I've been neglecting this blog for a while now, but I've been finding I have fewer and fewer things to talk about that I can't just say in 140 characters or less on Twitter. I'll try to remedy some of that here, but there's not too much that's been going on that hasn't been related to work. I've spent three of the last four weekends in Gary, IN; one weekend to myself; one with Timoran, Shale, and Atokada; and one with Storm Gryph. Last weekend was in Denver; I got to see Ivan and Kahuki for the first time in months.
Aside from that, I've taken up the game Go and apparently am almost good at the game for a newbie. Which is to say that I'm really not that good at all, but 16 kyu is not bad for someone who has played the game for about a month. Hopefully I can improve my ranking a bit, over time, but that's kinda the whole point of a ranking isn't it?
My next trip home won't have me around the house much. I'm actually going out to see Timanth in California in ... a little over a week now. It's amazing how quickly time flies. I'll be leaving early on August 7 and returning August 11, using up all my time at home for the trip. If anyone down there wants to see us, let me know and we'll try to make plans. It would be nice to get to meet some of the people that I've previously only had the pleasure of seeing as text on a screen. :)
There aren't terribly many reasons for me to be at home - or any one place in particular - so it's not like I'm really missing much by not taking the time back in Pensacola. I'll be there for about half a day on the sixth, which should be adequate time for me to get done what needs to get done in town and still have time left over to enjoy sushi. I'll only be briefly bouncing through home before MFM as well, and for the same reason; I'm just not seeing much reason to stick around town. I might take some time at home and actually spend it at home in October, but I won't even have the days available to do so before that time.
As for living arrangements, I'm starting to have second thoughts about getting a house in the near future. The tax incentives to do so this year are certainly attractive but various things have come up, including drama that has made me reconsider every single city I've thought about moving to, further oddities in the housing market, discovering my credit wasn't as good as I'd hoped, and being concerned about needing to replace my car in the near future. It's still an outside shot, perhaps, but having a home of my own by the end of the year is not nearly the priority it once was for me.
So, really, that's about all I can think of to write here. I'm getting tired and cranky and probably should take this rare opportunity to get more than eight hours of sleep while I can.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Health Insurance goes "SPLORT"
Over the weekend I received a health statement from my insurance company, just updating the amounts that I had used and what I had left in terms of health benefits for the year. Everything seemed alright, except a line item saying I would owe the clinic I visited in April $1,375.32, with a footnote saying to pay the provider when billed. I was ... uh ... more than a bit perturbed by that, as I'd been assured that the services had been paid for in full already. Further, while I do have that kind of money set aside, a medical bill like that definitely is not in my budget; something like that would make me have to cancel attending MFM and seriously reconsider going to FC.
Since nobody actually works the phones at United HealthCare over the weekend, I just called in this morning while waiting on a trailer unload. After navigating their obnoxious voice menu, I got a hold of a representative who took a look at it. The very first thing she said about it? The statement is completely wrong. The second? That she has no idea why that amount would have shown up at all as that's greater than what the clinic billed the insurance company for in the first place. She assured me that the claim had been paid in full and that I would not owe anyone anything for the treatment I already received. Further, they're going to look into it to see why that showed up at all and post a new explanation of benefits and health statement on the website to clear that up.
So, in short, I don't owe anyone anything and someone at UHC is obviously on narcotics.
Since nobody actually works the phones at United HealthCare over the weekend, I just called in this morning while waiting on a trailer unload. After navigating their obnoxious voice menu, I got a hold of a representative who took a look at it. The very first thing she said about it? The statement is completely wrong. The second? That she has no idea why that amount would have shown up at all as that's greater than what the clinic billed the insurance company for in the first place. She assured me that the claim had been paid in full and that I would not owe anyone anything for the treatment I already received. Further, they're going to look into it to see why that showed up at all and post a new explanation of benefits and health statement on the website to clear that up.
So, in short, I don't owe anyone anything and someone at UHC is obviously on narcotics.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Silence is not golden; it's rusted
So I started playing a game with a couple of friends earlier today. Names will be deliberately omitted though if any of them are reading this, I'm sure they'll figure out what I'm referring to. In any case, one of them said something that struck me as very unusual. I asked about it, then he got extremely defensive and wouldn't tell me, then got quite irritated with me for being upset over his unwillingness to discuss. I have no reason to believe it would be particularly embarrassing and, regardless, I have the decency to keep my snout shut if someone tells me something they would prefer not to be public knowledge.
But, rather than just explaining what was going on after I pointed out why I was so upset, he just got angry with me and threatened to quit the game if I didn't cheer up immediately. Instead I just told him that I didn't appreciate the way he was handling the situation and that, rather than allowing the situation to progress even further, I was signing off before either of us said or did something that we both would end up regretting later. I'm still extremely upset over the situation but I know that it would have likely gone nuclear if I hadn't simply left when I did.
So, rather than getting to enjoy a day off down here, I'm instead swamped by drama and just want to go cry myself to sleep now.
Edit: While writing this post the person who precipitated this whole situation sent me an e-mail and a direct message on twitter asking me to sign back on. I'm still debating whether or not to do so. While I have my doubts it will make me feel significantly better it's not like I could feel a whole lot worse than I do right now.
But, rather than just explaining what was going on after I pointed out why I was so upset, he just got angry with me and threatened to quit the game if I didn't cheer up immediately. Instead I just told him that I didn't appreciate the way he was handling the situation and that, rather than allowing the situation to progress even further, I was signing off before either of us said or did something that we both would end up regretting later. I'm still extremely upset over the situation but I know that it would have likely gone nuclear if I hadn't simply left when I did.
