30 Mar 2007, 12:10pm
Life
by Mr.
1 comment

Particulate

Last week, once again the sewer backed up in the basement. We lost more stuff, more this time than last time. It took 5 days to fix it, and today the carpeting finally got replaced….though, we actually asked that they wait on that. Why? It’s not because we liked the smell of dried pee in the basement, but instead they had to dig there, and filled the hole back up. We were asked by the contractor to not put any weight on the concrete for at least a week. I guess 3 days is half way there?

So now, we will have to move everything out of the one room yet again, 3rd time this month, into the other room, so we can clean the floors in there. There is still plenty of nasty all over it, under things, so forth. I think we’re going to move…just too much crap to deal with.

It’s an odd situation for me. 9 years Army, and I got pretty much a suck it up, drive on attitude. There were months we’d go without hot water in the showers, cold air in the summer, warm food at meal times, and leaky roofs that hadn’t been repaired since the late 70’s. After a while, we just learned that nothing was going to get anything fixed, so fuck it…whatever. Now, we’re paying tenants, and I’m almost having a hard time getting out of that mentality. What pushes it now, however, are Jess and the kids. Jess is already getting sick, probably due to the mold now growing in the basement. The kids definitely don’t need to be breathing in shit-particulate either.

Anyways. I’m half way done with this part of the semester, and today decided that I can’t do 3 classes at a time. I’m doing it now, but it’s not easy. I have enough time to take care of two fully, but 3 I’m ending up doing a half ass job on all 3. ***Kids, get college knocked out before you’re ingrained into life***. Doing this will probably help me maximize my student loans, VA and guard money anyways. It’ll add another semester til I’m done, but hell, I’ve been working on this for going on 5 years now, and have doubled what I’ve done in just the past year. Another year and a half shouldn’t kill me. I just have to make sure none of my classes expire in this time frame…that’d suck.

Though I’m sure the rumor mill is already grinding this info out, I’ll put this info out just as a matter of fact. Yes, Jess and I are seriously contemplating staying here in this state, in this town. This is sure to make a few people mad, but all I can say is oh well. More or less, the two of us are tired of flexing to the needs of everybody else, and not ourselves and our kids. Grace has gotten into a really decent school, and we’d like to keep it that way. I’m just purely sick of moving all the time, tired of collecting addresses. Jess, I think, is finally comfortable with not being ‘home’, but is making here home. I’m tired of not ever really knowing my neighbors, because I’m never there too long; tired of packing stuff up to just unpack it, or in the case of some things, haven’t been really unpacked in years. This town is reasonably centrally located to my family (Colorado, Houston Tx, STL) and I have a job that I like. More or less, we’re tired. We need to set up shop at one place, for a while longer than a year. I have officially been here longer than I’ve been anywhere since I was 15 years old, and that’s odd for me.
We have to think of the two kids in Michigan, but they’re getting old enough to understand we feel. My daughter will probably have the hardest time most likely, since she still has the impression that her mother and I are still getting back together for some reason, even though I have told her about once a week that this isn’t the case. That’s something that her mother has to address as well though. Jess’s son is also in MI, though his dad is a very good guy, has a lot of family there. He’s also old enough to understand this.
People are forgetting that we also have two kids with us. There isn’t any real reason to have them live the life of a gypsy for the sake of others. That is more or less counter to what we really want them to learn anyways, to think of others but you don’t have to sacrifice yourself for others, unless you want to. Anyways.
Jessica’s parents aren’t going to be happy about this decision either. More or less, they’re going to be away from their grandkids, and I think that’s the biggest reason.
We will do what we can to be up to see everybody when we can. I think we’re just tired of sacrificing our lives for others. We’re not getting anywhere with it but stressed out and frustrated.

In other news, BSG won’t be back on until sometime in ‘08. Damnit! this really sucks …;) guess I can always get the first 3 seasons burned and watch them in my free time…
Sean is big. He keeps acting like he’s teething for a bit, then stops. Either way, he hasn’t yet learned to sleep through the night, which is wearing us out. He is starting to sit up on his own more or less, and is getting very animated in moving, so we’re figuring he’ll be tearing up the floors with crawling any day now.
Well, work has to be done, feel free to comment or whatever.

21 Mar 2007, 1:44pm
Life
by Mr.
1 comment

Calling the ball

Rooster’s got eyes on target…

Target, pillow and bed in defilade, over.

I’m beat. Little boy, up all night again. I got up finally at 430a this morning, after maybe 4 hours of extremely broken sleep. I know Jess is probably fairing as well as I am, not sure how she seems to ignore the complete lack of sleep.

Here at work, it’s hard to focus. I’m tired, trying to complete two projects due by tomorrow for classes, start another one that is due on Sunday (which is long and requires a lot of research, and I haven’t even begun…well, I did, but decided to change the topic, can’t write a book, only 12 pages.) On top of trying to get some school work done at work, while being very tired, I keep having people come and pester me about them wanting me to actually do my job….the nerve.

I’ve been keeping track for the past week and a half. I have a request for something come across my desk on average of every 11 minutes. No big deal really, I’m not over worked by any means…I was just trying to figure out why I had trouble focusing on anything longer than 15 minutes…maybe that’s the reason hehe…

I was going to write about something specific, but it’s completely eluded me. I’m tired. Gut is acting up, which is hardly fun….could be from that Noni juice Jess bought. I’m not sure what magic that elixir is supposed to remedy, but one thing is for certain….my guts haven’t been any cleaner. I won’t die like Elvis now, with 22 pounds of crap (literally) lodged in his gut. I’ll be lucky if they can squeeze any juice from me at all.

Anyways, this posting is worthless. I’d be ashamed to even tie my name to it if I weren’t so tired.

13 Mar 2007, 9:10am
Life NEWS Tech
by Mr.
leave a comment

Reviewing and Saving

First, I want to put out there that if any of you are in the military, there are deals out there that can’t be beat. Specifically, the US Army has an agreement with Microsoft to provide office applications for an extremely reasonable price. For instance, I got MS Office 2007 Enterprise for less than $22. That is a savings of approximately $760. I also got MS Visio 2007 Professional for the same price, saving $430.
I’ve always gotten my office applications from the Army, be it Visio, Office, Project. It was always told to us that if we do any work at home, that we’re authorized to use it. Just like in corporate America, it is literally impossible to not bring work home with you, if you expect to ever be home. Instead of burning copies of the discs now, the Army is going towards a better license management profile, which means that we, the soldiers, pretty much have to pay for at least the cost of making the disc and sending it. Spending $44, and saving about $1200, I’ll take that deal. Don’t even have to ask me twice.
On the software side, any of you out there that are students, there are also typically great savings in getting this software. Take for instance one of my purchases (which I found out that I didn’t have to make…anyways) I got a copy of MS’s OneNote 2007 for $50. The software on the open market usually costs $450, so automatically there is a savings of $400. It has ‘Student Edition’ written all over the case and the cd, but it’s the same thing. Other great buys like this can be had, saving 50-85% of the cost of the software. Holy Schnikeys!. Packages like Adobe’s Photoshop CS2 can be got for less than $290, saving close to 60% of the retail costs. CAD software packages that cost over $2500 can be gotten for about $300 or less. You do the math. If you want to be a legal user of software, this is definitely the way to go. I mentioned that I didn’t need to buy OneNote 2007…it’s because I bought the Office 2007 Enterprise, thinking it was the Professional…Enterprise comes with OneNote…oops. Ebay anybody?

 
  
 
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