So far it’s proving to be an extremely slow day at work, and with three hours down there are still nine and a half to go.
On one of my frequent trips to the bathroom (I sit at a desk drinking water all day; I make a lot of tips to the bathroom. Since I quit smoking it’s pretty much the only thing there is for me to do to break up the monotony.) I noticed a sign for some meeting/training thing.
The notice included the words “Pizza will be available.”
It occurred to me that a lot of people who are totally uninterested in the actual topic will go just for the pizza.
It also made me wonder, as I often do, just how big my company’s pizza budget is.
I mean, between all of our various locations across the country we must spend, at a minimum, hundreds of dollars a day just on pizza.
Just think how much good that money could do if some of these lard-asses were willing to forego having pizza at boring meetings that they’re only going to for the sake of having pizza and instead we set aside that money for charitable causes.
Or better yet, think of the raises and bonuses they could give me. Screw helping other people!
When I arrived at work this morning I was greeted by the sound of a couple of people having a conversation about fishing.
I had thought it impossible for the conversations here to get even more boring than they alreaday are, but the fishing discussion proved me wrong.
Up next, I think, will be a rousing discussion of the fine art of watching paint dry, which will, no doubt, lead to many heated arguments.
“No way, man! Matte finish is the paint to watch!”
“Nuh uh. You haven’t seen anything until you’ve spent time watching a glossy enamel dry!”
“Enamel? Dude, you’re an idiot.”
With the levels of inane discourse and nerdly passion about matters of utter insignificance – about which every person present deems himself an expert – I sometimes feel as though I’m living inside the comments on a Slashdot article.
Because it’s the weekend and I know that there will be no progress on the mortgage, my weekday feelings of anxiety have faded, as they always do.
However, I know that the instant I wake up on Monday morning the knot in my stomach will instantly reappear and I’ll be feeling as though I’ve swallowed a bowling ball until Saturday rolls around again.
I just wish I knew what was going to happen one way or the other. The loan application has actually gone to the underwriter, which is good, I guess, but I’d still feel better knowing for sure how it’s going to turn out.
Especially if it’s going to turn out in my favor.
In any case, today the hours continue to slowly tick away here at work, but I’ll share with you all one of the sites that helps me to pass the time.
You Can’t Make it Up is a blog kept by a very funny young woman in New York and is always good for a laugh, so stop by whenever you get the chance.
In the meantime, I’ll be here watching the clock.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Ten Grand And Three Ants: A Brief End Of The Week Wrap Up
First off, since I doubt that I’ll write an entry tomorrow, I’ll mention that tomorrow is my sister Kristy’s birthday, and it’s also her husband Ken’s birthday.
So happy birthday, Kristy and Ken.
Because he expressed a desire to own one in his presence shortly before Christmas, our co-worker Chris ordered an ant farm for Brian as a Christmas present.(I got a package of Omaha Steaks from Chris, despite the fact that I told him not to get me anything, which I appreciate.)
That Brian wanted, and now owns, an ant farm pleases me, because now, no matter how deep into comic book geekdom Scott and I descend in our conversations, any “nerd” comments from Brian can be countered by pointing out that he owns an ant farm. Up nex for Brian, I’m sure, is a stamp collection, a rock tumbler, and, of course, model rockets.
Next year for Christmas we’ll all have to pitch in and get him a pocket protector.
In any case, the ant farm arrived sans ants, as the ants had to be sent away for.
On the same day that I found out I’d won $10,000, we’d all gotten a text message from Brian informing us that all but three of his ants had arrived dead.
Not much of a colony is likely to develop from only three (Despite what the ID people might tell you about the genetic viability of a race that starts out with an extremely limited gene pool, but then again, in the case of Brian’s ants all three are most likely male, so mating among them would be a no-no for the ID people anyway.), so he’ll need to find another source of ants before he’ll be able to go into full-on nerd mode.
