It seems you can no longer call yourself a "fan" of a team unless you hate that team more than anyone else.

Sure, you claim to love them, but you feel nothing but contempt for manager, coach, players, mascot, maybe even the batboy who wears "05" on his jersey, not because it's his favorite number, but because that's what year it happens to be.

This isn't a masochistic ritual. The teams are doing it. Chances are your team has done it to you lately.

The Marlins seem to enjoy euthanizing their team every few years. The sales of antidepressants must get a huge boost in South Florida two years after a Marlins World Series.

Cubs fans have suddenly sprouted feathers and migrated south to Comiskey this winter. They claim the love for the Cubbies is still there, but "they want to see a winner."

The Angels decide a compromise on the name of their team would be the best way to make everyone happy. It made nobody happy. T-Shirts now read "Los Angeles Angels of (continued on back)."

The Vikings forget to invite their fans to their houseboat parties.

As fans, we all should be outraged. We should boycott stadiums, arenas and coliseums. We should hold bonfires to burn our foam fingers, T.O. jerseys, Kobe Bryant posters and Barry Bonds bobbleheads. Yet we don't. Why?

Because our dads rooted for the team before we did. Our mom's don't know left field from right field, but they bake round sugar cookies with red sprinkles for seams when our team makes the playoffs. It's all we know.

Our teams have become an extension of our family. They're like the cousin who plays dungeons and dragons at the table during Thanksgiving dinner. We don't really understand them, we may not even like them, but we invite them every year and if somebody tried to say their cousin was better, we'd beat them up.

The owners know this. The players know this. Even that ball boy that falls over everytime he tries to pick up a foul ball knows it. No matter what they do, no matter how bad they screw up, no matter how many years in a row they lose....we'll come back as soon as the clouds start to clear. The White Sox might own Chicago right now, but as soon as spring comes and the weather starts getting warmer, all those birds are going to fly north to the friendly confines once again.

Well that's a weekend I won't soon forget

So the weekend is over. I was so exhausted I almost overslept and missed work today. But I woke up just in time, and everything's peachy keen. Speaking of work, I just applied for a new job at OSU, so we'll see if that goes anywhere.


Now back to the weekend.

Friday night I spent 4 hours in the emergency room.

With chest pain and a tingly left arm.

Yup. You read that right.

Fortunately nothing seems to be too seriously wrong. I've been having a problem with my shoulder/pectoral area for about a week or so, but Friday night when I was trying to go to bed it was an entirely different feeling. Then my left hand got cold and my arm started kinda tingling. So I figured I better get it checked out. They drew some blood and did a test that rules out blood clots. It didn't rule them out. so I got a CT scan. That was interesting. Apparently they found some little abnormality, and my potassium levels were a little low but nothing too serious. By the time we left I was feeling much better and the pain had subsided. So a big scare turned out to be a little deal, I think. Major props to Steve for sticking it out with me at the ER. We were there til almost 6 am, and he had to coach soccer at 9. Trooper I tell you.

Saturday was the UW-OSU game. One of the most miserable games I've ever been to. It couldn't have been much above 40 degrees, there was a driving rain the entire game, and the wind whipping off Lake Washington ensured that not a single person was having fun. Yet we stuck it out til the bitter end, watching an 18-10 slugfest that featured maybe three plays that you could consider "highlights." Washington is legitimately awful. We're not much better, but we're good enough to win when our passing attack is grounded by the elements.

Alrighty, well I'm going to slip into some PJ's and get some hot cocoa. I'm not sure when it decided to become winter. I missed the transition between fall and winter, but it is butt ass cold.

Survey

10 Firsts:

First Best Friend: Ironically, the same best friends I have now, JR and Joel.
First Screen Name: AndySnacks....though I did chat a few times under the name "Wolf." Back when I thought I was cool.
First Piercing: Will never happen.
First Crush: Hmmmm....Probably the daycare girl named Kim that played basketball with us. I thought she was awesome.
First Music: I remember thinking MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" was the pinnacle of modern music. I had a big crush on Hilary Brown because she was the only person other than me that knew exactly when to say "STOP! Hammertime!"
First Car: 1985 Ford Bronco II.
First love: First girl I said I love you too I didn't mean it....then I kinda kept the word in check. Don't think I really used it again until Rachel. So I guess Rachel would be my first love.
First stuffed animal: Don't remember, but that blanket with the Rocking Horse stuck with me until college.
First Job: Working summers at basketball camps and baling hay for my dad. First "real" job was working at a ski resort in Colorado for the summers.

9 Lasts:
Last Cigarette: That would be never.
Last Alchoholic beverage: Also does not apply to me.
Last Car Ride: Rachel and I took a trip to Albertson's to buy some Beaver Tracks ice cream about 2 hours ago.
Last Movie Seen in theatres: Wow, it's been a while....seriously I don't remember. I think it was the 40 Year Old Virgin.
Last Phone Call: My dad...we were talking wedding.
Last Kiss: Rachel, about half an hour ago when she went to bed.
Last CD Played: my mix cd with the new Gorillaz song...watch the way I navigate ha ha ha ha ha
Last Bubble Bath: Around 1988....care bears bubble bath. Turns out I was allergic and got all puffy and itchy. I stay away from the bubbles now.
Last time you cried: When my grandma died.

8 Have You Ever:
Have You Ever Been Out Side The Country: Canada, around 1995.
Have You Ever Dated One Of Your Best Friends: Never one of my best friends....had a few that wanted to date me, but I never went that route.
Have You Ever Been Arrested: Can't say that I have.
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: Only inadvertently....it was a pretty big wave.
Have You Ever Been on TV: Yeah a few times.....most recently the news did a piece on the Civil War and interviewed me the night before the game.
Have You Ever Kissed Someone and Then Regretted It: Oh yes....more than once.
Have You Ever had a Suggestive Dream About Someone You Knew: All the time...not in the past few months though. It's funny, because then you see that person, and you wonder if it'd be like it was in your dream, and you act all funny around them for a few days.
Have you ever cheated: Never.

6 Things You've Done Today:
1. Watched the White Sox win the world series
2. Went to Subway
3. Ate some ice cream
4. Talked to JR
5. Made dinner
6. Took it easy at work to make sure I had just enough work to last the day and not have to do any extra.

5. Things you ate today:
1. honey nut cheerios
2. ham and turkey sandwich on italian herbs and cheese bread
3. fish sticks
4. peas
5. Beaver Tracks Ice Cream!

4. People You Can Tell [ALMOST] Anything to:
1. Rachel
2. Grant
3. Joel
4. Oh pretty much anyone can fit in this last spot...I'm an open book.



3 Choices:
1. Black or White: Gray
2. Hot or Cold: cold
3. Sun or Rain: rain

2 Things You Want to Do Before you die:
1. Visit Ireland
2. Learn to play some sort of catchy instrument like a banjo or harmonica or something.

1 thing you regret: Not actively pursuing a chance to play basketball at a small college.

I've noticed over the past weeks, I've felt the seductive breath of the internet on the back of my neck much less. Perhaps it's because I spend 8 hours a day at a computer now. Coming home and hopping online sounds like going back to work to me. But, as it is my best, and in some cases, only means of communicating with some people, here I am, soldiering on.

Apparently disaster relief isn't going so well with Wilma. Is anyone really surprised at this point? I wonder if are these problems with all natural disasters and we just never hear about them because they happen on the other side of the world. When hurricane Andrew hit, or hurricane Charlie, did these long lines and lack of resources not happen? Is it just the fact that we've got national guard all over the world, there's been an unusually high number of disasters in the past 10 months, or what? Or is everyone just jumping on the "I'm not getting my way" bandwagon and bitching more? I wish I knew.

OSU is all up in arms about a perceived racial bias by the Barometer. In a story about the football team's actions on the wrong side of the law, pictures of two football players were shown. Coincidentally, both these players were black. Now everyone thinks they're not showing the white players as bad. I think this is a product of hypersensitivity more than anything. Everyone's worried about racism, so they invent it where it isn't. Had both players been white, nobody would be saying "they're not accurately representing the football team." In fact, in guessing the football team is 85% black, so the fact that they showed two pictures of black football players in a story about the football team isn't that surprising. Nonetheless, now everyone will go back to walking on eggshells for the next few months.

Work pulled another crazy ploy out of their ass the other day. They're planning on remodeling our entire office, and to do so they need everyone out. 3 days off for us, right? Well, not really. People are being forced to use personal time for the time they're out of the office. Well, I suppose that everyone could just not get paid for those days. But the timing of the thing is the worst part. It's Jan. 3-5, right after the holidays. People have already put in for their time off during the holidays, so they don't have a lot of extra days off to use. Plus, everyone will have just spent all their money on christmas shopping, so they can't really afford to not be getting paid. Just seems a bit ridiculous to me. Of course this doesn't affect me, because I'm one of the few select people who will be required to work out of a closet during the move. No big deal, I'd rather work than anything else. I can't afford to waste any days off right now, what with the wedding and stuff coming up this summer.

I guess that the Cubs are next in line to win the world series now....Red Sox snapped their 86 year "curse" and now the White Sox are going to win for the first time since 1917. By the way, curse is another word for "not as good as the teams that won." Although someone actually did put a curse on the Cubs. It's a fascinating story involving a goat. Look it up if you want. And the Angels did build their stadium on an indian burial ground, and then won nothing forever. But that ended, so I can't exactly blame the great spirits for keeping my team down anymore. I can just blame Doug Eddings.

Work....ugh

Work's been a pain in my ass. Yesterday we had a meeting that lasted 2 freaking hours. Basically all our bosses and managers wanted to tell us what a great job we were doing. Then they went over how we're going to reorganize our workspace. Then someone started bitching about how the breakroom was being moved all the way to the other side of the building. It's not like we work at O'Hare Airport or even at Costco. It's not a big freakin building. But everyone starts bitching. Then it turns into "we need someone to buy us more microwaves....we only have 4." 4 microwaves! How is that not enough? Once they exhausted the microwave issue, the conversation turned to people wearing offensive perfumes. I was stunned. One lady went so far as to say that because of her asthma, anyone walking by her desk wearing a strong scent could cause her to have to go home, and then she won't be able to make a living! Are you kidding me? Once they couldn't argue about cologne and perfume, they started attacking the smokers. They demanded that management designate a smoking area. When told that there was a designated smoking area, they demanded that it be moved farther away from the door. What is it with these people?

I was disgusted with the cattiness of these women. Then something happened that got me all fired up, and I had to join in the bitching.

