How I Spent My Vacation: Part Too

Continuing from my last post, here is the rest of how I spent my vacation.


Thursday:

I woke up early again today. I am still undecided on the issue of waking up early or sleeping in. It is nice to sleep in. But if you get up early, you have a full day ahead of yourself. I brewed myself a cup of coffee and brushed my teeth. I poured me a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch. By far, one of my favorite cereals. I sat down and turned on the television. Oh, look. “Dutch” is on. I haven’t seen this is ages. I can’t say it’s a movie I love watching but since it was on and was something I haven’t seen in years, I watched it. I was surprised to see ‘Christopher McDonald‘ in it. He played the evil father. This guy seems to always be typecast in every role he plays (or at least to me he does). He’s the a-hole in an Adam Sandler movie. An a-hole in this movie. And an a-hole in Dirty Work. Look him up. Eff it. Here’s a picture of him. He looked the same back than then he does now. The movie ended and I went into the computer room to read some emails and look on yahoo. The TV was still on and it said the movie, “The Invention of Lying” was on next. Oh, I haven’t see that. I’ll watch it. I enjoyed it. Not a big Jennifer Garner fan but I liked her in this. Not to mention, it had some pretty big names attached to it. Some were just bit parts but I always enjoy a movie when you see cameos like that. Lastly, it had Edward Norton playing a cop with a cocaine habit. One of my favorite actors. The movie ended. I jumped on my PC…again. I was planning on moving the desk around, you know, do a little rearranging. I ended up listening to music. After a bit, I decided to take a nice nap. Not sure how long of nap it was but it was nice. I had a dream. I cannot recall much but what I do remember was I was in Ireland. I assume it was there cause the people talked like they were Irish. I complained to the guy working there about the cold I just got. Was mad because I am never sick. I blamed the cold on me getting out of my house and being around people.

I woke up and checked my email. Another work email. I gave my opinion and hung up the phone. I made lunch and enjoyed a refreshing soda. It started to rain. (thanks, Ollie!). I finally got the energy to move my furniture around. I brewed a cup of coffee. I got it set up, turned it on, and my heart sank. But it was gone! Gone! All gone! No turkey!

No turkey sandwiches… Gone! All Gone! Whatever happened, all my files were missing. Okay. Not really missing. I had to explore around the PC and found it all. I transferred the files to my external drive. What made me even angrier was the fact that Outlook was back to nothingness. All my notes, all my food logging was gone. I was pissed. 8 months into this and all of it for nothing. After the files were moved, I rebooted and the angels sang. My files were back. I don’t know what happened. Whatever it was, it’s fine now. Another trip out of my apartment for a beer run. More drinking. I finished number 5 and headed off to bed for a good night sleep.

Friday:

I awoke on Friday a little before 7am. Again, I made myself a cup of coffee. I enjoyed a blueberry yogurt and watched some TV. I caught the last few minutes of Casper. My channel has been set to HBO and all the other 20 channels they offer. I did some channel surfing and found Joe Vs. The Volcano. I opted on watching that. After the movie, I left the house (again) to pay a bill and take care of an urgent errand. I came back home, effed around on the PC a bit till I found myself back at the TV. Look. ‘The Mask‘ is on. Not the movie with Cher or the 80’s cartoon. I’m talking about the one with Jim Carrey. I am not a huge Cameron Diaz fan but it’s been ages since I’ve seen the movie. I stopped midway through (which I set up the DVR to record the rest) and left the house to see a movie. I have been wanting to see, “Inception” since it came out. I just never got around to it. My store director hated it. Another person said it was amazing. I figured I would take my chances. I splurged and got myself hot tamales and a thing of nachos. It was a one time thing. I don’t think I’ll ever get nachos again. Movie was good amazing! Ending is something that leaves you thinking. It’s diffidently one of those ‘you have to see again’ movies to catch what you overlooked. I arrived home. Paid the remaining two bills and finished watching The Mask. Parenthood was on. I watched a bit. Another good movie. I don’t think I have watched this much TV since I moved in here. The rest of my day consisted of eating, another cup of coffee and switching up the music on my iPhone. I debated on if I should go out tonight. Which is looking like something I’ll do. Better shave.  I went to the bar expecting to meet up with a group a people. I don’t know if they were there or not. I never looked. To my surprise, a group of other people I know were. I sat and drank with them. I controlled myself and didn’t drink excessively. I arrived home to see a strange car parked in my normal spot. Could be anyone. But don’t like when people take my parking spot. I know it’s not really “my spot”. But it’s where I always park. So in way, it is my spot.

