You must, if you’re here. ;)
Head over and read this post on Wil’s blog.
Personal
The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.
Why blog?
Some days I sit back and wonder just why I do this. My site doesn’t get a whole lot of traffic — primarily just my folks and a few friends who stop by from time to time when they remember. And, admittedly, much of what I write probably wouldn’t be of any real interest to the world in general. Bits and pieces of my life, what I’m doing, what’s going on. Heck, I don’t even get personal enough most of the time to make for any real good drama!
I found the following quote over on Peach’s site after she left a comment to one of my posts, and it seemed to sum up fairly accurately why I keep banging away at this — because, whether or not it’s seen all that often…it’s fun.
I am very pleased with my (o.k. and yours too) blogger. I feel like I have fallen down the rabbit hole; just falling and falling in a blissful state, sans the drugs. I love IT! It is peering through my own looking glass at my own ego and my written word. Whether you are an amatuer or a professional; whether you are an exquisite artiste or you stink, it makes no difference. Most people who create at some time or another, have a strong sense of who they are in the images they create. Mediocrity is the scare word for us. Your word or my word, we all checked off ‘public’ for a reason. We would like to be read and responded to.
Sometimes, though, I feel that I shouldn’t be ‘published’ unless I am very, very good. And then again, who cares? It’s my Journal and if you want to read it, be my guest.
Ugh
In brief — I saw Spiderman, it rocked. More later. I’m currently battling off a really nasty flu bug…hence why no updates for a few days, and only this really short note right now before I curl up in bed.
I’ll get more up when being vertical doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. ;)
Dancing is not a crime!
Well, today ended up being something of an interesting day. I needed to get out of the house for a bit, so wandered into downtown to see a movie. Now, Westlake Plaza seems to be the focal point for most (all?) of the protests in Seattle, and it’s becoming somewhat second nature to swing by and see who’s protesting what each weekend.
Today, though, the protest was something that actually interests me! There’s been a lot of political struggle here in Seattle recently over the Teen Dance Ordinance (lots of background information can be found via this Google search). A local organization called the NorthWest Late Night Coalition was in the plaza today, holding a rally to gain support for their part in the battle to repeal the TDO, with an information booth, speakers, and DJ’s playing. It was pretty interesting, and I stopped by to watch for a while. I ended up chatting with two of the volunteers helping out (Dolly and Chloe, if I remember correctly) and let them know a bit about my history in Anchorage working with Gig’s and the Lost Abby.
Once I got home, I stopped by their website and signed up — mayhaps I’ll start getting involved in things down here! Would be very cool…here’s hoping!
Happy birthday Kevin!
Happy birthday to my little brother! Kinda scary to think that he turns 26 today — in some ways, scarier than me turning 29 yesterday. Yikes. Hey — he’s still my little brother, though. :D
I’m back!
Okay, so…yeah. It’s been over a week since I paid any attention to my website. Sorry for being so lazy…there’s been a fair amount of crud going on, and, to be honest, I just wasn’t in the mood to bitch and moan about it until some more of it was resolved. It’s not exactly all resolved now, but now I’ve gotten to a point where it was bugging me more that my page was sitting untended for this long. So, I put two posts up before this one…and now it’s time for me to babble.
Yay? ;)
This, then, is the lowdown. I’d already mentioned that at the beginning of the month I’d lost my position at Andersen, and then about a week later I got a new position at Microsoft. All seemed well and good — unfortunately, as there always seem to be, there have been complications.
First major thing — it took three weeks after starting at the new job before I got a paycheck. Not a good thing. Second major thing — my payscale pretty much sucks — $9.74/hr. Put the two together, and I end up in some rather interesting financial binds. Rent is coming up, bills are late…ack. Pfft. Grrr. Things are starting to get back on track — I got that 3-week (though only 40 hours) paycheck, and now things should start coming in on time, plus I’ve gotten my first paycheck from helping out around the apartment building, and I got my security deposit refund from the old apartment, so I’m getting things back on track, it’s just made for a lot of stress.
I’m still pretty worried about the pay, though. This just isn’t enough for me to make it without a lot of difficulties and eventual restructuring if things don’t get better quickly. The work around the building is helping — I get $10/hr for that — but I can only put in a maximum of 20 hours a week for that. Still, it’s better than nothing.
The whole thing’s been worrying me, though. A year ago when I was still in Anchorage and working for GCI I was making $14.65/hr, plus $6.85/hr a few hours a week at Suncoast, and paying a third of all the rent and bills for a huge apartment in Turnagain. Now, sure, I escaped from Anchorage to live in Seattle — but now I’m making just a little more than half of what I was, and paying more than half of what I was. By going from Andersen to Microsoft, my income has dropped by about $300/month, while my expenses jumped by about $60-$80/month in bus fare to get back and forth to and from Redmond. Ouch. The entire thing’s got me a little paranoid that I might run out of money — and I’d hate to make it this close to a full year down here and then get so broke I have to head back to Anchorage.
That would suck. A lot. :( Hopefully it won’t get to that point, though.
There are some bright points. The extra money from helping out here at the apartment building is going to come in very handy. Also, the people at Todays know that $9.74/hr is well below what I’m worth, so they got the manager at my current posting to agree to a 30 day evaluation to see if we can bump my pay rate up. I’m not sure how easy that will be when it took 3 weeks to get my first paycheck worked out, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. However, it will have to be a pretty decent jump to make keeping the posting worthwhile…and though I like the place I’m at, am having fun with the work, and enjoy the people there, if it’s not paying my bills, I’m going to have to ask for something different.
Ah, well. Things are definitely tight, but I’m not broke yet. I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end. Just keeping my fingers crossed until then.
In other news, life goes on fairly much as normal. Candice’s mom was down here for the weekend, so they were out doing mom/daughter things for a much of the weekend while I was working around the building. We did get the three of us together for lunch on Saturday and some wandering around the Pike Place Market, and for church on Sunday at a small Lutheran church that Candice has started going to (with me on occasion) close to downtown. The weekend was gorgeous, too — spring is certainly giving way to summer, and at the moment, we’ve got clear skies and no forecast of rain anytime soon. Sunshine everywhere, 70-some degree temperatures — definitely something I can deal with! :)
Basically, life goes on, pros and cons, ups and downs. I’m sure it’ll all work out eventually. It’s just not always fun when it’s in the process.
Funniest man on the planet?
I’m not entirely sure if Robin Williams is the funniest man on the planet or not, but after being able to see him live tonight — it wouldn’t surprise me!
A while ago, Chad surprised me by letting me know that he’d picked up tickets for Candice and me to go along with him, Don, Rick, and Meagan to see Robin Williams’ standup routine when he came through town. I was pretty floored by this (tickets were $100 a pop!), but there was no way I was going to say no! So, tonight Candice and I wandered down to the Paramount (just a few blocks down from my apartment) to meet up with the gang, and found out that Marty and Aimee had shown up for the show also! We all hung around outside for a bit, then wandered our way in for the show.
Hello from Microsoft!
This is mostly just me being silly — I wanted to grab a chance to make a post to my blog from within the Microsoft domain. ;)
I’ll get back and put some actual content up soon, I promise.