Category Archives: money

Opportunity Comes A-Knockin'

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I am beat today. Not sure why, it was just another day at work. Nothing particularly grueling occured, but I’m sitting here trying to write this and yawning like crazy. Very weird.

So we’ve moved in, bought some new furniture, and gotten the place looking pretty good. Other than the noisy neighbor things are pretty sweet. Well, toss that all on its head and give it a good shake. Tasha has a lead on a job. A good lead. A solid lead. Straight to  her email from her old boss lead. If she wants it she’ll get it sort of lead. And it’s probably a good job, no real details as of yet. Full time. Benefits. Doing what she wants to do. Good stuff. But it’s in Detroit. Not the western suburbs. Not near Detroit. Right downtown on the river Detroit.

It’s not the location, mind you. It’s the fact that we’re talking about a 155 mile commute. Two and a half hours one way without traffic commute. We’re talking about her moving back to the other side of the state  kind of commute. A what the fuck do we do now kind of commute.

When she called to ask/tell me about it (the job) I wasn’t about to tell her no. I know she hates her job now and doesn’t think much of this area and we did the long distance thing before. I told her if it sounds good send them your info. I don’t like it much, but I’m not going to hold her back from a good opportunity. We’ll survive and make it work somehow. If it goes through I’ll talk to my people about getting moved back to that side of the state. We’ve got lots of engineers over there. I’m sure I could find something, eventually.

So yeah, that’s what’s going on here. Best part is, if this happens it’ll probably happen as fast as it did when I went to work for Jones Lang LaSalle. I’m thinking within a month. So change is in the air yet again. You’ve gotta take the good with the bad and make it work for you. So that’s what I’ll do.

My boss mentioned that the Blessing of the Bikes is this weekend in Baldwin, MI. Sounds kinda cool, I guess he and Rob (another guy I work with) and another friend of thires are going. I’d probably have gone to check it out, but I found out about it late and I’ve already got plans. So maybe next year. Speaking of bikes, I’ve gotta get mine out more. I was gonna ride it a couple times this week and last, but every time it was nice I took Karin driving. Oh well, she’ll be gone come Monday and then I can drag Tasha out and go check out the lake shore. You know, now that I’ve figured out where I can go to see the lake without having to pay for it :)

I am so glad tomorrow is Friday. Give me the weekend, please.

Don't Rewrite the Book of Enoch

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Am I the only one who doesn’t get this whole Michigan budget thing? The gist of it, as I understand it, is that we have a 1.3 billion dollar deficit and our governor is making 300 million dollars in budget cuts. The rest of the deficit, ONE BILLION dollars, is being covered by the federal stimulus money. Not exactly a great plan to my mind and certainly not what I’d call tightening the states belt. What happens next year when we don’t have any federal stimulus money? And what about all that stimulus money that’s supposed to stimulate the economy and create jobs, isn’t that what we’re using to pay off our bills! I understand that Michigan doesn’t have the money to pay off the deficit and that huge cuts would be needed to get the books in line. That’s what’s supposed to happen during tough times. Right? And didn’t the feds put any guidelines on how the stimulus could be spent? It makes me crazy and I’m not going to talk about it anymore.

So I’ve been doing my research on angels, grigori (the watchers), and nephilim (giants). I’ve been using the Book of Enoch and the internet as my primary sources. And what I’ve come to find is that much like the bible, you can pretty much make whatever interpretation of this stuff that you want and find passages to support what you’re saying. I started this research with some basic ideas in mind and I haven’t found anything that actually contradicts my initial ideas. Which is good. I have found stuff that just doesn’t work, like the idea that the giants were 450 feet tall. Um… yeah, I think not.

Height-wise, I’m leaning toward the nephilim being nothing more than 9-feet tall and probably more like 7.5 – 8 feet tall and big. Og and Goliath, both giants from the scriptures, were 9 and 7 feet tall (based on a 12-inch cubit), or 15 and 11 feet tall (22-inch cubit). So it seems like that’ll work.

Story-wise Tasha and I came up with some good motivations for my nephilim and worked out the interaction between him and the other two characters. We also twisted a few ideas on their ear and got interesting results. If I couple that with some of the stuff that Doug and I talked about regarding my fallen angel and I’ve got a very nice skeleton to hang my story on. I need to finish note carding my scenes (and get away from a strange desire to edit up my own copy of the Book of Enoch) but I feel like I’ve got a good handle on this story.

Which is a great feeling, since I’ve had this idea stewing around in my head for three or four years now, but not ever feeling like I had enough of a handle on the story to really write it down. I tried once before with this idea, but all I had then was a fight scene and the idea that I wanted to do for angels what Anne Rice did for vampires. Not exactly the firmest ground to set a story foundation on. This time will be better.

Tomorrow is the writing call. I’ll let you know how things go and where we stand with our goals. Later.

Stop Drop and Roll

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This morning I took my youngest to the orthodontist, his little brother came with us. He’s too young to stay at home alone. I always feel odd taking him places, not that I’ve actually taken him all that many places. This is partially because he’s not my child, partially because his father has made it clear that he shouldn’t like me (this is bad because he does like me and that causes confusion in an 8-year old), and partially because he’s so damn demanding of my attention. The kid really wants something from me that I can’t give him. Or rather, I could, but I don’t feel like I can. It’s just rough. He sees me as his brothers dad and wants so badly to be part of their world (they’re 7 and 10 years older than he is) that he kinda latches onto me. This wasn’t so bad when I was seeing his mother, but it did make the confusion worse for him. But I’m not seeing her any more and break-ups are always hard on kids.

Funny bit, we were sitting in the waiting room, talking about I don’t remember what, and I said that I needed to get a girlfriend. He says, “Um… Ronn… What about my mom?” A little sarcastically and more as a reminder than a question. So I look at him and say, “We tried that, didn’t really work out. Remember. I haven’t been around since Thanksgiving.” That seemed to leave him at a loss. But hey, what else could I say.

Anyway, my son didn’t get his braces off yet again. He also got a promise to get the fuck kicked out of him if he didn’t get his grades back up. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t talk to the kid like that, but it works. Besides at 14 the kid has too much fuck building up in him as it is.

I’m going stir crazy. I took the rest of the day off and I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve got a bank account full of money that I can’t bring myself to spend. And believe me, I’ve tried. I find I’m just obsessing about things I have no control over. Berating myself for once again letting things go without a fight. I’ve been to Best Buy, Kroger, K-Mart, the Chevrolet dealership, past a few rental homes, the pawn shop, and driven from Waterford to Clarkston to Oxford. Nothing. Didn’t buy anything. Didn’t sooth my soul. Didn’t make me feel any better. Now I’m sitting here in front of the computer trying to put up a post that doesn’t say what I want to say and still says something. I’m sure I’m going to end up back in the car. The driving and singing takes the edge off.

I mean I’ve got things I could do. I could go to my friends. I could go work out. I could go to the library. I could read a book or finish my late taxes. But no, I’m just beside myself. I mean I’m not sad or depressed or mad or any other negative emotion. I’m just bored, because I don’t know what to look forward to, don’t know how to suppress these feelings. Wait. Not true. What I need is to get a girlfriend and just move on. Problem is that right now I don’t want to do that.