Month: August 2004

Student: Why do children laugh so?

Master: Because they do not burden themselves with such questions.

A New Day!

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This Morning

Yesterday was a hard day.

Home Depot finally called and wanted me to work in Maryville night shift unloading trucks. I turned it down figuring that I’m too old to work the night shift and be worth a hoot during the day and that any money earned would be spent at Home Depot or in gas and autorepairs simply getting all the way out to Maryville. I am partially kicking myself.

Today: cleaning, programming, receiving relatives.

A New Day!

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This Morning

Amy lost her bop (pacifier) last night so at 3:30am I was up and comforting her. As I sat upright in bed I realized I had had enough sleep for the night. I was awake, jazzed and ready to go. I pondered taking the dog for a jog around the neighbor. I pondered coding. I pondered resume writing. I pondered creating marketing materials. I pondered sleep. Since I had set no plan before initially going to sleep I could not make a decision and although it was in my best interest to stay up I choose to “lie my head down for a couple of minutes and think about what to do.” Alarm goes off at 6:15 and my day starts. The next couple of hours will be consumed by children and school activities. Since our great school system scheduled Tommy for a middle school bus I will have to take him to school immediately after taking the others to their bus stops. Each stop on a dangerous road and one block away from each other. Both buses arriving almost simultaneously.

I hope to do better tonight. I will rise early again.

Let’s see. Got my resume up on Futurestep and yes there is much more I could do with it there. Found that HotJobs is part of yahoo..maybe it always was..but didn’t get info in there yet. Headhunter is CareerBuilder which is Microsoft. Got the process started there. Flipdog goes to http://flipdog.monster.com but I’m not sure that it is the same thing as Monster.

Got spiffied up in a tie and headed to Protemp Staffing to fill out the same information I’ve been putting on all the online stuff but this time I have to write it out. Then I take a test from ProveIt and the whole time I am taking the tests I am thinking that in 1994 I knew how to write stuff like ProveIt and that I have no excuse for not having been on the cover of Fortune magazine and Time Life! And I could do such a better job than ProveIt. My test scores were exceptional and it looks like they are going to try to place me in a job paying $10 or $12 per hour. I’m doing so well for myself!!

All this took much longer than expected so my 3pm became a 4:30pm. Either the muffler or the catalytic converter popped as I pressed down on the gas and the Jeep instantly became a rumbling baby monster truck. Rednecks all around sighed as their eyes teared up and they thought, “aw. Wut a purdy soundin’ ngin.”

During my 4:30 meeting I let my mind forget that Sarah wanted to be at the middle school at 5pm. So at 5:40pm as I am racing into the traffic jam on the interstate I can feel my temple pulsing with stress. Fortunately Cathy’s mom came by to watch the boys and Amy so I headed straight toward the middle school to meet Cathy and Sarah. As the King of Backroads I shaved 15 minutes drive time and would have beat Sarah and Cathy to the school by about 1 minute had it not been for a utility truck that at rush hour had the road completely closed (as my luck would have it). A quick U-turn, a 3 mile detour and I arrived as they were entering the building.

We enjoyed seeing Sarah meet her teachers, fellow classmates and vice-principal. I made certain to be as embarassing as any dad could be. Sarah of course new the vp because of Tommy and ironically her good friend (also in her class) was known because of her brother who is also Aspergers. Our lives are often very surreal. I imagine that if our lives were depicted as a painting that it would look something akin to a joint work between Picasso and Escher made to Pink Floyd tunes while the two artists drank beer, toked some mary jane, and sniffed nose candy–that is, a melancholic master piece of conflicting frenzied chaos with undertones of genius bordering on the edge of insanity and certain to instill a sense of vertigo in the disconnected viewer but quite possibly nothing more than a disorderly finger painting. The poetic aspect of that sentence is that it has about as much sense as it was intended to convey…ergo, it stays.

I need a little down time.

I’ve been a total butt today. I’ve done in a few minutes enough yelling to cover a few months. When I do this often I am angry at myself and misdirecting the emotion. I owe some apologies.

The project I was counting on to pay the electricity and phone was cancelled.

Here’s a t-shirt for a very focused crowd.

Student: Why must I sleep?

Master: So that you may reflect upon your life and make room for someone else to experience theirs.

A New Day!

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This Morning

Last night I wanted to spend some time with my depressed wife so we watched some television and chatted. I decided before returning to the computer a couple of hours of shuteye would do me good. 2:31am rolled around and I look looked at the clock but could not draw myself from the bed. 4:27am and I begged for “just a little more.” At 5:12am I sat upright and was glad to be starting the day so early. It has finally happened! At 6am I snapped awake wondering why at 5:12 I had not actually gotten out of bed. At 6am I did rise, clean up the dog’s pee. Apparently she ate the solid stuff or just didn’t do it yet. Then I walked the dog and now I blog.

Today needs to have 4 intense processes happening at once with about 8 lessors processes interspersed. It is an impossible amount to achieve yet it must be done!

Somethings on the list:

* 2 client websites that need to have major progress made.

* 1 client needing a follow-up email regarding his website

* Write marketing piece

* Follow-up marketing information sent to the people I spoke to on the phone yesterday.

* Update Monster, Flipdog, Dice, Hotjobs, Futurestep, and Headhunter.

* 1 personal/business website that needs updating

* more sales calls

* schedule followup meeting for possible web contract

* transfer of domains from paid server to free server

* update finances

* make phone calls to creditors, power company, phone company

* call insurance company

* signup at Protemp

* put Noah’s speed-o-meter on his bike and fix his brakes (highest priority)

* help Cathy decide on Tommy’s birthday party

I’m sure left out a whole bunch.

Amy is up too early.

Too wild up here now. Need to change to typing tasks only.

Cold calls to real estate companies begun. So far, it hasn’t been the horrid experience I expected it to be!

Bank went negative on Friday while I sat on a $75 insurance check. Immediately incurred $5 (transfer fee from overdraft) + $12 (continuous overdraft fee for Sat and Sun) + $6 (continuous overdraft fee for yesterday) totaling $23 in fees so far.

No foreseeable income in the near future. The projects I have won’t pay by Friday. Immediate expenses:

Power company $550 by Friday or they shut us off

Car insurance overdue $120 (in our state I think the penalty for driving without insurance is that you lose your license for a year…which just means we end up with a bunch of unlicensed and uninsured people driving around)

Telephone by Friday $140

Garbage service $90

One company threatening lawsuit to collect $600-1000

There are others but this is depressing. How does anyone ever get out from a situation like this? I know. I know. Get a job. Damn it’s said that done!

This is obviously all my fault and all within my control but at same time it is so overwhelming and overpowering.

Back to coding.