Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Tuesday is the new Monday
Current Status: zzzz....
Current Location: in the air conditioning.
This weekend was nasty. Hot and humid and we don't have the AC funtioning properly yet. I think it may be out of freon or something... not really all that sure, just that it took about 3 hours to get the house cooled 5 degrees yesterday from 87 to 82. My apartment would take about 3o min to do that, and while it was smaller, the system should have been scaled appropriately to at least cool the house reasonable quickly. At least it helped drop the humidity down.
We have a beautiful honeysuckle bush growing right up agains the outdoor box, so I had to trim some of that back, but I left most of it there for the shade. Every little bit helps... I need to get around to buying a wheelbarrow and hose so I can get a couple of bushes to plant out front. I also need to get those couple of blubs into the ground. They will need watering too, and it would not be fun to do it with a bucket.
Current Location: in the air conditioning.
This weekend was nasty. Hot and humid and we don't have the AC funtioning properly yet. I think it may be out of freon or something... not really all that sure, just that it took about 3 hours to get the house cooled 5 degrees yesterday from 87 to 82. My apartment would take about 3o min to do that, and while it was smaller, the system should have been scaled appropriately to at least cool the house reasonable quickly. At least it helped drop the humidity down.
We have a beautiful honeysuckle bush growing right up agains the outdoor box, so I had to trim some of that back, but I left most of it there for the shade. Every little bit helps... I need to get around to buying a wheelbarrow and hose so I can get a couple of bushes to plant out front. I also need to get those couple of blubs into the ground. They will need watering too, and it would not be fun to do it with a bucket.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Updates on my life
I promised, so here it is.
Work: I have been working almost 11 months now, still like it, still learning. For those that don't know, I am working for an engine manufacturer doing applied controls. That translates to doing 'tuning' on things like Cruise Control and testing that things work the way they are supposed to. For example, one wants cruise control to hold a pretty steady speed instead of oscillating at +/- 3 or 4 mph like my old Honda. Stupid car.
Anyway. My group is pretty cool, there is a lot of joking around and silly stuff. I was going out of town and trying to reset my voicemail to reflect that, and one of my coworkers kept throwing in-shell peanuts at me resulting in my voicemail briefly saying the generic "This is name with company... I hate you all." We do group lunches a couple times a month and generally have a good time.
Love: My first day at work I got invited to a party and met a guy named Alex. I thought he was cute, and he was wearing one of those Order of the Engineer rings, so I walked up and gave him the finger. The pinky finger to be precise. I thought I was being funny, but I had been drinking, so who knows if I was at that point. Anyway, he must have been thinking the same thing since we started talking. Turns out he is also a Rose grad, 2 years ahead of me although he is 3 years older since he did a year long co-op, also studied Japanese, also did the study abroad program (the year before I did), and we have a ton of friends in common. I spent a lot of time at his fraternity house my freshman and sophomore years, and have no idea how we did not meet on the campus of 1600 students...
We started hanging out since I was doing my typical 'I am making dinner tonight and having people over, you want in on it?' thing and did lunch a couple times. 2 weeks later, he was supposed to go up to Detroit, was kinda looking for an excuse not to go, and I was going up to Mel's lake house and talked him in to going with me. We end up squished into the back of the speedboat, somehow his arm was around my shoulders, I did not mind, and when we had more space, we did not take it. We ended up sleeping in the same bed (not sex - there is no sex at the lake house, and I don't do that before the first date). We went out to dinner the next night at Johnny Carino's, sat on the same side of the booth, and that was pretty much it. I think I officially became his girlfriend in the middle of August, but for accounting purposes, we use July 16th.
We just hit 10 months and are co-parenting 2 cats, a 1 year old named Coconut who was a foster for about 8 hours before adopting Alex and the new kitty Greebo who is 3 months old and a snot. Too cute.
Life: Is good. I just moved out of my super sweet apartment (I gave the keys back yesterday) and have been working on settling into the house. Oh, I guess I should mention that I bought a house with Alex. We have almost 1500 square feet on about 1/4 acre on a corner lot. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath with cathedral ceilings, gas fireplace, gas stove, deck and generally nice space. We have painted the kitchen this awesome, cheerful, sunflower yellow, and the living room is a nice, subdued blue. Since we have an open floor plan, the dining room ends up in the corner between them and so is half and half. We have picked out the colors for most of the rest of the house, but have not done much of that painting yet. We will get there. What is done looks great, but the weather is so nice, and the time is right to be outside planting. Since the house was a rental for 3 years before going onto the market, the landscaping is a bit neglected, and very overgrown. I have been suckering several of my friends into helping rip out shrubbery in exchange for food or beer, so it is starting to look better.
