October 13, 2005 21:48

I'm in a bit of a funk this evening. I blame it on the beer and too much time. Why too much time? Well, I found myself without anything to do (workwise) this afternoon, and unable to get in touch with anyone to rectify the problem. So I bailed out, back to the hotel, and then went on some retail therapy at the mall. I picked up a couple of things that should make life more, I dunno, something. Blah. Anyway.

When I came back to the hotel the bar was not yet open, so I grabbed a couple of magazines (Economist, Spectrum) and sat in the sun for an hour before returning for a couple of Yeunglings. I grabbed an extra one and went back to my suite to catch the second episode of Charmed of the day. It was good.

I eventually went out for a steak and a couple more beers. Hrm. Steak was pretty good. I had steak last night as well, but in terms of value/taste for money, tonight's was a lot better. Forty-four ounces of beer later I returned to the hotel and channel-surfed for a bit. I was somewhat in the mood to go and drink more, but I didn't. That's what I call restraint.

Bah. Maybe I should have just gone home this evening. We'll see what is on the plate at work tomorrow.

October 11, 2005 22:38

I just got back from seeing Domino. It was a lot of fun. Plenty violent, very funny, a couple of fucked-up scenes, some annoying bits. But, all in all, worth the ticket price: zero. Yay for free preview screening passes.

Not much else to report just now. Have a nice night.

October 10, 2005 21:56

The weekend was fun. Crazy, yes, but also fun. Friday night fun at the Local, with Jenny and George, Tim, Lauren and Matt, John, Susan, Emily, and more. Saturday night we celebrated Kris' and Anne's birthdays at Palate, then stopped in for a drink at the U-Joint (John and Holly were there) and then it was back to the Winchester, uh, Local. Most of the usual suspects were around (with the exception of Susan) and a few not so regulars (it was good to see Eric, and his very cute skydiving friend). The night ended with an attempt to watch a DVD at Liza's that turned into sleeping on the couch. On Sunday I went over to John's to watch the Falcons game prior to heading to North Carolina.

I did get some other tasks done, like getting my oil changed, doing laundry, doing my billing, etc etc etc. I was planning on taking my car for a car wash, but that didn't happen. I did sit out in the sun on my porch on Saturday afternoon. That was quite splendid.

When I did get to Charlotte, I was feeling pretty tired. I checked in, went up to my room (a much bigger suite than normal - it's bigger than my apartment) and went to the bathroom. When I came out and back into the living room, there was a rather alarming noise. I grabbed my computer backpack and stepped outside. Yes, the fire alarm was in full force. So outside I wandered. A few minutes later (about 10 minutes, I guess), the fire trucks turned up and the big burly firemen went on in to ensure our safety. Twenty minutes later we were given the okay to come back in again. The rest of my evening turned into TV and room service.

It appears that autumn is here. With the exception of wonderful Saturday, the weather has been grey. Charlotte has been rainy, both last week and today, and Atlanta was overcast and misty all day Sunday. Speaking of overcast and misty, Sunday was a bad day for Atlanta sports. The Falcons lost to the Patriots by a field goal, and the Braves, after being 6-1 up over the Astros at the top of the 9th inning, went on to lose after giving away five runs in the bottom of the ninth and the winning run nine extra innings later. What a crushing way to bow out of the post-season.

October 06, 2005 19:34

Progress. Success. New features. Yes, I'm talking about my website, not my job. You can now leave a comment on any of the journal entries. The functionality is very basic at the moment, but it doesn't really need to be too complex. I do need to clean up some of the stylesheet details, but it does work.

I'm looking forward to heading home tomorrow. I'll be out of Charlotte at lunchtime, which should get me home around 4pm. I'll probably keep it low key, since I have a busy day ahead of me on Saturday. Watch this space, leave me a comment. I'll be back after dinner.

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October 04, 2005 22:57

Good evening, gentle reader. It is Wednesday night. The week seems to be dragging on a bit; I'm very ready to head back to Atlanta. I haven't even racked up scads of billable hours - only 18 so far this week. We had our big meeting yesterday afternoon where I presented all the results from the past two months of research, testing and evaluation, along with my recommendation. And now I wait.

In other news, I've been doing more work on my website. Very soon you'll be able to comment on my entries. I just have a few minor kinks to work out, most notably the fact that carriage returns (new lines) aren't correctly being translated. That's going to take a bit more work to resolve; probably access to one of my web programming manuals that I have at home. But I'm quite pleased with what I have been able to accomplish thus far. It's not currently active, but soon...

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October 03, 2005 17:26

Monday. Four hours of work. I'm prepped for tomorrow's meeting. I expect it shall be an interesting one.

