Bullets In The Gun

They used to call me lightening
I was always quick to strike
had everything I own in the saddles on my back
I had a reputation for never stayin' very long
just like a wild and restless drifter
like a cowboy in a song

I met a dark haired beauty
where they laid the whiskey down
in southern Arizona
in a little border town
She had to dance for money
in that dusty old saloon
I dropped a dollar in the jukebox
played that girl a tune, yea

Never see it comin' 
It just hits you by surprise
It's that cold place in your soul
and that fire in her eyes
That makes you come together
like wild horses when they run
now the cards are on the table
and the bullets in the gun, yea

She was sittin' on my lap
we still had shots to kill
when a man pulled up who owned the bar
in a cadillac deville
grabbed her by her raven hair
and threw her in the floor
said no free rides for the cowboys
that ain't what I pay you for, no

She jumped up and grabbed my pistol 
stuck it in the fat man's back
said open up the safe
and put your money in the sack
tied his hands behind him
and put a blindfold on his eyes
if you're dumb enough to chase us, man
you're dumb enough to die

Never see it comin'
it just hits you by surprise
it's that cold place in your soul
that fire in her eyes
that makes you come together
like wild horses when they run
now he cards are on the table
and the bullets in the gun

We rode across the border
down into mexico
when yo're runnin' from the law
ain't that where everybody goes?
we came to a town
with a name I couldn't spell
she gave me what I came for
in that Mexican motel

I woke up to sirens
and the sound of runnin' feet
There were 50 Federales
locked and loaded in the street
she grabbed my 44
I grabbed the money in the sack
she kissed me for the last time
and we headed out the back

Every gun was on us
and every heartbeat poundin'
there's only one thing left to do
when they got you all surrounded
she fired that old pistol
but we didn't stand a prayer 
money hit the gravel
bullets filled the air, yea

Never see it comin' 
it just hits you by surprise
it's that cold place in your soul
and that fire in her eyes
that makes you come together
like wild horses when they run
now the cards are on my table
and bullets in the gun

bullets in the gun
bullets in the gun
bullets in the gun

Bullets In The Gun—Toby Keith

Missing an old run down Ford

Appropriately Ford Tempo's have been haunting my dreams all morning. Yesterday ma made the final decision to scrap Rosie, which brought the price of the cars value by weight. Before we left, I took one more picture:

From Rosie & Noëlle

So that's officially the end of an extremely old friend. The only good thing I can say, they will likely keep her around for a parts draw until they need to liquidate some cars or run out of usable parts.

Nothing like family to rack up bills for you.

O.K. so while we were at the car dealer, we had to get all the car insurance crap sorted out while finalizing things. Bad news is obviously, a slightly higher cost but good news is full coverage.

Getting pissed with the insurance company e-mailing her about the changes, she's gone ahead and made changes to that. So now I have to contact the dealer and get that updated with the policy changes, and she has effectively increased the projected insurance bill in the process.


As far as I'm concerned, she just forfeited an equivalent share of her share of my regular pay cheque, or owes me monthly!

Something about sorting through receipts made me vaguely think that I need a filing cabinet and I should likely print out my digital receipts where applicable. Then I remembered I hate paper, and I mean I really hate paper. That is when it hit me.

I don't need no freaking file cabinet, I can just store files in a secure dropbox and be done with it. Plus it's possible to effectively "Scan" papers off my phone by using the camera and uploading them. Victory is mine on the war against wasting valuable trees  :-).

Now the real question is with the sorry state of our traditionally decrepit power grid, what does more damage to the earth lol—more paper or more PC usage.

Rosie & Noëlle

Well, it's taken a while but I've finally gotten around to getting the pictures off my phone, nuts almost wrote car... that's a headache for you. Yesterday on the way home and after getting both cars here, I took a few pictures of each.

