March 2004

Can you believe it is the last day of March??? Where did the first quarter of 2004 go? My professor sent out an email today saying to check the course info again because he had accidently updated a previous semester's information and not ours. At least I did not make it was far as printing out everything yet. I think I will spend the weekend putting together PDFs of all the reading material that I can print in advance so that I can be more on-top of things this semester. There is a lot of reading to keep up with. I need to be able to maintain the delicate balance between school and working in the city.

I had a pretty productive day. My cohort and I worked on a project together, which was interesting. We got invites today to a lunch next week with senior management. Mental note: don't forget to the good shoes!!!

Tax season is so stressful. This year and last year I had to contact a CPA to sort it out. Anyway, this year is turning out be more difficult than last year. Given we are just about at the end of March and April 15th is right around the corner, I am starting to feel stressed. I started this whole process over a month ago thinking it would be done by now. This is definately a difficult thing to do while working a crazy schedule. Why cannot they just make taxes easier???

I finally finished getting the new site in order. Aside from learning a new technology, I think using a system will help expedite the maintenance process. With school starting up again Monday, I can use all the time savers that I can get. Now if only it had spell check.

It is my last weekend before class starts up again. I have no idea what I am in for next week so I had better enjoy it while I can. I ran my errands so I think I can chill out for the rest of it. I think my weekday routine is going to change a bit next week. I may be dropping my dad at the train station each morning. Actually, it works out well as his station is just about on my route. And with my car being garaged and his was not, we both should be able to get out the door on time. It will make things interesting.

Ok, you will laugh but... I totally forgot about a lunch with people that are pretty "high on the food chain". With the rain the last few days, I made sure to wear my weather boots again. That just posed a problem. So off me and one of my coworkers went to find me a fast, preferably inexpensive, pair of decent shoes. Luckily the small mall across the street had something that would work. A key benefit of working in the city is having shops near by. A key cost of working in the city is having shops near by.

Between today and yesterday, I really did get a lot of loose ends tied up. That left me free tonight to work on designing my content management idea for this site. Yes, I have finally given this place a proper look and now I am trying to install technology (currently based on Movable Type) to help support it.

Online requests for prescription refills are great. I use the local Walmart. Not only did I get an email confirmation that my request had been received (automated of course) but I also got an automated message that the prescription was ready to be picked up. I think that part is a new feature. Excellent feature for someone who has a busy schedule. The last thing I want to do is spend any more time running around that I have to. Hopefully it is there when I get there. I do not think there was a problem the last time, but the two times before that... Oh well, we are all only human, right?

Ok, the sleep thing is really starting to get to me. I guess I did not sleep well again last night because I spent half the day yawning. That is fairly counter-productive. Hopefully I can actually get decent sleep tonight because I am really going to turn into a basket-case if this keeps up. That would make work very interesting.

Well, it is a Monday and now I cannot tell if I am getting Mom's cold or not. I am hoping for not. Even with Dad staying home for at least the next few days (probably weeks or so), everybody was up! I really was not in a social mood this morning. Oh well, at least the rest of the day stayed fairly quiet.

Wonderful day! I got my grades back for my class and I passed. I passed so far as to get an A. The 4.0 has been maintained. Once I have a chance, I will drop the professor an email to respond to some of her comments along the line. For the most part, I think that was a class where a few more years of work experience, specially in management, would have helped gobs.

So now the wait begins to find out how my assignments were received. It is going to be a long 2 days. Other than that, I can lump around the house for the next week and chill out until the next class starts. It is a crazy work/school schedule that will last another 2 years!

So much for a snow day. There was just enough slushy stuff on the roads that you needed to be careful, but they were passable. Oh well, I guess if it were really that bad I could have taken a personal day. At least it is Friday. I do have two school assignments due by midnight, but at least they are not very long, just on the difficult side.

It was just setup to be "one of those" days. My father ended up staying home because he was not feeling well (long story). Hopefully it is just the result of a lot of long hours as opposed to something incredibly serious. Anyway, it turns out there is another snow storm on the way for tonight that could pack a major punch. Ok, a major storm for me is anything over 5 inches as I would have to drive in it. If we reach 5+ inches, I do not think do not think the roads will be passable. I just may have to take a 3-day weekend. I think it was just about a year ago that we had a few major storms. Is it an anniversary thing?

Happy Saint Patrick's Day. It is a good day to wear green and not orange. As for me, I am in various shades of blue (ok, I forgot last night when I was deciding what to wear after that joyous ride home), but my coat is green! Hopefully today will go well. We had a few meetings yesterday to tie up some loose ends. They are almost tied up just need a few ok "nods" from some people.

