Do you think they have rainbows in other states?

A girl actually said this to me today. Or an iteration of this. Let me tell the whole story.

so I have been getting my hair cut at SuperCuts. Mostly because I don't like paying for hair cuts, so I want to go to cheap places. This has bitten me in the butt a lot lately. I used to only get hair cuts like once every six months, but now I'm respectable and get one every month. Or two. Anyway, I digress.

So I went to SuperCuts for my monthly hair cut, and I have mentioned to Hayley I don't like getting my hair cut there. I don't like the forced small talk. And I don't mean any offense, but most of the girls that work there are not too bright. The forced conversation is less than stimulating. But today I tried. The girl talked to me and I was cordial. She asked if I liked the weather we were having and I said yes, except when it storms like it did yesterday. Then she asked if I saw the rainbow. I did, and said it was pretty vivid. And then the magic happens. I can't do it justice describing it, so as well as I can remember, the conversation goes like this:

Hair cut girl: How do rainbows even happen anyway?
Me: [too flabbergasted to give actual responses anymore] I don't know. [Light refracting off of water droplets in the air, you idiot... seriously? Did you miss out on second grade?]
Hair cut girl: I mean, is it like light reflecting off a puddle or something? Like in the air?
Me: [.......really?] ...huh....
Hair cut girl: They don't get them like that in other states, right? I mean, like it's only in our valley, right? Like, we're the only ones that get rainbows like that.
Me: [...........?!!!???] I don't know.
Hair cut girl: ...yeah...

And there you have it. I stopped talking to her and could not WAIT to get out of the chair to tell Hayley. Not only due to this conversation, but the fact that three out of three cheap hair cut places I have been to don't know how to cut hair, I think I'm finally going to give in and go to Hayley's hair cut girl. I guess you get what you pay for. In hair cuts and conversation.

It was a good run, Ted

So they canceled Better Off Ted. I hate that. As soon as Hayley told me about it, I let out a long, sad, "Nooooooooo!!!" It was one of the best shows on TV. It made me laugh out loud multiple times, every episode. I just wish more people watched it. Read about the cancellation here. It's a damn shame.

I was going to put a few clips here, but it makes me too sad to watch through the clips. Just go to Youtube and do a search for Better Off Ted. Seriously. Just do it.  (Or just click on the Better Off Ted links throughout this post. They're still playing clips there.) Thank goodness we've got Netflix now so I can watch the two short seasons over and over again.

Best. Wife. Ever.

Hayley's pretty awesome. But she just proved it yet again to me the other night. We finally got to Target to run a few errands we've been planning to do for a long time, and while walking around the store, we ran into some orange towels. I smiled at them, but we walked past. Later, we ran into a sweet orange trash can, and it had matching soap dispenser, tooth brush holder, and a little bowl for cotton balls and stuff. I was a big fan. And Hayley, seeing how much I liked the items, suggested we get them and make our bathroom orange. Now, I want the record to show that I didn't push this. She wanted to do this for me. And while we were talking about it, she even meant the bathroom in our room. How freakin' nice is that? I don't think the orange would have gone as well with our neutral browns in the bedroom, and I was thinking the guest bathroom anyway. So we agreed on changing the other bathroom. She's the best! Do you follow? I just got an orange bathroom!

So without further ado, here are the before and after photos. This is also my first attempt to use Picnik.

This next one shows the shower curtain better. I didn't do so well with the "after" shot of it above.

Pretty cool, huh? I'm freakin' stoked. It's all so orange! If you know me at all, that's a pretty awesome bathroom in my eyes. Thanks for indulging me, Hayley!

Room for rent

Hiya folks. So I've got a condo that needs some decent people to live in it. The place is three bedrooms, two bath, ground floor, free cable, close to the pool and laundromat. We would like to find good renters from people we know or referrals from people we know. That way, the place won't be trashed, and we'll all have a relatively good experience. Please, ask your friends and family. If they're looking for a place to rent, please point them my direction. Leave a comment and I'll get you the details.

Here's hopin' this interwebs works for us!

