Good News

Got a raise today. Huzah! Finally had my evaluation and, as was to be expected, I’m doing well and I got my much deserved pay increase. That was pretty much the highlight of the day so far. In a few minutes Lauren and I are going to go to the best steak house in, well, probably most of the country. Texas Land & Cattle. It’s tasty. Actually, tasty doesn’t cover it. It’s the kind of place we go when things like raises happen.

A few other things of note.

Last night we had Brandon and Jennifer over to watch the horrible 3rd Matrix movie. Damn, that sucked. I won’t even get into it. I’d be here all night if I did and you really don’t want me to get worked up like that.

Lastly, have you guys seen the info on Full Spectrum Warrior. Holy crap. I don’t know how this slipped under my radar. This is going to be the best thing since sliced bread. If you don’t believe me, check out this little QuickTime demo here. It’s beyond cool. I don’t know if I’m more excited about it for the PC or Xbox. Either way it’s going to be good.

That’s it. Sorry to be brief, there’s steak to go eat.

Lock it down

Work is pretty much done for today. My boss is gone, my other boss is gone. It’s 5 and I’m supposed to stay until 6. Like that’s going to happen.

I had left over chinese food for lunch today. Mu Shu actually. It was rather tasty. In order to have chinese food one must maintain certain standards. The concept of a fortune cookie afterward for example. Mine said the following:

“You will have everything you want in life”

I thought those were bold words coming from a fucking cookie.

Everything I want? Apparently I wanted debt. I would digress here and tell you about the check I just wrote to one of them and the discomfort I feel everytime I look at the mounting pile of paperwork associated with them. But I won’t.

Instead I’d rather reflect on the good things I have. My wife, my friends, my job, my car. All good, happiness bringing things. I guess the cookie isn’t such an idiot after all.

I actually just had a great idea. I should print out stuff from MY wedding while no one is here. Brilliant.

Gotta run.

But I’ll leave you with this, which I found funny:

“Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.” – Al Capp

That has absolutely nothing to do with anything in particular btw.

Back from Lubbock

That was perhaps the longest week of my life. Working 8am-11pm every day really took it’s toll. It was a really great learning experience though. For those that don’t remember, Paul and I just spent the week in “historic” Lubbock TX as the official photographers with the Miss Texas USA pageant. Basically I spent the week carrying equipment and learning what shooting a pageant was all about. We met some really great and down-to-earth people like Sargent Dave and his bomb-sniffing dog Biff who were just plain fun to talk with. I’ll say this for Texas, the have the one of the most “normal” populations for people I’ve seen in a long time. Well… except for the pageant moms, who were more of a pain in the ass than both soccer and hockey moms combined. I came really close to ending a few lives this week. Some of them are just downright scumbags trying to work every angle to get something for free. Thankfully my “I don’t give a shit about you” attitude beat their “we’re customers and we’re always right” stance. The funny thing was that the ones that were trying to get something from me for free or weasel their way into seeing pictures that we weren’t previewing were the ones that didn’t order anything and weren’t actually customers. Man do I have some stories from this week. It’ll keep me in new story material for months to come. Like the morning we were hanging out with Dave and the Police Commissioner and they decided to take us up to this really nice (and expensive) winnery were we got a personal tour, wine tasting and a few bottles to go home with. All things considered, and with all the work we did, it was a pretty good week. We had fun, I learned a lot and I think both Paul and I got an understanding about the way each other works as photographers.

There’s also been some interesting personal things going on. After talking with Toyota of Nashua we found it it WAS possible to completely transfer a lease making my parents single reason for keeping the car completely moot. There isn’t even any charges associated with it, I just have to take over the payments. While that would obviously be my first choice in cars the lease in unfortunately locked in at $250 a month and Nashua Toyota told us that I would actually have a really good shot at getting something well under $200 for the exact same car since I’m a first time buyer and they have programs for that. So, I’m going to see what I can get into a new Matrix for down here. I’m also looking at just about every other car on the planet. Today I’m also talking with Lending Tree and NH Higher Education to see who has the better consolidation rates for my loans. Once I consolidate my loans it’ll be time to go car shopping. It might be good to get a loan for the car and then re-consolidate that into the payments I’d already be making, but that’s something I’d have to talk with loan places about.

As you could imagine this also keeps me in Texas without clothes, a computer, anything. I don’t know how I’m going to get those down here. Honestly I have no idea. My parents close on the house today actually and so the phone is already disconnected and they’re living off their cell phones. They put all my things over my uncles house and are planning on staying a week at a condo at Loon Mt. and then a week or two at my uncle’s house. After that, if they haven’t found anything they’re going to get an apartment.

Today I have the day off since I just worked an 80 hour week so Lauren and I are going to run some errands. Groceries, T-mobile store to find a new faceplate for my shitty company phone, that sort of thing.

I really really wish I have my computer down here so that I could update daily and really rant and rave about a few things that ticked me off this week and a few things I heard in the news that just got me all worked up. I don’t, so I can’t. I’ve got to figure out a way to get it down here. How does Gateway and Dell ship their full assembled PCs without them being beaten to shit? I’ve got to figure out what (and who) they use to ship them.

Ok, it’s time to go. I’ll update when I can. I just wanted to let everyone know that I was back and that everything went well this week. Take care guys.

Matt out.

