so you would think a move down the street, literally only 3.5 blocks away, would be easier than this one was. going into the move i was convinced that it would only take about 2-3 hours to make the move over to the new place. yeah, not so much. it ended up taking a good 7 hours to get everything cleared out of the old place and into the new one. last time i moved i didn’t have much furniture since i had roommates previously. what a pain in the ass. trying to get the couch in through the back door was a task unlike any other.

i’m slowly adjusting to the new place and taking my sweet time unpacking. didn’t realize how much crap i have. instead of boxes i used tons of those plastic containers. it took like 15-20 of them and now they’re scattered throughout the house. i estimate at the rate i’m going that i should be done by the end of june or so.

comcast came and installed on wednesday and it only took four days for them to get everything working. the one thing i am impressed is that these old coax wires coming in from outside can handle everything (4 HD Streams + 1 SD Streams + Cable Internet). one HUGE complaint is that the HD box that they provided me only connects to the TV with component cables. horrible picture quality vs. HDMI. i never thought the difference would be so glaring.

to top everything off, thursday was the dreaded layoffs day at work. i was lucky enough to be safe this time around which i am quite grateful for. i will however, be using this as an opportunity to try and get more interactive responsibilities put on my desk.

now that the move & everything at work have passed i am hoping the anxiety attacks start to slow down. i woke up from my nap this afternoon and was freaking out. attacks coming out of sleep are the worst.

and now i’m off to go do some more unpacking. until later.

so after all that drama i am relieved that i’ve finally found a new place to live. of course living with joe would be preferable but since he lives almost in India (indiana, but whatever … that’s how close india and indiana are from each other, it’s just a difference of an a!), that just isn’t practical at the moment. after extensive searching i ended up finding a place right down the street from me. literally. i’m only moving 4.5 blocks west. it will be rather exciting. the new place has an extra room that i have no idea what i’m going to do with.

now that i’ve started packing i’ve come to realize that i think i have completely underestimated how much crap i have. i thought i got rid of tons of it but the plastic containers that i bought to move with are filling up much faster than expected. oops.

this week has been television upfront week and i am rather unexcited about it. i was so looking forward to it but have been a bit disappointed. abc showed the pilot to one of their new comedies, modern family, and that looks like an awesome show. definitely will be something to look forward to. i look forward to watching the rest of the pilots over the next few weeks to see what else seems decent.

more soon.

so it’s now less than three weeks before i have to move and i still haven’t found a place to live. i don’t think i’ve ever waited this long and it’s starting to make me really nervous. Luckily I’m hoping that once I do find a new place it will be an easy move. I’m using tons of plastic bins instead of regular boxes this time and it should go rather smoothly.

may is always such a stressful time. with everything going on at work and trying to find a new place to live and a million other things, it’s just a bit crazy. i so look forward to june coming along and getting to rest easy.

i’m in the middle of watching the day the earth stood still and i don’t know how i feel about it. this remake is rather strange. totally not what i was expecting.

that’s all for now. more later.

softball season is in full swing and it has made me realize just how out of shape i am. i didn’t even do much today during the game but play catcher and just the squatting and standing tired me out. lame sauce. i must say though that i missed playing softball more than i had expected.

now that may has arrived i need to kick up the apartment search a bit. i’m approaching the situation with caution though. i’m afraid to sign a new lease and then end up with no way to pay the rent. i have no idea what i would do then. i am starting to get really paranoid and i suppose i would need to plan some strategic back-up plans should that happen.

okay i have decided that i need to resolve to start using the iphone app for updating this site because i can’t remember what to say. so that’s all for now.

i don’t quite remember what happened monday through wednesday. i suppose it was just work and trying to relax.

thursday was rather awesome. my client is sponsor of soundstage on pbs. as such, i was able to score some tickets to thursday night’s recording of death cab for cutie. it was pretty much awesome. standing like 10 feet away from the stage and 15 feet away from them was amazing. i also got invited to a blackhawks playoff game the same evening, which would have been my first hockey game ever, but sadly death cab had to come first.

the weather around here finally rebounded and friday ended up being amazing. too bad i didn’t have the day off to enjoy it. finally did get to enjoy it on saturday though. it was the first time in 7 months that i didn’t have to wear a jacket. on saturday evening joe and i ended up meeting some of his friends along the lake and we had a nice walk. it’s so nice to finally be able to go out and enjoy the city again. it did start raining though and i don’t think it’s stopped since then.

