Another Day, Another Dollar

Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.
-William Dement

This weekend was a pleasant double work weekend. I had the pleasure of waking up, going in and spending the majority of both days at work, and read something like 500 pages in the process. Also, managed to sell a few pieces of furniture that the boss has been trying to get rid of for a while. Unfortunately, I ended up buying lunch and dinner on Saturday... spent more money than I wanted to in the process of working a shift that pays less than I'd like. Too big a percentage went down the drain but I've made sure that the menu for this week includes portions large enough for lunches/leftovers.

Sunday, Steph made a Thai Green Curry and a whole mess of rice. It smelled great, and had a good taste, but is missing something. Monday night I adopted a new recipe for Pollock with Eggplant for Chicken. The chicken took longer to cook, but the eggplant came out great and tender. Unfortunately, the unexpected longer cooking time of the chicken screwed up my time table and the pasta was cold by the time the chicken and eggplant were well done, and you shouldn't have to get a microwave involved the first time you serve a meal.

Tuesday I drove an hour into a nearby city called Seymour. There's a church in Seymour that's looking for a cook to feed their kids during their daycare program. I came in, was given a brief tour, filled out my application, and should hear back in a few weeks. On my way into the city, I also saw that the local applebees was hiring and, despite the distance, went in to apply. They told me to come back two hours later... Conundrum. Forget the opportunity, go home and immediately turn around, or do something stupid for two hours. I chose the latter, and slept in my car for an hour and then caught up with Crystal on the phone. I went in and applied, spoke with the manager, and got past her as a screener. Tomorrow night, her boss will go through the applications and I should hear something within a week. Hopefully, it's something good.

Today I went to the gym. Ran for an hour, lifted for half, came home, had a big, healthy lunch and then... the dogs got out. Full stomach, exhausted legs and I had to sprint three blocks to go capture them. Luckily, as soon as they got eye contact and heard my voice they followed me home, but it made my stomach lurch. Steph went grocery shopping, and got back around sevenish. Unfortunately, with brisket on the menu tonight (a four hour event) and fresh focaccia bread to boot, we're eating leftovers because dinner won't be one until two hours after writing this... that is to say, eleven PM.

Tomorrow: Rock Bottom Brewery, preparing Chicken Cordon Bleu and Spinach and Rice Soup, and getting Drywall!

My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
-Steve Jobs

I've been mentioning the meals I make each evening because those meals are my job. It's what makes staying out here, looking for more work, with only the Bungalow job actually bringing in a positive value to the bottom line, a possibility. It's the major circumstance that determines the condition of the bottom line, at the moment, and I take a modicum of pride in it.

Tuesday night's meal was Maple Pork Chops with Baked Red Potatoes. A blend of milk, half and half, and heavy cream used to coat pork loin chops in oatmeal. I double coated these, because alot seemed to come off, and probably could have triple or quadruple coated considering how much came off later. Lightly fry these, and then sautee with onions and garlic. After the onions are soft, mix in apples (rubbed with a little bit of brown sugar), sliced mushrooms and maple syrup. Sautee again, and then remove chops. Add a little bit of half and half, simmer and reduce to make a sauce.

It turned out great. It was filling and full of flavor. Sam said she could eat it once a week, and not be upset; not a possibility, given the higher than normal amount of sugar. But it is an impressive, hit dish.

Last night I made a crustless spinach quiche. I used Egg Substitute to lower the cholesterol, and replaced the three cups of Muenster tasked by the recipe with 2/3 Feta, 2/3 Italian Mix and 1 cup mild cheddar. This combination can probably be improved by a more precise blend of cheeses, I wanted to go mostly with Feta, to lower cholesterol and improve the health benefits overall, but the shopping list was not specific enough on the quantity, so I only had 2/3 of a cup of Feta. The recipe turned out great, and because of the contents (spinach, cheese, egg), the nutritional value is very high if you're someone who gets real exercise. Veggies, protein, dairy... I was glad I spent a good two hours at the gym yesterday, because that meal was a strong way to top it off.

