Salt Lake City

After getting up just after 6 a.m. eastern time and sitting on a three and a half hour flight that I almost missed, all I wanted to do was nap. With no coffee in my system, I made it through the first day in my new position. Tomorrow I'll make sure coffee is involved.

Over lunch we discussed the Mormon life and some history of the religion with a practicing member. The center of the Salt Lake City street grid is the Mormon temple. It is a beautiful granite building that took over 40 years to build.



The mountains surrounding the area are no way near as impressive as the alps but are still nice too look at



Lucky for me SLC has a light rail system. We are staying in the burbs and with out the public transport, I wouldn't have been able to see much. I had just enough time to take the train down, run around the city for an hour and take the train back in time for dinner.



Being easily amused, I thought the look signs painted on the streets at intersections were great, especially for us stupid people. They reminded me of similar signs in Dublin, which were necessary for those not used to cars on the wrong side of the street.



Tomorrow morning we are heading to Logan, for a stop on our way to Boise. As for Salt Lake City, the scenery is nice but it is too small for me.

2229 Victor Street Girls

it's been fun !!!

packing lite is never easy

I finally cut down my wardrode to fit in my little suitcase. As long as I can fit my soes in somewhere I'll be ok. I'm sad because my new Pumas had to stay behind. At least I have a key to my sister's apartment so I can get stuff out of storage whenever I'm in town if she's not there.

The weekend had been fun but it went too fast. Friday we went to Christy's and Saturday we drove to cleveland for the All Go Signs event. We the main reason I wanted to go was to see Infinite Number of Sounds, a Cleveland based band that incorperates video with their live tunes, fucking awesome. Steve was invited to spin during INS's Cleveland CD release party on August 12th. Hopefully I will be able to fly into Cleveland on time, since it is on a Friday.

Today has been pretty uneventful. The drive back to Cincinnati was bearable but we were grateful to get out of the car. I still have some packing to finish but for the most part I am ready to go. My flight leaves at 9 a.m. and I will be in Salk Lake City around 11 a.m. mountain time. I hear it's been over 100 degrees, and all I have are long sleeve work shirts. Not looking foward to that.

friday :-)

I'm writing this blog through email since I can't seem to get to the
blogger site, hopefully this works. It's my last day of training in
Chicago. I am thrilled that starting Monday I will no longer sit at a
desk in a cube, even though it will be a pain not having a permanent
work space. I got paid today and already spent most of it.
I have over $1400 tied up in expenses right now so hopefully I will
have it in my account by next week. I'm a little nervous because I
booked my flight from Boise to Cincinnati but not my flight from
Cincinnati to Seattle because I didn't have enough funds. If I can't
get a flight by early next week, it will be a wasted ticket.

What makes me even more nervous is the possibility of not having
enough funds to pay for my hotels and food. It would have been much
easier for me if they would've just given me a company credit card.
Easier but dangerous.

I have a lot of downtime today waiting for people to finish up
meetings so they can meet with me. What makes this even worse are the
problems with the network. I could loose my connection at anytime. It
happened earlier and was down for over 30mins. Now that's boredom.

Last night I attempted to pack a suitcase for the next week (possibly
two), not an easy task. I may only have enough room for one pair of
shoes and it would have to be my work shoes. I could upgrade to a
bigger suitcase but I can carry on the smaller one, saving time at the
many airports I'll be visiting. I guess that once I get to the truck I
will have personal storage space if I want it.

As soon as I am done working with the product manager today, I get to
head back to the Nati. Luckily for me, he is a busy guy and doesn't
have much time to for me. I'm hoping to be out of here by 3 at the
latest but we'll see.

today's horoscope

this is my horoscope for today, I think it's fitting.


Aquarius
Movement isn't just something you enjoy. It's something your restless sign absolutely craves. And since you insist on it, why would you want to argue when the universe provides it? Get on the plane, hop on the train or climb into the car. Regardless of which it happens to be, you've got someplace to be, someone to take you there and someone to welcome you once you arrive. This hardly seems like it could be a problem.


horoscope provided by Astrology.com

yesterday (tuesday)

The point of getting a training schedule was to make sure that my time would be used effectivly. Unfortunately, it has completely changed this week and I feel that I am wasting my time. Today I have nothing scheduled. I am supposed to do internet research on competitors, I did a lot of that yesterday. It is now 8:53 a.m. and I am not scheduled for anything else until after lunch, around 1 p.m.
Yesterday I spent the most day in customer service, boring. It's hard to observe a customer service department when you can only hear one side of the conversation so it wasn't as informative as it could have been. But everyone was very nice and I know they will be very helpful once I am on the road.
After work I kept myself entertained while waiting for Gina to get home by running around and taking pictures. The rain had just stopped and the sky was a mixture of sunshine and gray clouds. I wasn't able to get great reflection pictures off the glass buildings, but I'm not into those pictures a great deal anyway. I took just over two rolls so hopefully some of them turned out. I'll have to try to get them developed over the weekend since I can finally afford to do so. I need to find my box of used rolls and start getting those developed, I'm sure I will find some great stuff.

