Author: Josh

What a weekend. Elise and I had a lot of fun on Friday. We stayed up really late, just hanging out on the porch and talking. It was a great way to start the weekend. El spent most of the evening just telling me how great I was and how much she loved me – she talked about my ‘cute’ id·i·o·syn·cra·sies. My wife is pretty amazing.

So… seeing how we stayed up so late on Friday, we slept in pretty late on Saturday. We woke up, lazily watched a little tele and went to Subway for lunch. Shortly after eating, Tommy called and asked if we were leaving soon. Tommy acquired tickets to the 93.3 FM birthday party at Sub Zero in Austin. Elise and I hopped up, got dressed and headed to Austin. We stopped to pick up Philip and headed to Sub Zero. We received the V.I.P. treatment… we got name badges, three free drink tickets per person, free Asian marinated meatballs, mini roast beef sandwiches and vanilla cake.

Jeremy and Victor accompanied Tommy. Shortly after arriving, Tommy and Victor left the club to seek ‘companions’ for the evening. They found two young ladies and brought them back to the club. Needless to say, they weren’t very entertaining, so everyone pretty much established that they weren’t of much benefit to our ensemble. They eventually left. The six of us decided to leave Sub Zero after inhaling helium from the birthday balloons and chiming “Follow the yellow brick road” and making nunchucks out of glowsticks. We went to Paradox. We didn’t last long. It was getting late – it was time for a night cap and for El and I to head back to bustling Temple.

We all went back to Tommy’s and philosophized about domestic affairs loud enough to wake up the next door neighbor. After that, it was time to go home.

Elise and I got home late. We slept in [again] and went to Walmart to get some odds and ends as well as a few grocery items. We came home, I watched some cheesy documentary on Eminem and the last series of AMA superbike racing (Kawasaki ZX7 won!!!)

For once, we had a weekend that was actually long. Now it’s time to go to bed and watch the clock – waiting for next weekend.

Oh yeah, looks like I will be getting the PS2. Mom sent me a couple links to some eBay auctions for PS2’s. I decided not to buy a PS2 on eBay because I wouldn’t have the comfort of returning it to a store should something be wrong. Instead, I bid on a Dual Shock 2 controller (a stock PS2 only comes with one controller). A Dual Shock controller retails at $24.99 – I won a brand new, factory sealed controller for $6.99.

I was checking out my buddy Kirk’s site today and came across some of his newer caricatures. I think Kirk is pretty darn good at this form of art. I’m hoping one day, whenever I get my Kawasaki ZX7R, I can get him to do some custom airbrushing on my helmet. He’s trying to pull in a little extra cash from his two sites, www.learn-to-draw.com and www.cartoons-caricatures.com.

Kirk was the ‘original’ multimedia editor at Vidbook and trained Reid and me. Luckily we all keep in touch after we all lost our jobs – usually to just say “hey”, or engage in geek-talk and exchange JavaScripts and design ideas.

If you’ve got some extra cash under the couch cushions, I’m sure Kirk wouldn’t mind the work! kirktoon_2000 at yahoo.com

I have to interact with a lot physicians here at work. I really wish that they would all introduce themselves as doctors. I hate meeting someone and not knowing if they’re a doc right off the bat. I try to be polite and feel them out so I’ll know whether or not to refer to them as Dr. Soandso. So far, that has worked out okay. I wouldn’t hesitate to ask if he or she was a doctor if I wasn’t certain. If I spend four years in med school after earning my bachelors degree, then four years as an intern, two years as a resident, two years as a fellow and was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt with school loans, I would make sure you called me Doctor, thank you very much…

I wish I had some cool initials that I could put at the end of my name. Maybe for web development I could be Josh D. Janicek, W.D. Or WWW Josh Janicek. I’m probably not versed enough to have earned my doctorate, so I’d probably just be Josh Janicek, L.W.P. (Licensed Web Practitioner) or something like that.

Speaking of high degrees and respectable professionals. I’m proud to announce that Elise has earned a 4.0 on all of her skills tests at Sallie Mae. She was informed yesterday that she was the only one to achieve such a high score in her group. She told me on day one that it was her goal to get 100’s on all of her tests during her training – and she did it! I’m really proud of you El!

Sallie Mae would be crazy if they didn’t hire her on after the contract for this temp job is up. She seems pretty excited about this job too. She comes home and tells me all about her day every evening. She’s taking what she does very seriously and has been learning a lot about loans and credit.

