HOT weather

Yep, hot weather here in Massachusetts. 'bout 80 degrees here and there but with humidity. Humidity SUCKS. If you've never experienced humidity, just add a bunch of moisture to the weather since that's what it is. So if it's cold it usually feels colder and if it's hot it usually feels hotter.

So the house seemed like it was broiling during the past couple of nights. That included having doors to the outside WIDE open and fans circulating air. And then my house decided to go for a walk outdoors. And another time he apparently didn't. Yet I was outside flashlight in hand looking all around for him.

Bought a domain name. Having trouble getting the on-line pagemaker thing to work. So for the time being, the website is down. I'm kinda pissed about it. Thought the on-line create a website stuff was suppose to make stuff easier.

Finishing up the submission package to Diamond Dist. I should've done this awhile ago but I've found a couple of things confusing. No sure I got them cleared up.

Ugh, busy week ahead. 12 hour shifts the next two nights, Thursday off but I get out at 7am Thursday so it's kinda only a 1/2 day off after sleeping. Friday I run the comic store for 7+ hours since my friends, the owners, are heading down to Wizard World Philly. Then back to work on 12 hour shifts Sat, Sun and Mon. Next Tuesday I'm going to be a zombie. Probably the only good thing about a week like this is that paychecks seem to come that much quicker since I pretty much just sleep and work which sometimes makes the week feel like it soars by.

Still working on a new story for Jaina. I've got some of it worked out - the big 'pay-off', how the story starts, and how the characters get to where in all other cicrcumstances they shouldn't be. Where I'm a little stuck - or at least it hasn't come to me yet - is what the characters do in this place they've travelled to. I've put some background info to paper but not the story yet. Sometimes the story just flows out of me when I actually sit down to write something as opposed to just planning it out.

No memories of dreams lately. Just one of the old I'm running around my old high school sort of thing. I get those occassionally although most of the time it's only me in the high school and almost nobody else I know.

It's already up to 78 degrees and it's only 8:25am. Looks like another hot day. May be hard to fall asleep for my afternoon nap so that I have a clear head for work. Maybe I'll get to sort tonight. Sorting is actually sitting at a conveyor and watching golf balls go by. And you sort the good from the bad. For 6 hours but with breaks thrown in. Depending on who you get working with you (it's done with groups of 4 people) it can be either downright horrible or an easy enjoyable half of a night. Since most of us on the shift get along well it's usually a decent time.

Over and out.

Various things after 3 days of 12 hour shifts

Go for my 'Doing Business As' meeting with the town planners tonight. Joy.

My mom sent over some cups that I've wanted. They are cups that are like freeze packs to keep items cold in a carrying case or a lunch cold. Inside the cup is the same stuff and you put it in the freezer. Then later on you put in your beverage and it stays cool. $1.29 a K-Mart, cheaper at Wal-mart.

Got two raspberry bushes planted. I plan to get either 2 or 4 more for this year.

Good drama at work. This one guy I'll call J lost his braclet at work. He was kind of upset because it supposedily cost a good chunk of change. Later I heard it was around $800. I told the guy people at work are usually fairly cool and post a message to announce the finding of lost jewelry. A couple days pass. Another worker, C I'll call him, shows up with a new bracelet. It's apparently identical to J's. So thoughts start happening and J semi-confronts C asking where he got the bracelet. C says that his wife bought it for him at a tag sale. For the record, this is all second hand knowledge except for when J told me his bracelet was missing. J doesn't ecept C's explanation and tells C he's going to kick his ass after work. This news get arounds the room and enter C2. C2 tells the supervisor what's going to happen after work. I guess C and J were addressed seperately. J was told by another employee not to shoot his mouth off because it just got him in trouble.

So at the end of work, J called out C just off company property and called him all sorts of nasty names and such. C drove off saying he had nothing to say to J. The next day C shows up with a picture of a receipt from Ebay for the bracelet. But he wasn't wearing it either.