From Rosie & Noëlle

An awfully long time ago, my grandmother dragged us across the Ford dealer and came home with a used 1993 Tempo GL, same light blue that she always got. Don't know how long it took but it was dark by the time we left, felt like all day. I'm sure we walked the property at least twice!!!





 


 

  

Maybe the Tempo isn't an important model to many people but for me, it's a slice of history. My memory of that car goes back as far as the guy at ford explaining how the radio worked during the test drive. It's the same car that my grandmother put a curse on after the alzheimer's took her off the road. Same car that took us all to disney world, and again left me with numb legs the first time we came to Newnan. It's the car my brother learned to drive in the parking lot, by giving the seat belts a real run for their money. IIRC, it was a Sports Authority parking lot. Like wise, it's the the first car I was in an accident with when ma was turning right at the intersection and someone ran a red light and creamed us on the way to pick up my brother from work. I can still remember countless times in that car. On the same coin, it is also the car that I learned to drive in. Yeah, a little HSC straight four engine with a three speed automatic, that can peel out like a flash yet still go smooth at a low crawl and rattle all the way.

  

  

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I learned how that car responds, what she is capable of, where the rattles come from, and how to manoeuvre it to her the edge of her envelope. To compensate for all the damage, I've even had to learn how to drive with minimal help beyond wheels. To starve off Murphy, I usually give myself margins measured in feet when driving but know that car enough to only need inches. What can I say, we've known each other a long time, even closer since I got to start driving. At some point, my mother had nick named the car "Rosie" after Katharine Hepburn's role of "Rose Sayer" in the African Queen. It's kind of stuck, and well, beats referring to it as "Car" :P. So, I refer to this car as Rosie whenever `the family ford` or her make/model isn't the only appropriate form of address. Whenever I hear Somewhere With You on the radio, I'm gonna be thinking of Rosie.


My family never really took much care of that car, so it's always been a mess, fluids almost never checked beyond anti-freeze (my mother is paranoid about that), oil changes more like 2 or 3 times in 17 years, tyres when they're flat, etc. Most things taken into the car, have stayed there for /years/ and it's been used like a trash can for as long as I can remember. I've never volunteered to clean out the car, because I know I'm the only asshole who would keep it clean. After taking pictures of the interior, I threw some of the trash out when I was unloading Rosie.

  

  

My mother's never given a crap about keeping the car clean. You've always had to move something before sitting in my brothers car, and I don't think most people seem to care. Well in my case, if it comes in with you, it better go out with you, or ya gettin' out and walkin' the rest of the way!

The 2007 Ford Taurus SE that I got yesterday, seems to have gotten the nick name Noëlle. Something that ma suggested, it being Christmas time and all. Where as Rosie and I, could probably described as a crazy pair, I would say that Noëlle is a more sensible car at heart. Maybe we'll rub off on each other lol. 

Me being me, of course, I'm opting for the spelling Noëlle rather than the more common (here) form of "Noel" as in the song. That is of course for linguistic reasons.

  

  

  

While getting everything sorted yesterday, I went about checking the things I had to forgo at the car dealer, and top off the fluids. Didn't need much of anything really and the tyres are basically new... kind of refreshing from running on next to nothing lol. Noëlle is clean on the inside and I intend for things to remain that way. While I doubt it will stay as it is, right now the engine is so clean you could practically eat off it, but that might offend the car :-/.

So far I've put >= 200 miles on it between the drive home, a trip to Griffen, and us going up to Carrollton for dinner last night. Having a full set of mirrors, working turn signals, and gasp, high beams that actually work, is shockingly different.

  

  

  

  

The real question I reckon, is whether or not it survives until 2024, +/- me, hehehehehehe.

I've been waiting twenty years for this picture

Family

What can I say, it's a brother thing >_>.

Every drivers right of passage...

While not /quite/ as time consuming as my grandmother dragging us across F.O.R.D. motors cica 17 years ago, it seems almost the entire day has gone to procuring a car. Didn't think there would be any savings on time >_>.

