by Matt | Aug 1, 2003 | Imported Entry
Paul and Carrie have gone back to their house for a minute leaving me a few seconds to put in an update. Things are going well at work. Today I put together a wedding album, retouched a half-dozen pictures and wrote up an order for to take with us to the body building tournament tonight. That’s where I’ll be tomorrow actually. It’s a pretty messed up schedule and I’m not really thrilled about it but it’s work and I’m not going to complain. I could be doing a lot worse. Like working retail or at a shitty photo lab somewhere. I really really enjoy working here, I just wish the hours were a bit more normal. I’m probably only feeling that way because I’m already back at work after spending a week working 18 hour days. Things should normalize fairly soon.
Car-wise I’ve been lucky to be able to borrow Lauren’s brother’s truck, which I am very grateful for. I kind of enjoy driving a pick-up. I’ve only done it once or twice before but I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’m actually considering buying an F150. Paul’s been very helpful in terms of calling people and talking to his contacts about places I could possibly get deals. The Mazda dealership apparently loves him and is willing to work on a below-invoice deal on a Protégé 5 for me. We’ll see. I was never really a big fan of the Protégé 5, considering it to be an inferior Matrix knock-off, but I’ll reserve judgment for after a test-drive. There’s a couple other cars I’d like to look at too.
Everything else is going pretty well. Life at Lauren’s house is pretty much like my house only without parents at baseball practices and my car being borrowed daily… now it’s just being borrowed permanently. Chris (Lauren’s brother) leaves for Northern Texas Univ. next week so I’ll be moving from the futon to a real bed, which I’ll jump for joy over since my back can’t take much more futon.
That’s about it. I’m having serious video-game withdrawal but I’m making due. In the next week or so I’m also going to be getting a new workstation, so customizing the crap out of that should sooth some of the pain. I wish I had the time to keep up with techy-news and links and such but I just don’t. I’m sure there’s some nefarious government plot or Microsoft product I should be bitching about. Perhaps that’s for the best.
Alrighty. Back to work. I’ve got to finish some retouches before we leave for the body building tournament prelims at 7:30.
Matt out.
by Matt | Jul 20, 2003 | Imported Entry
Well, tomorrow at the ass crack of dawn I leave for Lubbock TX. It’s an 8 hour friggin drive to the middle of fucking no where TX to spend a whole week with the most insipid, air-headed morons on the planet: beauty pageant contestants. If it sounds like I’m a little hostile this evening it’s because I am. But not for the reasons you might think. I don’t want to bore you with details but my good for nearly nothing parents have decided it would be “easier” if I financed my own car and that the Matrix stays in NH. I just about threw a shit-fit. I have to say, and most of you will agree, that when I get pissed I REALLY get pissed. There’s no middle ground with “angry Matt” and holy shit is he pissed. I don’t have the vocabulary to properly describe to you just how angry I am at the moment. I’ve been here two weeks and in that time I’ve gone over more details in my life than I care to think about. I’ve made wedding plans, I’ve looked at apartments, I’ve figured out my personal finances, I’ve done fucking everything. And this, this pile of “fuck you” thrown right in my face isn’t fucking helping. I apologize for the excessive profanity but it’s the only thing that begins to approach my level of aggravation. After an extremely stressful week and a really stressful day of apartment hunting, and forgetting my credit card some place, and being hotter than the fucking sun, I come home and call my folks and this is the shit I get. They can’t make up their fucking minds about where they want to live but they can go ahead and decide to screw me out of a car. The reason they shoveled? Something along the lines of “it would be easier to register and get inspected if it stayed here in New Hampshire, we really think it might be easier for YOU if you looked into getting a new car”. For me?!?! Easier for fucking me! Are they insane?!?! They’re fucked in the head if they think that adding $20,000 worth of debt to my credit report and shopping for a new car will magically make my life easier. Sure, what the hell, more debt, why the fuck not. I’ll just go buy a house and a boat and two more cars and declare bankruptcy while I’m at it, then when I shoot myself in the face, no one will fucking wonder why. Easier…. go fuck yourself. You know what’s sick, what really makes my stomach turn, is the fact that I KNOW that my brother will get the car. He will. And he’s a fucking asshole for taking it. Fuck him. They never helped me get a car, they got themselves a car and just let me use it for a year while I was in Savannah. That’s what they did. I was fucking diluted enough to believe them. So now what the fuck am I going to do? I’ve been borrowing a car from Lauren’s folks for two weeks now, I can’t do that indefinitely. I NEEDED that car. It’s not like I just liked driving it and it made my life more pleasent… it was a necessity. I was looking forward to driving that car. It was my one single joy in life except for Lauren. The car and my girl…. that’s all I fucking had and they took it away. Why? Because it’s “easier” for them. I know I shouldn’t be complaining. Chris said it last week. That my life was going great and that I didn’t have much to complain about… guess what…. this is the kind of shit that happens to me… repeatedly.
Fucking shit.
Oh yeah, and I leave for the middle of fucking nowhere tomorrow. And I’m in a great fucking mood. The job is going well. Thanks for asking.
I won’t be updating until probably next Tuesday so I won’t get to see you loving and supportive comments until then. Wish me luck… and I’ll try to get my blood pressure down.
Later.
And one for the road… FUCK. And I’m not spell checking this, so don’t bother pointing out mistakes… I’m not in the mood.
by Matt | Jul 17, 2003 | Imported Entry
Can’t type long. Job going fantastically. Got reimbursed for plane ticket. Got company cell phone. Going to get bonus for road trip next week. Got new shorts and 2 new shirts. Life is good. Mexican food is tasty. Job is 99% retouching in Photoshop, at least for this week. Next week is road trip. Long road trip. I’ll update more tomorrow from work if I get a chance. Sorry for being brief. I really really wish I had an apartment to come home to instead of someones guest room and a half-broken 486 with a dial up. I want my Uber-Rig and a place of my own. Arg. But I can’t complain. Life is really good. The job is fantastic. Everything is going great. I’ll tell you more later. Gotta run. Sorry.
