mandaloo

it’s been great, but i needed my own site for various reasons. my wordpress has been imported to www.mandaloo.com. redirect and enjoy.

another long week at work.  full of 11 or 12-hour days.  and i’m exhausted.  i decided that i’m taking friday off.  jeromy will have the day off, so we’re just going to veg out and do absolutely nothing.  i can’t wait.

i’m playing fantasy hockey with the boys.  our teams get assigned or something on friday.  i set up my player preferences tonight.  we’ll see how it goes.  i’m watching colorado beat up on dallas right now, actually.

rant for the day or week or whatever:  if i’m walking up to a door, and you decide to hold it open for me (this goes for elevators, too)… don’t wave at me to hurry up or tell me to “come on.”  i didn’t ask for you to hold it open for me.  and if you’re too busy to wait, then you obviously have better things to do than wait on me.  this tends to annoy me more in the mornings walking up to work.

my apartment is a mess.  i really needed to have done laundry tonight, but by the time i got home (after 8 pm) and ate dinner, there was no way my laundry would have been done by the time they lock the laundry area up.  i have been beaten by the time gods and will be forced to wear whatever smells decent.

oh where to begin… i’m sitting in a chair at a house that i stayed overnight last night (and will tonight). the parents of a family i knew from my previous church congregation are out of state and they wanted someone to stay the night with their 11-year old and 15-year old girls. good girls that are self sufficient… i’m merely here for the peace of mind factor. no biggie. the classic movie channel is on and there are a bunch of kids in costumes tap dancing and performing acrobatics (in black and white, of course). i have obviously missed something about the plot, methinks. the commercial just told me that there is a show where old movie child stars are going to talk about their pain or something. next.

while shopping for shoes, i left my cell phone (magenta pink rzr) on one of the little bench things. i didn’t realize it was gone until much later. by the time i had called the shoe store and realized it was not turned in, i immediately contacted my cell provider. my cell provider told me that calls had been made since the time i had left it. including a call to a church of all things. i had been calling my phone all day and had left messages for it to be returned. nothing. so i assumed that the finder of my phone had no intention of turning it in. i suspended my account and purchased a new phone (a samsung t509). it’s pretty sweet and i like it so far. it’s way slim and small. user-friendly controls are a plus for a tech n00b such as myself. low and behold, over two days after i lost my cell phone, i get a call from my grandma (who lives with my parents) saying that a lady called their house saying that she found my phone. she said her grandkids found it at the shoe store. and while that is great and wonderful, and i’m glad it was found, it really doesn’t do me a whole lot of good now that i bought a new phone and had a new card activated. i’m going to investigate options with my cell provider, though, and see what can be done (probably nothing).

on friday night, jeromy, neo, and i went to dinner at cantina laredo to celebrate jeromy’s birthday. we were also there to celebrate phoenix’s birthday as well. his friends showed up and all together, there were ten of us. it was a good time. below are some pics of jeromy opening his gifts earlier in the week, as well as some pics at cantina laredo (where the boys donned the birthday hat… heh).

saturday night was the fort worth opera ball. jeromy and i got all dressed up and had a wonderful evening. the theme was japanese (the cherry blossom ball) and there were a lot of people. there was a silent auction with all sorts of neat things (but a lot of it was pricy, so i just looked). during the cocktail hour, we just stood and socialized. there were geisha girls walking around and old japanese women doing calligraphy and origami. really beautiful stuff. i got my name written in japanese on a bookmark. dinner was super good. we had a salad to begin with. and then the main dish was steak, salmon, potatos, carrots, eggplant, and some spinach thing. it was all super good. dessert was green tea ice cream with berries in it … in a chocolate bowl!!! the chocolate had the most marvelous flavor and i couldn’t help but to smile. while we ate, there were japanese performances including drumming, flute playing, and dancing. it was super enjoyable. we met some people around our age that are part of a young professionals group. we might be hanging out with them again soon. all in all, it was a wonderful time and a memorable night. below are pics…

tomorrow at work, we’re having the kickoff lunch for our united way campaign. our committee this year (i was co-chair) has been doing a great job, and i’ll be glad to have it behind us. this week at work should be much less chaotic and i might actually get home and get some things accomplished.

i cannot begin to tell you how much has happened in the last week so here are the highlights:

• dad’s birthday.  basically, jeromy and i went over to my parents’ house last saturday for my dad’s birthday.  i bought him some longhorns stuff (a sweatshirt and a tshirt, which i later exchanged for a larger size) and some dublin dr. pepper (which i picked up on my adventure in stephenville last week).  also threw in a free calendar from a tool store i got that day.  it was super cute and funny and i think dad enjoyed this gift more than any of the others i got… which felt like a parent getting a gift for a kid only to watch the child gleefully play with the box.  heh.
• work.  and tons of it.  it’s thursday and i have already gotten 40 hours plus some.  as a result, i’ve been kinda tired and stressed, but nothing major. 
• stars hockey game.  went to go watch the stars do their preseason thing last night.  they got whooped by colorado – they really need to pull it together soon.  it was jeromy’s birthday yesterday and his sister scored some tickets at work, so that was his gift to make the day fun for him.  they were platinum tickets… which meant parking in the garage and no lines.  it was super nice and despite the defeat, i had a good time.  i absolutely love going to hockey games.  it’s a good sport for an impatient person such as i to watch.  jeromy seemed to have a good time, too – it was his first hockey game.  you gotta love a guy who makes jokes about the midriff-showing ice girls who skate out there during breaks and wave to the crowd.  i was not amused.  neither was he.  so the side comments flew.  and i think i love him more for that.  there was a game with some of the crowd members that looked kinda fun.  the individual would sit in a sled and they would kinda “sling” you (with a giant slingshot amazingly enough) across the ice where you would try to knock over giant bowling pins.  i don’t know why i found it so entertaining but i did.  i had a young couple (high school maybe?) next to me that needed to get a room.  i found it interesting when the girl was showing her boyfriend her fresh tattoo on her leg… of a GIANT marajuana leaf and dice underneath.  classy.
  (more…)

on friday, i worked half a day. jeromy had the day off. so the day before, he and i made plans to have lunch with my dad. i made the invitation to daddy without much thought as to how it was being interpreted on the other side. apparently, mom thought “something was up” and that the lunch was a way to break some big news to dad. poor daddy… i think for the first half of lunch, he thought there was some announcement that was going to be made. but it was just lunch. it was nice to spend time with dad in that way. jeromy and i rode in dad’s ‘68 mustang that he’s working on restoring. jeromy came up to the office for a couple of minutes with me and then i went to mom’s, where i picked up bacon for the weekend. one of cookie’s puppies has come back to live with mom (the one named “toffee”) and he and bacon have apparently become close. they play constantly and sleep together. in theory, mom is supposed to be finding another home for toffee, but there has been no effort made thus far.  i predict that he stays.  i’ve already heard the phrase, “but he is so well behaved…” and so on.

after picking up bacon, i took her to meet up with jeromy and jack at petsmart. both bacon and jack went to the groomers for the “works” and got bathed and had their nails clipped. while waiting for the dogs, jeromy and i went shopping at different pet stores to find a new collar and leash for bacon and jack. we went to pet-o-rama and looked at the aquarium stuff just for fun. i found out that there are these little “nano cube” salt water tanks which allows people to have a smaller, more affordable, easy-to-maintain salt water environment to enjoy. they had a 12 gallon one on display witha large variety of coral and such and i was super impressed. and now i want one. (more…)

weekend rundown…

went to mom’s house during the day on saturday. just hung out and relaxed. i went shopping afterwards and scored a pair of jeans for cheap. whoo hoo!
going out with the girls from church to babe’s on saturday night was good. babe’s is a chicken place – you can either order fried chicken or chicken fried steak. the sides are rolls, mashed taters, and corn. it’s an ecclectic place and i heard that it was even featured on food network at one point in time. we sat at a table that was being waitressed by one of the girls we all go to church with. needless to say, i ate too much. i was going to hang out with neo and jeromy after that, but they were well into their computer stuff for the night and i was tired. i called it a night early on.

went to church this morning. we talked about jonah. a lot of people seemed tired during the main service. after that, i hung out with jeromy. i cooked tuna noodle for dinner and we watched a movie. now, we’re just watching a documentary on osama bin laden.

the five year of september 11 is tomorrow. but everyone knows that since that’s all that is on tv these days. i’m not going to go into a big oratory piece about september 11 and what it meant to the nation – that’s been done by far too many talented (and untalented) writers by now. whenever i think about the day – i, like everyone i know, remember where i was. i was at work that day – in the morning a coworker let me know what was happening. we were all glued to the tvs in the building. i remember the overwhelming feeling that i just wanted to go home and be with my family – mostly, my mom. it’s a feeling i won’t forget. looking back, it really shows me what is important to me. but a lot of people felt this sensation. i didn’t feel like the end of the world was coming, but i knew that the event was going to trigger something big. the days following were drenched in everyone looking deeper it seems. on the street or walking around campus, everyone made eye contact with me, nodded, and looked down. there was quiet – lots of quiet at school the days immediately following. people drove better on the roads. and then things went back to normal.  people cut each other off on the highway.  went about their day without even acknowledging you.  but there’s something to be said about at least taking a minute to remembering.  for all of the flaws that this country (and world, for that matter) might have, there are common ties that unite us.

this upcoming week at work is going to be a little busier than normal. i’m not too worried… i really don’t mind working late at work if i know in advance that it’s just how it’s going to be.