Greater Satellites

So I played hookie from work on Friday.  More specifically I went in around 10am, stayed until noon when I decided to switch from Citizens Bank to Commerce Bank, then left to take a glorious day trip down the shore with my lady.  We went down to Wildwood at first and braved a bit of rain to in order to take a few pictures, eat some funnel cake, play some ski ball, and briefly walk the boards.  On our way back to the car, we both got our palms read and discovered a lots of interesting things we kind of already knew about ourselves, but were amazing to hear from a complete stranger.  I recommend getting it done at least once, if your funds allow it.

After that got old, we decided to take a trip to the neighboring Atlantic City to gamble and find a place to stay overnight.  We ended up at the Atlantic Palace by chance and got a room with a great ocean view.  We walked the boards a bit more, hit Ballys for a bit of gambling fun, and then back to the room after a junky dinner.  Relaxation in the hot tub and a little Conan O’Brien ensued.

The next day was all gravy: Lots of sleep and eventually going out to see the incredibly awesome Wall-E.  It stands on it’s own among the Pixar films, only bested (in my opinion) by Toy Story.  Highly recommended.  Now all we have left to see is The Incredible Hulk, Indy 4, and Wanted.

Yesterday was a great day of sleep, a family barbecue over Jackie’s pad with lots of delicious foods, and more relaxation.  I really love the time I spend with my girl.

This life blog brought to you by Andrew, writing to preserve the memories of yesterday.

It’s hard to know where to begin after leaving off writing for so long. My initial intentions for getting this domain set up was basically so I could have my own place to blog but ever recently I’ve either shirked the task or just downright did not have enough time. Well let’s hope I can change that all around. I’m trying my best to post at least once a week for the rest of the year. Call it a late New Year’s Resolution. Let’s get this recap under way…

Since last I blogged, a little over a month ago, quite a bit has happened. Nothing huge, but all things worth mentioning for memory’s sake: Two one-month-increment anniversaries on the road to the big one year, first small vacation with the lady, Jimmy Buffet concert with Denise, a promotion at work, some minor construction in the room area, and not to mention Jackie’s birthday tomorrow. Come with me on this journey…

I’ll follow the order that I listed them above just to keep everything nice and tidy, which puts us at the 8th and 9th month anniversary days. In case you didn’t know the day is the 15th of every month. How I remember is pretty cheap, but it serves it’s purpose as my personal mnemonic device. For those of you who’ve seen V For Vendetta, the day Jackie and I officially started going out was the fifteenth of November, so I modified it to say “Remember, remember, the fifteenth of November” and since then I have not forgotten. We’re usually pretty chill about out anniversary dates, as they’ve been pretty variable throughout the week (only a few have fallen on a party night [read: Friday or Saturday]). We usually just relax and watch a movie, have some dinner, and enjoy each other’s company. Two nights ago I bought dinner from Bennigans, gave Jackie a card (I’m such a sap sometimes), and we just relaxed watching some TV and playing around on the computer. Last night we also got together and celebrated Jackie’s birthday a few days early because her parents are leaving for a week of partying in the mountains (it’s their anniversary). It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows her that she had a Superman cake (for the 2nd consecutive year, if I’m not mistaken), which I’ll have pictures of soon enough. After the commotion died down and most of her family left or went to sleep we watching Employee Of the Month, laughed a bit at that, and then called it a night. As I was leaving her house two big motherfuckin raccoons ran by my legs about 2 feet from where I was standing. I’m actually not sure if they were big raccoons or not because that’s the first time I’ve ever seen one that close, but they were the size of small dogs and looked mean as hell. I’m just realizing this is my second run in with a wild animal I’ve never seen up close before in the past month, because when we went on vacation to Promised Land State Park…

…We ran into a big ass BEAR! There were two, actually, one cute cub which I snapped a picture of and a shit-yourself-big mama bear. Needless to say, well all slept in our cars that night. Let’s back up just a moment to the start of it… I had Jury Duty on the day we planned to leave (July 13th). I wanted to have that shit wrapped up way earlier that week, but things happen and Jackie and I didn’t end up leaving for the State Park until well after 6 (it may have even been 7). Regardless, we start trekking up there in her car blasting through traffic and listening to some tunes. We got a little lot lost but it’s all fun because we pretty much rule and made a great time out of it. By the time 11pm rolled around and we still weren’t where we needed to be we called Denise to let her know we’re hotel-ing it up. Turns out we were about 30-45 minutes off course, and we still needed to set up a tent, eat, and eventually get some sleep. We drove right in to a Best Western and shacked up for the evening. We hit the bar downstairs and had a few drinks. Jackie actually only had part of a 7&7, mainly because, well, it’s a fuckin 7&7. After that we went back up to our room and eventually went to sleep. Camping rules.

