I lost a very, very good friend. Not as in lost-lost, or “I left her at Macy’s by accident” lost, but just lost. I hope she’s going to be OK, I miss her a ton.

If you are up north and are experiencing single-digit temperatures, I feel for you. But for us cold-blooded creatures in the south, temps in the 30s are worse because we have no reason to be used to it. Don’t mock me for my four layers of clothing or double-electric blankets, (only one of which is plugged it,) or wearing my lined leather jacket at the office. Yes it’s colder where you are, yes you have snow, yes you live in Chicago for some unknown reason, but you just don’t understand what we Floridians feel like right now. You just don’t.

I have the coolest iPhone case ever. The tall blonde at the restaurant yesterday confirmed it. Yes it’s a red crocodile-leather case. I like both the color and the texture. It’s wicked-cool, and hot college-aged women agree with me.

My one year of being “single” is approaching and while the loneliness is difficult, at least the pain of being alone with someone in the house is gone.

I have invited a friend down to visit for a weekend. I hope she can make it.

The more time I spend at Starbucks, the easier it is to laugh at people who need 42 adjectives to order their coffee. “Tall mocha” or “tall raspberry latte”, foshizzle.

The 100lb Puppy of Love has a fatty deposit in his left armpit that requires removal. It is not dangerous, but it will interfere with his walking. I can take my son to the doctor for shots and be brave for him, but when a vet touches my dog, I cry and sniffle. I’m getting teary just thinking about him having surgery.

My mean cat, Bisky Boodle, does not understand why I’m not taking pictures of her anymore. She’d me mad if I was, but is also mad that I’m not. Frankly, there’s just no winning with her and I quit trying years ago. If I am lying on the couch, she will hop up, but her face next to mine and say, “I am going to lie next to you, see? Don’t touch me. Don’t coo at me. Don’t call me cute names. Don’t move. I am here because I am sure it is an inconvenience for you, that’s all.”

I have no desire to make stuffed mushrooms anymore. My lemon chicken with carrots, celery, and bamboo shoots was an unmitigated disaster. I think my cooking is suffering because of my lost friend.

All the Christmas decorations are put away. It is both sad and cleansing, I think.

No, I am not going to join eHarmony or Match or anything else.

I totally scored at fixing my attorney’s computer over the holidays. I used to get a text or call every other day about a crash or lockup, but nothing at all this year. Extra RAM and a stay-awake program solved his problems.

The fungus in the 100lb Puppy of Love’s ears has been eradicated. We got through the weekend of peeing every three hours due to the medication, daily cleaning, and twice-daily ear drops. Does anything feel better than taking care of someone that looks into your eyes with total trust and love?

One of my friends who is right about everything, all the time, is gonna be wrong this time, I just know it.

Cub Scouts meeting this week means I get to hang out with parents. There is a mom there, married, who is very pretty and kind. It’s fun just to be around her because she and I are able to talk. We made pipe-cleaner candy canes together before Christmas while our kids brought us supplies. It was the fastest hour-long scout-meeting ever.

I need a new/used vehicle with a back seat, I know this. But my race car is almost paid off and the thought of no car payment is intoxicating. I hate purchasing used cars as the thought of car-repairs sickens me, but any new car is so expensive and such a depreciating investment. A used Porsche 911 has a back seat, but nobody will agree with me that this car would be a wise parenting choice.

Today I drove at a sedate 5mph through the 9″ cones they place in my son’s school parking lot. My car and I could totally smoke that course at 30mph easily, if they’d just move those Safety Patrol 5th graders out of the way.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

2010 Who the {Bleep} Knows

Then you use the nozzle and it blows up in your face once more. That’s the current state of the Shuttle program. Ask me if I’m upset that I’m leaving.

The answer is: Kinda, yeah.

I am leaving a very large Comfort Zone for an industry in which I have zero experience. I have a great deal of knowledge of the Processes that this industry uses; the military-industrial society uses the same acronyms and has the same meetings all over the world. But I’m going to be The Dumb New Guy Who Drinks Funny Coffee and that’s scary. All the paperwork is done, all that’s left is to show up to work and not make myself look stupid. So…

Top Ten Things I’m Gonna Do To Not Look Stupid

10. Bring a change of pants and shirt. Should I spill coffee, splash water, or become incontinent, I’m going to pull a Superman in my car.

9. Leave the iPhone in my pocket. I will not whip it out (cough) and provoke any Palm or PC-rivalries right off the bat.

8. Not start slinging zingers about. There will be time for my personality to be let loose upon my new coworkers, but Day One isn’t the day to break out the casual smack-downs I so dearly love to give and receive.

7. Leave my coffee maker at home. No raspberry latte, ‘cause that’ll cause too many questions that I don’t need to answer. Yes, I like fruity coffee, dang it all, but they don’t need to make judgments about my character based upon a bottle of syrup.

6. Leave the NASA memorabilia at home, too. No Shuttle posters, no Delta coins, no chunks of Pad 39A, or anything else is coming into my work area. Blatantly advertising my previous job will just set me off from the establishment.

5. No going out for lunch, unless invited. There are hundreds of restaurants around my new campus, but I need to be seen pouring over technical manuals and procedures instead of coming into the office at 1pm with Kung Pao Chicken-stained lips.

