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Sunday, June 25, 2006

Trip to MI

Hey hey, well it's the end of a very slow weekend. I didn't absolutely nothing on friday night or saturday. Today I had my friends from work over for a bbq and boce ball. Boce ball is the best game ever, and if you've never played it I suggest you try. It's simple and fun, and can be played by all ages.

I'm ready for another week of work, although I'm getting sick of my training. I can't wait to end and get my freedom. I'll be able to just sit back and do my own work and then go home. I hate the stupid lectures and stuff I have to go to. They're repetitive and mostly useless. Oh well, work is work and it pays the bills.

It rains aLL the time in this area. Thunder storms too, it's crazy. Every day of every week has about a 60% chance of Tstorms. It's weird. It rains real hard too.

Jon starts work tomorrow. Thursday Rory and I fly home to MI. I'm excited to see amanda. She's the best. That's all...not much else to report.

Geico gives me the best rate in car insurance. That's about it.

John

Friday, June 23, 2006

4 weeks down, 18 billion left.

Hard to believe I've already finished my first 4 weeks of work. I feel like my training goes so slow and that we don't do anything, but really, the time is flying by, and looking back, I've really learned a ton.

I love fridays. I get every other friday off because of my schedule, and the fridays I do work it's casual dress and I get out at 4:00 instead of 5:00. That extra house is a great help. Eventually, once we gain our indepenence, we will have a choice of when we work, as long as we're there between 5:30-10:30 and work our whole 9 hours. That'll be cool. Since I've already been getting up early for a while now, I imagine i'll try to start getting to work around 7:00 or before, so I can leave and miss rush hour on the way home (for the most part.) Driving home today was great. I drove Jon's car all this week, and starting monday, when he starts work, we'll be riding together. It's real nice, we can drive right to the metro and park their the whole day for only $3.75. The metro trip is about $4.40 a day as well. However, we get $105/month in metro checks for use with the metro and even parking at the metro. That'll work out where each of us will only need to pay maybe $10/month on top of those, to take turns driving and riding the metro. Great news. I'm excited about that, plus we don't have to drive too long to work or back, just to the metro. It's not too far and it's a nice drive in both directions.

I'll be buying a car in the next month. I haven't decided if I want to finance a car or lease one. It all depends on the price and the deal they'll give me. As a federal employee I think I could get a discount, plus as a new college graduate most dealerships have deals. I'll take whatever is best. I'm going to go look tomorrow at the Toyota dealership, and maybe the VW. Gabe doesn't seem to think I should get a Jetta, but I love the new ones look, and they drive pretty nice. My buddy at MSU had one and it was always fun to drive. The Toyota Yaris is also small, and great on gas. That's a big plus out here...I'm still unsure, but I do know it must have an air conditioner. That's important to me, especially in this heat.

Last night it stormed...it was HUGE. I've never experienced a thunder storm like that in MI. People at work said that it isn't usually like that, but last night was big. I woke up probably 6 times from it. The thunder and lightning was so frequent. It was amazing. It rained sooo hard. I installed a window AC in my room, and the window isn't really made for it. I kinda just jammed it in and secured it. Anyway, it's supposed to be inclined at about 5 degrees, so as to not leak water into the house. My install didn't do that very well.. It was raining so hard, it started to come into the house! Glad I woke up when I did. I jumped out, pulled it from the window and then closed the window tight. Back into bed right after that, it was already 1:45am. I still woke up on time and everything though, I set my cell phone's alarm to be sure I woke up. I wasn't even that tired at work today, when normally I'd be super tired. Sleep is better in VA I guess.

I'm having a slow night tonight, not doing much. Working for the rest of my life is going to get old quick. Oh well.

That's about it. I'll try to write more frequently, like I used to :) Until then.

John

Monday, June 19, 2006

So much has happened

Wow! It's been so long since I've written, a lot sure has happened!

