So my car is 'fixed'. Or about as fixed as I'm capable of making it.



I ordered the rear brake light, and that came in the other day. I was worried that I might have difficulty trying to attach it, but it attached with a single plug, no wiring involved or anything. We popped out the backseat and I crawled into the trunk that way, after emptying of all the junk, including the ramps I'd just bought before the accident. Everything that needed to remove came off easily with your standard range of tools plus a bit of oil. It was kind of awkward maneuvering in the trunk, but the plug for the rear light was obvious, so that got hooked up pretty easily. Tested the light, works perfectly, yay!

I secured the light as best I could with duct take (gorilla tape!), and also taped up a bit of plastic in the areas where I was concerned about potential leaking. From there, I slathered duct tape all over the areas where possible leak areas, along with parts where the paint was completely flaked off. I still need to get a hold of some paint at some point, as the paint is peeling off of other parts of the car. Suppose it's less of a rush now, since the car is technically worth negative dollars and all, but I'd still like to see it run as long as possible (where "as long as possible" means "when I have a steadier income and can actually afford to get a new car"). I had been thinking about getting some black car paint to touch up places, and then I could do...something(?)...to make the ghetto-fabulous back not look so awful. Not sure what that is, though. I don't care too much though, I suppose. Car still runs fine, and that's all that really matters. I'll miss the use of my trunk, though.

Though, there is one good thing about all of this. The cost of getting the brake light plus shipping, plus the cost of the tape I bought? About $150. The amount of the check the insurance company mailed to me for the car? About $3000. I heart dollars.

We are 99% unpacked. This is an achievement, as we didn't reach that state at the last apartment until about 8 months in. I am super happy with Drew for being rather gung-ho about getting everything out of boxes and onto shelves and such. It also helped that we got a ginormous 7' x 3' bookshelf off of the free section of craigslist. It clears the ceiling by about a few inches. I'd love to get rid of the other shelves and just have a second shelf like it, it makes that corner of the apartment feel like a library (possibly because we're about 84% sure the shelf originally came from some sort of library!). We've got partial ghetto apartment going on, as videos are hanging out in shelves made of boxes, but we're working on that part.

NaNoWriMo is coming up in less then 10 days now, and both Drew and I are gonna do it this time around. I wanted book #1 to be out of the way before book #2 got started on, and I'm just waiting on proof copy #3 (the final one, at least it better be) to come in the mail. Assuming that's perfect, I can set the book for sale on Createspace and Amazon. Then comes the fun part of figuring out how to market one of these babies.

1. Dont put drugs in peoples drinks in order to control their behavior.

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DONT ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Dont pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you dont communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Dont forget: you cant have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone on accident you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

(janked from here)

So I didn't get the sushi job. Which is unfortunate, as I was rather excited about the opportunity and felt like the interview went really well. Like, I felt like I proved my skills, that I interacted well with the guy I talked to as well as with a few people at the bar, I asked pointed questions, and just felt pretty comfortable and confidant with the way things went. But no go. It's gotten to the point where I feel like I have no gauge at all in recognizing when a job interview has gone well and when it hasn't. And I know that a lot of it is simply if I'm the most qualified person for the job, and that due to the economic climate, there are quite a lot of qualified people out there that are interested in the same positions that I am also interested in. But psychologically I still want to assume that it's something that I'm doing that's keeping me from getting these positions. I guess I feel that if it's my fault that I'm not getting anywhere, that it's also within my control to make the next time actually successful. I think I feel better with the idea that I'm simply not trying hard enough, rather then thinking about how I'm just another face in that sea of faces clawing on top of each other for that rare and elusive open position.

In any case, I should be grateful for what I do have. I've got a freelance job, which is good. And while it is a finite position, it will be another site on my resume to show potential employers. That, and I'll feel much more confidant regarding Drupal, so hopefully that will help propel me onward.

I am posting this link because I am ridiculous like that.

It's been cheap/free furniture time lately! We've got two desks: paid $20 for one, it's decent but definitely used. We got a second desk completely free off of Craigslist, it's a corner desk that all we had to do was disassemble and remove from the couple's house, it's nicer then any desk I've ever owned! Getting a microwave from someone today for $10. The larger furniture will have to wait until we have a moving truck. Speaking of moving trucks, we're getting a truck from Budget truck rental for 25% off the regular price: apparently this isn't exactly a big time of year for people to be moving. Anyhow, due to the distance we'll be driving it, they require us to have it for a week (and we're planning on doing the drive from Richmond to Denver in 3 days), so we'll hold onto it for the extra days and use it to pick up a couch and such from other unsuspecting Craigslist people. Yup.

And if none of the above makes sense, here's the dirty details: Drew and I are coming back to Richmond the 25th and leaving Monday the 28th with all of our stuff in a truck to go to the apartment in Denver (Arvada, technically) that we will have as of this Monday. Super driving party! And we get to fly on a plane on the 25th as well. I love flying on planes. Too bad it causes me to not hear properly out of my ears for several days afterwards. D'oh!

I'm working on a freelance job right now, building a website for a company that makes routers. I'm getting the opportunity to work with Drupal, which is useful. It's one of those programs where I wanted an excuse to learn it, but how do you learn something like that unless you have a website idea and a big pile of content? So much easier to let someone else provide the site idea and content (well, plus the dollars). In other news, I would like to own a router. They're super useful for carving pretty much anything out of pretty much any material, I'd just need to get the engineer plugin for my brain to be able to program and use it.