I received this message in an email this morning. I did this for Elise and myself a few months back and opted us out forever:

The four major credit bureaus in the US are allowed to release your credit info, mailing addresses, phone numbers, etc., to anyone who requests it. If you would like to ‘opt out’ of this release of your info, you can call 1-888-567-8688. It only takes a couple of minutes to do. Once the message starts you’ll want option #2 and then option #3 – Be sure to listen closely, the first option is only for a two-year period. Make sure you wait until they prompt for the third option, which opts you out forever.

My parents taught me that your name is all that you have. For a year now, I have been working hard on getting Elise’s and my credit reports in tip top shape. Elise did a little onside recognisance for me and found out that I’m only 4 points away from having an ‘Excellent’ credit score. From what I’ve heard and read, there aren’t that many out there who have and excellent rating in our debt-based economy.

Now that we’re married, I’m going to order our credit reports once a year to ensure that we’re doing well. Last year it only cost $7 per report. That’s a really small price to pay to protect your name. Here’s a list of the three major credit bureaus. I used Experian last year. This year I think I’ll order through Equifax.

I just finished cooking some mini chicken fried steaks. I’ve been cooking too much chicken fried steak lately. El is going to have to start cooking her diet food for us more often.

Anyway, Mom and Dad gave me some beef when we were at their place this past weekend. Since my Dad has retired, I guess they’ve decided to make a little personal profit with their livestock (brangus cattle). A couple of weeks ago, they had one of the cows slaughtered. They gave me a roast, a couple of t-bones and one gigantic round steak. I thawed the round steak last night and made the CFS out of it this evening after cutting it down into smaller pieces.

It didn’t dawn on me until after I inhaled a couple of my little bite-sized golden brown slabs of beef… I’ve probably once looked that cow in the eyes. I probably once helped Dad in dumping range cubes into the trough to feed it. I probably drizzled worm medicine on its back a couple months ago. I probably looked at that cow one day and said: “You look funny cow, just standing there, being all cowlike, slapping your tail against your rear end to shoo away flies.”

So, we ate part of one of my parents’ cows tonight. It was kind of weird. It probably tastes the same, but there’s something that goes on in the old thinker that makes you think it tastes different. It’s like eating someone that you know.

I wonder how John would taste with some fava beans and a nice Chianti…

We just finished watching The Fast and the Furious, again. Elise likes it more and more now that she’s decided she has a crush on Vin Diesel. I just like the cars and the loud audio track. We’re both hoping that TF&TF II is as good. I’m hoping for motorcycles. Elise is hoping for Vin.

I went to an Excel I class this morning. I re-learned how to create graphs. Tomorrow morning I have an MS Access class. Better get to bed…

Monday. Nothing really happened on Monday. It was a typical Monday – got up, went to work, went through the motions.

Elise made shredded chicken taco salads for dinner. After dinner, El shopped for airfare to Minneapolis. She’s going to her friend, Kari’s house for Labor Day weekend. I don’t mind her traveling to visit her friends – I encourage it. I married a foreigner, so I knew what I was getting into. At this point, it’s too expensive for us to both travel, so my Midwest vacations will be temporarily limited to every other Christmas.

El was concerned that I might not want her to fly to Minneapolis. I don’t know if it was because she thought I didn’t want to spend the money on a plane ticket, or she thought I would be overly lonely while she was gone. Either way, without hesitation, she bribed me with a Playstation 2.

I’m really not sure if I should get the PS2 or not. I don’t know why, but part of me says: “Josh, be responsible, save your money”. The other part says: “Josh, you buy your clothes at Walmart, you haven’t bought yourself anything in a long, long time – get the PS2”. I’ve really wanted a PS2 since before they came to stores. How long has that been, two years or so? Mom always said: “Sleep on it – see if you still want/need it tomorrow.” We have the cash (no BestBuy line of credit needed) and believe me, I’ve slept on it….

