Janicek.com

Oh man, what a day! Elise is going to kill me when I tell her that I lost her folder that used to be on her computer. I could have sworn that I moved it over to my machine whenever I installed Linux. I was confident that I moved everything over. Just goes to show: Measure twice, cut once. I really feel like crap now. It had a lot of her important stuff in it… resume, cover letters, etc. etc. So now I’m in the process of reformatting her machine and installing Windows so she can have her own computer again. I guess I can offer to help rebuild her resume with her.

I just killed the mp3’s that I had on my site to free up disk space. If you linked to them… sorry – I’m running out of room.

In other news… there really is no other news. My friend Evelyn and her boyfriend Bob bought a house last week. I’m pretty excited [jealous] for them.

Hell… I still feel bad – I have to come up with a way to make it up to Elise.

I hate computers. I hate printers. I really hate my printer right now.

I was trying to print in “best” mode. Yeah right. Damnit. I’m pissed. I hate computers. I hate the internet. I hate websites. I hate email. I hate e-everything.

It’s raining and my cat is in my closet eating my shoelaces. The lights just went out. This has not been a good hour.

Elise and I just got back from an invigorating (Ha – never thought I’d use that word) walk. We’ve both been sitting on our duffs for long enough. Well, El’s been making frequent trips to the pool during the days. Makes me wish I had done the same thing when she was the breadwinner for three months.

Tonight I made something like a burrito for dinner. They stunk. The filling was good, but the ‘tortillas’ we bought are gross. We went to HEB last week to do our normal grocery shopping and impulse purchased some “Garlic & Herb Wrap Arounds”. Bad bad bad.

We’ve been trying to be frugal, so I’ve been trying to piece together dinners at night. Last night I lightly fried some dory filets with homemade garlic bread crumbs. Then I made something like a casserole. Yes – I stooped and made a casserole. It was pretty good though – I was just trying to kill stuff in the fridge. I used some of Mom & Dad’s white squash, broccoli, garlic, mozzarella, cheddar and more bread crumbs.

I guess tomorrow we’ll have to go trade plasma for a couple hamburgers. In case you haven’t figured it out, El hasn’t found a job yet. She’s going to call the temp agency again tomorrow. She’s going to Des Moines for the weekend of the fourth which makes for somewhat of a hitch.

The seat on the trusty Shadow has begun to seriously unstitch itself. A few months back, Mom and Dad visited and helped me take my bike in for new tires and a new chain. The seat had a small part that had started to come unstitched, so Mom and I used blue dental floss to re-stitch it. I thought it looked pretty cool. Well, now the whole seat has gotten pretty bad. Guess I’ll be pulling out the blue floss this weekend. My tank is in dire need of a paint job too – I’m tempted to tackle that project too… just don’t have the facilities. I just need a new bike – Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Whew. One day…

Anyway – thought the picture above was very fitting. I hate our current economic situation – I don’t even track my investments anymore. I guess I’ll wait until someone [omniscient] taps me on the shoulder and says: “Hey, we’re doin’ alright now!”

“Your mission, if you choose to accept it: Make a fire-breathing, turf-rocket lawn mower that can trim grass at 60 mph … from a 1990 Ford Mustang convertible. Oh, and in only seven days. With no more than $3,000.”

Hell yeah!… Give me a quart of 10W-30 and a bendy straw – this is what I call reality TV – the cure for summertime reruns. The Discovery Channel has a new show called Monster Garage and after watching it once, I’m already hooked. Last night, Jesse James and his grease monkey gang turned a 1999 VW Bug sedan into a swamp buggy. They didn’t just do it the ol’ Junkyard Wars way – they created a customized amphibious vehicle complete with special order rims, custom paint, and a hydrolic retractable rear engine with an aircraft propeller. I’m seriously thinking about taking some classes to learn how to weld and fabricate!

Said show ran for an hour and was over at midnight. As I was about to turn off the TV, another episode came on. This time, they were to build a lawn mower out of the 5.0 Mustang. I had to go to bed though, I was too tired – and I figured it will be on again later this week.

Monster Garage came on after Motorcycle Mania 2 – I’ve already seen this show, but couldn’t help but watch it again. Jesse James owns West Coast Choppers and is definately an artist. His custom built bikes start at $60,000.

So anyway – I hate watching stuff like that right before bed. I couldn’t fall asleep for another hour… I just tossed and turned in bed thinking about motorcycles. I’m an addict. I wish I had a bigger bike so El and I could go to Sturgis in August – just don’t think the trusty Shadow would make it. Well, it’d probably make it, but it would be uncomfortable as hell. One day we’ll make it there… El already said she wanted to go.

