Has been a year, I have 457 Messages ... This is going to take a while.

I feel accomplished, I have Live Journal open, but no myspace. It feels like getting out of a bad relationship and coming home. I need to get out more!

Much has changed since I last made a serious post on Live Journal. We have a new house. We now have three floors space to clean up after Kaylie ... not an easy task. We turned the basement family room into a playroom with the intention of trying to keep the rest of the house clear of toys (*and misc two year old debris)</font> The basement also doubles as a day care, Riss works from home now, as a day care provider, which eliminates the need for us to find day care for the tyrant. The only unfortunate side effect of having a day care in your home is, were always sick ... like now, we all have flu, kaylie shook hers off in a day, Riss and I have both been sick for 3 days, go figure.

My family are flying in fromm England in May, so were trying to plan 2 weeks of places to go / places to ear / things to see / things to do ect ect ect. Pittsburgh has plenty to do, which if anything makes it just as hard, I want to make sure they have fun, which I know they will, I just don't want them to miss out on anything. Were going to DC for a couple of days and staying with Marissa's mom, so we can take them on the white house tour, what else we will do in Dc I don't know. I've never been either.

Once again I'm looking for a new Job, theres nothing wrong with the Job I have, both status and pay have increased considerably since I started, I'm just once again haveing difficulty laying any roots. I'm constantly nagged by the notion that if I have put in the same time and effort to a business of my own then I could make something of myself. Just how finding another job would stop that I'm not sure. I think what I really need to do is start looking at starting my own business and giving myself some goals to work towards. Maybe that will help my stay put, until I am ready to go off on my own.

*misc two year old debris includes, but is not limited too ... empty juice box cartons, cookies, crayons, diapers (removed without authorization from a parent) dora, barbies and little people.

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Rise Against - Drones

Better Days
I managed a whole 2 months without a customer making a "Larry the Cable Guy" Joke, went down in flames today with some obnoxious woman who wanted me to say "It's Comcastic" when I left ... Um, no!

I need to find a new Job, they put me on a trouble Shooting team, which I really don't want to be on, it's a little more money, but still, I get to spend almost all of my days fixing other peoples mistakes, I have a 100% QC pass rate, and this was my "Bonus" ... I don't see it as a Bonus, it's shity.

My parents & Sister are going to be flying in from England in May. It's been 5 years since I have seen them, we all talk on the phone all the time, but it's been a long time since we have been in the same room, same country for that matter. It's going to be great, I need to start thinking of places to take them. Pittsburgh is going to be very normal to them, I grew up in Sheffield, which is where they still live which is/was a steel city also. The similarities between the two cities are erily coincidentak, so it's gonna be kinda weird ... this is the river, that the steel mills use, just like that one we have back home, and this is the bridge that crosses said river/reivers ... just like that one/s we have back home, you get my drift. Pittsburgh and Sheffield are almost carbion copies of one another, which leaves me with the dilema ... where do I take them ?

and finally ... over a month after the release of Vista apple realease Itunes 7.1 (after advisng people not to install Itunes on Vista until the updated version was realeased) Great, I thought, no more stupid error messages when I try to load my Ipod. I thought, 7.1 for windows is still only 2000 and XP compatible :.. Fuck you apple ... this is why no one buys Macs, stupid proprietary shit. I'm buying a Zune.

and really finally this time ... My Space TV On Demand is also stil not compatible with Vista *cough*slackersapplewannabees*cough*

Current Music: Citizen king - Better Days

Being the responsible adullts we are, Riss and I blew almost all of outr tax return on computer equipment, we could have used it to pay bills and be ahead for a change, but this was more fun. Riss got a Sony Viao lap top, I got a desktop with a dual core pentium D Viiv (which is geek for really fucking fast) very much overkill for what I use it for, but eh!

Other random stuff ...

Our severe winter weather snow storn, turned into an Ice storm, I just went out to get my lap top out of the truck (old computer, not the new one) and my truck is encased in Ice, I'm seeing tomorrow being a call of day.

Once again members of Immediate family have proved that we cannot buy anything of significant value without at least one person beng critical, there's a saying, people who live in glass houses shouldnt throw stones. Makes me mad, but I bite my tongue.

I wish I had something more importasnt to say, but alas, mine is a dull life :P

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: MCR - Famous Last Words

Every Christmas since we've been married, both Riss and I have always waited until the last minute to buy Christmas presents, by last minute I mean 23rd and 24th of December ... It's not even December yet and we already have all of Kaylie's presents, some of them are even wrapped, I feel accomplished, now all we have to get is everyone else's, and each others (that will probably be last minute)... the only thing we have to figure out now is, if we are going to take everything to St. Louis with us, it would be weird coming back from STL on the 26th and doing presents when we get home, but then again, i don't think I want to cart all that stuff 700 miles there, and then 700 miles back again ... I don't think i want to do the drive period, I 70 is fucking boring, you get a few minutes driving through Columbus and the Indianapolis when you actually see people and buildings and then it's back to corn, and a few cows if you're lucky.