Tonight I made Cranberry-Walnut Stuffing with a whole Chicken. Unfortunately, certain visitors ate my cranberries, despite express instructions, so I made Walnut Stuffing with a whole Chicken. It was not as good. But it was still good. Whatever.

So, I friend told me today that, under a good economy, an experienced individual will apply to an average of 70 jobs before finding success... this made me feel better.

A Series of Things

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.
-George Burns

I fell asleep Thursday night to the sound of whining, screaming or crying children. I woke up to the same. So, I left for the Gym first thing. Now, when I left Sam was here. When I returned, she was not. At first , I didn't consider this important and went upstairs to do something that involved wearing headphones and not listening to children. Evidently, they had been served a lunch of bologna sandwiches, barbecue potato chips and a casserole made of egg noodles and cheddar cheese. A good 30% of this was in the rug when I came home, and this also helped to keep me upstairs.

We had plans to go grocery shopping Friday afternoon, and I expected Steph home to take Sam to work at about 3. This did not happen. As a matter of fact, I was only apprised of the full details of the situation at 7:30 when Steph came home and explained that Sam had gone to the hospital for a heart flutter and was being kept their overnight. Not having the ingredients to make anything, I went down the street and bought two slices of pizza, saving the one or two frozen meals for the next night, as I expected to come home late.

I got up early Saturday to be at the Bungalow at 9:45. I ended up arriving about 30 minutes before, got a cup of coffee and read my book in the parking lot. One of the guys at the coffee shop informed me that the owner of the Colts also owns the original manuscript for On The Road (which I was reading at the time), which is called The Scroll, and is a scrapped together single roll of papers on which Kerouac wrote the book from start to finish.

The job itself seems to be the easiest I've ever had. Jenny takes a relaxed approach to floor sales that makes it very relaxed, the store has a constantly influx of new items to inspect, and very little that needs constant cleaning, unlike Cedar Hill. I also found out that it is not, as I previously thought, one thirteen-hour day per week, but both days on the weekend for a total of thirteen hours. Saturday, 10-6, Sunday 12-5. This is nice because it gives me something to do both days :) I also found out that day that Jerry thought and D&D was Saturday and had to ask Jenny to give him a call as he would have arrived at an empty house sorely dissapointed. The day went well, I enjoyed my co-workers and enjoyed a sunset drive home.

Sunday morning I slept in, showered, and immediately started cooking. I started with Bacon Cheese PullAparts, which are a classic, then proceeded to make a big platter of Banana Pancakes and Blueberry Pancakes, which are very difficult to make without a proper skillet. They all tasted good, but looked silly and were frequently a bit overdone. Followed next by a fruit platter with a strawberry fluff dip, and finished up with Caribbean Cruise Stuffed French Toast which. are. awesome.

The game itself was fun. Everyone in the group is less experienced than I, so there was a bit of a conflict between my character, who is a man of little words, and me, helping the other players master their characters. Ultimately, everyone enjoyed themselves and based off how many people have already sent back their character updates they're pretty into it.

Apparently most of the players are broken in some form of another. Chris recently had some serious surgery, Jess was feeling sick and almost didn't come, Freita struggled with a headache and there was some complex, clandestine pharmaceutical interaction that ultimately lead to half the party enjoying a pain killer of one kind or another, and the other half enjoying booze. The last fight moved slowly, but was a great deal of fun.

The alarm clock seemed to turn itself off for Monday, and I slept til 11:30. I worked to get my room more organized... it's a small space, and there is stuff, so I need to figure out how to make the two cooperate. I did some research, and started reading Neuromancer, which is next on my list. I had written a cover letter to a Veterinary Office in Seymour regarding a Clerical position, but whe I went to attach my resume and reference letters, it got stuck in an infinite loop and the browser lost the cover letter I had written in the body of the e-mail. I had to do it again later that night, but ultimately got the application in. While Sam was at work and Steph was in the basement I went to play Force Unleashed. I haven't played in two weeks, because during the day Zion was playing constantly or Sam was watching TV. I wouldn't want to interrupt Zion's gameplay, nor Sam's TV watching... even though she doesn't pay much attention to what's on the screen. If I watch TV, I watch it on Hulu now, because it's replayable and because Sam likes to watch bad tv. She likes Ghost Whisperer, A Haunting, Eureka, Warehouse 13, Ghost Hunters, and Destination Truth, most of which are... bad. B+ at best. She dislikes House, Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Royal Pains and Glee (despite having worked as a caberet singer.) Oh, she also hates The Office. K... Luckily, they have a DVR. Which is fine until the DVR can't multitune to all the programs on a Monday Premiere Night and drops the two hour House Premiere and BBT.