In other news… If memory serves me correctly, tomorrow marks the 2 year anniversary of your humble narrator entering the real world. I think I started working for LearnFREE.com on June 26, 2000. What a dream-come-true that was (literally). I remember telling El: “I’m going to have a job lined up before I graduate from college with a small dot com and I’m going to wear shorts and flip flops to work”. Well, Elise actually found the job for me in the Austin American-Statesman classifieds before I graduated, but I took care of the shorts and flip flop part.

Soon after being interviewed, I was offered the job. I reported to work on my first day dressed in ‘business-casual’. Kirk told me that I could wear: “whatever the hell you want!” So, then next day, I dawned my desired business attire. Man, that was nice.

Anyway, I was laughing at myself this morning as I was putting on my ‘business-casual’ work clothes. I guess it beats wearing a tuxedo for 17 hours a day. I’m really tempted to wear my underwear on the outside of my pants. Nobody would notice. The people that I encounter to and from my cubicle each day I could count on one hand. And then I just go to my cubicle. I don’t really see anyone unless I have a meeting. On those days I could wear ‘nicer’ clothes – but I just don’t see the point of wearing nice clothes when nobody is going to appreciate it other than the action figures on my desk. I don’t wear nice clothes when I’m in my apartment watching TV, cooking or on the computer. Why should I pay to have my shirts and pants laundered and pressed when nobody is going to appreciate that effort?

People might swing by my cubicle to chat, see me with my plaid undies over my slacks and laugh and say: “Oh, that’s just Josh”. If I were in sales and had to deal with people, I would understand ‘dressing the part’. I just don’t have a part that necessitates being in a monkey suit all day. When I own my own business (assuming it doesn’t overly involve customer service), I’m going to have “Spandex, legwarmers, tank top and fedora Fridays”. On the other days, you can wear whatever the hell you want. And you wouldn’t have to participate in the fun Friday activities… hell, don’t even come in if you don’t want – so long as you got your work done.

I wonder what the people of Bell County would think if they saw a guy riding a motorcycle to work at 7:45 in the morning with his boxer shorts on the outside of his trousers….

Once again, another short weekend. After making that not-so-great panini, I installed Linux on Elise’s machine. I guess I’ll refrain from calling it Elise’s machine now because I’m sure she’ll never use it. I was hoping to partition the hard drive so we could have a dual boot system… one with Windows XP and the other with Linux. No such luck. I totally reformatted the hard drive and it’s now running Linux exclusively.

I piddled around with it for a little while until my skull started hurting. I watched the U.S. loose to Germany in the World Cup semi-finals, then I took a nap. I woke up to the phone ringing – it was Philip. El and I loaded up and headed to Austin.

Philip works on an offshore drilling ship out in the Atlantic off of Nova Scotia. He’s gone 2-3 weeks, then comes home for 2-3 weeks. He and his girlfriend, Amanda just moved to Austin from Brenham a couple months ago.

Anyway – we got to Austin around 7. We hung out at Philip and Amanda’s apartment for an hour or so, then Philip had to take Amanda to work. El and I sat there and watched Orange County on DVD – we didn’t attentively watch it, but the parts we did catch were pretty funny.

Philip came back and we left to go grab something to eat before heading downtown. We went to Bennigan’s and had some appetizers and drinks. Our waiter was the biggest moron in the state of Texas. I don’t know where to start… it’s not even worth recollecting – all I can say is this dude took a double dunk in the dumb pond.

So, we drove downtown – drove around for an hour trying to find a place to park. We finally parked in our ‘usual’ spot (don’t know why we didn’t do that from the get-go – would have saved ourselves some time). While walking down 6th, we ran into Cody and one of his friends. We recruited them and then went to visit Amanda at work. She was upset about something – so we decided to get going. We went to the least crowded bar and all sat down and talked. Nothing earth shattering happened, we just had a good time hanging out and laughing.

We closed the bar and had to take Philip back home. El and I didn’t get back to Temple until the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday was a laaaaaaazy day. We just sat in bed and watched Comedy Central. We got up to go to HEB and buy some ribeyes and potatos for dinner. Next time you’re at the grocery store, pick up some McCormick Montreal Steak Seasoning… this stuff is awesome (worthy of a plug on my site) – I eat it out of the shaker when I’m cooking.

