all hail the sun god...

so...it's monday. woot. :-\
today is the inaugural test of riding the bike to school and then downtown to turn in some paperwork. if i can do that with out puking or (worse yet) killing myself then all should be well and good for later when i'm actually riding to school on a regular basis.
my new computer is scheduled to be delivered on the 27th.

is it thursday yet?

i have a bunch of e-cig packages that should be here either today or tomorrow. gonna have to stalk the mailman to find out when they'll be here. it'd be nice if they got here today, but they're still in K.C. (as of the latest tracking info from last night) so we'll see what happens. not a big deal if they don't get here today. it'd just be nice to have cartos that i haven't refilled 60-80 times lol.

past that not a lot is going on. i'm going to try to work the rest of the week and see how that goes. we could use the money even with the VA bennies goin on.

i still need to get registered for school for this summer. i'm afraid that i'm not going to be able to get into eng-150 though. that's gonna be a pain in the ass and it's probably going to add an extra semester onto school.
meh, i added an extra semester on anyway by screwing a couple of things up this last semester so...damn it.

we spent the day yesterday out at L's moms house working. and when i say working, we actually did work quite a bit. L's mom has more christmas decorations than should be legally allowed.
at least they were conveniently packed so that all we had to do was move the (some very heavy) boxes.
and (i checked in the mirror twice) it doesn't look it, but wow do i feel sunburnt. it's really annoying. i hate getting burnt, which is fairly easy for me to do anyway.
at least this time i'm not sick like i was last time we went out there to seriously work. L and i were both sick for like 2 or 3 days afterward from getting way to much sun.
it was not pretty.

so i'm actually pretty stoked about the incoming e-cig packages. i have a starter kit and a gift cert coming in for a friend of mine (a very belated christmas present) and quite a few bottles of juice (cinnamon!!!) so...in retrospect, stalking the mailman it is.

ok, blogger is now refusing to save my post so i'm going to put it out there for all the world to see.

i'm just rambling on at this point anyway.

i really shouldn't make posts before i've had a pot of coffee.

still alive...

so i recently acquired a bike and i must say, i couldn't be happier with it. it's a seriously comfortable ride. i just did my first mile today (actually a mile and a quarter, but i didn't know it at the time. hell i wasn't even sure i'd done a mile) and other than my legs feeling like someone threw holy water on them i'm doin ok.

so. new computer ordered.
new bike purchased (still need a helmet)
workin on gettin a router (need to make it across town to bust buy)
spent some cash on some much needed e-cig supplies (yay! passthrough!)
oh, i got new boots too. that makes me happy. i can finally (mostly) retire my 13 year old field boots. i'll just save them for when i really need black boots. (holy shit. i just looked. list price on my boots is $185. i paid nowhere NEAR that for mine. go army surplus store!!!)
so now when other kids try to taunt my kids with "your dad wears combat boots!" they can say "yeah? what of it." (ok, i'm stretching that a bit...)

past that, all i really need right now is water.
and a lot of it.

it was nice to take advantage of the break in the rain and go out and actually get some exercise though.
i've decided that i really am going to start getting exercise, even if it kills me.
a friend and i were talking the other day and he was saying that you need to ride about 150 miles a week to really get trim and stay in shape and i'm like "holy hell, i don't think i go /anywhere/ for 150 miles a week."
so we'll see how that goes.
but, even though my legs feel like left over shit on a stick right now (ugh...endurance is something that has to be worked on i guess) and my heart rate is slowing down a bit, i'm feeling a little better about this whole riding thing and thinking that i actually can do it.
i'll be happy when i can actually ride the 10 miles across town to see L at school and not feel like i'm going to puke about 2/10 of the way there. :-)

neway, back to the housework grind.

