my mom came down to visit this weekend. i think she knew i was feeling crappy that brett was going to be gone for 3 weeks. i know she was feeling crappy because she knew her dog (used to be kind of mine until i left for college), wicket, was living his last days. it was much needed for both of us. the last 4 days have been really eventful, but somehow uneventful at the same time.

• wicket passed away. she had him put to sleep. he was in congestive heart failure and it was for the best–he’s in a better place. i cried. don’t tell my mom that. i miss you, wicket.
• my laptop died. i got a new one. i love it. it’s shiny and new and it gives me something to play with/reformat/destroy. THANK YOU, ASUS!
• i’ve been able to talk to brett like 4 times since he’s left. which is awesome. he can call my lab for free (DSN or something like that) since it’s on the naval weapons base. works for me. ;) they’re staying in a tent with 50~ish marines & other contractors, but on the upside, they DO have air conditioning. thank the lord.
• i don’t know what i got on monday, but somewhere around 4AM i got hit with some sort of stomach bug (that hurt like hell) and spent most of the day running to the bathroom to puke. a lot of people at work got the norovirus, but mine lasted less than a day, so either i got lucky or i had something totally different.
• i got my first spray tan yesterday. it tasted terrible. i will write more on this later. the entire 20 minutes is worth a story in itself, trust me. BUT i’m not orange.

that’s about it for now–it’s time to celebrate st. patty’s day. my buddy craig just showed up with a pack of guinness and boondock saints 2, and it is time to celebrate!

brett–if you read this, i miss you, homie. i miss you a lot.

luckily, i had everything backed up on the external hard drive i bought a few weeks ago. i was in dire need of one of those things. i just knew this was going to happen soon, and i was right. i’m just glad i actually sucked it up and bought one when i did.

point is… i had to buy a new laptop. had to. i have work to get done–work that can’t be done on a tiny eee PC. and, in my opinion, it’s not worth spending money to fix something that old and doomed.

so my mom and i went to best buy yesterday (she’s visiting for the weekend) and i found a laptop. actually, i found a beast of a laptop. i was contemplating buying a macbook pro. i really want to get a mac one day, but i don’t think yesterday was the day. i can’t seem to pry myself away from a PC. maybe because i’m not able to just reformat a mac whenever i want and slap something else on it? which inevitably will be fedora when i finally make up my mind, but still. that freedom isn’t there. maybe i’ll buy the smaller, less expensive one later on down the line. also, the macbook pros don’t have the new intel processors (and they’re still like… $1200!!). they still have the i2, which is still good, but i wanted the ones i saw at the CES back in january. i wanted (at least) an i5. with turbo boost. SHINY.

a lot of you responded to me on twitter/facebook with cries of the i7–i saw laptops with the i7 at best buy, but the selection wasn’t as good. graphics cards in those laptops weren’t that great, either, and had shit for video memory. this one has 1GB and it’s an nvidia geforce GTS 360M. and, let’s face it, i just do not *need* an i7. i don’t really *need* the i5, either, but i’ll just pretend for now.

i finally decided on the Asus G60JX. so far, i love it. absolutely love it. it’s about 50 times more powerful than my old laptop. and the best part–it hasn’t died on me yet. here’s to hoping it stays that way.

i knew this would happen to one or both of us at some point. that kind of comes with government contracting territory. it will be the longest we’ve gone without seeing each other. i think the longest we’ve ever gone is 12 days, which isn’t much. and, even then, we were both like THIS SUCKS. 25 days? i’m willing to bet there will be a lot of whining.

i have the CISSP to keep me occupied–i will be studying a lot more for that while he’s gone. this might actually help speed up the process, as i’ve been slacking lately at hitting the books. i also have websites in the works, so i will certainly be keeping myself busy.

the internet over there isn’t that great, but it will suffice for talking on gchat, and possibly skype. we’ll have to see how that goes. i foresee a lot of dropped calls and crapped out connections in our future.

all this to say–i will miss you, brett. please be careful, come home in one piece, call me whenever possible, and for the love of god, stay on the military base. also, i love you.

i will miss this face.