Still no news on the mortgage front. I guess at this point it’s just a matter of waiting to get the go/no go from the underwiters or whatever. I’m still concerned that it’s going to come back as a “no go,” and I’m impatient, as the closing date is only two weeks away, and I’d like to know once and for all whether or not I’m going to be moving in.
In any case, despite one extremely major event, this week has proven to be extremely uneventful, so there really isn’t much for me to wrap up.
So happy birthday, Kristy and Ken.
Because he expressed a desire to own one in his presence shortly before Christmas, our co-worker Chris ordered an ant farm for Brian as a Christmas present.(I got a package of Omaha Steaks from Chris, despite the fact that I told him not to get me anything, which I appreciate.)
That Brian wanted, and now owns, an ant farm pleases me, because now, no matter how deep into comic book geekdom Scott and I descend in our conversations, any “nerd” comments from Brian can be countered by pointing out that he owns an ant farm. Up nex for Brian, I’m sure, is a stamp collection, a rock tumbler, and, of course, model rockets.
Next year for Christmas we’ll all have to pitch in and get him a pocket protector.
In any case, the ant farm arrived sans ants, as the ants had to be sent away for.
On the same day that I found out I’d won $10,000, we’d all gotten a text message from Brian informing us that all but three of his ants had arrived dead.
Not much of a colony is likely to develop from only three (Despite what the ID people might tell you about the genetic viability of a race that starts out with an extremely limited gene pool, but then again, in the case of Brian’s ants all three are most likely male, so mating among them would be a no-no for the ID people anyway.), so he’ll need to find another source of ants before he’ll be able to go into full-on nerd mode.
Still no news on the mortgage front. I guess at this point it’s just a matter of waiting to get the go/no go from the underwiters or whatever. I’m still concerned that it’s going to come back as a “no go,” and I’m impatient, as the closing date is only two weeks away, and I’d like to know once and for all whether or not I’m going to be moving in.
In any case, despite one extremely major event, this week has proven to be extremely uneventful, so there really isn’t much for me to wrap up.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Letdown Day
After the surreal nature of yesterday’s revelation, today seemed like kind of a letdown.
No news on the mortgage front. I don’t know what else could possibly need to be done, but I’m assuming that if some further action is required on my part I’ll be contacted.
Other than that I needed to get the affidavit from iwon notarized and shipped off to them.
I knew that most of the HR people at work are also Notary Publics, but I didn’t feel like driving all the way in to there again (especially since I have to tomorrow), so I went to HQ, which is closer, to see if there were any Notary services there.
There were, and, in fact, the girl who notarized it for me was kind of cute and had big boobs.
I tried, awkwardly as usual, to flirt with her a bit, but while she did laugh a little when I told her this old parody that Mad Magazine ran featuring a Notary Public in a spoof of hard-boiled detective stories, she wasn’t especially interested in why I needed the document notarized (even after I told her), and she was pretty much just all business.
The guy from iwon said it would speed things up a little if I also faxed the affidavit in, so once I’d gotten it notarized – and confirmed, once again, that I’m utterly lacking anything even remotely like charm – I went off into the cubicle farm in search of a fax machine.
I found one almost immediately, but it was blinking to indicate some sort of error, and I didn’t feel like messing with it.
The next three fax machines I found were in the exact same state.
Finally I found one that appeared to be in working order and so I faxed it off and was on my way.
Since I was going to be at HQ I had IMed Kathleen to see if she wanted to meet for lunch.
She had an appointment off-campus at 11:30, so we decided on a place to meet after her appointment and I told her that I’d be in the vicinity and to call me when she was on her way.
The reason I was “in the vicinity” was because the place we decided on was near Best Buy, which, under the circumstances, was a dangerous place for me to be.
Of course, once I actually get the money it’ll be even more dangerous.
After lunch I stopped by the copy/mail place across the street and FedExed off the papers to iwon (they paid for it).
So now I just have to wait for the check to arrive, and to see myself listed as a “Daily Winner” over at the site. I’ll post a link when I do.
