Happy Ending

Happy Ending

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Yet another fabulous comment about the Great One

Shallowest president ever. A farce inside a tragedy wrapped in a fiasco.

This is just an incredible WOW!

COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.

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Saw a great line about Obama today

Obama, the idiot the left accused G.W. Bush of being

MIne aren't this inventive, but do play in the toilet water

And another one missing

I looked for a scholarship by pbwusa.org and found this instead:

Unfortunately the BPW Foundation Board of Trustees suspended the Career Advancement Scholarships for the 2009-2010 year because of the economic down turn. While recognizing the importance of these scholarships and BPW Foundation’s commitment to the program, there were simply insufficient funds available. This is only a suspension of the program and the Board hopes to resume it as financial markets improve.

My new Mac

I love my new mac.

Last week, despite a UPS and a surge protector, the old iMac was fried and fricasseed when the yard was struck by lightning. The hard drive went hinkey and the video was entirely gone. Ben at MacDoctor saved the day and was able to recover the harddrive after much effort, but the computer was done for.

I can't be without a computer. I spoke with Ben who suggested the MacBook Pro, but after working with Mom's MacBook and the itty bitty 13" screen, I wanted to scream. It was just too small. I can't imagine using that all the time. Instead I decided on the iMac 20" from Small Dog Electronics, with a 4 gig RAM upgrade and the AppleCare. After it arrived, I took it back to Ben and he made it all right, putting a disk image of the old hard drive on the new one. I placed that on the 500 GB external and will dig through that while I pull what I need off it.

I am eligible for education discount and Apple had the buy a Mac, get an iPod Touch for free, but I already have a Touch. I'm waiting for the new ones to come out, but until then, what I have is fine.

I've watched several movies on it and Netflix, and it is wonderful. The 13" would just have been horrible.

A little disappointed, but way excited

I had the UCF orientation yesterday and I know my guardian angel at UCF, Ms. Carol Anne Pohl, had told me I would likely be a transient student because of the lateness in registration, when it happened I was still a little disappointed.

This semester I have a lone class at Brevard Community College online, a lone class at Valencia Community College, though I am wait-listed for another one and hoping I get that one otherwise things are really going to be difficult in two semesters and one two-credit class at UCF in engineering economics. Currently I have 10 credits for certain and potentially another 4, but if the wait-listed chemistry doesn't come through, then I will take CADD as a filler to get to the full-time status I need.

In other news, I heard from Dr. Gonzalez, of the International Engineering minor program. I am meeting with him on Monday the 31st of August in the morning. I'd ike to see what he has to say about me working out an African or Middle Eastern program within the confines of the existing program. It'd be a lot of work, but it would be mine and made for me. We'll see what he has to say and for that I am WAY excited.

The VA is another adventure. As soon as I'm done with this post, I'll connect the scanner and scan the acceptance letter to UCF and the graduation audit. I'll also write a letter to Hollie explaining what has happened so far, what I expect to happen and the current schedule I have paid for. I am getting kind of frustrated with the VA. I feel like I already paid for this schooling with the loss of my eye, but I have to pay for it again because of the bureaucracy.

Incredible

This morning I received an email from Valencia. It said sorry after reviewing your records, you didn't graduate. Now I had been working with a woman all summer long who was on top of things who had told me the week previously all was fine. I sent a short note back telling Mr Edwin Sanchez to check his records as they were missing something.

Almost immediately I got an email saying they were wrong and all was fine. I am incredulous that they don't have a system to prevent something like this from happening. This mistake could have changed the outcome for graduation, college admissions, living arrangements, financial aid, etc. Clearly this was a significant error.

Not as bad as the UC San Diego error, but still pretty bad.

EDIT: 8/21 When I was at the orientation this afternoon, there were four other people who also received this letter. This was apparently a wide-spread mistake of colossal proportions.

Trade for the Cat

What a ride

I found this on stumbleupon and loved it.

Try, try again

I started running again today. I really do love to run and workout, but working almost fulltime and going to school full-time leaves me little time for sleep and laundry, let alone running. I am just really going to have to make the time though. I am at 186 and want to be down to 120 by the time of the half iron in October.

I will be running that race so help me.

Here was the route for today's run.

The plan is to do this 5 times and then move onto the next week. If that means I run the route twice in a day, then I move on that much faster. That is not the plan though.

As for school, I have algebra and accounting. I don't care for either, but both are a requirement to move on so get them done, do them well and move on.

I'm 42 today

Boy, had you asked me ten years ago if I'd reach 42, I would have thought unlikely.

I didn't start thinking more than a year out for about three years after the cancer first showed up. I thought logically I would live, but emotionally, I just wasn't there. Eleven years later I'm fine.

Now I do everything I can to encourage others to be vigilant, but be positive. I too was given the "you're gonna die" speech by everyone from every place I called, visited and consulted with. I'm still here.

Mom and Carl came to work this morning and gave me a FABULOUS bouquet. It has the most gorgeous colors. The daisies are a florescent orange, with bright, deep pink carnations and fuschia somethings. It is just incredible and so, so wild with color.