Side effects of the new job

• I am not shaving as often. This is probably not great. It makes my sensitive skin all the more irritated when I do shave. But working at home means I don't have to shave because the boss doesn't really see me...
• I feel like a tech geek. I now have a phone, an iPod touch, and a BlackBerry that I cary around all the time. Gets a little bulky. 
• I have a SkyMiles account. It's not building up as fast as some of my coworkers, but someday I might get a free airline ticket out of it.
• I eat lunch from home most days. This isn't new, but it is kinda fun to watch a TV show during lunch on my couch at home, and I don't have to work out drive time nto my lunch break. That, or I just eat at my desk.
• I don't fill my car with gas as often. That's also because I don't drive my car much. Because Hayley is still working (back on track today. Sorry, babe.), I don't park in the driveway so she can get her car out in the morning. That means when we go anywhere together, we usually take her car beause it's in the driveway.
• My sleep is ridden with stuff from work. I don't love that, but I'm sure it'll stop. Once I sorta get the hang of things. I hope that's sooner than later.
• I don't check my personal email, facebook, write blog posts, comment on blogs, or do much else on the internet. I spend enough time on a computer these days, I just don't want to spend more. So sorry if I haven't been very accessible lately. I'll try harder. Maybe.

There, a new blog post for you. Can't say I'll pick up on blogging much, but I'll try.

Chicago Day 1

We arrived safe and sound in Chicago last night. This morning started with me helping get the network up and running with Mike and Marleen's new laptop. There was one point that I wasn't sure if I had ruined everything or not, but after a few pokes and prods, the network worked the way I told it to, and everyhing is good. As soon as the new desktop arrives next week, setup should be smooth and easy.

After the network was taken care of, breakfast eaten, and showers taken, we went to see all of the schools where Hayley went. There was some confusion on whether or not she went straight to high school after elementary, but as it turns out, she did it in order just like the rest of us. (Just kidding... we went to see her elementary, then the high school, THEN the junior high.) And her junior high doesn't look anything like it used to. It was cool to see all her schools. I kept smiling.

For lunch, we went to Portillo's and MAN was that good! New York dogs have NOTHING on a Chicago dog. At Portillo's, we took our first Chicago pictures. Take a look:

Mike and Marleen. We got some cheese sauce for the fries, and Marleen's salad looked mighty tasty!

This is me and Hayley enjoying lunch. Check out that hot dog. It had ketchup, mustard, onions, relish, tomatoes, and a giant pickle spear on it.

That's the day so far. I am very excited to be here! Everything just makes me smile. I think it's because I'm finally experiencing Hayley's town with her as my guide. I'm enjoying every minute!

I can't promise I'll blog every day, but I'll do my best.

Happy Brithday, Hayley Girl!

How do you tell the person you care about most in the whole world how much you love her? How do you find the right words? Even if you like words, and even like putting words into legible and concise sentences, how do you find the right thing to say--or write? That's how I feel when I try to verbalize what I feel for Hayley. She is the most important person in the world to me and means so much to me.

Today is her birthday. Happy Birthday, Hayley! We're playing it pretty low key this year, but we're headed to her home town the end of this week, where we'll be sure to live it up. I can't wait to see all the places she grew up, meet the old friends, and get to see firsthand the people and places that were part of her formative years. In no particular older, can't wait to see William Fremd, walk down "the RIGHT terminal in the RIGHT airport," watch Robin Hood and The Fugitive, have root beer floats, eat at Ed's, Lou's, and countless other places. But mostly I can't wait to be there with her.

Hayley, you're my best friend. I love you so much and I want you to be the happiest girl in the world. I hope you have the best birthday ever! Love you!!

"Tonight's not the night to ride my ass, buddy..."

Those were some of my final remarks from tonight. Let me explain.

First, I think I'm a fairly easy going guy. I don't get mad at too much, and I think I'm pretty patient with crappy service. Even crappy waiters. I'm not known to talk to the manager, have my food sent back, or things like that. But tonight was a little out of hand.

The waiter took forever to actually get to us, and when he did, he said he'd be with us in a couple seconds. Which turned into 5 more minutes. When he finally got to us, we were not really appreciative of his description of his favorite wine carried by the restaurant.When all he took were our drink orders, I had to stop him and let him know we were ready to order.

