Shirastuff

Murfreesboro, TN - Mileage overload

2009-11-17T21:30:00.001-06:00

I'm not sure what's going on lately, but it seems like operations is outright desperate to keep trucks moving at any cost. Including, apparently, the sanity of drivers. I had to start this morning as soon as my break was up to try keep things going, only to lose time in traffic and get to the consignee about half an hour later than expected. This wouldn't have been that big of a problem, except that I'd already been assigned another load to pick up by noon and, though the magic mileage book claimed it was just 35 miles away, it was an over 50 mile trek on state highways. As such I was nearly 15 minutes late, though for the second time in less than a week, my pickup deadline was nothing but a suggestion; nobody seemed to even notice that I was "late" for picking the load up.

I think I set a new record picking that load up. Between the time I arrived with my empty trailer and the time I left with my load, just fifteen minutes passed. They had a yard guy bring the loaded trailer right to me so I just had to drop my empty, do a U-turn to get the load, and drive straight out the gate. After a not-so-brief (20 mile) detour to scale the load out, I started heading toward Atlanta. I hadn't yet even had the chance to trip plan any of this out, as I was moving non-stop to try conserve as much time as possible, but operations just didn't seem to care. I received yet another work assignment less than two hours after picking my current load up. By this point, operations' estimate of what I can do and reality are now four hours apart; they seem to think that I can deliver this load by about 5 AM tomorrow when I'll just be coming off my break at that point and still have 225 miles to go.

As a result of all this time compressing by operations, I have to run as hard as I possibly can over the next two days just to get my load delivered on time. I may be forced to wake up around 1:30 AM Thursday. Though the mileage on this run is pretty good, it's going to leave me in upstate New York with only about seven hours to run on my 70. For once, I have some hours to pick up; I'll be getting nine hours back Friday night and eight hours on Saturday. This, however, is the only thing that gives me even a glimmer of hope that I won't be stuck in New York state for the weekend; I don't have much confidence in operations to keep from leaving me stranded once again. To make matters worse there's essentially no truck parking near where I'm delivering, so if they can't find me something immediately I'll have to scramble to figure something out on my own.

In other, almost related news, I finally have some confirmation of a few policies that my DBL had been leaving ambiguous. Most importantly, I finally had someone confirm that I can combine my normal (unpaid) time at home with my (paid) vacation weeks, giving me a few extra days to take care of things. I'll probably be using all that time in the second half of January.

Why can't I enjoy a day off?

2009-11-09T18:39:00.001-06:00

The subject really just says it all here. It seems like every time I get a day off, or even during the week or so I had off at home, I end up spending most of my time completely miserable. Both today and last weekend, my entire time off was spent sitting at the computer, wishing I had something to do and, ideally, someone to do it with. I'm completely uninspired when it comes to try writing things. I'm really not even enjoying looking at porn, something that I usually can at least use to get my mind off things for a little while. And during the time I'm working, it seems like I'm completely isolated, as I don't end up having time to do anything for myself at all, which just makes me even more depressed when I have those rare occasions to do something and things just fall apart.

As I posted on Twitter earlier, I rather wish I could just beat myself unconscious for a significant period of time. I'm not suicidal - that goes too far - but I see little point in continuing the daily grind like I am now since it just never leads to anything satisfactory. The brief moments of happiness I have are almost always swept away either by work, by things going awry, or some other unforeseeable calamity that leaves me feeling even more hopeless about my prospects of ever actually getting more than a transient moment of happiness that's immediately swept away in another wave of depression.

Frankly I'm not even sure why I'm writing this. I doubt anyone's going to read it anyway, especially not anyone who could actually make me happy. That is, of course, if there really is someone who could cheer me up.

Sprint's sales department fails too

2009-10-11T12:38:00.001-05:00

I had wanted to get the HTC Hero today. The reviews seemed generally favorable and, given that my current opinion is that a Windows Mobile phone is slightly less reliable than tin cans with a really long string, I figured that having a day off seemed like a good opportunity to snap one up. The nearest store to our operating center here wouldn't even be open until noon, so I waited to try call until that time. That's pretty much where things started going south.

Upon calling the store, I was greeted with the usual lengthy menu of options, complete with the paradox of being told "For Spanish, press two" in perfect, crisp English. After navigating that mess, I was briefly given hold music before an automated message interrupted to say that all associates were busy helping in-store customers. I re-entered my selection, only to have the same thing happen again: after fewer than twenty seconds I was kicked out of the hold queue, this time with a message telling me I should make an appointment if I want to talk to someone. That really isn't an option, considering that it's a ten mile drive each way and I'm not about to waste that kind of time going up there only to find out that I can't get what I want.