Once I got home, owing to the fact that it was a rainy, dreary day, I opted to take a nap. I never managed to do much more than doze.
I don’t feel up to doing any drawing or writing, and I’m out of stuff to read, so it’s been difficult to find ways to pass the time.
And of course I’ve been feeling impatient because of the delays with the mortgage, and now I have to wait for the prize money.
Oh well, I guess there are worse things to have to wait for…
No news on the mortgage front. I don’t know what else could possibly need to be done, but I’m assuming that if some further action is required on my part I’ll be contacted.
Other than that I needed to get the affidavit from iwon notarized and shipped off to them.
I knew that most of the HR people at work are also Notary Publics, but I didn’t feel like driving all the way in to there again (especially since I have to tomorrow), so I went to HQ, which is closer, to see if there were any Notary services there.
There were, and, in fact, the girl who notarized it for me was kind of cute and had big boobs.
I tried, awkwardly as usual, to flirt with her a bit, but while she did laugh a little when I told her this old parody that Mad Magazine ran featuring a Notary Public in a spoof of hard-boiled detective stories, she wasn’t especially interested in why I needed the document notarized (even after I told her), and she was pretty much just all business.
The guy from iwon said it would speed things up a little if I also faxed the affidavit in, so once I’d gotten it notarized – and confirmed, once again, that I’m utterly lacking anything even remotely like charm – I went off into the cubicle farm in search of a fax machine.
I found one almost immediately, but it was blinking to indicate some sort of error, and I didn’t feel like messing with it.
The next three fax machines I found were in the exact same state.
Finally I found one that appeared to be in working order and so I faxed it off and was on my way.
Since I was going to be at HQ I had IMed Kathleen to see if she wanted to meet for lunch.
She had an appointment off-campus at 11:30, so we decided on a place to meet after her appointment and I told her that I’d be in the vicinity and to call me when she was on her way.
The reason I was “in the vicinity” was because the place we decided on was near Best Buy, which, under the circumstances, was a dangerous place for me to be.
Of course, once I actually get the money it’ll be even more dangerous.
After lunch I stopped by the copy/mail place across the street and FedExed off the papers to iwon (they paid for it).
So now I just have to wait for the check to arrive, and to see myself listed as a “Daily Winner” over at the site. I’ll post a link when I do.
Once I got home, owing to the fact that it was a rainy, dreary day, I opted to take a nap. I never managed to do much more than doze.
I don’t feel up to doing any drawing or writing, and I’m out of stuff to read, so it’s been difficult to find ways to pass the time.
And of course I’ve been feeling impatient because of the delays with the mortgage, and now I have to wait for the prize money.
Oh well, I guess there are worse things to have to wait for…
Cyclops Kitten
Kitten Born With One Eye and No Nose
I’ll avoid the standard “no nose” punchline.
Even if the picture of a freak isn’t genuine, it is genuinely freaky.
Of course, this is the freakiest part:
Still, the last sentence proves that it could be freakier.
I’ll avoid the standard “no nose” punchline.
Even if the picture of a freak isn’t genuine, it is genuinely freaky.
Of course, this is the freakiest part:
Allen said she's keeping the cat's corpse in her freezer for now, in case
scientists would like it for research.
Still, the last sentence proves that it could be freakier.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
From Shock To Disbelief
So the adrenaline is starting to wear off, but I’m still pretty excited, and have moved from being in a state of shock to being in a state of disbelief.
The timing of this is pretty much impeccable, and I hope that it augurs well for the prospects of my loan going through (I had to make two more trips in to work to fax more paperwork in. I just don’t get it. It should just be a matter of me giving them my Social Security Number and my permission to look into my records and they should be able to find everything they need without me having to constantly fax stuff to them. I understand that getting a loan this big is a major deal, but it almost makes me want to check out Ditech, despite their irritating commercials…).
