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2010-03-20T15:39:00.001-05:00

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Daily Journal: Day 100 of 365

2010-03-18T00:09:00.001-05:00

Today was another crappy day at work. I did manage to get an hour and a half of filing done, but that’s about it. Turns out that Steven had the day off, so it was the two drivers and the new porter and me. At least I managed to get a little bit of stuff done before I got called back to the drive.

On the further downside of the day, I think I lost one of the department’s walkie-talkies in someone’s car. I wonder how much one of those costs…

And I got invited to lunch by the department managers tomorrow. I’m not sure what that’s going to be all about, but I’m guessing that it will be an ego-stroking session complimenting me on helping out on the drive. I guess we’ll see.

After we got home today, we took Ernie down to Petsmart to get some more dog food. As always, people thought he was just adorable. We also stopped at Kroger for a few things, and I waited outside with him while the girlfriend went in the store. He didn’t get a lot of direct attention there, but a number of people smiled and waved at him as they went past. He’s always a hit.

And now, because I need to get up earlier than usual for his vet appointment tomorrow, I’m going to go to bed…

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Daily Journal: Day 99 of 365

2010-03-17T01:06:00.001-05:00

It was another day of basically being a porter at work. When I got there, I thought I was going to be able to do some of my own work. One of the drivers had called in sick again, but they had Steven, the regular porter, and Raoul, the new guy, both there. So I took about half of the paperwork down to the file room and told the ladies up front to give me a call if it started backing up on the drive and I’d come back and help out.

I wound up getting about ten minutes of filing done before they called me. And for the rest of the morning, I was being a porter. When I finally got a bit of time where everything seemed to be caught up for a bit, they needed me to go take someone home. In the end, I never got back to the file room at all, except to get my thermos of coffee and bring it back to the service drive. So now I’ve got at least five days of filing backed up, and it doesn’t look all that great to get any done tomorrow.

The one nice thing is that Steven mentioned to me that he really appreciated all the help that I’ve been giving them. Not that management has really commented or anything. But at least the people in the trenches seem to notice sometimes, and that’s nice.

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Daily Journal: Day 98 of 365

2010-03-15T23:57:00.001-05:00

For the most part, it was another crap day at work. At least Steven, one of the regular porters, got there at about the same time I did today. I nevertheless spent most of the morning running my ass off trying to get cars parked and pulled up and greeting people on the drive. It’s getting pretty close to time to update the old resume and start serious fishing for new employment.

On the plus side, driving took up a fair bit of the afternoon, and they were mostly fairly easy drives. Another good thing today was that they did finally hire another porter. So for this week, we’ll still be a little understaffed, but at least it won’t be like the past four or five work days. I was thinking about possibly asking management what the odds are of my becoming a service advisor, but the more I think about it, the less good an idea it seems. I don’t know, though. It would still probably be a lot more money than what I’m making right now.

After work today, I stopped at the grocery store. I had to pick up coffee, since the last of it went into this morning’s pot. I also got sandwich stuff for lunches and a few other snack type things. Unfortunately, I forgot to get the Sunday paper while I was there. I guess I’ll hold off until next week.

Last night, I installed Dragon Naturally Speaking on the computer. The manual says that you can use a portable recorder, like the one I have, to dictate away from your computer and turn it into text later. Unfortunately, neither the manual nor the help file ever mention loading files to use for dictation, so I’m guessing that they mean you have to play back the dictation into the line-in jack of the computer and convert it that way. Which would suck, because my recorder can transfer over the recorded files in digital form much faster than it can play them back. I’d hoped I could just open them and have it do the speech-to-text conversion digitally, but I’m guessing that’s not an option. Oh well.

And now, it’s getting far too late, so it’s off to bed with me…

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Daily Journal: Day 97 of 365

2010-03-15T01:22:00.001-05:00

It’s been a long day today. We got up fairly early to take Ernie to his class. That went all right. We haven’t really done as much of the homework as we should have over the past week or so, but we got some more helpful hints and such, and I think it’ll still continue to improve.

