Where has the time gone?

Well, it’s been quite some time since I made a real blog entry. Thanks to twitter, at least my life in 140 characters or less has been somewhat documented.

As some of my close friends and family already know, I finally quit my job at OpSource, and started working at The College Board last week. I had to get out of there, because it just wasn’t a healthy environment for me both mentally and physically. While I will somewhat miss the freedom I had there telecommuting and such, I definitely wont miss the crazy hours I worked, and the constantly being called for dumb stuff. My new gig is much more laid back. While there are days that I have to be in at 5:00am to do deployments, there’s no expectation for me to work any more than the 8 hours I get paid for. So when I come in at 5:00am, I go home at 1:00pm, and that’s fine by me.

Outside of work, I took a short trip home to California before I started the new job. Unfortunately, since it was on such short notice, and we really didn’t have the money to spend on it, Steph didn’t get to go. I flew on frequent flier miles, and hardly spent any money while I was there, thanks to awesome friends and family. Hopefully, we’ll both be making another trip out for xmas, but we’re still not sure about it yet. Have to wait a bit and see how things look.

On a side note, my work wouldn’t just let me use my personal blackberry, and pay for it, so they gave me a new one with a new number. Steph’s phone was giving her problems, and she’s always wanted it to be more internet friendly, so I finally talked her into getting a BB last night. I killed off my old plan, and transferred the number to Steph’s old phone, so I’m only paying $10/mo for it instead of the ridiculous amount I was paying before. The old number is being forwarded to my new BB. Those of you who call and txt me, please hit me up via IM or email, and I’ll give you my new number. If you txt my old number, I’m not gonna get it until I happen to look at the other phone (I’m not even keeping it on or with me).

[smartads]

Short but sweet Cali trip; New drums for me

So I finally broke down and bought a new drum set. I have been itching to get a new kit for years (I got rid of my last set like 15 years ago, then had a practice kit for a couple years back in the late 90’s), but I’ve always let it slide on the priority list. All this playing on Rock Band got me really wanting a new kit, much the same way that Guitar Hero renewed my interest in playing guitar. So I did some searching on Musicians Friend (The greatest music store ever!), and found a pretty good low end Pearl kit that didn’t break the bank. Got a set of decent set of Paiste cymbals, and I’m in business. The kit arrived on Friday, but unfortunately, the cymbals didn’t get here until Monday.

I got her setup, and semi-tuned (any drummer knows this is an ongoing process) on Friday. Yesterday I got the cymbals, and got them all set. The dogs are NOT happy about this renewed obsession, but they’ll get used to it. I tried taking it slow and giving Benny treats while I was tuning and stuff, which seems to help. But he’s a complete pansy ass, so he gets all stressed. China just goes somewhere else, and she’s fine.

Crappy picture of new drums

We flew out to LA on Saturday morning for my Grandmother’s 80th birthday party.

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