The next morning we awoke, showered, and rolled out shortly before 11. We bought a map, got our bearings, filled up the gas tank, and bounced our way to the state park. It was a nice ride through a variety of quaint little neighborhoods that you’d think only existed in movies. It was a great day to drive and just be outside in general… We arrived at the State Park shortly after noon. We set up our tent in record time and were surprised at how spacious it is. Made some lunch and just loafed around for a bit until we decided to play some volleyball and toss the disc around for a bit. Volleyball went ok… I’m not too good at it, but always willing to try again (on the sand of the beach, maybe?). After Volleyball Denise and I played frisbee for a bit while Jackie and Kathy talked, took pictures, and took in the scenery. Denise phone was stolen (naggers!), and that was the beginning of the end of that trip. When we got back to the camp site, we cooked up some delicious dinner (burgers and dogs, the American way) and tried to get comfortable. I found it difficult to do so up there between the bugs and lack of seating (bench vs. rock vs. ground). After making smores, one of our neighbors told us there was a bear cub in a tree on his site. We checked it over to verify he wasn’t bullshitting us and boom, bear cub. Now I’ve heard, along with everyone else camping, that wherever baby goes, mommy is sure to follow. We didn’t see mommy right away, because she was hiding from us (which in retrospect is kind of funny, considering she was like an 800 pound black bear… how do you hide?). We were all pretty spooked and it wasn’t until our fire died that mommy came out to play. After seeing that big MF’er, we decided to regroup and take some action. I intended to run right into the bear and skewer it with a plastic fork a la Troy, but everyone said stuff like “It’s a bear, you will die” etcetera, etcetera so I decided instead to just wrap up our food as best we could and head for the safety of glass and metal… the cars. Jackie, Denise, and I slept in Jackie’s car and Kathy slept in hers (only Asians could possibly sleep comfortably in Hondas).

We woke up around 6AM, packed everything up, and rolled out. We hit Perkins on the way out and I bought breakfast because everyone looked like they needed a pick-me-up, and then started rolling home. We arrived home in the early afternoon and dispersed. Total vacation time: 3 days, 2 nights. Total time Jackie and Andrew actually camped: 0. One night in a hotel, one night sleeping in the car. We rock.

The next big event was the Jimmy Buffet concert. There’s not much to say about it other than the fact that it was fantastic. I had a blast and got wrecked off of Landshark Lager (a thumbs up in my book) and huge frosty Margaritas. We were successfully able to sneak alcohol in and although I saw two separate instances of man-wang, I saw enough sets of boobies for it not to be considered a gay concert. Jimmy is good people in my book.

Another short but noteworthy mention is my raise/promotion at work. I won’t go in to salary details on here because I’m not trying to be braggadocios about what I make, but let’s just say I received a little over $2 more per hour and I’m in a position to have as many as one person working directly beneath me. Fun times, indeed.

I tore my wall apart two weekends ago and put up some new awesome shelves to store my books, CD/DVD media, and random crap that I didn’t want in my desk. This past weekend I also bought a new desk chair that’s no less than 114% more comfortable than the old one. What does all of this mean for raising my at-home computing productivity? Nada. But it certainly does look nice.

Last, but certainly not by any stretch of the imagination least, is Jackie’s B-day tomorrow. Now I can’t really re-cap it since it didn’t happen yet and I don’t own a flux capacitor, but it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s going to be one hell of a good time. There will be pictures, oh yes, there will be pictures documenting the whole evening and I’m totally looking forward to it. Last year at Jackie’s birthday was the first time we actually truly hung out and I started grasping just how awesome she really is. One might say that was the night that kick started it all, so it’s kind of a warm and fuzzy feeling for me being out with her again, a year later, only playing a better role in her life. The role of boyfriend extraordinaire (her words, not mine [ok, they were my words]). Look forward to more blogs over the coming weeks so I don’t have to write long diatribes like this any friggin more.

