Category: odds and ends

I managed to have a good time up here. Saw friends from my DC area days, it was good to see everyone. I ended up staying several days more than I thought I would. Mom came up (Rick usually goes to Gloucester) and there was a long weekend, so I stuck around…

I got two job offers while I was up here. My old job wants me back. I’m conflicted about that. One of the reasons I left was to start a new life, do something different. On the other hand, I would get paid quite a bit better there than anywhere near mom’s place. I was also offered (I’m not sure how seriously) a gig teaching photography in a workshop setting. That would be a nice add on to a regular job, but it would never work on its own… I’ll see where that goes…

There were some bad things too though. One of the guys that I worked with at Penn became a widow. That’s rough. I think he’s flying back to Ghana, so he won’t be around for a while. I met with a friend of mine on saturday along with his wife and kids. The next morning, she had a stroke! This really surprised us all, she’s only 40ish… Anyway, she seems to be recovering, but I’m wishing them well. Get well soon Cindy!

So it was a mixed bag, I am glad I came up. Now, back to my normal routine…

I went over to the localish Apple place and Apple is going to give me a new battery.. tomorrow! I was afraid I was going to have to buy a new one and I got no money right now. Anyway, they came through for me. I was lucky (?) enough to have a battery that had been recalled, so I get a new one!

The place I went to was interesting too. It’s called Connecting Point and apparently they have been an Apple repair center from way back. They still have promo posters for the Newton and the original Macintosh line up on the walls. Anyway, they were nice enough, and I will have a fully functional computer tomorrow!

I am on my own computer again. I can post without it, but I really prefer to use the programs on my computer to post… A few observations:

I hate Fed-ex. They may be excellent in next day deliveries, I wouldn’t know, I’ve never used them for that. All I know is that EVERY TIME I have used them for ground service, they have screwed up and/or pissed me off. I understand that things happen from time to time, but I think they’re 5 for 5 with me. This time, I ordered a new power supply. The website said that it would take 1-5 days. That’s fine, by Thursday, it had gotten to the Hampton distribution center. I had been tracking it and they had estimated that it would be delivered on the 15th but here it was the 11th and it was a truck ride away from me. So the next day, I checked the tracking, expecting them to have put it on the truck. Nope. The tracking info said, “Not due for delivery.” They didn’t deliver it on friday, I had to wait until Monday. WTF? It was there, and they didn’t deliver it. I had sworn off shipping via Fed-Ex a long time ago, now I’m going to make sure that I won’t be using them for delivery…

I’m not out of the woods yet. I allowed my battery to wear down in the computer… for a week. Now I have both power adaptors (one for home, one will live on my computer bag), but my battery is not being recognized by my computer. I’ve read a few forums and it sounds like the battery is going to need to be replaced. If I’m lucky, Apple will replace it for me, they had a recall on them. I’ll let you know how it goes…

So I used mom’s computer in the meantime. It was nice of her to leave it over the weekend for me. I gotta say, I’m glad to be back on my machine. Firefox 3 seems really unstable on Vista, at least it was on that machine. It kept crashing. Oh, and how did I ever live before RSS feeds? It was weird to have to actually go to the websites to see if anything new had been added…

I had an awful weekend. I had been told early n the week that I needed a root canal. It didn’t surprise me, the thing was hurting quite a bit. I was on a steady diet of pain killers. Nothing too heavy. I still have a bottle of vicadin extra strength left over from my previous tooth issue. I try to stay away from narcotics because, like alcohol, they scare me. However, I do recognize that, like alcohol, they have their uses. No, I was on Alieve, Tylonal, and Excedrin. Not all at the same time, I rotated them. The hell of it is that my tooth didn’t bother me this weekend, but my GI system tried to kill me. Without going into details, I didn’t sleep for two nights… I’ve stopped with the pain pills, and now my tooth and my stomach are fine. I hate side effects…

Anyway, I’m back and I will try to put up a few more posts both here and my music blog too…

Not that I went to the beach much What can I say? Im not a beach person. I don’t like being in the sun (or using sunscreen), sand, or salt water. I did go down a couple of times and it was a really nice beach, just not my scene. We did, however, have a pool right by the house, and a hot tub. Those were really nice and I used them quite a bit.

