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Bukowski_Rules
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Name: Scott
Country: United States
State: Tennessee
Birthday: 9/19/1966
Gender: Male
Interests: Bukowski, Burroughs, Ferlinghetti, Kerouac, Harry Potter, HR Giger, Poppy Z Brite, Dead Can Dance, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Die Form, Love Spirals, Faith & the Muse, My Dying Bride, London After Midnight, Shadow Project, Theatre of Tragedy, Project Pitchfork, Type O, Skinny Puppy, Disturbed, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Front 242, ClockDVA, Thrill Kill Kult, Sinatra
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
2/22/2004
 True  Lifetime
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| I'm sorry, but I'm obviously not feeling very motivated to write here these days. I'd like to see that change, but as virtually everyone I've known for any length of time has fled Xanga, it's kind of hard to be motivated to write sometimes. I wish I knew what has happened here. I still maintain that Xanga is the easiest blogging community to write in, much more user friendly than MySpace (gag!), Blogger, and the others.
Anyway, work is keeping me really busy. And Jen continues to get sick with various ailments. I worry about her job sometimes, as she's had to take so many sick days this year so far. I mean, she's easily surpassed her allotted sick days and there's still a big chunk of time left in her school year.
This was strange. Got our AT&T "mobility" (ie, wireless) bill a couple of days ago. We have two iPhones and are supposed to be on a Family plan. Nope. Stupid idiot who set Jen up didn't do it right, as I found out on Monday, after receiving a $500 bill! I talked with AT&T for quite a while and I did get it knocked down some, but it's still a budget buster. That idiot screwed up practically everything she touched, and I want to get her fired, just in time for the holidays. Or is that too mean?
I'm sleeping a bit better these days, thank goodness. I'm not sure why, but I'll take it! (However, the two darn cats got me up at 2:45 this morning! Grrrrr....)
My high school alma mater, Knoxville's Farragut, is in the second round of the state's football playoffs again. I'm very proud of the team, because we've been ranked #1 in the state off and on during the season, have faced the very toughest schedule in the state, we've faced, I believe, at least seven ranked teams, including three other #1 schools. Indeed, we just beat nemesis Ooltewah, previously ranked #1, by a 24-7 score at Ooltewah this past Friday. Jen and I went to cheer my Admirals on, and it was awesome for so many reasons. I really hate Ooltewah, and until this game, the home team had won the last seven meetings. Last year, they beat us in the playoffs, and it was sweet revenge to see them go down. This coming Friday we'll be playing arch-rival Bearden again, previously beating them 42-17 this year. Still, they're a tough team and were ranked #5 in the state, and you never know what can happen. That said, I expect to see another Farragut victory! 
Finally, you all know I'm a huge Bukowski fan. After his last book was published a couple of years ago, they said it would be his last, as he died in 1994 and they've been releasing tons of his work posthumously. Well, low and behold, with little fanfare, a small new book was published recently, just out of the blue! I eagerly bought it and just finished reading it a couple of days ago. And I feel devastated! It's simply weak shit. They really scraped the bottom of the barrel with this. There might be as many as three good poems in the book. I guess since he's made the publishers so much money over the years, they figured they may as well sucker his fans and make another million, but to me, this tarnishes his legacy and I'm appalled his widow and his former editor allowed this to even be released. It's a real pity....
Well, this is all I'm currently motivated to write. I hope everyone has a good day. Cheers!
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| Yep, I'm pretty darn OLD, as of today! It's a little depressing, but such is life, eh? Nothing really special scheduled for today. This afternoon, I'm going to watch Florida demolish my Tennessee Vols. That will be ugly. Then, assuming we're both feeling well enough, Jen and I are going to go eat at one of Chattanooga's rare "fine" restaurants. I'm looking forward to that, anyway. Maybe have a nice bottle of wine. Presents? I don't think I get any this year. I bought myself a new top-of-the-line 32 GB iPhone 3Gs three weeks ago, and maybe that's enough, eh? But that is a topic for another blog entry sometime. Suffice it to say that I absolutely LOVE it and I don't know how I've made it through life without it.  Anyway, I got Jen a Nintendo DSi for today, with two games/products for it. She seems quite excited, so that's good.
