More tool fetish, Birthdays, secret projects, being setup by… my father?!

I bought a new tape measure today.

There is no long essay about it here. 🙂 I was pretty out of it yesterday (most of yesterday I was a bit dazed and confused, and part of today – no clue why either!), and forgot to mention one of the other cool things about the Framing Hammer I have. It’s only going to be used on this job – after that, it’s going to be engraved with “R & S BBQ #1” and the project completion date. Originally I was planning on paying for the engraving myself, but I told the owner what I planned on doing, and he thought it was an awesome idea and plans to pay for the engraving.

This, in theory, isn’t the only R & S BBQ that I’ll be building. He wants me to build and run construction on the next one too, so I cut a deal – the next one is at twice the pay rate, and for every one after that I build add another $5 / hour to the previous job. He wants to build 5 grand total in Wichita, then start looking at other territories – which means me possibly becoming a road whore again (hrm – wonder if I can swing it so it’s like my contract gigs, all expenses paid? That would be nice 🙂 Of course, at some point he’s going to freak out over how much it costs him for me to build one, and I’ll move on to other things.

Gotta admit – having about 10 R & S BBQ hammers hanging on my wall someday would be pretty damned cool 🙂 As an added bonus, each project has a little downtime between stores (no matter how much money he throws at it – I have a garanteed one week vacation after each startup now too), I’ve got time to get my other projects done.

On rare occasion, I end up with projects with Non-Disclosure Agreements behind them. Most of the time I could give a shit less – it’s often video game projects, and (IMO) the projects will never ship. This time I ended up locked down on a web development project. Interesting. Worst part is – damnit, the graphic I did for the site is COOL! That’s one I’d like to add to my portfolio someday – after the event is passed, I’ll see if I can get released from the “shut the fuck up about it” rule, and show it as part of the stuff that I do.

Tomorrow is my ex-wife’s birthday, and my room mate’s Meredith’s birthday. (Yes, I know two Ground Hogs 🙂 I had planned on going to a nice supper with ’em all, but, my ex backed out at the last minute – she aparently has had a hard couple of weeks, and decided she didn’t want to be around the crew for a party. Bummer.

Which, by the time it’s done, leaves me, Meredith, her husband Lance, and my ex-sister-in-law Morgan (since her husband can’t make it.) Hrm. OK, parties just aren’t what they used to be. When I was 21, if I said party, 50 people showed up with a live band (no shit – can’t remember how many times I had a live band out in the country out on the back porch!) and enough alcohol to fill a pool. At 25, if I said party, 40 people showed up, and enough alcohol to fill a tanker truck. At 30, it’s more like 25 people, and enough alcohol to fill a Yugo. At 35… yeeks. Of course, this was a more “last minute” sort of thing, at a restraunt rather than someone’s house. But still.

One of the problems is the fact I don’t own a house anymore. I have no place to host a party. Additionally, a number of the friends have moved, had kids, or similar impediments to a party mindset.

So, my dad asks me what I’m doing this weekend (in theory, I’m supposed to be doing a video interview project that’s been scheduled and canceled two weekends in a row), and I tell him I’m free to help move the piano they bought. He starts telling me about this gal that’s a friend of him and Jay (his wife), and they were planning on having a hot-pot party to introduce us (hot-pot, btw, is a kind of fun thing – basically a big boiling pot of water and seasoning, and you stick whatever food you want in there to cook. It’s a social sorta thing.) See, I pulled down all my dating profiles for a reason – just like a lot of pieces of my life, it’s time to re-assess what it is I’m looking for. This means, I have no girlfriend. Which means my dear old dad decided it was time to set me up.

*SIGH*

I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to manage to move the piano, and weasel out of this all at the same time. If I show up for one event, I’m pretty much stuck doing the other one. However, considering the amount of effort my father has put forth helping me with stuff like the Land Cruiser, I definitely don’t want to shirk helping (even if he didn’t do a lot to help me, it’s family!) which means… I’m going to be stuck enduring an akward social situation for no good reason.

I SUPPOSE if I was a more optimistic person, I’d look at this as an opportunity to meet someone new – but when it comes to dating, I’m not particularly optimistic 🙂

fnord!


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