Dear Mr. "I-stole-your-debit-card-number-and-tried-to-charge-over-$800-to-it," you are a dipshit!

How the hell someone got a hold of my debit card number is beyond me, but it happened. A couple of days ago, my bank calls me to ask if I had authorized a charge of $860 to Photo Vista (a photo service, of some kind) in Paris, France... I've never heard of such a place and likewise, had the card canceled right away.

So, while it actually does me a bit of good, it has been a little inconvenient. I do need to save money for my vacation in a few weeks! But, I now have to wait for a new card... and a new account number. Of which, I'll have to change with every bill I pay online. Which happens to be all of them.

If I ever was able to meet this person, I'd personally take my shredded card and feed it to him by shoving each little sliver down his throat.

On a brighter note, things are looking up - as your's truly may just have a little something cooking on the relationship front. I met a woman about a week ago over the Internet and since, we've been enjoying E-mails and have, twice now, talked on the phone. The first call, last evening, went nearly two hours and tonight's conversation went almost an hour and a half. We seem to find things to talk about and it seems that we both have become rather comfortable with each other rather quickly. So, hopefully, that means something... We've planned a dinner-date for tomorrow evening, so we'll see how it goes.

I'll certainly keep you all up-to-date... On the debit card and dating situation!

Hello folks,

I realize it's a bit belated, but Happy Thanksgiving! And I also realize it's been several weeks since I last wrote anything in here. Every time I come to make a post, I promise to stay in touch and to write much more frequently - when, in fact, I never do. So I won't make any such promises this time. I will try to make a concerted effort, though, I really will. Hah!

Anyhow, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday this year. My mother and step-father flew up for the holiday Tuesday morning (the 20th) and were here through Saturday. While I had to work an evening shift Tuesday, I managed to get the rest of the week off. My evening shift this evening will be my first since last Tuesday - an entire 5 day stretch. While we didn't end up doing a whole lot, I think my mom and step-dad had a nice time. I certainly enjoyed having them here. Even though I don't have much room in my apartment, I always welcome company. Yes, it gets lonely here sometimes...

My mom made the typical Thanksgiving dinner. We had a 13 lb. turkey to bake, mashed 'taters, corn, turkey & noodles, stuffing and topped all of that off with two apple pies and dirt cake for dessert. Least to say, we ate really well!

They took me shopping for my Christmas while they were here, so in effect, I know all I'm getting from them this year. They brought with them a few items that were wrapped, so I'll have, at least a few surprises! Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it home for Christmas this year. I did get out the Christmas deco while they were here, to get more into the festive mood. I put up the tree (my lonely excuse for one - a 4 ft. fiber-optic tree!), put up the tinsel, and hung some decorations around the apartment. My mom bought a wreath hook for my door, so I also have a little something extra there this year...

As with any other time, though, it was hard to see them go Saturday. I get used to having someone around and when they're not here, especially over the first few days after, it reminds me of how lonely it really is here. I have to remind myself, though, that I do have friends up here... and I do have a job that I love.

Maybe sometime soon I'll have someone that can occupy my time. I made a new friend recently but it doesn't seem that the chemistry is there. It's nice to hang out and talk with EB, but I just don't see it moving anywhere beyond being good friends. I haven't really told her that yet, but I think I'll have to before long. It's been over a week since I last talked to her, so I really need to call her and see what's new. Over the next week or two, we'll have to go out more... So, if you're curious, yes, I'm still looking for Mrs. Right. Hah!

Again, Happy Thanksgiving to you all... and I hope you have a great Holiday Season!

I guess while I have the opportunity and am thinking about it, I may as well let all of you in on a new "development" in my life. I have a rather solid history of really blowing these sorts of announcements so I have been trying to keep things a bit quiet to let things transpire and develop further, but since most of my family and closest friends know already... I have met someone up here, finally, that I can honestly see a future with.

Her name is Lu (yes, she is Chinese), she's 23 years old and is pursuing her Master's degree in chemical engineering at UND. We met about a week and a half ago and already we've been spending quite a bit of time together. We've been out on several "dates" and we even took a trip up to Winnipeg this past Sunday. It turned out to be a fun trip, as it wasn't just both of our's first time to Canada, but we also were able to spend all day together. Soon, I'm hoping to have some photos up in my photo gallery from our trip, so stay tuned for some new pictures there.

