Snowballing......

It is what it is, the rare morning post.

As fortune (good or bad) may have it, the servers that enable me to do my day to day job underwent patching over the last weekend. As such they have yet to come back online correctly. So what does this mean? It means I have a small chunk of free time with which to converse about the topic.

What is also means is this: I'm going to have a shit ton of work to do once everything comes back online.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm pretty much an expert on letting work pile up on me and then knocking it out of the park. But this is getting somewhat ridiculous. Usually at most I'm looking at two to three days of work I may have to catch up on in any given week. This is normal, as by default I'm always working on records from the day before. Likewise, since I don't work on weekends, on Monday's I'm always facing down Friday's and Saturday's workload. This I'm prepared for. Even three days work isn't too bad, on the rare occasion that I take a three day weekend.

But by the time everything gets corrected, there's a high probability that I'll be a week behind or worse.

Not fun by any means. But hey, it'll keep me on task right?

So in the meantime, good morning! How are you? I'm great!

More to come,

Jimmy

2 1/2 Weeks in the Life - Busy busy busy busy....

My my it's been a long time.

Hope all of you are doing well, and I'm sure you are.

So what's new?

Here's what's new....

Well, the last couple of weeks have been a blur. We'll start with my sister.

So my sister has been with her fiancee Peter for some time, which may or may not have alot to do with their son Brandon, who was born about 3 and a half years ago. Together they've joined families, both having children from previous marriages, and now all of them reside happily in Roswell. And after 4 happy years together, my sister decided to make an honest man out of Peter. So the wedding was set for Sunday the 14th of June.

In addition, they decided to utilize my brother's services as well.

As you may or may not recall, when Crystal and I tied the knot three years ago, we had my brother ordained so he could perform the ceremony. I had already chosen my best man, but had wanted my brother to have as important a role as possible, so it was a thoughtful way to include him in the wedding without relegating him to usher or some other nonsense. So the 'no brainer' answer was to have him ordained online, which we did. So they flew him down from Hawaii to visit and perform the ceremony.

Of course, as life would have it, my last concert with the Juarez Symphony took place as well in the same week. Originally planned for Saturday the 13th, the concert was moved to the 14th, overlapping my sister's wedding. As much as I would have liked to skip the concert and attend the wedding, it was too much of a double whammy to miss out on the extra money (i.e. spend money to be at the wedding and lose money by not playing the concert). So we split the difference and I played the concert while Crystal and Caitlyn attended the wedding. More on that later.

So all week long it was your basic wash, rinse, repeat with work and symphony rehearsals.

Thursday (6/11), my brother flew into El Paso from Hawaii. I took some time off from work and we all went out to The Olive Garden for dinner in El Paso, and everyone went their separate ways (Crystal and Caitlyn to Las Cruces, my parents and Chris to Alamogordo, and me to my rehearsal in El Paso).

My sister's wedding took place in Ruidoso, where her and Peter had reserved a hall specifically for such occasions. One of those nice, all inclusive package type deals where one price covered food, decoration, music, libation, etc. The whole family, sans yours truly, travelled up to Ruidoso on Saturday to check into the hotel and unwind for a bit. Meanwhile, we were in Cruces doing whole lot of nothing.

On Sunday, Crystal and I parted ways as she left to Ruidoso with the baby, and I left for my morning rehearsal in Mexico. I was in it for the long haul, as the morning rehearsal went from 10am to 1pm and the concert started at 6pm, so there was no sense in enduring the wait to travel back to El Paso for the afternoon. So I stayed in Juarez for the whole day, just hanging out at the concert hall playing the DS. On the plus side, I did complete the New Super Mario Bros. , so hooray me.

This time around we were playing Donizetti's "Elixir of Love", which is really a great opera if you have a chance to see it. Take your basic love triangle, toss in a travelling salesman with a magic elixir, add a pinch of coincidence, and BAM! Great music, one really great famous tenor aria (Una Furtiva Lagrima), and some comedy to boot.

But I digress...

So Crystal drives up to Ruidoso to meet up with my parents and my brother. Once she arrived everyone started getting ready for the afternoon. As with most weddings, there was the usual catastrophic event, as my sister's hairdresser failed to show up. Some rainfall as well moved the locale from the outdoors to the indoors. But in spite of some delays, everyone arrived safely and the wedding went swimmingly, much to the delight of all in attendance. I've only seen pictures, but it all looked beautiful, and I'll get some online eventually (about as fast as I've gotten Caitlyn's pictures up).