Since I was only in the office for a few hours today, I came back to the hotel afterwards and did some work on my web site. You probably won't notice a lot of change just at the moment, but I have made some significant changes. Firstly, I have cleaned up the code that I use to handle the pictures menu. In the original version, there was a lot of rereading of index files; now that has been reduced two a maximum of two file reads. The other change has been to add functionality for displaying comments. I haven't turned this functionality on yet, because I still have to write the code to handle adding comments. That's going to be a little trickier, because I haven't yet worked with forms under PHP. I'm not expecting too much difficulty, but I need to do some reading to get up to speed with it all.

Last night I finished reading Freakonomics. It was quite interesting. That was pretty much the limit of my excitement for the evening.

This weekend I have to take my car in for an oil change. And it needs to have a good clean. I expect that these two activities alone will hamper my ability to get a lot of other stuff done. I should have a check to pick up when I get back into town, so I should be one step ahead of my mid-month bills. Other activities for this weekend: Kris' birthday, seeing Serenity with John, watching post-season Braves games.

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October 02, 2005 20:02

Sunday night. I'm tired, but remarkably content. I've had a pretty great weekend: I went to Richmond to visit Rachael, saw Serenity, had tasty beverages at Capital Ale House, bought many dollars worth of CDs and DVDs, and went to a party in Mechanicsville. I've just gotten back from dinner - a tasty (and expensive) meal of halibut with asparagus and fancy musrooms in a truffle butter sauce with a glass of sauvignon blanc. I sat outside because the weather was simply splendid.

On my way back from Richmond, I had a great music and sing-a-long time. I suspect anybody following me or beside me on the road may have been slighly amused by my bouncing and enthusiastic singing. Heheh. The musical choice of the day: Jesus and Mary Chain, Darklands; Doves, The Last Broadcast; Manic Street Preachers, Damon compilation; Strawpeople, Damon compilation. Lots of fun.

I mentioned above that I bought some new CDs and DVDs. Well, I picked up Darklands (this has been very hard for me to track down), The Last Broadcast (finally picked up a legitimate copy), Twilight by the Twilight Singers. On the visual entertainment side I picked up Family Guy: Seasons 1 and 2, Family Guy presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy BBC TV series, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie, and Sin City. I didn't see Firefly and Arrested Development: Season 2 isn't due out until the 11th of October. Finally, I also picked up an interesting book: The Pet Cookbook, subtitled: "Have Your Best Friend For Dinner." Includes such dishes as Pony and Pepperoni Pizza, Roasted Kittens with Red Wine Sauce, St Bernard Burgers a la Tyrol, and Parrot Pirogue. A total of 22 recipies in all. I'm not sure if I'll ever get a chance to make any of the dishes, Oh well.

Serenity was very enjoyable. I will be seeing it again, with John. It has some surprises and has some really cool parts. But I don't want to put any spoilers here, because, well, I don't know who will read this who hasn't yet seen it. But I do recommend it.

In weekend sports news, Liverpool were handed their arses by Chelsea, 1-4 at Anfield. Very disappointing result, especially considering the fact it was a draw midweek in the Champions Leage game. The Falcons beat the Vikings (30-10). The Braves lost to the Marlins, but have already clinched their playoff place. The Yankees and Red Sox are neck and neck for the AL East.

And now it's time for The Simpsons and updating my accounting programme with my expenditure for the weekend. I shudder to think how much I've blown my budget by. Oh well, all in a good cause.

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September 29, 2005 17:41

I think I'm going to go for a slightly more expensive dinner tonight. I've kept my meals fairly low-budget this week, so I feel I can go a bit more extravagant tonight. Also, considering that I'm a few hours down for the week (I finished my required tasks and didn't want to bill a company I like for hours I don't have anything to show for).

Here's one of the things that really irritate the fuck out of me in Charlotte. Roads change names and directions. You know the situation: you're driving along Tyvola Road, you pass through an intersection, and suddenly you're on Fairview. This happens in Atlanta too (there's one road that changes at least three times), but it seems to happen all over the place here. But it gets worse. As I learned last night, you can be driving along, pass through a four way intersection, and suddenly realize that Park Boulevard actually turned 90 degrees to the right at the intersection you just drove straight through. Of crouse, there's no warning that the road changes direction abruptly even when the road continues straight ahead. Ugh!

I'm watching Charmed. There's a surprise.

Tonight shall be reading night. I have a couple of books to read and several magazines, so that will be my mission. Once I've eaten.

September 28, 2005 22:07

That was entertaining. I just got back from watching a free preview of Into the Blue. As far as the story goes, it was pretty silly. But the cinematography and editing...Jessica Alba in a bikini is hot from the front and the back. The movie was very pleasing to the eye. I wouldn't recommend paying prime rates to see it at the movies - wait for it to come out as a rental. Or download it from somewhere.

The rest of my day was pretty mediocre. I'm looking forward to the weekend.

September 26, 2005 22:25

Great quote: "I contend we are both atheists - I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you reject all other gods, you will understand why I reject yours as well." - Stephen F. Roberts