A week later

September 30, 2004

So as it turns out, there hasn’t been a whole lot on my mind lately worth talking about. Well, let me rephrase that: I’ve had a lot on my mind lately–indeed, the last six months or so have weighed heavily on my head–but there hasn’t been a whole lot that I’ve WANTED to talk about in this public, one-sided forum.

Not for a lack of anything happening in my life, but I’ve just had no real impetus to write.

I did have a birthday, and celebrated with my family. If it were up to me I doubt I would have done anything at all, as it’s just another day in the year, albeit one where I’m showered with gifts. I dislike meals where I’m the center of attention, as I always feel some responsibility to ACT like the center of attention and not just sit on the sidelines as I prefer. Not that I didn’t have fun, mind you. My Dad’s idea was to take me to a new McMenamins that I haven’t been to–#28 if I remember correctly–so the five members of my immediate family all drove out to the Edgefield complex near Troutdale, Oregon. It’s not too far outside Portland, but it was a bit of a drive. Edgefield is the largest McMenamins around, with a hotel, pub, restaurant, distillery, vineyard, and a lot of land to keep it on. We stopped into the pub for a drink before dinner, then walked over to the restaurant for our meal. Good food, nice atmosphere. I picked out a bottle of wine, had a nice steak with potatoes and onion rings, a Caesar salad, and a slice of cheesecake and a glass of port for dessert. Not terribly healthy, but my birthday comes once every 365 days–it’s OK to splurge now and then.

As far as gifts went, my family was quite generous with the DVDs and certificates in which I could get MORE DVDs. My sister slapped me with Kill Bill, Volume 2 that she knew I’d been angling for, my Dad hit me with a massive collection of film noir on DVD that will probably take me the rest of my life to finish, and my Mom and Cindy both gave me gift certificates to Borders and Barnes & Noble, respectively. I have a pretty good idea of what I’ll use the certificates for, though an account snafu with BN is preventing me from exchanging that certificate for goods. The film noir DVDs all look fantastic, and after the course I took on film noir in college, I’m looking forward to watching these films, many of which I’ve never heard of. Heck, I’m not even sure I have room on my bookshelf for them, and I know that with my birthday DVDs, I have now far surpassed 200 titles. I have far more than 200 discs since many contain multiple DVDs, but I think I’m now probably around 215-220 separate titles.

As a side note, thanks to my family for everything.

Normally I’d say that I was taking it easy, but I’ve mostly just been lax in just about everything. I haven’t been to the grocery store to buy a lot of groceries in probably a month or more, instead choosing to go a few times a week on my way home and pick up one or two meals at a time. I’ve been eating frozen pizza far more often that I ought to, and I think that in the last two weeks I’ve had four pizzas all to myself, at least. Doesn’t help that I haven’t been jogging or exercising, but I reach the end of the day and I’m just beat, far too tired to jog. I might start trying to jog on the weekends, but I’ll have to see how that goes. In short, I just haven’t had the impetus to do much of anything, which I suppose is OK if you still do the things you need to….which I have been, for the most part.

I mentioned last week (well, last time I wrote, whenever that was) that I was having some trouble with work, and for the most part that was overstated on my part. True, my boss did get mad at me, and true, I didn’t feel that it was justified, but it wasn’t personal, just business, and a mistake that I made in tandem with someone else made our company look bad for one of our partners. I wouldn’t exactly say that I was to blame, but as the QA person here it was indeed my responsibility, and through a series of misunderstandings and misconceptions I missed something I should have caught. Eh. I didn’t catch it because I was following directions, and from a strict perspective I DIDN’T screw up, but I wasn’t going to pass the buck and blame someone else. Besides, in a company with 11 employees, passing the buck isn’t always best. Well, it all turned out OK, and I ended up calling in sick two days last week because I wasn’t feeling well, so I got some unplanned time off work, anyway. Gave me a chance to simmer down and take it easy while recuperating.

Speaking of work, it turns out that we ARE going to change offices next year, probably when the lease expires around April or May. I was going to get my own place close to the beginning of the New Year, but I may hold off on that until I have a better idea where we’re moving to. I don’t want to necessarily move right next to my job, but if we’re going to get an office downtown, it would sure make my commute easier if I live din the city. Not that I have a hard commute now, but by not fighting traffic and taking the MAX or the bus, it would certainly reduce my stress level on my commutes.

So, sorry to disappoint, but I have nothing else to talk about. Thanks again for the birthday gifts, family, and as for my site, well, I’ll try and stay on top of things in the future.

Posted in Beer, General, Movies