Cleaning up the past.

For the past few years I've been working pretty intently on paying off the debt (student loans, credit cards) that I've accumulated over the past 15 (-ish) years.

The student loans are all paid off. The credit card debt is mostly paid off. After this month I should have about $3,000 left to pay, which I'll whittle down over the next few months.

Once all of that is done, I'll have just my auto loan for my truck and the next focus is to get money in the bank for a down payment on a house. I have a little bit in there, but not enough to be a worthwhile down payment.

It feels kind of crazy, though, to spend so long paying everything down/off and then take out another even bigger loan... so I've been debating the pros and cons of home ownership versus renting again. It would be good to have the freedom to do what I want to the place that I'm living and be paying into something that I'll have equity in. It'll be nice to find a place with a garage and a yard to hang out in. On the negative side, though, I'll have to worry about the big things that can (and do) fail in houses and have the money saved up to repair and replace things as needed. I'll be a grown-up worrying about taxes and things like that.

In an effort to help offset the costs of home ownership I've been trying to talk myself into looking at multi-family properties that I could rent out part of in order to pay the mortgage, but I just can't get excited about the responsibility of being a landlord on top of being a new home owner while still working a full time job, also.

Part of me wants the stability and income of having someone else help offset my costs, but the rest of me doesn't want to deal with the potential hassles. So far the second part of me is winning.

The next problem is that if we do buy rather than rent, do we look in the area that we were planning to or do we go back to where we were? It's 45 minutes to an hour away from the more mainstream areas where we used to live and where the jobs, culture and other stuff we like is, but it's much less expensive and less populated (both good things for us). We can get a much nicer house on more property for less money, but it'll be harder to sell and it won't really appreciate in value much. We'll probably get our money back out when we're ready to sell. The biggest downside is putting 120 miles a day on my truck... or whatever I'd end up getting to replace it that gets better gas mileage if we do decide to buy something near where we are now.

While I'm working on figuring out that part of the puzzle, I've recently started the effort of decluttering again. I've started to list up some old bike parts and some computer cables and adapters on eBay. I have some golf clubs and other miscellaneous stuff on craigslist, also. So, hopefully, by the time I figure out where I'm going I'll have less stuff to move. ;)

I get in these moods...

I get in these moods where I want to start being better to myself. I don't know what brings them on and I normally don't follow through on my plans for all that long... but I'm thinking I'm in one of these moods again.

These moods usually strike at the most inopportune times:

* I generally feel like I want to go work out (run, ride my bike or *gasp* lift weights) at the beginning of a work day in the middle of the week and by the time I get home I don't feel like doing anything... so I don't do anything.

* I feel like eating more healthy on days when they have the absolute worst (and usually most tasty) foods in the cafeteria for lunch.

* I feel like doing specific things like riding my bike when we're having a blizzard or snowboarding in the middle of July. (Obviously not the most feasible times...)

I did, however, do a few good things:

* I picked a new dentist (well, my girlfriend picked me a new dentist, really...) and had my two cleanings this year. I'm also going for my first ever filling in a couple weeks...

* I went to an optometrist, had my eyes examined and got new glasses to replace the ones I've had for YEARS. I can't remember the last time I had an eye exam before this past time. (I didn't really have a reason not to go since I actually have halfway decent vision insurance... and I found myself squinting with my glasses on while trying to read stuff on the TV...)

Even though I feel like I'm in one of my "moods", I'm not going to set any goals because I know that I SUCK at following through at doing healthy things for myself... but I'm going to try to make a more solid attempt at actually eating a little better and exercising a little more... Yeah, yeah... I've said it before...

I'm still in the process of trying to simplify all of my material possessions, too. Over the past couple months I did manage to sell off a few CD's and misc. items on eBay and craigslist and give away 3 big garbage bags worth of stuff to Salvation Army/Goodwill.

