The Hunt Continues...

My hunt for a job continued today. No word back from the various temp. agencies to which I have my resume submitted. No word back from the various companies who have called me back and asked me to re-focus my request to a different person. No word period. It's only been a week, and I really shouldn't get too down on myself, so I have avoided that. Today I went to happy hour with a few friends and then back to Cody's place for a movie and to crash. Which leads me to where I am now.

Tomorrow will be spent helping my best bud Mike get stuff organized at his old place in Addison. It's not a chore he's looking forward to at all, so I'm glad to flex my good buddy muscles, and will arrive with beer and some helping hands to get the job done that much quicker. The sooner that sort of chore is finished, the better - I know from experience.

Sunday is a day I'm really looking forward to at this piont. I'm going to Patty and Wendy's house to watch the New England Patriots play against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship. Hoping my Pats can make it to their 3rd Super Bowl in just 4 years. Go Pats!! There will be plenty of good company, good food and good beer at the get-together, so it's a win-win situation.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

So, I figure if I'm gonna do this, I'm going to do it right.

Overhaul the beeeyotch, as it were. So, I've made wholesale changes to this thought-holdin' machine. As you can see on your left-hand side, there's new information that will tell you all 'bout little old me. There are many out there I'm sure that are convinced I won't be able to update THAT information any more reliably than I updated the main content of my blog over the past year, and I guess I'll just have to try and prove them wrong. They very well could be quite accurate. I'll do my best, though, and that's all I can do.

I look at other blogs and stand in amazement at the faithfulness of their postings and the beauty of their formats. There are several out there worth seeing. Email me if you really want to know some...or leave comments and I'll send them to ya. I won't bother putting them in here tonight cause I'm really lazy. And it is late. Time to turn this monkey in....or out. Wow...that sounded vaguely like simmean prostitution...

It says I haven't blogged in some time...I guess that is true. Some writer, huh?

Well all of my friends seem to have gotten out their e-pens and blogged onward and upward, so I am feeling the pressure. I should be keeping track of things somewhere, after all, and other than my journal, this is about all I've got. Plus, this is actually read by people prehumously (is that a word?)...and maybe the criticisms I'll get will make me a more accurate and compelling writer. Stranger things have happened.

So, as many who will read here already know...I'm back in Texas. It's where I belong and I never should have left, but I had to go to Florida to reaffirm the suspicion in my head, I guess. So, I put over 3,000 miles on my truck in less than a month, but I got to see a very interesting and beautiful part of the country first hand. And, I reconnected with my aunt, uncle and cousins whom I hadn't seen in about 12 years. That was well-worth it too. I also discovered that my father, stepmom and I can NOT live under the same roof. It was kind of fated to end badly, but I never saw the writing on the wall and neither did they. It's a shame, but hopefully it hasn't killed our relationship completely. We're on e-mailing terms again, so that's something...still no desire to chat it up on the phone anytime soon though, and I have a feeling they feel the same.

So, I'm job hunting again - if anyone has a job to offer me in the Dallas area (I don't care what the job is), I'll take it. I've been registering with temp agencies and submitting my resume left and right. I've applied for a few other jobs in person and I've got a job fair tomorrow. So, I've been keeping busy in the search. Please send positive juju my way...whatever you believe in. More to follow....I SWEAR!

So apparently I'm a louse at writing. In an ironic twist of events, the writer is horrible at keeping up his blog. When was the last post?? November. Ugh. I disgust myself sometimes.

Well anyway...let's see...life has gone down the crapper in oh so many ways. I could spend some time depressing you with the turn of events, but it's not like I'm necessarily the hapless victim in them, so I'll skip it and save myself the embarassment. Mainly, I'm focusing on positives these days. I've always done that, really, so it's not like a new turn of events. I'm a pretty positive person and I try to spread the joy when I can. So....onward and upward.

