i'm all moved in (but have plenty to unpack) and have breezed through 2 days of work! i'm loving this job already! tonight i got the internet and cable hooked up...it's so nice to be connected with the outside world again! well, i'm off to watch more tv and browse the web. :)

my new job

i will be the LAN manager (the only one in the department) at the Buffalo County Courthouse in kearney -- 1.25 hrs from home. the current LAN manager is going back to school and will be there until the end of july, so i'll have 5 weeks of training from him. my contract starts july 1, but i'll start monday (and will get the extra days as vacation!). i went in to work on tuesday morning already to talk about budget needs for next year with every county office. everyone really likes the guy i'm replacing, which is awesome! it's been 5 years since i've worked for people who liked the IT department. a kick-ass laptop has been ordered for me -- a 4-lb dell with the newest of everything in it. i'll have wireless access everywhere in the city limit (since i'll do some work with them too). i'll get a cell phone and will officially be in charge of 24/7 support, but another guy will help me out alot with that.


my new home

i'm moving into my duplex on saturday. i imagined that i would move into an apartment and get really ancy to move into something that feels like my own place. well...i'm just skipping the apartment part. :) i'll have an attached garage, two stories, a huge deck. it's at the end of a caldesack (sp?) and the neighbors seem really cool. there were kids playing on the street and no fences, so it seems really safe. my sister lives about a mile away and it's about 10 blocks from work. it's definitely surrounded by city, but i can see a cornfield from my deck!! :) the only problem i can think of is that a washer and dryer aren't included, but i'll have them before long.

it's been quite the week...

tues
~interview at 1.30, received job offer before i left
~left for Becky's from the interview

wed
~after a few phone calls, accepted the job offer
~used Hank to help Becky fix her family's pc
~went to sonic with Becky and Jonathan (her younger brother)
~fixed my flat tire -- talked about husker and sooner football with the workers there

thurs
~had a bunch of really good conversations with Becky and her family
~left for letourneau at 2.15
~starbucks with Stefanny, Lisa, and Kyle

friday
~went to the airport to go flying with Kyle, but didn't go up bc thunderstorms (which never came) were in the forecast
~lunch with Kyle and Becky
~talked with Becky and Stefanny
~took Kyle and Lisa to the airport (her sister graduated over the weekend)
~watched a movie with Stefanny, Becky, and Aduma
~talked for a few hrs with Becky

saturday
~ripped shingles off Bubbles' roof with Aduma, Becky, Stefanny, Stryder, and Spork
~went shopping with Sandra for work clothes
~ate at jalepeno tree with Becky, Sandra, Stefanny, and Collin
~watched the skulls with Aduma
~had plenty of nerdy conversations in the phoenix lab with Aduma and later Becky
~talked with Becky for a few hrs

sunday
~roly poly with Stefanny, Becky, and Collin
~lounged around most of the afternoon
~picked up Kyle and Lisa from the airport, went to marble slab
~explored the new building once again
~watched game 5 of the nba finals with freezy

monday
~breakfast with Stefanny
~coffee with Aduma
~lunch with Kyle and Lisa
~left for nebraska
~arrived at my sister's at 1.30a

tues
~worked for the morning at the county courthouse (more on that later)
~talked through benefits with my new employer
~received some training on the ticket software i will be using
~hung out with my sister when she got off work

wed
~looked at cheap, crappy apt
~looked at really nice duplex
~turned in benefits paperwork
~opened a bank account
~looked at an apt still being built
~signed lease, etc on duplex
~picked out some furniture that my grandparents have for my taking

this sat
~move into my new place
~go garage-saling

monday
~"officially" start work

my interview yesterday afternoon went amazingly well! i was offered the job on the spot! i don't see how i could receive this great an opportunity anywhere else, especially with my experience or lack thereof. so i need to make a few calls this morning and then give them a verbal agreement by noon. many more details to come as things become more official...

i can't wait to be doing that which i love again! :-d

When a Jackson fan gets his own spokesman, as happened in recent days, we can all agree the world has gone horribly wrong.
  --from this article

there is much to say...

we've been in a flash flood watch/warning for the last 3 or 4 days. we have nothing to worry about because we live on relatively high ground. well...the basement in the addition to our house keeps letting water in each time it rains. we carried out 12 gallons of water this weekend. a guy came over this weekend to stain and varnish the shelves, trim, and doors of the upstairs portion of the addition (which will eventually be a very big office for mom and a bathroom). the bathroom has been painted an awesome red -- it's not quite husker red...more like sooner red i guess. the rest of the upstairs is an off-white. in the basement, we have painted the ceiling and will paint the walls as soon as we determine where the leak is coming from.

i'm trying not to get too excited about my interview this tuesday. i'm tired of being disappointed... it's really tough this time though! :)

on larry king live tonight, a panel of individuals talked about their experiences with depression. (the transcript is here) i've dealt (or had, maybe not exactly dealt) with depression since at least high school, but i still learn something everytime i hear people talk about their own experiences. typically it comes in the form of "i never thought of that aspect of my live having to do with depression." those revelations are wonderful!

my brother was here for the weekend. i didn't realize until he came over how much i missed him this week. we rarely do anything especially exciting -- typically a few movies, working on the addition, and plenty of tickling. :) on the weekend of july 4th, he'll move back to mom's, so i can hang out with him all the time (if i don't have a job by then).

there's a ton more going on, but that's all i'm going to say tonight...

it's storming for the 4th time since i woke up this morning! i would love for this to continue, as long as it doesn't hail. we've been in flash flood watches and warnings throughout the day, but we're high enough here that it won't affect us. i love nebraska summers! :)

i realized tonight that i use a bunch of low german phrases that i don't know how to translate into english. i know what many of them mean -- simple phrases like "sleep good," "tastes good," "good morning," "good night," and the names of different foods. but there are a bunch that i don't know the corresponding english words for. it doesn't help that low german isn't a written language, so i can't exactly look it up.

continuing a bit from my last post about change... my generation is the first in my family that didn't grow up speaking low german. my grandparents and parents didn't speak any english until they started school. how different the times are now...