So – we had ribeyes, mashed potatos and fresh green beans from Mom and Dad’s garden. I boiled the beans for a couple minutes, then tossed them with some clarified butter and fresh garlic – they were awesome. Next time I ask you to smell my finger, don’t turn your nose and dry heave, I just want to prove that I have a permanent garlic smell on my left index finger. I figure that here shortly, I won’t have to ever cut garlic again… I’ll just rub my finger on whatever I need garlic on. I have to remember to pick my nose with my right hand or I’ll be smelling garlic all day – either that, or somehow talk Elise into doing it for me.

After dinner we watched A Crack in the Floor. It’s supposed to be a horror flick – we laughed almost the whole time. It was soooo bad – yet so funny. If you feel like spending $3 for a good 5 minute laugh, rent it. Gary Busey’s part is hilarious. The short of it: He offers up a fresh chicken wing as a suppository.

Today was going fast until after lunch. I swear, I got to work, then had to turn around and grab lunch. I have no clue as to where my morning went [meetings]. I took an early lunch (noon… that’s early for me), came back and the rest of the afternoon took forever. I got some work done on some projects and helped my friend, Luciana with a TV spot that she’s creating.

Philip was supposed to call me last night or today so we could get together this weekend – don’t know what the hell happened to him — haven’t heard from him. I’ve decided that if I don’t get a call, I’m going to bite the bullet and finally install Linux on one of the machines. Guess I’d better dust off the cuss word thesaurus for this project…

In other news – my beef jerky turned out pretty damn good. It’s a little spicier than I had thought, but I’m not complaining. El sweats when she eats it.

We watched Monster’s Ball the other night – now I understand why Halle Berry won an Oscar… good movie. We started watching The Apartment last night – another good movie, but I couldn’t finish watching it as I was falling asleep.

El’s at the pool right now. Guess she’s letting a little sunshine into her life, so to speak. She was pretty upset about her interview today – I can’t blame her. In my “pep talk”, I tried to stay positive while telling her that that is the first of many [rejections]. She has the right attitude though, taking something negative and making something positive out of it. “If it hurts, then it’s good for you.”

Johnny’s little brother, Evan is getting married this weekend…. Seems like just yesterday he was our little sidekick.

Speaking of Evan and Philip – I remember back when we first got our driver’s licenses… One of John’s and my pasttimes was “motorsurfing” – riding a skateboard while hanging on to the trunk of a moving car.

One Saturday, John and I decided to let Philip into our little surf club. John was driving, I was in the front passenger seat and Evan was in back. We were cruising along in the Engler’s neighborhood with Philip surfing from the back seat window. After a short while, we heard the wipeout and a second later, a “thump”. John stopped the car and we all jumped out to find Philip laying in the middle of the road, clutching his knee next to a broken skateboard. The short of it: John ran over Philip’s leg. Luckily nothing broke – Philip just got a nice scratch on his leg and had tire marks across his knee for a couple days. Man, I’m suprised we’re all still alive today — “If it hurts, then it’s good for you”…

Well…can’t say I didn’t try. I’m referring to the interview I had this morning. I met with the owner and we had a nice visit, but we both decided that she needs someone who is more proficient in Quark, Photoshop and Illustrator. Although I am knowledgable in the aforementioned, she needs someone who is well enough versed in them so she won’t have to spend time training. Apparently she spends a lot of time trying to secure accounts.

I’m okay. I feel better about having at least one interview under my belt. Besides, after coming home and feeling sorry for myself for a while, and after getting a pep talk from Josh, I put that negative energy to good use and started sending out resumes.

I know, I know. Rome wasn’t built in one day.

– Elise

As Josh previously mentioned, I have an interview on Friday. I’m excited, but a little nervous too. I was told by the manager at the temp agency that it’s a part-time gig and doesn’t pay a whole lot, but at least I have an interview. The FIRST interview since I graduated from college. Pretty sad, huh?

I felt pretty discouraged at the temp office yesterday because I had to take a lot of tests (read: felt like a monkey at a circus sideshow), but when I turned all of my paperwork in the manager actually looked over my resume and said, “You know what? I have a friend who might need somebody for her grapic design company. She’s just starting out, but I think with your degree and knowledge she might be able to use you. It would be better than the other job, and I wouldn’t want you to get bored answering calls all day.”

What? Could it be? It was music to my ears. Finally, somebody who wants to put me to good use.

I don’t know what will happen, but at least I’m starting to get somewhere. If all else fails, I still have some resumes out there and there’s always the job answering phones.