Of course, my pessimism is starting to assert itself, so I’m suspecting that getting the money is going to prove to be a consolation prize for not getting the loan.
Anyway, I’m not certain what I’m going to do with the money. As I consider my options I’m conscious of the fact that while $10,000 isn’t exactly chump change, it can only go so far. I also find myself in the position of wanting to have my cake and eat it too, which really annoys me, as I’ve always hated that expression (You have to have your cake in order to eat it. You can’t not have your cake and eat it. It should be “You can’t keep your cake and eat it too.”). In any case, the point is that I want to find a way to do all kinds of things with the money and somehow still have it socked away.
Once I do get the money, I’ll probably put it into my high-yield savings account for a little while until I decide what I’m going to do.
The front-runner in terms of ideas is paying off my car. That would still leave me a fair amount of money to put into my savings, and would free up a lot of money for me from month to month.
But we’ll see. I don’t actually have the money yet, so I have time to figure out what I’m going to do with it.
It shouldn’t be too long before I get it, though. All I have to do is sign an affidavit, get it notarized, fill out a little survey so that they can put up info about me in the “Winner’s Circle,” and as long as I get the info to them by Friday morning, I should get the check sometime next week.
They’ll even pay for me to send it to them via FedEx overnight, so that’s cool.
Apart from faxing stuff out and finding out that I won $10,000, today was pretty uneventful…though the fact that I won $10,000 pretty much makes it the most eventful day I’ve ever had.
The timing of this is pretty much impeccable, and I hope that it augurs well for the prospects of my loan going through (I had to make two more trips in to work to fax more paperwork in. I just don’t get it. It should just be a matter of me giving them my Social Security Number and my permission to look into my records and they should be able to find everything they need without me having to constantly fax stuff to them. I understand that getting a loan this big is a major deal, but it almost makes me want to check out Ditech, despite their irritating commercials…).
Of course, my pessimism is starting to assert itself, so I’m suspecting that getting the money is going to prove to be a consolation prize for not getting the loan.
Anyway, I’m not certain what I’m going to do with the money. As I consider my options I’m conscious of the fact that while $10,000 isn’t exactly chump change, it can only go so far. I also find myself in the position of wanting to have my cake and eat it too, which really annoys me, as I’ve always hated that expression (You have to have your cake in order to eat it. You can’t not have your cake and eat it. It should be “You can’t keep your cake and eat it too.”). In any case, the point is that I want to find a way to do all kinds of things with the money and somehow still have it socked away.
Once I do get the money, I’ll probably put it into my high-yield savings account for a little while until I decide what I’m going to do.
The front-runner in terms of ideas is paying off my car. That would still leave me a fair amount of money to put into my savings, and would free up a lot of money for me from month to month.
But we’ll see. I don’t actually have the money yet, so I have time to figure out what I’m going to do with it.
It shouldn’t be too long before I get it, though. All I have to do is sign an affidavit, get it notarized, fill out a little survey so that they can put up info about me in the “Winner’s Circle,” and as long as I get the info to them by Friday morning, I should get the check sometime next week.
They’ll even pay for me to send it to them via FedEx overnight, so that’s cool.
Apart from faxing stuff out and finding out that I won $10,000, today was pretty uneventful…though the fact that I won $10,000 pretty much makes it the most eventful day I’ve ever had.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Awfully Convenient Inconveniences Or The Cat That Lost The Will To Live
On other occasions on which I didn’t have to be up early in the morning on payday I’ve discovered that my paycheck shows up in my bank account sometime shortly after 1 am.
Actually, what happens at 1 am is that my balance just shows a sudden increase, but the actual “activity” showing the specific deposit doesn’t show up until a bit after 3.
Still, seeing the balance increase is good enough to let me know how much my paycheck was.
In any case, the amount of this particular paycheck was especially significant to me because I had to write out a very large check in the morning. The majority of that check was going to be covered by a loan I took from my 401(k) account (more on that in a bit), and I needed to be sure that my paycheck would be sufficient to cover the remainder. The sooner I knew that, the better, as it would let me know if I had to try to get some additional money from a credit card, and I could then plan for the morning accordingly.