Hey Gang! (crips, not bloods…)

Let’s allow the Crypt to be the super mega awesome nickname for my bedroom… Just a few random tid bits of news since I’m in the midst of designing what will hopefully be the new Greater Satellites home page. Now I know what you’re thinking:

“Andrew, isn’t there already a Greater Satellites home page design?”

To which I retort:

“Yes, there is. But in the spirit of paradigm-shifting, I will be creating a design that caters a little more to me and a little less to what I think people would like to see. It’s really that simple.”

There’s a new addition to the Gormley family, an as-of-yet unnamed kitten. I will upload a picture of this cute little fucker so you can all enjoy him as we do.

Well, as you may have noticed the whole 301st post extravaganza thing never left the planning phases and is on the backburner for a bit. Not to worry, the new year may be bringing me some new equipment and thus bringing me a great deal of flexibility in making projects. Either way, I wanted to recap the month of December up to current and really touch on Christmas, as it was very unique this year:

December brought me a new job, and one which I am infinitely happy with. Although for the past two days I’ve been sick and consequently not there, I do actually miss being busy and the company of my coworkers. This is a first, and ::crosses fingers:: hopefully not a last.

December brought me the one month anniversary of what is shaping up to be a great relationship. I’m happy and I feel like I’ve met an equal, someone I can really relate to. It’s really something fantastic.

December, through a series of peculiarly-well timed events, brought me a little closer to my dad. Brought me into his world a bit. Although I wish a certain someone would also take part in it a little more often, perhaps they will eventually come around.

December brought me freedom from most of my debt, an indescribably good feeling. It’s a direct result of the job, but being coupled with my new priority set really set this domino effect into motion.

December brought me Christmas, which in turn brought me socks and underwear (from Mom), a really nice shirt and drum sticks (from Denise), a drummers throne (from Jackie), an invite to Oink (from Curdo), and various monetary gifts (from Dad, Kim, Grandma G, Grandpa, Grandma F, Aunt Mary Ellen, Jackie’s Parents, Donna, Kenny, Kristen). I think it’s evident what I’ll be doing for the next couple of months (until all of my sticks break, I get banned for having a bad ratio, and I turn into a bum from spending all of my money).

And for the first time in a long while, December brought me constant happiness due to all of the reasons listed above…

Well, I’m having a bit of trouble sleeping, so I decided to blog about the weekend while it’s still fresh in my mind. I’m hoping that I just get so little sleep that I actualize a different persona. I think I’d call that person Tyler. Totally random, I know.

Friday began like most other days, with the sun rising in the east. I was up at the (relatively) early hour of 11am, beginning some design and data input work for my current (kinda) employer. Simulatenously, I began creating some new site mock-ups that I intend to use in future portfolio screenings for prospective employers. Jon and I discussed it yesterday a bit: It’s imperative to stand out among the crowd of sometimes thirty or more potential job candidates. Other than making a fantastic impression as far personality and work ethic goes, it’s as equally important to have a solid, diverse, and ultimately unique body of work on your side. Anyone could fiddle around with Frontpage (eck!) or Dreamweaver (bleh!) and have a halfway decent site up and running withing a few hours. A good designer should not only break you out of the slippery slope of template-ism, but also afford you a presence on these vast interwebs among your peers and competitors…

But I digress.

Point being that I sent out quite a few more applications on Friday with some updated template work. I’m excited to hear back from, well, any of them. As the day wound down, I started cleaning my room a bit and doing some laundry. How very home ec of me. When all of the very mundane chores I set out to do were finished, I decided to pop on a movie. In this case, it was the very awful Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers on the new epitome-of-awesome FEARnet channel. I remember watching that movie when I was much younger and getting a kick out of the gratuitous amounts of nudity and violence (but mostly the nudity… c’mon, I was 12!). It was such a terrible plot, but I appreciate and watch most horror movies, regardless of quality. Eventually Jackie showed up and she, Denise, and I hung out, had some drinks, and half-watched Darkness Falls. We had a good time hanging out and shooting the shit. It was an exceptional, indoors-y type night.

