Sorry for the long delay on updates. It was a long week and a long weekend. Work was kind of frustrating, I was learning a new language and a brand new web server system at the same time. And I couldn't get Visual Studio Pro set up so that I could look at ASP files. It turns out that I had to install IIS on my own computer before I could do any editing. And when I finally did get it set up I had to wade through it and see what in the world was going on. It was quite frustrating. And on top of that I couldn't sleep very well. I started to catch cold, and so I got some NyQuill and knocked myself out. I'm starting to get more into the swing of things now. But by the weekend I was extremely busy. I only got to see Kate once before she left for Blacksburg. And I was so tired that all I really felt like doing was sitting around. We watched Leon which is a good one. Kate really gets in to the movies which is fun. You'd think she would watch more, I guess I should give her a list of good ones that she can get in to. On Friday night I kinda moped around wishing I had something to do. Ox was playing his game again and then he went out with some friends. On Saturday I just slept until I was ready to get up, it was very nice. My parents wanted to have my birthday party on Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday night. So I went and hung out with the girls on Saturday evening. They wanted to go bowling for some reason. I didn't bowl because I hate bowling. But I did get to see some of the games on the TV. The playoffs are the most exciting football games of the year.

On Sunday I went to church with the family. It's weird being there, I don't know half of the people. And the ones I do know have grown a lot. We came back and watched football. Betsy and T came over but they were tolerable. The dinner was nice, and the football was cool. Michelle was all over me, I didn't think that she would miss me that much since I hardly saw her when I was around. Oh well, who knew. I got some nice gifts for my birthday. Some driving gloves, a cook book, some lotion for my face, and Betsy gave me some money. I'm going to send her a gift certificate as soon as I start getting paid. Which thankfully will be on the 28th. Today Ken came back and I figured out how some stuff is going to go. Basically I need to learn ASP.NET really really fast. Because they are getting ready to start a really complicated and high profile project that will be really intense. I hope I'm ready for it. But I guess it wouldn't be worth doing if it was completely easy. I went and ran errands today. And I actually bought the PDA with Kates Christmas money. I decided to go with the iPaq because it has built in wireless internet as well as blue tooth. And there is a program that will sync your Windows Mobile PDA with your Mac. Unfortunately the screen was messed up and I have to take it back. I went and did a lot of grocery shopping so that I have food. And I will have some for next week after I get back. I'm going out of town for work on Wednesday. And I'll get back sometime on Friday, then turn around and leave for Ice Castles that night. And get back Sunday after practice if there is one. And I will be exhausted and in no mood to go shopping. well that's all for now, I'll post again soon. But I can't garauntee when.

Well the first day on the job was a great one. I mostly did paperwork and installed things on my computer. But the environment here is just soooo friendly it's amazing. Ken is my boss and he's great. He is probably pretty anal retentive, but I know that he wants me to succeed. I filled out paperwork most of the morning and then Ken remembered that he hadn't sent me for a drug test. Which he was supposed to do before I could do any work. So I drove over to the clinic to get tested. The directions he gave me were just wrong, it wasn't his fault mind you. Mapquest somehow confused a doctor's office with the World Bank. Anyway after doing the drug test thing I came back to my desk and ate lunch while I set up my computer. It's really weird the way they have the computers set up here. They actually have Micrsoft running very well on all their systems. Something that I haven't witnessed before. I hope that the non MS products I install won't mess anything up. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get things installed on my computer. And it should have been a lot simpler but Micrsofts products all try to be really helpful and that's not so productive sometimes. Ken gave me a project and then left town for one of our remote offices. The project is a simple one in some aspects and a complicated one in other ways. Before the guy that I replaced left he was working on a website and it was almost finished. My project is to figure out what needs to be done with the website to deploy it. And in the process gain as much knowledge as I can about the network infrastructure. I've only been working on it for a couple of hours and the biggest problem I'm having is figuring out his development process. .Net development is so different from what I'm used to. It's going to be hard to figure it out at the same time as trying to figure out how my predecessor was working. But I didn't come here to sit around. I found out that I won't get paid until the 28th. They do a crazy pay schedule here so I have three weeks before I get my first check. But I do still have a paycheck coming from Tech. It's only one weeks pay because of the holidays. I should be ok though.