We stopped at my storage unit on the way home and picked up some of the plywood I have there. I’m planning to use at least part of it to make a more permanent gate to keep Ernie from exploring the upstairs. Right now, we’re just using a big box, and it’s rather inconvenient to say the least.

I got a call from Tom, the drummer down in Lewisville. He had to cancel out yesterday, but he called and I drove down to his place to jam a bit today. Unfortunately it was just the two of us, and that never really makes for a great session. He’s something of a major talker, and a bit of a space cadet it seems to me, but maybe something good will come of it. We’ll have to see.

I just had to print out a pattern for the girlfriend’s mom, and I installed Dragon Naturally Speaking while I was at it, but now it’s getting way too late and I need to get to bed while I can still get a little sleep…

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Daily Journal: Day 95 of 365

2010-03-12T23:24:00.001-06:00

It was quite a fucked up day at work today. I got to work at about the usual time, a little late because there was another overturned tractor-trailer rig just off the freeway exit. And I was greeted with the announcement that there were no porters today. Plus one of the other drivers called in sick, so it was pretty much me and the two young techs who they ask to cover once in a while. I guess the day didn’t go horribly badly, considering, but it looks like it’s only going to be worse next week. One of the porters got fired, one has the week off, and the two techs who cover sometimes both have classes they need to attend all week. So it’ll be me and the drivers all morning all week. Great scheduling, managers…

I did the post office run this morning, which was something I hadn’t done before. Not really all that exciting. It’s just dropping off the outbound mail and checking the couple of post office boxes. Of course, it was a little more exciting because I nearly got hit by people turning against red lights, not once, but twice. I can’t believe how pathetically badly so many people drive around here.

I thought there was one little bright side to the day when I was picking up one of the customers this afternoon. He works for a division of HP that does mid-sized company database migrations and the like. We talked about my background and such, and he said he’d leave me his e-mail address and I should send him my resume if I was interested in getting back into the field. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave that e-mail address. I guess I could find his phone number and call him. I’ll see tomorrow.

And no one’s replied about the hockey tickets. Oh well…

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Daily Journal: Day 94 of 365

2010-03-10T23:56:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I wound up being completely shut out on the driving front after all. Fortunately, the weather was quite nice all evening. While waiting around for cars to pull up, I called Tom, the drummer from Lewisville. We’re going to get together on Saturday and see whether we have any musical common ground. He’s going to see if he can get anyone else over to play, which would be cool. The whole bass and drums by themselves thing never seems to work out all that well for me.

I also got a call from Scott, who was supposed to go to the hockey game with me this Sunday. He got volunteered for something at his church, so he had to back out. I don’t really feel like begging anyone to go with me, so I’m going to see if I can sell the tickets on Craigslist or something of that nature.

This morning, I finally got the release to do the filing that’s been backed up for the past three days. I managed to get done with about three quarters of it, and hopefully I’ll be able to get the rest caught up tomorrow. Today was a pretty slow day, so I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble.

As I was walking back and forth to the file room with the couple of large stacks of papers, the severe thunderstorm warning from the Weather Channel came to fruition. There was a little bit of hail, but mostly it just poured down buckets. It took me two trips, and by the time I was done, my pants were completely drenched from the rain blowing sideways into them. Fortunately, I’d worn my rain jacket, so the rest of me wasn’t too bad off. And about twenty minutes after I got settled in the file room, the rain stopped. When I went out an hour or so later, the sun was shining and it was probably about 75 degrees. It would figure that I did all my trips during the half hour of the day when it was pouring.

