Just Pee in the Cup

Yet another step along the road to new employment
has been completed. I have completed both the drug
test and the physical. Hurray!

I was a little disturbed by how thorough the physical was.
I thankfully was not probed in any way, but it was everything
else. The good news in that I have great vision and great
"staying power" with my lungs, I guess that could come in
handy somehow. The bad news is that I might have high
blood pressure. Yeah, what a way to approach my 28th year,
actually signing up for old age.

In other awesome news I HAVE CURTAINS!! (Yeah, maybe I am
old.) Anyway, it's very exciting. I have been in my apartment
for over 6 months and just this past weekend I got curtains
for my bedroom and living room. It's like I have a whole new
apartment.

The weekend saw the Corey house cooling party, sadly they
are moving to DC this week. It was a great get together and may
have involved some drinking. Any rumors about whether or not
someone may have eaten some of Ranger's Beggin Strips are in
fact true. I had a great time and walked away with a Mary Baker
Eddy biography (Score!).

Classifieds:

Happy Birthday to Heidi, Bryan, and my Grandma
(hitting the big 87!).
Good luck to the Corey's with their move, I'll miss you guys!!

AA for Mac Addiction?

I am completely obsessed. I got a powerbook
about a year ago and I cannot see how I lived
without it. I actually bought the powerbook
as an acessory to my iPod. Yes, it's true.
I always used to carry at least 20 CDs with me
wherever I went, you never know what you will
feel like listening to. So I got the iPod, well
I got the powerbook first but only so I could
have something to hold the music to put on the
iPod. Somehow it didn't seem like bad logic at
the time.

Well the obsession has grown recently. I can't
explain why but when the new iPod shuffle came
out I HAD TO HAVE ONE. It's completely silly since
I already have a 15G one but it looked like such
a cool gadget. There was a huge demand for them
so I have been on a waitlist with the Apple store
for the past month, well I was until last night!
My reserved iPod shuffle came in and I picked it
up last night. I have been using it all day.
It's awesome! I don't know why it seems so much
better than the big one but it does. It's probably
just because it's a new toy. That's good enough
for me though.

Unfortunately waiting for it to be released and then
waiting to get it has resulted in a general Mac mania.
I check Mac rumor sites at least 4-5 times a day, I
look at the Apple site just to see if they are up to
anything, I search out neat applications that are
probably going to result in me screwing up my
powerbook....I have a problem. I have been swept
up into the Mac community's frenzy over when and if
Apple will release a powerbook G5....why? I already
have one, I don't need another computer. I think
that there must be subliminal messages that are
programmed into the iPods and computers. That or I
am really just a giant dork that needs to get out
more. NO! I know! It's the damn weather!

Yeah, that's it....the weather.




I want to say thanks to Jill and Bryan for hosting
a great superbowl party!

Really Happening!!

The huge news is I HAVE A NEW JOB!!!!
I will soon be a Scientist (that is my new
official title) at Novartis.

Holy crap. I cannot believe that it is actually
happening but it is. Just for background I have
been at my current job for almost six years.
Most people come through between college and
grad school, they work for two years tops. I still
talk to some of the lab alumni and they all think,
or thought, that I would be there forever.

I started at the lab right out of college down in
New York City. I worked there for a little over
two years and then the head of the lab got an
offer to come up to Boston. He asked me to come
up along with a few other people and I have
been there ever since. A lot of people have come
and gone but I have stuck around. Now I freely
admit that a big part of why I have stayed is that
I can't figure out where I want to end up. I don't
know what I want my career to be. Theoretically I was
supposed to figure that out but it just didn't happen
and my current job kept changing so there were
always new opportunities. Also I work with great
people that made it easy to stick around.

Even though it's a great place it is still time to move
on, there is nowhere for me to go. I am back to doing
the same work I've done for years and there are no
chances for any kind of advancement. So I asked a
friend of mine who used to work in the lab but moved
to Novartis a year ago, to let me know if he heard about
any opportunities over there. About two weeks ago he
called to let me know there was this great position in a
new group at the company. He had already talked to
the director and mentioned me. So I submitted my
resume to this job that almost literally fell into my lap,
they called me in for an interview, I went back for a
second and then on Tuesday THEY OFFERED ME THE JOB!!!!!
I couldn't believe it! I mean it happened so smoothly
(although not without some MAJOR stressing
on my part about silly things) that it didn't seem real.

I told my bosses today, I kind of have three, that I will be
leaving after some stressing over whether I should say
anything yet or not. I think I made the right choice.
They were pretty surprised and so was I, they were so nice
about it. I wasn't sure how they would react, I thought it
could be bad but it was the total opposite. The one actually
got a little teary-eyed when he was talking about me leaving.
He said that if I am there for a while and it just isn't working
out to give him a call and if there isn't anything in the lab
he knows a lot of people and could find me something.
How awesome is that? I mean I tell him I'm leaving and he
basically offers support if it doesn't work out. Wow.

The other result of today is that the whole thing is a lot
more real. I'm leaving...and getting a sweet new deal!!

I will now bask in the excitement (and not think about
how much is going to change).

Times they are a'changin

I have shown myself to be a big liar. I haven't
posted, oops.

Since any real posts were at least, well, a while
ago, I am going to use the bullet point method
of updating. Seems useful here.

(Several hours later...)

Okay, I can't find the damn bullet symbol so
scratch that idea.

