pghtalon's Journal

Yesterady for lunch, I was sitting in the park across from my office, eating a bagel from Brugers, feeding the birds another bagel that i always buy just to feed them, and drinking my daily Starbucks when all of a sudden the fountain started up, I didn't even notice that the water was still in it, I thought they would have drained it by now. I just had to take a picture of it with my phone.

Current Mood: calm

Someone Tell Me Why ....!!!!
Today I went to lunch with another manager from the PhoneBank and while we were sitting there eating, a woman walks in stands at the counter and places her order.. I look at the other manager i'm with and said "will you look at her", Sherri turns and said.. You better have your phone with you, which I did, never go anywhere with out it.

Knowing that no one would ever believe us, I had to snap this picture... all i can say is.. Does this woman not have a mirror at home ?

Current Mood: mischievous
Current Music: mixed iPod playlist

Harriet and Zeke...

This morning I wake up to Harriet, and Zeke laying next to me in bed. I get up to hit the snooze button, go to crawl back into bed for a few more minutes of sleep, only to find them now both curled up with each other in my spot. so off the the other side of the bed, start to get back in and they both looked at me like to say.. NOPE.. you got out.. too bad !!

The two of them follow me around the house from the moment I get home from work, they actually hear me set the car alarm, and jump in the window to see me then meet me at the door. Zeke doesn't care if any of the other cats are in the window or not.. he is like move.. daddy's home. All together we have 5 cats, Walt had 4 before we met, and we got Zeke from his sister. We have, Keela, Harriet, Chuckie, Gaby and Zeke.

Zeke will sit outside the bathroom door and hit it with his head like he is knocking on the door when im in the shower, so i have to open the door a bit for him to come in, he sits up on the sink, or him and chuckie will sit between the shower curtain and lining. They sit on my computer desk while im doing homework, or lay on my chest when I laying there watching tv. I will have to post pictures of the others soon.

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: 80's new wave music on my iPod

Well it's official ......
.... I have admitted defeat...

After a year of living with someone, part of the time as friends, part of the time as partners, I have given up. Events of the last few days have proven too much for even me to handle, and,I have hit the bottom. I've let my heart, and my giving nature be taken advantage one too many times, and I can't do it anymore. I need to move out on my own again and try to remember what makes me, me. I have to learn how to trust people again, and how to open myself back up and let the wall down. But to be honest with myelf, I know I can never do that again. It's taken me almost 43 years to realize this one thing, some people are meant to be alone in life, and I am one of them. Seems no matter how much I do for people it's never enough. I know this may sound like a pity party for myself, but this is how I feel, and I really don't know why i'm sharing this other then I need to see the words, hear myself say them as I type them, and to close a chapter in my life. I really think I need to walk away from this life for awhile, from being who I have become and to try to figure out how to get back to who I was.

Some say that a relationship/friendship/whatever you call it, takes two people to build, and two to end. But in this case, it took only one. He said I have changed, that I stopped caring about myself and let myself go, maybe I have, but with the constant pressure and feeling worthless that I felt it was the only way I knew how to deal with it. I let myself get so wrapped up in making others happy that I dont remember how to make myself happy. I read everyone's journals daily and think, why can't I find that? The many years anniversarys, the group of people to gather with and have fun.

For those of you who take the time to read my posting, the few and far between times taht I do post, I thank you. Im sure during this time I'll be posting more just to let my emotions out.

Current Mood: gloomy
Current Music: Soundtrack to RENT

Look, It's an update.
I honestly never know what to say when I do an update, but here goes. Work is going great, they are in a hiring phase right now which means that there will be more training of agents for me to do. I train them in Online Banking , it's usually a 1 day training class where I teach them how to use our website, how to enroll a customer for the site, and how to trouble shoot any problems that the customers may have when doing their banking online. (incase you can't tell, I work for a bank).
School starts back up in September for me, I have one instructor that is the same as last term, I really liked how she taught, so when I found out she was teaching the next class, I had to enroll in it. One of the classes I have to take this term is Introduction to Computers. It's a basic class on how to use one, how to send email, and stuff like that. I asked the adviser if I could test out of the class since that's what I do all day long, and he said no, just think of it as an easy A. I though yeah ok, gotta keep the GPA at 4.0 as is it now. I also have 2 internet classes im taking. so its 4 classes all together, plus working full time during the day.. should be fun.
Finally home.. well that's another story all together. I think that last time I did an update, I said I was living with my boyfriend, well, now I am living with my ex-boyfriend. About 2 months ago he decides to tell me that we are no longer dating and had broken up.. well that was news to me. He said it was something he was thinking for awhile now and decided it was the time to do it. Thing is, we are still friendly to each other and its genuine and not forced friendly, we still hang out, still have dinner together, but thats about it. It's really hard still living there, especially when he is out all night, or gets calls on his cell phone and is whispering in the living room. Yet when he is out, he sends me text messages letting me know he is ok, and when he is on the way home. Has anyone else ever dealt with this, and if so, any advise ?

