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You know, the problem with being away from one’s home for a week is that when you come back, you discover that you have no food, as it was eaten before you left, or has gone bad. But that’s getting a little ahead of things, let’s go back to the past.

Sunday Synopsis: Never try to find parking near LAX on Christmas morning. If there had been a stable, I would have parked in it. There was a hotel that would accept visitor parking though, and I don’t want to talk about the cost. Fortunetly, I’m obsessive about arriving at the airport very early, so even with parking problems, I was still on time. And my flight was on time. And landed early, giving me enough time to get something to eat to take on my connection flight. Which also landed early. Which is entirely unheard of for me travelling. Two hours home though the rain/snow/more rain/possibly snow again.

Monday: Shop for things for my niece and nephew who would be coming in in the evening. Chop wood, haul wood. Eat many foods.

Tuesday: Open presents (Firefly DVD set, hooray!), sort out various conflicts between niece and nephew (It truly is “MY little pony” not yours, not even for a second) . More food. Haul old water heater out of the basement.

Wednesday-Friday: Food. Oh yes, food. Install a cabinet my dad made at someone’s house. Haul wood from a vacant, and hopefully soon to be sold, lot that used to have a trailer, but now only has the wood that was a trailer. Assemble and install an antenna, trouble-shoot why the TV still doesn’t work. Buy a new amplifier and install various components on the roof.

Saturday: Fly out of Detroit next to two people who could not stop with the constant touching and rubbing each other. Which may have been pretty well explained by the Wellbutrin XL tablet that fell into my lap when one of them stood up. An anti-depressant which (from a less than official webpage) has a “low chance of sexual side effects, unless you consider making you hornier a sexual side effect.”

LA decided to have a bout of midwestern weather, so it was raining when I got back, which means I haven’t seen the sun in a week. And at some points I’m pretty sure I was driving through water up to my car doors. Which does indicate that my car was still where I had left it. Which was a positive sign, since I couldn’t be sure I’d parked somewhere I could leave it for a week.

I’m probably not going out anywhere to celebrate the New Year. Except for the 1999-2000 transistion, I do not normally do so. And the person who invited me out is sick today. And in terms of local time, I’ve been up since…ah yes…about 2:30 this morning.

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Yeah, it’s time I move. I guess the apartment above me got broken into Wednesday and some stuff taken. The cops came and visited me just after I got home from work to see if I’d heard anything, but I was at work, so, nope, I didn’t. I’d noticed the police car out front when I came home but didn’t really think anything of it.

I can’t say that my new place will be any safer, there will still be only one lock between people and the inside of my apartment, but at least that is how it was designed. Here there should be several locks, but it’s not maintained that way. The exterior doors and gates don’t close themselves very well, so most of the time it’s possible to just pull them open and come in.

On the plus side, the gas is now on in the new place, so there is hot water and heat (now that it’s getting warm again out) and a working stove. Still no rack in the oven, so it will be hard to bake, but other than that, I think it’s minimally ready to be moved into, so I’ll start taking stuff down at the beginning of the month.

Filed under: Scott Complaining
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Ever notice that the Romance and Sci-fi/Fantasy sections in book stores are always next to each other? It’ s not just that they come next to each other alphabetically, I’ve noticed other sections being randomly scattered about. I think it’s some sort of social experiment on the part of the book stores. Trying to mix two things that cannot be mixed, like oil and water, cats and dogs, women with somewhat unfulfilled sex lives and geeky guys…..wait, I think I’m seeing the up side now. Apparently whoever lays out the stores deserves some sort of prize.

I need to start shopping for books more often, by which I mean, being in a book store and paying close attention to those whose author begins with “A”

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Today was lease signing day for the new apartment. Unfortunetly the normal staff was not there today, so I got a temp who was on his second day. All in all the lease itself was pretty reasonable, other than there being no mention of my cat, only pentalties for having an unregistered pet, so I’ll have to go in monday and try to get that fixed. Which I would have to do anyways, since they are expecting to have my mailbox key that day as well.

The garage I was assigned has a padlock on it, and no one knew what to do about that, so I’ll need to try to get that solved. Only one of the keys they gave me for the apartment worked, but they got that fixed while I was still there. Aparently they cut their own keys, and they aren’t very good at it.

