A brave, new world

Well, I'd like to first off apologize for the lack of Saturday post. I ended getting distracted by an antivideo bill (HB 647) in the Florida legislation area. So, rather than blog about my life, I instead wrote emails to about 20 different represenatives on why they shouldn't turn the bill into a law. Don't know if it will have any impact, but at least I let my opinion be heard. I orginally heard about the bill at game politics. It's official site is www.gamepolitics.com.

Well, I've decided to continue looking for a new IT job. Submitted my resume to the company that MCC outsources their tech stuff to. I'm going to tell my current manager about that tomorrow morning. I submitted the resume tonight, so I hope he won't take it too badly. Odds are I'll probably won't get the job, but it never hurts to try (in most cases anyways.)

I'm searching for a new job because of financial reasons. I like it at WGB, I like my manager, I like my coworkers, I like the atmosphere, it's just that it kind of sucks when you only receive 150 dollars a week (300 for the BiWeekly paychecks we recieve). More than half of that goes to car insurance, gas, and misc. maintance on my vehicle. The bulk of the other half goes to food and personal supplies (soap, shampoo, razors, occasionally a new shirt), what's left goes to my CoH subscription and maybe a movie/game. Maybe.

Of course, I know the bulk of the problem lies with the fact that my school schedule conflicts with my work's normal hours of opperation. That signifigantly lowers the number of hours I can work (although I think they only budgetted me to have 20...), and because of my own inability to schedule stuff, I get a small paycheck.

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Well, the transition to the new machines is going well. We have about half of them finished so far, and my manager is going to start working on them too, so we will definatly be able to get the job done by May 15. Then we send them off to Dell and hope we didn't forget anything. The only thing that is bothersome about the task is that I have to keep track of all the different Dell serial numbers. And Dell uses a lot of Serial Numbers. Everything has a number with Dell. The computer, the monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard, power supply, ect. I don't think they care about which perapheral they get back (IE, weather it's the orginal keyboard or not), but we're making sure just in case. Of course, they'd probably have to charge us a refurbish fee on the keyboards. The tops are scratched, and some of the paint to make the letters are missing...

Home life is going on fairly well. I know I don't talk about it too often, but I feel it needs to be mentioned. I love my family, but sometimes it gets frustrating to finally get to sit down to be able to do something, and have to go off on something else completely different because a family member needs help on it. Still, I know where they are coming from, and I would like it if they helped me, so I try to be a help to them. Except... I don't know. It's just kind of frustrating.

Also combine that with the concept that my Dad is starting a buisness soon, and he expects me to be a key employee in it. It doesn't matter that he isn't an official owner (my mother and his partner are the official owners. He did this to ensure that his work doesn't view it as a conflict of intrestes). He will still have a major say in what it is I'll do. And I don't want to get payed 7.50 an hour doing retail. That's a pay cut from where I am now. Yet he expects me to be happy that I get to work for him. He expects me to be enthusiastic to be able to work fast food. He expects me to be looking foreward to doing lawn maintance in Florida durring the summer time. In case you're wondering, the place he's opening up is a gas station with an interrior convience store/Dairy Queen/Subway. I DO NOT want to work in any of those places. Ever. And espiaclly for the manager he's hired to run the place. She's a good person, a great heart, but she doesn't have managerial qualities. Working under her would be like working under some of Albertson's managment again. Anyway, that's my rant on the subject. Luckily, no one in my family knows about this page.

Also, about Silent Hill. The movie was able to capture the feel of the game. Didn't like the whole shove the back story down your throat thing they did at the end. Yes, I already knew the cult was being punished for the murrder of an innocent. Yes, I knew it purgantory. Yes, I did think the last scene was a little too violent. Any other questions?

Anyway, I need to get to sleep if I'll have any chance of waking up for work tommorrow. I have to be there early to set up some obscure location that my manager wouldn't tell me about on Monday. I think it has to do with our Lakewood Ranch location, but there is a large streak of paranoia in me, so... Night!

Been Insanely Busy

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I have been insanely busy over the past couple of days. A lot of work, a lot of school, and a lot of small things that don't really ever get mentioned. In the end, I fear really tired and I still have a pile of stuff to do.

I'm 20 now. Turned it back on the 11th. We really didn't do much for my birthday. Outside of a cake and a few gifts, nothing spectacular happened. As to how I now feel to no longer be a teenager, well, it's kind of, I don't know. My teenage years passed a little too quickly for my tastes.