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Hat full of Stars ( on my ipod) - cyndi lauper

Holy Rat-Crap Batman...
Look how long it has been since I updated anything.

I could make up excuses as to why I have not updated, but what's the sense in that ? Truth be told, I just kind of lost interest in updating. I still read everyone's posts daily. Work and school have been the other major reasons I have not posted in what seems to be ages. Along with the fact when I get home from work all i want to do is relax with my boyfriend and the cats.

Today here in downtown Pittsburgh where my office is, we had a major part of the city shut down only a few blocks from my building because there was a sniper on the roof of another building with what they thought to be a high powered gun. So for almost 2 hours everything was on lockdown, they were requesting people to stay in their offices, traffic was re-routed around the city and they actually took to closing the inbound tunnel and bridges into the downtown area. So im taking this down time to write a refresher manual for a class that I am teaching here at work tomorrow.

Turns out that it was an office maintinance worker with a pellet gun shooting at pigeons. WHAT A MORON !

Now back to the boyfriend comment. I met Walt last May and we became just friends, we decided to move in together so that I could save money for a bigger down payment on a house. He was dating someone and I was also, one thing led to another and we both admitted we had feeling with each other, and decided that we should be together. It's kind of still strange to me, but it seems to be what we were both missing.

I'll try to post more. But I never really know what to say .

Current Mood: nerdy
Current Music: Dance remixes on my ipod.

Its about time.
I can't beleive how long it has been since I last did and update. So much has been going on here I swear I dont know if I'm coming or going.

I am getting ready to move this weekend and I have not even begun to pack. Back in May, I met someone and we hit it off really good, thought about doing the dating thing, but after really thinking about it, we decided that we would do better as friends then as partners, since then we have been together almost everyday. realizing its was stupid to have 2 places, we decided to move into a bigger apartment, big enough to give us our own rooms, but still small enough to be comfortable. I have never had a roommate that I was not involved romantically with, its going to be an adjustment. So after this weekend, I not only gain a roommate, but also unofficially adopt his cats. So, welcome to my life Walt, Chuckie, Gabey, Keehla, and Harriett.

Work has been wild this year, we bought a new bank (charter one) and we converted it into our systems in 4 stages. Between those stages, I had to fly down to our call center in Bogalousa Louisianna for a week to teach a weeks worth of training classes. I was about an hour or so from New Orleans, and was able to go into the city 2 nights. The first night I was there, we all just went to dinner, then on Friday night,it was playtime. I was with 2 co-workers and we stayed in a hotel about 3 blocks or so from Bourbon Street. After checking into the hotel that the company moved us too, we all grabbed some dinner, and headed out to drink. $200.00 later, I don't remember much about the night. I do recall going to a few straight bars with them, then I made them venture up to the end out Bourbon street into the gay section. I don't recall the name of the first bar we went into, it was a great time, and I know that they had more fun there then at any of the bars before. When we left there, we went across the street to a bar called OZ. The drinks were flowing, the shots were flowing, we were all out on the dance floor, this really hot guy who was selling shots was dancing with me, next thing I knew, he tounge was down my throat, it was all in all a hot night. I recall walking back to the hotel, got up the next morning to grab lunch before our flight out , went into my pocket, and had 3 sets of beads, dont recall getting those.

Current Mood: hyper
Current Music: mixed mellow cd here at work

Bless me father for I have sinned....
It's been 12 days since my last post.

A lot has been going on, work still has not slowed down at all, infact its starting to get more hectic, final website conversion is this weekend and it looks like its going to be another 50 hour week for me.

Last week was a mess, a few years back, my then partner Rob was in a car accident and didnt want to leave his house, so I took him to the humaine society and made him pick out a dog. I figured he would get a small one, oh no he wanted a 7 year old, half chow half husky mix. Rob had to put Mojo to sleep last week, so now im spending a little more time with my dog, spoiling him a little more then usual.

