So this one time, I got married.

A while ago, I got engaged. And that experience taught me a valuable lesson which I will share now.

Call me naive, but following engagement I expected a substantial amount of “blissful engagement time”. This was not so. Call me stupid, but when proposing, the thought of “I’m going to have to plan a wedding” didn’t even cross my mind. I think I speak for all men when I say that planning a wedding is not something we usually worry about. We are simple creatures, and we foolishly categorize such things as “details”.

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Texas On A Whim

In order to fight off a nasty case of winter blues, Maggie and I felt like we should get away for the weekend. At first we were debating between Philadelphia, Upstate NY somewhere, or Atlantic city… until Wednesday afternoon when we suddenly decided to drive to Texas.

TEXAS!

Wednesday:
3pm: Decide to drive to Texas to visit my brother and cousin, check out SXSW, and get away.
3:30 pm: Rented a car on priceline.4 pm: Tell work “Yeah, i’m not going to be here tomorrow, friday, or… monday”
5 pm: Got a bunch of maps from AAA, went home, and packed up..
8 pm: Left on a train for Newark, NJ (car rentals were cheaper in NJ than NY)
9 pm: On the road!

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Fire?

Last night a smoke detector was acting funky in our apartment building. We were just sitting around watching a movie, and every once in a while we’d hear “BEEP BEEP BEEP” coming from the hallway. Sometimes it’d beep a few times, other times it would beep for 30 seconds or so. It didn’t take long for this to become annoying/slightly worrisome, so I went to investigate. It turned out it was coming from the 4th floor, and since I didn’t smell any smoke I figured the battery must be failing, so after talking it over with an old lady in her pajamas, I took the battery out.

20 minutes later, the beeping started again, only this time it was coming from the second floor. Really weird. Some people came out of their apartments and we all started coming up with ideas of what to do. We were going to call the Super, but once someone mentioned that there had been several fires in this apartment building in the past, we decided it would be best to call the fire department, to be safe.

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Another Q&A

Q: Why do you do like Q&As?
A: Because then I don’t have to try as hard.

Q: What are you doing right now?
A: Eating cheesecake, and drinking wine.

Q: Aren’t you at work?
A: Yes.

Q: Uh, isn’t that, I don’t know. Wrong?
A: It’s the “holiday party”, and there’s booze flowing left and right. Unfortunately, there’s also a crowd of morons making awkward small-talk, which really, is my own version of hell. I need a lifeboat, i.e. someone I actually like here who I can talk to for more than 5 minutes and more importantly, can be honest about what I really think.

“She might be the most annoying person I’ve ever met”.  There’s something I can’t say to people here.

Q: Dude, you’re a whiner.
A: Yeah? Well you look fat in those pants.

Q: Is the semester over yet?
A: Yes, I took my final yesterday. It’s a toss up as to how I did. It was harder than I thought it would be.

Q: Any big plans, now that you’re not shackled to your computer?
A: Overall, to jump off the wagon (done!), and otherwise, work on some nerdy side projects and hang out. I’m going home to Christmas for 5 days, too. It’s the first time the entire family (including Maggie) has been in the same place. This could get ugly.

Sorry, I was just interrupted by a coworker trying to ask me some work related questions. I’ve had a glass of some some heavily spiked eggnog, and a glass of wine, and didn’t have the mental capacity to process her request. I did, however, have the will-power to refrain from bursting out laughing when I realized I didn’t hear a word she said. Funny.

Q: Is it just me, or is this blog entry going downhill fast?
A: I think we’re at the bottom.

Q: Are you going to post it anyway?
A: I guess. I haven’t posted anything in a long time, and this is better than nothing.

Bagel Brothers

Flashback!

It was 1995, I was 14, and I think it was April. I went into Bagel Brothers one afternoon to get some bagels for my Mom, who was waiting in the car.  There was a TV crew in there filming a commercial, and they stopped me on my way out of the store.

“Do you want to be in a commercial?”
“Suuure”, I say, “What do I have to say?”
“Well, what do you think of Bagel Brothers?”
“Uh, I don’t know.  I like it.”
“Can you say anything else about it than that?”

They suggest some things, and I act shy. Eventually they tell me what to say, and I agree.

Finally, they record me saying something to the effect of “It’s fast for lunch or dinner, blah blah blah”.