Of course, because it was important to me, this was the one time that my balance did not show the sudden increase after 1 am.
This obviously annoyed me a great deal, which only added to the existing annoyance I was feeling about the fact that my loan check had not arrived, so no matter how big my paycheck was, I was going to be writing a check in the morning that I couldn’t actually cover.
Coincidence can only go so far when it comes to explaining things like this. As I said, on many occasions I’ve seen that my balance increased after 1 am, without fail. The loan check had been mailed out almost a week earlier, so why did it take so long to arrive? If there hadn’t been a pressing need for these things (bearing in mind that this was following on the delayed arrival of the “Paid” letter from that collection agency, which also took over a week to arrive), the check would have been here by Thursday, and my paycheck would have showed up in my bank account at 1 am.
I just don’t understand how these things manage to know when it is or isn’t important to me and how to act accordingly.
In any case, there was no danger of my check bouncing, as it would be days before it even got to the developer, and my loan check actually arrived on Friday.
Still, going to bed annoyed led to a less-than restful night’s sleep and I ended up waking up about four hours later (at which point my paycheck was showing up in my account and it was more than enough to cover the remainder), and I got maybe another hour of sleep before I had to get up.
(If I had been going in to work at the normal time and gone to bed at the normal time I would have gotten much more sleep.)
I mentioned the “Paid” letter. On Thursday I had called the creditor and been assured by Tara that she would fax it to the mortgage company.
Turns out that Tara was a lying whore, as the mortgage guy hadn’t gotten the fax.
That arrived on Friday as well and I faxed it to him on Saturday morning.
Today, though I didn’t see the e-mail until after 5, he contacted me to let me know that I have to fax him new copies of all the crap I faxed him in the first place.
Last time that cost me $11 at the place across the street and I decided that I didn’t want to spend more money on faxing, so I waited until later in the evening and drove in to work to fax the stuff from there.
I went around to the back entrance and slipped in and out as quickly as possible so as to avoid seeing anyone I know and having to explain why I was there. It’s not that it would have taken that long, or that I had anything to hide, but I just didn’t want to have to talk to anyone.
In any case, now I am closer than I’ve ever been to having a loan, or at least finding out if I’m getting one at all.
When I went over to the condo office to write the check on Friday I had hoped to be able to get in to see how the condo has progressed since I saw it last (when it was more or less gutted).
No such luck, though, as apparently now that it’s off the market getting in to look at it is more complicated.
Oh well.
As I pretty much always do, I arrived early on Friday morning, so I had to drive around to kill some time. At one point I saw this thing in the road. Not knowing what it was, I decided to swerve around it. As I did so, I saw that what I thought was just some random pile of garbage was actually a cat. A live cat, though I’m not sure that it was going to stay that way. It calmly sat up as I was driving past, appearing totally unconcerned by the fact that it was in the middle of a busy street. I can’t help but think that it looked like it had just given up and was waiting to get caught under somebody’s wheels.
After all, I suppose that even cats can get suicidally depressed. Maybe it had a serious cat nip problem and had gotten itself into such deep kitty litter that it couldn’t see any other way out.
Or maybe it was just stupid. It was a cat, after all.
I should mention that, despite my flippancy, and my dislike of cats (and allergy to cat dander), I’m not a heartless monster so it did occur to me that I should do something to get the cat safely out of the road, but I didn’t see what there was that I could do, so I just continued on my way and hoped that it made its way to safety.
It was a beautiful day here today, getting into the 60s by some accounts. In January, you really can’t ask for more.
Anyway, that will about do it for this entry.
Actually, what happens at 1 am is that my balance just shows a sudden increase, but the actual “activity” showing the specific deposit doesn’t show up until a bit after 3.
Still, seeing the balance increase is good enough to let me know how much my paycheck was.
