Merry Christmas!

I absolutely love Christmas movies! A Christmas Story, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Carol, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Home Alone (Yes it's a Christmas movie because they always show it around Christmas!), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Scrooge, and it goes on and on! I love them all! But my favorite Christmas movie is "It's a Wonderful Life." Man that movie rocks. And it's not just because I think that Donna Reed is so hot. Mmmm Donna Reed. But really, it's such a nice story because it teaches you that you don't need money to be rich. After all, George's brother exclaimed that George was the richest man in town. It also goes to show what a profound affect we have on each other and that a lifetime of doing little good things for others can tremendously affect the world around us. Oh what a good feeling I get when I watch it!

"Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings!"

arg!!!

I might've gone bananas at work today! Ok, not really hehe. But it was such a long day and H was so annoying. He kept trying to delegate stuff to me while he bullshitted around all day. First of all, I don't report to him so he has no authority to delegate stuff to me. Regardless, I helped out by getting my invoices done, but then he keeps sending more my way. When I walked by his desk after he sent me more stuff to do, he was on Hotmail writing an email. So I didn't do any more invoices for him. M could've helped but he was too busy handling his failing real estate business or researching stocks after strolling in at a leisurely time.

Let's see what I did today:
- Patched & verified secondary servers
- Wrote up patching instructions for M for Saturday
- Fixed at batch file which updates our antivirus that either M or H modified/broke because I sure as heck didn't modify it
- Placed & fixed a few purchase orders
- Participated in a conference call w/ Sungard & STEP and finally convinced those guys that it's a printer setup issue after an hour of explaining that it's not a network issue.
- When they finally realized it was a printer set up issue, I sat in on another hour long conference call to help them troubleshoot this printer (They still can't figure it out)
- I was called into my 3rd conference call of the day to evaluate a product for our security group
- I set up a new user
- Moved another user
- Had a meeting to go over new PP changes then proceeded to gather all of the information I need to work on these changes next week
- Spoke to HN about exporting certain notifications to Excel. Apparently consultants gave a quote for $700,000 to do this job. Haha I think I can do it. I think I'll charge Sumi only $500k and undercut the competition ;-)
- Fixed a reboot error on Mr. T's laptop
- And in between all of those things, got called away to fix a printer, set up for a lunch n learn, swap out a busted monitor & install software on a few users' PCs.
All the while M & H sat around all day! And then H had the nerve to dump his work on me!

Yeah this sounds like a major bitch fest and I know my manager's wife frequents my blog and he'll eventually see this bitch fest but we're all allowed to bitch once in a while. I am a hollow reed....

Waiting for the bus sucks

There is a Bubbles laundromat on the corner where I wait for the bus in the morning. Bubbles is a chain of laundromats. It's actually a pretty big one and I must say, they keep it very clean. You wouldn't think this, but there are quite a few people who do their laundry before 7am. Who knew? This bus stop doesn't have one of those booths which can shield one from harsh weather. So on mornings like today (22 degrees and breezy and the bus is 10 mins late) it can get rough.

There's this Spanish girl that waits at this bus stop everyday. When the weather gets cold she sits inside the laundromat on the seats by the large windows facing the bus stop. I have seen others do that from time to time, but this girl does it every day. Now, I don't like waiting in the cold but I also don't think it's right to just go in and sit there if you're not there for business purposes. It is a business establishment, after all. So she sits inside and I stand in the cold/rain/snow/sleet/etc. I pace back and forth when it becomes unbearable. When I see a bus coming, I get so excited. Oh the number 85 bus will come and shelter me! I am quite disappointed when I see that it's the number 83 bus. Anyways, when the 85 comes, I take a few steps toward the curb to get on. Usually, there's a middle-aged Spanish guy that gets off at our stop, so we let him off first before we go in. However, the Spanish girl that I mentioned before is very sneaky. When she sees the 85 coming, you can see how flustered she gets as she gathers her belongings and rushes out of the laundromat so she can be the first on the bus. She jets out the door and CUTS IN FRONT OF ME! She does this everyday. She comes from taking warmth from the laundromat without reimbursing it in anyways and acts as if she's entitled to be the first to be comforted by the warmth of the bus. I deserve to get sheltered first! I don't care if this sounds childish or politically incorrect because women should go first, but I paid my dues! I froze my ass off! Sometimes I try to make it difficult for her by getting as close to the bus as possible, but I don't want the guy who gets off at the stop to think I'm not giving him his space. So she sneaks in. I guess it's not the end of the world if I wait a few more seconds but she is what's wrong with this world. People take the easy way out and feel as if they're entitled to the same rewards as those who worked for it. Want another example? The mortgage rate freeze offered by Bush today. People took the easy adjustable rate mortgages and now that it's time for the rates to increase, they get bailed out. And here I am, still chugging along with my responsible 30 yr fixed mortgage at a higher rate than these punks w/ the ARM's.