Because it didn't involve me it was kinda fun watching this turn out. I'm not sure what the final result was. And everything was 2nd hand knowledge other than J origignally anouncing to me that he had lost his bracelet.

A new fold was entered into my job. Sorting. What does this mean? For 6 out of 12 hours, there is the possibility or working in either a team of 4 or 6 sorting out good golf balls from bad ones on a conveyor belt. Get paid pretty well for doing it to. But I found after 4 hours the gloss of sitting around chatting had worn off and I was able to switch jobs. Of course, sorting golf balls from 1am to 5 am after a big supper at 12:30am didn't help.

Been working on a new story idea for Jaina involving Anciet Egypt. I had always wanted to do this which is part of the reason I bought my book on Anciet Egypt in the first place. I'm trying to combine it with another concept idea I had to hopefully make a really cool story. We'll see what happens.

Over and out.

Meh, crap!

Freaking woke up at 4:50am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Looks like I'll probably have a hard time getting back up later today after my nap before work.

Can't sleep for shit lately and it's pissing me off. I think my problem is my work schedule. I slip in naps at weird hours to try and bulk up my sleep time and recharge myself. The problem is, these naps are just that - naps. And they've sorta become the norm for me. 2 hours here, 3 hours there. It has actually become an issue to actually sleep for a full 8 hours. Well, until I hit that 3rd day in a row of 12 hour shifts. Then I sleep for like 9 hours straight.

The only good thing about these naps is that I get a lot of dreaming in. But some are really bizarre.

Listed the comic on Ebay. After the listing cost of $1.30 and the book only goes for $5 doesn't look like I'll make much money if it sells. Guess I should look into better options.

I tried to sign up for both MySpace and Friendster as ways of promoting the comic. Neither registration page would load up after I entered my info. And that's what really gauls me about these webpages. I have high speed broadband and I go on-line usually on 'off hours' and ha;f these pages won't load.

Bought two raspberry bushes yesterday. $7 a pop. I have no idea if that's a good price or not. Blueberry bushes go for $12. Currently, the plants are sitting on my living room table because it keeps raining here. It's suppose to keep raining for 3 more days, a weekend break, and then more rain. I have to work this whole weekend.

Accomplished most of what I wanted to do this weekend so that's good. Rearranged the order of doing things a bit though as I was thoroughly useless on Saturday. Mainly it was because I got out of work at 7am and stayed up so that I could cash my paycheck at 9am. Slept for 5 hours but I was rather exhausted still which I think is what really started this current streak of bad sleeping. So I was a lump on the couch just watching my buddy's Soprano's DVDs which I really enjoy. Even though it's year 3 and year 5 or 6 is currently in production, the DVDs are new to me because I haven't seen the shows.

Did some work on issue 3 of the comic but not as much as I had planned. Sketched layouts for 3 pages and drew up the panels on the full sized artboards. Did the main 'roughs' for one of the three pages although I had intended to do all three these past couple of days. Seeing friends on Sunday for about 4 hours gobbled up time I had hoped to spend on the comic but I had a good time so I'm not that worked up about it.

Later.

Various things on a Sunday

A bit of bad news to start. The artist for the Necropolis Chronicles will not be returning for the next issue. This really sucks. Jenn is really cool and seems to read my mind when it comes to creating the imagery for the book. But, she's not returning to penciling the book for a good reason - she's got a decent sounding gig from a fancy restaurant. Go Jenn!

Jenn's work can be found at www.jenniferrodgers.com

Tell her I sent ya.

Stuck in the throes of fairly miserable weather here. The few days of projected 8 or 9 days of rain. Ugh. Makes for lots of computer time though.

Gah, I succumbed to my addiction last night. I had some extra $$$ and thought about heading up to Barnes & Noble bookstore. My brother was heading up to CompUSA which is right next door so we headed up.

