Domestic Geek

South Park was pretty cool, as usual. I had a hard time enjoying it, though, as a severe storm was passing just to the west of us. The town of Watkins got pounded with hail really good. I guess golfball to baseball size hail rained down. Lots of damage. Watkins is only about 21 miles to the west. Denver International Airport got hit pretty good, also. The hail damaged planes and many people ended up stuck at the airport. I was watching the storm moving south. I hate it when the sky gets that eerie greenish color. That always means trouble.

Spent the whole day with Dad again today. We were waiting for the AT&T dudes to show up and install Dad's cable internet connection. Cable rocks! Better than the 19600 bps dialup I was getting earlier. Connected at 36000 now. Whoohoo, I'm zipping along now!

Dad tells me that some guy my sister and I used to know contacted my sister the other day. Turns out he got her email address through our old high school's website. Shouldn't the people who set this site up be required to get the email owner's permission to publish the email? What if someone is stalking you and you don't want your email public? I'm going to look now and see if I'm listed.

Well, I was right. I'm $20 poorer today than I was yesterday morning. Oh, well. I had a pretty decent day, though. Some of the casinos in Blackhawk got some new South Park slot machines. They were hellacool. Speaking of which, there is a new South Park on tonight. Sweet!

Anyway, it was cool hanging out with Dad all day. I can't remember the last time I spent that much time with him. That's something I'm going to have to rectify. Marcus sold Dad his eMachine computer. He's having AT&T @Home installed on Thursday, so I'll have my hands full teaching him how to use the computer. It should be fun.

I know I should be doing some Visual Basic or Access or something, but I'm just not in the mood. I've lost all desire to go to CollegeAmerica. I had these delusions of perhaps earning a double degree: one in Computer Technology and one in Programming. There is no way I'm going to get all of the programming classes I need in three months. These next three months are going to seem endless. It's not that I don't want to learn, just the opposite. I know that WHAT I WANT TO LEARN will not be taught at that school. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that I'm either going to have to learn on the job (scary), taught to myself, or take more classes. For instance, I have been waiting for UNIX 3 to be offered. The last time they offered it, it conflicted with one of my networking classes (which was a waste, by the way). I was told last week that there are no immediate plans to offer it because there hasn't been any interest in it. Well, who asked me?

Things at Blackjack are getting worse. I knew sales would drop again after the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup, but I had no idea they would be this bad.

I'm watching an ITT-Tech commercial with a girl named Stacy, a Network Admin, that exclaims "I LOVE MONDAYS!" The commercial has "testimonials" from bosses and coworkers extolling her virtues. I WANT TO BE THAT!

Wow, it was so nice today. Since I've decided to go ahead and take two weeks off from school, I don't have to drive to town at all!!! My poor car will be so happy. It's also going to get a bath this week. I haven't had time to take care of it, lately, and it shows.

Dad and I are going to Blackhawk/Central City tomorrow. He and I haven't had the opportunity to do much together, lately. It will be nice to spend the day with him. I lose track of weeks at a time with school and full-time work. I feel bad for him. He's never been one to have many friends, and after Mom died and my sister moved to California, he really didn't have anybody except me. Going to Blackhawk has been good for him. He's met so many people and he always seems to have a good time. He always seems to come back with a little more money than he left with. I, on the other hand, always manage to come back poorer. That's why I never take more than $20 and I always stick to the nickel machines.

Turns out that the smell on the dog yesterday was from rotting weeds he was eating in the bottom of the wheelbarrow. GROSS! Now the dog is sick to his stomach -- serves him right. Marcus caught him trying to do it again this morning. I can't wait until the trash men come to empty the dumpster so I can get rid of those weeds. That is one of the bad things about living in a mobile home park. Everyone in town seems to thinks the dumpster is "theirs". Never mind the fact that there are 20 units in here that need to use the dumpster and it only gets emptied twice a week. On top of that, a couple is moving out of their house this month, and that always generates a lot of extra trash. I swear, people can be so thoughtless.

I know I was going to do a lot of schoolwork while I stayed home, but it's not going to happen today. I've been cleaning my kitchen all morning (how does it get so dirty when I am hardly ever here?), trying to get my financial records caught up, and my animal's cages need some much deserved attention. I should also try to find some stuff to sell on eBay. Studying Visual Basic or Access is not really high on my priority list today. I'm rather enjoying just sitting on my butt, for once. Too bad this is the only day this week that I can do that. Tomorrow it is back to work. I thought about taking some time off from there, too, but I just can't afford to do so at this time. :-(

Marcus' mom wants us to move to Tennessee. Hah! It's around 90 degrees here today with no humidity and I still can't get by without the swamp cooler running full blast. I am such a wuss.

Why can't they put more IHOPs in this town? Marcus and I got off work at 10 am this morning, I hadn't eaten a thing since last night and all I wanted was an IHOP omelette. I love those things, but not enough to wait over a half hour to get a table. So, I came home and had a can of plain tuna fish. Yuck. No food in the house and not in the mood to go grocery shopping. I'll have to go do that soon, though *sigh*.

Why must dogs roll in stinky stuff? Skippy came in this morning and I swear I almost passed out from the smell. We had to lock him in the bathroom while we went to work so he wouldn't get the stink on our bed. The smell had worn off by the time we got home, but he's still getting a bath later. I have no idea what caused the smell, as I can't find what he was rolling on. Oh, well.

I took my Dad to Rosie's Diner for an early Father's Day dinner. It's supposed to be a replica of the diner that was in the Bounty commercials. I had a rib eye sandwich. YUM!

I'm tired of living in Byers. It's too far away from anything cool (50 miles to Denver). I'm tired of working where I work, too. I need to move back to the Denver metro area. It's definitely going to happen as soon as school is done. Marcus and I are both feeling the strain of 4 1/2 years of this commuting crap. We spent $450 between the two of us on gasoline last month. I could've applied for a contract position moving computers on Fridays and Saturdays for six weeks to get some computer-related experience, but Noooooooo, I can't make it work with my current work schedule and the drive time.

A few of my friends are actually graduating from CollegeAmerica today. Congratulations to TIM L., REVERIE K. & GENE F.!!!!