Currently Listening Hannah Montana By Original Soundtrack This is the Life see related

Snow Day

The view off my balcony...

Effing ridiculous.  A foot of snow last weekend,  another foot or so today, and another foot or so tomorrow.  It's really sort of pretty.... except when your Jeep is stuck in your street.... then in halfway in your driveway... and then, half an hour and a Bobcat's help later... in your garage.  All part of the adventure!

Speaking of adventure.... this is one of those "life is great" updates.  Despite the mountains of white shit outside, I couldn't be happier.  Great job.  Great place.  Great friendships in the making. 

Visit from Ryan in just over a week , then San Fran for a few days after that (both assuming that the airport is actually open). 

I miss home.  I miss my family and my friends.  But this.... this is the life... MY life.     

Currently Listening Live Wherever You Are By Jack Ingram Auld Lang Syne see related

Apparently, I only update quarterly...

WOODBURY, MN -- Well Good Lord, folks, it's been a while.

So, yeah, Minnesota -- things are going surprisingly well up here.  This place may not be home, but it's definitely okay for the forseeable future.  My house is nearly complete (pictures to follow soon), it hasn't been too cold, the skiing/snow activities have been fun so far (the ski areas make their own snow, since we've had but an inch all winter), and work is fandamntastic.  I know it sounds cheesy, but I love that I go to work every day to a place that truly amazes me -- I mean, we split atoms so your toaster will work, for God's sake!  Even though I understand the science behind it, it still blows my mind.  I work with fun, respectable people and get to do something different and challenging every day.  No regrets here.

2006.  Almost over, and that couldn't be more okay.  It's been a crazy, sad, changing year.  (I suppose I should have known the whole year would be for shit from the party that kicked it off, huh?)  I lost a best friend in my grandpa.  I lost another good friend to, well, his own stupidity, but fences are being mended.  (Yay for duct tape and bailing wire. You have to be an engineer to appreciate that.)  I scrapped plans to move to Dixie rather unexpectedly, and headed North.  I think I've aged a few years in just a few months.  I'm ready to get '06 behind me and hope '07 brings more happiness and stability.

The fam has been in town since before Christmas, which is cramping my style some (okay, a lot) but I'm trying not to complain -- I mean, they really are a freakin' blast.  How many grandmas do you know that wouldn't slap their grandson if he invited her to play a "nice rousing game of sit down and shut the hell up?".  She just laughed until she almost spewed coffee.  We're crazy like that.

So yeah, that's the update.  I work, hang with the fam when they're here, hang with "the islanders" when I can, and learn to speak Minnesotan.  It's a "mature" life.... and as bad as it sounds, I think I like it. 

See you Stilly bitches soon.  Love to all.  Happy 2007.  GRC

Currently Listening Jim Brickman - Greatest Hits By Jim Brickman see related

OKLAHOMA CITY -- I knew when I got on the plane, I shouldn't have.

Not that coming home was a bad idea, it just broke a month-long streak of building a new life -- turning my apartment into a good home, loving (mostly) my job, dating, etc.  Now, I'm back and I know (rather, I remember) what I'm missing.

It was good to get to Stilly tonight and see a couple people that still have a hold on my heart, and even sadder to drive out of town than it was a month ago, because this time I really don't live there anymore...

...and it occured to me on the drive back to OKC that having a fantastic family and great college friends is both a blessing and a curse -- a blessing because it builds the personal strength to go and do great things, but a curse because in order to go and do, you must first leave.  It really is the people that you leave that make you able to leave in the first place.  So, if it wasn't for my family, the "men" I spent my evening with (EDIT: goes back and inserts quotations around men), and one fine lady who was off at another wedding that wasn't hers, I never would have been able to pack my shit, move to Siberia and keep the old nuke from burning down and killing the surrounding Indians.  Wait, on second thought... damn you people, why couldn't I just stay in Stilly and go to big boy school like everyone else? (Because I'm bad at attending class -- asked and answered).

Off to bed -- my recently old ass doesn't do this 2am shit like it used to, doncha know.  Love y'all.  GRC

Currently Listening Good Charlotte By Good Charlotte see related

- The Click

My Last Week as an Okie...

It's been a while.  So sorry about that.  Life happened, and interrupted the things I do when I don't have a life... like Xanga. 

So this weekend was eventful.  Thursday afternoon my boss called to finally close the deal on all of the particulars of my job offer.  I guess that made it official that I'm moving, but I didn't even have much time to think about it....

Bright and early Friday morning,  mom and I got on a plane.... in Dallas.  Why Dallas?  Cause I am a Jew, and booking flights 12 hours before departure out of OKC is expensive.... as in new-watch expensive.  So anyway,  we drove in the middle of the night to leave DFW at 7.  Got to MSP, high-tailed it to the plant ( )to fill out 102 pages of security paperwork, then began the apartment search.

Two days and four suburbs later, I decided on the first place I looked at.  It's huge, beautiful, only 30 minutes to work, and in Minnesota's fastest-growing city, .  Appropriately enough, the floorplan is called "The Stillwater", which before you ask, is NOT why I chose it.  Well, not the only reason. 

I have to be out of this apartment by Sunday, then it's off to Twin Cities for real-real.  I start work Aug. 7. 

...and here's the deal.  People seem to be a little pissed that I'm not sad, or not showing it.  And it's not that I'm not sad -- of course there is a huge part of me that is sad to leave good friends, my family, and heaven-on-earth Stillwater.  But another part of me is excited to start a new chapter of my life in a city I never dreamed I'd live in but in an industry I enjoy and a job that is very promising and rewarding.  I've had enough sadness in my life this year, so forgive me if I chose to embrace the excitement over the sadness, if for no other reason than to help get through a gigantic transition.

So, yeah.  I debated over a few sad songs, but I went with this one.  I know, you're thinking "Good Charlotte?  Really?"  If you're as lame as me, you know this is the theme song from MTV/Comedy Central's Undergrads,  the cartoon about college freshmen that came out during my freshman year.  I could totally relate to that show, about what college was supposed to be.  (Full disclosure -- this version also says "...but that's alright, cause I get down with GC..." and we ALL love to get down with GC, if you know what I mean...)

I like the saying "It'll be okay in the end.  If it isn't okay, it isn't the end."  Well folks, it's the end.... and everything is okay. 

Much love.... GRC.

Not dead.  Thought I was for a few days, but nope.  Longest virus EVER... stomatitis.... inflammed tongue, ask Chase for an impression.

I've lost 10 lbs in less than 10 days, which means I weigh less now than I have since I got my drivers license at 16.  Time to fatten myself up...

Bedtime.  Love y'all.  GC