After dinner, Gina sent me to the grocery store since she had a lot of work to do. The worst part about grocery shopping in Chicago is trying to carry everything back to the apartment. Luckily we have a grocery store in the complex and they offer a delivery service for a small charge depending on the amount of groceries purchased. I probably looked stupid walking to the apartment with a guy pushing a shopping cart but it would have been worse if I was carrying them myself and dropping shit all over the hallway.

After doing a little work myself, I got to watch some Aqua Teen Hunger Force on Adult Swim. I forgot how much I enjoy watching it, it's been a while.

Heopfully I can make it through today with much less boredom than yesterday, but we'll see.

It's now week 2 day 2. I have a minor hangover after a night of sake and beer, I should have known better than to mix. I went out for Sushi with my sister and one of her co-workers. We tried a new place on Randolph which proved to be the best I have had yet in Chicago. I would never be able to afford a dinner like that on my own, I think the bill for three of us was around $230. They're big whigs so they can expense those kind of things. After dinner we stopped at Dylan's for another round and then back to the apartment. My sister has already planned for us to go out again on Wednesday night but I'm not sure if I can handle it. I don't do well in the morning after a night of drinking especially when work is involved. For the first time ever I can truthfully say that one of my older sister's is a bad influence, who ever thought that would happen.

I was close to beating my record travel time of four hours between Cincinnati and Chicago, but it went to shit right after I crossed the Sky Bridge into the city. I finally walked into the apartment just before midnight Eastern Time, about five hours after getting in the car in Clifton. It was the last chance I had to try to break the record since I am driving to Cleveland next weekend before going back to the Nati. Michelle visited Chicago for the first time over the weekend. I tried to get her to come up a couple months ago but she always had other stuff going on. As expected she had a great time and is now disappointed that I am no longer moving here permenently. I don't think she fully realizes that she is allowed to stay at the apartment whenever she wantes, as long as she can arrange to get a set of keys. It's weird for me to have no solid living arrangements. I was asked for my address while making a purchase at micro-center and I laughed a little before I told the sales guy that I didn't have one. I guess I could have given him my parents address but I don't think they need to get any more junk mail with my name on it. ALong with shopping at micro-center this weekend, Steve and I also went to 3 curcuit city's, a best buy and HH Gregg all in search for the Palm Pilot I need for work. I didn't get one until we got back to Steve's and I found what I wanted on the internet. Apparently no one carries a decent stock of Palm Pilots Just because we couldn't find a Palm doesn't mean we didn't buy anything. Steve got some new toys including a digital camera. Since he got a new one I inherited his old one and he also hooked me up with some portable speakers so I can actually listen to music without being right next to my computer. We didn't really do much else this weekend, which was good because seven hours of shopping was enough to kill all our energy. Tomorrow it's back to work for week #2. I'm excited to get through this week and to actually start in my position, eventhough it will still be training for a while. Anyway it's late and I'm tired.

I've never been much of a morning person but today took the prize. I had the TV programmed to turn on at 6 a.m., my three cell phone alarms were randomly set for times between 6 and 6:30 and the actual alarm clock was set for 6:35 exactly. I finally woke up closer to 7 a.m. with everything going on full blast. Difficulty sleeping is to blame. More specifically, it's the orange lighting that creeps through the blinds, I'm used to sleeping in complete darkness. I'm sure that my attempt to shut out the light by covering my head with all the blankets muffled any sound that was determined to interrupt my much needed slumber. Luckily I half-way prepared my morning coffee before hitting the mattress, having to just add water and hit the switch before my quick shower. I am grateful that I have easy attire requirements for work otherwise I would have been late for sure. Day two showed to be much more interesting that day one. I spent the morning reviewing current and previous promotions to gain a better understanding of some of the marketing efforts. I also approved a proof for my business cards (I HAVE BUSINESS CARDS) and picked out my permanent supply of work shirts. I wasted time looking into computer bags and PDAs while I waited for one of the sales guys to finish a meeting so he could take me out to lunch and then to some of the big local distributors whom I will be working with in the near future. There was much excitement that a female is taking over the role as product specialist, I am the first. Once I arrived back to the apartment, I changed and headed downstairs to pick up the pound of Flor azul (I spelled it "Flora" yesterday) that was not available when I bought the rest. I stopped by the hair place to see if they had any openings but discovered it was $35 for a wash and cut and walked out. I'm not forking that over for a minimal trim. If I had a good pair of scissors I'd do it myself, but I don't. My plan was to take it easy for the evening but after having dinner at the sports bar I ended up staying and having a video crack challenge with a guy from Italy who was also dining alone. His game of choice was movie trivia. Hands down, I lost, big surprise. The only would have had a chance if I had Steve on the phone while I was playing (and this guy was from Italy!) At least I was somewhat entertained. They bar downstairs is nice because the majority of the people there are there alone so it is easy to strike up a conversation. I have found that most of the people that go there are in Chicago for business and live (temporarily) in the complex, great place for networking. Too bad I don't have my business cards yet. Now it is 11:49 exactly and I want nothing more than to crash but I still have to pack for the weekend so I can avoid as much downtown traffic as possible when I am done for the day.

I made it through the first day of the new job with little excitement. I discovered that whoever made my schedule for the week over estimated on the time it would take for information sessions with the different departments. I got to take the plant tour twice and was guided through the socket process at least three times. At least I got it down. I got my work computer today which I have verified is just a little smaller than my personal. Now I just have to figure out the easiest way to carry around two laptops. Luckily for me my old laptop case, the one with the broken strap, is still in my sister's apartment so I don't have to go out and buy another one until I decide what kind I want. I made it back to downtown without encountering any slow traffic, surprisingly. I expected it to be much worse. I quickly changed out of my work attire and headed in search of a fifth third so I could deposit my expense front and get cash to make it through the next couple days. The location I am familiar with did not have an ATM willing to accept deposits. I figured someone was too lazy to refill the envelopes it dispenses. Luckily I was able to locate another location via the customer service line. FYI if you're in Chicago and need a Fifth Third there is one in the Sears Tower, I never would have found it on my own. I was expecting to head to Wrigleyville to meet up with Shawn and Brent soon thereafter but they called and postponed until later this evening so I went to H&M to kill time. Luckily for me they are having a big sale this week. I then hit the Nordstrom Rack, the discount stuff, where I found some awesome shoes. Navy blue Pumas for $20, I wasn't strong enough to walk away. I grabbed a cup of coffee on my way back to the apartment thinking the downstairs coffeeshop would be closed. I was wrong so I quickly finished the coffee I had and went in to buy some by the pound. I had a sample of the Flora Azul, the excellent medium roast that just finished brewing but they were out of whole beans until tomorrow. I ended up with a half pound of the Organic Brazil Cachoeira and a pound of the highly recommended Bean Addiction (also the name of the Coffeeshop). I'll probably still go back tomorrow and get the Flora Azul. Since I have never had one of their famous lattes and since I was such a good customer, they made me one for free. Mind you I chugged a cup of coffee right before I walked in the door. Who is highly caffeinated? I think it's me! I'm still waiting for Shawn and Brent to call but I think I'm going to start towards Wrigleyville just because I can't sit still.

After tomorrow it's no turning back. I am going to accept a job as a product specialist that is 100% travel. I start in two weeks in Chicago where I will train for two weeks and then fly to the west coast and spend a month with Brian the guy I'm replacing to learn the ways of the road. I will then spend who knows how long zig-zagging all across the US trying to impress mechanics and store managers with my tool knowledge, a tool specialist. Who knew that I would spend hours filling my brain with tool knowledge. You know what my dad is getting for Christmas this year!! I keep telling people that I will be a glorified truck driver and laugh to myself. It is almost impossible for me to take anything too seriously. I am somewhat relieved that I will not spend my immediate post college time in a cube forced to listen to and converse with those around me on an almost constant basis. My office will be my truck and my hotel rooms. I just have to be careful not to let the hillbilly seep into my blood after spending five years of trying to detox myself. However this is just another step of proving my worthiness in a man's world. All my life, with all my guy friends, I have spent proving that I can 'hang'. This time it's hardcore. I am not looking forward to the 'sweethearts' and the 'enter cheesy cat call here' from, well from anyone. I am fortunate enough to have the mentally to not take shit from anyone and the skill to throw it back it their face when needed. This is just another job to add to my extensive list of random shit I've done in the past, but this time it's full time.

