It’s been awhile since I have posted. I’m not the best at calling people, posting, or keeping people informed in general. I tend to get wrapped up in day to day life things and forget the things that are important to me, such as friends. That’s not to say that I have not been writing posts because I have. It’s just when I get around to posting them they no longer seem accurate because things have been changing so fast. From one day to the next things seem like they are completely different. But anyway, on to the long over due up date.

As most of you know S and I have made it back to Baltimore. I have been back for a year now and S and the boys got here last Aug. We found a house we like in the very neighborhood I grew up in and things seemed to be going well. Then I had to lay off all my employees and close SCS back in Nov. Verizon went 3 million over budget and was holding all work until Feb or March of 2009. And with SCS being such a new business I did not have the funds to hold on with no income for five months nor the time to change the business over to a new market and still have employees to hit the ground running. So that meant laying off a bunch of people right before the holidays, one of those people being a long term friend. Needless to say that friendship did not survive. That also had me hitting the job market in the middle of a recession right before the holidays. It was looking like we were going to have to move again to a much smaller place and sell most of our stuff just to make ends meet. However, against the odds I had two offers in short order and signed a contract for a new job on Jan 20 th. It has taken some work but we are just starting to crawl out of the hole we fell into. We only owe the landlord a few hundred in back rent and are current on most of our bills. Yesterday morning I was laying in bed thinking about starting a savings account and what we needed to do about investing for the future. Then it happened. In a few weeks we might be right back where we were in Nov of last year. It remains to b seen yet however we have at least some sort of plan if it happens.

Wish us luck.

I have been hearing a lot in the news and from friends, both on the left and the right, about our most recent election results. From my friends on the left I hear about Obama’s plans for the future and how wonderful he is going to make things. Because after all, he has this mandate from the people to bring about change. From my friends on the right I also hear about his plans for the future and how bad they are going to be for the US and maybe the world. Such a sad day that the people could elect such a socialist for President.

I think everyone needs to relax and do a little review of history. This is after all, not the first time we have seen election results just like this under very much the same set of circumstances.

that stress kills.

I have 14 days till we have to move out of the house come hell or high water. To date I have only seen one house that will come close to fitting our needs as a family. It's more then we have ever paid for rent, even my home loan was less then this. The guy who owns it may work with us so I am trying to stay positive. I am taking Shel to see it on Monday so we shall see. Stress.

My house is a mess. There is stuff everywhere and it just does not feel clean to me which wears on my nerves really bad. I end up being in a bad mood for no real reason and snapping at the kids. I know the reason behind it but it still happens. And I hate myself a little each time I do. But it is not like I can say look boys, while we are moving daddy is going to be a real asshole but once we are done everything is going to be ok. More stress.

On other fronts the business is doing ok. I got past the payroll issue but still owe my crews back pay. Work is going ok but has slowed down since I have not really had the gas to drive there and over see what amounts to a bunch of new employees. I spent most of last week in Baltimore sleeping in the car at night just so I could be on site during the day. Even more stress.

Oh, and have I said I hate moving even under perfect circumstances. That alone is enough to make me nuts. So lets say this move is less then perfect. Stress, Stress, Stress.

Also, I want to say that there are numbers of people who I should be calling and or writing to, or at the very least repling back to comments in my journal. I know this but when I am stressed I become highly anti-social. 

Aug 2nd is make or break time.

Well I know this has been a long time coming, that  have let the few readers that I still have down and not posted in a LONG time. However there has been so much going on that I have had little time to sit and write anything meaningful. Well, here is one of the most meaningful things I have written in a long time. WE ARE MOVING BACK TO BALTIMORE!!!! That’s right folks, after talking about it for years, kicking around how we were going to make it happen, and all that other good stuff, we are moving home after 7 1/2 years. Don’t get me wrong here, TN was OK and we made some wonderful and what I hope are life long friends there. And VA has been nice and it has been cool being so close to family these last few months but none of these places have ever felt like home.

So we have the basics of a plan coming together. I have allowed my contract with my current employer to end as of last Friday in order to pursue another contract with the people he was contracting with to begin with. This will help in a number of ways. One it will increase my pay a great deal since my past employer will no longer be getting the lions share of the pay for the work I was doing. Two, the new contract, if I do indeed get it, will put me working in the Baltimore/DC area allowing me to live in Baltimore once again. Really it is a win win situation. I will start working on the new contract as of Monday and I am hoping to have the green light to start working in Baltimore in a week or two. This will put me in Baltimore in early June. Most likely I will look for a room to rent for the first month or two and see Shel and the kids on the weekends. Our lease does not end at our current place till Oct but there may be something we can work out there if things are going well enough with the new contract.

It feels good to be moving towards being home again. We have been in town twice in the last two weeks and every time it is harder and harder to go back to VA. Tonight we got to hang out with our friend Vox who we have not seen in forever and it was really good to hang out and relax with someone to connected to. We went out to dinner and walked around Fells Point for a bit before heading back to VA.