I only brought $40. Good and bad. Good because I knew I'd spend ALL of my spending money had I brought it all. Bad because I LOVE books and as usual, wanted WAY more than $40 worth of books. I settled on a guide to my D&D On-line game for $20 and a book on ancient Egypt marked down to $10. The Egypt book is better than I thought. It's kind of like an encyclopedia - 2 pages of info with accompanying photos. It's like 400+ long. I mainly bought it to peruse and use as phot-reference. Part of the Jaina's history in The Necropolis Chronicles (my comic) is that she spent four months in Egypt. I'm still working on ideas to bring in Egyptian influenced material, mainly the goddess Bast. I wasn't satisfied with the first story I wrote though.

Once again my fantasy baseball team needs a big day. I'm losing 8 to 2 in the various 10 categories up for grabs. Just like every week it seems. My guys getting hurt is not helping. I keep losing guys to injury. To add insult to injury, my guys keep injurying one another. Two guys collided at first base and one really hurt his wrist. Then one of these same guys plunked a pitcher on my team in the hand with a ball hit right back at the pitcher. Sheesh! I'm fairly close in a couple of categories so I may be able to finish 6 and 4. Hopefully.

Meh, it's still a long season. Currently I still have a .660 winning percentage which is tied for tops in our league.

Had a crazy dream I was trying to escape from an oppressive government the other day. It started out as me trying to escape from my neighbor's basement/lower level of their house. Once I escaped that area it turned into a parking garage & parking lot environment. I escape these cop like guys that were riding something - maybe horses or some sort of scooter - I forget. But I escaped into resedential area that quickly became woods. I was driving in a tiny car with a co-worker and blasting around on dirt roads until either the road ran out or we crashed - again, can't recall. We then ran through the woods for awhile while being chased. We doubled back and I found myself running around a complex that seemed to be a combination of lumber mill/concrete supplies with a chain link fence. Never got in and gave shit to the co-worker for wasting time. I think I ran back into the woods and the dream ended.

Was kinda pissed I woke up at 6:15am this morning. I went to bed at 2am and had trouble falling asleep. I'm already starting to feel a little groggy again. I did read more of my book on Ancient Egypt though and made a decent Belgain waffle breakfast for myself.

Yeah, a nap sounds good right now.

Work hasn't been to bad lately. It never really is actually. But I learned Nazi Boy and Dirtbag were picking on a new kid.What a surprise. I know the kid. He's a decent kid although he seems a little goofy or maybe a little stupid. But that's hardly a reason to get all over him.

Oh yeah, apparently Dirtbag thinks I might actually value his opinion. I got stuck working with him for a day and he started his shit fairly early - making fun of me or making asshole comments. One such comment was when he found my book on How to Speak German. His first thing to do was learn who's book it was. Then the first comment he said was something along the lines of 'where are the ovens'. When I responded with something like 'that's totally racist' (I'm not Jewish) he was like 'I hate Christians too'. Okay. Whatever loser. Next time your abducted by aliens hopefully they won't return you.

Anyways, later on he starts blabbing and he finds out that I like some of the same things he does. I can get into conspiracy theories and the like here and there and I readily believe that a missile hit the Pentagon and not a plane. Once he heard this he made sure to explain who every president is related to this secrte society that runs the world and has predicted every president since the 1800's. Um,...yeah. I LIKE conspiracy theories, but I don't let them run my life and make me a paranoid.

And finally, I can see the end of the tunnel for spending big bucks on my comic. Since my new job I've dropped or plan to drop almost $2000 in legal fees and internet stuff. Most of that is paid off. But I do plan on getting an Ebay store and a domain name for my comic. That should cost around $250 combined I believe. Then it's only some money here and there. FINALLY, too! There are other things I want to buy for the house.

Okay. Nap time for the old man.

D.B.A.'s and sleep and dreams

Everybody wants their cut apparently. Not talking about my comic crew but towns & government. I went to file my Doing Business As the other day and the crew at Town Hall had taken half the day off. No biggie overall but somewhat annoying.