Went down to a dealer called Navigator up in Marietta this afternoon, nice little drive actually. Spent the morning at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Since I wasn't able to get a ride up there, and well, being a stubborn, gundanium headed person, I'm not gonna skip out on an appointment (and a good deal) that easily, no matter how much my mother complains. I didn't push the old car into work tomorrow because I was worried it would damage the vitals; if the mechanic is giving it a death sentance however, well I know how far she can go. We're both tough old, crazy birds in that way. I love that car.

To make my mother 'happy', I got a rental for the day instead of tempting fate. Can't say that the Kia Spectra is particularly inspiring as a car but it'll do the job fine when you need one. Took long enough between my mother and Enterprise, that we were running late—so for a change I drove like a proverbal bat out of hell.Yeah, just like one of my friends likely does... I'm thinking of you Escrt!!! Usually I go around the speed limit and let people going much faster than that pass me at will. But hey, if people are making me almost an hour late and everyone else on the express way is doing 80+, I'm riding with traffic when safe to to do so.

Must admit, I'm used to driving a car that only has a passenger side view mirror: so having a driver side view and rear view mirror, is almost like having a HUD :-/. Coming home,  it felt alien to use the mirrors, instead of having to drive straight and look over my shoulder whenever changing lanes to the left. I guess it's fitting, as someone whose usually the train harder, fight easier type, that I've had to deal with a car that has next to null driver aids (unless you count power steering and good breaks, hehe).


Financing a used car is a lot of paper work, I probably signed and or initialled my name a good 40 times today. Overall the interest rates I'm getting are so miserable that after everything is said and done, it's like paying for a new car instead of a used car, but I'm fine with that. If I had the cash laying around un-needed, I would just buy the car outright like my grandmother, instead of paying double that when everything is said and done.

My main concern was the drive away costs, because I'd like enough of my pay left over to drive into work after the holidays ^_^. One reason I tried the dealer I did, their way of doing the down payment is you pay about the normal price but it's split into 3 chunks instead of an initial lump sum. Basically 50% of the down payment followed by a pair of cheques for 25% in place of the regular payments. The regular payments ain't so bad either, so it's just the interest rate is very high, thus making the cost more a lot more than the cars resale value. I'm fine with that. I just want a good car, not extra wealth.


In the end I got a white 2007 Ford Taurus SE. Breaks ain't as good as Rosy's, nor does it quite have the pick up of that old '93 Tempo GL, but it is more to my taste than the other cars I've taken on a test drive. The best of which, was rather like my brothers car, and I don't really like his car lol. The Taurus has a lower fuel efficiency ratings than I would like, but by contrast it's a Vulcan V6 rather than an old HSC straight-4. It's also an American car, which means it'll stay put together with duct tape and chewing gum, which is kind of cool.

Except for the fluid levels, I inspected it as thoroughly as I could without having a tool kit on me; and I'll check the fluid levels tomorrow when I get a chance. I liked that the tyres are in great shape (I'm used to having steel showing). Ironically a lot of things have changed: shifter is on the steering column (old style) rather than on the floor like every car I have ever seen. The parking brake is even a foot pedal/pull release instead of the lever type I've always been exposed to. For my mother, it's reminiscent of 1960s fords lol. Engine and car body is what I really focused on with the Taurus - I can seem direct similarities to the Tempo's engine, especially the alternator and belt design, but it is a rather different beast. I've spent enough time staring down Rosy's engine, that it ain't hard to figure out what is what, in as much as I know what I'm looking at that is. I'm a programmer after all, not a mechanic.

Much to my distaste, this Taurus also has the same "Power everything" mentality as my mothers Tempo. Power locks, power windows. I remember when those were optional "Luxaries" on cars... yeah. If you've got kids or something, I would recommend it but other wise I view power windows/locks as just another moving part that can break down. Modern key less entry systems are kind of nice though. To the interior, the only thing I really car about is that the radio works, so I can stop using my phone and ear buds :-).

