Nicole's Parents Respond / New Collage! / New Lease! / New Job Search?
Nicole came home safe and sound last week from her California trip. She had a great time catching up with her family and old friends. As i mentioned in my previous entry, I had written a letter to Nicole's parents as a kind of introduction. Her situation is incredibly unique and I'm sure her folks welcomed any reassurance that the guy she's suddenly living with is sane. Upon Nicole's return to Oregon came with her a handwritten letter of response from her parents to me! I halfheartedly expected one since Nicole had mentioned during their trip that they felt some kind of obligation to respond, but it was still a surprise anyway. In the letter, they thanked me for giving her back to them for a short time and wished us well. It was short and humorous and kind of a relief. I'd never had direct contact with her parents before so it was understandably a little scary. But overall, I think I won some major points with the letters-not that this is a game-and now that the ice has been broken, I can soon take the next step of going out to California to actually meet them...
After Nicole got home, she had an extra couple days to relax that coincided with my own weekend. We have a lot of my paper collage artwork up on these walls here in the apartment and I had mentioned to her in the past that there were more to be done. She was excited to help me finish one, so we dusted off one such unfinished collage featuring Link from Nintendo's Zelda video games. Several years ago, a video game store was closing down and I bought a Zelda game strategy guide for pennies. I got it solely for the artwork I knew was contained within its 300 pages even though I'd never heard of nor ever played the game featured: The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass. It's been six and a half years since I finished my last collage. Hard to believe. Anyway, it took us around six hours to rifle through the book, cut out any artwork we thought would work, sort it all, and glue it down. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my first collaborative collage featuring Zelda:
Click for larger view
We're insanely proud of how this one turned out. It's colorful, detailed, and the cutting quality is astounding. Certainly, this is the highest quality cutting work ever for one of my collages. Without knowing better, I wouldn't be surprised if people thought this image came from Photoshop. The artwork is in a 30-inch by 20-inch frame and hanging prominently above our fireplace. Yum.
So here we are; it's already February 2013! My fifteen month lease on this apartment is ending at the end of the month. I can't believe it's already been that long. Sometimes it feels like I moved in just yesterday. After some deliberation and thought, I've decided to re-up the lease and stay here another thirteen months until the end of March in 2014. I signed the paperwork last week. Also of note is that Nicole is going to join me on the lease! I know that her living here started out as a temporary emergency situation, but it's been good. There's been magic and joy and wonderment and companionship and it feels needless to rock the boat. Nicole getting on the lease shows responsibility and will give her another opportunity to be trusted and dependable. The best part is I already completely trust her. So we'll see if we decide to stay here past March of next year. We shall see!
The biggest thing happening at the moment is that I've decided to leave my current job as soon as I can; possibly flat out quitting within the next two months. This idea has been festering in my mind for several months now, but suddenly I feel like now is the time to get out. Over the last few weeks, I've been training in a new area at my workplace. Although the people I'm working with are great and fun, I'm tired of the nearly constant retraining I'm forced to do and never being compensated for the additional responsibility. There was a special manager at a meeting a week back and he told some of my coworkers that the reason they can't promote anyone for the foreseeable future is that years ago, promotions were given out like Halloween candy and there's an imbalance. Translation: "We simply don't want to give people raises, so we're going to absolve ourselves of denying you a promotion by claiming it's all because of the runaway spending policies of past management." Sigh. When I heard that and looked hard at what they're doing to us, I finally let myself truly believe that this is a dead-end job. Don't get me wrong, though! I'd always known this was a temporary gig just to weather the recession. But I enjoyed the security and stability of a steady paycheck and health care. Now, I'm willing to sacrifice those things simply because I'm tired of the penny-pinching corporate culture of the place while knowing I can do better. I've spent more than two years doing a great job of making myself indispensable by being the only IT helper on my shift, but the company hasn't returned the favor. It's time to go. What new adventures await?
After Nicole got home, she had an extra couple days to relax that coincided with my own weekend. We have a lot of my paper collage artwork up on these walls here in the apartment and I had mentioned to her in the past that there were more to be done. She was excited to help me finish one, so we dusted off one such unfinished collage featuring Link from Nintendo's Zelda video games. Several years ago, a video game store was closing down and I bought a Zelda game strategy guide for pennies. I got it solely for the artwork I knew was contained within its 300 pages even though I'd never heard of nor ever played the game featured: The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass. It's been six and a half years since I finished my last collage. Hard to believe. Anyway, it took us around six hours to rifle through the book, cut out any artwork we thought would work, sort it all, and glue it down. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my first collaborative collage featuring Zelda:
Click for larger view
We're insanely proud of how this one turned out. It's colorful, detailed, and the cutting quality is astounding. Certainly, this is the highest quality cutting work ever for one of my collages. Without knowing better, I wouldn't be surprised if people thought this image came from Photoshop. The artwork is in a 30-inch by 20-inch frame and hanging prominently above our fireplace. Yum.
So here we are; it's already February 2013! My fifteen month lease on this apartment is ending at the end of the month. I can't believe it's already been that long. Sometimes it feels like I moved in just yesterday. After some deliberation and thought, I've decided to re-up the lease and stay here another thirteen months until the end of March in 2014. I signed the paperwork last week. Also of note is that Nicole is going to join me on the lease! I know that her living here started out as a temporary emergency situation, but it's been good. There's been magic and joy and wonderment and companionship and it feels needless to rock the boat. Nicole getting on the lease shows responsibility and will give her another opportunity to be trusted and dependable. The best part is I already completely trust her. So we'll see if we decide to stay here past March of next year. We shall see!
The biggest thing happening at the moment is that I've decided to leave my current job as soon as I can; possibly flat out quitting within the next two months. This idea has been festering in my mind for several months now, but suddenly I feel like now is the time to get out. Over the last few weeks, I've been training in a new area at my workplace. Although the people I'm working with are great and fun, I'm tired of the nearly constant retraining I'm forced to do and never being compensated for the additional responsibility. There was a special manager at a meeting a week back and he told some of my coworkers that the reason they can't promote anyone for the foreseeable future is that years ago, promotions were given out like Halloween candy and there's an imbalance. Translation: "We simply don't want to give people raises, so we're going to absolve ourselves of denying you a promotion by claiming it's all because of the runaway spending policies of past management." Sigh. When I heard that and looked hard at what they're doing to us, I finally let myself truly believe that this is a dead-end job. Don't get me wrong, though! I'd always known this was a temporary gig just to weather the recession. But I enjoyed the security and stability of a steady paycheck and health care. Now, I'm willing to sacrifice those things simply because I'm tired of the penny-pinching corporate culture of the place while knowing I can do better. I've spent more than two years doing a great job of making myself indispensable by being the only IT helper on my shift, but the company hasn't returned the favor. It's time to go. What new adventures await?