Ramblings of Special K

Just in case anyone cares...I'm still alive out there.  I haven't written in so long because I haven't really had any motivation to write.  Also, no one looks at my journal on a regular basis, so why update it?  If anyone out there cares enough to have me update my LJ, let me know.  I'll do my best to update every week or so.  As I have drank beer, champagne, wine....and then more beer tonight, I think it is time for bed.  A little bit earlier than my usual 2 AM bedtime (weekends only mind you), but I did start drinking earlier tonight.  Later all!

You are 'I miss you'! Awwwww....It's only been 10
days! Wasting away, you say?


Which Incubus song are you? (Make Yourself)
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Mmmm....I love Brandon....I mean Incubus...yeah! :-P

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

The US tour info is out for Incubus and they are coming to Philly!!!!

28-Jun Philadelphia, PA - 1st Union Center

Brandon Boyd


Which member of Incubus are you?
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Yay! Great minds think alike!

Its that time of year again....time to gather up as many gifts as you can to make up for all the bad things you did in the previous months. Yep, you guessed it-Valentines Day has graced us once again. Now I'm not trying to be pessimistic by the words I've said about the day, I'm just stating my general observations about human behavior. I'm almost embarrassed by my own indulgence in the day, as I should not be honoring a day almost as commercial as Christmas. Guess I just got swept away with the masses as we have rushed to gather up Hallmark cards and refined sugar for our loved ones. When I say I'm almost embarrassed, you may wonder about the use of the word almost. I say almost because I feel that I redeem myself the rest of the year, by expressing my feelings to my loved ones whenever possible. Also, I've always been known to buy people little (or big) gifts on a whim, just for the sheer pleasure of making that person happy. Everyone should strive for expressing their love every day, and cherishing those around them before it is too late. Looking back, I wish I had told my Grandmother that I loved her more before her death in 2001. Her passing hit me pretty hard, and still pulls at my emotions for her passing was too soon for my liking. She thought the world of me, as I've been told by several of her friends, and I was too consumed by my every day life. The whole experience helped drive home the point that life is too short to be consumed by one's problems. We shouldn't pass up the opportunities to share time with loved ones, as you never know when your time with them will run out. As I've grown older I often laugh at thoughts of myself in earlier years. In the teenage years I thought it would be the end of the world to stay in, and to spend time with my parents. Now, I actually seek out time with them, whenever I am back home that is. I honestly don't know what I would do, or where I would be without them. They are coming to visit soon, and I am thankful that they are making the trip down. So on this Valentines Day, I will be thankful for all of the love that is around me, and I will forget about my own worries and negativity. Life is too short for stress and worrying....

"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world...."

Wow! you know your Incubus...you've been there from
the beginning, haven't you


INCUBUS...how much do you know?
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If you don't know for some ODD reason, Brandon is the lead singer of Incubus......*sigh*

Yay!!!

Something I sent it to "I Love Bacon" finally got posted....

Check them out below....

Bunny Luv
http://www.ilovebacon.com/012204/g.shtml

Used People
http://www.ilovebacon.com/012204/h.shtml

So here we are again, another night, another update. This must mean I'm on some kind of LJ kick or something as this is the second update in as many nights. Figured that I might as well since I'm sitting here not doing much of anything. Well, if you count dealing with my bank statements and watching some movie on Lifetime as something, I'm actually quite busy! Don't know about this movie though, it's a bit strange....from the looks of it the movie is a bit old, as I can tell by the age of the actors in it. It has Mark Walhberg as the psycho-stalker bf and Reese Witherspoon as the stalked gf. Alyssa Milano is also in it as the slutty best friend, go figure right? I've been laughing at Mark Walhberg's acting, as you can tell he's quite new to acting in this one. Don't really know if he's gotten any better, as I can't say if I've seen anything of his since!

