Rascal, one of our two cats, broke his tail today while we were at work. I figure it happened one of two ways, either he didn’t make the jump up onto the kitchen countertop and landed on it, or the dog got a little too physical while they were playing (they do that, it’s quite amusing watching them chase each other around).

I came home, hopped on the computer and started checking email. The cat jumped up on the desk, as he always does, and sat right in front of the monitor. I picked him up to put him back on the floor and he howled like I was killing him. It was quite startling. As he was scampering away I noticed that his tail was down and not moving around nearly as much as usual. I tried to get a look at it, but every time my hands got close to the base of his tail, he’d twist away. I knew something was up. I watched him a bit more and the more I watched the more obvious it was that there was a problem. So when Tasha came home we bundled him into the cat carrier and took him to the veterinary clinic.

We were there for almost three hours. It cost almost $400. And much to my disappointment, the cat didn’t get a tail cast. Wouldn’t that have just been amusing as hell! Apparently, they can’t do much with a broken tail except x-ray it and give you some pain medicine that the animal will fight-like-hell to not take. Whatever the case, he broke the tail behind the hips and as such there are no other problems, just a funny crook in his tail from now on.

What we wouldn’t do for our animals. Later.

On this date in 1998 Tasha and I were married, we’re not married any longer but beings as we have no other date to celebrate as our own we’ve readopted this one as our continuing anniversary. So while not entirely true, it is mostly true that this is our 11th anniversary. Happy anniversary to us. It’s been a wild ride, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Ain’t love grand. We went out for Mexican, then we came home and she went to bed. I think she’s got the flu, she prefers to think not so much. Whatever it is the symptoms are different from what I have been suffering most of this past week, so I’ll probably get it next. Yeah me.

Did I mention that my iPod Nano got stolen out of my van? I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to look it up. Whatever the case, I’ve been looking for a replacement. I considered just getting another Nano, but that seemed lame. I toyed with the idea of getting a Archos 5 Internet Tablet, that would be sweet, but I’d want the big 500 gig one and the price is a bit more than I can swallow. Doug keeps praising his iPod Touch, but I can’t bring myself to get one. However, my Verizon plan has been up since September and I haven’t replaced my phone… Do you know where this is going? I decided to get a phone that would serve as a media player. I went and got myself a Motorola Droid.

I don’t get excited about phones, cameras, GPS gadgets, or mp3 players, but I gotta say this thing is pretty sweet. It does all of those things. It says, “droid,” more than maybe you’d like, but I expect I can shut that off. It’s got a 16 GB microSD card in it, so it’ll hold as much stuff as my old Nano, but it does way more than my old phone and my iPod together. I think it’ll be a good deal despite the additional charges that Verizon get’s for signing me up for the email service. Oh well, what do you do. I already put a couple audio books on it. I’m as giddy as a school boy.

Not much writing last night, though I did do some editing and I’m feeling better about what I’ve gotten so far. No writing at all tonight, so I’m going to take the weekend to get myself up to where I need to be. I think that means something like 13,336 words by Sunday night. It’s alot, and it may be more than I can do to catch up all at once, but I think I can take a good-sized chunk out of my deficit and put myself back on track. Like I said, doing the little bit of editing last night made me realize some of the bits that I needed to flesh out a bit more. What I was writing read more like a verbose outline than a story. So we’ll fix that and get Joshua Hale back in the action and get this party started.

In other news, I got the approval for my vacation. We’re going to Florida at the end of this month.

I am beat today. Not sure why, it was just another day at work. Nothing particularly grueling occured, but I’m sitting here trying to write this and yawning like crazy. Very weird.

So we’ve moved in, bought some new furniture, and gotten the place looking pretty good. Other than the noisy neighbor things are pretty sweet. Well, toss that all on its head and give it a good shake. Tasha has a lead on a job. A good lead. A solid lead. Straight to  her email from her old boss lead. If she wants it she’ll get it sort of lead. And it’s probably a good job, no real details as of yet. Full time. Benefits. Doing what she wants to do. Good stuff. But it’s in Detroit. Not the western suburbs. Not near Detroit. Right downtown on the river Detroit.