It's strange living with Ox. I don't think it's really sunk in yet that I'm not going home. Although I will be going home this weekend, so it probably won't sink in for a good while. I need to find some better food, I don't think I'll survive long on sandwiches and soup. I'll have to get some cheap TV dinners for supper. When I start getting paid I'll get food and cook in the evenings. Today is fighter practice so that should be fun. I don't know if the hottub is working but it would be nice to soak in there after fencing. I have to print out directions also.

Well that's all for now, I have to go bury myself in .Net stuff. Oh the Joy.

Things not to do at your new job: pants the division supervisor in an attempt to show you are "one of the guys".

Well it has been a wonderful exciting week. And an exhausting one. I worked my last week at VBS. I will miss those guys a lot. Especially Ludwig and Taikara. I feel really sorry for Taikara, she is lonely and wants a boyfriend. But the guy that she is lusting over already has a girl. But Pete is in a long distance relationship and is not having a good go of it. So Taikara wants to bang him or anybody but is really frustrated. But that's life I guess. I feel bad for Ludwig, because I'm getting a better job than he has and yet he's a harder worker than I am. And is some repects he's smarter too. But I know Ludwig and he'll be running VT in a couple of years anyway. He does feel like part of the SCA group after New Years so he'll hang out with them some too.

Wednesday was my going away dinner/Brianna's welcome back dinner. We went to Boudreaux's and I had Jambalaya which was awesome. Then we went over to Mill Mountain for coffee and just hung out for a while. We talked about all kinds of different things. Then we went back to Julie and Jen's to watch movies. Which now that I think about it wasn't really all that special an evening. We do that kind of thing all the time. I do have to tell you about the joke I played on Julie. It's the kind you remember for a while because you laughed so hard. While we were hanging out at their place before we started the movie, she was on the phone with Aldemere. They talked for a while and then she had to go to the bathroom so she hung up and told him to call back in a few minutes and for us to answer it if he called back before she was out. Well he called back and I grabbed the phone before anyone else could get it. I said hello and could tell it was him. He asked for Julie in a subdued voice. I told him to hold on and the yelled so that he could hear "Julie put your clothes back on, you have a phone call". I then told him to hold on. While he was on hold and waiting for Julie to come out of the bathroom Jay and Ludwig and Bri started talking about how much he could mess me up because he used to be an army sniper. They were saying disgusting things about how big he could make a hole in you etc. Well Julie came in about that time and heard what we were talking about as I innocently handed her the phone. Before he could say anything she started in on him for talking about killing people. I remember hearing her say "well they are talking about making holes in people so it must be your fault". After about five minutes of talking to him in her room we just hear her yell "HE SAID WHAT??!?!". We all lost it, it was tooooo funny. She came running out of the room and started beating me with her Nemo stuffed animal but I was laughing to hard to care. Everyone applauded the joke after she went back in her room, even Andrea said it was timed well. I spent most of the weeknights packing my clothes and or washing them. I chatted with a good many people that I hadn't talked to for a while too. It was really hard to get motivated and I ended up wandering around my room a lot looking at things I had forgotten about. As a result my room is now an absolute wreck. But that's ok, I managed to pack all the clothes I will need and sorted through the stuff that I really don't. I left on Saturday to no real big fanfare, everybody was just doing regular Saturday stuff. But that won't last long, they want me to come back next Saturday for muy going away/birthday party. It's amazing that they can't ever schedule a birthday party on a day that's convenient for me, ever. It just won't happen. On Saturday the office took me out to lunch at Backstreets. The pizza was very good, I will miss that place too. Everyone was there and had a good time. Except for maybe Ludwig because the pizza wasn't Dominoes. I spent the whole of Friday afternoon getting stuff off of my computers at work. I had a lot of music and documents colected over two years. It all fit on five CD's thankfully. As I was finishing up Nancy walked in. She had to come in and pay some bills. It turns out that she did not have a good Holiday and her Mom will probably die from Cancer soon. She of course vented for a while to Mark and I. Thankfully Taikara wasn't there to hear, she's trying to quit smoking and Nancy just might driver her back to it. Ruthanne will probably move in to my space. She'll have to take a pay cut and hourly cut but at least she'll still have a job. That also means that Candle won't quit right away. He still has a crush on her, albeit a very benign one. But the estrogen level in that room will just be incredible now that I'm gone and Ruthanne and her triangle relationship will be moving in. But anyway I'm now moved in with Ox, Joe and Vlad were down this weekend to do some gaming. Gaming doesn't really interest me at all, even though it could be a kind of performance. It's just too tedius and I'd end up bored and miserable. But I also don't want to bust on them for doing it either. So I tried to stay out of the way. I watched some football and read my book. Kate got there a little later on, but she was more tired than I was. We slept in the back room. I couldn't sleep for some reason. My tooth acted up randomly and it hurt a great deal. After a while of just laying there listening to Kate breathe I got up and went downstairs. I drank as much of this nasty rum as I could and went and sat on the couch. I started nodding off despite the pain so I figured that it would be better to do that in bed. So I went back and slept from about 6-12. Not enough but I'm going to go to bed early tonight. We went to Shoney's for brunch and then came back here for a while. Then Kate and I went to wally world looking for food and some other stuff that I needed. From now on I'm making lists of things I need before I go wandering around a store. Wal-Mart up here is smaller with more people. That could get annoying.