I then went on a dvd buying binge, I ended up with Will&Grace season 3, Dodgeball, Anchorman, 50 first dates,and Connie and Carla. Next Im starting on music.

Speaking of music.. UGH !! for the past 2 days I have had Stockard Channing singing:

There are worse things I could do
Than go with a boy or two
Even though the neighborhood
Thinks I'm trashy and no good
I suppose it could be true
But there are worse things I could do

I could flirt with all the guys
Smile at them and bat my eyes
Press against them when we dance
Make them think they stand a chance
Then refuse to see it through
That's a thing I'd never do

some one shoot me please.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: see above

A Prozac and a maid
Have not posted in about a week, Its been the week from hell at work.In addition to all the issues we need to work on, they tell us, OK , your moving tomorrow pack your desks, so, we take time to pack all our stuff, I have 8 boxes of crap alone, plie it nice then they come back and say.. oppps your not moving for at least 2 weeks. Gotta love it.

I also got a new neighbor, hence the title of this post. She comes into the building thru an aganecy that handles "special" people. Now beleive me, I feel everyone should be able to live where they want things like that, but if your afraid of animals, why the fuck move into a building, where everyone has a pet.

So, this morning, Im walking into the building after I took CJ out for his morning walk, and right in front of me are 2 cleaning women for this woman. im thinking, someone is paying your rent and utilities, but you have a freaking made service to clean for you also. If thats all it takes, hell sign me up, I'll take a Prozac martini and have a maid.

The mystery person has struck again. There were little football shaped reeses cups on my desk this morning. Its the first thing in about a week. Well its going on 3 am time to get some sleep.

Current Mood: sleepy

It's Friday .. part 2
So.. for anyone who might be wondering, Fruit Harvest cereal, is NOT a good choice for kids all under the age of 7. All i heard was, Uncle Rocky, do you have Corn Flakes, or Cocco Pebbles, Rice Krispies, or Fruit Loops.. Its 9 in the morning kid.. only fruit in this apartment is your Uncle Rocky...

Later that day I get a call at work from my friend who is laughing her ass off, I aksed her if she called her landlord about her furnace, She said she had called him and he asked her to check the switch, I said , what the hell is he talking about what switch ?? Little did I know that there is a switch near the bottom of the furnace that one of the kids must have hit when they were putting their dirty clothing in the laundry room..

Today we got new computers at work, they upgraded us all to XP professional, I HATE IT !!!!! nothing is loaded correctly,2/3's of the systems I need to do my job are not even loaded on my computer now and we cannot load anything since they have now revoked all managers admin rights, cant find archived information that I put out onto another drive, everything is locked down so we cant make any type of changes to it. Who in the hell wants to sit here and look at lime green and yellow letters. Christ we cant even change our fucking colors. The to top it all off, like it can get any worse, we now cannot view pictures, what the fuck. Think im a little pissed? OH and the icing on the top of my cake of life today, they moved back the conversions and officially gave us the word that any vacations that were scheduled during this new time need to be rescheudled... So much for a visit to San Francisco again in July. Days like this I wish they would honor my request to have a hot beefy hairy guy walking around the office in a jock handing out beer from a beer cart. Happy hour is only 5 hours from now.

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Music: Dino : The Essential Dean Martin Collection

Is It Friday Yet ???
Does someone out there have a machine that can make today Friday for me ? I'm sitting in my room dreading going out into the rest of my apartment, it looks like a camp ground right now. A good friend of mine called me at 2:30 and asked if her and the kids could come stay because her furnace went out and it was freezing in her place.

A- stupid question to ask, bitch get those kids over here..

B- she couldn't wait until after my favorite infomercial was over before she called. It was my nightly viewing of The Magic Bullet.

So I finally fall asleep at 5:30 there is her on the floor, 2 of the kids on the futon, and I wake up to the 4 year old sleeping at the foot of my bed with the dog. He looks so cute in his little feetie pj's.. damn why dont they make this im my size, I used to love those.

well off to the kitchen I guess to get the cereal bowls ready for breakfast. Hope they like Fruit Harvest with strawberrys and peaches. then off to work and lord there better not be anything on my desk today .

Current Mood: lethargic

What would a monday be with out a gift ??
So... I get off the elevator on my floor this morning, still listening to my IPOD, swipe my badge to get onto the floor, and BAM forget to pull the door open and I walked right into it, now these are pretty thick glass security doors, I look up and hope there is no one on the other side, but NNNOOOOOOO.. my boss is there cracking up.

