ghostsofnothing arrived this evening! After more than six years, it’s about time we finally met face-to-face. It’s going to be an interesting six months, but I think it’s going to go well. :)

2012ad signed a lease on a new place last week, and Josh and I helped her move over the weekend. I liked having her here, but I’m happy she found a place. The mornings have been quiet and kind of creepy without her here, but the old routine is falling back into place.

As much as I love helping my friends out with a place to stay, I’ll say this: I miss being able to walk naked around the apartment. ;)

...is that Jeff, our sister company’s CEO, was only 39, and Josh is already 30.

This hit me even harder than my grandma’s death 10 months ago. The difference, I think, is that Grandma’s death wasn’t so sudden. Sure, the stroke was unexpected, but there were still several days between the stroke and her death for the possibility to sink in. Jeff, on the other hand, was was basically dead within minutes.

And I was there. I’d never been so close to death before. It was so weird and surreal and frightening.

His funeral was last week, and basically everyone from our two companies attended, on top of his friends and family. The chapel was packed to overflowing. I hope my friends and family say such wonderful things about me when it’s my turn.

And no, that’s not rhetorical.

The CEO of our sister company collapsed in front of his computer around 1:15 PM. His heart never started back up, and he was pronounced dead about two hours later. He was 39.

At about 1:20 PM, my boss came rushing into our office space, sort of panic-stricken. “He’s collapsed. Does anyone know CPR?” The question took a few seconds to register with me before I finally responded in the affirmative. An EMT was arriving at the same time, so I followed her upstairs in case she was going to need help.

There were already some people performing CPR when we got upstairs. By the time the EMT got a hold of the situation, two more medics had arrived, so I helped the only way I could—I stayed out of the way. Eventually, I took over holding the elevator doors open so the medics wouldn’t have to wait when they were ready to transport him. When they finally wheeled the stretcher out at about 2:00 PM, he still didn’t have a pulse and they’d tried defibrillating 4 or 6 times.

Our offices are in a bank building with a few other companies, and the entire building is in shock. He had a history of heart problems but had seemed to be doing well. My heart hurts so much for our HR director, who found him. The expression on her face when she finally stood up and had half a second to think about what had happened—that isn’t something I’m going to forget any time soon. I can’t even begin think about his wife and two daughters who have to go on without him.

I’m lucky enough to work in an environment where everyone is considered family. We’ll all pitch in to make sure his wife and daughters are well taken care of. But I’ll be useless if I don’t get any sleep tonight, so I’m off to bed.

I know that not everyone on my friends list celebrates Christmas as a religious holiday, but I still think the secular greeting applies. ;)

Today is a lazy day for me, for I have no family obligations, and Josh is working until 7:00 PM. Josh just left about 45 minutes ago, after playing in the snow for almost two hours. That is to say, he tried to leave at 6:15 this morning but couldn’t even get his car out of the driveway. He tried walking—we only live six-or-so blocks away from where he works—but he only got half a block before he had to come back. (He helped a woman get her car unstuck, though. What a nice young man!) Finally, one of the people getting off of night shift volunteered to come pick him up. He’ll be about two hours late to work, but it’s still holiday pay.

So, yeah. It’s most certainly a white Christmas, which I can honestly say I’ve never seen before. We have four or five inches of snow on top of the sleet and freezing rain from yesterday, and it just started snowing again. It’s really quite pretty, but of course it makes for terrible travel conditions. I’m not yet sure if we’ll be able to make it to family tomorrow. It all depends on the roads, I guess.

I just checked the weather, and my county is under a blizzard warning until 6:00 PM. Exciting!

That’s what my youngest brother used to insist on having for lunch almost every day, no matter the time of year.

I read a tip a week or so ago about infusing hot chocolate with flavored teas. It’s a pretty simple technique: Make your hot chocolate, and dunk a tea bag or infuser in it. I’ve tried it a few times and thought I’d share my results:

* Bigelow Earl Grey - 5 noms out of 5
* Bigelow Constant Comment - 4/5
* Tazo Wild Sweet Orange - 4/5
* Stash Lemon Ginger - 3/5

I’ll share more as I try them.

While Josh was in class last Saturday, I spent most of the day helping Christina (2012ad) move—but not to Liberty as planned. No, her car completely shot craps last Thursday, which means she needed to save her house money for a car. She’s not allowed to stay in Drexel past tomorrow, so Josh and I invited her to stay here for the time being. She and I have similar work schedules and work within a mile of each other, so I’ve been able to take her to work in the mornings and pick her up in the evenings.

