Happy Pancake day!

As per tradition, I held a pancake day celebration this evening with 4 friends (co-workers... )! It was great! But alas I am tired from making the wide array from Chocolate chip, nutella, peanut butter pancakes to bacon and maple pancakes... And I need to get to bed! So it was fun! Ill post my special pancake day pancake recipe soon, and Ill post the pictures I have been promising!

I have screwdriver hands...

Friday afternoon the moving company arrived finally! The two guys were super nice, and made the whole process nice and easy.

I think I have opened up every single box. There are still a few that I have to go through (with books and stuff like that) and all of my clothes are laying on my bed, but I don't have a dresser to put them in yet so they are going to get folded and put in a big pile on the floor. Oh well.

I need to go get that moving, tomorrow or Monday I am planning on taking lots of pictures to share, it should be good.

And for the record: work is great! I am really enjoying it, and am getting excited to actually get some work done.

First Day: Check

The first day went off without a hitch. I am super excited, everything looks and feels great. Ill post more later in the week as I get a better feeling about the place, but here are some specifics:

I share an office with one other guy, and it has a window!
The general motto seems to be "get your work done, and do it well, as long as that is happening, do what you want."
So far, cool people to work with.

Blog Face Lift

Hello Everyone,

I need your help. I need to change what is up there ^^^ I am no longer in The Burgh. And I am even further in to this silly country (any farther and I would be like that tea they got rid of a few years back...).
So I need a new blog sub-title. I feel like this is too important to just change willy-nilly.

Don't worry, I am still going to be here at stainedtartan.blogspot.com, that is not changing, just the layout and general format is going to get an update.

So if you would not mind giving some suggestions, you can get recognition right here... for all of my regular 5 blog readers to see. ;) I know that is killer incentive.

Layer One King

This message is getting sent out of my very first self terminated Cat5 cable! I did it! Alan and Mike knew I could, but I did it. And on my first try.

This apartment has a little data closet. By little, I mean that there are 6 full Cat5 connections and 3 half connections. My plan is to have the wireless router in the closet, and cables running to each of the rooms as needed. This way there are only cables running in the wall and not on the floor!

So now I need to label and terminate the rest! So much fun!

Hold up 'Merica.

This is a direct cause off having no one to discuss this with, and getting riled up about what people are posting about Whitney Houston. Let us stop and think about what this means:

"she died of drug use and she died when she was 48. she will be remembered forever as a great singer. we honor her for her strong ability of singing to this day. R.I.P Whitney Houston" - From Yahoo Answers

 Really? This seems to happen every time a celebrity dies. Don't get me wrong, I wish that no one had to die, I wish that Whitney Houston was still alive now. It is a horrible thing to have anyone die, but look at what we are holding up as a society. Everyone seems to think that the cause of her death is due to her abuse of drugs and alcohol. Are we saying that we are ok turning a blind eye to this fact, and mourn her as a national hero. When a teenager who has been addicted to drugs dies, we hear about the rising drug problem in our city. Why is there the double standard. Just because someone is an artist or is famous for some other reason does not give them a free pass. Look at Chris Farley, John Belushi, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious... these are just from the Wiki pages on heroine and cocaine related deaths. Lest we forget about Kurt Cobain (there was a lot of heroine involved in that case), Michael Jackson (I know there is a guy behind bars for the 'homicide' of MJ, but he was on a number of questionable 'medications' when he died), Billy Mays, Heath Ledger. Don't get me wrong, they all produced great things, they were funny people, great actors, wonderful musicians... and they all had addictions to drugs. Something that we, as American People, are ok either ignoring, or downplaying, because of their fame.

I don't think that we should tarnish their legacy by focusing on their problems, but at the same time, when we go to crack down on drugs, lets start at the top. It is no wonder why kids get in to drugs, all of their idols are using and we are ok with it.

Grocery Shopping One

I know that I have already said that I went to the Market Basket (the local food supply store) and I know that I already said that I like it. But now, after doing real shopping there, I can say that I love it. It is great! They have tons of stuff, with a huge variety, and is a lot cheaper that I was expecting. This may be due to the fact that Giant Eagle is taking advantage of their monopoly on the Pittsburgh food market. Anyway, it was a good experience.

Some caveats: I left the apartment at 2:30 ish. It is only .25 miles away. And I have already driven this particular way a number of times, but it was a mad house. Apparently everyone does their shopping on Saturday afternoons. There were people parked next to my apartment walking to the shopping center, it seemed like most of them were going to H Mart, some sort of Asian import store. So yes, there were tons of people. Which lead me to realize three important things that I am going to have to deal with here in New England. First: people, no matter where or how far they may be parked from the store don't use the cart return. It is appalling how many carts I bring back from the beyond. It seems as though people just leave their carts wherever they maybe when they get in their car to leave the parking lot. I have seen this before, we all have. The stray cart or two out in the last row of cars... but here there were more carts in the parking lot than there were in the cart return. And there were a lot in the cart return! So... this just means Ill be parking farthest from and corralling as many carts as I can. Second interesting tidbit: when walking around, no one makes eye contact. At all. None. Everyone, regardless of perceived social or economic class looks up or away from what they are doing. They are in their own little world. This makes things like navigating a busy grocery store rather difficult. Dad you would have fun with this... The best is when there is 10 people in an isle, all with their own carts, pretending to be the only person in the store, and you just want to get some mustard. Then third: you have to be a little pushy to go anywhere. Both with driving and with pedestrian locomotion. If you let one person by then everyone things that they are deserving. If you wait for a path to clear... it wont. You just have to jump in and go. This combined with tidbit #2... makes for some interesting stress. Oh well. We will see if it gets better.

I was able to get enough supplies to make my crowd favorite Chicken Paprikash, Which is what was for dinner tonight. :) Along with dinner was a movie: 'Forgetting Sarah Marshal' which I found both enjoyable and amusing.

Now on to ironing!