W: that works…

B: yea… the only thing is, after i get them developed, i’m gonna have to scan them all and upload them to get them onto my computer

W: no, brett. no. they give them to you on these things called CDs now. they used to give them to you in just prints, or on floppy disks if you were really lucky. but now they have CDs, and they’re awesome. technology is awesome!

B: really? oh, ok. i didn’t know they did that now.

this made my day on saturday. i guess if you haven’t used anything other than a digital camera in the last 10 years, you wouldn’t know that they can put the pictures on CDs for you. i love the fact that he thought they still made obtaining digital copies of your photos so difficult after all this time. i don’t even know if my scanner works anymore.

i filled up my digital camera while i was in australia back in 2000, and was forced to use disposable cameras after the first few days. my memory card, which was like 5 times the size of an SD card (with less than 1/8 of the space) only held so many photos, and i had no way to offload them. i still have the film from all of the cameras. does film even last that long, or could i potentially take it to a CVS and get reprints? back then, i got them all put on floppy disks (which i still have), and you can imagine the quality of 30 photos that had to be made to fit in 1.44MB of space. they look pretty awful. and they’re SO SMALL.

i was 15 (and stupid) and didn’t get reprints, so when i used ALL the pictures i took and butchered them to put in my scrapbook, i had no WHOLE photos left afterward.

i wonder if the photo technician is going to look at me like i’m nuts when i bring in 12 strips of film from 10 years ago. most of which are blurry or unfocused. and may or may not contain a camel.

have you ever been to clients from hell? whether you just want to know that you’re not the only one dealing with a terrible client, or you want a good laugh, i highly recommend it. i have had more than a handful of scenarios that are worthy of being quoted on this site, which reminds me–i really need to start writing them down.

if i haven’t said it enough, i love my day job. my Big Girl Job. i love information security. it fascinates me. i have learned more in the past 9 months than i learned through all of college. i enjoy my day at work, and when i come home every night, i generally get right to working on websites. brett or i will cook dinner–he settles in playing his xbox, and i get to coding. my hours are weird, because not every freelance web developer has the same routine. that’s one upside to any kind of freelance work–making your own hours. i’ve realized that clients don’t always understand that. sometimes… sometimes they think that because you make your own hours means they can help you *define* those hours.

example: this morning, i got a call from Company X (i will leave all names anonymous from here on out) at 7:38 AM. this is the same client i was griping about yesterday on twitter. i didn’t answer the phone. i let it go to voicemail, and moments later received the voicemail, accompanied by an e-mail.

it is not out of the ordinary for things like this to happen. that does not make them acceptable. a few months ago, i got sick of allowing my clients to walk all over me (which was 100% my fault, there need to be boundaries) so i defined my own hours. i told them (nicely) that i am at my Big Girl Job during the day, and everything else (website related) is to be taken care of during the week, in the evenings between 5 and 9 PM. that is a small window, but so far it is working. they can e-mail me all they want, but for the most part, all website related work will be done during those 4 hours.

well, this winter things picked up a bit. i had a lot on my plate, and still do. some odds and ends are being tied up, some projects are just hanging there waiting on the client to come forth with updates, and some are just starting up. it’s a big mix, but i keep track of everything in spreadsheets and i’m pretty good at keeping it all organized.

one thing that i make SURE of, whether i stay organized or not, is that there are invoices. invoices, invoices, invoices. and some form of a binding statement that says, yes, i will pay you this amount of money. there are a couple (literally) that i don’t worry about because, A) they are friends, and B) they have been loyal to me for years. because the moment a client starts changing numbers on me–there’s a problem. man, i just started realizing how many nightmarish stories i can tell you all. so many blog entries to come of this. i must not forget.

anyway, way back in september, i was contacted by Client X (who i have recently found out is actually an independent contractor for Company X, which i mentioned earlier). Client X needed 2 websites to be completed because their company, Company X, did not have enough resources (whether it was time, money, or people, i don’t know) to get them done. we both signed a contract, saying i would be subcontracted to complete these 2 websites. i sent Client X 2 invoices–one for each website. the invoices stated that 50% of the website would be paid for up front, and the remaining 50% would be paid upon completion of the site. this is how i do every project, and so far it has worked out in my favor. i promptly received the first 50%, for both websites, via PayPal. we were good to go, i thought.

