I have a question for the masses at Blogstream:
Are you ready?
Ok, here goes:

Why do spiders exist?

Possible answers to my own question that I've come up with:

1) To terrify me into a stroke

2) To amass an evil army so as to overtake the world and make humans their slaves and food source

3) They are God's punishment for those of us who have not always been kind to old ladies and small animals. (Although I have ALWAYS made it a point to pat old ladies on the head and help small animals across the street!)  


 Whatever the answer to my question.....I had an experience this morning. There I was, minding my own business, just walking through the lobby of my office building going to work. I was just about at the door to the stairwell when I spotted him. Of course, tarantulas are rather easy to spot. He was perched in his attack stance, ready to make me his breakfast....!! This was made obvious by the fact that he was wearing a napkin around his neck and had a knife & fork in his "hands". I froze in my tracks. As I stood and stared at him and contemplated making a run for the door, he inched a little closer and let out a wicked little laugh. "Ha! Well, it looks like my breakfast is going to be a chicken biscuit!"
Oh great...a spider with a sense of humor. Just what I needed.
  I can see it now....here I'd be, wrapped up in some hideous web while this spider is trying out for "Comedy Central"....
Well, today wasn't going to be this spider's lucky day...not if I had anything to say about it!! As he started to adjust his napkin, I took advantage of the opportunity and I ran to the elevator...I go there just as the doors opened.....I hopped in and pressed the "door close" button like a mad man!! The spider lept towards me but landed with a THUD against the doors as they slammed shut!! HURRAY!! I was safe!!

When I got upstairs, I told some of my co-workers about the danger on the first floor.

They didn't believe me.    