Meanwhile, Jen's going on Day 14 of being sick. The doctor thinks it might be Lyme Disease! Which is not a good thing. We took her to the hospital and they didn't do anything but give her pain medication. That ticked me off. Hopefully, she'll be able to improve soon, but in the meantime, it's pretty rough.
I guess that's it for now. Have a good weekend!
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| This past weekend, Jennifer and I celebrated our sixth anniversary together! I had decided some time ago to take her to Asheville NC for the long weekend, as we'd never been there, and we'd heard it was funky and nice. So, off we went. I made numerous pre-arrangements, and the first (and perhaps the best) was that we stayed at a lovely (and incredibly expensive!) B&B called the 1889 WhiteGate Inn & Cottage. It was gorgeous! All of the rooms are named after poets, and we stayed in the Maya Angelou Suite, which was pretty luxurious. The place had gourmet three course breakfast experiences, nice touches, beautiful gardens (award winning), social hour in the evening with food and drink in the gardens. It was a close taxi ride to everywhere we wanted to go and it was thoroughly worth it!
Friday night, we got there a bit late, but that's OK. We took a taxi downtown after checking in and looked for a place that was still serving dinner. Apparently, they stop early in that city for some reason. However, the drinking doesn't stop. LOL! We found a place called The Yacht Club, which had interesting eats. We sat at the bar and chowed down, while downing a few drinks as well (including a few tequila shots). Made it back and went to bed.
Saturday, we had reservations to go to the Biltmore House. It was as big as they say and very luxurious. We didn't see it all, as the day got a bit late and it got crowded, but most importantly, we made it down to the winery! We taste tested the hell outta that stuff too!!! LOL. We even paid to go from the free taste testing to the "premium" taste testing area. Naturally, we got totally drunk and bought wine, but just half a case. We then ate at an outdoor cafe there and finally made it back to the WhiteGate.
Our dinner reservations that evening were at the Sunset Terrace located at the Grove Park Inn, a pretty impressive looking place. Highly recommended. I had made reservations earlier that week. So, we walked in and found they had NO record of any reservation for us at all. Which pissed me off. They sat us anyway, at the worst table they had, by the kitchen doors, even though they had other openings. Nice. We had an arrogant waiter with a serious attitude and no lights whatsoever, so as it got dark, we couldn't see what we were eating (Jen was having the duck), and it was really pointless. When I called for the check, I got an 18% "service charge" added to it and let's just say that was probably the worst $94 I ever spent. I've spent more and less to eat at much better places, to be honest. We had after dinner plans, but our mood was so ruined, we just went back to our room and chilled.
Sunday was our actual anniversary. Yay! Now we're officially going on seven years, right? We had breakfast, chilled a bit, and then met my dear old friend Ami and her family for lunch. We had not seen them since we moved away from Knoxville in 2004, so that was delightful. We had numerous afternoon plans, but Jen was starting to feel a bit under the weather, so we went back and let her nap. Then, however, we went to dinner. One of our innkeepers had called and gotten us the best table at a restaurant I had made reservations at called the Flying Frog. It was spectacular! A superior dining experience. First, the table was sort of in a booth covered by a type of fabric that made it like a cabana. Hard for me to explain, but it was very romantic. We ordered a drink and looked over the menu. They specialized in German, French, and Indian food! How odd is that? We ordered a nice bottle of wine (some of their bottles were in the $550 range!!!), and we ordered what they called "mini entres," so you could basically taste various entre-type courses. We had filet, lamb, kangaroo (!!!), and potato latkes, along with some great deserts as well. Lovely. We had a wonderful time. And the service was superior. Beat the hell out of the vaunted Grove Park Inn! However, we were going to go to a jazz club and then a chocolate bar (yeah!), but Jen started getting a bad headache, so we were forced to return to the B&B. Bummer!
Yesterday, we woke up and Jen had the migraine of the universe. Which sucks. I went to breakfast and had strawberries covered in vodka and fresh cream, a mushroom suffle and something else that was beautiful and sweet. The innkeeper then brought a tray down for Jen, which was nice. I packed us up because we had to be out by 11 AM, and we talked with some of the "friends" we'd made there. Nice people. The inn is very gay-friendly, so it was mostly older gay and lesbian couples, and we had a good time with them. Sad to part ways. Finally, we left to return to Chattanooga. It took forever to get back and we didn't arrive until early evening. Jen's headache never improved, although she took prescription migraine medication, but that said, we had a wonderful anniversary weekend, and yes it cost a fortune, but it was definitely worth it. Good times. We'll remember this one, and we definitely want to go back. Cheers!
