My mom's older brother, the uncle that I had mentioned in a prior journal as having cancer, has finally passed away. The cancer formed originally in his lungs from years of smoking - he was smoking to the end - and eventually spread out. He had bone cancer, which I'm told is absolutely excruciating, organ cancer and brain cancer from what I remember. 70% of his brain had been eclipsed by a tumor before he passed. As big of an asshole as he'd been throughout my childhood, he shouldn't have died that way. I wouldn't wish that kind of death on anyone. Ok, maybe Osama but... Even in my morally lax mentality, I wouldn't submit someone to that type of death. My uncle was diagnosed well over a year ago and had been given only a few weeks to live. Somehow, he managed to exceed all expectations and survive a lot longer than a few weeks.

His death wasn't a shock to the family, though. Beyond knowing it was going to happen sooner or later, my mom, her siblings and my grandmother had made repeated trips to upstate NY to the VA hospital where my uncle was staying. While he looked completely healthy from the outside and had a pretty upbeat attitude, my family knew he was being eaten up from the inside and that his time was drawing near. He knew and accepted that he was dying as well. I regret that he only became likeable once he knew there was no chance of survival. It is amazing the way death can change someone's life.

So, my mother and her family is a mess... My poor father is beside himself. He doesn't know whether to commiserate with my mom or continue to allow his dislike of the man show through. On top of that, mom being in NY leaves him home with my brother. While Bobby has come a LONG way in just a year's time, he's still not a full mental grown-up. He doesn't have a car and when he gets into nicotine withdraw, it's best just to throw cigarettes at him and then go into hiding. *shakes head*

As for me, I'm being as supportive as I can. I was asked to 'pick something you want of his'... *scratches head* Seeing as I never knew what the man had... kind of hard to know what to ask for. I left it to my mom; if I don't get something... *shrug* I'm back in school till March 5th, what fun. The new instructor is very anal retentive. Nice, but anal retentive. All of the work that was optional in prior courses is now mandatory... that's a LOT of reading and writing. I have less focus this time than I've had since the start. Part of me says I don't even want to be bothered. Another part says this is too much to handle considering the 100 other things going on in my life. The practical side of me says it's too late to withdraw so I may as well bite the bullet and pull off a good grade. *eyes cross* What I'd really like to do is to play WoW for a few hours each night and hide from the world to relax. Guess my inner anti-social monster has surfaced again.

Anyway... that's my quick update for the day.

Since I doubt I'll get another couple of moments where I can concentrate enough to write here, I'll say this now: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Prosperous New Year to you all.

*shrug* Oddest moment of my month: My cup started bleeding. Not leaking... bleeding. o.o; I get a 16 oz. cup of hot water each morning and make myself some green tea. Well, the other day I didn't have a tea bag so I tossed in one of those single serve drink mix packets in. It happened to be raspberry iced tea - pretty close to the black-crimson color of blood. I noticed a few droplets on the outside and figured they were from some stray powder coming into contact with stray drops from when I took the lid off. An hour later, I come back from a meeting to find that the sides of the cup from top to bottom and all the way around are covered in red droplets. It was looking pretty creepy. The longer it sat, the more seeped out until there was a reddish stain on the napkin it sat on and a slow but steady trickle of dark red fluid running down the sides. Of course, I didn't drink it after that but I did show it off to most of my coworkers. *snickers* Got a few good 'ew!' and one rather enthusiastic 'COOL!!' (horror movie fanatic). I snapped a picture with my phone so if I get the chance, I’ll upload it to show I’m not nuts. ^^ Ok, I AM nuts but you know what I mean.