Well my first day is tomorrow and I can't wait. The people there are friendly, and they are guys so it should be a blast. I can't wait to get my first taste of real IT work. I know that sounds silly but it isn't. In most of my other jobs web development and IT stuff has just been a part of my job and not the main focus. This is different. This is what I wanted to do right out of college but couldn't. I just have to stay focused and work hard. I also have to resist falling asleep in that big comfortable chair. I wonder when I will be getting paid. I get my last check from Tech on the 16th. But that's only half a period because of the holidays. It could get tight the next couple of weeks. Oh well. That's all for now, I'll write again tomorrow after my first day.

New Years

The Build Up
I left Wednesday morning for Maryland and the New Years party. I got off to a later start than I wanted too because I left Sarah's gift at home and had to run back and get it after having coffee with Dad. I went via Richmond to pick up Kate. It was just her and I in the car. David didn't want to come with us thankfully. More on that later. We went up 301 instead of 95 to Annapolis. I'm not sure if it was faster because there was a lot of traffic. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to figure it out when visiting Troy while living at Ox's. We got there around 7 or 8 and went to dinner. The rest of Wednesday and Thursday were spent cleaning and getting ready for the party. Kate was spending time with Scott while he was fixing her computer. Which was really really socked. I think age had something to do with it in addition to the problems that Scott found on it. So she was mostly busy. Sarah was cleaning hard and was also sick. She caught a cold from being around a lot of sick people who smoked at Troy's in Alabama. She sounded pretty bad but was working hard. I just wanted to hug her and hold her, but I know she doesn't like to be touched a lot when she's sick. So I just did the best I could to help her out with stuff. I really hate that feeling of watching a friend suffer and not be able to do anything about it. Especially a friend as dear as Sarah. She made me some drinks on Wednesday night, she likes being creative with the booze. I had a couple of shots and a mixed drink that she made. I didn't get the least bit tipsy or buzzed, and it seemed to help her lighten up a little so it was good. Kate and I slept in the backroom on the bunk bed. We were really really tired so we didn't get tooooo frisky. Baron Vlad got there on Thursday and he brought Blenhiem Ginger Ale for Troy. I immediatly stole it!! I love that stuff.