i completed both sites fairly quickly. there were a few minor changes that were done over the course of 2-ish months. basically, the sites have been completed and sitting, waiting on my server for about 4-ish months now.

now, i found out a couple weeks ago that Client X is no longer working for Company X. this only came up in conversation via e-mail (which have been few and far between, terrible communication on their part) after i sent the 523th bitchy e-mail, demanding i get paid for the work i did. MONTHS ago.

i’ve been bitching and moaning to and about Client X for months now, but never took any kind of legal action. the amount of money i am owed is not a small amount, but in my mind, it is not worth going to court over. the only reason i asked about lawyers on twitter yesterday was to get other opinions on how to get things moving in the right direction so this can be finished. if that did not work, then i would be more inclined to take some sort of legal action. evidently, a lot of people thought small claims court was a feasible idea. i know nothing about that sort of thing, so the thought alone scares me. i’d like to avoid that if at all possible.

i started making phone calls. i called Client X, roughly 4 times, before i got any kind of feedback. i called Company X at least 20 times yesterday, and all i got was answering machines. FINALLY, a representative from Company X called me, but because i can’t have my phone in the lab i work in, i missed it. awesome. phone tag really blows.

on my drive home, i spoke with Client X. he finally answered his phone, and i’m sure he regretted it immediately afterward. i was not psychotic, but i was not exactly friendly. my e-mails started out friendly, but over the last 4 months, they got a little uglier. i’ve heard the exact same story at least a dozen times from Client X, and yesterday’s phone call was no different. i hung up, and because i was so fed up with everything (i already had just one of those days yesterday… forgot my badge, spilled coffee TWICE, spilled ravioli EVERYWHERE, spilled pears EVERYWHERE, smashed my finger, it was just irritating), i went home and took a 20 minute, scalding hot shower, followed by 20 minutes of laying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. then i asked brett to go buy us a case of beer. thank you, babe–you are awesome.

after all that, i didn’t exactly sleep well last night.

and then i got the call from Company X this morning at 7:30. i did not need that. but after listening to the voicemail, and reading the e-mail this morning, i’ve decided that Company X is not who i need to be angry at. Client X deserves to feel my wrath. all of it. come to find out, he hasn’t been working with Company X for “a long while now” according to them. which COMPLETELY explains why this is a nightmare in the first place. if an independent contractor leaves a company, and continues to deal with Company X’s clients, that is a recipe for disaster. and serious communication FAIL. and confusion. and all of the above. depending on what kind of contract they have, that can be considered breach of contract–something i do NOT want to become involved in. Company X told me that if i put the sites back online (i took them down, hoping the process would speed up with some motivation), he could get the deal finalized with their clients (the companies whose websites i’d created) and i will be paid by next week.

with all that said, i should have gone to Company X months ago. however, i did not know to do that since i had no idea, until recently, that Client X didn’t work there anymore. all along, i thought i was still dealing with Company X through Client X. definitely *not* the case.

currently, i am waiting for an e-mail response from Company X about this whole ordeal being patched up. the sites are live again and their clients are viewing them, and *hopefully* giving them the final payments. which will hopefully be given to me by next week. hopefully this nightmare will be over. hopefully. thank you, representative from Company X, for not screwing around. you are a good man. cross all your fingers, all your toes, all your eyeballs, please. i will let you know what happens.

anyway, this cabin is, HANDS DOWN, one of my favorite places on earth. brett’s parents own it and rent it out online. i will provide the link to it (with their permission, of course) AFTER this weekend. when we’re already back in south carolina. for obvious reasons.

i love it because it’s in the mountains. that is where i belong. in the mountains. why? let me show you.

this is why.

THIS is why.

this gives me goosebumps.

i even miss this. somehow, by the grace of god, charleston got snow this winter, but nothing close to this.

when i get sick of doing information security, which will hopefully be a long way off, i want to retreat back to the mountains. i want to live in a cabin. with blankets, hot chocolate, loki, thor, steak, an abundance of sweatpants, my handsome best friend, and a mountain of coors light. and my laptop, assuming web development is even necessary in 40 years. and assuming we even have laptops in 40 years. i really don’t even want to think about what earth will be like in 40 years.

