Lactose Intolerance

I had dinner with my father and his girlfriend tonight. He has now fully moved into her house, and they both seem quite happy. That’s good. We had homemade Chinese food and my father told me of his adventures in Bulgaria and Athens. After dinner and stories, A. brought out some delicious “Death By Chocolate” ice cream, which brings me to the point of the entry, nevermind the crazy co-worker of my father’s, who decided he didn’t want to come back to the U.S. after they were finished with their job in Bulgaria.

I can’t tolerate lactose. Hate the stuff. Why do humans drink milk of another animal? No other mammal drinks the milk of another species to the best of my knowledge. They drink the milk of their mother until they reach a certain point in their development, and then they stop. Why are people so difficult, and insist that milk is good for you? Our bodies are not designed to break down milk sugars efficiently after we reach a certain age. And yet we insist that milk-based foods are essential. Calcium? Calcium is easily obtained from other foods.

Disagree? Show me a wild monkey sucking on an udder.

We’re Halfway There, We’re Already There

I moved by basic living items to my new apartment in Northern New Jersey last night. I’ve decided to put most of my belongings into storage, since my gut feeling is that this will be my place to live only temporarily. Work is getting a bit more difficult as stress levels rise as we head towards our big events. Since I tend to be the most “visible” part of the organization, I get to deal with the kick-back from all other people’s judgment errors. Customer service is not what I want to be doing.

Additionally, that song they keep playing (and playing) on the radio, about the World Trade Center disaster, that starts with the line She found his shoes or something similar is really getting on my nerves. It’s a terrible song, the melody is bland, the girl is out of tune, and it’s just plain annoying. Especially when it’s played twice an hour.

Okay, I’m done complaining. For now.

Too Much Fast Food

Here’s the weekend update… thus far. Friday night I found something new to do in Princeton. I went out to a dance club called Polly Esther’s. The funny thing is that I danced, and I liked it. It could have been the fact that I was surrounded by four of my female friends who are all quite attractive (hi there), and the only other guy I was with (hi there) doesn’t dance. Princeton is full of great stuff to do… and good friends to do them with. I hate to leave the area.

Today I ate too much fast food and drove 375 miles basically to pick someone up at a hotel, drop him off at a show, and then take him back to the hotel. I guess I was sort of useful at the show as well since the hosts were kind of clueless (but accommodating).

Now, bed time. I’m too tired to change my clock to standard time. I’m too tired to even type an entry for my website, but I guess that’s too late.

Predicting the Future

Who will the next president of the United States be (following W.’s second term if he gets one)?

  1. Hillary Clinton
  2. Christine Todd Whitman
  3. Al Gore
  4. Tom Ridge
  5. Other:                    

Note: I don’t really care about politics.

Decision Has Been Made

I visited the apartment in Prospect Park again today. The person who is renting the place to me took some time to clean it up a little, and I confirmed my committment to moving in and to staying for at least two months. She seemed happy. I think I’m happy. It’s a pretty nice house, but some of her old roommate’s stuff is still around.

I’ll probably have to get some storage space for my random furniture however.

Well I’m just happy I made a decision. This place may not be the best place to live, but it will save me some money and time over the next few months. And of course, it will get me out of other people’s way.

Weekend Update (Plus One)

This weekend we held one of our larger events. I was able to spend some time talking to my possible future employer. He introduced me to either the supervisor of music or the superintendent (super-something) from his school, who seemed to be a little too happy to meet me. I guess that can’t be a bad thing. This possibility looks better and better each day.

Today, however, I was taken aback as our boss actually thanked us for the work we did in pulling of Sunday’s show. It wasn’t something anyone expected. Immediately following, he ditched us while we were supposed to have a department meeting.

Later today, he invited me to go to a seminar with a few other coworkers. This seminar was basically an introduction (or sales pitch) for the “Forum.” I had heard some horror stories about the “Forum” but I decided to take a look anyway. I’m not quite sure what to make of it… the presenter seemed to use a lot of terms that didn’t make much sense, but “felt” good, such as “yes to life,” “possible possibilities” and some other random catchphrases. Since my boss offered to pay for half, I decided to go ahead and register for the “Forum” which is three days of intensive soul-searching, followed up with an evening session two days later. I could gain something out of this. We’ll see.

Quincy Jones And His Orchestra

Now that I’ve bought and got accustomed to a new notebook computer, my old desktop has mysteriously stopped having problems.

The other day I found out my grandmother has Parkinson’s disease. She was very cheery and positive on the phone. She’s taking drugs that slow down the effects of the disease, but there are side-effects. She gets dizzy once in a while. I don’t know if I should be sad; she seems happy, so I’m happy. I should try to see her sometime. She only lives an hour and a half from me.

Speaking of living, my goal is to be out of my current place by November 1, for the sake of the sanity of at least three people involved. However, different things keep being thrown into the works. I found a decent place in north Jersey, not far from my current place of work. They’re willing to take a month-to-month lease. However, things are looking increasingly good for this teaching position in south Jersey. The current music teacher called me the other day, while I was at work. The conversation stared like this:

Him: Hi, Spike (only he didn’t call me Spike). Can you talk?

Me: (Glancing at the six people sitting and talking in my office at the time.) Not really at the moment.

Him: Okay, well I’ll talk and you can just nod.

He went on to say that he spoke to the music superviser (or was it the superintendent? Super somebody…) and everyone was very excited about the possibility of me working there. He wanted to get an application in the mail to me immediately. If everything goes well, I’d be able to start right away instead of waiting until April.

Now this puts me in a position where I could end up moving north and working further south within a month. On top of this, a friend has offered to find a two-bedroom apartment with me, but she can’t move in until December 1.

Why does life have to be this complicated? And no, I’m not looking for anyone to post a “solution” right now. (That means you, Mr. Darren R. Sussman, who always seems to have an answer for everybody’s problems. 🙂 ) I just wanted to share my situation with the world.

Rise Up So Early In The Morn’

A few months ago, we decided that in order to better serve our customers, we should take on the same work schedule as them, namely beginning work at about 7:00 every morning. We did not finish this thought by deciding to end the day at 3:30 as our customers do, and remain in the office until 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, even later on some days. This is the thing: nothing ever happens between 7:00 and 9:00 in the morning. No one ever calls. No one sends us email. We know our customers are out there working at this time, but maybe they just have something else to worry about in these two hours.

Thus, coming in at 7:00 in the morning is a complete waste of time if we end up staying late anyway. Of course, there are tons of other stuff we do between 7:00 and 9:00, but the reason behind coming in this early was to be there for our customers. Where are they?

It seems more to me that the decision to be in early was nothing more than one co-worker’s effort to display her “power” (which she confuses with “managerial ability”) over those about whom it is well-known they are not morning people.

So, I Spent Some Money

It’s shiny and silver. It opens and shuts. It has blinking lights. It playes music and movies. It does a whole lot more, and I can take it with me. Yes, I bought a notebook computer. I just couldn’t deal with my desktop anymore. How can I afford it you ask? How could I not afford it?

It’s got a 1 GHz Pentium III CPU, 128 MB RAM, a 20 gB hard drive, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, FireWire, USBx4, standard ports, a built-in modem and built-in Fast Ethernet. On top of that, I get to take it where ever I want. I can access the Internet from hotel rooms and watch my own movies on airplanes!

Happiness costs about $1500. (Thank you Mr. Best Buy Financing Guy.)