The Party
On Friday people started to arrive. Everyone was there. We spent the morning getting things ready. Troy has lots of crap that he had to take care of. In the end everything was great. Audrey, the live in roommate of Troy, Sarah, and Scott flew in that afternoon. It was nice to finally meet her, I'd heard a lot about her from Troy and Sarah. She turned out to be really sweet, and a lot wild when she got drunk. Before the party really got started a bunch of us went out shopping for shiny things to wear. Apparently shiny is 'out' this year. There was literally nothing shiny for guys. We went to two stores and the mall(one of the stores was a craft store where we found shiny things and contemplated gluing them to ourselves). David found a pair of shiny boxers to wear. Baron Vlad found some too but the wore them differently. I couldn't find anything so I decided to wear the chinese style shirt that Troy bought for me in Shanghai. It was shiny enough and all the girls loved it so I was happy. When everyone was around Kate finally gave me my birthday present. It was a gift certificate to Best Buy.....for $300!!! She got lots of people to contribute money and they all signed a fuzzy teddy bear with a sharpy instead of a card. I am supposed to either get an iPod or a PDA. I'm still torn at this point. On one hand I want a Zire 72, on the other hand I want an iPod. And on the third hand I want to save up and get the Tungsten 5, which is just a sick top of the line toy. I'll make up my mind soon. The party started around 9 I think, and at first it was pretty lame. The music wasn't that cool and when I would go out on the dance floor it wasn't very fun. I wasn't dancing specifically with anyone, I like to dance with everyone. This is of course excluding dancing with Kate whom I did get a nice slow dance with and we danced to a couple of our favorite songs by the Rednex. But when I wasn't dancing with her I would get cut off on the dance floor. What I mean by that is that either a large person, or a desparate person(or both), or David would cut in front of me. David was especially gross because he was only wearing his gold boxers and this really ugly tight-fitting green shirt. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to hog the girls, I wasn't mad because they were dancing with other guys or anything silly like that. It was the getting cut off that I was annoyed with. It was just kind of rude, especially because I didn't really want to dance with Ox, or with David's junk all hanging out. So I schmoozed upstairs for a while talked to a lot of people, helped Sarah play host for a while. As I started doing that I started getting more busy because neither Troy or Scott were around to play host. So I got kinda wrapped up for a while. Then I went downstairs to pick out a play list and things were better. A lot of people were disturbed by David, especially as he got more drunk and more frisky. People complained and both Troy and Sarah pulled him aside and told him to put pants on. He refused saying he would be too hot or some bullshit like that. Anyway Lauren a sweetheart(even if she is from UVA) was there again. I have seen her exactly three times, at the last three new years parties. We chat a good bit during the year and I helped her with her website. But she goes to Pennsic and the New Years party with this group and that's about it. Anyway she was dancing with David for a while and he started to do some silly things like put glow sticks down her bra with his teeth. And he was hanging pretty much all over her while dancing(probably typical Rocky Horror party stuff but I can't say for sure). She was smiling for most of it but seemed a tad uncomfortable. She didn't say anything to him so I figured everything was ok. I asked her about it when she was getting a drink and she gave me a look that said she was really not happy. So I told her to come dance with me and maybe he would back off. David saw us and immediately came over and started trying to cut me out. Even going up behind her and grinding on her while we were basically close enough to be hugging. I was really disgusted(boxers remember). So I asked her if she wanted to go upstairs and get some fresh air. We went up and got some food and some water to drink(she was having some Mike's Cranberry stuff). He followed us up a couple of seconds later and while she and I were talking he proceeded to start bad mouthing me to other people in the living room. I could hear a little bit of what was being said and it wasn't nice. It was ok though because everyone in the living room was a friend of Scott's or Troy's from work and didn't know who I was. Bryan Hey was up there though but by the time David started talking to Bryan he couldn't talk straight. So Bryan didn't know what he was talking about. After that we went back downstairs and I told Big Kate what was going on so she started to dance with Lauren too. And I figured everything would be all right from that point. So I went to try and find Little Kate. She was in the back with some guy who was drunk off his ass and she was taking care of him. That was fine, she seemed to be ok and likes taking care of people so I went to find other things to do. At midnight we all toasted and gave new years kisses. There were no record breaking kisses from Sylvy and Brianna like last year though. After that we started dancing again, but by this point there weren't many good songs left. I could think of some good ones but Troy didn't have them. He has tons of weirdo goth metal but no fun dance songs. And you can't dance to Ramstein forever. It was about this point that I noticed Lauren in the corner being drooled on by David(literally). I gave her a look to see if she was ok and she gave me a look back that said no she wasn't. So I found a song that everyone would like and told Big Kate to go drag Lauren over to dance. We got out there on the floor and Lauren and I started to dance with Julie and Big Kate around us(Ludwig was there too I think). At this point he started trying to cut in again and rubbing basically all over her. He then started licking the small of her back(which was exposed). At that point there was a swell in the music so I put my arm around her shoulders and spun her around. He followed and literally tried to pull my hands off of her. At that point I told him to stop. And he responded by saying "come on Jeremy, what the fuck?". I said "we're dancing, chill out" and he said something like " W W W whatthefuck .com, don't you already have a girl?" So I pushed Lauren away towards Big Kate and Julie and faced David and told him to back off. He got right up in my face....kinda, he was really drunk and his head was bobbing and moving sideways. It was hard to understand exactly what he was saying but basically I told him that she wanted him to back off. He said that she didn’t say anything like that to him and that I just wanted her for myself or something to that effect. Somewhere in there he started pushing on me and we started to tussle. He grabbed my wrists and I pushed him backwards by his arms. Then he ducked down and tried to shove his shoulder into my stomach in kind of a football tackle. I pushed him back up instead of punching him or elbowing him in the head like I was severly tempted to do. And Big Kate grabbed him too and we kind of held him there. Then Lauren stepped in and told him to back off in a very clear way. He kinda sagged at this point and muttered something to me about being sorry. Ragnarr then grabbed him and they went out for some fresh air. I was really pissed at him and well I still am I guess. Poor Lauren she can’t seem to come to a party with us and not get molested. The rest of the party was tame thankfully. Sarah finally finished with some stuff and came down to dance. But her playlist had already been played at that point. Everyone else was kind of crashing and winding down. Kate was still in the back room which sucked because of how much of the party she missed. I went out and danced with Sarah during her songs so that she’d have someone to dance with. I managed to pull some other people up too but everyone was exhausted. After that things started winding down a good bit and people started to get ready for bed. There weren’t as many people sleeping at the house this year thankfully so everyone had enough space. I saw that big Kate and Lauren were cuddled up so I didn’t have to worry about anybody bothering them. When we finally did get to bed there were three other people in our room. I didn’t think it would bother me since I was so tired, but one of them snored really loud. It was the drunk ass guy that Kate had taken care of. I tried to fall asleep but found that I couldn’t. It was weird, normally noise doesn’t bother me when I’m that tired but this did. Around 5:30 or 6 I couldn’t take it any more and went down and kicked him until he was awake. I told him to roll over because he was snoring. I think he was pissed but I didn’t care. Overall it was a great party. Ludwig thought so too, he was macking like there was no tomorrow. I’m glad he is getting to be part of the group, that means I’ll have a better chance of seeing him after I move.