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Speaking of work......

~~~~~The name war continues. They told me it couldn't be changed in the main system at work. The ONLY people who could do that are in Germany and they just won't do it. Five minutes later, I changed it myself. That was last week.
              Yesterday I noticed it was changed back to my first name. So this morning when I got to my desk, I changed it back. Halfway through the day, it changed to my first name. So I changed it again. Then it changed again to my first name. Clearly, I'm being monitored.        No one has said anything as of yet because when or if they DO, there will have to be an explanation as to why I was told that my name could NOT be changed in the system locally, which of course will lead to the whole issue about why I'm being forced to use a name I don't WANT to use in the first place. I *WILL* win this one folks. Just watch.

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IN OTHER NEWS::::::::

~~I've won an award. Now before you go breaking out the bubbly and good tea glasses, hear what the award is. I'm officially the world's WORST uncle!    Today is my nephew Eli's 2nd birthday and I wasn't able to go to his house and have cake and ice cream with him! By the time that I would have gotten there after work, I would have had to turn around and come home...he lives an hour from where I work, and my sister was only having the festivities for an hour. On top of that, my brother in law is sick and my brother's wife couldn't make it because my NIECE is sick too! So nobody was able to come. I'm just crushed. The poor little guy has just his mom to celebrate with...his dad is too busy blowing his nose off to do anything with him.

~~My aunt from Charleston called me today with some rather disturbing news. One of the assitant principals at her son's school committed suicide on New Year's Eve. It was horrible. She drove to the highest point on the Ravenele Bridge (it's a HUGE bridge down there...I believe it's 200 feet plus above the water!), put her car in park, turned on the flashers, and then jumped off the bridge. Eyewitnesses said that she was running so fast (she went to the opposite side of where she parked her car) that no one had a chance to realize what she was doing before she was over the barrier and on her way down to the water. Apparently she was going through a rather nasty divorce and for whatever reason just decided she didn't want to live. The sad part is that she was beautiful and only 31 years old. How sad, huh?

~~It was cold as a bitch here in NC for the second day in a row. Of course, two days of bitter Arctic weather is always followed by three days of tropical warm weather. Yep. It'll be in the 60s by tomorrow afternoon after only getting to 38 today. Gee, I love North Carolina.

That's all I've got for now!                                          
               

       

My mother used to tell me that I was the most stubborn person she'd ever met in her life....especially when I was really mad about something. I'd literally dig my heels into the ground and fight until I got whatever it was that I wanted.  She was right for the most part, but usually whatever it was that I wanted, I wanted for a good reason. Apparently, I haven't changed much over the years. That's sometimes been a good thing, and sometimes....well, not so much.

Take the name issue I've been having at work for example. They say I have to go by my "legal" first name. I say they're full of shit. They change my name in the system at work, and I change it back. Of course they have been saying all along that it's "impossible" to change it in the system.Clearly, these people understimate me.    It has been said that one should pick their battles wisely. Wise or not, this is one battle that I will win. I have every right to use the name that I choose and if I have to go forward with my plans to legally change it, thus causing them much grief at work, then that is what I will do. Damnit.

Now...on the OTHER battleground...

Those of us in my position are still fighting tooth and nail to pound it into management's head that the "goals" they have set are not only unfair, but completely unattainable. The latest.....NOW we are "expected" to have our 10 appointments per day even when we are not at work.....vacation, company days off, etc. Naturally, they won't put that in writing, because it's illegal, but they have made it clear that they still expect it. Yes, we have flatly refused. So the line in the sand is now officially drawn. We'll see how it plays out. Ugh. Why can't I just win the damn lottery and not have to worry about such trivial things as working?

Well, that's all I've got for now. I'm going to bed. G'nite!



                                   

So the first full day of 2008 has turned out to be a pretty nice one.......I met someone new today. Her name is Ana-Maria...she's from Colombia. She's a hoot! She is already planning my trip to Colombia....she feels that I will like it down there because it's hot and I'll feel sexy. Keep in mind that I've known her all of 5 minutes before she's decided that I'm going to be her American boy-toy! Now, while the offer is appealing, there are a few things that would keep me from actually going:

• The folks that I've met from South America (male and female) have the following traits in commom....they all are incredibly HOT & have incredibly good physiques. I do not. It must be the heat down there. No one gets fat. I worked with a guy who was originally from Rio de Jainero (or however you spell it) and he had abs you could bounce a quarter off of....and never did a sit up in his life. The same goes for his sister (the details of THAT meeting shall remain private ) .....now while I am proud of the fact that I'm no longer the side of pork that I used to be, I'm nowhere NEAR being in the shape that I should be for visiting a country where it's illegal to be "un-sexy." 
• I don't speak Spanish or Portugese. I do, however, know how to say goodbye in Portugese....."ciao"! Yeah..go figure..Portugese is somewhat like French...which I also don't speak (anymore). Can you see me visiting a foreign country with MY accent? 
• After any length of time in the sun down there, I'd come back sun-burnt and a blonde again. Of course, Ana-Maria's argument for that is that I would "return to the United States with a wonderful brown tan and my beautifully natural blonde hair and will have to beat the women off with a stick...." It DOES sound better the way that she puts it, but still.....

So will I be writing a long distance entry from south of the US border? Hmmm.....probably not in the immediate future! Ana-Maria vows that she will change my mind before she has to go back on Friday. We'll see.

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My sister called me this afternoon with some rather bizarre gossip. It seems that her sister in law Ellie Mae went bonkers last night and was committed to the psyche ward for a brief period. Let me explain this one:

First of all, her name isn't really Ellie Mae. That's just what I call her. She is originally from the bayou somewhere in Alabama or Lousiana...I can't remember which, but I know the state she's from has a bayou and people who live in logs.....or is that bogs? Anyway, she met my sister's brother in law several years ago when he was hiding out in the bayou from the authorities for running drugs or whiskey or something. It was one of those romantic things where she stumbled upon him hiding out in a hollowed out log and declared, "lookie here paw! I done found me a MAN!" Apparently it was love at first sight and they were married shortly thereafter, though some question the validity of the marriage vows because of the fact that the groom was bound and gagged at the time with a shotgun pointed at his head.

