Ash the Mighty

Making me happy: Water Joe (and it was invented at ASU . . . why am I not surprised?). The Refreshment’s album “Bottle and Fresh Horses” (which I had never given much of a chance until Mom made me listen to it. Thanks Mom!). Having two computers (so that one can be used as a REALLY big MP3 player since my real one died). The stolen code from homeslice which allows for my new groovy background-which-doesn’t-move. And the Catalina Fire of 2003 which will be immortalized soon . . .

Making me sad: Broken Computers (Athene is on the fritz (again) and randomly shuts down whenever it feels like it, making me write my essay on the laptop . . . again). Deadlines (second-to-last paper ever is due tomorrow at 5pm. Still got another 3,500 words) and accordingly all-nighters. Work tomorrow is just gonna be fun!

Well, that’s more happy stuff then sad stuff. Gotta keep positive!

Slainte.

“Well I was born in the thirsty earth
Showed up in Tucson,
Fresh out of Leavenworth
Did my time on stale bread and dirty water
Nobody told me that lady was the preacher’s daughter”
~The Refreshments – “Preacher’s Daughter”

Remember a few days ago when I said that I found out I owed a lot more than I thought I did because I’m rubbish at maths? Well, it turns out I’m even more rubbish at using my scroll bar properly! So I thought I owed $107,500. That’s a great big chunk o’ change. Well, turns out that further down on this one page that has two of my loans listed, it shows what I requested vs. what I actually got. For once I’m happy that the University of Glasgow short-changed me by so much, because instead of owing over a hundred grand, I in fact “only” owe $75,607.00! As my Dad said when I discovered this fact while on the phone with him, that means that I’ve gained almost $32,000 in about 45 seconds!

Wahoo!

Slainte.

“I’m doing the happy dance. I’m doing the happy dance.”
~Trey Parker (as “Joe ‘Coop’ Cooper”) – “BASEketball”

Funniest thing: A commercial for Tango Clear wherein at the end a penquin is slapping a woman on the leg with a fish. Have I mentioned I love random stuff?

HOLY SH*T!!!: My cousin Travis and my cousin-in-law Rosie are expecting! They got married about four months before C and I did, and here they are all pregnant like! I believe their offspring is due in September. This isn’t apparently something they’ve been planning for a while or anything, more a case of the 1% that “the Pill” is ineffective against (as Trav said: It’s a numbers game, and if you play often enough you’re gonna hit that 1%). Still I could tell from the YIM conversation that I had with him, he is absolutely thrilled with his upcoming Daddy-hood. Scared to death, but thrilled nonetheless.

So I say congrats to the young couple!

Slainte.

“My grandfather got tossed from Norway for getting my grandmother pregnant before they got married.”
~Eric Szmanda (as Greg Sanders) – “CSI: Las Vegas” – Episode 3.3 – “Let the Seller Beware”

. . . things just can’t seem to go right. I had a truly awful day at work today. It was busy from the moment I arrived and stayed that way until we closed. People are welcome to scoff, but hospital employees and cops know, full moons and the nights that stradle them are always insane. Today was no exception, and it really didn’t help that the woman who is usually my favourite manageress just totally screwed me over. It was the usual. Trying to throw some guys out (in this case it was for general over-intoxication and insubordination against house rules) and out comes Fiona who lets them all stay because they just spent 50 quid at the bar. Never mind that one guy eventually had to literally be carried out by his friends because he was so hammered. Never mind that the same guy made disgusting comments to Lauren which would have earned him a bloody nose if I had heard them. Never mind that one of them threatened me. They bought drinks so they get to stay. I love my job, right? I need to be reminded. The best bit of course is that even after she had been given all this information at the end of the night (she wouldn’t listen to us at the time) she still insisted that we (I) had made wrong choices in dealing with these people.

And now my knuckles hurt from punching the wall. Oops.

On an entirely different note, this is a very auspicious post. If you go back to the January 2004 entry, you’ll realize that what I classify as “auspicious” are beginnings. Yes, I have a new website. You may be reading this post on it, but not likely. You SIK Enterprises folks may just want to scoot on over to Ash Rhodes.com. On it you will find pretty much the same stuff as on SIK, but under a new design. You see, it appears there’s an up and coming athlete by the name of Ash Rhodes, and when I heard this I decided it would be a good idea to snatch the domain name while I still can! I hate just having domains sitting there unused though, so I got some service for it too. I always threatened to do so, so that SIK could become all about my other projects and now I have the chance!

SO, I’m telling you all now that this will be the last blog post you’ll ever find on the Idle Ramblings of SIK Enterprises. Don’t cry though, you can always read my blogs at the new site (once again, it’s ashrhodes.com). I hope you’re all grand and that you’ll be patient as I slowly build the new site (and if it looks rubbish at the moment, I do apologize. I’ve been busy with school work and I promised my brother I would learn Macromedia Dreamweaver, so it’s difficult to make it do everything I’m used to being able to do with simple hand coding!).

Slainte.

“I don’t mean to pry but it’s been said
You got Demons in your head
(Demons in your head!)
I ask real casual”
~The Refreshments – “Birds Sing”

Interest rates for loans go up on June 30th, 2005. In preparation for this, I’m trying to get my student loans consolidated and locked in under the previous (lower) rate. While gathering information to provide to the Southwest Student Services Corp (the people who have provided my Stafford Loan money) I realized that I am really rubbish with maths. I had forgotten to take one year’s worth of Stafford Loans into account so instead of owing $89,000 like I thought I did (which is bad enough) I in fact owe $107,500!!! With a very low interest and repayment within 20 years, that’ll actually work out to be almost $123,000!