The afternoon was pretty dead again. I had one pickup, which was just up the freeway. Aside from that, I was just a porter again. Again, the weather was nice, but it was boring and I’d rather have been doing something halfway useful instead. Oh well. Guess I should head down to the college and try to get those summer classes set up. Maybe then I can start looking for a better job…

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Daily Journal: Day 91 of 365

2010-03-07T23:45:00.001-06:00

Today we had the second installment of Ernie’s puppy training. We got there a little late, mostly because I pretty much slept right through my alarm. I guess the lack of sleep has pretty much caught up with me. The class itself was all right. We learned a couple of little things to try to curb some of his bad behaviors, which we’re going to try to put into action from now on.

After the puppy class, we drove over to Tyler to visit the girlfriend’s dad in the hospital. He’s been moved out of the ICU and is in a room that’s sort of between ICU-level care and just a regular hospital room. I’m not sure what the term for that would be. In any case, he can talk now, which made it a whole lot easier to pass the time with him. He’s doing a lot better, and we’re hoping that he’s going to be able to get out of the hospital in a month or so, although six to eight weeks seems a bit more realistic.

Her brother John was there. We haven’t seen him since we took our trip to the Pacific Northwest last November. He’s doing well. After the visit, Jenny (girlfriend’s step-mom), Adrian and John (brothers), and the girlfriend and I all went to TGI Friday’s for dinner. It was about what you’d usually expect. The meal was okay, nothing to really write home about.

It rained most of the trip over and most of the trip back, and it looks like it’s going to continue raining tomorrow. The girlfriend has to open tomorrow, so I’m going to get both night and morning duty with Ernie. I guess that’s all right, because I also have to get some laundry done. I’m going to go throw a load in the washer now, then let it dry tomorrow morning. Hopefully I won’t have to go to work in wet clothes, although if the weather is as bad as expected, it might not matter much anyway. I guess we’ll see…

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Daily Journal: Day 89 of 365

2010-03-06T00:43:00.001-06:00

Today I got to work and was greeted with the order that I wasn’t to do any of my usual filing. Because of the changeover in computer systems this weekend, they’re worried that I might wind up having to pull all of the orders for the past few days in order to put them in the new system by hand, so they want to keep them separated. Instead, I was to go back and help Eric, the warranty administrator, with whatever stuff he might need help with.

I went back to help Eric, but he was at a meeting about the big computer changeover. So I sat around for a while, feeling pretty useless. I went up front to help out the porters, but they had two porters and both of the morning drivers on the drive, so I really didn’t have much to do there. And in the end, I wound up in the file room anyway, just purging old orders. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a totally fucked up week next week, both with them having to pull a bunch of orders to see the history that doesn’t get transferred, and the fact that I’m going to start the week several days’ worth of filing behind. Oh well.

Aside from that, it was an all right day. I only had one drive to do this afternoon, but it took two hours. I got to see a couple of roads in the county that I’d never been on before, which is always at least a bit interesting. And the folks I drove around were pretty nice, which is also a plus.

Ernie was his typical hyperactive self after we got home. I do think he’s getting a bit better about not biting as much, and hopefully it’ll continue as he gets older. The girlfriend is still pretty stressed about it, though. We’re going to stop at Home Depot or Lowe’s this weekend and get some PVC pipe to make him some little agility obstacles. Hopefully that’ll help to keep him entertained. In any case, I’ve got to get up in a few hours to take him out, so it’s over and out for me now…

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Daily Journal: Day 87 of 365

2010-03-04T00:36:00.001-06:00

Today wasn’t a terribly productive one. I got to work late because I was across the street talking to the insurance agent about the car accident yesterday. Because I ran over some of the debris, I wanted to get my car checked, and I wasn’t sure if I should check with them about coverage or anything. As it happens, there wasn’t really any damage to the car, so it doesn’t really matter much.

When I did get to work, I dropped of my car to have the state inspection and an oil change done. We have a special going on at the dealership, where the oil change and a tire rotation is only $5.00 more than the oil change alone would usually cost. So I went ahead and had the tires rotated, too, despite the fact that I’ve got very little mileage on the thing and it probably won’t need a rotation for a year or two.