i’m getting way off topic and i’m almost scaring myself, so i just want to say… i’m super excited about this weekend. we’re bringing food and beer with us so we don’t have to spend much money while we’re up there. he drives an escalade, which isn’t exactly wallet-friendly. the only other thing i will be willing to spend money on is macado’s, which is ALWAYS acceptable. always.

all photos (except the cabin pictures) are by my friend, leander. you can find more of his photography here. hi, leander!

anyway, no soda == not nearly as much caffeine. i’m not big on drinking tea, unless it’s sweet tea, and even then i choose it at the last resort, or i put whiskey in it. and OH MY GOD, i’m from the south, something must be wrong with me because i don’t drink sweet tea by the gallon. brett drinks enough for the both of us, and then some, so i think it’s okay if i only indulge every once in a while.

i’ve since found other substitutes, mostly to stay awake between the hours of 9 and 11 AM, and also to subdue those god awful caffeine headaches that creep up every so often. 5-hour energy shots don’t quite cut it every morning. a boatload of vitamins and a little caffeine aren’t the same as coffee that will make you physically unable to close your eyelids. brett makes our coffee exceptionally strong–i don’t really care how strong it is, so long as there is enough left for me before i go to work.

he drinks his black, so i generally wait until he’s not looking to prepare my coffee. because i definitely don’t drink it black. i haven’t gotten to that point in my life yet. no. i add about a quarter cup of creamer, 4 spoonfuls of sugar, and half a packet of nestle hot chocolate mix. i try to wait until he’s not within sight so i can avoid the look he gives me. the look that says, “you are gonna have diabeetus in about 6 months if you keep drinking that crap!” so says the man who has single-handedly finished off 2 gallon-sized bags of gummy bears and sour patch kids. i drink it in the car on the way to work and usually finish it within the first half hour i’m there. and then, if you’re exceptionally unlucky, you’ll be one of the coworkers sitting next to me while i’m high on caffeine, talking your head off about everything and nothing. most likely the latter.

i don’t know what’s wrong with me this week but every morning, said coffee has been accompanied by a breakfast consisting solely of the following:

• tagalong girl scout cookies
• half moon cookies
• caramel filled ghirardelli squares
• all of the above

the awesome part? it might be more on the unhealthy side than it is awesome, but i’ve actually lost weight. i accomplished this once before–2 years ago when i worked in downtown fayetteville, NC, as a web developer. i would eat a quarter pound of peanut butter and chocolate fudge (get this: i worked on the same block as a fudge shop, an arcade, 3-4 bars, beef o’ brady’s, and a place called hamburger heaven. my GOD, that was awesome!) and drink a 12 oz coke every morning for breakfast, and i’d be so jacked on sugar that i wouldn’t even be hungry until i went home and cooked dinner (which usually consisted of rice or pasta, some form of meat: ground beef, baked chicken or pork tenderloin, broccoli or green beans, and ALWAYS salad). i dropped 10 pounds in a heartbeat.

if only i can figure out a way to make this process work for the next 50 years, i might be onto something.

when we first got there, we decided we really should have eaten first. grocery shopping while hungry is not a smart idea in the first place, and i imagine that shopping in bulk while hungry is far worse. WHAT? you can buy pizzas by the DOZEN? we MUST buy them! so we took advantage of the $1.50 hot dog/soda deal, *prior* to filling our cart. the hot dogs were delicious, by the way. even more delicious for $1.50.

it had been a few years since i’d been in a costco, and at least a decade since i’d been in a sam’s club. i had forgotten what the term bulk actually implied. like… you can buy a whole crate full of half gallon bottles of ranch *OR* you can buy a bottle of shampoo that will supply all of south carolina for a week. in reality, buying that much ranch is almost reasonable for me. i put ranch on everything. it’s sad, really.

