I bought a house 
Quite an interesting experience to submit an offer on a house you’ve only seen once while you’re overseas on a business trip and gone through most of the option period. Luckily it all worked out in our favor and in a week and a half I’ll officially be a homeowner! More details later…
So my PMP class is drawing to a close (last day is May 7!) and our project manager lady is apparently the type that turns into a complete and total bitch when she’s stressed out. In the past, I would probably do what I could to appease her and just deal with her until the class was over. Now, not so much. My tolerance for obnoxious people has decreased considerably.
Instead I’ve spent the last 24 hours in a virtual cat fight with this woman who has somehow been put in charge of compiling several Word documents together to form a master plan, but has no knowledge of Word whatsoever and thinks that she is the only one who can format the document. I spent 4 hours updating her document to properly use headers and utilize the dynamic table of contents feature since we were compiling a ton of documents, and she didn’t like the formatting so she threw away all of my work and replaced it with her own, manually created table of contents (which now has to be manually updated any time additional text is added that creates a page shift). That was just the tip of the iceberg, and now she’s decided to publicly blame me for the project being “late” (it’s due tomorrow and she apparently has an anuerism at the idea of printing a document the day that it’s due). Never mind that I’ve done more work than everyone else on this project throughout the entire semester. She’s cranky so now I’m the one who isn’t working hard.
Seriously, I don’t know what it is about me that seems to attract rude, bitchy, or otherwise unsavory attitudes lately. I don’t think I’m the type that provokes people into being argumentative; I still try to avoid conflict whenever possible. Really the only thing that’s changed is my response – instead of rolling over, I fight back. I had thought that was a good thing, but I’ve spent the last day furious beyond measure, and I’m not sure that the ability to stand up and respond to temperamental behavior is worth the toll it takes on my sanity.
My life is a whirlwind of activity right now. So rather than waxing poetic about all the stuff going on, I’m going to keep it brief:
- Major life news: I’ve been shopping for houses for the last month or so, and yesterday we found what could be “the one.” We put in an offer yesterday and will find out in the next couple of hours if we get it. Fingers crossed…
- Speaking of news, I was on it! Fox 7 news wanted to do a special on the first time home buyer tax credit, and contacted my realtor’s brokerage and asked if they had any first time home buyers who would be willing to talk about it on camera. Mere hours later we were setting up the shoot for the following day. Here’s the end result.
- My company recently went through another restructuring, and overall ended up in a much better structure IMHO. I’m pretty happy with the changes that were made. I also got a big raise! Just in time to put it all into a house! Woohoo!
- I’m taking a project management certificate class through UT that is consuming quite a bit of my life. It’s twice a week for 3 hours. I’ll be finished up on May 7, after which I have about a month to prepare for and take the PMP exam (all while potentially moving). Looking forward to being done with school
- And speaking of school, I’m starting to think about getting an MBA again. Of course, that requires more studying for the GMAT and then two years of studying in school… so we’ll have to see. Just something that’s been on my mind.
And there you have it folks. My life in a nutshell.
For my birthday this year, Marcus scheduled a photo shoot for the two of us, since we don’t have any pictures of us around the house. We were originally going to do it the weekend of my birthday, but weather had other ideas so we ended up doing it the day after Valentine’s Day.
We went out to a park near 35th and Exposition where there are tons of peacocks roaming around. Did anyone else know this place existed? It was surreal to walk around with these giant exotic birds everywhere. We met Sam Marx and his girlfriend and took some shots all throughout the park. Here are a few of my favorites:
You can also check out the entire set of photos at Third Space Photography if you’re interested.
So I’ve already failed my only New Year’s resolution as I still don’t have any digital copies of my photos to share with the world. As a consolation prize, check out some awesome dad who draws art on his kid’s brown lunch bags every day. I wish I had that kind of talent.
Well, it’s a new year. I have no more football to watch (at least no football that I care about since the college season is over and the Cowboys didn’t make the playoffs). Which is probably a good thing since I’m still pissed off at how much the media and voters seem to hate Texas for no good reason. Seriously people, you REALLY think that Sam Bradford is a better quarterback than Colt McCoy? I suppose my only consolation is that OU was ranked below us at the end of the season, but only by one place. And they had two losses. When is college football going to stop being judged like figure skating and start being judged on the field?
Speaking of a proper college playoff, Obama will be inaugurated in one week. I don’t care what else he does in his presidency – if he can get rid of the BCS and help get a college playoff in place then he will be my favorite president ever. Seriously.
Does anyone who reads this have any resolutions for the new year? I’ve decided I’m only going to have one – manage my pictures. I have a ton of crap that is still on my camera that I need to upload, and a ton of picture frames around the house that are either empty or filled with people that I never talk to anymore. My goal is to have pictures online by my birthday. That way I can actually post fun photos of what I have been doing!
I’d also like to become more of a morning person and wake up earlier, but I’m not going to hold my breath on that one until I learn how to go to bed at a reasonable hour. One day…
This football season has pissed me off so much. What is the point of shouting for a football playoff if a head-to-head game DOESN’T COUNT??? Texas beat OU on the field on a neutral site, but apparently that doesn’t matter because a team’s final point tally is more important than the quality of their wins (and losses). OU is lead by jackass Bob Stoops who likes to run up the score and embarass his opponents, while Mack Brown has a sense of sportsmanship. So since Mack pulled the offense out early against teams we were beating and Stoops kept Bradford in the game when they were up by 40, I guess that makes them the ‘better’ team. And now because Texas was denied their Big 12 Championship game, they’re probably going to give the Heisman to lame-ass Bradford. Second time in a row that a deserving Texas quarterback is likely to get overlooked. I really hope that Florida destroys OU. I would love to see them get embarrassed the way USC slaughtered them a few years ago.