Meanwhile, back in Mexico, I finished up the opera around nine and promptly headed up to Ruidoso. The bridge back to the states only had about a 30 minute wait, due the the new Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requiring everyone from the US to have a passport or passport ID, plus they're still killing people pretty regularly down there so the Mexican army is everywhere. All in all, if I didn't have to be there, it would probably discourage any recreational travel there on my part. Of course I've been procrastinating so I didn't have the necessary documentation (just my driver's license and birth certificate), so I got a stern talking to both on Sunday and after Saturday night's rehearsal. No worries though, because I'm not headed back that way until September, leaving me plenty of time to obtain a slick new passport ID.

So I haul ass all the way up to Ruidoso and get there around midnight. I've missed the whole wedding, but I'm still in time to spend some time with the family before everyone falls asleep. The following morning we all had breakfast and everyone parted ways again after a nice morning swim. Nancy and Peter left for their honeymoon in San Antonio, and the rest of us drove back to my parent's house in Alamogordo. We spent the day there relaxing and then left later that evening back to Las Cruces, and brought my brother along.

Back home, we picked up some cerveza, some food from Sonic™ (I know it sound's weird, but they don't have them in Hawaii), kicked off our shoes, and relaxed.

Tuesday morning we slept in, then hit up Santa Fe Grill for some Breakfast Dream's (egg, green chile, cheese, potato, and your choice of meat - our's being chorizo). We went to Mesilla to shop the afternoon away, as my brother picked up some gifts for the return trip home. That evening we went to Si Señor's for dinner and margaritas, then it was back to Alamogordo to hang out with my parents the night before my brother was flying back to Hawaii.

Wednesday morning (6/17), we all had breakfast and then high tailed it to El Paso once more to deliver my brother back into Hawaii's open arms. It was quite the caravan, as my mother and father packed in all my sister's kids and my brother rode with Crystal, Caitlyn and I. We had some coffee at the Starbucks™ in the airport, gave him one last round of special-ed-sized hugs, and watched his plane take off (albeit, after waiting forever thanks to "security").

My parents took the kids over to Ft. Bliss to do some shopping at the PX there, while Crystal, Caitlyn and I travelled back to Las Cruces to wind down. We were all feeling a bit under the weather, so we arrived home and promptly slept the rest of the day away.

Since then, back to work as usual... wash, rinse, repeat.

Friday (6/19) was Crystal's 25th birthday. We celebrated by going to Peter Piper Pizza for her niece's birthday party... yay. But no, really, we'll find a way to make it special, just as soon as she finds something she wants so we can buy it as her gift (that's just the way it seems to work with us).

Saturday we went to the mall and shopped for Father's Day for her dad and my dad. We ran into some friends at JCPenney whom we haven't seen in awhile, and were invited to hang out with them that evening, which we did. Just drinking some beers and catching up on old times.

Sunday, of course, was Father's Day. We all slept in, Caitlyn and I especially, and left the house at about noonish to pick up some desserts for our visit with Crystal's grandfather. We spent a couple of hours out that way than returned to town and went by her dad's house to give him his gift. After relaxing for a short while, it was off again to Alamogordo to meet up with my parents and give my father his gift. We were able to see Nancy, Peter, and the kids once more, as they returned from their honeymoon over the weekend and were in town to pick up their kids and visit for Father's Day as well. Finally, it was one last long drive back to Las Cruces, and our cozy beds.

So yeah, there ya go. There's the past couple of weeks in a nut shell.

Hope life finds you well!

Jimmy

P.S. 3 years today!

Being married that is...

A Week in the Life 22 - The Story So Far

Ahh, welcome back friends!

Ok here goes.

I applied for a timekeeping position at work a while back. The position didn't necessarily offer more in terms of pay, but it's a back office job which would alleviate my time on the phone processing claims. In addition, it didn't require any weekend work.

So I went ahead and put my name in the hat. I really liked the idea of having a job with weekends off, and there's something to be said for not spending all day on the phone filing insurance claims. It's not a bad job by any means, but it can affect your mood depending on the severity of the claim (i.e. fatalities), or the demeanor of the caller (i.e. total asshole).