Seinfeld is Timeless

...or is it?

Well yeah we all know that the stories and experiences are timeless - they're just everyday normal stuff with a twist - but there are things from the show that are so 90's that I find it funny when they pop up. Don't get me wrong; I'm not trashing the show at all. I love it. I watch it almost everyday and end up quoting stuff from the show all the time. In fact, my manager and I throw quotes back and forth all day long. But do you remember the episode in which Jerry's mechanic stole his car and drove it off into the country? Well Jerry had a car phone installed in that car. Who has a car phone? haha. In the Chinese restaurant episode, George waits and waits and waits to get a chance to use the pay phone. GO GET A CELL PHONE MAN! In the episode in which Jerry and Elaine are stranded in Long Island after a party, Jerry gives Kramer directions and Kramer ends up getting lost. Get a GPS! or at the very least, Google the directions!

The preceding was what kids today will think of Seinfeld.

Done!

Ok well we're not completely done with my sister's room but we've gotten most of it done. Here's the link to it:

http://picasaweb.google.com/apatel0/CTSRoom

Read the captions! I'm going to get some blinds tomorrow and then move in her bed! :-)

Home Improvement

So when I was spackling yesterday, I was thinking about random things. One of the things that I thought about was how I've read countless articles on financially savvy home renovations. Each and every article says to not go overboard on renovations because the payoff on certain renovations may not be so great. This is especially the case if a certain renovation is not in line with what your neighbors have. But I beg to differ. What's wrong in going overboard and getting something nice that your neighbors don't have? I mean, so what if you don't recoup 100% of the money you spent on the renovation when you sell your home if you were able to thoroughly enjoy said renovation while you owned the home? If the level of enjoyment of living in your home goes up because of a renovation then I think it's definitely worth it. Even if you recoup 50% of your investment when you sell, just think of the rest of the money that you spent as the fee for the greater quality of life that it provided for you.

Eh, it's just my 2 cents on the matter. Maybe it's because my family is big on the renovation thing. When my sis and I graduated in 2003, our parents had a little graduation party in our backyard for us. The week before the party we built a HUGE tent in the backyard (it was the size of our entire backyard - about 20 x 30 ft) out of 2x3 studs and a bunch of tarps. We put up lights and stuff and it looked so nice. The funniest and nicest comment that we got was from my cousin's wife. She said, "You don't even feel like you're in Jersey City anymore." hehe no offense taken. We took it as a compliment. Yeah, that was a random thought but I'm going somewhere with this so hold on. If you go through w/ a renovation that makes someone feel like they're somewhere else then does it really matter if it's not common in your neighborhood?

Vacation! ...not so much

Soooo I have the week off from work. Actually it's a week and a half. My dad took a week off too so we can both work on my sister's room in the basement. We moved the kitchen/laundry area out of their original location and are going to put it in the middle of the basement. The old kitchen/laundry area and the room next to it are being combined to make my sis a HUGE 18 x 11 bedroom. It'll be cool. Her bed and stuff will be on one side and her closet and desk will be on the other. I'm going to put up pics as soon as I can. She'll just have a subfloor for now. I have to put it all over the basement before I start putting down the laminate flooring. This is really hard work! I wake up at 7:30 am and start work at about 8 am and work all the way until at least 8 pm. My arms are actually aching right now so I'm going to stop typing. adios!