Having exhausted my options locally, I decided to try making a call to Sprint's main 800 number. It took several attempts of random button mashing just to get to a human being, but I tried. The first suggestion was that I try Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and/or Radio Shack if I want to find inventory that's nearer or information that's more useful than a Sprint store. I appreciated that information, then started to ask about the phone specifically and the plan I wanted. At that point, I was told I couldn't keep the 15% employee discount I currently have with the plan I would be required to switch to. Nowhere, on any of the information I'd ever been given about the discount, was there a restriction on what sort of plans it could apply to. I called them out on that and was told that no discounts of any kind were applicable. Never mind that I was already asking about a plan that would have increased my monthly bill by at least $30 even if I got to keep the discount, nor that I'd been a customer (albeit a very unhappy one) for two years. At that point, I didn't really see any point in holding back; I just said that Sprint had mastered the art of screwing prospective customers out of as much money as possible, thanked her for warning me that I would be getting screwed out of even more money if I decided to stay with them, and hung up the phone.

At this point, I'm seriously unsure what I want out of a cell phone company at all. The biggest problem, of course, is that all the major carriers suck. There is no national carrier that doesn't screw its customers six ways from Sunday and, given that I drive all over the place, a regional carrier isn't a viable option. There's also the fact I need an aircard or a device that allows tethering, services that I've never seen advertised by anything other than AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-mobile. I don't know what it would take to fix the cellular industry right now, but to me it seems like it is fundamentally broken in its current incarnation. It seems like they want to make it as difficult as possible to do anything, even giving them money, due to their bureaucracy and general incompetence. How can they possibly be this screwed up?

Time for a house?

2009-10-07T23:47:00.000-05:00

So, after a few months of deliberations, poking around online, looking on various websites, and reading how-tos on how to buy a house, I think I may be ready to take the plunge. I've a mediocre credit score, but enough cash to make a substantial down-payment on a place. I'm still planning on looking near Indianapolis, IN; even given some of the recent issues I've had with furs in the area, moving up there would put me far closer to a lot of other people I'd want to visit; I'd be within half a day's drive of numerous major cities.

The first major hurdle to overcome, of course, is convincing work to let me take the time off. Somehow, at this point, that seems like the hardest thing to do. Once I have some time (hopefully a week), I just need to make the pilgrimage and start digging around. It's going to be a whirlwind trip, to be sure: I'll be talking to banks, real estate agents, homeowners, and probably more. It's going to be under some serious time pressure as well, as I may only get one shot to get this taken care of before that first-time homeowner tax credit expires. If it comes down to the wire I may make a few other negotiations with work, but I'm really hoping it doesn't end up as something like that.

If anyone in the midwest has some advice, or wants to see me while I'm in that part of the country, feel free to comment here.

I WAS a happy ING Direct customer

2009-09-29T19:22:00.000-05:00

Up until now, I've been an exceptionally happy customer of ING Direct. Good interest rates and practically no fees for anything are two rather large selling points after all. But an e-mail I received earlier this evening made me seriously reconsider my relationship with them.
Here's the relevant excerpts from the e-mail:

The credit and debit card industry has recently seen a global increase in activity stemming from compromised or stolen information by modern day "bad guys." Although data wasn't stolen from ING DIRECT, we felt it was best to send you a new Card with a new Card Number as a precaution. [...]

IMPORTANT:

Activating your new Card will automatically deactivate your old Card.
Your old Card will be deactivated on October 20th, 2009 at 12 AM ET, regardless of whether your new Card has been activated.

So... because somehow MasterCard has some security issues, my debit card is going to be deactivated in three weeks even though I never authorized such a step to be taken. If my account were compromised, I'd know about it immediately; the last time there was a security breach ING started sending e-mails for every debit card transaction and now that Gmail has push enabled my phone would get the message in a matter of seconds.

But apparently none of that matters to ING now. I explained my situation: that, as a truck driver, it's extremely unlikely that I will be home in three weeks given that I have to request time off a minimum of four weeks in advance and it's very rare I'll get to stop home while working since Florida isn't exactly on the way to anywhere else. The lady on the phone just kept insisting that this is the way ING has decided to handle the situation, that over 50,000 customers were going to be receiving new cards, that I was certainly not the first person to call in to complain, and that they will not be making any exceptions or allowances for anyone.

It seems like the only things I can do are to either withdraw a very large sum of cash ($1,000) or to resort to using my emergency credit card for day-to-day expenses until I can get home to activate the new card. I already threatened to close my account, but in hindsight that probably isn't going to help me either, since I'd still have no means of accessing my money for several days and - being on the road - I have to have funds available to pay for food; it's not like I can just stock up on a week's worth of groceries and cook for myself while out here.

Bottom line, though, is that ING shouldn't just assume that customers want this kind of service unless there actually has been a breach that directly affects them. They're instead leaving me in a situation where I have to risk carrying obscene amounts of cash or have no access to emergency funds at all.