The house was huge and the weather was basically perfect. The best thing of course was seeing everyone. I never get to see Kelly and Patrick, Carolee, and I only see Brian on occasion. It was great to see everyone, we need to get together more often.

Of course everyone made fun of me the whole time for avoiding the kids. It’s true that kids put me on edge, I just feel totally out of my element around them, especially the really young ones. But I have to admit that the kids were very well behaved, and I was downright impressed with Sean (K&P’s kid), he didn’t bother me in the slightest!:-) Seriously, it’s probably a good thing for me to be in that situation from time to time, edge or no. So the kids were fine, but I am glad it was a big house…

I left my power adaptor up at Rick’s. So I may or may not post anything or be in touch for a little while. I use this tonight until my battery runs out. Grumble grumble grumble.

Well, we came back from NC today. Hanna passed by us to the west, all we got was some rain and some stiff winds, no big deal. I’m going up with Rick to Falls Church. The car situation got a little crazy and I have to go up with him in order to bring mom’s truck back. I was planning on staying there for a week or so, but my tooth is acting up. It’s the same one that i just got a new filling for. It had been annoying and really sensitive to cold, but no big deal with some pain killers. That all changed last night when it really flared up. We’re talking drenching the sheets with sweat kind of pain. It went away and it’s OK now (with some aspirin) but I’m not about to have another night like last night. I’ll take my vicoden up to Rick’s in case I have a repeat, and with any luck I’ll have this thing takes care of on mon. or tue…

So I’m not sure when I’ll get up to the DC area. One of my friends will be moving soon, so I need to get up there before too long. Maybe next week…

I have been assured that these things are commonplace with kids, but since I’m not really in the loop, i still find them humorous. Today a bunch of us were sitting around the table when the inevitable head count started. One kid was running around outside, the other had gone to the bathroom some time ago. The father grabbed a roll of TP and went looking for her in one of the many bathrooms we have at the vacation house. He said he found her sitting on the john singing “The star spangled banner,” and complaining that there wasn’t any TP. We all waited until the mother explained that the star spangled banner is her potty song…

My sister-in-law was trying to corral the kids after having come back from the beach. They were being washed off in a shower that is outside the house. She then told them to go in to their rooms and get dressed. The two oldest walked by the foosball table and said they wanted to play. “No naked foosball!” was her reaction. I mentioned to her that I had anticipated going through my entire life without hearing that sentence. She replied that she says things all the time that she never expected to have to say. I went upstairs and got another example. “Please do not smother the baby…”

There is a store around the corner that is called “Birthday Suits.” I haven’t looked in it yet, but I’m thinking maybe I ought to…

Everyone keeps asking what my plans are. I have been a little vague, but things are looking like they’re coming into better focus. I would like to pursue the teaching English thing, overseas that is. I really enjoyed it. After being in a job that was not what I wanted to do, having a job that is fulfilling is pretty addictive.

Yes, I could go and get a sales job. If I got motivated enough (read, if I needed money badly enough) I’d do pretty well. There is always money to be made selling things, and I am very confident i could do it. I really don’t want to go back to that world though. I enjoyed teaching photography, the best part of the sales job was teaching people how to get the results they wanted, and teaching English was a blast.

My general plan is to stay stateside through the spring and then go somewhere. I already have an application in at a place in Turkey. A friend of mine (who came to Yemen after reading my blog) is teaching there already. So far, it sounds like an ideal set-up. You get the CELTA training from them plus it’s possible to take grad courses there as well.

It’s also possible that I might go get the certification first. That’ll take several thousand dollars, so we’ll see how the finances stack up. Speaking of finances, I may have to go get a job. I’ll worry about that once I’m done with the current project I’m working on.

So that’s my basic plan. I’m going to try to enjoy this place while I’m here, and I’m going to attempt to see my family as much as I can as well. I’ve learned to appreciate some things while I was gone

I’ll be going down to the outer banks next week. Rick has rented out a big beach house and there will be a gaggle of people there. This includes 5 kids. To be fair only 3 of them are really running around, but that will probably be enough Anyway, I plan on having my computer with me so hopefully I will keep up with the blogging and maybe even get some writing done…