It’s not the location, mind you. It’s the fact that we’re talking about a 155 mile commute. Two and a half hours one way without traffic commute. We’re talking about her moving back to the other side of the state  kind of commute. A what the fuck do we do now kind of commute.

When she called to ask/tell me about it (the job) I wasn’t about to tell her no. I know she hates her job now and doesn’t think much of this area and we did the long distance thing before. I told her if it sounds good send them your info. I don’t like it much, but I’m not going to hold her back from a good opportunity. We’ll survive and make it work somehow. If it goes through I’ll talk to my people about getting moved back to that side of the state. We’ve got lots of engineers over there. I’m sure I could find something, eventually.

So yeah, that’s what’s going on here. Best part is, if this happens it’ll probably happen as fast as it did when I went to work for Jones Lang LaSalle. I’m thinking within a month. So change is in the air yet again. You’ve gotta take the good with the bad and make it work for you. So that’s what I’ll do.

My boss mentioned that the Blessing of the Bikes is this weekend in Baldwin, MI. Sounds kinda cool, I guess he and Rob (another guy I work with) and another friend of thires are going. I’d probably have gone to check it out, but I found out about it late and I’ve already got plans. So maybe next year. Speaking of bikes, I’ve gotta get mine out more. I was gonna ride it a couple times this week and last, but every time it was nice I took Karin driving. Oh well, she’ll be gone come Monday and then I can drag Tasha out and go check out the lake shore. You know, now that I’ve figured out where I can go to see the lake without having to pay for it

I am so glad tomorrow is Friday. Give me the weekend, please.

Happy Valentines Day to my love, Tasha.

Tasha bought me a Xbox 360 as a Valentine’s present. She’s known that I’ve been wanting a gaming system and made the decision for me that I was unable to make. Which was very nice of her and I am very happy with this gift.

I’d been struggling with the idea that three of my friends have Play Station 3 systems and one has a Xbox 360 (but it’s mostly for his kids). And as such it doesn’t make sense to buy a Xbox 360. But I HATE the PS3 controller and I don’t give a good god damn about the blueray player and my kids have a Xbox 360. Not that I’ll ever actually play a game with any of these people. We all just like different kinds of games. So Tasha in her infinite wisdom made the call for me. She rocks. And now I have a Xbox 360 Pro. Very Cool Beans.

Additionally, we picked up Madden 2009 and a second controller. I doubt she’ll play football with me, but the system came with Lego Indy and Kung Fu Panda, maybe she’ll try one of those. Plus there’s bound to be something in the Marketplace that we’ll want to play.

Later.

I’ve finished my HVAC certification program at Northwestern Technological Institute. I’m done. Finish. Completed. And yet, it feels empty. This may be because the school basically gives you a manila folder full of resumes and says “see ya”. My instructor did bring in Dunkin’ Donuts, but that’s not really what I was looking for. How about some sort of cap and gown fandango. Nah that’d be weird.

So what’s next for me. Well, Saturday I take the certification test for the new blended refrigerants, 410A in particular. Then I’ll get my NATE certification in April. And then go for my Mechanical License in June. In the mean time I need to decide if I’m going to stay with Nichols. Which means I really need to talk to my boss tomorrow. He did the run out of the office thing again today. Why can’t this ever be easy…

After class today I went with about ten of the guys to TGIFriday’s and we had some drinks, some food, and some laughs. After spending 10-months with these guys I’m gonna miss ‘em and wonder what they’ll be doing in six months.

Oh hey, I almost forgot to mention, I had another teacher approach me about teaching at the school today. So I’ve now got two instructors pushing for them to hire me. That’s a good feeling. Nice to know that somebody wants me. I think I’d be a damn good fit there at the school.

I had worked myself up to going over and getting my 10-minutes last night, but after thinking about it and looking inside myself I realize that I can’t make her come to me and she doesn’t want me to go to her so I’m gonna let it lie. It’s kinda the whole “if you love someone let them go, if they don’t come back it wasn’t meant to be” sort of thing. Maybe one day I’ll get a call, letter, or email from her, but maybe not. I’m okay with that, I’ve got my memories, a stack of letters, and a couple nice photos to look back on. So needless to say, I didn’t go over there today. It’s a little sad, but what do you do.