She's very nice, sweet, and in general, we seem to get along great. She is chinese, yes, but the language barrier isn't really an issue, at all. Most of the time I can understand what she's conveying - and likewise, she seems to understand english pretty well - so I don't find that I need to explain things to her very often, either.

The chemistry feels right and that's something that has severely lacked from other relationships I've pursued since I've lived here in Grand Forks. Don't get me wrong, I realize it's only been a week and a half... I don't want to get my hopes up too high on things truly working out between us, but the relationship we've built already has felt a lot different than those I've had over the past couple of years. It's very strange, as well, that over the past few days that there have been times where I have actually missed having her around. I haven't felt that way in so long that I'm not sure how to handle it. Should I just sit down and find something else to occupy my mind? Do I call her? It's probably been 6 years now, since I last felt this way about anyone.

Hopefully things work out... I'll keep you all informed on how everything goes!

Anyhow, I should get back to work. Hope all is well with everyone.
Take care!

So, I realize it's been like forever since I've updated this thing... Sincerely apologize, by the way!

Anyhow, not much new up this way. Work has really slowed down lately. Our contracts with Alberta and Iowa ended about mid-April and our responsibilities shifted only to the Northern Indiana districts about the same time. The contract with Indiana ended at the end of April as did Wisconsin. So, we're pretty much into our quiet season at Meridian. My schedule is fairly reflective on that. I only work two seperate shifts the whole month (8:00pm to 4:00am and 8:00am to 4:00pm shifts) and work 4 days of office shifts. So, at least there's some consistency with this month's schedule.

I've really been under a serious crunch financially. After a few unexpected expenses over the past couple of weeks, I'm literally broke. Even though I got my raise a couple weeks ago, it really hasn't helped much in the short-term. Hopefully, it'll start to make more of a difference in a couple of months, when (hopefully) I can get back on my feet. In the meantime, I've been trying to cut back on a few things. Amanda and I are still seeing each other off and on and even though it makes me sounds like a cheap-ass, I'm trying not to just go out everytime, when we do see each other. I've been trying to find ways to spend time together without having to spend money. I had her over the other night and I cooked dinner for her and stayed in to watch a movie. So, see... We can find things to do that don't cost money! Plus, it was something a little different for me. It was (if you can believe it) the first time I've ever cooked dinner for a woman! Neither of us keeled over, so I guess the food turned out alright. The grilled chicken could have been better had I started the rest of the food sooner!

The trip down to Aberdeen for the Convective Workshop went great! The presentations were top-notch and were very interesting. I was very impressed with it. Even though a majority of the folks that were there were NWS employees, I still had a great time. It seemed like they accepted me as an employee of the private sector, so it wasn't as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. There were a lot of nice and intelligent people there. I learned quite a bit from the presentations and I honestly feel I left having taken something away from it. The only part of the whole experience I could have done without was who I went with. The guy is a co-worker and I get along with the guy for the most part, but I'll be brutally honest (can't help it), he was simply embarrassing to be around. I don't know what it is, but he has some serious beef with the NWS and he deliberately criticized the NWS and many of it's practices - AND openly. He criticized the Grand Forks office on numerous occasions when it was clear that the Grand Forks employees were standing very nearby. It was embarrassing and it made me feel very uncomfortable. I don't know if he actually realizes that what he says sometimes can be very offensive or not, but frankly, it is. So, yes, if you haven't taken anything from my rant here, I am implying my attendence next year will not be with him. Which, by the way, I learned that the Grand Forks WFO will be sponsering next year!

Thursday, April 20th, I also attended the basic and advanced Skywarn training here in Grand Forks. Adam Lowe (a co-worker of mine) and I went down to it. Even though we're both rather extensively trained in the science of meteorology, it was still nice to be at a training session up here. I'm not sure, but it may have been the first session that Adam had been through. This will make the 8th or 9th time I've been through Skywarn training and the 2nd time I've been through the advanced session. I met a couple of the Hams at the session and also met the vice-president of the ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) network up here. He had invited to their monthly meeting, but I couldn't make it because of work. I haven't looked close enough at the work schedule, but hopefully I don't work the last Tuesday of this month... They hold their monthly meetings then. I've never been a part of ARES, so I'm a little green on how it runs and all. It would be interesting, however, to sit down and meet everyone and see what it's all about.

Since then, not much more excitement to speak of. The cruise control on my car has been malfunctioning over the past couple of weeks... and I should probably have it looked at. Which I would, if I could afford it - or if I had the time. With me working these 8pm - 4am shifts, I haven't been getting up until 3 or 4pm and by the time I get around and get my shower and everything, the dealership is closed. One of these days, I need to get my ass up and drive it over there.

