…well, to me anyway.

This is my Flash teacher.

Needless to say, we have a bit in common.

I just realized….

I’m learning yet another programming language.

Sheesh.

It wasn’t just a dream.

My copy of the Twin Peaks : Season 2 DVD set shipped today.

I’d forgotten that I pre-ordered it!

As far as the training itself?  Not so much, really.  I actually like the fact that this place doesn’t have piles of doughnuts sitting outside the training room and a healthy place to eat across the hall.

But when I got back to my hotel room just now, I looked out my window for the first time and realized I had a view of the pool.

At this very moment there’s a whole bunch of ugly or annoying (loud kids) down there.

Yeah….Vegas wins in that category.

I’m in Orlando, and will be all this week, for some Adobe Flash training.  So far it’s going pretty well and in just two days I’ve already learned a lot. 

I’ve got lots of thoughts running through my head at the moment, but I only have time for a very brief post.  As such, I really wanted to ask yet again that you all make an effort to go see The March of the Kitefliers – especially this weekend.  We saw it last weekend, and amazingly enough I think I laughed harder than I did either time I saw it before.  It really is that good, and Jobsite needs our support now more than ever.

It’s important.  Not only to the arts scene in Tampa, and not only to Jobsite as a company.  It’s important to me because the people I work with there aren’t just my professional associates.  It feels like my artistic home, and they are as such part of my family.

So if you don’t go see it for any of the good reasons (wanting to be entertained or supporting local theater), go see it because you like me.   I mean, seriously, I fucking rule.  You owe me that much at least, bitches.

What?  I couldn’t get TOO sincere there, could I?

Here’s wishing for a speedy recovery to barnabyq.

Of course, you couldn’t ask for better hands to be in.

The universe can go fuck itself right in its rosy red ass.

While my Mom, K. and A. were out buying flowers to take to the funeral tomorrow her fucking house was broken in to.  Amazingly enough, they made a beeline right for her bedroom and only took the $500 of change she had in there.  No electronics.  No jewelry.  No booze from the fully stocked bar. 

Amazingly enough, there was another theft in the family a few weeks ago.  Somehow or other, in that case, the ONLY stuff that was taken during that particular break in belonged to my nephew, who had left the stuff in the household while he went off to boot camp.

Did I mention that my nephew used to live in my Mother’s house, or that the place where his stuff was stolen from belongs to someone who had been in my Mother’s house with him?

Suspicious much?  Me?  No way.

This was an inside fucking job.  Someone knew my Mom wasn’t going to be home (normally she’s working on Thursday) and knew exactly where she kept that money.  There was NOTHING ransacked in her house.  Nothing out of place except the things on top of the money.

I’m so fucking angry right now I can’t see straight…and I’m getting angrier writing about it, so I’m done.

I certainly hope that when I die my fucking grandchildren can find more to say about my life than “he enjoyed Bingo.”

Way to sum up 86 years of living.

Sunday night I lost the last of my grandparents.

I suppose I should qualify that.  Peg Patterson wasn’t related to me at all.  She was Richard’s Mother, so when I tell people who she is I have to give the long and convoluted “if my Mom and Dick had ever gotten married she would have been my Grandmother” explanation.  I wasn’t even allowed to refer to her as my Grandmother.  When I was a kid, she hated that term.  She said it made her feel old.  I was to call her “Peg,” and nothing else.  It wasn’t until my generation started having kids that she accepted being called “Granny Peg.”

My relationship with her is hard to explain, as is my reaction to her death.  It was…unexpected.  I didn’t even know she was sick, really.  Yes, she was old and living in a nursing home.  Every time I saw her, though, she seemed to be in fine health (for an 86 year old).  I guess she was having heart problems, though, and was in the hospital waiting to have a pace maker put in.  Mom says she must have decided she didn’t want it.

I don’t think I’ve let myself really stop to think about how I feel.  Maybe I just haven’t felt like I could.  Is it odd for me to say that I feel as though I’ve had so much death around me in the last few years that I’ve kind of run out of license to talk about it?

I don’t know.  I wish everything would just calm down for a few hours so I could really sit back and take stock of the situation, but life just doesn’t work that way.  There’s always something, right?

Anyway…Peg is dead, and in true form her granddaughter didn’t bother to mention my Mother or us kids in the obituary.  You know, never mind that she has spent every major holiday, birthday, and various and sundry other events with us for the last 20 years.  Or that it was my Mother who she called every night to talk about her day, and who helped her with her finances. 

I’m sad Peg is dead, I really am, but I’m really glad that tie is gone. 

Nothing quite like familial ties to dead fucking weight.

Meh.  This was supposed to be kind of a euology and it’s turning into bile.  I didn’t intend that.   As I said, I don’t think I’ve really been able to sort out my own feelings on all this just yet.

Anyway, funeral is tomorrow. 

Yeah, that’s all I’ve got for now.

Patterson, Margaret M., 86, of South Pasadena, died Sunday (March 25, 2007) at Palms of Pasadena Hospital, St. Petersburg.

She came here in 1956 from her native Philadelphia. She was a member of the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle and enjoyed bingo. Survivors include a granddaughter, Mary K. Scott, Tampa; four great- grandchildren; and a great-great-granddaughter. Brett Funeral Home & Cremation Services, St. Petersburg.

Ganked from

tampa

From www.TBO.com:

IKEA Opening In Tampa
Posted Mar 26, 2007 by The Tampa Tribune

TAMPA – Swedish retailer IKEA today plans to announce that it will build a store in Tampa. It would be the third Florida location for the seller of assemble-it-yourself furniture.

Construction of the store may begin next spring, with the opening tentatively set for the summer of 2009, according to a press release. IKEA earlier announced plans for a 310,000-square-foot store at the Mall at Millenia in Orlando. That store is to open this fall.

Mayor Pam Iorio is expected to join company officials for today’s 2 p.m. announcement. The company will be seeking approvals and infrastructure improvements from the city before beginning construction, according to the release.

IKEA showrooms are built around furnished spaces that simulate different areas of a home. The settings include furnishing, lighting and decorating suggestions.

Furniture typically is packed flat in boxes. Customers are expected to pick up purchases in a self-service area, transport them home and put them together on their own.

The company promotes its family-friendly atmosphere, including a supervised playroom and demonstration toys in the children’s department. Stores also include restaurants serving breakfast and lunch, including an assortment of Swedish and daily specials made from local produce.