Saturday I sat around twiddling my thumbs for a majority of the day. I worked out a bit, sent out some more applications/proposals to local companies/businesses, and got some reading done. Kathy and Rich ended up stopping by around 7:30pm to hang out and relax. I like that my room is accepted as a decent place to chill, makes me feel good about the coziness factor of my house. Anyway, Jackie came by around 10pm and introductions were made all around. We got sucked into watching a pretty good portion of The Island, which is pretty decent sci-fi movie in this author’s humble opinion. Kathy and Rich bounced away around midnight, which is precisely when the J and I rolled our hungry selves over to Wawa for some sustenance. Upon return, we commenced the watching of Office Space, which my lady had never seen before. I know, I know, it’s crazy, but she iiked it right out of the gate. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to watch it all because she was feeling tired and it was getting late. Great times, all around though.

Today (technically yesterday) I woke up way late in the afternoon and did some reading. “What were you reading, dawg?” you may inquire, to which I respond “Only one of the best comic series I’ve read in a long fucking time, my friend, and that comic series is Marvel’s Civil War.” It’s a cross-over comic, so you get to see all of Marvel’s big names (read: Spider Man, X-Men, Captain America, Iron Man (douche), Fantastic 4, Avengers, etc) all at once. The artwork is really well done and it’s pretty fuckin epic. It’s definitely worth a look for fans of the Marvel Universe. Just as an aside, here’s another comic that I am totally psyched about.

Sunday is my new bowling day. From 6pm to 9pm I’m a possible and probable Brunswick-sanctioned substitute for a Friends & Family league up at the Brunswick Zone on Street Road. Today was my first day subbing on my dad’s team. I sucked pretty bad on my first game, only scoring a paltry 109, but my second game was a nice recovery with a 156, and the third and final game rang in to tune of 148, I believe, leaving me with the respectable average of 138. I had a lot of fun with my family, extended family, and the lady. I’ll be up there every Sunday until May or something (it’s a long God damn season). Got back ’round 10:30, ate a little, drank a little iced tea, read some news, caught a couple more of my comics, and that pretty much brings us to current.

I watch a lot of movies, I know.

I’ve found, increasingly, that my blog entries are mostly recaps of a series of days or even a week. This would explain why I don’t have a thousand entries and am still just shy of 300. This post is no exception. My story begins last Tuesday…

I was getting in the Thanksgiving spirit, merrily thinking about how much I was going to eat and musing over the possibilities of having a full stomach for the first time in 2006, a year that passed by almost as fast as those bullet trains in Tokyo. It was the early afternoon and I was browsing through the classifieds section in my local newspaper and on the internet. I came across the last line of a listing that grabbed my attention instantly, it read something like: “We’re a pretty relaxed group of people, no TPS reports to fill out here…” and decided to give it a shot. If they’re down to earth enough to semi-quote Office Space, then they must know the plight of the typical office drone. “These”, I thought, “are my people.” I compiled my online resume, but didn’t apply for the job. Call it cold feet. I knew that I had the skills they were looking for, but I just needed that extra little push to get me going. I saved my application email as a draft and feel asleep watching television.

Wednesday enters stage right (or should it be stage east? oh well…). I woke up just before noon and began my usual routine of reading the days news and my emails. The previous night just before going to bed, I sent my lady the first revision of my online resume for her perusal and opinion. Scanning through the normal junk newsletters that I subscribe to (for God only knows what reason) I found her response, and within that I found the little push I needed to get my ass in gear and apply for this job. I wrote a brief email which vaguely mirrored the block of text above this one, attached my shiny new resume, hit send, and hoped for the best. The post script on the email said “Gotta love Office Space…” As the day progressed I had a few errands to run, mostly Thanksgiving-shopping-related, and as such was not in the house for most of the early afternoon. When I returned to the computer it was around 3pm and I had received a response to the job. I discovered I was one of the last people considered before they removed the listing earlier that day, for a total of 314 interested people responded to it in less than 16 hours. I was asked to send along any portfolio work that I had done recently and so I sent them screenshots of the dark driving page, Excel Fuel’s original AG layout, a couple Mac-related sites I’ve worked on, a couple of my logos, and various other things. Within 45 minutes I received a phone call telling me to come down for an interview/skillz (yes, skillz, as in skillz that killz) test on Monday. Suffice it to say, this made my day and all of the waiting in line I still had to do worthwhile. After Jackie we began making plans to see each other because she was visiting family out of town for Thanksgiving. After some brainstorming and deliberation, we decided to hang out here with her friends Bridget and Vinny. They’re an interesting couple and I have a good time talking with them, so it was already shaping up to be a good night. Let us skip the waiting part right to when everyone arrived. After some initial chattery, we decided to watch Liar Liar and have a makeout party enjoy each others company. They all left (unfortunately) after the movie was done, making it an early night in the eyes of a few. But it was great seeing them, especially her.