I've decided that when we finish the basement (the floor is done, yay) I'm going to forego an alarm clock and simply have a 2-4 cup coffee machine with a timer right next to my bed. I'll use the sweet smell to awaken me rather than the inauspicious vibrations of my phone.

Fever Dreams

Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy.
-Spike Milligan

Saturday and Sunday passed without anything eventful. They were relaxing and entertaining, and mostly spent waiting for Monday to come.

Monday came and I spent the morning placing follow-up calls to the establishments I applied at on Thursday. They all told me to call back at various times in the afternoon, effectively killing my plan to go to the gym. I did this, and in more than one case got told to call again for someone else. Bottomline: two need to be called again, two have filled their needs, but openly acknowledge the frequent incompetence of servers and will contact me if anything opens up. If my employment depends on someone else's incompetence than I should have a dream job any minute.

I also checked the university listings for jobs. A university job would be the best due to the following: 1) Health Insurance. Great when you have options between death and debt. 2) Free Credits and Credit Discounts. Three free credits (one class) and a third off all other credits. Tres) Its spanish for three. 4) Its on campus! Campus has people. And books. And people. And Other Things.

So, the university listings showed two things that were new and I was actually qualified for. Parking Lot Attendant and Data Entry. I applied for both (one goes through the university system, the other was a university posting that had to have an emailed resume). The Parking Lot Attendant job got an immediate referral past the screeners and to the hiring manager, and has remained there since (four days) like the other position I was referred to back on 09/01. Now they both sit on no-mans land, Interviewing has not started and I have not heard anything yet. Lame. Nor have I heard a reply from the e-mailed resume. University=Bureaucracy=Moves slower than a dead cow.

Tuesday meets with an altogether different experience. I over slept by something like three hours, and within being up for three hours, had to lay down again. Throbbing headache, lightheadedness, loss of appetite and loss of balance. I thought I was down for the count and was feeling really poorly. But! I got a pie from mom in the mail. It easily made my week, and is in the freezer. I'm saving it for Saturday when I will have the late evening to myself and can enjoy it with a big cup of coffee and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Yesterday (Wednesday): Was a recovery day. I felt better, but still with a slight headache, after waking up and stayed on housework and the like most of the day. I continued my re-organization of the cabinets and drawers, made the menu for the next week and got staple groceries (full grocery shop is tomorrow). I made Chicken Fajita Pitas which were great flavor, really filling and not too complicated. However, everything seems to cook slower here! The grill takes five minutes longer than I expect it to, water takes forever to boil, etc. I know the pace out here is supposed to be more leisurely than the east coast but that can't translate to the molecular level. If it did, people out here would live longer. Though, a scientifically slower metabolism would explain the generally doughy physique of no limited part of the population.

Today I set about working things again. I prepared dinner early in the morning and let it cook all day, I did some paer work, checked up on applications, filled out an online application for a local place that is opening up as well as set an appointment with UPS for a month from now to get a part time job working their peak season. I was really disappointed when I realized that my appointment wasnt for tomorrow, but a Friday in October. Oh well.

Tomorrow I return to the gym for the first time in a week, having been thrown off by one thing or another, and on more than one occasion, my own rationalizations and excuses. I'm paying for the membership, I need to go more than once a week. I actually should go almost every day. Rather than allowing myself to play mental tetris with the things I need to get done in a day, I'm going to focus on establishing a routine, because the tetris thing... she ain't working out so much.

We have the circular saw! The floor is going down! Then the drywall! PROGRESSSSSSSS.

Yataaaa!

No human thing is of serious importance.
-Plato

Welcome to the weekend, true believers!