Is it summer yet? I really want to take the bike out and just cruise out into the country. Doesn’t that sound good. Warm sun, the hum of the motor, and the wind in your face. Good God I can’t wait until summer.

I’m on-call again tonight but thus far the pager has been quiet.

Today, I pulled out a heat pump that we installed a few weeks ago. Just a little one. Kinda like the in wall AC units you see on TV. Only this one is a heat pump, which means you use the refrigerant to heat rather than cool. Anyway, to make a long description less long, I think I agree with our senior service guy, heat pumps are not the way to go in Michigan. It’s just too damn cold here for them. You need a little more temperate climate to really make them work. Anyway, I think the boss has already resold it, so I’ll probably be putting it in somebody elses house in a week or so. I hope they’re happier with it than the last guy was.

Pager just went off twice. Once to say some dude had no heat. Then 5-minutes later to say, ignore that last page. Being on-call isn’t so bad.

Just three more days of school. Well, two actually, I won’t be there on Wednesday because I get to go to the dentist. Thursday almost doesn’t count either because I go in take my exam and then head to my girlfriends house… no wait, I don’t do that because I don’t have a girlfriend anymore. I guess I’ll come home and post about the last day instead. But I’ve a hunch I know what I’ll be thinking about. *Sigh* Maybe to work through this I should write another post about how this is all for the best. If I keep telling myself that, eventually I’ll believe it.

I wonder if I could get my artist friend to redo my lion? I worked on it again on Sunday but I keep finding myself unsatisfied with the result. I’m probably going to have to go and have a pro do it up right. Wonder how much that’ll cost? Ah well, if I get it done right, then I can get a hat made

This morning I took my youngest to the orthodontist, his little brother came with us. He’s too young to stay at home alone. I always feel odd taking him places, not that I’ve actually taken him all that many places. This is partially because he’s not my child, partially because his father has made it clear that he shouldn’t like me (this is bad because he does like me and that causes confusion in an 8-year old), and partially because he’s so damn demanding of my attention. The kid really wants something from me that I can’t give him. Or rather, I could, but I don’t feel like I can. It’s just rough. He sees me as his brothers dad and wants so badly to be part of their world (they’re 7 and 10 years older than he is) that he kinda latches onto me. This wasn’t so bad when I was seeing his mother, but it did make the confusion worse for him. But I’m not seeing her any more and break-ups are always hard on kids.

Funny bit, we were sitting in the waiting room, talking about I don’t remember what, and I said that I needed to get a girlfriend. He says, “Um… Ronn… What about my mom?” A little sarcastically and more as a reminder than a question. So I look at him and say, “We tried that, didn’t really work out. Remember. I haven’t been around since Thanksgiving.” That seemed to leave him at a loss. But hey, what else could I say.

Anyway, my son didn’t get his braces off yet again. He also got a promise to get the fuck kicked out of him if he didn’t get his grades back up. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t talk to the kid like that, but it works. Besides at 14 the kid has too much fuck building up in him as it is.

I’m going stir crazy. I took the rest of the day off and I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve got a bank account full of money that I can’t bring myself to spend. And believe me, I’ve tried. I find I’m just obsessing about things I have no control over. Berating myself for once again letting things go without a fight. I’ve been to Best Buy, Kroger, K-Mart, the Chevrolet dealership, past a few rental homes, the pawn shop, and driven from Waterford to Clarkston to Oxford. Nothing. Didn’t buy anything. Didn’t sooth my soul. Didn’t make me feel any better. Now I’m sitting here in front of the computer trying to put up a post that doesn’t say what I want to say and still says something. I’m sure I’m going to end up back in the car. The driving and singing takes the edge off.

I mean I’ve got things I could do. I could go to my friends. I could go work out. I could go to the library. I could read a book or finish my late taxes. But no, I’m just beside myself. I mean I’m not sad or depressed or mad or any other negative emotion. I’m just bored, because I don’t know what to look forward to, don’t know how to suppress these feelings. Wait. Not true. What I need is to get a girlfriend and just move on. Problem is that right now I don’t want to do that.

My lovely, beautiful, intelligent, wonderful wife is having a birthday today. So I want to send a great big, loving happy birthday out to her today.