As much as I want to see friends at Christmas, I'm also kinda sad were not going to be spending Christmas in Pittsburgh, last Christmas was just weird, it kinda snuck up and the disappeared again, didn't really feel like Christmas at all, the year before that I just got out of hospital and was still so doped up on pain meds I would have had a good time at an insurance seminar … so again missed it, so this year,, I'm all geared up for it, eat drink and be merry, St. Louis has a lot of fun places like Lacledes Landing, and Delmar Blvd, but I still think I would rather eat drink and be merry at Station Square on Christmas eve. (Pittsburgh girls are more fun … ssshhh don't tell Riss)

Then, we have to start moving into the new house, which I'm not looking forward too, I like the Idea of being in a bigger nicer house, I just hate the Idea of getting all our stuff from one place to the next, you can only walk up and down stairs so many times carrying armloads of things you really don't need before you start feeling like a lemming and think "fuck it" and want to jump the banister. Seriously though, I was a little skeptical about this move at first, but now I'm starting to get excited about it. It really is a nice house, the kin of place you can have people over and be proud of (not in a stuck up way)

Finally …

I Starting to feel comfortable / content with my job again, I don't have to drag my ass to Beaver Falls, Washington and WV every week, I'm right here at home, my new area is Upper St. Clair … which is very cool, it's where I live so I can stop home for Lunch, Mt. Lebanon, Bethel Park, South Park and Dormont … and sometimes Carnegie. I like rolling out of bed and already being halfway to work. It's fun too when a lot of the houses you go to are people that you know, and see around.

Current Music: Mansun - Wide open Space

There are very few days that go by that I don't get into a conversation with someone about me being english, wether it be a customer when I'm working, in a store ... someone I to call, it's always prompted by the same thing, people always ask about the accent, not that I mind, it's a great icebreaker.

The weird things is, you always get people who make fun of English accents, wether it be a comedian or just people messing around, not in a bad way, people just like to do it, believe me, the guys I work with constantly ask me to pronounce things so they can copy it when they're trying to score with girls, but anyway, it is funny, but to me it's always been normal, obviously because thats where I'm from.

So last night we watched Domino, well I watched half of it, I fell asleep, but anyway, listening to Keira Knightley talk tough in her clean cut british accent was weird, it seemed so wrong, it's like that scene in snatch where the two rastafarians do it ... It was strange, almost like my own native tongue is now foreign to me, and all of a sudden I get why people think it's funny.

I denounced any and all fealty to the queen and kingdom when I became an american citizen, but in my heart I will always be an english man, but I feel kinda proud now that I'm becoming american too (if that's what it is).

The real weird thing is, my daughter who is 2 who has yet to step foot on british soil is picking up my accent, first time she says "crikey" or "bloddy hell" I'm sending her for speech therapy.

PS ... speaking of English, one day soon Im gonna open a real fish and chip shop in downtown pittsburgh, chip butties, fried mars bars and the works ... it will be something else.

Current Music: Taking Back Sunday - MakeDamnSure

x-posted on chargehead (myspace)

(Swiped from Lisa) ;)

To My Pittsburgh Friends and Family,

PITTSBURGH FRIENDS vs. OTHER FRIENDS

OTHER FRIENDS: Never ask for food
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Are the reason you have no food.

OTHER FRIENDS: Bring a bottle of wine to your party
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Make the pierogies & stay to clean up afterwards

OTHER FRIENDS: Will come to your house warming party.
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Will help you move

OTHER FRIENDS: Will watch sports with you
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Will take off of work for a week to drive to a Steeler away game with you.

OTHER FRIENDS: Call your parents Mr. and Mrs.
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Call your parents Mom and Dad.

OTHER FRIENDS: Bail you out of jail and tell you what you did was wrong.
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Would be sitting next to you saying, Damn...we
messed up - that was fun!

OTHER FRIENDS: Have never seen you cry.
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Cry with you.


PITTSBURGH FRIENDS AND FAMILY

OTHER FRIENDS: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give it back
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Keep your stuff so long they forget it's yours

OTHER FRIENDS: Know a few things about you
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

OTHER FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that's what the crowd is doing
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Will kick the whole crowds butt that left you

OTHER FRIENDS: Would knock on your door
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Walk right in and say, "I'm home!"

OTHER FRIENDS: Will take your drink away when they think you've had enough.
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Will look at you stumbling all over the place and
say, "You better drink the rest of that, you know we don't waste!!"

