2008

January

On the first day of 2008 I had PRK preformed on both of my eyes.  I spent 3 years thinking seriously about having eye surgery.  My decision to have PRK instead of LASIK was made when I searched LASIK on youtube.  One of the first results was a LASIK flap amputation.  No thank you, not for me!  Also when I had gone to the first two consultations at two well known LASIK places in town, both because of recommendations, they both had me feeling like I was at a car lot.  They just did not make me feel good.  I decided to go to the Casey Eye Institute at OHSU.  It cost me $150 just for the consultation, but what a difference!  They totally made me feel comfortable and they were being honest with me and not avoiding answering some of my hard questions.

PRK has a longer recovery time than LASIK, but I was 100% aware of it so it did not concern me much.  All in all, it was a good decision, but I do not recommend it to anyone without them doing a lot of homework first them self.  Don't just listen to the marketing people, and don't assume that everyone has a good experience with eye surgeries.  I am happy to tell people all the details, if they want to listen, but they can be a little graphic.  ;)

February

I left the country for the first time (Canada does not count) in February, I went to Israel.  So many people thought I was crazy for going, they could not get that I wanted to just go.  I still can not sum up my feelings about going in less than 2 hours (sorry for anyone that had to listen to me before I could get it down to 2 hours) so I am not going to drag you though it.  You can take the picture tour.  Summed up, I loved it.

March and April

My search for a new job started picking up the pace.  I got an interview for a company that I would have loved to work for.  Just applying for the job was nerve racking, as I did not want to mess anything up.  Once I got past the first phone interview, it got a little easier.  Once I made it to the in person interviews, I was having so much fun, if I did not get the job I would not have cared, the interviews were fun.  The in person interviews were tough.  They seemed to be asking questions about things that were not on the job description.  When I left, I felt that I had done OK, but not great.  After what seemed like 2 months (in reality it was 2 weeks) I got my rejection phone call.  I still had fun during the process.  Looking back, I would have been a good idea to have had a couple of interviews under my belt before applying for this job, but oh well.

July

After 6+ months of looking, applying, and interviewing for new jobs I finally had a couple of offers.  One offer was for a company in Tigard, making what I was looking for as far as pay was concerned.  The other being in San Antonio, TX making just a little more than I was currently making.  I found out that the place in Tigard was not a good place to work, and the place in SA had an amazing reputation for being a great place to work.  I now had the hardest decision I had ever made in my life to make.  Take the job in SA, move away from everyone and everything I know or wait and see what other offers I could get.

August

I moved to San Antonio, TX in August.  I left Vancouver, with what fit in my car on July 28, I rivaled the Beverly Hillbillies with how funny my car looked.  I took 4 days to drive down.  It was a fun drive.  I wish I would have had a bit more time, and even more so wish I would have had someone with me to enjoy it with.  TX is like a foreign country.  Nothing was normal.  I could not figure out how to get anywhere. I wanted to just start driving back about 2 days after being here.

November

For Thanksgiving this year I went to Houston to visit Linda and David Ling.  I had been in TX 4 months and still had not found time to go over and visit.  They are the only people I knew in the whole state.  It was a fun weekend.  I had been told that Houston was not that great of a place, but I liked it.  It was a bit of a reminder when I got out of the car at how much closer to the ocean they are than SA, the humidity was gross.

December

I went home to Vancouver in December for Jason and Andrea's wedding.  The wedding went off great despite the snow and the 20 degree temperatures.  My plans to see a lot of people were thrown all out with the snow.  I was still able to see many people, and overall I had a great time visiting.  It just gives me more of a reason to come back sooner.

And that was 2008 in a nut shell.  Hello 2009.

Here today, gone tomorrow

So my brother sent me this picture of my deck.

It looked like this less than 4 days ago...

We were going to barbecue something just to say we did, I don't remember why we did not...

My bed is great

So I bought a new bed back in the beginning of November.  After spending a week sleeping on my old bed in Vancouver, never again will I buy a normal bed.  This thing lives up to all that it promises.  

When I got in bed last week, I felt like a was sleeping on a bed made of cotton balls, absolutely no support what so ever.  It really was weird feeling.  I got OK sleep last week, but I was rushing to so many places the first couple of days, that I blame the bad sleep on that. 

Now that I am back sleeping on my new bed, I don't know if I can blame my schedule at all.

10F

I have sat in seat 10F on all 5 of my flights.

Now that I am back in TX I have to remember to keep my oppinion about the place to my self. :)

Less than 24 hours left

Like Cinderella before midnight, I have less than 24 hours before I fly back to SA.  

I have not got to see people I would have liked to have seen.  I did not make it to Seattle to see my friends up there.  We were not able to get to our family Christmas gathering due to the snow, so I have not got to see my grandma, or any of my aunts or uncles.  A few of my friends in the Vancouver area, we just never were able to meet up... oh well I guess.  There is always next time.

Gingerbread house

So I put together my gingerbread house today.



The roof is covered in a mixture of peanut butter chips and cinnamon chips. The walls have some andes mints on them. The front walk is reeses pieces and the timber framing is cinnamon sticks.

I think my niece and nephew will like eating this.

Home covered in snow

So this snow is getting to be a pit of an inconvenience.  Some snow is fun, but I can not remember ever having this much snow for this long.  It normally is melting after a day or two.

This is what my deck looked like on Saturday, about 7".  Tonight it was 10" and going. 

--- Update ---

Woke up to 12" and the end of the ruler.  We tried to upgrade to a 15" ruler, but could only make it 4" in the snow till we hit ice.  So we can now measure up to 23" total.  Lets hope not.

This is my sisters front yard from today.

Jason's friend Mark, who was in from Chicago, was commenting on the way home from the wedding, that it was starting to look like Chicago.

Snow wedding

So Jason and Andrea's wedding went off great.  The snow was not going to stop this day.  The snow only added to the memory of the day.

