Goodbye Blackjack, hello iPhone

Personal

Well, almost two months into the job and things are still going very well. The only thing I still can’t adjust to is that I wake up around 6:30am every morning, yet I still go to sleep around 12:30-1am. There are days when it doesn’t affect me, but I have maybe 1-2 days a week where I feel completely drained and am constantly yawning and fighting to stay awake.

I’m sure eventually I’ll go to sleep early! In other news with the reliable source of income, I’ve made the decision to go ahead and do away with my Samsung Blackjack and get an Apple iPhone 3G. I just really needed something that was more suitable for me as I’m constantly downtown. I need a better way to stay updated on the go, and because I just want to have an iPhone. I’m going in tomorrow to AT&T to upgrade my phone to get the $199 price for the 8GB iPhone. My Blackjack I actually ordered online from eBay so the last time I had an upgrade was in 2006 and it was with a Samsung SGH-D807 aka the Slider Phone.

Not only am I splurging on that but after talking with Armando I decided that I’m going to go ahead divvy up my money. $250 per check will go to my dad, and $200 will go straight into savings. Then the other money I have is pretty much used for gas, $116/mo train pass, and anything leftover is for anything I want to buy. Which I decided would be mostly electronics ranging from a new HDTV LCD monitor (not sure what size yet), Blackmagic Intensity capture card, possibly a new DSL-R, and then trying to fix up my car.

Originally I planned on saving most of money from each check for a new car, but if I’m going to move downtown I won’t need a car to do the public transit around here (that and I hate parallel parking).

Oh, and aside from work I’ve been working with a fantastic designer, Anthony Bullock on getting together a new design for Holdfire so hopefully once that’s 100% complete (he’s working on the subpage design) I’ll be able to get started on the redesign and relaunch for it. 🙂

Busy Bee

Personal

Oi, so I’ve opened up WordPress several times to update my blog with updates on how work has been, but each time I either forget, get distracted or just don’t want to write about what I’ve been up to. I’m finally just forcing myself to post right now just because I know I’ll keep opening up WordPress every dayl.

I’m currently on my third week of work, and it’s been amazing. I’m not a morning person by any means, but so far I’ve been doing a decent job of waking up at 6:40AM, and being ready to walk out of the house at 7:35AM. This is where it gets a little complicated. There’s a Metra train that runs a few blocks from my house, however, the last exit is about 2 miles from where I work. I’d have to take a 7:27AM train to get to work at 8:30AM. So instead I drive 13 miles east to another station that leaves at 8:08AM and arrives downtown at Randolph/South Water St at 8:48AM. Work is a block away, so pfft to walking far! 😛

Lately I’ve been stopping at the Starbucks at the corner for an iced Chai latte, but that’s a $4.40 expense I’d rather not have. So I’ll make it a Friday-morning treat instead. I’ve got a nice little setup at work, definitely better than the shit I had at the job I worked a few months ago (I mean seriously a 15″ monitor, wtf? 512MB of ram to multitask with Photoshop, Illustrator, and other programs? HA!) My workstation has a 19″ widescreen monitor, and the desktop has Vista Premium, 4GB ram, 500GB SATA drive, 512MB video card, and a bunch of other shit I don’t utilize.

Work is just your standard 9-5pm. I usually go out to eat lunch at Subway, Qdoba, Noodles and Company, and some local dives. Most of that is within 5 blocks of me, but lately I’ve just been wandering around aimlessly during lunch to see what I can come across. Last week I went to the post office at the Aon Center and discovered a plethora of other places I can hit up.

Outside of work I haven’t been up to anything else really, since I’ve just been so focused on work. Lately my only concerns have been trying to redesign Holdfire and atourworst.org, so maybe this weekend I can have one of those done, or near being done. We’ll see!

