Last Day of September...The first day of the rest of my life

I cannot believe that today is the last day of September. It seems like just yesterday it was the beginning of spring. I've now been in my current office for 8 months. I actually think it will be 8 months as of Friday.
So we've got this system at work where we can take all of the item that we sell and we can put them into a page that will be displayed for customers that want to buy them on the internet. There is certain criteria that I need to meet in order to get the products ready for this. Well, no matter what I do, there is always something wrong with what I turn in. Today, I turned in 16 of these items and was told that 12 of them weren't correct because the person who gave them to me typed them in all capital letters. I find this very discouraging because I try really hard to make sure that they meet all of the criteria, but then to be told that something as insignificant as whether or not something is typed in caps makes something wrong is very frustrating. I wish I could be as perfect as the Teflon Queen. Nothing sticks to her.
Today we received a new set of dining room furniture from Aunt Pat and Uncle Gus. This was in their home in Florida. It's clearly the nicest thing in our home now. Isn't it funny when someone gives you something that's way nicer than your piecemeal furniture? It's like you walk into that room and you feel as if you've moved into a new house. You're like, whoa, in this room I see posters taped to the walls, and then in this room there's a beautiful dining room set. Our first time using it will be when my parents come over for Thanksgiving dinner!
Today is Shawn and Nichole's 3rd anniversary. I'll bet that he didn't have to get her anything that was crystal or cotton or whatever that anniversary is commemorated by. Those "traditions" make it more difficult to find something creative for Jill. Our next anniversary will be our 5th. It's hard to believe that we've been married for 5 years. It feels like time is flying by. Life is kinda weird that way. When I lived by myself and it was difficult to make friends, it seemed like days went by like molasses in January. Now, everyday slips by like grains of sand in an hour glass. You only get one shot at life. That's what makes this even more precious.

Let's Do it!

Today was a pretty good day. At work, we had our seasonal strategy meeting. I find these pretty interesting because you get to see what we'll be carrying in our store this season. I didn't realize this but in the world of retail, they only acknowledge 2 seasons, spring and fall. Pretty interesting when you think about it because these are seasons of transition and it seems that stores are usually doing their best when they are transitioning.
So, we have our meeting and then go back to the office. The rest of the afternoon seemed to go by pretty quickly. I started typing about how my back is hurting, but decided that discretion is the better part of valor and stopped myself before I complained too much about it.
So, I get home and Jill has a great dinner for me.
Then I relaxed for the rest of the night before handing out the awards in my fantasy league. I'm the commisioner, and I think that the trophy awards are one of the things that make the league fun. Then I personally went to everyone's page and cut down their team. ha Ha!
Tomorrow we'll get our refrigerator fixed. I'm pretty sure that it will be covered by warranty. We're pretty fortunate in that regard.
We have a lot of big plans over the next several weeks. We have tickets to go see Blink 182 next week (although we're trying to sell them), then Jill and Shawn are going to see Star Wars in concert. I'm sure that they're excited about that, but I couldn't be less enthused. In a couple of weeks, Nichole, Shawn, Ashley, and Cassie are coming over to carve pumpkins with us. Then we're going over to Shawn and Nichole's for a Halloween party sometime towards the end of the month.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, although the trick or treat scenario is like chirping crickets in our neighborhood....not a lot of action!
Yanks clinched home field throughout the playoffs on Sunday and right now they're playing out the string. They're losing 3-2 to the Royals in the 8th. Nice outing by AJ Burnett, but it looks like it's going to be spoiled unless the offense can get it going.

A funny thing happened on the way to....

So work....


Let me tell you about it....





A funny thing happened while working in the office. I made a real life honest to goodness friend. I know that sounds like I don't ever make friends or something, but not usually from work. Not one of those fake friends. Someone who is just like me!!!! I know it's hard to imagine 2 people being that perfect, but trust me on this one. So, this all started on February 20 when Jill and I got invited over to a friend's house for a party. This is my friend Nichole from work.





Now, let me say that when I go to a party where I don't really know a lot of people, I'm normally very uneasy because I always worry that I'm going to be the only one sitting there not having anyone to talk to. This party was so much fun though. There was homemade pizza, fun with the Wii and it was overall just a good time. I'm trying to remember what the occasion of the party was, but it's a miracle that I could even remember the date. Basically, I wouldn't have even remembered that if it wasn't for my wife. It was there that I became friends with Nichole and Shawn.





We have had so much fun with them ever since. We went and played frisbee golf, and had birthday parties, and went bowling and out to eat. Who can forget the boating trip on September 12, where I officially am indebted to Nichole for saving my life from drowning. Not even kidding there. She was seeing not much more than the whites of my eyes. Basically they're great friends and they have no expectations of us other than to be great friends in return!!!! We love them! I don't think that we can tell them that enough.