Apparently unlike the rest of the company and most of the free world, our department will not be getting December 26th off this year. That is, unless we can meet 150% of our goal for the year before that date. Not only is this bullshit, but I put in for time off from the 27-31st because I thought that we'd be getting that day off. Now I have to reapply for that monday off as well and hope that I also get approved for that day. Crap. But now, personal reason aside, let me present a few reasons this is the most fucked up thing ever.

* Why set a goal if you're not going to reward people unless they exceed it by 50%? Why not just make that the goal?

* That's nice that we have to set a goal for a year in less than year. Granted it's only 6 days, but say we end up at 149%? Are they going to cave and give us the day off? I doubt it.

* Our goal is a monetary goal. How exactly can we do anything as in patient accounts to bring in money? We can't send out more bills. We can't make people pay. No matter how fast I enter in the payments, I can only enter in what people pay. It's absolute bullshit. We're expected to meet a goal that we have no control over. I actually asked "as a data entry clerk, is there any way possible for me to help us reach this goal?" The answer was no. So why is it a goal? What incentive to I have to work hard? So fucked up. I'm absolutely irate at the way this department is run.

Anyone who knows anyone in Oregon had to be freaking out when they heard that the Powerball winner was from the state. Then I remembered the lottery rule: Only people who are already rich or who are complete backwoods yokels win the lottery. Lo and Behold, the winner hails from tiny Jacksonville, Oregon. Whoever won can now buy that entire town and rename it PowerBall.

To give you an idea of how much money $340 million is, I learned yesterday that Samaritan Health Services total net worth is $320 million. That includes all the hospitals, all the equipment....everything. You could buy an entire health care NETWORK, and still have enough money left over to get a football stadium named after you. That's some serious cheddar.

For my first post in a week and a half, I feel pretty good. I need to do this more often. Don't you agree? ;)

The other shoe drops....

Way back in 1997, I was watching the National League Championship Series with my roommate Steve. We'd been at Oregon State as freshman for about a month or so. We watched as Livan Hernandez set a postseason record for strikeouts in a game, thanks to a generous umpire named Eric Gregg. I remember laughing hysterically with each ridiculous strike he called. One after another, Braves hitters shook their head in disgust, unable to tell themselves to swing at what were so obviously balls. Obvious to everyone that is except Eric Gregg. Steve was just pissed that an umpire was taking over the game in such a fashion. I, on the other hand, loved it because it meant the Braves were getting jobbed.

I got what was coming to me tonight. Eight years later, what went around came back.

For those of you who didn't see, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Kelvim Escobar threw strike three to AJ Persynzinksziksi or however you spell it. Josh Paul catches the ball, the umpire signals strike three, then raises his hand into the traditional sign for "out." Paul lobs the ball back to the mound and the Angels start exiting to field to take their ups in the top of the 10th. However, AJ starts running towards first, as if it were a dropped third strike. He gets to first, and the umpire makes no signal whatsoever. An argument ensues, but nothing comes of it. Play continues in the bottom of the ninth. A pinch runner, stolen base, and RBI double later, the Angels have lost and the series is tied 1-1.

Now, I'm not so mad that the umpire thought the ball may have hit the ground. Doug Eddings is not perfect. I do not expect miracles behind the plate. What I do expect, however, is to make a call and stick with it. Don't call a guy out, then let him run to first, say you didn't call him out, and let the game resume. It doesn't work like that. Imagine if a referee in football signaled that a guy stepped out of bounds. Only the guy keeps running and scores a touchdown because the defense saw the referee make call and stopped. The guy gets to the end zone, where the referee now signals touchdown. This is not how it works.

In an interview after the game, Josh Paul, the Angels catcher, said that in that particular situation, umpires usually yell "no catch" if the ball has hit the ground. Doug Eddings did not do this. In fact, Doug Eddings really did nothing, and waited to see what would come of it. That's not an umpires job. The umpires don't get to wait and see what happens, then make a call after the fact. On a 3-2 pitch, you don't wait until the guy starts running to first to decide it must've been ball four. You make the call. Basically, Doug Eddings crapped his pants, and the Angels happened to be in his pants on this particular night. Way to go Doug.

I'm not saying that the Angels would've won. We had 4 measly hits, and it took a homerun by a mediocre player just to tie up the game for us. But Escobar had struck out 5 hitters in 3 innings and nobody was even close to touching him. Really what Dougy did was take the game out of the players hands. Imagine the game was a see-saw, with the win sitting in the middle. For 8 innings and 5 outs, it was pretty level. Then Doug went and sat next to the White Sox, pushing the Angels up in the air, and allowing the win to make its way to the White Sox a little easier.

But perhaps the thing that bothered me most after the game, was seeing the umpires press conference. While the crew chief and umpiring coordinator looked serious and a little tired, Doug is sitting there with the goofy ass grin on his face, as if he's ENJOYING all the attention he's getting. It's been said that the best umpires and officials are the ones you don't know, because all they do is what they're supposed to do. Nobody knew who Phil Luckett was until the heads-tails game. Nobody knew who Eric Gregg was until Livan Hernandez struck out 800 hitters. The only NBA referee I know on sight (other than the chick) is Steve Javie, and that's only because he is on such a power trip that he hands out technical fouls like he's the God damned Easter Bunny.

Hope you're happy Doug. You're a household name now. However, I've got a few more household names for you:

Lorena Bobbit
Jeffrey Dahmer
Adolf Hitler
Milli Vanilli
Tonya Harding
Keanu Reeves
Steve Bartman
Bill Buckner

FUDE!!!!!!

Trucks and titles?

So this week was pretty much like every other week. Work was uneventful. In fact, it was painfully slow. Monday we had to stay an extra hour and a half, but Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we were done with all our data entry pretty much by lunch. That sucked, because then we become work sluts, whoring ourselves out to whomever we can find that hasn't got all their stuff done. Tuesday I took old files out of a file cabinet, put them in boxes, labeled the boxes, then put the boxes ON TOP OF THE FILE CABINET. I moved these files all of six f*cking inches. That's not productive, that's busy work. The explaination for this mindless work was that now we have room to put the new files in the cabinet. I don't understand why we just don't put the new files in boxes as they come in. Seems like it elminates the whole file cabinet fiasco in the first place. Wednesday I had to pull urgent care forms and file those. Thursday I got to pull EOBs (Explanation of Benefit sheets) for the analysts. Freaking joke. I'm worried that if it stays slow, I'm going to end up doing everyone elses work while they slack off, knowing that they've got help coming every afternoon.


Then comes Friday. Friday is always a busy day, because we get a lot of stuff on Fridays. I had to enter this 298 page voucher into the computer. Roughly 500 entries. Well I get all done entering this thing in, and I'm off by one freakin penny. So I had to search through every single entry to find my one penny error. That slowed me way down. Took me all damn morning. Well then I go to lunch, and wouldn't you know it, my truck dies in the Arby's parking lot. Brown Sugar would not be coaxed back to life. Keep in mind that I only have a half an hour lunch. So I had to walk down to Les Schwab to see if they'd help me. They were like "sounds like a starter problem, we don't do starters." All I wanted was for one of their guys to walk the one block to Arby's and take a look and let me know what they thought. I mean, I figured they'd know more than I would. I finally convince the guy to come take a look, but the jackass says "we'll have someone there in 20-30 minutes." It's a two minute walk! Sudden service my ass. Those bastards will jog out to a car to meet you in the parking lot (at least in the commercials), but you want them to walk a block to look at a truck and it's going to take them half an hour. Assholes.

So I walk back to the truck, called work and left a message (apparently everyone else was on lunch too) and tried to sweet talk Sug into starting. After 10 minutes of cranking, she finally started. She sounded sick, she sounded cranky, but she started, bless her 500,000+ mile heart. Made it back to work a half an hour late, but it only delayed us by about 15 minutes and I was out the door in plenty of time to watch the Angels game.

Speaking of the Angels, I'm still a little upset at Mike Scioscia for pinch hitting for Juan Rivera (batting .500 in the series!) in the ninth inning of game one and then pinch running for him in the seventh of game two, but my anger is eased by a 2-1 lead in the series. I said last night that I thought we'd win if we could knock Johnson out before the seventh inning. As he walked off the field after 3+ innings to a chorus of boos from the Bronx faithful trailing 5-0, I felt pretty good. But, as Joe Morgan said "Any Angel fan who thinks they've got this game wrapped up, it's never easy at Yankee Stadium." True to form, by the 5th inning it was 6-5 Yankees. Then the feeble Yankees bullpen showed up. 11 runs and 19 hits later, the Angels had a 2 to 1 series lead. Gotta feel good about that.

Game 4 is today, but I agreed to go to the coast with Rachel for the fall kite festival in Lincoln City today. They're just going to have to go get a series clinching win without my support today. I will be wearing my jersey to the coast today though. I owe Rachel a big one anyway. She's had to put up with my family and friends coming down and squatting on the couches for football the last three weekends. That's worth at least one missed playoff game.

Ok, this is getting a little longwinded, so I'm gonna wrap it up for the time being.

"Carpe Diem!"
"What's that mean?"
"Seize the Carp!"

~Out Cold

Girl you can pick a field full of daisies......

.....but he's always gonna be my baby.


Ok, so the song is written by a girl, but I still like it. The song's called "He Loves U Not" by Dream. I picked the song because the dream I had last night was so strange, I felt compelled to write about it in my blog.

