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My dad finally starts his own Livejournal and I haven't posted anything for a week. Time to remedy that situation.

The weekend was great and far too short. It's been so long since I've shared space with a big dog for more than an hour or so that I'd forgotten how much I like it and how much good it does for my state of mind. I can't wait to have a big dog in our living space again.

Speaking of living space (I can see that this is shaping up into another of those stream-of-consciousness entries) we drove by and looked at a number of possible dwellings. There were three that stand out as possibilities. A house in Racine, about five minutes from the Dwarf's house, wouldn't be bad. It's close to the Best Buy and several thrift stores. We'll see if we can get an appointment to look at it. The second one is also in Racine; The Mitchell Wagon Factory lofts. Living there would be very cool. It's a wagon factory converted into loft apartments oriented toward becoming an artist's community. Included in the very reasonable rent is access to communal facilities such as a darkroom, a pottery studio, and a shared display gallery. That's way cool. We have an appointment to see the inside this Friday, though we've had to admit to ourselves that it may not be the best fit for Kuma.

Thirdly, there's a cute little house on 12th avenue in Kenosha. It's old, built like a barn, has a screened in front porch, and is about five minutes from my parents' house. We got an appointment to see the place on Saturday and we are both stuck on it. It's a cute little house, just our size, with a fenced in back yard that Kuma could run around in. The backyard faces the railroad embankment which I happen to love; it feels very private and secluded and I love watching trains go by. It's a low volume commuter line and wouldn't be terribly noise either. Andrea and I have both been doing layout and decoration of this house in our heads. As well, it's within easy bicycle distance of downtown Kenosha (library, antique stores, the Rhode Opera House...) and is on a low-traffic dead end cul-de-sac, but is still right off a main road. Perfect! She's going to call the landlord today. I hope he's wiling to rent to us; I'm really excited about this one.

The rest of the trip was great too. We took Kuma the Akita with us to see how he'd get along with my parents, brothers, and assorted animals at their house in preparation for him staying with them for a while during our move.

Kuma was wonderfully well behaved most of the time. When the cats first saw him their brains exploded (I could almost hear the pop), but it was just due to unexpectedly finding a giant dog (they're used to a little beagle girl) in their house. For his part, Kuma was very curious, but tended to leave them alone. The problem he had was wanting to play/establish dominance with Scribbles, the timid little beagle. He kept nosing at her and sniffing her and nipped the already terrified dog on the neck, after which she hid upstairs the whole rest of the weekend. I feel bad for her, but it certainly could have been worse. They'll figure out where they stand in relation to each other when and if he ends up staying for a while. And if not, he won't be there super-long anyway. Our family all adored Kuma; my dad particularly would be more than happy to take care of him for a while should he need to. It's certain that there'll be no shortage of people to dog/house sit in Kenosha for us while we're away at cons, and that's another point in Kenosha's favor.

In the car, Kuma was a model passenger. We have a Dakota with the crew cab and Kuma got to have the whole back seat as his warm and cozy little den. Considering the size of the back seat, that may be about all it's good for, but it served the purpose admirably. After falling down once or twice while I drove eastward on I-94 (I was so worried he'd hurt himself the first time, but he just stood right back up), he sprawled himself across the whole back seat, occasionally lifting his head to poke his muzzle up above the arm rest to check on his people. Of course, his favorite part of the trip was stopping to get gas. His people took turns walking him about and letting him check out the exciting new smells and simultaneously taking care of bathroom break and bottled water needs. (Note to self; need to stock up on bottled water for our trip this weekend. And empty cooler.) Kuma's back with Darren again and I miss him. I feel so good, in a way I can't describe, having a big dog around. I keep daydreaming about sitting at my computer with him next to me, one hand on the mouse, one scritching him between the ears on his big furry head...

Well, I've got a few things I need to do before the weekend. Number one in priority is probably moving the Oldsmobile before it gets towed. The old girl has been sitting in the parking lot with November plates for months and someone finally noticed. I joined up with the Warren Freecycle community and am going to offer her to any interested parties. In the meantime, after Andrea gets the flat tire fixed today, the Olds is going to go live next door at the K-mart for a little while. She know the place; she stayed there for a while when the landlords threatened to have my 'abandoned' car that I drove to work every day towed. *smirks* I have to empty all the stuff out of her soon too.

I'm also going to load the bed of my truck up with boxes from the basement. I'm sure I can easily get an entire bedful just with stuff that's already in boxes down in the storage room. Then we'll have a little more room to organize and pack up stuff that isn't in boxes yet. We're going to try to minimize the amount of stuff we'll be moving at the time of the move itself. That needs to be done today and tomorrow 'cause on Thursday, we're leaving.

I have Friday and Monday off for a long weekend in Wisconsin for Congenial. We're hoping to see a couple more places and maybe, with luck, formalize something on the 12th avenue house if that comes through. I hope to get my pictures of some of the machinery in the basement of the Rhode Opera House taken too. I was going to get some shots to publish to deadmachinery, but the applause we heard echoing through the theatre after opening the stage door clued is in to the fact that a performance was in progress and we thought it wise to try a different time. Maybe I'll go in late Thursday night depending on when we get in. Near midnight seems somehow appropriate for that sort of photography.

I sat and revised my résumé last night so I can start getting my name out there in Wisconsin. I'm going to apply at the Best Buy out there too tonight; maybe I can get an interview this weekend. I'd like to apply to some of the smaller computer stores around there too, but that's kind of difficult not living in the area. I want to schedule things so that I have a week between ending my old job and starting my new one (one doesn't often get a chance to take a week off at a time without worrying about vacation days and it would be good to have time to get things together at our new house), but it would be nice to have a job waiting for me out there. I accept that fact that I may need to do temp work again (and if I'm lucky, having office experience and certs will get me better temp work than the factory stuff I was doing), but I would really like to avoid that if at all possible.

I'm a little nervous about giving my notice at my current job. They've been giving me more responsibility lately, having me acting as a sort of ticket confirmation person for the new hires, making sure that the tickets they send up aren't being misrouted or lack any information. Despite the fact that I've been here for five months now, I feel like they'll be mad that I didn't stay longer; that I was just using them for experience. But really, five months is farily respectable, right? Even if two monts of it was only part time?

I was thinking about letting them know I'm planning to move, but Andrea told me I shouldn't say anything until I give them a solid two-weeks' notice, and she's probably right. I'm nervous about doing it 'cause I'm terrible at talking to people and my manager has told me that I'm going to be really good for his team through the course of the year and he's looking forward to working with me. But I'll just explain what's going on and that we're moving for family reasons, which is largely true. I hope I don't make a fool of myself trying to explain things.

I've taken up enough of your friends page, I'm sure;

'Till later!