Longklaw.com

I’m back in Starkville after a short trip to Jackson. My friends and family were good to me again this year. For my birthday and Christmas I got:

• The Talisman and The Black House, both by Stephen King and Peter Straub
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Extended Edition
• Time & Again Shea Butter
• Fraggle Rock: Doin’ the Things That Doozers Do
• a USB Hub
• a USB Adapters Kit
• money
• The Transformers 20th THe Movie Anniversary Edition
• a Visa Gift Card

Recently I bought Bully for the PS2. It’s mission-style gameplay reminds me a lot of GTA. That’s not surprising since they come from the same company. Bully is rated T for Teen, so I guess it won’t be quite as bad as GTA. I wonder if I can finish the game before I go back to work.

I started reading The Talisman on Christmas Eve. I’m already hooked on it and I’m having a hard time putting it down. I think my friend was right when he told me that a lot of the annoying elements of King’s writing are held in check, maybe because of the guy he co-authored the book with. At least I think that’s what John was saying. I discovered tonight that there’s a mini-series based on The Talisman coming out in 2008.

Please don’t waste your time watching The Wicker Man like I did. It was terrible.

The first season of Coupling was really good. I’m looking forward to watching the rest.

I discovered the option on the DirecTV menu that allows you to watch programs in Spanish when available. I never realized how much fun that could be. It really improves the quality of some programs.

I’ll be going back to work a week from Wednesday. I’m going to enjoy this time off as much as I can.

It’s moving day again at the office. This was not a good day for me to oversleep, but fortunately I still got there on time and the moving hadn’t started yet. I’m once again glad that I didn’t have a lot to move. I foolishly put my computer keyboard, mouse, and some cables in my only box so that it would be easier to move. I moved my computer monitor and tower over to the new building and when I came back to get that box, the movers were in my shared office taking stuff out. My box was already on the moving truck. Everything that I labeled with my name and my new office number got moved to the new office of the lady that I was sharing my previous office with. At least I got my stuff, even if it was after noon.

This move seems different than the last one. Everyone is kind of tired, but they seem mostly excited. More of us are in the same place right now. It’s almost like we’re a family that’s been brought together. I think the difference in this move is because: a) a lot of lessons were learned last time and b) the people moving have a different attitude about the move and are just glad to finally get the move over with. Even people who don’t have furniture yet and have to sit on the floor while using their computers are joking about it instead of complaining. I really liked the way that everyone has been helping each other. I’ve been trying to be helpful where I could.

The things I like the most about this new space is that I have much more room and that I once again have a decent amount of privacy. To quote a PJ song, “P-R-I-V-A-C-Y is priceless to me”. I’m in a cubicle, but at least it’s not a small shared office. The first thing I did was rearrange the furniture. I went to Wal-Mart during lunch to buy some cleaning materials and other things and now I’m pretty happy with everything. Here I even have my own whiteboard to work on. I don’t know why I’m so excited about that. The supply room only had black and red markers, but I had to have more variety. I bought a pack with 4 different colors when I went to Wal-Mart.

Some people have really nice setups in their new offices. I’m going to have to visit those people just so I can gawk at their arrangements.

This is the kind of day where you get very little work done. I’m going to try to be productive during the last part of my day.

I got a copy of Tales of the Abyss for the PS2 yesterday. I only got to play it about an hour, but it looks like it’s going to be another highly addictive game. More on this another time.

I’m almost finished reading Wolves of the Calla, the 5th book in The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. If I have to read the way of speaking that these people use much longer I might go crazy. I’ll get to move on to the next one soon, and I’ll say thankya. The story of the book is good, but it seems like it’s just a lot of filler material. To me it doesn’t seem like this book and that last one advanced the story of their quest to the tower that much.

I have to figure out something to cook and bring to work tomorrow. It’ll probably be a dessert. It’s been a long time since I’ve cooked anything major.

Today is moving day at work and a lot of people are stressed/cranky/sick from the all the dust. One guy who was displaced had been in his office for 23 years. Poor guy. Some people are realizing today that they are going to have to get new furniture that will fit in their new offices or have work done on their offices.

I was one of the people who moved today and I will be moving again soon. I was also one of the people whose computers didn’t work at first after the move. The bad thing is that my new office is a shared office and my computer is facing the doorway. Not much space and not much privacy. The other occupant of this office is on maternity leave, so I get to be alone for a little while.