OTHER FRIENDS: Will talk sh__ to the person who talks sh_t about you.
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Will knock them the HELL out!!

OTHER FRIENDS: Are for a while.
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Are for life

OTHER FRIENDS: Will ignore this.
PITTSBURGH FRIENDS: Will send it on to more Pittsburgh friends


Go STEELERS!!!

Current Location: Home
Current Music: Parker & Clind - Generator

I reckon i should start writing a book. It would be called "Confessions of a Cable Guy" no Larry jokes please, I do not say "Git r' done" nor do I show hairy butt cleavage ... nor do I have a hairy butt for that matter.

Anyway, In this book I could write about my exploits if you will, from the funny, to the down right dirty and nasty, todays falls into the category of the latter.

Ok so I had a call this morning, a Job we call a "3 lob" which basically means 3 lines of business, Cable, Internet and Voip Phone. These usually take about 2 hours to knock one out. So I arrive at the address, it's a small apartment building, the kind that started out as a single family, then gets turned into a duplex, then gets turned into 4 show box apartments. The first thing I notice when I walked through the door was an overwhelming stink of urine. Not out of the ordinary for the area I had to work today, in most of the buildings where I was they piss in the halls and the elevators. The buildings a straight forward 2 up two down, the apartment I needed was on the second floor. I'm climbing the stairs and the stench of urine just keeps getting stronger and stronger. Halfway up I start thinking it would just be my luck that the place the smell was coming from would be where I have to work.

So I get to the door, it has a hole busted out in front where the mail box used to be before someone ripped of the flap and the someone came along afterwords and decided to make it a little bigger, and yes this was where the stink was coming from. So after debating with myself whether I should knock, or just call it in as "no can do" on sanitary grounds I decide I should at least go inside first ... before I could knock, the guy see's me, through the hole where the letter box used to be. So he lets me in, first thing I notice, the stink of piss is 10 times worse. Once I was through the front door, there was another door to the left, that was where it was coming from, even through a closed door. I'm talking to the guy, trying not to puke on his nice piss soaked rugs and after a while, the smell doesn't go away but, it was more tolerable. So I decide to do the Job.

I'm almost finished, after numerous trips out to the truck for fresh air, when the guy says they need a phone line run to that room ... and he motions to the piss room :| so, after plucking up courage, I gp in. First thing I see is a bed, with an old woman in it, with a walking frame beside the bed. Obviously more mobile than she looked because she had a TV sat on the sink, which she had hooked up to the cable some other daring soul had installed before they had been disco'd for non-payment. And yes, that wasn't a mistake ... the TV was on the sink. Then I noticed the tub, which was full of clothes and assorted old people stuff, picture frames, medicine bottles and things like that. But no faucets ...

Finally I noticed the hole in the floor where the toilet had been. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, my first thought was, they must be using this as a bedroom and using the bathroom upstairs. Then the cogs in my head clicked and I realized, there is no upstairs, I'm in an apartment, a one bedroom apartment that has one bathroom which I am now standing in. Then I thought back to the smell and was immediately drawn back to the hole in the floor. I hate to knock anyone, but the guy and his wife (previously unmentioned) weren't exactly too concerned with there appearance or body odor, the old woman was something else entirely, but when I was drawn back to that hole, I git this visual in my head, the guy squatting over the hole, trying to push one out with a look of extreme concentration on his face while saying to his old mom "whatcha watchin mother" while she obliviously sits transfixed to Dr Phill.

That was it, I was out of there. One Thing I did learn from this experience however ... Vanillaroma magic trees car fresheners do an ok job of masking the smell of piss that sticks to you once rubbed vigorously on hair, skin and clothes. I went the extra 9 yards and fastened it to my ID card and hid it underneath my shirt in case any of the other people who I had to go install for today could smell it.

Pardon my language, but some people are just down right fucking nasty.

Tags: confessions of a cable guy
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Muse - Blackout

Despite many protests, my company truck only has a radio (which sucks) so I need to upgrade, without actually changing out the head unit, so here are my choices.

1: Get and Itrip for my Ipod, I would have all my own music, which would be cool, but I would miss out on new music
2: XM ... Has Opie and Anthony and a Monthly fee :\
3: Siruis ... Has Howard, also has a Monthly fee

I'm torn, what do you think ?

So, we decided to turn the back half of the garage into a Gym, all we have up to yet though is a handful of weights and a treadmill, slim pickings for working out with I know, but it’s a work in progress. When I think of all the money I’ve spent in Gym dues for Bally’s I realize I could have built us a kick ass gym with that alone. Once we’ve got more or less everything we need in there I wont be able to use the excuse it’s too late to not go work out, like I do now … all the time.