hi. i'm whitney, a 22-year-old computer geek. this website is my release of angst, excitement, depression, and bliss. gird your loins, guys & gals.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008, 9:14 pm
if you need a website, i need business. i’m looking for some personal projects to get started on. i’ll design the smallest projects to full websites at reasonable prices. i’m re-designing my portfolio/resume with all of my latest completed projects so that should help. e-mail me if you need something.
saturday adam and i went to one of the frequent BBQ/drunkfests with the rest of his platoon & friends. we picked up a couple tubs of potato salad, a case of budweiser, and got there right as everyone started showing up. there was a pretty big turnout and i got to see everyone again (finally). it seems like everyone is leaving soon. well, they pretty much are. 2 couples we were close with just moved back home and now 3 of the guys in adam’s platoon that are pretty much his best friends here are getting stationed on the other side of the country. it’s sad because now there really won’t be anyone left from the old crowd that we all started out with. as much as i’ve wanted to strangle some of his buddies at one time or another, i can’t help but love ‘em to death. they feel like family.
so needless to say, it was nice to have another big get together yesterday with everyone that’s still here. i’m glad everyone made it. enough with the mushiness, i know.
anyway, it was a lot of fun. there was no drama. there was a TON of food (10 lbs of hamburger meat, brats, hotdogs, CRAWDADS!!, enough potato salad to feed the whole battalion) and even more beer. kristine and her husband brought their 2 little hellions ( i mean that in the nicest way possible) and another guy brought his daughter. and since our friend carly has been gone, it seems they’ve taken a liking to me for the time being. i learned chasing 6 year olds is not for wussies. also, i’m glad i remembered my inhaler. i made adam run in the house and get it for me because i thought i was going to pass out. they do the whole “you can’t catch me!” scheme and who can turn down a challenge to a 6 year old? then i really would be a wimp. that and they kept slapping me with weeds and that crap hurts after a while. i’ve got all these little cuts.
adam and one other guy thought it would be a good idea to barbecue a frog at some point during the night and one of the kids happened to witness it. i think he’s scarred for life. he actually likes animals, and prefers them alive.
we stuffed our faces up until the point when jennings said we should go to the bar. so we did.
i’d never been to this bar before and it turns out it’s right across the street from where i work. i had no idea it was there until i passed it walking to lunch this week. and i don’t think i’ll be going there ever again for a few reasons…
reason #1: it’s super freaking expensive. domestic beers were cheap so i bought adam and i a couple beers when we first got there. there was a $5 cover charge for everyone. i went to buy a shot of jack and asked the bartender how much it costs–$6. whiskey sours were even more. i was like are you kidding me? last time i bought a whiskey sour or even a shot of jack in this town it was not more than $4.
reason #2: drinking gives me a lot of guts, evidently. at one point in the night i had wandered off and was next to the stage singing “sweet caroline” at the top of my lungs. oh, and charlie daniel’s band. then adam said he remembered thinking “where did whitney go??” and he looked up and there i was. on stage. PLAYING THE DRUMS WITH THE DRUMMER. the one point during the night i wish like hell someone i knew had a camera on them, no one did. i would never imagine myself getting the guts to do that but i did and i just wish i knew how goofy i looked standing up there flailing drumsticks around. rock band on medium does not equal real drum skills. i don’t even remember what song i “played”.
reason #3: after my debut, i proceeded to snag his sweet cowboy hat and told adam we needed to get out the door as quick as possible. and that was that. i hope i never cross paths with them again. i mean, it is a pretty sweet hat.
so that was this weekend. sunday was spent recovering and going to see the 8:30 showing of the dark knight. if you haven’t seen it, go!! i am not exaggerating when i say it’s the best movie we’ve seen all year. it was hard to watch heath ledger play such a sinister role when he died right after it, but damn he’s funny. awesome movie.
i’m going to go finish cleaning. adam’s feet are all blistered and swollen because of their ridiculous amount of road marches in the last 2 weeks so i’ve been taking care of him and as a result, i’ve been taking less care of the apartment. between the animals and the military, it seriously needs cleaning up. oh and i cooked a freaking sweet dinner tonight–baked tilapia with balsamic vinaigrette dressing and bread crumbs, spicy red beans and rice, and salads. so good. i was proud. ok, ok! i’m done.
i’m in the middle of upgrading wordpress and i’m tired and irritable and i think if i stare at anymore SQL tonight i’m going to freak out. i had enough of that at work today as it is. and i didn’t even get any of my client’s work done tonight that i was supposed to do. i guess… i’ll do it on my lunch break. fjwejfiaw;ef!!!!1#($$#@*
and i accidentally deleted my smilies. sam, can you send me yours in a zip? because you have the same ones i had. i will love you forever. poo.
