I'm back from New York now. Today is my weekend, so I'm relaxing and taking care of little things that need to be done.

I ate at the same diner for lunch and dinner today. Ugh. I hate diners. Everything on the menu is either meat or starch. And it's a big fucking menu too. The first meal I want when I go home is Jamba Juice. Maybe for the first week even!

It seems that the carbon in my samples look very similar to the epoxy. Crap! I know it's not epoxy, but the spectra are too similar. We're trying a different sample overnight.

There's a lot of down time at the synchrotron. It takes 7-8 hours to do one analysis, so there's plenty of time to go eat, talk about research, or surf the web. I can't really just go back to the dorms though, because you need to periodically check that things are running correctly.

I forgot to mention that I had to sit through one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Connie and Carla.

Oh, and all that I had a chance to eat yesterday was breakfast at Sky Harbor and a granola bar as I was blogging last night.

Well, I'm at the synchrotron now, in my room in Cavendish House. Thank goodness for in-room ethernet. I had such a long travel day. I left for the airport at 7AM this morning, and I didn't get into my room until 10PM. I think I'll just go through the highlights...

Airplane:

• I had an aisle seat in the last row of the plane, so I got to hear everyone who went to the bathroom.
  
• I had to keep getting up for the people in my row when they went to the bathroom. I only went to the bathroom once during the entire 5 hour flight. They went at least four times each.
  
• There was this annoying Chinese family in the back of the plane who apparently just sat there at random, causing all the valid ticketholders to find new seats. And I hate how the Chinese use guilt to get what they want.
  

JFK Airport:

• I will never voluntarily fly to JFK ever again. It is one of the worst laid out airports I've ever been in. Plus the baggage claim is in this tiny room, which you have to walk through just to get outside.
  
• I had to walk around for 10 minutes just to find the courtesy phone for shuttles because nothing was marked.
  

Shuttle:

• I had to wait over 30 minutes for my shuttle when it was supposed to arrive in 15 minutes or less.
  
• It was a full van, and I was the last stop (out of six).
  
• Stop 1: Garden City is a pretty nice, rich neighborhood. I liked looking at the houses and thought how this might not be all that bad.
  
• Stop 2: another nice little town. Instead of getting on the highway afterwards, we went down Sweet Hollow Drive, an overforested one-lane two-way road. It wound around, and we even passed a horse stable.
  
• Stop 3: We dropped off two ladies who just returned from a resort in Turkey, where they picked up a 5-week old stray cat. They had it loose in the van. The lady from Stop 2 gave them a kitty carrier, but when they put the cat inside, it shit. So we had to smell cat shit for about 20 minutes until we got to their destination. And it was BAD cat shit smell.
  
• Stop 4: Some family that just came back from San Thomas. They live in Stonybrook.
  
• Stop 5: Some kid from LA that is going to SUNY Stonybrook. He didn't know where to go to check in, so we had to drive around a bit. Then the kid and driver got out to look around. That gave me some time to check out the background on the driver's cell phone (It's a naked chick holding her breasts).
  
• Stop 6: Brookhaven National Labs, finally. Unfortunately, I was now alone with this manic ADD driver who was wearing an ugly black t-shirt with giant heads of Elton John and Billie Joel on it. Not a desirable prospect given that he made several inappropriate comments about the young girls on the Stonybrook campus. We finally made it to BNL, and the guard let us in with minimal hassle. It's now 9:30, and the van ride has taken three hours now. Of course, the housing office, which is supposed to be open until midnight, is now closed. So I have to go to the police station and talk to a guard through a thick plexiglass layer to get my keys.
  

All I got to say is, thank god for in-room ethernet.

Awesome! I did my sample prep for the synchrotron today and the samples turned out great. I was a little worried because I don't have time to make more samples if these ones didn't turn out, but they did. Now lets just hope they have lots of carbon in them.

Now for the bad news, but not really. I got a message from IKEA saying that they cancelled my order because the pieces I ordered weren't in the 2005 catalog. Hello! What year is it? I guess I'll just have to wait a month or two for the Phoenix IKEA to open. Stupid IKEA. If I was able to order it online, they should be able to sell it to me.

I like this whole "getting-stuff-done" trend I'm on right now. It feels good. I finished everything I wanted to get done today before 11:30 AM, so now I'm taking a break, drinking some African Red Bush tea (I hope none of the new grad students are redheads!). I'm taking the analytical instruments class, which meets this afternoon. I hope it will be informative. The only reason I'm taking it is to learn other instruments that I don't already know, in case I ever need (or want) to use them.

I'm also thinking about signing up for intramural racquetball. Matches are two nights a week from mid-September to early-October.

I had a great day yesterday. I got a lot done, which is good since I have a lot to do before I leave for the synchrotron on Friday.