It starts with me Rachel and me having an argument, something that rarely happens in real life. We were arguing about what movie to see. I was adamant that I would not see any movie with the word "boys" or "girls" in the title. I was spouting off crappy movies such as "boys on the side," "for the boys," "boys don't cry," "girls don't cry, they get even," and so on. Nevermind that Bad Boys is one of my favorite movies. This was my logic. So she got mad, and went to see some movie with her Asian friend that she doesn't have. So I went to the mall. I have no clue why. While I'm at the mall, I run into my buddy Vince. We're talking, and I'm like "hey I'm going to meet Rachel, and she's with an Asian girl." Vince has always had a thing for Asians (he married one) so he's like "alright let's go!" So we go meet Rachel and her friend at the friend's house. She has a dog the size of Scooby Doo with a little pug dog's head. Anyways, we all pile into Rachel's car and drive to the Colorado Rockies game in Denver. And she's making U-Turns in the middle of Harrison Street and driving like a swarm of bees just flew in the window. Anyways, the trip to Denver only took about 6 minutes. Somehow, once we get to Coors Field, I'm all alone. I don't really seem to care though, probably because I'm at a major league baseball game. Well there's a bench clearing brawl that involves Preston Wilson slapping Jeromy Burnitz at second base. How two outfielders ended up at second base at the same time is beyond me. Anyways, the game is called due to the slapfest, and as I'm exiting the stadium, I run into these two girls. One of them is Heidi Peters, the other one I don't know. They're asking why the game was called off. I say "because they were afraid Burnitz was going to retaliate." This other girl goes "ohhhh, I thought it was because that girl over there is stuck in the salsa." I turn around, and there's a concession girl waist deep in a garbage can full of salsa. As I'm trying to figure this out, a guy that looks like Jonathan Silverman walks up and taps me on the hip and asks if he can get the time. I say "7:30, now give me back my wallet." The guy is already walking away at a fast rate. So I start chasing him through the concourse. He takes off, then stops and goes "alright you caught me, here's your wallet and keys." and throws them on the ground at my feet. I'm like "thanks man, I'm glad you saw the light." So I bend down to pick up my wallet and keys, and it's an empty wallet and someone else's keys! I look up again, and the guy is long gone. I got suckered by a pickpocket (who looks like Jonathan Silverman no less) in my own dream!

Who dreams of themselves getting scammed?

Bring on the rain..

Fall is officially here...it's rained pretty much constantly since Saturday. Not that I'm complaining....it's an excuse to wear sweatpants and sweatshirts and curl up on the couch and watch tv or play Xbox. Not that I really need an excuse to do any of those things, but it's easier to justify I guess.


I'd like to point out that before the Baseball season started, I picked who I thought would make the playoffs. I'd like to point out that I got three AL teams, and two NL. 63% ain't bad. I'm sticking with my Angels-Cardinals World Series. My ALCS is going to be Red Sox and Angels and my NLCS is Cards and Braves. So there ya go. And high five to Fox for scheduling the Angels game at 5 tomorrow night so I can watch it.

JR came down for the game this weekend. It was a lot of fun to hang out with him. Joel get's minus 100 points for calling in sick with a hangover and missing a great game - not to mention a rare chance for the three of us to all hang out at the same time. He can redeem himself by going to Seattle with us for the Husky game next month.

I'm still a little bitter about this whole car situation. I'm still driving Brown Sugar to work everyday, and I'm the only one making payments on the credit card for the Mustang. It doesn't so much bother me that I don't get to drive the Mustang, but it'd be nice if Grant and Dad would help me out a little bit. It's a little tough to pay for student loans, credit cards, rent, bills and a wedding. But hey, I guess i just gotta do what I gotta do.

Happy Birthday to Rachel's sister, Colleen. She's 22 today. And, she got an internship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Pretty cool.

My fantasy football team took a nosedive this weekend. After torching everyone for 71 points last week, my team has produced a meager 43 points yesterday, leaving me down 11. That means I pretty much need Brett Favre to throw 4 picks and the Carolina Defense to pitch a shutout tonight on MNF for me to win. The one catch is that the guy I'm up against has Stephen Davis on his team, so he needs to either get hurt, or fumble about 3 times. Yes, I'm a geek, I take it personally when my team loses. I'm not complaining, but if Cadillac Williams didn't have to shut it down with a sore hammy yesterday, and Terry Glenn had caught Bledsoe's throw for a TD on the last play of the game yesterday, I'm sitting pretty. But those are the breaks, and why we play the games.

The wedding locations are now set. July 7, 2006 at 6 pm at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Corvallis, with a reception to follow at the Corvallis Country Club. The guy at the country club told us that they had room for 250 people, which is more than enough, but when we got there, a sign on the wall said "Maximum capacity for this area 111 persons." We questioned him about it, and he said "oh that doesn't pertain to this WHOLE area, just a part of it." Whatever...it might be a little cozy, but we'll make it work. Might make it easier for the single people at our wedding to hook up. We'll see.

Saw the movie Robots the other day.....not the best movie I've ever seen, but it had some pretty funny parts. At the end of the movie when all the robots are doing (what else) "the robot" I just about lost it. Now that's comedy folks!

Props to ABC Family for showing "Flight of the Navigator" yesterday.....classic classic movie. Although I remembered Max as being hilarious when I was younger. Now his voice just annoys me. He was more enjoyable before he scanned Davey's brain and talked like the emotionless computer he was. And who knew that Sarah Jessica Parker was in that movie?

Ok I'm out...enjoy your Monday night. And if you get a chance, watch "How I met your Mother" on CBS. Pretty interesting show.

The Baltimore Bounce

Well, I'm back from the east coast, and had a great time....a quick recap:

Thursday we flew from Portland to Houston to Baltimore. Basically flew in a "U" shape. Took us all damn day to get there. We got to see "Kicking and Screaming" and "Monster in Law" on the flights, but I had a book and didn't feel like shelling out $5 to watch a movie I'd already seen and one I didn't really care to. Finished reading 1776 by the time we got to Baltimore. Good book, but tough to read unless you have no distractions. It's just so loaded with information, you have to pay full attention. I learned a lot about the Revolutionary War that I didn't previously know, and the whole book I was like "I know we win this war, but I'm not really sure how we did it." Of course, General George pulls us out in the end. That's why the guy's on the dollar bill.

Heidi picked us up at the airport, nearly t-boning a taxi as she pulled up to the curb. Talk about hilarity. Jerked wheels, scared faces, angry cabbies...laughing Andy and Rachel. After dinner at Bennigans, we headed to Heidi's home. When you think inner city.....that's where Heidi lives. She very possibly could be the only white person on the whole block. There were rats the size of my dad's girlfriend's dog roaming the streets at night, and police helicopters shining spotlights on the streets all night. I don't think we're in Corvallis anymore, Toto. Heidi sleeps with a hammer by her bed, and I can't say that I blame her. That being said, her place is actually pretty nice. Small, but nice. Good location too, like 15-20 minutes from literally everything in Baltimore.

Friday we got up early and took the train into DC. Rachel had never been there, so I was pushing hard to take her there. Plus, now that I'd read 1776, I was feeling all patriotic. I really wish public transportation was as good on the west coast as it is on the east coast. I know it'll never work as well because everything's so spread out here, but maybe someday. Anyways, after a 50 minute train ride, we were in the nation's capitol. This nice old man (who talked to me literally the entire trip about his failing eyesight and his friend that he met online and his wife in the retirement home and where he was when Kennedy got shot) told us that all the monuments were within walking distance of Union Station, so we just started walking. And we kept walking. It was humid as hell and about 90 degrees. Rachel blew out her flip-flop and as a result had blisters like you wouldn't believe on her feet. Poor kid. Thank goodness Heidi had the foresight to bring an extra pair of flips or we might've had a real situation on our hands. I was pretty sure the Capitol building didn't have flip flops in the gift shop. Our 5 and half hours in Washington were pretty action packed. Saw the Wright Flyer, the Hope Diamond, The constitution and declaration, dinosaur bones, most of the monuments, etc. A few quotes from other tourists:

Lady: I thought John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence. How come I don't see his signature?
Security Guard: Because this is the Constitution. The Declaration is over there.

Overheard in the dinosaur exhibit at the smithsonian as a lady stares at a brontosaurus bone....
"What the hell is this?" Obviously this lady is not a golfer. (That's a Big Lebowski reference for those of you who don't get it)

Guess they're right, there aren't any smart people in Washington.

I took a few pictures there, which I will post on my bebo site. I wanted to take a picture of the declaration, but I was afraid that I'd accidentally use the flash and forever be known as the guy who destroyed the most famous document in american history. I didn't really think moving to Canada was worth the gamble.

Then we hopped the train back to Baltimore in time to shower before the Orioles game. Camden Yards is pretty nice....I liked the layout of the stadium a lot. Sadly I didn't realize that it was "Dollar Dog Night" until after I'd payed $7.50 for the biggest cheesesteak I've ever seen. Oh well. Orioles got stomped by Tampa Bay 6-1. After four batters, the Orioles were already down 2-0 with runners at the corners. So guess when you take that into account, 6-1 isn't so bad.

Saturday we were planning on going to see the Baltimore Aquarium, which is amazing from what I hear, but we were so tired from Friday's events, that we decided to take it easy. Which was fine with me, I got to watch the Beaver game on ESPN. Sadly, we got stomped. Kind of saw that one coming, so I wasn't too disappointed. Then we headed to Diana's wedding.

Diana's wedding was really nice. Nice church, nice ceremony, nice everything. A friend of hers was the vocalist for the wedding, and she was amazing. Fantastic singer. Rachel and were debating getting her drunk and becoming friends with her so we could get her for our wedding. At the reception, the food was excellent and then the dance began. Rachel+alcohol+dancing=fun for all. She even made up a dance that was dubbed the Baltimore bounce. It's one of the strangest dances of all time, but extremely funny. By the end of the dance, I was sweating so much I had soaked through my shirt. I literally danced so much that the collar of my shirt gave me a rash on my neck.

Then Sunday came all to fast and it was time to head home. We flew from Baltimore to Newark where we got to the gate just in time to hear our flight was overbooked. Not having anything to do yesterday, we volunteered to take a later flight, in exchange for $300 vouchers towards a future flight and meal money for the day. Then we settled in for 8 hours in New Jersey. Watched a little football, read two Dan Brown books (the ones not titled The DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons) and walked all over the C terminal. The cool thing is that we had a view out the window of the New York City skyline the whole day. When our flight finally took off at 5pm, we flew right next to the Statue of Liberty, another national monument Rachel had never seen. All in all a fantastic trip....aside from the fact that they showed Kicking and Screaming on the flight home as well. I guess it could've been worse - Grant once saw Mr. Holland's Opus on four consecutive flights.

Daily musings

A few random things from today:


*I think there's too many reality shows when there's a reality show about finding someone to star in a reality show....that's just a bit overboard.

*If you wonder why people make low wages at fast food restaurants, consider the sign at Arby's in Corvallis right now that says "Your thinking 2 beef n' cheddar for $3."

*I just checked my bank account. Borders apparently only charged me $4.25 for seasons one and two of "The King of Queens." Retail price of $79.98. That's a savings of $75.73, or roughly 95% off. It's not in the "pending transactions" list either, so apparently that is what the price is going to stay at. SCORE!

*Diana has name cards at all the settings at her wedding reception. Only problem is that she didn't know Heidi's last name. So she decided to make one up. Heidi Jones is now Heidi Hill. A few things seem funny to me....number one, she could've called Rachel to find out Heidi's last name. I will give her a pass on this since she is getting married in less than a week. But how in the blue hell do you come up with Hill? There's like umpteen more common last names than Hill (Jones being one of them).