Most interesting story of the month: A friend of mine from WA recently left her physically and verbally abusive crack addict husband and ‘fled’ to the East Coast. She left on Black Friday with her Neon packed to the point of exploding, kitten in his carrier and drove across the country to NJ. Why? *shrug* Partially because I, the anchor, live there. The other part of her reasoning was she wanted to get as far away from this guy as possible as he told her several times that if she ever left him, he’d kill her. Somehow she managed to make it all the way across the nation to NJ without getting lost once. She gets to NJ and all hell breaks loose. No… Let me correct that. It started with bad directions from a toll booth attendant in PA. She was told to go NORTH on 81 to get to NJ. Now, my geographical knowledge of the world pretty much sucks but even I know that unless you’re going around the world, you aren’t getting to NJ form PA by going north!!! I get her back in the right direction and have her call when she hits NJ. She does; she’s fine and making good time. I figure she’d be at my house within two hours at the most. -.- Riiiiight. Apparently her spastic mother called her relentlessly the entire drive and decided that in the leg of travel that she would call non-stop till her daughter picked up. Great idea, lady – call the daughter who’s already tired and frazzled while she’s driving in the dark in a state she doesn’t know on roads that get confusing to the people that live there! *facepalms* So my friend pulls off the Expressway to appease her mother. Unfortunately, she took an exit rather than parking on the shoulder a moment. She gets all discombobulated and calls me. I hit MapQuest and see what I can do… I ask for a cross-street. I’ve given one that doesn’t come up. The next one does but when I give her directions, I’m told she’s already five blocks past. *grumble*

Apparently she’s not one of those children who learned that when you’re lost, STOP MOVING. Forty-five minutes on the phone and I finally figure out where she is enough to realize I’m lucky: she’s on a road that, unless she was WAY out in the middle of nowhere, she was going to hit one of the three major highways that run north/south in NJ. Thankfully, she soon found Rte. 30 so I could get her back on track. Again, I figure 30 minutes off. Just enough time to hop a shower and get dressed. Shower’s done… no call. 45 minutes, no call. After an hour I call and don’t get an answer. I try a few times and at the two hour mark, it’s now 2 AM and I need sleep. I lie down and get to thinking. There’s no WAY she could have gotten that badly lost… “Maybe her cell died and she’s parked waiting for it to charge up enough for directions.” So, I get dressed, get in the car and head out to find her since its only 10 minutes from my house to where she’d have gotten off of the Expressway. I go all the way there, turn around and come back. Half a mile from my house she’s calling my cell phone. I try and figure where she is from her description since she’s lost. First guess was wrong so I wind up turning around again. Driving through town, I’m 10 ft from the 50 mph speed limit sign and driving right past the police station. …As blue and red lights start flashing in my rear view. By this point I’m ready to kill. I hand my stuff over to the cop and ask if she knew where one of the nine places were that had been mentioned to me. Cop didn’t know any of them but it stopped her from going back to her car. I told her what was happening and, thankfully she let me go with a verbal warning to slow down. I normally don’t speed through town but at 2:30 in the morning I was a bit preoccupied. So… back on the road… 25 minutes of driving and I finally figure out where the hell my friend is. I pick a spot she can find and have her come to me. I got home at somewhere around 3:30 in the morning and had to be up at 6:50 the next day.

It’s only gotten more interesting from there. I’ve got two weeks worth of story to add. Maybe later… my wrist is hurting something fierce from a fall down the basement steps thanks to Raine’s kitten.

Merry ho-ho-ho. -.- *hides in his cave*

Ok, I'm reaching out through the people that read these journals. I'm putting together a business, well, two actually. One for baked goods and one for computer help. While it'd be cute to have a single icon incorporating both into one... for my sanity and simplicity, I'm looking to make two logos. I'm considering doing commissions - is anyone interested in taking up the challenge of working with me and creating the logos?

I was thinking maybe one being a dragon with glasses working on a computer, surrounded by parts and books and the other being something related to baking. *shrug* Dragon with a flour spot on his nose reading from a cookbook and stirring in a bowl?

Suggestions, offers, etc?

Hope everyone had a nice relaxing Labor Day weekend!

Me? Oh, well I was without power from Friday to Sunday afternoon. My, what FUN that is! *eyes cross* It totally screwed up my plans for working on the house and left my poor group for class in a lurch. I did find that I had two kerosine lamps, which was nice. In my boredom on Saturday, I wandered the mall for a few hours. I refrained from buying myself a Game Boy DS just to have something to do but I did purchase a car charger, case, and wireless headset for my cell phone. I found lamps I would have loved to put in my living room BUT... they had every color but the one I want. D'oh! They had crimson, mauve *gag*, and ivory but no BLACK. *sighs* I'll just keep searching! Never knew how hard it would be to find thin black and silver/gold lamps that weren't some hideous modeling of a panther or something. Geeze. *laughs*

After the mall I headed over to Home Depot. Well... I went a'walkin through the Depot and boy did I have fun. Bought paint since it was on sale and picked up a new ceiling fan for every room in the house (sans the dining room, which has a new one already). It was a good price! 20% off and the fan was $37 and change to start with. It's 52" and really very pretty. Black, silver, and with a nice looking dome. Grabbed a nice new tower fan with an ionizer, too. *thinks* Then I went to dinner with mom. That was some goooood eats! I've learned I don't really care for broccoli rabe - too bitter for me. I got home and puttered around with candles and such for a while *finger twirl*. Laid on the bed and was out like a light at 9:30 at night! That was day one of no power.

