Author Archives: Cindy

I am a packing machine.

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The move plans have gotten adjusted slightly. Originally I thought I’d take my time, slowly migrating stuff from my current place to my new place. Then Krissy pointed out that it sucks to feel like you’re living in 2 places at once, and that movers are a lot cheaper during the week than on the weekends. (This is true. The hourly rates are less, and I found a few of them that only have one-hour minimums on weekdays, whereas it’s typically a four-hour minimum on weekends.) So fine. I’m going to haul over as much as I can this weekend, and then I’m taking the day off on Monday, which is when I scheduled the movers. I’m probably going to rent a pickup truck from Home Depot to make this weekend easier, they’re pretty cheap & I should be able to haul almost all of my stuff in just a couple of trips. (The Subaru carries quite a bit, but it would take several more trips if I used it.) Then I’ll really only need the movers for my big things – bed, armoire & futon.

So, I’ve been packing like crazy when I get home from work in the evenings, and I’m getting really good about throwing stuff away. I’m averaging about 2-3 major dumpster trips every day. I’ve also accumulated a whole bunch of stuff that I want to give away to Goodwill. Problem is, a couple of the items are too big to fit in my car. My mom said to call them & they’ll come pick it up. Apparently this policy varies from state to state. I called the Goodwill that’s a couple of miles away from me, and this is an excerpt of the conversation I had with the (very clearly) middle eastern man who answered the phone:

Me: Hi, I have a few things that I’d like to donate to Goodwill, and I need to schedule a pickup.
Goodwill Dude: Goodwill no pickup.
Me: Um, I’m sorry. Did you say that you don’t do pickups?
GD: Yes, yes, Goodwill no pickup.
Me: Well, some of these things won’t fit in my car, so I don’t have any way to get them to you if you don’t come get them.
GD: You come store, much welcome.
Me: Excuse me?
GD: (repeats with emphasis & mild irritation) You come store, much welcome.

I love that last sentence. It makes no sense at all and yet I knew exactly what he meant. It was also funny because he was so clearly annoyed by the fact that I couldn’t understand him (I’m guessing a lot of people don’t, which has got to get frustrating after a while), so it was obvious that I was most certainly NOT “much welcome” by him.

Anyway, after that pleasant little phone chat, I decided that Goodwill can kiss my ass (pardon me), and I called the Salvation Army. They’re coming on Friday. Of course, they wouldn’t tell me exactly what time they’re coming, so I’m just going to leave it all outside with a big “for Salvation Army” note on it. If someone steals it, I really don’t care.

transportation-obsessives

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What with all the apartment brou-ha-ha, I forgot to mention that I went on yet another totally boring date on Friday night. I’ve evolved from Miata-boy to Motorcycle-guy. Why do some men get so hung up on things that go fast? Here’s a tip for you fellas that read this: if you’re on a date with a girl and you keep talking about how cool your chosen mode of transportation is, and you notice her yawning a lot, this is not an invitation for sex. Do not mistake dozing off in the mashed potatoes with bedroom eyes. I know that body language is confusing, and there are very fine lines of distinction, but what this actually means is: change the subject NOW!! Sheesh. At the rate I’m going with this whole dating thing, I’m almost ready to go on strike & swear myself off boys altogether. At least until conditions (i.e., my judgment skills) show signs of improving.

I have fallen in love…

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…with an apartment. On Saturday I woke up at 7:30 a.m. — which, as anyone who knows my sleep patterns will tell you, is VERY out of character for me. I usually sleep until noon on the weekends, but apartment hunting day for me is like Christmas morning for a 5 year-old. I mean, I often go to real estate web sites and look at floor plans just for fun. So I was really, really excited about this.

