Entries Tagged 'Rants' ↓

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. In that time, a lot has happened, one of the more important parts was that I stopped doing my grocery shopping at Jewel. Why? Well, it’s kind of tricky, but I’ll give you the gist of it.

See, I’m partial to the self-checkout lanes. They are faster because I don’t have to deal with the banter of the cashier, if someone is taking longer than someone else, I can easy just jump over behind the faster person and they are win-win because they require less staff to work them. At one point, the Jewel I went to installed these absolutely retarded new self-checkout machines that had conveyor belts. Why is this retarded? Well, the beauty of the normal lanes are you scan something, toss it in a bag on the scale and then scan the next thing. It’s faster, and when you are done, all your stuff is bagged and ready to go. The conveyor eliminates the bagging part and saves it for the end…. dumb. It adds a step to the process (bagging at the end) and slows things down further because you have to wait for the last person to finish bagging their stuff before you can start sending yours down. On top of that, it takes extra time for the belt to weigh the products! It’s absolutely the biggest step backwards ever. Thankfully, they kept 4 of the old, non-retarded machines there so I could use those. However, this also meant that other people were reduced to these 4 machines too (since everyone else seemed to also think the new ones were retarded), instead of the 8 they used to have. So I found myself waiting more often. But, the poor decision by the management wasn’t the only thing that did them in.
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Much as expected when I started my weight loss crusade, my clothes no longer fit me right. More specifically, Large shirts look a little big on me, I had to add a new notch in my belt and my jeans hang loose and shapeless off my hips. So, instead of looking trim and attractive, I look like I don’t know how to dress myself, which of course, wasn’t my goal. I’m currently 175 pounds, 20 pound lighter than when I started all this, and it’s very noticeable; I still continue to get comments on my size from people I know.

Anyway, I was planning to stave off buying new clothes (specifically jeans) until I got even close to my target weight. Let’s face it, I’ve still got 15 pounds to go, and if 20 pounds caused such a huge change in my figure, another 15 was sure to do the same. Still, it sucks to have lost all this weight and look scrubby as a result, and since I had some clothes to return from Christmas to return to Kohl’s and Old Navy, I figured I would splurge on at least one pair of new jeans. And there in lies the reason for this post.
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No, I still haven’t read up much on the Zend framework yet. All in due time….. I have more important things to worry about right now.

After seeing people I went to high school with at a wedding I recently attended and seeing them looking all trim and fit and seeing pictures of my fat ass from the same wedding, I’ve decided enough is enough. I officially weigh in at 195 pounds on a good day. Back in high school, i weighed 160, and while that wasn’t “thin” by any stretch of the imagination, it was a hell of a lot better than 195! Ultimately, I don’t have the desire or drive to get all ripped or anything, I just want to not be disgusting anymore and I think 160 is a good goal.
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I went paintballing for the first time this last weekend. I never had much interest in doing it before because I’m not partial to pain, but I have to say, getting shot doesn’t hurt THAT much. Most of the time I got hit in my forearms, with the exception of getting hit on the hand once (which is starting to bruise now). But, the pain goes away quickly, and nobody I went with (19 other people) really got hurt.

We went to Paintball Sam’s for the Bachelor party of a friend of mine. I new a lot of the people there, but there were also plenty that I didn’t know. More than anything, I was really impressed with the equipment they rent; semi-auto air-fed guns that almost nobody had any problems with. Mine shot exceptionally well and was even faster than the other’s I was with (288 feet per second when I tested it). Continue reading →

I fell behind again, but only by a few days. I’m still trying my best to post on a regular basis though.

First we’ll start off with work and my commute to connect with the last post. I’ve gotten used to the commute and waking up early to make it now. I get tired earlier at night, but I guess that’s expected. I have once again avoided a ticket punching last week, so that makes 3 free rides on the train; not too bad.

I’ve been occupying my time on the train by listening to podcasts and playing a little bit of games, Planet Puzzle League exclusively I guess. The podcast I’ve been trying to catch back up on is the Dopecast which is all about drug news and the counter culture. I’m not one for their use personally but I think many of the illegal drugs out there should be legalized and it’s cool to hear what’s going on in that regard. Soon I will be reading on the train too, having purchased Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (since it’s been references often in my daily living for some reason) and Just for Fun, the story of Linus Torvalds (since it was inexpensive and I expect it’s an interesting read). I’ll let you know how those go.
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Wow, if that isn’t the understatement of the year. Eesh, I had really hoped to keep up on things better unlike when things were still on outinthecold….. seems I failed.

Anyway, a lot has happened since, Christ, JULY. I did end up getting a job, working as a PHP/MySQL developer for a company named Select Italy; I couldn’t be happier about it. Well, I’m sure if I was making like a million dollars a year I would be happier, but in realistic terms, I’m all set. It’s good to be back on a steady income instead of having my money come in whenever I can get it. It’s also nice to converse with other like-minded individuals and learn even more about web development (or Italy for that matter).

I’ve also learned a TON about Javascript/AJAX use in web development due to a need to spice things up and learn new things. My boss really likes what I’ve been cranking out and I think it’s been turning out pretty slick if I do say so myself. I’ve become the resident Javascript guy, which is ironic because I really expected going in that I would be greatly overshadowed by everyone else’s knowledge on the language. To a point, I am by one of the guys, but I’m the first one to start working it into the actual website on my own instead of just internal applications. Or, that’s how I see it anyway.

The job is part of the reason I haven’t posted on here is so damn long. It’s also why I have no new project sites or updates on existing sites (schoolinsummertime specifically). When you sit and code all day long, it’s hard to come home and actually want to sit in front of the computer even more. I do keep telling myself that “this weekend I’ll work on something” but it hasn’t happened once yet. Sigh….

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Well, I still haven’t heard back from the office I went to last week. Since then, though, I’ve had a phone interview with a company through another palcement comany and gotten contacted by 2 more placement companies. I am also meeting with one of them this coming Thursday which should be a good time.

One thing I have noticed with all these people is that they all want your resume in “Word formatted form” and don’t take kindly to offers of PDF versions. I think that’s kind of odd, since a PDF would be harder to tamper with and will always look the same regardless of how you look at it. It also assumes that all people with resumes have access to a computer with Word on it. In my case, I don’t. Continue reading →

Well, the weekend is through, and somehow I didn’t die. Brilliant!

St. Pat’s was quite the success this year; starting on Thursday night and rolling right into Saturday night. It had it’s ups and it had it’s downs. 261 Guinni (that’s Guinness plural for those not in the know), a show from the Guvna at the Guitar Bar, a drunken Irishman, a pretty crankin’ party and a bunch of pictures to back up the stories.

But, it wasn’t 100% good times; people almost died, blood was shed, glass was broken in the kitchen on a couple occasions, and the worst part; my car almost failed to get me home. All things considered, it was equally as fantastic as it was shitty.
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I hate Fidelity. In fact, I have hated them for a while now. Yes when you call you get to speak to a live person, and yes they are very helpful, but it’s simple not worth the prices you pay in the end.

I think they advertise something like $9 trades; don’t expect this when you sign up! Unless you have a higher-level account, meaning you have like $10,000 in their hands, you will be paying $19.95 per trade. This is NOT an exaggeration! So, every time you want to put money into a stock, it’s $19.95. When you decide to take the money and run, it’s another $19.95. that’s almost $40.00 to invest, and that’s a lot of money to make up!
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