So, rather than getting to enjoy a day off down here, I'm instead swamped by drama and just want to go cry myself to sleep now.
Edit: While writing this post the person who precipitated this whole situation sent me an e-mail and a direct message on twitter asking me to sign back on. I'm still debating whether or not to do so. While I have my doubts it will make me feel significantly better it's not like I could feel a whole lot worse than I do right now.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Moderating Madness
A few years back I created a Google Group for the local community because the Yahoo group we had at the time was kinda... well, not working out so well. Over time, the Google group became the de-facto official list and now has more than two dozen members, nearly half of whom are actually active. Given that it's just a local, community list, we didn't really have any explicit rules in effect; it was just generally understood that it was a clean list and that people should conduct themselves like adults.
Of course, given that the furry fandom is exactly 49.41% drama (and 102% of statistics are invented), it was only a matter of time before shit happened. Specifically, one person posted an old 4chan meme, prefaced with two or three sentences of written child pornography. While I realize that written stuff like that is in a legal grey area (as opposed to outright illegal) I also recognized that it's the kind of thing that could easily get someone in trouble because, though it might not be explicitly illegal, it could attract the unwanted attention of an employer's e-mail filter or - even worse - an overzealous parent.
I just posted by saying it was tasteless, inappropriate, and completely irrelevant to the list. Then several other people chimed in saying they thought it was funny (only one person posted with a "WTF" instead of registering approval). The first guy then said it was my problem since nobody else took issue with it, clearly failing to understand the potential ramifications of what he posted. I posted again, this time explaining why, exactly, it was inappropriate.
Then he and one other person both told me to chill out, continued to insist it wasn't a problem, and so on. Given that I'd already given him previous warnings off-list for spam and being rude, I'd had quite enough with his attitude. I posted telling him to knock it off immediately, laid down rules explicitly detailing the things that are common sense even to most furries, and told him that if he did something again I was going to moderate his posting until further notice. This led to him e-mailing me and mocking me off list, quite literally daring me to ban him; rather than giving him what he wanted, I simply set his posts to be automatically rejected and told him to never, ever e-mail me again.
I would have hoped that would have been the end of it, but no sooner do I forward the off-list stuff to one of the only other sane furs in town do I get a phone call where he attempts to verbally take my head off over the way I handled the situation. He insisted that, just because we hadn't explicitly stated that posting porn to the list was unacceptable, there was no excuse for me even threatening to take an administrative action against the guy who posted the content in question. After repeating my opinion several times and him becoming increasingly agitated due to my unwillingness to immediately apologize for "not doing things like an admin" and simply do things exactly as he wanted, I asked one simple question: "Did you expect anything positive to come from this phone call or did you simply want to vent in my ear until I hang up?" That seemed to get him to cool down considerably and, even though I didn't change what I was saying in any significant way, he went from insisting that I was the only person even remotely in the wrong to acknowledging that, while the situation could have been handled more tastefully, I at least was acting in a logically consistent fashion and not out of any sort of off-handed malice or similarly unfounded insanity.
End result? Aside from having a slightly longer block list for my Gmail and AIM accounts, we now have drafted a full-blown set of rules to try prevent this kind of bullshit from happening again. I'm willing to bet that it's only a matter of time before the guy who started this mess does something stupid and that his "apology" was simply because the person I spoke with on the phone told him to make one, but I'll deal with that when it happens. End result of all this is that I spent almost three extra hours awake than I originally wanted and lost any sex drive I had for the night. So now instead of getting eight good hours of sleep after pawing off, I'll get barely five hours and will be even more frustratingly pent up in the morning.
Someone, please, remind me why I'm in the fandom again?
Of course, given that the furry fandom is exactly 49.41% drama (and 102% of statistics are invented), it was only a matter of time before shit happened. Specifically, one person posted an old 4chan meme, prefaced with two or three sentences of written child pornography. While I realize that written stuff like that is in a legal grey area (as opposed to outright illegal) I also recognized that it's the kind of thing that could easily get someone in trouble because, though it might not be explicitly illegal, it could attract the unwanted attention of an employer's e-mail filter or - even worse - an overzealous parent.
I just posted by saying it was tasteless, inappropriate, and completely irrelevant to the list. Then several other people chimed in saying they thought it was funny (only one person posted with a "WTF" instead of registering approval). The first guy then said it was my problem since nobody else took issue with it, clearly failing to understand the potential ramifications of what he posted. I posted again, this time explaining why, exactly, it was inappropriate.
Then he and one other person both told me to chill out, continued to insist it wasn't a problem, and so on. Given that I'd already given him previous warnings off-list for spam and being rude, I'd had quite enough with his attitude. I posted telling him to knock it off immediately, laid down rules explicitly detailing the things that are common sense even to most furries, and told him that if he did something again I was going to moderate his posting until further notice. This led to him e-mailing me and mocking me off list, quite literally daring me to ban him; rather than giving him what he wanted, I simply set his posts to be automatically rejected and told him to never, ever e-mail me again.
I would have hoped that would have been the end of it, but no sooner do I forward the off-list stuff to one of the only other sane furs in town do I get a phone call where he attempts to verbally take my head off over the way I handled the situation. He insisted that, just because we hadn't explicitly stated that posting porn to the list was unacceptable, there was no excuse for me even threatening to take an administrative action against the guy who posted the content in question. After repeating my opinion several times and him becoming increasingly agitated due to my unwillingness to immediately apologize for "not doing things like an admin" and simply do things exactly as he wanted, I asked one simple question: "Did you expect anything positive to come from this phone call or did you simply want to vent in my ear until I hang up?" That seemed to get him to cool down considerably and, even though I didn't change what I was saying in any significant way, he went from insisting that I was the only person even remotely in the wrong to acknowledging that, while the situation could have been handled more tastefully, I at least was acting in a logically consistent fashion and not out of any sort of off-handed malice or similarly unfounded insanity.
