Zel-kun’s Words

I get married Thursday… it’s a lot to take in.  It sneaks up on you.  It’s not bad by any means, I’m marrying a wonderful girl, and I’m sure our life together will be very happy.  Still, it’s a lot to take in.

I bought my suit, and picked it up during a torrential rainfall.  I couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of me, so I tossed the suit into the back of my car as quickly as I could while keeping it neat.  Of course, when I got in my car, it slowed to a drizzle.

Go figure.

Anyway, here are my final thoughts as a single man:

Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t really get out there and ‘play the field.’  I’ve only had a couple girlfriends, and nothing beyond a date or two.  I’ve spoken to people who feel I’ve missed something by not exploring while I had the chance.  I guess I could lament on that, but I really don’t feel I missed a whole lot.  I hate dancing, I hate going on those interview-like dates, I hated being set up, and I hated having to break up with people.  Seems like one big ulcer waiting to happen.

Maybe they’re talking about the sex, which is entirely possible.  I had the opportunity, but I didn’t want to do it with someone I didn’t love.  Yes, I’m one of those old-fashioned fools, so kill me.  Honestly, I don’t feel I missed out there either.

I’m going to walk down the aisle and not have any doubts about what I’m doing, which is all I could ever have asked for on my wedding day.  I have a good, stable job, and I have a decent enough place (though I could ask for a better neighborhood), and I can provide for it all.  I’ve grown past living paycheck to paycheck, and I honestly don’t worry about money.

Of course, I still treat my money as though I was still working at Wal-Mart, which is probably for the best.  I am out of debt and loving it.  I’m about to go on my first vacation ever, and get married in the process.

These past years have been some of the most turbulent of my life.  If you said to me five years ago that I’d be working in IT and flying to Vegas to be married, I’d say you were out of your mind.  Maybe this is all a grand hallucination, and I’ll wake up in my bed in my father’s basement, around noon, and put on the blue vest to work at Wal-Mart.

If that’s the case, I hope I never wake up.

Zel-kun out.

I had overtime on Friday, so instead of making some extra money, I left early so I could attend Zai’s bridal shower.  Apparently, it’s now customary for the men to attend these.  I have older people asking me, “What?  Why are YOU going?” and the younger people around my age declaring, “Yeah, I had to go to my wife’s.”

So there you go.

The bridal shower was at Connie’s Pizzeria in Chicago, where you can find some of the worst pizza in the windy city.  The pizza isn’t BAD per se… just… mediocre.  And when you’re in Chicago, one of three centers for pizza in the world, you expect something more.

1. Italy - Thin, crisp, stone over baked crust with the freshest vegatables.  I love Italian pizza.  So much that I actually order it at nice Italian restaraunts.  Try it some time, you won’t be disappointed.

2. New York - Home of the thin floppy crust, very large slices.  Not my favorite type of pizza, but a New York style pepperoni pizza with a generous amount of sauce is DELICIOUS.

3. Chicago  - Home of the deep dish pizza.  The crust is piled high with cheese, vegetables, and sausage.  It’s piled so high that one piece is generally enough to be a meal for even the largest of appetites.  My personal favorite for this is Arnelio’s Pizzeria, but then I haven’t been to Pizzeria Uno (the first and original pizzeria in Chicago), so maybe I haven’t tried the best.

Connie’s has thick crust, lots of cheese, and a distinct absense of sauce.  It reminds my of when I used to eat Domino’s.  Not really bad… just blah.  Although Zai swears by their pizza, so I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

I met her co-workers and they seemed nice enough, save a very angry woman who complained about nearly everything.  It turns out she’s the computer teacher at the school, and that she doesn’t know anything about computers, relying on ZAI to fix the issues she has.

Zai is a smart girl, but a computer technician she is not.  This should say something about the supposed teacher.

We were given a handmade fan that had money folded into it.  We were very grateful, as honestly we were wondering just how exactly we were going to pay for the trip.  I DID have the money in savings, but I was doing my best not to touch that.  The money ended up buying me the suit I was going to wear for the wedding, so it worked out very well.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we couldn’t remove the money without destroying the fan.

Saturday I picked up our wedding bands from Jared.  They set me back a pretty penny, but it was money well spent.  I managed to buy them out of pocket, so I don’t have a new debt floating over my head.  As of now, I am debt free, and I’m trying to keep it that way.

Sunday we just relaxed, I spent most of the day playing World of Warcraft.  Looks like no matter what I do, I can’t escape that game.  Truth be told, I’m having more fun now than I have in quite awhile.

Zel-kun out.

Things are finally calming down a bit at work.  I can actually see a little of my desk.  I worked late again yesterday, out on the road in Indiana.  It’s strange that my job leads me back to my old hometown of Merrillville, being as I scarcely even visit it anymore, it’s like a world I long left behind.