I’m never gonna be debt free, am I? Damnit!

On the plus side, writing essay number one, and (finally) have meeting for essay number two. Ick.

Slainte. I guess.

“Jump into my rocket, ’cause I’m ready to blast
I don’t know where I’m goin’, but I’m goin’ there fast
Tonight there ain’t no future, and there isn’t a past
We’ll make it like the first time, so it won’t be the last
All I wanna do is everything that you ask
Don’t you know I’m really getting in the mood”
~Brian Setzer Orchestra – “Gettin’ in the Mood”

I know what I was doing on this exact day five years ago. I was living in a tent somewhere in north-central Colorado working two jobs at the Colorado Renaissance Festival. The original job was pushing a giant wooden swing all day, but I quickly picked up a second job (because money is good) working nights as a security guard (resulting in about 48 straight hours of work per weekend). It was only the second or third weekend very late on a Saturday night when my brother Spencer called me to tell me that his wife Brianne had gone into labour. I spent the next several hours worrying about my sister-in-law and my soon-to-be-nephew. Spence and I spoke several times, the last of which was past midnight and it was him making the call saying that the boy was born, both mother and child were healthy, and that they had decided to name him Connor Ashton Proffitt . . . the middle name in honour of me.

That was it. I had to get my butt back down to Arizona. Unfortunately I couldn’t just bail on my partner, Taz, so I stayed the rest of the Sunday, pushing the swing and all. I left as soon as the day was over and drove south to Colorado Springs where I slept for a few hours at Meggan Ladewig’s flat. She was thrilled for Spencer as well and sent me on my way armed with sugar and caffeine. I drove the 14 hours and 1000 miles straight; stopping only for gas, the toilet, and once for the cops who were not moved by my excuse that we had just had an addition to the family. I didn’t arrive until the sun was already back down in Mesa on Monday the 12th, and I only paused long enough at my parent’s house to almost wreck my car in the garage (what can I say? I was exhausted and was even still wearing my Faire clothes) and to discover that Brie had already been discharged from the hospital. I then set off again (once I had finally extricated my car from the garage) for Spence and Brie’s house in Gilbert. I got there safely and with shaking hands knocked on the door.

I was greeted at the door by my brother who was wearing a giant (if exhausted) grin. He invited me in and that is when I first saw my namesake. He was in that state that only newborns have where you can’t be sure if he’s asleep or so overwhelmed by his new surroundings that he’s trying to play dead or something. In a remarkable show of trust I was allowed to hold him right then. It was the single most amazing moment in my life. My Dad has told the story over and over again of the first time he held me and about how tiny I was (LONG time ago!) . . . and for the first time I could start to understand him. In all humilty and honesty, I can say that my nephew was the most beautiful baby ever born, and over the next several days the number of times he fell asleep on my chest just cemented in my heart my determination to always protect him no matter what.

That was five years ago. Connor turns five years old today, and though considerably less easy to carry around (and toss in the air as his father did so often [because I would never do something like that!]), he’s every bit as cute. I’ve been a bit lax in the constant vigilance department, but it can be hard from 6000 miles away. Anyway, the point is that I would like to wish the young Mr. Proffitt a very happy birthday. I’m told he’s already been to the beach to play and I’m jealous already!

. . . not the least of which because I just got a call and it appears I’ll be heading into work even earlier than usual! Happy Birthday, Bug, and I’ll see you sometime soon!

Love,
Uncle Ash

Slainte.

Happy Birthday, UH!
Happy Birthday, UH!
All the world’s in dark despair,
People dying everywhere.
BUT!
Happy Birthday, UH!
~Renaissance Festival Birthday Song

Does that sound fandom enough? Just finished watching “The Wedding Singer” for about the 900th time. Say what you want about the juvenial quality to most of Adam Sandler’s films (and for that matter, the bad acting inherent in most Drew Barrymore films), The Wedding Singer cannot be denied as one of the best films of the ’90s. Yeah, it’s pretty soppy and romantic, but the funny bits really are hilarious and if you have any concept of the ’80s (or god forbid you ever followed the fashion of the times) then you know the barbs really do stike way too close to home (can we say mullets and tule gloves? — Oh wait. That’s all come back again. Damn!)

In the mean time, I’m having fun digging through Sooz’s collection of VHS tapes. Our DVD player(s) is/are broken so I’m having to resort to a medium quickly going the way of the Dodo (or Betamax, take your pick). It’s fun though. In other news, I have spent way way WAY too much money ordering shirts from BustedTees.com. Good stuff. Some things I’ve gotten for myself and others include: The Second Amendment (I like puns!), Dysentery (for fans of Oregon Trail and you know who you are!), Secede (technically it should be Davis rather than Lee, but still funny nonetheless!), Prose (because who doesn’t love Shakespeare puns?), Pirate (because all pirates are cool . . . except Orlando Bloom. Yes, I said it. Orlando Bloom is a sucky pirate!), and Jersey Girls (for Chris . . . because we all need to be reminded of our mistakes whenever possible).

That went on much longer than I intended. To sum up: Robbie Hart rocks as does Oregon Trail; Glenn sucks as does killing 1500 pounds of meat and being able to carry only 175 pounds back to the wagon; and funny T-Shirts, while worth it, are really expensive.

Slainte.

“Once again, things that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!”
~Adam Sandler (as Robert “Robbie” J. Hart) – “The Wedding Singer”

With everything else that is going on I had almost reached the point where I didn’t think anything else bad could happen. The Universe in general of course had to disabuse me of that notion, so it sent a nice case of Strep Throat my way just to remind me that someone out there really does hate me.

Without sounding too whiney, let’s look at the last 21 months or so: