Daily Journal: Day 91 of 365

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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