Longklaw.com

Oh man, I’ve been so sick.  I started feeling something coming on the day before New Year’s Eve.  On New Year ’s Eve I was sick, sneezing and runny nose and all.  I didn’t get to go to Ground Kontrol for their NYE celebration like I wanted to.  One week later the worst has passed.  I still have a weird taste in my lungs and my voice isn’t where it should be.  Good thing I had some time off, so I didn’t have to work as much during that time.  The year hasn’t started off well, but it could have have been worse.

I think I rocked 2012.

• Listen to music more. I didn’t do so well in the first few months of the year, but it picked up after that.  Between new CDs, SiriusXM, and live music, I think I did well.
• Read 20 books. I read 20 books. I might be able to hit 21 by the end of the day.
• Go to a Halloween party. Okay, so I bought tickets to a Halloween party that I had heard about.  A few days before party, I got an email saying that they were going to change it to an indoor party, which meant fewer people could come.  They offered me ticket to a couples only event they were also having, but I didn’t have anyone to go with.  I decided to stay home that night.
• Go to a Christmas party. I went to my company’s Christmas party and had a great time.
• Buy new clothes. I bought new shoes, shirts, jeans, socks, and coats.  I almost bought a new suit, but they couldn’t get anything to fit me when I needed it.
• Meet new people. I’ve met new people at work and outside of work.  I need to hang out with them more.
• Do social gaming. I’ve done more social gaming this year.  It’s been all online.  P.A.X. inspired me to do more board gaming, but so far that hasn’t gone anywhere.  I recently found out about a couple of groups trying to get a regular gaming night going, but with the holidays nothing got off the ground.  Maybe in the new year.
• Start buying collectibles. I’ve been doing a good job of growing my collection of geeky items.  Following Brian’s suggestion, I’ve been documenting them on Facebook, Google+, and Flickr.

What a great year this has been.  I moved across the country to a great city with lots of exciting things to do.  I’ve made new friends and I have a job that I love.I’m not going to make a list for 2013.  I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing.

On Friday (3 days ago) I had my wisdom teeth removed. The 3 that I had left, at least. I had one removed a couple of years ago because I was bothering me. I was first told that I needed to have the teeth removed in high school, but I kept putting it off. The remaining 3 were removed Friday – 3 days before my 34th birthday.

I was awake during the whole thing. They numbed my mouth so I didn’t really feel anything except pain in my jaw from them opening my mouth so wide and pressure while they were removing 2 of the 3 teeth. One tooth came out very easily and I felt nothing. The last tooth took the most time. I actually started to feel something. After working at it for a while, I think they broke the tooth and removed it in pieces.

Afterwards I got of packet full of instructions, gauze, a pain pill, and an anti-nausea pill. They also gave me flowers and a prescription for more painkillers. The weekend wasn’t that bad. I hated not being able to eat real food. I got tired of shakes, soup, and jello. I slept more than I’ve slept in a long time. Today, I’m still sore. It gets bad if I go a while without taking a painkiller. I did eat my first real meal today. It was a pain, but it was worth it.

I’m glad I won’t have to go through this again. It could’ve been worse, I guess. I suggest not putting off the surgery like I did.

It’s been over a month, but I got a tattoo! I’ve thought about getting one for a while, I just didn’t know what to get and where to get it. Since I moved I’ve been doing a lot of things that I’ve been putting off, so it was a good time to go ahead and do it. I came up with an idea and went to a tattoo artist to see if it would be possible and to get an estimate of the cost. I made an appointment for the following week. I got a Longclaw tattoo, just without the wolf’s head hilt. He would’ve had to make the tattoo a lot bigger to get the detail in the wolf’s head right, so he designed his own hilt and liked it. Yes, it did hurt, but after the first few minutes I didn’t really notice it anymore. My artist is a fellow fantasy nerd, so we talked about books the whole time.

Now I understand how addictive tattoos are because the next day I was already thinking about my next one.

Man, I’ve been neglecting this blog again. I meant to write something after I had been in Portland for a month, but I never got around to it. Things are so busy. I never even finished unpacking. I’ve been here a little over 2 months now, so I figured I should say something.

I love Portland! Yes, it’s rained a lot, but I’ve gotten used to that. I actually like the rain. Lately, we’ve had some really great, sunny weekends though. I’m sure I’ve made many mental observations about what I like better about Oregon than Mississippi, but I didn’t write them down, so I’ll probably miss a few. I like that there’s no sales tax here. That’s saved me a good bit of money. I like that there’s a lot of places to shop. I’ve done a lot of shopping. I like that there’s a comic book store and a Best Buy nearby. I saw a Facebook post from this time last year where I was complaining about not having either one. I like the beautiful scenery. I like the nice people. I like that doctors, dentists, and vets are open on weekends. The biggest complaint so far is that I haven’t found any BBQ that’s as good as Southern BBQ. From what I’ve seen, a lot of the stereotypes about Portland do have at least a little bit of truth to them. Just watch an episode or two of Portlandia and you’ll see what I mean.

I also love my job. The work is a lot more interesting here than at my last job. I get to work with cutting edge technologies and I’m learning a lot. We move at a much faster pace and that took some getting used to. We have a small office and I’m probably the youngest and most inexperienced person there. Things are going well though.

Because of all the long hours I’m putting in at work on this project that’s ending, I haven’t met people outside of work and I haven’t done much in Portland yet. I think that will change soon. In my free time, I have gone to a Greg Rucka book singing, gone to the Spring Beer & Wine Fest, gotten a tattoo, gone to a screening of the new Morgan Spurlock movie after which he did a Q&A, and gone to a Marc Meron comedy show. Except for the tattoo, I couldn’t have done any of that in Starkville.

I’m glad that I made the decision to come here. Maybe I can get some friends to visit soon.

The movers have finally delivered all of my worldly possessions – at least the ones that I didn’t bring with me in my car. It only took 9 days longer than their original estimate. I should’ve known they wouldn’t get here in 5 days. Now I can relax and really get settled in. Like I said on Facebook, I don’t know what I’m more excited to have back: the TV, the Xbox, the clothes, or the cooking equipment. Reese has been sleeping on the couch most of the night, so I know he’s glad to have it back. Between the moving company and the management company of this place I’m living in, moving has been a little bit of a nightmare.

I hired a moving company (America’s Moving Services) that had good reviews online. After the experience I had when they came to pick up my stuff in Starkville, I researched some more. It turns out they contract the work to other companies. I don’t know if this is standard in the industry. That’s why it was a different company (World Wide Van Lines) listed on the van took my things away. Maybe this was obvious and I just missed it somehow. While I was waiting, I had a hard time getting answers out the original company. The original guy who set up my move wasn’t reachable anymore. They never called back like they said that would. They would try to connect me to people and I would get hung up on. For a while I was getting a little worried. When they finally emailed me to tell me what the final amount due, they told me to make my payment out to a third company. A day or two ago, I got a call saying they would be here on Sunday and this morning I got a call saying they would be here today. The company that delivered my stuff today (company number four) was United Van Lines. I should’ve gone with them originally. I wonder how many times my belongings changed trucks and if it would’ve been the same if I had chosen United from the beginning. The United guys were careful with my stuff, they were very cooperative, and they joked around with me the whole time. I gave them a tip. I did get charged $75 extra because they had to take steps up a hill to get inside and they had to take stuff upstairs to the bedrooms, but I was expecting that. The contract said 1 flight of stairs was free. I noticed that someone else’s belongings were on the same truck as mine and their stuff was better than mine. A little advice: don’t use moving boxes purchased from Walmart. Most of them are damaged and I’m afraid the contents are damaged. One of my boxes of precious books seems to have suffered the worst damage. I’ll probably have to repack many things that I planned to leave in boxes until I found a more permanent place.

The property management company needs to get itself together. The people who work in the office obviously don’t know much about their rental properties. They’re unorganized. I may have mentioned it before, but I overheard a conversation when I went to sign my lease where they basically admitted how unorganized they are. They thought I was coming 2 days later though the paperwork clearly stated which day I was coming. I was promised that this was a one-story townhouse, but it’s two. I should bill them for the extra $75 the moving company charged. There was supposed to be a washer and dryer here and there wasn’t, but they fixed that problem. There’s a lot of stuff that’s broken, but I’ve documented it all. They’re working on getting it taken care of. I have to stay on them since they don’t return phone calls.

I don’t even know where to begin unpacking. I was exhausted after the movers left, even though I was feeling pretty good beforehand. I went to see The Phantom Menace 3D tonight like I had planned to days ago. It went anyway instead of staying home just to get away from these boxes. My next move shouldn’t be as bad as this one. Before I left Starkville, I told myself that a lot of my current furniture wouldn’t go with me when I found a more permanent place. Some of it’s over 10 years old and is well used.

Anyway, time to get to work on around here. Now that my electronics are here, DirecTV can come install my satellite. Then I’ll get around to enjoying Portland.

P.S. – It was still Saturday the 25th when I posted this. I hadn’t changed the time zone on the site yet.

Man, I enjoyed today. What a difference a day makes. Other than a little bit of worry at the beginning that the roads might be slick, I was fine. I went from Wyoming to Utah to Idaho. Today was the best scenery day so far. I saw lots and lots of mountains. They were beautiful and breathtaking.  It was weird being at such a high elevation.  At one point my GPS said that I was around 7000 ft, but by the end of the day I was around 2800 ft. I saw a part of the Great Salt Lake. Maybe I’ll come back another time for a proper visit.

It was a long day, but I enjoyed it. I shouldn’t have to do nearly as much driving tomorrow. Almost there.

Today I went from Missouri to Kansas to Missouri to Iowa to Nebraska to Wyoming. I’m spending the night in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Today wasn’t exactly a good day. I blame it all on the snow. I’m not used to driving in the snow. When it snowed in Mississippi, everything shut down and I didn’t have to leave the house. When I left the hotel in Kansas City it took about an hour to go 30 miles. I was stressed out because I was worried about having an accident. After a while, conditions started to improve. Right when I started to get comfortable, a car ahead of me started sliding back and forth across the road. Finally, after about 2.5 hours I got to the point where I could pick up the speed a bit. I saw so much snow today even though the streets were fine for most of the trip. After seeing hours and hours of snow-covered fields, I’m tired of snow.

The scenery did get better at the end of the day’s drive. Driving through western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming just felt different. It was too dark for me to take pictures. I saw a truck stop on a hill that kind of reminded me of Edoras from the Lord of Rings movies.

Super 8 was much more pet-friendly. Reese was really good today.

I am worn out. I hope to get off the road earlier tomorrow so I can have more time to decompress before bed tomorrow night.

I never really thought of this as a vacation trip.  I’m basically trying to get to Portland as fast as I can and hopefully see some cool scenery along the way.  I wanted to spread it out so I didn’t have to drive day and night. I don’t have any fun events planned.  Having the dog makes it a little bit harder to do.

I got about 4 hours of sleep last night.  Today I went from Mississippi to Tennessee to Arkansas to Missouri.  I’m spending the night in Kansas City.  Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas are pretty boring to drive through.   Once I got close to Missouri, it got more interesting.  I ended up taking my GPS system’s route instead of the Google Maps route and that took me through the heart of Arkansas and Missouri.  Both set of directions agree for tomorrow route.  I should be on the interstate a lot more, which I think will be better.

Reese was uncomfortable in the car at first.  After a while he got comfortable and went to sleep and I would forget that he was there until he farted or something.  There was a little bit of a hassle over Reese staying here at the hotel.  They claim to be pet friendly on their website, but when I get here they say that pets aren’t allowed.  I’m trying a different chain tomorrow.

The weather was pretty cold today.  I hate that the South got hit with cold weather right when it was time for me to leave.

I probably won’t have time to do much tomorrow.  It’s snowing tomorrow morning in KC, so I’ll be getting off to a later start.

More pics are on Facebook and I’m sure I’ll add them to every other social network later.

I wanted to updates today since I haven’t written in a while.

I was busy with preparing to move and trying to visit family, friends, and my former co-workers before the move. I hope I get to see everyone again soon.

Packing is a pain, especially when you’re doing it all by yourself. It seems like every time I have to move, I end up having to do it all by myself. There were some times when I said “Screw it. I want to play Xbox for a while.” I got it all done, though, in time for the movers to come yesterday.

The movers made me hate moving even more than I did while I was packing. They got to my place at 3pm, which is a later than I wanted them too. I still had to clean to place after they left, so I was hoping they would give me plenty of time to do that. They didn’t. They parked the truck across the street. I understand that they couldn’t get closer because my driveway goes down and the truck is too low for that. Since they had to walk farther than 75ft, I’m going to be charged an additional fee of $75-$100, depending on the weight of my stuff. I’d be willing the bet that I’m going to be charged the maximum amount.

There were two movers. The older guy was Russian or Eastern European and the younger guy was Latino. I love meeting all different types of people, but there were communication issues because they weren’t fluent enough in English. Early on the older guy came running into my place and asked to use the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush about 5 times and the water in the sink run for a long time before he came out. He went back outside and I hardly saw him after that. I don’t know if he was sick or if he was supposed to stay outside with the truck. When I went into the bathroom it was rank and there was poo splatter all on the inside of the toilet. I had just cleaned that toilet before they got there and packed away the toilet cleaning supplies.

The younger guy kept dropping stuff and almost dropping stuff. The older guy kept barking instructions on what the young guy should have been doing whenever I saw them together. I ended up helping the younger guy out some, since the older guy wasn’t around.

Eventually the older guy came in and told me his estimate for how much my stuff weighed. His estimate was about 1300 lbs over the original estimate, which meant I would owe them about $1000 more than I expected. I figured it would be over some due to stories I’ve heard from others, but not that much. I WAS PISSED. This on top of everything else. I think he could tell how upset I was by this because he basically told me that we would find out the real weight when they weighed the truck. I emailed the guy who originally set up my move. He’s a Mississippi State graduate. I figured he’d get back to me on Monday. This news really put a damper on my mood. I was already stressed out enough. I got a call from the moving company today in response to my email. They said tha my actual weight is close to the original estimated weight. If I am over, it’s not 1300 lbs over. What a relief! I had a feeling that mover guy didn’t know what he talking about.

After they left I finished cleaning pretty late and put as much in my car as I could. I slept on the floor with Reese. I listened to coverage of Whitney Houston’s death on my phone. Kind of a sad way to spend my last night in Starkville, huh? I got up this morning, finished putting the rest of the stuff in my car, got some gas, and left Starkville around 6:30 this morning.

After 14.5 years, I’m gone.