So I tried again, walked past him , looked up and said in my mob voice, tell anyone and I know where you sit. Walked thru the lovely cubical farm back to my corner cube and what is sitting on my desk.. Reese's Cups... damn this gift giving person, my weakness.. REESE'S!!!

Then a battle of horrible songs started via email, so not only did I have "who can it be now" stuck in my head, then i have to get DeLites "Groove is in the heart" damn Tereasa for that one. But I have the last laugh.. I leave after everyone, so when they check their email in the morning they will all be singing ...

My name is Luka, I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you ....

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Frank Sinatra Duets

They Struck Again......
So... the mystery gift giver has struck again..... yesterday I get into my office at 11:00 and there sitting on my desk is a bobble headed Schroder from peanuts,, and a post it note with the words HA HA HA on it.. WTF !!!!!!! now this is starting to drive me crazy, and of course no one in my department knows anything.

Yesterday other then that wasn't too eventful, same old, same old. I have been dealing with this one customer,a nun, its more a hit or miss game of phone tag with her, but, when we are able to talk, I revert back to this 7 year old catholic school boy.I Sit at my desk with my knuckles curled under just waiting for the ruler.

Thursday night I decided I needed to go DVD shopping, (like i need an excuse to do that)so off to Media Play I went, with no real list of titles I wanted, or needed, I just wandered through the racks, then would jump over to the music section, then to books, back to movies. I ended up being there for about an hour, Picked up Pricilla queen of the desert, and Too Wong Foo, get up to the counter, hand the guy my replay card, and the 5.00 bonus check from shopping there so much, he rings me up I go to get my Visa out and remembered I still had a gift card from Christmas, so both movies ended up costing me less the 3 buck. I really need a bigger storage unit for them.

So tonight on a cold, snowy night its going to be a big bowl of popcorn, and movie night. I bought the movie The Apple a few weeks ago and still have to watch that, then one of the newer ones. Depending on the weather tomorrow and if I am stuck in the house again, It might be the best day for an all day Tales Of The City marathon.

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Music: Hairspray soundtrack

The Mystery Continues.........
As I said the other day, the fish appeared on my desk, still no update on who put it there. Today I walk in and on my desk is a talking Stewie keychain, press his crotch and he spews 3 classic Stewie sayings. So whoever it is knows Im a big Family Guy fan.

So sitting here at work today, or systems are down and there isnt a damn thing to do, these are the days I wish I had high walls on my cubical, I would so be taking a nap right now. Through the grapevine here in the office, I hear my department will be moving next week to a new floor of the building, right now we are on 22, and we are supposed to be moving up to 25. It has taken me 2 years on this floor to finally get used to the height, now we are going higher. But Ill have my own corner of the department with a bigger desk and walls. Im thinking..an Alex Ross JLA framed poster will look good hanging in my space.

Current Mood: bouncy

The Mystery of the fish .....
I got into work today at 3 and on my desk, in a glass bowl is a beta fish, no card, no note, nothing, just a red beta. So I start asking around, who put the fish on my desk?, when did it get there?, hell, how didit get there ? He actually is pretty cool I know I'll keep him. Now to name him. I'm thinking Paco.

Yesterday at work, I had a take over call,(yes another I get at least 3-4 a day) A guy is screaming that he cannot see his accounts on our website, yelling he has ben a customer with our bank for 15 years and why couldn't we bring up his information, blah blah blah..... so i ask him, sir, what state is your account held in, his reply (nominee for the stupid award) the state where I live. Yea, that helps me out moron.... Finally after 5 minutes, he tells me his accout is in Wyoming. I was like sir, we dont have branches in Wyoming, thats a different Citizens Bank. we are based out of Pa thru Rhode Island. He bitched and screamed that I wasted his time and should have told him that up front, WHATEVER get off my phone. Later in the night a woman calls, she cant make bill payments online,( nominee # 2 ) so I ask her, what sysem do you use to make your bill payments, her reply.. windows, I was like ok do you use our website, do you use Quicken, or Microsoft Money, she said no i use my computer... again.. GET OFF MY PHONE. Got to love tech support.

