Almost December already?

Hard to believe it's November 30th, which makes everyone happy at work because it's the end of Hurricane Season, though it's kind of disconcerting that Tropical Storm Epsilon is still out in the Atlantic. Sure it's not going to hit anything, but still odd that a storm is still out there.

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Ate way too much food, as usual on that day, and spent time with the family. I missed the "biggest shopping day of the year" because I had to work. Well, perhaps work is a bit strong of a word. Perhaps a better description would be sit at the office and read e-books all day. Yeah that's much more accurate.

On Sunday, Jim asked me if I'd help him put up the Christmas lights, which is a request that I approached with much dread and annoyance. Turns out it wasn't that bad, and I realize now that my misconception stemmed from way back when Dad used to have us help him put the lights up. Except at the house we had to attach these stupid plastic clips to the gutter so we could hang lights, but Jim was smart enough to drill hooks into the side of the house, so all we had to do was hang the strings of lights on the hooks. All in all, it took probably 30 minutes to do the whole house. I wouldn't say we went as overboard as this guy, but we did a pretty good job.

As far as Christmas shopping, I'm almost done with everyone on my list, and I've even come up with a few ideas for myself. For starters, I really want The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Collection. Also, in the "gee I wish" category would be this arcade cabinet . I think that'd be awesome to have, but more realistically I could settle for this Atari system, which ironically has better games in it. I had to laugh at the "political correctness" of the new versions on the arcade machine. Most everyone remembers Tapper, the game where you throw beers to burly bar patrons in hopes they don't get to the front of the bar and kick the shit out of you. Well in the 2005 version they make sure to call the game "Root Beer Tapper," yet still have the burly patrons. I would think they'd kick your ass on principle if you tried to serve them root beer, but that's just my view I suppose.

"Cause even though the birds ain't singing and the sun ain't shining it looks like a beautiful morning"

Well it's been a little bit since I've updated, and I'm sitting at Lindsey's waiting for her to get home so figure no time like the present.

Everything's going really well right now, well I'm still in my same job but I'm trying to put a positive spin on line, hence the song lyrics for the title of this post. I didn't get a chance to listen to it when it came out earlier this year, but The Minstrel Show by Little Brother is a really good album. I've heard of the group before, yet never really listened to them. In fact I knew them mainly because their producer, 9th wonder, has done a few high profile tracks for people such as Jay-Z on The Black Album. But I digress.

The song hits me on an optimistic, glass half full kind of level because it is all about turning a negative into a positive, which isn't always easy to do but is damn satisfying when you can achieve that difficult feat. So yes I'm still job hunting but at the same time I'm taking the time to stop and reflect that I am fortunate to have a job (especially with companies like GM laying off 30,000 people) and things could always be worse. Kind of like how at work I still haven't gotten my pay raise switched over that should have been done last month... whereas I would normally bitch and moan about it, I realize that it's all going to get retroactively handled, thus giving me some christmas cash I didn't know I had coming, so I can't be mad at that either.

Aside from that not a whole lot's going on... Lindsey's headed to Pensacola for Thanksgiving and my folks are coming down here so it'll be a feast of way too much food going on for a few days at least. Still not sure what I want for Christmas... been hearing about the Xbox 360 madness and still haven't seen anything that makes me want to shell out 600 bucks for a bundle, though I have seen some clips of future games that look pretty enticing so I'm sure at one point or another I'll bite the bullet and pick one up. Teasingly I told my brother that "maybe I'll buy a 360 when I move out as a housewarming gift to myself," to which he of course didn't like because he had to face the possibility of not being able to play it. Maybe I'll get it before then, who knows?

Interesting week yet it was boring at times too

Had an interesting week this week, but at the same time it was pretty much "business as usual." Kind of odd it could be both at the same time right?

I found out I passed my test, so now all I need is for another supervisor to just up and quit and I'm in line for a promotion. That being said I'm STILL looking for other jobs though... just time to move on. Some days I think that my job isn't too bad, and then others I just shake my head that I went to college and this is what I do for a living. Guess my life would be a helluva lot easier if I actually ENJOYED programing and could be working for some computer company, but c'est la vie I suppose.

Lindsey's parents were in town this weekend, and they brought a friend of her Mom's with her. I had met them all before (we stayed at her Mom's friend's house when we went up to Pensacola earlier this year. They came down for the Bruce Springsteen concert, which I couldn't afford to go to, but I did get to hear "Blinded by the Light" because Lindsey called me during the song, so that was cool. Then on Saturday, they wanted to do something "touristy" so we took them down to The Pier, which they seemed to enjoy. We also had 5pm reservations at Maggiano's, so the plan was to leave St. Pete about 2 or 2:30 to get back in time to change clothes and relax a bit before heading back down to Westshore. Turns out that we were stuck in traffic, well not only traffic, we were stuck on the Howard Franklin Bridge for over 2 hours. Realizing there was no way in hell we were gonna make it back to New Tampa and then back down to eat, we just showed up at Maggiano's in what we wore to St. Pete... and proceeded to eat like kings! Lindsey's Dad has been to Maggiano's before, but I was the only other person that had been, so it was fun explaining to everyone that we basically pick 2 of everything on the menu to eat. They caught on quick as far as how to get tons of leftovers, and now there's like 4 bags full of food in Lindsey's fridge.

Being that it's almost mid November, it seems that everybody is asking me what I want for Christmas. Truth is, I have no idea whatsoever. The only person that has their shopping done for me is Lindsey, and that's because we're going to see Bon Jovi in February. I'd say I want a Xbox 360 but it's like 300 or 400 dollars and that's waaay too much... plus I'm not sure how much I'd play it right now. Maybe I'll get one later when the prices go down. So I'll have to either figure out what I want or just tell Mom & Dad I want money transferred to my account. It's easy to give a list to Jim... I just put a couple of video games on it and say "you choose." I know it drives Mom & Dad nuts, if for no other reason that I used to have my list made and printed out the first week of November, but when you have no idea what you want, what are you supposed to ask for?