KJ's Place

2009-07-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

I think the hardest thing about getting out of debt is the waiting. I'm a very impatient person, so the thought of having to wait more than 2 years to get everything paid off is killing me... and I've only been seriously doing this for about 2 months. Not a good sign.

On the other hand, the thought of having the debt hanging over me for longer is much worse. I'm hoping by constant blogging and tweaking my spreadsheets, I'll be able to keep myself motivated.

Speaking of spreadsheets, here is one that I came across online that has been immensely helpful to me:

Free Debt Reduction Calculator
There are many debt reduction calculators out there, but I think this one is by far the best because it allows you to change your snowball payment each month if necessary. What's a snowball payment? Allow me to explain...

Imagine you have balances on two credit cards spread out like this:

Card 1: $3000 @10% interest w/ $60 minimum payment
Card 2: $5000 @15% interest w/ $100 minimum payment

So, your total required monthly payment is $160. Of course everyone knows that if you only make the minimum payments, it will take about 50 years to pay off... you did know that, right? Let's say you can afford to put $300 total toward your debt each month. That's the $160 minimum + $140 extra. That extra $140 is your snowball payment and should be applied to the card with the highest interest rate. So, you'd continue to pay $60 to Card #1, but you'd pay $240 to Card #2 until it's paid off, then take all the extra money and put it toward Card #1. Make sense?

So, it's July and you're toddling along paying an extra $140/month toward your debt. You know that in November you're going to be getting a quarterly bonus for all the awesome work you've been doing at the Widget factory. You know that it will be at least $500 and you plan on applying the entire amount to your debt. Well, the calculator in the link above will allow you to change the snowball payment for November from $140 to $640 and will then recalculate your remaining monthly payments. Pretty nifty! It's free and available for both Excel and Open Office.

And the fight continues...

2009-07-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

I decided that instead of just saying "Oh, I'd like to pay off my debt", I needed to give myself a more concrete deadline to work toward. So, I did all sorts of calculations on my fancy schmancy debt reduction/budgeting spreadsheets and I now have a plan to pay off the entire $16484.49 by July 4, 2011... KJ's Independence Day, if you will. My calculations did not take into account any possible raises or bonuses that I'm sure to receive since I'm such an awesome employee, so there's a good possibility that things will get paid off quicker... let's hope!

So far I've managed to knock the total down by $1256.27 since my last post, which is about an average of $550-$600 per month. I'm hoping to stay on that course and to be sure I do, I've developed a budget. Since I get paid twice a month, I've now divided my bills into "first paycheck" and "second paycheck" bills. It looks kind of like this:

Paycheck 1
- 1st Mortgage
-Discover Card
-Money for savings
-Spending money ($150) - For food, entertainment, and anything not covered by a specific bill.
= Money left over

Paycheck 2 + Money left over from Paycheck 1
-2nd Mortgage (Hey, why only have 1 mortgage when 2 is twice the fun!)
- Condo fee
- Mobile
- Student Loan
- Electric
- Chase Card
- US Bank Card
-Spending Money ($100)
= Money left over

Any money left over from one check gets added to the next. I have all this on a spreadsheet going out to 2011. Of course, I know that some of my bills are going to increase and decrease as time passes. Luckily the formulas I'm using will automatically calculate the future effects of any changes, so I can adjust some line items accordingly.

Thankfully I don't have a landline phone, cable, commuting expenses, car payments or car insurance to deal with!

Anyway, I'm tired of typing and I'm sure you're tired of reading, so I'll sign off for now.

Update

2009-05-31T06:59:00.000-07:00

So, how's the new job going, you ask? Well, you didn't, but I'm going to tell you anyway. It's going GREAT. This job is seriously the highest paying, lowest stress job I've ever had. I think the best part is that I have very little contact with clients. The most stress inducing part about my last job was the constant worry that I had forgotten to do something for a client's account or that I had screwed something up IN a client's accounts. Another problem was bringing work home from the office... not necessarily physically bringing paperwork home, but just the whole feeling of something being left unfinished and having to worry about it until the next day. At this new job, when I leave work, I leave it... period. I know that when I go on vacation, I won't have to worry about getting calls from the office and I won't have any work on my desk when I get back. Awesome!

