Well… its been some time since I really worked on my website, so… here goes. I’m working on setting things up with this new format that you see now, and plan to update things much more frequently, although not everything will be relevant to anything particularly interesting. Hopefully at least some people will find it interesting at least some of the time…
It was this time, almost exactly, a year ago that I got my first sight of Houston. While I can’t claim that I’ve actually been in Houston a full year, since my job keeps me out of the state most weeks. In any case, I definately call Houston home now, and while I do miss everyone from back up in Seattle, I should be able to visit sometime soon.
When I first moved down, I drove as a courier for about 2 months. While I didn’t make much money on this job, it did serve as a great way to learn my way around town. Being in Houston for a year now, I can get around most parts of the city without too much trouble. One thing about Houston is most places are actually further away than it seems at first – a lot further. Its really just too bad that gas is getting so expensive these days. My car gets 30 miles per gallon, but even that gets eaten up quickly around here.
Having now learned my way around town reasonably well, I was fortunate enough to stumble into the job I have now. While its not perfect, and there are plenty of problems with the way the company is managed, it is significantly better than driving as a courier – pays much better too. The travel can get to be a bit tiresome sometimes, but I still enjoy it for the most part. It is nice to see different parts of the country, although most of the time, I really don’t have much time for sightseeing or acting like a tourist. I did, however, manage to find enough time to check out the Mall of America in Minneapolis, MN a couple weeks ago. I didn’t have much time, but I did take the opportunity to go on a couple of the rides and go through the Aquarium, which is apparently the worlds largest underground aquarium. I had planned to take some pictures while I was at the mall, but in my haste, I ended up leaving my camera in the rental car and didn’t realize it until I was almost inside the mall. Oh well – next time.
The JC Penny project I was working on has now wrapped up and now I’m rolling into another project with loads of travel. AMC theatres recently bought Loews theatres and now needs to know what technology assets are present at each site. My job this time is to take inventory of all the various computers and phones and things at each of the sites. Nothing overly exciting, but it is interesting seeing a little it of the behind the scenes in the theatres. While movies are still multi-reel, reels are no longer manually changed during the showings. Reels are put together on a huge platter and the film runs off of that platter and is wound back onto another platter. Its interesting how the film is routed around too. Some theatres are even setup so that they can play a single print of a movie on multiple screens nearly simultaneously. The film just gets routed along guide rollers mounted to the wall from projector to projector. Well.. I thought it was interesting anyway.
I started working on one of my websites again. Nothing overly fancy – just a spot to put some of the stuff I’m working on around. Eventually I’ll do something exciting with it…. well… maybe not. In any case, I’m really tapering off using livejournal in favor of just putting things directly on my website. At least thats the general idea once I figure out how best to structure things. Being the semi-slacker that I am, updates there will probably be about the same pace that updates here have been. 
In other news – I have finally started getting some furniture. I havn’t bought much yet, but I did get a loft bed and dresser. I still need to get a desk and some shelves, but its getting there. On the other hand, I don’t want to get too much, because I’m still seriously considering pursing buying a boat to live on at the end of the year, and all the furniture would have to either be sold or be put into storage. But I’m also considering buying a house and renting out a room or two to help cover the mortgage. I’m still undecided which direction I’d like to go with no strong push either direction. I’m working on reducing debt and building up some funds in savings to use either way.
Well.. thats about all for now.