In any case, the amount of this particular paycheck was especially significant to me because I had to write out a very large check in the morning. The majority of that check was going to be covered by a loan I took from my 401(k) account (more on that in a bit), and I needed to be sure that my paycheck would be sufficient to cover the remainder. The sooner I knew that, the better, as it would let me know if I had to try to get some additional money from a credit card, and I could then plan for the morning accordingly.
Of course, because it was important to me, this was the one time that my balance did not show the sudden increase after 1 am.
This obviously annoyed me a great deal, which only added to the existing annoyance I was feeling about the fact that my loan check had not arrived, so no matter how big my paycheck was, I was going to be writing a check in the morning that I couldn’t actually cover.
Coincidence can only go so far when it comes to explaining things like this. As I said, on many occasions I’ve seen that my balance increased after 1 am, without fail. The loan check had been mailed out almost a week earlier, so why did it take so long to arrive? If there hadn’t been a pressing need for these things (bearing in mind that this was following on the delayed arrival of the “Paid” letter from that collection agency, which also took over a week to arrive), the check would have been here by Thursday, and my paycheck would have showed up in my bank account at 1 am.
I just don’t understand how these things manage to know when it is or isn’t important to me and how to act accordingly.
In any case, there was no danger of my check bouncing, as it would be days before it even got to the developer, and my loan check actually arrived on Friday.
Still, going to bed annoyed led to a less-than restful night’s sleep and I ended up waking up about four hours later (at which point my paycheck was showing up in my account and it was more than enough to cover the remainder), and I got maybe another hour of sleep before I had to get up.
(If I had been going in to work at the normal time and gone to bed at the normal time I would have gotten much more sleep.)
I mentioned the “Paid” letter. On Thursday I had called the creditor and been assured by Tara that she would fax it to the mortgage company.
Turns out that Tara was a lying whore, as the mortgage guy hadn’t gotten the fax.
That arrived on Friday as well and I faxed it to him on Saturday morning.
Today, though I didn’t see the e-mail until after 5, he contacted me to let me know that I have to fax him new copies of all the crap I faxed him in the first place.
Last time that cost me $11 at the place across the street and I decided that I didn’t want to spend more money on faxing, so I waited until later in the evening and drove in to work to fax the stuff from there.
I went around to the back entrance and slipped in and out as quickly as possible so as to avoid seeing anyone I know and having to explain why I was there. It’s not that it would have taken that long, or that I had anything to hide, but I just didn’t want to have to talk to anyone.
In any case, now I am closer than I’ve ever been to having a loan, or at least finding out if I’m getting one at all.
When I went over to the condo office to write the check on Friday I had hoped to be able to get in to see how the condo has progressed since I saw it last (when it was more or less gutted).
No such luck, though, as apparently now that it’s off the market getting in to look at it is more complicated.
Oh well.
As I pretty much always do, I arrived early on Friday morning, so I had to drive around to kill some time. At one point I saw this thing in the road. Not knowing what it was, I decided to swerve around it. As I did so, I saw that what I thought was just some random pile of garbage was actually a cat. A live cat, though I’m not sure that it was going to stay that way. It calmly sat up as I was driving past, appearing totally unconcerned by the fact that it was in the middle of a busy street. I can’t help but think that it looked like it had just given up and was waiting to get caught under somebody’s wheels.
After all, I suppose that even cats can get suicidally depressed. Maybe it had a serious cat nip problem and had gotten itself into such deep kitty litter that it couldn’t see any other way out.
Or maybe it was just stupid. It was a cat, after all.
I should mention that, despite my flippancy, and my dislike of cats (and allergy to cat dander), I’m not a heartless monster so it did occur to me that I should do something to get the cat safely out of the road, but I didn’t see what there was that I could do, so I just continued on my way and hoped that it made its way to safety.
It was a beautiful day here today, getting into the 60s by some accounts. In January, you really can’t ask for more.
Anyway, that will about do it for this entry.
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