. I looked down at my hand. It held a deposit slip, with no cash back, and a wad of checks in varying levels of carbon-datable antiquity.

I ducked under the little line markers and walked over to her desk.

"I have checks only," I declared, happily, and more than a bit too loud.

"How are you doing today," she asked as she entered the necessary stuff into her computer.

"Quite a bit better not having to stand in that line," I replied.

She grinned. "This is your lucky day, Erik!"

It was, indeed! I was in and out of the bank in two minutes, give or take a few nanos. As I prepared to leave and she handed me my receipt she stated, quite simply, "this is going to be a good day, Mr. Peterson."

I believe that she was right!

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fading from red

today i saw red. the morning was so fantastically stressful, and i was placed in such unnecessarily difficult positions by the alignment of a series
of unfortunate events, that by lunch i was fighting, sometimes unsuccessfully, to contain my emotions (mostly frustration, though it was manifested through general unpleasantness). several of my co-workers ran into me during this time and instead of giving me a hard time over it, like they normally would, they read my internal battle and left me alone. i salute their wisdom.

the actions of a few things allowed me to fade back to the state of mild annoyance in which i now sit. Those things are, in no particular order: loud music (particularly a four-ton mantis), aol instant messenger, and a whiteboard/chalkboard eraser. thank you to the people behind each of these things. you know who you are.

and now, to begin the rest of my evening at work, a beat.

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truism

There is no such thing as a 15 minute meeting.

Meetings come in multiples of 1 hour. No exceptions. No matter how short your customer PROMISES the meeting is going to be, it will take a multiple of an hour. Woe to him who is sitting in the '15 minute meeting' and sees the clock tick past an hour…because that meeting just became a 2 hour meeting, a trying prospect for the hardiest of souls.

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effin' hardcore

i just washed down a pair of pills with a mouthful of coffee.

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