"38 Ways I Think About Weasles," said Patrick on The Screen Savers. Wow. What a fantastic quote. He says that if I receive an email with a subject line that says this, I should think twice about opening it. That's tough. If my friend Matthew or Amanda sent me an email with that subject line, I can almost guarantee that email would be open in less than 2 seconds. How cool. I can only come up with 3 ways I think about weasles.

I'm keeping them to myself.

I will be back before June. I promise.

I did the Happy Bunny test....

These are hilarious...go check out yours. Here's my response:


congratulations. you are the kiss my ass happy
bunny. You don't care about anyone or anything.
You must be so proud


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Time Passes...
Between my jobs and sleeping, I've had very little time to come out here and update anything...but then again, with all that work, not much news to share.

The wireless card is still pretty much doing the same crappy job it was before. The holiday's are coming up and I'm working hard trying to get to see my mom up in the north east. I hate flying though...the developments over the last few years haven't helped matters out much, but I didn't like it much before then either. I always hope for alcohol on the flights! hehehe...

BACK!
Razonia and I just returned from our vacation in Key West. It was an excellent vacation and we got lots of rest and relaxation with a heavy emphasis on relaxation. We stayed with my father and stepmom, which was great because we hadn't all been together since Razonia and I's wedding. I saw dad last summer for a Jimmy Buffet concert, but Razonia hadn't seen either of them and I hadn't seen Margo since the wedding, which was two years ago next month. Anyway, while we were visiting, we went to Fantasy Fest, which was NOT an accident, by the way. Wow, was it nuts! The photographic evidence of the chaotic, rambunctious partying may be seen on my moblog page. Other than a big swollen elbow during the entire trip, it was a perfect visit. Yeah...somehow I may have gotten bursitis in my elbow, but no one can ever figure it out. But, it's mostly better now thanks to a few meds and lots of the afformentioned rest and relaxation.

Lessee....oh yeah, I got a new wireless card for my laptop tonight, finally. So far it sucks. I'm about 20 feet from the router, and it fluctuates between Very Low reception and Very Good. But, with no reliability, of course. Ugh. Avoid D-Link. I tried calling their tech support line, and it HANGS UP ON YOU. Yay D-Link. Bunch of buggery bastards.....*sigh* Okay....that's it for now.

Ouch
So I've done something to my back, and I don't know what it is. It's really annoying when you have back problems, because doing even the simplest thing, like putting on your sneakers, becomes a really painful event. After Friday night, when I covered a football game for the newspaper, I got home and my back was driving me nuts. I don't know if it was something I did earlier in the day working my other job at Nextel, or if it was something I did at the game, but all day I sat in backless chairs, and my workday was basically 8am to midnight, so it isn't unimaginable that I did it somewhere over the day. Anyway...it sucks. I'm in pain, and I don't have a comfortable office.

I leave for Fantasy Fest in Key West on Wednesday, and I'm REALLY looking forward to it! Be sure to watch my moblog for what are bound to be some very compelling pictures.

Suddenly I feel like Charlie Brown...
...When Lucy VanPelt offers to hold the football for him so he can kick it. All Charlie Brown wants to do is kick that football. Every year he wants to kick it, and every year the only person willing to hold it for him is Lucy. So every year Charlie becomes the optimist. "So she pulled it away from me last year," he thinks. "There's no way she's cruel enough to do it again this year." Sure she's pulled it away every year for the past 50 years, but there's NO way she could be mean enough to do it again."

The Cubs' fans are Charlie Brown and the Cubs (though perhaps unintentionally) are Lucy Van Pelt. EVERY year the hope springs eternal. Every year the fans think they're going to kick that football (or, make it to the World Series). And EVERY year the Cubs pull away that football at the last minute, and we're ass over teakettle in the air, cursing their name, missing it once again. But I swear to you folks, I SWEAR... this time I felt football on my toe.

