And so... another lousy night. I didn't get to bed until about 03:30 and woke up at 08:00 and couldn't get back to sleep. Can't remember any dreams, though... but that doesn't mean that there weren't any, it just means that they weren't interesting enough to remember.
And I'm just missing one piece of paper for the income taxes. I'll e-file again this year, and that means that I should get back enough money to cover my heating bill, if I'm lucky. I plan on being lucky.
I got a call from our Human Resources department today about noon... they wanted to know if I'd accept the CT position. I said yes, and she let me know that I'd get a 10% raise... along with everybody else.
Then, about 16:30, I got a call from my erstwhile fishing buddy Doug, who's now the department director, telling me about the same thing and welcoming me to the day shift.
In between times, I decided to go out on the town... I checked out a tool shop that made my mouth water. Cheap tools, but tools nonetheless. Then I went to a computer store that sells components and looked around. They didn't really have anything that I needed except for a full-sized case. I'm planning on building a machine over the next several months (if I can keep getting the overtime) and I fell in love with a full-sized tower. Eight bays, 300W power supply... and pretty, too.
There've been some good buys recently on motherboards with 1G chips, and memory is lower than it's ever been, along with hard drives... I should be able to put together an excellent system for about $600, using some parts that I have around here.
Unfortunately, I've got to get a HD for the #1 Linux machine... I've had to put two 1.2 gig HDs in it to get it going, and one of them is dead, dead, dead. I got it to ignore the dead one and put RH 7.0 on it, but there's not enough space to do hardly anything.
That's the machine that Matt'll get when I get the new one put together. In the meantime, I can get a 20G drive for about $65...
Anyway, after I left the computer store, I went to Walmart to get some brake fluid and a new mirror for the pickup. The old one fell out of the frame and was lost somewhere between here and the hospital last week, and it's really difficult driving without it.
And then, after I left Walmart, I stopped by the SteakandShake and got a chocolate malt... very good, it was. Karen has eaten there and she said that the sandwiches were so-so, but that the malts were good... and she was at least half right!
Speaking of my babe... poor thing had to go to work today. She told me a story when she got home that kinda epitomizes her... a lady called in, her husband had been diagnosed with terminal cancer last week and she was pretty torn up about it, naturally. Karen checked on her coverage and chatted with her for a while, and the lady told her that she felt so much better after talking to Karen...
Karen can just make people feel good. That's a rare talent, and just one of the things that I love about her.
So, I should stay up all night tonight, but I don't think that I can, so I'll try to sleep all night and all day tomorrow. I know that won't work, but I'm a-gonna try anyways, 'cause I'm stubborn that way.
Today, again, I had an xian tell me how sorry he felt for me, and that he hoped that I would come to love christ as he does, my life would be so much better. This happens on a regular basis and, depending on how it is written and my mood, I usually respond.
One thing that irks me... these people obviously get on a search engine and pester all of the atheists that they can find. Why? What's their point? If they actually read the pages they would either be converted to my way of thinking (but that's not what they're there for... the pages, I mean) or realize that, well, that's the way that I think, and that they don't have a chance in hell of changing me.
I've never had any such comments from actual people who read my journal for any length of time... only these people who are so damned self-righteous that they think that I need their intersession to be saved. I need to be saved, all right... saved from them. Not that I can't do well saving myself, y'understand?
I don't really think that a person should demean themselves by worshiping anything, especially something that has absolutely no proof of existing. Yet this guy thinks that I should get down on my knees and sing praised to this fiction so that I might be saved.
Jackass. That's just a mild form of what I let him know that I think that he is.
And my tongue should not move but to sing his praises.
What a lot of bullshit.
Many of these emails I just ignore, but about once a week I'll answer one. The guy today wrote me right back, he must've been frothing at the keyboard, misspelling words and chiding me for my "lack of manners". Acting like a unsolicited letter to an unknown atheist feeling sorry for them *is* mannerly.
So I replied in a more civilized manner, letting him know why I thought that he was a jackass.
Ah, well, I guess that it's my own personal cross to bear, heh.