So the other day I came across a person looking for a sushi apprentice, and I emailed them about it to learn more. The position is located at a sushi bar at a club here, and I will hopefully be going in to talk to the guy about it this coming week. They're not specifically looking for experience making sushi (just food experience in general), but I provided images of the sushi I've made, so hopefully that will give me a boost over the competition. It would only be about 15 hours a week, but it would be at night so it wouldn't interfere with what I'm trying to do with web stuff (freelance or otherwise) in the day. Also, the club itself looks super-sweet, they get various international groups (Infected Mushroom is playing there the weekend we come back to Richmond!) and even have a Goth Night room one of the nights. So I'm hopeful about that. And, I'd actually get to learn how to make proper sushi!

So Drew and I got an apartment in Arvada (a town just outside of Denver). This means that we have a place to put all of our stuff, meaning we shall be returning to Richmond to get all out said stuff (along with attending Charlie & Tara's wedding). We got awesome tickets back (Jetblue, $100 total per person one way), if only the truck ride the other way would be as cheap! Anyhow, we'll be in Richmond from the evening of the 25th (Friday) to that next Monday morning. As we will be spending the majority of that time either dragging stuff down from our respective parents' attics and into a truck, and the majority of the rest of that time at a wedding, this doesn't leave much other time for socialization. So Friday, we're trying to coordinate getting dinner. The plan currently is to meet people at Elephant Thai around 7:45 - 8:00 or so (our flight gets in at 7:12, hopefully we won't be late as our poor Mountain Time stomachs will think it's 9:12 pm by then!). So, if you wanna come hang out with Drew and I and eat delicious Thai food, lemme know! Or, well, show up! Woohoo!

So in the past several weeks, two separate free underwear coupons have arrived from Victoria's Secret. Well, technically they said "free panty", but I think "panty" sounds kind of sissy, so I say "underwear". In any case, I used both today, bringing Drew along to satisfy the "one coupon per customer" requirement. The coupon also included a "$10 off" dealio for some bra line of theirs, but as they do not carry my size, this was a non-issue. So I got a black pair and a weird pastel blue paisley pair. This is because most of their underwear is ugly. I just don't go in for the faded earth tones and pastels with random teeny patterns thing. So I bolstered the freebies with a pack o' Hanes from the Wall of Mart, in nice glowing pinks. I appreciate tacky underwear.

Job hunt is still up in the air at this point. I just took a PHP test that I may have passed with flying colors, so hopefully that will get me to the interview step with a company in Denver I'm looking at. We shall see. Drew's looking around at various banks and various military places to make good use of his newly gotten Poli-sci degree + globs of BofA & Cap1 experience.

Movies! We've been watching entirely too many lately, some better then others. If you have a chance (and especially if you enjoy war movies) you need to go see The Hurt Locker, as it is excellent. It was only showing at independent theatres, but recently got picked up by some major theatre chain or another. I need to see if there is a dollar theatre out here someplace, as all of the movies I actually want to see arrived in one glob. At some point, I must see Bruno, District 9, and Ponyo! Albeit, I will generally have movies I want to see that I'll just eventually see on DVD, or I'll just forget they existed.

I justed downed an apple strudel. Satisfying and bloaty!

So I have this two-year contract with Clearwire for high-speed internet, and I managed to move with 6 months of it left. Unfortunately, they charge a horrendous cancellation fee to the tune of $180. In the effort of avoiding having to pay this, I decided to pass off the modem and account to someone else to finish off. I thought that person was going to be one of Drew's cousins, but as he has gone completely AWOL and has not answered his phone the last 28489234 times anyone has tried to get ahold of him, it's time to try giving the modem to someone else. The service is around $38 a month, and the contract expires 01-10-2010. I'll give the modem away for free and cover the service for August if you (or anyone you know in Richmond) will take the contract off my hands!

Drew and I ventured over to Manitou Springs today, which is this really neat town on the edge of Pike's Peak. Much barbecue and chocolate were consumed.

I'm trying to do a fair bit of biking, because a.) The weather is fabulous: sunny, rather warm, and when I sweat it immediately dissipitates, b.) it's an excellent way to get to know the area, c.) We're currently located on the edge of suburbia, right beside fields and country with horsies and such and it's really pretty, d.) the suburbia is a lot more bike-aware then Richmond's suburbia ever was, and e.) If I continue to eat copious amount of barbecue and chocolate, the biking will be highly necessary to ensure that I don't have to go spend entirely too much money on new bras. It's interesting, the suburbia here is so much friendlier then what I'm used to. Mind you, it's still rather inconvenient if you're trying to walk to the grocery store, and there is excessive use of strip mall-age. We're in an area where there's a lot of newer housing, and it's nice looking smaller houses. I'm used to seeing either new giant McMansion type buildings, or cheap and crappy new buildings. There's a lot of nicer looking 2-3 bedroom houses, with interesting architecture and rock gardens and such. Mind you, the architecture might just be related to the fact that I'm used to seeing colonials and whatever else they use all over the Mid-Atlantic, and here everything has more of a western feel. Also, there's sidewalks! Lots of sidewalks!

Jobwise, there is slight advancement. My resume is being submitted by a recruiter for a position doing web stuff with Barclay Card. It would be working with table-less design (and hand-coding at that, yay) and trying to make all their websites standards-compliant, which I'm decent at, so the job itself sounds interesting. I need to go look at YUI and see if it's in any way similar to Jquery, and either way I should try to learn some, as they're interested in having that as well. One downside is that it's located in Colorado Springs, and I was really stoked about being in Denver. However, I've explored next to none of the area, and I'm pretty sure I'd be fine staying in CS for awhile for a decent job. I'm just a sucker for giant cities with nightlife and such. I am also a sucker for mountains and paths that allow me to climb all over said mountains, so either location should work just fine for that.

I will now end this with two excellent pictures of Andrew. The first one shows him gliding majestically up a hillside:



The second shows him being, uh, less majestic: