Agency Date #4 October 7, 2008
Posted by A in Dating, Life, My Favorite Links, Random, Relationships, Society.Tags: Dating, Life, Relationships, Society
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You guessed it. It sucked. Again. Another strike for the agency.
I’m a person who is somewhat risk averse. Trying out a new restaurant or a type of cuisine is adventure enough. Who though that pairing me with a guy who likes snowmobiling and flying his own airplane is a good idea? I don’t even like roller coasters!
This guy was able to talk a little better than some others. But there’s only so much I can talk about with a guy who installs heating & cooling systems. We had nothing in common.
Agency Date #2 October 1, 2008
Posted by A in Dating, Life, My Favorite Links, Relationships, Society.Tags: Dating, Life, Relationships, Society
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After diligently providing the details of why Date #1 was terrible and how to improve, I really had my hopes up for Date #2.
I should have known better. They way the guy was described was kinda like he was a hippie, but confused. He was at the outside of my dating age range, so I thought he’d be mature and a gentleman and interesting. I thought he’d have some interesting stories to tell, so I was hoping for a great conversation.
The guy hardly looked me the whole time! He kept looking over my left shoulder the whole time. That’s just rude. I traveled a little recently, and he did too, but his travels seemed to be before I was born. Yikes! Ok, not quite that long ago, but it sure felt like that. No conversation here. Just me sitting holding my glass of water and playing with the water droplets.
BORING!
Yet again I provide detailed feedback to the agency as to why this date sucked as well.
Dating still sucks October 1, 2008
Posted by A in Dating, Life, My Favorite Links, Relationships, Society.Tags: Dating, dating service, Life, Relationships
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I hate dating.
I had no luck with online dating sites and I tried a few of them. So I wanted to find something a little more personalized. Since I live in a fairly small city, we don’t have a lot of options here. But I found one international agency and they seemed OK. So I signed up. It costs A LOT! And it still sucks.
I met with a “director” for an hour and we chatted about this and that. I feel that she didn’t ask the important questions and this agency does not match on too many criteria, as it turns out. One of the reasons dating sucks for me is because I have a hard time finding people of a similar mind. I specified different things that are important to me, but they can only deal with 3 criteria.
Details of each date to follow.
Agency Date #1 October 1, 2008
Posted by A in Dating, Life, My Favorite Links, Relationships, Society.Tags: Dating, Life, Relationships, single life, Society
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So the agency set me up on a date with a radiologist. I thought “cool, I like science, I used to work for a medical devices company, so we’ll have something to talk about.”
Wrong. Talking to this guy was worse than pulling teeth (and I’ve had my teeth pulled in Russia! with what looked like pliers).
It was terrible. There are only so many times I can say “it’s interesting” and actually fake some interest. I’m not that good at acting. The hour and a half was miserable.
At the end of the date, I provided my feedback to the agency. I was hoping that Date #2 would be better.
Nightmares August 17, 2008
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I don’t have nightmares often, but recently I’ve had a few. Last night, I had 2 in the same night. Or maybe 3. See, there’s just something so unreal about those nightmares and that scares me. Also, very often when I’m having a bad dream, I don’t know that I’m dreaming (as I know I’m dreaming with a regular dream). There is something so startling and amazing to be able to wake up and think “Thank GOD! it was just a dream”. And a few times I had to call people, just to be sure. Those nightmares felt so real, so heart-pounding real. I hated it, but couldn’t wake up, I didn’t even realize I could wake up.
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Green Thumb – Update August 2, 2008
Posted by A in Life, My Favorite Links, gardening.Tags: balcony garden, container gardening, gardening
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Since the rains have stopped, I have had almost no more loss in seeds that were planted. My 3 remaining tomato stalks have had a few flowers and now there are the tiniest little green tomatoes hanging on for their dear lives.
From the herb container, I have some basil growing and maybe 4-5 sprigs of dill. Not very pretty.
I also have some 4 o’clocks, but no actual flowers yet. 
I’ll have to post pictures of my wilting growing greens so you can see how sad they are.