Today is Christmas at my dad and step-mom’s. I’m looking forward to giving them their gifts this year. At his request, I decided on black socks for Dad. (I think he still misses my mom’s tradition of getting each person in the family a pack of socks at Christmas.) For my step-mom, Jan, I made a batch of flax bread and am giving her enough flax meal that she can make two batches. I’ve had this one planned for a while, truthfully. She’s gluten-intolerant, and flax bread is completely gluten-free.

When Josh and I leave there this evening, we’ll be bringing Dad’s pickup so we can help Christina finish moving tomorrow. She has my SUV today so she can move some stuff.

Time to go.

Josh and I watched Onmyoji Saturday night. I have to say, I was skeptical going into it, but it was really good. It reminded me a lot of Saiyuki, one of my favorite animes. There’s another movie in the franchise and in our near future.

HOLY. CRAP. It was so cold today, I thought my eyeballs were going to freeze in their sockets. Low of -2°F, high of 10, and winds up to 30 MPH. I’m actually looking forward to tomorrow’s high of 24.

I’m helping 2012ad move again this weekend, this time to Liberty. Unfortunately, the cat sanctuary didn’t work out the way she’d hoped it would. I met her after work to deliver some boxes and plastic totes, and I’m hoping to be able to borrow a pickup and a minivan this weekend to help out. Of course my SUV holds quite a bit, but more room wouldn’t hurt.

With all of the holiday hubbub, I’ve been pretty lax in my domestic duties—specifically in watering the houseplants. Most of them do all right, but the impatient is very thirsty and wilts to almost nothing if I go any longer without watering it than it thinks I should.

The apartment is coming together nicely. There are still things to do, of course, as we continue to debate which styles and fashions we agree on. And it’s still a bit pointless to put too much effort into it, since I don’t see us staying here for the rest of our lives. What we’ve done so far, though, at least makes it feel comfortable and homey.

One of the things we’re particularly excited about is the fireplace. We’ve been using it the last few days, and it really adds to the sense of coziness:


I’ve also (finally) managed to fix and hang sapo’sik’s kitchen clock, which we retrieved when we went to Oklahoma for her funeral in March:



Oh! We’re going to have a house-guest for a while. Come mid-January, ghostsofnothing will need a place to stay for a while until his British student visa kicks in, and we’ve invited him to stay here. I’ve known him for more than six years at this point, and I couldn’t be more excited. Now there’s just the matter of cleaning out the spare bedroom. ;)

Josh brought me banana cream pie, though, which is at least as good as cake. ;)

It has been an incredibly lazy day. I took today and tomorrow as vacation days, and I intend to do even less tomorrow than I did today (which admittedly was very little). I had to remote into work for a short time this morning to put an item from last night to bed. Other than that, I’ve been doing some general cleanup on my laptop, and we’ve been catching up on some TV shows.

One of the shows we finally caught up on was Torchwood. We’ve had the Children of Earth miniseries on the DVR since July. Since the miniseries is essentially season three, we I had to watch seasons one and two first. Like Doctor Who, it’s one of those series I was ambivalent about until Josh sat me down to watch an episode. Then another episode. And another. And then I was asking to watch it.

So now it’s Criminal Minds, some emails, and then bed.

Like a chipmunk. That’s how I looked for several days last week. I had some pain and tenderness on the left side of my mouth for a couple of days, and then woke up Thursday to the whole left side of my face being ballooned up. I called into work, made it to a dentist, and got the good news: I had an abscessed molar! Some numbing agents and a few tugs later, it was out and I was already feeling better. The dentist gave me some Tylenol-3—which I only took a couple of to help me sleep the first couple of nights—and put me on nine days (!) of antibiotics.

And of course my mouth troubles were perfectly timed to overlap our moving into the new apartment. Because lugging furniture and heavy boxes around is the perfect accompaniment to having a fever and a roaring headache.

By the way, if you’re going to give advice to someone about HIV/AIDS, make sure you KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT before spouting off some alarmist bullshit.

Sorry. Stupid idiots make me angry.

So the new apartment is beautiful. There are some niggling things that we couldn’t have known about just from a walk-through, but, all-in-all, it’s amazing. Almost nothing is organized yet, of course, but we’re getting there. Friday night was a mad rush to get as much of the kitchen put together as we could, since we hosted a tabletop session yesterday. There’s still quite a bit to do, though.

Today we’ll be heading to my dad’s this afternoon for a late lunch and some visiting. And of course a few card games. It just wouldn’t be a Foecke family gathering without cards.

Josh and I signed a lease on a new place the other day. It’s three bedrooms, one bath, good-sized kitchen, huge living/dining room space, and a fireplace. In fact, it’s basically everything we’ve been looking for—except it’s an apartment, not a house.