Amanda came to visit for the weekend, it was amazing. It was so nice to spend some time with her and enjoy her company. We didn't really do all that much, but it wasn't our fault. Yesterday it was too hot to be outside and do any touristy things, plus she wasn't super thrilled about doing any of that. We'll have plenty of time to do that on her next visit anyway, I hope.

We went to IKEA and I got to buy a whole bedroom set. That was real nice, and the stuff is so cheap! I love IKEA, and I've sold amanda on the store too. IKEA is great.

Amanda surprised me, by the way. I got home from work in a rush thursday night, and since I had friday off work, that was the day we were moving. Jon drove down from MI and his parents drove with him, in their car, to bring all his stuff. He picked me up and we headed for Virginia, to our new house. It's a sweet house! I love it already, and now that I've decorated my room with IKEA stuff, it's super awesome. I'm pumped. I set up my wireless internet as well, which is how I'm writing this!

Anyway, amanda visited, that was great...my new house is great...which is also...great? Work went well today, even though I was up at 5:00am to get ready and get amanda to the airport. The day flew by and then before I knew it, I was home from work. The commute is only 30 minutes now instead of the 1 hour metro ride...plus after the metro, I had to walk 1 mile which made it miserable. Now I get to sit in the AC in the car and enjoy Jon's company.

Today at work was interesting...long story short, I may get a $6000-9000 bonus, either soon, for signing up, or at the end of my training or the first year. It'll either be a starting bonus or a retention bonus. In fact, there's a chance I'll get a $7500/year bonus the next four years, if I keep my job. (keep my job as in not leaving for a private sector job, not being fired)

Anyway, that's about it...I live in VA now instead of DC, my job is still going great, I got to see my wonderful girlfriend, and I'll be buying a new car in the next month. I'd say life is good.

JMB

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Wednesday after work!

Work went ok today...I'm getting really drained getting up at 5:40 though. My work days are long, but luckily they go by pretty quick. Today, the lectures were so boring, it was all I could do to stay awake. In fact, at one point I thought that there was no way I could stay awake, and if I even tried to stand up, I was afraid I'd fall asleep and tumble to the ground.

We did some work today that resembled what we'd actually be doing for a majority of our job...that is, searching through old patents to find matching references for grounds of patent rejections...well...yeah, so that was fun, but kind of hard. They say this is what takes about 80% of our job, and it's what the applicants pay for when they apply for a patent...crap, so as an interruption during this post...we've discovered quite late that we don't have some of the things we require to make tacos, and the taco meat is almost done cooking, so I'm off to the store for a sec...be back shortly.

Well, as a last note, in case I were to forget to come back and post later... Happy 21st birthday amanda!!!! I love you!!!!

My girlfriend's all grown up :'(

Au revoir.

Monday, June 12, 2006

USPTO

This job is great, I absolutely love it. Time flies by so fast while I'm at work, I didn't even mind working 7:30am-5:00pm. I'll really enjoy the every other friday off too. This government job is quite cushy.

USA lost today in the world cup, that kinda sucks. We have to beat Italy and Ghana now, which we won't do. Oh well, there's always four years from now, assuming we qualify again.

I'm moving to my new place on Thursday, and that's the day Jon comes down from MI. He starts two weeks from today at the PTO, it'll be cool. I'm going to look at cars this weekend, hopefully I can lease or buy one cheap. That'll be cool, it'll be nice having the freedom of a car. Driving in DC sucks bad though, so I'm not looking forward to that. I'll be down in Burke, VA which I hope is far enough to allow driving somewhat. I'll post pictures of my new place once I move there. I'm hoping it works out for the best...I'm sure it will. I'll have to pay for parking but it'll cut down my commute by 40 minutes...I'm thinking anyway. We'll see!

I'm still amazed at how much happier I am now that amanda is back in contact with me. It was hard being apart, it's going to be a rough year.

One major downside on this job though...the hours are definitely going to fatigue me throughout the week. I even found myself awake at 9:00am on the weekends! Holy crap...speaking of that, I'm exhausted already...I'll write more complete entries soon, I hope. It's just hard during the week...my apologies.

JMB

Friday, June 09, 2006

Holy Moly!