I started my new telemarketing job yesterday. I was afraid it was going to be as horrible as my last job but so far I was wrong. The working environment is much better. I have an actual desk with drawers and filing that I share with no one. There are five other people in the same room as me whom were very supportive today, my first day on the phones. I feel kinda bad because I have not mentioned my intentions to move to Chicago in the upcoming months. Oh well. I have two interviews in Chicago this Friday. One is based in Chicago and one is a nationwide sales job. If I get the nationwide job I will be able to fly back to cincy on most weekends, on the company tab. If I take the job in Chicago, I have to pay to come back. But if I am based in Chicago, I will be able to experience one city and be able to make friends. I don't know what I want yet, one city with friends or traveling the states and getting to experience many cities on the short term. I may not get offered either. I get to drive a rental car up there, paid for by one of the companies I'm interviewing with. Good thing I don't have to drive the truck, that would be torture.

Everytime I recieve a call about a potential job, I get a burst of excitement that someone might actually hire me. The strength of today's burst almost caused and internal explosion. I recieved a call for a national sales position that requires 100% travel with 100% expenses paid. Eventhough it was a contracted recruiter, he thought that I would be a great fit and told me to expect a second phone call later this afternoon, phase two. We talked a little about the potential of not being based out of one perticular city and he thought that since I am flexible as to where I fly on the weekends, it would be more cost effective for the company ex. fly to whatever city is cheaper at times. This is great for me because I have many options as to where I can go, Cincinnati, Chicago, Charlotte, Atlanta, Toledo just to name a few. This would also gurantee that I can get back to Ohio for events such as Steve's B-day show and Carrie's shower and wedding, not to mention holidays, and I would still be able to spend as many weekends as I want in Chicago. I am however looking foward to moving in with my sister Gina and she's not there on the weekends. We'll see how it goes, it was just one phone call.

Luckily I woke up by noon today. I had almost forgotten about the interview I had scheduled for 1:30 this afternoon. I made it just in time suprisingly considering I had to drive to Sharonville. The company is called Lead Source and it's another telemarketing job. Luckily i don't mind harassing unknown homeowners on a daily basis, and for somereason I'm actually good at it. It must be the socialite in me coming to surface. I know I'm still going to hate going to work but at least I'm not a waste of space anymore, and I'll have an income. I've been unemployeed for a weekend and I already hate how it feels. Since i have experience in the field, he hired me on the spot and I got a $2.50 per hour raise from my last job. When I got back to my house I decided to pack up some of my shit so I can get it all out of there before Friday. That gives me three days. I spent a few minutes talking to michelle trying to arrange closet space in her apartment for my clothes. Sounds like living out of my suitcase is my only option. Since I don't even have space in her house to keep my suitcase, I'm going to be living out of my non functional car since the truck has no secure storage other than the tiny cab. I know it sounds kinda sad but I don't mind so much. I'm sure I'll be carrying by backpack and my green box with me all over the place. It will be like when i was running around Europe, well kind of. no matter what, it will be interesting to see how things work out.

So far it's been my lucky day today. Someone wants to buy my car and Matt stopped by with a special treat for everyone. After switching loads of laundry I walked down to Ravine street to get some munchies and I picked up an Ohio lottery scratch off, an occasional impulse buy. For only getting $1 ticket i was happy to discover that I won $10. That may not seem like anything to some people but that will last me a couple of days as long as i don't have to put too much gas in the truck. Other than that my day has been fairly uneventful, so far. Steve is playing noise at the Comet tonight, which I haven't yet decided whether I'm going to be in attendence. I think Michelle is willing to go along just to see his set and we may get dinner sometime before or after. We'll see, hopefully it will be some good time no matter what we get into.

So yesterday i walked out on my job. My reasoning was in response to the new policies put in place to maximize the productivity of the marketing department and cut back on necessary costs. I say it's a way to screw employees out of deserved pay. Eith way, I didn't really want to go back to work anyway. The only question now is what to do next. I spent my free afternoon looking for a filler job in cincy when i could have been looking for a job in chicago. The deal is that I could move to Chicago with-in the next two weeks, if I wanted to. Part of me is saying that the pratical thing to do is to just go. Sell my car, take the money and use it to live while I find a job there. All this while my heart wants to stay in cincy a little longer meaning, as of now, the end of July. That is my deadline. I am excited about getting to move somewhere new but I don't want to walk away from a great guy I've come to care a lot about.

