Saturday, December 31, 2005

Happy New Year Pt.2

Ok, that last post sounded pretty negative. Good stuff happened as well, it was just of a smaller caliber than say, a divorce. I do not mean to sound so negative sometimes but I have been stressed lately and it has put me in a less than estatic mood.

Good stuff did happen in 2005, I learned to appreciate my family and friends more. I also began taking more chances and getting out of my usual habits. This has been good and has led to me getting a new and badass job.

Anywho, sorry about the negative tones of the last post.

Happy New Year...Almost

Well, 2006 is almost here and I couldn't be happier. 2005 was easily the weirdest and quite possilby the worst year of my life to date. I think this next year will be better, though I don't know exactly how it could have been worse than 2005.

In the new year, I am pretty much changing everything.....EVERYTHING. All of my life will change beginning in a few short days and I will be able to ditch a good portion of my old life. I am so excited for this and so sick of the life I have now that I am ready for what will come next. New people, new places, new experiences, new everything and I am so friggin' ready.

Tonight, I am going to the Costco Christmas party to say goodbye ot all those people for the last time. TPLConjecture is hanging out over here right now and later on, we are probably going to go see Demonator. Spyder is partying downtown and I am sure I will see him before the night is over, actually I have to see him because I have his hard drive. He leaves tomorrow so that will be the last time we see each other for a while. That kind of sucks, but it is all for the better.

As for New Years Resolutions, I am pretty much against them. You should be setting goals for yourself all the time instead of just at the first of the year. Besides, I will have enough stuff to deal with soon that my ideas of what needs to get done in my life is bound to change.

I am not going to do a year in review, if you want to know what all went on, read the archives. I am sick of thinking about all of it. 2005 will go down as an administrative year that was used to set the stage for the next phase of my life, that is the positive spin I am putting on it.

Happy New Year Everyone! Bring on '06, I am ready.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Stress and Bad Moods

I have been having my fair share of this today. I am getting pretty freaking overwhelmed now with all that needs to be done and with not long to do it. Files need to be copied, stuff packed, money stuff done, moving finished....beh.

Anywho, I know I haven't posted in a few days and that is because of the amount of stuff going on. Last night, TPLConjecture had his birthday and we went out for Japanese. That was fun. We had to wait forever for the food but it was good when it came. Today, I am going to get all of my computer stuff done for the most part. Files copied and in the areas they will be for the trip. I will feel better after that. Tomorrow I am going to try to get all fo my papers and things moved from the apartment. Finding spots for all of it at my parents' place has been fun.

I will post more later but I am going to finish now and work on some stuff.

Monday, December 26, 2005

A Good Christmas

Today was a good day. This is one of the better Christmas days I have had in several years and gifts did not make this day memorable. I think for the first time in a long time, I appreciated the day for what it is supposed to be, a day for families to spend time together and actually celebrate the birth of Christ.

I am not a religious guy, I pray and I believe in God but beyond that, not much else. I think churches for the most part get the whole thing wrong and pollute it with politics. But, I was much more appreciative of my family and the greater spirit of the day. It was quite nice and relaxing. My only wish is that I had a kid that I could make Christmas fun for. I think kids really do make Christmas more entertaining and hopefully someday, I will have a munchkin or two that let me watch them open gifts and watch their faces light up as they get what they asked Santa for.

On the gift side, I did not fair too bad myself. I got some much needed luggage and clothes for my trip. I also got a cool marshmallow gun and my brother gave me a Japan travel guide. All in all, not a bad haul.

Oh oh, one other cool thing....I think. Yesterday, as an early Christmas present I got a $6000.00 check from that lady that said she was going to buy my car. Evidently, she is serious about it. On Tuesday, I will cash the check and hopefully, it will clear. If it does, then its a good day.

Anywho, tomorrow should be cool too. I am going to go do some shopping and then I may be going to the movies with all of my family. I like the holdays. The one thought that is really starting to sink in is that the fact that in a week and a day, I will be on a plane and next Christmas most definitely won't be like this one. As much a I liked this Christmas, I'm ready for the change.

Saturday, December 24, 2005

I Still Have A Car

Dammit! The eBay auction ended and the reserve was not meant so, I still have a car.