Now, that I'm getting paid a bit more, I'll be able to tackle my mounting credit card debt. Wait, I know you've probably heard that before, but this time, I'm serious! My goal is to pay off the debt AND save $10,000. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the $10,000 once it's all saved up, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. To prove how serious I am, allow me to present the following:

My Debt Reduction Ticker:

and

My Savings Ticker:

These little gadgets will now be at the bottom of all of my posts (I tried to put them in my sidebar,but they got all smoooshy and you couldn't read them). I think seeing it in writing and being held accountable to other people (strangers even!) will make me much more motivated to get it done!

Why yes, it's another job

2009-05-02T01:33:00.000-07:00

Well, since I haven't updated all of my fans recently, I guess it's time for a new blog entry.

In my never ending quest to work for every corporation in the Portland Metro area, I will be starting job a new job on May 4th. This will be the 4th job I've had since moving here in June of 2006. I will be leaving my position as a Senior Registered Client Service Associate and starting as a Senior Registered Client Associate with another local investment firm. I feel much more prestigious without the Service part of the title. Normally I wouldn't have left my current company, but the offer I received was too good to pass up and will allow me to work on a trading desk again. I like trading desks!

My last day at my old company was April 30th and my coworkers were kind enough to give me a nice sendoff on Friday. Although there were aspects of my former job that I didn't enjoy, I will certainly miss my coworkers very much :(

So, that's all that's new in my neck of the woods. Later, peeps!

Visit back to Ochlocknee...

2009-02-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

After living in Portland for more than 2 years, I finally made it back home to visit my mom over the recent MLK, Jr. holiday weekend. The last time I was in my hometown of Ochlocknee, GA was for my dad's funeral in May of 2006, so this visit promised to be a bit more cheerful.

I flew out of Portland on a red eye to Atlanta and made it to my mom's place around 1pm the next day. I would have been there a little sooner, but I got lost driving from the Valdosta airport... gimme a break, I hadn't been there in 2 years!

Here is a list of the exciting things I did during my visit:

1. I caught up on some soap operas that I hadn't seen in a while. The best thing about soap operas is that you can stop watching them for 10 years and when you start up again, the SAME characters are still there... with the same plot lines!!

2. I drank sweet tea and ate fried okra and boiled peanuts. These are three things that I can't get easily in Portland.

3. I went out to dinner with my mom. Normally my mom's idea of going out to dinner involves eating-in at the local takeout place or going to a buffet. This time I insisted that I did NOT want to go to a buffet. I wanted to go to a real "sit down, order from a waiter, and stay seated while the waiter brings your food" type restaurant. My mom said that we could go to Ryan's Family Steakhouse. When we got there, I discovered that it was a giant buffet. Grrr! My mom insisted that going to a sit down restaurant was "too expensive" and that the "food here is really good". I just sighed and started piling my plate with all I could eat delights. As we ate, this was our conversation:

Me: "Why are you eating grits for dinner?"
Mom: "Oh I think that's rice."
Me: "Um, it doesn't look like rice."
Mom: "Oh, then maybe it IS grits...
Me: "What does it taste like?"
Mom: "Um, I think...."
Me: "Mom, grits and rice taste NOTHING alike."
Mom: "Then I guess it's grits... or maybe rice."

Later
Me: "Why didn't you get any meat?"
Mom: "I didn't see anything I liked."
Me: "You couldn't find any meat from their entire 'all you can eat' selection?"
Mom: "No, not really."

Still later:
Me: "Why didn't you finish the okra?"
Mom: "I didn't like it very much. It's kind of cold."

So, if you're keeping score, my mom had something that may or may not have been grits (or rice), no meat, and cold fried okra. The only thing I saw her completely eat was the mac and cheese and seriously, how hard is it to screw up mac and cheese? The cost of this all you can eat extravaganza?... $12.95 per person. I promise I did not rub this in her face. (Oh and in case you're wondering, I had some chicken, the mac and cheese, okra, some bread and a dessert).

