Posty Posty

Again, I'm here without much to tell you. I slept the day away (down in fraggle rock).. er.. um... anyway, so there is nothing much to update with. Just been sitting here chatting and trying to figure out what I want to do, if anything. Maybe I'll figure something out, but I'm still tired. *yawn* Oh well, maybe a more meaningful post later. Peace.

Made it..

I stayed awake all day, so I'm a little tired right now. Of course I'm also sitting here drinking a diet vanilla pepsi, so who knows when I'll actually fall asleep.

C-bob came over and we played MLB Slugfest 20-30 again, it was fun. Then we went to a store, let's just leave it at that. And I bought some stuff, donuts and a soda mainly. Then we went to prowl at Barnes, which was unusually empty.

I think I'm going to watch a movie now and then, I dunno, go to bed. I'm tired, did I mention that? My ear hurts too, but whatever, it'll go away soon enough.

Another one..

I applied for another job today, this one I'm a bit more excited about. Here are the details:

Position: Publishing Service Associate - Author Publishing

Summary:

The Publishing Service Associate - Author Publishing is the single point of contact (SPOC) between iUniverse and the author for the Submission through Ready-to-Sell Process. This position works cross-organizationally within the company to ensure service level agreements (SLAs) with iUniverse Partnership Programs and/or individual authors are met or exceeded.

Responsibilities:

Responsible for ensuring the delivery of timely, accurate, and profitable services to authors that submit their works to iUniverse, either through Partnership Programs or independently.
Responsible for ensuring the highest level of customer satisfaction by understanding and matching client needs with existing iUniverse products and services, building and maintaining partnership relationships, and managing the authors' publications effectively.
Responsible for the successful implementation of Partnership Programs by functioning as a key contributor on Implementation Teams.
Requirements:

Ability to communicate effectively in both written and verbal form.
Exceptional attention to detail.
Ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously.
Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, stressful environment.
Above average computer literacy/skills
Education/Experience:

BA/BS in a related field is required.
1-3 years experience in a direct consumer customer service or sales environment.

The position is with iUniverse and the only drawback is that it's clear across town, 21st and Pine Lake for those of you familar with Lincoln. The pay is pretty good though and the job sounds cool enough.

Or not...

I guess I'm not going back to bed. *shrug* It's just as well I guess. If I am going to have a job, then I need to get used to being awake during the day. Now is as good of time as any to start, since I'm already awake. Plus that meant I got to have breakfast, mmm cream of wheat.

I think I can start working on gathering stats today for the website. I have some ideas where to start so it shouldn't be to hard to get going. This is going to be really interesting since it will involve research and writing, my two secret loves. It's great to go from one tiny bit of information to having a whole file of information that needs to be pieced together.

Well, like I said, stuff to do, etc. *swoosh* *grasped* I'm gone.

Weird

I woke up a bit ago, looked at the clock and thought it was 7:50... PM. I was convinced that I had somehow slept for a really long time and I was a bit weirded out. Then as I woke up a bit I realized it was quite possible for it to be 7:50AM. I checked, and sure enough, it's still morning.

The dilemma now is, do I stay up and enjoy the day or slink back to bed and sleep another 3 or 4 hours. I'm thinking.... back to bed. :)

Laters.

What's this??

The one thing I never thought I would get around to doing.. a review!

So it's not the best review ever written but I tried for something other than baseball. Believe me I wanted so badly to write a review about baseball, but I thought I might spare you all of another baseball related article to read. Mmm.. baseball.

Anyway, here's the link... Quarkstar Reviews

Enjoy.

Wow.. time flies

I realized tonight that I needed to get another column up. Ha, I did it though.

The Quarkstar Journal

It's not as good as the baseball one, but I think it's not bad either. Just go read it and let me know what you think.

I plan on getting a review done tonight, if I can think of something to review. It bugs me to not having anything worth reading posted there. I will give it some time to rattle around and then hopefully get something up.

Evening Update: C-bob and I got tacos tonight, I do love tacos, and she came over for awhile. We are going to be working on a new project, a website that will pretty much be a database about the Saltdogs' players and some about the team. C-bob is the webmastah and I'm going to be the site content editor. I'm pretty excited about getting to do some writing for the site. I have some research things that I need to do, like compile player lists and write up a team history, but I'm really excited about this project.

We also played ML Slugfest 20-03, in which my Cubbies demoralized C-bob's Mets. I think the score over a 7-inning game was 26-16. Hopefully we can play again and learn the commands and stuff. The game is a lot more fun playing against a friend than it is playing against the X-box. The commie x-box cheats anyway.

Well, off to get some work done, later kids!

Meh

So I woke up and now I'm sitting here trying to be awake. I know that I got enough sleep, but my mind is trying to trick me into going back to bed. I know that there are things I should be doing and things I want to be doing right now. I don't really have much of an update though. I was up until almost 6 again, it's still a bit odd to see the sunrise before going to bed. Some people still give me a hard time about sleeping so late, but really, if I'm up every night until 6AM, it's not really sleeping all the time, now is it? (Ok, so no one that reads this is giving me a hard time, but I thought it was worth mention)

Well, off to my exciting day. Peace.

*shakes head*

I just applied for a job and I'm not really sure why. Maybe because of the money or something. Here's the job description, after which someone should probably comment and chew me out for giving in so quickly...

Help Desk Coordinator #26-76238-2LF; $2464/mo; Lincoln. Provide technical support in the areas of computer systems, products and services. Receive calls from data processing clients with problems, questions, requests, or concerns, Analyze situation to isolate problems, identify solutions, and/or coordinate corrective actions or escalation. Maintain detailed log of all client contact and place follow-up calls as appropriate to assure that problems, questions, requests, or concerns have been resolved to the client's satisfaction. REQUIREMENTS: Associate's degree in computer science and one year of recent experience in data processing environment or any combination of education/experience that demonstrates ability to perform the duties of the position. Prior Help Desk experience a plus.

I filled out a generic application with the state anyway, so it's possible that I could get a different job from it. Oh well, it's been a fun couple weeks but this nagging responsibility thing is getting me. I guess I wouldn't mind having a job and still getting some writing published. That's my big problem, it takes months to get something published and you don't start really making money until you have a lot of things published. Oh well, whatever happens, happens.

(Quick quiz: Can you find the misspelling in the job description? That was a direct copy from their website.)

Reading

I'm reading the book "God's Debris" by Scott Adams right now and it's really an interesting book. It tries to force some ideas about whether free will exists, what is the soul, all the standard philosophical questions. The attempt is to bend logic and make the reader perplexed by what is going on. Granted, I haven't finished the book, so my feelings will probably change after that. The thing is, there are some questions that make you really think, and that can be angering or annoying especially if you want to start arguing with the book. There is no one to hear your arguments though, so you just sit there fuming. If anyone else should want to read this book too, we could talk about it.

Overall, I think the attempt is good, but there are points where it seems stretched at trying to make a point. There are some analogies that seem to stretch a bit too far to make a point. I'm not saying I don't like the book, I mean, it got me to make an entire post about it, but there is just something about it that seems, wrong. I will keep you updated if I think it's necessary.

I stand corrected..

If you read the earlier post, let it be known that it's incorrect. When I went to get the mail, I noticed that one of the apartment manager type guys was in one of the garages. They are working on something, and it seems to include hammering and being otherwise annoying. Too bad, I was just starting to think the guy downstairs was normal. He has this habit of always sitting at his living room window, at his desk, reading computer books. It's a bit on the creepy side, since the stairs by my door run past his window. He's very quiet too. Only speaks when spoken to and things like that. He's a lot different than the guy that lived down there when I moved in. Good old Gwen, I wonder what he's up to these days.

I'm hoping the signs of them being around, the management people, means they might finish up the landscaping type project they started months ago. I'm not holding my breath, but it could be interesting.

Noises

I was sitting here earlier, reading a book and just relaxing, when this sharp banging noise entered my ears. At first I thought someone was knocking at my door, which I never answer unless I know someone is coming. The sound didn't stop though and I realized it was coming from downstairs. I'm not sure what he's doing done there, logically it sounds like he's hanging pictures or something. The banging isn't constant or anything, but it happens on and off and I'm beginning to wonder if he isn't building an ark down there. I like it better when he's quiet, or not home, and I can just forget that he exists. Oh well, such is life living in an apartment building.

Early or Late?

It's nearing the 6AM mark and I have yet to go to sleep. I am also not all that tired, or else I'm really tired and I just can't tell. I finished off another book, so only have one more to go and it's back to the library with me. Actually that other books is about a 1/4th finished and I've read it before, so it should go fast.

It's weird to be awake all night but know that you can sleep all day. It's just kind of odd. Some cheezers car alarm went off about 10 mins ago and I was afraid it wasn't going to stop. I don't know if it would have kept me awake or not, but luckily someone shut it off. Those things are more annoying than practical anyway.

Strangeness of routine..

I have talked about this before, but I wanted to revisit the idea. I have a new routine for myself, started sometime near the end of last week and it's been working out pretty well. I don't go to bed until at least 4:30 am and divide my waking hours between doing research online, reading, writing and chatting with my friends. Most of the research I am doing right now either involves finding some contacts to sell my writing or background information for one of my stories. There are some nice leads out there about places that might buy articles, I just really need to start sending things out.

It's kind of odd to wake up at 2PM each day though. I know that I'm probably sleeping more than I need to, but I feel more productive when I let myself sleep more than 8 hours. Somewhere around midnight, is when I realize that I'm not like other people. This is the time that my friends head off to bed and I'm left with a quiet night to get work done. It's nice to be up and around when my friends are home from work and school, but it's also nice to have the solitude of night time to write in.

So with my strange schedule is also a strange eating schedule. Because I get up at 2PM, I'm eating breakfast at around 3, lunch around 8 and dinner sometime later. The only draw back to eating dinner that late is some of the better fast food places are closed when I finally do get hungry. I suppose if I want fast food for dinner, I have to eat it at lunch. I like to compare my times by counting the hours and figuring out what time it would be if I had got up at 6:00 AM, like I used to. For example, for me, right now would be 5PM in adjusted time.

Since I should really be working right now, and not blogging, I will head off to do that. Have a good day tomorrow everyone!

Blah blah blah

Sometimes I wonder if I really have anything overly interesting to say in my blogs. I mean, how many people really care what I did last night? It's just an odd thought that there could be people out there that I don't know that are reading this. What would it take in a blog to make someone want to come back and continue to read it? I try to be as honest as possible in my blogs and try to make them interesting. I think maybe if I made more of an attempt at commentary on life, that might get people to read it more.

Maybe it's just my ego, but I really like getting comments. I guess the comments show to me that someone is actually reading this. That's probably the best thing that happens, when I come to the blog and find someone has taken the time to leave me a little message. I guess it makes me feel special.

Anyway kids, I'm hungry so I'm gonna go. Peace!

Pizza and stuff

Sheri and Tony invited me out to get pizza tonight and you know me, I can never say no to pizza and good company! So we first tried the Val's on Holdredge but it was super busy. So we went to the huge buffet Val's on 70th and didn't have to wait too long. The best part of the night was that I got my meal for free, because she never asked for my money. I can't complain with a free meal but the food itself was sub-par. They were not prepared for the volume of people eating there and actually ran out of pizza for awhile. A lot of the food was under-cooked or not warm at all. Sheri and Tony filled out comment cards, but I decided to let it go, since I didn't actually pay but ate anyway.

What happened on the paying thing was that we told her it was 3 buffets, two on one ticket one on the other all with drinks, which cost extra and makes the place way overpriced. So she rang up their buffets and even with one being half-priced it was still $17. She never asked me for any money and gave us the three cups. At the time I thought they had accidentally rang it up all at once, but from looking at the receipt, nope, I scored a free meal. Given the crappiness of the buffet though, I'm not too upset about it. I wouldn't have wanted to pay for that and it will probably be a long time before I go back.

The reason it was so busy was that not only is it labor day weekend, but also the state fair is in town and there was a home football game yesterday. That just means tons of people in town that aren't normally here. It's around fair time that I am reminded I live in Nebraska, sometimes it slips my mind. But when you see people walking around town with cowboy hats and giant belt buckles, you remember what the rest of the state is like.

Well, I'm actually kind of tired early, so I might try to sleep before 5am, I just wonder how long I can sleep. I still have some work stuff to do, but should I do it every night or do I get a weekend too? I'm not sure how to answer that.

That's How You Play It!!

THEY WON!!

That game was totally awesome. That was probably the best game in a long time. They won 9-6 and they played hard a deserved it. This is their last game and it's kind of sad. No more baseball for the dogs, but I'm so glad they won. C-bob recorded the net feed so we have a copy of it. I'm so glad it was a great game.

GO SALTDOGS!! See you next year!!!

SALTDOGS!!

Today is the last game of the season and they are kicking it major right now. They are playing really well and are ahead on Winnipeg 5-2. It's only near the 6th inning, but this game has been great so far. I'm so glad to see the team actually trying today, they could really use this win.

Thomas Ford is pitching and he's super awesome. If they win today, he'll have 10 wins on the season, which is great for any Northern League pitcher. I really hope the Dogs can give it to him.

WOO!! GO DOGS!!

woo!!

I just wrote a 10 page starter story!! This is so awesome. I was only trying to write 2 pages at best, but I couldn't stop going and I ended up with 10 pages. I know that it needs a lot of work to really pull it together, but man, I'm so glad I did it.

I should probably think about going to bed at some point. But I just had to post about this, because it means a lot to me. Go me!

Another one down

Just finished another writing session. I'm not sure how well the old hands are adjusting to this, but they better get used to it. I could have done without smacking my lower knuckle into the bottom to the table though. *shrug* Oh well, it's fine now.

I wrote only 3,694 words tonight. I am proud that I kept going even when I wanted to quit. It feels good to actually accomplish something you set out to do. I am going to add something new to my routine now though. I am going to start doing one to two pages of fiction writing a night after the free writes. These need to be more polished than the free writes, but only have to be first drafts. The next night I make the decision as to whether or not a story gets to go ahead for re-write and expansion or gets shelved. I think this will help give me a routine to my writing job. I have to make this happen, it's my dream.