Saturday didn’t turn out as hectic as I thought it would. My parents, Elise and I went to the Sealy Outlet Mall around 11 o’clock. Talk about a ghost town. I think this outlet mall was opened five years ago. On a tax free Saturday, the parking lot was 5% full. We went to the Reebok outlet and the Bass outlet to try to find some shoes for El. Both stores were having 50% off, going out of business sales. All but probably ten stores had been completely shut down. I don’t know how many store fronts there once were, but if I had to guess, I’d say close to one hundred. Now they were all empty facade clones with no “For Lease” signs. I guess Katy Mills has run this place out of business. I’m thinking that within the next few years, the Sealy Outlet will be littered with vendors selling day old bread, dented car rims, bison jerky and camouflage statuettes of the Virgin Mary.

We couldn’t find any shoes that Elise liked. We drove 30 miles east to Katy Mills. We drove into the parking lot and immediately turned around and headed home. The crowds were worse than the day after Thanksgiving.

We got back to my parents house, ate some left over lasagna and then we all started making more food. Elise chopped up a big watermelon, Dad started making ice cream, I started making a pizza and Mom supervised the operation. I guess it goes without saying that we had steak pizza for dinner and homemade ice cream for dessert.

I setup a spam filter on my Mom’s computer late that evening while everyone else watched TV and talked. El and I stayed up and watched a Saturday Night Live rerun after my parents went to bed. Pink was the musical guest the night that the show originally aired. What do you get when you cross Hanson, Linda Perry and a tablespoon of white soul? Pink. I wonder what I’d be listening to if I were still in high school – where the music that you listened to was half of who you were.

Sunday was a lazy day. I laid in bed for 2.5 hours on Saturday night. I couldn’t fall asleep. I got up on Sunday to eat breakfast, read parts of the paper and take a nap on the couch. I got up and glued parts of the Trooper back onto their respective locations.

Elise and I left my parents house and headed back to Temple at 2 p.m. We got home around 4:30 and I installed the 8GB hard drive that my Mom gave me. Elise started cleaning her closet. We went to bed around midnight. Now it’s Monday. Mondays……

Elise and I arrived at my parents’ house around 10 p.m. last night. We ate lasagna and salad. We all sat and talked for a while. Dad went to bed around 11, Mom and El sat on the couch and talked for another hour while I goofed around on Mom’s 48k connection. El and I went to bed around 1 a.m.

This morning we got up around 8. We ate breakfast and I went outside and watched some of those really big hairy bees suck the sweet juice from the flowers in the garden. They’re those bees that are the size of you thumb – the ones with the deep yellow thorax (I think, I don’t remember my insect anatomy) and the solid black abdomen.

I petted Simba and found a locust resting on a morning glory leaf. I went inside to get El so I could show her the locust. We went back outside and I pointed out the bug to her – he attacked her. He flew off of his leaf and hit her in the stomach. I guess it was because she hadn’t yet brushed her teeth.

We’re about to leave to go to Katy Mills (gigantic touristy outlet mall). It’s a tax free weekend. The women have informed us that it is our job as consumers to go out and spend money.

El needs a new pair of shoes (sheeesh). I’m hoping to make out with a semi-automatic rubber band gun so I can blast through the rabid shopping masses and get my place in line at a kiosk to listen to the new Lil Romeo and Jerry Jeff Walker compilation CD. Or I might opt to sit in one of those massaging chair displays to contribute in the spreading of head lice, butt weavles and scabies.

Friday evening I came home and started downloading my Danzig mp3s. It started pouring down rain outside. I mean it was coming down in sheets. Around 7:30, we left to have dinner with Carl and Mindi. After dinner, El and I went to Bum’s Sports Bar for a couple beers. There was a young band from Dallas playing that night, so the joint was packed with high school kids with big “M”s (for minor) written on their hands with magic marker. El and I thought that Philip would have had a nice time there… We had a good time anyway. We didn’t stay very long.

We got home a little before midnight and El talked me into going into our apartment complex’s communal hot tub. Having rained as much as it did ealier that evening, there wasn’t much heat to the hot tub. We stayed in the small, warm pool of other people’s germs long enough to get pruney, then headed home to get some sleep.

I woke up relatively early on Saturday to go on a much needed motorcycle ride. My plan was to get somewhat lost and eventually find myself in Killeen where I would stop at the local motorcycle shop. I got lost alright, and I wound up nowhere near Killeen. I’m used to getting lost in the hill country near Austin, where you can drive a good ways and you’ll eventually come upon a really nice neighborhood, a river, a golf course or a lake. Well, on this Saturday, I found myself coming upon blacktop roads, scattered mobil home communities, baron land occupied by leaf-eating goats and more blacktop roads. I tried to head towards what I thought was south by way of a secluded road. While still hoping to make my way to Killeen, I guess I had travelled far enough east to where I was greeted by an entrance to Ft. Hood. The posted sign deterred me from taking that route.