Anyhow, speaking of which... I still need to get my shower and it's getting to be about that time. Hopefully, everyone has been doing okay and hopefully you're not mad that I haven't been updating this more often. I apologize. In the future, I'll try to get in here and write more.

More later...

In the meantime, though, for you guys out there... You better be voting for your Hometown Hotties for Maxim. Their annual contest has been going on now for 10 weeks!

C'mon, you have to support these hotties: http://www.maximonline.com/hotties/

Personally, I think it's a toss up between the two "Christina's." Christina (Dallas, TX) from Week #1 and Christina (Orlando, FL) from Week #8. You're votes will decide!

Edit: 19 May 2006 @ 1:35pm CDT

Well, I told myself and my readers that I'd try to refrain from posting too much weather-related content in here, rather than in the WeatherBlog but I just had to share here, as well, how wonderful the weather has been up here over the past week. Mild temperatures have been contributing to the snow-melt and the flooding up here over the past few weeks, but on the other hand, it's also been great to experience, personally. I'm loving this mild weather. Over the past couple of days, I've actually been able to open up the windows in my apartment and allow some fresh air into this place.

Since I'm back on mid-shifts (midnight to 8:00am) this week, I'll unfortunately be sleeping through much of the day, but I should be able to still experience the afternoons and early-evenings. Today, I managed to get my ass out of bed around 3:00pm and after a shower, I grabbed the basketball and made my way to Prime Steel Park to shoot some hoops. It felt good to be outside for once. And it was even warm enough to wear shorts today! We did hit 69° F this afternoon! Very near 70 degrees! Isn't that just sweet?

We'll have to see what's in store for the overnight... we have some weak thunderstorms out there developing over north-central portions of the state, ahead of an upper-level disturbance... and as it drifts eastward, we could see some of that action. Probably nothing spectacular, but we could see some flashes of lightning or hear some thunder later on tonight. I'm taking the camera and tripod to work just in case anything appears photogenic enough.

Not much new has been going on, otherwise. I went out with Amanda Sunday night for dinner and a movie. We decided to see Ice Age 2: The Meltdown... I'd recommend anyone to go see this movie, if they haven't yet. It's a really great movie and is just as good (and funny) as the first one. I just can't get enough of "Scrat," the little squirrely dude with the acorn! He's just too cute and funny! I hear that Wal-Mart has a little stuffed "Scrat" that you can buy that makes all the funny little noises and everything. I'm gonna have to drop by there sometime this week to see if they have any left. That'd be great...

I've been trying to catch the Cubbies on TV, as well, this past week. Yep, the baseball season has officially started. And thus far, the Cubs have been playing pretty well. Their starting pitching hasn't been the greatest, but well, I don't think many teams are having great luck with their starting pitching quite yet, either. The bullpen has been doing awesome though, and their power has really shown up this spring. Derrek Lee already has 3 homers and Michael Barrett also has a couple. Both of Barrett's dingers came on consecutive days, the first tying the game on Saturday against the Cardinals (Lee hit his third of the season (a solo shot) to win that game), and the second, a grand salami on Sunday to take the lead over St. Louis. It's been an exciting season already and hopefully, they can carry over this great play through the rest of the season. I'd love to see them make the playoffs this year, and of course, would really love to see them make the World Series! If we can get Mark Prior and Kerry Wood back and they could just stay healthy the rest of the year... you never know. Anything is possible - as long as we keep that damn Bartman kid out of Wrigley Field!! heheh

Anywho - I'll try to keep this thing more updated... I realize I haven't been doing a very good job of that over the past few weeks.

More later!

Hey folks,

I haven't written in here in a while, so I figured I'd drop a note. Things have been pretty busy at work the last few days. We had a fairly potent system push through the upper-midwest this week, resulting in all different precipitation types and some heavy snows, as well. Especially over Iowa and Wisconsin, where some reports have up to a foot of snow.

I've been working day shifts most of the week and since I'm a night-owl, I've been going to bed late and getting up early for work. This hasn't done much good to my health lately, as I haven't been feeling very energetic or motivated lately. And the weather hasn't helped.