End result? Aside from having a slightly longer block list for my Gmail and AIM accounts, we now have drafted a full-blown set of rules to try prevent this kind of bullshit from happening again. I'm willing to bet that it's only a matter of time before the guy who started this mess does something stupid and that his "apology" was simply because the person I spoke with on the phone told him to make one, but I'll deal with that when it happens. End result of all this is that I spent almost three extra hours awake than I originally wanted and lost any sex drive I had for the night. So now instead of getting eight good hours of sleep after pawing off, I'll get barely five hours and will be even more frustratingly pent up in the morning.
Someone, please, remind me why I'm in the fandom again?
Monday, June 8, 2009
Why do I bother at all?
After about six days at home, I have to go back to work this morning, soon as I can get everything together. Since I'm writing a blog post instead of actually packing things up and heading back to the truck, that's probably indication enough that I really would rather not be going back to work today. My time at home here has been little more than a waste of time. I needed the break from work, but this was about as much a break as it was solitary confinement for most of the week, leaving me even more depressed and emotionally screwed up than I was before getting here. When I got home I was actually looking forward to having the week off due to various plans that had been made, people I wanted to see, and things I wanted to do. Having had most of those plans scrapped, most people ignore me, and most things left undone, I want my week back, or at least another couple of days.
The beach party - the one signature event this weekend - was okay. Not great, as I'm sure everyone else would say, but okay. Stephie was a lovely host, so this is certainly nothing against her. I just, once again, found myself surrounded by so-called friends and getting ignored by most of them. On at least one occasion, I found that everyone else had clustered into two or three for conversation and nobody would even respond when I tried adding something, no matter what I said or who I said it to. The person I'd given a ride to - after two days of trying to convince him to come over earlier - was one of the worst culprits; I could barely get a response out of him at all on Saturday and he was even less polite about ignoring me Sunday, as he seemed quite irritated any time I tried getting his attention. Needless to say, I won't even waste my breath giving him the time of day in the future.
Outside of that big event, there really was very little to mention. I managed to make a trip to the eye doctor on Tuesday or Wednesday, but that was the only thing I actually accomplished all week. I didn't tend to any other medical or mental needs. I didn't even get out of the house just to go and do something out there for sake of being more active. No exercise, no wandering the mall, no going to a casino, not a damn thing. I had tried to get someone - anyone - to come over to watch TV and hang out, but not a single person responded in the affirmative. On Friday I spent an hour talking with someone on the phone and brought up the possibility, ending the conversation with the understanding we'd be in touch in an hour. When I called when a little over an hour had passed, he ignored his phone twice. Nobody else had even given me that much, though. A couple people didn't even respond to an instant message when I tried to get hold of them, while others gave various reasons they couldn't or didn't want to, some more plausible than others. One all but said he wanted to get into my pants and then got offended when I suggested I'd have a similar interest.
As a result of all this, plus more things that I would prefer not to write about here, I went from being in a pretty decent mood when I got home a week ago to feeling like complete and utter shit right now. I don't want to go back to work. I really don't want to even breathe any longer because I'm little more than a waste of this planet's precious resources. It's become painfully obvious that I'm not wanted around here, but due to my circumstances, I don't have anywhere else to go. I've an ever decreasing number of reasons not to simply drive off a bridge somewhere and disappear from this planet.
The beach party - the one signature event this weekend - was okay. Not great, as I'm sure everyone else would say, but okay. Stephie was a lovely host, so this is certainly nothing against her. I just, once again, found myself surrounded by so-called friends and getting ignored by most of them. On at least one occasion, I found that everyone else had clustered into two or three for conversation and nobody would even respond when I tried adding something, no matter what I said or who I said it to. The person I'd given a ride to - after two days of trying to convince him to come over earlier - was one of the worst culprits; I could barely get a response out of him at all on Saturday and he was even less polite about ignoring me Sunday, as he seemed quite irritated any time I tried getting his attention. Needless to say, I won't even waste my breath giving him the time of day in the future.
Outside of that big event, there really was very little to mention. I managed to make a trip to the eye doctor on Tuesday or Wednesday, but that was the only thing I actually accomplished all week. I didn't tend to any other medical or mental needs. I didn't even get out of the house just to go and do something out there for sake of being more active. No exercise, no wandering the mall, no going to a casino, not a damn thing. I had tried to get someone - anyone - to come over to watch TV and hang out, but not a single person responded in the affirmative. On Friday I spent an hour talking with someone on the phone and brought up the possibility, ending the conversation with the understanding we'd be in touch in an hour. When I called when a little over an hour had passed, he ignored his phone twice. Nobody else had even given me that much, though. A couple people didn't even respond to an instant message when I tried to get hold of them, while others gave various reasons they couldn't or didn't want to, some more plausible than others. One all but said he wanted to get into my pants and then got offended when I suggested I'd have a similar interest.
As a result of all this, plus more things that I would prefer not to write about here, I went from being in a pretty decent mood when I got home a week ago to feeling like complete and utter shit right now. I don't want to go back to work. I really don't want to even breathe any longer because I'm little more than a waste of this planet's precious resources. It's become painfully obvious that I'm not wanted around here, but due to my circumstances, I don't have anywhere else to go. I've an ever decreasing number of reasons not to simply drive off a bridge somewhere and disappear from this planet.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Asian Pirates and the Border Patrol
This has to be the most bizarre dream I've heard anyone writing about, though it's uncommon enough for me to remember anything I'm dreaming about in the first place. Since I'm typing in a hurry to try remember details this is probably going to make even less sense than it did.
