==========

I didn’t have enough milk this morning to make coffee, and I wanted one, so I decided to stop at Atomic Coffee before work. I believe that will be the last time I stop there. First off, they charged me about $5.17 for a damn 16oz white chocolate mocha. I think he charged me for a shot of white chocolate syrup, and they don’t usually do that. It is a WHITE CHOCOLATE mocha after all. Secondly, it didn’t even come close to tasting as good as the ones I make do. I make a sauce of white chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla extract. I mix in a little of the white chocolate syrup that I bought at Moxie Java (doing so makes both the sauce and the syrup last longer). I also started using regular flavored coffee beans (vanilla hazelnut) rather than espresso beans. I think it tastes better. And it sure the hell is cheaper.

Needless to say, I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work to get some milk.

==========

Holy shit. Gas went up about 19¢ since this morning. I swear it was still $3.25/gal (maybe $3.29/gal) when I left for work this morning. When I came home, it was $3.44/gal. I’m assuming this jump is because of the shit going on in Libya. I just wonder how high it will get (regardless of the Libya stuff). I’ve heard rumors of it getting up to $4 or $5 per gallon this summer. God I hope not. I’d start taking the bus to work, but I don’t think any of the metro buses cross the river. If you know of any routes that do, please let me know.

==========

Prices keep going up while products keep getting smaller. Since Easter is the next holiday, Reese’s peanut butter eggs have hit the stores. And I am such a sucker for those things. I can’t get enough (or the pb trees at Christmas or the pb hearts at Valentine’s or the pb pumpkins at Halloween …). I gave in and bought a bag of the mini ones at the grocery store. They were $3.28, which I think is around the price they were last year. But the damn eggs got frickin’ smaller. They’re tiny now … practically bite size. They are mini eggs, but they weren’t this mini last year. Same price, fewer product. Gotta love our economy. </sarcasm>

I’ve been waiting for the Droid 2 to be released for 2 months. There were rumors all over the internet about when the release date was. Verizon finally announced on Aug. 10 that there would be a pre-sale on Aug. 11, and the phone would be available for purchase in stores on Aug. 12. I was one of those crazy people who got up just after midnight on Aug. 11 to get the phone during the pre-sale. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t sold out by the time I got a chance to buy it. Verizon ended up shipping my phone out (via FedEx) that same day, and they had free overnight shipping for internet orders, so it was to be delivered yesterday (Aug. 12).

I was pretty sure that they’d try to deliver it while I was at work. I was hopefully they might try when I was home on lunch, but I figured that with my luck, that wouldn’t be the case.

The following is a sequence of tweets that had me hopeful that I’d be home when they stopped (even if I had to take a late lunch).

At this point, I sent her an email with the information she requested. I hadn’t heard back from her by noon, so I headed home for lunch (with my fingers crossed ) Just as I turned on to the street in front of my apartment, I saw the FedEx truck at the stoplight up the street waiting to turn onto 13th Ave. Crap. That means I just missed him. The following is a sequence of tweets after I got into my apartment.

Just after I sent that last tweet, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number but a little part of me hoped it might be FedEx. And to my surprise, it was. FedEx Robin called me to see if someone was going to be home for a while. She said she’d call dispatch and see if she could get the FedEx guy to come back to my place. She called back just a couple minutes later to let me know that the FedEx guy was coming back. Rock on.

Within 5 minutes of her calling me to let me know, the FedEx guy showed up. He said that I was lucky … if I had been 15 minutes later, he would have been out of the area. I was so happy that I didn’t have to go to the FedEx office that night to pick up my phone.

And to think … this all started with a random tweet where I said I was hoping they’d try to deliver my phone when I was home. To think that FedEx has employees with jobs where they search Twitter for tweets about the company is pretty awesome. I know that there are others who do it, but those seem to be bots or just tweets to get you to do something for the company. This was a case where they were trying to help me out. They were proactive with a customer and that is something that I wish more companies did.

I can honestly say that if I had to ship something, FedEx would be at the top of my list for shippers because of the experience that I had. I wish more companies would take notice.

So … thank you FedEx. Thank you FedEx Robin. Now I’m off to play with my shiny new Droid 2.

Since I’m back working again (just over 4 months at the new place) and coding every day, I have ideas race through my head for things I want to do with my own websites. Unfortunately, those ideas are racing while I’m at work, and by the time I get home, they’re gone. I need to start writing ‘em down I think. I’ve been using the CodeIgniter framework a lot. I keep trying to think of things I could do with it.