I put up my guitars (that I never play) up for sale on craigslist a couple weeks ago but had no serious interest. I'm thinking I'm going to have to lower the prices more than I really wanted to in order to sell them. I'm not sure about selling them for lower than the latest prices I had them up there for... but on the other hand I NEVER play them... So I guess any money plus some more space in the apartment in exchange for something I NEVER use is probably a decent trade-off...

On losing weight... maybe?

I just weighed myself on the scale in the bathroom at work... and either it's REALLY broken or I lost about 15 lbs. in the past few weeks.

Even with my sneakers on plus my iPod & earbuds, phone, keys and wallet in my pockets it said I was at 196 lbs. I haven't been under 200 in awhile on the same scale. The last time I weighed myself on it I was at 213 lbs in dress shoes and my work pants but with all the same things in my pockets... I know my dress shoes and work pants don't weigh 17 lbs more than the jeans and sneakers I'm wearing today... so either the scale is broken (possible) or I lost some weight.

I really haven't been doing that much differently. I've been eating the same types of foods for dinner. I haven't been eating breakfast that often (like usual). I don't snack all that much at work, which hasn't changed. I went for a short walk around my apartment complex with my girlfriend once... (Which is once more than usual, I guess... but not REALLY all that different from normal.)

The only things that I've been doing differently for the past couple/few weeks is avoiding the can of energy drink that I was drinking almost every day of the work week for awhile, drinking more water instead of sweetened soft drinks and bringing my lunches to work most days for the past couple weeks. (Sandwiches, pretzels and bananas instead of whatever the cafeteria had on special with fries.) A couple days where I brought a banana to work I ate that mid-morning so I wasn't as hungry at lunch time.

So, I guess either the scale is broken or those things really are adding up!

The good thing about this is even if I haven't lost 15 lbs. (or anything at all) it's making me want to start being a little better to myself. Not only is it cheaper to bring my lunches to work and skip the $2.15 a day energy drink - if I can lose a few pounds, as well, that's awesome!

Aside from that not too much is going on. I've sold 4 CD's that I had listed on eBay and at this point I've made a few bucks over the cost of listing all 13 items that I put up on Sunday and anything going forward is basically making money. I'm going to attempt to get more stuff up on eBay this weekend.

If the weather is nice I'm also going to wash and wax my car really well since I haven't cleaned it up in awhile and it's pretty filthy.

Aside from that I'm hoping it's a nice quiet, uneventful long weekend. I'm looking forward to three days off from work!

Books and eBay.

I finished reading The Working Poor by David K. Shipler on Saturday. I must say that it did end up being a somewhat depressing book. It was basically a collection of stories about the histories, circumstances and lives of people who were attempting to work their way off of welfare or who were forced to get off welfare. I was hoping that it would have a lot of insight into how to work your way out of the "working poor" trap but I didn't really find too much that was helpful (especially to me). The people in the book did run into some good people who helped but it sounded like the basic tenets of the book were:
* don't drop out of high school and go to college if you can (a degree is almost a necessity these days to get a "decent" job)
* vocational training should have less of a stigma attached (we're always going to need people who work in trades like plumbing and carpentry)
* don't do drugs
* health care shouldn't be so much of a burden for people with low incomes (but maybe making it a government responsibility isn't a good idea either)
* if you're poor don't get sick because you'll get poor care and if you're really sick chances are pretty good it will ruin you financially
* doctors who work with lawyers and case workers tend to get more accomplished in the overall situation of poor children. (They can sic the lawyers on the parties responsible for poor housing conditions and for denying aid to people who are qualified, etc.)
* be a good parent to your children because if you're not you'll fuck them up for life and they'll end up stuck in the same trap
* it's extremely helpful to have a strong support system of friends and family to help out

Other than those obvious things I picked out of the book there really wasn't too much meat there... just a bunch of sad stories about people who were in horrible situations.

The next book I started to read last night was Affluenza by John de Graaf, David Wann and Thomas H. Naylor. I think that I'm going to like this book a lot better than "The Working Poor". For one thing it's written in a sarcastic, funny style. I laughed out loud dozens of times in the first few chapters and I had to read half a dozen things to my girlfriend as I was reading them... but at the same time it has very serious information in it that makes you think...

