Domestic Geek

So, it's my 24th time doing a Thursday Thirteen. I have the ticking seconds from the television show 24 playing in my head as I type this!

Anyway, life has been crazy busy, but in a good way. The last time I did a TT was a whole month ago, so without further delay, I present to you:

Thirteen Things That Have Kept Me So Busy I Haven't Had Time to Do Thursday Thirteen

1. Colorado Rockies Baseball Game — At work, I was offered a free pair of tickets to the ball game on April 16th against the San Francisco Giants. I'd never been to a ball game, so I figured, "Why not?" I took my dad and we had seats in the front row of the third deck right behind home plate. It was supposed to rain that evening, but it sprinkled a little before the game and waited to start raining until we were almost back to the car. It was just a little chilly, though. It's a little windy up there! Coors Field is a pretty cool venue. It cracked me up how everybody booed Barry Bonds whenever he came to bat. I totally forgot to take a camera and would've taken more pics with my camera phone, but silly me forgot to charge it beforehand. All I managed to get were a few pics before the game started. The Rockies lost. *sigh* Oh, well.
   
2. Software Upgrade — The software our company uses to run it's whole operation needed to be upgraded. Over the course of several weekends, Marcus had different tasks that needed to be done to make it happen. He got my supervisor to authorize some overtime for me to help him out. Unfortunately, every PC in the building had a different configuration of different modules of this main program, so he couldn't just do a network-wide upgrade push. On April 15th, we went in and did a few sample installs and I wrote the installation instructions and PC inventory sheet for the team of us that would be working the next weekend. He figured while we were at each machine, we could get serial numbers and things in addition to documenting which modules were installed on each. No previous IT person had gathered any such data. On Friday, April 20th, they took the whole system offline and we all installed the upgrade on machines into the wee hours of the morning. I worked my full shift that day, so I was at work from 7am until 1:30 am. We ran into some trouble with some ancient machines, so we had to go back the next day to finish up, run some tests and put the system live. Last Friday, the server was replaced. It all seems to be working great! I got 16 hours of OT. Not too shabby.
3. Apple Store Opening — You know Marcus and I won't miss an Apple Store opening. April 21st was the one for the Park Meadows location. Yes, after getting to bed at 3am and being at work 18+ hours the previous day, we were in line to check out the new store and get our t-shirt. I splurged since I was getting all this OT and bought a nifty hard case for my iPod.
4. Insurance Meeting — On April 18th, I had to attend a meeting to get my benefits. As of May 1st, for the first time in my life, I have company-paid health benefits.
5. ROM — ROM is going to be my best friend. It's the exercise machine that our owner provides for his employees to use. It stand for "Range of Motion" but has also been called "Ridiculously Overpriced Machine." The thing supposedly costs almost $15,000! They claim you can get a complete workout in 4 minutes a day. You alternate between upper and lower body every day. I felt like I was going to die the first day I used it.
   
6. Organizational Challenge — The challenge over at I'm an Organizing Junkie! took up a lot of my time. Between the fiasco of trying to find a reasonably priced file cabinet, to finishing the countertop, to actually purging, cleaning and organizing, it was a lot of work, but well worth it. (Yes, it is still clean!)
7. Steve's Snapping Dogs — On April 28th, Marcus, Mike and I tried a place new to us. I had heard ads for them on the Martini on the Rockies station and the owner was a cohost on The Gabby Gourmet show that afternoon. Steve's Snapping Dogs sits on the corner of Monroe and Colfax in Denver. It was good, but expensive. Probably won't be a frequent visitor of that establishment.
8. Idaho Springs — I was lamenting how Marcus and I never take road trips on our days off like we used to when we first started going out. I was also lamenting on a separate occasion about the BeauJo's restaurants all being too far away since the one by Buckingham Square closed down. On Sunday, April 29th, Marcus said we were killing two birds by taking a road trip to the original BeauJo's. It's a nice little place. I got the stuffed mushrooms (as always). I wish I knew how to make those...they are so freakin' good! Marcus' pie got lost somehow and they had to remake it, so he got it for free. That was cool of them. I was bummed because I couldn't find a decent shot glass for my collection, though. It was nice to get out of the city and spend some quality time together.
9. Looking for a Part-Time Job — I'm trying to find some more income. I really want to move. I really miss having a dog and I want a garden.
10. Working on Graphics — I've finally got some inspiration for a new blog design. I've been working on some graphics for myself, as well as Marcus. I don't want to lose my mad Illustrator skills, y'know?
11. Taking Online Classes — I'm about half-way through the current courses I have been assigned at work. I'm trying to learn as much as possible. First, I just love learning stuff. Second, I'm hoping with more responsibility, I can make more money.
12. Played a Wii — Mike and Nina got themselves a Wii for their wedding anniversary. We went over to their place a couple of weekends ago to play. Once I got over feeling stupid for having to actually move to play, I really enjoyed it. Bowling was really cool.
13. Lunch With Friends — Saturday I met up with a couple of friends from Design school and had lunch at Applebee's. It was so good to see them! It's amazing that we all took pretty much the same classes and we're all in different fields. One is a graphic designer, one is a web coder and I'm in prepress. That's kind of cool.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!