Today starts a brand new week. And not only a brand new week, a brand new time in my life. I start school again today – I’m stoked! w0o! Here come the parties! The chicks! The sex! The wild insane craziness that is broadly associated with frolicking college students who are mind-hazingly intoxicated! WOO, I can’t wait!

In other news, I am eating some Chinese food. It is Damn Good, and I thoroughly recommend that you get some from Tokyo Teryaki. Ahh, scrumptious. Oh, right, back to the post. I was going to say something in here somewhere of some importance. I think I forgot. No, right, it’s Monday – that means that the sidebar is updated over there … notice the lack of an mp3otw … if you would e-mail me one it just might end up being selected.

OH RIGHT! Now I know what I was going to say. I was looking at my business card today [which, btw, now says “Systems” and not “Network” right before administrator], and I realized that the HPI logo not only looks like clip-art, but it also just sucks. Because of this, I am asking the many, many faithful people who continuously hit my page via the “internet” to design some phat-ass graphic logo that involves “HPI” or “High Plains Internet” — we’re offering up a fatty award of at least $50 if your logo gets chosen! Send Me Your Logo!

** Note: I get nothing out of this. The $50 is the minimum amount awarded to the winner if their logo is chosen. No particular color scheme required.

Update: Class was good! Met a cool guy named Micah who’s a developer at SoftCom … and a bunch of nice girls 😛 Oh, and I saw Lauren Blomgren today … here’s an AIM snippet describing it:

Went out the other night with Tore, Matt and Laura … had a good time [Laura wasn’t bitchy, really ;-)] … finished the night off at Denny’s, and woke up the next morning with the urge to puke. So I did. For an hour. Solid. It was terrible … haven’t ate anything in almost over 35 hours now, but I have drank a lot of Celestial Seasoning’s “Raspberry Zinger” tea. It’s good stuff – I encourage you to try some.

Finalized my school schedule yesterday … it’s not that much school, imo — I’m thinking I’ll add a web-based class onto this schedule, simply because I think it shouldn’t pose much of a problem. My current scheduled semester:

Business 115 – Tuesday & Thursday – 5:20pm–6:35pm
Microeconomics 201 – Tuesday & Thursday – 2:00pm–3:15pm
Political Science 111 – Monday – 6:45–9:30pm [!!]
Speech 115 – Monday & Wednesday – 5:20pm–6:35pm

Except for monday, it’s a pretty light load … monday is 4 hours of class, pretty much solid, which kinda sucks. Ahhh well.

And some good news: met up with Corey Anderson, HPI’s supposed account manager, and went and landed a web development & hosting deal with a house-selling place. It’s not a big thing by any stretch, but it is new business. My golden tongue came into use multiple times and saved our bacon [especially when it came to us being there at 10:30 instead of 10]. No word on the RedTag Office Supplies e-commerce $9k thing though; the last contract we sent was “here’s what we’re offering – if you don’t like it, then shove it.” To be honest, I’ll be pleased if they do take it and pleased if we don’t do it.

Oh, and it’s confirmed, it is indeed a gray hair. There’s a couple of them on that side, actually — I guess the ticket, school and work are taking their stress toll, eh?

Update: I am doing nothing tonight … yup, it’s Friday, but I have to help the parents move tomorrow morning [which means trekking to Denver] … Everybody is leaving for college soon, if they haven’t already left. I feel kinda bad about not doing anything tonight :: those of us who are in town definitely have to do something tomorrow.

Update #2: At a recommendation from Janelle, I rented Wonder Boys last night. Alas, there is no TV/VCR in the house to watch it on. Fuck me.

Tonight is the eve of my treck to Trinidad. I’m going down there tomorrow morning [around 5am] to attend court, scheduled for 8:30am. It’s about a 2 hour drive, so leaving at ~5:30 should get me there with plenty of time to spare. I’m a little down at the prospect of driving for 4+ hours tomorrow, and missing work, and missing time to pick the rest of my classes, but hey, life’s a bitch.

I’m not depressed that I’m [probably] going to lose my license … I am almost thinking “it’s about fucking time,” but not quite, because, well, [duh], I’m not out to fuck myself. I am a little tired, though … just beat about the whole thing. I’m just so exhausted and whipped on so many fronts. You know what I want? I want to go to school, go to work, make enough money to do both comfortably, and enjoy a meager social life in there. That’s it. I’m not asking much, but it seems like it’s not something that is easily attainable for me.

Such is life. If you’re awake at 5:30am, call my cell — I’ll answer! [that’s the earliest I’ve been awake in months] I will put the news up here as soon as a I get a chance tomorrow. Wish me luck 🙂

Update: Well, I’m back, and I gotta say that it was not the best-spent 7 hours of my life. Got down there at 7:45 … had to waste a while, so I tried to find a coffee shop – there are none in Trinidad. In fact, Trinidad downright sucks. Go to court, wait until 10am [scheduled for 8:30am] for the judge to show up … then I get scheduled for a pre-trial conference on 01/28 @ 2:30pm. I went down and filled out the forms for a public defender to show up there in my stead; no way am I driving another 5 fucking hours for a 20 minute deal … the waiting continues.