I ended up on the beach as planned this weekend, but we somehow ended up finding a border patrol station. I was chatting with the other furs when they left, but I stuck around at the station for some reason. I heard something from inside, peered in, and three people had come in a door on the other side of the building - facing the beach - that looked like they didn't belong. I heard a struggle and then snuck out to call 911, slowly making my way around the side of the building to try escape detection. It didn't entirely work; one of the three came out onto the beach again and found me, though as he tried to grab me I grabbed his neck and choked him into submission. When the police arrived they recovered ID on the criminals and I was paid a bounty for the one they captured.
And then I woke up, wondering what the heck I possibly could have had or done yesterday to induce such a messed up dream.
I ended up on the beach as planned this weekend, but we somehow ended up finding a border patrol station. I was chatting with the other furs when they left, but I stuck around at the station for some reason. I heard something from inside, peered in, and three people had come in a door on the other side of the building - facing the beach - that looked like they didn't belong. I heard a struggle and then snuck out to call 911, slowly making my way around the side of the building to try escape detection. It didn't entirely work; one of the three came out onto the beach again and found me, though as he tried to grab me I grabbed his neck and choked him into submission. When the police arrived they recovered ID on the criminals and I was paid a bounty for the one they captured.
And then I woke up, wondering what the heck I possibly could have had or done yesterday to induce such a messed up dream.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A day of unproductivity
Originally I'd planned to get going to the truck around 10 AM, get some shopping done at Wal-Mart, and be back at the room here in time for a slightly late lunch. Instead, I didn't even get out of bed until 10, didn't leave until 2:30, and didn't make it back until about twenty minutes ago. Things at the truck went reasonably well; despite the fact my phone lost the list I'd written up, I remembered all the things I wanted to grab: the fruit, some extra clothing, and an extra bottle of conditioner. That's about where the good day ended.
I should have known things would be rather chaotic at Wal-Mart, given that the parking lot was almost completely full and I had at least one near-miss accident just trying to get into the place. I went in there for just three things: markers, running shoes, and sandals. The markers took a few minutes to find, but the shoes... didn't happen. I tried a size eight and found them to be uncomfortably tight against the ball of my foot. Someone had suggested I might need a wide, since my work shoes (also normal width) have caused quite a bit of damage along the outside of the ball and big toe. Since Wal-Mart's selection of wide shoes was pretty much nonexistent, I gave up on trying to find anything decent there and decided to try my luck with Shoe Carnival.
For a full-blown shoe store, though, I found the selection of athletic shoes to be very lacking. First, most of the styles they had weren't available in anything except normal width. Second, the ones they did have in wides were usually extra wide (4E). Third, they had almost nothing below a size nine and I have to have an eight; 7 1/2 is too small and 8 1/2 is too big. I'd found two styles I liked but couldn't even try on; one was a pair of Nikes that was cut so low that my foot was too thick to fit in the shoe and the other was a pair of Reeboks that had a huge security tag that made it impossible to try on at all. After wasting about half an hour and failing to even see anything that really caught my eye, I just gave up and decided to start heading back to the room.
While I was driving back to the room, I decided to try at least get something done; I called Sprint to try get my HTC Mogul exchanged for a Touch Pro. I know three other people who had theirs exchanged at a Sprint store without issue and all three have asked why I'm still tolerating the piece of crap device that I'm currently using. The first person I talked to just kept repeating the script with minor variations while completely ignoring anything I had to say. The second went off script to pretty much call me a liar; he claimed I couldn't possibly know the details of how three other people got their phones upgraded for free and that I was mistaken in saying how that happened. Both were told that I was exceptionally unhappy with my service, my phone, and their customer service and that I have no intention of renewing my contract when it's up at Thanksgiving; neither actually responded to any of my complaints in any substantive way.
So now I'm back at the room and I'm moderately hungry, despite having eaten lunch only four hours ago. I might just have a light dinner and go to bed early (read: before 2 AM) because there's really nothing else productive I can get done today. I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone who wants to get together, save for one person who is a 90 minute drive away; I may drive for a living, but that doesn't mean I want to spend my time at home doing even more driving. The less time I spend behind the wheel the better.
There's still the beach party on Saturday, which I'm hoping will go well. Apparently we're expecting fourteen people so far, though I'm pretty sure one isn't going to be able to get a ride and would be surprised if the others all showed up. Even so, ten would still be the largest turnout we've had for a furry gathering in Pensacola. The plan has morphed a few times, but I just plan on going over there for lunch and dinner Saturday, even though there are things being considered late into the night and on Sunday; I may consider staying (or driving back) for that if Saturday proves to be a pleasant experience.
I just hope that someone actually comes over and hangs out while I'm here in town. I don't want to be stuck more or less alone up here until I head back to work Monday morning.
I should have known things would be rather chaotic at Wal-Mart, given that the parking lot was almost completely full and I had at least one near-miss accident just trying to get into the place. I went in there for just three things: markers, running shoes, and sandals. The markers took a few minutes to find, but the shoes... didn't happen. I tried a size eight and found them to be uncomfortably tight against the ball of my foot. Someone had suggested I might need a wide, since my work shoes (also normal width) have caused quite a bit of damage along the outside of the ball and big toe. Since Wal-Mart's selection of wide shoes was pretty much nonexistent, I gave up on trying to find anything decent there and decided to try my luck with Shoe Carnival.