a few co-workers and i were walking to pick up lunch last friday and saw this sketchy guy walking past our office flinging something around in his hand. we got a little closer and realized it wasn’t a thing. it was a freaking cat. it was a little kitten that couldn’t have been more than about 7 weeks old and he was slinging it around like it was a briefcase.
we all thought it was the kitten our boss had rescued the week before and nursed back to health. this one was bony and starving and looked exactly like the other one, only we couldn’t figure out how it could have gotten out of the office. regardless, we told the guy it was ours and i grabbed it and took off running back to the office to give it a bath and feed it and basically spoil the shit out of it. the little guy scarfed down half of the chicken from my panini and i have been attached to it ever since. too bad we have to give it away. adam and i already have our hands full with our own pets.
jessica said that once she moves in a few weeks, she’ll be able to adopt it. until then, i agreed to take care of it. we already had all the cat stuff so it works out well. rampage and thor (that’s what we named it) play constantly (meaning until the sun came up this morning) and loki and jack just like to sniff its butt a lot. it’s one big happy family. even if i didn’t have TV or a laptop, i’m pretty sure i’d never get bored. watching all the animals play together is more than enough entertainment for a full day. i really need to get some of it on video.
i’ve been bringing thor to work every day since my boss brings the kitten she saved to work. they have play dates. :lol: they’re so cute and i want to take all of them home, but i think adam would drop kick me. he makes his rounds all over the office and visits with everyone. i think he slept in everyone’s lap at least once yesterday.
how could you not love him? i mean just look at how cuddly he is.
i love my lunch break at work. since julianna (my former lunch buddy and work-best-friend) left, i’ve been going to lunch with courtney or taylor or jessica almost every day. courtney is just crazy, jessica seems normal until you sit with her for 5 minutes or so, and taylor is about the weirdest guy i’ve ever met. i say all this in the nicest way possible… i love them to death.
i went to beef-o-brady’s with jessica and taylor today. normally taylor is the only one who will go to beef’s with me and we’ll get a couple beers and split nachos, but today was a special day and jessica graced us with her presence. and after a long morning, taylor and i decided to order long islands instead of our usual. we cracked jokes about clients, harrassed our waitress (i feel so sorry for every waitress that ever waits on those two), ate lots of junk food, and on our way out jessica and taylor threatened some poor woman on a bike. all in all, a normal lunch hour.
i really don’t want to leave in august. i don’t know how i’m gonna manage without some of these people around every day. i hope they know how much they cheer my sleepy ass up every day.
if you’re viewing my website in IE, then you’re probably seeing a lot of gray and i don’t like you. :yell: since microsoft wants to suck, transparent pngs don’t quite work the way they’re supposed to. i’ve given up for the night/morning so if it looks funny, go download firefox. goodnight.
the new design is a work in progress. i don’t know what got into me tonight, but after adam cooked dinner for me and passed out on the couch, i couldn’t reach the remote without moving and waking him up so i suppose i was forced to. i kinda like it, though. it’s very… sparkly. and i like sparkly.
the pages and crap will be up tomorrow most likely. unless i stay up all night finishing in it in which case, it will be up before 9AM tomorrow. i have this thing where if i start a project (ie. homework, a design, a book), i try to finish it in the same day. needless to say, i’ve been sitting here working on this design since like 7. i need to get a new hobby that doesn’t involve anything electronic. i think i need to go buy a fishing pole or a shotgun or something.
it is raining SO hard and thundering and lightning and the wind just picked up and i’m pretty sure this apartment is going to wash right into the creek that is quickly becoming a river. it was gorgeous today and now it’s storming somethin’ awful outside. geez.
today was a pretty fun day. i woke up (after hitting the snooze button for over an hour this morning) and showered and got to work. gave up my computer to the new girl and set up my own little workstation on my laptop in the corner of the office. :dork2: i finished up some updates on a few client websites in the midst of tweaking fedora to my heart’s content. actually, i was seriously committed to getting virtual box running under fedora with XP so i could install adobe master suite cs3. when i got it working i almost did cartwheels all the way down the hallway.
went and paid the power/water bill down the street, went next door and bought a 1/2 lb. of peanut butter chocolate fudge for my mom, came back, and my bosses had ordered pizza for everyone and we had a fun little “creative meeting” in the back room. our creative meetings are definitely creative and we do eventually accomplish a lot… eventually. we also do a lot of goofing off, plus my boss’s kitten is still staying with us while it recuperates (she found it in her driveway severely malnourished with a concussion) so i was sidetracked feeding it pepperonis and trying to think of brochure designs at the same time. mostly, the designs consisted of the kitten’s face plastered in the front above every possible cheesy slogan i could think of. it didn’t work out so well.