Day two had me up at 8am and ready to go. I gave dad a call and he came over to work with me. I hooked up ceiling fans in all by my room (that's a story in and of itself; stupid fan), installed new sink and shower hardware for the bathroom, bought new vinyl tile for the bathroom... When he went home, I half painted my room and then relaxed while playing a racing game and letting the chicken for my chicken soup boil. Haven't finished the soup yet but that shouldn't take me long now. Monday I slept in some and then went to town on the painting. While I taped and painted my room dad did the upstairs hallway. I originally only needed two walls done. He outdid himself and painted the entire hallway, ceiling and all. *shakes head, laughs* I have to say, it looks good, though. The ultra white that Behr puts out is just amazing. In the end, I painted the bedroom walls, trim (poor thing hadn't been painted since I moved in 6 yrs ago!), and gave the ceiling a fresh coat of bright white.

On my third trip to HD... >.> I grabbed more paint, a water filtration system for my house, and my first new fridge. ^-^ I chose a side by side LG, 25' with ice maker and the works in the door. I was lucky - got it for 10% off and then another 100$ off because of an LG promo. *wiggles* They gave me a coupon to get my delivery fee refunded, too and they're taking one away for me. I'll be sending the antique in my basement (70's avocado green, ugh) to a new home and moving the one in the kitchen downstairs. I almost picked up a new stove but the Vineland HD didn't have one I liked. lol We worked from 10 till 5, shopped HD till 6:30, met mom for dinner and dad left my house close to 8:45. Stupid ceiling fan is still not up. -.-; At least dinner was good. *laughs*

For those that want a giggle - here's the fan story (what a life I have): I take the old one down and find that the base of the new one is significantly smaller than the one I'm removing. That means I need to paint part of the ceiling. That's ok, I don't mind painting - I'm good with a roller. Then comes me up on a ladder arguing with the brace. Why? Well you see, I wanted to be lazy and make the ceiling fan operate off of a remote control. The last one I wired (dining room) for that purpose went pretty smoothly in terms of making the unit fit. Unfortunately for me, this wasn't going to be the case this time around. The fans are made to hang from a pole or to flush mount. I wanted to flush mount. The remote unit is just big enough to fit in the itty bitty base of the fan - if there wasn't the socket to hang the pole in. *rolls eyes* So... one adventure in metalworking later and the brace has been modified so the remote fits. I get up on the ladder, go to install the brace... and there's only wood on one side of the hole. Ok, ok. So I got this handled - I'll just use a longer screw to reach the wood I see up above! Mm. Sound plan in theory. I put the screw in (2 & 1/2") and feel it bite into the wood. It tightens up... and rips through the sheetrock. *eyelid twitch* That was about the time we broke for dinner so I didn't put the fan out the window. When we got back, dad worked up a brace and I had bought 4" screws this time. Got it all on... and the hole shows. So I get this ring thingy to cover the hole. Works great - when you put it on under the brace. *facepalm* So off the brace comes for the umpteenth time in two days and the ring goes up. Dad gets the wiring down through the hole and we called it quits. I looked before bed and see that the ring needs to be adjusted. The fan wouldn't sit in the center of it and it'd drive me nuts. I figure I'll get the fan up and the ceiling will drop on me while I sleep a week later. *laughs* I felt like an episode of Home Improvement!

Oh! And I taped the walls in the bedroom so I could paint the trim. Used painter's tape. Good idea, right? It's engineered to not hurt the walls, etc, etc. Well we pull the tape off so I can reassemble my room last night... and part of the paper from the sheetrock comes tearing off, new paint and all. -.- So now after a full day of painting, I need to move my furniture again... and patch paint. This all being within two hours of me finishing! *twitch*

*cheer* lol I did notice this morning when I buttoned my pants that they were *gasp* actually loose! *dances* Seems like chugging water till my eyes float is working again!