*I went to the fridge to get some milk today, only to find that we were out of milk. I thought to myself "how come everytime I want a glass of milk, we don't have any?" Then I realized that I almost always want a glass of milk, so the odds are good that I'm going to want a glass of milk everytime we're out. Solution? Buy more milk.

*I think that was a Lasselle thought.

*Scoop Jackson's column where he wrote a letter to Jeff Kent on how to deal with black athletes is one of the most absurd things I've ever read. I think my favorite part was where he said something along the lines of "I'm glad you were able to get past your spat with Barry Bonds, but then again he's not really one of us." Can you imagine if Woody Paige would've wrote a letter to Terrell Owens saying how great it is that he has Drew Rosenhaus as his agent, but then again, "he's not really white?"

I ain't as good as I once was....

So this weekend, the guys came down for the Boise St. football game. Well, most of the guys. Grant, Dave, Steve and Garth were here. We were missing JR and Joel. The plan is to get everyone together to go to Seattle for the Husky game in November. Hopefully we'll be able to put that together.


It really was one of the better weekends I've had lately. The game was amazing. I had a little bit of everything. Thunder and lightning, dime sized hail, torrential rains, some sunshine.....oh, and the Beavs won 30-27 on a field goal with one minute to go. Thankfully, our seats were undercover. I haven't yelled that much at a football game since probably the Fiesta Bowl in 2001. My throat still hurt today. Poor Garth was so overwhelmed by the yelling that he had tears in his eyes the whole second half and spent every free second with his head in his hands to ease his headache. I posted some pics of the game on my bebo website, which you can access by going to the "pictures for your viewing pleasure" link on the left.

After the game we grilled some steaks and headed out to the bars. It really was like being back in college, only I kept thinking "wow, are these people really old enough to drink?" and I was so wiped out Sunday I could barely move. We went to Shari's and I got a Barn Buster platter. I swear it was like I was 22 again....ah the memories. I know Rachel gets a little stressed out when there's a bunch of guys hanging around the apartment watching football and drinking all weekend (and I guess I can't blame her), but I appreciate the fact that she allows it to happen every once in a while.

Speaking of Rachel, the wedding plans are coming along slowly. We've nailed down a date...July 7, 2006. We decided to go with a Friday wedding to allow us to have our wedding in the evening. Plus, now our wedding will be on 7-7 which is significant because my birthday is August 8th (8-8) and Rachel's birthday is on September 9th (9-9). Kinda cool. We still haven't figured out a place for the reception. We're looking at a few places. Rachel's got an appointment to see Lewisberg Hall next week when we get back from Baltimore.

That's all I got for now.....Have a good week!

Priests and Panic Attacks

So we met with Father John last night...what a great guy.


He's like the most enthusiastic person ever. Everything has to be the best for him. He's all excited about the opportunity to marry us. I'll let him. It'll be a great ceremony.

He did give us the ol' speech on not living together and how the church frowns on it. He said that he just wanted to make sure that there was that specialness to our wedding that things would be different from that point on and that we wouldn't be returning to the "same ol' same ol'." I see his point, but I don't agree with it. There's no doubt in my mind that marrying Rachel will be the most important and exciting moment of my life. Although it was a bit disturbing when he said that we should live like "brother and sister" for the next year......

Scary thing of the day....hadn't heard from my friend Steve for about a week. Not normally a big deal, but when he just goes AWOL for a football game that I bought him a ticket to, you start to wonder. So I did what any friend would do when his buddy is not answering his cell phone......I googled him.

First thing that comes up "Stephen Cooney dies when he car slams into an embankment." No joke. I just about shit myself. Turns out that there's a surfer named Stephen Cooney in Hawaii. Feel bad for him, but very thankful that it wasn't "my" Steve.

My job is slowly sucking the life from me. It gets just a little more tedious every day. I'm almost positive that I'm going to have to go back to school here in the future...I can't work office jobs for the rest of my life....I'll end up with "office worker body." Think every secretary you've ever known. They always have more ass than seat cushion. No thanks. I'm close enough as it is.

OC Season 3 starts tomorrow.....who's with me?

Holy busy bee Batman!


I feel like I haven't sat down at the computer for a good ol type in months. Really I sit at a computer for at least 8 hours a day, but I don't type much. I use the ol' 10 number thingy over there on the right. A LOT. My new job pretty much blows. I'm the only male in Patient Financial Services......out of 140. Yup.......the male to female ration in my department is Andy:139. Ri-goddamn-diculous. And most of them are over the hill....and not just cresting the top if you know what I mean. The ones that are roughly my age are on their second marriages or supporting 3 kids or just plain crazy. My favorite are the late 20's/early 30's girls that have kids and are just a little too old to go clubbing but still think they can. Monday lunches are the best because they talk about dropping their kids off at their ex'es house before doing jell-o shots and dancing on the coffee tables. Yup, these are my co-workers.

Pretty much my job blows. But it's got full medical/vision/dental and pretty good time off packages. Plus they don't get pissed if I work a little overtime here and there. So I'll deal with it for now. Just mark my words that it's not permanent.

It's a good thing I'm marrying Rachel. I'm pretty sure that she'll have the entire wedding planned, booked, and ready to go by November. It's amazing. She's like a machine. I really don't have to do anything except find tuxes and make sure everyone shows up on time. That's a joke....I'm sure I'll help make invitations, or at least write the addresses on envelopes or something. It's really true that girls start planning this day on their sixth birthday.....she's already got a plan and all I have to do is help her implement it.

We meet with Father John from St. Mary's Catholic Church tomorrow to discuss the wedding. This should be interesting. I'm sure we're prime candidates for a Catholic marriage, what with me not being Catholic, us living together in sin and all that good stuff. Rachel really likes Father John though. He's a great speaker and very entertaining. Rumor has it he used to be a Broadway singer. Only thing that concerns me is that he's barely taller than Rachel. I'm going to be at an altar with 5'1 Rachel and 5'4 Father John? I'm going to look like Andre the Giant up there with those two. Thank goodness two of my groomsmen are going to be 6'5.

Football season is here now. I love football season. Every weekend is a holiday pretty much. Every gameday is an excuse to hang out with all your friends and bbq. If the game's on the road, find a big tv and get everyone together. It's like a bonding thing.

I never wrote an entry about Hurricane Katrina, though most nobody else did either. This has to be one of the most awful things that has ever happened in our country. I'm amazed that people are refusing to leave their homes though. I don't understand why you'd want to stay in a flooded house and just wait for people to come by every day and drop food at your front door. It's absolutely mind boggling.

I'm also a little irritated that everyone seems to think that this tragedy is being amplified by mismanagement. It's not like these people weren't told to evacuate. Granted some of them just didn't have the means to. But it's not like the gov't could've parked the buses by the superdome the day before the hurricane and had them ready to go as soon as the storm cleared. I've never tried, but I imagine trying to find enough food to feed 20,000 people, much less ship it and distribute it, takes a few days. Not to mention organizing manpower to get it into a city that's 80% underwater. And can you imagine what would've happened if they'd run down there with enough granola bars for 8,000 people? the 12,000 who didn't get anything would've gone absolutely crazy. There's no way to make a situation like this run smoothly. There's no way to minimize the damage. Nobody's intentionally neglecting people here. Nobody wants to be known as the guy who "let" 10,000 Americans die. Nobody's doing that. I fully believe that everyone is doing the best they can to deal with this. Well, everyone except the people roaming the streets of New Orleans looting and raping and shooting people. That's just sad......very sad.

Ok I'm done with that. I'm tired. Goodnight y'all. Have a good short week.

We have a webpage!

To learn about our wedding, go here!


http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/RachelPersinger&AndyLasselle

Ladies and other ladies: Andy is off the market!

Sorry about the long delay folks. Today is really the first chance I've had to get near a computer since last Monday. So what have I been up to? Well I'm glad you asked......


Rachel's parents, sister and aunt and uncle have been visiting from Wisconsin. We took them on a whirlwind tour of Oregon, taking them through the Gorge to Multnomah Falls and Hood River, down to Crater Lake and over to the coast to experience the sand dunes in Florence and a few days of relaxation at my grandparent's beach house in Lincoln City. All told, we racked up 1500 miles on the rental van in 8 days. Pretty impressive if you ask me. It's been a good week, but also a little tiring and I've had little time to recover before starting my new job tomorrow morning. All that's great, but the big news is......

I asked Rachel to marry me, and she said yes!!!

It certainly wasn't the easiest thing for me to do. Asking her dad was tough. I could never really get him alone, and then one time I had to abort my mission when he asked me "so when did your parents get divorced?" I figured that I'd better shelve the marriage talk until a later date. But I finally did ask him, he said yes, and then Rachel did too, at Boiler Bay on the coast. We're planning the wedding for next summer....July 1 unless something unexpected comes up in the next week or two here.

So yay!

Week of Hugeness

This week is massive.....let me just tell y'all what I got going on.


* Today is my birthday. That's right. Snuck up on most of you didn't it? I'm 26 now, which is way to old to be writing an online journal, but what the hell.

*Tomorrow I get a new cell phone. My old one is just too fragile, and I got insurance on the thing so I could get a new one, right? I'm kind of sad to be abandoning the slider for a regular ol' phlip phone, but such is life.

*Friday is my last day at my job. I'll be sad to leave the people, but not sad to see my paycheck increase by 25%! Plus I get paid bi-weekly now instead of monthly. Boo-ya!

*Friday is also the day that Rachel's parents come to visit, which means Saturday will be the day our parents meet for the first time. That oughta be a doozy.

I'm sure there's more stuff, but those are the highlights. I'll keep you posted.

Steriods and a case of the Mondays

Learning that Raffy tested positive really surprised me. Being the optimist that I am, I had to believe that Palmeiro was clean. If he gets in front of congress and flatly denies taking steriods while the rest of his peers refuse to answer questions or pretend they don't speak the language, well that stands for something. Besides, anyone who looks that much like Bernie from the Weekend at Bernie's series has to be legit.


So yesterday was a sad day for me. If one of the supposed good guys is dirty, who's to say that they all aren't dirty. Afterall, until last year, steroids weren't even illegal in baseball. Nobody tested, there was no repercussion for doing it. So why not? Aside from the obvious moral reasons. But you gotta remember that some of these guys have 250 million reasons not to listen to Jimminy Cricket on their shoulder. Would you stick a needle in your ass for a quarter of a billion dollars? You can do a lot of good with that money.

