rebelpeon.com

Awkward Moment

I park on campus for work and while leaving for lunch today, I had one of those weird moments. So, I’m in my car pulling out of my spot, and this girl on the sidewalk looks at me, gets excited and starts waving at me. Now, I have absolutely no clue who this girl is. What is the right way to handle such a situation? Is it to:

A: Wave back

B: Look at her like she’s a moron

C: Ignore her

D: Roll down the window and ask, “Who the hell are you?”

E: Ask her out for “pizza”

F: Attempt to run her over

I think I ended up doing something between B and C with a possible dash of F.

Wounded

So, today I went in to see the dermatologist about the mole on my back. He looked me over and said that it didn’t look serious, but that he would recommend getting it removed just because, and to have tests done on it. That way, if tests do come back positive they can start looking at other spots too. I give him the nod of approval and he asks if I wanted to have it done right then.

Well, I was only missing work, and since I was just fired, I don’t see why I really need to rush back. I mean, I had someone covering for me anyways. So, they prep me, and ask me all the good questions like if I have any allergies or anything like that. Then, the lady stabs me a few times with a needle around the spot for local anesthesia, and then they start digging in. All in all, the “surgery” took under 30 mins (at least that’s what their clock said), and that included stitching me back up. Unfortunately, I was just anticipating the meeting, and so I had a parking ticket on my car when I got back to it.

At the time, since I was anesthetized, I couldn’t feel anything. Unfortunately, that’s not the case now. It’s kinda swollen now, and is throbbing a bit. However, they gave me a prescription of Vicadin in case the pain was too intense, plus I can take regular Advil or Tylenol. Since it’s so swollen, it really makes it hard to move my arms around, because it keeps tugging on the stitches. Slightly a pain.

However, the biggest pain is what they expect me to do to keep the dressings fresh. Apparently, 3-4 times a day I’m supposed to clean it out with Hydrogen Peroxide, apply this anti-bacterial goo (only for the first 3 days), and then bandage it back up. Now, this normally wouldn’t be a pain, but first of all, I can’t even see the area, and secondly, even if I could see it, I can’t really reach it.

Thankfully Colleen has been nice enough to aid me in this task, at least once a day. I figure that’s good enough anyways. I mean, I’m not that dirty of a guy. Am I?

In the Shop

Well, this is the first time my car has gone into the VW Service Dept. Hopefully it will be go smoothly, and I won’t end up with more things broken than what I sent it in for.

Last week we had some weird weather, and one of the side effects was a lot of ice buildup. Well, I went up to Chicago last weekend and tried to roll down my window for the tolls. It didn’t budge, frozen solid. However, now when I go to roll it down (even though it’s not frozen), it makes this horrible sound like metal scraping the glass, and it just never goes down. Quality. I’ve read that this is a common occurrence, and actually pretty easy to fix yourself. However, the car only has 10k miles on it, and so I really don’t want to deal with it.

So far, this has been the only problem I have had with the car. Otherwise, it’s been great. There are a few weird things about it though. The number one complaint I have is the seat adjustments. In most cars, the lever on the side of the seat is for tilt, not mine though. Instead, that’s to raise and lower the seat. To tilt it, you have to turn the nob at the joint. Talk about a pain. However, it never really effects me, since nobody else drives my car. I just have to constantly remind new passengers, that want to fiddle with the controls, that they’re actually making the seat go up and down, not tilt.

However, this car definitely beats the pants out of my old truck. Just the addition of cruise is, in my mind, heaven. Then there’s the gas mileage. Definitely a good purchase on my behalf.

**Update**
And I just got a call letting me know that everything is finished. Took less than 4 hours, I can’t complain. Granted, I’m not in possession of the car yet, so I’ll still have to see about that.

Weekend Update

Ok, well, actually this isn’t just a weekend update, but more of a collective update covering the last week and a half. It seems as if many things have been going on, at least bigger things. Unfortunately, many of the people that read this already know about them. However, since this is sort of my personal diary, I thought I’d post anyways.

First news on the plate is that I’ve met someone. The bad news, is that she’s in Chicago. She’s actually a friend of Bree’s. They go to school together. However, I’m not gonna go giving Bree a bunch of credit, since I believe she’s the one that said something to the extent of, “I introduced you, that’s all I’m gonna do.” Granted, it seems to have worked, since I’ve been up there the last 2 weekends hanging out with her.

Since I’m up in Chicago so much, and, well, because I think I’ll be up there a lot more, I decided to break down and buy an I-Pass. I’ve been up there at least the las 4 weekends, and I know for sure I’ll be up there again the next two, so it’s a good decision by me. I mean, the tolls work out being half the price, and I don’t have to stop at each booth. I just hope it gets here (ordered it online) before I leave on Friday to head to Milwaukee.

Oh yeah, heading up to Milwaukee with Binford, to go to an Alton Brown book signing. It was either St Louis on Thursday, or Milwaukee on Friday. I figured, Friday would work out much better, since I could take another 3 day weekend. I’m hoping it will be a good time. I mean, Good Eats is such a quality show, the book signing can’t be bad. Right?

Well, that leads me to my next topic, but that one really deserves a new entry because it’s crazy enough to be its own.

