The four of us went over to celebrate the 4th with Michael, the guy we met at softball, and his partner and friends. It was fun. They were basically the entire gay group in Sun Praire. All 6 of them. But they were all very welcoming and a blast to hang out with. I'm sure we will do stuff with them again soon.

At work now, after 3 days off. It wasn't enough. Especially since the first file I'm working on is being a bitch and crashing all the time.

Volleyball this afternoon. I can look forward to that.

Trip up north to see the family was fun. Spent a lot of time with Jack. Hung out with Laura and mom a lot. Helped my brother-in-law set up a weight bench for my dad. Saw an old family friend I haven't seen in years. Went on a kayak trip. Saw Ben and chatted up old times. Played Settlers of Catan. Lots of driving, but a good time.

No plans for today yet. Some ideas.

Will go in to work tomorrow for a bit. I'm sure there wasn't anyone to work on my project while I was away/sick.

Volleyball was a lot of fun last night, exactly what I needed after a crappy day at work. We took one game from the best team in the league, and the other two games were 21-19 and 22-20. I played really well too.

It didn't completely dissipate my bad mood, but sleeping late (till 7am) did help. Then I made myself a good breakfast, no microwave thing at my desk. I see a lot of people on this project get in after me and leave before me, so I'm gonna stop trying to kill myself for work. I'll still put in overtime, but not as much. I think I was trying so hard to try and connivence them to trust me again, but I doubt anyone really notices. The only one who sees my time card is my manager, and he hasn't talked directly to me or emailed just me in like 4 months. We get general "good job" comments, but thats for everyone on the project. I guess I really need and crave verbal validation for my work. And I'm not gonna get it here. The only one who ever thanks me for helping is the CSR, and that's cause she is a nice person and really cares, I think.

Paul downloaded the Were the World Mine soundtrack. Though I think it's actually a rip from the DVD. I went though the track list online and they don't match. I'm gonna look at that tonight and maybe get the actual soundtrack also. And I need to cull some of the tracks from what I have to make it a bit more interesting, less instrumental. I'm gonna do what I did with Wicked and listen to it at least once a day for a while. Then I'll know all the words. :)

I'm looking forward to seeing Laura and Jack this weekend. I need some baby cuddle time.

Very tired, tried to get up earlier to put in more time at work. Early volleyball game tonight, so I have to leave by 6 at the latest, and if I do that it's straight to the match, no going home. Gonna try my best to make the undoable deadline.

Softball went pretty well last night. At first it looked like we'd have to forfeit again, but last minute we ended up having a full team. We lost by 3 runs, but to a team that is pretty good, and planning on playing in the gay world series this summer. I hit decent, played OK. I was on third base, not my favorite position, and I let a few hits past me. Not a big deal.

One of our team mates joined us after the game and chatted with us. Nice guy, haven't talked to him much, but knew him from the league for a while now. I'm thinking we might invite him and his husband to hang out with us on the 4th with Jess and Lari. Seems he joined the league to make friends, but every year ends up on a new team and has to met all new people.

It also rained on us, very cold rain, during the end of Jess's game. Before that the mosquitos were horrible. Not the best night to be a softball fan.

My plan to bike in the afternoon has been stopped by the meeting this morning when we found out how far behind we are on the project. It's not doable. But it turns out I'm less behind than many others, which is good, relatively.

Oh well, who wants to be in shape anyway. If I did I should have picked a career with less desk time, no?

We ended up going to Rhythm & Booms last night. Jess and Lari really wanted the experience at the park. But the event averages 300,000 people, and you have either $10 parking in random business lot or on someone's lawn or a 20 minute walk from street parking. But when they got down there they called to say the crowd was not bad at all, due to the event being postponed a day. So we headed down there, talked and then at dusk watched half hour of fireworks. It's set to music, but we weren't close enough to the speakers to hear it. Though is broadcasted over the radio, so we could sometimes hear it over the explosions. However there were two radios within hearing distance, and they were off by a second or so, which was kinda annoying.

Kinda tired, though my boy is whipped, as somehow he 'forgot' to go to sleep and stayed up all night. I don't understand that, but I have to call him in a bit so he can go golfing.

Softball tonight. I think I will not try as hard, I'm tired of my knee being ripped up. So no sliding.