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| Been working on a five day migraine from hell. I've been getting headaches nearly every day this year. Some have been severe while most have been less so. At the first sign, I typically down some Tylenol or Advil or anything within reach, really. And usually those headaches will go away. However, when they don't, or when they worsen, or when they are clearly migraines, I have prescription migraine medication I've taken, most recently, Treximet, which is the new "super" Imitrix with Ibuprofen. It usually works. Well, over the past few weeks, it's gotten so bad, that various individuals, most within the healthcare/medical community have suggested I've been getting "rebound" headaches, which are headaches caused by taking too many medications, and that I should lay off to detox and "reboot" my system, so to speak.
So, starting last Thursday, I decided to do that. And it's been utter hell! I was completely incapacitated this past weekend. I mean, I could do nothing. Finally, Saturday night, I called one of these friends and talked to her for a half hour, and came away with the notion that if things didn't improve by yesterday afternoon, I'd start taking stuff again. Which I did. I took two Zomig, which are prescription migraine medications. They did nothing. Then, I took some Percocet I had lying around from my recent back pain problems, along with some Excedrin Tension, as my headache had moved into the back of my head and neck. Finally, around 7 PM, I was just plain loopy and I laid down, finally going to sleep sometime after 8:30 PM. Only to wake up at midnight. Nice, huh? It's now 3:15 AM, and while my headache feels a bit better, thank goodness, I have to go in to work and hopefully be productive somehow, not suffer too much, and hope things generally improve.
How was your weekend?
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| Well, my new job has been interesting, as I expected. Last week was pretty intense, and this week has been also, to a degree. On my second day, I was tasked with a quick little project with the deliverables due the following day. Pressure! However, I did meet my deadline. Thursday, I had another project to work on, and completed that just fine, I guess. Word had it my boss was happy -- so far.
I'm learning a lot, particularly about telephony, which is good. I'm also involved in a ton of meetings. One thing that stresses me out, however, is I have to learn some new (to me) applications, and quickly: Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator. Tough learning curves. I don't have much time to master them either. *sigh* I'm also trying to get up to speed on MS Office 2007, which is quite different from previous versions, and I'm trying to refresh my knowledge of MS Project as well. So, I'm staying busy. Here's hoping I can continue to fool these people into thinking I'm smart enough to carry it off!
My parents will be celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks, which is awesome. I wanted to get them a nice present, and I thought about it for quite some time. Yesterday, I got 'em what I think will be a really cool present. I bought them season tickets for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra! And they're sweet: center section, about five rows back from the stage. It was expensive, but I hope it'll be worth it and that they'll really enjoy it.
Speaking of anniversaries, Jen and I will be celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary in about three weeks! I'll write about what we're going to do another time, as I need to get ready for work. Big plans though.
Meanwhile, my Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals again last night in an exhibition game. Yay! Also, my high school alma mater, Knoxville's Farragut High School, begins its football season soon with what has been described as arguably the toughest schedule in the entire state of Tennessee. Long story, but there are new divisions and districts, etc., and now Farragut has to play Bearden (a state quarter finalist last year), Catholic (winner of the 2A state championship last year), Maryville (winner of 74 straight and something like six or eight 4A state championships this decade), Riverdale (winner a few years ago of something like 70+ straight region games and several state championships), our arch-nemesis Oak Ridge, always a great team, and on and on it goes. Of course, Farragut finished fourth in the state last year, but it's going to be tough to repeat that, let alone win the state championship. Still, go Admirals! Finally, Jen and I had a rare opportunity to buy a pair of University of Tennessee season tickets and even though it was a lot of money, we did it! The seats are on or around the 48 yard line in the lower deck!!! High up in the lower deck, but still, hopefully it'll be nice. Eight home games this year, so it looks like we'll be going to Knoxville a lot this fall.
Well, I guess that's it for now. Everyone have a good weekend. Cheers!
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