Adjusting to New Apartment / Hot Summer Begins / Mandatory Overtime / 1,000 Feedbacks
Wow, two and a half months without an update? How'd that happen?? I think the last time I went that long without an update was about a decade ago when I stopped posting to LJ for a year because I didn't have the urge to blog. Unfortunately that's partially been the case lately. It's a combination of being super busy and simply too tired to keep up the journal. It takes effort to make these entries and lately I've simply not been in the mood to talk about myself as regularly as I have in the past. But whatever, a late update is better than no update! Here we go!
So in late March, Nicole and I moved into our new apartment in a Portland suburb far to the south. My commute to my job is still only about 15 minutes which is a joy. The apartment has been actually pretty wonderful so far. It took us until late May to actually get artwork up on the walls and there's still a box of crap in a corner without a home, so there's work to be done. But the apartment has come together and it's all about accessorizing now. Nicole has gotten back into her small-plants hobby by getting some for the deck. The only problem I have with the apartment is the struggle for parking. We refuse to pay $25/month for an uncovered reserved space, so we have to fend for ourselves and compete for visitor parking with everyone else who likewise believes that price is a little steep. Most days when I get home from work at 6 PM, I'm relegated to the distant guest lots. A month ago, they removed a bunch of dumpsters and opened those pads up for parking. Overnight, people began using those new "spaces" to park vehicles which never move. It's frustrating. Otherwise out apartment is nearly perfect.
We've already had several HOT days recently and it's not even officially summer yet. We had a couple days last week at 100 degrees which forced us to bust out our portable AC unit. Thank god for that, too, because we were able to hole ourselves up in the master bedroom for those days and survive. We bought a new small-ish TV just for that room that's got built-in WiFi and Netflix. That was a total lifesaver on those hot days. Unfortunately we discovered that the old WiFi router that we've had for a couple years wasn't up to the job of getting a good signal from where we had it in the living room down the hall and through the door into the master bedroom. It was really distressing because the only solution was to open up our wallets and get a good router. For at least a decade, I've been lucky to find moderately suitable WiFi routers at second hand stores and the router we were using was no different. I began researching what would really be a true solution for us and discovered that we could be talking about $200+.
A week ago, I happened to be strolling through the electronics clearance section at a department store and discovered a $300 WiFi router marked down to $99. After some quick research with my cell phone, we took a chance. The moment we hooked it up and got it going, we noticed a huge difference. Everything was suddenly several times faster. It was absurdly great. It was like nothing needed to buffer anymore. The best part is that the TV in the bedroom now gets a strong signal. We're ready for the hot summer now!
One of the reasons I've been so absent from LJ lately is that I've been on mandatory overtime for about a month. So I work in a high-tech factory doing IT stuff and orders for products ebb and flow. Sometimes we're busy, sometimes we're dog-slow. During May, we hit some kind of internal record which forced everyone across all shifts to tack on at least one extra day to their weekly schedules. Working four or five-day work weeks at 12-hours-a-day has been rough. Right now, I'm on a six-day, 72-hour work week because of my counterpart taking a day off and me having to cover for him. Seventy-two hours. Wow. The paychecks have been nice but I need a break. I still haven't been able to get out on a real vacation like I promised myself I would once I got hired in two months ago. All in due time. I'm hopeful that the forced overtime will end very soon but I've heard rumors that another record-setting large set of orders is coming down the pipe...
Also on the home front, Nicole's eBay business is about to hit a new milestone: One thousand positive feedbacks received. Now, this is still my personal eBay account that I've had since the year 2000, so a lot of that are my feedbacks from years of buying and selling. But to finally hit 1,000 is a cause for celebration! Nicole doesn't feel like it's important enough an event to recognize, but I feel like I need to motivate her somehow. The sales have slowed down from their peak last year and although we've got an entire second bedroom devoted to eBay selling, we haven't been expanding like I would have expected. My fear is that she's lost the aggressive attitude to succeed at this or maybe she's fearful of broadening her sourcing efforts to estate/garage sales. Who knows. Maybe it's just the weather.
So in late March, Nicole and I moved into our new apartment in a Portland suburb far to the south. My commute to my job is still only about 15 minutes which is a joy. The apartment has been actually pretty wonderful so far. It took us until late May to actually get artwork up on the walls and there's still a box of crap in a corner without a home, so there's work to be done. But the apartment has come together and it's all about accessorizing now. Nicole has gotten back into her small-plants hobby by getting some for the deck. The only problem I have with the apartment is the struggle for parking. We refuse to pay $25/month for an uncovered reserved space, so we have to fend for ourselves and compete for visitor parking with everyone else who likewise believes that price is a little steep. Most days when I get home from work at 6 PM, I'm relegated to the distant guest lots. A month ago, they removed a bunch of dumpsters and opened those pads up for parking. Overnight, people began using those new "spaces" to park vehicles which never move. It's frustrating. Otherwise out apartment is nearly perfect.
We've already had several HOT days recently and it's not even officially summer yet. We had a couple days last week at 100 degrees which forced us to bust out our portable AC unit. Thank god for that, too, because we were able to hole ourselves up in the master bedroom for those days and survive. We bought a new small-ish TV just for that room that's got built-in WiFi and Netflix. That was a total lifesaver on those hot days. Unfortunately we discovered that the old WiFi router that we've had for a couple years wasn't up to the job of getting a good signal from where we had it in the living room down the hall and through the door into the master bedroom. It was really distressing because the only solution was to open up our wallets and get a good router. For at least a decade, I've been lucky to find moderately suitable WiFi routers at second hand stores and the router we were using was no different. I began researching what would really be a true solution for us and discovered that we could be talking about $200+.
A week ago, I happened to be strolling through the electronics clearance section at a department store and discovered a $300 WiFi router marked down to $99. After some quick research with my cell phone, we took a chance. The moment we hooked it up and got it going, we noticed a huge difference. Everything was suddenly several times faster. It was absurdly great. It was like nothing needed to buffer anymore. The best part is that the TV in the bedroom now gets a strong signal. We're ready for the hot summer now!
One of the reasons I've been so absent from LJ lately is that I've been on mandatory overtime for about a month. So I work in a high-tech factory doing IT stuff and orders for products ebb and flow. Sometimes we're busy, sometimes we're dog-slow. During May, we hit some kind of internal record which forced everyone across all shifts to tack on at least one extra day to their weekly schedules. Working four or five-day work weeks at 12-hours-a-day has been rough. Right now, I'm on a six-day, 72-hour work week because of my counterpart taking a day off and me having to cover for him. Seventy-two hours. Wow. The paychecks have been nice but I need a break. I still haven't been able to get out on a real vacation like I promised myself I would once I got hired in two months ago. All in due time. I'm hopeful that the forced overtime will end very soon but I've heard rumors that another record-setting large set of orders is coming down the pipe...
Also on the home front, Nicole's eBay business is about to hit a new milestone: One thousand positive feedbacks received. Now, this is still my personal eBay account that I've had since the year 2000, so a lot of that are my feedbacks from years of buying and selling. But to finally hit 1,000 is a cause for celebration! Nicole doesn't feel like it's important enough an event to recognize, but I feel like I need to motivate her somehow. The sales have slowed down from their peak last year and although we've got an entire second bedroom devoted to eBay selling, we haven't been expanding like I would have expected. My fear is that she's lost the aggressive attitude to succeed at this or maybe she's fearful of broadening her sourcing efforts to estate/garage sales. Who knows. Maybe it's just the weather.