So, I was pulled from my desk last Monday the 11th. I had previously sat down with management to discuss the ins and outs of the position a couple of times before, but they went ahead and let me know that I was their second choice. I really had no preference one way or the other, because in this day and age a job's a job, so I returned to my desk to finish out my day.

A couple hours later I was pulled from my desk a second time. This time I was informed that the person chosen for the position had declined, meaning the position was mine for the taking. So as of last Monday I'm the new timekeeper... hooray me. Since then I've been busy training for the job, and my schedule has been shifted to overlap the person moving out of the position. So it's been a busy week and I apologize for my absence, but things are returning to normal so full steam ahead.

Now my day consists of adjusting work schedules, keeping track of employee's missed time, and making sure people get paid correctly for overtime, vacation time, bereavement, etc. It's a whole lot of numbers to crunch working with 200+ employees, but it's right up my alley and I'm enjoying it a great deal.

____________________________________________________________________

In addition, I had the pleasure of spending some time with my old friend Liz Gaylor. Liz was the bees knees of viola players when we played together both at Alamogordo High School and for a time in the Las Cruces Symphony before she moved on to bigger and better things. Through the magic that is Facebook we were able to reconnect, providing us an opportunity to catch up on lost time.

Saturday I played with the New Horizons Orchestra. New Horizons is an organization which oversees the forming of community music groups to cater to adults and senior citizens whom are just learning a new instrument, or may have played before but have been inactive for some time. The purpose is to provide, you guessed it, new horizons for those local educators, casual musicians, would be musicians, and all those who love playing music but never get the chance.

I must say I had a great deal of fun playing with the group. There's something to be said for playing music for the sake of playing music. It has a certain fulfilling quality you don't find when you're playing professionally. Don't get me wrong, I love that I am able to perform at a level that makes people think they have to pay me, but there's a certain gratitude people have for volunteer work that you simply will not find anywhere else. I guess you could say I'm pro pro bono, and I look forward to playing with the group again whenever I'm available.

So, in grand coincidental style, it turns out that Liz's mother performs as the principal flautist with the New Horizons Orchestra, which worked out great in terms of finding a time to get together for a beer. I must say for the record that she hasn't aged a day since we were in high school (a strange phenomenon amongst AHS alumni). We headed over to Farley's for a pitcher of Dos Equis Lager, and Crystal and Caitlyn met us there to shoot the breeze.

On Sunday, the family and I went down to El Paso for the day. Crystal was shopping for a dress to wear to my sister's upcoming wedding, and I was searching for some top notch Chinese buffet action. We were both successful. In addition, we procured some knockoff shades, so when you see Crystal rocking her Coach and Chanel sunglasses, make sure you envy her. But really, it's pretty fucking bright over here, so we bought the first sunglasses we could find. In the evening, Liz and her mother came by the house for a quick final visit before she left back to Fort Collins on Monday.

All in all, a very busy week, and a whole lot of fun.

So, this week I'll be adjusting to my preferred sleeping schedule of staying up late and waking up not as early. Can't wait for the weekend and the drunken stupor that is the Southern New Mexico Wine Festival. Should be, again, a great deal of fun.

Hope you all have a wonderful week and nice talking to you again.

Jimmy

P.S. Thanks for the gas!! (You know who you are.)

The Weekend Cometh

Well, here we go into another weekend. After work today it's off to the house for some much needed family time. Tomorrow it's more of the same as I return to work a half a day or so, since I took Wednesday off for those Children's Concerts and to run my laundry list of errands. After work I'm off to play with the LCSO for the family concerts, basically the same as the Children's Concerts but open to the public with cheap tickets. Prior to the concert we'll do a petting zoo for instruments, where the kids and hold and play with the instruments. No playing the wind instruments this year due to Porkatosis spreading around, but it's still a great way for the kids to interact with the instruments and ensures we'll have replacements someday when we go to that big rehearsal in the sky.

Tomorrow night, a whole lot of nothing.

Sunday of course is Mother's Day. So I'll save my sappy emotional material until then. Plans are take out mom and dad to see Star Trek, while Crystal and Caitlyn head over to her grandmother's house to celebrate there. We'll meet up in the middle, do some dinner, and then probably sit around, sip on some coffee, and shoot the shit. Maybe on Saturday I can do something for Crystal, since Sunday is already pretty full with family. I'm not sure what yet, but I'll think of something.

