Random

Well today ended up being a long, but great day!  In one day I got to be both a teacher and a student of sorts, and both experiences were rewarding.

So first my experience as a student… (and don’t laugh).  I learned how to drive a stick-shift today.  Yes I realize that I am 23 and am just learning how to drive one. You may laugh now, but NO MORE LAUGHING AFTER THIS!!!

I didn’t do as bad as I thought I would.  It took a little getting used to for the first few minutes, but I managed to get the knack and did some pretty good driving.  Driving a stick is really not that much different than playing drum set: both your feet are working separately, but also have to be in time with each other.  I drove down from Fort Collins to Loveland, then to south Loveland to get gas (where it’s $1.98 a gallon!!!) and then drove out to I-25 to trade cars with my sister.  A lot of stop & go traffic, I think I am ready to give up my Explorer in 10 days.

Now my experience as a teacher…  I ended up teaching a 4 year old about drumming!  Okay so I wasn’t really a teacher, more like a babysitter, but I did manage to teach her something…

After I finished cruising town in my sister’s Mazda I went back up to Fort Collins, got my drum set and went to church to play.  Usually our choir has anywhere from 5-7 people.  Well today we had 2…  Myself (the drummer) and Pete the guitar player/singer.  We also had a piano player on loan from one of the other choirs.  So needless to say we were in dire need of singers.  Luckily our on-loan piano player managed to call his sister who was happy to come and sing, along with her husband and her three kids.  Next thing we knew the choir platform turned into Romper Room.  It was chaotic, but at the same time it was pretty sweet.  Their 4-year-old daughter was so interested in the drum set that she parked up a chair right next to the drumset.  It was really sweet, but at the same time hilarious because all throughout Mass she kept asking me "What does that pedal do?" "What sound does that stick make?" "Why are you using those red brushes instead of the blue weird-looking sticks?"  "I bet I know what sound the tambourine makes"..  It was really funny.  I answered all of her questions and ended up giving a mini drum clinic right there.  It was cute, and I got really good at being able to play all my parts, (try to) sing, and entertain a 4 year-old at the same time.  Way to go for multi-tasking!

This was also a great affirmation that a LOOOOOOOOOONG ways away from having kids!

I don’t know if I like or hate the first day of a 4-day week.  A big part of me hates Tuesdays of the 4 day week because it feels like a Monday, but jammed in with all of the Tuesday stuff as well.  This usually means I have double the work that I need to do.  But I like 4-day Tuesdays because after a long weekend there is nothing better than realizing that you’re one less day from the next weekend…  So I think the jury’s still out.

Today was a good day but a tough day.  Good because I had a really good night with a very sweet gal   Tough because I had all of my Tuesday meetings mixed in with my Monday confusion.  Then I ended my day by driving my sister Amanda to the airport.  It’s kinda funny, but even after yesterday’s rant I’m still really going to miss my sister.  It’s funny because as we were driving home my mom and I realized that my sister probably won’t ever be coming back west for any extended period of time ever again.  I think that during the summers she’ll probably find an internship like the one she’s going to now and have another reason to stay out in Boston.  As I picture my sister I really think that she’s going to be happier in the east, as well as far away from her family as possible

Alright, bed time…  I’m really zapped from such a long day – but there are only 3 more left before the weekend comes!

What a weird day today has been!  Basically it’s been a really lazy day – that had it’s moments of productivity, but overall I was more lazy overall.

First off I worked from home today, mainly on the sole basis that I needed to do my laundry.  That was a pretty weak excuse to justify working from home, but for some reason I just didn’t feel like going into the office.

About working from home: Luckily in my job I’m blessed with the ability to work just about anywhere.  I have a laptop that I use as my primary machine, so it has all of the tools and software I need.  I have call forwarding enabled on my office phone to send calls to both my cell phone and my home phone.  I have high speed Internet and a cool cordless headset, so really I have everything I need.  This last school year I was horrible when it came to going into the office.  I moved across town, so my old 5 minute drive to work now becomes a 20 minute drive.  Along with that I have a virtual team where I was the only person in Fort Collins, so I really had no inclination to go into the office.  At my worst point I had been home for 20 consecutive work days – so yeah I was bad.