For a full-blown shoe store, though, I found the selection of athletic shoes to be very lacking. First, most of the styles they had weren't available in anything except normal width. Second, the ones they did have in wides were usually extra wide (4E). Third, they had almost nothing below a size nine and I have to have an eight; 7 1/2 is too small and 8 1/2 is too big. I'd found two styles I liked but couldn't even try on; one was a pair of Nikes that was cut so low that my foot was too thick to fit in the shoe and the other was a pair of Reeboks that had a huge security tag that made it impossible to try on at all. After wasting about half an hour and failing to even see anything that really caught my eye, I just gave up and decided to start heading back to the room.
While I was driving back to the room, I decided to try at least get something done; I called Sprint to try get my HTC Mogul exchanged for a Touch Pro. I know three other people who had theirs exchanged at a Sprint store without issue and all three have asked why I'm still tolerating the piece of crap device that I'm currently using. The first person I talked to just kept repeating the script with minor variations while completely ignoring anything I had to say. The second went off script to pretty much call me a liar; he claimed I couldn't possibly know the details of how three other people got their phones upgraded for free and that I was mistaken in saying how that happened. Both were told that I was exceptionally unhappy with my service, my phone, and their customer service and that I have no intention of renewing my contract when it's up at Thanksgiving; neither actually responded to any of my complaints in any substantive way.
So now I'm back at the room and I'm moderately hungry, despite having eaten lunch only four hours ago. I might just have a light dinner and go to bed early (read: before 2 AM) because there's really nothing else productive I can get done today. I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone who wants to get together, save for one person who is a 90 minute drive away; I may drive for a living, but that doesn't mean I want to spend my time at home doing even more driving. The less time I spend behind the wheel the better.
There's still the beach party on Saturday, which I'm hoping will go well. Apparently we're expecting fourteen people so far, though I'm pretty sure one isn't going to be able to get a ride and would be surprised if the others all showed up. Even so, ten would still be the largest turnout we've had for a furry gathering in Pensacola. The plan has morphed a few times, but I just plan on going over there for lunch and dinner Saturday, even though there are things being considered late into the night and on Sunday; I may consider staying (or driving back) for that if Saturday proves to be a pleasant experience.
I just hope that someone actually comes over and hangs out while I'm here in town. I don't want to be stuck more or less alone up here until I head back to work Monday morning.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Overwhelming boredom
I'm supposed to be home in a week to enjoy a nice couple of days off. I can hardly wait because I'm fairly sure being out here with no leisure activities is steadily driving me insane. Few people chat with me when I'm online from my phone (not that many do when I'm on a laptop) and most of the websites I frequent don't work properly on a mobile device so I'm left feeling mostly isolated.
I may not necessarily be on my computer to chat all the time once I get it anyway. I may just disappear into a game or something since it at least distracts me for a whle.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Exercise - the old fashioned way
As a few of you may already know, I'm trying to get into the habit of exercising again. There's little hope of me improving my diet so I need to balance out my intake with a much greater output. This week, between running errands while stuck waiting on a load and running on a treadnill while waiting on my laundry, I burned nearly 1,900 calories and over a hundred grams of fat. Granted, an estimate by a heart-rate monitoring wrist watch probably is not the most authoritative source for such numbers - it seemed to be considerably higher in its estimates than the treadmill - but it does at least keep me from hurting myself by going way too hard.
For this upcoming week, my goal is 3500 calories burned. That's traditionally considered to be equal to a pound of body weight and I certainly could stand to lose a pound or thirty. I'll be trying for 600 calories a day, every day, but I know I'll probably miss one day and be too tired to reach 600 on another. I'll likely do more than that tomorrow, for want of activity and to help offset some of the extra food I had for dinner.
Maybe, just maybe, it won't be painful to wear these jeans by the time fall rolls around. >_>
For this upcoming week, my goal is 3500 calories burned. That's traditionally considered to be equal to a pound of body weight and I certainly could stand to lose a pound or thirty. I'll be trying for 600 calories a day, every day, but I know I'll probably miss one day and be too tired to reach 600 on another. I'll likely do more than that tomorrow, for want of activity and to help offset some of the extra food I had for dinner.
Maybe, just maybe, it won't be painful to wear these jeans by the time fall rolls around. >_>
Saturday, May 16, 2009
RNC Chairman Steele is a fucking moron
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090516/ap_on_bi_ge/us_steele_republicans/print
I fail to see a rational argument in there at all. Half of what he says is utter nonsense and the other half applies equally to heterosexual couples. What's bad for small business is discrimination; telling a significant portion of potential employees or customers they are unwanted is an extremely bad business model. I seriously can't wait for some of these mentally backwards old farts to die off so we can stop doing what's "moral" - a word which only means what the majority want it to - and start doing what's right.
Friday, May 8, 2009
No more computer
I just broke my laptop charger trying to get the thing working. As such, I have less than half an hour of charge left in this thing then I'll probably be condemned to use nothing but my phone for the next month. If anyone wants to get a hold of me, look me up on AIM, Yahoo, or Twitter; I now go by shinyminidrake on all three services. Alternatively, leave me an e-mail, call me, or anything like that.
If I can somehow get this thing repaired, I might be back online sooner; otherwise, I'm ordering a replacement soon as this post goes through and likely will not be on a PC again until at least June 3.
If I can somehow get this thing repaired, I might be back online sooner; otherwise, I'm ordering a replacement soon as this post goes through and likely will not be on a PC again until at least June 3.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Mentally stalled
I know I keep saying that I'm going to write more things here, but generally I just haven't been able to motivate myself lately. I can feel something changing to try get the gears turning again, even though I can't put my finger on it, so perhaps I'll at least begin posting here more regularly if not actually start writing new fiction. Perhaps it's just that being forced into a vaguely nocturnal schedule by work again has changed my perception of things. In any case, I just hope I actually do something with this likely brief wave of creative energy before it slides back out to sea.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Swine Flu Map
http://www.idemc.org/
I wish my 200th post here was on something less scary than this, but ... well, this is rather important. Infections are all over the world it seems, and I seriously am wondering how many unconfirmed cases aren't even reported by that map, given that most diseases are under reported.