Anyway, months pass.  I completely forget about the commercial.   Puberty kicks it into high gear.  My voice drops an octave and a half.  I grow an inch or two.  And then… the commercial airs.  

Apparently, editing got the best of whatever eloquent insight I divulged to the Mankato metropolitan area, that fateful afternoon.  Of course, I didn’t find this out by actually seeing the final result on TV — oh no — I found out from a group of obnoxious girls in my high school hallway.

“It’s fast!”, they said to me in their squeakiest voices.

Man, those next couple of months were great.

That was a $500 shot

A couple of months ago, someone left a comment on my flickr page.  Odd, I thought, some stranger claiming to be a part of an advertising agency wants to use my photo for an ad campaign, and pay me $500.  This sounds like a scam, somehow.

Then I got an email explaining the same thing in further detail, along with a number to call.  I called the number, and sure enough, a real person was offering me $500 for the use of my photo in a campaign for the New York City Office of Emergency Management.

“Does this sound like a satisfactory offer?  Will you allow us to use the photo?”

Who would refuse?  It’s weird though.  I mean, why my photo?  Why that photo, which I’ll be the first to admit, isn’t the greatest picture.  I mean, it’s practically blurry in parts.  Who am I to argue, though?  If you want to pay me for use of that photo, when there are hundreds of other better quality ones of flickr, go right ahead.  And anyway, don’t these people have some stock photo archive?  They’ve resorted to scouring flickr?  WTF, man? 

Well, I haven’t received the money yet, but now I have grounds to because the damn thing is actually on bus stops now.  Unbelievable!   Does this, along with the world renowned Bagel Brothers commercial I once starred in exhaust my 15 minutes of fame?  I hope not.

The best part about the whole thing, besides the obvious?  Every time I take a photo now, I mutter “That was a $500 shot”.  Maggie loves that.  I’m such an ass.

Grad School GRE Score Debacle

I’m taking another class, and it’s a big pain in my ass.  I think I’m doing pretty well though.  As my lame post a couple of months ago explained, I’m working really hard at doing well in school.  I’m trying to prove to Columbia that I’m grad-school worthy.  Which brings me to the reason for this post.

Everyone I tell about being rejected not accepted to the grad program is usually shocked.  When I told my boss at work he was floored — “WHAAAT?  You didn’t get in?”.  I’m not trying to go on an ego trip here, but the fact that I didn’t get in on multiple applications was a bit unusual, especially considering the fact that I’m taking grad classes now and kicking ass. They let ‘tards into ivy league schools.  Really, they do.  And for the record… Ivy League ain’t no thang.  In some ways, Minnesota State had its shit together more than this place does.  I’m getting to a point, here.  Stick with me.

Point being, something was up.  Something was off.  The admissions guidelines were fucked up.  Anyway, my boss offered to write me a recommendation for spring admission, which is great.  I mean, come on, put me in the program now.  I work on your campus, as a programmer, the head of a department is writing my recommendation, I’m in your classes, and I’m not a mo-mo.  Put me in your program, for christs sake.

So the other day I went on Columbia’s web site to reactivate my application, and I was looking over my old information.  I clicked on “test scores”, and noticed a strange oddity with my GRE scores.

The verbal and the quantitative scores were flipped.

[pause for reaction]
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The Corner Office

I got a new office, and it sucks. I like to refer to it as the “corner office”, since that term is generally accepted to mean “lots of windows”, but in my case means “one dingy window looking out into an air shaft abyss. But I’m trying to stay positive about it, I guess. There are good points and bad points.

Point: No longer have to share an office. This office is all mine.
Counterpoint: A shitty 1979 Pontiac Grand Prix also used to be all mine.

Point: My old office mate used to hum the same gibberish incessantly. If it could be put into text form it would be “HMM HMM HMMMMMMMMM”
Counterpoint: None needed, that was fucking annoying and I’m glad it’s over.

Point: I can have private conversations now, without someone listening in, and I also don’t have to listen in to someone’s private conversations! Brilliant!

Point: I don’t have to listen to by the minute updates of the current weather conditions by the previously mentioned office mate.
Counterpoint: How will I survive without knowing that by noon the temperature will be 5 degrees warmer than it was at 9!?