I REFUSE to blame the fan in the eighth inning of Game 6, Steve what's-his-name (though, as a Cubbie, I'm sure I'll know his name all too well by the start of next season). I REFUSE to blame Alex Gonzalez for the ATROCIOUS error he committed in the same inning. I REFUSE to blame Kerry Wood for letting a 5-3 lead in Game 7 turn into a 7-5 short coming. I blame the entity as a whole. I blame the Cubs for not finding the passion when it counted. For not coming up with the extra grit it takes to make a comeback work. And I blame myself for hoping against hope yet another year. But I swear this time, I felt the football.

Hopes Are Dashed...
All hopes of the Cubs wrapping up the series against the Marlins Tuesday night were dashed with a series of bad luck. The Cubs took a 3-0 lead into the top of the 8th inning, only to see the Marlins come back and score 8 runs, and hold on to win 8-3. It all started with a fan's bad decision (yes, I know that's editorializing, but I'm not writing for the newspaper here...I'll bloody well be emotional and editorial if I choose!) to get a souvenir. It was a souvenir that would have been happily given to him, I'm sure, if he had just let Moises Alou CATCH the damn ball first! It wasn't ruled fan interference, but I'm not sure how it avoided that distinction. From all the views that cameras allotted, it seemed to me that the fan's hand was CLEARLY over the railing, even if just by a fingers-width. From there, it only went downhill. Alex Gonzalez turned a very routine play into a horrible error. That's all that the Marlins needed. They were able to jump on the demoralized Cub pitching and defense, and rack up all the runs they needed. GRRRRR....So, there's now a game 7 to be played Wednesday night. Go Cubbies!!

Drawing The Line...
Last night my wife, her uncle (who is actually only a year older than her, so it's almost more like a brother), a few of his friends from work and I went to Odessa to go see an Aerosmith tribute band called Draw The Line. We didn't get there until late because I had to cover a hockey game for the paper, which was another ordeal in itself. Many troubles sending in the story. But, all was well that ended well, and we eventually got there at about midnight and were able to see them play for about 2 hours. I was pretty blown away. I've seen Aerosmith twice, and these guys sounded so closely to them, that if you weren't looking you'd swear you were listening to Aerosmith. And, the singer looked enough like Steven Tyler that even the look was passable at most times. Definitely the best tribute band I've ever seen!

Check out some photos from the show on my moblog page.

Here we go with the sports again...
There's a big weekend ahead of me. Not to emerge myself into the sports thing again, but it's an everyday fact of life when you're a sports reporter such as myself. I have several newspaper assignments this weekend, but I have the least of the big sports headlines. The biggest of them all is the University of Texas/Oklahoma University game. My boss, being an ex-UT player, has a very vested interest in the game. I'm working this weekend and won't be able to watch the game, but I'm sure it's going to be one hell of a brew-hah-hah. Then there's the NFL games on Sunday. My Houston Texans. take on the Tennessee Titans and I'll be routing for the Philadelphia Eagles to dismantle those crappy Dallas Cowboys.

So anyhoo. That's the extent of my fun this weekend. That's a sports-filled weekend, but it'll do for now.

Tired and Frustrated...
I'm so damn frustrated right now...I've been sitting here trying to figure out HTML code, when I know as much as your average 8 year old. Probably less. So, I'm looking at the code to this page, trying to figure out how to take the pinkish/coral type color at the top of the page (which in my opinion looks really hideous), and I can NOT find it anywhere in the code. If anyone knows what that is listed as, please let me know. I think I've changed about every color in the page other than that one, but for some reason that one never changed. Ugh.

I'm going to bed...get my obligatory 5 hours of sleep and do the 11 hour work day tomorrow. Man. But yay! The 2003-04 NHL season starts in a little less than 18 hours!!

Sprint? More like....walk...er sumthin....
My phone is starting to piss me off. All I'm asking is that Sprint give me the services I pay for...and so tonight I go to add some photos to my moblog and I get this message: Vision Service Not Available. I wonder what they'd say if I told them my payment for the month wasn't available. Not that such an approach would work. When a company's got legal access to your credit record, they kind of have you by the proverbial "short and curlies".