There flight to Mexico was canceled, but they got another day at the Hilton downtown, and people are doing all they can to get them on a flight.

Home

I am home.  It is nice to be back.  To go to some place you are so familiar with is great.  As we were landing, I could recognise a bunch of places from the air.  When I got off the plane, there was no confusion as to where to go.  As we drove across the river, to my house, I knew all of the roads and exits.  It is great.

My house was bare looking because my brother moved some furniture around for the poker table.  I was told it needed more space than it really did.  Oh well.  I cleaned up and put stuff back this morning and it looks much closer to how I left it.

I could keep going on and on, but I won't.

It is good to be home.

Bachelor party

So Jason's party went well.  Everyone that said they would come, came.  We played poker with a professional poker dealer for 3 hours or so and then some of us went out and got a quick bite to eat.  In the end when we removed the limits, Jason ended up winning the last hand.  No one just gave it up by any means.

My flight coming in to PDX from SFO was delayed almost 2 hours, so they went without me to get there tuxes and then picked me up on there way back.  It worked out well.

I need to remember to never have a connecting flight at SFO aver again.  That airport sucks.  No signs, way too many people.  I had to exit the secure area and walk to another terminal for my flight.  So I had to go through security again.

One flight down

It is true. it is always a sunny day above the clouds. :)

"I'm leaving on a jet plane"

And the rest of the song does not make a bit of sense in this situation, but it makes for a catchy title.

I will be sleeping on the plane most if not all of the flight because I have only got about 5 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours.  Once I land, Jason should be picking me up and we are going to go strait to pick up our tuxes for his wedding.  After that we will be having a bit of fun for the rest of the evening.  Assuming there are no issues with the weather.

I might try posting something from each airport from my phone.  Why, I don't know, it is not like people read this multiple times a day.  Or as if I have been gone for years and this is some sort of momentous occasion worthy of "live" coverage.  Just it might be fun.

I bought the "cheap" tickets about 5 months ago. Some how, it is cheaper for me to have three flights to get me from SA to Portland. If I were to buy them about a week ago, they would have cost me about $150.00 less and would only have one stop, not two.  Oh well.

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Cinnamon chips!?!

Have you ever heard of cinnamon chips?

Well if you have, good for you.

If you have not, join me in my exciting discovery of the day.

So I bought a cinnamon chip muffin today at the grocery store.  I thought it was just a cinnamon muffin with what looked like butterscotch chips on it.  But NO, they are actual cinnamon chips!

Looking in to this this morning, I found that Hershey's makes, or at least use to make them.  The only places I found to buy them was eBay and Amazon.  There is something wrong with buying food that they list the expiration date of 1.2009 in the auction.  Plus they seemed like they were charging an arm and a leg for them.

I found another make of them here.    

Hershey's still has a big list of recipes for uses of there cinnamon chips.  Not like you really need them, as you could just substitute cinnamon chips any where and every where that you would use chocolate chips and instantaneously have a better thing.

Christmas list

So I need to send a Christmas list to my family.  I have been sitting here for 10 minutes and all I have so far is shirts.

I do know that I don't want any gift cards.  I don't want someone to get me one, and by the time that I get around to using it, have the store be out of business.  Plus there is the question on whether or not there would be a store in SA or not.  This issue kind of goes for clothing.  If it does not fit, I will not have any time to exchange it before I have to leave.

I don't really have any needs for stuff.  I am getting what I would like, I am getting to come home for Christmas.

I guess I could ask people to pool there gifts and get me a plane ticket for around March or April. :)

Weather

So as I drove to work today, it was raining and there was a few lightning flashes. Apparently it may turn in to sleet and hail tonight.

Imagine how the news in the NW over reacts to snow, well they do the same with weather around SA.

Apparently the weather was crazy all day. It was 70-75 this morning around 11-12, by 2 it had dropped about 20-25 degrees and the wind started blowing like crazy.

The power went out at the house around 4. I just went back to sleep.

We will see what it does tonight. I don't have to worry about much, I am in doors and have 11 hours before I might go home.

--------Update--------
Well it actually snowed in parts of town. I have not seen it yet, but I bet it will be funny to watch. I have also been told that they don't salt the roads, nor do they sand the roads. They dirt the roads! Ya they put down dirt. It then just turns to mud, and apparently it is very interesting driving.

--------Update-2-----

Yep, there was a little bit of snow on the roofs of the houses in the neighborhood where I live.

T-minus 10 days

Time flys

How come time just seems to fly by at the end of the year?  I know it is because we get so busy. It sure does remove from the good times we should be having. "I need to go do this" "I need to go do that" Well I just want things to slow down. I want to get to enjoy the good times, not just rush to the next thing. Just stop planing the next things, and be freatful for what I get to do now.

I have felt so busy the last two weeks. I know I am missing stuff. Work seems to be taking so much of my time. But I foolishly argue that 'what else do I have to do'. 

I think some of this feeling comes from me liking boring old routines. My routine in the last two week, and for the rest of the year is out the window, so I feel uncomfortable.

On a lighter note, I was in the grocery store the other day and saw a gingerbread house kits.  I have wanted to get one of these for many years, but always remember too late and they sell out. Actually I have always wanted to get a bunch of them and build a BIG house, or maybe a small town. This year, I have asked my sister to get me one, and I plan on making a house one afternoon when I get home.

Keeping my readers happy

So apparently some people were disappointed in me with my post about my Thanksgiving weekend. Sorry, I will do better in the future with keeping my post exciting. ;)

I have been busy this last week and the desire to sleep is greater than the desire to type, so I am going to bed.

Also, it is hard to type with a band aid on your finger. I cut a big chunk of fingernail off today, and when I ripped the dangling chunk off, I started to leak. Don't worry, I checked the dip stick, and I am still running with enough fluids.

Thanksgiving weekend

So this weekend I went to Houston to see Linda and David Ling. The drive there Friday morning was quiet and uneventful. It was cloudy and it rained a few times. It took about 3.5 hours to get there.