That was just the start of my crummy day. I was an absolute idiot at work yesterday, forgetting things I normally don't, and just basically operating at about a 75% efficiency level. The highlight was probably when the pager I have to wear went off, and I had no clue what it was. This lady is like "what is that noise?" I replied "I have no clue, but it sure is loud." She looks at me extremely confused and says, I think it's coming from you." I look down this little black box on my waist which is blinking. "Yup," I say, "it's me." THAT'S not embarrasing or anything. After lunch, I totally spaced out and drove my truck back to the loading dock. All these people are looking at me like "who is this guy?" Yeah, not cool. Then I had to deal with all sorts of traffic craziness on the courier run, highlighted by A CRATE OF LIGHTBULBS falling out the back of a truck and exploding all over the road. That caused a pretty hefty delay.

And now I will list 10 things that will always make me smile, no matter what.

* The Jack in the Box commercial where Jack says "do you know who I am?" and the girl working the counter says "Yeah....you're the hungry guy with no Jack Cash Card!"

* Mo Money Mo Problems....what a good song.

* A really good cheeseburger

* Super Troopers

* Seeing someone try and push a door that needs to be pulled.

* Someone burning their tires at a stoplight - is that really necessary?

* Making a nice move to score in a basketball game and hearing someone say "how can you not guard a guy that big and slow?" It happens more often than you'd think.

* At the beginning of the video for Usher's "Yeah" when there is a scene of a club and all of a sudden a crazed Lil' Jon jumps into the screen wearing camoflauge and holding a goblet and screams "yeah!"

* Actually, Lil' Jon deserves his own entry.

* Getting sent home from work early.

That's all I got today.

By the way, Mariah Carey making a comeback? She's still crazy, but these last two songs she's put out are great. She hasn't been this good since she was making songs with Ol' Dirty Bastard. "Me and Mariah, go back to when we had pacifiers......" Sure Bastard, sure ya do.

What you gonna do with all that junk?

Well, after several months of pussyfooting around with Sam Health, they finally decided to hire me. Although it's not for the job I wanted, it is still for a job that pays a little better than 25% more than what I'm currently making, so I'm not going to complain. I still think their HR department needs to be gutted. I applied for that job over 2 months ago....close to three. But it all works out well. Now I'll be able to take that entire week that Rachel's parents are here off before starting....woo ha! Way to work the system. Ok, I must admit, it was Rachel's idea, so all the props go to her.


Most people look forward to summers. Warm weather, weekends filled with camping and hanging out by a body of water. I spend my weekends in a tractor. Yes it is once again time for me to satisfy the agricultural jones inside me and hop behind the wheel of a John Deere 4440 tractor and spend my weekend driving around in circles for 12 hours a day, baling hay. And strangely enough, I'm looking forward to it. Really throws a kink into my fun though, I'm going to have to nix a trip to Brookings with Steve next weekend to bale, but oh well.

Rachel and I also secured our first legitimate "couple friends" in Cory and Amy. The four of us went mini golfing last night and then got some ice cream. A good time was had by all. Naturally, Rachel won, as she normally does at mini golf. Michelle Wie, watch your ass.

I got nothing else. It's bloody hot, and I'm begging for an eighty degree day. That'd be nice.

Remember when Jerry Rice was the best receiver in football? Neither does he.

Remember when Ken Griffey Jr. said he'd never play for the Yankees? Neither does he.

Sports is a funny world.

Been too long

I've been slacking. I know. I apologize. It's been a combination of it being hot and not spending as much time indoors (hanging out at the pool, etc), working full time now, the purchase of college football 2006 for the Xbox, and just general lack of enthusiasm for writing lately.


Last night I went to Red Robin with a bunch of people from work. It was a good time. It's nice to make new friends. Not that I'm abandoning my old friends at all, just it's nice to have some friends that live in town. Hopefully we can make this a regular thing, all of us going out to eat.

Work is still going well.....I'm hoping that when our lead leaves in a month or so, they'll promote me. I think I'm definitely qualified to be the lead, but I will admit that I have a problem being "professional." Especially in a job as mundane as medical records. If you're not having fun, that job would blow. So I like to have fun. Unfortunately, fun is not synonomous with professional. Despite the fact that I have some of the highest productivity numbers and overall knowledge of anyone there, I think they'll hesitate. Their loss though.....it's only a matter of time before I finally land a job elsewhere that pays something respectable.

The Angels beat the Yankees last night thanks to the Black Genie's grand slam. As much as that guy drives me insane with his swing-so-hard your-helmet-falls-off-and-you miss-the-changeup-by-nine-feet hitting approach, suspect fielding and third grade education (yes that's a fact. He's barely literate in English and Spanish. Hence the fact he rarely does an interview.) He is extremely clutch. He deserved to be the MVP last year. He singlehandedly carried the Angels to the playoffs. Yet I still find it hard to cheer for the guy. And I will never forgive him for sitting out after getting hit in the non throwing arm by a ball thrown from third to second while running. Suck it up.

SportsCenter's 50 states in 50 days gimmick is a good one. I find myself watching just for the random facts about Idaho and Alaska. For instance, it's illegal to throw a live moose from a moving plane in Alaska. You don't hear that stuff on the regular SportsCenter.

Highlights of the summer so far: Fourth of July weekend at the beach with Rachel, Vince's wedding in Jacksonville.

Predicted future highlights: OSU football season opener at revamped stadium, Diana's wedding in Baltimore, Rachel's family coming to visit.

Biggest downer of the summer: Finding out a friend had skin cancer removed from her arm the other day. Please don't ask me who, I'm don't feel comfortable telling people without her permission. And I'm not going to ask "hey is it ok to tell people you have cancer?"

Little highlight of the day......finding out my speeding ticket was reduced from $201 to $106.

Little highlight of the day #2...getting sent home from work 2 hours early.

And now a question.....say you're stuck in an elevator alone with a totally attractive person of the opposite sex. You just ate a chili-dog, or some other stomach-turning delicacy. You know that passing gas is inevitable, if not imminent. Do you A) Just wait til it happens, then pretend like you don't know what happened and blame it on burning grease on the elevator cables, B) Do the deed and then apologize, or C) Politely warn them ahead of time that you've got a bad case of the bubble-guts and apologize in advance, or D) Challenge them to a farting contest, with the winner getting $100?

Argh

Well I went over to Good Sam (again) to see what the deal was on that job I applied for. I finally got an answer! It was no. Apparently what happened was that patient financial services wanted to hire me, and HR wouldn't let them because I had no medical billing experience. So basically the people I would've been working for thought I was competent enough for the job, but someone who'd never met me wouldn't let them hire me because I "did not meet the minimum qualifications." I'm not trying to be a doctor here! I think I could learn medical billing in a matter of weeks. Absurd! The worst part is that it took them two months to tell me this. I asked about that, and the lady gave me some song and dance about how they're in the process of switching their applications from paper to electronic and "sometimes people get lost in the shuffle." I know I wasn't lost, because she pulled my application right off her f*cking desk! Not in a folder, not buried at the bottom of the pile...it was sitting on her desk pretty much in plain sight. Ridiculous.


In other news, why is it that so many nurses smoke? You'd think they of all people would be aware of the dangers and less likely to smoke. Yet an unusually large proportion of the nurses and medical assistants at the clinic smoke. I don't get it.

I guess there's a lot about this world that doesn't make sense to me.......

Movin' on up!

Well the move is complete. Really only took us a day and a half. We started moving stuff right after work on Friday. Dad and Grant came down to help, and with their help and extra truck, we were able to get mostly everything over here and in the apartment by 9:30. That included a half hour break to eat some pizza. Rachel and I were up 'til one moving stuff around before we quit for the night. The next morning we got up, put some more stuff together and in place before making a trip to Salem. Bed Bath and Beyond here in town didn't have the shower curtain Rachel had been wanting to get for like two months, so we drove to Linen n' Things in Salem. Aparently this was an important purchase. I must admit, it does look pretty good. We also picked up a few lamps for the front room with bear and moose lampshades. I love the woodsy look of our front room. Very cozy.


About 5 pm, we realized we'd left a few things over at our old apartment. The bitch of the thing was that we'd already turned in our keys, and the office was closed for the weekend. I remembered Grant telling me that you could just jiggle the handle on any door in that complex and it'd open. I figured it was worth a shot. So we head over and start jiggling the handle. 10 seconds later, the damn thing popped open. 10 seconds! That made me feel real safe. No point in even having a lock on the door. Might as well have just had screen doors on the place. After reclaiming our misplaced items, we put the finishing touches on our apartment. I really like what we've done with the place. Not only is it bigger, but we're using more of it. In the old place, we had two bedrooms, but we really only used one. The other one sat completely unused. Now we have the computer in the other bedroom, as sort of an office. Taking the computer out of the front room really opens it up.

Ironically, Rachel and I made the master bedroom the office. Yes it's bigger, but the closet also houses the water heater, which severely hampers the amount of space for clothes. So we took the smaller bedroom as our own. All we do is sleep in there anyways, so we don't need a ton of room. I'm excited for people to come over and see what we've done with the place. Just need more friends that actually live in town......

The only bummer is that now I'm close enough to work that I can walk. It's a 20 minute walk, which isn't bad, but it will be when the rains start coming again. It will save me gas, which is huge, but crap....20 minutes in December when it's 38 degrees and I'm walking up a hill? F that. I guess I've got a few months before I have to worry about that.

Well it is monday, so I guess that means I should get dressed and ready for work. Enjoy your week y'all!

Did I just get Tagged?

Reading through my buddies journals today, I noticed that my name appeared on Annie's "tagged" list. I wasn't really sure that I was the Andy in question (you never know, it's a popular name), but I'm bored, so here goes. For everyone's sanity, I'm not "tagging" anyone, but you're all free to insert your answers if you'd like. Or not.

Five Songs I'm diggin right now

1. My List - Toby Keith. Probably his best song, in my opinion.
2. Get Back - Ludacris. Any song that employs the term "Yeek, Yeek" and also uses the ever popular police siren-esque "woop woop" is right up there with me.
3. I Believe in a Thing Called Love - The Darkness. Just because it is awesome.
4. Rollin with MVP - Stagga Lee. I just thought about this song for the first time in forever today, and, well it is a great summer song.
5. O.A.R. - Missing Pieces. Just a fun song. I'd never even heard of these guys before Rachel, but they're pretty cool.

There ya go.

In other news.....

