Nobody Asked Me!!

I just want to take a second to tell you all that Cingular sucks. They have been doing this ad campaign where they claim that they have the least dropped calls. They definitely didn’t ask me about dropped calls. I don’t think I’ve had a phone conversation in the last month that went more than a minute where I didn’t lose all signal and then drop a call. I’m not even talking about when I’m in the basement or driving through mountains. I mean when I’m sitting on the front steps of my house and I have 3 bars and then the next minute I have no signal. I’m also a little bitter about the whole “more bars in more places” thing. That’s not really happening either. Verizon should defiantly call me. I’d be happy to do an advertisement for them about how bad Cingular is. Of course, we wouldn’t be able to plan it out because my phone would drop the call before we got anywhere with the concept.

Moving Ill!!

I’m now back in Pittsburgh. I moved on Saturday. The move went about as close to plan as one could expect (“I love it when a plan comes together”). We left only 1.5 hours later than I wanted to. We were actually done packing the truck by, 10 like I had wanted, but then it took time to get everything cleaned up and the last few things into the car. All cleaned up and $100 of gas later ($75 for the U-haul and $25 for my car) we were on the road. The drive up was pretty un-eventful. We arrived in Pittsburgh at a good time. The rain didn’t catch up to us before we got everything unloaded. It did start to rain in DC just as we were getting the last boxes in the truck but really only Mark got wet. I had plenty of great help. Thank you to Mark, Lori, Doug, Ryan, Jen (J-Diddy) and my parents for helping in DC. Thanks to Lori, Mark, Melissa, Dave, Jenn (J Lo), Mom and Dad for help in Pittsburgh.

The night before the move was great. My parents and Lori arrived during the after noon. I showed them around the house that I lived in for the last year. Then we went to get the Uhaul truck and then met Jen, my twin sister-in-law, for dinner. We went to an Afghan Kabob place. The food there is really good. It’s in Springfield, VA. You should go if you are in the area. Then Lori and I went back to my place to meet up with a friend of ours from college and his brother. We sent them to the liquor store while we stopped at the grocery store for juice to mix with the alcohol they bought. We were up till about 130 playing cards and catching up with which of our friends are getting married and who doesn’t like whom. We laughed a lot. I was a great night; it reminded me of our late night card sessions from college, except for the drinking.

Mark was in usual form having plenty of quotes to make us laugh. The best I added to my quote board to the right.

DONE!!

I no longer work at the Fish Market! I’m very excited and happy. Sunday was my last day. It was a glorious day. The sun was shining, the birds singing and I had a song in my heart (I think it was See My Vest from Simpsons). We had few customers. I thought it would be a late start since everybody was a church. But I thought that after the terrible chore of church for the second time in a year (Christmas) that it would get busy. But, thankfully, it never did. It was hard to say goodbye to many of the people. It was a good ending though.

Dinner with the Thai people is tonight. It was just Janna at first. But now it’s going to be a few others too. I’m looking forward to it.

In Peace Corp news: things are pretty frustrating. I needed dental x-rays but they made me gag every time they put it in my mouth. So my dentist wrote very clearly that it was not possible. They sent back my dental packet saying that they need the x-rays that my dentist said couldn’t be done. Plus my doctor in Pittsburgh seems incapable of even simple tasks like faxing requests for medical records. I have had to call them so many times to find out if they got the information or not. They never did any follow up with the VA to see why they didn’t get the information they requested. Today I’m going to the VA to get a few more lab tests done. This time I’m going to see if I can have the results sent directly to me so that I can just take them right to the doctor myself. This doctor is really pissing me off. I just want to go and take my Peace Corp forms back from them and get someone else to take care of it all. Well I better stop now or else I’ll just get angry again at the ineptitude of my doctor.

Wireless-less

I’m at Panera Bread where they have free internet access. Exept for today when it’s not working. I just called the help desk and she said yes, we are aware that it’s down and I can’t say when it will be fixed. How annoying is that?!? I may have to go to another store or (shutter) the library(where I’m pretty sure they have wireless). So hopefully it won’t take too long to post this. If all else fails I’ll do it when I get home.