Wednesday was a pretty good day. I had been reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein before I went to bed each night, but was going to bed at hours where I was reading 7-10 pages before falling asleep. I got about ninety pages into it and decided I needed to be finished, it being a relatively short book, so I spent the first few hours of my day in this way. I really enjoyed the book, though about half of each page was spent explaining how miserable characters were, so only so much narrative actually went on and at a dreadful pace. It's pretty interesting how different the movies the movies became from the source material. I made sure to wash, dry and iron my interview suit. Prepared for battle.

I made turkey baja burgers for dinner with homemade potato wedges for dinner. Ultimately, a great experiment. Served the burgers on sourdough english muffins which was a great alternative to buns. They're a little healthier and the flavor is better.

Thursday was great. Battle stance from minute one. Shower, shave, shirt and shoes, prepared to go. Left early, to great benefit, as the interview got moved up a half hour the morning of. I came prepared with resume and reference letter, which impressed. My interviewer seemed more nervous than I did, and ultimately, I landed the job! The pay isn't great, and the hours are too few. Regardless, pay is pay, and the experience in the industry will give me a chance to meet some people that might be useful in the long term. Moving on, I filled out applications and left resumes on file with four grills and bars in the area immediately surrounding the Bungalow. I'm really hoping to hear back from one of them, and will do some follow up calls this week.

Feeling pretty accomplished on Friday, having landed a new job and feeling good about my opportunities, I spent the day relaxing. (Ok, I probably haven't earned it as thoroughly as I could have, shh). I watched the second season of Chuck on Hulu, did some writing and spent a few hours in the kitchen. Spanish flank steak came out good, though the lime drizzle was not a good flavor for some. I made Chicken Tortilla Soup from scratch, and while it was too spicy for Sam, I think it came out great. The kidlet only ate the chicken out of it, but he's a midwestern child... complex flavor isn't really part of the tradition out here.

Adjacently Related Thought: Children remain the world's best birth control. Particularly, other people's children. My family's children I actually like. There's some primally vested interest in them, and they're annoying, but in a way that's endearing. Other people's children fall into one of three categories: jumping around, making noise, or asleep. Will points out, astutely, that this can be expanded to function for the majority of man kind. I shunt this observation from my memory, because I cannot wrestle with the ensuing desire to strangle just about everyone.

In the land of other people's children, the sound-cancelling headphone reigns supreme!

Pre-D-Day

Originally, I had been looking forward to Monday as a new day to canvas the town for jobs and accomplish things. However, when I realized that it was a national holiday (one of poor origin and depleted purpose) that became a thing of the past.

However, tragedy befell that day. Or, tragedy of a sort. An active World of Warcraft account is now considered, from the common hacker's viewpoint, of more value than a credit card. Credit card security is such that the damage one can do with the resource is more limited than would seem, and the repercussions are pretty heavy. WoW accounts, however... once you take virtual objects with value and sell them for cash, the trail stops. Game administrators can restore the accounts to their rightful owner, and can restore items to those accounts, but they can't undo the the transaction where the thief has gotten real value for virtual objects.

There's a pretty common ploy, for both identity theft and account theft called a phishing scam. Basically, phishers create a mock website that looks identical to a trusted site that would request your personal information. You enter your information thinking you're gaining access to a site that has a valid reason for your information, and the information actually ends up going into a database. They use the information to gain access to the original website (or WoW), change those details, and they now own whatever you have.

This is what happened to Sam, and her WoW account was taken by nameless, faceless and likely asiatic hackers. In their cleverness, they did so on a holiday and thus all the hotlines were closed, all password retrieval information was altered, and she was without recourse for the next 24 hours. She was upset by this, and when Sam came home from work an hour or two later, they departed for four or so hours... Sam to get her nails done, and Steph to get boarding for the basement floor.

I sank into a marathon of Criminal Minds. What a great show. I did laundry all day, and managed to clean all my clothes and linens while enjoying six hours of criminal forensic psychology. Makes me miss my Psychology classes. That night I made Carne Asada Tacos with Home-Made Nachos, and I reworked a tomatillo sauce recipe that came out really well. Success! Monday night I set out a list for myself for Tuesday. Organization! How strange from me...