Yesterday I put some CDs, a book and some random stuff up on eBay. I'm hoping to get some of my computer guts and other stuff on there tonight...

Work and headaches suck.

I started to write a REALLY long blog entry about work yesterday. It was mostly about my current job and some of the reasons I dislike it so much. I decided it was too long and boring to post, though.

The summary is: Last week was a shit week. I was swamped all week with stupid tasks because my supervisor was on vacation and my reward for doing my job and hers was to get bitched at because I'm behind on one of my projects. I took my beating and then went to talk to the the newest of my 3 managers. I have a meeting with him on Tuesday where he's supposedly going to help to take some of my "roadblocks" out of the way and help me to enjoy my job more. Haha... we'll see. I'm going to polish up my resume and get that out there in the next couple weeks.

Other updates: I spent a few hours today going through some more old shit that I have stored at a house owned by my family that I used to live at before where I am now. I filled my car's trunk with shit to be thrown out and I have a new pile of stuff to donate to Salvation Army or Goodwill.

Now I have another one of my infamous headaches so I decided to chill for a little while and then do some cleaning around my apartment. I have to clear some stuff out of here so that I have room to bring over some of the things that I actually want to keep.

I'm hoping to get some stuff up on eBay tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

Checked out my "stats" on my blog today.

It's looking like I'm getting a little bit of traffic from google searches on various search terms included in my blog from two nights ago on the FSU / Punk Rock Fight Club / Rolling Stone article. Sorry to everyone who was expecting the article or something more interesting than my LAME commentary and links. ;)

I also got a few hits from people looking up "suburbicide", so I searched it on google and found that I'm the first (main page) and second (blog) links. I also found out that there's a Pinkerton Thugs song named "Suburbicide" that I'll have to hunt down on CD. There was also a band from MA that broke up in 2000 and an older hardcore band from NJ that both called themselves Suburbicide. The coolest link that I found, though, was for an artist named Greg Daville who has a project going that he is calling Suburbicide.

Also, a quick website update: Last night I combined the stuff on my main and about me pages of my website in preparation for putting up some of my rants and 1990's "teen angst poetry". I've blogged about the craptastic stuff I wrote in my teen years before and I'm sure I'll write more in here about it when that's really getting going.

I've been in a somewhat restless, creative mood lately so I'm hoping to get some work done on getting some real content on my website and getting some of my junk sold on eBay this weekend.

[05/19/2026: Removed dead links. All of them...]

Brazilian Chicken, gross out food TV and crappy sleeping.

I went to dinner at a friend's apartment last night. It was our host, her boyfriend, our friend Jon and my girlfriend and I. Before dinner I talked with Jon mostly about cars and music. She made a dish she calls "Brazilian Chicken" which is made sort of like this and it's delicious.

After dinner we sat around and listened to the funny, random songs on our mp3 players and then watched some TV shows where the host goes to different countries and eats foods that look disgusting. There were snakes, bugs, fish sauce, civet coffee, and lots of testicles among many other foods that looked completely unappealing to me.

When I got home I was pretty tired so I got ready for bed, laid down and then I couldn't sleep. I laid there for probably close to 2 hours before I fell asleep and then my girlfriend woke up having a coughing fit. After that I tossed and turned again for a little while and then slept in little chunks for the rest of the night. Surprisingly, I'm not as tired as I thought I'd be after sleeping so horribly last night. I really need to find a new job because that's pretty much the cause of most of my stress. Which, in turn, was the cause of my crappy sleeping.

Tonight I think I'm headed to my old house again to go through more junk. I really want to put another dent in what I have to get done over there and hopefully find some more "treasures" to sell on eBay. I'm also hoping to dig out some of my old toys to clean up and give to my sister to use for her son until I have kids someday. I'm going to have to post up some pictures of Alex soon... he's getting so big.

