feren

I had a very busy weekend, though it was relaxing for the most part. A large majority of it was spent babysitting Fritz, Heather and Garry's little weinerdog. Weinerdogs have codependency problems... or at least this one does. Dealing with his attachment issues removed a bit of the "relaxation" aspect for me, but overall we got through it okay. Saturday I took five hours out of my day and attended the wedding of DP, a longtime coworker. It was a short, simple ceremony with a nice reception afterward. The food was awesome, the drink was flowing, and I could only stay for about three hours before I had to head out and go back to my job of doggie-babysitting.

genet, roho and I came back to my place today to find that Ra had relieved himself on the floor of the master bathroom. Ordinarily this would just be annoying, but in this case it's downright worrisome: there was blood in his urine. roho and I did a quick examination, then went out and hit two different pet stores before finding the materials I need to collect a urine sample for the vet. I'm hoping it's little more than a urinary tract infection, as odd as it sounds to say such a thing. Cats are prone to UTI and it's fairly easy to treat. Other options, like crystals, are less easy to treat.

Expect more on the topic of Ra's health as further details unfold.

Subject: [ Speakeasy ] Order Status Update and Progress Report

Jason Olsen,

Below is a report of the current progress of your broadband order. You have
opted to have this status mailed to you every 24 hours. To turn off or change
the frequency of these automatic status updates, use the Installation Status
tool in MySpeakeasy(http://www.speakeasy.net/myspeak).

BROADBAND ORDER IN PROCESS

Broadband Installation Status:

Stage 1: Order Received
Your order has been received by Speakeasy.
Stage 1: COMPLETED.

Stage 2: Order Placed
We have placed your order with the vendor.
Stage 2: COMPLETED.

Stage 3: Install Confirmation
Stage 3: PENDING.

Progress Report:

01/22/2004 12:18 PM (from Speakeasy)
COVAD: Order accepted for order .
PVC set [ REDACTED ]
CIRCUIT ID set [ REDACTED ] REDACTED

Aaaah, what a great way to start my day! When you are as tragic a geek as I am there's nothing like an update from your DSL provider saying "Hey, you're getting broadband in about ten days!" to put a positive spin on your morning. Mmm, 1.5M down/256k up RADSL with two static IP addresses. I can practically taste it now...

Tomorrow will be a moderately busy day. As per my still-rather-new weekend routine I will be getting up relatively early to go to class for four hours. After class it's down to the TCOM lab for two hours of labwork, and I'll need them all as there's a lot that remains to be done with my team. Once I'm done with the lab I'm free to go about my day and deal with more pleasant things. Right now I plan to head South from the campus so as to meet up with Heather. We'll probably do a late lunch, then skip over to the alley to see if I can get sized for a new bowling ball. Since the house is just three miles away from a really nice bowling alley I've decided I need to get back into the habit of going bowling, and once Heather heard that my old friend started scheming to draw me into the weekly bowling league she chairs. I think it might be fun to get back on a team, the last time I was on one was when I was all of ... 8 years old? Something like that. I know that I can certainly use the exercise and opportunity to socialize that a league represents. I'm curious to see if I can get anywhere near my old high-score of 230. I bet my first six frames are nothing but gutterballs....

Once my order is in for a new ball I'll head over to the house and unpack a few more boxes to make space in the livingroom. I spent a few hours down there on Thursday night trying to get things cleared for the next "shipment." If I'm very lucky I'll be able to enlist the help of roho and genet on Sunday to go do one last run to the storage unit. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that with Genet's car to take my remaining art there will be enough room in the Expedition so as to haul away the last of the big boxes. That would leave me with just the furniture such as my couch, kitchen table, dresser and desks in the storage unit, which I can retrieve at my leisure with the trailer.

Tonight, however, I clean my bedroom. Look ma, I'm being productive!

Giving me the courage and strength I need

I did a few different things today. On my way in to work I stopped at the Wal-mart to browse through the various alarm clocks they had. I still haven't settled on a replacement for my old Sony, but I have an idea of what's out there. It's weird to think that I'm "shopping" for an alarm clock, but there you have it.

I worked a couple of different helpdesk tickets, cleaning up some MCI issues that were outstanding from when I was on call last week. It's scary to think that our Decatur campus suffered four hours of downtime because a Verilink card was loose. The scary part is they had to reseat it a few times before they got the connection tight enough that we didn't take 20 errors per second on the line.

I bought a house.

I picked up some Atkins bars and some cheese on the drive home. There's a very credible rumor going around that Dominicks (a major grocery chain in this area) is going to close its doors, so I'm taking advantage of the bargains and enjoying the ride while it lasts.

Right now Ra and Marcus are being insufferably cute by curling up next to one another. I'm going to have to take some pictures with the camera I borrowed from my dad, and see if I can't get them uploaded later tonight. Cuteness like this must be inflicted upon the world at large.