White dragons are healers

2009-09-27T01:51:00.000-05:00

Blackwing, Timoran, and I were playing Wii Sports Resort bowling earlier this evening. Blackwing, in a fantastic show of overenergeticness and ADHD, managed to swing so wildly that his arm went straight up into a low-hanging ceiling light, shattering the glass fixture and narrowly missing the fluorescent light within. I don't recall him screaming, but he was whimpering and bleeding pretty badly from the index finger of his right hand.

At first we didn't think it was that bad, but then we realized that the blood wasn't slowing down and Blackwing was getting increasingly agitated from the injury. Timoran tried to handle it at first, but it just wasn't working out so well. Blackie was nearly screaming any time we even tried to run warm water over the wound to clean it out; in hindsight we really should have tried using soap despite his protests, or at least washed our own hands to ensure they were reasonably clean. At this point, some sort of weird instinct kicked in, as did memories of the first aid panel from MFM earlier this month.

While Timoran briefly handled the situation, I got Blackwing a glass of ice water as he was complaining about being quite hot and didn't look so good. I then asked for a first aid kit, and Timoran was pretty quick to get out of the way after Blackwing said he felt like he was going to puke. I grabbed the gauze pads out of there and used just one first, but the blood soaked through in a matter of moments, requiring a second pad. That too didn't last long, but the blood was just going through a small portion of the gauze. I took a third pad, folded it into quarters, and firmly held it into place. It didn't soak through after a minute so I felt confident enough that it was going to hold. I got the medical tape, firmly taped it into place, then Blackwing promptly lost his dinner after I had it secured. He later said it didn't really hurt that badly when I did it, but I'm wondering if it's because those nerves were just overloaded and not able to register the sensation.

Things calmed down after he was able to get his head out of the toilet. Timoran was trying to clean the glass off the basement floor, while I took care of cleaning up the bathroom and ensuring that Blackwing's condition was stable. The aftermath resulted in Blackie being relatively silent for the first time all weekend. We finished cleaning it up, gave the injured dragon some mouthwash for the taste in his maw, and things have since gone back mostly to normal.

Overall, the incident has made me wonder if I really do have a knack for things like this. It's not the first time that I've responded pretty quickly when someone needed some medical attention. I have stayed fairly calm during it. At the very least, I'd like to take a proper first aid class so I can make sure that I get things right next time. While I still doubt I'd make it into a full on career, I do enjoy helping people like that a lot. It's just something to think about. At the moment I'm just glad Blackwing's okay and I feel like I owe it to the first aid panel from MFM.

When it rains it pours

2009-09-22T22:53:00.000-05:00

Tonight was a mostly decent night until a few things happened in relatively short order. One person made a hopelessly tasteless joke at my expense. Another more or less confirmed that there's zero chance of me ever meeting him in person due to his mate/owner being part of a package deal and my aversion to wanting to live with (even temporarily) another couple due to the awkwardness that inevitably brings. That same person is someone that I'd have wanted as a roommate if not for him saying - after dancing around the subject for an irritating length of time - that there's no chance of him coming without his partner regardless of anything I say. This compounded with earlier frustrations, including work-related crap that cost me an hour, the inability to get a ride to see friends if I made it near Chicago, the near-total unresponsiveness of almost everyone I wanted to talk to, and simple exhaustion from being on such a weird sleep schedule so many days in a row.

As a result of all this, I - in a nutshell - feel like shit. I know it's irrational to think that nobody wants to see me given that two people explicitly said they do earlier today, but it's rather hard to take any consolation in that when they're people that lack the means to actually go and see you. Not that it matters anyway, considering I'm nowhere near anyone I know at the moment. Even if I end up getting a house, it's pretty obvious at this point that I'll be living alone and probably couldn't bribe people to come over, much like I've always run into. I don't know what the hell I'm doing wrong but it seems like nobody actually wants to be around me most of the time no matter how I try and act.

To head off anyone who would jump to conclusions: I'm not suicidal. I'd very much like to die right about now, just to be out of my misery, but I lack the energy to even take a shower tonight, much less to actually take any action to end my existence. If I don't wake up in the morning, though, I wouldn't mind.

CNN's Rick Sanchez calls out Fox Noise as liars

2009-09-19T21:18:00.000-05:00

I'm far too tired to write up another intelligent post and plan on being awake in less than five hours; see my work blog if you want to know the details of my last couple days. So, instead, I leave you with this video from CNN's Rick Sanchez, in which he says on national TV what I - and a lot of other bloggers - have been saying about Fox News for a very long time.

Taking the Penguin Plunge - I installed Linux Mint

2009-09-14T00:12:00.000-05:00

Having grown tired of waiting forever for Vista to respond to anything I want to do, I decided to give Linux Mint 7 a try, something I'd been meaning to do for a while now. It proved to be as fast running from the CD as Vista is running from my hard drive and every piece of hardware I have works with it smoothly, from the entire assortment of hotkeys to the wi-fi and mobile broadband.