i came home and cleaned up the apartment a bit, put on some comfy clothes, washed my face, took the dogs out, and when adam got home we decided screw cooking dinner–ci ci’s sounded like a much better idea. we requested a buffalo chicken pizza (if you have never had one of them, i highly suggest going to your nearest ci ci’s and telling them to make you one) and each had a salad. like if we ate our salads with ranch dressing it would make up for the 13 pizza slices. i only had 3 but adam ate at least 12. sometimes i wish i could do that.
i’m glad we went out when we did because it’s even worse outside now than it was when i started writing 15 minutes ago. i’ve never heard so many cracks of lightning so close together this loud in my life. i’m actually kind of worried. not about the apartment because we’re on the 2nd floor, but i kind of hope my car does not float away. or fill up with water. does insurance cover that?
my boss is taking adam and i to see motley crue, buckcherry, papa roach, sixx:am, and trapt tonight in charlotte. i think motley crue is one of the most fun concerts i’ve ever been to. I CAN’T WAIT! i really hope adam likes it. he’s not a huge crue fan but the entertainment is wild.
i also can’t wait to get out of this apartment because i think if i stay here any longer i’m going to be sick. adam’s throat hurts because it smells so horribly disgusting in here. it reeks of cat pee and the carpet is beyond ruined. i’m pretty sure there’s other crap in there besides cat pee… like lots of beer and food. i shampooed the carpet before i left for fayetteville back in may and i can’t believe it. it’s sticky just walking on it. we got here at 5 yesterday and the front door and windows have been open ever since with incense burning and the fans on and it still smells worse than it’s ever smelled.
after i got past the cat smell, i walked into my room only to find out people had stayed in it while i was gone. i was infuriated. i specifically said before i left boone that i did not want anyone using/staying in/going in my room. that’s why i shut the door. now, i’m going to buy a padlock. i was going to buy one the last time my roommate let someone stay in there but decided since she apologized and i trusted her that i would dismiss going as far as buying a huge freaking lock. looks like i’m an idiot and should have done it anyway. i cleaned the hell out of my room before i left and made it look and smell super nice so when i came back up here for my birthday it would be all nice and fresh and i could relax, but obviously that can’t happen.
after i get dressed and finish laundry, i’m taking pictures of the apartment and going to the office and setting things straight. i refuse to pay for carpet cleaning or any kind of cleaning unless it has to do with the ridiculous number of nail holes in the wall. that, i must admit, is entirely my fault.
so much for a relaxing weekend but at least i got to hang out with jill and grainger and adam and see some friends in boone. oh, and go to macado’s, of course! i can’t wait for tonight.
adam’s buddies drove down from massachusetts last night and got here around 1:30 in the morning, which means we drove to the liquor store on post at about 2:30 AM and stocked up on vodka, whiskey, red bull, mountain dew, and mcdonald’s. within moments of those 2 walking in the door, i had a feeling today was going to be ROUGH. i was so very wrong.
we stayed up entirely too late last night and went to bed around 6:30 AM so i woke up super late. i washed my face, threw on a skirt, and ran out the door. i got to work and finished another website i’ve been working on which took me a whole 45 minutes and realized i had NOTHING to do. i’ve finished all that i can on every client’s site i’ve been coding and i’m still waiting on everyone else to give me their pictures/video/etc that corresponds with each client. since no one else is done, i am kind of stuck. so i got sent home at the lovely hour of 11:30 this morning. i just love my job.
i came home and adam was still sleeping. josh and ben were up chowing down on every bit of junk food in our apartment but i couldn’t stomach anything yet due to the fact that i was still reaping the “benefits” of last night’s shenanigans. i passed out for a couple hours and then adam and i took the guys on a quick tour of fort bragg, had fazoli’s for lunch, and now they’re taking over the entire living room with their world tour on rock band. josh is singing and it’s amazing how this game lets you get every word wrong and still pass. i don’t think they will ever have a music career… :lookright:
for a while now i’ve been dreading this week because i figured work would kill all the fun but when i asked my boss for wednesday-friday off (saturday is my birthday and i wanted a long weekend) she acted surprised that i even asked for it. it was strange. so now the only real work day i have is tomorrow if i even stay the whole day then. i still don’t have anything to do, so we’ll see. i’m still not sure what’s in store for tonight. tomorrow night and wednesday night we’re going camping on the beach. thursday night, adam and i are going to winston and hopefully going out with jill and mykke and then friday and saturday we’re going to boone. my boss is taking us to see motley crue, sixx am, buckcherry, papa roach, and some other band in charlotte saturday night for my BIRTHDAY!! :biggrin: basically, it’s going to be another incredible birthday/birthday week.