Saturday:

I woke up off and on during the night. I had a dream. All I can recall was getting stabbed. I didn’t feel it in my dream though. Wish I could recall the rest. My mind is trying to recollect the memories of the dream but sadly, nothing is coming to mind. I made myself a bowl of cereal and enjoyed a cup of coffee. Watched yet another movie. This was a British film titled, “Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel.” Surprisingly, it was good. Anna Faris from the “Scary Movie” series starred in it. If I were a Brit (<-funny video), I probably would have known all the other people in it. It’s okay. I liked it no matter. I spent the majority of my afternoon and early evening working on my blogs. I ate and poured another cup of coffee. While I blogged, I finished laundry and dishes. After completing two blogs, I watched a little TV. Caught the tail end of “Monsters vs. Aliens.” Meh. Didn’t see why it was such a great movie. Back to my PC to blog a little more. I chatted up with an old online buddy. Drank some beer. I know I swore to not have people over but I did invite a friend over. After 20 minutes of waiting for him to reply if he’s coming or not, I asked. Guess not. I guess that was a good thing. I don’t want to break a third rule. Tonight isn’t a good night. So as of now, I am brewing a pot of coffee. I figured I would watch some TV and fall asleep to it. After tonight, comes Sunday. That means it’s the end.

Sunday:

The final day of my vacation before I had back to work. Am I excited? Yes and no. I woke up about 7. Maybe a little before. I made more coffee and ate some yogurt. I purchased, “Date Movie“. It was funny. Better than I expected. I do like both Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. I finished the movie and grabbed a lass of orange juice. I sat at my computer and tinkered with a few blogs before heading off to grab some lunch. I was planning on having a nice turkey and ham sandwich but I am out of cheese and miracle whip. I was sure I had them in the fridge. I was mistaken. Since I had the bread already out, I made a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. After eating, I finished up another blog and set it up to post early tomorrow morning. It was my way of still blogging (no. I didn’t break the twitter, facebook, blog rule). I have a few blogs ready to post throughout the day of Monday. Sadly, I will have to break the rule tonight before bed. So I guess what I am saying is, I will have broken 3 of the 4 rules. I almost broke all but since my friend didn’t come over, that rule stuck. Kudos to me for keeping at least of the rules intact. I decided to make some delicious Peanut Butter and Jam Bars. I had to run to my mother’s house to grab some butter. I could have gone to the store but I don’t need that much butter. Once I pulled up to my apartment, a friend called. He wanted to meet me at The 54 for a few drinks. I went and shared a few drinks and some stories. Coming back at home, I finally get around to finishing the bars. They turned out nice. I brewed a cup of coffee to get rid of the alcohol taste. Besides all the blogging, I ended my day with “True Blood”. Off to bed. A good end to a decent vacation.

Review:

It was a good vacation. I enjoyed my time away. I didn’t blog as much as I wanted. I drank more than what I expected. I watched a lot of TV. I even got myself to bed early every night except last night. I was up till about 2am. But I was a little tipsy. I needed to sober up before bed. The coffee helped. Sometimes going to bed tipsy is a pain. It’s better to pass out than try and sleep after a night of heavy drinking. I am still holding on to another full week of vacation and two more personal days. If I do get forced to take the last week, I’ll probably be a little more active than I was this time around. Being the recluse I was, well… Wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. It was nice. It was nice to just be alone and think. Not that I thought much. Just nice. Going out Friday night was so-so. I had fun. Being around people was weird. I still managed. I hope when you have a vacation, I hope it is as exciting and lazy as mine was.

How I Spent My Vacation: Part Jaun

I am a workaholic. I have always been this way. I find more joy being at work than sitting at home doing nothing. My days off aren’t anything amazing. A normal day off consist of me either sitting on the couch watching movies or sitting at my computer fiddling with twitter, facebook, or my blog. When I am at home, I think about work. I wonder what jobs aren’t being completed. I wonder what chaos I will walk into the next day. There never really is. Things run smooth without me there but I beg to differ. No matter how perfect the day went, I’ll still find something wrong. I’ll complain, “I should have been here. If I was here, this would have gotten done.” It’s just how I am. I hate to say but I love work.(?) How many people love work?

