Flying High

This should have been posted last night, but I was to busy celebrating so tonight will have to do.

Several happy things have happened to me within the last several days so there was good cause to celebrate heartily. First, several weeks ago I had bought a stereo deck for my car. It was a big upgrade from the factory installed radio. Being the electrician wannabe that I am, I decided to test my wiring skills and try to put it in my myself. On my first try I forgot several wires and it didn't work at all. However, Wednesday, after being inspired by my brother to work on it, I grabbed my flashlight and started wiring madly in the dark. Forty minutes later, I reconnected the battery and was greeted by the sound of the stereo powering up. It totally made my night. Not only had I been validated as an electrian but also as a car mechanic. You guys will probably understand this, but it was one of those times when you feel all grown up and manly.

Secondly, with working ten hour days I have the option of either working overtime fridays, or taking them off. This week I decided right at the very beginning to take it off. It ended up being the perfect day to take off, too. Sunny, just breaking the seventies (hard to imagine I know, but New England isn't always cold) and no pressing issues to weigh me down. Even though I had a list of things I wanted to get done none of them were high priority so it didn't matter much if they got done or not. It was a great day of relaxing. That was a big boost all through the week looking forward to today.

Thirdly and most happily of all, last night was my last day of school for the year!! Part of the electrical training up here in N.H. is 144 hours of school a year for four years. Last night I successfully completed 147 hours for my second year, which means that I am half way done my entire schooling! I was/am so psyched!No more having to carefully schedule my life around my school, no more racing home and deciding if dinner or a shower was more important (usually the shower won out), one less deadline to be constantly meeting. These two years have sped by and give me hope and courage for the coming ones that they can't be any worse. Of course now I have to see if I can gather up the willpower to study on my own over the summer. But even if I don't, I'm still halfway done, WOOOHOOOO!!!

On top of that I'm full of caffeine and sugar, I just cooked something in my crockpot, I have plans to cook more tomorrow, and I deposited my federal tax refund today. It is tough to beat that. Truly my cup is overflowing.

Nationality Jokes

Even though it is no longer supposed to be funny to make fun of other nationalities, we all know that those are some of the best kinds of jokes. The other day in class somehow people got started on telling jokes and the teacher came up with two jems. Since he himself is Polish (his last name is Sazlejeski) I feel more than free to pass these on.

Why do all the Polish names end in 'ski?

Because toboggan is too hard to spell.


What is the longest road in Poland?

The rotary. It just keeps going and going and going...



Just thought I would pass those on while I could still remember them, since my joke retention brain cells are all broken. Hope you all are having a great weekend.

An Odd, but no End

Once again it has been longer than I would have liked but that is what happens when you leave to go to the barrens for the weekend. Unfortunately I have to get up in the morning which means I have to go to bed soon. (I've tried getting up without going to bed, take my word for it, it doesn't work very well at all) All that to say this is going to be a quick one.

In the condo building where I stay, there is an elder lady living up on the third floor. I'm sure she is a very nice old lady, but there is one little odd thing about her. A couple of times a week she will come to her patio door (another odd thing, on this building all the condos have patio doors but no patios) and call out, 'Sir, Sir, can you tell me the time, Sir?' Very nicely, politely, and it is no trouble at all to shout the time up to her. She then thanks me, closes her door, and shuffles off into the depths of her condo. It really has me wondering though, why is it that this woman has no time keeping piece?

There are several theories ongoing at this point. She could be really poor and not afford to buy one; but I threw that one out as being too boring. She could be paranoid that her enemies will try to sneak a bomb in disguised as a clock and try to kill her; that got thrown out as being far to cool to be likely. My mom suggested that she was simply lonely and trying to get human contact; but that didn't seem to fit well enough for me, so I threw that one out as well. And now I'm out of theories. Feel free to leave your thoughts about the Mystery of the Watchless Woman.
If any of you come up with some good ideas, maybe I'll steal them and write a best selling book. I already have a great title, now all I need is a story to go with it.

Adventures at Work

It seems as if the last three weeks or so have been a very dry time for writable adventures but that has all been made up for within the last five days. I have at least four stories, but that would take far to long so today you'll be getting just two, both from work.

The first one happened on Thursday and didn't directly involve me. We normally start the day at six, and then take a half hour break about nine-thirty. This day as I was walking to my car to get my snack (same thing as a lunch just eaten in the middle of the morning) when I noticed one of the other guys scanning the ground, looking for something. Pretty soon he went back into the building, still looking, with his carpool buddy close behind him. After several minutes he came out, walked over to the job trailer and asked us if any of us had seen his wallet. Sometime during the morning he had lost it somewhere and couldn't find it. None of us had seen it, but we all promised to keep our eyes open for. As we sat around we made some jokes about finding it and holding it until we got a nice reward. Soon after we went back to work, we found out that the guy had spread the word and was indeed offering a very nice reward. I overheard one guy saying that a two hundred dollar reward was being promised. It made me wonder about the guy until later on when I was talking with one of my bosses. Apparently he had been talking with the loser (I'm not calling him names, I'm simply stating he was the one who lost the wallet:-)) and he had told my boss that there was over a thousand dollars in the wallet! Needless to say I felt incredible sorry for the guy and did my best to look for the wallet. Unfortunately he never found it, and if anyone else did they never turned it in. I also never heard a reason why he was carrying so much. We were all hoping that he had just accidentilly left it at home, but he come back the next day and said that it wasn't at home. He still hasn't been able to find it anywhere and is probably going to have to try and replace everything that was in it.

Don't worry the second story is much cheerier. For the past week or so I've noticed some of the younger guys yelling at each other and trying to wack each other. Thursday I found out it was an ongoing game called 'Screaming Bo'. Those of you familiar with the Pink Panther movies may remember a similar version of this game. In the movie Inspector Cleausou hires a man named Kato to try and attack him anytime, anywhere with no warning whatsoever to keep Cleausou's reflexes in tiptop shape. At least that was the reasoning. As I remember it, Cleausou was an idiot who was always getting surprised by Kato and beaten upon until he could fend him off. Well, Screaming Bo is a lot like that. At anytime, anywhere, just about anyone can come screaming out of nowhere and try to smack you with their elbow, thus the name- Screaming 'Bo. Since we're not complete barbarians there are a few rules. (1)You have to jump off of something, (2) as soon as you are in the air you have to give some warning, usually in the form of yelling out 'Bwoooww'. (3) You have to do it when they aren't expecting it, and (4) you have to try to whack them with your elbow. Other than those basic ground rules, pretty much anything goes. You can team up and lure someone into a trap, as has happened to me on several occasions. You can do super secret sneaky ninja bo, or roaring bo, or even a twirling three-sixty bo. The better the leap, surprise, or smack the greater the admiration of your fellows. Unless of course you can dodge the attack and make the attacker look silly, then you get all the admiration points.

I've only been playing it for a few days so far, but it has been tons of fun leaping off lift gates, dodging elbows, and getting startled by screaming madmen jumping at me. It is also fun to just make the other guy flinch simply by twitching your foot towards a leaping off point. This game is ideal for twenty-something males, but I would suggest it to anyone who wants to liven up their day. Bored at the office? Get a secret 'Screaming 'Bo' club together and heighten your awarness of all that is going on around you. Is the day dragging by too slowly? Make the time fly by, by ramdomly jumping at people around you and trying to wack them with your elbow. Not to mention it is a great team building exercise too. Nothing brings people together like violence. I should know, I already can't wait for tomorrow to start so I can see my work buddies.

A Week's Worth of Work

I think that my brother may have something with his pda. I know that several times this week I have thought, 'Oh, that would be good to mention in my blog' and now that I'm sitting here I have no idea what those things were. So instead I'll just brag about how busy I've been.:)

As you all know I've been working in Portsmouth lately, which for the most part has been great. The only real drawback (besides spending twice as much for gas) is the amount of time it takes. Lately my average day looks a lot like this.
4:30-get up and get ready for the day
5:00-leave the house and start driving to work
6:00-arrive at work, stay there ten hours, and hopefully have a good day
4pm-leave work and start travelling home
5pm-arrive home, get cleaned up, grab some dinner and if a school night get ready for school
5:30- if a school night leave for school
9:00- get home again and have about an hour of free time
10:00- go to bed and repeat the above.

This week however there has been no school which has made a huge difference. I feel like a normal person who can plan events on all the days of the week, instead of having to juggle things around. On top of having my evenings freed up, my housemate (who happens to be a public school teacher) went to his parents for the week so I had the place to myself.

With these two things combined, this last week has been a great one. Not only have I gotten lots done that I normally wouldn't be able to do, but I've also been able to relax more as well as simply enjoy life more fully. I won't bore you with the details but above working forty-eight hours I have been able to get my car inspected, give blood, have my taxes done, and a myriad of little things around the house have finally been accomplished. This week of break has really made me look forward to summer.

I also want to say, once again, that I'm really glad for the friends that I have. I had a great talk with one of them last sunday and then last night I went out and had a great time with a group of other friends. It is really good to get some balance to the people that I am around the rest of the week. While solitude is good, frinds are essential.