Me being me, of course looking at the trunk space, all I could think of is "Wow, you could fit three bodies in this thing". Yeah, lol. Seems that newer cars really go for a snub noise, big engine, and large ass compared to the things I grew up with; which were rather more like cardboard boxes on wheels.

Either way, I am happy. Got a car, it's an improvement, and I ain't totally broke yet. While I really don't care much for FORD in general, I'll admit, I would rather have a car that rattles with a good engine than have a car with a shitty engine and no rattles. Even if this Taurus rides pretty dang silent right now, I have never known a ford that didn't start to rattle eventually. It's not a sign of trouble, it's a sign of FORD engineering lol.


Tomorrow if things don't totally Murphify, I'll take some pictures of both cars. Need to go pick up the old Tempo from the parking yard at Enterprise, so ma will be driving my Taurus and I'll coax the old girl home. Now as long as my mother doesn't crack up my car and Rosy doesn't halt and catch fire, we ought to be O.K.



I love that damn old car...

I hate missing a day's work

Today started off like a normal day, except for  the cars recent transmission problems getting, eh, worse. So instead of a nice Monday at work, I end up missing work and taking it into the the mechanics. Whose advise is run it til it dies. Of course that gets my mom banannas.

So I've spent time looking at used cars. There goes a nice 50% of incom, that would other wise be getting saved  :-/. The ironic thing? Years and years ago, this is the kind of time frame I thought I might end up having to get a car... lol.

*yawn* it's a lazy wazy afternoon, and I feel somewhere between taking a siesta and getting into some code, before I go back to work tomorrow lol.

Spent some time screwing with my phone, GPS, updated maps, blah, blah. Personally I think that a touch screen is better than a mouse, worse than a keyboard; although interestingly swype seems to be handy with a terminal emulator! Maybe on a much larger display, an on screen keyboard might cut it for general typing needs. Also put in a bit of time seeing what level of integration I can get between Android and my `usual` work flow. So/so.


What I really would like? Is a CRUD interface to 'everything', that I could use from my unix shell, a gui, or perhaps, even my phone. Preferably I would like something Mail like in terms of interface. Something that could roll news feeds, e-mail, task management, calendaring, facebook, etc all into one thing. Like a big data funnel. On my weekends off, I've been grokking around for libraries that would help interface with the services I use, like my calendar: something increasingly important ;).

On the other side is the issue, what language is ideal to the mixture, and how many weekends would it take to get something, 'useful' ? Honestly, I like dynamic languages for the features. JavaScript and Lisp will never be pretty to look at but they really rock. By contrast more static languages are often easier to  enforce ahead of time type checking but lack sexy features. I rather prefer it when the compiler can tell me, "Oops" before I execute a program, but I'd rather not have to code my way around the languages artificial limits either. Hmm, can't have everything I guess.


So, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea what I'm doing for the next few hours lol.

Ahh, it feels good to be able to sit with my laptop and update my journal for a bit! That's kind of a down side to such a long drive to work, I usually get home to late to focus on blogging anything. Hopefully that will change in the near future, courtesy of leaving Newnan.

Today, I slept in as it were: rolled out of bed circa 0900, where as for work I've been setting my alarm for 0600. Most of my time has been spent on the rather tedious subject of logistics and budgeting. It won't be long until I know how much the regular pay cycle is going to be, but a little simple math and margining gives me a suitable ball park for plotting. The other thing that I've been looking at, is apartments closer to work. How I run the numbers, I also leave myself a comfortable margin!!!

Driving to work every day is around 140 miles per day across two highways and two interstates. Moving could reduce that closer to a 20-25 mile drive, which means a hell of a lot of less money spent on gas. Like 2 gal/day instead of 6 gal/day. Being able to eliminate the hike down the I-85 alone, is a net savings to be honest. Taking the Atlanta bypass, the speed limit is only 55, same as on a normal highway outside of school zones. Where as on the I-85, the speed limit is 70 at this end and drops to 65 within city limits. In actuality, people tend to go well over the speed limit out here lol. This old ford burns through gas once you start going past ~45mph; and over 60 it sucks gas like, well I won't use that analogy here but those who know me well can guess what I would think <_<.