I get home last night at 11:30 and I walk into my apartment, and i can hear the tv on, I hardly watch tv in the livingroom, so i walk in and there is the dog laying on his pillow sleeping, laying on top of the remote, how it got onto his pillow I dont know. I thought, like father like son. He hears me walk in, looks up as if to say " oh hell your home" I grabbed his leash to take him out to play in the snow, we were out there for about 1/2 hour and finally he walked over, sat at the door. we go back in, he gets his treat then back onto his pillow. Then I thought, how nice It would be to be a dog, lay around all day, sleep, do what you want, not to mention lick yourself when ever the urge struck.

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: random ipod songs

Dear Lord its been forever....
I cant beleive its been since August that I have updated. So much has happened, I'm not sure where to start. Work, well that nis still the same....crazy as ever. We are still knee deep in 2 major conversions, A new website. and still converting the new bank into our systems. I decided my little contribution to my daily journal will be titled... "The Stupid Online Banking Customer Quote Of The Day"

Not only do I have to hear what people are saying to the reps, But now as a supervisor, I have to at times take escalated calls and I have come to the conclusion, the higher up the chain the customer wants to go, the more stupid they become.

Im sitting here at work right now, (im doing an overnight shift) and I can hear one of my reps telling a customer that our systems are down for the night while we complete this weeks conversion. She has only told this woman 4 times that we are down, what part of WE ARE DOWN cant she understand ??? Woman its after 3 in the morning..... GO TO BED !!!!!

Lets see, what else has been happening.. not too much, holidays were ok, actually worked on christmas day wasnt too bad of a day, spent new years eve with a guy I work with and his boyfriend. They had a party, and we sat around and drank, played games and ate.

In October, another guy that I work with and his partner had a commitment service, It was the first one that I had ever gone to. They had rented out the bar where they met and had it there, another night of drinking.. actually we did shots that night, I had the bartender make a shot that a friend of mine Michael told me about, a shot called "a piece of ass"

equal parts Southern Comfort, Amaretto , and sprite.. mmmmmmmm is all I can say about them. at one point there were about 8 or 9 of us drinking them.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Gwen Stefani

God its been forever...
Its been forever since my last post, so much has been going on Im not sure where to begin. Work, well thats just busy as ever, with our website upgrade coming up soon, and then with us taking over a new bank, the next 8 months are going to be hectic.

I'm still looking for a house, but, just cant seem to find one that has everything I need, thats in a decent part of Pittsburgh. You would think, how hard would it be to find a 3 bedroom,1.5 bathroom house with a garage and a fenced in yard for the dog ?

I also have been very bad on getting things mailed out that I have promised people for the last month or so, but its now on top of my to do list, so hopefully in the next day or two I get my ass to the post office. I actually finally made time this week to go through the pile of mail that has been sitting on my desk, and came across about 14 pieces of junk mail that is addressed to C.J. Guido, one of my friends thought maybe I wasn't getting enough junk mail so they felt that now my dog must start getting catalogs too.

I got my IPOD this week, came finally on Tuesday and I have been playing with that, moving music files over and putting whole cd's onto it. so far I have 949 songs and 5 full cd's and have used only a little over 4 gigs worth of space..

Well.. time to head into yet another meeting.

Current Mood: rushed
Current Music: Rufus Wainwright- Oh What A World

Alone in the office
Today here at the center is the big outdoor picnic and games day. Once a year the bank has its employee week where they let us know how much of a value we are to them.. uh.. yeah um ok... Its 2 hours of not having to deal with customers and not having to deal with issues, but for me, its 2 hours not having to deal with fellow employees and their attitudes.

So I went outside with some people here, had a burger and a pop, watched a few of the games but then decided to come back in for some time alone. !, its way too hot out there, and being a big hairy guy.. us and heat.. dont mix well.. so it was back to the air conditioning for me.

Well I decided it was a fst run back to the hotel and a fast jump in the pool for me..

Current Mood: refreshed

4 MORE DAYS !!!!!!!
The coutndown has begun.. 4 more days then I get to go home, be alone in my own bed, shower in my own shower, watch my own tv.. drive my own car, i cant wait!!!! but my next biggest hurdle is the plane ride home. thank god for airport bars.

Things i will miss about Rhode Island when im home.. NOTHING !!

Well , thats not 100 % true, I will miss a few of the people who I have come to know here and who have tried to make my stay a little more comfortable.

Ah well.. off to bed... will write more tomorrow while im at work.

Current Mood: numb

They extended my stay .....
I get a call wednesday moring from my boss in Pittsburgh and they extended my stay in Rhode Island for another week.... good lord WHY !!!!!!!!

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