and that, was my (not-so) overly exciting weekend.

if this works like I hope it will then I might just start writing more entries. We shall see.

so today was my first day off from work since january. i probably should have used it in a more resourceful manner but instead i used it to relax a bit. joe and i went to dinner and a movie this evening. we saw monsters vs. aliens in 3D which was awesome. any movie in 3D is good in my opinion though. afterwards we got in a cab and headed home because i refused to walk to the train station, sit on the train for half an hour and then walk another 10 minutes home. all was fine until we arrive home and the cab driver shows his stupidity. i hand him my debit card to which he clearly lets out a huge sigh. awww boohoo, heaven forbid he have to follow the rules. so he grabs a credit card slip (because he wasn’t fancy enough to have one of the machines in the car) only to declare that he doesn’t have a pen. seriously?!? well i was thinking that the ride would be free since he wouldn’t be able to proceed with the transaction. luckily joe pulled a pen out of his car that was parked nearby. he rubs the card to imprint the numbers and hands me back the slip … blank, with nothing else written on it. i had to write in the final cost and was pretty annoyed and pissed off at this point. i took my card and my copy of the receipt and slammed the door. he yelled a friendly “Fuck You” out the window as a parting gift. i proceeded to go inside and report him on the city complaint website.

and that ladies and gentlemen, was my friday evening.

i turned in my 60 day notice to my landlord this week. now i’m sort of panicking. what if i don’t end up finding another acceptable place within my budget? erg. apartment hunting and moving always adds to my stress levels, which isn’t good considering that i’m an inherently stress-filled person. erg. i am so not looking forward to this. now i’m going to be [even more] paranoid and stressed for the next two months.

i have recently come back from a trip to the country (aka joe’s house) and am extremely happy to report that 3G service has arrived there. so exciting. now if only at&t could get the 3G service her in the city to work that would be awesome.

softball is about to begin, which i’m looking forward to, well except for the whole waking up early thing. that always sucks. but at least it means summer will be here before we know it, although you couldn’t imagine that if you looked outside my window right now and saw the snow falling.

okay, time for bed. until later.

my apologies for the long absence. i got sick two weeks ago and over the last week i’ve finally started to recover. nothing very exciting going on though so not like much has been missed. lots of work, although i wish i would have taken some legitimate sick time from work so that i could have recovered faster. oh well, i am feeling much better now and counting down until the next agency holiday. less than two weeks until a three day weekend. now that’s something to look forward to.

the big issue of the last couple of weeks has been my complete lack of patience.  so as soon as the iPhone OS 3.0 beta was announced i debated if i would do one of two things: 1. wait like a normal consumer until it is released as a final version or 2. sign up as a developer and try the sucker out (let it be noted that i’m also teaching myself to write code at the same time, so this wasn’t a complete play to just try out the software). so yeah, i ended up signing up and downloading the beta. of course the beta doesn’t handle my agency’s exchange security certificates correctly for some reason, so haven’t had access to work email. not the worst thing though. i have no issues waiting until the next beta update until i can fix that issue.

beyond that nothing too exciting going on. softball is getting ready to start in a few weeks and i have officially declared my intent to play again this year. i am horrible at softball but at least i enjoy hanging out with the people on the team. it will make for an enjoyable summer.

that’s all for now. until later.

despite the fact that my 401k is down like 50% from everything i’ve put into it over the last three years, i decided that now would be a great time to expand my investment knowledge. so i made the decision to make an investment in the stock market, into an actual single company that is, not just a mutual fund. it’s a very small investment but we shall see where it goes. after one day in trading i am still even with my investment. good times. i won’t reveal the company i invested in for the moment as it was sort of a huge gamble (small bet, huge gamble).

i am so sad that the season is coming to an end for big love & united states of tara. such amazing shows and i will be sad to have to wait until another season of both.

as spring break arrives for all the grade school and college aged students, i can’t help but wish everyone received a spring break. i’m thinking i’m going to need to take some of my time off in the near future. i’m almost back up to 4 weeks and need bring it down a bit, particularly my personal and sick days since i have to use those before the end of the year.

okay my attention span has been spent for the evening. until later.