2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 33 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Ch-ch-changes!

Holy crap. I think it has been like 4-5 months since I last updated. I said it in my last post that it has been awhile. Well this is awhile awhile like you people probably thought I dropped off the face of the Earth awhile lol. And no that is not the case at all. I just have had a lot going on.

So in my last update I briefly went over how our contract was up with Marathon Oil. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I now have a job as a Product Support Specialist for a fast-growing software company based out of Cincinnati and the founder of a really popular  property management software which is basically the best property management software out there in my opinion.

As a Product Support Specialist I am supporting the software and assisting customers with issues they have within the program. Mostly printing issues, emailing issues, tech-y things like that. But there are other aspects of it too, during training we had to learn about basic accounting because people obviously keep track of their money and bills in the software.

I don’t want to go into too much detail, but the bottom line is the job has been wonderful. I have to admit that working from home was great for awhile, but it drove me pretty stir crazy. Actually getting out of the house and going to work in the morning is a lot of fun. I couldn’t ask for better coworkers, all of them have just been really amazing. I never thought I’d work somewhere where everyone got along, but where I work they do. We work together with each other and help each other when needed and I’ve never felt that any of them are judging me or talking behind my back.

The best part of the job is being “stealth”. I just had to fill out my insurance information and of course had to list my sex as female but the HR lady didn’t even question me on that and just enrolled me. I have to admit that it is really nice working somewhere fresh where they haven’t known you pre-transition so you don’t have to worry about pronoun slip ups or people being ignorant and calling you the wrong name just because they can’t wrap their head around the change.

Another good thing that happened is that we moved to an apartment in the same building but on the floor above us. We had a lot of major problems with our old apartment, lots of water leaking all over the carpet, we had mold in the living room and in the walls, because of damage from pipes bursting in the walls. They had to open up our bathroom ceiling above the shower and it was wide open for about a month before we moved and we could hear the neighbors upstairs all the time when we were in the bathroom, pretty annoying.

So now we are living in an upstairs apartment and it is really awesome. We have a balcony now, which is a huge perk. We have gradually been getting more and more furniture and finally feel like our apartment is complete now since we redid the office where I used to work from home. Now we’ve turned it into an office and guest bedroom.

We also decided to get two ferrets from a local shelter here in Fairfield. Their names are Bullet and Sally and they are quite the handful but we love them! We let them out for a couple of hours every day and let them explore the entire apartment. The best part is that Bobbie gets along with them, however the cat has some issues with them and will just hiss at them and run away from them lol. Maybe eventually they will get along better.

 

I think that pretty much covers everything. New job, new additions to the family, new friends in my life. Things are just going great. There really isn’t much more to say than that. I will try to update more often next year but having a new job and new friends has kept me busy. It’s kind of nice to have a life outside of the computer and it’s been a blessing to meet new people at work and socialize and actually feel like I belong and things are finally coming together. I can’t remember a time where I was this happy and content with the way that my life is going.

Not to brag but I see promotion at work on the horizon, as they have already asked me to be a floor manager in the future during the week, which means I am in charge from 5 – 7 pm til we close. It’s pretty rare for someone so new to get asked to do this but it’s a step in the right direction of getting promoted.

I of course will do my best to keep the updates more frequent. More importantly, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Wow! Work update, life update, facial hair updates

Okay, wow. I seriously did not realize it had been so long since I had done an update. I apologize for that. Pretty much things have been a little bit crazy on my end. I do not want to go into lengthy detail about it, but after six years of being on the Marathon Oil contract for SAIC it is finally coming to an end at the end of October. Plenty of time for me to find a job, so I am not panicking, but mostly just disappointed that Marathon decided to go in a different direction. But after ten years, can you really blame them? Yeah, that is right. Ten years! In the IT world, having a contract with a company that long is practically unheard of. Does not mean that I didn’t almost cry when I was told about it, though lol. This job has been the stepping stone for me in the IT industry and now because of it I am getting called by recruiters about my updated resume on a daily basis. I have to put on my big boy pants, go to tons of interviews, and see what I can get offered for real.