We ordered dipping sauce with our meal. I think ordering dipping sauce is indicative of people who like bread sticks, right? Well, he brought out our salad and no bread sticks. We waited forever. When the bread sticks and sauce finally came, he brought three, which were gone pretty quickly. We waited some more. When he finally got around to filling our water, he still didn't refill the bread. In the mean time while we waited, the dipping sauce got cold. Then the food arrived, brought in by a different server. We ate a couple bites, but waited for our waiter to show up with bread to finish our dipping sauce. The bread refill came with two more bread sticks, for a total of five. Five? Do you think people who order dipping sauce only want to share five bread sticks between them? Those were gone pretty quickly, too.

Now, I'm not claiming that I'm dainty. I'm a big guy. I like food. But I'm not a pain in the ass about it. I don't think even skinny people going to a pasta joint think two baskets of bread should equal five bread sticks. At this point, we were not enjoying our meal, hated the waiter, got sick of seeing him chat it up with other waiters while he ignored us, and watch people who were seated after us get better treatment. so we talked to the manager. She was nice, we explained our service and how disappointing it was, we offered to just pay so we could leave, but she comped our meal. Which was mostly sitting on the table anyway, so I guess it was fair...

Again, I don't usually do this kinda stuff. Neither does Hayley. We're pretty easy to please. If the guy had even said sorry for the wait, it would have smoothed things over some. Or if he had the sense to bring more than three bread sticks at a time to people who pay for dipping sauce. But all that, added on top of the neglect and wait time, and it was too much. I mean, if your job is to serve people, and your pay is based off how good a job you do at serving, wouldn't you want to make sure you did a good job?

After reading this, am I being a little too demanding? I say again, I don't normally do this. If the service is bad, I usually just suck it up. I even tip pretty good. But this was nuts.

So then, after this crappy service, we left. And on the way home, some jerk starts tailgating me. I was doing about 42 in a 35. There's no need for that. And now you know why I've chosen this particular title for this blog post. And why I tapped the breaks a bit and slowed to 30.

An even bigger and more important change

Hayley kinda wants me to blog about my business trip last week, but I have something more important to write about. Well, mostly just go to that link and you'll find out all about it. I just wanted to say I'm excited and happy and really looking forward to the future right now.

My only addition to Hayley's story is that I knew it. I knew she was pregnant. I just KNEW it! I don't know why, but even when she was sad and sure she wasn't even ovulating (if ovulating is too strong a word for you, you better not read Hayley's post ;). ), I was sure everything was ok. I didn't say anything, but when she was late, I was pretty sure she was pregnant. When the first test was "negative," it didn't phase me much. When she was still late two days later, I was still pretty sure. When she told me it was negative again, I started to get bummed, but then I saw the "negative" test for myself, I was so excited! We're gonna have a baby! We're gonna be a dad and a mom? Woo hoo!

Anyway, that's my short addition to the story. We're very excited. I am certain I'm going to embarrass this kid like crazy, but I can't wait to. And when Hayley said someone may have cried at the ultrasound, well... yeah, someone may have.

A big change...

As many of you may or not know, I don't ever say the name of my employer on my blog. Part of this is because if I were to, the Mar-Comm (Marketing-Communications) Manager at my work would get a notice that a blog somewhere mentioned the company. I know the Mar-Comm Manager and, in fact, have a link to her personal blog on my blog. We're pals. But I don't care to have my blog all up in my work business. Worlds colliding, and all that. I don't tell most work people about my blog, because most of them don't need any additional glimpse into my personal life... but moving on.

The imminent big change to which this post refers deals with my employment. I'm going to be changing jobs. It's quite a big change for me in many ways. I'll be moving from a small company to a very large, international company. I will go from driving to and from the office every day to working from home. I will go from one small facet of technical writing to a wider range of writing. I'll be learning new skills on top of that, and will make myself more marketable. And they'll be paying me a bit more... That isn't everything that's great about it, but you get the idea. It is going to be a big change, and Hayley and I are very excited about it.

The reason why I mentioned everything in the first paragraph is that I plan to follow the same philosophy about mentioning the name of my employer on my blog. That is to say, I won't be mentioning the name of my employer or giving many details about work. I'll tell you in person (or via text, email, chat, whatever) a little more about it if you're interested. But here's a little clue about where I'm going.

Wish me luck!