4. Leave my boss alone. Honestly, my new boss is one of the biggest perks of my new job. She and I have a very similar idea of what we want her department to achieve. But I’m not going to try to be her new buddy and co-pilot right away. I need to be friendly, quiet, competent, and over there; I want her to be happy with her choice of me.

3. Eyes never below the neck. There are lots of women at my campus. There will be plenty of time to meet and talk to the females, but for now, I need to be The Quiet New Guy, not The Pervy New Guy.

2. Be wary of the first person who wants to be my friend. Office politics are in always in motion, and I need to get a lay of the land before developing a survival strategy.

1. Do NOT get a speeding ticket. I know how to get to work, I know how long it takes, but I’ve never driven the route during rush hour. I really don’t want to start off a new career by being late because the cops did what they do when they come for you.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

It’s Gettin’, It’s Gettin’, It’s Getting’ Kinda Heavy

9. Using all my remaining sick time as a consequence of “FU Fever”.

8. Preparing to wear furry bear-feet slippers and a bathrobe to the moon-shot rocket launch next week.

7. Getting a vanity plate for my car that says, “NASAXKPEE”

6. Using my new job offer letter as proof-of-income and buying a Porsche Cayman.

5. Downgrading my typical work wardrobe of jeans and silk Hawaiian shirts to Gorialladin tshirts and house pants.

4. Sending an “all distribution” email offering the contents of my office to the highest bidders.

3. DoD-wiping every document on my local and remote shared drives into electronic-oblivion. No, wait…

2. Trying to sneak my work-owned 12×18 Wacom graphics tablet out of the building after removing the thing’s ID tag and putting it on a broken microwave.

1. Using a hunk of cardboard, a few glitter markers, and old Christmas ornaments to fashion a sign around my neck that says, “Don’t forget to tip your Engineer… Or Else!” before my final Shuttle launch this weekend.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Top Ten Things I’ve Chickened-Out of Doing Since Handing In My Resignation Letter

Daniel’s Top Ten Things He Hates About Orlando

10. Road Tolls. I spend $5 a day in tolls. Yes, I know you New Yorkers can easily laugh at that; I grew up on Long Island. But for almost any other city in America, toll roads are not the norm. Here, we’ve got four roads that make a big box around the city, and three of them are toll roads. The fourth is a federal interstate and the local government keeps trying to make that a toll road as well. We’ve paid for these roads many years ago, and the officials just keep the toll booths up as a source of revenue. I loathe being robbed.

9. Right-lane passing. Look, I’ve driven on five continents. I’ve driven right and left-hand drive cars on both the right and left-hand side of the road. I’ve circumnavigated the US and most of Europe. I’ve survived Saudi Arabia’s highways from Taif to Jeddah. Orlando is the only place I’ve been where passing on the wrong-side is not just accepted, but mandated.

8. People who watch Space Shuttle launches and make my forty-five minute drive home from work a three-hour nightmare. ‘Nough said.

7. My thin skin. Anything below 60 degees farenheit is freezing. It’s not my fault I’m a temp-wimp now; it’s Florida’s.

6. Red Ants. I grew up on the cool, crisp grass of Long Island. Now I live on the vines of St. Augustine “grass” and the red ants that make these jungles their home. Red ants eat your skin, crawling in your toes and gnawing the tender flesh betwixt your toes. People go into shock from red ant attacks. There are two reasons that Florida is capable of supporting human life, and pesticides is one.

5. Hurricanes. No, not the football team, but the natural disasters. There is little worse than having your electrical power go out in Florida due to a hurricane, as then you lose air conditioning. The winds and water are nothing; losing one’s power is unbearable. One cannot survive in Florida without air conditioning. Actually, Florida wasn’t even a real state until the 1950s when AC was made readily available.

4. Disney visitors. Listen, if you’re going to come to any of the Disney parks, fly on an airplane and use the Disney shuttles. They have made it so that you don’t need a car. They pick you up at the airport in air conditioned vans, take you too your air conditioned hotel, you run amok in the air conditioned attractions, your take the air conditioned van back to the airport, you say goodbye, we’re all happy. Renting a car and trying to find your way around is just going to piss us all off. You’re lost, you’re tired, your AC isn’t working, you’re making me pass in the right-hand lane, and you make up for the lost time by extending your visit.

3. The Orlando Magic. We let Shaq go. We don’t deserve a basketball team, honestly. I’ve been to a few games, and at one I was asked why I was coming. I said, “Because I got free tickets. There’s no way I’d pay to see this team.” Yes we’re doing well this year, but the past fifteen years could’ve made Orlando “Shaq-Apulco”, instead of just the man’s backyard.

2. The people who play with alligators. On Kennedy Space Center, there’s a sign that says, “Don’t feed the alligators”. OK, so some stupid morons have thrown food at alligators. Understandable, but hardly Darwin Award winners. Then there’s the sign that says, “Don’t move the alligators”. What kind of moronic reprobate gets it into his noggin to try alligator-tipping? An eaten one, that’s what kind.

1. My pool. I have a leak somewhere and it’s going to cost a butt-load of cash to find and fix it. D@mn.

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Post from: Brain Needed Space

Top-Ten, Number One