Work today wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, minus being super tired. Today was the day that I was to review my final project reports with my Manager. Got in the office around 8, and within no time he was at my office, asking me to meet him in a conference room to go over the reports. Seems that the client's external auditor was stopping by soon to see the work we performed. Oh joy, a meeting with an auditor....ahhhh! Haha, I found it quite funny to be an auditor meeting with an auditor. Maybe I'm just a dork for that :-) Anyhow, I walked the Manager through the reports and he picked at them a little bit. Not as much as I thought he would however. I was really worried that he would say something like, "what the hell did you guys do on this audit...it is ALL wrong!!" Lucky for me, he didn't, and actually told me that he thought I did a good job given that it was my first attempt at writing a final report. I still have a bit to do to "tighten the report" up and some follow-up interviews with the client, but at least I got through the meeting today. Part of my day was also spent trying to figure out what I needed to do on my current project and what questions I still had outstanding. I'm finding out how crazy things can get with multiple things going on at once. Don't know how anyone else handles being on multiple engagements at once. Late in the afternoon I had a meeting with the client and it was pretty productive. I'll have to do a little work this weekend, but at least I got the bulk of my questions answered. Monday will be spent at a company meeting in Baltimore. That means that I will have to get up early to make sure I get to 30th Street Station for the Amtrak train. The office meetings are never very interesting, save for a few details on current engagements won. I'm wondering if they will speak to the loss of so many technology personnel. Hopefully they do b/c I think that it would be the wise thing to do. Also, I'm hoping that they wise up and start supporting people more, as they may begin to lose more staff. Tuesday I'm back in the office and back to my current project. At least I will have another person working with me from now on, which makes me very happy.

About to fall asleep, so this update will have to do for now....

Just thought I'd throw on a brief update for those who actually care to come and visit my online journal. I know I've been neglecting this thing for quite a while, and I have really no good excuse. My motivation for writing has been pretty low as most of what I do all day is write. Sitting in front of the computer all day can get to a person after a while. So, with that, I only really browse my "usual" websites, such as LJ, CNN.com, Fark.com and the Digital PSU Collegian once I get back from work. Sometimes it takes all the concentration I have left to carry on a conversation with someone online. All of this makes me feel a bit sad, as my life seems quite boring. Nothing I can really do about it I guess, when I am in the middle of wrapping up two old projects and running one on my own. Life has been quite hectic as of late as my office has lost quite a few technology consultants, including my roommate. As I referenced above, I am in the middle of wrapping up two projects that consumed my life in the month of December. A few days before I left for my end of the year vacation, the senior consultant on the job with me tells me that he is leaving the firm. Great, just great. That meant that I would be left to clean up the project once I got back to work in the new year. Once I figured out what there was left to do it wasn't too difficult really. The difficult thing now is dealing with the Manager of the project. Things are difficult for a few reasons, part of which include his management style. Now I know that people can get busy, but he needs to learn how to communicate to his staff consultants. One day he tells me that he needs the two final reports as soon as possible, a few days later, he says he wont have time to look at them until a later point. Well why the hell did I put in all that work to get the reports ready for him then? Arrrgh. Then I find out that I will be leading another engagement for this same manager due to his lack of planning and lack of technology staff. That's just great as well. Needless to say there were a few tense moments as I didn't really know what was expected of me. So, after talking to my roommate and my bf, I went into the office and talked to my mentor. I was glad to find out that its not my responsibility to deliver the project. Now I wasn't thinking that it was, but I was afraid that I would get in trouble if I didn't do everything correctly. At least now I know that people understand that I'm new in this senior consultant role. Luckily the senior on the project will be back next week and I can share the workload with someone. To stay on the positive side, being thrown into this position has given me the opportunity to hone my interview skills. My interview skills still need a bit of work, but at least I've had more practice, and I've become more comfortable as time has gone on. I'm even learning to get away from my "interview list," and to go with the flow of the interview. All very good things indeed! Enough of my ranting for tonight, as it's after 10pm and that means time for bed!

