Evil Neighbors

Many already know this fact - I HATE MY NEIGHBORS!

These twits live above me and have no respect for anyone living around them. I regularly shake my fist in their general direction (sometimes pounding on the ceiling with it) because of the amount of noise they produce. I'm a reasonable person - I understand that apartment or condo life is going to come with noise from the neighbors. They have young children that stay home with someone during the day instead of going to day care. Kids make noise...ok... However, I refuse to accept what sounds like the moving of furniture at all hours of the day and night as reasonable. The jumping off of the furniture, bouncing of basketballs (?), and such have continually created enough vibration to knock things off of my bookcase and ledges on the wall. Grrr!

Their balcony is right outside my bedroom window as well. Always fun when they like to move the furniture around while they smoke. Even better when they sit out there and talk on the phone in the middle of the night.

Today has pissed me off even more. One of their cars is parked in the parking lot (which my bedroom overlooks) and has a car alarm that keeps going off every 5 minutes. I hate car alarms! No one pays attention to them and they simply annoy the crap out of people who have to be near them.

I don't know what jackass nation they came from (someone in the family is a diplomat according to the license plate of their other car) but they need to go back there...NOW! I'll even help them pack...

That Bitter Taste

You know...the one you get in your mouth when someone says something that just rubs you wrong?

For example:

1. Nuke-u-lar: wtf? Highly educated people discussing politics, international relations, security policy, and so forth (all while criticizing the current administration as a whole for being stupid, fascist pigs of world destruction) should learn how to pronounce this word correctly. I couldn't tell you why the mispronunciation of nuclear bothers me so much but it makes me cringe. It absolutely makes my skin crawl to hear people that make this mistake criticize policy makers while in the act of mispronunciation. Hypocritical fucksticks are the worst kind!
2. Ex-military: simple mistake I suppose, but a serious lack of respect that never ceases to annoy me. Let me clarify. I pay attention to the military. I respect the military establishment and those who have offered their service to our nation. I study, in part, military affairs in a program with people who study aspects of national policy that include the military. You can't get out of our program without talking about the military. Most people work for defense agencies or something similar. So why is it that these people, completely doused with military lingo, don't understand the difference between ex and former in this context? Catch me on a bad day and I have vignettes dancing through my head of reaching across the table, grabbing the offender by the collar, and flatly correcting him before returning him to his seat. But the idea always makes me smile - he'll never see it comin'

Off to brush my teeth...

The Kids, part II

These are the kids playing in the snow that kept me in SW VA yesterday instead of in class. I will admit, they are cute...and they are having lots of fun... they are just more fun when they play with each other - OUTSIDE!


GUSTY


DAKOTA


NORMAN

The Kids

I've been in SW Virginia since last Friday...and as much as I'll miss the boytoy - I'm SO outta here! Everytime I visit my conviction against having kids is further solidified. You see, there are three dogs in this house (keep in mind I said dogs, not puppies). Doesn't sound all that bad, right? Wrong. Roommate 1 has the cutest furball mutt you could imagine...only she's allergic to everything and in scratching herself she leaves piles of fur everywhere. That, in combination with the dust in the old, freezing house...not fun for the sinuses. Roommate 2 has the dumbest oaf of a rottweiler that you'll ever meet. I swear, she almost forgets to breathe... But, she's taken to believing I have one of her toys so she jumps and snaps at me. I'm not really afraid of dogs, but I don't take kindly to a 95 lb dog clamping on my elbow either. Once she gets worked up, she just gets too aggressive and doesn't know how to stop (even if you distract her, she comes right back at it). She stole my socks this morning too - they were only 3 ft away from me! Boytoy himself as an extremely high maintenance, hyperactive boxer. He needs attention CONSTANTLY and he is vocal about it. Did I mention the massive separation anxiety? He paced and whined while I took a shower this morning. And then wouldn't even look at me when I was done. He's a trouble maker too (although, very well trained in most respects). Always knocking over the trash, taking things off the counter, hell...he even jumped up and stood at the kitchen counter like a person this morning...while I was making a sandwich on the other counter. Talk about brave. No way would he do that in front of his daddy.
But back to my point...I don't feel the need to have kids when I am reminded by these dogs of the level of attention and patience that are needed. Dogs constantly wrestling, snarling, whining, and pushing their way into everything you do...more than enough for my lifetime.

Grades Are In

A study was done comparing the management of state resources - money, people, infrastructure, and information. How well did your state hold up to the scrutiny?

http://results.gpponline.org/

Snowed In

We woke up this morning in SW Virginia to about 5 inches of snow and it hasn't stopped coming down yet. The snow hasn't hit DC that badly yet (repeat: yet) so GW is still open and operating normally. Only, I won't be making it to class tonight. No huge loss - the class blows. I'm paying far too much money to have some socially inept development practitioner show me videos with crackled audio of people from South American countries debating coca production, slides of coca growers waiting for the bus, and jpgs of recipes that use coca. Last time I checked, the course was titled Drug TRAFFICKING, not Drug PRODUCTION and legitimate uses in growing nations. Prof Mares at UCSD is so much better at this. Damn, I miss San Diego!

I'll post pics of the snow & the dogs playing in it once I get back to DC. I forgot to bring my cable with me...oops!

Stop and Think On This One

When it comes to the war, "it's the red states that bleed the most."
~~ Boytoy, former US Marine

Slowly...

But I am getting a little more comfortable here at blogspot...

The pics need to shrink a little for them to look right, and perhaps the title needs to be a little smaller as well. I'm going to try to play with making my own template once I get back to DC but I really should be doing my final exam for the Colonel. Eh...I'll get to it.

When in small (FREEZING) town VA, blogging is much more interesting than school work.

Ideas

I'd like to somehow have navbars on both sides of the posts but I'm not so code savvy as to know how to do that just yet. I'm picturing profile/archive info on the left, Awesome Bloggers on the right.

The xanga header (with the pics) has been really popular...not sure how/where to include that in the new design yet.

New site doesn't have a way to track visitors either - I'll miss knowing who came to my site.

Still contemplating that shift to mu.nu but I'd like to talk about how the posting/hosting/editing/etc works before I start shelling out $$ for it. Being a 'real' blogger instead of a xanga weenie would be great...I've just got cold feet.

(SWG-I'd love to pick your brain about this stuff if you get bored enough help a newb into the world)

Adventures in Blogging v 2.1

This is my second attempt at a Blogspot site. The first had a stupid URL cuz I was bored when I made it. Anyhow....I'm not sure if this is better or worse than Xanga. Please leave your comments and let me know what you think.
I like blogging, but I don't like it enough to spend significant amounts of money on it or spend hours writing code.

Toss me words