Four O'clock
A very sorry looking tomato plant
4th of July is NOT a holiday… July 4, 2008
Posted by A in Holiday, Life, My Favorite Links, Politics, Random, Society.Tags: 4th of July, freedom, Holidays, Independence Day
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…but Independence Day is. July 4th is a day on our calendars. Independence Day is the day we celebrate the birth of the greatest country out there. Also, people don’t call “December 25th” a holiday, they call it Christmas. Why do people denigrate this most American holiday by calling it just “July 4th”? Is it really just laziness? Or is it something more? I don’t know.
But I do know that I am one of the luckiest people because I live in USA. It’s a privilege to be a citizen of this country. I don’t understand those who hate this country. Why not move, if it’s so bad? And if it’s so bad, why are millions upon millions of people risking their lives to come here?
It makes me livid to see commercials on TV with all these “4th of July” deals and sales. This holiday has been hijacked into a long weekend, or a day to do house updates, or do chores or go shopping. Nobody takes even a fraction of a second to think what this holiday means.
This holiday means Freedom. Consider the following sentence from the Preamble:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
What other country is based on this? None. The founding fathers recognized the individuality of people and that Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness are a basis for a country. As far as I’m concerned, this is the best country.
So let’s celebrate what this country is really all about, not use this wonderful holiday as a day to do chores.
Manners – revisited June 24, 2008
Posted by A in Life, My Favorite Links, Random, Society, manners.Tags: chewing gum, manners, politeness, work-appropriate behavior
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Last week I was observing a vendor demonstration at work. The vendor sent somewhere between 3 to 5 people for the demo (I don’t remember exactly how many). The one thing I do remember has absolutely nothing to do with the company I work for and it has nothing to do with the product that was demonstrated. What it does have to with is one of the presenters.
The woman chewed gum like there was no tomorrow. She was chewing so vigorously that at first I thought she was finishing up her breakfast. But that was not the case since she continued to do chew for the next 2 hours with the same fervor. When she was chugging her water (yes, chugging), I was hoping she’d swallow the gum, but no such luck. It was absolutely, horrifyingly disgusting.
I was not the only one who noticed it. Other observers mentioned it a few times during the wrap-up. The woman was old enough to know better, to have better manners, and to know better business professional/appropriate behavior.
A Green Thumb – not something I have June 23, 2008
Posted by A in Life, My Favorite Links, Random.Tags: flowers, gardening, herbs, planting, weather
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So I decided to give gardening another try. See, a few years ago when I actually had a yard and a garden, I killed a whole lot of hostas. Probably $300 worth of hostas. I didn’t do it out of malice towards the shade-loving plants; I did it to try to kill weeds.
After that disaster, I was really hesitant about any horticultural endeavors. However, I picked a bad year to start experimenting with growing things other than mold. 
See, another slight impediment to gardening is that I have no land. Seriously. I live in a condo in an apartment-style building. What I do have is a balcony, so I bought a few planters, an arm-load of seed packets and bags of soil. I planted the seeds right before Memorial Day and about 4 days later I saw some sprouting greennes in the planters. I was really super excited. I’ve never planted things that actually grew! Things were going really well, and I thought I finally broke the curse of the poisoned hostas. Since the flowers and herbs I picked require full sun, and for once I have southern exposure, I was really excited to see them grow. And then the mega rain storms happened. All my plants got flooded in their little containers. I had some tomatoes planted, and out of 2 packets, I have literally 2 little sprouts left. After the last round of storms, I had about 5 inches of soil dug out of the tomato planter. The winds were so strong that all that soil ended up against the side of the outside wall. Tomato is my favorite food, and I was really looking forward to having my own tomatoes. But not this year.
I still have a few things that weren’t completely destroyed, namely, some dill, cilantro, and basil are still growing. Oh, and Four O’Clocks. The container with the flowers has something growing in it, but I am not sure what.
I guess we’ll see what it all turns out.
Too tired to be tired June 22, 2008
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Have you ever felt too tired to be tired? If you have, you’ll know exactly how I feel at the moment. I looked at my work schedule for the last few months, and it turns out that I worked 45+ hours since early March. This is the first weekend where I didn’t have to work. Though, I still dreamed about work-related things. Does that qualify as a nightmare?
I did take a few days around Memorial Day, but I did a lot of driving and as much as I enjoyed my time off, I was tired. I have not taken a full week off in more than a year. So, that’s just it. I need a mental vacation, I need to concentrate on something other than work for an extended period of time. I need to see new sights, try new cuisine, walk new paths, take a few thousand new pictures, meet new people, etc.