Just trying something to see if anyone still comes to my journal even though I don't update at all lately....

Posted just for Dave so he can fill it out :-P

1- when and how did we meet:
2- what did you first notice about me:
3- what do you like most about me:
4- are we friends:
5- have you ever seen me with my shirt off:
6- have you ever seen me cry:
7- describe me in four words:
8- if we could spend a day together what would we do:
9- have we ever gotten in a fight:
10- if you could give me a present what would it be:
11- would you hug me:
12- what do you really think of me:
13- have we ever kissed:
14- ever been anything you wanted to tell me, but were scared to:
15- wanna makeout:
16- name one thing you dont like about me:

You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.


What Matrix Persona Are You?
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Oh yeah baby....I'm Oral Sex!!!

You Are Cunnilingus!

Soft, considerate, and even a bit submissive.



Otherwise known as:



Going on a clam dig

Speaking in tongues

Cunning linguistics

Munchin' the mango

Having a box lunch

Eating a tuna taco

Wearing the beard

Dining at the "Y"

Face fucking

Rug munching

Muff diving



What Type of Sex Are You?

More Great Quizzes from Quiz Diva</div>

Awww! My boyfriend is the BEST EVER!!!!

Earlier in the day I received a text message from him asking if I was still interested in floor speakers. As I'm trying to build up my home theater system, that text message peaked my curiosity. I text him back asking why he is curious, and he tells me that he was thinking of a little surprise for me. Back and forth the text messages go, and I find out that he found a pair of Paradigm floor speakers on sale. His final text message says that he will talk to me more about it later after work, so I don't give it too much thought. Then later this evening, I go to take my phone out of my bag and see that I've missed two calls. One is from my roommate and the other is from my bf. I went out to Target to get a few things earlier that evening and forgot to bring my phone. A voice message is waiting for me and it is my bf who mentions that he is near the turnpike (which is 10 min from me). I call him back and find out that he is the sweetest thing ever. He apparently was in my area b/c he was at a stereo shop buying me speakers. It was supposed to be a surprise but he said that he couldn't contain his excitement anymore. He occasionally visits the stereo shop's website where they advertise new and used electronics and saw a pair of speakers on there that I have wanted. So, what's a good bf to do? Well, buy the 400 dollar speakers for a surprise. What a sweet and wonderful boyfriend he is. He figured that he would buy them for me b/c he has the money now for them and he knew that they would make my day. Don't know what I am going to do with that boy....kick his butt for dropping 400 dollars or give him lots of hugs and kisses for his nice gesture. Ahh...how good it feels to be in love....

I've again fallen back into my bad habit of worrying over almost everything. Recently I've been worrying about relationships again. Its pretty much the same old worries I always have, but with a big exception. Now I'm not overly jealous about losing my bf to someone else, as I trust him completely. I'm mainly worried about losing him in general. My worries center around the thoughts that I'm will become boring to him. That one day, he will have to have a "talk" with me, and will break my heart. I get very worried about keeping things fun, and worry about being boring. On a constant basis I feel the need to entertain, and to find new and fun things to do. Now I don't really know why I feel the need to be so entertaining. Perhaps I don't feel that I have enough to offer by giving him just my company. I often think to myself, how does he not grow sick of being around me. Maybe I'm just thinking down on myself too much, I don't really know. Friday night wasn't a restful sleep as I had bad dreams that had my bf and I in them. I don't remember much of one of them, but in the other we were arguing about something. When I woke up I was a bit shaken as I never feel well after having bad dreams. In years past when I have had a bad dream about someone, then something bad has happened. Due to this fact I worried quite a bit yesterday b/c I had had 2 bad dreams, not just 1. When my bf came over at night I was a bit apprehensive at first, but things worked out ok. Since he likes me to come to him with whatever is on my mind, I told him about my dreams. He was understanding and told me that I have nothing to worry about. He said that I shouldn't feel the need to entertain him, as he enjoys just being around me. I'm glad to have such support from him and I'm happy that I have his love :) We spent the better part of the night in the city as I took him to dinner at Bertucci's. It had been a while since we had gone into the city, so I thought it would be something good to do. After dinner we walked over to the Wanamaker building so I could show him where I worked. He had missed the Christmas party since he wasn't feeling well, so I thought I'd show him while we were downtown. After getting back from the city we settled down with a Bass and watched Extreme Elimination Challenge on TNN. A good way to end the night since we both find the show quite humorous. Headed off to my room around 11 and enjoyed his wonderful back massage. Man is that boy good with his hands! Heh. It was another wonderful morning waking up to him and I wish I could wake up to him more often! Sadly he had to go back home around noon to do some cleaning for his big move in a few weeks. I'm hoping I can get to spend another morning with him in bed very soon!

