25th B-day update
Today I finally became an adult to the auto insurance companies :P Yeah, that's right, I'm 25 now. Let the old jokes commence! Anyway, I'm finding myself with a little extra time to spend because work has been slowing down slightly. Since I have some time to waste, I figure why not write that update I promised. It's
I don't feel like writing a huge essay, so I'm just going to break down the last 7 months by season.
Summer: Worked steadily through June and July, then found myself laid off indefinitely in mid-August. Luckily, Craigslist came to my aid and I found another job within 2 days, but this one ended up being a pretty shady operation - I quit after 4 days because of the sheer stupidity some people that call themselves "electricians" have. Like turning on circuits I was working on just to see if I'd blow up a pair of wire strippers or something. Stupid. After quitting, it only took me another 3 days to land another place of employment, thankfully. I've been at the same place since. But, the timing of this job hunting journey couldn't have been worse - my roomies and I had found a place to move to from the shitty apartment, but I was without paychecks to prove employment so I could sign a lease. Ended up spending a good pile of my savings to get this house, but didn't mind because searching for a place was getting pretty old. Oh, for those of you wanting to know, this house is a 4br/2ba ranch style in a quiet north metro Denver neighborhood. It's in pretty good repair for being 40 years old, the rent is pretty reasonable and we've had no problems so far. Other things that occured during the summer include a few drives up into the mountains to hang out, visiting my brother once in a while in Fort Collins and spending a lot of time just chilling with the roomies. Nothing else of significance really happened, except the daily grind. :P
Fall: The new job ended up working out pretty well, with consistent hours and some decent overtime because we were doing lots of work up in the mountains, and travelling up to 3.5 hours each way on a couple occasions. I didn't mind because I never had to drive, just got to sleep and enjoy scenery while getting paid. Can't beat getting paid to sleep. With all that overtime, and including the fact that my car would have needed a good chunk of money to get it running right again, I did something for myself, finally. I bought this and I've been very happy with it since. Got a sweet deal on it, including a good trade for my old car. Ended up being able to get a nice aftermarket warranty, gap insurance and lo-jack with the car in the payment range I was looking for :) Insurance is a little high, but nothing seriously insane. But it's definitely within my budget, so that's why it's in the driveway :D Here is a picture of it from the back, it came with a can muffler on it, but it makes the car sound pretty mean without being loud. :P Only had 37k miles on it when I picked it up, too. Love it. 3 weeks after I picked up the car, I flew down to Durango to help my friend sgtbadger move up here into our unoccupied bedroom. Rent decreased because of that, which was pretty welcome to everyone else here. Nothing much else happened during the fall, except the usual hanging out stuff.
Winter: So far, winter has been inconsistent, especially with hours at work. The holidays treated me fairly well, got to take my car up in the snowy mountains to visit family up by Aspen. Good times and (too much) good food was had. I ended up scoring some cash, a new carryon suitcase, clothes and a new set of ski gloves. Not bad :) Other than the holidays though, the stress level has risen slightly the last few weeks. Especially because of a big bummer. I was asked to drive my car up to Breckenridge to a job the friday before Christmas because I needed to leave early for an appointment. Was driving up one of the last side roads to get to the house, and got ran off into a snowbank by a guy driving a truck stupidly... he fishtailed in the middle of the road right in front of me, it was either snowbank and hope for the best or hit the truck and know I wouldn't be able to drive my car home. Went for the snowbank, he drove off, I was stuck and fuming mad. Luckily someone with a truck and a towstrap came and pulled me out, and the damage to my car was cosmetic only, thankfully, but it was still pretty damn angering. Here are the pictures of the damage... the engine splashguard also got ripped off but I didn't get a picture of it. I'm getting insurance to take care of it soon. I should be picking up some sidework soon which will help the cause of getting it fixed faster, plus hopefully I'll be able to make up for the shortage in hours these last couple weeks. My boss told me that we have lots of work coming up, but just nothing much at the moment. I hope he's right.
