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For the first time in days, I am not coughing my head off. Granted, I have not stopped coughing entirely, but I’m down to maybe 2 or 3 coughs per hour rather then per minute. I think I may have finally beaten this damn chest cold!

I’d have to say that I did pretty good on my to-do list today. The only things that are left undone are cleaning out my car (ran out of daylight) and canceling one of my web hosting accounts (placed was closed for the day when I called). I plan on cleaning out the car now probably on Saturday morning, and canceling the account tomorrow after work.

Feeling better, I also plan on going to the gym tomorrow. I was supposed to go yesterday, but at the behest of my wife, and being the wise sage that she is, I did not. I had to agree with her argument that if I couldn’t stop coughing just sitting in my chair, how the hell was I going to do 3 miles on a treadmill.

Tomorrow is day 8 in my countdown to extinction. Only 8 working days remain before I leave Installed Sales and the Wilkes-Barre store behind me. It’s not that I hate the store or my position in installed sales, but it is indeed time for a change. Going to a new store and a new position will be good for me psychologically, geographically, and monetarily. This last week and a half is going to be tough for me. I have to start handing off tasks to my coordinators that I normally take care of simply because I will not be there long enough to see them through to the end. I’m sure they’re going to see that as passing the buck, but that’s something they are just going to have to get over.

I’ve got lots of thing I need to get done on one little day off today. Things might have gone smoother if I had gotten out of bed a bit earlier (woke up at 10:00am) but with this chest cold kicking my ass I wanted to sleep in. So here’s a list of what need to get accomplished.

• Clean out my car
• Do the dishes DONE!
• Make dinner DONE!
• Clean living room DONE!
• Meet Jess for obstetrician appointment DONE!
• Cancel one of my web hosting accounts

I’m off to hit the shower and see how much of that list I can get done.

I use Mail in OS X. All day everyday I connect to and check 9 different email addresses. The only messages I delete are ones that I either have no interest in (newsletters from my ISP) or stuff that I know I will never need once I have read it once (Monster.com results, Frederick’s of Hollywood sales). Looking at my inbox today, I wondered what my future course of action should be. My inbox currently contains several hundred, if not thousands of messages, all of which start from back in January 2008, or when I first got my Mac.

Should I delete these emails and not look back or hang onto them as an archive? I can create a compelling argument for either choice. An archive is nice since you can look back and what you were talking about a few years ago or look back on when you purchased things online. Then again, what is the point of hanging onto a “Hey, you guys going to make the podcast?” email from 2 years ago? A clean inbox is a happy inbox. And in my opinion, creating a new folder called ‘Archive’ and throwing everything there is a cop-out. You should either deal with it, or leave it be.

How do you guys keep your inbox?

While I was working out in the yard today I got to thinking about my new job that I will be starting on April 11th. To say that I am excited would be an understatement. While thinking about the job, I realized that for the second time in my life, clicking on a link by happenstance has changed my life.

This first time was back in 2004 when I first started using Match.com. I had been single for a little over 2 years at that point and was getting tired of not having anyone. Not being the kind of guy that goes out to the bar to find someone, I realized that the most logical place to find someone is the place I always hangout – the internet. A few days after opening my account, I get an email of some of my potential matches and I see this really cute girl. There is only one problem though; she is from New Jersey. Now, it’s not that I have anything against New Jersey, it’s just not like it’s in my backyard. Mulling it over for about 10 minutes I had a pure ‘screw it’ moment and clicked on the link to send this Jersey cutie a message.

Twenty-seven months later that cutie would become my wife.

Flash forward to February 6th, 2009. I am at work in my office and having some issues with some of my co-workers. Frustrated, I just feeling like quitting. I know that in reality I cannot, so by chance I start looking at different job openings in the area. While looking at all the openings in Pennsylvania, one happens to catch my eye. The posting is for the appliance/kitchens department manager at the Edwardsville store. Having tried to transfer to that store twice before with no avail, I wasn’t sure if a third time would truly be a charm. At that moment, one of my co-workers said something that pissed me off. Again, I had one of those pure ‘screw it’ moments and clicked on the link to apply for the job.

I start that position on April 11.

I have been pretty lucky with getting good results by taking blinds chances. I can only hope my instincts don’t fail me the next time I am presented with a similar situation.

The last 3 days have been horrible. I’ve been down for the count with a Super Bug ripping me apart from the inside out.

It all started on Sunday morning. I thought it was just the aftermath of going out with the boys the night before. However, by Sunday night, I had the sneaking suspicion that it was something more. By Monday, I was knee deep in the shit. I had a headache, sinus pressure, fever, sore throat, congestion, and nausea. I made it through the entire day at work on Monday but then came home and laid on the couch for most of the night. On my way home I did stop at the store and pick up some medication. I started taking it as soon as I got home, but it was like putting a band-aid on a severed arm. I needed more. I took another dose before going to bed at 8:30pm in the hope that I would feel better the next morning.

I woke up on Tuesday and felt like I had just gotten hit by a truck. I did go to work but only made it until about 9:00am. I came home, finished up Kyla’s surprise birthday present (a computer) and went to bed. Jess woke me up by phone at 2:40pm. I got up, got dressed, and headed over to my sister’s house to setup the computer so we could surprise her with it when she got home. After all was said and done, I was home again by 6:00pm and went right back to bed. I stayed there for pretty much the remainder of the night.

I woke up this morning at 8:00am and wasn’t quite sure how I felt. Then I got out of bed. As my feet hit the floor, my head went to the left and my stomach to the right. I felt like I was going to fall down and vomit at the same time. I managed to stumble to the computer room and grab my cell phone. Heading back to bed, I called off for the day. I literally remained in bed until about 2:00pm.

Thankfully, I feel somewhat human now. I chalk that up to almost 2 full days of medication, rest, and plenty of fluids.

On the plus side, I did get some great news today. I finally got my transfer to the Edwardsville store! Why is this good? Well first of all, it means a nice pay raise. On top of my hourly raise, I will be getting spiffs in the department I will be managing. So that means in any given check I may have a few extra hundred dollars for just doing my job. Add to that the fact that my commute is about a good 1/3 to ½ of what it is now and it’s a damn good day to celebrate. I’m not sure when I start officially, but I am going over there to walk with the store manager on Saturday afternoon to meet my new staff and to go over some issues that need correcting. By her best estimates, I should be over there permanently in about 3 weeks or so. That gives my current store about 1 ½ – 2 weeks to post my job, interview, and hire someone if they want me to train them. That also gives me about 3 weeks to tie up any loose ends before I leave my life in Installed Sales behind me. Although I will miss it, I will not miss the constant stress of the job. That is one tough position!

For now, I’m going to relax for the rest of the night. There is a new ‘Ghost Hunters’ on tonight and I am looking forward to that. Later…

Sundays lately have been a day of total relaxation around our household. However the ever-rising mountain of laundry made us be a little more active then we normally would have been on such a day. Although I did find enough time in my busy schedule to take a nap with Loki.

After staying up until 4:30am last night (losing that hour to DST sucked!) I stumbled out of bed around 10:30am this morning. Coming into the computer room, I sat down and checked my email. There on my Mac’s dock was the bouncing blue sphere telling me that there were updates from Apple to install. I looked at what was available and most were run of the mill. There was an update for my Airport card, one for iPhoto, and one or two others for some applications. I let the Mac install them and reboot as it requested without thinking.

I really wish I hadn’t.

About 30 minutes after rebooting, my Mac started its random rebooting again. This was one of the issues I had for weeks along with the graphical freeze ups, so I proceeded to reset the PRAM. Knowing already that this is kind of a Mac ‘cure all’ I thought I was in good hands. After rebooting and holding down Option+Command+P+R until it made the happy sound twice, I hoped that I had cured its ills.

I would be mistaken.

Since then, the Mac has continued to randomly reboot whenever it feels like, usually when I am right in the middle of something. In fact I am writing this on my PC for fear that it will reboot on me in mid-sent

Just kidding.

I did notice that after its last random reboot that it can no longer see my external HD. This also started happening during my last round of reboots. I’m not sure if this is a symptom of the issue or part of the issue itself. Right now it’s too late to really worry about this and something I will work on for the the rest of the week. For now, it’s time to end this weekend by going to bed.

I had what some might call an epiphany tonight. It was rather sudden, like most epiphanies are. Mine happened while I was sitting in our rather comfy orange chair in the living room watching ‘Wall-E’. I had my laptop open next to me and I was surfing the net while watching the flick. I’m not quite sure what triggered it, but what I can tell you is that it hit me like a tack hammer to the face.

I need to be a better person.

Now, I’m not saying I’m a horrible person, although I am sure there are some out there who would disagree with me. What I need to be is more than I am right now. In 7 short months, I am slated to be a father. Having children is something I have always wanted whether I have admitted it in the past or not. But there is that underlying fear that I will not be good enough. They say the goal of every parent is to give their children a better life with more opportunities than what they had. I feel that I am up to the task, but at the same time, I am not naïve enough to think I’m not going to make some mistakes along the way. This got me thinking to something else that happened earlier today…

I was doing the dishes while Jess was making dinner when I commented about the shirt I was wearing. It was a shirt I purchased this past summer while on vacation in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time I had worn it since we got back from the trip in September. I accused my wife of shrinking it in the wash because it was rather tight on me. My wife gave me that wry smile that only a wife could give. “No honey, you’ve just put on a little more weight since then”, she explained. I had a hard time with this. I refused to believe I’ve put on enough weight to make a shirt I purchased 5 moths ago now tight on me. But, after thinking about it for a few seconds I knew she was right.

While I have come to the rationalization that I would rather be happy and slightly overweight than thin and miserable, there has to be a self-imposed cut off line. Becoming a father this year means I now longer have a choice in the matter. I need to be healthy enough to be around for my child. This was further reinforced about two hours ago when I was checking my friends on Twitter. One of the people I follow, David Hewlett, made a tweet about he and his son today. I also noticed that he changed his Twitter icon. Looking at his icon just solidified my what I had been thinking about since that comment. His picture is the kind of father I want to be. I can’t do that if I’m fat.

Onto a less visceral topic, I brought a new site design online tonight. It’s something I started working on last night and finished up this evening. I spent the last few hours tweaking it and making sure everything was 100% before bringing it online. As always, if you find any bugs, just throw me an email and I’ll get them fixed.

I also changed the background of my Twitter page tonight. I decided to finally sit down and make up a ‘bio’ background. Basically it’s just my contact information and some of the sites I run.

Thanks to the time change, it just went from 1:59am to 3:00am, so I think it’s time for bed. Audios!