Tired....cranky....and in pain. Three things that do not go well together. With those three things occurring at the same time it must mean one thing-its that special time of the month. I make mention of it for it has made me tired and cranky all week. This week seemed like it would never end. Thank god it did and I'm sitting here relaxing in front of the TV. There wasn't anything especially bad about this week, it just seemed like time dragged on, and on, and on. Monday was a pretty boring day and I spent it doing some research on possible professional certifications. Also spent some time brushing up on my Access skills. Tuesday started out the same way, with not much to do, but in the late morning I got a research request. I got back from a building fire drill and saw a note on my desk: please come see me about this company research. Basically, that meant that I would have to go out on the Internet to find anything and everything about the specified company. Now that would seem simple, but it really isn't. You dont know how much information you should really get, for too much information might be overkill. Then you worry that you might not get enough information. What was I to do? Well, I decided to take all the information I had, then thought I could take information out if needed. The final product included two binders that included summaries of the company info and backup information from the Internet. What fun indeed. I guess I can't really complain because it was chargeable work, but I worried a bit about doing a good job. I'll admit that I'm glad the work is now done and I can focus on something new next week. Tuesday through Friday I'll be out at a new client helping out on another audit. Seems like I'm being put on a lot of audit engagements lately. Again, I can't complain about chargeable work, but its not exactly the area I'd like to focus my career on. I'll be glad when they let us know who our mentors are so I can talk to someone about my career goals, etc. The client I'm working on next week is out in NJ so it should be an interesting commute for 4 days. At least I'm out of the office, and somewhere new that isn't too far away. This job is somewhat more technical, but it is still considered internal audit. After next week I don't have anything scheduled, but I hear that I'm supposed to be going out to "shadow" someone soon. Don't know when exactly, but at least I know something is coming up. After work I've been pretty much vegging out because I'm quite exhausted. Did manage to get to the gym to get in a bit of a run, so I'm happy about that. Might get up the motivation to go tomorrow, putting my total of gym visits this week at 4. That would be a best for me as I haven't gone 4 times a week since way back last summer. Wish I could go more and be at the level I was last summer, but with work that just isn't possible. I can just continue to motivate myself to go and hope that I get back to that old level. Enough babbling in LJ for one night...time to watch Die Hard....

On Thursday I found out that I should really not worry so much about things. At some point in the afternoon the senior I worked with on the last two projects wanted to discuss my project review. Apparently I did well and shouldn't have been so paranoid about things. I was glad to have the chance to talk to her as I got to air some concerns that I was having. She let me look over the review before meeting and I was pleasantly surprised. The area that I was most concerned about, my writing and documentation of findings, was one of my highest evaluated areas. I had been so worried that my writing wasn't up to standards and I had nothing to worry about. Silly me. When I went in to talk to her I mentioned how I had felt bad about certain writing tasks. She felt that I had no reason to worry and reiterated that written communication was one of my strongest points. At least from her point of view anyways. She mentioned that she was impressed when she got my first memo b/c first-years usually don't write at that level. That made me feel a lot better about my writing skills and from here on out I won't be as anxious about it. I was also rated highly in Analytics as she felt that I did really well with interpreting the data that we had to analyze. All in all, it was a good review and I'm glad to have another good project evaluation in my files. Hopefully my hard work will pay off come time for annual performance reviews in July. I've heard that based on our performance we will get raises and a new title. I'm especially looking forward to the possibility of a raise so that I can afford a vacation to England in the summer.