[05/20/2026: Removed dead epicurious link to similar recipe for "Brazilian chicken".]

eBay progress

Out of the few accumulated laptop parts that I put up on eBay last night, two sold already. I'm up to $60 - shipping costs (about $10-15). That's not a bad start for two items. I think for the stickers I'm going to break them up into lots of 10 stickers and sell them for maybe $5 per lot.

I'm not sure how that will work out but I guess we shall soon see. I'm going to have some more stuff going up there in the next few days. I'm hoping to get at least a few hundred dollars worth of my accumulated junk (car parts, bike parts, CDs I'll never listen to, books, DVD's I've watched once, a random video game that someone found, etc.) up there.

I know that I keep saying this but I'm actually doing it for a change.

I guess this makes for boring blogging, though. Sorry about that. Hopefully there will be more interesting news soon.

Oh, I've been messing around on Facebook lately. One of my friends who knows how much I dislike myspace said I might like it better. I'm not sure yet. I must say one of the negatives that I've found about Facebook so far is the fact that even less of the people I know are on Facebook than are on myspace and there aren't that many people I know on myspace. I guess social networking sites are better for people with... well... social networks.

I do like the simplicity of the layouts, though. There is no blaring shit music, animated graphics and HORRIBLE backgrounds that kill me on myspace. That's a BIG plus! If I can get more of my friends on it I might like it more.

I tried to ride my bike yesterday...

What a disaster that turned out to be.

I used to ride my bike pretty much constantly before I started college. After school, on weekends and all summer - every summer, I'd ride my bike over to some trails about a mile from my house and just go blast around in the woods and get all muddy and have tons of fun.

When I went away to college I brought my bike with me but I barely ended up riding it. The most I rode it while away at Clarkson was my last semester there when most of my classes were in buildings on the downtown campus.

After I returned to my hometown I practically never rode my bike. Last year I tried to get myself back into riding by buying a bunch of new parts for my mountain bike to replace things that were worn out (seat, pedals, back tire, titanium bolts to replace a few rusty ones) and to lighten up my bike (stem, handlebar, seat post) so that it would be easier to ride. I also picked up a crank set that I had lusted after when I was really into riding years before. All of the improvements didn't motivate me to ride again, though. I stashed my bike away into my parent's basement and all but forgot about it.

Last weekend my girlfriend's mom gave her a bike that she bought for herself but never rode. My girlfriend wanted to ride her new bike... so I dug mine out, cleaned it up, tightened up the headset and went out for a ride around the exercise trail around our apartment complex. I made it through about a lap and a half before my legs were exhausted. On top of realizing how severely out of shape I am I also came to the realization that practically all of the "new" parts I put on my bike only made it much, much more uncomfortable than I remember it being. The seat is too hard, the back tire is too narrow and the handlebar and stem made the front end of the bike feel too twitchy. Since putting the new crank set on, I also can't seem to get the front derailleur adjusted properly so I can't change the front chain rings without getting off the bike and manually helping it along. I just kept it on the big ring and shifted the rear for the short ride.

Basically, though, it was a miserable failure. I'm happy that my legs recovered pretty quickly, though. They don't hurt today, at least.

I guess I'm going to be selling my Easton flat handlebars, generic alloy stem, Vetta titanium rail seat, Smoke Lite tire and maybe the Kooka cranks (if I can't get the front derailleur working) on eBay soon. I just have to get a spare few minutes to swap the old stuff back on... I think I'm going to throw some cruiser style tires on it and put most of the old parts back on and see if that doesn't make riding it a little better.

I'm finally starting...

I'm finally getting around to doing one of the big tasks that I've been avoiding for quite awhile... I'm finally going through some of my accumulated junk that has been stored in my old place, my parent's house and my current apartment. This morning I threw out 2 garbage bags full of random shit like notes and assignments from college courses and random stuff that I've accumulated over the years. I have a bunch more stuff to go through and then hopefully by tomorrow night I'll have a flurry of stuff for sale on eBay.