Well, that's all I could think of that's been significant to me over the last few months... I hope that I don't let this journal slide like that again but I've got no guarantees. Now I think I'm going to go do something nice for my birthday. :)
I don't feel like writing a huge essay, so I'm just going to break down the last 7 months by season.
Summer: Worked steadily through June and July, then found myself laid off indefinitely in mid-August. Luckily, Craigslist came to my aid and I found another job within 2 days, but this one ended up being a pretty shady operation - I quit after 4 days because of the sheer stupidity some people that call themselves "electricians" have. Like turning on circuits I was working on just to see if I'd blow up a pair of wire strippers or something. Stupid. After quitting, it only took me another 3 days to land another place of employment, thankfully. I've been at the same place since. But, the timing of this job hunting journey couldn't have been worse - my roomies and I had found a place to move to from the shitty apartment, but I was without paychecks to prove employment so I could sign a lease. Ended up spending a good pile of my savings to get this house, but didn't mind because searching for a place was getting pretty old. Oh, for those of you wanting to know, this house is a 4br/2ba ranch style in a quiet north metro Denver neighborhood. It's in pretty good repair for being 40 years old, the rent is pretty reasonable and we've had no problems so far. Other things that occured during the summer include a few drives up into the mountains to hang out, visiting my brother once in a while in Fort Collins and spending a lot of time just chilling with the roomies. Nothing else of significance really happened, except the daily grind. :P
Fall: The new job ended up working out pretty well, with consistent hours and some decent overtime because we were doing lots of work up in the mountains, and travelling up to 3.5 hours each way on a couple occasions. I didn't mind because I never had to drive, just got to sleep and enjoy scenery while getting paid. Can't beat getting paid to sleep. With all that overtime, and including the fact that my car would have needed a good chunk of money to get it running right again, I did something for myself, finally. I bought this and I've been very happy with it since. Got a sweet deal on it, including a good trade for my old car. Ended up being able to get a nice aftermarket warranty, gap insurance and lo-jack with the car in the payment range I was looking for :) Insurance is a little high, but nothing seriously insane. But it's definitely within my budget, so that's why it's in the driveway :D Here is a picture of it from the back, it came with a can muffler on it, but it makes the car sound pretty mean without being loud. :P Only had 37k miles on it when I picked it up, too. Love it. 3 weeks after I picked up the car, I flew down to Durango to help my friend sgtbadger move up here into our unoccupied bedroom. Rent decreased because of that, which was pretty welcome to everyone else here. Nothing much else happened during the fall, except the usual hanging out stuff.
Winter: So far, winter has been inconsistent, especially with hours at work. The holidays treated me fairly well, got to take my car up in the snowy mountains to visit family up by Aspen. Good times and (too much) good food was had. I ended up scoring some cash, a new carryon suitcase, clothes and a new set of ski gloves. Not bad :) Other than the holidays though, the stress level has risen slightly the last few weeks. Especially because of a big bummer. I was asked to drive my car up to Breckenridge to a job the friday before Christmas because I needed to leave early for an appointment. Was driving up one of the last side roads to get to the house, and got ran off into a snowbank by a guy driving a truck stupidly... he fishtailed in the middle of the road right in front of me, it was either snowbank and hope for the best or hit the truck and know I wouldn't be able to drive my car home. Went for the snowbank, he drove off, I was stuck and fuming mad. Luckily someone with a truck and a towstrap came and pulled me out, and the damage to my car was cosmetic only, thankfully, but it was still pretty damn angering. Here are the pictures of the damage... the engine splashguard also got ripped off but I didn't get a picture of it. I'm getting insurance to take care of it soon. I should be picking up some sidework soon which will help the cause of getting it fixed faster, plus hopefully I'll be able to make up for the shortage in hours these last couple weeks. My boss told me that we have lots of work coming up, but just nothing much at the moment. I hope he's right.
Well, that's all I could think of that's been significant to me over the last few months... I hope that I don't let this journal slide like that again but I've got no guarantees. Now I think I'm going to go do something nice for my birthday. :)