We're finally experiencing winter up here in the Northern Plains... I guess we should have expected this - coming off the warmest January on record here in Grand Forks and many other locations across the country. An arctic front finally dropped through the region Tuesday, simply dropping our temperatures like a rock. We dipped to as low at -19 Wednesday morning and hit -21 this morning (Thursday morning). Tonight, we'll likely see temperatures even colder with clear skies and deep snow-pack. We'll probably see temperatures between 20 and 30 degrees below zero. In fact, as of right now (2:13am), it's -22 at the NWS office here in town. Wind Chill Warnings are in effect until 6pm this evening, for possible values of -40 to -60 degrees. That's just down-right hellish...

My car had an extremely hard time starting tonight when leaving for work. It struggled... I had to hold the key for several seconds before it turned over, but at least, it did... And even after letting it warm up for nearly 40 minutes, the heat still wasn't as warm as it typically is by that point.

God, I hate the cold! Someone please explain to me why I moved up here, again... It reached well into the 50's and 60's back home in Indiana on Thursday. And they saw a bit of severe weather, as well. Oh, what I wouldn't give for just one 50-60 degree day up here - or a good thunderstorm! ;)

Other goings on... Not much else has been happening up this way. Amanda and I are still seeing each other off and on. While I'm still having personal issues of how far I want to take this relationship, I think I can say that I'm beginning to like her. I finally met her two daughters, Noel and Anna... and they seem like they're good kids. Amanda and I went out for Valentines Day to Fargo, to check out a restaurant we found over the weekend. It was more formal than I expected... they wanted reservations - something I didn't think about until the last second - and when ordering wine for the both of us, they brought out the whole bottle and a bucket of ice. That's something new for me... I hadn't ever been to a restaurant where they did that. But we had a good time and ate some good food. I spent a little more money than I really wanted to, but seeing to it that I haven't had a reason to celebrate Valentines Day in years - I felt it was justified and deserved, to me and her...

And while I haven't been taking as many pictures with the new camera, I still have some new ones to post in the Gallery. It's been too cold to go out and take pictures lately, so that's the main reason why...

Anyhow, this entry is getting a bit long, so I'm gonna hop off here for now.
Hope everything is going well for everyone!

So, what's up folks?

There's been a little excitement up here the last few nights, so I figured I'd let you all know what's been going on... Friday night, I finally met Amanda... She's a woman that I had met online a couple weeks ago. We've been swapping eMails back and forth and had talked a few times over the phone, so finally decided to meet each other for dinner Friday. She seems real nice and we seem to have some things in common, but there are some minor things I'm concerned with. I'm a little reluctant to start things up with her, since I found out she has a couple of kids. I've known about it for a while, but thought, I'd at least, give her a chance. She has two daughters - one is 7-yrs old and the other turns 1-yr old this week; and found out they're from two different men. I suppose it shouldn't bother me as much, but it makes me think twice on how far I want to pursue any type of relationship. I'll warn you ahead of time that this may sound a little shallow, but, in addition, she isn't exactly Maria Sharapova. And even though, I'm not exactly looking for a trophy, I do want a woman that takes good care of herself.

We ended up going to see a movie after having dinner at Paradiso. We ended up seeing "Munich" and I'm glad we chose it. It's probably one of the most intense movies I've seen in the theatre in quite a while; and probably the most interesting movie I've EVER seen. I'd strongly recommend seeing it, especially if you're into historically-based movies. It's a long movie (2.5 hrs) but well worth your time.

Saturday night, we had our Christmas party for work at the Osborne home. Yes, I said "Christmas" party. December was a fairly busy time for most folks at work, so Cathy decided to push it back into January this year. It was a good time... Lots of co-workers showed up, so I had a chance to see everyone outside of work and just converse, hang out, and eat (and drink!). Cathy and Leon treated us with all sorts of snacks, beer and wine! They even had some Pinot! So, I, of course, had a couple glasses of that. I couldn't drink a whole lot since I had to be at work at midnight.

Now, I'm just sitting here waiting to go home. Practically all areas have been looked at, and most forecasts are out through 00z or later, so I don't have much else to do right now, other than to sit here watching the clock. That's when time goes the slowest!

I'm anxious to get home, sleep, then get up to watch the Colts. They play the Steelers today at noon for the AFC semi-finals. I sure hope they win, cause I want them to go all the way this year. For as well as they have played this year, they deserve it. I was so relieved last night that the Bronco's beat the Patriots. As you all know, I'm no fan of the Pat's at all, so to see them fall to Denver was a sweet surprise. It makes it slightly easier for the Colts, as well, to become the AFC Champions and move on to Super Bowl XL.

We'll see how things go today... Go Colts!