I've already decided that during my next visit, we're going to a real restaurant even if I have to drag her to one kicking and screaming.

4. I saw my friend Candace who I've known since kindergarten. We only got to spend a bit of time together b/c I got lost driving to her house and ended up in some stranger's yard. Now that I think about, I'm lucky he didn't come after me with a shotgun. I decided to bring my mom along since we were going to a part of town that I wasn't really familiar with (come to find out my mom wasn't familiar with it either). The worst part was that there was no cell service so I couldn't call to get directions. Anyway, we finally made it to her house around 8:30 and hung out for a while and caught up.

My flight back to Portland was little more eventful that I would have liked. It started when I missed my connecting flight in Atlanta and had to wait for another flight that wouldn't leave until the next morning. Rather that sleeping in the airport, I decided to get a hotel room. I stayed at the Hilton which to my relief had a BAR. Unfortunately I was forced to drink Guinness out of TUMBLER glass and Jameson out of a shot glass and on top of all that I had to pay sales tax on it!

Whew, I'm glad to be back in Portland!

Bringing in the New Year

2009-01-01T07:07:00.000-08:00

Well, it's officially 2009 and I welcomed it in true party girl fashion by sitting around in my comfortable bathrobe, surfing the internet, and falling asleep by 10pm. Yeah, that's how I roll. Since the new year is upon us, I guess it's time to make a list of all the resolutions that I'll end up breaking by February 1st (oops, there goes #5). So without further ado:

KJ's Soon to Broken Resolutions for 2009

Save more money
Eat healthier
Be more social
Learn ASL
Stop being so cynical & pessimistic
Get married and settle down with a couple of kids.
Kidding about #6, just wanted to make sure you were paying attention.
Work harder at getting out of debt
Read more
Visit home more often

Here's to a better 2009!

Long Overdue Update

2008-12-14T22:03:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't posted anything since October 26th, I figured it was time to write. Here is some stuff that has happened over the past few months...

Trip to Yosemite
-----------------------
I traveled with my friend D. to Yosemite National Park over the Columbus Day weekend in October. It was my first time visiting the park, as well as my first time camping. I was ashamed to discover that I am a complete sissy when it comes to "roughing it". We stayed in a little tent cabin in Curry Village. A tent cabin is basically a tent with wooden floor. It looks like this:

We decided to stay in one with no heat because it was cheap. At first I didn't think this would be a big deal since we would have plenty of blankets and sleeping bags. Besides, it wasn't even supposed to be that cold. I was wrong... it was freeeeezzzzzing. I'm usually okay with the cold, but I realized that while in Yosemite, I was cold all the time. It wasn't like I slept somewhere warm and then got bundled up to go outside where it was cold. It was cold everywhere. Even when it started to warm up during the day, I was still cold. I'm getting cold just thinking about it! Here is a photo of me freezing on the first night:

Anyway, enough complaining. Here are some other photos that highlight the beauty of Yosemite:

We did a lot of hiking... a LOT of hiking. As for wild animals, I saw 3 bears, 2 deer, a skunk and some birds. I had a great time, but by the time we left on Monday afternoon I was exhausted. It didn't help matters that the breakfast sandwich I ate that morning made me queasy for the whole trip back to San Francisco. Luckily all I needed to make me feel better was a nice hot shower once we got back to SF. Then all was right with the world. The end.

Thanksgiving 2008
-----------------------
A few months ago I discovered that a fellow student from my small east coast college had randomly moved to the Portland area. We got in touch via Facebook and she invited me to her place for Thanksgiving. It was nice to have a home cooked meal rather than the crap I would have concocted for myself. I hung out with her family (husband, 2 kids) for the entire day. I even fed the baby (and did a damn fine job of it, if I do say so myself). I also had the pleasure of listening to an exciting story about dinosaurs, motorcycles and magic treasure hunts courtesy of her 3 year old daughter. I will have to bring my toddler decoder ring with me next time though, because I had a bit of trouble following the plot. The dinner was delicious (there were even pre-dinner margaritas!) and my friend was kind enough to send me home with leftovers!

Well that's all the news for now. I'll try to post more often, but I won't promise anything. When you live life on the edge like me, it's sometimes difficult to find the time to write a blog post.