It was a pretty slow day yesterday at work but at least I had some chargeable work. I also spent part of the day looking up possible courses for training. Found out from the head security guy in the office that first-years probably won't sit for the big security certification this year. He did mention that there are some other courses that would be good to take to start getting some basic security knowledge. Left work a little early so I could get back to run some errands. Stopped by Target to pick up some Mother's Day gifts for my Mom. Thought it would be nice to surprise her with a package as I did on her birthday. Also picked up some frames for the bf he is printing out the picture of him and I that my Dad took at Myrtle Beach. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will turn out as I got 5 x 7 frames and the picture size is only 4 x 6. Found out the true picture dimensions only this morning, as the bf was just curious. Spent last night with the bf and enjoyed the last night of the apartment to myself. Went out to TGIFridays for a late dinner as we were both quite hungry. By the time we got back it was after midnight so we pretty much passed out quickly. Spent the day enjoying the weekend and picked up my roomie who got back from a week-long vacation in England. She had a really good time over there and wishes she could move over there. Hopefully I will get to go over to England some time this summer. I'm thinking that she might join me if I get the chance to go! Just wish plane tickets weren't so damn expensive! Dah!

Ah well, that's it for me tonight....need to go rest up for a fun trip to Bethlehem tomorrow....

You know what NBC? Why don't you just blow me. That's right, you heard me. Blow me. It would help if I had a penis and balls, but I feel like saying it anyways. Why can NBC blow me? Well, it was supposed to be a new Law & Order this week. As I'm out in the kitchen getting some italian ice the channel apparently cuts out. I return to the room and check the other channels to see if they are having issues as well. Do I have any problems with other channels? Nope, it is only NBC having big issues. So, my bf and I surf through the channels and land on the Portland-Dallas playoff game on TNT. I figure that NBC will correct their issues in a few moments. When I switch back I am once again greeted with no signal. Dah! Switching back and forth ensues for the remainder of the hour and no Law & Order. Of course when I went to check a few minutes ago things are fine. Apparently the news is able to broadcast normally. Woe is me. Just had to come on here to vent before bed...

Wasn't that a song from the 80's or something? Or perhaps I have heard the lyrics incorrectly this entire time. Anyways, the key word of the two is frustrated. Frustration can sum up how I've felt the past week or so. Most of my frustration can be attributed to work, as I'm not feeling very good about myself. My recent project has me on a review that is new to me, so I don't really know how things are done. Last week I was put in charge of documenting our project workpapers. Well, I didn't really see the point as I knew ahead of time that I didn't know how to correctly document things. That frustration, coupled with being a perfectionist led to a very bad afternoon. As expected, the senior on the project made corrections to my document. I just couldn't help but feel stupid for not knowing how to do it correctly. In talking to my bf he says I shouldn't really worry about it, as I have had no experience with documenting findings before. Perhaps I should listen to his good advice and quit worrying about things so much. God knows I have lots of other things to worry about!

Today was an uneventful day as I didn't have much to do related to the project. Everything that I needed to get done was completed yesterday, so I had time to brush up on my Access skills. After work I decided that it was about time to get the chest x-ray that my doctor recommended a while ago. I finally found a hospital that would take my insurance after several phone calls to the insurance customer support line. The x-ray department wasn't actually at the hospital but it wasn't too far away from my apartment. After about 20 minutes the x-ray process was complete. That includes time for registration AND the x-ray. The damn registration took longer than the x-ray itself! Somebody explain that to me. Dah! Got home around 7:30, had some dinner while settling in for some TV. Went running for a little while and was able to run for 10 minutes. Not exactly a long time, but at least I'm seeing progress. Think I'll check out a gym in the area tomorrow that I heard about from a guy at the running store.