anywho, we learned a few things…

1. only buy foods that we eat a lot of at one time, like lunch meats and stuff to snack on at work. we go through sliced ham and turkey like it’s nothing. we do not, however, need to purchase cheese like we’re storing up for the apocalypse.
2. the giant jars of mayonnaise might actually be acceptable, but only to go along with the 15 cans of tuna i bought. and sammiches, of course. and pasta salad. ONLY if it never actually makes skin contact, because mayonnaise REALLY grosses me out.
3. 2 marinaded pork tenderloins for $11 is pretty freaking fantastic.
4. definitely keep buying milk at costco. why? because brett could drink a gallon a day, if you let him. easily. the only thing holding him back is refrigerator space.
5. their chicken and cheese ravioli is absolutely heavenly. try it. it might just change your life. until last night, the only ravioli i ate was the fried ravioli from olive garden. the times, they are a-changin’.
6. keep me away from the patio furniture–especially the chairs that spin.
7. keep me away from the pastries–especially the 8-pound chocolate cake and the steroid-injected cupcakes. seriously, they are like 5 inches in diameter. i never thought i’d have to measure the diameter of a cupcake.
8. better yet, i should probably just be kept on a leash the next time i go to costco.
9. if anyone sees brett purchase another stick of deodorant for the rest of his life, beat him senseless. because he bought the biggest pack of deodorant i’ve ever seen, and i just don’t think anyone could use that much deodorant in a lifetime.
10. park closer to the apartment next time we come home. i forgot they don’t use bags, so for the first time in our lives, it took us 2 trips to bring the groceries inside. one of those trips was to get his milk, AND the 85 pound bag of kitty litter.

those are just a few lessons learned after our first trip.

if anyone else would like to share their costco favorites, please fill me in. i want to learn all of the super cool costco secrets.

i’ve noticed it more and more over the last few years than i ever noticed it before. maybe because there are so many more things going on in my life now to compare to other people than there were a few years ago. i don’t really know what it is, to tell you the truth. but insecurity and jealousy are not a good combination. i think jealousy accounts for 75% of the breakouts i get on my face. and sleep deprivation. and nervousness. it’s not healthy, and i’m sure it’s already taken years off my life. i can’t stand it.

the insecurity thing has improved SO much over the past year, however. it is mind blowing how much a steady income and a career you enjoy change the way you feel about yourself. with that said, i still have my ups and downs. plenty of them.

living in charleston, there are a lot of pretty girls. that’s a fact. they are everywhere. that’s what happens when you live at the beach, i suppose. or maybe it’s just charleston in particular. i don’t really know because it’s the only beach i’ve ever lived near–i’m just going on things i’ve heard. nevertheless, there are a lot of them. it wasn’t as noticeable until brett moved down here. i find myself eyeballing them all, like, “wow, i hope he doesn’t scoop up one of them instead.” this makes me nauseous from time to time. okay, not really nauseous. but it makes me nervous. why? i have no idea. it shouldn’t, because that’s completely superficial and stupid. especially with a relationship like ours. perhaps it’s a girl thing, perhaps i’m just an idiot. funny thing is, he’s one *huge* reason i feel so much better about myself, and about life in general.

still, i get jealous over the dumbest things. people with perfect skin. perfect nails. perfect legs. a perfect ass. boatloads of money (there is such a thing as too much, though, i think). oh, and people who are good at EVERYTHING athletic they ever attempt to do. that drives me insane. i was good at one thing when i was younger–gymnastics. so i guess yoga and pilates can be grouped with that, because those are in the same realm. kind of. i’m good at those. but if you stick me in any type of team sport? i will freak out. i mean… freak… out…. seriously. i tried to play intramural dodge ball last year (yes, DODGE BALL), and nearly had a panic attack. i only played one game. we lost. i blamed myself for like a month afterwards. if you put me in any kind of sport that involves a ball, or a bat or, god forbid, a team mate, you might as well replace me with a rock. or maybe an ostrich. my brains turn to jello, and my body will try to do anything *except* what i tell it to do.

i rarely say or do anything about it, because i read somewhere that you should never compare yourself to someone else, and i eventually force myself to snap out of it. i’ve gotten a lot better at that. i realize that i’m a nerd, and being in front of a computer screen or on the floor playing with cables is just my comfort zone. i’m not supposed to be anything else, which is why i do what i do. it’s why i’ll always have to go to a tanning bed *before* going to the beach, and it is probably why i’ll never have nice fingernails.

anyone else go through waves of it, like that? like… you see someone and you’re like, wow, that must be nice, and actually talk yourself through it in your head? i can’t be the only one. i know things could *always* be worse. looking at the big picture, things are pretty damn good right now. this is just one of those feelings i can never escape, and i was wondering if anyone else ever felt the same way.