So, to everyone, good luck.
I wish my 200th post here was on something less scary than this, but ... well, this is rather important. Infections are all over the world it seems, and I seriously am wondering how many unconfirmed cases aren't even reported by that map, given that most diseases are under reported.
So, to everyone, good luck.
Weekend at home
So due to an unusually timed work assignment, I ended up taking a weekend off at home. Things went ... okay, I suppose. I kinda feel bad writing anything bad about the people down here, especially given how rarely I see them, but I can't say I enjoyed my time back here at home. The best part of the weekend was the dinner on Friday night; we had five of us at first, but three more joined a bit later, giving us the largest crowd I think we've had in years. Conversations went all over the place as well. That was followed by a trip to Marble Slab for ice cream, which is probably where things started to go ... downhill.
After that, we ended up going over to another fur's house. I felt pretty much ignored once over there, aside from getting a brief stint doing vocals for Rock Band. Everyone else was chatting about one thing or another, or getting involved in a massive snuggle pile on the bed, yet I couldn't even get an acknowledgement out of anyone. It's particularly frustrating given that I've known one of the people for years and yet he was acting completely obvlious to me the whole time nor even seemed to realize that something was wrong. It's even more frustrating when there's plenty of innuendo (and even less subtle things) going around and yet nobody even suggests they'd touch you with a ten foot pole.
Once I left there, I went to bed shortly thereafter. Saturday consisted mostly of sleeping in a bit, then going out to fetch RedMoogleXIII for an afternoon. It was nice having him over, though given that he was only going to be over here a day, we didn't get to do a whole lot, other than generic playing around on the computer. Yomi came over for a bit to join in and we got a quick bite to eat from Whataburger, then sleep.
Today was even less exciting: I took Red home early in the afternoon, moved some things into the storage unit, picked up some summer clothes, and took the car back to my parents. I should have had enough time to do laundry, but somewhere along the way I lost several hours. I also picked up a USB-powered CD/DVD drive, which should get put to good use, given that I have a couple art CDs to save to my external hard drive and - even more importantly - needed a DVD drive to reinstall Windows from, since the computer is starting to run painfully slowly.
I really wish that I had better things to write here, but frankly, this weekend was pretty much a bust for me. I ended up not doing half the things I wanted to do while not enjoying the things I did do. I'm supposed to be back out on the road at 8 AM tomorrow, but that leaves me less than six hours to sleep and I'm really not feeling so well, both physically and psychologically. I don't want to get back out on the road, but I really don't want to stay where I'm at right now either. If nothing else, I wish I could at least figure out what I can say to the local furs here to try and figure out if there's something that I'm doing that is pushing people away, or if this is just proving that I really should just get out of Florida as soon as possible.
After that, we ended up going over to another fur's house. I felt pretty much ignored once over there, aside from getting a brief stint doing vocals for Rock Band. Everyone else was chatting about one thing or another, or getting involved in a massive snuggle pile on the bed, yet I couldn't even get an acknowledgement out of anyone. It's particularly frustrating given that I've known one of the people for years and yet he was acting completely obvlious to me the whole time nor even seemed to realize that something was wrong. It's even more frustrating when there's plenty of innuendo (and even less subtle things) going around and yet nobody even suggests they'd touch you with a ten foot pole.
Once I left there, I went to bed shortly thereafter. Saturday consisted mostly of sleeping in a bit, then going out to fetch RedMoogleXIII for an afternoon. It was nice having him over, though given that he was only going to be over here a day, we didn't get to do a whole lot, other than generic playing around on the computer. Yomi came over for a bit to join in and we got a quick bite to eat from Whataburger, then sleep.
Today was even less exciting: I took Red home early in the afternoon, moved some things into the storage unit, picked up some summer clothes, and took the car back to my parents. I should have had enough time to do laundry, but somewhere along the way I lost several hours. I also picked up a USB-powered CD/DVD drive, which should get put to good use, given that I have a couple art CDs to save to my external hard drive and - even more importantly - needed a DVD drive to reinstall Windows from, since the computer is starting to run painfully slowly.
I really wish that I had better things to write here, but frankly, this weekend was pretty much a bust for me. I ended up not doing half the things I wanted to do while not enjoying the things I did do. I'm supposed to be back out on the road at 8 AM tomorrow, but that leaves me less than six hours to sleep and I'm really not feeling so well, both physically and psychologically. I don't want to get back out on the road, but I really don't want to stay where I'm at right now either. If nothing else, I wish I could at least figure out what I can say to the local furs here to try and figure out if there's something that I'm doing that is pushing people away, or if this is just proving that I really should just get out of Florida as soon as possible.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Time Management Skills, or the lack thereof
More and more often, I find myself wondering where the heck time goes. Tonight, for instance, I shut the truck down at 5:45, but really have no idea what I've done with the intervening three and a half hours. I had dinner, chatted on the phone a bit, used the bathroom, then hopped online...and, somehow, most of the evening disappeared in the time it took for me to look back at the clock. Now, not only am I going to get a mere six hours sleep (which is still more than last night), but I once again won't have time to take a shower. I could just tell work that I don't want to get going at 4 AM, but that's a bad thing for my paycheck.
To cut the rambling short, for sake of both readability and preserving what little time is left this evening, can anyone suggest ways of trying to fit more into a day? Given my incredibly odd and full work schedule - sometimes more than 11 hours a day of work and up to 70 a week - and my inability to function on limited amounts of sleep, I find myself wishing that I could use the very limited time I have more effectively. I don't exercise at all any more, save for short walks to and from the truck; I haven't written anything but blog posts in weeks and my entries here are becoming increasingly sporadic; and I never feel like I've accomplished anything anymore.