How my mom found out about Sammy the Snake...

2008-10-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

Last night I inadvertently revealed Sammy the Snake's existence to my mother. Why is this a big deal, you ask? Allow me to give you a little background on the issue of my mom and snakes.

My mom is afraid of snakes. I don't mean she thinks they're a little icky and doesn't want to be around them or have one as a pet. I mean she absolutely cannot stand the sight of them; no snakes in real life, no pictures of snakes, movies about snakes, drawings of snakes, etc. She doesn't know why she has this phobia, but she suspects it comes from being surprised by a snake while walking home from school when she was a young girl.

Because of this, when I got Sammy back in November of 2006, I thought it would be best if I kept that fact from my mom. I sent photos of the Sammy to my brother with explicit instructions to "make sure you don't tell mama about the snake." I knew that if my mom did ever attempt to fly out to visit me in Portland (very unlikely, as she's also afraid to fly) I would have plenty of lead time to move Sammy to another location if necessary. I felt that there was no sense in making her worry unnecessarily about me being devoured in my sleep by my man-eating cornsnake. I kept the secret for almost 2 years, until last night...

I called my mom to tell her that I had just booked a flight home and would be visiting in January. While we were chatting, she joked that she'd have to start cleaning the house so it would be ready for my arrival. I told her that she'd better hurry up because she only had about 3 months. She replied, "I guess I should start by getting rid of all the rats and cockroaches." I said, "You know what'll help get rid of those rats?? Snakes!" She laughed and began making noises indicating her extreme disdain for snakes.

Somehow the conversation turned to a news story she had heard recently about the owner of reticulated python being killed by the snake. From there our conversation went like this:

Me: Well, mama, a reticulated python is a very large and powerful snake. Usually when you hear about people being killed like that, it's because they try to handle to snake alone rather than having someone there to help them. Even though it's a pet, it will still act on instinct and a lot of people take that for granted or they don't realize how strong the snake really is.

Mom: I don't see why anyone would want to own a snake, especially one that's so big.

Me: Yeah, I would never have one that big since I live by myself. I don't have to worry about that with Sammy though since he won't grow to be any longer than.... uh [to myself: Oh sh!t, oh sh!t, oh sh!t!!!!]... ahem, cough, cough, cough....

Mom: What? Who is Sammy?

Me: Oh, nothing. [At this point I tried to think of a way to change the subject and of course I drew a complete blank]

Mom: What are you talking about? Who is Sammy.

Me: [Sigh] Sammy is my snake.

Mom: [Silence]

Me: He's a cornsnake

Mom: [Silence for a few more seconds] I hope that's a snake made from corn.

Me: No, it's a regular snake.

Mom: You do NOT have a snake.

Me: Yes, I do.

Mom: No, you don't. You're just messing with me.

Me: Yes, I really have a snake. I've had him for about 2 years. His name is Sammy.

We went back and forth for a bit longer until I finally convinced her that I did indeed own a snake.

Mom: How big is he?

Me: Oh, about 2 feet long (he's really about 3.5 ft).

Mom: Is he poisonous?

Me: No.

Mom: Are you sure?

Me : Yes, I'm sure. Cornsnakes aren't poisonous.

Mom: How are you sure what type of snake he is? Where did you find him?

Me: I didn't find him. I bought him from the reptile store.

Mom: You PAID for him??

Me: Yes, I bought him from a pet store.

Mom: [Huge sigh] Where do you keep him?

Me: In a glass cage.

Mom: Are there locks on it so he can't get out?

Me: Yes, I have 6 locks on the top so he won't be able to escape.

Mom: Do you ever take him out of there?

Me: Yeah, I have to take him out to feed him and I handle him every once in a while.

Mom: What does he eat?

Me: Mice.

Mom: Oh, God! So you have mice, too??

Me: Yeah, but they're already dead and frozen. I just thaw them out when it's time to feed him.

By now, I knew that she had suffered enough, so I told her I would talk to her later. I asked if she'd like me to send some pictures of Sammy. Believe it or not, she said, "NO!"