Amusingly, the most annoying/difficult part of the installation was trying to get Vista to shrink its partition to make space for the Linux ones. Ultimately I had to boot into safe mode to get around the cryptic access denied errors Microsoft so helpfully provides. Pretty much everything else was automatic; Mint's setup created my user account (and could have imported my one from Windows, if I were so inclined), had most of the software I needed right from the get-go, and provided a welcome screen to explain anything I might have needed help with.

I've been using the OS all weekend now and I'm still extremely happy with it. Everything is significantly more responsive, sometimes almost too much so; I keep having to disable the touchpad since it is a little too sensitive now. :) As I migrate things over to Linux I may end up dropping the Vista partitions entirely and just going for broke with Mint, but that's something I won't decide on for a couple months, just in case something suddenly goes awry.

Potomac River "training exercise" nonsense

2009-09-11T10:20:00.001-05:00

I was posting about this on Twitter, but I think I can come up with more than 140 characters worth of stuff about this. :p

Shortly after the President finished his speech at the Pentagon this morning, there were reports of a suspicious vessel in the river, just upstream from the Pentagon. The initial reports said that Coast Guard ships were closing in quickly and various officials/officers came into the Pentagon to take care of the situation. It escalated to reports that ten shots had been fired, though no reports said whether they were warning shots or the vessel was actually being fired upon. Once the situation was under control, the Coast Guard issued a press release saying that it had been a training exercise and that there's nothing to be worried about.

Now, let's review this for a moment. They only told the media it was a training exercise after it was widely reported on. They apparently were using live rounds, as various eyewitnesses have reported. This all took place less than a mile from the President and on a day where anyone would have known that people would be on edge. Seriously, would it kill someone for the government to admit that this wasn't planned and whatever idiot piloted the suspicious ship into the river has been detained or shot dead? I'd rather they just say there was a minor breach and that it was taken care of than attempt to spin it into such an implausible story.

Also, if you actually believe the official story, even for a moment, I have some oceanfront in Nebraska for you.

MFM 2009 - Sunday Night Update

2009-09-07T01:54:00.000-05:00

Another day, another post! You might think this is going to become a habit! Not a whole lot happened today, though, since I managed to sleep until almost noon and didn't actually get out into con space until about 1 PM. I was able to place the order for the custom staff I won in the tournament, but other than that almost the entire day was once again spent hanging out and having fun in the gaming room. I played a couple rounds of Go with Startide before the closing ceremonies started, during which time they closed everything down to convince everyone to attend. They had been saying there was going to be an important announcement, and they made it: This will be the last MFM.

... at this hotel. Yes, they played it up just like that, too, complete with Tyger Cowboy in tears and the dramatic buildup to a video where they revealed that little detail. Turns out the con is going to move to a private, conference-only hotel in Olive Branch, MS next year, about ten miles southeast of here. This means we'll have more space and it'll all be just for us furries. :) As such, I'm quite eagerly looking forward to next year's con, as that's a luxury that no other furry convention in the US has had: totally private space.

After the ceremonies Startide and I returned to the room briefly before going out to dinner at Qdoba, then went back to the hotel for a few more games. I played two rounds of Super Scrabble, one with him and once with Redcard; I won both games convincingly. Rock Band followed that, with me taking vocals for a few rounds. Time flew by quite quickly while I was playing that; I still had the mic in hand when they started to shut things down at 1:30 AM.

The plan for tomorrow is pretty simple: sleep 'til about 10 o'clock, pack as quickly as possible, return Startide to his truck, then start heading back to Pensacola. I might be back in time for a later dinner. Tuesday will bring about a hastily arranged furmeet in town - quite possibly the last one before I attempt a move up to the midwest - then Wednesday will likely see me returning to work and spending a month behind the wheel of the pumpkin. For now, though, good night Internet.

MFM 2009 - Saturday Night Update

2009-09-06T02:26:00.000-05:00

I spent pretty much the entire day today in the gaming room for various events. First up was the Smash Bros. tournament, which got bumped back to noon. I lucked out and had a bye for the first round, then won a quarterfinal match, leaving me in one of the final four spots before I was eliminated in the first semifinal game. Considering I've not played the game in quite some time I was thrilled with the result.

Beyond that, I'm actually not sure where most of my afternoon went. I did get to play poker a bit before that tournament started, but that's about it. Once the tourney started, though, I got off to a really good start, even busting out Isfacat in the early going and picking up a $20 bounty plus a free custom-made staff from one of the dealers; personally, I think it was a better prize package than most of the ones for the final table. There were all manner of shenanigans throughout the tournament, including two instances where I called multiple cards in succession, though I only lasted a little under two hours. Still, I had a blast. :)

Once the tournament was settled Startide came in and we somehow got a game of Red Dragon Inn started. One of the guys in the first game was an asshole, so we all ganged up to eliminate him as quickly as possible. ;) I lost both times, but the game is a hoot; I may have to look into picking that up once I have a group of people to do games with regularly. Once the second game was finished, everyone playing agreed that it was time for bed. Startide's lying down and ready for sleep; I'll be joining him soon as this post publishes.

