Aperture Science Chronological Life Data Tracking System

Jess and I went to the zoo this weekend courtesy of some free passes my mom had. They’ve put in this really nifty Asian garden – tons of bamboo, a huge koi pond, the works. I’m going to have to go up there some time with my camera and go nuts.

After we came back from the zoo I brought Jess over to my apartment, and since we live in Florida I immediately went for the fridge for something cold to drink first. One the way there I caught something out of the corner of my eye that caused me to do a quick double take before bursting out in laughter. Jess gave me that WTF look, so I had her come in to the kitchen to see…

I made sure to watch her expression as she came in, and the look on her face told me that she was thinking the exact same thing I was.

That’s right – my salt shaker is having its way with my can opener.

I’m really bad about email.

I mean, I’ll read it as it comes in (usually), but just let spam and what not build up until one day I finally throw up my arms and shout “Enough!!” and finally decide to do something about it.

Well, tonight was that night.

1,663 spam. 800 trashed. And a couple hundred ligitimate emails that remain in my inbox. Of course this isn’t including the 12,000 or so spam that were properly filtered off to their little spam corner.

Stupid email.

I remember back when I first got my email account. Nobody really sent anything to it, friend or spammers, and any email I got was special. Like getting postal mail from a friend when you weren’t expecting it – except now postal mail is just as bad with junk mail. Sometimes I just wish I could just go incommunicado – just, y’know, stop getting mail of either format. Some days it really feels like more hassle than it’s worth.

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I spent a good chunk of today’s creative time working on a secret project while cursing Comcast under my breath for not having working internet.

No, seriously, it’s a secret. I’m not gonna tell you.

I’ve also worked a little more on getting inside Grizz’s head to get ready for an upcoming RP story as well as try to learn a little more about my characters. That’s probably going to be the bulk of my free time this week, hopefully, if I can keep from getting distracted by other stuff.

And if I can avoid afternoon naps. >.>

I’ve never made it a secret that I’m not happy with my workplace. There’s a huge amount of stress, everything is just rushed, and it’s just really not a fun place to be any more, at least not in my department.

One of the things that I think helps contribute to this is a sense of separation from my coworkers. I always find myself thinking in terms of “them” and “me”, instead of “us”. I don’t feel like a member of any team, and they’re certanly not people I consider friends. Just… guys who work in the same building I do, and for the same boss. I don’t really hear rumors or news or anything like that, so I always find out things far behind the curve. An awesome example of this is when I found out one of the guys’ wife was pregnant just a few weeks before she gave birth. Everyone else knew but me. They’re also an entirely different generation than I am – I’m not the baby of the group but almost all of my coworkers are older than me with families of their own, and completely different interests from me.

It’s also extremely frustrating trying to get their assistance with things that I can’t do on my own, since they all have their own projects and tasks they have to work on. It very much conveys a feeling of “How cute, he’s trying to be an engineer”.

Now I feel like I should clarify that any feelings of separation that may exist are probably exacerbated by the fact that I am physically separated from my coworkers by a good distance. They all sit in an open cubicle area just near the bosses office, while my desk is down the hallway, far enough away that I usually don’t get any office chatter or anything. I don’t really consider this a bad thing though – I really like that I can be alone for most of the day, and also the fact that I have a door I can close to isolate myself if needed. Being able to play music helps too.

It’s kind of weird to stop and think about. I don’t like that I’m separated, and yet I value that separation. <scratches head>

Edit 8/5: Awesome. We’re having a department wide meeting, right? Guess whose name didn’t get included.

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So today’s creative activity wasn’t anything major – just plucking at the guitar a bit and brainstorming some RP ideas before a nice long nap snuck up on me. However, the RP ideas are starting to take root and I’m hoping to get some of them actually on paper (disk?) later this week, starting tomorrow!

Yesterday Jess and I finally took advantage of the tickets from my missed shuttle launch ( *grumble* ) and decided to head down to Kennedy Space Center for the day. It was about 9 AM or so when we hit the interstate, and according to a quick glance at Google maps on the way out the door it would have been about a 2 hour drive. No sweat, right?

Well, unknown to me Google decided that the best place for me to get off the interstate was an exit that was about 5 miles before the one I should have taken, leading me through a fairly abandoned town and to what could have only been the restricted back gate of NASA. It was close to where we needed to be since you could see the launch pads and everything, but at the same time nowhere near where we needed to be. So we spent a good bit of time not exactly lost, just not sure how to get there from where we were.

Now my car has this weird quirk where sometimes the a/c box will actually get too cold and completely ice over, not allowing any air to blow through the vents and into the car. I noticed this starting to happen on the interstate but wasn’t really worried since I thought we’d be leaving the car soon.

Also, I’d planned on getting gas at Kennedy Space Center, so I really didn’t have a ton to spare.