The last time I took a vacation was back in March. It wasn’t for rest and relaxation. I was in the process of moving and having a week is better than trying to move all in one or two days. Work is pretty busy. We service a total of five schools for their lunch. The total number of kids was 1800. Since we recently renewed, the total number is 2200, give or take a few. Since it is the summer, the kids are out. That means we get a break too. It was a well needed break for everyone. We did a bang up job with these new accounts. Sure we had our share of goofs but it’s expected. We came out champions. So with these schools being out, it meant we’re on vacation too. Holy hell! I thought I was out of school. It’s summer vacation all over again!

Week after week, employees were taking their well needed vacation. Being the true go-getter I am, I held off. Honestly, I was trying my best to avoid it at all cost. I didn’t feel the need for me. Two days off is fine with me. Hell, even one day off is fine. It gives me time to do laundry (if I could gain access to the laundry room), clean house, or if I had to, run errands. Sadly, I was “forced” to take vacation. If I had the chance, I wouldn’t have taken it. But, I did.

I had no desire to leave town. I just wanted to stay home and be a recluse. I had a few rules.

Rule 1: I cannot have people over.

Rule 2: No twitter, no facebook, no blogging.

Rule 3: Don’t answer the phone. Don’t text.

Rule 4: Don’t leave the house for any reason.

These were and are very simple rules. I mean, look at them. They are easy. I can do these. I have will power. I have the strength of twenty, no! Twenty-one men! It was going to be hard to do it. But I have to put my foot down. Shut the world off. Show them I don’t need to human contact to survive. After I left work on Sunday, I went home. I showered and took a small nap. I went back to the bar (54th street) to meet up with some people. Of the three, only one made it. One had to make it to the hospital. The other basically effed me over. I am not upset. I still drank. We chatted. We laughed. We left. I went home and watched some TV. I had a few drinks and watched True Blood. I headed to bed shortly after. It’s strange. You’d think I would stay up all hours because I didn’t have to work. But my body was and is still set on the normal bedtime schedule. I closed my eyes. It was the start of 7 days of doing nothing..

Monday:

I woke up Monday around 8am. Since this is my vacation, I rolled back over and slept till about 1pm. I will admit. It was nice doing that. I didn’t have to worry about getting up at 5am or 6am. I looked at the clock and said, “eff it. I’ll sleep more. I got all week to do things.” That was nice. I really enjoyed that. Like I said, I got myself out of bed at around 1pm. I get out of bed. My phone was turned off the night prior. I really wanted to keep it off but I use my phone for music. I can’t play the stereo in my apartment. The Ghost of Carlos gets angrier than Bruce Banner. It’s annoying. I cannot play the stereo. I can’t play music though my computer. He pounds on the ceiling telling me to turn it off.  I turned my phone on and took a nice hot shower. Oh, look. I have a text and a phone call. It was work. I swore that I wouldn’t answer or reply but I said earlier, I am a work addict. It was my manager. He wanted me to call. It must be urgent. Lord, this place cannot run without me. I get a phone call from work almost every day. It’s stupid crap too.

Hi. Can you not bother me? Use your damn brain and figure it out.

I know I say I am a workaholic. But it gets tiresome when you get a call every night. Let me have one night off. That’s all I am asking.

I answered his question and went about my way to do nothing. Rule 3 is broken. Guess that’s okay. I still have three left. I noticed I had no food. I planned on buying food on Friday but I went out drinking. Didn’t do it Saturday or Sunday cause again, I drank. I even had a water bill to pay. The bill isn’t late. I just wanted to get food and pay the bill before I went into hiding. So I traveled to the grocery store (not the one I work at) and purchased some food for the following week. I got home and put all the food away. Allah Dammit! Broke another rule. That’s rule 4. Okay. Two out of four isn’t bad. It’s strange having a fridge with more than just beer in it. I had to pinch myself just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. To be sure that I actually purchased food for me to eat. No Golden Arch of the King this week. I have real food! Eff you, fast food! You lose this round.