I had a great weekend with Kelly. We hiked up Piestewa Peak on Saturday and saw Garden State on Sunday (which is a great movie, by the way). We're also officially boyfriend/girlfriend again. I'm so in love with her right now. She makes me very happy.

I'm not looking forward to the first week of classes at ASU. Too many dumbass students on campus getting in my way.

It's grey and rainy today. I like to use the British spelling of "gray", because the American spelling seems to cheery to me.

There are a bunch of dumbasses out today as well. I almost got sideswiped today by an asshole in an escalade who BLATANTLY ran a red light. He had to swerve BEHIND me in order to not hit me. Then I saw a guy jaywalking. That doesn't sound very dumb, but then again, this guy WAS IN A WHEELCHAIR! Then I saw another stupid jaywalker. This time it was a freshman pulling a couple boxes on a dolley. That's stupid enough, but he was crossing University only about 500 ft from the crosswalk! Fucking dumbasses! I wish I had a calendar that told me when it was National Retard Day so I could just stay home.

There's a lot of dumbass parents and clueless freshmen on campus today. You know what that means. NEW STUDENT BASHING TIME!

DOOD!!! They're finally releasing Seinfeld on DVD!

I'm happy today.

I feel horrible today. For the past week, Kelly and I have been trying to change our relationship. We downgraded ourselves to just dating (as opposed to boyfriend/girlfriend) to relieve the pressure of thinking about the future. It wasn't really working, and last night we almost broke up. For good. After she had removed all of her stuff from my place and I had taken all of my stuff from her place, we talked about what was about to happen, and reconsidered. I can't go on the rest of my life without Kelly, but I can't go on the way we've been going on. We have to change our relationship, and I think we've gotten on the right path. But it doesn't feel good. Now that all of Kelly's stuff is gone, it really feels like she's not my girlfriend anymore. I feel empty. But I love her so much.

I've got lots to blog, but I just don't feel up to it right now.

I FINALLY GOT PAID!!!!!!

Seriously, I thought I would snap or something if I didn't get my check today. I woke up with a serious headache, and I've been having bad nightmares for the past week. Now I can finally relax.

Kelly starts her new job today. She is so fucking awesome!

So ASU was able to print my check this weekend. However, it wouldn't be right if they just gave me the check. Where's the fun in that? Instead of sending my check to Cashiering for me to pick up, as they were supposed to do because it is a special check, they sent it with all the other paychecks to the ASU mail system. So now I have to wait until tomorrow to get my check in my department mailbox. RETARDS!!!

Meanwhile, tomorrow I will have three bills that are past due. Thanks ASU!

The check run failed again last night, so I still don't have any money.

It turns out there was a system-wide check run failure. In other words, all the university checks that were set to be printed last night failed to print, probably due to some spooling or authorization error. They are setting up to run the checks again tonight, so tomorrow I may get payed (keep your fingers crossed). Some good news, though. My check will cover both July and August.

Someone is seriously trying to piss me off! I was told that a check would be ready for me at the student services building after 11AM today. But lo and behold, when I show up at 12:30, nobody had a fucking clue what was going on. I was at the right place too. No fucking check. Hopefully, I'll be able to find out what's going on this afternoon, 'cause I'm too pissed off to do anything else right now.

Good news on the financial front. My credit union gave me a line of credit up to $2500 or something like that. That will cover me until I get my check from ASU tomorrow. Whew!

Yesterday I didn't go to ASU. I haven't been going on Tuesdays. Instead, I stayed home and made CDs. I finally finished my "Best of C:\" collection, which is an anthology of my favorite mp3s that I've downloaded over the years. I also made a CD of my favorite Chris Cornell/Soundgarden/Temple of the Dog songs for Kelly. She made me a Tori Amos CD a long time ago, and I hadn't returned the favor yet.

Stupid ASU denied my request for an emergency check, even though they owe me money for two months stipend now. A check will be available Thursday morning for me to pick up. Now I have to go to my bank and see if everything is hunky dory over there. They gave me credit to cover my two bounced checks last month, but they were small and the rent check is almost $800. I should have somewhere between $250 and $50 in my checking account, depending on if they automatically repaid the credit line or not, so I want to check on that as well.

You know, the month of July really sucked hard for me. First my synchrotron proposal gets rejected. Then ASU doesn't pay me. Then Kelly and I almost break up a handful of times. I really hope August is better, but it's not making a good start of it.

I had fun camping up on the rim with Kelly and her family. We hiked the Highline Trail to Horton Spring, and then down the Horton Spring Trail to the road (through familiar field camp territory). It was a 7.5 mile hike, and the dog (and some of the adults) had a hard time finishing it.

Kelly and I talked about some of the problems we've been having on the drive up. For the past couple of days I've tried to be more playful and vocal, like Kelly asked, and things seemed to work better between us. It must have just been being outdoors, though, because issues began to resurface when we got back into Phoenix. I'm sleeping alone at my apartment again. It sucks.