Luckily about 6 weeks ago we brought in a contractor that does work for my team and sits in the Fort Collins site, which has been giving me incentive to go into the office more.  Right after finals week I was back into the office 85-95% of the time (if I had early morning meetings I did them from home, got ready and then headed into work).  I was doing pretty well.  But my goal this summer is to improve my office attendance and break the cycle of working from home when I don’t really need to.

It’s not that I don’t like working from home – the reality is I love it.  I get to blast my music all day, listen to Rome, make my own lunch and get to do all of the little household things I needed to do anyway (like laundry).  But the problem is when you work from home too often you become to prone to distraction.   There are so many times during the day when my electric drumset is calling out my name, or my messy office just can’t take it anymore and needs to be cleaned.  Then I get suck into this "unproductive" run that can only be alleviated by going back into the office and being re-energized.

So the moral of the story is working from home can be a good thing in moderation, but going to the office can never go wrong when it comes to being productive.

Hence, where I’m at today.  This week is already a slow week at work.  We’re a little ahead of schedule with our current project and I’ve made pretty good progress in my smaller-scale projects.  So far the majority of my time this week has been spent tying up loose ends.  Well I ended up just getting lazy today working from home and being completely unproductive..  So my workday really felt like a waste.

Tomorrow I’m going into the office 1st thing in the morning (for once).  and looking forward to re-energize my productivity.

The funny thing is – my laundry; the sole justification for working from home today – I didn’t even start it until 5:30pm…  So what a joke!  I spent the evening cleaning up and being productive on the home front, but I’ve been a complete slacker on all of my other fronts.  I have a pile of NCSC work that needs to get done that I keep putting off (ARGGH.. TIME TO MAKE TIME!) and as far as Pastoral Council goes I have a meeting on Monday and I’m still slacking around with the agenda, action items and all of that good stuff.  So yeah I’m being a slacker in that area…  Gotta kick my butt in gear.

It’s these 4 day weeks, I’m tellin’ ya…  My whole sense of time is thrown off right now!

Oh and my sister made it safely to Puerto Rico today, after 9 hours and one layover later (yuck!).  I, the airfare king booked my mom and sister’s trip back to Boston this August to bring my sister to school – $186 round-trip for my mom and $94 one-way for my sister!  HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?!?

I also ordered prints today of my sister’s graduation pictures…  Here is one with all four of us kids:

Thank God that this day is almost over!  This has been a very crappy day, hence this blog will basically be a rant of this day.  So thank you to those of you who choose to read it, but also please take things with a grain of salt.  My emotions are high and I just need to get this out so I can go to bed in peace.

This day had it’s potential.  I started the day by seeing "The Longest Yard" with my family.  That was a pretty good movie (for what it was – a comedy about football).  Romo was in it, which was hilarious, as well as Michael Irvine.  I would recommend that you go see it, especially if you like Adam Sandler, football or any combination of the two.  Burt Reynolds wasn’t too obnoxious either, and usually I can’t stand him.

The potential carried into a completion of a home project that was long overdue.  At my parent’s house the gate of our fence has had a hole in it for almost a year.  During that time the dog loves to get out and just chill in the front yard.  He really doesn’t run away, he just sits in the front yards, bugs the neighbors and the people walking by, but just hangs there.  But he will (hopefully) no longer be doing that now that we’ve repaired the gate.  We pretty much reconstructed the whole thing and it looks really good.  We also laid out a bunch of 2×4’s so that he’ll stop messing with the actual fence panels.  So I felt productive and that was nice.

Then things started to go south… 

First off it rained all day and it’s been a chilly 40-50 degree day – a real turn from the 80’s that we were experiencing earlier in the week.  Usually I love the rain – it is probably my favorite weather..  But I don’t like rain when it’s rained all day, is freezing cold and I have 13 Rockies Tickets.  Yes, we had 13 tickets for my family, my sisters’ friends and boyfriends and a few of my friends.  We were going to have a grand old time watching the Rockies get beat by the Cardinals and then get to see some really cool fireworks after the game.  This was going to be the third fireworks game I would have gone to, and when it comes to fireworks games I was 0-2.  The first year I got 2nd section seats for the family only to have the stupid 3rd level overhang completely block our view of the fireworks.  The next year I thought I had the problem solved by getting right field box seats, but behold – that stupid overhang came back again…  But this year was going to be different.  I spent an hour figuring out their stupid on-line ticket system so that I could get tickets on the 3rd level (no overhand), behind the dug-out, getting aisle seats on the 2nd row of the section.  We were going to have our perfect unobstructed view of the fireworks. But then the rain had to come and ruin it.  It was pouring in Fort Collins which really convinced my friends, as well as my family to not really want to go.  Finally I resigned to my family and told them that if they didn’t want to go we didn’t have to…  So they didn’t and we didn’t go.

