Planning for the day...

So, after doing almost nothing that I wanted to get done yesterday, and almost nothing that really needed to get done, I'm going to give it another try today. The girlfriend just got up and is taking a shower, so I'm going to wait until she heads off to work in half an hour or so, then I'm going to take myself a shower, have a cup of coffee, and get my show on the road.

I have to finish filling out the form for the distribution of my retirement, and then get that sent in to the people who manage the fund. Fortunately, it's not that much of a form, really. While I'm mailing that off, I need to find out how much these stamps are worth, so we can use them for mailing off stuff in general. I'm not sure if they're the ones that are good for the cost of a first-class letter no matter when you bought them, or what. I got them a few years ago, and I don't know if they had that program going then. Guess I'll find out when I stop at the post office on the way down toward Lewisville.

She has a rebate form for her new cell phone, and she wants to get that mailed off. Which I'll do after I get back from hopefully making some money at Half-Price Books. I also need to see if I can find the next book in her series. In her line of work, having some reading material isn't really a luxury. It's pretty much a necessity for keeping one's sanity. So, I'll try to see that she gets her next novel. That's about the only thing I'm going to be buying down there, though...

And, if I'm feeling good when I get back here, I might go out and start working on the patio or vacuum the floors. Of course, I also really need to update my resume, since the one I'm sending out now obviously isn't doing me a damned bit of good...

Getting ready to face the world...

I'm having the morning cup of coffee, getting ready to head down toward Lewisville. I'm going to try to sell the rest of the books in the back of my car down at Half-Price Books. Hopefully they'll at least take some of them and get me enough money to be able to pay both the rent and either the car payment or the car insurance, at least. It would be wonderful if I got enough money to pay both, but I'm really not counting on that.

Prior to heading down there, I thought I'd check out the job listings in the Sunday paper I picked up last night, just to see if there was anything good that direction that I could hit on the way down or back. And as I was looking for the classified section, I saw a picture that looked kind of familiar. I sort of wondered if they were so desperate for something to print that they were re-running stories. But, no, it turns out that I bought the Sunday paper not from last night, but from last week. That's what Walgreen's had out on their display. I'm not terribly happy about that, but I don't think I'm going to head in there and demand a refund or anything. Next time, I might just make a few pointed comments, but I have enough other things to do to try to find work to not stress that much over that. I've got to stop at the gas station anyway, so I'll see if they still have a copy of the right paper...

In reading my mail this morning, I heard that J.G. Ballard died. He wrote some really weird sci-fi stories, many of which I really enjoyed. "Billennium", "The Terminal Beach", and "The Garden of Time" come to mind, but I know that I've read several of his short story collections and liked them a lot. I just can't remember all of the quirky details right now. He wrote what almost seemed to be hallucinations put down on paper, and it's rather sad to see the loss of one of the really original minds out there. I need to go back and read more of his work...

Anyway, I guess I should quit stalling and get my coffee chugged down so I can get out into the world...

A useless, depressing kind of day...

I did a little test a few minutes ago, and I found that, unlike with some of the blogging software I've used, Blogger apparently allows you to insert older posts before you're more recent ones, so I don't need to update all of my vacation posts before doing my regular postings. That makes things a little bit easier for me...

Anyway, yesterday after getting home from the Easter festivities, the girlfriend and I lounged around for a bit. Neither one of us really felt like moving all that much after all we'd eaten at dinner. I didn't actually eat anything else except one of her cookies for the rest of the day. Definitely had more to eat at dinner than I'd had for a while...

After we'd rested and digested for a bit, she called Hastings to find out if they were open, which they were, and we headed down there so she could find a book to read during her downtime at work. They were indeed open, so we headed on down. Unfortunately, they didn't have the next book in the series she's been reading, plus they didn't have the book that we're supposed to be reading for our next book club. And they really didn't even have anything else she wanted to read. So we headed over to Barnes and Noble.

Even if it wasn't Easter, B&N would have been closed. It was already almost eight by the time we got there, and they close at seven on Sunday. So we had to admit defeat and headed back home.

After we got home, she wanted to watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and I didn't, so she headed off to the bedroom and I sat out here in the living room and watched a baseball game. After the game was over, I went in and watched some of her home shows with her before we tried to get to sleep. It was another one of those nights where neither of us could sleep very well.

She had to be at work at nine this morning, and I should have got up at around the same time, but I didn't. Instead, I drifted in and out until almost noon. I finally decided I'd better get up and do something with the day. When I got up, I saw that there was something taped to the door. Turns out it was the new utility bill, even though we only received the last utility bill last Sunday. I guess the landlady is a little behind in getting the bills distributed. That made me feel even a little more depressed than I already was, because I certainly can't afford to pay even my share of that bill, let alone the whole thing like I've been trying to do for a while. I did finally write out the check for the last utility bill, figured out how much postage it needed, got the envelope addressed, and got it all put together. Now I just need to get down to the post office and mail it off. I also found out that the cost of a stamp goes up two more cents in May. Great...

After I took care of that, I made myself another pot of coffee. I figured I'd at least do something useful with the day, so I emptied the dishwasher and folded the towels that were in the dryer. I dug the classified sections out of the newspapers, but I really haven't gone through them yet. I also went through the musicians classifieds on Craigslist, but I haven't sent off any replies to any of the ads I found interesting.

The girlfriend came home for a short lunch around three. We had some leftover brisket and potatoes from the Easter dinner for lunch, and I again feel like I might not have to eat anything else for the rest of the evening. That stuff's a lot more filling than I thought it would be for as much as I ate.

After she headed back to work, I dragged the top of my desk in from the car and upstairs. I got it attached to the main part of the desk and started getting things hooked up, but I realize that I'm going to have some problems because I don't have a wired network connection up there. I think I'm going to move the wireless card from my music computer to my regular desktop, then hook everything in that room using my wired switch. I don't really need an internet connection from the music computer or any of the project computers, so just having the wireless on the main should be all right...

Now I'm sitting here watching another baseball game, after watching some history stuff earlier. The girlfriend is in the bedroom watching her home shows. I was a bit standoffish when she got home, and I hope she's not annoyed at me. I guess I'll find out when the game's over. Sigh...

Three weeks, and trying to weed through boxes...

I’ve been trying to go through a couple of boxes of stuff every day and weed out the things that I don’t really have to take to Texas with me. Unfortunately, I’ve been something of a packrat all my life, and now it’s coming back to bite me in the ass. I hate throwing away anything that I think might be useful somewhere down the line, even though I know in the back of my mind that I probably won’t wind up putting things to the use I foresee. I’m just not all that great at following up on all of those little plans that I think up. In any case, I’ve given away a couple of boxes of books and a number of other little things from around the place, but there’s still a lot more to go through. And time continues it’s unrelenting march…

On the plus side, one of the guys at work has a cage for a small dog or cat that he is letting me have, since his cat is no more. I already had a carrier, but this is a regular large cage that she can stand up and pace around in, with room for a small litter pan and food and water. So that’s really a good thing, because I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do with her while driving. Now at least I won’t have to stop every hour to see if she needs to use the litter box or is hungry.

So, some things are coming together, some still resist me…

See more progress on: Move to Texas