I am almost to the point of not caring anymore. I am going to have to make another car payment and I am going to have to pay my insurance. After that, my parents will have another month to sell the car before I get to figure out where the money is coming from to make another payment in February. By that time, I will be in Japan so I am just hoping the car sells before then.

Anywho, my cousins came into town today along with Mr. Blue so it is cool that I will be able to se pretty much everyone before I leave....in a week and a half. Oh yeah, I found out today who all is going to be in my training group and that I was actually going to be training in Osaka instead of Nagoya. It should be fun either way. The company is putting me up in a hotel that will probably be nicer than the training apartments I have heard about. And they may have wireless internet! Go nerd Mogwai!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Car Worries

Well, the auction is almost over and the bidding is at $14100.00 for my car. My reserve is at $17000.00 and so now, I am getting a tad worried. I need this thing to sell. If you know anyone that needs a badass car, tell them to bid on it. The link is below:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4597636749

Now that the tasteless plug is out of the way, on to the actual post. As the title suggests, I will be glad when the auction ends. I hope the car sells but if it does not, I am not 100% certain on what to do next. I need to ditch this car in a bad way but I do not want to sell it below what I owe on it. If the auction doesn't work, I think I will end up going to a couple of car lots and see if they can just buy the car off of me for what I owe on it. I don't know how this will fly; I owe about $16600 on it and the blue book is in the low range of $17000, like $17300. I just don't want a car payment while I am in Japan. Anywho, I guess I will have a week to figure that out after Christmas.

If you are wondering about the person that got my hopes up a few days ago, I would say that it was probably a scam, though to what end, I am uncertain. I have not seen a check yet and have not heard back from them. I figured there was something up from the first time I communicated with them and I am all but sure of it now. Oh well, it did not effect the auction in anyway so other than my hopes, no harm done.

My car has just under 17hrs until the auction closes and a lot can happen on the last day. I am crossing my fingers.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

An Empty House

Today, I moved all of my furniture and books I am keeping over to my parents' house. Tonight, I will sleep in my sleeping bag on my couch. It was weird, my mom actually thought I was going to move back in with them until I left. When I told her this was not going to be the case, I think it ticked her off a tad. Thats ok, I want my own space and besides, my schedule does not mesh with the rest of my family's very well. I am a night owl, I go to bed aroun 4am on the average and staying up late means I go to bed somewhere around 7am. My parents get up around 7am.

I just really don't want to inconvenience them, especially with my cousins coming for the holidays. There will be enough people in that house without me. Though, Christmas Eve should be entertaining because everyone is staying at my parents house that night, including me. Good thing I have sleeping pills. My mom said we could stay up late that night a play games as a family for the last time, by late she informed me, she meant midnightish. Yeah, sleeping pills.

Anywho, the whole moving thing is setting in now and I think I am starting to get a handle on what it is I am going to do. I can't wait.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Stir Crazy

So I am pretty sure that if I were permanently unemployed, I would go nuts and kill someone. I hate not really having anything to do or anywhere to be and just sitting around drives me up a wall. TPLConjecture was in town last night and came over to watch movies and that was fun.

I will be glad when all of the stuff gets done with my car which, in theory, has sold to someone in England. We will see, I still remain skeptical.

Anywho, I am bored and nothing of import is really going on for me to talk about. I just wanted to post something to ensure everyone that I am indeed still alive.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

We Have a Winner...More Hopefully Now

As soon as I posted the last entry, I got an email from the person buying my car. I went into a IM session with her and her accountant and in theory, there will be a check for the deposit sent to me by the first part of next week. As soon as the gu in charge of shipping my car gets his part of the money, they will send me a check for the rest of the amount. All in all, this should all be done by the time I leave.

Oh yeah, my car is about to become a British resident. I leave the country and it does too. Funny.

We May Have A Winner...Hopefully

So over the past day I have been in contact with a person who is extremely interested in buying my car for the full amount I am asking. I am hoping all of this works out ok, I think I am paranoid, but something about the whole deal bothers me. I think this is do to the fact that everything has gone so smoothly up to ths point and I am just waiting for something to go wrong and it hasn't yet. And hopefully, it won't. In all actuallity I have no good hard reason to believe this deal won't go off without a hitch.

Its a said day when I can get bugged by things going too well. There is still a part of me that doesn't actually believe I am going to Japan and I am just waiting for the foot to drop on that too. The other day, I went to get my travel insurance and figured it would be a couple hundred dollars. I was way off there, it ended up costing me $21.00. Thats it. As I said, I am just waiting for a grenade to explode in my face and have all of this fall apart.

In other words, trip preparation, financial stuff, car stuff, everything, is going great. Lets hope it stays that way.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Go Car Go

I just finished checking on the auction for my car and the price is now over $7000.00! About ten thousand more and we will be good to go. I have one buyer who seems to think she is going to win the auction and I hope she is right. Get this, she is getting it for her son's wedding present. Lucky guy, gets a freaking cool car and a wife to boot.

Anywho, I am hopeful the car will sell and this is very very good.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Sorting It All Out

As I sit here on my comfy couch, I have my notebook on my lap and another desktop sitting on the coffee table in front of me. It is busily formatting a 400gig hard drive. Phyrry decided that she needed a new hdd for her new system she is building and this 400gigger is the data drive for that system. Why do I have it, you ask? Because Phyrry goes on her big trip tomorrow so Demonator and I are going to use this newfound disk space to do some much needed organizing.

As I have alluded to before, I have more than my fair share of files. I have four external drives that total over a terabyte and I have my 100gig laptop drive on top of all that. The problem is, I have mp3s spread over three drives, comics spread over at least two drives, books and music videos on at least two drives, etc etc. You get the picture. I am not going to tolerate this disorganization any longer. Starting as soon as the drive formats, I am dumping all of my comic book collection onto it and I am sorting it. This will free up somewhere in the neighborhood of 5gigs of space. After the comics comes my other books, documents, and pics. Everytime I format my drives, I make a folder for the old docs. Over the years, I have made a dozen or so folders. They will all be one in a day or two. Lastly, I am going to try to sort out my mp3s. I shudder just thinking about this. If my guesses are even in the ballpark, when it is all finished, that 400gig drive will be full of music. Hopefully, I can sort out some duplicates and do some serious renaming and retagging. I expect this to take up the majority of my time. But when it is done, it will rock and someone will have a complete backup of all of my music.

I am also going to start scanning and making pdfs out of all of my cookbooks. Those who know me, know I like to cook. I have a respectable collection of cookbooks because of this. Since I am not going to pack a hundred or so cookbooks into a suitcase, I will scan them all and put them on a hard drive. Much more space freed up this way.

While I think this will be a daunting task, it will be worth it in the end and much easier to sort through all of my stuff. When I am done, I will post a breakdown of how many of each filetype I have. It should be interesting to break it down that way.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Let The Auction Begin!

I put my car up on eBay just now so we will see how that goes. If you know anyone who needs a kickass little car send them to the link below....please...I need the money. :)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4597636749

Monday, December 12, 2005

I Know Where I Will Live

I got and email this morning from PKC, the people that are sending me to Japan. In the email, they told me the location that I will be living in after my training period in Nagoya. I will live in the city of Fujieda in the Shizuoka prefecture.

I am extremely happy with this placement for three reasons: 1) It is closer to Tokyo than Nagoya is, I am guessing about a twenty-five minute train ride, maybe a tad longer. 2)It is on the Eastern side of Japan, therefore, it doesn't get as cold as other areas. 3)I am almost right in between Nagoya and Tokyo so when I need to go to my company's headquarters I am still close enough to where that won't be a problem and if I want to go play in the BIG city, that won't be a big deal either.

Now, I am starting to get excited.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Unemployment Bliss

It is 4:18pm, I have been awake for 20 minutes now. I love unemployment.

My party went pretty well the other night, not as many people showed up as I expected but for the ones that did, we had fun. It was a nice way to go out.

Yesterday, I hung out with my brother and his girlfriend. We ended up renting Mr. and Mrs. Smith and that was okay. I don't think I would ever buy the film but it wasn't a bad movie to while away an hour and a half.

Tonight is Christmas light and decoration viewing. This is a family tradition that I normally try to skip out on but am willingly going this year. I figure I may as well let my mom have her classic Chistmastime with her two sons and whatnot before I leave and she doesn't get to do it again for a while. My dad really doesn't have much of a problem with me going to Japan, but my mom gets all sentimental sometimes so this is more for her than him.