Lunch update

Paul (the boss) has gone to get us burgers so I’ve got a second or two. The job is going great. We’ve laid down payment structures and what kind of commissions I get off things and as it is now it seems like I’ll be getting a commission or bonus off just about everything, which is really cool. For example, next week for the road trip I’ll be getting my 40+ hours plus a bonus just for going. Like I mentioned briefly, I also got a company cell phone. It’s an older Nokia 3390 but I’m told that we all might be upgraded soon. I’m also going to get to play (and probably take home) a laptop on a regular basis. It’s a P3 Ibm thinkpad so it’s not half bad. We had to install Windows on it yesterday which sucked because the CD drive wasn’t bootable and it doesn’t have a floppy drive. I also got reimbursed for my plane ticket down here and they gave me some “spending money” to buy some clothes because they felt bad that I was living out of a suitcase. I also, in un-EXPI like fashion, get a mini-fridge stocked with whatever I want… and I don’t have to buy it. Have I mentioned how cool this job is yet. Yeah… it rocks.

That’s about it for now. Tonight Lauren and I are going to look at tuxes and we’ll probably book our plane tickets back to NH this weekend. Monday I leave for west Texas and the pagent so I probably won’t be updating that week. Sorry. I’ll let you know how it went when I get back. Later.

Working with wood

Well, today started very very early, at least for me. Around 6:30 I woke up and headed to the Oval with my Dad to have breakfast. After breakfast the old man wanted to get his haircut next door at Dick’s. Dick’s is a barber shop in the most traditional sense. It’s great. Dick is a nice old Italian fellow whos been cutting hair in the same place since he was 20. There’s only one type of haircut offered at Dicks. I’m not sure it even has a name but it’s done when he’s done. I don’t think he even asks what you’d like anymore. “Sit down, I’ll give ya a trim” is a well heard phrase in NewEngland-ese. Fellow northerners know what language I’m talking about.

After that we headed over to Hollis to get to work on the front porch of the house owned by the same lady that we built the deck for. Todays task was basically to rip up old floor boards and replace them with shiny new ones.

I think I also have to mention that this place is WAY out in the woods. So far infact that every ten minutes we were interupted by random woodland creatures. Today in total I saw: 2 pairs of cardinals, 1 woodpecker, 7-10 yellow finches, 1 grouce (small bird that looks like a pheasent), 2 snakes and multitudes of spiders that died instantly thanks to my trust crowbar.

“gordon! what are you doing?!?” – sorry, lame Halflife joke involving crowbars.

So, after working on the porch for a while, we finished up around 3. I’m now home to take a quick shower because at 5:30 my father and I are meeting my mother at the Toyota dealership in Nashua.

Acually, there could be a whole seperate post about this but I’ll be brief… My car sucks. A lot. We’re getting a new one. We haven’t decided what yet. The possibilities include:

Toyota Carolla, Camry and Matrix
Subaru WRX, Impreza and Impreza RS
Pontiac Vibe
Honda Accord
and a few others.

There are of course all the “body options” to conside. A “sport” model versus a normal one. Almost all those cars above have some sort of “sport” options. Especially the Subarus. Anyway, that’s what I’m up to tonight.

After that I’ll probably come home, have some dinner and watch some X-Games on ESPN. Either that or fire up some more BattleField 1942. I can’t say enough about this game. If you haven’t gotten the demo… go get it now. There is no excuse. GET IT! Chip, we’ve got to give this a try on Saturday.

Sawdust

Typically that’s what you get when you sand an entire deck… sawdust. I, while causing a great deal of discomfort to myself, sanded an entire deck. The whole damn thing. When I was done sanding it, I sealed it and stained. I know, I know, you must be wondering how I can have so much fun in one sitting. Well it’s a mystery to me too. Not to sound ungreatful… but I hate that stupid friggin’ deck. I hope it gets hit by lightning and burns down. I do.

All fun’in aside, the deck is actually quite the marvel of modern engineering. Most importantly though, it’s done. So, I can probably stop bitching about it.

Tomorrow I won’t be working on the deck. Instead I’m going to Harvard. The school. You know, that really good one that you didn’t get in to. Don’t feel bad. Neither did I. Not that I even bothered applying mind you, but that certainly counts towards not being accepted. Regardless of my subconscience animosity towards schools that are better than mine, I’m going. Mostly to support my little brother as he tries to decide where “the best 4 years” of his life will be spent. My brother, star athlete extrodinare, has been recruited by the following schools in the past month (!): Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, UConn, Virgina Tech, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, Georgia Southern, Florida State, Penn State, Marist, Columbia, Yale, Cornell, UNC, Univ Rhode Island, NC State, Florida Atlantic, Boston College and Tuffs. Geez, I wish I had that many schools trying to recruit me. I had Mass Art, SMFA: Boston and SCAD and I don’t even consider those as having recruited anything. Those are the three that sent me a catalog. So, with all those choices my brother will certainly have a tough and I’m sure heartbraking time deciding what Ivy league schools to turn down. That’s where I come in. I’ve been chosen as a “neutral observer” on campus sight-seeing trips. Apparently, having been to college affords me the ability to find fault in them, thus giving me a generous amounts of things to make fun of. The less I make fun of a school, the better it’s chances are. If I were a betting man, and I’m not, I would probably put money on Harvard being a school I could find little fault in. But I’ll certainly try. It’s my duty to firmly ground my little brothers hopes and dreams and possibly step on them a few times until they look like something humanly obtainable.

So, that’s where I’ll be tomorrow. Of course, there’s the obvious side benefit of infact being in Boston. The best place on the planet. No joke. Chris can back me up on this one. And, not surprisingly, Harvard happens to be located near my favorite place… Harvard Square. What an conincidence. I guess I’ll be forced to visit all my favorite stores. What a life.

G’night.

PS: As I’ve apparently taken the “sarcasm pill” tonight. I will appologize if my sarcasm is so plentiful that it drips onto other things. If you’re not a fan of Matt Brand Sarcasm, I’m afriad you’re out of luck. We’re all sold out of “mild sarcasm” tonight. All we’ve got left is the strong stuff. Hehehe.