I'm having some issues with my dad right now. You'll remember a few months ago (well you probably won't) the Mustang crapped out. Well I couldn't afford the $2000 it was going to cost to fix it, and neither could Dad. So Dad comes across a credit card I'd signed up for but never activated. So he convinces me (against my better judgement) to activate it and use it to pay for the car repair. So the car gets repaired, Dad says to send him the bill and he'll handle the credit card payments. Fast forward to now.....

......So I gave dad the first bill. He never paid it. I had to call and make an emergency payment at the last second to keep from having a late payment. What's more, I haven't driven the car more than a few times since it was repaired. I've been driving the not so reliable Brown Sugar. This doesn't seem fair to me. The only reason we have a car is because of my credit, which is in danger of being ruined because I can barely afford to pay for anything right now thanks to my crappy job. Now I know that it's a little spoiled of me to expect my dad to pay for repairs on a car that I've driven pretty much since high school. However, this was his idea, and he told me he was going to handle the payments. So I'm not sure what to do. Do I bring all this up with dad, or do I just take it becuase he's helped me out with so much over the years? I'm not sure what to do, so I'm opening it up to my online friends to get an idea of what other people think. Granted, some of you don't know my dad....some of you barely know me. But I'm just interested in y'alls opinions.

London 2012!!

London was awarded the 2012 Olympics.


Which in itself isn't that big of a deal. But when you couple it with what I heard on the news last night, it's pretty funny.

Remember during the 2000 election, when George Bush was caught on tape saying some reporter (I'm sure Joel knows his name) was a "major league asshole?" Well, apparently French president Jacques Chirac was unaware or just forgot that he was wearing a mic when he said of the Brits "we can't trust anyone whose food is so terrible. In fact, the only country with worse food is Finland." Apparently, two of the Olympic selection committee members were Finnish. London won the final vote 54-50. If the Fins had voted the other way, it would've been a 52-52 split. Nice going Jacques. You just cost your country the Olympics.

Why do people do this? Especially people of significance? You spend your entire life in the public eye, and you KNOW this. Do you think I'd be writing about killing Mexicans (note: I do not condone the killing of Mexicans) on my website if I were a public figure? Do you think I'd even swear? It's freaking amazing. When I goof like that, I might get a few dirty looks. Mr. Chirac just endangered the economic future of his country. All because he had to comment on British food. Whoops.

Work loons

You know you work with some strange people when....


One of them voluntarily tells you that her grandfather murdered 4 people and buried them in his backyard.

Yup.

You read that right.

Apparently this girl's granddaddy lives on the Texas-Mexico border. She claims that he shot four Mexicans running across the border in his backyard, then buried them there. Creepy. But then it gets even better (or worse I should say).

She thinks this is ok! She's like "they can't do anything about it because they were in the country illegally." Are you serious? So if something goes wrong with my passport, and I end up in France on vacation technically illegally, it's ok for some Parisian to pop me on the Champs Elysses?

Wow.

I need a new job.

Chicken Turtle?

This weekend was just what the doctor ordered. 3 day weekends are awesome. This was one of those weekends that's so good, you seriously consider calling in sick when you have to go back to work....then quitting when they catch on that you're not really sick.

Rachel and I headed to the beach right after work on Friday. After a quick stop at Quizno's for dinner, we made it to the house around 9:30 or so. Watched a little tv and went to bed. Nothing big.

Saturday we got up and went to Newport to see the turtle exhibit at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. As always, we spent a majority of our time watching the puffins. By far my favorite animal. Those little bastards are so funny. In order to spread their natural oils all over their feathers and fluff them up to keep themselves warm, they engage in this sort of dance that is looks like they're being attacked by a swarm of bees. Lots of flailing and flopping around in the water. I also learned that because they spend a majority of the year out at sea, they have a gland in their beaks that converts sea water to fresh water. It's basically like having a Brita in your nose! Pretty sweet.

The turtles were cool as well. The chicken turtle looks nothing like a chicken, and even less like the cartoon chicken turtle on the billboard. However, the pig-nosed turtle is aptly named, as is the snake-necked turtle. That thing was crazy.

After the aquarium, we drove up to Depoe Bay and walked around. Contemplated taking an hour long whale watching tour, but the sign said "beautiful views and even the occasional whale to boast about." I'm not paying for an occasional whale. You get that damn thing close enough that I can pet it, and we'll talk. Depoe Bay is a quaint little community, but extremely touristy. Every shop has gimmicky t-shirts that say stuff like "If you can read this, pull me back in the boat" on the back or ridiculous driftwood carvings of a whale that cost $100. It's driftwood!

We left Depoe Bay behind and headed to Mo's in Lincoln City for dinner. Our boycott of Mo's only lasted until we got hungry. It seems Mo's is suing Moe's. Mo's is an Oregon original, with seven coastal restaurants. Moe's is a chain out of Atlanta or something that just opened a restaurant in Wilsonville. Apparently Mo's thinks that Moe's is trying to captialize on the Mo's name. Apparently the fact that they're not on the coast, spell their name differently and serve and entirely different style of food means they're trying to trick people into thinking they're somehow related. Give me a break. Rachel and I were both mad about this lawsuit. Just not mad enough to pass up Clam Chowder and Fish n' Chips.

This pretty much concluded our Saturday. All in all a good day. We did go for a walk on the beach as well, but that ended early due to high winds and lack of sweatshirts.

Sunday we tried to walk down to the end of the spit to look at the sea lions and seals that typically sun themselves on the mouth of the Siletz. Unfortunately, the seals decided to go on vacation as well, because there weren't any on the beach. A few popped their head out of the water as they floated by on the current, but all in all it was a failed endeavor.

After the walk, we drove into town to catch a matinee of Bewitched. Will Ferrell was hilarous, and Nicole Kidman was extremely likeable, yet the movie didn't really grab me. There were a few hilarious scenes (Where art thou, DOG?) and if the whole movie had been geared towards scenes like that, it might've been better. Still it was enjoyable.

We left the movie theater, picked up a pizza at Papa Murphy's and some pop at Safeway (5 12-packs for $10!!!!!!) and headed home. We cooked pizza, watched Black Hawk Down, one of the most depressing movies I've ever seen, and then walked down on the beach to watch the sun set and see if we could catch the fireworks they were shooting off in Depoe Bay. We could, but being 10 miles away made the show less exciting than usual.

Monday we drove to Portland and hung out with Dad and Grandpa for a while. Grandpa's turning 93 (93!!!!!) in a few weeks. He doesn't like it when we bring it up. At least twice yesterday I heard him say "I'm so damn old." It's pretty humorous to me, but I'm sure he actually means it. Like he's pissed he isn't dead. Maybe I'll feel the same way when I'm 93, if I make it that far.

After hanging out with Dad, we headed to Joel's new house to check it out. It's pretty sweet. We showed up and Joel gave us a tour while his mom was using a bleach pen on the shower and his dad was working on something in the kitchen. I can only hope when I buy a house that I have family members that help out as much as his family was. So they worked while Joel entertained. Pretty sweet deal.

Then it was off to the Portland Beaver game. We met Dad and Micki outside the stadium and sat through one of the most boring baseball games I've ever watched. Tacoma won 10-0. The Beavs never even had two runners on base. They hit into four or five double plays. It was weak. But the fireworks after the game were enjoyable! Then we drove back home and were so tired that we just threw everything on the floor and went straight to bed.

Now that's a good weekend!

Update

I know I promised an update when I got home from Jacksonville, but there's been a few issues with my computer since then....namely a vicious bug that almost put me down for the count. thought I was gonna lose everything....all my music, all my pictures. Fortunately, I was able to salvage them, but my computer just hasn't been the same this week.....runs a little slower, programs shutting down for no reason, stuff like that. Seems to be getting better as the week goes on though...like it's shaking off the rust or something.


Work this week was a little rough. It seems like forever since I worked a full 5 day week. It's getting pretty tedious in there. I wish that Sam Health would pull their heads out of whatever they've got them in and let me know if they're going to hire me or not. Seriously, it's been almost 6 weeks since I interviewed, and I haven't heard squat other than "we haven't made a decision yet, but we'll let you know." What is that? If they weren't offering significantly more than what I'm making now, I'd tell 'em off and then run through their HR department clotheslining the women and suplexing any men that got in my way. Just basically go Ultimate Warrior on them.

Found out the Ticket Office isn't even going to give me an interview. You think they'd find me somewhat qualified to do a job that I basically spent the past two years doing, but I guess not. Word is that the ticket director had already hand picked some guy that used to work for him back at Iowa for the job, and that there really wasn't a chance to get it in the first place. Which is fine, I just wish he'd had the common courtesy to let me know that. That was the point of me sending him an email telling him I was planning to apply. Very professional, dickwad.

Funny story from work....Yesterday, I went to the restroom around 1:30. It was at that point I realized that my zipper had been down on my khakis since I put them on. Apparently nobody noticed, or nobody felt like telling me. Hilarious though that I spent all day talking to people with total confidence in my voice while my proverbial barn door was wide open. I mentioned this to a few people, who said they didn't notice. I remarked that it was good thing that I wore underwear that day.....which apparently is not "work appropriate" as I was soon told. No matter, everyone got a good laugh.

I don't understand our workplace though. We are in medical records. Our records room is strictly off limits to patients, meaning we have very little contact with the general public. Yet apparently we're not allowed to listen to fun music. I put in a little Kris Kross today, not loud or anything, and people just freaked out. You can't play that....it looks bad. To who? Sorry if I want to have a little fun at work. I don't understand the concept that you can't have fun and still do a good job. I'm not trying to brag, but I think I'm just about the most efficient person there, and I do an excellent job. Yet people also seem to think I goof off all the time. Go figure. I guess I don't think that the term "professionalism" excludes having a good time. I'm always polite on the phone, adhere to the dress code, meet my efficiency quotas, and follow all the guidelines. Nowhere in the policy does it say anything about not nodding your head and rapping along to "Jump Around" while you're working. Yet this seems to be taboo. I hate "the real world" Nobody has fun.

Well, I'm off to Lincoln City for the weekend. Plan is to come back early Monday and watch the fireworks over the Willamette River in downtown Corvallis on the 4th. Anyone who wants to join us is more than welcome. Peace, and I'm out. Happy Birthday Uncle Sam!

