May 2005 Archives

I get my final wake up call from my phone. Mike informs me that he will be glad to pick me up.

I give what are theoretically directions to him. He amazingly gets here without getting lost. Of course Mom and Sis have to spy from window. Silly gals.

We head to eat at Vortex. Yes, nice burger. Mine was plain and simple, his was mexican styled. I got the fries, but the tots looked much better, and besides, had that extra crisp.

He wasn't nervous today, as he ate his full plate.

We later, headed to Cafe Intermezzo. My, the place is quite interesting. I've been told the atmosphere is better at night, but it suited me just fine. I had some white chocolate chocolate, and a mousse chocolate cake. Mike had a chocolate gnache patte. They were both good, but were rich. My cake didn't have quite the taste I expected, but it was good. We chatted, and he seemed a tad nervous, to which later I found out why.

I walked to his car, from Intermezzo, and he chatted a bit. Found out, he wanted to give me a hug. Also, that when I had my hands near him in the table, we would have liked to hold them. So the nervousness came from the hesitance. How cute. It suffices to say that he is cute period, but I'll stop the syrupy adjectives at this point (well, paragraph anyways.)

We ended up holding hands a bit in the car. Yeah, I know, sappy, but it was nice.

Anywho, we then went to Arte Forma. A furniture store that he liked. I thought it had some great furniture. Some that I would by myself without thinking twice about it. There were plenty of pieces that were plenty cozy. He has a great bed chosen for his loft, which has a great design.

Ohh, I do have to mention that we ended up sneaking a hug in the upstairs area of Arte Forma. Yeah, naughty us. *grins*

He considered visiting a friend, but wasn't sure if the friend would be quite proper, so we skipped that.

He then drove me home, where we chatted a bit more, and realized that we have both made a point to take things slow. It is so darn difficult though, but we shall manage. That translates that there was not a goodbye kiss, but we will leave that for a more magical moment.

It's all turning out to be wonderful so far, but, as we have said. We don't want to dive in head on, and get hurt.

Monday, is a potential day for a meet with Mike. We shall see, I gotta give him a ring tomorrow, before lunch.

To suffice, the date was quite wonderful.

In the beggining there was nervousness and awkwards pauses, but things flowed along wonderfully.

As planned, I met him @ starbucks. He was having straight up black coffee, and I tried the ice blended lemonate tea (passion.)

We sat and chatted for a bit, it was nice. We later went by Barnes & Noble to see if we had a book a friend of his recommended. They didn't have it. I got hungry, and we swang over to the Mall. He was wearing a shirt, long sleeved, so we stopped by the gap, and he bought a new one. Then, we went to Ruby Tuesdays, were he had a nice lunch. He didn't seem to eat much, and told me he was simply nervous. Although, he did say it was good, because if he didn't care about the sitatuion, he would be acting different. We both had pasta. His was brocolli and cheese, mine was shrimp alfredo. It was quite tasty, and I was surprised. I didn't expect the food to be so delicious.

I did go for the desert, and he along with me. He had a carb lite cheesacake, and I ate the delicious brownie, which was topped with vanilla ice cream. My my, so delicious. The waitress was a hoot, and very nice. I was shocked by the tips that Mike left. Generous indeed.

We beelined to Discover Mills. We played some poll at the Jillians over there. I gotta say, I think I won one game, the others Mike made some errors with the 8-ball. I won by proxy, but it was interesting. It's good that we are both not wonderful at it, since there was a nice friendly competition. Really informal, it made me confortable.

We went to another bookstore to see if we could find the book, and then to some clothing stores. I think Kenneth Cole, Neiman Marcus, and Saks. It was an overwhelming amount of clothing. The prices high in the sky, but I just had to urge to splurge. *grins* It was fun to have a companion to look at nice clothing. We say a 5k sofa, which, btw, we could not sit on. Ha, as if.

After we left, Mike got the wonderful idea to swing by Chateau Elan.

Wow, it was sheer awsome. The place is beautiful, and quiet. I left completelly at peace over there. We walked in through the main entrance, and visited the upstairs art gallery. Mostly acrylic paints, of flower and such. There was one painting that I would put in a living room. It was a yellow flower, with bubbles around it. So pretty, and livelly. Mike showed be a picture full of earth tones, that were the colors similar to the furniture he is picking for his loft.

We then talked a bit, he showed me the main inn, and we walked along a nature trail. On the way back we stopped by paddy's pub. Mike had a cigar, and we both ate some Bailey's Mousse. It flavor was enjoyable. Yes, I do love mousses.

After a bit more walking, it was time for him to take my back. So to starbucks we went, 8 hours later.

The date ended with a... firm handshake. Very polite of him. As always, taking things at a healthy pace is the name of the game.

My, I was simply smithen. He was interesting, handsome, friendly, and besides, his scent was captivating. He has a wealth of qualities, to which I was glad for each one. He was a gentleman at all times, and courteous always.

We have a second date on the line, but more on that at a later time. Now let me finish walking on sunshine.

I got a message, a few weeks ago. may 5th to be exact.

I revewied it, and replied. The talk went well.

I heard things that were iffy about the person on the other side. I thought about it, but paid no heed.

He told me the iffy stories, from his side, and things were much better.

He seemed interesting, smart, and clever. He was captivating, with interesting stories, and was sincere. He was not offensive, he was not aggresive.

More e-mails were exchanged, and I received a phone number.