Apparently I missed way more days than I thought on here. Well, here I am. The second week went real well at work. We're starting to learn more about what we'll actually be doing, and that's exciting. Our training is pretty basic still and slow going, so that sucks...but at least we're still getting paid, right?

It's set in stone, I'm coming home June 29th and returning to DC July 4th. I'm not 100% either way if I'm going to make it up to Saginaw or not, but I'll definitely be in the Lansing area. I'm real excited to come home, plus amanda got home yesterday, so that's another reason I haven't been posting. It's so nice having her back, I was missing her so badly...just talking or IMing or emailing is nice, and we couldn't do any of those more than once a week. Life is good again.

Rory is in Seattle right now until tomorrow night, he flew out yesterday morning, super early, for an interview with Microsoft. I hope for his sake he gets the job. He doesn't make nearly as much as I do and living out here is expensive. This job at Microsoft would almost double his salary and the standard of living in Seattle is slightly less than here in Washington. I haven't talked to him but I tried calling a few minutes ago. Skype works great. He'll be back tomorrow and that'll be fun. My friend from work, Carolyn, and her boyfriend are having a bbq tomorrow afternoon and she invited our whole lab group of 16 people. I may try to make it over there in the afternoon, then back home to meet Rory when he gets back. My other friend Jonathan's bday is today, he turned 28, and he's having a small party tomorrow night, in which he invited us all over there. So, if Rory makes it home we'll probably go to Jonathans, but I don't think I'll go by myself...it is kinda close by though, so that may change.

I'd be content just sitting at home talking to amanda. My missing her was starting to take its toll on my mentally and physically, and I feel way better now that she's home. We talked last night on the phone for around two hours, and then I went to bed early. It was nice sleeping early, but I woke up to a nice large thunderstorm around 2:00am. That was pretty cool. It stopped raining too and didn't rain all day.

Anyway, the week went real well, amanda is home and all is well. Tonight I'm just relaxing and hanging out alone, talking to amanda and watching Soccer. The World Cup is great. Anyway, I'm off for now. I'm can't think of what else to write, but I'll write more later. Bye :)

John

Monday, June 05, 2006

First day of the second week.

Not bad, not bad. I got an email from amanda today and that was pretty awesome. I'm flying back to Michigan June 29th to hang out with amanda and her family for the 4th of july weekend. I may make a trip up to Saginaw one of those weekend days, but I'm not really sure. I'm really excited that I get to see amanda though, like I've said a billion times, I miss her so much.

As I sit here next to Rory writing this, he's decided he's going to fly home and stay the same days, so he's ordering both plane tickets right now! I don't have access to any of my money unless I go right to the bank, but i have checks in my desk at work. I can pay him back tomorrow! So, I'll be in Michigan June 29th approximately 8:00pm...I'll send out my itinerary soon...maybe this week.

That's about all there is to report and I'm extremely tired as it's 11:00pm so I'll end here.

JMB

Sunday, June 04, 2006

First weekend of my career

Wow, well, this weekend went by way too fast. Friday night we watched the pistons and went to bed early.

Saturday, my buddy Scott invited me to go to the DC United Soccer game, but I had to decline since Rory and I had other friends coming over. Neil, Rory's friend from high school came by around 1:00pm and we walked over to the National Zoo. It was awesome! The animals were lively and visable, which is something you don't see often at a zoo :) Sadly, the main exhibit was down for construction. They have a baby panda and a family of pandas, in case you had missed that in the news. It was great, we spent tons of time and did lots of walking.

After the zoo we went to the Adams Morgan area, right by where we live, and went to a bar/restaurant called Madams Organ. It's been voted one of the best bars in the USA on several different occasions. It was completely dead which was nice. We got some food and enjoyed sitting out on a balcony and got to watch one of the best streets in DC. Come to find out today was Neils birthday, so last night it was the night before Neils birthday. We came home after dinner though to wash up and relax for a while before Amy and her friend Brandy came to town. Brandy flew in from Michigan only an hour before for some internship for the government. Amy is another friend of Rory's and Neils from high school who also lives in this area. Once they arrived everyone went back out to Madams Organ while I stayed home to shower and relax a bit before meeting them out there.