I'm going to be selling my old digital camera, some misc. computer and car parts, maybe some CD's, DVD's and books and possibly some old bike parts.

I'm sick of having my stuff strewn about in three different places and I don't use most of the stuff that I have all over the place. It would also be nice to make a few bucks on stuff I never use since I'm probably still paying for some of it. (Fuck credit cards!)

My new camera came!

My Canon A640 digital camera that I mentioned in my last post came last night. I messed around with it for a little while last night and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. I only had the 32MB SD card that came with it, though, and that holds about 8 pictures at "superfine" full resolution... and you can't really do too much messing around in 8 pictures. ;) I can't wait to get the 2GB SD cards that I ordered on eBay for $18 each (shipped) and get out and actually start taking some pictures with it. :)

I think this weekend I'm also going to take pictures of all of the stuff I have sitting around my apartment waiting to go on eBay... I'm probably going to put a bunch of it up on our local craigslist first and then what doesn't move in a week or so there will go to eBay.

I think my Best Motoring - American Touge 2 DVD (which I ordered on May 3rd) should have FINALLY come today, so I'll probably watch that tonight. I've also been reading Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg over the past few nights. I'm going to attempt to take another chunk out of that tonight, too. It's pretty good but I think it's appeal is very much limited to computer programmers, IT management and related "geeky" fields. I'm finding it very well written with great background information and research but I think it only really appeals to me because I am interested in programming and have done some programming in the past. I (unfortunately) don't think I'd recommend it to anyone who's not in an IT related field even though it does explain technical things pretty well and it doesn't delve too deep into the actual nuts and bolts of code.

Anyway, that's pretty much where I'm at right now... a few little new and exciting things and the rest of my life is pretty much the same.

What's new?

It's been forever since I've posted anything... So, what's new with me?

I've been painting every now and then. I haven't made anything really spectacular or anything that I'm really even proud of... but I'm not discouraged yet. I've been trying to work a little bit here and there on creative things. My job is not at all creative... and it sometimes feels like it sucks the life and creativity right out of me. I need to keep that side of me alive. I'm getting really burnt out at work lately and I feel like I need to indulge in my creative side once in awhile to keep from having a complete meltdown.

I've also been messing around a little bit with my websites over the past few days. I applied for a web designer job last week but I haven't heard anything back from them and the job posting is down now.

Anyway, back on the topic of websites: I ran the xhtml validator from w3.org on parts of smushybrain and fixed the errors that I made in a couple of pages while trying to put them up quickly. The index page is now valid xhtml strict and I know what I have to do to whip the other pages back into shape and then it's probably time to start thinking up a fresh layout. (Luckily the last time I worked on the page I did the layout purely in css so that I can change the layout VERY easily.) I also added a little blurb to the main page of suburbicide that will be developed into the basic "mission statement" once I hash out the rest of the ideas and start working on the content. (I'll get there eventually, I just haven't felt like it with the aforementioned work burnout.) Also, I've been thinking about all my domains and how little effort I've put into getting them going and I think that I've come to the decision to let scenebot go at the next renewal which is probably still about 10 months away. Maybe I'll talk my brother and some friends into either taking it over or helping out with it. I haven't really been going to shows lately and that was the whole basis of me wanting to start the site - to get information about shows and what to do around here out there. I haven't really been doing anything, though, so it kinda feels stupid to attempt to make a website about what to do when I'm not doing anything...

Anyway, back to the me update: I've been doing a bit of soul-searching and I realize that I need to get back into the mood I started to get into last year when I wanted to simplify everything and work towards getting out of debt and find a job that I actually enjoy going to while still being able to pay my bills. I'm tired of not being appreciated for 40 hours a week. I'm tired of feeling like what I do everyday is meaningless. I'm tired of spending upwards of 5 hours a week driving to and from work. In this vein I'm going to be putting random junk up on eBay to try to clear out all the things I don't use or need and make a little cash.

Well, that's life these days... I just have to keep telling myself it'll get better. I know it will but I have to work on making it happen instead of sitting back and letting life happen to me.