– Elise

“Holy crap” is what I said when I opened our utility bill from TXU today. Home owners, you’d probably laugh if you saw it, but you probably also remember the average cost of utilities in an apartment.

The cost of housing is cheaper in Temple, but you get raped on your utility bill. I noticed that it was a little higher when I got the first one, but now it’s looking like I’ll have to get a part-time job to turn on my damn lights. It’s costing me about a quarter (no, not the larger coin) more here than in Austin, in June!

Anyway… El got a call from the temp agency today. Seems like the lady she spoke with yesterday went above and beyond and scouted out a local graphic design company that needs some help. She has an interview at 10 a.m. on Friday. Looks like your humble narrator will be giving El a crash course in Photoshop and Quark the next couple days.

I made some pretty good stuffed bell peppers last night. Pretty simple… ground beef, onion, garlic, salt, pepper and my parent’s homegrown tomatoes. I also heated up some of the blackeyed peas from my parent’s garden.

Tonight I’m going to start dehydrating my beef jerky. I started marinating it last night. A little of this… a little of that. I forgot what all I put in the marinade…. teriyaki sauce, brown sugar, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt, course seasoned pepper and some XXX habenero sauce. It smelled good – guess we’ll find out in a couple days!

Man… I’m tired today. I don’t know why, but I just can’t find any motivation. My stomach hurts too. I think it’s because I forgot to eat breakfast this morning. I don’t have anything to eat for lunch either. I think we have some Cheese Nips or something – guess that’ll be my lunch. Or I could truck on over to Subway for a “healthy” lunch. Boy am I hungry.

Elise and I had a nice relaxing weekend at my parents house.

Friday night, her and I sat on the driveway until almost 3 a.m. We just sat there and talked about everything and nothing. That was pretty nice. It’s nice to have a wife who’s your best friend.

Saturday we got up, ate breakfast and El mowed the lawn. I volunteered her to do it (she said she wanted to… I wasn’t going to argue). I unloaded all the stuff that we hauled down to store in my parent’s barn. Then I cleaned the inside of El’s truck.

It got really hot outside, so we all rested inside for most of the day. In the late afternoon, Dad and I fried some catfish and hushpuppies on the back patio, then, well… we ate catfish and hushpuppies. El and I stayed up late again and tried to watch Dr. Hollywood but fell asleep.

Sunday we got up and we washed El’s truck. I went inside and checked the final sales price of my original NES Gameboy that I had put up on eBay. I only got $31 for it. That bummed me. I “sold” it a few weeks back for $52, but the winning bidder decided that he didn’t want to pay for it. After following eBay’s policy on reporting a non-paying bidder, I went to leave negative feedback on the bum only to find out that he had cancelled his account. Megamanmegaman, watch out punk…. you owe me $21. Now I have to go through all of this crap with eBay to get credit for the items Final Value Fee. Some people… sheesh.

Anyway – we vegged out the rest of Sunday. I slept on the couch for a couple hours, read the paper, watch a little TV. El and I played a couple games of Horse and 10 point one-on-one. Wish I had some video of that… Elise and I looked like a couple three legged cats trying to bury turds on a frozen pond.

We stayed at my parent’s place until around 8, then left for Temple. The drive back here (I’m not willingly going to refer to it as home) was really depressing. I guess I miss being out in the country, having no cares in the world.

So, the mad world greeted me at 6:45 this morning – again. Elise went to a temp agency this afternoon. I think she’s getting a little stir crazy being cooped up in the apartment all day. And I think there’s only so many episodes of “A Wedding Story”, “A Baby Story”, and HGTV that my wife can watch.

We talked to Steve (El’s dad) last night too… he and I wished that the day would hurry up and come when we can all look back on these days and laugh. Hurry up day.

Elise and I came to my parent’s house for Father’s day weekend. We hung out on the driveway for most of the evening and spoke a little existential mumbo jumbo. It was really nice to be able to sit underneath the stars and amongst the locust-speak and just talk about any and everything like the best friends that we are.

We seemed to have solved most of life’s problems as we see them in just a short amount of time. I’m so happy to have my soul mate.

I made some pretty mean soft pretzels earlier this evening. It doesn’t get much better that this… a sucessful culinary endeavor, being out in the country where life seems to work itself out and being with everyone that I love…

My wife is such a loser. Seriously… the biggest loser I think I’ve ever met.

By loser, I mean the weight she has lost in the past five months. I’m so proud of her. El is officially a lifetime member of Weight Watchers. This means I no longer have to pay for meetings.

I really am proud of you El – I know you’ve worked hard. I love you babe!