New Job

On Friday the 13th (go figure) I actually had an interview with an employer here in Danville, which was arranged by Trillium, a staffing agency. It went really well and on Monday I was informed that they wanted me to work for them. The company is CCMSI and handles workman's comp. claims, with several offices nationwide. Apparently the headquarters is here in Danville. The title they gave is "Help Desk Analyst" - but it's really not much. All I currently do is answer the help desk phone and monitor the email, write up tickets regarding the given issue, and assign it to the appropriate person or department. So far it's been fairly slow, which is nice because I'm able to do other semi-productive things, such as writing this blog entry.

It's not a resume builder but it's better than several jobs and in this economy you gotta take just about anything, not to mention it also pays almost $5/hr. more than what I was getting on unemployment. The interesting thing is that this is the same company that had some developer positions (starting at $40k/yr.) open not too long ago, which I was being considered for. But Trillium found out they ended up outsourcing them rather than hiring anyone, which kinda stinks. As of right now I am officially a "temp-to-hire" and therefore technically an employee of Trillium, though they think CCMSI will likely hire me directly, which will also increase my pay a little bit.

However, I still want to move and would like something which would build my skillset more so I'm still going to be looking elsewhere in the meantime. My sister informed me of a hiring event at a company in St. Louis where a friend of hers works. St. Louis wouldn't be my first choice, but it's certainly not bad and isn't too far away either. This looks like a really good oportunity which hopefully I'll be able to get in on. One really intriguing position is a Photogrammist, which apparently involves "computational analysis of photographic information" - analyzing things like photos, maps, and charts. We'll see how things go and what develops.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's day this year was great! Which is nice considering I've only had one other meaningful Valentine's in my life, and that was several years ago (followed by a sudden and random breakup the very next week)! Anyway, I had a wonderful day with my amazing girlfriend; and though busy, everything went very well. Amanda gave me several different gifts throughout the day and then took me out for lunch to a very nice and tasty restaraunt which she had researched ahead of time. In the evening I fixed her a full 7-course meal, which took 3.5 hours of preparation. My kitchen was a disaster after it was all said and done but I tried my best to ignore it for the remainder of the evening. Needless to say, I was quite exhausted afterwords but it was fun and well worth it. I prepared a formal table setting with separate red and white wineglasses (using sparkling grape juice), three different fork and spoon sizes (used for different courses), cloth napkins, candlelight, and a flower centerpiece I had gotten for her. I also played romantic music in the background. During the meal I gave her several different gifts including a card, nice watch, and large stuffed bear. She enjoyed it all and said I had done a wonderful job!

Table Setting	Course 1 (Appetizer): Cheesy Biscuit & Deviled Eggs
Course 2 (Soup): Potato w/ Bacon, Cheese, & Chives	Course 3 (Salad): 8 different toppings
Course 4 (Pasta): Fetticini Alfredo w/ Tuna	Course 5 (Poultry or Fish): Cheesy Breaded Chicken & Cottage Cheese
Course 6 (Main - Red Meat): Round Steak w/ Mushroom Gravy & Potato Wedges	Course 7 (Dessert): Lemon Pie!

More Furniture

Well, I know it's been quite a while since I've written last but up until recently there hasn't been much going on in my life to report about. Besides, I'm not sure if anyone even reads this anyway - I'm probably just talking to myself, who knows. Anyway, I've been wanting a couch for quite a while now (specifically one with a pullout bed) and was able to purchase a used one via Craigslist on the 12th. I got a decent condition sofa sleeper, loveseat, and two matching endtables all for $200!! Now that's a good deal even for used furniture.

Getting them in my apartment was a challenge though. I had a friend of mine with a truck, who I'm very grateful to, help me pick them up and haul them. Before actually purchasing them however, I had to figure out how I was going to arrange them to fit well in my apartment, as I'm running out of space. So I got some measurements and went "back to the drawing board," which in my case is Microsoft Visio. I already have very accurate and detailed layout of my apartment floorplan and furniture, so adding the new items in wasn't too dificult. What was though, was arriving at a practical and feasible arrangement. I tried several different ideas to no avail but was finally able to come up with something that worked well and also had multiple advantages over my setup at the time. The weekend before acquiring them I was able to move some of my furniture to "pave the way" but had to save the larger/heavier items for when I could get some assistance.

I picked up the couch and loveseat on Thursday of that week and on Friday my best friend came over to help me with moving everything else. After that i just had the normal mess of random items floating around which commonly happens when making such major changes. With the help of my girlfriend, I was able to get the majority of it cleaned up Saturday morning. Not the most fun way to spend Valentine's, but I made it up to her - see the next post. So the last few days I hung up all my various wall decorations and sorted the remaining surface clutter. Now all I have remaining is organizing my tons of computer cables, after which I can push my desks all the way against the wall. Once that is done I will post pictures of the new arrangement for you to see.

Puppy

On Sunday afternoon, after resting from our return trip, Amanda and I went to a friend's house to pick up the puppy I wanted to get. A former co-worker of mine and his wife had recently gotten a dog from the pound as a companion to their other dog. It turned out the dog they got was already pregnant, so shortly after they had a litter of 7 puppies. I have been wanting a puppy for a while, since it had been two years since my previous dog died, but was just kinda waiting. They offered me one and after thinking it through and weighing the pros and cons I decided to go for it. I had seen the litter a few times before and had my eye on one in particular. All of them were cute but she stood out from the rest - most of them had multi-colored and very fluffy hair, but hers is a light tan that's short and soft. The mother is a Corgi (or mostly so - i'm not sure), and from the looks of it there could quite possibly be more than one father. My guess is that mine has some lab in her but i don't know; i guess we'll find out more as she grows. Anyway, we brought her back to my apartment and let her sniff around her new home, then introduced her to the toys Amanda had bought for her and played with her for a while before Amanda had to leave.