So I go back Tuesday because they don't work on Mondays. Well, I was really tired from working 48 hours in 4 days so I slumped onto my couch and that was that. So I go to file on Wednesday. From my previous visit the D.B.A. is only $20. I've been reading that I may have to take out some notice in a newspaper or something so I got stuck with that. Something like $35 a week and I have to do a minimum of 2 weeks. Sigh. Whatever.

I also need to make a presentation to the town planners because I'll be working out of my home. Fine, whatever. But they only do that on Tuesday nights. I work every other Tuesday night and this next Tuesday I'm working so I have to wait 2 weeks to make my presentation.

Oh yeah, I also need a special permit to wrok out of my home. That's over $100. Sheesh! Anything else, people? My DNA? A year's supply of my comic?

So to get my D.B.A. which is only $20 and good for 4 years, I have to spend upwards of $300.


Work left me fairly tired on Tuesday so I spent it relaxing. I got out at 7am Tuesday and slept once I got home. Wednesday I got up at 7:45am (usually the time I go to bed!) to put the trash out and run down to the local comic shop to help my buddies with Wednesday's comics. Good thing I did as pulling books alone sucks and the drunk never showed. So the boss man was happy I showed up.

After I got home I read one comic and passed out for several hours. I must've needed it or I wouldn't have dogged out for so long. But then I couldn't get to sleep that night. So I ended up being awake until maybe 4am or after. I awoke at noon! I had planned to be up around 9:30 or 10 am. Ugh. Still feeling groggy as I write this.

It's back to work tonight at 7pm for my usual 12 hours. Not sure what condition I'll be in. LOL. But it's payday and I'm expecting a fairly sizeable check so I'll definatly be there.

Looking forward to this weekend because I have it off. Saturday in a way doesn't count because I get out at 7am and plan to sleep. But I will be awak for Sat night, Sunday and Monday. If things go well, I'll get a couple of raspberry bushes to put in the backyard.

Started drawing up some sketches and layouts for issue 3. I hope to draw it but it's a lot of work. The D.B.A. money thing is setting back my timetable for hiring an artist to do it so it gives me more time to draw it if I'm able to stay focused and on top of things.

A little disappointed I can't recall all three of my dreams from last night. They were pretty cool and I tried to tell myself to remember them but it's hard to do that when you're actually dreaming at the time. The only one I can really recall was Wonder Woman fighting zombies in the basement of my parents' house which has a dirt cellar. Yep, dirt cellar. The house was built around the 1840s. I figure I dreamt this because I saw some ads for both Wonder Woman and zombies earlier in the day at the comic store.

Trying to remember the other two but I'm drawing blanks. I just knew I really liked them as they were happening.

Out.

Kind of a suckless Friday

OT at work was fairly boring. Just sitting around for 8 hours listening to a guy talk about how we should works at ways to make our jobs more efficent. Of course, in virtually every instance in his presentation, he shyed away from the fact that streamlining jobs usually costs workers their jobs. I thin he admitted it once. The room was fairly hostile towards him for the most part. This was mainly because the bulk of the people in the meeting had been at Top Flite for 20+ years. They don't like change.

What WAS funny about the same people was 'things are the same, that manangement doesn't listen' for the past 20 years. But here's the interesting part. Management has changed several times from what I understand. The workers haven't. They are the same workers that have been there for 20 years. Maybe THEY are the problem.

Some of the stuff the guy making the presentation said works. I've been through a couple of companies that have made the same type of improvements. But the room was full of nay-sayers. From what I was hearing, I don't think I would want to get stuck with any of the old timers. They are set in their ways and know best. Kind of reminds me when Poland tried to fend off Germany in World War 2. Poland was using men on horseback with lances. Against tanks. Yes, TANKS! The old time workers at Top Flite remind me of Poland. I guess I'm just part of the new age of New England where I expect manufacturing jobs to move away while these guys try and make it to retirement before they lose their jobs. And they were pretty hot about some machinery going to China. Like Top Flite is the first to try doing that. Yeesh.