My New Toy

2008-09-16T18:26:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to start making more meals at home, I decided to purchase this nifty little gadget from Cuisinart:

It's the Griddler, Jr. (GR3) and it ROCKS! It's similar to the George Forman Grill, but made from better quality materials. It cooks everything in a jiffy (ack, did I just say "jiffy"?) and the grill plates snap off for easy cleaning.

If by chance someone who has never met me is reading this, let me explain a bit about my relationship with cooking. To put it mildly, I hate it. No, seriously, I really hate it. I get hives just thinking about it. So, if I can manage to put together meals like the following without tearing my hair out, anyone can. Trust me.

Meals I Have Made with My New Griddler , Jr:

Grilled marinated chicken breasts with green beans and mashed potatoes (ok, the potatoes were from a box. Sue me.)

Roast beef sandwich on ciabatta with horseradish mayo and white cheddar.
Grilled asparagus with hollandaise sauce
Grilled pears (I didn't even know you could grill pears!)

I've only had it for 2 days, so that's pretty darn impressive for me. I thought about telling my mom, but decided against it. I'm afraid the shock of me cooking would be too much for her to handle.

Back from SF

2008-09-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

I returned from my World Class Customer Service Training Seminar in San Francisco a few days ago, and I'm now ready to go out into the world and give our clients the same level of service I was giving them before. I was already awesome so I see no need to change now.

Despite the banality of the seminar itself, I did enjoy meeting other CSAs in the company and getting ideas and tips for operational type stuff. As far as the customer service stuff though... I got that down pat already.

Since I flew down a few days early, I had a chance to hang out and explore the city a bit. I went to a neat opera concert in Golden Gate Park with my friend D and his friend M. Here is a photo of me absorbing the culture:

As you can see, I'm wearing sunglasses because it was uncharacteristically sunny in SF during my stay. I actually wanted to see the fog more, especially that day since I was wearing a sweater and it was hot. Of course the fog rolled in immediately after the concert was over. Just my luck.

All in all it was nice little vacation :)

Oh, I almost forgot...

2008-08-18T19:38:00.001-07:00

The All Blacks spanked the Springboks this weekend... on the Springboks home turf! That makes it sweeter. Check out the awesomeness:

Damn it's hot!

2008-08-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

I'll admit that 98% of the time I love Portland's weather. I love the dreary, overcast fall and winter as well as the low humidity, mid 70 degrees, blue sky summers. Unfortunately once or twice ever summer, Mother Nature decides to be a royal pain in the ass and stick us with a heat wave. Since Thursday the city has been sweltering with temps reaching 100+. The heat is especially hard to deal with because most houses (including mine) do not have air conditioning. I do feel grateful to have north facing windows since that means that the sun never hits my place directly, but when you have a couple of days of heat like this, it just kind of hangs around in the air. Right now the temperature in my unit is a toasty 84 degrees... not horrible, but not comfortable either.

Sammy is suffering as well. I woke up this morning to find him using his water dish as a pool. Snakes will often do that to cool off or if the humidity is too low in their terrarium, but this was the first time I've seen him do it. I wish he had stayed in there long enough for me to take a picture.

Luckily tomorrow is supposed to be back to normal with highs in the low-mid 70's. I don't think I've ever wanted Monday to come sooner.

On to other news...

I successfully passed my Series 31 and 65 exams earlier this month. It was a relief to get that out of the way. Now I will be able to participate in revenue sharing with my team at work. The more revenue we generate, the bigger my paycheck. Oh yeeeeaaaah! Also, I have been invited to attend a customer service training seminar in San Francisco next month. It's basically supposed to teach me how to do the job that I've been doing for the past 11 years, but for a free flight to SF, I'll deal with it. The seminar only lasts for 2 days (a Tues and Weds), but I'm flying down there earlier to make a 5 day stay out of it.
Should be fun.

Hilarious T-shirt

2008-07-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

While walking home today after watching Australia triumph over South Africa in a Tri-Nations game, I saw a young woman wearing a t-shirt that read:

SHAKESPEARE HATES YOUR EMO POEMS

I dare say I guffawed.

When I got home I did a google search for "Shakespeare hates your emo poems" out of curiosity and my experience today was made more hilarious when I found the comments here:

Don't laugh at me for being emo

PS. Hopefully we'll see an All Blacks/Wallabies Final in the Tri-Nations tournament.

Add butterfish to the list...

2008-07-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I stopped by the Heathman after work to have a drink before heading home. Of course "a drink" turned into "3 drinks" but that's no big surprise. After drink numero 3 I decided that I was hungry and ordered the seared ahi from their bistro menu. The bartender told me about a new menu item they had recently added called miso butterfish and highly recommended it. Now comes the point in the story where I should mention that I'm allergic to fish. Well, some fish. I know that I can eat tuna with no problem, but I stay away from shellfish and most other fish just to be safe. Of course sober KJ would have said "actually I might be allergic to that, so I'll just stick with the tuna, thanks." Unfortunately we were dealing with her evil, stupid twin, slightly tipsy KJ who thought it was a fabulous idea to order the butterfish. So, that's what I did.

I took the first bite. It was delicious. I'd go so far as to say that it was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. The bartender looked at me with a "so how is it?" look and I gave him an enthusiastic two thumbs up. I took the second bite. Yep, still delicious and most importantly I didn't seem to be having any sort of reaction. This was good. Then the barback walked over and commented that he had also eaten the butterfish that day and we agreed that it was delicious. I continued to happily munch away... until I got to approximately bite #5. That's when I started to notice a slight scratchy feeling in my throat when I swallowed. This was not good. I laid my fork down for a moment and waited. Then it happened. My throat continued to itch and now my lips were starting to itch and swell. To my great dismay, I was allergic to the butterfish.

I know that seafood/fish allergies can be very severe and cause anaphylactic shock that can lead to death if not treated in time. Luckily that has never happened to me so I don't think my allergy is that severe. At any rate I knew that if I were to go into anaphylactic shock, it would happen very quickly and in fact probably would have started already. Also the symptoms I was having were very similar to the symptoms I had during my previous yellowtail experience, so I wasn't too worried. Just to be safe though, I decided to go home and take some Benadryl. I paid my bill and started to head out when the barback noticed that I hadn't finished the butterfish.

He said, "oh you didn't like it?"

I replied, "it was delicious, but um I think I might be having an allergic reaction, so uh, I gotta go." and then I rushed out.

As I was leaving, I heard the barback relay that information to the bartender.

I walked home slowly; keeping an eye out for ambulances and police cars in the event that I needed to flag one down. Luckily I did not.

I made it home safely and stayed awake for another couple of hours to make sure I could still breathe. When I was satisfied that I was not going to die in my sleep (at least not from the butterfish) I called it a night and went to bed.

The next day my throat was still a bit itchy and my lips were still swollen, but I was alive. I decided to stop by the Heathman just to let them know that I didn't die overnight and they could still count on my patronage despite the fact that their bartender tried to kill me. The other bartender and the barback had a great time pranking the bartender from the previous night by telling him that I had spent the whole evening in the emergency room. They guilt tripped him for a good 5 minutes by reminding him that "she didn't even know about the butterfish until you recommended it."

Man, that butterfish was delicious.

A little more furniture...

2008-07-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

Well, a rug and an ottoman:

The ottoman is a nifty storage ottoman from Bed, Bath and Beyond. It even has 2 mini ottomans inside!

I got the rug from Fred Meyer of all places.

Big thanks to my co-worker, Carol who drove me around the burbs on Sunday so I could go shopping!

Where's Sammy?

2008-07-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

Can you find Sammy in this photo?

There he is!!

America's Birthday + Baseball = FUN!

2008-07-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

Since July 4th usually involves big crowds of drunk people and sitting around for HOURS waiting for a fireworks show to start, I usually end up staying home (b/c of my aversion to crowds of drunk people and waiting around). This year though, I decided to bite the bullet and go out to watch a baseball game followed by fireworks. I met up with a few friends around 6:30pm and we all bought general admission seats to watch the Portland Beavers compete against the Tacoma Rainiers. I didn't realize it until mid-way through the game, but this was the first time I've seen a baseball game in Portland and I forgot how much fun they can be. Even better was the fact that it was Family Feast Friday with hot dogs and ice cream sandwiches for only $1. Unfortunately beer was the regular inflated price of $7, but the cheap hot dogs made up for it... I had 3 (hot dogs, that is.)

