I want my weekend back.

There has got to be some law of physics that describes why three-day weekends always seem to go faster than regular ones. Here I am sitting in my living room after a full day of vegging and relaxation, and yet I'm still not ready for the week to start tomorrow. The one consolation is that at least we're starting one day ahead of the game.

Also, why is it that there's never enough time to veg on the 3-day weekends, but somehow vegging on the regular weekends is totally doable? Today I slept in, watched the news, washed and waxed my car, finished up the latest discs of 24 that I got from Netflix, and now here it is already 6pm, and I have a tons more time I want to waste and not even time to waste it all. I demand to have an extension of the weekend.

Hmmm....maybe I'm falling ill? Cough cough?

Just In Case Anyone Still Reads This -

- yes, I am alive.

No, I have not had the urge to blog a lot. Until now, I guess. I felt that it was sort of time for an "hey, I've been out of school for about seven months now and here's how it's going" entry. I'm sure all four of you that actually have this page bookmarked are wondering how things are out here in the Real World.

The short answer is that they're great. Really great. Better than they ever were in school, and that's the truth. People say college is the best time of your life, but honestly I feel like I'm finally starting to peak now that I'm out of that incubator. I wouldn't trade my current job (even with all its stresses), all my bills (even when they're high), or my current social circle to go back to college. Not in a million years. I am truly happier now than I have ever been in my entire life thus far, which, although it probably isn't saying much considering that's not a whole lot of years to look back on, still says much. And not to say that college wasn't fantastic - but you move on to other things eventually, and I'm enjoying being in that place right now.

Work is going superbly well, especially this past week, as I finally, finally, FINALLY got approval for one of the big huge inventory countermeasures that I have been battling for for almost six months. I will most likely be able to hit my inventory goal for the year, with a little more elbow grease. As we head into September there's going to be a lot going on, but since it's been slow enough recently for me to be able to catch up on things I feel refreshed enough to take whatever it throws at me.

Socially, things are also going well - I'm feeling healthier and better than I ever have thanks to gym visits 5 days a week.

My lease is up at my current apartment in December, which means it's almost time to start apartment hunting again. That's going to be a real challenge considering the conflicting priorities of finding a less expensive place to save some green while still having the amazing downtown life that I have right now. Yesterday I explored a few of the more residential neighborhoods near downtown and I was completely how shocked at how weird it felt - I have grown accustomed to being in the middle of downtown. What once felt like an overbearing, bustling city that didn't offer any rest is now the only place that I feel at ease - the quiet of the suburbs is unnerving.

I'm optimistic about the future and the rest of the year - life isn't perfect, but then, it never is. I think the best thing about leaving college and the isolated fantasy world that exists on campus was coming to that very realization and becoming comfortable with it for the first time in my life. Despite the imperfections, it all goes on - onward and upward!

Oh, yeah, that's right...I have a blog.

I had kinda forgotten in the past 3 months. Ha!

4th of July was pretty low-key, just went to the Beerfest with some friends from work and then headed up to crash a rooftop party and watch the fireworks over Elliot Bay. Good times.

Saturday has been fairly unproductive. I took my car in for its 10,000 mile checkup and beyond that I haven't accomplished much. The weather can't seem to make up its mind so I'm kind of thinking it might be a good time to get some cleaning up done around the apartment; the place looks like a bomb went off. It's just one of those days when there's a whole lot you probably SHOULD be doing, both work and non-work related, but you just can't seem to muster up the jam to do it all. And I can't believe it's already Saturday; before we know it it will be Sunday - where did the 3-day weekend go??

Life in general still going OK, work is OK and on the upswing, and beyond that, there just ain't a whole lot new to report.

Costco run later today!

Back for a Visit...

This past week has been a good week because I did something very exciting - I booked my big vacation for this year! I am heading back to Germany for 13 days in May/June and can hardly wait; 13 days of much-needed time not only away from work but out of the country as well.

Part of the reason for the trip back to Germany is purely nostalgic - I need to get my "fix" and see my old stomping grounds again. I need to walk the streets of Tübingen again, eat a Döner at the marketplace again, drink beer in the beer gardens again, speak German for two straight weeks again, see old friends again, ride the train through the countryside again. I think of Germany almost every day and I miss it more than I can describe. I honestly do regret not exploring other avenues of getting myself back there before I came back to Seattle, even though at the time I didn't want to go back so badly.

The other reason for the trip is related to the first but on a deeper level: to reconnect with my second home. It seems silly to many people in my life (including myself, admittedly) that I refer to Germany as my "second home" but in many ways it is and will always be as close to my definition of home as my home country is. It has been almost two years since I left Germany in August of 2006, and I want to begin exploring the possibility of returning indefinitely.

I won't be able to even realistically consider acting on that prospect for at least another 9 months - and even then it would be somewhat premature - but nonetheless I think it's a good idea to at least let it start simmering in the back of my mind, to keep Germany on the radar. My greatest fear in coming back to Seattle after graduation and starting a job here was that I would somehow "forget" Germany or lose touch with it - that I would wake up one morning and find myself with a slew of obligations preventing me from taking off for the horizon again. And so this trip is, in that sense, a metaphorical climb to the top of the forest canopy to verify that the horizon is, indeed, still there.