It's Wednesday afternoon and I have four hours until I have to be anywhere. I'm finally able to go back to work today with the help of a working vehicle. I haven't been there is something like two weeks. Yesterday I turned in my last college paper and went to my last lecture. Exciting yet boring. I think I spent most of the class exchanging text messages with my sister Michelle. After class I recieved a call from Purp, the crazy guy I've been friends with since I was in grade school. Him, Nate and Nick are working on a building in Milford and invited me to join them at the bar and then at their hotel to hang out. By the time I got there, they were wasted. I love those boys to death I know that they would do anything for me but damn they can drive me crazy. I felt really bad because I never told Nate of my plans to move to chicago. He found out from Bryan (Purp) but was upset that I did not tell him myself. They tried to talk me into moving back home and working for their new construction company. I'm so proud of them for starting a venture on their own. I didn't expect to hang out with for as long as I did but they didn't want to see me go. It's amazing that for being such tough guys how much their emotions come out after a few beers. The new guys on their crew told me all the good things my boys said about me before I arrived and my boys spent the last 20 minutes of my presence reminding me how much they love me and how they will always be there for me. It's a great feeling knowing that my oldest guy friends think so kindly of me. After leaving Milford I trucked over to fairfield to hang out with Steve and Jennifer. They were singing karokee at an empty bar in the middle of nowhere. It was nice because they got to sing every three songs or so. I love watching Steve sing, he's really good at it and he's really sexy behind a microphone.

I can honestly say today was one of the best days I've had in awhile even though I've had a lot of good days lately. I slept longer than I wanted to but I got up in time to accomplish the things I had planned. I made it to Dayton to see my dad. I was so excited to hear that he is going to be able to leave the hospital earlier than expected due to his speedy recovery. His therapist had to meet with him an extra time just to emphasize that he has to take it easy. He's a go-getter and refuses to let by-pass surgery slow him down. He reminded me of myself when I had my surgery and wanted to get back to normal daily life ASAP. I was only there for a couple hours in an effort to get back to cincy before the intense holiday traffic kicked in. I still hit it. It took me two hours for a normal 45 minute drive. I arrived home to a message from Steve that he got off work an hour early due to the holiday, excellent. We went to his brother Mike's gallery opening at the 1305 Gallary on Main. i was very impressed with Mike's artistic talent mostly because his style is what i consider to be good art if that makes sense. Then was dinner and a show at Sudsy's, good times. Steve dropped me off at home just in time for me to jump in as asshole in a game of the same name. After a round at Christy's, i went to Jon's for some of his leftover keg and then back to Steve's. I feel like I've been overly productive today though most of my activities were more social than anything. Today was the perfect start to what I expect to be a great weekend, it is only friday

I've known for about a month now that June 12th is my move out day. Today I finally bit the bullet and starting weeding through the shit I've accumulated over the past five years. Especially since I moved into the Victor Street apartment, September 1st 2002. All day I've weeded through boxes, bags and drawers and emptied shelves. I should have progressed more than I have but I find myself memorizing the looks of things before deciding its destiny. I've watched tapes recorded in my video camera, just to catch a glimpse of past drunkenness, only to make 'cleaning' harder on myself. I'm still having I hard time officially stating that I am packing, officially growing up has never appealed to me...

I decided to suck it up and go out by myself last night. Usually when I go out alone, I go to a live show. Instead I went to the Metro Smart Bar, a dance club, definitely not my usual scene. After about half an hour chillin by myself, I met a couple interesting guys, both muscicans. One was wasted, funny but borderline annoying. His friend was cool but tired of babysitting. I got to talk music for a while but soon grew tired of trying to screm over the beats from the turntables. They bought me a few drinks, which was excellent until the drunk one ordered us drinks and them realized he was out of cash. he's lucky I'm a nice girl. After they left I started talking to this guy who barely spoke english. I discovers his name is Danas and he's from lithuainia (hopefully I spelled that right). He talked me into hitting the dance floor because I guess that's his thing. He's the type to join in a 'dance off' in clubs. I still think I was a better dancer. We ended up going down the street to the Euro club just for the sake of a new environment. The scene was less snobby but most people were speaking other languages. Per Danas I discovered it was full of people speaking mostly Russian, Polish and Chechz. Danas was fun to hang out with but was offended when I told him I was going to get a cab home. He wanted to drive me. Not that I would have let him drive me home if he was sober but after he drank as much as I did there was no way in hell. On the way home in the cab, I saw two accidents on lake shore, one looked really bad. When I got back to the apartment, I tried calling my cell and discovered I was no longer receiving incomming calls. I was wondering why no one called me all day, I just assumed there was no love. I was happy to discover that Steve was still alive when I called. We spent quite some time exchanging pictures over MSN messanger. Mostly he was sending me pictures. I think i was on the phone until 6 a.m. and even then I probably could have talked forever. That's what red bull will do to you. I still have a red bull hyper buzz and that's after a few hours sleep.