IHOP’s Sign

“Start your diet tomorrow. Visit IHOP today!”

Medical Trifecta

Well, today was the last of my three checkups that I finally got around to doing. This included the Eye Doctor, Dentist, and then to get a physical. I figured now would be a good time to get around to all those, since I still worked at the University, and they have such wonderful benefits.

Apparantly I ran out of my physical too fast, because I was supposed to get signed up for a Tetanus shot. My doctor looked at me kind of funny when I said that it has been since ‘94 since I had my last one. Plus, while I was there I had him look at a mole on my back. He said that it didn’t look bad, and I didn’t need to worry about it, but then when he came back after I had dressed he was carrying a book about moles and melanoma, etc, and said that he actually wanted me to meet with a dermatologist.

So, while my original three appointments are finished, I still need to head back in two times in the next week. One for the tetanus shot, the next for the dermatologist. It’s like a party, at the doctors.

Oh yeah, and just in case anyone was worried, I’m in perfect condition.

Moving Again

This will mark the fourth department in 6 months. I’m hoping to set a new record. Granted, my moving is not due to being unable to fit into a dept. It’s just because there are so many depts that need fixing at the University. It’s actually quite sad, especially since UIUC used to be such a leading university for IT related things. It’s amazing how far they have fallen behind by simply not doing anything.

2005

Well, another year has passed, and it seems like they are, as usual, just flying by. I can’t really say that 2004 was a good or bad year, there were definitely high and low points. For the coming year there are definitely things I want to do differently this year, and/or change. I don’t really want to get into it here (I’ll probably get an “expectations meeting”), but those of you who know me, know some of the things I’m thinking of.

Anyways, for New Years, I headed back up to Chicago (2nd time this week, but still on the same tank of fuel). I stayed at Ann’s place, and since she knows more people in Chicago than I do, I left her in charge of figuring out what we were doing for New Years. Well, she knew some people that lived downtown that were having a party of sorts. Now, this place was right downtown (as you can see from the link). The part that makes this funny is that the people that live in said apartment are newlyweds, one is a school teacher, and the other is in law school at UIUC no less. Also, there’s the fact that they own this place, and not simply rent it. Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that they own it, more like their parents. And I can only imagine how much they paid for this place that is like one third of the size of my apt.

Anyways, we had a good time, and we went outside (in the chilly weather without coats) to watch the fireworks display from the lake. Lake Shore Dr was backed up all the way because people were just parking their cars on the road to watch the fireworks. It was pretty nuts. Anyways Ann hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and so when we headed back up to the apt, she started falling asleep on the couch. Well, the group had decided that hanging out in the apt was a bust, and instead wanted to visit a bar. Being right downtown doesn’t afford you that much in the selection of bars, as I had already found out on Monday night when a family friend and I had scoured the area around Wacker.

Needless to say, the bar was pretty dead, and Ann was about ready to fall asleep on here stool. I told her we should get a cab and head home. Crazily enough, I didn’t receive any disagreement from her. So we headed back to her place, and when we got there, her roommate, Evan, and his friend were watching The Rock. In under 5 minutes, I swear that all of them were asleep.

That’s pretty much my night. It was fun, could’ve been different, but being a “nice guy” has it’s benefits and downsides I suppose. Who knows.

Bacon!

Today I ventured out of the house to find the restaurant supply stores that we have here in the area. Needless to say, I found both of them. Now, the reasn I did this was to find a cookie sheet that doesn’t suck. The ones I currently had, had a lip around the edge, but the corners weren’t closed. Therefore, cooking anything that needed a solid edge was out of the question (i.e. bacon).

Unfortunately, my small oven won’t support a full sized sheet. Therefore, I had to go with the half-sheet. What really sucked, was that both of the supply stores didn’t have cooling racks for half sheet pans. However, they did have smaller cooling racks that I can nicely fit two of into the half sheet pan. I even got a deal on the pan and cooling racks, under $20.

Now, what does this new sheetpan and cooling rack get me? Bacon! I’ve had a slab of bacon in my freezer for awhile now, but I’ve been unable to cook it because I haven’t had a closed wall cookie sheet. Yes, I know, I could’ve done it on the stove top, but talk about a mess. I also could’ve done it on the grill, but it’s been too cold out.

Needless to say the cookie sheet and cooling racks worked wonderfully. The bacon was nice a crisp, not squished up on itself, and not loaded with fat (the bacon on the cooling rack allowed the fat to drain away). The BLTs that I made with the bacon were delicious, even without the tomatoes. Yum.

Chicago Tolls

This is just a public service announcement to remind everyone that goes to Chicago as much as myself (i.e. not very much), that tolls prices are increasing. Come the first of the year, I believe all, tolls are doubling.

All the signs on the interstate are reminding people. It makes me wonder what size piece of the pie Jewel gets for selling the speed pass. I mean, that’s essentially what the city of Chicago is trying to do, get everyone that uses the tollroads to use the speed pass. It makes sense though, fewer toll workers, less congestion, etc. The only down side now is that it looks like the city is fleecing tourists even more, since they’re the ones that are going to be paying the majority of the toll increase.

Just curious if anyone knows, but is the Skyway toll going to double too?