Floridumb

Got back from Jacksonville at about 1 am last night. I'm starting to think that flying out of Seattle to save a few bucks isn't really worth it at all. From the time I left for the airport in Jacksonville to the time I finally made it home was roughly seventeen hours. That's just silly. I had a good time though. Vince's wedding was real nice. Church was amazing. His family was amazing too. Never met a crazier bunch in my life. About the only part of the trip that sucked was Jacksonville itself.


What a ridiculous city. We couldn't find helpful service anywhere. The hotel desk clerks were painfully slow, fast food restaurants might as well have been called "moderate pace" restaurants. One day, the cleaning ladies didn't come to our hotel room until 4:30 (although they could've come during the mid-morning, we slept until noon). It wasn't like they were rude, it was more like they just didn't care. It was amazing.

And the driving down there was something to behold. We came upon a little road construction that was congesting the road just before a bridge. Traffic was pretty much at a standstill. And people were bailing off the road, cutting across this patch of grass like it was a refuge lane, and heading the other way, I assume in an attempt to head to the next bridge. Only problem was, the nearest bridge was at least a couple miles north of where we were. Now I've seen it where one or two impatient people do it, but this was like systematic! It looked like a scene from a natural disaster movie, where people are just bailing off the roads and doing anything in their power to keep driving. It got to Joel so much, that he considered following. I was like "I think our best bet is to stay on the one road in Jacksonville that we're familiar with. Turned out to be a good choice.......we were delayed at most 15 minutes. Who knows how long it took these psychos to get back on the road they needed.

I saw semi-trucks driving 80 in the left-hand lane. I saw at least 10 one-car accidents while we were there. Not like actually saw them happen, but saw the aftermath. I saw two two-car accidents. I saw numerous people change lanes by throwing their hand out the window and then barging over, forcing the car behind them to slam on their brakes. It's absolute anarchy.

Mix all that in with the crappy weather....muggy and rain most of the time we were there, and you've got a recipe for a city Andy won't like very much.

I also met a crude, foul-mouthed feller named Brad. Great guy, just not very tactful. Kind of guy that everyone loves, but nobody's really sure why. He rails on and on about himself, is an unabashed cheater on his wife, tells these grandiose stories, and just basically says the most inappropriate things at the most inappropriate times. But he's a great guy, if that makes any sense. He's also fiercely loyal to Vince (he was the best man in his wedding), is like a second son to Vince's mom, and did an excellent job of making me feel welcome and comfortable, seeing how I'd never met anyone involved in this wedding other than happy couple prior to arriving in Jacksonville. To give you an idea of the stuff this guy would say, consider this conversation:

Vince's mom: What do you want to do tonight, Brad?
Brad: I don't wanna dance, just rub the dick on the ass.
Vince's mom: hahahaha, give me a hug you little shit.

What? How many of your friends' mothers can you insinuate that you'd like to rub your erection against their hind-quarters and they find it adorable? I know I couldn't. I swear to god I'd get slapped if I said even a tenth of the stuff he says. But he pulls it off. Amazing.

I'll post pictures from my trip tonight most likely, once I download them off the camera. Peace, and I'm out.

Happy Father's Day....to me?

So I think you know your dad his having a little TOO much fun at the College World Series when you wish him a happy father's day and he replies "Same to you!" without skipping a beat. Dad I think has fallen in love with Omaha, Nebraska. He's been going off about how great the weather is, how good the food is, and how absolutely fantastic the college world series is. He's practically demanding that we go next year. I'm not going to argue with him. Here's a typical conversation with him.


Me: So are you guys having fun?
Dad: Oh, Andy, Eh! It's amazing. I had the best steak sandwich I've ever had at the ballpark.
Me: Awesome...so how's the stadium?
Dad: Oh, Andy, Eh! It's amazing. This is the greatest place to watch a game.
Me: Really. So the weather's been nice?
Dad: Oh, Andy, Eh! It's amazing. It's been perfect.

You get the idea.

Two days until I leave for Florida! Then I can be the one raving about another part of the country.

Guess who's back

At the urging of my millions of fans, I'm back to write again. I know you all missed me dearly. And by millions of fans, I mean Heidi, and by missed me dearly, I mean not at all.


I guess my writing has really slowed down lately because I've fallen into sort of a routine with work and whatnot. It's get up, go to work, come home and watch tv, eat dinner and watch a little more tv. I need to switch it up. I know what should work well.....a trip to Florida! And guess what? I've got one on Wednesday! Oh the harmony of life is great.

Work was great on Friday. Well the last hour or so. It always gets painfully slow on Friday afternoons. For whatever reason, every person of authority in our office left early. So we were left to run the show. That meant putting in a "Ultimate Party 2003" Cd and having a dance-off in the records room. Great times. Everyone just cut loose. I think a few people were a little shocked that the 25 year old guy that listens to country all day started jamming out to Robyn's hit "Show me Love" and "Return of the Mack" but hey, I gotta keep 'em on their toes.

Yesterday Rachel and I went to Portland and hung out with Grandpa for the day. We watched the OSU game......one bad pitch away from shocking the #1 team in the nation. That's baseball though, that's the reason Tulane's #1 and we're not. Their hit falls into the gap in right center, ours lands in the Tulane rightfielder's glove. Hope we win tomorrow...it'd be a shame to go all the way to Omaha to lose two games.

After the game, Rach and I took Grandpa to Olive Garden for a Father's Day dinner. He seemed to really enjoy it. He was a little mad at himself for forgetting to get his handicapped sticker so we could get upfront parking. It's funny, he's the one that needs it, and he's mad that he forgot it for us. Such a nice guy that grandpa.

That's about all I got for now. I'll be sure to chronicle the trip to Florida and write a novel about it when I get back. Peace n' love!

Hello, my name is Upson Downs.....

The last few days have been some serious peaks and valleys. Saturday I watched USC commit 8 errors, essentially handing Oregon State a victory in the college baseball super regionals. When I woke up Sunday morning, someone had broken into Brown Sugar and stolen the stereo and all my cds. That was about 15 years of cds that got taken. I'm not sure how much money that guy's gonna get for my Kris Kross and Bobby Brown cds, but if he needs the money that bad, I hope he gets something. I thought about putting a sign out on the truck that says "next time take the whole fucking thing asshole." I called the police, and they told me to call back on Tuesday. Way to get right on that guys. Then.......

The day finally came. I graduated from college, officially. They even gave me a diploma. I wasn't positive it was going to happen until they actually handed me that damn thing. I could just see them not having me on the list of graduates, or saying over the loud speakers "will Andrew Lasselle please report to the registrar's office. Andrew Lasselle to the registrar's office, there is a discrepancy on your transcript." That would've been lovely.

Then we all went to my aunt's house for dinner. It's a rare occasion with both sides of my family hang out in the same place. It was kind of cool seeing both my grandfathers having a conversation though. My family was extremely generous in their gifts as well. Both Grant and I received a sizeable amount of money. Rachel was shocked and impressed. When she told me how much she got for graduating college, I realized how lucky I was. I think that it helped that Grant and I graduated at the same time, and that I took so long that people thought I'd never do it. I think that made it more special in everyone's minds. I seriously wouldn't have walked had mom not made me.

After the party, we watched OSU choke away a chance to go to the college world series. That was depressing. And at work yesterday, I spent all afternoon huddled by the radio listening to the third and deciding game. I'll be amazed if I hit my productivity goal for the day. Nobody seemed to care though, especially when OSU pulled the game out. Grant is planning on going to Omaha, which I think is a great idea. I'm actually extremely jealous that he gets to go, but I guess it makes up for me going to the Fiesta Bowl back in 2001 without him. He better take pictures, that's all I know.

Alright I'm off to work. Y'all have a good day.

Meat Buzz!

Yesterday was actually a good day at work. After struggling through the morning, I got myself a "meat buzz" at The Chippery. It's amazing what a beef philly will do for your attitude. The afternoon was great. Everyone was in a good mood, most likely because ol' D-minus was sent to the back to do posting lookups. But everyone was laughing and joking around. Makes the day go by much faster.


So I'm graduating on Sunday. That's......3 days away. It's a very strange feeling. Everyone else seems so excited for me. I'm like "great, I have to sit through three hours of speeches and 3,000 or so people dressed just like me walking across a stage." I guess it's the symbolism of the whole thing, but personally I wish people would stop making such a big deal about it. It took me almost twice as long as normal to get my degree - this is not something we should celebrate. But it makes my parents happy, and my grandpa is proud of Grant and I, so I guess that's a good thing.

Baseball Super-Regionals are this weekend.....Check out OSU on ESPN2 Saturday, Sunday and possibly Monday!

work work work

so work has been...........well that's how work has been.


Friday we were two people short so I had a lot of work to do....found out that as long as there are charts in front of you, you can annihilate our productivity goals. The minimum goal for the day is to process 300 charts. I did 1140. Supposedly it's close to some sort of record. Maybe it is one, I don't know. The point is, I've been there for a month and a half and I've already broken a productivity record? C'mon. Doesn't exactly speak volumes about the quality of people they have in there. Not to say that all of them are inept....there's actually some people there that are a lot like me....good head on their shoulders, just no real direction and can't find a job because of that. Then there's people like this:

Yesterday I walk in from lunch to hear one guy telling another guy how "interesting" the internet is. He goes on to talk about how he has this "friend" that tells him all the bizarre stuff he finds on the internet. This included videos of extremely obese women stepping on small animals to satisfy something called a "crush fetish." I just sat there with my mouth open. He went on and on about sick or perverted stuff that his friends tell him about.....I'd bet dollars to donuts that there are no friends that look this stuff up, that he does it on his own. When he finally stopped talking and moved away, the guy next to me just starts laughing and says "conversation just hit an all-time low."

Yup.

This is what I deal with at work every day. I need a new job. I'm still waiting to hear from Samaritan Health. I emailed HR yesterday, we'll see if they respond to that. Also, it looks like there might be a job opening with the ticket office. I can't imagine that there's too many people more qualified for that gig than me, but then again, I spent all weekend with ticket office people and nobody mentioned the job to me. So maybe they don't want me to know about it. In that case, maybe I'm not as qualified as I think. But we'll see.

Rachel is getting royally shafted at work. Like worse than I've ever even heard of. Her boss has on numerous times come in and had her sign paperwork for her pay raise, told her it'd be on her next paycheck and said that he's personally delivered all the paperwork to HR and that he doesn't know what's going on. She emailed HR yesterday to see what the deal was, and they emailed her back saying they'd never received any paperwork and really had no clue what she was talking about. They're about to lose the best employee they have in cardiac rehab. Her program is the only one in the Sam Health Cardiac Rehab system that is making money, and she's doing it in Lebanon, not exactly a well-off city. Yet she's the only one still on the old pay scale. Good job guys.