I have quite a bit of stuff I could post about, and some of it is even mildly interesting … I think I’ll just do a quick rundown of recent events.

Okay, New Years … that rocked! That’s about all I can say about that. Umm… what else. Everything is kind of a blur … oh yea, went out with Tore and Laura and got coffee and did something one night, and had some really good conversation. Although Laura comes across as spiteful and mean to me, I enjoy her company – and Tore is the man, although sometimes I think he’s kind of a weeny [see new years]. Went out with Tony and saw “Royal Tenenbaum” – that was quite a hilarious movie, and I recommend it to everyone. Then we met up with Laura, and that was pretty good, too. Met up with Janelle last night, and get this – I actually enjoyed myself: she is not this pinnacle of perfection, and I think I realize now that it’s okay to let things just go their way, you know?

Three other things of note – First off, Emily is not back, and won’t be for a while yet. That sucks. Secondly, putting a leather jacket in a bag with baking soda in an attempt to remove the smoke/coffee smell from it does not work. All I got out of it is a jacket that is covered in baking soda. I put it in the dryer with some dryer sheets, though, and that seemed to help a lot. [writes this down in little book of ideas]. And Thirdly, Samantha Garrett rocks. Still. Not only is she blindingly intelligent and fun and witty and humorous and all — she has a knockout body, to boot! <3 Sammi! Milestone Update: Okay, a couple things have happened with the site that are noteworthy. First off, this is post #250 from the databased new-tech site. That’s a lot, and it makes me giddy. Secondly, if you look at the little counter thingy, it is above 20,000 now … 20,000 hits is quite a bit – even if 75% of those come from my cadre of trained monkeys I keep at work. On a not-site related note, that fucking database that I’ve been busting my ass on is finally taken care of 100%, and is in use as we speak. Go me!

Update: I did the unthinkable as well, today. Yup, I went and emptied my 14.2GB Recycle Bin. It took a few minutes to delete my 200,000+ files … however, with 49% HD fragmentation, it’s taking my 40GB HD a while to finish it’s defrag run. To the tune of 3 hours. oof.

Ahh yes, another year has come and gone, and good fucking riddence. I knew that the lack of symmetry in “2001” was a bad thing – here’s to making 2002 [a nice, easy to dig number] better.

Went out last night for the NYE partying. Wowsah, what a time. Chilled with Matt and Tore for a long time, met up with Laura, met up with Darcy, went to Tony’s place, and got completely trashed. I have to tell you that Red Rum is where it’s at. That stuff goes down easy, stays down, and does it’s job well. Got trashed, partied and then headed over to Laura’s place. I had some issues buying Orange Juice at a Walgreen’s – mainly that I had a tough time reading, and that I could barely sign my name. Got to Laura’s place and she wasn’t feeling too well. We sat around and bullshitted, I pulled the always-good-for-conversation umbrella idealogy [which I’ll put up later today], we talked and drank. I was really trashed by now. Darcy left around 2, I think … not real sure. I hope she’s home okay, whatwith crazy drunkards being out and about. Then Laura fell asleep downstairs, and Tore and Matt and I sat and yammered on about a ton of stuff until ~ 6am. Tore said he was leaving, and Matt and I were SOL for a ride till later today if we didn’t go. So we drove downtown … I don’t know if Matt went home or if he’s alive or anything, but I staggered the half-block to my office, sat down in my chair and blacked out for a couple hours. Woke up around 8, drove home, and fell asleep till about 2:30. And that was New Years, 2002. Rock on!

Anybody have any resolutions they’d like to share?

So it’s Monday again. This particular day of the week never, ever ceases to keep coming back. It’s like a leech, it just latches on and won’t let go until you’re sucked dry. On the docket today – absolutely not much. Maybe trying to get that database to work. If I feel up to it, and I don’t decide to just fuck around all morning.

Went out last night with Tore, Emily, Matt and Darcy. Yes, *that* Matt [the Burnz!] and yes, *that* Darcy [his ex]. I don’t know about them, but I had a really good time. Matt’s a riot – I miss his comedy; it’s priceless. Darcy didn’t seem to bad … she’s a looker, and was really nice, what with the smiling and eye contact. I think Matt did better than I did when it came to finding the girl who would cause much anguish. Lucky bastard. Anywho, it was a really good time, and I’m glad we all got together – thanks guys!

I’m always worried that when I meet a new girl that I’m going to come across as creepy, or worse, gay. Why? Well, it’s as simple as my friendliness and massive fucking maw that rarely stops moving. I mean, I meet a nice girl, and instead of being confident, mysterious and enticing, I am a friendly, uber-outgoing, “hi-how-are-you-great-nice-to-meet-you-I’m-randal-did-I-say-hi?-here’s-my-card!” I’m sure that it really makes the first impression a ‘damn he’s weird’ one. Ideas on how to fix this, besides stop being me?

