Taking care of business

The past 2-1/2 weeks have been crazy busy for me, mostly with work and while I have so many things to say, I just haven't had time to say them.

However, here are some tidbits I'll be touching on, in no particular order, hopefully this weekend:

The European Space Agency
Dating, girlfriends & ex-girlfriends
Hockey
Work
Health, money and health insurance
New cell phone
Music
Blogging

That should keep me pretty busy I think!

I Will Remember You

Alok Kumar Mehta, Hempstead, NY - 23 years old

Five years ago today, as the world stopped because of these acts of horror and tragedy, Alok was working for Cantor Fitzgerald as a manager in the World Trade Center.

While I could not know the too-short story that was Alok's life, I am certain that his life will always be remembered by his friends, family and those who were acquainted with him even for the briefest of moments. His friends remember his terrible backrubs, his wicked sense of humor and his amazing knowledge of pro football stats. He graduated from Colorado State University in 1998 and had entered in the MBA program at Hofstra. He was interning at Cantor Fitzgerald when tragedy struck.

His friends recall that he was a very caring, open person with a huge heart. He was liked by everyone. Funny, smart, charismatic and he made everyone around him feel important.

That fateful morning, Alok was just a fresh-faced 23-year-old manager working in the World Trade Center, which was probably one of the biggest thrills of his life. I can only imagine the view he had on a daily basis; searching the horizon from his office, high atop the Trade Center. Did he scour the upper Manhattan skyline; the boroughs to the east; maybe he looked down upon New Jersey; or maybe he was able to view the Statue of Liberty lonely standing by herself in the Hudson River, the ever enduring symbol of the United States.

Alok, you are missed greatly by all those who know and love you. You are also missed greatly by those who have never met you, but will honor your life, and your death. Peace be with you.

I urge you to leave comments here for Alok or on these message boards:

September11victims.com

9-11 heroes.us

terroristattack.com

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Anyone who comes here knows that I don’t update on a regular basis. Last month, I only posted twice and one of those was only a link to something else. The reason for this lack of production is that I’ve actually had to be productive at work, but more on that later. Aside from work, while school has been going really well and my grades are good, however, it has been taking a lot of time to finish assignments. Nevertheless, I am now in my last 2 classes before I finish my Associates degree and then I’m taking 2 months off until January before I start on my Bachelor’s. I suppose that’s good news!

Now as for work, two weeks ago, two of our attorneys left to start their own firm and then last week another attorney left to start a new job at another firm. Needless to say, this has caused a serious amount of overload for everyone else, including me. My job is to make sure all of the files are transferred to other attorneys so none of them fall between the cracks. So far, so good, but getting the principal partner to reassign everything in between all of his regularly scheduled work has been a daunting task.

In addition to this, I am working with someone we hired to market the firm better. We are changing the face of the firm, changing the “brand”, hopefully for the better. I was assigned the task of designing a cover sheet to go on presentations for when we meet with potential clients. I have no background in graphic design or in marketing. I do know how to put a good PowerPoint presentation together, something I’ve learned from my classes, but I’m not sure how that really translates to this situation. On Friday, I presented 3 different designs, two of which I was not very pleased with and the other one was good, but I knew it needed something. After discussing and tweaking it with this marketing person, we presented it and it was very well received. I have to admit, I was pleased with the results myself and it was also extremely nice to have some of my work recognized while not worrying about taking the brunt of the dissent, since I was not the principal on this project. For a few minutes, I actually enjoyed my job and if you’ve read previous posts about the dislike I have for my job you’ll understand why this next issue is huge…

I’m putting looking for a job on the back burner for now. The job I wrote about two posts ago that I really wanted never called and I know the position has been filled, so my thinking is that I finish the Associates degree, and then try to find a job after the New Year’s. Plus, if I stay till next year, I’ll see a bonus check, which I could certainly use!

Ok, and the last thing that has changed or will change my life drastically is that in 2 weeks, my brother, who turns 19 next week, will be moving down here to live with me. I’ll have to be the big brother that I haven’t had to be so far and I’ll have to live with someone for the first time since being married over 6 years ago. The biggest positive for me will be the financial situation. After consistently racking up debt month after month, I’ll finally be able to start paying down debt…do I have to tell you how excited I am about that? I didn’t think so.

Lastly, I went on fantastic date Saturday night and I really like this girl, so maybe all that extra money will be spent elsewhere…but at least I wouldn’t mind spending it on someone other than me :)

Oh yea two more things…(1) On Friday I celebrted on year of keeping this blog, 104 posts in 365 days, eh, not great, but I'm going to try to to do better. (2) The NHL hockey season starts one month from today. Game. On.

Have a holly jolly Christmas

Where to begin? So many stories, so little time!

I arrived at the airport for my 114 pm flight a few minutes after 11 am figuring there is going to be a line at the ticket counter and a line to go through security, but I would still be early enough to have time to relax for a few minutes before boarding. Think again. At 1145 am, I was sitting in a seat at the gate waiting for the next hour and fifteen minutes to board my flight! There was no line at the ticket counter and I walked right up. I was about eighth or ninth in the line to go through security and I that didn’t take long either. So I plopped myself down, plugged in my laptop and here I am writing this post!