That first evening they had already planed on having a second Thanksgiving dinner with there small group. There was maybe 12-14 people. David had cooked a brisket, and there was all the normal side dishes.

The wind was blowing the whole time I was there, but they are close to the cost.

The drive home took a bit longer as there were a lot more people on the road. The East bound traffic going towards Houston was backed up for miles. I was glad I was not going that direction.

This next week I am going up to Dallas for work. I also get to work during the day. This last week and this coming week, I will have seen a good chunk of TX.

T-minus 20 days

Car fixed

Well at least my drive to Austin seems to have been worth it. Had to have a wheel bearing replaced. You never quite realize how loud something has gotten when it slowly starts making noise over time. My car is so much more quiet now, it is unbelievable. With the combination of the type of sound and the volume level, it was like driving a steam locomotive around.

I can now drive to Houston without having to fear that one of the wheels is going to fall off my car.

Car repair

So my car started making a strange sound over the weekend. I have tried finding a place that would take a look at it. Apparently there are only 3 Subaru mechanics in all of SA and they are all backed up with jobs for weeks.

I am going to have to drive to Austin (1.5 hours with traffic each way) tomorrow just to have it looked it. Joy

License plate fail

So my new personalized license plate is...

NKJ 472.

At the tax office, where they issue license plates, I ended up getting the window with the sign "agent in training, please be patient". He could not figure out how to order a personalized license plate. So I just settled for what he could give me. Oh well.

Another friday drive

So I went on another drive today. It did not go completely as planned.

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I came to some roads that were really private roads behind gates. I did not feel like getting shot so I did not try to get around the gates. I just drove back and went around. In the end it was just as long of a drive, and was still fun.

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Here is a picture from the drive. This is what the "Hill Country" looks like.

I think this may be the last drive, as it already starting to look all the same. Maybe I will try one more, going south to see what that looks like.

T-minus 30 days

Most of the big bits of the party to plan are now done. Just have the little details to deal with.

This is a first

Well, for the first time, ever, I have bought a Christmas present more than a week before Christmas. Something to do with having to ship stuff half way across the continental United States has a little to do with it.

No... it's not for you. ;)

One more step closer

So I am one more step closer to having a Texas license and license plate. Today I passed the silly inspection that they make you get once a year. From what I read, it is just a way for the inspection stations to make a killing selling light bulbs for 10x the going rate. If you have a bulb out, and you do not buy the replacement right there, you still have to pay for the inspection, but will also have to pay again when you come back after you have fixed what ever is needed.

Most people would call this a scam. But it is a "service" when it is being ran by the government.


Anyway...


Well the winner of my license place contest....

Gabe's entry of 'JSTVSTN' (just visiting)

Now watch, they won't let me have it I bet.

Someone sucks

San Antonio or Google... one of you two suck.

Again, I had a nice frustrating evening trying to get somewhere in this honorably laid out city.

I wanted a steak for dinner, I have been wanting a steak all week. The good steak places I have been told about were too far away (strike for SA) so I tried looking up some steak places closer. Google maps has been less than reliable for me in SA and again it fails me (strike for Google).

So I decided to just drive and see what I could find. Well every time I have ever tried this method, I end up finding the same 6 or so crappy chain restaurants (strike for SA). On top of that the retarded layout of the roads, mean you are going to miss the turn to the place so you have to go around (strike for SA). Even the parking lots are crappy designs (strike for SA).

After I was done with what I was doing this evening I wanted to find some ice cream. Well just repeat the same frustrating ordeal from above all over.

Now I know that Google changed stuff with there map data about a month and a half ago, and may people are not happy, but I was having bad results from the day I got to this town. I truly hope that Google has not messed the Vancouver/Portland area up as bad as SA is. I have to think that it is just the crappy layout of SA that causes Google to have a hard time providing good results.

If I had hair, I would pull it out.

Getting on the plane to fly back to SA in December is going to be hard.

T-minus 5 weeks

5 weeks and counting.

839 hours 54 minutes
839 hours 53 minutes
839 hours 52 minutes...

Tinkering with the layout

So I was tinkering with the layout a little, I made things a bit wider. If you see any issues, please let me know.

Also Google was nice enough to add a new little feature that allows you to rate each post without having to leave a full comment. Give it a try.

Friday afternoon drive in the country

So with gas prices being so low, I went for a drive today. No reason, just to drive. There are a couple of things about the "country" around SA.

One, there are too many people. I was only able to find one road without a bunch of people on it.

Two, there are power lines running everywhere ruining the view. Yes there is a bit of a view north of town, what is called the hill country. Just too bad you have to see all the little power poles blocking up the scenery. (Insert the Signs song from Five Man Electrical Band here. Actually the road that really is deserving of the song in SA is I-35 going to Austin. Billboard ally)

I still had a good time anyway.

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Highlight of the drive, there was a cow wandering in the road. It was kind of funny watching Texans try to figure out how to catch a cow! I would have figured that they got tough how to do this in elementary school.

My new bed and my back

So I bought my self a new bed when I moved. I had quite a bit of the money left from what I was given for my relocation left so I bought my self a nice bed, I got a Tempur-Pedic.

It has not taken long to get use to, they say to give it about 6 weeks. It is a little on the weird side though. If you are laying on your side, you will make a dent in it. Then if you lay on your back or your stomach, you have to wait for the foam to expand, all the while you are laying half in the dent and half out, other words, not level. It is really not that big of a deal.

I had heard that foam beds like this get hot. I have not experienced this.

At my old job, I had a standing desk. I also got to walk around for a good part of my day. My new job has me sitting for 10 hours. I have asked to get my desk raised, and for what ever reason, I keep getting excuses. Well my back has really started to hurt. I have sent several reminder emails, and am going to go to the doctor if things don't get better soon. I know my problem is that I slouch. I also try to get up and walk around as much as I can.