Steph has lent me an iPod mini for my use around the house and at the gym, a (relatively) old hand-me-down of her own, and loaded it with a variety of music. She had accidentally taken this with her that morning throwing off my original plan of rising and immediately going to the gym. I continued to hunt down reference letters from my professors, got some guidance on how to handle a bank switch (mine is not regional to this area) and prepared a letter to go certified mail to my bank in NJ (they need to stop charging me account). When Steph got home, we passed off the iPod, I hit the post office and the gym, and then came back to make dinner. Chicken Chardon, Caesar Salad, Whole Wheat Spaghetti and some mashed potatoes. The potatoes were not part of the meal, but there was a foot tall box with barely an inch left in it and it was taking up space. Screw that!

One of Sam's grand children, Zion, is staying with us for a few days. Either he's home-schooled, or they simply don't care about his education. I don't really know, I'm not asking questions, he's not my kid. I'm good for the first few hours, then around three o'clock the sound proof head phones come on.

Tomorrow is a job interview at the Bungalow! I'm hoping it goes well, even though it'll be extremely part time. I've got copies of my resume prepared and the Bungalow is located in Broad Ripple, the heart of the "college town" part of Indianapolis. Perhaps I'll find more than one opportunity while I'm there.

Labor Day Has Nothing To Do With Labor.

Labor Day is preventative to labor. Or at least to employment. Namely, mine. Having found one or two walk-in opportunities, needing to stay on the trail of professors who have promised recommendation letters, and various of a similar nature seemed to fall pleasantly into this weekend where no one could be contacted or generally anything accomplished in this vein.

So I took to accomplishing things of a more domestic and leisurely nature. I didn't want to. My spider senses tingled at the notion of not being forward-pointed in action, even if I was in thought. But I did.

Friday was my first visit to the gym. Work-out's qualities are determined by how sore you are the next day, and given my desire to not move my arms over my head Saturday, I consider it a success. When I came back, I served up a pork roast from the slow cooker that had been cooking for nearly eight hours. Attempts to carve it went poorly, as it fell apart if you so much as looked at is crossly. Jess (Tyler's Mom, Sam's Daughter, Requirer of the Spongebob Cake) brought me the materials with which to create it. I attempted to do so that night, hoping to get it out of the way for the next day, but the VALU-BRITE cake mixes were... unsatisfactory. The horrible, goopy, mutant mess of sugar and sweet could not ever conceivably be turned into Spongebob. Or anything else.

While this was going on, the world Descended Into Madness. Along with Tyler and Jess's visit, Steph's sister and her husband came up, with their five children, to stay the night. This was the first time I spent considerable time in my room, because I felt, as wonderful as these people are, that this many would be overload, and that I was, at best, a non-essential piece of their family reunion. This being the case, I politely retired to the quiet room upstairs, and caught up on True Blood.

While I've mentioned it, True Blood is an excellent series. It's well acted and well written. The attitude and kitsch is great and sets it apart from other vampire series. Some of the characters are so strong willed that it borders on being a little two dimensional, but the solid acting makes it worth it, and some (like Lafayette, Tara, and Terry, mostly the non-vampires) are done in such a way that make them really interesting to watch, without the mechanisms of the central characters. It's also based off a book, like Dexter is, and I'd heartily recommend both. Dexter I probably like a little better though. The inner monologue is great and Michael C. Halle owns that part in a way that's scary.

As soon as I got up Saturday, I resolved to fix the cake issue. First I had to make sure that after offering the family to take a piece of mutant looking but thoroughly edible cake, that someone had put it out of the way of any enterprising dog who could eat himself to illness. After making sure of it, I drove without the GPS to the grocery store to get cake mix from a brand with a real name. Having secured some help from Ms. Betty Crocker I returned home. The significance of travelling without the GPS is important, I get to know the area far better that way. However, one way streets need to be better marked.

