The Trials and Tribulations of the not-so-New Bear Icon

There's a couple of things I've always wanted, but in my life have not been able to achieve.

The first one is a backyard pool. I've always wanted one, but the parents would never go for it. For most of my years we lived in neighborhoods that had a pool for all, or at least those that paid the membership dues, but never one just for us. There's also the apartment pools, some were better, and cleaner than others, but still, anyone could come use it.

Here at the townhouse, there's a neighborhood pool, and last year it was closed for most of the year because of problems with the homeowner's association. I find that I haven't thought about it much this year. It's not the best pool, as the people stone around the pool is coming apart, and it hurts your feet. I've also gotten spoiled with the people who have pools cleaned with salt, rather than chlorine. It's so nice swimming in water that isn't bleaching you as you go.

I know, keeping the damned thing clean would be one of the biggest problem. I'm a lazy procrastinator and I know I'd have to be pushed to go get the leaves, but then again, I hate swimming with leaves, so there's definitely and incentive.

This would mean a new house - so you see the charges are mounting up here. There's obviously no quick fix here, but since I love to swim, and love the water, it's still something I want. There's always the advantage of hosting an occasional few friends to come swim, too.

Heck, right now I'd be somewhat satisfied by having a hot tub, but there really isn't room for that here, either. I guess we'll have to work on getting some money together and getting a large whirlpool tub when we decide to make over the bathroom.

Another thing I'd love to have is a convertible. For years I wanted a soft-top VW Rabbit (later known as the Cabriolet) or a Jeep Wrangler. I eventually decided that neither one were practical for me, as I needed a solid car for long distances, but I knew if I ever was able to buy a second car, it would be a convertible.

The only problem is, there's pretty much two kinds of convertibles tiny two seaters, and large whales. I can't fit in the former, and I don't need the bad gas mileage of the latter. It's a moot point as i can't aford it anyway.

In more reasonable news, We've booked everything for our Alaskan Cruise - trying to bargain shop, but not totally go on the cheap. I write this to see if anyone else would still like to join us on the cruise...come on, you know you want to!

I finished up Harry Potter tonight, and no one spoiled me on the ending. Very good! it was interesting reading it as Chris played songs from the Wicked soundtrack.

Oh, one more thing I want - I want to be rid of my acne! Hasn't it been long enough? I keep clean!

1. It’s been quite a time here lately. I’m totally stressed out about my upcoming test, the Series 7 brokerage exam, is now just about a week away. I’m really thinking I’m going to fail it, especially if I don’t get some stuff into my head about mathematical formulas. These things were the bane of my existence in school and college, and now here they are in real life – or something. Options seem to be something I can't get my head around and consist of a large portion of the test. Personally, I feel options are legalized gambling on stock and I think that it should be eliminated…if they could bann them before my test, that would be all the better.

I carry my study books all over the place. It’s incredibly dry reading, and I finally finished reading the whole thing last week. I haven’t carried a book around this much since I was pledging the frat. One of the book’s cover is starting to tear away in places.

Something tells me to just take it and fail and don’t worry about it, since it is not required for my current job, but it is required to become a manager. I’m afraid that if I do fail, and I get two chances before I have to wait a year – if the company would sponsor me again – that if I do fail, then I won’t be seriously considered for a management position. So, if failure does occur, then I’m going to really have to sit down and figure out what I want to do with my life, because maybe this isn’t the industry for me. It’s odd, I know so much about other parts of the business, like retirement accounts that are barely touched on in this test, but things like options and bonds and tax shelters, well, that, not so much.

Of course one of the bigger problems is that I’m going it alone, where others at the company, working in roles that require the license get classes and tutoring and handouts and such. I have the books and the online testing tool, and that’s it. The book is very poorly written, rambling and difficult to understand. When I took my Series 6 exam eight years ago, I had much better books. I’m really at a disadvantage, and I hope that will be seen in the future, fail or succeed.

After working 10-15 hours of overtime the last few weeks, I’m going to have to go home and study this week. I’m also thinking of holding off on the workouts just to give me more time.

2. Of course all this comes in one of the busiest times for television viewing. Last night I felt I had to get away from studying and watch The Sopranos, Entourage and The Amazing Race. Some shows I can miss and catch up with on Tivo in another week or so. Some, like Heroes and Lost I’ll want to keep up with. Others, like 24, Smallville, and America’s Next Top Model have been permanently dropped from my viewing list.

24 you may remember was a pickup this season for me, but when they totally scrapped their original storyline and have Jack move on to a totally different one for the overnight hours of the day, it was a good time to get off the boat.

Then there’s the recently cancelled show, Drive. I really should know better about getting involved with a show on FOX. Especially when it’s a show that stars the guy from Firefly and is written by the creator of Wonderfalls, two other good shows that FOX canned after only a few episodes. Let’s see, you premier a show on a Sunday, the busiest night of television, preempting Family Guy, immediately move it to Monday, and the next week cancel it. How would a show ever get an audience when you give it a start and finish like that?

The show wasn’t great, but it had a nice premise and it was fun watching the racers go up and down the same stretch of California freeway, and trying to make us believe it was rural Florida. The characters all had some reason to be in the race, but it wasn’t given to us right away. Nathan Fillion’s character’s wife was kidnapped, why we’ll never know, and he had to enter the race to try to get her back. Why the police weren’t good for finding her, I don’t know. Still, for fans of shows like The Amazing Race, and Bullrun, this was a good drama version of a reality show. Let’s face it, I like the serialized shows like Lost and Jericho. Of course Jericho has to be one of the most unrealistic stories of the apocalypse, ever. I’ll be shocked if they give Jericho a second season – it really doesn’t deserve one, but at least they are getting to ride out the whole year, probably because the show isn’t on FOX.

