Holy Crap I'm getting Married in 5 Days!

It seems like yesterday I proposed to Ms. Laura Paul and our wedding (which she starting planning the very next day) was a million years away, a year anyway. Now I feel like one of those coma patients that wake up and find everyone wearing strange fashions and using weird gadgets and they have to explain to me that I haven't been asleep for just a day but 20 years. I literally can't wrap my head around the fact that the wedding is this weekend.

People keep asking if we're nervous and I say, no, not really. The only thing making us nervous is all the last minute shit that seems to be coming up...cause I thought we had like 4 more years to plan this thing. Thank god for beer and wine (my good friends), oh and Laura's been pretty good too (although a little stressy) sorry honey the cat is out of the bag, but I know it will all work out in the end.

Now I'm off to refill my wine glass and check my email to see if Walgreens has finished printing my damn pictures I uploaded to them to print for our wedding. Ya they'll be done by 8:10 pm my ass.

The Website is Down

Enjoy the funny that is "The Website is Down" The nerdier you are, the more you'll enjoy. Ya I haven't posted in forever, but looking for a job and planning a wedding sucks up time like a Hoover. Hope to post more often, ya.

Thar She Blows....

Once upon a 8 p.m. dreary, while we sat on our couch weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While we nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a splashing, As of some one gently splashing, splashing at our sliding door. `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `splashing at our sliding door - Only this, and nothing more.'

Alas it was not a visitor splashing at our sliding door but a fire hydrant that was....well, no more. Mario Andretti from Alameda Toyota was dropping off a customer at the apartment complex next door and then did his best impersonation of a wrecking ball and backed up over the fire hydrant sending water gushing over 60 feet in the air.

It was quite the spectacle, I took pictures but my camera's batteries were so low they didn't come out very well. So this torrent of water is going down the street and Laura's car is parked on said street and as the water begins to rise, I'm worried it's going to start seeping into through her car doors, so I head out in sandals to traverse the babbling brook that has formed out front and all Laura is worried about is losing her prime parking spot. After a little debating, we decide to chance it and move her car anyway.

Nothing brings out the neighbors like a little drama and lights and sirens. It was a regular beach blanket babylon down by the gushing hydrant, I met people who lived in the building for years and never spoke to till last night. We're thinking of making it a regular Friday event, but the logistics of knocking over the hydrant every week seem like way too much work, I'll think I'll just return to the head nod as I pass my neighbors in the parking lot. Well that was our exciting Friday night, how bout yours?

Something Fishy is Going on.....

What do mental breakdowns and fish have in common? A lot if you're an 8 year girl. My best friend Dusty and Reagan have a cutie pie of a daughter named Cecily who was given a goldfish as a gift a while back, and as goldfish will do, went belly up much like the mortgage market has. (but that's a different story). Suffice to say little miss Cecily didn't take the news too well, her mother described it as a hysterical fit of epic proportions, paramount to a sibling dying, so one could say she might have overreacted.

Round two of the fish fiasco starts with my friends buying their daughter a Beta fish a couple of days ago, along the lines of if you fall off the horse, get right back on again kind of thinking. For a whole day the fish does great and then next day promptly dies. Decisions, decisions, do my friends break the news to my emotional fragile niece (well practically my niece) or do they do what most honest, hardworking, burning the candle at both ends kind of parents do and lie like there is no tomorrow?

If you ever read this Cecily, your fish was very "sick" and your Dad took him to the vets to be treated, because no amount of money is too much to spend on a $2.00 fish. By no means did your Dad go and buy an identical fish and pawn him off as your original fish, cause that would be wrong. But seriously, if you had to choose between telling a little white lie to stave off an 8 year olds emotional breakdown or give it to em straight, what would you do? "That one there, yes, in the corner, that fish looks exactly like our old one, that one will do just fine."

Birthday MeatBalls, Cake & Poker.....

Every year Laura is in charge of the Horseman Awards, it entails registering of all the participants and counting all the votes via the website she created and making sure the powerpoint presentation she gives goes smoothly, think the Oscars but for people who love Arabian Horses and coincides with the annual Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show. Anyway, this year unfortunately the date of this event falls on my birthday, Feb. 24th. So this morning I dropped Laura off at the Oakland Airport for her trip to Scottsdale, AZ where the awards take place and will be spending my birthday without my lovely fiancée.

Being the awesome gal she is, she arranged for the boys to come over Saturday night and play a little poker here at our place and sealed the deal by making a boat load of barbecued cocktail meat balls!(they're like crack, seriously) and a birthday cake for us to feast on. For you ladies out there, I don't think you can appreciate the pleasure men take in a. playing poker b. eating meat and c. drinking heavily and behaving like men. It's one of life's simple pleasures, but one we love to indulge in. So I dedicate this entry to my little cowgirl who went out of her way and busy schedule to make sure I had a great birthday night. Love you honey and I'll make sure the toilet seat is down when you come home on Monday.

Not fit for a dog........?

Laura and I have applied to adopt a dog twice, from two different shelters and have been denied twice. I'm starting to develop a complex. Both times they've asked us to fill out an online form comparable to applying for a home loan, where do we work, how often do we work, what kind of house do we have, do we have kids, etc, etc. We've let them know we love dogs (that's why we want one), have a jogging trail and beach across the street, and a dog park less then a mile away, that ain't cutting it.

The excuses range from the dog needs a bigger back yard or this last time, the shelter is too far away from Alameda, so a Representative from the shelter couldn't drive out to inspect our home. Inspect our home? I'm not one to brag, but we're not exactly living in a crack house here, some might call it down right yuppie infused. Jeeezus, I think we could have adopted three little kids from a deprived third world country by now. So to follow the over-zealous shelters thinking, it's better to keep the dogs in the pound then have a couple adopt them, love them and take them outdoors?

We'd buy a dog, but who has a grand to blow these days? Not I my friend. So short of us registering for dog for our wedding (can you do that?) Our beloved pooch will have to wait till we pass muster with the puppy police in the Bay Area.

T-minus 10 and counting......

Hello everyone, and by everyone I mean the two people who will actually read this, welcome to my Blog. I figured the internetz needed more lolz so I'm following in the footsteps of my other blogging friends, you know who you are. Now onto my posting.

Houston, we have a problem, my job is about to go the way of the dodo bird. For those not in the know, a few months ago the company I used to work for, Diablo Funding Group, filed for bankruptcy and left all the branches holding the bag, no pay, no vacation pay owed, no severance pay, nada! After a harrowing month left swinging in the mortgage meltdown breeze our branch was picked up by Indymac Bank, and that's where I currently call home. However, my bosses aren't big fans of Indymac (too much redtape, to corp. etc.) so they've decided to cut bait and find greener pastures, unfortunately the new company they just joined doesn't need the services of yours truly, so any day now I'm going to be laid off I'm guessing, 2nd time in 5 months (Joy!)

So here I sit quite contrary, fed up with corporations and not feeling too merry. I've been posting resumes and shaking the trees, so far nothing has materialized and the ticking of the clock that is my road to unemployment grows louder by the minute. (blech) The only silver lining to this cloud is that at least I'm still getting paid while I look for work, but most everyone has left our office and it's eerily quiet here, our office of 25 is now down to 8 and soon to be zero. I only hope I can find something soon that doesn't pay peanuts, I'd like to think all the hard work I've done here over the years would payoff in some sort of karma like bonus plan, so keep your fingers crossed for me and come back and check out the blog sometime, more cheerful news is right over the horizon god willing.

..The Final Countdown
update to the above post. Well our boss called us into the conference room around 3:30 and let us know that he officially resigned last Saturday and that corporate wanted all the loan agents resignations by the end of the day if they didn't plan on staying at Indymac. Shortly there after I was told that I have been laid off, and speaking of silver linings will receive 1 months severance pay, which is a hell of a lot more then Diablo Funding gave me. So, I'll return tomorrow morning, sign my HR stuff, pack up my little cubie possessions and start looking for a job like it's my job.

On the way home my cell phone rang and I looked to see who it was and it was my now former boss, so I let it go to voicemail :). He wants to know if the 50 inch monitor in the conference room is a plasma or lcd, for some reason he needed to know that, because he's taking it with him tonight, I texted him back "it's a plasma" why should he know, he's only the one who bought it. Someday I'll be lucky enough to liberate a 50 inch plasma from a conference room on a rainy evening due to a mortgage meltdown, ah to dream. Thank you all for your words of support thus far.