Big Bear Status

If you need to get ahold of me, email me. I will not have a cell phone after Wednesday.

I will not be attending Garou for the forseeable future as well, as I no longer have transportation.

I will have very limited internet access soon as well and will only be checking mail at work.


My tentative plan is starting to come together and it looks like I’ll be taking a weeks vacation at the end of August after all....as I move to Alabama.

That is all.

Weather, Money, and the rules of each

Okay, this is getting insane. It’s July 30th. It’s currently 97 in Minneapolis and feels like 108. Houston TX at the same time is 92 and feels like 102. We’re supposed to have an overnight low of 81. Tomorrow looks to be a few degrees warmer for us here in Minneapolis, storms on Tuesday (I’ll be shocked if there’s no severe weather, and a good chance of flooding rains), then it finally returns to temperatures like we are supposed to have ... highs in the low to mid 80s and lows in the lower 60s. As I sit here, my outdoor thermometer (shaded and semi-decently sited) reads 94.9F on our deck. Ew.

I’m sliding the check I got from my dad to go to Derek’s wedding into the bank already. Between that money and the check I get Wednesday, I’ll have enough to cover about $375 of rent. I’m $50 short of rent, my car insurance is cancelled and will have to wait for three weeks to get paid/re-instated, same with my phone, and my meds are going to have to wait until probably the end of the month. I’m going to be living hand to mouth for the next month, but I have to make it. It’s going to be rough and unpleasant, but hey, that’s life sometimes. If I don’t show up to Derek’s wedding, there will be hell to pay with my dad and step-mom. Not worth it. Though, I’m going to have to figure out how to pay my car insurance and still have the $$ for gas and food down there and back.

I love a good challenge...and the rules of the weather ... and of money. It’s either too much (heat or bills) or too little (heat or money). It never seems to be just right.

Radio Geekery

Okay, anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a freak about radio and tv stuff.

From time to time, stories will catch my eyes/ears and I have to share them.

This is one of them...

Christian > Sex Radio

Just once in my life, I’d like to do a stunt / flip like that. I know the perfect station for it as well...*points* KNOF-FM 95.3 St. Paul. KNOF == Keeping Near Our Father. *shudder* Think very small market southern station with a gospel format and you have KNOF. Sign on at 6a and sign off at 10pm.

*laughs* They need to go away. Then again...taking to that same format could be fun as well. KTIS 98.5 has a *huge* signal covering most of eastern MN from Rochester to almost Duluth. *giggles madly* Could it be a network of stations...we could call it the daisy chain!!

Okay...enough of that. I need to figure out dinner.

5:30pm and all is dead...

My Goddess, today has been the slowest day in memory here at work. I mean, at 5pm, we hit 350 calls.
Normally, we'd be at 350 calls around 1-2pm. I'm going 10-15 minutes between calls.

Having looked at the remnants of my budget, I'm starting to seriously consider the idea of moving down to Alabama for a while and living with my dad. I've not paid my cell bill yet (11 days past due), I've not gotten my meds filled (now four days cold turkey), and I have no clue how I'm going to manage rent and also paying my car insurance (insurance due the 29th, and rent on the 3rd). Hell, I'm not even sure about food or gas for the next while.

The entire Chris situation has rather frustrated the hell out of me and it's really starting to really affect my mood. Then again, four days off the Zoloft hasn't done any good in that regard either.

I'm going to go home tonight, fix myself something quick for dinner, and lock myself in my room for the weekend. I may have plans at some point in the weekend, but I'll believe that when they happen.

*** Intermission for a 5:30pm Rush ***

Okay, now I'm very much beyond pissed off.

Apparently, I'm now the designated "oh shit" cleaner. One of my cow-irkers realized that she hadn't set any of the manual key orders that she had done to ship second day. Okay, go fix it. Oh no, it's 5:30 and I have to leave. I can't work late. So it lands on my desk for me to clean up her 22 orders and also have a frantic rush to get my own 28 orders done.

Goddamn, are people that fucking stupid nowadays? I swear I've had a blond convention calling me today.

I want out of work. Now.

I may not come back on Monday. I'm sick and tired of this bullshit.

Offline...

Hey all,

Just a heads up that the big bear will be offline except for very limited access at work.

I finally was able to source out the problems with my computer at home. With three hard drives, an nVidia 5700LE AGP video card, and a Sempron 2800 CPU, I need something bigger than a 300 watt power supply. Over the last 7-10 days, my computer has slowly been dropping power on the various rails and started giving me major CPU/APIC errors. I disabled APIC support but I am still experiencing random lock ups and data corruption.