I'm shy, so I didn't call until a bit later. A nice day was set, but I worked on it.

This coming saturday, one day from now was picked. The place, a line that became a place.

It's just going out for a coffee.

He's a morning person, I'm Me.

It was settled that 10 in the morning was a good time. Fine with me, he's gonna be early, and I gotta make it there at the leasted 11:59.

I'll be there on time, I think it's worth it, and it's a great use of a Saturday morning.

There's expectations from both sides, and we will see where they meet.

I'm excited, but I'm not going to expect anything other than just a chat, there's no point in setting myself up to be hurt and such.

(His voice was pleasing)

Man, a wide array of days have passed in a rush.

Things are moving at a random pace. Organization is taking place, over a bit of a mess that I have been letting be.

Work is getting into a new pace. Two of my co-workers that share the same position I do, will be gone in less than a week. I take over their duties, and will have no proper replacement soon to take things and make them work out synchronously.

There was a replacement lined up, but that person is now being kept in the section by a Manager that I don't care much about. More confusing things will come along. My other coworker still barelly learned anything about any of our systems, and he is not speedy, and prone to errors. He is not bad, it's just that he hasn't learned everything that he needs to know yet. It's a lot of random things that one picks up, but we haven't exposed him to it.

I will probably have to train more people that have never worked for the company, which will prove to be an interesting affair. I need to speed up the pace a bit, but I have a never ending to do list, that manages to exponentially eliminate time around me.

I am starting to get things my way, and start to set down my rules. Less mistakes would ensue them, and I want to make sure that everyone understands why things happen, and not just be given snipets of rules that just wane away without a coherent web to keep it together.

I will see what will happen when school starts, since I know work tends to cross into school way more than it should.

I just gotta sit, think, and rework it all into play in my own order.

Let's recap the first part of this month.

May 6th, marked another year o my life, in which I turned 23. There were people in my house, cake was eaten, and happy birthday was sung. I visited Malibu Grand Prix for a little bit, and sister took my for 3 laps. Driving that way kinda scares me, so that's why I didn't take the wheel. It was a fun, and interesting experience. I'll stay away from it. Also, previously in the day, I nervously took my Physics final, and also worked, before coming home for the party.

May 9th, was the last of my two finals. The hardest ones too. My calc final was tense, but I survived. The Programming Language Concepts was just right, and I think I did well, more about that down the line.

From then one, we started prepping for Inventory at my store. People were a bit of a mood around the store, but it was to be expected.

May 12th, one of my previous bosses, Ezi, came into town. He was visiting back from Puerto Rico. Justin called me on my phone, and asked me to meet them at Wild Bills. Well, I do have to say that was a mighty interesting night. First, Ezi greeted me with this huge bear hug, lifted me up, and bounced me in the air. I was like woah there. Heh, that's Ezi. After I sat, I was offered a beer, which to drink. I haven't drank anything in 2 years, but this was a Ezi kinda get together, so hell. I then segwayed with two shots and finished drinking the beer in 30 seconds. Request of another one of my ex managers. I so obliged. Ohh my, I felt the effects of everything within instants. My hearing was muffled, my sense of balance was off, and all those other things. My head felt woobly.

First to suffice, I'm not drinking again. That was time #8, and that's enough. While there, I ended up playing air hockey and pool, which I did decently well. I was better in pool than ever before. Granted, I was playing slightly tipsy, against someone in a similar state. That really doesn't say much at all. I did get my ass kicked in air hockey, because that darn puck was moving faster than my eyes cared to register.

After hanging out more, and watching Ezi "attempting" to dance we left. Ohh, granted to say, I did get taken out for about 15 seconds, and Ezi danced with me. It was the funniest thing ever, and I just could not believe it. I do have to say, he leads mightly powerfully. LOL

Sister came to pick me up, because I wasn't going to drive. I left my car at work, and drove with her home. Next day of course, I had a mild headache, and my stock was sour for 2 days. I hate the effects of alcohol on my body, and that stamps the reminder why I stopped drinking in the first place.

May 13th we had a Star Wars Price Wars late night even in my store. Yeah, it was a just a tad of lame marketing, but that's life in retail I wore a X-Wing Pilot outfit. While Suraj, and Ed wore other outfits. Being that I'm not a star wars geek, I really did not have much of an idea of anything. They taped us in various areas of the store, for corporate purposes. There were a few pictures snapped, they are in my picture gallery of course (I am the dorky looking dude in the orange jumpsuit)

May 14th was the evil, but necessary day of inventory. Things went decently well, although, I learned still don't really like my current managers. Inventory took longer than usual. Reason being, it was more disorganized than I have ever seen it. Also, we didn't have enought people to be with all the counters. That means they counted however they felt like it. Up and down, and some other seemingly random patterns, instead of left to right, top to bottom.

I ended up getting out of the store around 1AM, since I had just hit overtime. Other people stayed there a bit later, but overall we were all done. Reconciling is going ok so far from what I hear. Although, it did not help that the GM and sales manager let some things get moved around. That screws things up big time. While it annoyed me, I just shrugged it of. What can I do about it... Nothing.

Aside from that, I'm currently on a month break from school. As I mentioned before, I am taking summer school for my Calc III class. I thought of just getting it over it, and it won't disrupt with anything else, since I'll have plenty of time to fully get into it.

Right now, I'm just analyzing things to come, and seeing how it will all pan out.