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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a cool, fun, quick book this turned out to be!

I thought it was going to be crazy silliness, but the one is a lot more serious than I was expecting. What if all the tragedies in Lincoln’s life and the Civil War were caused by vampires? Now I want to read more about Lincoln just to see how much of this was real and how much was made up or changed for the book.

I’m excited to see the movie in a a couple of weeks.

Pro ASP.NET MVC 3 Framework by Adam Freeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a great book for learning ASP MVC. It doesn’t baby you, but it does give many examples and tips.

I did skip over a lot of sections that I didn’t think I would need.

Maybe it would’ve gotten 5 stars if I were more interested in the subject matter.

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 Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started this book with The Sword and Laser a couple of months ago, but got way behind. I finally managed to finish it tonight.

It’s about an orphan boy (yet another orphan boy) who becomes a part of a group of thieves/con artists called the Gentleman Bastards. While they’re in the middle of one of their schemes, they get caught up in a power struggle in the criminal underworld. Bad things happen.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked how the story went back and forth between the past and the present. We learned a lot about the main characters by seeing glimpses of their pasts. I’m sure there’s more to learn, like one mystery that’s mentioned throughout the book, but not revealed to the reader by the end. I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking up the next book in the series, but not right away.

I really want to read something with wizards and soldiers soon.

The Hunger Games Tribute Guide by Emily Seife

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is okay. It’s really not worth reading unless you’re a big fan of The Hunger Games like me and just want to devour as much as you can.

The coolest part of the book is seeing pictures from the movie and seeing pictures of all the tributes, some of whom are unnamed. The guide doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know if you’ve read the books.

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.

I made it to Portland yesterday, but I couldn’t write because I didn’t have Internet access. I went from Idaho to Oregon. The last leg of the trip was a lot shorter than the previous three. There were some boring parts, but the scenery was beautiful for the most part. I got to drive through more mountains. I was thankful, though, when we started to drop in elevation and I started to see trees. During the last 30 minutes of the trip, I started feeling a little doubt the decision I made to move. I’m sure everything will be alright though.

I got to my new place around 4 or 5 yesterday. It’s okay. I made a decision on it without ever getting to see it, so I was taking a risk. It was always meant to be temporary. It didn’t have a washer and dryer as advertised, but they’re working on getting me one. My biggest issue is that there’s a busy street 2 streets over. I didn’t anticipate the traffic being as loud as it is. I’ve lived on busy streets before. When I lived in my grandmother growing up, there was always traffic coming through, even 18-wheelers that woke me up in the middle of the night. The noise here is more constant thought. I’ll just have to keep reminded myself that it’s only temporary. Don’t get me started on how hard it’s been to deal with the property’s management.

Hopefully, the movers will get here before it’s time to move again. I’ll never use this company again. I did get an email from them this morning saying that my stuff is only 160 lbs over weight and not 1300 lbs like the driver said. That’s some good news, at least.

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.