Since I'm not a sportswriter, you can read about the Beavers' awesome comeback victory here:

Beavers Send Fans Home Happy with Dramatic Comeback Victory

After the game, PGE Park put on a nice little fireworks display. I recorded a few seconds near the end on my cell phone. The video is poor quality, but you can still tell that it's fireworks.

Sammy Update

2008-06-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, Sammy has now passed into the full fledged "OMG, that's a SNAKE" stage. I tried to take some photos of him this afternoon right before his weekly feeding, but I discovered that hungry snakes are not very cooperative and don't like to sit still. That being said, I was able to get a couple of decent pics. And here they are:

Although he's a big guy, I swear he isn't as gigantic as he looks in this pic! My arm is small and the photo was taken super close up.

Unfortunately you can't see his head in this one b/c he was just starting to burrow under the substrate in his terrarium:

Next time I'm out, I'm going to try to get some fancy looking decorations to spruce up his snake condo. It's looking kind of blah in there.

Avenue Q

2008-06-26T19:16:00.000-07:00

Last night I headed to the Keller Auditorium to see "Avenue Q", the 2004 Tony award winner for best musical. If you've never heard of Avenue Q, the best way to describe it would be like Sesame Street for adults. Since I love Sesame Street, I was sure I'd enjoy it.

Unfortunately, I didn't.... for one simple reason:

The puppet handlers were on the stage rather than being hidden away like they are on Sesame Street. You wouldn't think this would be a big deal, but it was seriously annoying. It was a pity too b/c it was a very funny show. I just couldn't get over the puppet handlers being on stage.

Here is a performance of "It Sucks to be Me." Like I said, funny stuff.

Two years

2008-06-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

Hello, Blog Readers (all 2 of you). I apologize that I haven't posted, but I was dealing with some extremely slow internet access for a while. Actually, it wasn't even mine. I was scamming a weak signal from the church down the street. To assuage my guilt, I rationalized that Jesus is a pretty cool guy and he would want me to have internet access. Anyway, it was slooooow, so writing and posting a blog entry would have taken about 2 hours. Thankfully, as of last Wednesday, I have speedy, LEGAL access that I'm sharing with a neighbor down the hall. So, on to the post...

June 20 was the 2nd anniversary of my move to Portland. I celebrated by drinking at the Heathman Hotel bar and going to sleep around 8:45pm. It's okay, you can be jealous.
(Editor's Note: I am a complete and total ASS! June 19th was my Portland anniversary. June 20th was my parent's wedding anniversary! My only defense, is that by the time I went to sleep on June 19, 2006, it was probably already June 20th. Yeah, that's it.)

My new job is going well. I'm finally starting to clean up a lot of the stuff that was left behind, but there are still a couple of new problems that crop up every now and then. To add to my fun, I have been informed by my compliance department that I am required to get 2 more securities licenses: the Series 65 (Uniform Investment Advisers Law Exam) and the Series 31 (Futures Managed Funds Exam). The material is extremely boring, so studying has been difficult b/c I keep falling asleep. I'm going to go ahead and schedule the exams and cram a couple of weeks ahead of time. Hopefully this will be enough to pass.

In other news, I am no longer caring for Zen and Lucy, the cats I've mentioned in previous posts. Their owner came to pick them up at the beginning of June. They were super sweet cats, but I can't say that I will miss cleaning the litter box, getting said litter stuck to my feet when I walked across my floor, and dealing with cat hair. So, now it's just me and Sammy. Now that the cats are gone, I'm able to take him out of his terrarium more often. He responded this afternoon by taking a big dump on me. I don't know if that's a good sign.

Speaking of Sammy, he is much bigger now. He's moved from cute baby snake to "oh my G-d, that's a snake!" I'm very proud.

Unfortunately, I have some exciting Series 65 studying to do, so that's it for now.

Long time, no blog...