Time to toss and turn in bed....but I can toss and turn to the Simpsons on Fox...score!

Ok, the kid upstairs can take a chill pill and calm the fuck down. One of these days I'm going to go up there and tell the resident to control her damn kid. She complains about us making noise by banging on the ground and yelling, so why does her kid get to be loud? The other night (Friday) it was "rough house time" again. Uggh. Basically, it sounds like he is trying to make the most noise possible. Lucky for her I wasn't trying to concentrate on anything important and had a DVD to watch.

Speaking of the weekend, it was a pretty uneventful one. Mostly a weekend spent alone, as my roommate is out of the country. My roommate left on Friday for England where she will be visiting a friend in Cambridge. Hopefully she is enjoying it and the travel day she had wasn't too tough on her. She took the train into Center City Philadelphia and then took another train to the airport. From there she flew to Washington and had a seven hour layover. Now that is a really crappy layover, but I guess she didn't have any choice in the matter. Once she gets through customs in England she had to find a bus to take her to Cambridge. When I was in London I found the huge aiport to be very confusing. I'm just wondering how she figured out about a bus and why she didn't take a train into Cambridge. I just don't see her as the type of person that would enjoy getting to spend three hours crammed on a bus. Perhaps she had no other alternative and had to go with what was available.

Anyways, that does relate to my original point above. It's been a pretty uneventful weekend b/c I've had the apartment to myself. Friday started out ok, but then things got a bit more stressful. While finishing up some tasks on a current project a manager asked if I could look something up online. Well, after some time searching I didn't really come up with what he wanted. The frustrating part was that I knew this, but didn't know what else to do. I'm finding that it is hard being in the consulting world b/c everyone likes you to learn by trying. Now I'm a person that likes to be shown how things should be done. Trying to do something, only to come short of what was needed upsets me. Perhaps I should be more open to corection and should accept the fact that most work I will do at my level will be revised. I just can't help but think that those doing the corrections think I'm an idiot. If I wasn't an idiot then it would have been correct the first time. *Sigh* Who the hell knows.

There was nothing I could do about the material so I decided to focus the rest of my energies on finishing the rest of the work needed for Monday. Got everything done that I needed to so I feel somewhat accomplished for the week. Got home, ate a bit for dinner and pretty much passed out cold. Was originally going to sleep for an hour and a half but I fell back asleep after my alarm went off. Woke back up in the middle of the night and amused myself by watching a bit of tv. Didn't quite get done all I wanted to that night but everyone needs rest once in a while. Got a few things done on Saturday that I needed to but it was again a lazy day. Today the bf came over and we went out to a place called the Drake Tavern for lunch. After lunch we grabbed a DVD at Blockbuster and decided to head to the Infiniti dealership. I had been thinking about a G35 as my next car but after looking at the lot I figure that I would be more happy with an I35. Its more luxury and had a lot more room for everyone in the car. Now I have a new car to build and configure online..woohoo! After that we decided to drop by Rita's for some water ice. Water ice, thats what people like to call it around here. Its ITALIAN ice...get it right!! Anyways, we grabbed some water ice and made our way back here. Spent the rest of the evening together and had some Bertuccis for dinner while watching Behind Enemy Lines. Hopefully I can get him to spend the night during the week to keep me company in this lonely apartment :)

Why is it that my Penn State e-mail account still works even though I've been gone from Penn State almost a year now? Thought that the policy was that your e-mail would work for only six months after graduation. Hmm. Also, my personal web space for PSU is still active and working. Not complaining about that even though I can't make any updates to the pages. Really need to get motivated to migrate my web stuff over to a new service. I saved all the files from my personal PSU web space so I have everything I need. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to it. For now I'm back to my nice comfy bed to enjoy the weekend...