I don't want to be a pain at my new job, but my pain is starting to bother me.

T-minus 6 weeks

6 weeks from today I will be landing at PDX. I will literally be going strait from the airport to Jason's bachelor party. I won't even be passing go, collecting $200, or even stopping at my house.

I am not really that excited, I have only been privately counting down for about the last 3 months. ;)

I still need to plan a little bit so that I get to see as many people as possible while I am home.

Prayer request

I work with a guy that was on vacation for his first grandchild to be born. We found out today, that his daughter passed away during labor. His grandchild is OK though. Just pray for him and his family. His other daughter is also due in January.

Random thoughts and observations

So I just went to the grocery store. Now unfortunately this was a newly opened grocery store. Why do people flock to the same thing with a new label? It is just the same thing that was across the street last week, just a new building. Nothing more, well except for the 1,000's of extra people that would not normal be there.

While in the store I was looking for oatmeal. I went to the breakfast isle thinking that is where it is in host stores. I did not find my oatmeal, but what I did find is an amazing example of targeted advertising towards kids. Cereal on one side of the isle and candy on the other. Not just a little bit of candy, but the full isle! What ever marketing exec thought this up, I hope you have a lot of money to donate to diabetes research when your own kids get juvenal diabetes.

Another thing, with the buzz word of everything being "Green" why is it that packaging on food keep getting more and more excessive. As I walked through the store, I was seeing things that the packaging has been "improved" on and thought, OK that never use to be that big. The best part, I can almost guarantee you that the amount of the product that you are getting has decreased at the same time. If the "Green" idea was more than just marketing....

Also, to who ever thought the pace of life in TX was going to be too slow for me, well sorry to say that I am about the slowest moving person in this city. The state motto of "Don't mess with Texas" need to get changed to "Get the F@#$ out of my way". It would be much more fitting as there is garbage all over the place. Everyone is in a hurry around here. And the worst part, is because I am not in a hurry, everyone just runs me over and pushed me out of the way. Ever seen the movie Falling Down? I have no plans to ever go that far, but that is how I feel some times.

Water

So one of the first things I noticed about the water in SA is that you can not get cold water out of the tap. The coldest you can get is luke warm. We will see if this changes as the temperature gets colder.

The new place that I am staying has a water softener thingy. So you never feel like you have rinsed all the soap off when you are taking a shower. I am sure this will change once I get use to it.

And overall the taste of the water is gross. It is definitely a two lemon water town.

Moved

So today I moved to the new place that I am renting. I am still just renting a room from a person. It is much cheaper than renting an apartment and having to pay all the utilities your self. Yes it is a little on the weird feeling side to move in to some strangers home, but I got over it the first time and will again.

I decided to move for several reasons. One being the noise level at the last place was to high to get any good sleep during the day. The second was the location. I found my self driving half way across the city to do just about everything. This new place is a bit north of everything, but it should still be good, and it is also in a nice neighborhood. There were some other reasons too. Oh ya, this place is in between both work locations, so as long as this place works out, I should not have to move again when ever I get moved to the castle.

SA is about 26 miles in diameter, and there is no strait path to anything. No mater where you live you have to drive some to get to anything.

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The house icon to the north is the new place.
The house icon to the west is the old place.
The two blue pins are work.
The big blue area is where I find my self going to do anything in SA.

[stupid Google, sometimes the little map does not work, click on the link for the big map and all the stuff above should be there]

No more credit card

So about a year or so ago, I went through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. Getting rid of your credit card is one of the aspects that he teaches, because in reality no one really needs them.

I have not used my credit card for much scene I received it about 10 years ago. I have never paid a penny in interest or fees ever on it.

I thought I had canceled it a while ago, put was just holding on to the card until I came up with a creative way to destroy it, but I guess I never did. So I called them today and canceled it. They tried to offer me some stuff to keep it, but I was like "Hmm No!". Sorry for them.

So if you have any good ideas on how to preform a plasectomy on my card, leave a comment. Something more creative than a blender, or a shredder. Also needs to be legal, because I was thinking some explosives, plastic explosives. :)

Lights

So at my new job, my department sat in the dark. They just kept the lights off. It was dark, not just dim, but dark. That was the first and second shift area. The third shift sat in a different area, and when I moved on to third, they also sat in the dark. I figured that it would be easier to convince 6 people to start turning on the lights more than I would have been to try to convince 30.

Anyway after my first week on third, I started getting everyone to let the lights be kept on. Well after a couple of days, some of the other people started petitioning to keep the lights on as well.

With the lights on, people were finding it easier to not get so tired. Also people started talking. Before no one really talked during the shift. I bet just in general people were working better as well.

We were relocated this week over back in to the area that the first and second shift sit in. As we were moving my manager said that we were going to be keeping the lights on all the time during our shift. :)

If was funny watching the first shift people come in the next morning. Some of them were just complaining up a storm about the lights. Now we only had the lights on above the area that we sat in, and the area that they were in was still in the dark, but just not as dark. But surprisingly many were coming over and making comments about how they wish they could have the lights on during the day as well. Even our VP made a comment about how he liked it.

If I make only one change at my new job, bringing the department into the light won't be too bad.

Attitude check

Thank you to the person that I called and talked to this week, who helped me get my attitude about my job and life back in check. I needed that.

The return of the dumb drivers

So if you have been reading any of this thing, or have talked to me on the phone, you know that I don't have the highest opinion of the drivers here in SA.

What I want to know is anyone else seeing more people driving dumber now that the price of fuel is going down?

By dumber, I mean:
driving faster
racing from stop light to stop light
weaving in and out of traffic
etc.

Dumb drivers will never fully go away, but $4.50/Gal. sure did help.

Spending money

I hate spending money. I just hate the feeling of am I spending too much or not enough. Is what I am buying going to last and will I like it, or will it fall apart in 2 months only to find out that the warranty and return policy was just a scam?