It was probably good that we didn’t go.  The game was delayed 1 hour and 40 minutes, and when it did start it didn’t get over until 11pm, and after having to move their 10’s of fans from the left-field boxes over to the field the fireworks probably wouldn’t have started until 11:30 at the earliest.  Which means as I’m writing this as 12:15am they would just be getting over and we’d be heading home…  So yeah, it was probably good but…

I am now out $360 in 13 tickets!  That’s right, I’ve basically taken $360 and flushed it down the toilet.  Actually flushing those tickets down the toilet would probably give me more entertainment than they’re getting sitting on my desk right now.  So now I am $360 poorer.  THIS SUCKS!  My only hope is that I can call the Rockies Ticket office and see if I can do some kind of exchange for some tickets, but it says right there on the ticket – No Refunds/Exchanges…  I went through and read all of that small print on the back of those tickets and right now my chances don’t look good.

Now I understand it’s money and in the end I’ll get over this – but for tonight I think I’ve earned a night to pout about this…  I just think about how much $360 could be used for other things right now…  I’m just really pissed.

On top of that I’m really struggling with my sister.  I’m really sick of the drama that has gone on all throughout this weekend, and only now am I beginning to feel the effects of dealing with this crap.  As I am writing this I am less than 24 hours away from her going away for the whole summer (her leaving early is another point of contention).  I have spent the last 4 days at my family’s house virtually all day and yet my sister has only been at home for about an hour during that whole time.  I’m pretty pissed that we have all this family that have traveled long distances to see her, that my mom has made serious sacrifices all throughout this weekend for her and she’s out with her friends this whole time.  I understand that she wants to see them too, but this whole "leaving early" thing she brought on herself…  I guess what it all boils down to is that my sister keeps making these stupid choices and doesn’t encounter any of the consequences from them.  A perfect example is what happened tonight…

So my sister decides to go off and watch a movie with her friends so she gets into the car, backs up, doesn’t look and NAILS my other sister’s boyfriend’s car right in the rear fender.  We go out to see what happens and she gets out, really doesn’t assume any responsibility for it, then goes nuts on us somehow trying to make it our fault.  Does it stop her from going out?  No it doesn’t!  She pulls the car back into the garage, and angrily gets into her friend’s car and leaves…  And there she goes – gone without even really looking back.  Not once did she apologize to my sister’s boyfriend and she just leaves our family to deal with the crap from this.

I know that this is probably just random rambling, but I’m just really pissed that she doesn’t accept the consequences of her actions.  She’s 18, she’s going across the country for school and she doesn’t even know what it’s like to be out in this real world.  I know that part of the college experience will be to teach her those lessons, but I just think back to myself and my other sister when we were that age and we were so different.  Why my sister just doesn’t "get it" – I have no idea and I think that’s what really frustrates me.  I’m really mad that she takes advantage of my mom.  My parents have worked hard to make sure that my siblings and I had all the opportunities and resources we need – and still for my sister that’s not good enough.  I spent my tax return buying her a brand new laptop, but she still complains when I gave my youngest sister my USED PDA (palm top).  The grass is always greener with her.  Ambition is a good thing – lust is not.  Academically she’s the smartest person in our family, but it doesn’t mean crap if you don’t have common sense and can’t apply your knowledge.  She knows how to do well in AP classes and get accepted into MIT – but yet she still doesn’t understand the meaning of hard work or the value of sacrifices of others.