i’m freaking stoked. crossing my fingers that nothing bad happens…
i never really realized how lucky i’ve gotten as far as jobs go. between working at tech. support the last 4 years and now working at an advertising/creative studio, i have experienced a phenomenal amount of employee politics/drama/entertainment/bullshit and i’ve learned more STUFF than i ever wanted to learn. i’ve worked with the weirdest people i’ve met in my life and most of my closest friends came out of these 2 jobs (that says a lot ). the weirdest part is i just kind of fell into both jobs.
working at tech. support is probably one of the things i will miss most when i get out of college/leave boone/leap into the scary real world. it’s kind of like a magical happy place with a ton of nerds, computers, gadgets, booze (after crappy, long days), irritable and often quirky customers, lewd and disgusting and hilarious dialogue, and not nearly enough sanity to go around. it’s basically the best job in the world. after writing this paragraph, i realize how much i miss boone as i’m living down here for the summer. i’m excited about driving up for my birthday weekend. i miss jill and laura and all my friends and my crazy neighbors and everyone at work. i even miss campus and i especially miss my bed. GOSH, i’m so excited.
ANYWAY, what i was getting at was… the job i stumbled upon in craigslist where i’m now employed reminds me a lot of tech. support. the atmosphere is laid back and fun and energetic and everyone has their own little niche in the nerd world. we have photographers and videographers and writers and flash artists and painters and 3D animators and radio guys who can make anyone sound like a UFC announcer. there are so many talented people that it’s impossible not to learn something new every day, and sitting there all day is so enjoyable to me. i sit in my little corner of the office with fudge and a coke (in a tiny glass bottle, no less!) and take in all the drama that seems to unfold in large quantities every day. the drama… OH the drama. it’s anything but boring.
one of my bosses is a bit of a drama queen and is SO funny to listen to when she’s angry. i love her, although i’d hate to ever get on her bad side. her husband is the CEO and he mostly wanders around with coffee in hand going from office to office striking up conversations about night rider and complaining about getting “old” when he’s barely over 30. another one of my bosses is a super nice younger woman who is from some spanish speaking country i can never remember and i’m probably going to go back to boone saying “SI!” to everything. my supervisor is a new guy who just got hired last week and i’m envious of his amazing paintings. i’m working on a website for him and i really want one of his prints but that would probably cost me an arm and a leg. i share an office with 2 uber nerds (and i don’t mean that in a bad way). one of them is super good at drawing comics/anime-type stuff and the other is our 3D animation guy. courtney is our secretary who sits up front all day and since julianna has left me and moved to south korea, courtney has become one of my lunch buddies. jessica, our photographer, is my other lunch buddy. she mostly makes fun of me for eating humongous amounts of fudge and tweaking out during the day. and then there’s taylor, our videographer, who is basically our comic relief. i should say he’s our biggest comic relief because everyone is extremely out there and in their own world and we all talk to ourselves, but he’s the most outgoing. when i say outgoing, i mean he goes out of his office and will a) steal your food or b) pull your hair or c) flip you the bird at any given moment. or sometimes even shove a camera in your face.
i’m really split when i think about leaving in august. i love this job but i miss boone and my apartment and my stuff and of course i have to finish school. let’s not forget about that. i’m hoping they’ll let me work remotely when i leave. at least it will give me lots of good memories and hopefully i’ll be able to keep in touch with a lot of the people i’ve met.
that’s enough sappy crap because i know i’m going to start getting nostalgic! my mom called and i talked to my dad and it made me miss home and i got an early birthday card in the mail today from my grandma and almost cried because it was so unexpected. that made my day even better. i’m going to call her tomorrow and thank her. adam and i are all snuggled up on the couch and i’m getting fedora back to normal (i reformatted for a 3rd time over the weekend but this time vmware server AND my wireless are working perfectly!) and watching tapout and watching the animals maul each other. this is the life.
hi. i'm whitney, a 22-year-old computer geek. this website is my release of angst, excitement, depression, and bliss. gird your loins, guys & gals.
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enough with the mushiness, i know. 
i mean that in the nicest way possible) and another guy brought his daughter. and since our friend carly has been gone, it seems they’ve taken a liking to me for the time being. i learned chasing 6 year olds is not for wussies. also, i’m glad i remembered my inhaler. i made adam run in the house and get it for me because i thought i was going to pass out. they do the whole “you can’t catch me!” scheme and who can turn down a challenge to a 6 year old? then i really would be a wimp. that and they kept slapping me with weeds and that crap hurts after a while. i’ve got all these little cuts. 
ok, ok! i’m done.
poo.
i only had 3 but adam ate at least 12. sometimes i wish i could do that.