Downtown Working Girl

Personal

Well, I had an interview on Friday with a webdesign/seo company downtown Chicago, and ended up getting offered the position during it. So of course I accepted! I’m starting Monday around noon since he has to set up my desk and computer, but it’ll be a 9-5 salaried job. I’ll also be commuting downtown via the Metra rail, which means that I have an 8:09 train to catch in the morning. It’s such a perfect location. I’m going to be a block north of Millennium Park, which of course if any of you have been to Chicago, is where the huge-ass mirror-like bean is located at. Which is also where my train stops at too, so I only have a short one block walk to my office’s building 🙂

I’m actually ecstatic that I’ve finally gotten back into the full-time job market, because freelancing started to take a toll on me. I was spending less time working on projects for clients and more time doing nothing (see: watching tv, reading books, working on startups). At least now I have a steady income to rely on which I’m quite happy about. But most important of all: health insurance! Now I won’t have to worry about paying extortionate fees for any appointments or emergencies I’d have. YAY!

Putting things in order

Gaming

I think I’m finally going to get my butt in gear and start working on my website again. I do kind of miss blogging, and I hate that I’m letting the site sink into a bit of a hole. Tomorrow I’m going to try to dedicate some of my time to working on a redesign. This current design has been up far too long, and I’m way too bored of it. I’ve got a few ideas sketched out in my head but I’m probably going to stick to the route of simplicity.

I’ve already finished up the redesign for my portfolio (and created a PDF resume), so I’ve got that knocked out of the way. Hopefully I can get the design for atourworst.org done tomorrow, so I can get back to working on a redesign for Holdfire.

Other than that life has been quite peachy. I’m still on the lookout for a full time job, but I’ve managed to tide myself over with some gigs here and there. Things with my boyfriend Armando are going quite well, and I’m happy with that.

Some websites, applications, and anything else that I’ve been into lately:

What applications or websites have you recently found?

What can go wrong, will go wrong

Personal

Do you ever feel like when something good happens, one thing or many things go wrong that can circumvent the good? I suppose sometimes it’s some sort of morbid self-fulfilling prophecy, or hell, Murphy’s Law. And oddly enough it always involves my car.

At the end of last week, I had a phone call for a job interview downtown. The interview is set for today at 1:30pm. So last night I decided that I wanted to run out to pick up some more shampoo and conditioner, as well as take a look at getting a new pair of shoes for the interview. Well, I hope my cheery ass into the car, turn the key in the ignition, and press my foot on the brake…

Oh, but wait, what’s this! When I press down on the brake, all I hear is the pressure from doing it. I’m supposed to hear the brake unlocking the gear shift so I can take it out of park. Since I’m a stubborn bull, I sat there for 15 minutes pumping the brake, turning the car off and on, and cursing the piece of shit to oblivion. No dice. My mom ended up pulling into the driveway, so I hopped in her Escape Hybrid, and went along my merry way.

As my family and friends know, anything that goes wrong with my car, I have my dad look at. It was already 9PM (and dark) so there wasn’t much he could do. So I did what any nerd would do. I googled the problem. I ended up finding a Yahoo! Answers page, which mentioned popping off a little cap, and manually override the gear shift lock. OH WUT.

So this morning, I wake up and the firs thing I did was go to my car to see if it was coming out of park. No dice. Cue me starting to panic, wondering how the fuck I’m going to make it downtown for this interview. So I hopped back online and googled more, then I finally came across the Owners manual for a 1999 Ford Escort (ZX2) (pdf link). Page 96 explains that if your gear shift is locked, there’s an override that you do for it.

I grabbed a mini-screwdriver and marched my determined ass back outside to get this piece of shit in gear (lol @ pun.) I found the little cap next to the gear shift, which oddly enough, I have honestly never noticed before despite having this car almost four years. Popped the cap off, stuck the screwdriver in and got the gear shift unlocked. WOO!

That little issue is fixed, and I’m hoping to God that nothing else happens between now and my interview at 1:30pm. I don’t think I can handle anymore “surprises.” Although if something does happen, it’s just further proof that A.) I don’t need a full-time job, B.) I’m going to be stuck finding my own work for the rest of my life, C.) I need a new car.

100% of me is leaning towards option C. I like it better.