Monday, April 30, 2007
Last night my brother in law's brother (is there a term for that?) who is originally from Oregon told me that I am the only true nonconformist he has ever met and contrasted me to all of the people who claim to be nonconformists but really just conform to an alternate group. I thought that was quite a cool compliment.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
R.I.P. Slate
Wow, two R.I.P. posts in a row. Aren't we jolly lately?
This time, the journeyer was a little closer to me. It was my gerbil Slate, the most playful of the whole bunch. He was they grey male from the second litter. I found him lying on the floor of his house, rigor mortis not even set in yet, but the breath from his body and the light in his eyes both gone. There were no signs of injury to implicate the cat or the other gerbils. He will be missed.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Well, arguments with my mother over this living situation are growing more frequent and I'm starting to wonder how much longer it can last. The problem is, however, that I had a very narrow (i.e. a few weeks long) window in which I could have done a real move. That window is long past and I can't afford to move now even if I did have a job waiting for me, especially now that work has cut my hours down to 20 hours/week. Problem is that only some of the problems I'm having here have to do with living with family. A number of them would be problems no matter who I lived with. I'm used to and much prefer living by myself where these things are not a problem. My mom claimed that by moving here I'd have fewer worries and so would be able to concentrate more on the whole moving on with my life thing. Dear god! I have so many more things to worry about here than I did there, it's fucking ridiculous. I should have just stayed in Athens.
Taxes are due in 4 days, I'm going to owe about $1600, and my February work check has still not arrived. Without it I can't even pay my fucking taxes. Did they send it to the Athens address and it get lost in the forwarding? Did it get here and someone who picked up the mail lost it around the house? Is it still en route? Who knows! If it doesn't come in time then this will be the third time this job has caused me a major financial problem. Unfortunately, my flight benefits will run out in either May or August and I'd like to use them while I can so finding a second job or replacement job is not an option since finding one that would offer the flexibility on time that I need that the current one offers is, well, completely impossible. I've considered temp agencies, but the two temp jobs I've had before only paid $7/hour and were the most mind-numbing and boring work I've ever done. 'Course with the reduced hours I can't really afford to travel anyway!
AAAAHHHHHH!!!!
Monday, April 02, 2007
Ack, I forgot one thing in my last post. Erik and I also attended a small portion of the Forty Acres Fest held at the University of Texas in Austin. While we apparently arrived too late for the booths and activities, we got a chance to walk around the campus a little bit and to see several of the musical acts that night. I discovered that the campus is really beautiful there and that it warrants additional visits to see it some more. Whenever I wanted to go to downtown Athens at night, parking at the university was the cheapest (i.e. free) choice and was close to where things went on, so perhaps I can work out a similar arrangement here to see a little bit more of the happenings in Austin. That night, Little Richard played, though we didn't stay for his entire performance because Erik got bored during it. Had I been alone I probably would have stuck around to hear the rest despite it not being quite my style of music. It was funny to see the way he behaved though. He came on stage with crutches and announced at one point that he is almost 75, yet still made numerous statements about how pretty he was. He also stopped at one point for about 10 minutes to complain about the piano and ask if they had another and refused to continue until they fixed something about it which send the crew into a flurry of action trying to get the problem fixed so that he would be willing to continue. Erik and I wondered if he was senile, intoxicated, or just spoiled.
I'm happy to announce that I'm still surviving my period of exile to Texas.
My brother, Erik has been in town for the past couple of weeks so that has taken up a significant amount of my time since he spends nearly all of the day (and much of the night and early morning...) playing Final Fantasy XI on his computer in my room. It is fun to spend time with him in the world of Vana'diel, but I don't think I would have the time or the patience to play it myself.
I've also continued to discover that Texas isn't as ugly as I had imagined it would be. It may well just be that I ended up in a better area of it or it may be that I actually was just deceived by stereotypes. My mom continues to think it is ugly simply because it isn't Georgia. To me, the most interesting thing about Texas has been its blend of east and west. I'll see stores or plants or architecture that I would expect to see in the eastern states intermingled with other items I'd expect to see in the western states.
One thing that I found in Texas that I like is the overpasses. They are gigantic. In addition, they often split and merge while up high in the air. They also tend to make nice looking columns to hold them up rather than just concrete slabs. Driving through and seeing these massive structures always makes me feel like I am in a movie or some futuristic landscape. I've discovered that while I don't always agree with the american mantra that bigger is better, I do find myself impressed when architectural structures are formidable in size.
Another Texas sight you can't miss even if you try in the spring is the abundance of bluebonnets growing along the roads. Sometimes you wonder if there are more bluebonnets than grass in some patches.
As one of the few activities that we've managed to pull Erik away from his game to do, we went to the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco on saturday. We were a bit rushed due to getting out late, but had an enjoyable time. On our way out, we passed the squirrel monkey area again and all of the monkeys had been taken inside. When a squirrel ran across the tarp above us, Erik excitedly blurted out "a monkey!", apparently thinking that one of the monkeys had gotten out.
While driving back through Waco (which we were calling wacko for fun), my head did a double take as I almost thought I figured out why they were so wacko. I saw a building that said Waco ISD Administration Building. It took me a second to remember that ISD stands for Independent School District. Afterall, the word "administration" has two very different meanings when used with "ISD" or with "LSD".