It’s also with the same landlord. We’ve had our frustrations with him, but he’s really working with us on the place. Our new lease technically starts on Nov. 1, but we already have the keys and can start moving immediately. He just asked that we clean this place (duh) and be out of here as near Oct. 15 as possible. He even transferred our deposit.

So Josh spent much of yesterday getting a bunch of stuff packed up, and I’m working on laundry today, switching out my summer and winter wardrobes, and putting a lot of stuff aside to take down to Goodwill. Josh “gets” to do the same when he gets home from class, and then we’ll take several car-loads over.

2012ad will be over for dinner and helping us move some stuff this evening. Then she’ll be spending the night so that she doesn’t have to drive all the way back to Drexel tonight just to turn around and drive back again in the morning for gaming. SLUMBER PARTY!

Until today, I hadn’t pulled a work shift that long for a really long time. You see, one of our partners switched data centers today. Normally not such a big deal, right? Change some connection strings and maybe some URLs, and you’re done. But no. They decided they were also going to put new code live. Code that they hadn’t tested. Code that we had to debug the output of for a good 10 hours. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? I mean, come on. Common sense, people! You either do the code updates two weeks before the move so you have time to debug the updates, or you do them two weeks after the move so you have time to debug the move.

OH! And when they put the databases on the new server? They did so with no keys, constraints, or indexes of any kind on many of our production tables. What. The. Fuck? Apparently, “We need databases X, Y, and Z in their entirety,” isn’t enough. Of course, it came back to bite them in the ass when the database server started running like shit (uh, duh?) and they had to spend more than two hours indexing tables in the middle of being swamped with other issues.

The bright side to all this, though, is that all of our database servers except for one are off of SQL Server 2000, and that one will be switched next month.

Also, my raise became effective on today’s paycheck. Woot!

So I mentioned that a new programmer started on Wednesday. Yeah, good riddance to bad rubbish. When he hadn’t shown up by 9:00 yesterday morning, we chalked it up to incorrectly estimating his travel time through traffic. Then it was 9:30, and we started to get worried that he’d been in an accident. Then we finally found out, through his recruiter I think, that he’d accepted another job with a different company. Didn’t even have the decency to call us himself and apologize, let alone give notice. Needless to say, neither he nor his recruiter will be seeing a single red cent from us any time soon.

Work is going well. Between my company and our sister company, we’ve made three new hires in the last few weeks, two of whom will report to me on the project I’m managing. One started Monday, another started today, and the third starts Friday. I just found out today that we’re looking for a fourth developer, too. My company’s business model is built on making money for our clients, and that helps a lot in this economy.

I’ve been mulling over some business ideas, and I think I’m ready to start working on one of them. I’m not ready to reveal what it is, of course. There’s already some competition in this space, but I think I bring some unique points of view to the table, as well several details that seem to be lacking in the competing products. One of my coworkers may be helping, which would be great. We have similar enough styles that we work well and quickly together, but we’re different enough to keep each other in check.

Josh began his Eastern Bodywork massage course tonight. This one promises to be interesting—for both him and me. ;)

I got a raise last week! More than 10%, even. I don’t think there was ever a more obvious cosmic sign that I’m in the right place professionally.

I’m helping Christina move to Drexel today. I’ve got a blanket, some rope, two cat carriers, and an SUV to contribute to the cause. I’m a skinny-assed weakling, though, so I don’t have much muscle to contribute. But, it should end up being a pretty painless easy simple process.

Of the Romance languages, I love to hear Italian spoken; and I’m fascinated by Gaelic languages; but my favorite family of languages by far are the Native American/First Peoples languages. There’s something so primal/natural/intuitive about them. They flow and slide and just work.

Five months later, I’ve finally finished moving everything from my desktop to my laptop. Being an obsessive perfectionist is hard work.

We went to an intuition party last night where we explored various aspects of intuition, empathy, psychometry, and telepathy. I had my first Tarot reading. Even by itself, the spread that I drew was very powerful with seven major arcana cards. The whole spread focused on my career in a way that rang very true. It reaffirmed some things, gave me confidence in the path that I’m on, and indicated this path is one of even more strength, success, and transformation than I can know.

So I’ve had Crazy on You stuck in my head since my shower last night. Not that I’m complaining, mind. On the contrary, now there’s something other than a Sesame Street bit in there. As lovely as Madeline Kahn was, and as fun as it is to sing the classic ’Street songs I grew up with, I can only echo myself for so long before I start to annoy myself (not to mention those around me).