The rest of the month is shaping up to be rather uneventful. Concerts with the Juarez Symphony have been shifted to June due to Mad Sow Disease, so my workload has shifted a bit. We'll probably hit up the Southern New Mexico Wine Festival over Memorial Day weekend. I'll have a 3 day weekend so it should be a whole lot of fun. Let me know if you need me to ship you over a bottle or two of New Mexico's finest. Please abstain if expecting, you know who you are.

More to come,

Jimmy

A Week in the Life #17 - Hasenpfeffer

Well this week, like so many before it, will come and go rather uneventfully. The usual work and school combination, with just enough free time to take care of errands and family.

Took most of the weekend off from the Internet, something that Jimmy-from-five-years-ago would have never foreseen. It seems to happen more and more these days. Used to be I'd never go through an entire 24 hour period without being online, but now it just sort of happens. Funny how no matter where your focus lies in life, life finds a way to shift it without you noticing. It is a bit strange, when not so long ago most of my waking hours were spent in front of the computer. However, since I don't seem to notice, I'll leave it be.

Work is fine, although each week seems to bring another set of micro-managing rules. Don't do this, stop doing that, do it this way instead of this way. I'm sure it's not too different than most jobs, but it tends to feel a bit cliche (i.e. one bad apple). Whatever, I get off at 3:45 so by the time I care I'm already home. Besides, I'm no hypocrite.

Looking forward to Easter weekend. Had the weekend off already and took Monday as a vacation day, so we'll get to see all the family and gorge ourselves with rabbit stew and deviled eggs. I'm just sayin' cause people buy up all those roadside "Bunnys-4-Sale" rabbits since they're so cute, and before you know it our rivers are choked with dead Lepus. So I'm taking it upon myself this year to eat as many abandoned Easter bunnys as I can to ensure they don't contaminate the public water supply. It's just one more service I offer. As for the deviled eggs, I'm sure you can figure that one out for yourself.

Anyway, we'll make the local family rounds and then eventually head over to Alamogordo to visit my parents and my sister's family. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Caitlyn cleans up in the chocolate rabbit department. Diabetes doesn't onset itself you know.

So, the rest of the week should be posts as usual, I've got nothing going on at lunch through Saturday so I'll have the free time. No more concerts until the week of the 25th, so hopefully I can catch up on a few things. If not, the free time will allow me to come to terms with not giving a shit.

Yesterday: Off, taking care of business (BTO FTW).

Today: Work, dinner with family, freeing up hard drive space.

Tomorrow: Never Dies

Movies watching: Bedtime Stories, Marley and Me, The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire.

Going to watch: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Yes Man, The Tale of Despereaux.

Reading: Lamb: The Gospel According to Bif, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore.

More to come,

Jimmy

Work Ethics - Friday I'm in Love

Ahh, work. Nothing says "I'd rather be home" than a long, drawn out day at the job.

My little cubicle, my handy computer, surrounded by co-workers all diligently dedicated to their jobs.

Technically I'm at lunch. However, it seems that I spend so much time on my ass that eating excessively throughout the day leads to a little known condition called uncontrollable fat-ass. These days I'll bring a piece of fruit or some other healthy alternative. Since I'm so sedentary these days it's a good idea to reduce my calorie intake to the same level of what I burn by sitting in front of a computer upwards of 10-12 hours a day. Now of course I can't blame all that time on work, as I'm just a guilty for sitting on my ass at home, more than likely in front of a computer.

But the great thing about internet access at work is that time otherwise spent ingesting high-calorie deep fried burritos can be spent posting unnecesary conversations such as this one. And what better country than America to utilize time at work to complain about being bored at work with nothing to do. It's the epitome of freedom, the freedom to complain about the freedom to complain. USA! USA!

Anyway, it's a lovely Friday and I have no rehearsals tonight. I'm going to get out of here, run home, kiss my wife, hug my baby and gorge myself with bacon. Then I'll probably end up where I began, in front of a computer working on getting a little fatter, complaining about not having anything to complain about.

It's really quite wonderful.
Jimmy