As per requested, I am writing this blog entry… Even if the party in question has turned off her computer. I had some really exciting training classes on Tuesday and Wednesday, ok not really… The first was about something that didn’t really apply to me, the guy said he wasn’t really familiar with software validation but he did have 1.5 slides about it (out of about a hundred). The one on Thursday wasn’t so bad, it was the first session out of four, and if I attend the rest and do the homework (that’s right homework), I can be a certified software validator (w00t!) The only problem I had with this one was that our network went down during the middle of it (it was a teleconference), so we lost track of which slide the presenter was on… and the hand out was only a small book…

This week I also find out my offical position title, I’m a Software Validation Engineer (sounds pretty fancy, huh?) I’ll probably have a lot more to say next week as my first day isn’t until Monday, if I can figure out where I’m suppose to go. The other exciting thing we found out is the local ice cream shop has these really good fruit sipers, a little apple cider and some apple sorbert mixed together topped off with a cinnamon stick. Unfortunately we went there this week and they were all out of cinnamon sticks (luckily I had gotten a mix-in… cotton candy ice cream with sprinkles and gummi bears, yum!)

This weekend was pretty mundane, we did go out and drive by some houses… Hopefully we’ll be able to move into one once our lease goes up here. We also tried a new restaurant on the north sound of town, Los Cuartos Amigos. The atmosphere was nice, but the service wasn’t too great… We were seated and it took awhile before our server got to our table, he took our orders (I got a steak quesadilla and Susan got a chicken quesadilla). Afterwards we got to sample some of their homemade salsa and chips, it was pretty good. We get our meals and I notice mine is chicken, so I ask Susan, “Did you get chicken?” and she responded yeah… Near the end of the meal, she says something like, this kinda looks like steak… Neadless to say the meal was good (even if I didn’t get the so-called “Dark Chicken”). Then we waited for our bill, and waited, and waited, and then just for fun we waited some more… we finally got it paid, left and decided not to go back…

As for today, it’s been pretty exciting, safety training!! No it’s not really that exciting, but the instructor was funny and it went by pretty quickly. Next up I have orientation at Kelly IT & Engineering Resources… and more training tomorrow and Wednesday (sweet…) Then I finally get to start Monday the second… using what some refer to as a “high level language” (or as what appeared to me… a language that’s more basic than BASIC…)

Well as you can gather from my picture of the day page, I am now employed, woohoo! I’ll be a contractor under Kelly IT Resources working for Dow Chemical here in Midland. The exact details are a little fuzzy, my first day isn’t until October 2nd, but the job sounds interesting. I will be a software validator for the systems currently installed in Dow’s plant. Using their own customized programming language, I will create simulations and after testing (much testing probably) I’ll actutally implement the new programs in the real system.

This past weekend was kind of rough… Pepper was brought back to Animal Control due to his problematic behavior. He hissed and growled at me and marked his territory… and his hyper-aggressiveness scared Susan… On a happy note, we did get a new kitten, Scout, who is a female brownish/black calico. She’s been really good and likes to explore (she got stuck in the pull out couch when we first brought her home…)

I finally got my rejection letter from CMT, oh well… I do have an upcoming interview on Monday with Kelly IT Resources (with is a contracting company for Dow Chemical). Job hunting is starting to get old, hopefully something opens up quickly.

I don’t know how many Nintendo fans there are out there, but in New York a press conference was held yesterday to release the launch date and price of the new system, the Wii. I’m defintely gonna get one of these beasts with a price tag of $249.99 with a game included you can’t go wrong (launch date is Nov. 19th). Sony isn’t doing so good this time around, with their explosive laptop batteries and delayed launches and huge price tag (~$600) and limited quantities, I’m not sure how well they’ll compete. Besides the Wii allows for legal downloading of old school games (NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis) and has one heck of an innovative controller (yup they got me sold already…)

It was Susan’s birthday on Wednesday and I made her two cakes (well the first one crumbled and fell on the ground), but the second one turned out all right. It was a chocolate-cinnamon cake and tasted pretty good… I also got her some flowers and a James Bond Zip-Zap (micro RC car) that she drove under the couch once she got it together.

Well this weekend started off with a bang (literally)… We were heading up north (da UP) when we blew a tire just before we got to Clare. We gave AAA a call only to find out all the tire shops in Clare were closed, so we had them call a tow-truck company to put the donut on (the tire blown was the driver side front, the heck if we were gonna sit on the side of US-10 to change that!) After waiting an hour and a half, the guy finally showed up. After the donut was in place, we found out leaving the hazard lights on for the whole time kills your battery. So after a jump from the tow truck we were finally on our way back to Midland to get Susan’s car (at a very slow pace might I add).

This rest of the weekend went pretty smoothly, we got to see our nephew, Marcus, be baptizied and enjoyed visiting our families. All our good mojo must have run out because when we got home to see how Pepper was doing (pretty good), we found puddles in our basement… Apparently a combination of using powder detergent and old pipes with clay buildup creates massive blocks in the sewer system, and thus raw sewage in our basement, yay! Our building seems to be the only one affected, lucky us… Though one good thing did come out of this, we don’t have to pay for scratching the paint on the floor (because now they have to repaint it anyway)…