Not too much has happened in the last week. Pretty much everybody at work knows that I’m leaving on Sunday. It’s hard to explain to some of them what I’m doing/where I’m going. Especially since I don’t know. But I just tell them vague things and that seems to do. They keep asking me if I like Asian girls and if that’s why I’m going. Well, I do like Asian girls but that’s not really why I’m going. Though, I usually just say yes, that’s why I’m going. These last few days at work have been pretty bad. We are really busy now because the weather here is nice now. When the weather is nice our sections get bigger because we have extra tables outside but no extra people to help out. So it’s been kind of crazy because I haven’t gotten a good rhythm down for handling all the tables. Plus yesterday I worked with a bartender lazier than I am and a server that’s not much better. Usually I can get some help from the other servers if I need but not so much from these two. One of my first tables got me all screwed up because he ordered the wrong thing and then complained when I told him that I would make the change and it would take just a few minuets to fix it (who do they think I am, Bullwinkle?!? Hey Rocky, watch me pull a crab cake out of my hat!). But in the time that took I had 2 other tables come in and then I just kept getting behind and couldn’t catch up. I was pretty unhappy the rest of the day. Today was better. I was training a new guy today. I like doing that. It’s fun and if the person is good then they do like half the work for you. It was easier to keep up with everything today. 3 more days of working at the Fish Market. That’s a good feeling.

Next week one of the other servers is taking me out for lunch or dinner at a Thai place. She is Thai: well half Thai, her mom is American. I’m really looking forward to it, except for one thing. I want to get her a gift but I don’t know what to get her. I should point out that she is married. So this isn’t a romantic encounter kind of thing. I wouldn’t say that we are really close but I do have a fondness for her and I will miss her. So I have to think of a good gift before Wednesday. I’m taking suggestions, if anybody has some. Something that will remind her of me. Maybe I’ll just go to the mall tomorrow and see if I can find something I like for her. That’s usually how I shop for people, I just walk around the mall and see if I can get inspired. That’s not always an easy process as Dave and Lori and attest to from Hawaii and Dili Haat. But usually I’m pretty happy with what I come up with. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

FREEZE (SUCKER!)

As I stated in my last posting I went to Pittsburgh last week. It was an AWESOME week. If for no other reason, I wasn’t waiting tables at the Fish Market. There were, however, many other reasons it was great. But I’ll stick with the restaurant reason for the minuet. This break came at a particularly good time. I was yet again at the point where I hated everybody that came into the restaurant. Pretty much for no reason other than they came into the restaurant. My one friend laughs at this saying that they come to give me money. My answer to that is, No they don’t. They come in to try to get free food and leave crappy tips. I can’t believe how many people come in and want to just try a few shrimps or scallops. Do I look like I own the place? Do you think there is a big tub of shrimps in the back where I can just take a hand full and give them to you and nobody will notice? I should take a moment to point out that not all customers are idiots. But apparently, there’s a high correlation with my tables. One of the other servers noticed that I don’t have much patients for people. So it was good that I got a break.

There are other better reasons that this weekend was so good. The main one being that I got to see my friend Lori 3 days in a row. I spent most of Thursday with her at her parent’s house. We mostly sat around and talked about life and her reasons for staying in India for another year. The chief reason seems to be simply that she’s not ready to come back yet. I’m happy for her that she can stay. She had trouble working out her work situation but it seems like she was able to get everything all set up. I’m also glad that she’s staying because the Peace Corp might station somewhere near her. How fun would that be for vacation?!? I can pick Dave up on the way to visit Lori. Or we can just meet in like Thailand or Greece if Pam will come. Friday we went to Phipps Conservatory (Professor Plum did it), and the Carnegie Museum. Neither of us had been since school field trips. Then we went for some irreverent fun at the Church Brew Works. It’s a restaurant that was built in an old church. They brew their own beer. They say they do it there but I don’t believe it. There isn’t room there for the output they would need. The beer was good, no matter where they brew it. Then on Saturday we went to see Ice Age 2: The Melt Down. It was funny and not too crowded with mall rats. Then we went to Houlihan’s and tried some special beer they had. Not that great: don’t remember the name of it though. But the conversation was good.

I was also pretty successful with the doctor and the dentist. I wasn’t able to get the x-rays that I needed at the dentist. He didn’t have the panoramic machine and the other ones kept making me gag. I gag really easily. So I have to see if I can get one done here in DC without it costing too much. I’m also waiting to get my lab results from the VA sent to my doctor. I think I might have to go down and just get them and fax them myself. I have tomorrow off so that might be how I fill my day tomorrow.

I also got to see my parents and some other friends in Pittsburgh. It was my parent’s anniversary. My dad got my mom a Mylar balloon that when you hit it sings, “Still the one” (we’re still having fun, and you’re still the one). Very cute and totally a gift that my dad would get.

So that was my week. Lori told me that I should blog about my trip to the VA hospital. So I might have to see if I can do that.