Joe's New Blog

Nothing special, this is just my third effort at writing a blog about my life and what goes on in it: Hobbies, cooking, work, maybe the occasional book or DVD review, and so forth. Nothing really noteworthy, but this is sort of a little subset of my world...

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Another challenge I'm going to lose...

Looks like there’s no way on earth I’m going to manage to get this thing done in time to get it framed and sent off to Mom for Christmas. Maybe I’ll make it in time for Mother’s Day, though. Just got to keep plugging away on it…

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Saturday, April 26, 2008

The daily rundown, April 25

So I've decided to write a little daily entry on here, in addition to my updates on some of the 43Things.com goals that I do, and possible other entries as I see fit. So, what's happened over the past 24 hours that's really of any interest, even to me?

Yesterday was mostly just a stay-at-home day. After the girlfriend* went to work, I checked my e-mail and such. Nothing very interesting going on. I was going to head up to the market and get a copy of the Denton Record-Chronicle to look through the ads, but I wasn't feeling all that ambitious about it. I did update my resume and such on the WorkInTexas.com website, and it wound up giving me a match for a Systems Admin job in Corinth. I checked the "how to apply" section and it was just an e-mail in your resume type deal. So I wrote a little cover e-mail and sent it to the appropriate address. I probably should have spent a little more time on the intro e-mail, because I think I kind of downplayed my skills and concentrated too much on my shortcomings relative to their job requirements. But, what the hell. The worst they can do is turn me down for the job, which isn't necessarily that horrible.

In between adding stuff on that website and sending off my C.V., I also read through a few days' backlog of e-mail and finished organizing my 43Things.com list. I moved a bunch of stuff down on the list that I'm not going to be able to do right now because the necessary items are stuck somewhere at the back of my storage unit, and it's going to take me a while to dig them out. Also, I moved down some of the long term goals and some of the things that are just going to take money. Can't throw money at any of the goals until I actually have a job, after all.

I did a little bit of organization around the computer room here, but not all that much. I did dig out my cross stitch stuff and did a little work on the 4th day of Christmas, which I'm now way behind schedule on. I don't really know if I'm ever going to be able to get myself caught up on that kind of thing now, but I at least managed to get a little bit of stitching done. I also posted messages to the cross stitch list on Tribe.net and my own little cross stitch forum on StumbleUpon. Thus far, however, no replies to either of those messages. While I was on Tribe, I also updated my profile to indicate my new residence and all.

One thing I found while organizing the room was that I actually did have the battery charger for my camera sitting in one of the boxes over in the closet. I thought that was one of the numerous things buried down in the storage unit, so I wound up ordering one from Amazon.com a few days ago after my camera started telling me the battery was low. Now I either need to deal with having an extra or I need to return the one I ordered. Decisions, decisions... It is nice that I'll be able to take pictures sooner than I expected, though.

As it started getting toward evening, I wandered downstairs and had myself some leftover turkey curry for a lunch/dinner sort of thing, and I turned on the hockey game, Montreal vs. Philadelphia. That was pretty much the end of any productivity for the whole evening for me. My girlfriend got home from work and after changing her clothes joined me to watch hockey and Battlestar Galactica, which is sort of a Friday tradition in the house. Her roommate was sleeping, though, and the friend who usually comes over had an important paper to finish, so it was just the two of us. We finished the evening watching the Stars beat the Sharks in overtime. I'm pulling for the Sharks, because they've always been one of my favorites. Of course, the Stars are the hometown team around here, so I'm sort of the outsider, but that's all right. However this series goes, I'll wind up rooting for the winner to go the rest of the way in the West, at least. If Montreal wins the East, I'll have to go with them to win the Cup, as they've been my favorites for as long as I've been watching hockey.

After the game, we came upstairs and I figured I'd check my e-mail before retiring for the evening. There was one message of particular interest to me. It was from my ex-wife. She had written this: "You need you to close out the joint checking account at [the bank]. As per our divorce agreement we were supposed to close all joint accounts. I think I have given you plenty of time since I discussed this with you. As I am authorized to close this on my own, I am asking you to do this within two weeks or I will do it. I am still liable for this account and would like to remove all ties I have to you. So if I haven't seen evidence of this by May 9th, 2008, I will go to [the bank] and close out that account."

I find it rather interesting that she didn't seem to think that the specifics of our divorce settlement were all that critical when our house sold for over a hundred thousand dollars less than we anticipated and I let her keep 90% of the portion of the profits that I was entitled to by that same settlement. And she didn't seem to feel that need to remove "all ties" to me when she asked me to give that reference so she could get into her new apartment, or when she needed to have some free work done on her computer. But, she is technically right that I should have closed the account earlier. I didn't because it was the account that I had all of my automatic bill deductions linked to, and to which my direct deposit paychecks were posted. But, since I'm now between jobs and such, it seems like it's a good time to do it anyway. And, since she's choosing to be a pissy little bitch, it's a good time to do just like she wants and cut all the ties to her. So, I sent her a similarly terse message saying that I'd do it on Monday, then I sat here and drank a bit before heading off to bed. Not the best night ever, but life goes on...



* I refer to my girlfriend by that sort of impersonal sounding term not because I feel impersonal, but because she doesn't have her name posted on all of her websites and such like I do. So I don't really think it's my place to go spreading her actual name over the internet. Just so you know...

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Another long-term, oft-delayed goal

Now that I’m living in Texas, this would be one of those things that would be even better to accomplish. I’ve seen dozens of job listings where speaking Spanish would at least be a plus, if not required. I guess I should get out those lessons again and have at it. Except for the fact that they’re all packed away in the storage unit at the moment. Well, when I manage to dig them out, I guess I’ll start hitting the books…

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I'm living in a real college town now, but...

I’m going to have to wait a while before I can try to register for any classes. The first reason is because I really need to find a job so I have some money coming into the coffers, and the other reason is because I need to wait six months so I can become an official resident and not have to pay the much higher non-resident fees. It’s going to be expensive enough as-is, without adding the additional out of state costs to the deal. So, probably around the beginning of fall term I’ll start looking a lot more closely…

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Once again on hold...

I just moved to Texas, so this goal has to stay on hold, but still is definitely staying on the list. I’m currently staying with my girlfriend, and most of my equipment is in my storage unit, so no real updating will be able to be done at least until I get myself back into the working world and get myself a place to live…

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