Weather again was terrific but that was kind of it. Went to file my 'Doing Business As' at my local city hall. The people I needed to see took half the day off. Now I have to go back Tuesday because they don't work on Mondays. Kind of annoying.

Poker sucked tonight. I was fairly pumped for this because my friends and I hadn't played for quite awhile. There were suppose to be five of us. One guy cancelled and another didn't show unti almost an hour and fifteen minutes after we were suppose to start. The only good thing about that was that one buddy had UFC tapes playing and I was watching that.

Didn't help that I played like shit too. I bailed on a hand of king/five when everyone else went all in. I would've won a huge pot because I had the best hand out of the four of us. And I almost played the hand but my intellect said not to. Sometimes I do very well when I just go with a gut feeling.

So here I still, making excuses to stay up late for no good reason even though I got up at 5:45am today. What the hell is the matter with me?

Ugh.

How the hell can I have no time?!?!?!?!

Well, it goes something like this:

56 hour work week.

Desire to see parents.

Friends wanting together on back to back nights.

Driving around the local city only to find out I only needed to go to my town hall that's 10 minutes away instead. :(

Guess I should be happy I've got so much going on but it is extremely tiring.

Got a big comic bill out of the way. Soon comes a large but not as large second bill - paying for a website. I think that should be the beginning or so of next month. Mortgages come first.

I want to plant some raspberry bushes in my backyard. I love raspberries! Both regular and golden. Probably wouldn't see much of a crop this year but who knows.

Lousy dreams this past week or so. I dreamt two different family members had died. :( Sometimes my dreams come true. These two times, I really hope they don't.

The thing I forgot a couple of posts ago was that I was giving a nickname at work. Jimmy No Good. I rather like it. :) I hope it sticks.

There's another dickish guy at work. Big surprise his best friend is Nazi Boy. A lot of people think this second guy is a dirt bag. You can usually tell right away because the first time they met you, they give you shit. And it's not joking around either, it's 'let me embarrass the new guy so I can look cool' type shit. So that's what this guy pulled. I also noticed he's one of those jerks that'll bring up total bullshit and accusations about other workers and shifts in meetings with management but he nor his own crew never do anything wrong. He also has apparently admitted to several people that he believes he was kidnapped by aliens. I'm not sure if he has a birth defect in his walk or someting but he walks like he gets an anal probe from said aliens every night.

I did have to laugh at him. I got stuck the other night being a 'circle tech'. Means I check on people's molds and replace them as needed. Well, Dirtbag was working with Nazi Boy and Nazi Boy and I don't get along - talking fist fight level not getting along - so I never went over to their molding banks the whole night. As in 12 hours. However, there is a second circle tech and he apparently never went over. So when I finally went over to check on end of the night paper work Dirtbag starts his bitching. He had somewhat off a point but his way of starting things off was to spray my back with a constant flow of air from an airgun. I knew he was starting his shit so I just said it felt good. That's when he brought up nobody coming over to check on molds. Of course, he didn't bring up the fact that he had zero downtime. Downtime is most often caused by bad molds. So he had no bad molds. He also has two legs and a mouth. And when he started his little rant I simply mentioned that nobody reported any problems to me or the other tech. As in, he could've come and gotten us if there had been a problem during the night. But of course, in his opinion us circle techs were all at fault.

So, while it's disappointing that there are some people at work that I just don't get along with, I am happy to say that it's only two people. And those two people are generally not well liked to start with. Gee, I wonder why? :)

Don't mind me, I'm just very tired and working on very little sleep as I write this. The day was actually pretty good today and the weather by my standards - low to mid 70 degreees and sunny - was about my ideal version of weather.

Later