Decade.

earl-disney.jpg

It was ten years ago today that my life changed forever. On April 13, 1996, the path that lie before me became clear, my heart sang a song of love it had never known before and the searching I had done for all my life came to a completion.

It was ten years ago today that Earl and I had our first date.

Where does the time go? The old saying “time flies when you’re having fun” couldn’t be more precise. It seems like it was just yesterday that Earl and I were meeting up in Albany with a bunch of mutual friends for a night out on the town. It was a decade ago that Earl and I dumped those same friends in favor of jumping in my car and driving up through the mountains of Vermont. It seems like it was just moments ago that he put his hand on my knee for the very first time as we drove in my little Hyundai Excel, exploring the small New England towns, enjoying the beauty of it all and just talking, getting to know each other. Effortlessly. All the pieces came together, like a huge giant puzzle with no picture on the box to follow.

Everything clicked.

I will never forget that first weekend together. For it was that weekend that I found my best friend, my lover, my kindred spirit.

13 April 2006 by Love. 3

WAAAAAY Ahead Of My Time.

So I was catching up on blog reading and came across Jimbo.Info (one of my favorites) and read about a new dance track is shooting up the charts in Europe and is hitting the trendy clubs here in the States. It’s by Global Deejays and it’s called “Stars On 45”.

Oh. My. God.

Stars On 45, also known as just “Stars On”, made all those medleys that were big in the early 1980s. There were two Beatles medleys, a smattering of Abba hits, “Stars On Stevie” and many more. I was a Stars On 45 fanatic in my early teens and still have all three of their albums, appropriately named “Stars On Long Play” (and II and III).

I taught myself to beatmix by lining up the hand claps on the 2nd and 4th beat of every Stars On 45 record. I made my own medleys. My interest in radio and recorded music was spawned by Stars On 45.

And now Global Deejays has mixed their “Stars On 45” jingle tags into a house track. Here’s a sample you can listen to.

13 April 2006 by DJ 0

Outside.

Yesterday in a spasm of productivity I went ahead and put the patio set up on the deck. The table is out, the umbrella is in place and the chairs are lined up accordingly. Now I just need to hose the whole ensemble down and make it a comfortable landing place for visitors.

I did find one chair devoid of crap on the seat and made myself comfortable to enjoy the weather during lunch. There’s buds on the trees, birds are singing, and there’s a purring cat sitting in my lap, routinely smelling my beard for leftover food (apparently he knows I store it there).

It’s nice to be getting into the swing of spring again. There’s talk of a thunderstorm tonight and while I would usually welcome that with open arms, it’s on-call week which makes thunderstorms a little less enjoyable. (Lightning + phone lines = busy J.P.). Thankfully, the forecast shows the rain passing through to be brief.

I remarked on Monday how I had that good ol’ “unglued” feeling at work but then I calmed down when I got home. I’m feeling great today, and Earl made it a little better by joining me at home for lunch again.

Life is good.

12 April 2006 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Snack Of Choice.

Today I discovered my new snack of choice: Nature Valley’s Sweet and Salty Granola Bar.

Oh my GOD!

This thing is totally awesome, with the crunchy goodness of almonds and a little bit of yogurt on the bottom. It’s probably not the healthiest snack for me but it’s not as bad as all that. These things totally rock.

12 April 2006 by Food.

Freshly Squeezed.

This week I’ve got this citrus thing going on again. More specifically, orange. I can’t get enough orange. Orange flavored gum, orange flavored toothpaste, orange flavored Vitamin-C drops, orange juice, orange scented incense, the list goes on and on.

I love the color orange. I’ve always loved the color orange. And I just love the scent and taste of orange. Orange, orange, orange. While I was chomping away at some orange flavored gum on Sunday, Earl even had the nerve to call me Anita Bryant. I almost through a pie in his face but I didn’t have one nearby.

Now I’m in the mood for some diet orange soda. I don’t think I’ve ever had diet orange soda before. Maybe a midnight snack is in order.

11 April 2006 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Hmmm IM.

Today I had a typical IM conversation with someone I often converse with:

Them: What are your plans for Easter?
Me: Earl and I are doing our traditional Easter picnic close to home, probably at the Town Park, because I’m on call.
Them: What?
Me: (cut and paste) Earl and I are doing our traditional Easter picnic close to home, probably at the Town Park, because I’m on call.
Them: I can’t hear you.
Me: What?
Them: They’re running a floor sander over my desk.
Me: What?
Them: I have to watch for blinking lights.
Me: I have no idea what you are talking about.
Them: Good-bye.