Now as luck would have it we are sitting in traffic. It is midnight on 495 and it is bumper to bumper heading into Alexandria. Boy it feels good to be home.

Settle down and enjoy all that life has to offer.

I have seen this in a number of personal ads and it is always a woman who wants a guy to settle down and enjoy all that life has to offer. I never see a guy asking women to do this. Just what does this mean anyway?

Frustrating, that’s what it is, frustrating. We moved to Virginia to be closer to Baltimore, the ocean, and family. We expected that we would be able to make friends here and maybe have more of a social life then we had back in Nashville. That is turning out not to be the case. Our target location was Virginia Beach but we ended up in Gloucester Virginia. It’s a very cute house not 500 yards off the York river sitting on a little over 3 acres of land. Behind us is a salt marsh and lots of wildlife. When we first moved in we were thinking that it was great. However we are starting to see a problem with our choice of location. And that problem would be the lack of friends.

I’ve made some effort to make to make some friends through work, even went to a weekly poker game. But where everyone was very nice and I did ok in the game I just did not fit in. They were all very right of center and a lot of the discussion was almost uncomfortable. Then there were all the invites to there church. I almost felt like they were trying to recruit me or something. So we tried craigslist, livejournal, and yahoo groups. Seeking out local gamers and like minded people. But it seems everyone who fits the mold lives an hour of more away and have to come through one of the tunnels and then over the Coleman bridge just to get to us and that is just too far to meet new friends.

On top of the there are no local kids for the boys to go out and play with and they keep letting us know it. Just has gone as far as to tell us he wants to move back to Nashville so he can play with his friends. I was very short sighted on this. We have all this room outside yet all they want to do is stay in the house.

So I am stuck wondering what to do. Move yet again? Make the boys switch schools so we can be in the more social area for us and them? I have we have already down graded their school in order to move states. We have gone from what I thought of as excellent to just acceptable. To move yet again we risk putting the boys in a school that is unacceptable either because of curriculum or behavior issues.

And if we are going to up and move where do we move? Maybe back to Baltimore? That brings with it a lot of wonderful benefits as well as some issues we would rather not deal with. Or maybe back to Nashville? The nice thing about Shelby’s job right now is she can work anywhere. Nothing would really change for her no matter where we went. And if we did go back to Nashville she could go back to work in her old office. But it would sort of leave me out in the cold as far as my job goes. I enjoy what I do in as much as I can enjoy working for someone else. And I make ok money at it to boot. But if I move out of range then I give that up.

So I leave to go to the store today and I see that they are evicting number 11 behind our place. I hate to say this but I was raised to be a scavenger. I grew up with a father who went to the local dump to bring things home. So whenever I see an eviction taking place I normally stop to see what is being put out. They can often times be a good place to pick up something small they you could really use. However there is never anything really good. They never put out a big screen TV or anything like that. Most people know ahead of time that their eviction is coming and get the stuff out of their homes that they really want well before it happens. And since we are moving (I'm out of here tomorrow) I did not want to look for anything that I might have to move with me so I just forgot the whole mess and went to the store.

When I got back I was gald I did.

These people must not have known they were being evited. Everything they owned was put on the street. TVs, Computers, Ipods (yes more then one) XBox 360, mini DV camcorder, and a whole bunch more. One guy had his truck loaded with stuff. And all I could think to myself was why would these people have left all this stuff behind? Did they truly have no place to put any of it to keep from losing everything they owned? Did they not care?

Well, it turns out they do not know they have been evicted. The complex we live in has changed their policy along with the new owners. Now, if you are late twice they evict you. This is the first month they are doing it. For me, not paying your rent is one thing but just being late is another. This policy is REALLY fucked up. When these people come home from work today they will find out that they have nothing. Everything they owned is gone. If you look outside there is almost nothing left. They have no place to live, no clothes other then what they had on their back when they left for work this morning, nothing. I am so glad I am moving out of here. I could not stomach living at a place that would do that to people.

The Word of the Day for July 13, 2007 is:

• \LIB-er-teen\ •

1 usually disparaging : a freethinker especially in religious matters

*2 : a person who is unrestrained by convention or morality; specifically : one leading a dissolute life

Example Sentence:

Did you know?

glasses. Mine are well over three years old and I need a new pair bad! I was all set to get lasik and be done with the glasses which I hate more then anything else about me. Went to my pre-op appointment and had a date picked out but it looks like money is going to be a problem so I have to for go the lasik until things are better off money wise. I've started to take the ones I have now off more and more, to the point of driving home without them on last night. They hurt my nose and are giving me a tick in my left eye that bugs me to no end. But I still might have to wait till Aug sometime before I can get some new ones since I think these cost me close to 300.00 last time. But hey, I'm starting to think that seeing is over rated anyway. Maybe I'll just get rid of these and squint at everything. Humm, maybe that will work.