MFM 2009 - Friday night update

2009-09-05T02:07:00.000-05:00

I arrived at the convention Thursday night, but nothing was going on so there's nothing to report there. This morning I wandered to the con suite for a light snack before joining the registration line. At 9:30, the reg line was fewer than 25 people long; at 10 o'clock it stretched down most of the first floor. Once that was settled, I joined a panel in progress about first aid and learned a few interesting things. I briefly wandered the dealer's den once it opened at noon, collecting a badge for Timanth from BushyCat and purchasing a dragon plush that bears at least a passing resemblance to my beloved bronze. Then it was off to get lunch, fetch Startide from the terminal, and laze in the room for a little while.

I'm actually not sure where most of the afternoon went, but we hung out in the con suite for a little while, got dinner, then I went to a "panel" that was a crazed, explicit game of Pictionary. Somehow I got up the nerve to play and did fairly well, but I had one clue that left me stumped. How the hell do you draw Goatse when that's your clue, anyway? A sheep with horns (goat) and an eye (see) perhaps? We ended up losing the game as the other team put on a fantastic run in their last attempt, but oh well, still amusing. Beyond that I wandered to the game room, played a few rounds of various things, including two games of Werewolf in which I was lynched in the second round. Having gotten my fill of that and finding it progressively harder to even remain upright due to tiredness, I wandered back to the room to type this up and sleep. Tomorrow I'll be rolling out of bed around 8:30 to get breakfast and head to the gaming room for a day of amusements there.

Mephit Furmeet - T-minus ten days

2009-08-24T21:33:00.000-05:00

Barring any other issues coming up with work (like getting home three days late for the con last year), I will be at MFM and splitting a room with Startide the orca. As for what happens at the con... well, that stays at the con. And on my camera, if anyone lets me take pictures of the happenings. ;) So is anyone reading this going to be there and, if so, does anyone have suggestions for things to do? Also, anyone have ideas for images I can commission during the con?

Quote of the day from Ahastar - August 18

2009-08-18T18:13:00.001-05:00

oh it is much more than that. If sexual arousal is a hot, brief shower
to get things over this, this raptor getting dreamy is more like a
long bubble beath with a damn good book and chocolates at the side.

California Dreaming

2009-08-04T17:58:00.001-05:00

While I may have hinted at it before, I wanted to make a short post just addressing one thing: I'll be in California with Timanth this weekend. We're not entirely certain what we're going to do or how all that's going to go, but if anyone's in the general area of Los Angeles and wants to see two dragons for the price of one, here's your chance! :)

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated...

2009-07-27T19:48:00.001-05:00

I've been neglecting this blog for a while now, but I've been finding I have fewer and fewer things to talk about that I can't just say in 140 characters or less on Twitter. I'll try to remedy some of that here, but there's not too much that's been going on that hasn't been related to work. I've spent three of the last four weekends in Gary, IN; one weekend to myself; one with Timoran, Shale, and Atokada; and one with Storm Gryph. Last weekend was in Denver; I got to see Ivan and Kahuki for the first time in months.

Aside from that, I've taken up the game Go and apparently am almost good at the game for a newbie. Which is to say that I'm really not that good at all, but 16 kyu is not bad for someone who has played the game for about a month. Hopefully I can improve my ranking a bit, over time, but that's kinda the whole point of a ranking isn't it?

My next trip home won't have me around the house much. I'm actually going out to see Timanth in California in ... a little over a week now. It's amazing how quickly time flies. I'll be leaving early on August 7 and returning August 11, using up all my time at home for the trip. If anyone down there wants to see us, let me know and we'll try to make plans. It would be nice to get to meet some of the people that I've previously only had the pleasure of seeing as text on a screen. :)

There aren't terribly many reasons for me to be at home - or any one place in particular - so it's not like I'm really missing much by not taking the time back in Pensacola. I'll be there for about half a day on the sixth, which should be adequate time for me to get done what needs to get done in town and still have time left over to enjoy sushi. I'll only be briefly bouncing through home before MFM as well, and for the same reason; I'm just not seeing much reason to stick around town. I might take some time at home and actually spend it at home in October, but I won't even have the days available to do so before that time.

As for living arrangements, I'm starting to have second thoughts about getting a house in the near future. The tax incentives to do so this year are certainly attractive but various things have come up, including drama that has made me reconsider every single city I've thought about moving to, further oddities in the housing market, discovering my credit wasn't as good as I'd hoped, and being concerned about needing to replace my car in the near future. It's still an outside shot, perhaps, but having a home of my own by the end of the year is not nearly the priority it once was for me.

