So after 2 1/2 years of work. I ask for a raise. I get a raise. A piddly 3%. That equals out to 1% a year (because I'm not going to get anymore this year). This is unacceptable. I started off here as a wire tech and now, I help design and build systems. I have developed CAD standards, tested entire stadiums (not my job), built and implemeted a new library of frequently used CAD techniques and programs, trained people, and done COUNTLESS other things. If they just want a CAD jockey, then that's what they get. Fuck this place, the only bonus is I can come and go as I please, but at an average of a cost of living increase of 3% a year (it's more like 5% in this area) I am now officially LOSING money to work here. I'm going to sgn up for a 3D modeling class, take it, ace it and demand a promotion and the appropriate raise. If not I am going to walk. I can't afford to work here anymore. BUT I love my boss (it's not his decision, my raise was handed down by coorporate) and most of the people I work with. I have A LOT of flexibility here and I love that. This is garbage though this company does NOT pay it's employees well and then expects them to work. My VP said when I asked for my raose that I was doing a great job and he put in for a "substantial amount" for me which involved a "promotion of sorts". BULLSHIT. I AM not doing more work for the money I get. INVENTOR 8 training class, here I come. Maybe I'll make them even teach me Crestron and AMX programming, so I'm worth more and then walk after I pass those certs. Throw it in their face so to speak.

Sometimes, I get weird emails from my dad:




"Bizarre little marsupials [opossums] , they are said to mate through the nose (of
the female). The male presumably has a forked penis and the only
visible paired openings on the female are nostrils. The female is also
known to lick the interior of her pouch and the fur between it and the
vagina before birth. Folks say that she is then blowing the embryos out
of her nose and into the pouch. Zoologists figger that her tongue
freshens up the path that the centimeter long, blind, glorified embryos
crawl up to reach the pouch. There they will hang on to one of 13 teats
and remain tethered for 2-3 months. The forked penis, zoologists
claim, is better suited for interaction with the female's paired uteri
(from which bit they are named Didelphis (double wombed) virginiana."

well, that's kind of gross, but he's a doctor, and when you think about this biologically, it becomes interesting, first, what mental or environmental conditions would have made this an advantageous method, and second, how could it have become so advantageous a method as to become ingrained behavior. There must be something olfactory promoting this.

There are alot of skunks on UConn's campus, including one with switched colors, black stripe on white. There's a note in my dorm not to put food in the garbage public garbage cans, because the maid found a skunk in the bathroom.

My weird creatures of the day are this iron plated snail living on thermal vents, check him out:

link

and the applesnail with one lung and one gill:



http://www.applesnail.net/

Fred the Baker, Dunkin Donuts '80s icon, was autistic?

This makes me feel pretty awful, honestly. He was the Wesley Willis of his time.