I bought a bed yesterday. It cost a few pennies. I did haggle with the sales guy on the price. He was firm on the fact that he could not give a discount on the actual bed. I made him give me the bed frame and the protective cover thing for free. He also "threw in the delivery" for free as well, but I am sure that was built in to the price of the bed.

Well I guess I am now stuck in SA forever because I have bought a bed. ;) It will at least take a bit more effort to move me back now with the bed, or I will have to try to sell it.

Now I have to go buy sheets.

This is another reason I hate buying things. Once you buy one thing then you have to guy something to go with it. And then something more and more and more......

Drivers are getting to me

This is becoming a problem again for me. I find my self yelling at other drivers as I drive around SA. I have not been this mad at people when driving in a long time.

An adventure to dinner

So today I had nothing at all to do. Well I am sure I had something to do I just did not do anything. I had seen something at work about this Mediterranean festival in Austin. I had not been to Austin yet and Mediterranean food sounded good so I went.

Took 2 hours to drive there with Friday night traffic.

Now people had told me that Austin was about the closest thing I would find to Portland, in TX. And it did have a little bit of the Portland look and feel, but not any feel of history, it seemed too new.

But anyway back to dinner. So it was $5 to get in to the area. I got there at the beginning and there were not a ton of people yet. I wandered around and saw the few booths of trinkets for sale. I then went and bought some food. What a disappointment. The food was just a bunch of generic stuff. The pita that I got, not even a full pita just half, was hard. It would not even bend without cracking. The hummus tasted like it came out of a can. The kabob was OK, but nothing to write about.

I then went and sat near the stage where the band was still setting up. They would play half of a song and then have to stop be cause of some issue. I listened for a bit, but got tired and left.

5 hours, half a tank of gas, and mediocre food. Has to be the most expensive meal yet in TX.

Gas prices

So I just got my self gas at 2.84/Gal.

Less than $40 for a full tank. I don't remember the last time I was able to do that.

Moving... again

Well I have decided to find a new place to live in SA. The place that I found when I first got down here was on the West side of town. With only being in the city for 3 days when I picked it, I did not know where I would be spending a lot of my time.

The new place that I will be renting is more central to the city. I will still have to drive a bunch, but just not as long of a drive.

So if you have my mailing address, you might want to call or email me first before you send anything.

Week nine

This week during my runs around the block, I have been seeing people decorate there houses for Halloween. I have never seen people decorate this much for Halloween. Not the outside at least. Someone asked me if Halloween was a pranking holiday around here. I did not know what they meant, but apparently some parts of the country have lots of pranks happen on or around Halloween. I asked someone from here, and apparently it is a mix of prank/party holiday.

This Saturday I helped out at a rest stop for the MS150 bike ride. Rackspace had a team riding in it. It was a lot of fun. I put ice in peoples water bottles and kept the water coolers full of water and Poweraid.

There were people and bikes of every shape and size. Big people and little people. Road bikes to funny looking foldable bikes and everything in between. Good times by all.

Ten year high school reunion

So last weekend was my ten year high school reunion. I could not go because of my new job and the need to save my time off for December. From the people that I have talked to, it was fun. I have seen some pictures from it. Some people looked exactly the same, some looked a little different, some I could recognize the face, but not recall their name, and some I just did not remember. I would hope that the people that I did not remember were spouses.

Oh well, next time.

Worth its own post

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemailtwohundred.html

Week eight

Working nights has been going well so far. No major issues. I have been making sure I get a little extra sleep overall so that I am not tired a bunch. It seems to be working.

This week I have got the urge to go to Israel again. I have talked to several people about my trip this week and have went back and looked at my pictures. Also my interest in learning Hebrew is back.

Directionally challenged

So I got lost in a park today. It was at least a big park.

Today I decided to go for my walk/run somewhere other than the neighborhood. I found a park in the city that had a 6 mile loop and thought that was good.

11 miles later I found my car.

There were no signs at all in the park. There were some posts where signs had once been, but the sign thief's took them.

I can't blame getting lost on much, considering I have been getting lost for as long as I can remember.

I needed the compass that Miller gave me, that he found in a CrackerJack box. :|

Week seven

So this was my first week working the shift that I signed up for with my new job. It was not that bad overall. The first two night were OK, there were enough things going on to keep somewhat busy. The third night was slow, so it drug on and on. It was a long night and I was ready for some sleep when I got home. The last night was semi slow, but I found some other things to keep me busy.

This first weekend, I am planing on just keeping with staying up all night and sleeping during the day. So I thought there was nothing to do in this town during the day. Well I have confirmed that there is still nothing to do during the night. If I wanted to go to a bar, or something like that I would be covered.

Since it has been cooling down a little bit, the bugs and birds have come out. Last week when driving on the freeway going downtown to hang out with Levi, there were so many butterfly/moths flying around, it looked like it was snowing brown snow. At least it was not yellow. ;)

Keep the license plate ideas coming.

First 'day' on nights

Well yesterday, no wait, yesterday and part of today, was my first day working nights. It went well. The place has a pace faster than a snail, but not where near as fast as the day. It was not boring and I did get a lot done.

This evening when I woke up, I had a sore throat, and was a little tired, but I got up about 5 minutes before my alarm. When ever I can wake up just before my alarm, it is a good thing.

Sleeping

So I am trying to go to sleep before my first 'day' on 3rd shift. But
outside my window is 3 recycling trucks idling and their drivers are
just chatting away. I am guessing they are on their lunch. I hope they
are on their lunch.

I am sure I will find the humor in this soon enough.

Guess I will read some more before I go too sleep.

Week six

So Levi was in town this week and I got to hang out with him in the evenings and most of today. We wandered the city and saw a lot of the touristy things, like the Alamo and the River Walk. It was nice to have someone to do things with.

All week we kept waiting to see someone fall in the river. Even today we saw a guy stumble down a set of stairs, and we thought for sure this guy would fall in, so we followed him. He lacked much of any scene of balance, but still did not fall in. We asked the waiter at lunch how many people fall in, and were told "oh daily" that some just fall and others jump.

Today we were looking for a book store so Levi could get another book just in case any of his flights got delayed because of the hurricane. We went to the big, think 5 stories, mall downtown. Guess what, there was not a single book store in the mall. So we asked some people where a bookstore was. We kept getting blanks stairs back from them. We then consulted the Google and got directions to a Barns & Noble. Well like all directions in SA, they did not get us to the place. It drove us to a dead end of a neighborhood.

At this point we are thinking that the state of TX must not know how to read. But we consulted Google once more, this time looking outside of the downtown area, and found one just north of town. We called first and made sure they really existed and verified the address. In SA driving direction style, we still got lost, but finally found it. And look at that, there are three bookstores right next to one another. They must have all got scared and huddled together for protection from the citizens. We asked the guy in the first one, if there was more than a dozen bookstores in SA. His response, "Not that he was aware of". Amazing, just amazing.

The wind has been blowing more today because of hurricane Ike. SA has been out of the path for a couple of days, but Houston and Galveston are his target. They are still expecting SA to get some rain and some wind, just not much.

So I am now officially on 3rd shift. I will be spending the weekend trying to get my body to sleep during the day and stay up at night. So tonight I will be staying up watching Ike and trying to keep my self distracted. So if you were going to call me, don't for the next week or two. Just send me an email and I will call you.

I am still working on running. I kind of took most of this week off because of Levi, but I still went out on Tuesday after work. Working 3rd is going to make this interesting, but I am going to keep with it.

I also donated blood today. Still could not watch the needle go in. They did it in one of the big conference rooms at work, and they had a movie playing. Sure made the time fly.

Well that all folks.

My first huricane... maybe

Update: 6-10-08 10:45pm CDT
As of tonight the current predictions have it now missing San Antonio. There is still 2 more days for it to change its mind.
- - - - - - - - - -
So hurricane Ike is looking more and more like it is going to go over, or at least near San Antonio. But everything is showing by the time it makes it this far inland, it will only be a tropical storm.

The best site that I have found is this.

http://www.stormpulse.com

But don't be fooled, this is the weather we are talking about.

License plate

So what should I get put on my license plate?

Several of the things that I wanted are not available, so I though I would ask you.

Leave a comment with your ideas and I will see if they are available and if I like it I may pick it. Six letters.

I figure that I have at least another month before I get around to getting this taken care of, so you have plenty of time to leave ideas.

I have also been thinking about going the route of not getting any plate or changing my license, and if I get pulled over and questioned, I would just tell the officer that I did not plan on staying long enough to justify getting one. :)

Week five

End of another week. This week was fun. I got to actually work. I got some planed stuff that was assigned to me done, and I got a couple of things that I took on my self done. I only had a three day week this week due to changing to a 4x10 schedule and Labor Day being on Monday. I actually thought about going in on Friday because it was a fun week. But I though, why ruin a good thing.

Next week, Levi is going to be in town. My first visitor! OK well he is getting sent to San Antonio by his new job for training. (I worked with Levi at Nautilus. We shared the same last day.) It will be nice to get to eat with someone that is not on the other end of a phone.

On Wednesday, the church that I have been going to for the last several weeks had sort of a game night. I had been wondering why they did not do more during the week, not just this church, but most of the churches that I have visited. Well it's because of traffic. Most people seem to have about an hour long commute in the evening. Some people did show up, bout 15 or so. It was cool to meet more people and just talk. I ended up playing a game of Mexican train dominoes. Towards the end I was talking to one of the guys and we got on the subject of the complete lack of indoor climbing gyms in the city. He too is just as surprised as I am that the seventh largest city in the US does not have a single one.

I talked to Jason for a few minutes yesterday, it was good to hear that things are coming along well with there wedding plans.

It is getting dark early now. The sun is almost down by 8:00pm. Once I change to nights, I will only get to see the sun for a couple of hours in the morning before I go to bed. That is going to get old quick I fear.

Why I am having issues getting around in TX

So I just figured out one of the major reasons I keep getting lost when trying to find a place that I have a map and directions to.

This is going to come as a shock to any of you that know me, so let me just say it... Google Maps is wrong.

OK, well to be more accurate, NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas two of the major sources of road data have a bunch of contradicting data. NAVTEQ data is used when you got to maps.google.com and are looking at things in San Antonio. Well what first clued me in to this is that there were two, yes two exit 566A going East on I-10. They are about 1/4 mile apart. You can understand how this could cause some confusion!

So as I was trying to figure this out, I came across the same place on the map that was using Tele Atlas data. (still on Google Maps) The issue gets even weirder, as there is not a off ramp for the first exit, but a on ramp!

My brain is all confused.

So I was thinking that maybe this is part of I-10 that has a 'upper' section and a 'lower' section. Yet more confusion. But I looked and the upper/lower debacle does not start till further East. Oh, BTW, if you start looking at this and wonder why I say I-10 East/West and not North/South (like the real true direction that you travel on it through SA) is because I-10 runs East/West through all of TX, just it goes North/South through SA.

At this point there seems to only be one conclusion. TXDot is messed in the head. With all of the crazy road designs that they use and the constant construction (if you can call it construction. It is not much more than lane closure and crap strung out all over the place, just never any one working on it and no progress. sorry) going on, no map data company can keep up.

Overall, getting useful search results from Google Maps is much more difficult in SA than in Vancouver/Portland.

So Google, I am not mad at you, just frustrated with something that is out of your control.

I was going to include pictures and diagrams to help explain this, I think that would have taken the geek factor of this post too far.

I am going to "try" to go to lunch now. I hope I don't get lost.

Fish on...

I think people have been putting the silver little ixthus fish symbol on the wrong part of their cars.

So you most often see the little guy on the back of a car when you are getting cut off by the driver as they speed off to what ever it was they are off to.  I think they should be sticking them on the steering wheel.  This might hopefully remind them that it is there for.  I was originally thinking they should put him on their rear view mirror, but I don't think they will look at it enough.

But serious.  So the symbol is to signify that the driver is a Christian.  (Not the original meaning of the symbol, I know) But because they put it on the back of there car, I don't think they see it enough to have it remind them.  If it was on their steering wheel, they hopefully would remember what it represents and then remind them how we should act towards others.  

If it reminded more people, and they in turn started driving nicer, this would go more towards showing God's love to others than just displaying it out back for people to see as they speed off.  Also if people were nicer to one another on the read, that would help reduce the stress of driving, and hopefully more people would then drive nicer as well.  Nice little snow ball.

And now the flip side.  So who am I to judge people on how they are driving?  I don't think that I am judging them any more than we all should be questioning the motives of other believers.

One Month In TX

Well, today is not only Labor Day, but it is also the start of my second month in San Antonio.

I don't really have much to tell. I have been bored for the last two weeks, so I have not done much. I can say that I think this has been the longest feeling month in quite a long time. I just seemed to drag on and on. It feels like I left Washington 3 months ago and is time to go back and visit.

The guy that I am renting a room from is in Hawaii this week, so I have the house to my self. I would still like to find a place by my self someday, but for now my living situation will just have to work.

I have started running again. I think it has been 5 months sense I was running on a routine basis. The gym at work is all torn up because of the transition to the new building, so I have been just running outside. Well I guess I should clarify, I have been running several blocks and walking many more blocks. One, I am out of shape and two, it is hard to run with it being this hot and humid.

The temp was about 100 today. It has not been that hot in a couple of weeks. Maybe in the 85-90 range. The Humidity has not been too bad this last week. There has been little rain. There may be rain on the way from bits of what is left of hurricane Gustav, but don't think much.

Another good thing about working the grave yard shift, there will not be any restaurants worth eating at open that late, so it will force me to start taking my lunch to work with me again. Eating better and saving money, both good.

Not much going on

Well this week is almost over. Not much to write about so far. I have been training more. But at least this week they have started letting me do things, not just watch. I have next Monday off for Labor day, then starting that week the other shifts, 1st and 2nd, are starting 4 10's. So I will be getting a couple of Fridays off before moving to the 3rd shift. I am getting told that once on 3rd, I will have one more week of job shadowing, then I get tossed in the pool to play. :) I am thinking that that week will be spent getting use to the time change more than anything.

The traffic going to and from work is starting to get old. My commute is about 15 miles each way, but it can take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes in the morning. On the way home, it has taken me 80 minutes one day. This will be one thing that I will not miss when working 3rd shift. Not much traffic at 9pm.

I have been noticing something interesting about some drivers in TX, more specifically their cars. There are some drivers that are ether using there parking brake to slow and stop, or they have disables their brake light switch. I don't see any other way that you can slow a car to a complete stop quickly without doing ether of the two things listed. Neat way to avoid calling attention to your self if you blow past a cop and need to slow down. Maybe just all of the light bulbs are just burnt out. Ya right.

Banks and big buildings

So Dave Ramsey brought up the point that only banks could afford to build big buildings. I have noticed that all of the big buildings have ether a banks name or an insurance name on it. I have seen several buildings with Chases name on it. Guess who owns my mortgage. You guessed it, Chase. I am glad I am helping them buy buildings. Slave to the lender, yes I am. :(

But on a brighter note, I am off to get ice cream.

Week three

Getting a new job is fun.
Moving is fun, in a strange sort of fun way.
Getting a new job and moving at the same time is even more fun in a strange sort of way.

You have so much stuff to do, that you don’t really have time to have fun, but you are having fun not getting to having fun…

So today I got a big envelope with some mail from Vancouver. I also got a new debit card, a bunch of stuff on my car insurance, my life insurance, my dental insurance, stuff about my new 401k and my old 401k. I have mail all over the place.

My new debit card is because I somehow crack my card in half about every 6 to 9 months. It started to crack 3 days before I left to drive down here. Not so good timing. I have been babying it until I got the new one. I also have to learn a new PIN for it because my bank is not around here to get it re-PINed. I wish I could get a debit card made out of steel. It would be a little heavy, but I but it would last longer.

I then got all the stuff for transferring my auto insurance to TX. They messed the address up and they un-enrolled me from my automatic payment, which they said they would not do. Now I have to call them on Monday. On my life insurance, they changed the address to the house address that I am staying at. First, I never wanted them to touch the life insurance part, only the auto, and I told them to never send any thing to the house address, only the mail box that I am renting. I fear that they have somehow messed up my home owners insurance as well. At lest the dental insurance stuff is only the new card and I don’t have to do anything with it.

I also got about a pound of info from both my Nautilus 401k and stuff to look at about my new 401k. I really wish I could trust the financial adviser guys out there so that I did not have to spend a bunch of time looking this stuff over. I have contacted one of the people that Dave Ramsey recommended, but I still am leery of people in this profession. It also does not help that some people have the “southern hospitality” turned on a little too thick for a cynic like me. It is only my retirement at stake!

Other fun things to do when you move, get your new license and license plates. Well maybe if they had the DMV and all the other places they make you go to open on the weekend! I am going to be lucky if I get this done this year, with all the stuff they make you do.

While I am close to the subject of cars, I am going to give you a sneak peek at my observations of Texan drivers. I will bore you with a full post about this some other time, but for now I can sum them up with this: bi-polar lemmings!

And the best part about moving, getting to miss my nieces 3rd birthday. Getting to miss all my friends. Getting to miss all my family.

Ya moving is fun…

Rain

So it has been raining for the last couple of days in San Antonio. I saw several people that I work with have the rain radar loop on one of there monitors. I asked one of them why he was watching it, and his answer was that he never gets to see rain. It always falls while he is at work (no windows) or at home while he is sleeping. He enjoys seeing rain because they don't get it that often.

Now according to Wikipedia, San Antonio gets about the same amount of rain fall per year as the Portland area. 30.3" vs. 36.3". They just get it dumped on them, buckets full at a time. I graphed it and it is just a spread out as Portland, just different times of the year.

Church shopping

On Saturday evening I went to the Bandera Road Community Church. It is a bit on the large side. But like every church I have been to so far in San Antonio, the only people that have said hello to me have been the greeters as they hand me the bulletin. Overall I liked the service. There was a good message, and I just got an overall good feeling about the place. So when the service let out, there was somewhat of a crowd of people leaving, so I just stayed put in my seat. I was sitting in an area that allowed for me to see many of the people, and they could all see me, but still no one came over to introduce them self. Once the majority of the crowd had left the sanctuary, I got up and went out in to the foyer. I wandered around for a few minutes and still no one talked to me. So I went out to my car and went home.

This morning, I went to The Church at Stone Oak. This is a church that Paul, the guy that was the relocater at my new job, goes to. I got there just a few minutes early. The place is not that big. A little smaller than Liberty. I picked a seat in the back, and almost immediately a guy came up and introduced him self. We talked for a few minutes. Then another person came over and introduced him self. All in all about 6 guys introduced them self to me before the service even began. The service was good. The church has an intern for the summer and it was his first time preaching in front of the church. He did a great job. After the service I went to say hi to Paul (he plays the bass in the band) and he introduced me to a few other people and then asked if I would like to go to lunch.

We went to lunch and the lead pastor happened to go to the same restaurant. While he was waiting for his food he sat with us and talked. Turns out that about half of the staff and congregation is from the Northwest. No good reason why, it is just the way things have gone for them. I think they may be adding another to their list. The only issue is they only have one service right now at 10am. This may be tough to do once I go on to the 3rd shift. But I think for now I will see how things go.

I was hoping to find a church with a group of people my age. This place has a lot of younger married with kids. The church definitely has something happening in it. I think I will stick around a bit and see what I can do to help.

Test from my phone

The best carrot cake in the world. He even has a smile on his face.

First strange bug in Texas

Here is the first strange bug I have seen in Texas. He was just out for a walk across the wall.

It is not even that strange. Come on Texas, show me what you got. Actual don't.

Finding a church

So I have been looking for a church since I found a place to stay in San Antonio. I was not having much luck and have been asking people for suggestions, as I have never had to look for a church before.

Well I was on the phone talking with Jason about this as I was driving to dinner last week. Well as I was eating my dinner I watched a lady and what looked like her son pray over their food. I was thinking to my self that I can not remember seeing a single person pray over their food since I got in to this town. Maybe I should go ask them where they go to church.

After a couple txt's back and forth with Jason about what I just saw and was thinking, I had finished my dinner and had paid and was getting ready to get up and ask them when I looked and her son had left the table. I was thinking that this was going to make this whole thing even more uncomfortable with it only being her at the table. But I got up and went over there any way.

I apologized for interrupting her dinner and I explained that I had just moved to Texas from Washington and what I had seen and was wondering where she went to church. She told me that her husband was a pastor at a church on the east side of town. I got the name from her and then her son came back to the table. She told her son what I had just told her and he asked me where I was living. I told him and he said that if he lived on this side of town he would go to another church.

So I ended up with the name of two different churches that night and another example of how God speaks loud and clear when we listen.

I have gone to one of the churches and am still going to try the other one and a couple more to see what is around.

Here is a map of some of the churches I have went to and plan on going to.

Pictures from my drive to Texas

Here are some pictures from my drive to Texas. I sort of forgot to stop and take a bunch, but here are the ones that I did take.

http://picasaweb.google.com/whiteradam/DriveToTX

Here are a couple of the good ones.

Second week in San Antonio

Well I have been in San Antonio for 16 days now. So far I have not found the heat that big of a deal. The humidity on the other hand is gross. I am glad I am not in a place with real high humidity. It is the worst in the morning before it warms up (because 75 degrees at 7am is normal?!). Once it gets up to temp the relative humidity drops and it does not feel so bad.

I just finished the new employee orientation at my new job. They run it for a total of a full week. The first Monday, then once a month all the new hires go through a continuation of the orientation. I have never worked at a place that in your first week you would meet and talk with the CEO, the chairman of the board, and the two founders. That was just the beginning. You also get to meet many of the upper management. Now when I say you get the meet them, I don't just mean you get to shake there hand and they rush off to do something else, making you feel like you mean nothing to them. They actually have a conversation with you. All of them went over their allotted time on the training schedule. They honestly and truly wanted to spend time with you and get to know you and get you to know them and the company. It was very cool.

There were 50 other new hires in the orientation with me. They had us broken up in to 6 groups so we could get to know people a little better. I got to know my group pretty will. Throughout the week there were little competitions to earn points. In the end my group got second. The competitions meant nothing, they were just for fun. There is a lot of fun that goes on here. Don't get me wrong though, there is a lot of work that gets done too. The company would not be around otherwise.

Next week I start my actual job training. From what I can tell so far I will be shadowing other engineers for a while and working my way through a training checklist.

My commute to work is a little long. On a good day so far it takes me about 30 minutes. The worst day has been 50 minutes. I am taking the most direct route so far. I have been a little afraid to start finding some short cuts to get around, in fear that I will get lost or find out that they are long cuts.

So I got my cell phone bill today. I used 898 of my 900 minutes. Not bad. Take that overage charges! :)

898 normal minutes
748 IN minutes
448 weekend minutes
--------
2094 minutes talked last month! I spent almost a day and a half on the phone. This is about 100% more than I normally talk. All of this on top of 883 txt messages.

First post

OK, I was inspired today by Katie and her blog. I thought, this could save me a bunch of time not having to telling the same stories over and over again to different people when they ask what have been happening. So lets see how long I keep this up before I get bored with it and stop.