The rest of the day was spent in the kitchen, exhausting myself with culinary experimentation. My normal dinner of three at five or six or sometimes eight got moved up to four and expanded to a party of seven. A monster-sized Caesar salad, a fresh loaf of italian bread, a tray of home made meatballs (for which I had no recipe and totally winged) and an enormous pot of penne arabiatta thoroughly impressed our guests, satisfied my roommates, and really hit the spot when I finally sat down to it later that night (I didn't eat with them because I had dirtied nearly every pot in our possession and wasn't going to truly enjoy my dinner until I had cleaned the kitchen. ) That being done I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of my evening after they departed for a family birthday party by showering and enjoying some relaxation.

Sunday was an easy day for me. Steph and Sam left shortly after I ate lunch, and were gone for several hours. I played some PS3 (I've played almost no video games since I've been here, it's been kind of nice actually) and went to the gym again. I didn't even have to make dinner, as they decided to eat some of the leftovers that night. We got a layer of the floor down in the basement, which made me feel great, and if that had been the only thing we got done all day I would have considered it a success.

I'll cover Monday and Tuesday tomorrow... the hour grows late.

Drops in the Bucket

Several months ago I announced to my playing teammates that I would be leaving World of Warcraft to focus more on... well, Life. It's waxed and waned on me, ultimately becoming nothing more than an annoyance, but I enjoyed it briefly afterward knowing that my time with it would soon be coming to an end. Last night I uninstalled it, and all its paraphernalia and said my final goodbye in an unceremonious way (donating ridiculous amounts of things to the guild bank).

This lead to a (relatively) productive day! Slept in by about an hour, then went about writing some cover letters for online applications while I rebuilt my internal supply of coffee. Coffee is to Me as Spinach is to Popeye. Around noon I set off to Broad Ripple, a sub neighborhood of Indy, to apply at The Bungalow, an art boutique owned by a friend's wife. I went in, applied, and have an interview for next week! Prospects look good.

I also got my gym membership set up, at a great rate. The place is bigger and cleaner than the last gym. They've got a wing of cardio machines with flatscreens inset, as well as a separate "Cardio Cinema" where movies play and the room is filled with cardio machines. Private showers that are extremely clean, a sauna, and a lap pool. It seemed like a good fit, and I'm going to try and make an hour or two a daily routine there.

Upon my return home, I finished the grocery list for the week (got a great lineup), and we went shopping. We ordered pizza for dinner tonight because we didn't have a big enough buffer between weeks for miscellaneous. The nice lady at the pizza place thought I worked at Hero House, the comic shop down the street. I wish! She's desperately hoping they'll be successful, because the neighborhood could really use some affordable retail. I'm also hoping for their success, because why not? ART: One of the owners is a perfectly nice guy, but has no energy in his personality. May hinder his business.

I decided to help out an overworked mom and make her son's cake of choice. So at some point tomorrow, I'm making a Spongebob Cake. Jeez.

Hooooo!

Immediately upon entering the house, I noticed (or was noticed by?) the pack of animals that live here. Two dogs; Angus, a pit bull/dingo mix, and Adrian, who I have no clue. He's adorable, but patently ridiculous in every sense. He's small, with curly reddish brown hair, and an overbite. The two large cats are named Junior and Wilemina, and I rarely see them. Occassionally, one sneaks into my room and uses the bed, until I kick them out (I am currently not accepting animals in there.) On the other hand, are two kittens who do not actually belong to the house. They are being watched over until one of Sam's relations settles down in their home (they're relocating, or some such). One is black, with white mittens, and the other is stripped with all range from white to black. The black is named Sookie, and the other... well, the other has six toes on each paw. Noticing this, I came to the conclusion that he must be trying to evolve thumbs, and therefore, is attempting in the long run to be come a Thundercat. (In case you're not aware, the Thundercats were a popular anime in the late 80s/early 90s, involving humanoid felines with creatives names like"Lion-o", "Panthro", "Cheetara", and "Tigra.") So, I addressed this kitten as Thundercat, and eventually it suck. Thundercat is my little buddy, and Steph has trained him to climb up your body when you say "HOOOOO!" (another reference to the cartoon.)

