erith1: well one crummy thing is that your first one was the worst one
Zamitov86: I know!
erith1: going the other direction is much better
Zamitov86: they start by taking an hour
Zamitov86: jerks
erith1: i know
erith1: wait!
erith1: i just realized!
erith1: you solved the mystery!
erith1: i always wondered if we were losing and hour and then getting it back or if we were loaned an hour and then returned it
erith1: but IN just proved you’re losing it and then getting it back
Zamitov86: hah, couldn’t you guess
erith1: so it was rightfully yours to begin with
Zamitov86: its just like social security
Zamitov86: by the time we are ready to get our hour back, the baby boomers will have taken them all already
erith1: bastards!
erith1: my first one when I moved to PA was the other way around
Zamitov86: oh man, nice timing
erith1: i felt like a god
erith1: living an hour longer than you chumps back home
erith1: toying with time like my plaything
Zamitov86: we should do it with 3 or 4 hours
My So Called Life
I am the biggest dumbass EVAR
Holy crap, that’s all I can say.
Today I wrote a long long email to my friend John Keith about the problems I was having getting my 2 realtors to send me any properties to look at and how I wasn’t going to “fly all the way out there unless I had some properties to see.” 20 minutes later I get a reply to said email from my boss, John Kielty. Notice the similarity of the two names. My boss says, “Odd email. Sounds like you need a new realtor. By “fly all the way out there” am I supposed to assume you’re looking to relocate?” Obviously I haven’t told anybody at work about looking for a new job.
So I had to go talk to him and tell him about it. I guess everything went okay, I mean what was he going to do? He understood wanting to relocate closer to family. It was going to come out soon anyway, and as Sara pointed out now I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to tell him! Still, I don’t think all the fretting in the world would be as bad as the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I read the response from him and realized I sent the email to the wrong person.
Also, this was at 9:30 in the morning, so needless to say, my day didn’t go very well.
In other news, I called the job and asked for more money. That’s right, I handled it like a man! Everybody says, “Don’t take the first offer, reject it for sure. They expect you to. They’ll respect you more.” but then you say, “Oh, did you reject your first offer?” and they say, “Oh, hell no, not me. That’s crazy talk.” So I went back and forth but eventually I did it! So I’ll keep ya’ll posted on that. If nothing else, maybe I can serve as a warning to all the idiots who say reject the first offer…
Best movie EVER
Okay, I swear to god, they’re making a movie named Snakes on a Plane. I kid you not. I mean, based on the title alone, you can’t miss this movie! Basically the plot is that there’s this international assassin and he’s supposed to kill this guy in police custody, so he decides the best way to do that is to infest the plane he’s supposed to be on with snakes! I’m talking the bad CGI made-for-sci-fi-channel kind of snakes. And here’s the best part, it’s staring Samuel L. Jackson. Now you might be wondering what he’s doing in a movie like this…well according to him (and I quote) “That’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title.” In fact, the filmmakers tried to change the title and Jackson wouldn’t stand for it. I think I have to agree with him.
In other news, I’ve been listening to the not-so-new anymore Better Than Ezra CD, “Before the Robots.” It’s really really good! I guess I expected it to be so-so since I hadn’t heard much about it, but I’d say it’s as good as any of their old CDs. If you were a BTE fan back in the day, I’d definitely check it out, especially their first single off of it “A Lifetime.”
Chicago here I come!
Well, I finally heard from that company that flew me out for an interview. It took 4 1/2 weeks from when I flew out there for them to get back to me with an offer. That was a nerve wracking 4 1/2 weeks, let me tell you! They’re sending me a packet with detailed information, but at least I know right now that the salary they offered me was 5% more than what I make now even though I just got a raise like a month ago. Plus it looks like they would completely cover relocation!
One decision to make is whether I go back to them and ask for more money. Everybody says you shouldn’t accept the first offer, but I never had the balls to do that. I don’t even know how I’d go about it to be honest. I’m looking for advice.