I sat at home and watched some movies. I love Netflix. I watched, “The Boondocks Saints II” and a craptastic movie titled, “Townies”. Townies was bizarre. All I can remember from what I watched was a man peeing on a chick to cleanse her. There was also a mute gal who kidnapped a boy and a dumpster driver who found a dead body and made love to it. I quickly jumped to IMDB to look it up. I was surprised to see it was made recently. From looking at it, I thought it was from the early 80’s. Whatever. It was horrible. Don’t watch it. I was hoping for it to be like, “Freaks“. Now, that is a movie you should watch.

Gooble Gobble…

When the night came, I enjoyed some alcohol. A friend texted me. Crap. I’ll respond. She ended up calling me. After our call, I drank more then headed off to bed. What a fine start to a wonderful week.

Tuesday:

Tuesday, I woke up earlier. It was up about 6am. I made a cup of coffee and turned on the television. A Robin Williams stand up was on.  Here’s a clip. Funny crap.

I watched that.  I then spent the next 3 hours of my day working on a excel spreadsheet for work. That was a pain in the rear. My old manager created it. He was a whiz at Excel. I don’t know jack about it. After finishing it, I noticed I ruined the formulas he set within the documents. So I had to manually cut and paste them all back in. From what I can tell, I did it just fine. But who knows. We’ll find out when we order for the first time. Again, I love work. I offered to work on the file many weeks ago. I just never got around to it.

After I finished it, I emailed it back to him. A triumph for me. I rewarded myself with some video games. I recently downloaded “Civilization: Revolutions” for the iPhone. It was free, courtesy of “Free App A Day”. I dusted off my xbox and played some it. I played more and more. My brother called me. We talked. I did some laundry. I ended up doing it all throughout the night. I started late. Eventually, I turned it off and drank. I sat at my computer and browsed the web. Do you know how hard it is to not use twitter, facebook, or any other social networking site when you normally use it umpteen times a day? Pretty damn hard.  I love to social network. My brother and I, along with some of his friends, had an idea to use social networking as a viral media tool. It never got off the ground. Be nice if we could get it running. I think it was a fantastic idea. To keep me busy, I’d get on yahoo and then go about and click and click, till I end up on sites I never knew about. The same friend from the night before texted me and we replied messages that really shouldn’t be said by anyone. I cannot and will not repeat what we wrote to each other. It was just banter between to grown adults. But wow. I had to take a shower after the things we wrote. I finished my last beer and took myself to bed.

Wednesday:

I woke up to finish off my laundry. I started my morning with a cup of coffee and watching some HBO documentary about the McCain/Obama election. It was ‘wow’. There are some people in the south who are still living in the wrong era. It was a great documentary. I don’t know where I sit on the fence. I don’t know if I am more republican, democrat, or liberal. I agree on views on each side. But to watch these people who support McCain, they are the worst people I have ever seen. I voted for Obama. Do I think I doomed the country for what i did? No. I just agree with his views on things more than McCain’s views. This isn’t a blog about my political views. This is a blog about how I spent my vacation. Sorry about going off track. After the show, I went to Bob Evans. This was my second time leaving the house.  I was sort of forced into going. I mean, it’s Bob Effin’ Evans! I can’t pass that up. Besides, it was my mom’s turn to buy.  I get home and play some video games. I made some lunch and got an email from work. Oh, look more questions. I love work. He agreed I have a problem. But it’s cool. It’s what I love. I finish up another project. I found myself sweeping and cleaning the laundry room. I have to say, it is wonderful to not have the lazy laundriers living next door anymore. Full freedom!  I browse the web again and come across a movie called, “Exam”. It’s on Indemand!? Let me look! Awesome! I’m watching this. It was a good movie. The reviews I read were split. Some hated it. Some loved it. Don’t care what they think. People hated, “Snakes on A Plane“. Some people don’t know what a good movie is. Watch it.

8 people are trying out for this amazing job. They enter a room with no windows. The room has 8 desks. On each desk is a sheet of paper and a pencil. They are give a few rules. They are told to answer the question. The turn over the sheet of paper and it’s blank.

That is the beginning of my vacation. I’ll post the rest shortly.