For those of you who may have been living in a cave the last few days, Barack Obama was elected as the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday.
I am truly excited at the prospect of how our country will change as a result of this historic election. I am also appalled at some of the knee jerk reactions I’ve seen from McCain supporters. Yes people, a black man (who also happens to be a democrat) will be running this country for the next four years. This does NOT mean that the world is coming to an end, that the rapture is imminent, that socialism is inevitable, that Americans should worry that Obama’s “terrorist” connections are going to destroy the country, or any number of idiotic and disrespectful reactions I’ve heard.
I wouldn’t call myself a politically active person. I fall in the “moderate” scale on just about every political assessment test I’ve taken. I wouldn’t call myself a democrat, just as I wouldn’t call myself a republican. I voted for Bush in 2004. I voted for Obama in 2008.
One of the reasons Obama got my vote because he ran a respectful campaign. I despise all the mudslinging and finger-pointing that happens in elections. McCain and Palin were particularly pathetic in this election, and if I had intended to vote for McCain in September I would have changed my mind by November. Sarah Palin was another reason that McCain did not get my vote. Ugh. That woman is an embarrassment to females as a whole.
I don’t necessarily agree with everything Obama intends to do in his presidency. But I do think that he’ll do incredible things in his tenure. This is history in the making, and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.
Take a look to the left ladies and gentlemen. You might recognize this man from such films as Clerks, Mall Rats, Chasing Amy, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Dogma, and many others. That’s right people, that’s Kevin Smith, taken with my iPhone outside the Paramount Theater in Austin!
I had the exciting privilege to view a sneak preview of his new movie, “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” with Kevin Smith in person for Q&A after the movie. The movie was freaking hysterical. Seth Rogan is amazing as always, and there are many other recognizable characters who all have incredible performances. The movie is just what it sounds like – two platonic friends living together who can’t make ends meet, so they decide to make a porno together to get some cash. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.
Kevin Smith was incredible after the show. I mean, I knew he was a funny guy (just look at the stuff he’s created), but he’s one of those rare people that is hilarious in person too. Doesn’t matter what you’re talking about, he’ll make you laugh. We learned a lot of interesting things about the movie, like how he was able to negotiate it down from an NC-17 rating to an R rating, and how certain props were made (but I can’t tell you which ones because it would spoil the movie!). I’ll definitely pay to see this one again in the theaters when it comes out.
Directly after the movie and the Q&A was the Alamo Drafthouse’s Air Sex World Championships. What is that you ask? It’s exactly what it sounds like. Think air guitar, but instead of playing a fake guitar, you’re having fake sex. But if you want to see it for yourself, here’s a clip of what we saw. Be forwarned – while there is no nudity, it’s probably NSFW. And freaking hilarious.
We got home exhausted, with our faces and sides hurting from laughing nonstop all night. One of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time
Originally Marcus and I had planned on going to South Padre in early September, but Hurricane Ike had other plans in store for us. Instead, we spent the entire week relaxing in Austin. Honesty, I’m glad our trip ended up getting cancelled. Between the insane stress levels from work, trying to find a live-in petsitter for Cola (we didn’t want to leave her alone so soon after Casey died), and my general propensity to get stressed out when I travel, staying at home was the perfect vacation. To make matters easier, Southwest gave us a full refund for our plane tickets because of the hurricane, so it worked out quite nicely.
Wednesday was spent sleeping in, playing disc golf, and renting some video games and movies for the week (GTA4 and Season 1 of Weeds, both of which I recommend unless you are squeamish about things like drug dealing, violence, auto theft, illicit sex, and pretty much every other debauchery you can think of…).
Thursday we rented jet skis and went out on Lake Travis. I had never driven a jet ski before – I’ve ridden on the back of one when I was in high school but never had control of the gas. It was quite exhilirating I was pretty conservative with the gas at first, but once I got the hang of it I was flying across the lake. The guy at Just For Fun said we could probably get it up to 70MPH since pretty much no one was on the lake, but we were only able to get them up to 55MPH at max throttle. We were out there for 2 hours, which ended up being just a little too long – I think an hour would have been perfect. We were pretty pooped afterwards. We had some drinks and appetizers at Carlos and Charlie’s and then headed home and played more video games.
Over the weekend we played more disc golf, did some shopping, watched a lot of football, and cleaned up around the house. We even had a few people over to watch the Ohio State vs. USC game, which was the first time we’ve hosted any kind of party at our house other than the one time I hosted book club. We grilled steaks and mostly ignored the game since it ended up being not much of a game at all, and hopefully now Marcus’s friends will hang out at our place more often so we don’t always have to go to their houses. 
On Tuesday we drove to Dallas to pick up my Invisalign. My teeth have shifted since I got my braces in middle school and my teeth were hitting each other in the front when I chewed. So now I have a mouthful of clear plastic to help correct my bite. It’s taken some time to adjust – my tongue has swelled up from hitting the sides of the cases and I have a funny lisp that I haven’t learned how to correct just yet, but luckily the entire process is only going to take 4 months total. Not bad at all.
Wednesday was a lazy day doing nothing and dreading going to work the next day. We had thought that 8 days off would be plenty of time, but I think we could have used another 4 days or so to really recuperate. Luckily the way we planned it meant that we had a short work week both before and after our vacation, so there was time to ease back into the workplace.
And now it’s Friday, and instead of doing work I am updating my blog I think it’s good to spend a little time goofing off at work now and again! Just don’t tell my boss… who by the way had her first baby this weekend! For those who know Tara, you can check out the pictures at http://www.obscuresite.com/Serena. She’ll be out for the next two months on maternity leave, which means I’m going to take advantage of the situation and try to work from home quite a bit while she’s out It will probably be good for me and my sanity to not spend so much time at the office anyway.