After getting ready I decided I indeed wanted to go out and join them. I had my doubts at first because my stomach had been upset, which is why I didn't go with them right away. I was glad I went out, I bought Neil a beer and everyone had a great time. The bars here in DC stay open and can server alcohol until 3:00am instead of the 2:00am in Michigan. About 1:45am we had to run out the door to head over to a Cuban Bar, because Rory really wanted a Mohito (sp?) and apparently this Cuban Bar has the best in the city. I wasn't interested but was there for the ride since it was a birthday celebration. The bar was awesome though! We walked in and there were literally dozens of dancing Cubans and Latinos. Everyone was laughing and clapping and dancing, it was quite a sight. Soon after I came home since I was tired and went to bed. It was a great night and I think Neil enjoyed his birthday.

Today I got up and showered and walked up to Adam's Morgan to find a barber shop. I found one without too much trouble and walked right in. Boy DC sure is different. Not only am I only male in the place, I'm the only white person. The place was packed and it looked like a very stereotypical hair place that you'd see on tv. There were tons of hair dryers with old women sitting in them, and people all around. It was amazingly packed! Anyway, I walked up to the counter and asked if they cut mens hair, just to be sure, and to my amazement the lady said she could cut my hair right then...I think... She was a latino lady and didn't speak english that well. I was shocked though as there were a ton of people in the waiting room. I guess I was lucky to be a guy because I didn't even wait 30 seconds. The haircut was great too! I like it a lot, it's nothing different than I always do, shorter on the sides and cut on the top, but it went fast and turned out ok. Only cost $12 too, I was glad to see not everything in DC is more expensive.

After the haircut I walked back home to get Rory because we were going to walk over to Georgetown to go shopping. Georgetown...wow...it's the really rich area of DC and was quite amazing. Tons of HUGE town houses and mansions, it was cool. I also saw the embassies for Turkey, the Bahamas, and Luxemborg, which I dare say is the nicest embassy I've ever seen. We went a long way and shopped at a few different stores. Rory got a few things from J Crew and I bought two shirts at American Eagle and some pants and a bunch of socks from the Gap. I was happy, I have enough socks to last me a little while and my pants are real nice looking slacks. I'm happy with my purchase.

We walked tons and tons and by the time we got home neither of us wanted to move again. We made tacos for dinner and watched the movie Point Break. Funny movie, I enjoyed it. Dinner was excellent too, tacos have become our favorite thing to make. The movie just ended and it's about 10:15pm right now. Work bright and early in the morning and I'm not looking forward to that.

So many jumbled thoughts, this post isn't going very coherently to me.

Neil had two roommates up and move out two or three nights ago, so I may have a place to move too. Neil's pretty nice, he teaches middle school gym. Jon and I would both have a nice room and can use the social areas as well, and rent is only $550/month. I'd have to buy a car though, but I could afford it since if I live closer I'd pay close to $1200/month for rent. So, once jon gets to town we can move to Neils if we decide to do that, but I'll need him to give me a ride until I can purchase a vehicle. I think in about 4 weeks from now I'll have enough money to put down my down payment on a car along with all the other costs I'll have. The best thing about this situation is that Neils roommate, the guy that owns the house doesn't require any sort of time limit. Most places require a 1 year lease agreement, but this guy isn't picky about that...which hurt him when these two girls moved out. Plus the guy only stays there maybe two nights a week, so it'd only be Jon and Neil and I living there, essentially. I'm excited about this prospect, since I'll also get the freedom of a car along with a place to live, for roughly the same cost.

Amanda flies back to the states on wednesday, and I can't wait. I'm excited just to be able to talk to her on the phone, computer, email daily...whatever...I've been missing her so much, it's very painful. I haven't had any emails from her in a long time, so I feel quite alone, but I know she'll be back soon. I expect an email from her tomorrow because the students have a free day. If Amanda has free time on the friday night before the 4th of July I think I'll fly home after work and take that monday off since I get tuesday off. I can fly home and stay from Friday night to Tuesday night for roughly $118. That's cheap and I'm definitely excited about the chance to see amanda.