For the first two nights in the new place, I slept on the couch. With Sam's surgery and all the rest, the basement is not near ready, and the upstairs room was still in the process of being cleared out. Not that I minded at all; I have come into this with the interest of a transition into independence, to developing a routine that involves keeping my space clean and generally taking pride in everything I do. If that means doing things from the ground up, than perhaps its all in the best interest of forming good habits. On the first full day here, we cleaned out the room that would become my bedroom, and began looking for beds. Ironically, none of the ones were purchased... Steph found a full bedroom set for 50 bucks on Craiglist. The next day, she went to check it out in person, and decided it was a good deal (it was!) and brought it back right then. By the third night here, I was in a new bed! It's double the size of the one I had at home, and is very comfortable. I slept like a baby that night (unfortunately, I didnt for the next few, and kept waking up oriented paralell with my headboard). I bought my own towels, which felt far more momentous than it really was (they're towels -_-) and collapsible laundry baskets. I took an hour and moved all the stuff out of the heap it was in the dining room, and into neatly stacked piles in my own room.

It was in this span of 1-3 days that I spoke with Steph and Sam about the potential of The Arrangement. Basically, The Arrangement is as such: Personal Chef services in exchange for room and board. They were immediately amenable, and it became even easier when I found out that they drink their breakfast (protein shakes and what not that need only be purchased, not prepared) and that they'll often eat leftovers for lunch. I only need to prepare dinner! Wunderbar! I've really enjoyed it. Cooking is a persistent learning experience, it is very rewarding, it is methodical and organizing, It is very cathartic, particularly if I get to do it in quiet with just some music. In Adjacently Related News: I've become Neurotic about Kitchen Cleanliness, which is not eased by the smallness of the kitchen. It is about half the size of the one back home.

After that I began scoping out jobs and exploring the nearby area. I'm beginning to know things well, and keep walking downtown (about sixty blocks to the heart of downtown, round trip) to get an idea of what's near me. At the time of writing this, I have eleven job applications out, and more are going out daily. Many of them are online, which process slowly, and entry levels are always easy to disregard. I will continue in the carpet-bombing manner until I get something that sticks, because it is necessary. 'Nuff said.

Progress in the basement is slow, but each step is very satisfying. We've cleaned out the stairs and alot of junk, and wiring is fully done. I've bleach bombed it several times to ensure vermin-eradication and this weekend we'll be putting down the flooring and pricing out drywall.

While Will was here, Rockband 2 became our frequent after-dinner entertainment. With three (four, when Sam sung for us!) people to play, we really got into the total experience and had a great time. Today, Steph and I did a few sets while Sam was working the 4-8 shift and we've gotten to the point where we really can't progress anymore with me playing on Medium. Now I've got to practice new fingering sequences and learn how to play again on Hard! Oh well.

In other entertainment: Friend of Stephs (hereby named properly as Chris) hosts a group of people over every few weeks to watch UFC fights. UFC is Ultimate Fighting Championship, which is a type of Mixed Martial Arts. Basically, like Boxing except less technical, and like Wrestling except not fake. I really didn't think I'd enjoy it, but in the spirit of this whole thing and exploring new things and meeting new people, I went for and had a really good time. I will definitely be participating again.

That's a lot of writing for today... I'll try and think of more developments that I haven't covered here already to write about tomorrow. Tomorrow's Agenda: Grocery Shopping, Resumes and Applications Downtown, and Gym Membership!

More than a year

Since my last post. But most of the people who care have been close (geographically speaking) and found out the details themselves. So, while I've been terribly lax in keeping up with this, I will start --- At this point my writing is interrupted by an evangelist at my door. I kindly tell them that we're fine with our faith, and to please go. They do not leave, so I begin explaining the concepts of Secular Humanism, which is tantamount in these parts to licking the devil's ball sack, and they flee-- at the point in which I depart.

We left later than scheduled. I stayed up until two AM Sunday night packing, and didn't want to get up. Fifteen minutes here, and there, extended goodbyes (of which I was, more than once, the first to cry) made me late in picking up Will. A quick hug with Mrs. Will's mom, and we were on the road. Having not eaten and being devoid of gas, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for the former, and got our first fill up.

Then we went west.