I knew that the office I had been in since I started was a temporary office, so I was kind of looking forward to moving to a place that I could settle into for a while because I had a feeling that I would be in this location for at least a little while. However, the lady who will be taking my place in this new office has already been in here today measuring things and trying to figure out how she’s going to arrange the place. She’s already put in a request to have the carpet redone, which is probably going to mean a disruption for me. The next move could actually be within the next couple of months and it won’t be soon enough.

Two good things:

• I actually have a key to this office so I don’t have to leave it unlocked and I don’t have to worry about the cleaners locking it in the mornings.
• For the first time in 5 years I have my own phone at work. For now I’ll ignore the fact that it doesn’t work yet.

I’ll be starting my new job on August 1. I have this week off.

Over the weekend I started playing Star War Knights of the Old Republlic II: The Sith Lords. It’s been sitting in my collection for over a year and a half now. Better late than never. It’s a fun game so far. It’s a lot like the first game, and that’s not a bad thing. As much as I’m trying to go to the dark side, I keep getting light side points. I guess it’s just in my nature to be a good guy.

Over the past few months I’ve been slowly making my way through the complete series of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’ve seen all of the episodes at one point or another on TV, but now I can watch the whole series all the way through on DVD. I just finished season 4. The show started getting really good in season 3, but season 4 is even better.

My roommate and I are almost finished with our second helping of Tales of Symphonia. The sidequests are what’s keeping us from finishing the game. I’m going to try to make Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks our next joint project.

I am going to be starting a new job with Mississippi State soon. I’ll be glad to be programming again, even if it’s not the scientific kind of work I did in graduate school.

Teaching was fun at times, but I never really pictured myself doing that forever. Most days I dreaded going to work, but I did have decent days every once in a while. I’m glad for the experience, but I’m also glad that it’s over.

Tutoring also had its moments, but it got to the point where I was happy when students canceled even though it cost me money. Recently they changed the setup, so I’m in there a certain number of hours no matter what. Now I just sit in there bored…checking mail…reading news…over and over again. I’m glad that it’ll soon be over.

Now I’ll be a full-time programmer again. I’ll have only one job in one location. My income will be much greater than it was and I won’t have any breaks in income like I did when I was working for EMCC.

Is this what I thought I would be doing now? No, but you know what they say about the best laid schemes of mice and men. I feel fine, though.

Today is test day so this entire week has been a pretty easy and also pretty boring week for me. Somehow the students got the idea last time that it was ok to talk during tests and not listen to me when I tell them not to. I had to put a stop to that. Threatening people really does work. My classroom has been so quiet today that I can actually concentrate on bloglines, netflix, updating this site, etc.

A student gave me a Snickers bar today. I think it’s a lot better than getting an apple. She doesn’t even know how much I like to eat chocolate candy. She has a high A so there’s no real need for her to suck up. All students should give their teachers chocolate candy instead of apples.

I’ve been sick these past 2 weeks and I just can’t seem to shake it off. The medicine the doctor gave me doesn’t seem to be doing much good. It’s hard to teach when you are so hoarse that you can hardly speak. I’m sure it isn’t helping that almost everywhere I go is cold – inside and outside. I hate being cold.

I’ll be spending the end of my days in Starkville with a roommate. A good friend of mine desperately needed a roommate and we’ve been hanging out a lot, so it makes sense. I’ll have more money to spend, so that’ll be nice.

So last week was Thanksgiving week. I pretty much had the whole week off. I did as little real work as I could get away with. After pouring more money into my car, I drove it to Jackson and didn’t have any major problems. Whenever I started hearing noises, I just turned my music up louder so I wouldn’t hear them.

Some of the highlights and lowlights of the week:

The week after I saw Serenity I started watching Firefly and when I finished I was left wanting more. Too bad there are only 14 episodes. I want to watch the whole series over again. I need to buy the box set so I’ll have my own copy. I checked Amazon.com and it looks like Serenity will be out in time for Christmas. That’s pretty good turnaround considering the movie just came out in September. This week I hope to begin watching season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I hear that it’s not the best season, but I have to start somewhere. If I like it I may watch Angel.

The new book in the George R.R. Martin series “A Song of Ice and Fire” came out last week. I hear that it’s only about half the story it was originally intended to be. I’m not in any hurry to buy it. I have enough books that I need to read first.

Gas prices are dropping.

It looks like I’m going to have more free time beginning now. I’ll have to find some way to pass the time. You know what they say about idle hands. It’s weird because when I was a student this would probably be the most stressful time of the semester.

I started on Mercenaries for the second time the other night. Maybe I’ll finish it this time. No, I am not getting an Xbox 360 when they first come out. It can wait.

I’m looking forward to the new Harry Potter, King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia, and something else I can’t think of right now.

If you own a PS2, you might want to look here.