This is where I bitch.

We are out of things to do at work again, so since I have a lot of vacation time left and none of it will roll over this year, I've got half of today and tomorrow off. The house needs cleaning, but hopefully I can get some art I owe people done also.

Walked to work this morning in an attempt to not use my car if we don't need to. It was 29 degrees F on the way over. Kinda chilly. Paul is picking me up at lunch to go vote and then I'll just go home after that.

Is it bad to vote not cause I think the dems will fix things but to try and stop the reps from making it worse? That the whole better of two evils thing, isn't it?

I think Emily will be free this weekend and can go up to mom and dad's with me, so I might still get to go. She's taking me out for dinner tonight for my birthday, so I will find out for sure then.

This is a great piece about gay rights and why denying them should be considered wrong by any intelligent person. Thanks to fenrah for the link.

(Shameless plug: Abbie's podcast continues to be awesome, go listen!)

Last night of volleyball for the season is tonight and I have to work late. Boo. It sucks cause I will not have seen Em in like 3 weeks, and with the holidays it will be another 1 or 2 until we can hang out. And without volleyball, it will take a lot of planning and schedule juggling to make time for us to hang out. Sad.

Project workflow seems to be fixed. To bad for them I've been moved part time to help on another project, their stuff will have to wait, I guess. And I don't mind that at all, really.

Not too thrilled with Amazon.com these days. Paul got me a book I already had (I'd forgotten to take it off my wish list). They want to charge us $4 on an $8 book to ship it back to them. At that price I'll sell it to Half-Price Books.

I'm on the next Women of the Underworld books by Kelly Armstrong right now, a great series that I just started my brother-in-law on at Christmas. It's good, but following one of the characters I don't really have much interest in. The next one (which Paul also got me) is about the men of her world, and looks good. (And just now while checking Wikipedia to make sure I have them in the correct order I found she has a ton of short stories set in this world on her website! Sweet!)

It's official, I'm too efficient, we are almost out of work on the project. Hopefully there will be enough clean up between the rounds to keep me busy without having to go beg for work on another project.

Paul made french toast this morning for breakfast, which was very yummy. And this afternoon I leave work early (I actually came in early to get my full 8 in) and met Em at 4:00 to leave to go see Rent at the Appleton Performing Arts center. Looking forward to it. I've never seen Rent, not even the recent movie, and I've heard great things about it. It's one of Paul's favorites.

Though I will have to dodge the "are you going to an interview" questions all day, as I dressed up a bit for the show.

Listening to Leonard Nimoy and some of the TNG cast read War of the Worlds this morning. Well done, go listen if you want, http://www.bigcontact.com/latw

So humid, mouse is sticking to my desk.

Volleyball was fun. We played a really good team, but we took one game and played well the other two. I was actually hitting fairly well too. After Em and I grabbed dinner at Olive Garden. Was a nice night.

Tonight, if the rain holds off, I mow, again. I'm doing this weekly this summer. Too much rain/sun!

( 5 questions from calli )

I cheated on my "no credit card" plan. I needed breakfast this morning and we have no food in the house. So hit McD's. And I needed a father's day gift for dad. Need to hide it away again tonight.

I forgot my sun glasses on Sunday at Jess and Lari's, need to swing by soon. Too sunny to drive without them.

We lost our softball game last night by one run in the bottom of the 7th. It was a pretty good game. Most of our team needs skills training, but that is what the league is for. I do take offense at the inconsistent reffing, the lack of energy of my team, and the crappy coaching. Jess and I are planning on cocoaching next year. That way it won't overwhelm either of us. My coach doesn't even know everyone's name yet. Season is half over. Just lazy. her coach isn't any better. I slid again and now my other knee has a scrape on it. When will I learn I'm old?

Still on same boring project at work.

I usually don't remember my dreams, but last night I dreamed I was hanging out with Em and she was ignoring me. Not sure what that means, but I think we need to hang out again soon.

Tired/hungover, and working at the mall.

Yesterday was productive, I got a lot of the house cleaned and a lot of softball practice in. Kinda sore from using those muscles again. Paul did really well hitting for his first time too.

The first game is Monday, so we should both be ready.

Then we went to met up with the college crew for a Wendy and Drew outing at the Essen house for a while. It was nice to see everyone. Ended the night at Club 5 with Jess and Lari. I think it was the mixing of beer and liquor. Gotta stop that.

A bit more softball this afternoon, then I think I'd like to grill out tonight.

Em had to ask me if her surprise birthday gift to me will work, schedule wise. I'm going to see Rent with the original cast in November. I'm super excited.

I didn't get to see Wolverine yesterday, so Em and I will try and see it and get dinner this week.

exairian was right, the Kissers were pretty boring. Em and I hung out at the show for about 45 minutes chatting, then decided to go the the bar downstairs, the Brink, for drinks and food. We hung out there for a bit, Paul joined us, then we moved out of the bar and into the music venue there to listen to a classical Irish string band and chat with Liz and Marcus.

I got to see more pictures of Jack from my sister. They are home from the hospital already. I'm looking forward to seeing them this weekend. Plus mom, dad and grandma should still be visiting. Seeing pictures of Jack kinda pinged my biological clock (not sure if guys have them, but its the same feeling I think). Still not ready to be a dad, but I still think I'd like to.

Project is on schedule to ship off to the printer in China today. Then a few weeks of file clean up and we are done. Until the national version starts up in May.

Tonight is house chores for me, particularly cleaning the kitchen and some bedroom dusting.

They decided to make a process change on me. It is going faster, I admit, but if I am the lead on the project it would have been nice to have been consulted or at least made a part of this decision. So now I'm handling questions from 4 people, 2 of the three parts of the project are not in my control any more and they have me working on two machines at once (using remote control of the 2nd one). It's getting to be a lot to keep straight in my mind.

Dinner and music last night with Em was fun. It was really good to see Kiki, Liz and Gina again, and the other music/concert people I never see. Em and Iwere tired and kinda nodding off on occasion, but we had fun. The headliner broke up his set with some monologes that he called "Letters from a Flying Machine" which are letters he's written wile flying to his nieces and nephews. I kinda want to start writing to Jack now.

Gonna be a long day. With 5 people working yesterday we got about 300 pages done. The goal for today is 800 with 3 people. Maybe the process change will make it possible. I still have my doubts.

I just can't think when I get up this early. Today I forgot to shave. Very annoying.

Paul let me cook last night, probably cause he was tired. Turned out fine, had a slight timing issue with the rolls, but they just ended up being the finisher course.

Going to Peter Mulvery tonight at Kiki's basement with Em. Before hand we'll get dinner at the "new" Thai place near my house.

I think we are at almost 20% done with my project. And 3 days to do the rest, we average less than 10% at day, you do the math.

The weekend was good, almost too good. It was great seeing Laura and the family. It was awesome to have a weekend to hang out with Em. Loved spending time with Paul and JP. Enjoyed shopping. Made all the issues that I have at home and work seem even worse.

Plus I really want to go home now, but should stay till like 8. Paul just got 27 shots over 7 hours to try and get his allergies under control. Normally one has these over a few months, but he's getting allergic to JP, so we need to stop it now. He's sick and tired and had a scare at one point during the procedure. But I'm stuck here putting in over time on a project destined to fail.