The end result of all this was Jess and I driving around the back roads of Florida with no a/c and the needle hovering over empty. Fun fun.

Fortunately we were able to make it back to the interstate (and nearby gas stations) without adding more than 45 minutes or so to the trip – and once Jess was able to get a signal on the cell phone, we hit the KSC website for the correct directions.

Once we actually got to KSC it was a just a fairly normal theme park visit. Jess was the shutterbug for most of the trip, and we both got to see some areas of the space center that we hadn’t seen before – the Saturn V exhibit for her, the International Space Station center for myself, and a few other things that were new to both of us!

So after all was said and done it was a pretty awesome trip. I would have preferred a slightly different beginning, but sometimes you just have to take the bad with the good, right?

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So, one of my projects (for lack of a better word) this month is to do some form of creative exercise each day, be it writing, drawing, music, whatever. Just something. I will be tacking that on to the end of my posts here,, just as a way to hold myself accountable for doing it as much as anything else. We’ll see if it’s still happening at the end of the month!

So this morning I went to work.

Just an average day, really. Got in the office about 7 or so, plopped my laptop on the desk and wandered off to get some coffee. Coffee acquired, come back to the desk and log on to the computer. Don glasses, settle in chair, brush at an itch on my shoulder – time to work!

As I started working on my normal daily stuff I felt another little itch on my shoulder. Not even an itch, really, but more of a tickle. I felt it again a few minutes later on my chest underneath my shirt, and when I absently brushed at the spot it felt like nothing more than a wad of lint under my shirt.

I kinda loosely grabbed it through the shirt and pushed the fabric up so the lint would fall out of the neck. My plan worked perfectly except for one small detail… a spider the size of my fingertip plopped out of my shirt and onto my desk. Now I have nothing against spiders, and when I find them I usually escort them outside.

However. They do not belong in my clothes. Especially when said clothes are on me.

Luckily I didn’t really have to worry about his freedom anyway – when I’d grabbed him through the shirt it knocked more than a few of his legs off, and there wasn’t a whole lot of motion. I brushed him off my desk into the trash and tried not to imagine that every single itch and tickle I felt for the rest of the day was another spider. >.>

Anyway. After a long period of not blogging, I have been convinced to pick it back up. It’s not that anything hasn’t been happening… I just haven’t written about it. We’ll have to see what I can do to change that. With any luck I’ll introduce you guys to my cat in the next day or two – with photos!

Also I am really starting to dislike this blog theme. I gotta get that fixed.

This morning I was getting ready for work, listening to the 80s station on the radio as a usually do. Business as usual, right?

Then I get in the car, still on the same radio station and head to work. And…. System of a Down? I was a little boggled, to be sure, especially when Foo Fighters followed it.

They changed the genre on me! Now where will I go for my 80s songs?

*sobs*

One of the software engineers/mission operators for the Mars Rovers has started posting his person journal from the early days of the program. Definitely worth a read if you like that kind of stuff.

Mars and Me

I have this fantastically awesome post or three planned about my vacation and meeting friends and just general awesomeness… but my sinuses are currently waging war against the rest of my head, and I can’t focus on anything long enough to get something accomplished without breaking out into a fit of sneezing and sniffling.

I kinda got it started. Hopefully things calm down tonight.

I hate my sinuses.

I mentioned in an earlier post that there’s an absolutely awesome white cat that lives outdoors in my apartment complex. It’s just the friendliest cat you could ever hope to meet, and usually comes running up for attention when I park my car.

I was hoping to take the cat in and give it a home, but unfortunately it turns out that he’s owned by one of the downstairs neighbors. It kind of sucks that they just let him run around outside (declawed), but it’s good to know that there’s people looking out for him and taking care of him.

Booo. I was so looking forward to adopting him.

November is just around the corner, and northern Florida is finally starting to see a bit of the colder weather. For most of the last week we still had temperatures in the 70s, but the last few days have seen it drop to the mid-60s, and as low as 40 at night.

Yes, I said 40. All you people with snow suck.

Anyway, this cold weather isn’t that big of a deal for most of the people I know. Really it just means digging a light jacket out of the closet. However there’s always the weird Florida people who just can’t cope with any kind of cold. Last night as I was coming back from Krav class I passed my upstairs neighbor giong out to her car… and she was fully decked out in a winter coat and gloves, and had a scarf covering her face.

It wasn’t even 40 yet! Probably somewhere in the mid 50s.

It’s not just my neighbor, either. Every year about this time the residents of Florida start looking like they’re headed to ski resorts instead of work. We won’t even see our first freeze until after December, most likely. I don’t understand how they’re not sweating under all those layers.

Honestly, sometimes I just don’t understand Florida at all – and I’ve lived here most of my life.