I need to get going now however, I need to get my car washed and take some more pictures of it so that I can put it on Ebay today. This kind of freaks me out but it isn't selling on its own around here and I need it gone. When it goes up on Ebay, I will post a link to it here. I will miss that car.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Bye Bye Costco

As of an hour and a half ago, I am officially unemployed. Yay!! Now, I have a little bit of down time before the party and then it is a solid two weeks of rest and relaxation. The other cool part to quitting was the fat check they gave me to pay me off my vacation time and some other stuff I had sitting around. This was on top of my normal check. WOOT!

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Hot Tub Meditation

I have been cold all day long; I hate it when I can't shake chills. Though today, I am probably not the only one loathing the frigid temperatures, the high temp for the day was somewhere around 25 degrees and the low was seven. Beh. I don't mind the cold but if it is going to be this way, then it should at least warm up enough to snow. And yes, for all of you warm weather people or other peeps in places where it doesn't snow, it can indeed get to be too cold to snow.

Anywho, after I finished up with my last official closing shift at Costco, I came home, changed into my swim trunks, and headed to Gold's to get into their hot tub. When I get chilled to the bone, the only way I can thaw out is to get into a shower or bath and soak for a long, long time. Gold's Gym was not very busy and I was the only one in the entire pool area. As I sunk down into the hot water, the star aligned and the world was at peace. All was well.

I just lounged in the warmth that enveloped me and pondered the happenings of the next few days and what I have done in the past few weeks and months to get to where I am tonight. Not having thought about the whole scenario too much, I realized that I have been busy lately. Really busy. Between trying to sell my car, worrying about money, taking a mental note of all of my worldly posessions, working, and in general, getting everything in order for my departure, I have not had the time to just sit back and dwell on what I am about to do. This is going to be kind of a big thing. :) A big, fun, very cool, thing.

Tomorrow, I work at 9am. I asked for this shift so that I may say goodbye to all of the morning people that I don't see very often. Work over the past couple of days has been odd, good, but odd just the same. I guess I never put much thought into how my being there has affected my co-workers and now I am getting a glimpse at how much people there appreciate what I do and who I am. My regular customers have all said goodbye to me and have thanked me for how much I have helped them over the years. People I have worked with since my first day are telling me how much they are going to miss me and how work won't be the same. I don't think I have ever felt this appreciated and to be honest, it weirds me out.

One of my best friends at Costco is a guy named Tim. He and I have been in the same department with each other for seven years now and I consider him to be one of a handful of people there that I really like and trust. Tonight, he walked up to me and gave me a card that he had drawn for me and signed. In very Tim fashion, he drew it while on the clock, using valuable company dollars to doodle. Something he does quite often, as do I. He drew a picture of a rising sun with Godzilla and Rodan fighting in the foreground. A very touching scene indeed. :) He and I always tease each other about our doodles so this was very fitting. The thing about tonight that I think struck home for both of us is that it will be the last time that we ever work together again. At the end of the shift, we shook hands and hugged and then parted ways. Of course, it is not like it will be the last time I see him, he is throwing me a going away party tomorrow night.

The going away party will be something as well. People that are not even employees anymore are coming to it to see me off. All in all, this is the way that everyone should be able to leave a job. While I may not have liked it all that much, Costco has been good to me and I have made friends there.

In other news, I have found it to be quite fun running into people I haven't talked to in months, telling them that I am not with Mushi anymore, and then telling them that I am moving to Japan. I ran into a girl that Mushi and I used to hang out with named Anna tonight and when I told her all that had happened, I thought she was going to explode. It was a rather amusing sight to behold. Anywho, I think she and I are going to go out to dinner soon and catch up on everything. She has a new job now too so it will be fun talking to her again.

So that has pretty much been my day. I also got a haircut in between the doctor's office and work so it has added up to yet another full day. I am warm now and feeling very content, I think I am going to call it a night. Sorry this post went pretty long, there have just been a lot of neat things happening that I wanted to mention.