So somehow they ended up here in North Carolina, moved into a doublewide trailer and began raising hellians, er, children. Along the way, Ellie Mae apparently has not been able to handle the stresses of living in high society (she feels she has to dress up to go to the Super Wal-mart) so she developed a little 'problem' with percoset. Last night, she began seeing little green men (they turned out to be her heithen children having fallen into the muck that is their front yard) and she flipped out. The story that I heard was that something angered her (my guess is that someone stuck their chocolate into her peanut butter) and she began to chase her husband around with a knife. He somehow managed to grab his cellphone before climbing a tree and calling his brother (my brother in law, who is a cop). Ben (my brother in law) came over with some very nice men in white coats and hauled Ellie Mae off to the local hospital for evaluation. The hospital that she was brought to is officially named "Good Hope", but is nicknamed "No Hope"...and for good reason. The good doctor who "evaulated" her decided that aside from acute psychosis attributed to a dependancy of a controlled substance. In short, she flipped out because she's a pill head. So he sent her home after a grand total of 3 hours.   Yes folks....if you've found yourself hooked on drugs and your spouse is perched in a tree to escape you, but you just don't feel that you really HAVE  a problem, then move to Harnett County, NC. You can get away with virtually anything!

Well, long story short....Ellie Mae and Jethro (the brother in law's brother) are now contemplating marriage counseling.
Thankfully, my brother in law is the normal one in the family. His OTHER brother has not bathed since 1989.
And y'all wonder why I've never married?

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Now, if my sister's in-laws aren't nutty enough.....

Last night when Chris and I got home around 1:00am, we discovered that there was a fire in our back yard. It had apparently at one point been a rather large fire. We didn't panic though....it was just our neighbor Todd, who'd gotten bored sitting in his house watching tv. Yes, that's what Todd does...when he gets bored, he finds things to burn. Since we have a lot of stumps and logs on the very back of our lot here, Todd takes it upon himself to burn them from time to time.    He's a nice guy though, so we don't say much to him when he ignites our yard.  

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Well, that's about all I've got for now......
I hope everyone had a good start to the new year!!              
                                         

Ok, so I came up with the new name...and without a moment to spare! Yup...I incorporated some new with the old....er...maybe OLD isn't a good word to use considering the new title?

I decided that the whole LIFE part of the title had to stay because, well, that's what this blog is about....LIFE. And of course since I'm closing in on 40, you just KNOW that's going to be a big part of MY life over the course of the next couple of years! So there you have it.....

THIS SIDE OF 40: Life With BryM

My new title. Yay.


Ok, so it's not the return of Dallas or The Facts of Life.

Sue me.



Well, I'm off on an adventure that will surely be worthy of my very first post of 2008......

Chris and I are heading to my cousin's house. Yay.

It was a choice that HAD to be made so that we could get the hell out of Dodge for a while....yet ANOTHER topic that I'll go into detail about in 2008!

I hope to see you ALL safe and sound when I come back!! Take care, have fun tonight, and for God's sake....DRINK RESPONSIBLY!!

I think I'm starting MPMS today. What's MPMS? It's PMS for men....

Stop laughing.

It's a very REAL condition that all of us men go through.....and it's MUCH worse than what you women go through every month! We men have to endure this TWICE a month....the first time when we go through it and then the second time when YOU go through it!! Now you'd think that my not being married would relieve me of one of those times every month....WRONG!! Remember....I do have a roomie....who's a guy. A guy who's obsessed with cleaning. Yes...he's almost a SHEman!! Thank God he doesn't read this blog or the next entry would be my obituary after that comment!   Seriously though....guys do go through a sort of menopause, so it only makes sense that they'd go through the monthly thing too. The feeling of being REALLY irritable, sluggish, and of course....BLOATED!! Although in MY case, it's more of a feeling of having a big ol' beer belly something along the lines of Larry the Cable Guy!

I know my MPMS kicked in today because I was doing something that normally I have a lot of patience for....installing some new hardware on my computer. I found this dandy little device at Wally World that will allow me to transfer stuff from my video camera to the computer...something I've longed for since the day I got my video camera! And it was only $60!! That's a bit cheaper than the firewire cable and card for the computer, so naturally I jumped on the deal! So I get home, install the software and hardware with relatively no problems...and it doesn't work. No sweat though...this computer IS over 4 years old, so chances are it doesn't have the correct video stuff on it to support my camera. So I go to the other computer that has all the bells and whistles. Sure enough...it works on that one. Sort of. I can't find the damn folder that the video went into!!!!   So NATURALLY, I've got all this great video that I want to burn to a DVD and I can't even find the damn thing!!!! Recognizing that I am about to have a meltdown, I calm myself and just walk away. And then I go back to try again. Nothing. So I spy my SimCity2000 program that I now can't find the disc for and decide that while I'm calming down from the video thing, I'd just copy that to a disc and install on the computer I normally use....well wouldn't you know there's some DLL shit that is missing.....

Damnit! ALL that I want to do is either upload some video or play a freakin' game!! Is THAT too much to ask??? Apparently so. Meanwhile, I've completely wasted two recordable discs....

Unfortunately, Chris chooses this time to walk by and do something that has already gotten him slapped more than once....he sticks his finger in my ear.

There are two things you do NOT do to me, ESPECIALLY if I'm already headed into a rotten mood: mess with my hair or stick your finger in my ear. He got a swift elbow into the gut and the promise of a slow painful death if he EVER did that to me again. You'd think that after almost 9 years of living in the same house he would have learned at least those two key things about me. Clearly, he hasn't....or he's just stupid.

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IN OTHER NEWS:::::::::::::::

>>North Carolina saw today quite a bit of something we haven't seen in quite a while.....rain. Lots and lots of rain. According to the news people, we got at least 2 inches, but of course that's not nearly enough to keep us all from dying in the next 24 hours. We need at LEAST another 8 inches or we'll all surely perish! These news people really annoy me. I remember when we had a hurricane come through a few years back...nearly the whole state was underwater for a good week, yet we were STILL at a "rainfall defecit" of at least 2 inches for the year. Back in 2000 we got 2 feet of snow that stuck around for over a week....still not enough to stop us from dying of thirst. News people really annoy me.

>>Speaking of our weather here in NC....get this....a FULL DAY of rain..downpours, steady...the temperature is pushing 70. Now that the rain has moved out of the area....it'll be 30 degrees this week. And dry. Mother Nature sucks ass.

Well that's all I've got for now....

I need Midol.

Lots of it.

An intravenous drip even!