The more things change,

The more they stay the same.

It is Monday morning. I should be at work but I took the day off; I'm in Boston. I sit at the computer, while Ray sleeps away the morning. We stayed up late watching Simpsons episodes, which of course were obtained with less than legal methods. We might as well be freshmen again.

This weekend back has been fantastic. I miss the college life, but as Jackie said, she wouldn't want to be back now, she wants to be 18 again and live college over. Last night best exemplifies how I picture my college experience. My motley crew of friends, who probably would not have acknowledged each other on the street if they had not been forced to share a bathroom for a year, met in the Downtown Crossings station, to take the Orange Line as far west as it would go - to Beth and Jackie's house. Conversation on the T ranged covered topics such as French, quail eggs, the "capita per income" of NJ, shoe-shopping, ancient Greek drama and probably a dozen other irrelevant ideas. Jackie picked us up at the station and the 6 of us fit in her Echo. Kat got to sit on the parking brake. At the apartment we broke out the cheese curds and wine. This time I brought the curds. We made some pleasant conversation for about 10 minutes and then we got down to business - trivial pursuit.

With nine people we made three random teams. Felecia was excited to be placed with me and the Queen of Crap. Team New Jersey (and Tom) included Chad and Kat and Tom. Steve, Ray, and Beth were the last team, probably the most well-rounded team, simply because they all seem to have such different interests. Felecia got the hockey question correct, which spared us from a future slew of sports-related questions. Many of the questions seemed to be swayed to the Midwest and Wisconsin, but alas, they didn't help Beth or me. Team NJ (and Tom) won. It was a long game and we had a long train ride for a "school night" so we crammed into the clown car and made our way back downtown.

Everyone else had class or work today except for me. I went to visit Cory to see what type of place he's living in and whether his roommates are better than I was as a roommate. haha. Actually it was just good to put faces to the names of the people he's always talking about. A long walk home (or to Ray's apartment) gave me plenty of time to think about what I'm missing, what I can change, what I can't, and what I want to accomplish in the next couple of years.

Grocery Greetings

My grocery store has a greeter. I hate that. It pisses me off that they feel that they need to pay someone to say, "Good Morning," to me - as if all other employees are too busy to acknowledge my presence in the store. And then, as you leave the store, she asks, "Did you find everything you were looking for?" Of course, I did. Is this communist Russia? Are you going to run out of bread? However, I'm glad I never gave her a sarcastic remark, because the other day they actually did run out of milk. How does a grocery store run out of milk? It wasn't before or after a snowstorm, which would be understandable. I live in the Dairy State. How do they run out of milk? We have more cows than people in this state. They put a cow on our commemorative quarter. Perhaps they should be investing more in stocking shelves and less on greeters.

what year is it?

For the past few days I have been working on a valuation report for one of our larger clients at work. This client has 11 welfare plans for their workers, and many of the plans have parts such as medical, vision, and dental. The client uses a couple of different dates for measuring their assets and liabilities. Compiling all of this information into a report is complicated, especially for a new hire. I had to ask a lot of questions and I had to send the document back to typing three times before I was ready to send it along to the next person in line so that he could check my work. It's really not that big of a deal, but it was cool to finish a project that will be used as a reference for the next few years.

Today, Mike, the guy checking the report, came to talk to me. He told me that I used the data from the wrong year. He thought it was funny. I thought it was funny. But not really. I was proud of the work I had done. I suppose laughing at my mistake is probably the best result that could come out of it. And it wasn't a complete waste of time. I used the 2004 data for the 2005 report. Mike explained that this client is so far behind its due dates that we are only now working on the 2003 data for the 2004 report. So, actually I was just very far ahead of schedule. We'll save the work I did, but chances are that this (stupid) client will change something and the data will be useless anyway. Also, doing the report the second time went by much faster since I was familar with the template and where to find the data.

Eat your heart out, Bonnie Blair

Today the people in my office went ice skating. There is a skating rink across the street from my office building and we often watch the skaters from our conference room (during our meetings). A few weeks ago my co-worker, Eric, agreed to go skating with me some day. He didn't expect me to actually call him on this agreement. So, last week, we emailed the entire office (about 30 people) and told them our plans. We knew that today we were having an all-staff meeting, so everyone would be in the office.

As two o'clock came around, it seemed that everyone was in the middle of projects. I thought our skating day would fail (again, the last time they were closed). However, I walked around the office asking people to come with us and, surprisingly, a good deal of people did. And I don't mean just the younger associates, but some of the consultants too! These are people who could fire me and I had the opportunity to watch them slowly shimmy across the ice. The highlight, however, was Eric's ice skating/dance interpretation of Madonna's Borderline. The music selection left much to be desired, like some classic rock!

One woman (a consultant) that came with us - I talked to her more today than I have in the last six months. She was thrilled that I had come to her office to ask her personally. She had brought her skates to work, and extra socks, but she wouldn't have come with us if I hadn't gone to her specifically. I don't understand people like that. She clearly wanted to come with us, but she needed the special encouragement. I suppose this is just to reinforce the idea that I shouldn't prejudge people. And that even the most senior people in my office want to feel the acceptance of some type of community.

In other news: I stole office supplies from work today for my quasi-Christian discussion group.

golden pancake

Today at work I found a person with the name "Golden Pancake." I really hope this was a mistake.

Gets me goin' in the morning

Rufus Wainwright sings that an old whore's diet gets him goin' in the morning. If that diet includes Cinnamon Life cereal, than I agree whole-heartedly.

This past summer I moved to Milwaukee for a job. I moved here, not knowing anyone else. Some mornings are tough to get out of bed. I still don't know many people, well, I know them, I just wouldn't consider them friends. My job (actuary) is challenging and the people I work with are great, but it's just not fulfilling. Most days, however, I see as chances for an adventure. It's much easier to get out of bed that way. If I didn't have this attitude, all of the little things in life would get me down.

Textbook Monday

I tried to think of the highlight of my day today and, sadly, I couldn't. It was just a normal Monday. I woke up and went swimming at the gym across the street from my apartment. While at work, I took a short lunch and stayed late. I wanted to get some extra time in today because on Wednesday, the office is going to go ice skating after the staff meeting. There's a rink across the street from our building and one of my coworkers, Eric, and I have been talking about skating for the past few months. Even some of the consultants have brought in their skates and they're only waiting for us younger guys to organize the event. It will be good to break up the monotony of valuing pension plans all day, even if it means the risk of a broken ankle.

When I arrived home tonight, I didn't feel like cooking so I went out for dinner before going to the library. I began studying for my next exam, which will be in May. The topic is interest theory, which makes studying relatively easy - a good deal of practice problems, very little reading, and all cut-and-dry, right-and-wrong answers. I should be able to ace this exam, but if I'm too arrogant now, I'll probably set myself up for failure.

My evening ended with cooking for tomorrow's dinner (hamburger helper!) and setting up this blog. I struggled for an hour with a title, only to give up on being clever or poignant, and settle on my original title CabbageHead in Latin.