Remember when...

...music from the 80s was cool? Oh wait, it never was, I was just uncool enough to think it was. That's right, it's coming back to me now.

Long time no update, but that shouldn't surprise anyone... and by anyone I mean the two of you that read my blog, and by two I mean no real people and two spambots. I've been busy, I've been lazy, I've been indifferent. Same old life, different incarnation.

I'm done with college... again. Or maybe this is the first time, since it's the first time I've actually finished a program. They owe me a bachelors degree, computer science of course, network management to be specific. What a useless major. Take what we can get, eh? On the plus side I've got just about $42,000 in student loans looming in the distance like some death star on the horizon. Payments don't start until around July of 2008, so I've got six months to get things sorted out in a major way; otherwise those $600/month payments are going to hit me like a freight train. For the lose. There seem to be a lot of applicable jobs in Seattle though, mostly in the tech support/IT category which also isn't a surprise. And, though I'd rather gnaw my own leg off than go back to a phone center support job, money is money and I'm in need of it in a bad way. Despite the popular saying, beggars can indeed be choosy, except about when they take a shower. Must suck. Unfortunately, despite the ~3 years and ~$60,000 I've spent on school (again), I'm still going to have to go chase a bunch more paper in the form of certificates and bring myself up to date on all that jazz. Ah well, such is the industry I'm in.

On the home front it's more of the same. Two dogs and two people in 300 square feet is not a good equation no matter how advanced the math is you throw at it. Add in that one is playing at being the sole provider while not being interested in that at all, and the other is trying to defeat some weird agoraphobia-like-thing about returning to the workforce, and you start to get the flavor of this crazy drink. Our rent is quite low and that's a bonus, but our food bill is dubious at best, and we're "splitting" the Internet bill but bitched at any time it's slow, and the roomies want to go back to Vonage. Blah. If they do, I'm going to have DSL installed just for me, screw a bunch of trying to get things to play nice with Vonage. We really need a fenced in yard so the dogs can play outside too. And it'd be nice if the house didn't drop 5 degrees an hour unless a fire is lit, too. But since we'd be looking at increasing our monthly bills at least three fold, not to mention the student loans coming up soon, moving is definitely not an option until I'm gainfully employed.

My car sucks, and for some reason is getting about 12 MPG for no valid reason. Better than the demon van at least, which is pretty close to gasping its' last breath I think. It's high on the list of things to do as soon as I'm employed again. Assuming that I'm starting over, i.e. not counting all of my previous experience, I'll be lucky to land $50,000/yr. Doesn't sound that bad, except that cost of living here is almost twice what it was in Texas, where I was making $62,000/yr with 4 weeks of paid vacation and a bunch of stock options. Ah well, gotta start somewhere, and having more than $90 in the bank is a good goal for now. I'm not sure yet what we'll replace the van with, but necessity will probably knock me off my lofty ideals. I've been considering Subaru Imprezza wagons, Mazda 6 wagons, and VW Passat wagons, in the 2000+ year range, and the top of each range; i.e. WRX, Speed 6s, and Passat W8s.

If you don't know of it, the Passat W8 is very nice. If the WRX is the boy racer car, the W8 is more like the English gentleman in his smoking jacket, sitting on a thoroughbred race horse. 270 horsepower of unassuming all wheel drive wagon, nobody would ever expect it for what it is. With some aftermarket parts and some tweaks an easy 350 horsepower is to be had, and a ton of fun as well. It'd be a nice replacement for the van, getting decent mileage despite its' unorthodox power source, and being more respectable (i.e. less noticeable to cops and car thieves alike) than the WRX doesn't hurt. They are relatively close to the same price range as the WRX wagons, $12,000-$15,000 or so. It's likely that the van will not give us the time required to save up to get into one of these though, and we'll likely have to go for a less pricey model like the GLS or GLX 4Motion. Occasionally there are higher mileage W8s in the $10k range, and I have pretty good faith in a 100k mile VW being a good car still, so who knows. The only downside is that the W8 model is, aside from being expensive, also extremely rare so if the van leaves us in the lurch we may not have a choice simply because we can't find a W8 in time. Hrm.

Aside from the car situation, it's much the same here. Still emotionally distant, with only the weirdest things triggering emotions at all these days; like obscure 80s songs from playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Dug it out of the electronic closet today and the soundtrack really takes me back to the times I have convinced myself were "better." It's really stupid, being convinced that high school was the best it's ever going to be for me, when I know first hand that it wasn't that good in the first place. I don't know why my memory has become so shiney and happy looking, when I know that's not how it was.

At any rate, as much as I'd love to delve into that (sarcasm off), Gens computer is freaking out and taking like 90 seconds to switch MP3s when I click next and that's just not gonna cut it. Time to kick it in the ass, so uh... guess that's it for now.