So, really, that's about all I can think of to write here. I'm getting tired and cranky and probably should take this rare opportunity to get more than eight hours of sleep while I can.

Health Insurance goes "SPLORT"

2009-06-22T09:04:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend I received a health statement from my insurance company, just updating the amounts that I had used and what I had left in terms of health benefits for the year. Everything seemed alright, except a line item saying I would owe the clinic I visited in April $1,375.32, with a footnote saying to pay the provider when billed. I was ... uh ... more than a bit perturbed by that, as I'd been assured that the services had been paid for in full already. Further, while I do have that kind of money set aside, a medical bill like that definitely is not in my budget; something like that would make me have to cancel attending MFM and seriously reconsider going to FC.

Since nobody actually works the phones at United HealthCare over the weekend, I just called in this morning while waiting on a trailer unload. After navigating their obnoxious voice menu, I got a hold of a representative who took a look at it. The very first thing she said about it? The statement is completely wrong. The second? That she has no idea why that amount would have shown up at all as that's greater than what the clinic billed the insurance company for in the first place. She assured me that the claim had been paid in full and that I would not owe anyone anything for the treatment I already received. Further, they're going to look into it to see why that showed up at all and post a new explanation of benefits and health statement on the website to clear that up.

So, in short, I don't owe anyone anything and someone at UHC is obviously on narcotics.

Silence is not golden; it's rusted

2009-06-21T13:46:00.001-05:00

So I started playing a game with a couple of friends earlier today. Names will be deliberately omitted though if any of them are reading this, I'm sure they'll figure out what I'm referring to. In any case, one of them said something that struck me as very unusual. I asked about it, then he got extremely defensive and wouldn't tell me, then got quite irritated with me for being upset over his unwillingness to discuss. I have no reason to believe it would be particularly embarrassing and, regardless, I have the decency to keep my snout shut if someone tells me something they would prefer not to be public knowledge.

But, rather than just explaining what was going on after I pointed out why I was so upset, he just got angry with me and threatened to quit the game if I didn't cheer up immediately. Instead I just told him that I didn't appreciate the way he was handling the situation and that, rather than allowing the situation to progress even further, I was signing off before either of us said or did something that we both would end up regretting later. I'm still extremely upset over the situation but I know that it would have likely gone nuclear if I hadn't simply left when I did.

So, rather than getting to enjoy a day off down here, I'm instead swamped by drama and just want to go cry myself to sleep now.

Edit: While writing this post the person who precipitated this whole situation sent me an e-mail and a direct message on twitter asking me to sign back on. I'm still debating whether or not to do so. While I have my doubts it will make me feel significantly better it's not like I could feel a whole lot worse than I do right now.

Moderating Madness

2009-06-17T20:46:00.000-05:00

A few years back I created a Google Group for the local community because the Yahoo group we had at the time was kinda... well, not working out so well. Over time, the Google group became the de-facto official list and now has more than two dozen members, nearly half of whom are actually active. Given that it's just a local, community list, we didn't really have any explicit rules in effect; it was just generally understood that it was a clean list and that people should conduct themselves like adults.

Of course, given that the furry fandom is exactly 49.41% drama (and 102% of statistics are invented), it was only a matter of time before shit happened. Specifically, one person posted an old 4chan meme, prefaced with two or three sentences of written child pornography. While I realize that written stuff like that is in a legal grey area (as opposed to outright illegal) I also recognized that it's the kind of thing that could easily get someone in trouble because, though it might not be explicitly illegal, it could attract the unwanted attention of an employer's e-mail filter or - even worse - an overzealous parent.

I just posted by saying it was tasteless, inappropriate, and completely irrelevant to the list. Then several other people chimed in saying they thought it was funny (only one person posted with a "WTF" instead of registering approval). The first guy then said it was my problem since nobody else took issue with it, clearly failing to understand the potential ramifications of what he posted. I posted again, this time explaining why, exactly, it was inappropriate.

Then he and one other person both told me to chill out, continued to insist it wasn't a problem, and so on. Given that I'd already given him previous warnings off-list for spam and being rude, I'd had quite enough with his attitude. I posted telling him to knock it off immediately, laid down rules explicitly detailing the things that are common sense even to most furries, and told him that if he did something again I was going to moderate his posting until further notice. This led to him e-mailing me and mocking me off list, quite literally daring me to ban him; rather than giving him what he wanted, I simply set his posts to be automatically rejected and told him to never, ever e-mail me again.

I would have hoped that would have been the end of it, but no sooner do I forward the off-list stuff to one of the only other sane furs in town do I get a phone call where he attempts to verbally take my head off over the way I handled the situation. He insisted that, just because we hadn't explicitly stated that posting porn to the list was unacceptable, there was no excuse for me even threatening to take an administrative action against the guy who posted the content in question. After repeating my opinion several times and him becoming increasingly agitated due to my unwillingness to immediately apologize for "not doing things like an admin" and simply do things exactly as he wanted, I asked one simple question: "Did you expect anything positive to come from this phone call or did you simply want to vent in my ear until I hang up?" That seemed to get him to cool down considerably and, even though I didn't change what I was saying in any significant way, he went from insisting that I was the only person even remotely in the wrong to acknowledging that, while the situation could have been handled more tastefully, I at least was acting in a logically consistent fashion and not out of any sort of off-handed malice or similarly unfounded insanity.