So... help?
To cut the rambling short, for sake of both readability and preserving what little time is left this evening, can anyone suggest ways of trying to fit more into a day? Given my incredibly odd and full work schedule - sometimes more than 11 hours a day of work and up to 70 a week - and my inability to function on limited amounts of sleep, I find myself wishing that I could use the very limited time I have more effectively. I don't exercise at all any more, save for short walks to and from the truck; I haven't written anything but blog posts in weeks and my entries here are becoming increasingly sporadic; and I never feel like I've accomplished anything anymore.
So... help?
Monday, April 20, 2009
Silence
I really feel like I should be posting more often in this blog, but I'm also finding it increasingly difficult to come up with things worth posting at length about. I've gotten to see some friends lately, such as Tal Rex, Delphi, and Galadon, not to mention the rest of the Indianapolis furs. Mostly I've just been feeling quite tired, between the effects of the various medications, but I do seem to be getting better. That or the cough syrup is doing a fantastic job of completely masking my symptoms. Also ordered myself some things from the Internet, some of which I should probably not be writing about in a PG-rated blog like this, but that I'm sure would interest plenty of you.
However, as I'm drawing a complete blank and am tired enough that I'm making lots of silly typing errors, I think I'm going to get to bed. My brain is completely gone right now.
However, as I'm drawing a complete blank and am tired enough that I'm making lots of silly typing errors, I think I'm going to get to bed. My brain is completely gone right now.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Getting healthier
My truck recently was down for repair in Atlanta. Given that I am still suffering from the bug that I caught at MFF and the current recurrence has persisted since February, I insisted on seeing a doctor. To make a long story short, his diagnosis was bronchitis and I've been given a week's supply of antibiotics, told to take Robitussin, drink lots of water, and get plenty of rest. So far, it's working pretty well; today is about the best I've felt in months, aside from being rather tired, which I'll blame the medication for.
Hopefully, in another six days, I'll finally be able to breathe freely.
Hopefully, in another six days, I'll finally be able to breathe freely.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Kink Spectrum Analysis
Warning: TMI may follow!
Your result for The Kink Spectrum Analysis Test...
Green (530 nm)
You scored 58% self-confidence and 48% bandwidth!
Not bad! You're probably not willing to try everything, but you have quite a few kinks. Or you strongly prefer one side of the fence. Look for another Green, or a Blue if you feel adventurous. Reds may be okay as well if they share one or two of your likings (see below). But stay away from Ultraviolets unless you want to radically spice up your sex life. You've been warned.
But I promised you a more detailed analysis, so here it is. Note that most scales are twofold: There are separate values for giving (active) and receiving (passive). If you scored high on one of them, you should look for a partner who scored high on the other. If you scored high on both of them, go for someone who is similar (or for multiple partners if you're into that). If you scored low on both, this probably is not your kind of kink.
You scored 72% giving and 23% receiving on oral.
You scored 67% giving and 90% receiving on anal.
You scored 8% giving and 29% receiving on bondage.
You scored 33% giving and 57% receiving on humiliation.
You scored 6% giving and 25% receiving on pain.
You scored 18% dominance and 40% submission.
You scored 50% voyeurism and 36% exhibitionism.
Besides that, you're 50% into fetishism and 80% polysexual (i.e. interested in sex with multiple partners, whether at the same time or not). You'll probably want a partner who is similar, whether you scored high or low in these categories.
Finally, you scored 35% on autoerotic - a scale that measures your ability and/or willingness to have kinky fun without a partner. It's not exactly a matching criterion, but it's good for you if your score is high. Keep it up!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Sleepless in Orlando
Well, technically, Polk City, FL. But that just doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
Yes, with apologies to the people I was previously talking with online, I'm still awake. Why? One, an addiction to porn. Yeah, I said it. I don't think I really need to go into details about that, since everyone reading this probably already knows exactly as much about my porn habits as they'd like to. If you don't know anything at all, just trust me: you're happy in your blissful ignorance. If you do know something, then please, don't spoil it for the innocent ones. :)
It's not just that, though. I did finally get a hold of someone in accounting at the Wal-Mart store that screwed me over, as mentioned in my previous post. Why did I call? Well, the transaction that was voided apparently wasn't taken care of properly, since the charge just showed as "cleared" on my bank statement today. So I called and verified that yes, the transaction was actually voided, though about half an hour after the sale (and thus, approval) went through. Given that it was on a Saturday, that already throws timing into limbo. Ultimately, though, I was assured that Wal-Mart shouldn't be getting any mony for that transaction and that, if it had gone through, I should be seeing a refund/return/void/etc show up within the next couple business days. At least I have enough money in my account these days that it doesn't matter so much, but two years ago this would have probably left us unable to pay rent or otherwise completely screwed us over. Supposedly I'll be getting a call back after the store's account calls the home office to find out what exactly is going on with my card.
Aside from that, I'm really not sure what else to write here. I've been having this nagging urge to write, but keep managing to distract myself. Part of it is that I don't know what I want to write about. I have a story that's nearly finished, that has been sitting untouched for months now, but I just can't motivate myself to do anything with it. I could say much the same thing for the various other ideas I've had come up, some of which are nearly 1,500 words of writing, some of which are just single paragraphs, while a few are just thoughts lingering in the back of my mind that I've yet to do anything with and may never actually commit to text just out of my general apathy as of late.