The Aftermath
The next day we got up a little after noon and took our time waking up. Antonio, Thomas, and Sylvie were hankering to do some fencing. And they wouldn’t go out there until I went, it was kinda cool that they were waiting on me. We managed to dig up some gear for Ludwig who is coming along nicely and will be really good some day. I fought Sylvie for a while but she was out of practice and doesn’t like epee so I dominated her. We all had some nice picups, Baron Vlad and Rags came out and played too. I love my new gloves they are so sweet it’s not even funny. After that we did some melee stuff in the road. There wasn’t a lot of room and the sun was a big factor but we had some good times. I actually managed to double kill with Connor one time which was nice. And I got a compliment from Sir Vlad for being aggressive. After five or six rounds it degenerated in to Troy and Bri teaching melee tactics. Then we went to Ground Round for dinner. Kate had said that she wanted to go there so I put the bug in Troy’s ear and everyone else liked the idea too. Sir Vlad bought Kate and I dinner which was sooo nice of him. He was actually a lot of fun this party. He can be annoying sometimes but he was much cooler than before. The rest of the time at Troys was spent playing video and or card games and chilling out. I think this was my favorite part of the weekend. Everyone was really relaxed. Kate and I left a lot later than we planned on Sunday, but that was ok she got home in plenty of time to sleep. She had to go to work at her ridiculous out the next day. The drive home from Richmond was really long. I don’t know why, maybe I need some new music. I should find some books on CD, that would be cool.

On Monday I worked until 4:30 then headed back to Richmond to watch the game. Well it turned out to be a painful trip. I had just done waaaaaay to much driving that weekend. The game was a good one, some silly mistakes on our part put the game out of our reach despite an 80 yard TD pass near the end of the game. I got to see Kate again which was nce. And Vlad brought me another bottle of Blenhiem so I was happy. I stayed up pretty late after the game talking to Thomas and Kate’s friend Heather(I think that was her name). This morning I left Ox’s at about 9, an hour after I planned on it. About half an hour down the road I realized that I had forgotten my phone. So I had to go all the way back and get it. Which put me at work around 2. Which didn’t matter much because there wasn’t anything to do anyway. Whew that was a long post. I’m sure I forgot something, a lot of things probably but that’s all I have time for now. Take care.

I am crazy!

I am crazy, I must be. After a great weekend in Maryland with my friends I'm getting ready to go to Richmond to watch a football game. Well that and soak in the hottub if it's open. I don't have time to run down the party at this point because very soon I will be leaving work to go to Ox's to watch the Sugar Bowl.

I was going to grab some stuff and pretend it was packed and take it to Ox's. But I was so tired that I crashed last night instead of packing. So instead I will be going up tonight watching the game and coming back straight to work tomorrow. I am planning on leaving fairly soon so I can miss traffic.

There is a lot to tell about the party. There was Audrey the girl that is practically living with Troy and Sarah. David's meltdown. Dancing with drunk people. Fencing in the road, and lots and lots of driving.

I'll post a review of the game and talk about the party tomorrow when I get back to the office.
Ciao.