Geographically, if I could find something near the areas that I have outlined, it's much less of a commute. But e.g. getting to other things, like the airsoft field or church would become a good long drive. I'd rather commute weekends than weekdays, when you combine the time and money saved with moving closer to work. When they interviewed me, they didn't demand I/we move, they only asked if I would be willing to. Really, I don't mind the commute, but it would be nice to still have free time left in the day when I get off work, that isn't spent driving home lol.


As things work now, my mother is seeing 1/3 of my net income after tithing. That's what she got out of my first weeks pay, and what she'll get out of this pay cycle as well. Moving would rearrange that equation. Namely that money would then represent a decent months rent, and the savings out of the petrol budget could help with bills or fill in extra slack if the rents a little higher. I think it would be fair enough to my mother, that if instead of giving her a percentage of my pay cheque, I alleviated her biggest monthly bill, it would be a fair trade. She would also worry less if it's a short drive to work, and I would be more at ease knowing my mother is taken care of, than if I was out on my own and she was at the other end of the metro area! I would also miss the dogs if I moved out :'(, and I really can't count on my brother to lift a finger lol. Friends have been telling me for many years he should get off his arse, but I know both that ma is the only mother I've got, and I'm the only stooge that's going to look after her. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't throw people out just because I don't "Need" them, especially family.


So in theory, between the pay from my new job and her staple income, it's possible to pay rent, pay (and trim) bills, and still have part of my regular pay to save away in the bank (or a mayonnaise jar). That's something I couldn't do without my mother: have enough left to save after rent, bills, and a car. I know what it's like to live with things tight, heck, I'm not a penny pinching S.O.B. in a family of spenders for nothing! I want to stuff away part of my income, so there's something there for a rainy day. I'm not willing to blow every cent I make before the inks dry lol.

Yeah, I'm kind of the family freak... the one who saves money :-/.


Right now, my plan is to start calling some of the places I've tracked down and inquiring about details. Principally I need to know if their are any suitable units available, and how the animals would impact things. To be acceptable to me, any place of residence has to accept the dogs and the bird. Simple. Like wise a decent internet connection is required.

Hmm, maybe I can get my mother to finally throw crap out that we ain't used in over ten years...... O.K that is probably to much to hope for, LOL!

Why after spending the work week with dynamic languages, do I feel like sitting down with C++?

If the traffic and the weather keeps up as it's doing, I think I'm sleeping later and googling if those packets the army uses to warm your hands in gloves, are available to civilians lol. Me and this tough old ford are making it across them 70 miles like Han Solo and the Falcon pulling the Kessel run xD.

Never thought I could honestly long for that Floridian sunshine, but hey, while they're breaking out the fur coats, they still got +20F on us here in Georgia lol.

Dang I just struck a double early off a late, lol.

Overslept this morning until my brain remembered the alarm clock had already gone off! Still I made it to work with plenty of time to spare. Plus I left work on time and hit the traffic jams just right, got home at a good time. In plenty of time for dinner of course :-D.

Can you really beat getting to work early and marginal traffic on the way home on a Monday?


The company I'm working for is basically doing an 8-hour work day. Since I'm in front of a code editor most of the time, there isn't that much that can just 'Explode' into late hours right now, so I've generally been leaving a little bit late or on time, and getting there early. If I'm supposed to put in an 8 hour day, that's what I'll do, but I'm more concerned about getting to work early than I am about leaving on time. I don't care much if, e.g. I'm 20 minutes late leaving work. So long as things get done!!! It's like yeah, could get most of X wrapped up tonight... but not get off work when I am technically "Supposed to", so I do what I can and maintain notes.