I mentioned to my boss that I’d heard that the girl who does most of the IT work there was probably going to be fairly overwhelmed by the task of updating all of the computers to the new system they’re moving to next week. I volunteered to help out, since I’ve done a number of major IT rollouts in my previous job. He said that he’d get in touch with the IT people and let me know if they’re interested. I doubt it would get me a new job or anything, but at least it would get my name on their minds, and that’s never a really bad thing.

Aside from those little things, it was mostly just the same old stuff. Too much filing and pulling of orders today, so I’m behind again, but only by a little bit. The driving wasn’t too terribly bad. And on the home front, Ernie hasn’t peed on the floor for a few days, and he seems to be biting a bit less than he has in the past. I guess we’ll just keep working at it until he’s a good little citizen.

And now, since I have to take him out for his nightly walk in a few hours, I’m off to sleep…

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Daily Journal: Day 86 of 365

2010-03-03T00:41:00.001-06:00

It’s been a rather long and eventful day today. On the way to the hockey game, I was right behind a three-car accident. I stuck around as a witness, as well as to make sure the debris I ran over didn’t cause any major damage to my car. Amazingly, despite the fact that one of the cars flipped over and was on top of another briefly, no one seemed to be injured at all in the incident. I met a guy named Shawn, who was in the car that went airborne. He was also going to the Stars game at the time. Since his car was basically totaled, I gave him a ride to the game and let him keep his stuff in my car until he could get a ride home with one of his friends after the game.

The game itself was rather bad for the Stars. They lost 5-1, including one goal scored with only about 6 seconds left in the game. It was really a very pathetic showing. The seats, on the other hand, were incredible. We were seated right above the lane where the zambonis come out on the ice, and we could see pretty much everything going on down at that end of the ice like we were right there at ringside. Since we were over the entryway, there was no one right in front of us obstructing our view. If it wasn’t for the fact that the seats cost about $100 each regularly, I might consider getting those seats from now on. Not likely, though…

After the game, I called Shawn back to get together so he could get his stuff. He had mentioned that he lived in Flower Mound, and he asked if I could just drop him off at one of the malls in Lewisville and his wife could come and get him. I told him that it wouldn’t be any problem for me to just drop him off at home. Both he and his wife were quite appreciative of all I did for him. With any luck, he’ll keep in touch and maybe we can get together at another hockey game or something. It’s a weird way to make friends, but nowadays I’ll take about any way I can get.

And now, after my exciting day, I do believe I’ll see if I can get some sleep…

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Daily Journal: Day 85 of 365

2010-03-01T23:27:00.001-06:00

It’s been another fairly uneventful day today. The first half of work was relatively slow. I pretty much just stayed caught up with the filing. I’m hoping that it stays slow for the rest of the week, because if it does, I’m going to go to work late one of those days and take the opportunity to go visit the NCTC admissions office and see about taking some summer classes there. I’m not sure what the requirements are for taking online classes, but I really think those would work out better for me than the traditional classroom setting. Of course, I’ll also not meet as many people in an online class, so maybe I should stay traditional. I guess I’ll see what I need to do to even get admitted, and then I’ll take it from there.

I didn’t have a whole lot of driving to do today, but the last drive was quite an adventure. The guy I was taking home lives over in The Colony, which is a bit of a drive. Usually, I’d take the new toll bridge, but he said that he had been right behind an accident on the freeway, and traffic was in a pretty messed up state south of the dealership. So we took a more roundabout kind of route, and it took me until about 6:35 before I got him home. On the way back, there were the usual traffic issues on the little side roads, but I took the toll bridge back anyway, thinking the freeway accident would probably be clear after an hour. Wrong. There were still police and fire vehicles all over, and traffic was backed up on both the freeway and the access roads for several miles. Fortunately, I was able to take a back way and got back to the dealership only 20 minutes after the department would normally close. If I hadn’t been late to work this morning and if I didn’t take a long lunch, I might even be headed for overtime this week. But that doesn’t really ever happen except the weeks when I work on Saturday. Oh well.

