(no subject)
So I haven't written anything here in quite a while. I decided to after someone commented the other day that I probably should every now and again. I won't mention her name, since she never mentions mine in her journal.
Anywho, for starters, Philadelphia sucks. Anyone thinking about moving here, don't. Anyone on their way here, turn around and go back, there's nothing to see here. Bout 8 blocks up the street, there's a big bell with a huge crack in it, and for the last 300 years, no one has thought to take it down. Across the street from said bell, there's a small framework where Ben Franklin's house used to be. No house, just a frame. Right up from there is Suburban Station, Center City's most distinguished subway terminal where I can catch the L every 8 minutes to the office. It is dark, littered, full of bums, and always smells like piss. Up the street from the house about 4 blocks in the opposite direction is Philadelphia's famous Art Museum, where for the next month or so, the internationally popular Dalí exhibit will be the talk of the northeast. If you're in to art. Art sucks, so I've never been there. From the 8th floor of my building, I can see the entire city skyline. Whoopteedoo. Thank God for NetFlix.
Okay, maybe it's not that bad. So it's a big city, it's in the northeast, the people are rude, they say things like "pop" and "you'uns", the subway smells like piss. But the Yankees warm up to you after a while I guess. I've got to that point where I'm forcing myself out of the house every now and again and going out to explore this God-forsaken town and the little that it has to offer. It's not that bad, really. It's starting to warm up here, the trees are growing leaves on them, and it's been a scorching 75° all week. Damn these heat waves.
Okay, so I knew what I was getting into when I moved up here. I knew there would be sacrifices, but like anything else in life, you learn to adjust and reap the rewards that come along with making sacrifices. I haven't quite figured out what those rewards are yet, but when they come to me, I'll be sure and let you know what they are. They have to be great, I hope.
Okay, so I don't have to hang around this town as much these days. I've been doing a lot of traveling. The job is going great. I feel like my career is finally launching me in new directions. Since I moved here, I've been to Chicago, California, and Minnesota. Next month I'm going back out to California for about two weeks. Whenever we acquire new properties, I have been elected to fly out and teach the site our way of doing business. In return, the property managers put me up in the best places in town and take me drinking (on them) to the hottest bars around. Sweet deal? Indeed. When I'm not training or traveling or writing manuals or pulling shit out of the database, I'm working on a side project writing a program for a friend's business enterprise that we are planning on launching together by the end of this summer.
So who would have thought with a finance degree that I would be writing computer programs and managing databases? I don't really know shit about computers. Funny how that happens. I burn rubber when it comes to crankin out SQL statements.
So they cook with gas here. That takes some getting used to. Sometime shortly after I first moved in, I damn near burned down the entire city of Philadelphia when I tried to boil some water one night for... I dunnno, soup or something. So I put set the dial to "HIGH" and walked away. Well, I forgot that I had a pot of water on to boil. Usually when that happens, the kitchen reminds me that I had some water boiling when it starts to boil over and sizzles in the burner below. Since that didn't happen this time, I was reminded of my boiling water when I started to pass out from carbon monoxide or some gas, some shit. The burner never lit. So I walk in the kitchen and I'm all like "what the fuck? why isn't my water boiling?" SO I called my mom. She said there has to be a way to light the pilot on the burner. Apparently, just past the "HIGH" setting, there's a setting that says "LIGHT". I thought that was the opposite end of "HIGH" meaning "LOW" or something. Figgered maybe it was just a yankee term for "LOW" setting or something. Apparently, it means "LIGHT" the "PILOT" light. Fuckin' yanks.
It's not all that bad, though, they don't charge me for gas. Super-sweet. Whatever, that makes up for the 5% city income tax they're charging me for living here. Not sure where that money is going, but they certainly aren't using it to clean the piss out of the subway stations.
The trip up here was... um... fun. A 24-hour trip, from Orlando, straight in to hell. The air broke in the truck, along with the heat, and when it was 30° all the way through South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, we damn near froze our dicks off. Nearly asleep when we finally rolled into Philadelphia DURING FUCKING AFTERNOON RUSH HOUR I can't begin to tell you how many times we found ourselves driving the wrong way down a one way street. Damn one-way streets up here, I hate them. Thank God for not ever having to drive. Plus the fact that I would have to pay $200 a month for a parking spot here at the house. Locked Tony in the back of the truck somewhere in Savannah, Georgia for about a hour while Sammy went and entertained ourselves at a titty bar. I still don't think he believes us that not a damn one of those girls at the titty club were even remotely good looking. They were all fat. Fucking Jabba-the-Huts. Ho ho fucking ho. So when we got here, we had to unload the entire truck (after not sleeping for nearly two days) and haul all my shit up to the 8th floor in a ... cargo? elevator that couldn't fit SHIT into it. What a blast. Certainly a trip I'll never forget. Thanks so much to Tony and Sammy for bein' troopers, I never coulda done it without you guys!
So they got a new Pope? An ... interim ... Pope??? Hmm.
Well, that is all I have for now. Stay tuned for more coming to a journal near you at a distant point in the future. Feel free to call me. I haven't met too many people here yet, so it's always great to hear from friends "back home."
...and now... something completely different...
Anywho, for starters, Philadelphia sucks. Anyone thinking about moving here, don't. Anyone on their way here, turn around and go back, there's nothing to see here. Bout 8 blocks up the street, there's a big bell with a huge crack in it, and for the last 300 years, no one has thought to take it down. Across the street from said bell, there's a small framework where Ben Franklin's house used to be. No house, just a frame. Right up from there is Suburban Station, Center City's most distinguished subway terminal where I can catch the L every 8 minutes to the office. It is dark, littered, full of bums, and always smells like piss. Up the street from the house about 4 blocks in the opposite direction is Philadelphia's famous Art Museum, where for the next month or so, the internationally popular Dalí exhibit will be the talk of the northeast. If you're in to art. Art sucks, so I've never been there. From the 8th floor of my building, I can see the entire city skyline. Whoopteedoo. Thank God for NetFlix.
Okay, maybe it's not that bad. So it's a big city, it's in the northeast, the people are rude, they say things like "pop" and "you'uns", the subway smells like piss. But the Yankees warm up to you after a while I guess. I've got to that point where I'm forcing myself out of the house every now and again and going out to explore this God-forsaken town and the little that it has to offer. It's not that bad, really. It's starting to warm up here, the trees are growing leaves on them, and it's been a scorching 75° all week. Damn these heat waves.
Okay, so I knew what I was getting into when I moved up here. I knew there would be sacrifices, but like anything else in life, you learn to adjust and reap the rewards that come along with making sacrifices. I haven't quite figured out what those rewards are yet, but when they come to me, I'll be sure and let you know what they are. They have to be great, I hope.
Okay, so I don't have to hang around this town as much these days. I've been doing a lot of traveling. The job is going great. I feel like my career is finally launching me in new directions. Since I moved here, I've been to Chicago, California, and Minnesota. Next month I'm going back out to California for about two weeks. Whenever we acquire new properties, I have been elected to fly out and teach the site our way of doing business. In return, the property managers put me up in the best places in town and take me drinking (on them) to the hottest bars around. Sweet deal? Indeed. When I'm not training or traveling or writing manuals or pulling shit out of the database, I'm working on a side project writing a program for a friend's business enterprise that we are planning on launching together by the end of this summer.
So who would have thought with a finance degree that I would be writing computer programs and managing databases? I don't really know shit about computers. Funny how that happens. I burn rubber when it comes to crankin out SQL statements.
So they cook with gas here. That takes some getting used to. Sometime shortly after I first moved in, I damn near burned down the entire city of Philadelphia when I tried to boil some water one night for... I dunnno, soup or something. So I put set the dial to "HIGH" and walked away. Well, I forgot that I had a pot of water on to boil. Usually when that happens, the kitchen reminds me that I had some water boiling when it starts to boil over and sizzles in the burner below. Since that didn't happen this time, I was reminded of my boiling water when I started to pass out from carbon monoxide or some gas, some shit. The burner never lit. So I walk in the kitchen and I'm all like "what the fuck? why isn't my water boiling?" SO I called my mom. She said there has to be a way to light the pilot on the burner. Apparently, just past the "HIGH" setting, there's a setting that says "LIGHT". I thought that was the opposite end of "HIGH" meaning "LOW" or something. Figgered maybe it was just a yankee term for "LOW" setting or something. Apparently, it means "LIGHT" the "PILOT" light. Fuckin' yanks.
It's not all that bad, though, they don't charge me for gas. Super-sweet. Whatever, that makes up for the 5% city income tax they're charging me for living here. Not sure where that money is going, but they certainly aren't using it to clean the piss out of the subway stations.
The trip up here was... um... fun. A 24-hour trip, from Orlando, straight in to hell. The air broke in the truck, along with the heat, and when it was 30° all the way through South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, we damn near froze our dicks off. Nearly asleep when we finally rolled into Philadelphia DURING FUCKING AFTERNOON RUSH HOUR I can't begin to tell you how many times we found ourselves driving the wrong way down a one way street. Damn one-way streets up here, I hate them. Thank God for not ever having to drive. Plus the fact that I would have to pay $200 a month for a parking spot here at the house. Locked Tony in the back of the truck somewhere in Savannah, Georgia for about a hour while Sammy went and entertained ourselves at a titty bar. I still don't think he believes us that not a damn one of those girls at the titty club were even remotely good looking. They were all fat. Fucking Jabba-the-Huts. Ho ho fucking ho. So when we got here, we had to unload the entire truck (after not sleeping for nearly two days) and haul all my shit up to the 8th floor in a ... cargo? elevator that couldn't fit SHIT into it. What a blast. Certainly a trip I'll never forget. Thanks so much to Tony and Sammy for bein' troopers, I never coulda done it without you guys!
So they got a new Pope? An ... interim ... Pope??? Hmm.
Well, that is all I have for now. Stay tuned for more coming to a journal near you at a distant point in the future. Feel free to call me. I haven't met too many people here yet, so it's always great to hear from friends "back home."
...and now... something completely different...