I keep a note of what I need to do next time, what to do before I leave, on what I'm working on, etc. Bonus points being, that those notes are separate from my personal ones, so I can't screw up finding them again lol.

Things seem to be pretty cushy compared to what I've been subject to over the years. Thanks to time spent in my mother's business, I'm no stranger to a work day that can leave you feeling FUBAR, or that burns through time like a sieve. Want to really see your time fly, try working 0400-2000. That will shaft you; I spent several months doing that back in cica 2008. Most of the stuff with ma's business however, was usually crammed into 4-6 hour days. From my own time on the computer @ home, I'm basically used to working on things until I pass out, so that's closer to 20-hour days sans food/bathroom/interrupts.

Unlike home, an interrupt at work is more like an occasional knock on the door jam. It's down right peaceful... kind of funny really. Past few months, I've been thinking about how tired I am of always being burned through but never having time to recharge. Regular 8-hour days seem to be rejunvinating me.



Out of all the things I've experienced, I never thought I could look forward to having to get up and go to work!

How to tell if your phone is female, or if Linux is smarter than Windows XP

O.K. so my phone has been giving me a message every time I plug it in, asking whether I want to turn on USB mass storage for mounting or charge her off the USB. So today I plugged it into my desktop, and I'm scratching my head trying to figure out where I turn it on because it just starts charging.

You know that your phone is female, if you plug her in and she starts to CHARGE instead of asking you to MOUNT her >_>.

Conversely you know that Linux must be smarter than XP, when the phone does ask about mounting if plugged into a Linux laptop instead of a Windows XP machine <_<.

Yeah, lol.

Yesssss!!!

Seems that I'm not the only one who hated it, since this year 94.9 The Bull hasn't been straight on Christmas music since the day after Thanksgiving. Man, I love Christmas but ahem, if I wanted to hear the songs all month, I would sing them.


*Dances with glee*

Hmm, seems that I've survived my first week! Started work on the 30th, and got lost as hell for about three days straight trying to find the place. Now that I know my way around, and I'm getting there early. Alarm goes off at 0500, I'm usually awake by 0400, and I try to be on the road between 0530-0630. Today the lights weren't even on yet in Engineering when I showed up lolol. As long as I can be on the Interstate by 0700, I can get there with time to spare, and no body is picky about when I show up. It's basically an 8-hour work day with 3-hours of driving / over 220 kilometres each day. On the upside, I'm doing about $15/day in petrol in a car that's well below the modern norm for fuel efficency, so whatever a regular weeks pay cheque nets, fuel costs ought to be staying a float.


My first day was essentially getting up to speed. One of the guys there, Steve got me started installing the OS on my work station, introduced me to the guy responsible for setting up my access to stuff, etc. While at home I'll usually take like a week to break in a new setup, I kept stuff on my work station pretty light. I'm there to work not customise things, besides all I really care about is a decent command line environment and having the tools needed for getting stuff done. Made sure to bring my laptop and loads of stuff on my flash drive just in case. Since it's so far from home and moving isn't going to happen overnight, I travel well stocked with Miles' old backpack. That reminds me, I still need to eat the candy I stored in it xD. Since there's no strict dress code, I've even gotten to keep my boots :-).

The second day, wasn't very productive IMHO. Mostly cursing at some warts in one of the libraries being used, it's a binding to a lib' written in another language, so it's not always perfect. Rest of the time was largely filling out the paper work for being hired. I can't really complain about the paper work, since both the chef finacial officer and the woman from human resources helped me sort that stuff. Just got one thing left to do fir that, and I'll be mapping that out over the weekend. To the library thing, all I can say is that I'm inclined to agree with my superior about it. It's better to keep the code base more natural to the implementation language we're using, than cuddling up to the libraries more static interface. Reading the code already in place, also shows me a few things about who I'm working with.