This sounds really horrible – I love my sister and all but I’m really looking forward to her being gone for the summer and hope that she’ll grow up in the process.  Welcome to the real world…

So that’s my rant.  I’m sorry for the emotionally-laced tirade.  Here’s to a good night’s sleep and the promise of a new day…

Going back and re-tracing my steps from the beginning it’s been nuts just to think about where I’ve been.  My day started off with my sister and I going to Loveland to join my family for Mass (I usually go in Fort Collins, and usually I end up playing drums at the Saturday night Mass, so it was a bit weird for me to have to go to Mass on Sunday first off, then secondly have to go to Loveland..  But that’s where my sister Amanda wanted to go..  Afterwards we got some food, ran some errands and came back home.  While I was at home I worked with my uncle to repair the gate at my parent’s house (the freakin’ dog knocked a huge hole in it and always gets out), then helped my mom get ready for my sister’s "real party" (and I burned a hole in my finger during the process), then went to the "real party", came back and watched my first NASCAR Race on TV, switching back with the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, then ended my day by drinking a lot of beer and playing Mexican Train with my family….  So yeah it’s been another long day.

About this weekend though (and something I said I would explain a bit)

1) The "Real Party" – So with my sister graduating high school, she (along with everyone else) wants to have a party.

Sidenote: Who the heck came up with the idea of the graduation party.  I understand you want to celebrate your achievement and go out and have a good time – I get that.  I understand that a lot of times the party isn’t so much about you, but about your friends and family who have a chance to celebrate you or to do nice things for you.  I get that as well.  But I still don’t get the concept of having a party while everyone else is having a party, then expecting people to show up.  Whether it’s high school or college graduation, it never changes.  As an underclassman you’re expected to go to these parties or run the risk of tarnashing your friendship ranking with that person.   And if you’re a graduating senior don’t even think about being able to go to other people’s parties.  You have your own to tend to, but what do you do?  I’ve seen people leave their parties to go to other people’s parties (like my sister).  That defeats the whole purpose of the graduation party.

So my sister Amanda, (whom I love dearly, but being whom she is often have a challenging time with) decides not only to have one party but to have to parties.  Well check that – at first she only wanted one party, but it was the one she wanted to throw jointly with two of her other friends.  Well somehow she forgot to mention any of this to our family when they were going through the decision making process "Ooops!", and all of the sudden we had a party that our family was slated to go to & help prepare for.  While all of this was going on, my mom, being the awesome mom that she is, is already actively in the planning stages of our family/friends party of our own…  I know that party planning is a lot of stress, but I know that in my heart of hearts my mom really wants to throw the party.  Like I said in my little sidenote – the party isn’t always so much about the person being honored as it is for the friends and family of that person.  Well my sister didn’t realize this, so all of the sudden we’re faced with two parties that are competing against each other.  And while we were going through and setting forth our plans to celebrate my sister at our family/friend party, my sister was actively sending out invitations and planning logistics for the "real party" that was going on with her two friends.

So over the last few weeks that his gotten really ugly and our family is taking it’s usual sides ( the ENTIRE family vs. my sister).  Both my oldest sister and I were probably the most frustrated because here we were doing all of this work out of the sense of respect and the notion of support for my other, while my sister couldn’t care less and had virtually no stock in this party that was being thrown for her.  She really didn’t invite anyone (as she was inviting them all to the "real party").  So this left us all with a bitter taste in our mouth.

So we went and did both parties.  The family one turned out to be really nice.  Like I said, virtually no one came, but we had some great family up there.  My uncle from Texas has been up all weekend, and then I had an aunt and cousin up here yesterday as well – people I haven’t seen in a long time.  So it turned out to be really nice, very relaxed and we just had a good time.

The "real party" went about as well as I expected.  There were a ton of people there, but really no one that I knew.  I showed up, ate some pretty good food, listened to the band there, talked with my sisters some more and then took off less than 2 hours later.

But now at least our drama-filled weekend is over.  I think it’s funny that my mind has been so weighted by these high school graduation situations, but when it comes to my sister Amanda, everything become a big deal…  But now she’s off to Boston for the summer in less than 48 hours, so here comes the next scramble/drama/adventure.  While I’m really going to miss my sister I’m also looking forward to the stress level at my parent’s house going down about 15 notches by the end of the week.

Tomorrow is another big day.  My uncle is taking off Tuesday, so I’m going to try to get some more quality family time and enjoy my day off of work.  We’re heading down to the Rockies game tomorrow night, something I’m a bit concerned about because it is COLD!!  I don’t know what happened to the weather, but today we didn’t get back 60 and it turned out to be a downpour this afternoon.  I’m just hoping that the rain holds out tomorrow and lets us have this game.  Fireworks are going on tomorrow night as well – should be a good show.