End result? Aside from having a slightly longer block list for my Gmail and AIM accounts, we now have drafted a full-blown set of rules to try prevent this kind of bullshit from happening again. I'm willing to bet that it's only a matter of time before the guy who started this mess does something stupid and that his "apology" was simply because the person I spoke with on the phone told him to make one, but I'll deal with that when it happens. End result of all this is that I spent almost three extra hours awake than I originally wanted and lost any sex drive I had for the night. So now instead of getting eight good hours of sleep after pawing off, I'll get barely five hours and will be even more frustratingly pent up in the morning.

Someone, please, remind me why I'm in the fandom again?

Why do I bother at all?

2009-06-08T09:07:00.000-05:00

After about six days at home, I have to go back to work this morning, soon as I can get everything together. Since I'm writing a blog post instead of actually packing things up and heading back to the truck, that's probably indication enough that I really would rather not be going back to work today. My time at home here has been little more than a waste of time. I needed the break from work, but this was about as much a break as it was solitary confinement for most of the week, leaving me even more depressed and emotionally screwed up than I was before getting here. When I got home I was actually looking forward to having the week off due to various plans that had been made, people I wanted to see, and things I wanted to do. Having had most of those plans scrapped, most people ignore me, and most things left undone, I want my week back, or at least another couple of days.

The beach party - the one signature event this weekend - was okay. Not great, as I'm sure everyone else would say, but okay. Stephie was a lovely host, so this is certainly nothing against her. I just, once again, found myself surrounded by so-called friends and getting ignored by most of them. On at least one occasion, I found that everyone else had clustered into two or three for conversation and nobody would even respond when I tried adding something, no matter what I said or who I said it to. The person I'd given a ride to - after two days of trying to convince him to come over earlier - was one of the worst culprits; I could barely get a response out of him at all on Saturday and he was even less polite about ignoring me Sunday, as he seemed quite irritated any time I tried getting his attention. Needless to say, I won't even waste my breath giving him the time of day in the future.

Outside of that big event, there really was very little to mention. I managed to make a trip to the eye doctor on Tuesday or Wednesday, but that was the only thing I actually accomplished all week. I didn't tend to any other medical or mental needs. I didn't even get out of the house just to go and do something out there for sake of being more active. No exercise, no wandering the mall, no going to a casino, not a damn thing. I had tried to get someone - anyone - to come over to watch TV and hang out, but not a single person responded in the affirmative. On Friday I spent an hour talking with someone on the phone and brought up the possibility, ending the conversation with the understanding we'd be in touch in an hour. When I called when a little over an hour had passed, he ignored his phone twice. Nobody else had even given me that much, though. A couple people didn't even respond to an instant message when I tried to get hold of them, while others gave various reasons they couldn't or didn't want to, some more plausible than others. One all but said he wanted to get into my pants and then got offended when I suggested I'd have a similar interest.

As a result of all this, plus more things that I would prefer not to write about here, I went from being in a pretty decent mood when I got home a week ago to feeling like complete and utter shit right now. I don't want to go back to work. I really don't want to even breathe any longer because I'm little more than a waste of this planet's precious resources. It's become painfully obvious that I'm not wanted around here, but due to my circumstances, I don't have anywhere else to go. I've an ever decreasing number of reasons not to simply drive off a bridge somewhere and disappear from this planet.

Asian Pirates and the Border Patrol

2009-06-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

This has to be the most bizarre dream I've heard anyone writing about, though it's uncommon enough for me to remember anything I'm dreaming about in the first place. Since I'm typing in a hurry to try remember details this is probably going to make even less sense than it did.

I ended up on the beach as planned this weekend, but we somehow ended up finding a border patrol station. I was chatting with the other furs when they left, but I stuck around at the station for some reason. I heard something from inside, peered in, and three people had come in a door on the other side of the building - facing the beach - that looked like they didn't belong. I heard a struggle and then snuck out to call 911, slowly making my way around the side of the building to try escape detection. It didn't entirely work; one of the three came out onto the beach again and found me, though as he tried to grab me I grabbed his neck and choked him into submission. When the police arrived they recovered ID on the criminals and I was paid a bounty for the one they captured.

And then I woke up, wondering what the heck I possibly could have had or done yesterday to induce such a messed up dream.