So, I'll stop my whining about that. But, as soon as I do have access, the moblog will be updated with some cool pics. I'm learning more and more about how to post out there, but I still have a lot to learn. There's some great moblogs out there, and just looking through them I get inspired. Right now, most of my pics are these esoteric, random shots of different things. I kind of like the idea of not having a topic, and just shooting things in my life. There's some wacky crap out there....

blah blah blah...
It's pretty quiet tonight, which I suppose is a good thing. It seems the older I get, the less time I have to just sit and relax. Less and less time that isn't scheduled for one activity or another. Even if it is a recreational activity, it's still on a schedule. Tonight, I've just sat and watched the Cubs game and jogged around the internet. I need to find a good book about learning Windows XP and PC's in general. I've spent so many years on a Mac, eschewing Microsoft's products in favor of ones that are easier to use and understand, that I've got very little more than an average education on a PC. If anyone has any ideas, drop me an email....

There are only 25 letters in the alphabet....
..because I can't seem to find z's anywhere. Seriously. When did I develop such a difficult problem sleeping in a normal fashion? I haven't gone to bed before midnight more than a dozen times since I turned 18. I'm 29...do the math. That's kinda f**ked up, don't ya think? Well, here it is creeping slowly closer to 1:30 in the morning. That means I won't be asleep much before 2 a.m. Then, I'll be up at 7 a.m. Is it wrong that I'm viewing 5 hours of sleep as a decent nights sleep? 3.5 hours or so last night...5 hours tonight...that's like one good night's sleep spread over two nights. Ugh. I'm off to work on my ABC's....

Dare I hope...?
Tonight the Red Sox beat the Oakland A's to advance to the American League Championship. To me, the dream match up in the World Series would be the Chicago Cubs and the Red Sox. The Sox last won in 1918. The Cubs haven't been to a World Series since the last time they won one, and that was 95 years ago. No matter what team wins in that matchup, how terrific a story would that be?

Tonight was fun - regardless of the outcome of the game, I spent time watching it with some friends, and that's always fun for me. I realize that I've started out these posts rather sports-centric, but it really isn't my entire life.

I finally got my Moblog up and running tonight. I tried posting the pics last night, but for some reason my Sprint phone didn't want to cooperate with me. Finally, tonight, it did. I've got a pic of my dog, Hunter, on the couch along with some other oddities I've found while out and about. There's also a pic of my favorite beer/beer label, Shiner. Ahhh, Shiner, how I love thee....

Ooooh. Go to this site. Go now. Most of the site is good, but you shouldn't wait another minute before getting to see the Wit and Wisdom of StrongBad and his emails.

That's all I'm feelng right now. I think I hear a cold Shiner calling my name....

The Monkey came back...he wouldn't stay away...he was sitting on the porch the very next day...
So I felt the need to post again. I'm not sure why. I guess it's just the novelty of something...well...new. Here are a few reasons I'm happy tonight.

1. A brand spankin' new laptop humming under my fingers.
2. The Cubs won their first post-season series in 95 years.
3. The NHL season starts in just a little more than 64 hours. Go Stars!!
4. I get to start covering the team I write about, the Odessa Jackalopes, in just about a week.

Things are good. Looking to get better yet, but things are good.

So here's where it starts. Every journey begins with just a few steps, it's been said, and so I'm going to start walking down this road. I've been reading about "blogs" for months now, and even have friends who have started them, but I've been hesitant about starting my own. I'm not sure why - I guess part of it is just that I feel, as many people do, that no one will be interested in reading what I have to say. Well, I'm hoping that won't be true. I'll do my best not to prattle on and let things get stale and too "inside".

Here's a bit about me (without getting TOO specific): I'm 29 years old, I live in Texas and I write for a local newspaper in the Sports department. Hockey is my specialty and my love, but not my only sports interest. I work for a cell phone company to help pay the bills also. I'm married (no kids) and have a couple of animals. You will be able to see them on my moblog page before long. Until then, you'll just have to wonder....