The other area I’m looking for advice in is neighborhoods in Chicago. We’d like to be able to buy a house, but Chicago is as expensive as Philly, meaning we’ll probably have to settle for a condo. Our realtor is really good about shooting down properties that we send to him (without saying anything other than “that’s not a great neighborhood”), but not too good at sending us properties to look at. Meaning, he’s not being very helpful.
Nonetheless, things are definitely moving along. No jobs for Sara yet, but she’s keeping her eyes peeled.
Myriad
So I never told y’all about how my job interview went. To summarize, it went great. They decided to give me an offer and now I’m just waiting to hear from HR. Assuming the money is decent, and they assured me that it would be, I will be moving to Chicago!
Remind me sometime to tell you about the weird gazelle/mountain goat incident.
So Mike D’s mom and step dad are realtors and they gave us a call tonight. Moving closer to family, getting a new job and owning our first home…now that’s excitement! I’m just glad all of this is starting to move now since we’ve been secretly planning it for so long. I still haven’t told my family anything yet, but Sara broke the news to hers. I’m waiting until I actually have the offer in my hand.
I think I also failed to mention that my little bro is coming to visit this weekend on spring break with his girlfriend. They’ll only actually be here a few days though because they’re going to spend some time in NYC. Good times.
Here’s a good puzzle game. Blow up the bubbles until they pop. Cause long chain reactions to get more drops. The good thing about it is that the levels are randomly generated, so you don’t have to play through the same levels all the time. The bad thing about it is that the levels are randomly generated, so sometimes you totally can’t get as far. My highest is level 13 but I think Sara got to like 16.
Did you see Salma Hayek at the academy awards? Yowza. I thought Keira Knightley looked even better though. Those fake political-style ads where people were lobbying for awards were hilarious.
I wasn’t sure what to get Sara for VD but eventually I thought of a few things. First off, she used to get In Style and she really liked it, but she has this thing she does where she rips out pages of magazines and saves them for some reason. Now I admit, this has come in handy before, particularly when we want to have a party or something. There’s good ideas in there. So I bought her a nice hardcover edition of In Style Parties (The Complete Guide to Easy, Elegant Entertaining). I thought that would be nicer than having all the ripped out magazine pages laying around.
The second thing I got was a subscription to Elle Decor. Sara loves getting magazines and also she’s obsessed with buying a house, so I thought it might be nice to get something that had to do with decorating, etc. I did some research and Elle Decor seemed to be the right mix of cheap and elegant.
So anyway, I didn’t spend a ton of time or money (around 2 hours and $60 respectively) but I felt pretty good about things. On the other hand, Sara bought me a bookmark. Granted, I needed a bookmark, but still. She said she had another idea, but she just didn’t get around to buying it. They say it’s the thought that counts, but I think that only applies if the thought isn’t, “Yeah…I just couldn’t be bothered.”
So I bought a ring tone for my phone. That’s right, I’m that guy. See, Sara and I have similar phones and they only come with one ringtone that is remotely useable. So, of course, we both use that one. The problem is, every time either phone rings we’re always saying, “Is that mine? Is that mine?” So I finally spent the $2 and bought Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve. I have to say, every time I get a phone call I’m tempted to let it ring for awhile, so I can listen.
Sara was kind of mad because she deemed $2 for a ringtone to be a waste of money, but I told her to take it out of my Valentine’s Day present and she didn’t mention it again. The way I figure it, I can still milk that baby for about another $56.
I hadn’t talked to Schafer for a couple of months, which is one of the longer times we’ve gone without talking. I called and left messages a few times but I hadn’t heard back. I was starting to think that ship had kind of sailed, but he called me over the weekend. It was really nice to talk to him. I hate losing friends, and I’d especially hate to lose a friend I’ve had since pre-school. Still it does get increasingly hard to have conversations the longer we aren’t really part of each other’s lives anymore. Anyway…
Shane Halbach 