Hope you enjoyed your morning laugh(s) and the story of my adventures in home repair.

The latest episode in the soap opera that is my life.

Listening to: The Mask Soundtrack ^-^

*shakes the dust off* Well, I pop back on here out of severe boredom at work and I find I've been given a temporary full account. Wee!

As for updates? Cripes. Where to begin??

*rubs his chin* Well I guess I'll start with the news that I'm going for my Master's degree in Information Systems. If I want to finish in two years I can go through student loans, etc. If not, work will pay $3500 a year which equates to roughly two courses with me paying like $150 in overage. At this point I'm not sure if I want to go for two or five. If work pays for it, I have to stay for six months after the last reimbursement or pay it all back. Not a problem with me as I'm comfortable here. So far I've completed one course and got an A- (3.66 GPA), despite many issues. Who would have thought writing assignments would be so freaking difficult?! I had the information in my head but my poor brain didn't want to get it to the fingers. On top of that, I made a serious miscalculation with time management so I was always doing assignments the day before/day of them being due, which was a royal pain in the rear. My next course is scheduled to start on Aug. 22nd. It's some business course; way I read the description, it is sort of like a high level accounting course. As long as I need not WRITE, I am happy.

I'm now one step closer to the big '30'. My birthday wasn't bad, for once. Several people remembered and either sent me a message or called. Thank you to those that did, I appreciate it more than you know. I worked and then my family went out to a hibachi restaurant for the first time. Talk about entertaining. *laughs* I got slapped in the face with two pieces of flying shrimp and then the chef decided he'd try and drown me with luke warm sake! o.o Needless to say I was soaking wet all through the meal. Nothing like smelling of Sake and being wet clear down to your... *smirk* Then again, I'd swallowed enough of it that I wasn't minding at the moment. That evening sort of sucked but I'm not going there. Let's just say ol' JD got fed up with being the DD and made it known.

I took a little trip the end of July. I was scheduled to visit a friend out in Michigan but since they had to find a new residence, I wound up having to cancel my flight the day before I left. For a $330 ticket, I had to take a $130 hit to cancel. I have 90 days from the date of cancellation to pick a new location. Since I was flying NorthWest, part of the stipulations of the cancellation require me to either fly US Airways out to wherever I pick and then NW back or fly totally NW. *facepalms* So many stupid ruuuuules! I'm not sure if I want to use the ticket for DragonCon '07 or head to somewhere like Ft. Worth, TX. Does anyone have suggestions/requests? Anywho... So with my flight and trip cancelled, I still had the vacation time set up. Rather than sit around my house in my boxers for eight days, I decided to head to VA and visit my friend Dee. I drove down and spent my vacation just outside the D.C. area. First two days I sat in front of her computer entertaining myself while she did homework for HER Master's courses. After that I got to enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean II and see some of the local sights. We also went to Chinatown. Talk about a let down! I'm used to the Chinatown in NYC. You have shops upon shops with fruit stalls, fish stalls, you name it. There's a candy shop and a bubble tea shop... What did I see when I get to the DC Chinatown? 35 restaurants and one freakin store. ONE!!! It was mostly a grocery store with a few dishes and wall scrolls in it. How depressing. I picked up some sake ** and a few other imported goodies. *thinks* I have to say, the highlight of my trip was trying all the new foods. I tried: authentic Chinese food (yum), a lamb kabob which was so heavily peppered I'm still not sure what the meat tasted like O.o, Pab Thai **, real Greek food (gyro, slouvaki, grape leafs…), and of course, I had to have the ‘Bourbon’ Chicken at the Louisiana place. *snickers* It turned out to be chicken marinated in the same BBQ sauce used for Chinese spare ribs with a little bit of bourbon flavor added in. *facepalms* Ah well, it was all good. I know, I know, you don’t go on vacation for the food… You also don’t go away and wind up doing work, too but I did! *laughs* I wound up fixing a couple computer related problems while I was out there. Guess I was just earning my keep. ^-^

*scratches head* Work is… work. I’m finally accepted and my intelligence is no longer put into question with the exception of one *coughbitchfromhellcough* coworker who just doesn’t seem to like me no matter WHAT I say or do. *shrug* Fug’er. The bosses like me and I’m given decent projects so I’m content. The upgrade we’ve been testing is not going well. In four days of testing, over 300 problems were found. …The hospital is expected to go ‘live’ with this upgrade on December 11!!! I am SO not planning on being in the STATE when that happens. O.o;; Dear lord… pray for those poor, unfortunate souls that happen to need medical assistance from my institution between Dec. 11th and sometime in February when the software company gets around to fixing the problems! Ugh.