I’ll try to keep the Thanksgiving explanation terse, because just talking about it makes me feel like there are mass quantities of tryptophan coursing through my veins. I woke up around noon and helped however I could in the kitchen, did some very last minute shopping, and tried to stay out of the way for the remainder of the cooking. Dinner was incredible, and it was shared with Denise, mom, grandmom, and my aunt. I’m thankful for friends, family, a great dinner, the new lady in my life, and our family coming together to help in the good times as well as the bad. I drank half a case of Yuengling after dinner and had some people over. It was a lot of fun and I was a lot drunk. I was also thankful that I didn’t have a hangover the following day.

Friday was more blurred than an image with a Gaussian distribution applied to it. I distinctly remember putting up and taking down a few decorations, that much was for sure. Nothing really major happened until Jackie showed up to hang out and be lazy with me around 8pm that night. We watched Comic Relief ‘06 for quite a while (we found it amusing) and then spent the rest of the night just hanging out and talking. It was very peaceful and a lot of fun considering that we really did nothing at all.

Saturday I woke up late (I think I see a pattern emerging here) and did some laundry, cleaned my room, and performed a few other minor chores. I caught up on some reading and did some research on video and editing equipment that I’ve had my eye on for a while now. It was all very informative and time well spent. I love learning, especially that specific kind of self-motivated cerebral drive. I went over Jackie’s house later that night and helped her with some computer related tasks (I’m good like that) and then we went out to Top Dog in NJ for some drinking and dance. We hung out, took some pictures, drank it up, the girls (Syl and Jackie) did some dancing, and then we left. It was as cold as a motherfucker that night; one of those “see your own breath”, breezeless nights, so I made it a point to stay close to a certain someone to keep her warm. We eventually ended up at my domicile where we played with the cat and worked on comfort and logistics. I’m a bad influence, I keep people out and awake until all hours of the night. I went to sleep somewhere in the 5:45am arena.

Sunday is always a hazy day for me. I’m almost totally convinced that my mind doesn’t turn on for Sundays. I can say that I downloaded a slew of new music on Sunday for my listening pleasure. Albums include: The Human Abstract’s Nocturne, Incubus’ new Light Grenades, Foo Fighter’s new live album Skin And Bones, the somewhat older Postal Service’s Give Up, and Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut. I have a lot of listening to do.

Monday morning, 11am, I’m standing outside of 124 Chestnut waiting for Jared to come open the door so I can have my interview and test. I’m a mixture of over-confident and excited, but ready to strut my stuff. Jared made a scheduling mistake and actually wasn’t expecting me until 11am on Tuesday, but luckily had some time to sit down and interview me despite the mix up. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t covet the jobs of people already working there. It seems like such a laid back atmosphere with a bunch of cool people doing what they love to do. Fortunately I think I left a good impression. Without going into too much detail, my test basically consisted of converting a Photoshop web site mock-up into a functioning, active page. It took me about two hours, but I took my time and was thorough. The end result was almost identical to the original, so I was pleased. After the other designers took a look at it, they commented on how clean my code was (to the nerdy, it’s quite a compliment) and I left shortly thereafter. Now I play the waiting game, although I should know for sure no later than next week.

Today I woke up and did some design work, some coding, some reading, and a small amount of learning. I chatted it up with Denise about this and that and ate a Wawa pork roll sandwich which are delicious, by the way. I got to talk to my girl shortly after she got out of work, although I missed one of her calls earlier in the day (oops). The rest of the day was peaceful and serene. Good times all around.