I called VCC this morning as well. I signed up for the one accounting class last Thursday with no problems, but was wait-listed for the math class. I thought there was a delay of some sort because the registration site showed two spots available. By Friday there were four spots available and by Monday a 5th, but the wait-list kept growing from six to 14 as of this morning. I called registration and got the same apathetic kid as last week and was referred to the Math Department. Diane Vargus emailed someone and the log jam broke wide open. The she called to let me know. But I was already online and signing up when she called, so...

I am officially registered for both the financial accounting and college algebra beginning June 17 and ending July 28. It is seven weeks or 25 classes. It is highly compressed and will require a heck of a lot of time, but I'm convinced. I have to get A's to bring up the GPA to get into the construction management school at UF. I also need to get the GPA up to qualify for some scholarships.

Enough. A fairly good day and one I was particularly certain I would see eleven years ago.

It Happened Again

I took a part-time job at a large home improvement center. I signed up to work 15 to 20 hours a week. It's been more like 25 to 30 hours a week. This week I was scheduled to only work Saturday and Sunday for a total of 12 hours. Of course closing by yourself makes that impossible, but I had about 15 hours between the two days and wasn't scheduled to be back at work until Saturday, May 3 at 11 am.

No such luck. Daniel called last night and left a message asking me to work Wednesday and Thursday, 6 to close. I tried to call him last night to confirm, but couldn't get him to answer so called in this morning. Joe answered and asked if I would work tonight too.

So my week of 12 hours scheduled goes to 24 hours scheduled, which really means 27 hours or so because you can't do returns when you are working by yourself during the day.

It also means I can't run tonight as I had planned, can't get sneakers, dog food nor basic groceries as I had planned and can't color my hair which I MUST do.

My first bike ride of the season

I saw the new Cross Seminole trail route posted on the Chain Gang blog in the Sentinel. I knew something was coming, but I didn't realize it was so close to being done.

I rode it tonight. It was drizzling and cool, but great riding weather. I hadn't been riding at all this year and had a blast. I really love bike riding.

Here was the route. My bike computer said it was 11.39 miles while mapmyride.com said it was 10.85 miles. I'm not sure which is right, but one of them is off by a half mile or 5% in 10 miles. Not good, but OK for now.



I've got to get some more saddle time in before the 20th, but three days in a row exercising and loving it. The weight should start coming off a little.

I cleaned out most of the crap in the fridge tonight which leaves almost nothing. I have to get to Walmart tonight for some more dog food, sneakers and food, but will buy just grab and eat stuff like sandwich meat and cheese.

I always forget how much fun I have working out. And how good I feel. It's this ability to exercise that makes me hesitant to move to a snowy climate. I love that I can go outside at any time of the year and do something.

Enough. I have to get up in an hour and a half to go for a run.

Day 2, Week 1

I worked last night and got out late, like 10:45ish, which got me home about 11. That is just too late. I ate and went to bed. I wanted to get up early, but getting to bed that late just throws everything off.

I have to be at work today at noon, so other than my run, not much else is going to happen in terms of exercise today.

I did run this morning and took almost 32 seconds off my time. That is really, really incredible. Slowly the weight will come off with breakthroughs like that. I was also windy this morning. I need to remember the sun screen too. It is getting pretty warm out there and the sun is up and out.

Here was the route. Same as yesterday, but I was at the 427 crossing at the 30 minute mark which is FABULOUS!!. I'd love to be back at my 10 minute miles again, but all things in good time.

The Plan is Off to a Good Start

I set up a little matrix for the next 14 weeks. I'd like to get as much credit card debt paid off as I can barring any further critter injuries/illnesses. Between Ellie Mae and Zepheriah, it was an expensive 4 months. Ellie Mae was $1800 and Zepheriah was $1200. It's slowly coming down, but I want to be in school by August if there is any way possible.

I also need to work on the list of stuff to do, like contact the credit union for student loans, figure out what to do about the air conditioning and hall bath, get the house in shape for a roommate, come up with a reasonable budget, track down Patrick, get the house in my name and myriad other things, but I have begun.

I started listening to the Success podcasts and they are good. I need to read the book daily, but two days into the plan, I'm doing well. I paid all the bills except for the phone bill, but that's not posted yet. I bought some pasta the store last night as well as some chicken. Start getting the pasta & veggie stuff for meals, throw in some fruit and bread for fiber and that's cheap eats for the time being.

I ran this morning. All the way to the corner. I was tired, but felt good. I really do love running. The weight isn't moving, but with the new eating plan, I should be OK. I need to make a plan to watch the DVD for swimming and get to the pool.

I am exciting as my life is making progress.

Here was today's route.

I'm off to the Altamonte Lowe's to buy a ladder. Ours didn't have any left, but for $69, I can't beat it. I'm also hoping Best Rental will call with news that the pole saw came back. If, not, there's always next weekend, but I'd really prefer to get it done this weekend.

My run for Saturday

I am slowly getting acclimated to the heat. I have a sprint on June 22 and I'd like to get below 1.5 hours for that one. Todays run was in 834 degree weather, mainly in the sun. I felt good, now get some of this weight off.

Here's my route. Each time it's getting slightly longer.

Last Sunday's run