In any case, if you are over in Germany right now, I want to come and visit you and/or have you join me on my trip! Facebook me!

You-Know-What is here.....

I always had a feeling that post-college life would rob me of the desire to blog, and my suspicions have proved correct.  When you no longer have hours and hours and hours of spare time (and trust me, you do in college, no matter how busy you think you are), it seems downright insane to spend those precious free hours in front of a machine that I am in front of for at least 10 hours each day anyway.  I have, on average, 180 minutes after work each day before I have to be asleep again so that I'm not drooling all over my keyboard at 7am the next morning (to give you all an idea what life at work is like, consider this: I bought a second coffee maker.  For my desk.)

Add to that the fact that we're currently in the midst of quarter-end - a word uttered at workplaces either with the utmost of contempt or as quietly as possible.  If business were Harry Potter and quarter end were Voldemort (a fitting comparison, really, considering the shenanigans of upper management and the horror of fiscal reporting) we would all scurry around feverishly every three months whispering frantic warnings to each other of the coming terror of You-Know-What.

Blogging, therefore, will need to make a change.  I'm thinking politics.  Or something.  In any case, my life is now officially Way Too Boring to bother publishing on the internet or anywhere else.

So let me tell you about my evening.

I leave work at 6:15, exhausted and drained.  I remember halfway home that I need to stop at the grocery store because I have almost no food in the apartment and can't even make a lunch for the next day unless I go.

So I begrudgingly start making my way through Safeway with a square plastic basket, quickly and efficiently making my way through the store, aisle by aisle, grabbing only the necessities and a few extras at a good price.  Patting myself on the back for my price-savvy, I decide to splurge for the night and buy a frozen Digiorno pizza.  I'm tired and don't feel like actually cooking dinner.

I get home and clean up the apartment while I the pizza cooks.  I even hang the big picture above the couch I've been procrastinating dealing with.

Pizza timer goes off.  I run over to the oven, mouth already watering, and grab the pizza out of the oven.  Here's where it gets interesting.

Since Digiorno cooks without a pizza tray, you put it right on the rack.  I grab this rack directly out of the oven as always.  I've got a cookie tray waiting on the stove to take the hot pizza for cutting.

I decide that since the tray has a lip on one end (the end furthest from me) I might as well try something different and try sliding it off the end closest to me, which doesn't have a lip and I reason will therefore be easier.

I'm wrong.

The pizza slides off the tray.  Too far.  In slow motion it flips and falls - face down - on the open oven door.

Expletives fly.

After cleaning up the mess (as best one can clean melted cheese, pepperoni, and peppers off of a hot oven door) I finally decide that I'm craving pizza enough to drive back to the store and buy a second Digiorno.  It's been that bad of a Tuesday.

I get stuck behind every slow person in the universe on the way over.  Finally getting to the store, I get strange looks from Queen Anne preppies who think it's a cardinal sin to show up at Safeway in sweats and a sweatshirt.

I get in the express 15-items-or-less line, rejoicing that there's only one man in front of me.

Unfortunately, not only has this man bought the full 15-item limit, he is, to my utter and abject horror, the only person left in the universe who actually writes checks at the grocery store.  I am dead serious.  The man pulls out his checkbook and, in the slowest, most excruciating speed I've EVER seen in my life, writes a check for $14.07.

I get back home and put the pizza in the oven, sitting down on the couch with my now-reclaimed glass of Pinot Noir, resolving to blog immediately.

At which point I realize I have put the pizza in the oven without a cookie tray.  Again.

Greta's so cute when she's happy.

Today I gave Greta a special treat.

(For those of you wondering, Greta is my Volkswagen.  Yes.  I named my car.  And yes.  I named her Greta.  Long story short, it had to be a German name and it had to rhyme with Jetta, so that didn't leave a lot of options.  Actually her full name is "Lorelei Greta Jetta" because she was like the folklore siren perched on the Lorelei rock of the Rhein, but that's another story).

So today after work I noticed Greta was about to be empty (actually, Greta kind of yelled at me, "I'M ABOUT TO BE EMPTY, YOU IDIOT!  DO YOU SEE THE LITTLE LIGHT THERE THAT LOOKS LIKE A GAS PUMP?!?  THAT MEANS FEED ME!"

So I pull into the gas station, and Greta's so empty I figure, "Why not give her a new kind of gasoline?  I've always given her regular, which is what her fuel door says to give her.  Let's treat her and give her PLUS. "

So I fill her up with plus.  I manage to squeeze 14.1 gallons into the tank (for those of you not familiar with the specs on a VW Jetta, the tank only holds 14.3 gallons).  Score!

And since she's gotten her new Plus fuel, Greta's running even better.  Quieter starts.  Smoother acceleration.  Better performance.  She's like Super Greta.  

I love Super Greta.

Workaholic

So for those of you wondering how the job is going these days, let me just say: there's a reason why you haven't heard anything from me on this blog in close to a month.

'Nuff said.