Point: The lighting in here sucks. There are nasty yellowish fluorescent overhead lights, and then under cabinet bright white fluorescent lights. The old office lighting was much cheerier.
Counterpoint: I just got a lamp, though. One of those stand up ones that shoots light out its top. Not my #1 choice, but it was free, and I got it immediately. No light bulbs, though. Bulbs should come in 4-6 weeks, if I’m lucky. This is Columbia, after all.

Point: This new office has no carpeting, and on a certain level feels like I’m working in a bathroom. I might as well be, since the bathroom for our floor is 10 feet away from my door, within eyesight. Carpeting is being “looked in to”, which probably means it will “never happen”, which leaves me to consider my rug options. But honestly, who has an office without carpeting? Who has an office with tiled floor and a rug? Oh right. Me.
Counterpoint: The mystery of why people from other floors come down the stairs (the stairs are 5 feet away from my door) with books, and spend an eternity in the bathroom might be enough to entertain me annoy me for the next year. Of course, we all know what they’re doing in there, but why on my floor!? Why right next to my office? I am in a position where when they walk out of the bathroom and back up to their floor, they’ll have to look right at me. Maybe I’ll give them a dirty look and do the ol‘ head shake if it happens again.

Here’s a map, brought to you by MS Paint.

Note the lack of arrangements possible for this room. People can see what’s on my screen when they’re standing at the door. Not only is this really annoying, it presents a problem since I rarely have actual work on my screen. I thought I had this problem licked when I ordered myself one of those fancy privacy screens so you can only see things if you’re directly in front of the monitor, but that sucked. It made everything really dim, so I could barely see things at all. Yesterday, though, I acquired another monitor (dualies, bitch!), but don’t have a graphics card that supports two. Basically, I got served. Getting a new card should be an ordeal, but when it’s over I shouldn’t have a “privacy” problem anymore since the second monitor will be at an angle and not directly visible from the door. First monitor = work. Second monitor = play. Perfect.

But seriously, I shouldn’t complain too much since this is my first office. I’ve had cubes, and I’ve shared offices, but now I’ve got my own door. Who knew it could be this sweet?

Ok, that was sarcastic.

Back to school

.

No work done yet, today. Pretended to, but really haven’t made progress.

Going back to school is weird, man. I’m taking a class, if you didn’t know. The title of the class is enough to make any non-computer-geek fall asleep — “Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis”. Are you asleep yet?

I like it so far, I guess. Some of the stuff I “should be familiar with” I am only familiar with in that I’ve heard the terms, and vaguely remember knowing it well when I was 5 years younger. But what’s weird is the different perspective I have on school now that I’ve experienced “the real world”, by having a job. I remember being in college and watching all the people who had come back after having jobs (”the old guys”), and seeing how dedicated/lame they were. I’d go home with homework, look at it a little bit, drink a beer, and end up copying a friend’s before class the next day. They’d come back, having spent all night on the thing, with several in depth questions. I’d be doodling pictures of the professor.

Maybe it’s just because I’m more lame, now (damn near married, not as much boozing, not as many friends), or maybe it’s because I realize that I’m actually going to use this stuff, so I better learn it. I spent all weekend doing some homework, and I’m pretty sure if I just wanted to “get done”, it wouldn’t have taken me that long. But for some reason I wanted to really learn it. Lack of anything else to do? Maybe.

I think that’s the major difference between undergrad and post-grad work. Before doing post-grad, most people have already worked a job, and have had that earth shattering epiphany of “Son of a bitch! I actually had to remember that stuff I learned? Nobody told me that.”

I wish someone had told me. That’s for sure.

Power Saws? Come on. Have some class.

Sure, I live in a big city. The biggest in the US. Fine. And from time to time, crimes happen. Usually, though, these are far away and I can write them off mentally as being “over there”, while I’m “over here”. But when this happens at the110th & Broadway subway stop, 1 block from my apartment, it creeps me out a little.

Actually, a lot.  WTF.  Power saws!?  Some random creep with power saws slicing into people?  In my neighborhood!?  AHHHH

Just a few weeks ago there was some random attack on the 110th street & Central Park West stop, which is considerably further from me, but chroist.  My area isn’t having the best luck, lately. 

Here’s to hoping I don’t get off’d. 

P.S. Who wants to come and visit me!?