I actually rode my bike back to work after lunch. It's not too hot and muggy out today, so I decided to give it a try. It wasn't too bad, though that might be cause I decided to take the road over, instead of going to the biking/walking bridge. But it is a Sunday and traffic was light. I think I might try doing this more, i.e. drive to work, go home for lunch and then bike back. Still allows me to go home and walk JP and I get to bike. Now if I can just figure out how to do yoga, that doesn't rely on me getting up too early or staying up too late.

I'm a good worker. Only one here. There was one other guy here earlier, but now it's just me. Go team Jason.

Fireworks were postponed last night due to storms that never arrived. Instead Paul, Lari and I hung out at home, played a few card games and watched movies. We saw Were the World Mine, which I loved. Some parts were weird, but overall it left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Any movie that dose that (Latter Days, American President, etc.) is a good movie in my book. I kinda wanna watch it again, like right now. But I'm at work.

After the movie it was discovered that neither Lari nor I had seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Paul and Jess like that movie a lot, and it was good. Not as happy as the first one, but groundbreaking and entertaining.

Looks like we might be having server issues here at work. Maybe I'll end up having a short day.

We might hit the fireworks tonight, depending on what everyone is up to.

I finally got podcastle loaded onto my ipod. It's kinda hit or miss. I think it is easier to write short stories about horror, a la pseudopod, dunesteef, drabblecast, etc. than it is to write fantasy. Mostly because fantasy requires a lot of world building, as the listener needs to know the rules before the plot can happen. In horror it usually takes place in the real world, either modern or historical, and the setting can be assumed. I imagine that sci-fi will be the same, but will have to listen to some escapepod first.

The first podcastle episode I listened to was great though, and I will keep giving it a try, hoping for more of that. It was a short story about the politics of the Shire after the end of the Lord of the Rings books. I'll admit my favorite part was the gay trolls, but in general it was a good story. This supports my thoughts on setting, as nothing needed to be laid out for the reader, as most people interested in this podcast will be familiar with Tolkin.

Gonna be working all weekend. What else is new?

I'm looking forward to going north and seeing Jack and Laura. Not sure when yet, need to see Paul's July schedule first. It'll also be my friend Ben's birthday that week, so I'll try and meet up with him too.

Still need podcast icon...

So wiped out. Someone (love you hun) had me awake at 2:30am. That someone is still in bed and has today off. I was so tempted to wake him up when I got out of bed. Everyone notice the high ground here? Good, mark it down.

Not sure my brain is really working this morning yet. Probably need food and coffee.

Had a dream about being a vampire. No other details were retained.

I must be stressed, I find myself wishing for a simpler life.

Cass is a weird one. ( 5 questions from her )

So humid, mouse is sticking to my desk.

Volleyball was fun. We played a really good team, but we took one game and played well the other two. I was actually hitting fairly well too. After Em and I grabbed dinner at Olive Garden. Was a nice night.

Tonight, if the rain holds off, I mow, again. I'm doing this weekly this summer. Too much rain/sun!

( 5 questions from calli )

Last night's softball was annoying. It was really hot and humid (we had road work here yesterday because the heat caused the road to buckle). Apparently it was so hot no one wanted to play. Only 6 of our 13 player team showed up. So we ended up forfeiting. One of those that didn't show up was our coach. And she didn't let anyone know, of course. So I stepped up, found subs and we ended up playing well, even if it didn't count. I'm now the assistant coach, per the league commissioner.

I've moved to doing corrections at work, which is less mind numbing. It requires some problem solving, which is nice. Though I've been on mindless work of so long I'm having a hard time switching.

Gonna be hot and sticky tonight at volleyball. But having dinner with Em after, which will be cool.

A short story about how Dracula was created by Baba Yaga. Awesome take on it. Clearly I'm still in love with Pseudopod.

I've also heard adds for PodCastle, short fantasy stories podcast, I can't wait to subscribe to that, cause while I love horror, it gets a bit much when _everyone_ dies. All the time.

I need a generic podcasts icon...

Vollyeball was OK. We played like crap, but I think there is some meshing problem with our team. Cause I played a match subbing on another team, and did well. And I saw other team members subbing and they did fine. So it's something about our line up. It rained off an on, enough to make it muddy and humid. Got to see Bob (my ex), he's moving to Florida today. Best of luck to him, he's had a few rough months lately.

