Climbed Mt. Hood over the weekend. It was about the best possible day for it. Cold enough the night before that the snow was firm going up, and sunny and clear all day with almost zero wind, even on top there was no wind. It was awesome. My body felt pretty good the whole climb, I had trouble keeping my head in it the whole time, and I sure hurt right now, but it was worth it. Hopefully I'll get on Adams or a Sister later this summer as well. The pics don't seem to be uploading, but they're on my facebook.
The job continues to go well, I guess I get to be responsible for the building envelope rehabs going on in the Beaverton School District and Legacy health systems eventually. I like my co-workers, the guy that I share the conference room with currently and I a cappella country music together probably a little too frequently, but it's a good time.
My brother/roommate and I are getting along a whole lot better lately. We had about our third or fourth emotional chat a few weeks back, but the last one didn't have anger as one of the participating emotions, and we may have come to a better understanding of each other. And when I say emotional, I mostly mean me, David is pretty good at keeping his composure. In any event, I am much happier sharing space and trying to help him out these days, and I think he's a little more relaxed too, so it seems like a good deal.
I'm going to have to buy a car here pretty soon, as soon as I get a couple of paychecks under me. Late 80's early 90's toyota wagon here I come all over again. I just don't see how the combination of fuel economy, cargo/person capacity, reliability and ultimate coolness can be beat for the price. We got Ginny's for 1500 from a starting point of 2200, and I'm pretty much looking to duplicate that exact transaction. I might even take the jaguar off of Thor and put it on the hood of whatever I end up getting.
But overall God is really looking after me. My job, my friends telling me exactly what I don't want to hear regarding real estate, reconciling with David, being able to ride my bike to work, providing that bike for free from Ginny' dad in Cali, my relationship with Ginny, where I'm able to live, selling my truck the 1st day, getting me into grad school, Jake giving me Ramsey's book at the right time, safety on the mountain, health insurance that started immediately, and I know there's a lot more. The point is I can clearly see God's hand moving things around in my life right now. And I don't feel like I have that firm of a grasp on anything, I can envision the future in many different ways and I trust that it will work out somehow, because Jesus loves me and is in control.
And there are a lot of things that I'm not doing right. I say dumb things and waste most of my free time. But it's goina work out. I keep trying to shop for a new laptop and look for a car, but especially with the car there just aren't the deals out there that I'm looking for right now. And its because it isn't the right time because I don't have the cash. When I do, I know the right one will appear, and I'm going to enjoy going to buy it, flashing the benjamins and giving the dude the Tim Duncan stare until he knocks the price down. Or I'll keep riding the bike. And if I didn't have to have my own rig for work I wouldn't get one, but they have a big enough empty parking lot I'm just going to leave it there.
I did find a good deal on a computer, but there will be a better one. I wrote it down so that I can confirm that conviction in about a month. I'm taking out a 10k stafford loan for this term of school, tuition is a little over 4k, I'll spend around 600 on a lappy, I'm sure they'll be some books or other random crap that I'll need, and then I'll figure out that I don't need to take out that much for next term. I'm already beginning to doubt (with some helpful prodding) the logic of using that money to pay down credit cards, though there is about 2k of my 14k mess that was tuition from the class I took previously and tests I've paid for that I will apply to a card without hesitation. Which leaves about 3k of too much loan I suppose, but I think that's OK for the first term until unknowns are discovered.
I wish I had something more to show for a 14k mess, either in possessions or vices, but I just don't. As if gambling it away or something would be more respectable than buying food and gasoline in excess. I do have a full compliment of camping/hiking gear I suppose. It's very tempting to look at others with nifty electronics that they've seemingly paid for while not really making substantially more money than I and wondering what the heck why can't I have just a little bit of the peril. But comparisons just aren't a healthy road to go down, and I have to remind myself of this often. I do think my main problem was the truck, sucking the life and flexibility out of my checkbook just a little bit faster than I could deal with. The creditors all love me though, I'm about their favorite person in the world. People that carry large balances and have never missed a payment on anything. Can it get any better than that from a CC' perspective? Damn them and damn me for buying into the hype.
But things are going well. Lord willing and we live, at the current pace I'll be outta the hole in less than a year, maybe nine months. And that's without any boost from Stafford money, but it's also without buying a car. So as long as those things stay in balance, I continue to have unprecedented purchasing patience, and everyone around me keeps telling me no to all of my bright ideas, things are going to go very well.
I think I'm reaching a point where I may be able to break away from blowing too many hours on the internets. (I say as I write another manifesto :) I'm getting bored of espn and drudge a lot more quickly now, if I can just break the habit of loading them in all of my downtime I may be free. I think it's similar to what happened to me and video games, they just became uninteresting after a certain point. Fantasy football will be starting in a couple months which will be a time drag, but I'm going to be so stinking busy with other stuff I will definitely have the opportunity to break away. And I think that if any of you read through my page history you would wonder how the heck I've remained interested in the same old junk for so long as well. Again, I almost wish there was a clear vice here to blame like porn so it would be easy to see what needs to be cut off. But I don't even know what I do for 3 hours, I just know its almost time for bed every time.
Yeah, that's about it. I haven't been paying too much attention to BO or JM lately, I will again when the time gets closer. But I promise to have many violent divisive opinions soon, I just need some time to recharge my batteries.
peace
No comments:
Post a Comment