Eventually I know everything will work out, but I always wonder why you always have to wade through bullshit to get there?

I was alone...I was all by myself

I MISS MY GIRLFRIEND!


I've been trying to keep busy....watching movies with the neighbors, golfing with my brother, end of year athletic department banquets. They're all fun and enjoyable and all....but it's just not the same without Rachel around. I can't come home and tell her about the funny things that happened or my ridiculous day at work or anything.

And call me paranoid, but everytime she goes home and I don't go with her, I'm worried she's not going to come back. That's the pessimist in me. I still sit around sometimes and go "why exactly is she with me again? What'd I do to get so lucky?" Is that ridiculous? We've been together two years, and I still doubt my worth as a boyfriend from time to time.

This is the kind of post you get from me when I'm in my apartment alone for four consecutive nights.

I know you're having a great time at home baby, but you can't get back here soon enough!

Can ya dig it?

I was able to download the entire 5 minute clip of Leroy Wells on American Idol onto my computer last week....I think I've watched it about 900 times since then. Never gets old. You'll remember him as the crazy guy with the crunk teeth that sang "baby I got your money" and told Simon he needs to "bob his head and get crunk."

My weekend was great....got to go golfing with my dad, Grant and Jerry. I shot a 50 on the back 9. Pretty good, considering I shot a 61 on the front. I probably average about a 58, so to shoot a 50 was pretty fantastic for me. Made me want to go golfing again.

Rachel's gone for the week, which means a whole lot of sitting around playing Xbox this week. I think I'd be having a great time if all my friends still lived in town, but as it is I'm pretty much the only one here. Grant's here, and we went to see "The Longest Yard" last night....pretty entertaining flick. I'm pretty disappointed with the humor being so focused on black vs. white. But then again it is a Chris Rock movie about a prison.....so what would you expect? I tried to rent the original one, of which I have only seen bits and pieces. Sadly, other people must've had the same idea, because I could not find it at Hollywood.

Oh and the highlight of the weekend might've been Dad's birthday dinner at Chili's. Don't let a group of 50 somethings drink margaritas...you end up singing happy birthday 7 TIMES! That didn't include the time the wait staff sang to him. I guess two parties asked to be moved because we were being "obnoxious." This is Chili's, not Chez Swanky Swank, people....learn to deal.

OSU is hosting a baseball regional this weekend. Of course now it's practically impossible to get tickets. I love people who decide they'll finally support the team when they're nationally recognized. I'm afraid this weekend is not going to do wonders for Oregon State's image. We'll see what happens. I'm a little leery about going, but I know I'll be kicking myself if I don't attend at least one game.

Well that's about all I got. When's Nikko Smith's album come out?

Who says work can't be entertaining?

When it's 88 degrees before Memorial Day, work should be abolished. On my way home, I saw a group of college kids in swimwear at the gas station using the air pump to inflate a gi-normous circular rubber raft. I looked at myself in khakis and a button-up shirt and secretly cursed myself for getting old. Called my brother, who was playing homerun derby with some friends and then going to a barbeque. F your mid-twenties.......there's way too much fun to be had to be working full time.


Although that's not to say work wasn't interesting.....A sample:

So midway through the day nature called. In the solid form. So I head to the john down by the orthopedics wing. And I'm sitting there on the can when I see the shadow of feet under the door and someone tries the handle on the door. Thank God I'd locked it....last thing I want is some patient walking in on me with my pants around my knees doing my business. Well then I hear a voice outside say "is there someone in there?" and another voice say "ummm...I think I saw someone go in there a few minutes ago." Voice number one says "well I hope whoever it is doesn't flush, I just got a page that the toilet is clogged." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? To quote my buddy Dirk, I'd just "taken the Browns to the Super Bowl" and now I can't flush it? So the janitor guy knocks on the door and says "don't flush, the toilet's clogged." I'm like "Are ya sure? It doesn't look clogged." He's like "better let me make sure." Fuck me. So I finish my business and take a peek in the toilet. Oh man, it's not pretty. So I open the door, and I'm like "look, are you sure you don't want to just give me the plunger and let me deal with this?" He's like "no, let me check this out." So he comes in with his plunger then just freezes in his tracks when he sees my waste products in the bowl. Poor guy. He just shakes his head, hits the handle and prepares for the worst. And you'll never guess what happens next.....the freakin thing isn't clogged! He got a page about the wrong toilet! So this guy got a eyeful of my fecal matter and he didn't even need to! I felt terrible. But now everytime I see this janitor, I'm going to be thinking....this guy has seen my poop.

How's that for a work story?

Weekends are for relaxing, right?

So this weekend was great, but I was more run down at work today than I am on a Friday after working all week. Why you ask? Well I'll tell you!


Friday night I recapped in my last journal entry (the OSU Awards banquet and what-not)

Saturday I woke up and had to head to ol' Goss Stadium at Coleman Field for the OSU baseball game. Why I agreed to work these games is beyond me. It was insane though! I had to be at work 2.5 hours before the game started, and there was already a line of about 50-75 people. Keep in mind that last year for baseball they probably averaged 500 people per game. Anyways, so I'm selling tickets so fast that my money tray was just overflowing with cash and the 20's are in the 50's slot and vice versa, so somebody might've got a good deal on their tickets, though I doubt it. I'm usually pretty good about that stuff, dispite my disorganizational style. Anyways, the game sold out before it started, so I got to watch the whole game. The best perk about working is being able to get good seats down the first baseline for my family and friends for games when they want them. My Dad and Jerry came down. So they sat down there, and I found a spot to stand between the concession stand and the dugout. Game was good, OSU won 10-7 to clinch a share of the Pac-10 regular season title. Jamie was at the game too, just got back from New Zealand the night before. He had a stack of pictures with him, and I was like "oh are those from New Zealand? He goes "no these are of my grandparents house before and after that arsonist torched it a few months back." Yeah....that's not random or anything. Apparently a few months ago, some guy just went off the deep end and waltzed through Albany burning anything that he could light on fire. Got 6 houses or something.

Speaking of random criminal activity, Dad said someone stole Grandpa's ride-on lawnmower. Who steals a lawnmower? Better yet, who steals a 93-year old man's 20-year old John Deere? Dad said there's tire tracks through the field out back, up through the neighbor's yard and out to the street, where little grass clippings can be seen for a few yards. Had to be a meth addict. He'll be lucky to get $50 for that antique.

Saturday night is when the real fun started. Headed up to Portland with Grant to meet up with Dave, Steve, Garth and Joel. JR had to cancel cause his wallet got stolen and couldn't get into the bars. Bummer. Anyways, just past Albany on I-5, I get pulled over by a state trooper who is parked right in front of a 55 MPH sign. He happened to be sitting right in a section of highway where you can't change lanes. So I'm in the left lane and there's no shoulder, and I can't switch lanes for at least a half-mile. So I'm just cruising along with this cop behind me. I've got my turn signal on, so he knows I see him and intend to pull over as soon as the law allows me to. Well apparently this guy wanted me to know for sure he's behind me, so he starts in with the siren. Like I can't see you dipshit. Anyways he gets out and says he clocked me going 74 and 71. Didn't know they clocked you twice now.

Anyways, he starts going off about how I was in a 55 MPH zone, plus it was a construction zone. I'm like "really? I didn't realize that it was 55 until that sign that was just behind you, and I thought the construction zone was coming up." He starts with this good cop/bad cop interrogation of me....like he'd ask one question nicely, and before I'm even done answering, he's already barking the next question at me. Extremely strange. He's asking me where I live, how long I live there, where I lived prior, all this stuff. His point was that the construction had been going on for about 5 years, and I should've known this was a construction zone. I'm trying to explain to him that, yes, I knew there was construction but that I didn't know it was a construction zone that far south. He's like "So you did know it was a construction zone." Like he caught me lying! What an ass. Then he tells me I passed a sign telling me that I was in a construction zone and that I'd passed two posted 55 signs before I got to him. So he goes back and writes me a ticket.

When he brings it back, he bonks his hand into the window, so he yells at Grant for not rolling the window all the way down. It's pouring down rain, mind you, so Grant didn't want the window all the way down so rain would get all over the inside of the car. So Grant kind of makes a production of wiping down the car with his hand an flipping it in the cops direction. Subtle Grant, real subtle. So then I look at the ticket, and he's done some strange stuff. Despite being an asshole, he'd written my speed down as 71 degrees and not in a construction zone. But.......he'd also mispelled my name, gotten my birthdate wrong, and written my weight down as 250, even though it clearly states on my license that my weight is 235. Who does that? Did he just assume that I'd put on 15 pounds since the issue date? Was he like "no fucking way this guy weighs 235...I can totally tell even though he's wearing baggy jeans and a sweatshirt," or did he do some quick analysis on the ground clearance of the car and run it through some formula that spit out my weight as 235? Whatever asshole. I'm writing a letter to the courts about how schizophrenic you are.

So ticket in tow, we headed to the Portland and to the bars. Highlights included Dave doing the booty dance on this box by the DJ booth before being told that it was for "girls only" by the bouncer, and this guy I went to high school with giving me a huge hug when he saw me and saying "anyone that fucks with you tonight is dead. End of story. D-E-A-D. I fucking love you man!" Absolute psycho. He then proceded to show me how he would deal with anyone that "fucked" with me on poor Joel. He just grabs Joel, puts him in a headlock and starts pretending like he's kneeing him in the face, before giving him a mock-uppercut to the chin. Joel's drink is splashing everywhere, and he's just got this look on his face like "what the hell just happened?" It was hilarious.

So we get back to the hotel room about 3 in the morning, where Dave goes into this speech about how Rachel and I are going to have two daughters before having a son, and he's going to be the god-father of my son and I will name him Kodiak. He also was quoted as saying "If you lived with your parents, you'd sleep with a pillow between your legs too." Don't try and decipher that, you'll never figure it out. Love that guy.

So I ended up getting about 2 hours of sleep, then had to get up and drive back down to Corvallis to work yet another baseball game. On the way, I checked out the signs that this cop said I'd passed. Turns out that I'd only passed one 55 MPH sign, probably half a mile before he'd pulled me over, and the construction sign I'd passed said "construction zone ahead" What an ass. I'm losing $206 because this guy really needed to give a ticket.

So somehow I made it through the day and stayed up for Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy. Great shows both. But I crashed hard at work today. Hitting the hay early tonight for sure. Enjoy your week, I know I will.