Until I can get a new power supply (about $80 for a good 430w power supply) in a couple of weeks, I'll be checking email from home and very sporadically posting here.

Since I know a few of you are geeks, I'll post the details of the power supply I'm looking at getting.

Antec 430 PS It's normally $99, but right now it has a $30 instant savings and a $30 mail-in. I figure for $70 for an Antec 430w PS, I can't go wrong.

Or do I just get a snazzy new case with a 380w PS for $89?

Or do I get a case just like 's case which is *very* quiet, has rubber/silicone grommets to absorb drive noise, and is very user friendly to open and install things in/out of?

No matter what, I have to wait 2-3 weeks, so I have plenty of time.

When it rains...

I spent the past weekend up in Melrose. I recopied my mp3 collection from and hung out with Alex. It was rather awkward dealing with Mag as he was still being all touchy and acting as if we were still together. I quickly clarified that we were not together and he was the one who said he wasn't ready for a relationship.

I started teaching Alex some of my beliefs, so we'll see where that goes.

I got back Sunday night and apparently the milk in the fridge had gone bad. I didn't realize this (and it didn't smell 'off') but no sooner than I drank it, my body was hitting the eject switch. I spent most of Sunday night and well into the early hours of Monday in the bathroom.

I called in sick to work on Monday and rested up through the morning. I got up and vacuumed the apartment, cleaned the litter boxes, and took out the trash. After that, I headed over to 's house and hung out with and played some Final Fantasy XI. I also got my laundry done as well. Chris (my roommate) called me about 5:30 and was home from work. I asked him what was up as normally Mondays are very hectic at work. Apparently Phil (the psycho guy that got fired at work, Chris' former roommate) decided to start harassing him via email at work. Chris was just fed up with it all and went home early. Right at the end of the conversation, he dropped that he needed to talk to me and that it had to be a face-to-face conversation.

Of course, that's never a good sign when roommates say things like that. I was right. Chris hates Minnesota and hates the people here. He's severely homesick and has already decided that by the end of September he will be back in North Carolina. How this summmarizes for me: In 2.5 months, I have to find a roommate to move in and take over part of the expenses or I'll be moving to Alabama and living with my dad and step-mom for some time while I get my collective shit reset AGAIN. It has been a rough couple of months, but Chris and I had finally gotten the financial issues resolved and we are both on a budget that allows us to put money aside as well as making sure that all our bills are paid on time.

I totally understand where Chris is coming from and why he feels he needs to go back to North Carolina, but that doesn't make me feel any better knowing that it's taking my semi-settled life, putting it into a blender, and hitting the puree button.

I'm angry, depressed, and not liking life right now. I'm really starting to believe the adage: No good deed goes unpunished.

I was told that after 1500 hours working with the...

I was told that after 1500 hours working with the agency, I got one week's paid vacation. I'm due to hit 1500 hours in early August. On the online self-service site, I discovered that I'm showing 15.75 (note the decimal). So I called the national self-service group. Nope. No luck. You have to do 1500 hours in a service year. My service year reset on June 22nd. Now I had asked my contact about that and why my hours were missing off the website. He said he didn't know and would have to check into it. That was three weeks ago. I found out on my own from the national group.

I called him...and his advice was to check my employee handbook AND GET BACK TO HIM! What the hell? He's supposed to be there working for me and and being my point of contact betweeen where I work and myself? He doesn't get back to me on things, I've had to track him down several times.

I sent an e-mail to my director here on-site at my job to explain to her what is going on so that she knows why I may be leaving my agency. I don't want to lose this job, I love it really. I am just sick of dealing with the crap from my staffing agency. I'm *ANGRY*. I am having a rough time even being nice to people on the phone. I just want to scream and throw things.

I made sure that I would be eligible for vacation time at the end of August and that I would be getting paid for it. My contact confirmed that if I had 1500 hours worked, I'd be eligible for paid vacation. The same type of shit happened with holiday pay. You have to have worked 1000 hours and work the scheduled day before and after the holiday to get paid for it. Easy enough. Oh no. It's 1000 hours in the last 26 weeks. So I didn't get holiday pay for the 4th of July. I don't get my paid vacation.

So yeah, I'm about >< close to telling my agency where to get off. I love where I work but I am beginning to loathe the agency I work for...

*deep cleansing breath* It's a great day today...repeat until delusional.