Being the Fraking New Guy (FNG) on deck, I'm a wee bit cautious about draconian issues. Generally I know what I'm doing well enough to figure stuff out but, eh, somewhere between programming and business its kind of easy to ruffle peoples feathers over little things and I'd rather not do that at first. So I'm trying to avoid walking into any walls so to speak. There doesn't seem to be a lot of fixed policy about anything programming related and everything is quite laid back at the company, so I guess there's nothing to worry about. Except getting tongue twisted explaining things lol. With my mother always telling me off whenever I'm on VoIP, I've gotten more used to typing all day than speaking. When Matt, my superior told me about the instant messengering system, I was happy as a clam!

Thurs/Fri were mostly spent trying to get stuff done, got a bit finished yesterday but didn't have it ready for commit untill today, along side some other stuff. Really not sure what kind of pace is expected of me for generating results, but since I don't have my mother interrupting me all the live long day, I'm getting more done in much less time than I'm used to doing it at home. I like it, kind of wish it was more like 10-12 hour days, so I could get more done at work lol. Doubt there are enough hours in the day to get done the amount of work I feel should be done. On my way out, I let my superior know what branch I pushed stuff out to and said I'd catch up on the remaining things tomorrow. What a curious look came when he reminded me tomorrow is Saturday xD.

After so many years of having to operate on a mentality like, "O.K. it's the weekend.... time to cram as much work in as possible before Monday", I find it kind of hard to not be working on the weekends... :-/. Guess I can spend it on my own projects or something. If it wasn't supposed to be like an 8 hour work day, I would just sit and let it roll with how much I can get done and when. Habbits, whether it's a 10 or 18 hour day, I'm used to staying at it. Although I must admit, 8 hours isn't bad. Only real interruption is going to the bathroom and taking a lunch break; although ma would kill me if I work through those >_>, today I took a pen & pad with me, so that I could think ahead while eating. For what I've been doing for years, I've had to put up with trying to concentrate with a constant string of interupts. When your brains in the swing of things, having a massive context switch thrown at you dozens of times a day, is kind of like being hit by an eighteen wheeler. That's one reason I love being able to sit working at the office instead of waiting on my mother hand and foot all day while trying to get crap done \o/.


So far I like this job quite a lot. Out of the handful of interrested parties, this employer seemed like the best fit, and it's finally a chance to work at something that's more up my ally. If I survive the 90-day probational period, things ought to be good for a while. Coming home on the highway tonight, I was thanking the LORD for answered prayers. Feels almost like I've died and gone to heaven... nice place to work, good people, relaxed environment, and a there's supposed to be a steady pay cheque to boot. It's unbelievable how much I hate being idle, now I'm working. Murphy's law has been on my ass a lot lately, yet it's like I've been blessed. At least, it's a glimpse of what life can be, and I hope it lasts for years.

And the only bad thing I can say about the job, is having to walk to the bathroom lol. You know when going down like two short hallways every now and then is the worst part of your day, there is something going right!!!


Between driving the area so much and being able to stop and map stuff out with this new cell phone, I'm even starting to learn shortcuts. Yesterday I made such good time, I was almost afraid I would be too early xD. WHere I live, if I don't know where I'm going, I know enough that between my instincts and a compas, I can figure it out. Geeze, some of the roads around Newnan I've been on so much in my life, I could drive them blind.

When I get up in the morning, I head for the nearest Interstate access, get on to the I-85 N and head down to the I-285 N / W. Main strip around where work is located is more or less in between the level of newnans one, and the one over in Peachtree city. Nice spot, but confounding as all hell to find anthing until you've got it figured out. A few more years of commuting and I'll probably know Duluth well. Personally, I like the Interstate system better than Georgia's road ways; on the former the only way to get lost is to close your eyes and stop reading lol. It's actually comforting when I make it to the I-85 S and then to the local high way. I know the area, and on the local, well, it may be terribly dark but after 10 years riding it, I not only can find my way home trivially, I also can figure out how to get to every neighboring city! The path up to Duluth, time will tell, hehehehe.