I am still not a fan of driving in bad weather (ice, show, squishy-stuff). It just turned into a long day because you send half of it worrying about the ride home and then you actually have to do the drive. Overall, I think more people were respectful of the road conditions and some were not. I would like to see the Department of Transportation or the auto insurance industry to do an ad campaign about what can happen if you tailgate (deer, children, freak accidents, etc.). I think people have forgotten in their rush to rush.

The ant problem is really starting to bother me. I went to put my shoes on this morning, as I was running out the door, and my shoes were surrounded by the little buggers. With the number that were there, you would have thought that they were trying to walk off my Sketcher "sh*t-kicker" as they have been called from time to time. I felt so crawly about the whole situation, I did not even want to put them on. I really did not want to find another stowaway ant.

Today was the last day to submit my "course evaluation" for the one I am currently taking. I basically responded that it was a good class, probably better if I had more work experience and was slightly overwhelming at times. I could really tell that the professor put a lot of work into preparing the class and for that, I thank her. I definitely think this course will be helpful to my advancement in the field - at some point. At least, in the meantime, I will have a better understanding of what management is talking about.

I guess I did not read the instructions carefully for the "medical reimbursement fund" where you send them your receipts and they send you money that was taken out of your check to cover such things like doctor visits and prescriptions. The last time I had one of those, I thought I just sent them the Walmart receipts. Either way, it got rejected a week ago. Luckily I did not destroy the other paperwork that came with my prescription otherwise I think i would have been SOL on my cash. I finally remembered to mail in new "receipts" today so hopefully I will see a few of those dollars they are taking out of my check soon!

It is Friday and it has been a long week. I had a meeting this afternoon that I was pretty nervous about. I am not always the best negotiator and needed a strong argument to get my point across. My manager gave me a few good pointers and tips in order to get me going in the right direction. You have no idea how happy I was that it all went over successfully. I have to do it again next week, but at least it will not be as scary then.

I just remembered that I forgot to set my VCR last night to tape Kingdom Hospital. Oops. I still have not watched the first episode but thought it would be something that I would like to get into. I hope the story line does not require catching all the episodes like Alias, otherwise I will be lost once I do try to catch up.

The paper has been handed in. Thank goodness. There are two more assignments left to go for this semester. I will try to spend the next two days doing the weekly reading and postings so I can get a jump on the last two assignments. A rush to the finish is never fun.

As expected, the day was crazy. I was able to make excellent progress on the paper tonight. I finished the written piece and just need to work on a chart. I think things are well under control now.

Does anybody out there really like Monday's? I am in a good mood (even with with a paper to work on) since a new episode of Alias was on last night. I have been watching a lot of StarGate episodes the last two weeks to fill the void of new things to watch. Work was pretty quiet today, but I think the rest of the week is going to be fairly crazy.

I know I am not doing pilate's right now, but I still want to get some walking in. That way I can at least say I am doing some exercise as opposed to sitting around all day, every day. I would rather not be attacked by a blood clot or something nasty like that.

I guess it is going to be the weekend of school work as I spend today reading for class. I do not think I slept well last night as I ended up falling asleep the middle of the day. Thank goodness I have a bit more time with the paper otherwise I would be completely crazy. I will admit that I am usually "somewhat" crazy.

There is a lot of work ahead of me this weekend for class. The paper's due date has been pushed to Wednesday to give us time to review the last one. I just got back mine tonight. I will focus on the reading assignments first as they are due first. What a concept.

My book arrived yesterday for office pilate's. I know, I am still on the exercise thing. I will have to try picking it up and reading it once things calm down some.

I can finally move again without extensive pain. That was not a fun few days. I was originally planning to do pilate's on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but I think until I finish this class, I had better hold off.

I finally saw, at least I do not think I saw it before, the original Pilot episode for StarGate SG-1. It was funny. I did not remember how it all started. They made one reference to MacGyver which just had me burst out laughing. Now that I have all the seasons that have been released on DVD (THANKS MOM!!!) I will be well entertained for awhile. It will be a great way to fill in time when there is nothing going on.

I am definitely having a "Monday". I woke up early this morning with crazy pain in my joints. I think it is related to Saturday's exercise. All I can say is that I hope it goes away soon because another night of not sleeping is not going to go over well. And, after all was said and done, I swore I would not watch the Oscar so I would not mess-up my sleep. Go figure.