And as it turns out, I fell in love with the 2nd apartment that I looked at. It’s in Queen Anne, which is my favorite neighborhood near downtown Seattle. It’s full of cool little shops & restaurants, and it’s a very short walk from the Space Needle and Seattle Center. It also happens to be less than a mile from where I’ll be working, so it looks like I’ll be walking to work, which I’m excited about (lord knows I need the exercise). I got an amazing rent special for this place, otherwise there’s no way I would’ve been able to afford it. They included parking for free, which would typically run about $100/month in that neighborhood. And get this: I have my own little private deck, which faces onto a private courtyard (no street traffic noise to worry about), and it has a view of Puget Sound & the Olympic mountains. I’ll be able to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July from my living room. And it has a full-size washer & dryer. Ahhhhh… I’m freaking out, I’m so happy.

After I saw this place, I looked at a couple more just because I had appointments to see them, but my heart was set on the Queen Anne apartment. I went back that afternoon and signed the lease. I get the keys next Saturday, so I can start moving stuff in, and then my actual moving day (meaning the day I get real, honest-to-God movers to haul all of my heavy stuff, and not just my friends who I can bribe with pizza & beer) will be on Saturday, April 17th. I start the new job on Monday the 19th, so I’m timing it just right so I won’t have to take the bus from the eastside to downtown. Not that the bus system around here is bad, it’s actually quite nice, I just don’t want to have to deal with the long commute time.

So last night, Krissy & I had originally planned to go out to celebrate the new-new job, but I was inspired by my recent lease-signing, so instead she came over & helped me clean junk out of my apartment. I had so much crap from my last 2 moves that just got shoved into closets in boxes & has never been unpacked. I figure that if I haven’t needed it in 3 years, odds are pretty good that I never will, and it’s safe to chuck it. But it was good to have Krissy there, since she’s a bit more objective than me & doesn’t have any sentimental attachment to my stuff like I do. Sample conversation:

Me: But my A+ certification book, I can’t throw that away.
Krissy: Are you even A+ certified?
Me: No, I could never finish the book because it put me to sleep. But I might do it someday!
Krissy: And have you ever referenced this book for anything related to your job?
Me: Well, no….
Krissy: TRASH!!
Me: (sigh in resignation and toss it in the hefty bag)

I got better about it after a while, although I have to say that every time we made a trip to the dumpster, I could feel a flutter of a panic attack as soon as we tossed everything in there. I just need to adopt more of a Zen Buddhist mindset: it’s all just “stuff” and I can live without it. And if I can’t, it’s all replaceable.

It has also come to my attention that I am a food hoarder. We took out 2 full hefty bags that was just stuff from the pantry & freezer. I found a can of mandarin oranges that were a generic grocery store brand name… Only they were the grocery store chain in Massachusetts, and I haven’t lived there since 2001. Ick. Time to go.

Oh, one more side note that I found rather amusing: I asked all of my guy friends if they had any workman’s gloves that I could borrow, because I have to clean out my garage, and I know it’s full of cobwebs & dead bugs. I can’t deal with the idea of touching that stuff with my bare hands, but I think I’d be ok with gloves. And wouldn’t you know it, NONE of the guys I know had gloves. Then I asked Krissy. She showed up at my house last night with 2 pairs, one for me & one for her. Awesome. Girls kick ass.

more job news!

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Ok, this is why I never put in a link to my new company, because I had a feeling that something like this would happen, and I didn’t want any of my co-workers to dig up my website like they did at the last place (hi, Karyn!) and find out about this ahead of time. Here’s the deal: on my last day at my last job, I got an email from a company that I interviewed with 2 months ago — since I hadn’t heard back from them, I had assumed that I didn’t get the job. Wrong! They’re just slow in the hiring process, apparently. But they wanted to set up another interview with me. Keep in mind that this happened on Friday the 19th & I was supposed to start the new job on Monday the 22nd. This was a really awesome opportunity with a great company (oooh, I am dying to put in the link here so y’all can see how impressive they are, but I won’t), and although under ordinary circumstances I would’ve just said “no thanks, I’ve accepted another offer,” I knew I couldn’t turn this one down. So I set up the interview, which was last Wednesday (my 3rd day of working here, for those of you keeping track). They called me yesterday & offered me the job.