Let's just say that November was crazy. I went
to yet another wedding that I really should have
written about due to the shear over-the-top
nature of the shindig. There was live entertainment
consisting partially of a set of Russian twins dressed
head to toe in matching teal sheer "suits" that may
have shown a little bit of boob. Okay, all the boob.
I have never seen such an amazing spread of food
including flaming roast duck. Yes it was on fire.

Thanksgiving was great, went home to the land of
the Amish and ate more food than I thought was
possible.

December kind of flew by. I had a great time at
Jon and Mindy's Hannukah party. I had some folks
over to my house for a late Christmas get together
(a first!). I saw another great Eddie from Ohio concert.
Then it was home for Christmas and back for a lovely
New Years with Jon.

January is always a sucky month. The holidays are
over, the winter is just getting going and it's friggin
dark. This year, all that changed, well those things
didn't but it hasn't really mattered. I don't know
how I ended up so lucky, things have just been great
with Jon. Despite me being a freakshow half of the
time he continues to amaze me.

There is some huge news, huge for me anyway that
I have to post about, but I think it will have to wait
for my next posting.

Joy to the World

So I have been a bad blogger over the past, well,
few months. Sorry about that.

Just thought I would take the opportunity to
wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I hope
everyone had a happy and safe holiday with
family and friends.

Stay tuned for actual posts...really.

Crayola Voting

I have to admit I have been a bad American and never
voted before this year. I just didn't really ever pay
attention to politics, I didn't care. Well all the hoopla
of over the past year of the gay marriage debate here
in Boston really caught my attention for obvious reasons.
(I'm actually not obsessed with marriage whatever my blog
entries may lead you to believe.) I had never really thought
that anything that I could do would actually ever change
anything, a gift from my parents who are not the most
positive thinkers out there.

The gay marriage debate raged on and during the first
round of voting I was glued to my TV. For the second round
Kate and I went down to Beacon Hill and protested out in
front of the state house. It was an amazing feeling to be
standing out in front of that building knowing what was
transpiring inside and feeling that maybe, just maybe
the protest would make somebody think a little bit more
about what was being decided.

As we all know the gay marriage deadline came and
marriages took place even after the vote moving forward a
proposed amendment to the state constitution. Even though
the proposal went forward, I still felt like there was some
victory. Maybe it's because they couldn't stop the marriages
from happening, I still felt like it would work out.

Because of all of this fun, the fact that Bush
is full of shit, and I think from living in Boston
in general, I felt like I needed to do my civic duty
and register to vote. I got the card and mailed it
in. I was a REGISTERED VOTER! I felt very grown up.

Going into yesterday, part of me felt like Bush would
probably win but I was very hopeful that Kerry would pull it
off. I had never paid attention to campaign efforts but it
still seemed like there was such a huge push to get Bush
out of the White House. With all the get out the vote programs
it seemed like Kerry would have to win.

Election day began as the past few days have for me, crawling
out of bed, trying not to hack up a lung. Despite having the
plague I was still pretty excited to be voting. I remember
going along with my folks when I was a little kid. Our
neighbors always manned the tables and I would stay with
them while my parents voted. I remember one year my Mom
took me into the voting booth with her. You see in
Pennsylvania the voting is in those blue, curtained voting
booths you see on TV. We went in and she pulled the lever
that drew the curtains closed. I thought it was cool. I think
she might have picked me up and showed me all the levers
that were the actual voting mechanism.

Walking over to my polling station yesterday the blue thingy is
what I was picturing. I figured I'd have to wait in line a while due to
the whole huge voter turnout. I got there and there were maybe 5
people in line. They asked me my name and address and found me
in the register. The woman handed me an interoffice mail envelope
and the ballot. I thought this was kind of strange. She pointed me
in the direction of a table in the middle of the room. It was a long
table with cardboard dividers on it like I used during exams in grade
school. Where were the voting booths!! Where were the levers!!
There was a marker, excuse me, I mean a "ballot pen". What the hell
is that!!?? It was a frigging Crayola marker with no cap. I was
supposed to connect the two ends of the arrow by the candidate that
I was voting for. It was barely glorified connect the dots. This is how
I was supposed to vote?? I mean I didn't even get any of the infamous
chads, hanging or otherwise. The ballot only had two races that were
not uncontested. Make the arrow for the president and Somerville
general court. That's it. I DREW THE ARROWS (HOW IS THIS
OFFICIAL??) and put my ballot into the slot in the ballot bin.

I come to find out yesterday that Pennsylvania and New York are the
only states that even widely use the voting booths. Most states make
you fill in the damn scan bubbles like the SATs. I guess the arrows is
better than that, but still. I was somewhat disappointed by the
experience. The whole thing took maybe 5 minutes.

Now Ohio and the rest of the country have voted Mr. Bush back into
the White House for another 4 years. Last time I was hopeful that at
least since he had all kinds of experienced people on his staff that
things would be okay. Well after one invasion, over a thousand
casualties, and one frightened mother that is worried about a new
draft it looks like experienced people didn't really help. Now it is
worse. I have been informed about all the crap that Bush has pulled,
all the lies that he has made, and he says that the people have given
him a vote of approval. I think that the shady nature of the last
"election" maybe kept him in line somewhat. Now he has no
re-election to worry about, has won the popular vote and can move
his efforts forward with all the confidence that comes in that
situation. I hope that Mr. Bush learns from his mistakes in his last
term in office and actually does try to unite the country but I think
that isn't very likely.

HOLY @%#%#!!!!!

I cannot friggin believe it. They won game 6.
Okay, okay, I give! I AM A RED SOX FAN!!! I will
not give up in frustration again, I get it.

Also, I am now in love with Curt Schilling.

That's all I have.

GO RED SOX!!