Now that i've seen several other graduation ceremonies, I realize i'm not missing much by not remembering my own.

so far...

so far today hasn't been a bad day.
i've managed to get quite a few things taken care of, such as getting my GI Bill shit straightened out....or at least a little closer to straightened out.
i'm in the process of getting some child support stuff straightened out. that'll at least get The Evil One(tm) off my back.

tonight is high school graduation night. one of L's students actually specifically requested that i be there. that made me feel kinda good. having spent some time in the class subbing for various people, it's nice to know that the kids actually do like me lol.
subbing in that class is always an interesting experience. i gotta admire L and the teacher in that room. i'm really honestly not sure that i could do that every day.
i'd go insane.
L REALLY doesn't get paid enough for what she does on a daily basis. it pisses me off, but there's absolutely nothing i can do about it. the school just (as they say) have the budget to pay them more.
bull shit they don't.
i bet the school superintendent isn't going to have to forego a raise next year like the teachers and the para's are.
fucking bureaucracy pisses me off.

anyway...

i want to go bike shopping this evening. i think i've found the one that i want, but i want to do a bit more shopping to make sure. so we'll see what happens with that.

the computer shopping is turning out to be really frustrating. i'm overly picky about computers (even with being a recovering geek) so it's turning into more of a pain in the ass than i expected it would be.
the fact that i'm going to go back to having to use windows (even though i've heard good things about windows 7) just kinda makes me feel a little dirty.
kinda like i got a "midnight mass" visit from the local parish priest.
/sigh

oh and my new glasses came in today! yay!!! that was a happy surprise that i really wasn't expecting. i'd actually forgotten about them till yesterday when the random thought "hey, i wonder when my new glasses are coming in?" got tossed out when we were in the car.

hmm...this bottle of juice that i'm currently vaping has a very different flavor than the previous bottle of juice under the same name.
it's not a bad thing, it's just not what my tongue is expecting to taste, so it's a bit disorienting.
sorry, totally unconnected random thought there.

so....hopefully we'll get L's tuition bill paid off tonight so that she can get back into school. that will be a relief for both of us.

we're managing to save a little bit of money for this upcoming winter when our car does it's annual "fuck you i'm tired of running" trick.

ok, after starting to blog again and actually making entries, i just NOW found the little box where you can label your entries...hmm....this may require some going back and editing things.

anyway.....off to get some laundry put away and try to find some paperwork that's fucking gone missing.
/sigh i hate it when i know exactly where something is and i go there expecting to find it and all that's there there is just a little pile of dust occupying said spot.
wtf?

ok so......as an update to part of yesterdays blog, i called and got the direct deposit set up for my monthly payment this morning and in the process discovered that a check was mailed out to me on the 11th for my back pay.......this means that i'll have a very large check coming to me in the next couple of days.

this means that the bills are paid.

this means that a whole lot of things are paid.

it's like being poverty level rich!!!

/happy sigh

on a semi-positive note...

ok so i've had just about enough of this finals week shit...

take today for instance. i have a paper to write for my comp 2 class final. she's actually being fairly cool and letting us work on the outline/rough draft outside of class. so what have i been doing all morning? working on a rough draft.

skip ahead to about 20 minutes ago and i decide to check the handout she gave us to make sure that i was actually doing it right.
can't find the paper.
anywhere.
it's. just. gone.

so now i have a few pages of a rough draft done that may or may not actually be done correctly. i'll have to wait till i get to class and get another copy of the hand out from her to find out for sure. which means it's going to take that much longer to get my final done. /cry

fuck off brent.

so on a serious upside, my VA compensation came through. i got rated high enough to get a decent sum of money every month (it's pretty well effectively doubled our household income every month. this is not a large number by any means, but it's still a very good thing. we'll be able to pay the bills and buy gas for teh car at least.) and i'm going to get a nice back settlement that's going to allow us to do several things.

like pay off lisa's tuition.

i'm getting a nice bike to ride to school and back. (though the idea of getting a moped really does sound good. just even more expensive than a bike. and just as likely to get stolen.)

we can get the car almost completely fixed.

pay all the bills off fully.

and still have a bit of money left over.

i'm also going to go on something on an e-cig shopping spree. i'm buying a kit for a friend of mine who's been wanting one for a while and i'm probably going to get him a gift certificate for some juice.
i'm going to order me a few more bottles of juice that i like and maybe even try a few new ones. :-)

i'm also getting a computer. my laptop is dying a slow death, and as much as it pains me to go back to a windows pc (at least i can load linux on it) i really can't afford to get another mac.
well, ok, i can get a mini, but it's going to be very shortly outdated for some of the things i want to do.
like the upcoming expansion in WoW.
i may wind up buying lisa a new computer too, as i'm pretty sure her laptop (which isn't much newer than my laptop, it's just not dying so badly) isn't going to play the expansion either.

so....that's the latest. finals week and the show that we're working at the theatre has kept us busy as all fuck so i haven't had a lot of time to write lately. but.....last final is today (FUCKINYAY!!!) and the show is over on sunday.
so next week i'll get registered for summer and have a nice long chat with my advisor. i'm going to take my paperwork up and see if i can qualify for voc rehab through the VA so that i can get everything done.
of course, this depends on my passing all my classes on the first try so that i can get through with my AA in a reasonable amount of time.
wheeee.

neway....i think i'm done now.

It's so bright and sunny outside and I know it would probably make me feel better to go out side and breathe. And yet I can't bring myself to do it.

ok, here we go...

lets watch the depression set in shall we?

update to todays earlier post.

the va has pretty much screwed up in all aspects of this case and i'm not getting paid this month.

we have roughly $30 to try to stretch through the month.


.

and i still have to study for, and somehow try to pass this math test.

pretty sure it's not gonna happen.

and finals are coming up too.

at least i can still substitute teach.

this should be interesting.

ok, i just can't think of a good title for this one...

ok, so i'm a bit stressed right now.

i have a math test coming up tomorrow and it's gonna be a bitch of a test. it's not only a math test, but it's all about factoring. this is easily my absolute worst thing as far as math goes.
so i'm not happy.
i'm not only not happy, but i'm worried to the point of being scared. :-(
but.....i've been sitting here working over the review as best as i can by myself. i've managed to get a couple of the things figured out. the word problems are currently kicking my ass though. /sigh

to top that off, i still don't know what's happening with my gi bill and whether or not i'm going to get paid this month. i can't seem to get ahold of anyone that will actually tell me jack shit about what's going on.
soooo whether or not we're financially fucked is still up in the air.

haven't heard anything yet about my va comp stuff...granted it's only been a couple of weeks, but still.
i hate waiting for stuff.
about some things i really have the patience of a gnat.
a very small and impatient gnat.
like, a midget gnat with an attitude.

i hope i didn't offend any midget gnats out there.

and something small but annoying, my phone got wet the other day.
really really wet.
almost as wet as i was.
i was walking up to the bus stop and suddenly it started raining. not just raining mind you but like, perfect storm raining. the wind was blowing about about (at least) 50mph and kept changing directions. the rain was coming down almost horizontally due to the ever changing winds. the raindrops were the size of (what felt like) golf balls and i'm pretty sure that more than a few of them were only halfway melted. and it was fucking cold.
oh my fucking god was it cold. cold shower standing in a bucket of ice water cold.
this is a storm where an umbrella could have actually caused you bodily harm from the wind catching it and blowing it (or as happened to lisa where the spokes on the umbrella actually bent) around.
so i was drenched (i guess i hadn't fully prepared by not bringing a rain coat and some hip waders rather than the t-shirt and shorts i was wearing). to be a bit more honest, i looked like i had started the shower and got in with my clothes on and stood in there for about 10 minutes.
with my phone in my pocket.
there was just no way out of it, it was brutal.
so now my phone is doing some funky things like the side buttons don't want to work right...it apparently doesn't want to be friends with the charger and a variety of other random things.
at least the keyboard works again and doesn't just type aowlaowlaowlaowlaowlaowl when you try to type a message or dial a phone number or hit send so that you can try to answer a call.
meh.
as an amusing aside to that story though, when i finally did manage to get across the street to the grocery store where i could stand under an overhang or something of the sort, i looked down and noticed that my hands were turning blue.
literally blue.
i knew that i was cold, but damn. that was possibly one of the coolest things ever.
i was turning into the worlds tallest smurf.
then i had to screw it up and go inside and try to towel my phone off.
i almost felt bad for the girl at the check out counter who was trying so hard to not laugh at me.
lisa and tierney weren't so forgiving though.

on a weird upside though, my pv got a drenching as well, and now i know that it can stand a good bit of water. i'd have really been fucked if that'd gotten dead. especially right then when i needed a good dose of nicotine.

so anyway....this is me...whining away. i guess it's not going to help much, but it's nice to get it all out as i sit here and wait for my phone to charge (my god it's taking fucking forever. i guess it was a lot more dead than i thought...well, that and the charger weirdness)  so that i can make my way up to school to sit in the math lab and bake my noodle even further than it already is.

i guess i'll just have to wait and see what happens.

/me taps fingers impatiently...