It’s such a cool company, they actually work as a consultant for Microsoft with some of their enterprise customers, so I’d be working on 3000+ user networks, which is bigger than anything I can even imagine. And they’re international. I’ll be west coast-based, so I can stay in Seattle, but I may have to travel to San Francisco, L.A., Phoenix & Denver. (Cool!) The first project they want me to work on is a rollout of MS Operations Manager (MOM) 2005, which isn’t even available to the public yet, but because these guys work with Microsoft, they get to test & deploy all of this stuff before anyone else. (I know this is totally boring to a lot of you, but oh-my-god this kind of thing is enough to make me all a-quiver with joy.) And the project is downtown and will last at least 9 months, so that gives me a justifiable excuse to move into the city, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Oh, and the benefits package… Well, I won’t get into all that, but I must say that it totally kicks ass.

So obviously, I had to give my notice at my job today, after only being here for a week & a half. And I feel like such a flake doing that, because I never would’ve started here if I knew I was going to be leaving so soon. And there was basically no good spin that I could put on it, I knew I was just going to look like a really crappy employee and I just kept apologizing for the whole situation. My boss was surprisingly nice about it and even congratulated me on the new job. I told her I can stick around for 2 weeks while she finds a replacement, and she said she appreciated that. Kind of odd that my notice is actually longer than my time as an employee.

Anyway, YAY!

Oh, and an update, per Sally’s request: I ended up emailing Miata-boy and telling him that things were starting to get serious with one of the other guys I was seeing. Which is a complete lie, and I was totally chicken shit about it by emailing him & not having the nerve to say it in person or even over the phone. But I rationalized this by thinking that since we only went out twice, and the only physical contact we shared was one very quick, awkward hug at the end of the 2nd date, I didn’t really owe him an in-person explanation or anything like that. He was nice about it. He’s a sweet guy, just a little too much of a car dork for me. So instead, on Friday night, I got Greek take-out with Nate & we watched that Cate Blanchett/Tommy Lee Jones movie “The Missing.” It was good. And thus ends the brief cameo of Miata-boy in the story my life.

quote of the day

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If a tree falls in the forest, do the other trees laugh at it?

I read that on a sticker in someone’s office today, and I thought it was funny. I have to say, I really like my new job, but it’s been a strange shift to this whole watersports/factory environment. It’s not like anywhere that I’ve ever worked before. A lot of guys have posters in their offices of women in bikinis posing on wakeboards, which is admittedly tacky, although I guess it’s technically somewhat work-related. And honestly, that doesn’t really bother me so much, I’ve never been threatened by photos of hot babes. Even in non-work scenarios, I’m not the type of girl who gets upset if her boyfriend looks at porn or anything like that. I’m generally pretty cool about all of that cheesecake stuff. But there is one guy who has a sticker on his office door that says, “Got Milk? This room reserved for nursing mothers.” And I must admit, that one kind of creeped me out.

I feel a little sorry for the HR lady. She’s only been there a couple of weeks longer than me, and I think she’s freaking out at all of the potential lawsuit material that’s around every corner. She used to work for one of the local vineyards before she started working here. I’m guessing there probably weren’t cheesy posters of women in bikinis handling expensive bottles of wine in her male co-workers’ offices.

ARGH!!!!

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This weekend has been just the teensiest bit frustrating. Here’s a tip: If you find a web host that offers you unlimited storage space & unlimited bandwidth for only $5 a year, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’ll get what you pay for. Lesson learned. My web hosting company apparently disappeared sometime on Wednesday night or Thursday morning — their emails bounce back, the phone number has been disconnected, the whole bit. Fun! I signed up with a new web hosting company, needless to say, which is still relatively cheap ($7.50/month), but I Googled them & they’ve gotten some pretty good ratings from their users. I’m very happy with them so far because they got my domain name transferred in less than 24 hours, even though they said it would take 48-72 hours. So yay.

Of course, I didn’t have a local backup of my web site — I had some things saved on my pc, but not all of it — so now I have to rebuild a lot of my pages & links, which is going to be a pain. Blogger saved most of it, so I think it’s mostly the photo section that isn’t working, and I’ll just have to get to that later. Bah!

And on a not-griping note: happy birthday to my dad.