I was thinking through what to name her - I wanted it to be something that had some sort of significance yet was unique at the same time. After a short while I thought about using something from the Lord of the Rings, and eventually came up with the 3 elven rings: Narya, Nenya, and Vilya. I chose Nenya for a few reasons. Nenya was worn by Galadriel and is made of mithril set with a white stone. Galadriel is the fairest of the elves and my puppy is the fairest of her litter (at least I think so), also she has a white spot on the top of her head which I felt really fits well. Nenya is also the ring of water, but I'm not sure how that applies - maybe it will later. Amanda wants to get a cat when she graduates and is now considering naming it Vilya once she does.

It's been interesting so far. Initially I of course had to clean up a few different messes, but recently she's been doing really well with the housebreaking process. At one point when she was asleep I left to run some errands, and when I returned found out she had chewed up one of my surround sound speaker cables. It still works but is extremely faint compared to the others, and unfortunately I don't think I can order them seperately. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy. I got a large cardboard box to put her in (with the top open) during the night, but she got out of it by the second night (even when i taped the flaps up and partially coverd it). So I had to break down and buy one of those crate things. She doesn't like it too well, but it's very nice to know she won't be pottying around the apartment or chewing on things she's not supposed to. She does wake me up in the morning though. :(

She's adjusting very well and is very playful and energetic! She has lots of fun running around, jumping, pouncing, and chewing on her toys. I took her to the vet and she loved meeting new people; she weighed in at 7.2 lbs. She's not too fond of going out in the cold weather (not that I can blame her), but she likes eating the snow and chewing on leaves. Once she gets a bit older I'm going to start training her with basic commands.

Road Trip and Wedding

This last weekend, the 9th and 10th, I was a groomsman in a friend's wedding (I knew both the bride and groom from college) in Kansas City, KS. This is my 5th time being a groomsman (one was as best man actually), so I hope the saying "always a bridesmaid never a bride" doesn't apply to men as well - though that's how it's seemed so far. Anyway, Amanda and I took the 8 hour road trip together (she was officially invited for those who may be wondering), leaving very early on Friday morning. It went pretty well and relatively quick surprisingly. I drove most of the way there and she drove most of the way on the return. We enjoyed more fellowship and bonding and shared another memory making experience.

Friday night, after the rehearsal, I was asked if I would be willing to pick up someone who had come in at the bus station. I agreed and late that night another guy and myself went to go pick her up. However, we had no idea where the bus station was (nor did anyone else apparently) and the wifi at the hotel we were staying at wasn't working. So we asked one of the workers and they were eventually able to mark it on the map I had printed out for the trip. That was the easy part, getting there is another story. The highways in Kansas City had to be designed by someone on crack! We were heading back east towards the station, stayed in the center and didn't take any exits when all of a sudden we looped around and were going west again. We finally got back on track and to the area of town where the station was, but had some trouble getting there due to many one-way streets. Once we did pick her up we couldn't get back on the interstate. We got on a major road which was parallel, thinking it would have an entrance ramp to it - but no, it took us down south instead. Eventually we got back to the area of town where the church was and had to find the house where the girls were staying, which we weren't given good/complete directions to. All in all it took two hours to get the job done, when distance-wise it should only have taken about 20-30 minutes!

The wedding itself went very well and was pretty nice, decorated in a light blue with snow flakes theme. And Amanda enjoyed seeing me all "spified up" in the tux. It was also good to reconnect with some friends and acquaintances I hadn't seen in quite a while. We stayed at the reception long enough to see the couple off, but had to leave pretty quickly thereafter. As it was, we made it back to Danville at around 2am!

Update (New Years)

Wow, sorry it's been a while - I've been meaning to update my blog for a week or two now but have been working on other things. Well I guess the next major thing is New Years. The plan was for Amanda to come here to Danville, but on the way over she had some car trouble at the Northeast portion of Indianapolis - which ironically was an exact week after my car problems in Indy. Fortunately she was able to pull off into a mall parking lot. I threw some things together and headed out to go get her. Due to it being late in the evening and also the upcoming holiday we had to just leave it in a mechanic's parking lot until we could come back later to have it checked out. Once that was all taken care of and she was able to relax again, we stopped to eat and then drove back to Danville.

We spent the new year playing a game and fellowshipping with my best friend David and his wife Kayla. Their son Tyler, who is 20 months old, took quite a liking to Amanda. Another fun thing was getting to make a nice meal for Amanda, which received high praises afterwords, despite her initial hesitancy.



A sad point in the visit was Amanda hitting her head pretty hard on my weight bar as she was walking around my weight bench. She is alright but it hurt extremely - I know because I did the same thing (for the first time) just a few days ago! The problem is that the standard 7' bar in a small apartment makes it very difficult and sometimes dangerous to maneuver around. I want to get a 6' bar but most of them have too short of gripping area to fit on a standard size bench. I did however just recently find one that is 6' with the same gripping length as a 7' bar, and also has rubber end caps. The bar I currently have is actually 86" so that means it will be like cutting 7" off each size, which makes a significant difference! Unfortunately it is fairly expensive so I can't afford it now, but the plan is to trade-in/sell my current one and replace it. Anyway, now that I've rambled quite enough (hey, it's what I'm good at) - all that to mention that I was able to get Amanda set up on a good fitness routine, at her request (I've become her personal trainer). She's been doing very well with it so far!