Ok, so if you've read this blog at all you're probably wondering what happened to my book. Yea, well, not too much. It still sits on page 40 something waiting to be finished. Maybe during the next several days/weeks/months I can get moving on it.





How about my Jets? 3-0 and they've beaten 3 tough teams - the Texans, the Patsies, and the Titans. If they can beat the Saints this week, then we're talking.


This is my baby, Sammie! She and I have our game faces on ready to cheer for the Jets! She's loves wearing her jersey! It's the most hilarious thing ever!

Fantasy Logo

My new fantasy logo that Jill made for me! Thoughts?

Book Progress

I'm about 17 pages and 5100 words into my book. As you may have guessed, I'm slacking with my time commitments, but I'm still doing much better than I thought I would be doing. I hope to eclipse the 20 page mark by the end of tonight. If I can do that, I should be over 6000 words. I don't know how long the typical book is, but 6000 words seems pretty long, although not when I think of it in the context of 20 pages. A 20 page book really isn't worth too much. We'll see how this goes though. Hopefully I can get to 100 pages. I feel like I have a lot to write about, but 100 pages is pretty sick.

Today I got to stay home from work. We had a snow day. There was about 2-3 inches, although if this was New York, they wouldn't have sniffed twice before heading on to work and school. Tomorrow, Jill already knows that she has a 2 hour delay. I hope that when I wake up in the morning they'll say that we have a 2 hour delay as well, but I seriously doubt that they'll do that. The only way that they will is if there are icy conditions.

President Obama got sworn in today. It was a huge event. I don't remember how many people attended Bush's ceremonies, but this seemed like there were about a million people in the mall, and countless others on television. We'll see how his presidency goes! Hopefully he can fix the economy!

Alrighty then...I'm off to write!

Here's how crap works

Ok, first an update on my book writing. I worked on it for about 6 hours yesterday. It was great to be able to lay around and just type without anything else to worry about. My goal is to work on it for about an hour on weekdays and then a to be determined goal on the weekend. Ok, that sounded totally lame. I need to commit to something.

3 hours on the weekend. That's reasonable. I mean, how the heck is this book going to get written if I don't spend time doing it.

So far, I'm up to 10 pages and about 2500 words. That's not too bad.

I went back to work today. I had a week off after my turbinate surgery. I feel so weird saying that because a couple of months ago, I didn't even know what a friggin' turbinate was. Anyway, I walk in and Obnoxious coworker (Obco for short) decides to discuss the daily work plan with me before I can even get my computer fired up. Apparently, I'm no longer capable of setting a plan for myself. I need an Obco to do it for me. How considerate. Well, there is a whole mound of work that Laco (Lazy coworker) didn't get finished. This crap was due today, but we've known about it for months. Thanks for saving it up for me! That was the best ever!

Back to the title of the blog -
Here's how crap works -
How I didn't see this coming is like Charlie Brown diving in the air as Lucy pulls the football away. Apparently at my work, the way CRAP works is that once you work as hard as you can to get your work done quickly, you get a pat on the back congratulating you on being such a good worker.....
Yea....not so much....
That's the way it should work, but the way it really works is that once you finish your mound of work, Obco and Laco see this as a great opportunity to dump their work off on you. What a treat! I was so honored. Makes me want to finish twice as quick next time so that all the Obcos and Lacos at work can dump their crap off on me. What a friggin' waste....how people get away with this hot garbage is beyond me.....

A work in progress for Leardini

So, I've decided to write a book. I've been toying with the idea for awhile, but I finally think that I have a workable outline. I'll keep my progress here. I notice that a lot of people use their blogs to chart progress on whatever they're doing, so maybe that will be a good way for me to keep track of how long it takes me to complete this.

Does anyone know how to get a book published? I'm not sure I know how to go about this once I get it written and edited. I'd appreciate it if anyone out there could comment with some suggestions.

On another note, surgery 2009 went well. Dr. Clyne did such an awesome job on me! I can breathe and basically have no pain! If I would have known that most people were breathing like I am now, I would have demanded surgery a long time ago. To illustrate, I feel like I'm breathing through a tunnel now compared to breathing through a straw before.

Anyone see Wake take care of Carolina last night? 92-89 - It was even that close though. Carolina is a good team, but when Hansbrough has an off night, it looks like they are all out of sorts. Not sure how good the Demon Deacons are, but I'll bet not too many people had them at 14-0 before the season began. Heck, not too many people had them 14-0 before this game.

St. Bonaventure's basketball team is back on the map. Does anyone care? Probably not. They're 10-5 (1-1), which is much better than at anytime in the past 6 or 7 years. They get St. Joseph's tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. If they win that game, then maybe they're a contender for the NIT.