I’ve also dabbled in writing a Facebook app for a project at work. It’s a relatively simple one, as far as Facebook apps go … no interaction with the user or anything like that. I still had issues getting things set up initially, but that’s probably because I jumped in with both feet rather than reading documentation first. Oh well. I learn best by doing anyway. I’d love to come up with a Facebook app on my own, but I’m not sure what to do. The only thing that I can come up with is a weather widget. I started laying one out for my own websites already. I could create a script that can be plugged in to a regular website, a WordPress plugin, and a Facebook app. I just need to get my butt in gear. It’s hard to get motivated to work on my own websites after working on other people’s sites all day at work. But then again, I am usually sitting at the computer all nite anyway. I might as well do something useful rather than reading Twitter and Facebook and other mindless surfing.

We use WordPress quite a bit at work. I don’t deal with it since I’m the programming geek (php & MySQL), but I see what is being done by my co-workers. It makes me want to work on this place again. One thing I’ve never dabbled with is widgets. I usually just hard code the stuff I want in the sidebar since I’m just doing the site for myself. But I’ve seen what can be done with widgets and it makes me wanna give it a try.

There was a time where I was doing a lot of WP development. Yeah, it was just for myself, but I knew what was going on and what I could do. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything serious with WP. Even when I redesigned last, I didn’t delve into things I could have. I really wanna dive back in, but I feel so far behind. So many advances have been made to the core. I happened run across a site for a WordCamp in the cities. I’m seriously considering going. I think one of my co-workers wants to as well. It’s not until November, so we’ve got a while to make a decision. Anyone else considering going to it?

I’ve got a pretty sweet setup going on now (well, considering what I’ve had in the past anyway). I added memory to my laptop (from 1GB to 4GB), and I upgraded to Windows 7 (which I LOVE). I even got a new monitor that’s hooked up to my laptop (21.5″ widescreen). The dual monitor setup is perfect for development (I wish I had dual monitors at work). I still use WAMP server for local development. I even found out about a program (from my boss) that gives me a GUI for my local MySQL databases (HeidiSQL). I have no excuse not to work on my own websites (other than the fact that I’ve turned into a lazy ass).

So … be on the lookout (I’ve said that before, haven’t I ). I really will try to post more here. As with the ideas I have for my websites during the day, I have ideas for posts that never materialize (I think I need to carry a notebook with me to work … or just use Google Docs). I need to be better about that. I need to stop procrastinating and being lazy. I really hope I can follow through.

I believe that the fact that I don’t talk about things is the reason this patch has been so rough for me. I was using Twitter as a release for some things … but that’s not the right outlet. I’m surprised I still have as many followers as I do. But then again, they probably don’t pay attention to my ramblings anyways.

I’ve decided that I need to get things out somehow. So that is what this blog post is for. I’m warning you now … if you really don’t give a damn, then stop reading now. If you’re curious, then click on the link to keep reading the rest of this post (if you’re on the main page that is). Sure, I could have made this post private or password protected, but I’ve decided not to do that. Who knows … I may come to regret that, but I can always change things later if I want to. So … here’s your last warning. What comes next is going to be me uncorking that damn bottle … well, not fully but at least a little.

Where to start, where to start? That is the question. LOL I guess I’ll start with that big ol’ elephant over in the corner … I have no job. That is my biggest source of angst at the moment. I know it’s not because of anything that I did. It’s the damn economy. The company I used to work for sells aftermarket accessories for trucks and cars (mainly trucks). When the sales of trucks went down, so did their sales. So they had to cut the budget somewhere. I guess I was one of those cuts. I have no idea if any others were laid off at the same time or not, but that really isn’t relevant I guess.

That was back in October of last year. I did have a contract job that lasted for 4 months, but that was only 4 months. I’ve been unemployed (yet again) for almost a month now (the contract ended at the end of March). There has been one opportunity that I’ve been pursuing since just before my contract ended. I had an interview for it last week. Apparently they felt that the interview went well, but I won’t hear any more until early next week since the head of the department is in a conference in Alaska. I found another position at the end of last week and applied for that. It doesn’t close until May 6th, so it will be a while before I hear back on that one as well. So, here I sit in my apartment driving myself completely nuts. LOL

I have a theory about why this stint of unemployment is hitting me so damn hard. Before I was laid off back in October, I had been saving up to buy a house. Since I would be a first time homeowner, I could get away without having a down payment, so I was just saving up for the closing costs. Based on my calculations and the amount that I was putting into my savings accounts, I figured that I would have enough to start house hunting by the end of THIS summer. I was so stoked about that fact … you have no idea. I am so sick of living in an apartment … especially now that I have a downstairs neighbor who doesn’t understand what a “respectable volume” is for listening to his music (don’t get me started on that). It’s more than just being sick of living in an apartment though. I mean, I’m 33 years old. I was making a decent living. I don’t have much debt (just a student loan, but that’s a “good” debt, if there is such a thing), and I have really good credit. Owning a house would be a good investment … even though the economy is in the toilet. I felt that it was time for me to head in that direction. Losing my job and not knowing where or when I’ll be working again sure put the kibosh on that dream. So much for being in a house of my own by the holidays. And that just breaks my heart.

I know that eventually (hopefully sooner rather than later) I will be working again. And eventually I will be able to get back on my plan toward home ownership. But what I don’t know is where the hell that will be. I’ve said it before on here, I want to stay in the Fargo/Moorhead/West Fargo area. My family is within driving distance, and my friends are here. But there just aren’t very many web programmer job openings around here, at least not ones that don’t require .NET or something along those lines. The job that I interviewed for would be perfect for me. It’s doing a lot of the same things I was doing on the contract job. But it also involved working with php … which I feel is my strong point (and I enjoy coding in it). So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will work out. I do have one concern about the position. The company has multiple offices, and the other web devs are all in Duluth. So I would be the only one in the Fargo office. I’m worried that the company would rather have all of the web devs in the same location, and I really don’t want to move to Duluth. But if they felt that the interview went well, maybe they wouldn’t mind having a single web dev in the Fargo office. I guess only time will tell on that front.

If this opportunity doesn’t pan out and if I don’t hear from the other one I applied for by the middle of May, then I’m really gonna have to take a hard look at moving. I can’t wait forever for something to show its head around here. I don’t want to use all of the money that I’ve saved for a house to pay bills while I’m waiting to be employed again. I’ve been lucky so far. I’ve had enough in my checking account to pay bills, so I haven’t had to take any money from my savings accounts. But that’s only because I haven’t been putting the extra into savings like I had wanted to do. I should be able to pay rent for the next 2 months before I have to dig into savings.

Wow. I sure did ramble on about that, didn’t I? LOL Time to change the subject. Another big thing that I’ve been wrestling with is my weight. At the beginning of the year, I decided to change some things about myself. One of them was my exercise routine and nutritional plan … to actually have them. LOL I was doing good too. I lost about 10lbs in January. Then I started slacking off and eventually completely stopped my plan. I haven’t exercised in a while, and I’ve gone back to my poor eating habits. I haven’t gained all of that weight back, but I have gained back about half of it. And I’m really not happy about that. I know that I need to lose weight and eat better, but with the mood I’ve been in, I just haven’t given a damn. It doesn’t help that I’m an “emotional eater”. If I’m bored or stressed or lonely or pissed or whatever, I tend to eat. And my choices are not good. Whether it’s chips or Snickers ice cream cones or half a (frozen) pizza at a meal, I’ve been eating whatever the hell I can get my hands on. I might eat healthy snacks if I had them in my apartment, but the healthy food tends to be on the expensive side, and I’m trying not to spend more money than I need to. That makes trips to the grocery store a bad experience. I tend to leave the store either exasperated or pissy.

I need to get back on track. Since I have some time on my hands, I need to get back into my exercise routine and start eating better. I need to plan out my meals so that I have a good shopping list rather than just finding things in the store ad and picking up whatever looks interesting and isn’t all that expensive. I have my Walk Away the Pounds DVDs and my elliptical machine. The weather is starting to get nicer out (even though it’s been wet the past few days), so I need to consider taking walks outside (weather permitting).

I think this post is getting a bit long, so I think it’s time I ended it. Did it help to spew all of this? I’ll let you know. I do know that I need to stop bottling things up. If I don’t stop, that bottle is gonna explode on my one day … and that won’t be a pretty sight. I still have a lot of issues that I didn’t include in this post, so there’s plenty left in that damn bottle. It’s not like I don’t have someone to talk to. I know that Robin would listen if I need to talk. I tend to not bother her because she has her own things that she’s dealing with. But I know that she would smack me around if she felt that I wasn’t talking to her because I didn’t want to bother her with it. LOL I better make sure I stand more than an arm’s length away from her the next time I see her (after she reads this).

But I’m not here to complain (this time anyways). I’m just enjoying this beautiful day. And it’s only gonna last for a day, unfortunately. The high temperature forecast for tomorrow is only 48°, and there’s a chance of snow tomorrow nite. Yes … I said snow. Mother Nature sure is a bitch this year. LOL

But before long (hopefully), the weather will be warm on a regular basis. Then I’m sure I’ll be bitching about it being too hot. But then again, I’m not happy unless I’m bitchin’. LOL

One thing that I have discovered this afternoon is that I need a bigger table on my balcony. I can’t use my mouse … just no room. And it is rather short. It’s perfect for when I’m outside reading … to put my phone and my drink on. But if I wanna bring my computer outside, it just doesn’t cut it. In fact, I ended up moving the laptop to my lap. I can see the screen a little better, but it’s still pretty glare-y. Oh well. It’s too beautiful a day to be sitting inside.

I know that I would have to keep working. There is no way that I could spend my days rambling around the house aimlessly with no purpose. I would go completely insane. I would HAVE to keep working. I have 2 dreams ideas of what I would do with the money.

Idea #1
For some time now, I’ve thought it would be cool to own a coffee shop. Just a small little shop that also sold pastries and sandwiches (like paninis) and such. Of course, it would have to have free internet available to customers … both on computers in the coffee shop as well as wifi. And of course the coffee shop would have a kick ass website that I designed. It would also have a Twitter account … to announce specials as well as to interact with the customers. It would also have a spot for entertainment … not a band with a major sound system or anything like that. But a spot for a musician or 2 to set up and play for a couple hours once or twice a week. Maybe some other sort of entertainment as well … the kind of stuff you would expect to find in a coffee shop.

Idea #2
The other idea I have (which is more recent) is to open up a country bar … an honest to goodness honky tonk. This town doesn’t have one … hasn’t had one since the days of the original Pistol Pete’s Saloon in south Moorhead (by the Safari 7 theater). It would be the kind of bar that I wish I could hang out in. It would have a large dance floor, a big stage, couches, LOTS of stalls in the bathrooms (especially the women’s). There would be live entertainment every weekend (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday). There would be both a men’s nite and a ladies’ nite. And like with the coffee shop idea, the bar would have a kick ass website and a Twitter presence.

No matter which idea I went with (I’m leaning toward #2 … I’ve spent too much time day dreaming of that one to not do it), I would ask my bestest friend in the whole wide world (Robin) if she wanted to manage the place. I can’t think of anyone better to do it.

I’m curious … what would you do if you never had to work ever again?

…BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST THIS AFTERNOON…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GRAND FORKS HAS ISSUED A GROUND
BLIZZARD WARNING…WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST THIS
AFTERNOON. THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

NORTHWEST WINDS OF 25 TO 35 MPH WITH HIGHER GUSTS WILL OCCUR TODAY
CAUSING BLOWING SNOW AND POOR VISIBILITIES ESPECIALLY IN OPEN
COUNTRY. LITTLE ADDITIONAL SNOW IS EXPECTED. ALSO WIND CHILL
TEMPERATURES WILL FALL TO 25 TO 35 BELOW ZERO BY LATE SATURDAY.

A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE
OCCURRING. FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS AND POOR
VISIBILITIES ARE LIKELY. THIS WILL LEAD TO WHITEOUT
CONDITIONS…MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. TRAVEL IS NOT
ADVISED IN OR NEAR THE WARNED AREA.

Yeah … I had no plans to go out of town, but I still don’t wanna drive around in this … even in town. I just don’t wanna deal with the wind OR the wind chills. The windchill right now is -25°F. Not fun.

But Mona works tomorrow too. So hopefully the weather will be better and I can get my hair cut then. Sunday is normally my lazy day, but I’ll do that today. I’ll plop my ass in front of the tv for damn near 12 hours of NASCAR today … ending with the Bud Shootout tonite. After practice last nite, I have a feeling the race is gonna be CRAZY!!!

This morning, FedEx left a package with me for my neighbor across the hall. No problem. I work from home, so I’ll be home all day. I can do that. And besides, this neighbor is a boy. He’s a cute boy. It gave me an excuse to meet him. I’ve seen him around the complex but hadn’t met him.

He stopped over about 12:30pm to pick up his package. He’s even cuter up close … He was actually conversational … he just didn’t pick up his package. But after the conversation, I REALLY feel like a dork. Even now … over 5 hours later.

He said something about me being a NASCAR fan. I was like “how do you know that”? Apparently … I get a little loud when I watch the races … He even knew that I was a Dale Jr fan. He said that one nite he came home, and there must have been a nite race going on. He heard me yell something about Dale Jr trying to go 3 wide. Ooops. Heehee …

I told him that I’d try to be quiet this season (it does start this weekend after all ). He said it was okay. He said it was entertaining. Not sure what to think of that. Or the fact that he remembered my outburst. Maybe he’s a NASCAR fan too. And maybe he’d wanna watch a race together sometime. Yeah … and maybe pigs fly … LOL.