Alex and I took a week off in December to go on vacation in Mexico. I highly recommend Cabo :-) We did the all inclusive thing, and it was great. The weather was fantastic: warm but not hot, not too humid, and the ocean is beautiful out there. We had a great time. You can get pics here.
Friends: Been making a lot of friends down here. I knew a couple of people when I moved out here so I never had that awkward phase of not knowing anyone. I have since expanded and shifted my primary circle, meeting new people, introducing them to my friends and things. Current group is usually Alex, my friend Joe who works as a technician, Steve who started here back in January, Kha who is Vietnamese and teaching me to cook some of the dishes he grew up with, and Tara who lives up in Greenwood, but sometimes sticks around to hang out. I see Mel every couple of weeks and she is finally dating someone again. He is nice. I give him a 2-thumbs-up.
Anything else...? If I forgot something, leave me a comment.
Work: I have been working almost 11 months now, still like it, still learning. For those that don't know, I am working for an engine manufacturer doing applied controls. That translates to doing 'tuning' on things like Cruise Control and testing that things work the way they are supposed to. For example, one wants cruise control to hold a pretty steady speed instead of oscillating at +/- 3 or 4 mph like my old Honda. Stupid car.
Anyway. My group is pretty cool, there is a lot of joking around and silly stuff. I was going out of town and trying to reset my voicemail to reflect that, and one of my coworkers kept throwing in-shell peanuts at me resulting in my voicemail briefly saying the generic "This is name with company... I hate you all." We do group lunches a couple times a month and generally have a good time.
Love: My first day at work I got invited to a party and met a guy named Alex. I thought he was cute, and he was wearing one of those Order of the Engineer rings, so I walked up and gave him the finger. The pinky finger to be precise. I thought I was being funny, but I had been drinking, so who knows if I was at that point. Anyway, he must have been thinking the same thing since we started talking. Turns out he is also a Rose grad, 2 years ahead of me although he is 3 years older since he did a year long co-op, also studied Japanese, also did the study abroad program (the year before I did), and we have a ton of friends in common. I spent a lot of time at his fraternity house my freshman and sophomore years, and have no idea how we did not meet on the campus of 1600 students...
We started hanging out since I was doing my typical 'I am making dinner tonight and having people over, you want in on it?' thing and did lunch a couple times. 2 weeks later, he was supposed to go up to Detroit, was kinda looking for an excuse not to go, and I was going up to Mel's lake house and talked him in to going with me. We end up squished into the back of the speedboat, somehow his arm was around my shoulders, I did not mind, and when we had more space, we did not take it. We ended up sleeping in the same bed (not sex - there is no sex at the lake house, and I don't do that before the first date). We went out to dinner the next night at Johnny Carino's, sat on the same side of the booth, and that was pretty much it. I think I officially became his girlfriend in the middle of August, but for accounting purposes, we use July 16th.
We just hit 10 months and are co-parenting 2 cats, a 1 year old named Coconut who was a foster for about 8 hours before adopting Alex and the new kitty Greebo who is 3 months old and a snot. Too cute.
Life: Is good. I just moved out of my super sweet apartment (I gave the keys back yesterday) and have been working on settling into the house. Oh, I guess I should mention that I bought a house with Alex. We have almost 1500 square feet on about 1/4 acre on a corner lot. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath with cathedral ceilings, gas fireplace, gas stove, deck and generally nice space. We have painted the kitchen this awesome, cheerful, sunflower yellow, and the living room is a nice, subdued blue. Since we have an open floor plan, the dining room ends up in the corner between them and so is half and half. We have picked out the colors for most of the rest of the house, but have not done much of that painting yet. We will get there. What is done looks great, but the weather is so nice, and the time is right to be outside planting. Since the house was a rental for 3 years before going onto the market, the landscaping is a bit neglected, and very overgrown. I have been suckering several of my friends into helping rip out shrubbery in exchange for food or beer, so it is starting to look better.
Alex and I took a week off in December to go on vacation in Mexico. I highly recommend Cabo :-) We did the all inclusive thing, and it was great. The weather was fantastic: warm but not hot, not too humid, and the ocean is beautiful out there. We had a great time. You can get pics here.
Friends: Been making a lot of friends down here. I knew a couple of people when I moved out here so I never had that awkward phase of not knowing anyone. I have since expanded and shifted my primary circle, meeting new people, introducing them to my friends and things. Current group is usually Alex, my friend Joe who works as a technician, Steve who started here back in January, Kha who is Vietnamese and teaching me to cook some of the dishes he grew up with, and Tara who lives up in Greenwood, but sometimes sticks around to hang out. I see Mel every couple of weeks and she is finally dating someone again. He is nice. I give him a 2-thumbs-up.
Anything else...? If I forgot something, leave me a comment.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Hey all who still read this!
Found my password and username, finally! Updates to be soonish.
Found my password and username, finally! Updates to be soonish.