Other than that it was just the normal “look over the apartment and write down what’s wrong” stuff. Nothing I’m really concerned about other than the lack of gas so there is no heat, hot water, or functioning stove (which is missing the shelves in the oven). And I don’t think I’ve seen many two prong outlets, considering that they have been out of use longer than I’ve been alive. And the dishwasher is plugged into a cheap extension cord that specificly says to keep away from water (I seem to recall that appliances like dishwashers usually have the three-prong plugs too, yet the extension cord did not. How odd)

I think I’ll feel better about it once it’s less empty.

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All week he kept telling me I’d stop liking him Saturday, and he was right. I was ok with the plastic box he brought home. It was kind of fun to go in for a little while, but then I lost interest and went to sit in the window and watch the squirrels. But then he shut me in it and carried me out of my territory and to a place that smelled like animals. I expressed my concerns about this turn of events, but he wasn’t listening and left me there for 4 hours!

They made me wet and soapy, and then mostly dried me. You could at least to a good job; do you have any idea how long it takes fur like this to go from moist to really dry? I’ll be lucky if I’m all dry by tomorrow. And then they cut my claws. Oh, but revenge will me mine. While they are dull now, that just makes them all the better to sharpen on everything I can get my paws on. hehehe.

Boy-Owner did come back and get me, so that is one thing in his favor, but I’m not sure I can trust him anymore. He used to rescue me from the places Girl-Owner would leave me, but now that I don’t see her anymore, he’s being just as bad.

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Still no word on if I’ve been accepted for the apartment I applied for. The leasing agent seemed to indicate that she’d get back with me yesterday. I guess I’m going to have to call if I don’t hear anything tomorrow.

On the work front, I don’t have too much going on right now, I think most of the clients are putting off signing new project authorizations until the new year, so until then, it’s just some internal work, one client, and trying to expand my work over to the purification side of the department. I pretty much know what I’m doing at this point, but it tends to fill large blocks of time, so if I have anything else going on, it’s hard to get over there. Supposedly, a new person is going to be joining the department though, so I may get freed up a bit more once she’s trained. She’s been a manager in the manufacturing department of another pharmaceutical company, so I have to assume she’s competent, and just not experienced in the cell culture aspect of the job.

And speaking of manufacturing, a client of ours just got their FDA approval, so we are now one of the few approved manufacturers of biological active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) in the nation. Hooray for us! It pushed our stock price over $1 for a day.

Filed under: Scott Complaining
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I think I’ve found a new apartment. I toured the model and the property today, and it looked ok. I would have put a hold on it, but I didn’t have enough cash to get a money order at the near-by 7-11, and I couldn’t find an atm, so, I’ll do that Monday. And then hopefully I’ll get it, and then I can move to only have a 20 minute or so commute.

It seems like a pretty good place, a townhome in a 4 unit building, bedroom and bathroom upstairs, with a balcony off the bedroom, and living/dining/kitchen downstairs with a fenced in patio. Lots of cabinets and some closets. I have to pay all the utilities, but at least that means I get my own hot water heater. And I think I’ll have to get a refridgerator, but it shouldn’t be too hard.

And Maui will have stairs to run up and down and jump off of.

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I think I’m starting to get forgiven by my cat for going away for Thanksgiving. The first few days of the week, he wouldn’t wait by my door for me to get up in the morning, or by the door when I get home from work, but today he did both. Yesterday, he appeared to have left the apartment entirely while I was at work, since I couldn’t find him when I got home. As it turns out, he has learned to jump on top of the vent above the stove, and then, while standing on that, open the cabinets there and go inside.

I’ve never known a cat at good with cabinet doors as this one. He knows how to open them to get in, and he knows he can push them open to get out. Even ones I can’t get open well, he does, such as one in the bathroom which he likes to get onto the upper shelf inside. I tried to tell him I’m going to shut him in someday if I don’t check first, but he doesn’t listen.

Also we both seem to have fleas now. So the plan is to send him off to be groomed this weekend, and fog the apartment to kill them off while he is out. And probably while I’m out as well.

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