Yesterday was a much better day than Monday and Tuesday were. Expressing all that negative energy in a safe outlet was cathartic, and a good night’s sleep helped, too.

I have so much love for Burt’s Bees shaving lotion. The primary scent is bergamot, which I’m just about in love with anyway. Underneath that are lemon, orange, and tangerine to round out the citrus group. Patchouli, fir, and rosemary add a musky-sweet tone. The whole amazing scent lingers lightly on my face for the rest of the night, usually through bedtime. And it makes my skin feel so good.

The last time I plucked my eyebrows, I think I did them a bit unevenly. It’s not really terrible, and I’ll bet nobody else notices. But I think I look like I’m constantly arching my right eyebrow.

Also, I think Oliver sits on my lap while I’m typing just so he can tickle the inside of my elbow with his whiskers. AAAAAH! *annoyedgiggle*

As the evening winds down—and as I get more and more tired—I feel progressively worse about being turned down for the house. I’m actually feeling really bad, and I’m having difficulty dealing.

Our credit histories are the reason we were turned down. Honestly, though, I thought I’d made some progress in that area in the last year. Not huge leaps and bounds of course, but some moderate-yet-significant progress. I know one year doesn’t cancel out seven years of bad habits—heck, I don’t think ten years will be enough—but I thought it would at least make some difference.

Frustration and self-doubt have been creeping into other areas of my life, too. For example, I can logically see that I’m in a really great place professionally—plenty of work, coworkers I get along with, a chance at management. But deadlines are looming and motivation is scarce, and I can’t help feeling useless.

My subconscious is probably about thisclose to restarting its clever little anxiety “episodes”. (They aren’t debilitating attacks, so I call them episodes.) I haven’t had one in at least seven years, but I think I fended one off earlier today. It was minor, as far as they go, but all the right feelings were there.

Anyway, all of that culminates in Bill feeling bad. And now that I’ve stayed up too late once again, I’d best get to bed. Here’s to sleeping well and feeling better tomorrow.

So Saturday’s dinner was a success. We had ham & beans, of course, and I surprised Josh with fresh corn on the cob and banana bread. Talked with my mom a while, too. Mostly to shoot the breeze, but also to get her banana bread recipe. She has a Betty Crocker cookbook from (I think) the ’70s. It has some of the best recipes in it. Even some of the classics like banana bread are different in the newer editions of the cookbook. I’m sure they probably taste fine, but I can’t help being a stickler for the tried and true. I grew up with those recipes, thankyouverymuch, and I plan to keep using them.

I’ve been sleeping like crap the last few days. Either Josh or I was disturbed by the storms Sunday night, and that person set the other off. Of course, everyone I talk to says they slept poorly Sunday night, so it could just be going around. That doesn’t explain last night, though. I know an earlier bedtime would probably help things, but I have this insatiable nosy-controlling streak that’s difficult to quell. The long and short of it is I feel like I’m “missing out” if I go to bed before Josh does. I don’t know exactly what I’m missing out on, but that isn’t the point now, is it?

We didn’t get approved for the house we applied for on Friday, so it’s back to the drawing board—or the craigslist, as the case may be. I’m very discouraged about the whole situation now. We had wanted to start a new lease on September 1, but that date is approaching quickly, and I’m not optimistic. I’m not afraid our current landlord will kick us out by any means, but he did ask that we not move out during the winter months, so our window of opportunity is quickly closing.

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing right things.” - Peter Drucker

This rings especially true with me today, as I’ll soon be taking on a not-insignificant project management role at work. It’s not a promotion per se, but it’s a new opportunity and responsibility—and it’s on a project that, while important, won’t die a violent and fiery death if I fail miserably. Not that I think I’ll fail, of course, but anything can happen.

Josh and I applied for another house in Westport yesterday. The first house we applied for... isn’t going to happen. We didn’t get turned down, but it didn’t work out. We are SO EXCITED for this new house, though. Josh went to see it on Wednesday, and then he met me to see it yesterday. Our original plan was to talk about it over the weekend and then apply Monday or Tuesday, but we couldn’t wait. It’s really that great, and we didn’t want to take the chance that someone else might get it first. We should know by Tuesday. *fingers crossed*

We had dinner on Thursday with Christina, her new beau, and one of my old coworkers, Irene. Irene manages a cat sanctuary where she takes care of about 30 domestic cats (tame and feral), a lynx, and a caracal. Christina will be moving down there to learn the cats and eventually take over, so Thursday's dinner was to catch up and work out some of the logistics.

Tonight’s dinner: ham & beans and a surprise. I have some shopping to do, so I’d best get my day started.