11 April 2006 by Geek 0

Nooner.

Earl surprised me this afternoon by being home when I took my lunch hour. He has an dinner appointment tonight, so he’s taking some time out of his busy schedule to get ready for this little shin-dig.

Nothing gets the blood moving like having your beloved home at lunch time.

11 April 2006 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Let’s Try Again.

So this morning I was all happy when I awoke. I had slept well, I’m working the later shift this week so I can get some extra treasured sleep after Earl leaves for work and I can get to work at the reasonable 9 a.m. Bordering on giddy with this arrangement, I decided to fold a load of laundry before taking a shower, started a new load of laundry and picked up the house a little bit. I’ve even had time to sit down, meditate on what I want to accomplish this week and enjoy the scent of a little sandalwood incense.

All in all, I felt good when I walked into work at 9 a.m.

By 11 a.m. I was a raving lunatic.

I don’t know what happened to my mood. It seemed like things were just going awry all over the place. It was a bright, sunny, calm day. But phone lines were crapping out, internet connections were dropping all over the place and customers were calling with what I would frankly call stupid questions. “My answering machine cuts off after exactly 39 seconds. I think I need a new phone line.”

After returning to work after my lunch fiasco involving a service call with the local cable company, I calmed down a little bit and just did what I had to do. By 5 p.m., I found myself calming down considerably and thinking rationally again.

Perhaps I need start drinking lunch.

As Earl mentioned on his blog tonight, I’m on call. I was getting ready to abandon my gym visits during on-call week but I decided that I’d give it a try. So off to the gym I went, where I jumped onto an empty spazzmaster and did a power workout, worried that the pager was going to go off. I cut my workout time in half but did three quarters of my usual burned calories. All was not lost.

I’m hoping that I got this fit of hysteria I had today out of my system and just attributed my behavior to a bad Monday. I’m ready for a quiet and productive rest of the week.

10 April 2006 by Ponderings and Musings 0

No Connection.

When I got home for lunch today, I was unfortunately not surprised to find that our high speed internet connection was dead once again. It typically goes dead during the day, a fine example of the quality service from Adelphia Communications, the local bankrupt cable provider in our area.

I called their tech support number, on my cell phone which I thankfully have not canceled as of yet, though I do intend on doing so, and reached their automation hell. I was prompted to enter my ten digit phone number and then select from the 65 or so options as to what my problem was. After jumping through several menus and numerous hoops, their system bonked some touch tones in my ear, apparently in an effort to transfer me to a human. I reached friendly Dave, who the inquired as to my home telephone number (which I had already punched in), my address, my account number (let me check the tattoo on my ass for that one) and my social security number. Asking me for my social security number always makes me bristle. I mean, what does my internet connection have to do with the benefits I’ll receive or my tax return? Is that number suppose to be a guarded number and not thrown about like something trivial like one’s net worth or age? Dave demanded the social security number so that they knew they were talking to the right person in the interest of security. I gave him the last four digits and told him that I strongly object to this method of confirming one’s identity. I highly recommended that everyone make the same amount of noise when it comes to your social security number; no one except select organizations in the federal government should care about your social security number. Everyone screams about a National ID card and then gives out their social security number to just about anyone. It’s just wrong.

Anyways, Dave pittered and pattered on a keyboard within his reach while my modem was unplugged and ran some diagnostics. He couldn’t see my end of the circuit. I resisted the urge to say “No shit, Jiffy-Pop, the modem is unplugged.” but instead I went along with his script. He needs to send a technician out to the house. On Thursday. Between 1 and 3 p.m.

This is not good. I’m on call this week and I rely on a working internet connection. Dave didn’t care. I have to be here at the house on Thursday between 1 and 3 p.m. Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll leave a love note for the Adelphia tech to get a clue.

10 April 2006 by Geek 0

Family Day.

Earl and I ventured up to my dad’s house for a family gathering this evening. We hadn’t seen my dad or his girlfriend since the beginning of February, so it was good to get together and catch up on family news and such. We were joined by my aunt and her husband, as well as my sister, her boyfriend and his son who is going to be two this week.

All in all it was a good time. Karen made some great little appetizers and chili for dinner. I guess she grew up eating chili over rice, which I had never heard of, so we did the same. It was delicious. It made that extra hard workout at the gym earlier today all worthwhile.

We caught up on family travels and adventures; it seems traveling comes naturally to me. We need to do this more often.

9 April 2006 by Fun and Games Dept 0

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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