So, I turned around and took the same boring way back home. Since I had already experienced this route, I crossed my left leg over my gas tank and started singing to myself. I rode almost 60 miles. A boring ride, but a nice and therapeutic one nonetheless.

I came home to find that the guy in the mirror had a pretty nice shade of red on his face… I hadn’t expected to be out that long – guess I should have slapped on some sunscreen.

El and I spent most of the day geeking out in front of our respective computers, mostly to download mp3s. El decided that she wanted pizza for dinner, so we went to HEB and bought the ingredients I needed for a veggy pizza. Turned out pretty good – onion, tomato, bell pepper, garlic – jalepenos and green olives on my side. Then we watched a movie and went to bed.

Sunday was a lazy day – watered the plants, I cooked some pork chops and potatoes, downloaded more mp3s, watched another movie.

So that was our weekend. Once again, Monday reared its ugly head too soon.

I saw a wreck on my way into work this morning. Some moron driving a blue, newer model Suburban flagrantly ran a red light at the intersection of Loop 363 and S. 31st. An old white pickup truck was this first off the line from the middle lane as the light turned green. He apparently couldn’t see the Suburban as there was another pickup truck to his left, blocking the view. I was two cars behind this truck. He pinged the passenger side quarter panel on the Suburban and knocked it halfway into the other lane.

I immediately laughed after I could determine that nobody was hurt. The light stayed green while everyone paused in the standard “I just witnessed a wreck” dumbfounded state. Traffic finally started to pass through the light. I went ahead and continued on my route to work. As I was passing the white truck that was the ‘victim’, an old man in tight Wranglers and a cowboy hat got out of his truck, looked towards the Suburban and exclaimed: “Bashturd” [image Will Farrell’s voice impression of George W. Bush]. One more good thing about riding a motorcycle – you can see, smell and hear everything. I didn’t look back, but I’m sure the old man’s good ol’ pickup truck didn’t even receive a battle scar. The Suburban – I’m sure that’ll cost a pretty penny.

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire.

3. It’s always darkest before dawn. So if you’re going to steal your neighbor’s newspaper, that’s the time to do it.

4. Sex is like air. It’s not important unless you aren’t getting any.

5. Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.

6. No one is listening until you fart.

7. Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.

8. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

9. If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

10. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.

11. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

13. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

14. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

15. Some days you are the bug; some days you are the windshield.

16. Don’t worry; it only seems kinky the first time.

17. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

18. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

19. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

20. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

21. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

22. Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your lips are moving.

23. Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

24. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

25. We are born naked, wet, and hungry, and get slapped on our ass … then things get worse.

26. The most wasted day of all is one in which we have not laughed.

Our email server is down – AGAIN. Hopefully this should all be over with by the end of the week…. If not, I’m moving Janicek.com. I just wrote Cedant again and told them that I want an exact date and time in which I can expect my email to be back up. I’ve also requested a reimbursement for this downtime.

In other news, David just emailed me and told me he wasn’t coming into work today because someone drove into his house. See what Monday will do to you? I think we should just do away with Mondays all together. What do you think?… Three day weekends forever!

I was checking out John’s site today… He mentions how he is blessed because he has Christine. Now, my wife is great and all, but I really signed that nuptial contract so I could have Steve and Joanne.

I really feel that I’m blessed to have such great in-laws. I’d rather not even think of them as in-laws but more as my other parents. They’re always sincere, warm, loving and most importantly, inspiring. Steve emailed me today to say: “Judge each day, not by the harvest, but by the seeds you plant.” Hmmm… Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Thanks Steve!

We just watched Donnie Darko again… Yeah, I’m still going to have to watch it a few more times. We watched Mulholland Drive last night… I’ll have to watch that a couple more times as well. When it comes to movie comprehension, I’m one Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl.

In other news, Chas emailed me today. He still seems to be curious as to what we ate at the Mardi Gras Seafood Cafe. I know what we ordered, I’m just not sure if I got the ingredients right. Chas fessed up and told me that he is a cook at Mardi Gras and wrote that what I described in my review “doesn’t add up”. He said that they would love for me to come back, introduce myself and try their food again.