I had to check up on a kiosk in Southlake Mall, a mere 10 feet from the front door of Things Remembered, where I worked as an engraver for three years.  It was my first job, and where I picked up my loathing of malls.  I’m always tempted to walk on in to see if I see anyone I know there, but I’m always on a tight schedule.  I know myself too well, and I’d waste bare minimum of half an hour catching up and bragging about the direction my life has gone.

My old hometown has really changed since I left, as though I was the only factor holding the rapid growth of yuppie establishments in check.  The food court in the mall had been replaced by a sprawling two-story Borders, hot dogs on sticks replaced with books on shelves.  Around the mall grew at least two dozen new food places: Red Robin, Chipotle, Potbelly’s… the old Burger King had been demolished to make way for a a chocolate shop… it was like a whole different town.

Unfortunately, the Wal-Mart stands as still and strong as the day I left it.  I had to visit a kiosk in the Circuit City directly across from it, and I could still feel the evil resonating from across the road.  I had bought my PDA from that very Circuit City ages ago, the one I was accused of practicing witchcraft with, and the store hadn’t changed at all in that time.  And just like before, there were never any other customers in sight.

When I’m out in the field, I get to drive a company vehicle, which I both love and hate.  I love not putting miles on my aging vehicle, and I love not having to buy gas.   It handles well and has a lot of pickup, but it’s uncomfortable to drive.  The seat doesn’t go far back, so my legs are a little confined.  But beggars can’t be choosers.

I drove back to Schaumburg and gassed it up with the company card, then handed the keys to my boss so he could drive up to Wisconsin.  Those are busy vehicles, we bought it brand new earlier this year and there’s already 40,000 miles on it.  Sound like my car for when I worked for XSport running around everywhere…

Zel-kun out.

To say this last week has been stressful would be an understatement.

I’ve been put in charge of the project to upgrade all the desktops in our building to XP, which is a much slower and burdensome process than Elgin due to the distance from the production servers, and also to the varying job roles in the building.

Needless to say, I’ve been working a lot of overtime to get this project done.  During the project, the system set up to migrate and backup the userdata failed Friday night, so I suddenly had fifty non-working machines with missing data.  The users would be returning Monday, and they will not be happy.

I worked until midnight on Friday, and put in some hours on Sunday to get the machines working, stressing out the whole time (which is saying something, I don’t normally let stress get to me).  Even when I tried to sleep, machine names and spreadsheets began cycling through my head.

Monday morning I began damage control, running through the building trying to calm down some people who lost their data (fortunately, policy states that they shouldn’t have data on their local machines anyhow), and getting programs installed for other people that didn’t get put in with their department’s image.  I worked untill 9:00pm that night getting the rest of the building converted to XP.  This time not depending on the faulty migration system, just putting out a communication to the affected users to make sure they don’t have any data.

Tuesday morning was more damage control, because even though they were told to back up their data, and told to ask me any questions they may have had regarding the process (which SOME did), a few people lost a little data.  The damage wasn’t all that bad, just a lot of people had a LOT of questions.

Around 10:00am my stomach started hurting, a twisting pain that came and went.  At first it wasn’t too bad, but after a couple hours, it grew worse.  Around noon we received a large shipment of monitors, and I was part of the crew unloading them from the truck and taking them to the storage room.  After that, my head was spinning and my stomach felt like it was collapsing in on itself.  I texted my boss and said I was leaving.

I drove home straining to keep my focus on the road.  Honestly, it was difficult, my eyes were threatening to betray me and close, and it felt like I was swimming inside my own head.  Finally, I parked about a block from my apartment, stepped out of my truck, and emptied my stomach out into the street.  It’s the city, so several people passed me as I did so.  I felt like some sort of drunk.

When I think of how my head was spinning… maybe that’s what being falling’down drunk is like…

I went home and passed out.  I woke up with a throbbing headache, and I was freezing despite being under several blankets.  The rest of the day s a blur, but thanks to Zai going out and getting me plenty of ginger ale and mint tea, I survived the day.

The next day I was feeling a bit better, but decided to take off of work just in case.  I woke up long enough to text my boss, then passed out for another five hours.  When I woke up, I felt good enough to eat, so I took some frozen chili that had been sitting in my freezer, and threw it in the crockpot.  I had to stab it into pieces over the course of several hours, but by dinner time, it was ready.

It smelled delicious, but after only a couple bites, my stomach didn’t feel so well.  Nowhere near as bad as the previous day, but enough to make me reconsider continuing my meal.

I woke up this morning feeling good as new, and came in to work.  I’m still doing a little damage control, but things are finally winding down.  At least, winding down enough to get this update out.

Zel-kun out.