2 Bit Hacker

So, life seems to be going pretty well at the moment. I’m being transitioned to a different position at work, which will give me a wider variety of things to work on. Looking forward to it, though I’ll not be in the full swing of it till the end of the project we’re currently working on, which is still 2-3 weeks off. I’m still enjoying the work, the whole development cycle is so much cleaner than it was at SimPro or Net-Temps. It’s just a great place to work.

I’m also getting my finances in order finally. I was hoping to be caught up this month, but it looks like I’ll be all up to date by the end of April instead. I’m pretty much down to just getting caught up on rent and a couple of utilities. Amanda’s finally been able to start paying her share of the rent again, now that things have be sorted out with her new job and she’s started getting paychecks. I plan on opening a secured credit card with Bank of America soon, which should help my credit get back on track. I’d like to be able to get into a new car by the end of the year, and perhaps get into a condo in a year or two.

Speaking of vehicles, I’m open to suggestions on what to get. I’ve been happy with the Focus ZX3, though I think if I were to go for a Focus again it would be the ZX5. Also considering the Toyota Matrix or the 5-door Mazda 3. Ideally I’d like something with all wheel drive for the winters here.

Ah well, I thought I had more to write, but it’s just not coming to me at the moment.

Old building wiring is such a pain. Near as I can tell, our floor has 5 circuits, one dedicated for the washer dryer, then 4 that are apparently used at random around the floor. Somehow, I think we managed to do something very bad to one or two of them. Earlier this evening, we had two air conditioners running (one in bedroom, one in living room), two computers running (same room, but one powered from the other bedroom), and Delia attempted to make nachos in the microwave, which apparently put something over the top, and blew at least one circuit. Here’s the weird part; resetting the breakers in the basement did nothing. They weren’t even tripped when I went down there. We have no power in the bedrooms or the dining room/kitchen. We do have power in the front half of the living room, one plug on the outside wall of the dining room/kitchen, the bathroom, and the pantry/kitchen. I was only able to determine that one of the breakers actually does anything.

I really have no idea what’s wrong with it at this point. I’m guessing either something in the panel fried (though it’s brand new, installed just after we moved in) or some of the wiring along the way cooked itself.

At least we still have one A/C working, so we’re not cooking in here, and I managed to use some heavy duty extension cords to get my computer, the cable modem, and the router back up. Not going to leave them up though, since I have no idea what’s going on with power at the moment.

Overall, today has sucked.

Well, we made it! karnil and I are pretty much all moved into our new apartment on the west side. There’s just a few items left at the old place the I’m going to go grab tonight, then we’ll be all done. I’m still amazed that we got it all done as quickly as we did, and would like to thank all the people who helped us move, absinthexl, anuttycoffee, kat_ra, kittybrat, metron2001, and redenife. And a large portion of thanks to jpallan for the use of her van, without which we would have given a much larger chunk of money to U-Haul. Oh, and I’d like to recommend the cleaning services of teddymackinnon, who we had clean the old apartment up a bit for us. It looks just like it did when I moved in, it’s kindof weird…

Anyway, thanks to all who helped, we’re planning to throw a party once we get unpacked and settled a bit, probably near the end of March or early April, depending on how things go. I’ll also take some pictures and get them posted as soon as I remember too.

And now I collapse again.

It seems like all the girls I know either are or at one time have been on anti-depressants.

I think there’s something seriously wrong with the world.

Also, I’m tired of packing. My desk and computer bits and pieces are all in boxes now, save for the actively running system on which I am typing. I packed the foodstuffs and spices from the kitchen, but the dishes still need to be boxed, and I still need to dismantle the entertainment center. I am so not ready for this move. But it’s happening, somehow it’ll all work out, and by Monday, all my stuff will either be in the garbage receptacle or in the new apartment.

Well, I haven’t done a real update in a while, so here goes.

A few weeks back I was arrested for driving under a suspended license. My license had been suspended due to failing to pay a ticket for an invalid inspection. Yesterday was my court date, and everything’s cleared up now. I’ve got my license back and my registration is valid again. During the time I wasn’t driving my car the battery managed to die, however.

Normally, changing a car battery is pretty simple, but of course, this time had to be difficult. First, I had a fun time just getting the old battery disconnected, mostly due to not having the right tools (trip to Sears fixed that) and the amount of corrosion on the terminal (baking soda and water are your friends). Then, when putting the new battery in, I managed to break one of the terminal clamps. Ford, for some reason, decided to use a kindof odd clamp. Rather than having a normal bolt going perpendicular to the terminal, tightening the clamp down, they had an odd T-bolt with angled parts on the bottom that forced the clamp closed as you tightened it down. It didn’t work very well, and I managed to snap the bolt. So, I also got to make another trip to Home Depot and the auto parts store to grab a new terminal and a hacksaw to cut the old terminal off and replace it. I got it in the end though. All happy now, yay!

In other news, work is going pretty well, I managed to get our notification system working again today, though I still have to do some work on it over the weekend, I think things are starting to look up again.

Also, it looks like we’ll be moving next weekend, hopefully into the apartment on the other side of the river above kyotemusings. I still need to give my application to the landlady and do whatever paperwork, and figure out where to get the deposit and first month’s rent from, but I think it’ll come together. I guess I should do the standard call-to-arms for moving help. We can probably use all the help we can get moving stuff next weekend. We’re hoping to get most of the boxes and stuff over on Saturday, then rent a U-Haul to get the furniture on Sunday. We also need to go down to Lowell to get the table and chairs that MA Dan is letting us have.

I guess that’s about it. I should take some shots of the new place and post them in the not too distant future.

Well, I’m not entirely sure I’m going to be able to get a mortgage in order to buy a place, so it looks like we may be renting for another year or so. This would give me time to get some money in the bank again (assuming I can stick to my automatic savings transfers and not touch that account) as well as try to get some of the items on my credit report cleared up.

On the plus side, we found a pretty nice apartment on the west side of Manchester, two floors above where kyotemusings and redenife are living now. It’s a pretty big 3 bedroom place for about what I’m paying for my 1 bedroom currently. We’d be able to take on a roommate, too, which would help with trying to put some money away.