My health is one thing thing that has been keeping me concerned. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I've been sick on and off since around MFF, and it's been more on than off as of late. My best guess at this point is that it's bronchitis or some other nagging respiratory infection that's apparently not going to go away on its own. The good news is that - if my self-diagnosis is correct - it means I'm not contagious, so I don't have to worry about passing it on to anyone whose company I've been able to enjoy. The bad news is that I'll almost certainly need to see a doctor and get treatment, likely in the form of antibotics that will have me bedridden for a while. I can't exactly afford to take any more time off work, since I drew down my savings by about $1,200 last month (I'd probably have broken even if I didn't attend FWA), but I may have to. Even that assumes I can get to see a doctor, though, and most doctors these days have either extremely long waits for appointments or are urgent care facilities that charge at least triple the normal rate. I just worry that, if I don't get something done soon, this could well develop into something that will require a trip to the hospital and a bill far greater than even an urgent clinic appointment's.
I certainly seem to be good at rambling on here while I'm relatively undistracted. Even while opening a couple other tabs and waiting for things to load, I've typed the above in about ten minutes. Certainly shows that I'm at least capable of writing. Why I can't funnel that into something more productive - whether it be new porn or something truly useful, like a letter to Congress - is beyond me.
In any event, there is one thing that I most certainly need: sleep. I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of days, probably in part to the various non-work related stresses that have been coming up. That's not to say work has been going swimmingly either - I've had to get up at 10 PM the last few nights - but the issues outside of work pertaining to my finances and complaints about my credit card are definitely not helping either. My boyfriend's been going through a rough time as well at college, and it's relatively early in the term; I only can hope things start looking up for him, since there's exactly nothing I can do from here to try and make things better. We don't even catch each other online much lately, particularly since work has had me on such a fucked up schedule. I hope that changes sometime soon.
There's really not much else I can think of to write about, and I'm getting quite tired now that I've simply thrown this much out there. I don't know how many of you are going to take the time to read all this, since it's probably the longest post I've done in a while, but if you do, then thank you.
Yes, with apologies to the people I was previously talking with online, I'm still awake. Why? One, an addiction to porn. Yeah, I said it. I don't think I really need to go into details about that, since everyone reading this probably already knows exactly as much about my porn habits as they'd like to. If you don't know anything at all, just trust me: you're happy in your blissful ignorance. If you do know something, then please, don't spoil it for the innocent ones. :)
It's not just that, though. I did finally get a hold of someone in accounting at the Wal-Mart store that screwed me over, as mentioned in my previous post. Why did I call? Well, the transaction that was voided apparently wasn't taken care of properly, since the charge just showed as "cleared" on my bank statement today. So I called and verified that yes, the transaction was actually voided, though about half an hour after the sale (and thus, approval) went through. Given that it was on a Saturday, that already throws timing into limbo. Ultimately, though, I was assured that Wal-Mart shouldn't be getting any mony for that transaction and that, if it had gone through, I should be seeing a refund/return/void/etc show up within the next couple business days. At least I have enough money in my account these days that it doesn't matter so much, but two years ago this would have probably left us unable to pay rent or otherwise completely screwed us over. Supposedly I'll be getting a call back after the store's account calls the home office to find out what exactly is going on with my card.
Aside from that, I'm really not sure what else to write here. I've been having this nagging urge to write, but keep managing to distract myself. Part of it is that I don't know what I want to write about. I have a story that's nearly finished, that has been sitting untouched for months now, but I just can't motivate myself to do anything with it. I could say much the same thing for the various other ideas I've had come up, some of which are nearly 1,500 words of writing, some of which are just single paragraphs, while a few are just thoughts lingering in the back of my mind that I've yet to do anything with and may never actually commit to text just out of my general apathy as of late.
My health is one thing thing that has been keeping me concerned. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I've been sick on and off since around MFF, and it's been more on than off as of late. My best guess at this point is that it's bronchitis or some other nagging respiratory infection that's apparently not going to go away on its own. The good news is that - if my self-diagnosis is correct - it means I'm not contagious, so I don't have to worry about passing it on to anyone whose company I've been able to enjoy. The bad news is that I'll almost certainly need to see a doctor and get treatment, likely in the form of antibotics that will have me bedridden for a while. I can't exactly afford to take any more time off work, since I drew down my savings by about $1,200 last month (I'd probably have broken even if I didn't attend FWA), but I may have to. Even that assumes I can get to see a doctor, though, and most doctors these days have either extremely long waits for appointments or are urgent care facilities that charge at least triple the normal rate. I just worry that, if I don't get something done soon, this could well develop into something that will require a trip to the hospital and a bill far greater than even an urgent clinic appointment's.
I certainly seem to be good at rambling on here while I'm relatively undistracted. Even while opening a couple other tabs and waiting for things to load, I've typed the above in about ten minutes. Certainly shows that I'm at least capable of writing. Why I can't funnel that into something more productive - whether it be new porn or something truly useful, like a letter to Congress - is beyond me.
In any event, there is one thing that I most certainly need: sleep. I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of days, probably in part to the various non-work related stresses that have been coming up. That's not to say work has been going swimmingly either - I've had to get up at 10 PM the last few nights - but the issues outside of work pertaining to my finances and complaints about my credit card are definitely not helping either. My boyfriend's been going through a rough time as well at college, and it's relatively early in the term; I only can hope things start looking up for him, since there's exactly nothing I can do from here to try and make things better. We don't even catch each other online much lately, particularly since work has had me on such a fucked up schedule. I hope that changes sometime soon.
There's really not much else I can think of to write about, and I'm getting quite tired now that I've simply thrown this much out there. I don't know how many of you are going to take the time to read all this, since it's probably the longest post I've done in a while, but if you do, then thank you.
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