Matt out.
by Matt | Jul 14, 2003 | Imported Entry
I’ve spent most of today in front of the computer. It was my job today to look up ideas for wedding favors for November. I found a few interesting things (cd cases, nifty wine glasses, etc) and a few cool things I’m thinking about getting for my groomsmen. I’ll probably get something a little different for everyone since I’m sure Chip wouldn’t like a cigar case that I would get for Nagle and Jason wouldn’t like a techy-screwdriver-pocketknife geek toy that I would get for Chris. You can all rest assured that you’ll all get some cool little trinket.
During my web surfing I of course made my way around to my daily reads in order to catch up. While reading HardOCP I noticed perhaps the coolest case mod I’ve ever seem. Here is a link to the forum thread. He updated the post daily to show everyone his progress so the 20+ pages are worth a read for the pictures if nothing else. Here is the finished project (about half way down).
This got me interested in the project I was talking to chip about before I left. I was dreaming up a really cool WWII inspired case. I’d like it army-green with bullet holes instead of a case window, red LEDs and bomber/pinup-girl nose art on the side. Following a link or two I came across this guy who specializes in cartoons of that variety. They’re pretty cool. What’s cooler is the gallery section of his website… which in turn inspired me to do something with Docholoday.com… which I will do as soon as I have my computer back.
So, now I’m inspired with two new projects… which I won’t really have time to do with a new job and without an apartment to work on them in… but I’ll keep the ideas on the back burner until September or so. Anyway, just thought I’d share.
Later.
by Matt | Jul 14, 2003 | Imported Entry
Well, there’s been a little bit of everything going on. After getting the job officially last week I’ve had a few days to sort of adjust and prepare and figure out what the basic plan is for the next few months. I think I already mentioned that I’d be coming back up in August but now I actually have vague dates. I start work tomorrow, work all week up until next Monday when Paul (the photographer) and I leave for the Miss Texas pageant. We’ll be shooting the pageant the 21st-29th and then returning. I work the rest of that week and the next weekend I’ll get my first opportunity (and commission) to shoot on my own. There’s a body building competition on Saturday that I’ll probably get to shoot. I wonder who will be more retarded, the texan pageant girls or the oily muscle guys? I have even money on both. The following weekend, the 7th through the 11th-ish I’m going to try and come home. At least, that’s the plan. Ladd Photo is giving me time to go get my things per our agreement and Lauren is going to ask for a few days off to come up with me. So… mark you calendars and clear some space. I’m going to want to see as many people as I can in that short time. I also possibly need someone to drive back with me (I’ll have both the car and a uhaul). If you’d like to volunteer let me know.
There’s also a long list of things that need to get done before then as well. I need to open a TX bank account, get a TX cell phone plan and number, find a temporary storage place for my stuff until we find an apartment, which is also on the list. Also, in terms of wedding planning, we have to pick out our invitations, Lauren has to pick the flowers and I have to pick a tux style and make sure you guys get measured. You’ll all be picking up your tuxes here so don’t worry about getting them where you are, you’ll just need to go to some place local and get measured, they do it for free and it should only take a minute or two. Write down the numbers they give you and send’em to me so I can put in a big order here. If we all get them at the same place it’s usually cheaper.
That’s about it in terms of plans, but you’re probably curious as to what I’ve been doing the past week or so. We’ll, I’ve been all over the place. I went to get some shorts the other day so that I’d have more than my one pair to wear to work (it’s very casual). We’ve been out to eat a few times, we’ve gone to visit Lauren’s grandparents, we went to a family-friend’s wedding and I met more of the family there and last night we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. For a Disney flick, it wasn’t half bad. Perhaps it was because we got there late and had to sit in the front row and I couldn’t see things properly that I enjoyed it. I’d have to see it again from a normal seating arrangement to tell you if it was truly enjoyable but from what I could see it wasn’t half bad. There were pirates, and sword fights and all that good stuff. It certainly wasn’t Shakespeare but it was a “fun” movie. The kind of action movie that I wanted both T3 and Hulk to be. They were disappointing, this was not. Like I said, it could have just been because I practically couldn’t see the screen. I’ll let you know when the DVD comes out.
Speaking of movies, Lauren’s brother Chris works at the local multiplex and is able, at quite a frequent level, to get uncut 35mm trailer footage from whatever movie he feels like. Apparently they have to splice in the trailers at the beginning of each movies and then cut them out when the movie is done it’s run. And because you could see a trailer in front of more then one movie, they have a lot of copies of these sitting around. He already snagged me authentic 35mm trailers for both 28 Days Later and Kill Bill. He promises more. I assume that these are rare things for the public to have and that eventually they’re just destroyed by the theaters or movie companies. I plan on holding on to a few. Who knows, they could have eBay potential someday.
That’s pretty much it. I have a ton of stuff to do and plan over the next few weeks and a road trip in the middle. I’ll let everyone know about the tuxes when I pick one and I’ll probably need the permanent addresses of a few of you (since you’ve moved or changed rooms in O-House) to send invitations to in the coming months. I’ll let you know how the job goes once I get started. It should be interesting if nothing else. And a good opportunity.
And, sorry as always for the lack of daily updates, this will unfortunately continue until we have an apartment and I get my computer down here.
Matt out.
by Matt | Jul 6, 2003 | Imported Entry
And so, my journey begins…
“So, in America, when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long skies over New Hampshire and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the west coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know how the children must be crying in the land where they let children cry, and tonight the sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old…”
Jack Kerouac – “On the Road”
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