Category: personal

I used to send my Mom a card on Valentine’s Day, and sometimes flowers.  I mentioned that to someone a few years ago, and got a strange look.  They thought it was weird to send flowers to your Mom on Valentine’s Day.  I never really saw anything wrong with it.

I found out today that someone has been using my AmEx card number. They’ve used it for airline tickets, FedEx shipping, and opening up a couple of accounts for online dating sites, I think. AmEx identified the suspicious activity and called me, which is nice. I’ll have a new card in a week or so.

I think this was limited to just the AmEx card, and isn’t a full-blown case of identity theft. At least I hope so!

I took this online quiz, and apparently, the presidential candidate most in tune with my opinions is Chris Dodd. That was kind of surprising, since I don’t think I’d ever even heard of him, and kind of disappointing, since he seems to have dropped out of the race already.

The second guy on my list is Dennis Kucinich, which isn’t all that surprising. I don’t really think he’s likely to win the nomination, though, and I haven’t really been following his campaign.

Of course, the quiz wasn’t terribly granular, and I can’t say that the multiple-choice options always provided an option that matched up with my sometimes convoluted and contrary opinions.

(The guy I’m least in tune with is Mike Huckabee, which isn’t terribly surprising.)

I haven’t posted anything on this blog in a couple of weeks. I’ve been really busy with stuff associated with my company’s move to Somerset, NJ. I’ve learned a few things during this move, but it might be difficult to post a list without getting snarky. I’m tempted, though! Suffice it to say that a lot of things can go wrong during a company move, and it’s easy to underestimate the time and effort that will need to go into it. Oh, and two days before a move is a *really* bad day to have your main e-mail server crash!

The new couch showed up today. It’s a little bigger than the old couch, which is fine, except that it’ll be interesting trying to get it out of the apartment when I either move or throw it out (whichever comes first). It looks fine, and it’s plenty comfortable, which I guess is all I can ask for in a couch. It’s outgassing like crazy right now, though. I opened the windows up, turned the fan on, and went out for an hour or so, and that seems to have helped a bit, but I can’t leave the windows open overnight, since it’s so hot and humid right now. I’ll leave the windows open all day tomorrow, while I’m at work. Hopefully, that’ll help. Meanwhile, this page has some interesting tips on how to deal with “new sofa stink”. I’m all out of incense, alas.

My old couch, which I’ve owned for about 15 years, is now out on the curb, awaiting tomorrow’s bulk pickup. The couch was a hand-me-down, and wasn’t in the greatest shape when the previous owner gave it to me, so it’s probably at least 20 years old.

The new couch should arrive tomorrow. This will be the first time in my life that I’ve actually bought new living-room furniture with my own money! I was originally going to get something relatively expensive, maybe from Crate & Barrel. I wound up deciding to go with something more modest: an Ashley couch from Crazy Deals, a small furniture store conveniently located right downstairs from my apartment.

I’ve been fighting a cold all this week. I guess I’m mostly over it, but I had a really sore throat today. I think I drank about 9 cups of herbal tea today. I think I picked up the cold when I was in the city last weekend. That seems to be the pattern now; every time I get a cold, it’s right after I’ve been in Manhattan for something. Maybe I need to start taking Airborne before I go into NYC from now on. Or maybe not.

My car hit 123,456 miles this week. I wasn’t actually looking down at the odometer when it happened; I just noticed it was a bit past there after I got to work. It would have been cool (in a very geeky way) to snap a picture of the odometer reading “123456”.