2008-04-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

Yikes! I haven't posted on this thing in a while. Since I don't have a lot of time this morning to write out a long entry (and you probably don't feel like reading it) I'll give the bulleted version.

Stuff That Has Been Happening

I'm still taking French class. There are only 5 people in the class, all women. My covert plan to meet a hot guy trying to learn French has been thwarted. I'm joking of course.

I finally saw my first live rugby game. It was about 20 degrees outside and I froze my ass off, but it was fun. Unfortunately, the team I was rooting for lost. I don't have any pictures b/c I would have had to take my hands out of my pockets to take them and that wasn't happening. The many shots of Jameson Irish Whiskey I drank later at the post game party helped warm me up :)

I resigned from my job on Monday, though I'm still staying through until the end of the month. I'll be moving to another job at a well known international brokerage firm as a registered sales assistant. Although I enjoyed my job at my current company, there was some trouble with me being able to keep my securities licenses while I was employed there. Basically b/c of the type of company it is (investment adviser vs broker dealer) they can't put me on their books as a registered representative and after 2 years my licenses will lapse and I'll have to take my exams all over again. I would prefer not to do that, so when this position with a broker dealer came up, I took it. I start on May 1st. I felt guilty about leaving since my current company is in the middle of their quarter end reporting and consequently, very busy. It would have been easier if I disliked the job and my coworkers, then I could have just said, "I quit! See ya!" Oh well, I've got to look out for number 1 and I'm sure they'll find a replacement who's almost as good as me... almost. I kid.

Well, that's all for right now. I'll try to be more proactive and update this thing in a timely fashion in the future.

Mais, bien sûr je parle français!

2008-02-21T10:18:00.000-08:00

I've decided to start taking French classes again. I figure foreign languages are the one thing I'm actually somewhat talented at, so I might as well go for it.

Starting at then end of March I'll be studying at the Alliance Française here in Portland. The classes are small and affordable (unlike a regular college class which would be crowded and expensive. Seriously, PSU, $450 for a Level 1 French Class? Sacre bleu!)

I promise I will not start wearing a beret and eating smelly cheese, but I may not be able to control myself from peppering conversations with occasional French phrases.

Furniture has arrived

2008-02-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

The new loveseats were delivered by two young strapping lads on Friday as scheduled. Here are some photos:

I have to get some pillows or something to add a bit of color, but for now I'm just happy to have somewhere to sit.

New Member of the Family

2008-02-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

No, I didn't get another snake (but don't tempt me). It's a baby. No, it's not MY baby. It's my brother's baby. Well, it's he and his wife's baby. She's the one who did all the work, after all. Presenting Miss Chloe Louise:

Luckily for my brother and sister-in-law she seems to have mastered the sleeping thing.

ETA: For the love of G-d, people, look at her foot. I don't care what her birth certificate says, there is NO way this child is 8 lbs. That foot is the size of the average newborn head!

Tax rebate? Ohhh yeaaah!

2008-02-01T16:08:00.000-08:00

For the first time in about 10 years I will not owe Uncle Sam an exorbitant amount of money in April. In fact, I will be getting back a nice chunk of change in about 2 weeks once my Federal and State tax returns are processed. (Yes, I know it's not good when you get a refund b/c it means that you gave the government an interest-free loan, but I don't care, it's still money.) I'm using it to buy some decent furniture for my condo since I got rid of the crappy West Elm sofa that I bought last year.

As I'm sure you're curious, here's what I'm getting...

Two of these loveseats from Macy's:

I was originally going to do a sofa/loveseat thing, but after measuring I decided that the sofa would overwhelm the room. They'll be arranged like this:

The rectangular objects on each wall are my bookshelves. I had them pushed together as a room divider and placed next to my bed, but I decided that made things too claustrophobic, so I've opened up the floor plan a bit. Sammy's terrarium is on top of the shelf on the left and I'm putting my new TV on the shelf on the right. I also need to do something about the ugly white horizontal blinds on my windows b/c they completely kill the room. I'm thinking maybe some bamboo shades or something like that.

I bought the loveseats today, but they won't be delivered till the end of the month, so I have some time to do more planning.