My leg has been hurting for about a week now. It's another one of those weird sore/insect bite things. It's been getting better since about last Sunday (easter), but it's still there. Which kind of sucks.

Anyway, I'm way too out of it right now to post anything else coherent, and I'm going to go to the Silent Hill movie tonight. I'll post about it tomorrow morning. Night!~

Manatees are grey aqua mamals

Manatee county isn't the most well known county in the country. Nothing earth shattering has ever happened hear, well, recently any ways. Desoto did make his landfall on one of our beaches, and we do have the south west Florida muesum and planatarium in our small county. As to it's physical position, it covers from just out side of Sarasota on the south side to the first half of the Skyway Bridge on the north side. It is bounded westerdly by the Gulf of Mexico, and on the east by... well, I guess another county. Never had need to drive that far east.

Economically, the county is home to the Tropicana organe juice factory. I believe they also have a factory in Texas, and until recently they're corparate head quaters where also based here. I'm not too sure if they still are, or if they moved them to Chicago. We also have Port Manatee, which is one of the largest ports in Florida. There's also a Sysco plant in our county, but judging by their map (here), that's not too uncommon.

Residential wise, if we had snow we'd be the poster child for Sub-Urban america. I doubt there is a building in the area higher than 10 stories. Numerous small houses and such dot the area, and country music is heard from most vehicles (when will they learn that metal is better?). Also, because we're so sub-urban, we will have 4 Wal-mart super centers in our county. Don't ask me why we need them, or why the elderly like to shop there, but we have them. I also don't know if that's a high number or not...

As to the county council members, it is my opinion that they can not find their ass with both their hands and a mirror. I really dislike what they've done with the county. Ineffectual trafic regulations, poorly made city ordinances, and the inability to realize what is needed to be done to create economic growth is just a few examples of what they've done.

getting back on track to normal stuff now, I just got a phone call from Will =). Talked with him for about an hour, which was really nice. He has the nightshift over there, so he gets board a lot. Also, the govenment has filtered which sites he can go to (at least on his work machine. I don't know if it's server wide or just government property), so he's been spending a lot of time on wikipedia. Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. He was very happy to finally get to talk to someone who wasn't affiliated with the military, so I'm happy with that. He says he likes his job, so that's a good thing.

Speaking of jobs, I'm thinking about switching to something that I can also get weekend hours at. I like everyone at my current job, and they also treat me very well, but I do kind of need more hours. I know they'd be happy to give me them, except that college kind of prevents that. So what I need is to find a job in which I can also work nights and weekends. My dad is starting his own retailish buisness (a gas station next to the Sysco plant that will also sell subway sandwhiches...), and I know I'll have a job there, but when I do put in time there, it'd be for less pay then what I'm making now (he's offering me 7.50 an hour. I make more at my current work).

School is going ok, I guess. Aced a math test, and I think I did fairly well on a presentation I had on Ozone. At least I spelt it right... hehe.

Also, I stumbled across this, and I think it's worth noting. Anyway, night!

Slowly getting back on track

I'm slowly trying to get back into the habit of posting every few days instead of once a week. Technically this post was posted in less time then the previous post, so I'm on track. I'll try to do the next one in about 3 or 4 days. Of course I won't. But I can believe, right?

Still no sign of my foxtail, which means I'm going to have to search the net for a replacement. I searched ebay a few days ago, and I didn't like what I saw. Not because they didn't have cute foxtails, it just kind of felt wrong. Kind of the same feeling I got when I found out my foxtail was real. You know, the I can't believe I'm doing something so unethical feeling.

Work continues. We're still setting up computers for everyone in the office. We've gotten a few of them done so far, but since the FDISKing of the old machine's hard drive takes a while, the length of time it takes to do each computer has increased. But I should have them done by the day we have to send them back. At least my manager no longer thinks I'm going to completely botch this project.

I'm thinking about getting into flash development. You know, develop flash games and movies (not that type of flash you pervert!). I can't draw worth crap though, so I might get a friend to help with any artwork that needs to be done.The first thing I'd probably do is a game. Not sure what about though. Something simple. Maybe a puzzle game? Anyway, if I do ever write up a flash game, I'll probably post it on New Grounds or some other site like that.

Anyway, I'll post again soon since it's getting late. I haven't been able to get any decent amount of sleep ever since daylight savings time, so hopefully I can get some tonight.