A day of unproductivity

2009-06-04T18:43:00.000-05:00

Originally I'd planned to get going to the truck around 10 AM, get some shopping done at Wal-Mart, and be back at the room here in time for a slightly late lunch. Instead, I didn't even get out of bed until 10, didn't leave until 2:30, and didn't make it back until about twenty minutes ago. Things at the truck went reasonably well; despite the fact my phone lost the list I'd written up, I remembered all the things I wanted to grab: the fruit, some extra clothing, and an extra bottle of conditioner. That's about where the good day ended.

I should have known things would be rather chaotic at Wal-Mart, given that the parking lot was almost completely full and I had at least one near-miss accident just trying to get into the place. I went in there for just three things: markers, running shoes, and sandals. The markers took a few minutes to find, but the shoes... didn't happen. I tried a size eight and found them to be uncomfortably tight against the ball of my foot. Someone had suggested I might need a wide, since my work shoes (also normal width) have caused quite a bit of damage along the outside of the ball and big toe. Since Wal-Mart's selection of wide shoes was pretty much nonexistent, I gave up on trying to find anything decent there and decided to try my luck with Shoe Carnival.

For a full-blown shoe store, though, I found the selection of athletic shoes to be very lacking. First, most of the styles they had weren't available in anything except normal width. Second, the ones they did have in wides were usually extra wide (4E). Third, they had almost nothing below a size nine and I have to have an eight; 7 1/2 is too small and 8 1/2 is too big. I'd found two styles I liked but couldn't even try on; one was a pair of Nikes that was cut so low that my foot was too thick to fit in the shoe and the other was a pair of Reeboks that had a huge security tag that made it impossible to try on at all. After wasting about half an hour and failing to even see anything that really caught my eye, I just gave up and decided to start heading back to the room.

While I was driving back to the room, I decided to try at least get something done; I called Sprint to try get my HTC Mogul exchanged for a Touch Pro. I know three other people who had theirs exchanged at a Sprint store without issue and all three have asked why I'm still tolerating the piece of crap device that I'm currently using. The first person I talked to just kept repeating the script with minor variations while completely ignoring anything I had to say. The second went off script to pretty much call me a liar; he claimed I couldn't possibly know the details of how three other people got their phones upgraded for free and that I was mistaken in saying how that happened. Both were told that I was exceptionally unhappy with my service, my phone, and their customer service and that I have no intention of renewing my contract when it's up at Thanksgiving; neither actually responded to any of my complaints in any substantive way.

So now I'm back at the room and I'm moderately hungry, despite having eaten lunch only four hours ago. I might just have a light dinner and go to bed early (read: before 2 AM) because there's really nothing else productive I can get done today. I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone who wants to get together, save for one person who is a 90 minute drive away; I may drive for a living, but that doesn't mean I want to spend my time at home doing even more driving. The less time I spend behind the wheel the better.

There's still the beach party on Saturday, which I'm hoping will go well. Apparently we're expecting fourteen people so far, though I'm pretty sure one isn't going to be able to get a ride and would be surprised if the others all showed up. Even so, ten would still be the largest turnout we've had for a furry gathering in Pensacola. The plan has morphed a few times, but I just plan on going over there for lunch and dinner Saturday, even though there are things being considered late into the night and on Sunday; I may consider staying (or driving back) for that if Saturday proves to be a pleasant experience.

I just hope that someone actually comes over and hangs out while I'm here in town. I don't want to be stuck more or less alone up here until I head back to work Monday morning.

Overwhelming boredom

2009-05-28T16:11:00.001-05:00

I'm supposed to be home in a week to enjoy a nice couple of days off. I can hardly wait because I'm fairly sure being out here with no leisure activities is steadily driving me insane. Few people chat with me when I'm online from my phone (not that many do when I'm on a laptop) and most of the websites I frequent don't work properly on a mobile device so I'm left feeling mostly isolated.

I may not necessarily be on my computer to chat all the time once I get it anyway. I may just disappear into a game or something since it at least distracts me for a whle.

Exercise - the old fashioned way

2009-05-17T00:33:00.000-05:00

As a few of you may already know, I'm trying to get into the habit of exercising again. There's little hope of me improving my diet so I need to balance out my intake with a much greater output. This week, between running errands while stuck waiting on a load and running on a treadnill while waiting on my laundry, I burned nearly 1,900 calories and over a hundred grams of fat. Granted, an estimate by a heart-rate monitoring wrist watch probably is not the most authoritative source for such numbers - it seemed to be considerably higher in its estimates than the treadmill - but it does at least keep me from hurting myself by going way too hard.

For this upcoming week, my goal is 3500 calories burned. That's traditionally considered to be equal to a pound of body weight and I certainly could stand to lose a pound or thirty. I'll be trying for 600 calories a day, every day, but I know I'll probably miss one day and be too tired to reach 600 on another. I'll likely do more than that tomorrow, for want of activity and to help offset some of the extra food I had for dinner.

Maybe, just maybe, it won't be painful to wear these jeans by the time fall rolls around. >_>