Not that anyone on here knew anything to the contrary to start with, but I’m single again. *shrug* Not much to say. It just didn’t work out the way it should have. Back to fishing I go for the right one. ^^

I got the chance to spend time with an uncle on mom’s side of the family that’s dying of ‘spider’ cancer. It started as lung cancer and spread through his body to where it’s now eating bone, brain, you name it. I never particularly liked the man but no one should die like that. Ok, maybe child molesters and a few select lower echelons of the scum of society… Anyway, he’s dying and I’ve found that he’s actually likeable now. I guess the realization of death and facing your own mortality tends to change your whole outlook on life. We took him to see Willie Nelson and John Foggerty last Sat. Willie was pretty sad. He went non-stop for a good hour. There was no break between songs or anything like that. He did not acknowledge the crowd in any way beyond a tossed headband here and there. The pre-show chatter most artists do was replaced by some guy doing announcements and reciting the history of Willie and talking about the three new albums he’s putting out this year. For all but the last five songs, the words were spoken quickly but they were NOT sung. At the end we actually got to hear cadence, beat, and the songs I grew up listening to while riding around with dad in his pickup truck. After an hour and a half intermission *twitch*, JF came out and went right into a serious of extremely energetic and upbeat songs. He took the time to talk and interact with the audience and even brought Willie out on stage for a duet. I’d have to say I give the ‘best show’ award to JF were I asked to choose between the two. As for the venue? Oh, I am so irritated at the Borgata! First off, general admission was standing room only. That’s fine, I’m used to that. What I had a problem with was general admission’s section was dead smack in front of the stage. Why is that bad? Because the freakin’ handicap section was to the far left of the stage and the big screens that normally are used in a concert were dead through the entire show. So basically, because my uncle and mother couldn’t make the two mile hike from the valet drop off to the concert hall on their own power (walking) and we had to get wheel chairs, they were subjected to the worst seats in the house. We argued and requested numerous times to at LEAST have the freakin’ screens turned on… It’s a last wish of my uncle to see Willie and what’d he get? Laughed at, basically. My mom, tears in her eyes, had to run people over and scream like a lunatic while breaking a big rule to take my uncle’s wheel chair into the standing section and parking him right in front of Willie’s mic. Here’s my uncle, a war vet and avid musician who was well known in the area for his perfect impressions of Willie Nelson’s songs… with cancer so bad he was self medicating (they only do that at the very end… instead of dying of cancer, the patient eventually overdoses and they go to sleep) and taking four different pain killers INCLUDING Morphine… who only wanted to see his idol. What does he get? I have seen bags of dog crap treated better. Needless to say, I will certainly be writing the papers and Nelson’s PR people.

*looks at his novel, laughs* Once again, a ‘quick’ update turns into War & Peace for me. There’s more that has happened in my life but I’m starving so I’ll call this to an end. Mayhap this weekend I’ll do more. Or maybe I’ll have everyone wait another year for an update. *laughs* I really do apologize for that… If DA would send notifications of comments, etc, I’d be more active here. Without them, I tend to forget it’s even there.

Oh, one final thing: Back in March I was asked to join a 3D chat with a program called IMVU (www.IMVU.com) and I have to say… I’m freakin’ hooked. If you get the chance, check it out. It’s free to use and you can do all sorts of customizations to your avatar. ^-^ I’m even trying my hand at developing for it. If any of you use it, let me know and I’ll give you my username. Anyone else that wants to get a hold of me, use one of the other messenger programs or email me (hotmail account listed for MSN) and you’ll get a response. Those that want to lurk… *shines the high powered halogen spotlights around the room a few times and grins* HIIIIII! *laughs*

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Like eggs dropped from a building top, these are the days of my life.