Tomorrow I have a hockey game to attend, and tonight I get to take the puppy out at 3:36, so I guess I’ll head off to sleep now…

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Daily Journal: Day 84 of 365

2010-02-28T23:37:00.001-06:00

We went to Ernie’s training class today. There were actually people who showed up this time, which was good. There was a young couple with two puppies, a terrier of some sort (like an Airedale, perhaps) and a puggle (half pug, half beagle). The puggle looked very much like a tiny little boxer. And there was a young girl and her mother who had a mongrel which looked like it was primarily lab. I think Ernie was the youngest pup in the class. He behaved himself quite well. I was half expecting him to try to bully around the other puppies, but he wound up being pretty much a little pushover himself. The little puggle must have weight about a third his weight, yet as soon as she came over to him, he pretty much rolled over on his back and let her lick his ears and romp all over him. Overall, it was a good class, and hopefully the rest will be even more informative.

After the class, we drove down to the girlfriend’s mom’s house. We thought that they were going to be gone, but they had recently returned home. Nevertheless, we brought Ernie inside and were just careful to keep him on the tile areas. We also let him run around outside for a little while, since they have a fenced back yard. We really haven’t had any other chances to let him run without a leash on, so it was good for him. Her mom really seemed to like him a lot. He fell asleep on their kitchen floor, which has some nice ceramic tiles. They felt much cooler than the linoleum at our house, and the cold seems to feel quite nice to him. Hopefully he’ll lose most of his puppy coat before summer, because otherwise he’s going to be absolutely miserable.

After visiting for a while, we came home and watched the Olympic hockey final. It was a pretty great game, with the US just losing to Canada in overtime after falling behind 2-0 in the 2nd period. I’d have rather seen the US win, of course, but it’s nice that Canada won it on their home ice.

Speaking of hockey, I also called John, the girlfriend’s brother, and asked if he wanted to go see the Stars play the Kings this Tuesday. Fortunately, he wasn’t working late that day, so I’m going to actually have a fellow hockey fan to go with. That’s a good thing indeed.

And now, since it’s getting late and I need to return to work tomorrow, it’s off to bed with me…

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Daily Journal: Day 83 of 365

2010-02-28T00:07:00.001-06:00

It’s been a fairly quiet Saturday. I got my physical done today for the life insurance. That was a lot quicker and less involved than I expected, which is a good thing. It only took about twenty minutes, mostly just taking the blood sample and weighing and measuring me. Definitely not as involved as most of the physicals I’ve had in the past.

After that, we pretty much just sat around and watched the Olympics and kept an eye on Ernie all day. It certainly wasn’t the most productive day, but it was fairly restful, at least. In face, it was so restful that I managed to take a nap for an hour or so during one of the cross country ski races. It was a beautiful day out, and I should have spent more time out of the house, but such is life. We did take a little family walk up to the natural food store with Ernie, expecting to have dinner at their little cafe. Unfortunately, they seemed to be closed, so we just ordered delivery from El Guapo’s, one of the Mexican restaurants here in town. It wasn’t a bad dinner, but nothing to really write home about. The refried beans and the chips were both pretty good, though.

Tomorrow, we have the puppy training class at Petsmart in the morning. We’re probably going to go down to the girlfriend’s mom’s house after that and let Ernie run around in the back yard. Beyond that, who knows what the day will hold. I guess I’ll see then…

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Daily Journal: Day 82 of 365

2010-02-26T23:27:00.001-06:00

I’m glad it’s Friday. The day at work was pretty typical. I did finally manage to get caught up in the file room, so next week I’m going to take one of those days when I finish early and I’m going to head down to NCTC and talk to the admissions people about taking some classes over the summer term. Driving today was virtually nonexistent, which would have come in handy when I was trying to get caught up on filing. Today, however, it just made for a long, boring evening. I did get the storage unit bill paid today.

