After meeting a friend and enjoying a few rounds of beverages, one of which included two shots and drink, it was decided some late night feeding was in order. A nearby Steak 'n Shake would fit the evening's fare quite nicely and so we were off, greasy goodness ho!

As I was accessing my current cash situation in order to determine if using my credit card would be necessary in order to facilitate payment, I discovered I had a sum more cash than I thought I should. I returned to the table and proceeded to ask my friend if it made any sense to him or if I had simply made an error. Turns out I was not incorrect at all. The last round I purchased (one vodka tonic and two "red death" shots) came out to $13.25. I supplied $20.00 for this purchase and ended up receiving $17.00 in change! So technically speaking even after having left the bartender a good tip, all the while oblivious to the fact I was either not charged fully or a mistake in change distribution was made, the club paid for my post-club dinner.

No complaint here, especially considering another bartender gave me a free round tonight because he seemed to forget about it and simply blew it off when I pointed this out to him. I guess it was a good night to go out, after all.

Today in my meeting with the owner of the company I work for, to show off my progress on the often mentioned online relocation project, I was informed that a corporate restructuring was going to happen and that since my position was more a "luxury" item to have a full-time technical support and project person on staff and that I was also the newest member of the staff that my position was being eliminated, effective immediately.

However, as various projects are still ongoing and require attention before completion, I will be working for them on a project-by-project basis, at least for a while. I was also told to prepare a flier that would be distributed to every agent and employee in the company that advertises the computer services I do on the side.

There are a few other details that I am not going to get into here, but suffice it to say my termination is solely a business decision and has no reflection on my work to date, which is obviously evidenced in their wishing for me to continue working for them on a contractual basis.

This week has been very trying for me on several levels at no fault of one specific thing, but rather the amalgamation of several issues, both work-related and not. Needless to say, this end to my wonderful week seems only fitting.

I also found out today that an agent who I met at the office, but then subsequently left was discovered dead in her home two days ago. The circumstances are still questionable on whether or not her death was natural or self-inflicted. Either way, during the brief time I got to converse with her in person and since her departure continued little conversations via e-mail, I found her to be a very nice woman. I trust that she is at peace now, because I know life for her was not the easiest.

Although when I was hired I understood a good portion of my job would be technical support issues and the like, I was a bit too optimistic that it would not transfer into a majority situation. Over the past month I have been diagnosing several issues with our network and websites. Today alone I had four different conversations with the Network Operations Centre that manages our T-1 circuit. I had to research and learn what a T-1 Multiplexer was and learn how to reconfigure it. I am still not done either because I am having trouble accessing the DHCP server to reconfigure it as well. Oh, well. It keeps everyone happy which keeps those direct deposits a flowing.

From: "Madeleine" dafifadgebli@yahoo.com
Subject: n Bulk Email Sending
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 07:14:12 -0700

gmi tece ifir
aidonwe mbnpybg
juxsuoi iatro
u
lmnkto widn
i errtso go k
afl nidmov uarllc wapndhd zedogne bahhavr u akpivue wtohpod ultowsb chb nobdwes ophewou ghbpiso eo
injsdad hagracb paygifu rtfi sixtcia fow
filovin em
io epu
polglau etyo s on p nbod y tiq r uche d ys
debnauf d ageisji wnl
ltlugn
junnda nsh
a uebloy wi shu r veygpl tueesmo sinnzey

Thank you, Madeleine. What were you thinking?

It is funny to me how sometimes I could sit and write about various things, both true and fictional for hours on end without interruption. Then there are the other times where I cannot prevent myself from being sidetracked despite having a lot of thoughts and ideas I wish to express. Tonight is one of those nights where I sit with Word open for hours and literally type nothing. There is really no point after sitting here for this long happily distracted by websites and online communiqués in trying to commit myself to producing anything constructive tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

But while I am thinking about it the software that runs the Gallery is apparently unhappy, making captions for the photographs do odd things. Look for updated software, new albums and corrected captions at some point this week. I have also removed commenting capabilities from the Gallery as the Forum is a fine local for any such commentary. Also, someone felt it necessary to post some hate-filled homophobic statements. I laughed at them mostly because the comments were posted for pictures of my old Civic rolling over to 100,000 miles, not of myself or of Gay Days events.

I have not really had a chance to go though and do anything but add some basic captions, but I have added to the gallery the photographs I have been taking for my project at work. I will at some point in the next few days go though and weed out a few pictures that may not have come out correctly and add some more verbose captions. In addition, since the pictures are for an online relocation presentation there are many pictures of random houses and apartments. I may consider moving all of those to the end of each album but until then, the pictures are sorted chronologically. Enjoy!