With that being said, as you can imagine, things have been really busy. I am going to get the easy stuff out of the way first lol. I let my beard grow out for at least two months or so, if not longer (hard for me to keep track of time these days), and this was the end result before I shaved:

And after I had a pretty damned nice goatee going on (which I recently shaved because I want to look mostly clean shaven due to interviews… it can always grow back!):

 

I will likely feel more comfortable growing out my facial hair again after I get hired at a new job. For now I want to look professional and give that impression. Once I have the job, I don’t really care, and neither should my employer you would think. Most of the places I have interviewed at seem pretty casual. This is the most facial hair I want to have at the moment:

Seriously, I love having a stache, that isn’t gonna change! Anyways. Aside from that, yeah. Finding a new job is pretty interesting. I have had two interviews thus far and have had a lot of recruiters reach out to me. All good things. We’ll see what comes out of the interviews. There is one job in particular that I am really interested in taking, but am unsure if I will get an offer for it. Only time will tell. Things with Rachel and I are great. We’re handling things pretty smoothly these days. She’s been working a lot and is willing to pick up extra shifts so we can try and catch up on bills. Cause seriously being stuck not being able to move really sucks.

We had a really great date night shortly after her birthday at Outback Steakhouse. This was taken the night we went and we had a great time:

I am back into playing Skyrim, that damned game steals my soul! I have discovered the beauty of mods lol. So I have been playing Skyrim practically non stop the last week and a half or so. Since I am doing interviews after my work hours, I haven’t been getting a whole lot of sleep lately. I pretty much slept this whole weekend away and it’s already back to work at 2 am tomorrow morning. I am going to enjoy work while I can.

I think that about covers everything, I am sure that I will update again once I get a new job. I hope that everyone has been well!

Craziness

So next week Rachel starts work. It’s going to really suck but be awesome at the same time, considering right now we are kind of broke, and everyone knows how much being broke sucks! But at least we are hanging in there. I’m not so much worried about money anymore, everything has just been going really well. We’re both really happy and living life.

I got a new Alienware computer from Dell, so that Rachel could have my Acer laptop. She has a laptop but it is very old and even requires an external monitor just to see the picture because the laptop monitor is shot. Pictures of the Alienware below. It is quite awesome and I have been playing Watch Dogs on it, which is the most epic game I have played in awhile. It is like Grand Theft Auto meets Assassin’s Creed but in the modern day!

 

Other than that, things have been quite peaceful. Bobbie has been getting along well to all the changes and he and Oli have become best buds. It’s really cute to see them getting along. They aren’t exactly all buddy buddy with each other yet, but they play and rub noses and can be in the same room with each other without freaking the fuck out, which is an accomplishment! Speaking of Oli, I really thought she had killed Rachel the other day, I heard her vacuuming in the second bedroom (which has become totally fucking epic btw and I will be posting pics here in a sec) and all I hear is Rachel screaming”OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWE!” and I mean SCREAMING, like at the top of her lungs.

I am freaked out because I have no idea what the hell is going on so I rush in the room only to see Oli with all four of her paws in the air in attack mode leaping at Rachel, hissing, growling, spitting like the craziest fucking cat I have ever seen in my life. I go “what’s going on?!” and suddenly Oli comes at me growling and hissing, gets me somewhat in the leg… next thing I know Bobbie comes in, walks between everybody, sees what is happening, turns right around and shits in the living room.

This somehow seemed to calm Oli down and she hasn’t done that since, thank God. She had just got spayed literally a few days prior to this happening, so we think it was just because she was high on pain medicine or feeling sensitive from being spayed. Looking back at it now, we laugh every time and wish we had got it on camera. Bobbie’s reaction was totally priceless. We read that it is perfectly normal for cats to behave like this after being spayed, which is the only reason we would actually laugh about it. She has shown some strange aggressive tendencies, but from what we understand and have researched, it’s a typical thing.

So, on to the second bedroom. We bought an awesome futon for it and have rearranged it so that it’s actually a guest bedroom for when we decide to have our parents come out. I will be taking more updated pics as they come, because we have been dishing out a few things here and there for the bedroom to make it a bit more homely. Rachel has claimed her stake on the room and is designing it, since most of the stuff in the apartment was already mine when she moved in, and she deserves to have a room that she designs for herself (though we re running stuff by each other so it is something we can both agree on).

I really need to get more pics of this because we have rearranged and done a lot of work on the room and it looks awesome. We got a new dresser for the bedroom and a new lamp:

 

We also got some epic artwork in the kitchen:

 

The apartment just looks amazing. I can’t get over how good it looks. As soon as the lease runs out in 2014, we are going to be moving into a house. We are going to rent to start, and then when we’ve accumulated enough savings, think about going somewhere more permanent to buy a house. You never know what life is going to throw at you though, I can’t talk about it a whole lot, but at my job we are on a contract to contract basis, that contract, for all I know, could run out any time and not be renewed. Just a couple years ago the company split into two companies (Marathon Oil and Marathon Petroleum) and even way back when we didn’t know what the fuck was gonna happen. Life is just unpredictable. Do I think I’ll lose my job? No. Is it a possibility? Yes. But I always like to look on the bright side since we have such a high reputation with Marathon Oil.

That pretty much about does it. Here’s a couple cute pics of me and Bobbie after I took him for a walk a little bit ago:

Thanks for reading guys and I hope you have a good weekend!!

 

Bobbie in the Dog Park and Life in General

So, yeah. Been awhile since I have posted. Life has been busy. I say this with a heavy heart that I made the decision to surrender Schatzi to the SPCA of Cincinnati. They have taken her to a breed min pin rescue where she will be taken care of completely until she is adopted into a wonderful family that can take better care of her than I. That’s the bottom line that made it very hard to give her away. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, but I have hope that she will be taken in by someone who has the means to care for her and get her the behavioral training and medical assistance that she needs.

Bobbie seems to be adjusting just fine, which is nice. He has been sleeping in the bed with us and spends very little time in his crate. He is quiet enough that I can have him out until after my lunch when I have to be on the phones for work and take calls. After that, he is out to sleep with us and then be out with us all night until late in the morning.

We took him to the dog park last Sunday, which was a lot of fun. He really enjoyed it and got some good exercise in. It was kind of a rainy day, but none of us cared. Here are some pics below that Rachel took of us all having fun:

 

Things are still going really well and we plan to go back to IKEA today to get a few more things for the apartment. We still need a dresser, more lamps for convenient lighting, trash cans, stuff like that. I also ordered an Alienware 14 computer from Dell, which is really exciting, so that Rachel can have my old laptop! I am really excited to have a laptop that can actually play all of the games I want and still be able to do the other stuff like Photoshop and browsing, etc etc.

I know it seems like a bit of an investment, but it was under 1300 dollars, so I can have it paid off in the amount of time where there won’t be any interest on it! I’m pretty excited about it. Anyways, I am kind of rambling now so gonna end the update here. Hope everyone is well and thanks for reading!

Here We Are

Wow. So as you can imagine, I have been busy! Rachel managed to get here on Wednesday and we have been settling in. I have been offline and avoiding the computer like the plague, which has felt like a good thing the last few nights. But here I am, ready to give you guys an update!

Things are going really well. I have really enjoyed our time together thus far. We have been spending our time cleaning up the apartment and decorating it! We’ve gone grocery shopping and she has been such a sweetheart cooking me awesome meals and being patient with me as I try to wrap my head around the whole gluten free thing, though, honestly, we still eat some awesome freaking food and it’s really not that hard of an adjustment.

We went to IKEA yesterday and bought some awesome lamps and decorations for the apartment. It looks so much better now and feels more like a home than it ever has before. Bobbie and Schatzi absolutely love Rachel and are adjusting to having more than one parent in their life! Makes it so much easier to take them out and take care of them. It really is an awesome feeling, having someone else in my life to help me and support me and be here for me.

Here are all the photos we have taken over the course of the last few days:

We got the table and lamps from IKEA and I freaking love that store. As you can see, her cat Oli (Olivia) is settling in as well! She is so adorable. I was so tired last night that I apparently passed out on Bobbie and we stayed like this for almost two hours:

Here is him checking out the new digs in the pad:

And here is Schatzi sleeping by one of the new lamps:

And looking all happy on my lap:

And here is me and Rachel:

The apartment looks great, we are great, the dogs are great, everything is great! I am one happy dude. Will post more updates as they come!

Almost There!

So close to Rachel being here! I am getting more and more excited as the days go on! She will be here late Wednesday. So far her trip is going really well and she is making good time. She should be able to make it here by late Wednesday night.

Bobbie got his dental Saturday and he is feeling much better now. Man it really scared me, because he came home so exhausted! His eyes had goop all over them and he looked so bummed out lol. But he came home and slept with me and we had a fun time cuddling in bed. He kept me warm for about 4 hours and then I woke up and put him back in his crate because he seemed restless.

Now he is doing just fine! He is pooping normally, he didn’t throw up, and the only accident he had was something you just don’t want to read about LOL. Anyways. He is great! And I am so glad. Schatzi is doing great as well. Here they are over the weekend being goofballs:

It gets plenty crowded on that one spot on the couch as you can see! I had a really good weekend and can’t wait for my four day weekend to be here! Two more nights of work and then I will be waking up meeting Rachel to lead her back to our apartment. Hopefully can update more later in the week!