This weekend, I’m scheduled to have a physical done for my life insurance tomorrow morning. Then I need to make some kind of gate for the stairs, so Ernie isn’t climbing up when he gets a little bigger. And I need to see if anyone wants to go to the hockey game with me on Tuesday. This game I’m definitely planning to attend, because they’ve upgraded me to lower level seats. I also need to do some work on getting the upstairs room into a little better shape, and I should clean Kala’s litter box again. Aside from those things, I guess I’ll play it by ear. For now, off to bed…

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Daily Journal: Day 81 of 365

2010-02-25T23:47:00.001-06:00

It’s been just another typical work day. There was a truck overturned off the freeway exit this morning, so I was a bit later than usual getting to work. And they finally finished with some audit that’s been going on at work, so I got to file all of the folders that they wanted from the file room. So, in general, I wound up pretty much just treading water in the file room. The driving was not bad. I stayed busy enough that I wasn’t in the office much, but it was again not so hectic that I felt all that rushed. I did some shopping after work, and the girlfriend made meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner. We watched the Olympics for a while, and now it’s time for bed. Typical boring sort of day…

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Daily Journal: Day 80 of 365

2010-02-25T09:32:00.001-06:00

So I’m kind of fudging a bit on the dates, because I didn’t actually write anything yesterday. But it’s early morning, so I’m going to let it slide this one time. Not that there was a whole lot to say yesterday. I went to work an hour late because I was over signing papers for life insurance in the morning. The agent had said it would take about twenty minutes to half an hour, but it took more like an hour and a half. Oh well.

Work itself was fairly slow, at least on the filing side, so I managed to get quite a bit done. Driving was fast enough that I didn’t have to sit around for very long, but not so hectic that it was annoying. Overall, it was a good work day.

And then I came home and looked after Ernie for about four hours. The girlfriend still isn’t feeling all that great, so she was napping on and off. She actually took half the day off work, and she was asleep when I got home. Hopefully the sleep and the medicine will help knock back the illness and get her back into her stride. And now, I have to finish getting ready for work…

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Daily Journal: Day 79 of 365

2010-02-23T23:36:00.001-06:00

Today was another long day at work. The other morning driver called in sick today, so they called me at a little before 7:00 to see if I could be there by 8:00. And when I got there, we had almost no driving to be done. But at least I did manage to get a bunch more of the filing done. I think there’s a remote chance that I might actually be completely caught up by tomorrow, assuming that I don’t have to drive again, or that there isn’t much driving to be done.

One thing that was interesting at work today was a call I got from one of the cashiers. I answered expecting to be told that there was some driving to do, but instead she told me that there was a person at the desk who was looking to start a band. I talked to him for a bit. He’s an older guy, and is looking to do mostly original music, with enough covers to get gigs. He’s a drummer, which is a good thing, and he’s just down the road in Lewisville, instead of halfway across the metroplex. I’m going to call him tomorrow, possibly, and see when would be a good time to get together and jam. Possibly the band thing may happen after all.

The work day was extended somewhat unexpectedly today. A lady who got her car back from us at about 6:30 broke down a short time later, and I got to drive about halfway to Flower Mound to pick up her and her three daughters. So I didn’t get off work until after 7:30. A little more overtime, which is always a good thing. And, since I might wind up getting overtime tomorrow, too, if the other drivers don’t both show up, I should go to bed now…

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Daily Journal: Day 78 of 365

2010-02-22T23:53:00.001-06:00

I got a call today while I was getting ready for work. One of the other drivers called in sick, so they wanted me to come in early. Unfortunately, I had the appointment to sign papers and such for my life insurance, so I couldn’t really get there very early. I went over to the insurance office and found out that they were expecting me to get a basic physical done there, so it was going to take about half an hour or so to get everything done. Since I was a bit pressed for time, I rescheduled for tomorrow.

When I got to work, I had one milk run to make around Denton, taking three people home. After that, there was no driving to do, so I managed to get caught up a little more on the filing. I did do some driving in the afternoon, but it wasn’t one of those frantic sort of days, like I’d expected from all of the take homes in the morning. I also found out that the other driver wasn’t feeling all that well today, so I will probably get called in early tomorrow, too, and I might be the only regular driver all day. So I doubt I’ll get much further ahead on my filing. Oh well.

The girlfriend went to the doctor today and found out that the rash she was getting on her midsection is shingles. She got a prescription to treat it. Ernie and I had to run up to Walgreen’s to get her some money for the prescription. I didn’t really feel like dragging the cat carrier out to the car for him, so he just sat in the passenger’s seat. He really was a pretty good little passenger, which is a good sign for future travel.

And that’s about it for the day. Early day tomorrow, so off to bed with me before I pass out…

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Daily Journal: Day 77 of 365

2010-02-21T23:34:00.001-06:00

We went over to the hospital in Tyler today to visit the girlfriend’s dad, who is in the ICU there after having a hematoma removed from his brain a couple of weeks ago. He can’t speak yet, and we realized that it’s actually quite difficult to try to carry on a one-way conversation for the better part of two hours. He can respond to yes-or-no questions, and his son made a sheet with the letters of the alphabet, which he can point to in order to spell out words, but that’s a very slow process and seems quite tiring to him. Still, he seemed happy to have us there, and he’s doing very well for someone who recently had brain surgery.

After the visiting hours were over, we had a late lunch or early dinner with Jenny, my girlfriend’s stepmother. We talked about how her dad was doing and just about other things, like the puppy and the ongoing repairs on their house. It was a good time, and the meal was all right, too.

And then it was driving a couple of hours back home, and dealing with the little terrorist for another several hours. It’s getting late now, though, and it’s back to work tomorrow. Since I’ll be doing the late night potty shift, I guess I should head off to bed pretty quickly now…

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Daily Journal: Day 76 of 365

2010-02-20T23:48:00.001-06:00

It’s been another long day. I had to get up earlier than usual because I worked this morning. Fortunately, the girlfriend took the night shift with Ernie, so at least I didn’t have to get up in the wee early hours and then at 6:45.

Work was pretty hectic. I only got to do a little driving, so most of the rest of it was being a porter. We had a ton of oil changes and quite a few of the recalls on the Pontiac Vibe. I guess the brake system was manufactured by Toyota, so the same problems they’re having have trickled over into that particular GM product. I got off work about fifteen minutes later than I should have, and hurried home so we could take Ernie down for his first day of training.

And, as it turned out, the first day of training was pretty much canceled. We were the only ones who showed up, so we’re being moved to the class that begins next Sunday. One of the big things about the class is the socialization of the puppies, and making them do things with distractions and such, and that just doesn’t work when you’re the only one there. So it was a bit of a bust today, but hopefully we’ll be able to work with the new schedule.

Aside from that, most of the day today was pretty uneventful. We’re going over to Tyler tomorrow to see the girlfriend’s dad, who is still in ICU after his stroke. So I’m going to head off to bed so I’m not a total zombie while we’re over there…

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Daily Journal: Day 75 of 365

2010-02-19T23:11:00.001-06:00

This morning, while taking Ernie out for a walk, I managed to lock myself out of the apartment. Of course, in addition to not taking my keys with me, I also didn’t take my cell phone. Fortunately, my insurance agent is right across the street, and I walked across just as one of the ladies who works there was driving in to work. So I asked her if I could use the phone after she finished oohing and aahing over how cute Ernie is.

In addition to receiving compliments from the agent and the other lady who works there, I also got to call the girlfriend and was sold a life insurance policy. So I guess maybe it wasn’t a bad morning in all. The girlfriend showed up twenty minutes or so later and let me back in, and I almost made it work on time anyway.

Work was slower than it has been, which was good for me. I’m still not entirely caught up, but I guess it’ll probably just take another three or four good days to get there. And I only had three drives to make today, although one of them was quite a long one, up to Pilot Point. I’m working tomorrow, so I’d better get myself to bed pretty soon…

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Daily Journal: Day 74 of 365

2010-02-18T23:31:00.001-06:00

It’s not been a great day today. The early part of the morning went all right. It was time for Ernie to go to the vet and get his second round of shots and worming. He didn’t want to ride in the old pet taxi, which he’s rapidly outgrowing. So I just left the lid open on it and he pretty much rode leaning out of it and staring out the window. He never really tried to get out or move around, which is good. It seems that driving him around a little is having a good effect on him.

At the vet’s office, he behaved quite well. Everyone thought he was just adorable. He did get over-excited and peed on the sidewalk on the way in, but I don’t think that’s something to get too upset over. The appointment went well, and we’re going to have to schedule another one for about a month from now to get his last round of shots done and to make sure the worming has worked.

At work today, I got some stuff done, but the combination of finishing up the warranty stuff from yesterday and having to go chase down a couple of files really didn’t help much. I guess I’m a little closer to caught up than I was yesterday at the end of the day, but still nowhere near as close as I was the day before. I’m not sure that I’ll ever get as far ahead as I was a few months ago.

Driving was kind of a mixed bag today. I was told that I don’t look anywhere near my age, which is nice. Of course, it was a lady who is probably close to 80 herself who said as much, but I’ll still take the compliments where I can get them. I had to take one young lady home, and that one was sort of an odd ride. She made a little conversation, but not much, and when we got to her apartment complex, she just had me drop her off at the office. It’s like she thought I was going to drive back and stalk her or something. Oh well. Most of the other rides were just your run of the mill people. I’d describe them a little more, but it’s not really all that terribly interesting.

After I got home, I wound up getting in a bit of an argument with the girlfriend over the training of the puppy. She’s been trying to get him to sit and stay before eating, instead of just running over the bowl. Today, we wound up feeding him later than usual anyway, and he didn’t have much lunch, so it just felt to me like it was starting to become sort of a torture to him. And when she said that letting him have the food was just giving in to him, I pretty much just snapped at her and let her deal with him for the rest of the evening. I shouldn’t have done that, and I feel bad about it. I’ll apologize when I go downstairs.

I did use the time when I was angry to get the litter box cleaned and to install the scanner software on my laptop. I scanned all the recipes from an issue of Taste of Home for her. She wanted some of them, but I can’t remember which ones, so I just did the whole thing. And now, since it’s getting late and I’m still on night-watch, I’m going to go downstairs and go to bed…

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Daily Journal: Day 73 of 365

2010-02-17T23:29:00.001-06:00

Today was actually even less productive at work than yesterday was. I wound up printing out warranty paperwork all morning, and I didn’t even get down to the file room at all today. Which means, of course, that all the paperwork that should have been filed today is sitting there waiting to be added to tomorrow’s workload. I also didn’t manage to get all of the warranty paperwork printed out, because I had to go pick someone up at 6:15 this evening. And it wound up being about a 45 minute round trip.

On the home front, I accomplished virtually nothing today, too. I did finish emptying the dishwasher at lunch, but I didn’t do anything else aside from tiring out the little terror-dog. Tomorrow, I’m going to try to get Kala’s litter box cleaned out and see if I can scan some of the recipes from the magazine the girlfriend got from work.

And now, I’m going to go watch a little more Olympic hockey while I probably drift quickly off to sleep…

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Daily Journal: Day 72 of 365

2010-02-16T23:16:00.001-06:00

I didn’t get anywhere near as close to finishing with the filing backlog today as I would have liked. While I missed out on the major work of pulling about 75 folders for an audit, there were still a few that needed to be pulled today, and we also received a bunch of warranty paperwork from our other office that needed to be filed. So, instead of being almost completely caught up, I’m actually a little further behind than I was yesterday.

And when I got home today, I wound up doing almost nothing that I wanted to get done. I did at least get the dishwasher half emptied, but that’s about it. And now I’m going to bed, because if I don’t, I’m going to just pass out here on the couch…

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