We have a new bunny hole in our yard. Not sure if it's the same parents, but really, how stupid can you be and still survive? It's in the middle of the front yard this time. JP found it last night. That's always fun. Paul is going to spray for weeds today, so he'll have to figure out a way to get them to move before he sprays that area.

Softball, in theory tonight. Depends on how the fields are after the rain. Plans for killer bunnies after.

I had a weird dream where we had to take care of like 5 other pugs. We were fostering them for the human society or something. There was a black one and I was all ready to keep it but Paul didn't want to. Not sure why. I only mention this cause I never remember my dreams.

I've been listening to short story podcast lately. There is a lot of feeds out there, I focus on the horror/fantasy/sci-fi ones mostly, but I'm really enjoying Pseudopod. I have known about it for a long time, over a year I bet, but I was more interested in the novel length podcasts till now. While all of these short story feeds have good stories, the part I like about pseudopod is the host. First he's British, so nice accent to listen to, but mostly he has interesting things to say. Usually not directly about the story, but some off the cuff comment that ties in but is interesting on its own. Not sure I explained that well. Wish I could donate more.

Working till 1 today, almost no one in right now. Hope someone notices my time. After that I have to get dog food and then take JP for a walk. Call dad sometime too. See if he got his gift, a pictorial account of deer hunting in Wisconsin. Off to volleyball at 2:30, so I won't see Paul until I get home at 6ish. :(

Paul was tired so he crashed early last night. I stayed up with the puppy and watched Latter days, I had been craving to see it again. Still love that movie. I also ordered Were the World Mine, so that should arrive soon. Hope it's as good as I expect.

I find myself mixing up my passwords lately, I think I work too much and that one is always the first I type. And I'm at work again, I am forgetting what having 2 days off a week is like. I'm not even sure what I'd do with myself if I had a full weekend off. I think I'd spend the entire time worrying that I wasn't busy.

Beautiful day, will have to hit up the dog park later.

Awesome book review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2X2TB3S4O5I60

After that long shift and getting all those pages done, I feel like some sort of goal or accomplishment was made. But it's back to the same old boring stuff now, no real mention about the time we put in. I think verbal compliments would go far at this company.

Everyone (and yes, all you people reading this) should go and vote for my friend Joel so we can get him on Ru Paul's Drag race. He's a sweet and awesome guy, and puts on a great performance.

http://rupaulcasting.com/people/wojoduff

Vote once every 24 hours! 4 day left!

I left work this morning at 1:15am. *blah*

So at 4pm yesterday I'm told that we are getting in some super rush, gotta be done now or major money is lost, correction. They are due by 11pm. I say I can help, good team player, right? The we find out it's moved back to 2am and it's like 1200 pages. Freaking a bit, but will do my best. They don't start arriving until 7pm. But they come in in batches of 2, 5 9, pages. This will take forever we think. Turns out that it was only like 300 pages. Alexis and I worked well until midnight, then B and another person came in and I finished up my part at 1;15am. I left and was told I can sleep until I wake up, then come in. Turns out that the other 3 were here until 7am.

I'm a bit tired, but got to sleep till noon. Working at the mall tonight, hope to get in some more Supernatural.

Working all weekend, of course. Also, it's very hot and muggy, not fun weather. Plus we had storms last night that floated my bags of yard waste down the street and to the drain.

Just sitting here at 8:20 pm waiting for files to come in that JUST HAVE TO BE DONE TONIGHT, so why not...

Leave me a comment saying "1000 NINJAS ARE ALWAYS AWESOME."

I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better.

Update your journal with the answers to the questions.

Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

from channonyarrow

I picked up a package of normal boring oatmeal. I like it better than the instant stuff. And it takes like a minute longer to cook. I have to add my own flavoring/sweetener, but honey works well. Can one OD on honey?

Setting up my iPod to play podcasts worked out well, I just have to sync up to my laptop more often. I'm afraid I'll run out of episodes soon though, will have to find more feeds.

I actually got the lawn mowed last night. The mower started coughing out blue smoke, which makes me think I should get the thing looked at.

I was also happy to hear that I'm not the only person who hates the current project, there is plenty of grumbling going around the office.