We went three hours without stop, through the long and ultimately un-interesting Pennsylvanian landscape. We stopped only for Will to give the gift of freedom to the distilled remnants of his large iced coffee which, unoccupied with the task of driving, he drank much more quickly than I. Another three hour stint and we were at our destination for the night, a nice little roadside Super Eight just that-side of the Ohio/Pennsylvania border. We indulged the deepest, teenage id and ordered a large, stuffed crust hawaiian pizza from Pizza Hut, and a large order of bread sticks. Now, I would never agree with Jacky that Pizza Hut is the best pizza, or even in the top ten. However, at that moment, in that place, it hit the spot. A few hours later, I passed out, with my alarm set for early in the morning, and the GPS pre-programmed for the next day's destination.

I woke up, and was surprised to find that Will had taken all the bedding off his mattress, and arranged it on the floor next to the wall. After waking him up, he went to go take his shower, and I set about the normal morning routine wherein, regardless of location, I use my spider-senses to detect coffee. Having procured two six-ounce cups of coffee and a few mini-donuts (BTW: WHO decided that six ounces was a serving of coffee? Did you forget an exponent? Get out of my breakfast), took a quick shower, and we set off.

Ohio looks about the same as Pennsylvania, until you're past Cleveland, and it looks like the boondocks. At some point here, we stop heading west, and set course Northwest towards Grand Rapids. Once in Michigan does the Midwest start to look sufficiently Midwesterly (it's a word because I said it.)

It's worth mentioning at this point that the car makes this entire trip, about 18 hours, on about fifty dollars worth of gas. Also, cruise control should run for President. On a platform of being totally frickin' awesome.

Tuesday dinner time finds us meeting Kevin and his wife Lesley, who we've played with for a few years and never met before. They're exactly like the virtual entities we've come to know, and we have a good time. Playing SSMB leads to a brief weight lifting routine (Kevin and his brother do this every week. I participate, Will opts not to (pussy). However, they soon decide that it's too hot and stop after a half hour. Ironically, Kevin's brother suggests we go get icecream. All that aside, I was sore the next day despite the relative brevity of the work out), and then a few hours of chatting about various games. Kevin ends up deciding to join one of ours, which makes me happy, as adding new players keeps up the pace.

We sleep in a finished attic room, with no air conditioning. However, it was a wonderfully cool after the sun went down, and we slept well. The next morning we met two more people we've played with for a while, whom are also close friend's of Kevin. After a few hours of chatting, and a quick lunch we set off again.

By dinner time, we were in Indianapolis. It's a small big city, but the city-sprawl goes pretty far. For a good fifty miles in any direction out of the city, the highways are lined with the retail locations and strip malls of any good metropolis. And after about fifty miles, it suddenly drops off, as if they had run out of concrete, and is overgrown with corn fields and other properly Mid-Western features.

The house is large, and old, and well-decorated. It reminds me a great deal of New Hope-ish bed and breakfast in its style, and is filled with the electic relics of people with good and varied tastes and interests. In the dining room, hanging on a rack, are a monumental size of golden wings crafted by Sam. A solid wood china case stands next to it, and next to that is a shiny black cabinet engraved with oriental artwork. The living room hosts a massive, stone fireplace, in front of which is a convertible-red drumset. In one corner of the room is a cast iron birdcage, sans birds. On top of a solid wood stand, is a large flat screen TV, a DVR, a game cube, PS3 and a Wii. Hanging on the walls are large, colorful, non-objective paintings that ar clearly done with a palette knife. I can tell that I will like it here.

Over the next fourty-eight hours I must reconcile the strange feelings that accompany Steph suddenly having a face. Having known her for a year, through the internet, it is a lesser trial to mentally relocate this disembodied voice into a real person. Sam, her wife, is utterly laid out, having had surgery on her spine the day before, but she is in good spirits. We've arrived at around seven pm, and so, Steph gives us a quick tour of the house, and then of the nearby neighborhood (that is to say, about two blocks in any given direction). We order a pizza, and while it's being cooked, explore the new comic book store that has opened up two doors down from the pizzeria, just today.

Indy likes its comic books. I've seen almost ten different comic book stores at this point, and being host to gencon, know that the metropolis certainly has more than its fair share of gamers, nerds, and the like. I've already applied for jobs at two of them :)

More to come! SOON.