Evil Homer Has Been Stabbed

Twice to be exact! I went to see a nurse today to get some more shots before heading overseas. I snagged a flu, typhoid, hepatitis, and one other shot that I can't remember what it was for. The entire trip was kind of lame because I was expecting her to give me some clever do's and don'ts about travelling in Japan and everything she told me was stuff that I either already knew or could have gotten from a travel guide or the internet.

I guess the shots were a nice thing but if you are planning a trip, relatively healthy, and your shots are up to date, then don't worry about seeing a doctor beforehand for special trip insights. It did me absolutely no good.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Pearl Harbor Day

Add about six hours and then subtract sixty-four years and planes from the country that I will be going to in less than a month were dropping bombs on Hawaii.

Speaking of Japan, I got my work visa yesterday so now I am officially a resident of Japan as long as I am employed there. It is a pretty spiffy looking sticker that they put inside my passport; the thing that fascinates me with all of these documents is the amount of security measures that are printed and embedded into each one. Holograms, tiny text, unique swirl patterns, watermarkings, and soon, RFID tags. Anywho.

Something to think about throughout this December 7th: If it were not for this innocuous, unseeming day some sixty-some-odd years ago, the United States would not have gotten into what came to be WWII as soon as they did. Had this day not happened, the world might have become a very different place than the one that we live in and know today. This is our grandparents' September 11.

Friday, December 02, 2005

One Week Left

Indeed, seven days until I become happily unemployed. I work tomorrow, Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then Friday. Five days of work left! Excellent...most excellent.

But I am not excited or anything. :)

Its Getting Closer

As I type this, I am not sure whether I want to cry, go running, go to sleep, or hit something. I am full of a lot of really weird energy right now that has made me feel really on edge the past couple of days.

Today, I have received three emails from my new employer and that has gotten me all antsy. I think the reason is because A)I am getting really excited to go B)I am getting really creeped out by the fact that I am going to live in a totally different country where they speak a totally different language C)I am starting to think about all of the things that I will miss when I leave and it is making me feel really lonely D)I am starting to get worried about my car not selling and other financial stuff.

I think the loneliness this is what is really bothering me. Mushi called me the other night to tell me an extremely random news event that was happening in the neighborhood we used to live in. Some guy caused a gas leak that caused the neighborhood to be evacuated and then was holding a hostage and refused to come out of his house. Either way, whenever Mushi makes contact with me anymore, it freaks me out for some reason. Actually, "freaks me out" may be a tad harsh, it just unsettles me a tad. I like the fact that she can feel like she can still call me and is comfortable with all of this that we have created for ourselves but at the same time, I don't like getting started into thinking about us again. Whatever.

I guess what unsettles me is not the fact that she calls me but the fact that everytime she does, it holds a mirror up to me going to Japan and I start to question my reasoning for wanting to go. There are tons of really good reasons for me to go to Japan and all but one of them are positive. I would be lying if I said that me just wanting to run away and escape all of this and all of my memories of this city/state/coast did not play into my decision to go to Japan. There is that part of me that gets sick of remembering going to places and doing things with Mushi everytime I drive my car past a landmark or restaurant or building in this town. All of it is connected to memory and I want to make new memories that are not associated with my old life. I want to move on with my life and getting out of Boise, Idaho is the only way I can do that. I wonder if she ever feels like this or gets these weird bursts of memory that come out of nowhere and blindside her for an instant. I don't think she does and that makes me just the slightest bit of jealous. Then again, maybe she does get them too. Then again, why the hell do I even care? At least when I am in Japan, I will have an excuse to feel lonely.

I think I am just being negative because I have slept two hours in as many days and I am starting to get tired and am thinking about things that don't really need to be thought about. I am getting very excited to go to Japan now though. :) I think I will be learning what city I will be living in permanently in the next few days and just the thought of staying somewhere permanent for a solid year with out moving gets me all anxious to go. The fact that I will have a place of my own is icing on the cake. Ok, I think I am starting to feel better now just thinking about this stuff. Sorry I was all negative up above and that this post has been more of a brainstorm than a post. If I were a reader of my blog and I didn't know me, I would get sick of hearing some nerdy guy whine about past relationships all the time. I apologize for that, I just have to get it out sometimes and this is the only place that I really like to do it.

I am going to go to sleep now though. Goodnight all!