It’s New Year’s Eve … I’m supposed to be joyous and everything, but I’m not … it’s just another day for me – that is, until the booze comes out. I’m stoked about getting thoroughly mind-boggling smashed. Also, the left hand side is updated, with a new mp3otw and other stuff. And the moving out page is getting stale, so go there and add something!

It’s nice and chilly outside, overcast, a little gray & sunshine, the best. The only way it could be better is if there were no wind. Sometimes I wonder why weather sucks so much. I woke up this morning and noticed right away that my left ankle felt funny — only thing I can think of is that it’s now a pressure barometer, like I’ll be able feel the bad weather coming in my ankle. That bodes not so well for future arthritis endeavors. Ahh well, that’s the breaks. And the snaps. And the excruciating pain that eminates from there when I am bad.

You think that you have lots of body hair, eh? I was thinking about it last night, and there is at least twice as much hair on your head as there is on the rest of your body combined. If you’re me, that is. I thought about what it would be like to shave my legs, and then I promptly began to feel like watching Titanic. It was terrible. Luckily, though, I pulled out my oh-so-masculine “Mustangs and Fords” magazine and rejuvinated my ailing testerone levels.

Spent the morning / early afternoon here at work again, getting our stuff ready for the move to the new and improved billing system, which is supposed to be live on 01/02/02. I am amazed at how much documentation there is on the net when it comes to SQL – it sure helped a lot. That’s the gist — Don’t think I’m doing much today besides eating with Steve and his brother Dave, and maybe seeing a movie? Any fly honeys out there up for a good flick? And a New Year’s party? I feel pretty lame not having a woman to smooch when the clock strikes … that’s the breaks again, though.

It’s friday morning, and I’ve been at work for about 20 minutes. It’s great. I went to the driver’s license place this morning and got rid of my probationary license, and now have a fully 100% functional license: until January 9th, that is. That’s the happy news of the day.

The other happy news of the day is that I think I’m finally done with the ex-girlfriend issues. I made up a nice list of concessions, after writing down a bunch of my thoughts, and – to the beautiful rhythms of the Fight Club soundtrack – went through and figured everything out for myself. No, I won’t list the concessions – you could probably figure them out without my help, but they are for me and not you guys 😉 So, in the future, if I start ranting and raving about a past relationship, look at me sternly and say “remember the concessions?” – it should put me in my place right quick.

More as the day progresses 🙂

Update: Get this – ran into Tore and Janelle over at the Perk on my way back to work [from fixing a mis-flashed router]. She looks terrible with the cast thing happening, and she dropped her phone in the full-of-water sink, while on — suck. It was good to see them both 🙂

Well, after a treacherously long 10 hour journey from Salt Lake City, Utah to Colorado Springs, CO, I am finally home. Home sweet home. You have no idea how great it is to be home. Ahhh, home sweet home.

Went out and saw Lord of the Rings last night with Emily, Laura and Tore [note that awesome alphabetizing skill!]. I had a good time, cuz 1, I got to pick-up Emily … her Dad is a good guy … can’t really say why, but even though he’s at least 6’4″ and 300 pounds, he’s not scary. That’s a good thing 😉 And yea, the movie was really, really kickass. I mean, it whomped everything I’ve seen this year with no problem. Ahh, luscious Lord of the Rings. Admittedly, Sauron looks like a Power Ranger, but that’s okay, because the move just rocked. If you haven’t seen it, see it now. If you have seen it, see it again with me when I see it with Burnz when he comes down :-D.

Came to work today at 10, and jesus christ it’s nice to be back. Everybody missed me — they’re like “man, it’s tough to keep everything running when you’re not around” :: that’s job security for you 😉 Anywho, ran some cable with Jack, got my finger slashed pretty good by his pocket knife, and just all in all am having a good day.

Good news on the ticket front – I’ll post about that tomorrow once I glean more info. It’s so good to be back.

Update: Well, for all you happy folks out there in internet land, I have a special treat for you! Not only is there still the Moving Out Page but there is now an Archives Page! It is handily located up in the See & Do section — check it out 🙂

8:52am and we’re leaving Utah as soon as I post. I hope to be back in the springs around 7 — I know all you monkeys out there are just frothing at the bit to get your alottment of glorious me: all you need now is a little patience 😉

On another note, over there on the left hand side a the top there is the navigation section. You’ll note that there is now a Moving Out link — follow it for mysterious prize #2! No, seriously, it’s a page I whipped up so that you, yes, you could give me some reasoning on moving out – both good and bad. Take a peek, it’s good. And the code behind it is terrible, but it works fine!

Once I hit northern colorado, I’ll start calling you peepz to see what’s going on – Tore, you still down for LotR? I’ll be back soon!