Anyway, enough babbling I guess, I'm getting tired and there's so many other things going on it's hard for me to concentrate. Rory's watching TV or a movie or something and I'm just having trouble focusing. I'll write more tomorrow if I have time, and I'm sure I will...so until then.

John

Friday, June 02, 2006

First week

First week went well. Hard to believe I got paid for it. I still can't get over it...I love my job.

Pistons lost and are out of the playoffs.

I'm really tired so this is the end of this post. I'll write more tomorrow and catch up from todays lack of writing.

JMB

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Day 3

Woo! Almost done with my first week. Turned in my birth certificate and I'm loving the job. I can't wait to finish training so I can gain basically complete independence. It'll be real nice to have the freedom to come and go as I please, and stuff like that. I even opened my new bank account today.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain or thunderstorm the entire day. Luckily we have two umbrellas, that'll be nice. Work goes by so fast, and it's kinda actually fun. I'm sure it's just the fact that we're training and it's the first week, but only time will tell.

I slept real well last night, no nightmares or anything. It was relaxing, but I found by the time my alarm went off, I was still real tired and groggy. It's weird sleeping through the night, I don't have hours to prep to get up cause I'm still awake. It's real good. I think it was the stress of all the stuff going on, like I said before. I really do miss amanda though, more than anything on earth. I can't wait to see her, it feels like it's been ages. She's pretty much the best thing ever, and I'm lucky to have her, and I'm lucky she's understanding in the fact that I moved 1000 miles away.

The government gives me $105/month for the metro system, which almost covers all that I use...but I don't get my subsidary for another day, or at the latest, monday. Sucks because I use $5.60 each day, and that's been coming out of my pocket since I've been here. No big deal, that's why they pay me.

Another large stress factor is coming about soon, another move. Keith and Jon will be moving to VA in about 3 weeks, so I need to find a place, set aside enough money for rent and deposit, and still eat and clothe myself.

We found this great place for about $900/month each, for four people. It's got a huge personal gym, fully equiped, indoor pool, and even 100 feet of beach on a nice looking lake. INDOOR POOL, and a sauna too. I wish we could live there, it's pretty close to work too. It's about 7 miles south of work, and I have no idea how that commute is...could take an hour if traffic is bad right there, I have no idea really. Plus that's an awful lot of money, cause I'd have to buy a car as well just to live, and I don't want to do that. Not on top of $900/month. There's other bigger houses further away, but where there'd be less traffic, for somewhere around $400/month/person. That'd be a lot more reasonable because I could afford a very nice car, with parking, insurance, gas for all around the same price...seems incredible what you can get if you only leave the DC area maybe 10 miles. $950/month for a studio is not what I call fun. I'd rather pay that and drive a brand new completely stacked Passat, or something similar. I could afford a nice BMW even. So I'm thinking we'll look further away. Who knows?

It's about 11:00pm and it's about 10 minutes after my bedtime so I better start wrapping this up so I can actually finish writing in the next 1000 words.

This weekend is going to be slow. Rory is running a 5k on saturday and then has some sort of plans saturday night..I think camping is entailed. We were going to go shopping but I can't access my funds through the new bank until I get my new debit/ATM card, which won't be until next week. I need to shop though because I need more shirts and pants...I'm real happy I can wear polo shirts though. It's so humid and hot in this area, I have to shower first thing when I get home from work, and it's really unbearable. Next thing to do is get the words "Patent Pending" tattoo'd on my chest...either that or on my shoulder blades. I think that was grandpa's idea, and I happen to think it's a great idea :) Maybe I'll wait a few years, so I either forget or grow out of the want to mark my skin for life. But I'm still young and stupid, so we'll have to wait and see on this too :)

Well, I forgot what else I was going to write about so I'll end here for the night.

John