I’ll admit that FOX irks me. The few episodes of House I’ve seen were good, and I like the lead actor from the old BBC Blackadder shows, but it was on FOX and I thought they’d cancel it. Same thing goes for Bones. They manage to surprise you, but more often than not the shows thay choose to keep are really awful like The War At Home and Til Death.

Speaking of Bullrun, why is no one (besides jeremasur) watching this? This is a fun cross-country race with cars and some stupid, bitchy people (necessary for a reality show). One of the guys, a “flower delivery guy” from Austin is really cute, but he never drives. Looking at host Goldberg is pretty good as well. Since the show is on Spike, there’s lots of “male bonding” type talk, flag chicks and plenty of unnecessary explosions and fire during the challenges, all for the Hooters crowd. Still at the end of it, its really a good race for those who can do long distance driving, and it’s interesting to see what helps and hurts the racers.

3. Sort of on the cancellation lines, why do people just refuse to see Hot Fuzz? The movie is hysterical and really well put together, but it can’t seem to climb higher than number 6 at the box office when awful stuff like Nicolas Cage’s Next do better? Is it the British humor? Do people not know anyone in it (they’d be surprised)? Did they not see Shawn of the Dead? Come on! Well, the whole box office will be killed by Spiderman this weekend.

4. One more work thing, I’m perplexed about how many people bring a Bible to work with them here, or carry one around. I just don’t feel like the workplace is the place for Bible studies. I’m fine with people having their religion, but it’s something I think should be kept away from the office – but there’s plenty of people who talk about church and of course one who keeps saying “Lord Help Me, Jesus” at least a couple of times a day. I have yet to see a Koran, but I have seen a Book of Mormon here. Compared to my last workplace, I can definitely tell that I moved closer to the Buckle of the Bible Belt.

5. Otherwise, over the last few weeks things have been mostly well, with both of us working long hours. Joey is rambunctious as ever. We had a great visit with David (metacub) who I hope had great fun at Coachella and Palm Springs, and won’t have trouble getting home to Oakland with the big freeway collapse. friday we went and saw cristalskye kick it on the soccer field. CAPE is this weekend and I look to go see how well Richard (dedagda) and Chris (amyboy00) have done this year with their mini comic convention. I hope the cute but straight artist is there again. I think we disturbed him a little bit last year.

6. Lastly, I’m looking to go to Baltimore again the first weekend of June to visit my sister. This will likely be my last trip up there as she’s thinking of moving back to Texas – mainly because her fiancée wasn’t thrilled about leaving the state in the first place. It’s my big chance to see a Phillies game in their home stadium, and I may see if I can double up and also go to see a National’s game in DC, as they both play that weekend. The Nationals aren’t quite as important as they are still playing in old RFK stadium and I’ll want to see the new field once they move into it. Otherwise, I wonder if I can convince my sister to finally drive over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Something I’d really like to do. It will be my only vacation before the Alaskan Cruise in September. Chris may go back to California for a few days to see his family, but I can’t get the time off to join him. I'm lucky to get off what I can.

Here’s to test taking. If I do manage to pass, I’m going to get drunk after it.

So I'm trying to get back to journalling every day again, and here I am needing to go to bed. Getting up before 7am really sucks, and i wouldn't do it if I didn't have to. I haven't quite worked it out to get my whole morning routine - shower, shave, eat breakfast, and read a little overnight LJ, in less than an hour. How did I ever do it when I was actually making posts in the morning before leaving for work?

Work is going through a "transformation" where they are changing up job roles and descriptions and who reports to whom and all. Personally I'm very nonchalant about the whole thing because there's no basis for "how it was before" to me, but others are worried. Still others are just saying that it's going back to the failed programs of previous directors, so that should turn out well.

Still, the new cafeteria at work seems to be getting better. Yea for hamburgers and pizza, but occasionally barbecue, too.

The pool in our neighborhood is out of commission for the summer. There's not enough money in the association budget to fix it, so all it sees is the occasional duck. Chris and I really should make it a point to find more friends with pools.

My friend Hans and his wife are coming to visit this weekend and we're taking them out to a Ranger's game this weekend. I don't think they will be staying all weekend, so I don't know how much we'll have to show them, but maybe they will stay for the Addison fireworks display - oh wait, Addison's Kaboom Town will be on July 3rd - great, I guess I can go after work on Monday. Dang, I hate it when these holidays are on middle weekdays. Still, if anyone wants to hang out and watch the fireworks...

Also, my mother called tonight and said that she and Dad were thinking of coming up to Dallas the weekend after next. luckily she said that they would be staying with my great aunt. I'm not sure they are ready to stay with us. Of course I really didn't offer. I've only had the folks visit my apartment a couple of times, so visiting in another city would be a little strange.

Still, I thought I'd get back to Houston before they got up here. Suddenly they are traveling all the time, since they have gone to Las Vegas and visited my sister in baltimore this year. Funny, they never travelled much before!

Lastly, I need to nail down what I'm doing for my big vacation this year, but i think i'll write more about it soon...needless to say, I have the last full week in August, and not plan one of what to do. I need to get things going before airfare becomes astronomical.

So, that's what's on my mind now...