My flight to Atlanta was pleasant and the flight attendant was attractive and attentive, so that was nice.

When I arrived in Atlanta, I went right to the ticket counter to ask if I could get on standby for the earlier flight to Richmond, since I was on the last flight out, but wanted to get there earlier. The CSR asked if I carried on my bags and when I replied no, he said he was sorry, but I have to travel with my bags - even though we know this isn’t always true since luggage is lost all the time and if everyone were traveling with their bags, that would not occur – but I digress! So I consigned myself to my 5 hour layover and found a spot to plug myself in again and write this post! Remember all of this for future reference – you’ve been warned!

While I was waiting in line to speak with the CSR, there was a little boy, all of 3 years old sitting with his mother on the floor, near the gate. As every passenger passed by him, he yelled out, “Merry Christmas!” and we all thought it was funny and cute. The flight attendants waiting to board the plane were laughing hysterically, because it was pretty funny. The best part, however, was when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he yells, “Welcome to Atlanta!” followed by,“Happy Holidays!” and then he went back to his original greeting. It was so funny, if I had been in a bad mood, that surely would’ve turned it around.

I boarded my regularly scheduled flight around 855 thinking, “There is no way this plane is taking off on time (906 pm), but 15 minutes won’t kill us.” At 955 pm we finally pulled away from the gate after a few announcements from the Captain as to why we were still sitting there. At 1010 pm, we officially took off and at 1115 pm, we arrived at the gate in Richmond, almost 40 minutes late. I’m also going to mention that our landing was not bumpy, but it wasn’t smooth either. The term I am using is, “We Bounced.” Seriously, I think the pilot bounced us on the first touchdown and then eased it down again. It was a jarring landing, to say the least. Nonetheless, there is more!

I found my sister waiting for me and went to go get my luggage. After watching my entire flight find their luggage and leave the airport, we were left standing there, wondering where my bags are! So I trotted to the service counter and let the man know the situation. He asked for my last name and when I gave it to him he smiled, chuckled and said, “Your bags are already here, they came in on the earlier flight!” I asked him how that could’ve happened and he told me it happens all the time because the handlers don’t look at the time of the flight, the just see the code and put it on the next plane. So my bags and flew without me. Do you think they were scared of not being picked up?

I pledge allegiance to a nation without borders, without pride, without politicians like ourselves

I spend a small amount of time each day reading various blogs regarding problems with our local, state, national and international politics. I read people bitching, sharing their various annoyances and I read the reported facts regarding their issues so I am informed and can understand why they’re angry. The problem that has gotten under my skin recently however, is that while it is our American right to bitch, it’s also our American right to do something proactive to change these things. We all seem to have something to say and we are more than willing to use the fairly anonymous medium of the internet to say it, but I don’t see or read about anybody actually doing something about these issues. It’s all well and good that we can sign petition after petition at moveon.org and other places to share our displeasure, but that doesn’t entirely solve the problem. Here are my 2 cents: I think the blogging community should start running for public office. Apparently, bloggers all know what the problems are, it’s obvious to us, Joe Public, but it’s not as obvious to our government officials. Most bloggers who read and write about political ineptitude are pretty smart people and they reach the audience that many politicians, in my opinion, feel they are above. Why not turn our passion for cleaning up bureaucracy into a political campaign to stop the lying, cheating and ignorance that beholds many of our public officials. I think we could do it if we all put our heads together! Think of the things we could accomplish! We would focus on the needs of real people, who have real problems, instead of giving another tax cut to the wealthiest 1% of us. We could also tell auto manufacturers to raise the CAFE standards, which, in turn, would drop the price of oil and save us all a little money in the end. Hell, as long as we’re saving some money, then we could institute logical and fair campaign finance reform, which of course we would all abide by, and save more money! Politicians wouldn’t need to shuffle money from one place to the next to pay for our campaigns and end up in prison because we were so power hungry we were willing to do anything to keep that power. Bloggers unite, rise up and be counted – literally – our voices are already heard on a daily basis. We have an audience, what we do with it is up to us.

Yeah it’s halloween tonight and every night

Happy Halloween!

I didn't realize there were so many people against Halloween in the same way I am!

http://www.sarahhatter.com

Now I send back letters from the wasteland home

Click the title and you'll see that I couldn't have said it better myself. Or maybe I already did.

If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts.

So, I've decided that there comes a time when you just have to get everything off your chest. Hence, I have begun blogging. Some days my rants will be long-winded, some days they may be non-sensical, other days may find me in an unusual good mood, which means my rant will barely last a paragraph. You'll find me going off about any number of things from politics to religion to sports to life in general and possibly anything in between.

Feel free to comment about anything I have said because the only way I'll ever understand people is by hearing and understanding their point of view, whether I agree with it or not.

One more item of note: you may notice that all of the titles will be music lyrics. Music is the soundtrack of our lives and I can't think of a day that has gone by in th last 20 or so years of my life that doesn't have a song associated with it.

Again, please comment on them if you know what song they are from or are going to buy me tickets to the next concert!