- Spent the day checking out webcaming with Sonny, Jennifer and Joy.
- Chatted with Gma.
It was great!
We were actually on our way to downtown Louisville to watch the fireworks over the Ohio, but decided to swing by and say Happy 4th!!!
Rod spent about $300 on fireworks, which sounds familiar to me.
We hung, drank a couple of beers, at beer brats.
Jessica, Rod and Reese's daughter plays the clarinett...and she had it sitting out. I picked it up, and guess what? I could still play, AND read sheet music. Its been 30 years since I was 1st chair in the high school band. There was a thunderstorm with lots of lightening on 15 mile drive home.
Altogether, it was quite a night.
We'll be going to the Kentucky Derby's last race on Sunday. 

We saw an adorable apartment.
It was in an old brick four plex, right off the street, with parking in the back. There were trees in the front.
The owner/manager was outside fixing a window. I asked him why it was broken. He said he didn't know.
He showed us the apartment. It was nice, $500 a month, and we filled out an application.
I felt ready to take it.
HOWEVER...
When I was leaving, a guy at the bottom of the stairs gave me an evil look.
Then the manager said, "Hey Jose, how are you doing?".
Jose dropped his look and smiled.
We drove by an hour later.
There were three 15/16 year olds hanging out in the hallway.
They were sitting on the stairs and they were dressed in gang attire.
When the sun goes down, the bad guys come out.
I realized why the manager was replacing broken windows.
At least I learned that 4 plexes like that sell for $240,000 here.

So, you're hearing voices? First sign of (1) you're getting old, (2) you're losing your insanity, and (3) you're back to programming as a profession.

Barrington's Place
Pro's: Downtown. $540, all utilities. We have a 14th floor apartment reserved that looks out over Louisville. Its walking distance from the waterfront, 4th Street Live, Slugger Stadium. Its 10 minutes from work.
Con's: Management is flaky. They told us we could move in the 6th. Now, they're saying the 18th. They just told us it was a year lease, not a 6 month, and the buy out was 2 month. We haven't seen a model, or the apartment, only pictures. Parking is across the street for $50 a month.
Crescent Center
Pro's: Downtown. $750, no utilities. Great looking place. Its walking distance from the waterfront, 4th Street Live, Slugger Stadium. Its 10 minutes from work. Parking is free.
Con's: Expensive.
Intown Suites
Pro's: Next to work. $800, all utilities. A little larger than Suburban. Decent looking place.
Con's: Questionable area. 
Imperial Suites
Pro's: 5 minutes from work. $549, no utilities, 6 month lease. Large 1 bedroom on 11th floor. Decent looking place. Very secure. Has a pool (closes in August).
Con's: View faces South and kind of sucks. If a North view opened up, it would be great!
Breckenridge Square
Pro's: 10 minutes to work. $589, 800 sq ft, internet, pool, spa. Nice looking area.
Con's: Unknown.
Breckenridge Pointe
Pro's: 10 minutes from work. $450, $50 utilities, internet, 675 sq ft. A little larger than Suburban. Easy parking. Only 60 units. Great looking place.
Con's: 1 year lease.

I checked one out today and I've gotta have one.
- They hold 4 to 8 gigs.
- The operating system is smooth.
- Its quick and extremely easy to use.
- It can import Outlook files.
- The camera is great.
- It has maps.
- The interface to the internet is excellent.
They'll be coming out with units that have GPS built in.

If Las Vegas had cockroaches with neon glowing butts, they'd be feeding them!
I could envision people using cock roaches to light up their kitchen cabinets.
You could even put sugar down along walkways for the glowing critters.

Check out: http://www.inflateus.com/original_style_sofas.htm
 





This furniture is designed mainly for use in dorms.
But I think they would look great in our 14th floor apartment.
AND, we can take our furniture to the lake..haha

Its nice to know Kevin McD works remotely there from Las Vegas. Maybe I could do that someday too!
I think he's responsible for the ATM's on the west coast. I hear his name everywhere now.
I'm in development (my forte).
I don't have a PC set up, so I'm using someone's elses while their on vacation.
My first rogram was a report/update program today, and I had to write it from scratchhhhhhhhh!
The program they gave me as a starter was dated 1998, and it wouldn't compile.
My first project was fix a database table.
The challenge was, to make it look like another table, and to fix its a column to point to existing files on a different system.
The files were all moved around to different subvolumes, so I had to search the system for each of the 300 files. 
These files are used to load some devices with tables and code (I think).
So, without them being right, nothing works.
They gave me the lattitude to do the project anyway I wished.
I guess the project had been passed around.
So, my first project involved writing a fix it report/update program using Cobol, Sql, Enscribe, and lots of Tacl.
I already have the best macros around there.
But...I had to write them from memory, so they could be much better.
I put my old macros are on the internet in my blog, but I don't have internet access yet.
Everybody at work is great!
Their attitudes are excellent. They're eager to see anything I produce.
And I'm their guinee pig, I'm told. I'll be leading the way for others to follow.
The system I'll be reviving has been dead for a year, and they really want too see it work.
So, I'll pretty much have free reign, with project nudges here and there.
Most say its a mess. Its not documented, and nobody there knows it.
There's going to be a lot of recognition in what I'm doing, and its going to be very visible.
So, this job is a perfect fit for me.
Its what I do best. I do systems.
Its hard to explain to people who haven't had sole responsibility for every program in an entire system.
Most programmers work on one or two programs at a time. I've worked whole systems for most of my career.
I tend to do whatever is needed to make a system work.
This is quite a break for me. I love this kind of work. Its a perfect match!
I should go far in this place.

I think I see how to use this . Jim I am scheduled to see Grady at the same Starbucks you and I went to . I got your message that you want to close the deal with Mr. Hic. (Hispanic for short) but you are not too keen on the deal itself.  I don't understand the mechanics of real estate very well but I believe that Mr. Hic is going to have to put forth some kind of money in order to secure a purchase of the condo. Oh well! I know that you do understand the mechanics and I will go ahead and sign the papers as you , according to Grady have already done. It is now eight seventeen Las vegas Time. Have a good day Jim and Becky. Squirt says Baaaarkkk! (Short for I miss you!)

My suspenders popped off from my pants faster than a speeding bullet, though.
They didn't have terminal for me, so we tried several different ways to get me in.
I eventually wrote a Cobol/Sql report from scratch (well, almost).
Slapped some macros together from memory. That was fun.
I took advantage of the slack time by running by Barringtons Place.
They needed the application fees. They're running a background check on me...sheesh.
I've got to get my mortgage company to fax them a statement saying I pay my bills on time.
Plus, they needed employer references.
I guess I should be greatful that they screen their tenants.
Later, Barrington's Place called and said they couldn't have our room until the 18th.
Thats a far cry from the 6th of July.
I told them we were still, kind of interested, but I'd need an actual date eventually.
I have to plan a move. I can't just wing it.
I came home, and Becky told me we no longer had our hotel room.
She said they said we could stay one night only, if we paid.
It turned out we still have our reservation, but they charge weekly...haha..
That Becky! Gosh I love her!
Meanwhile, we have an offer on the condo
My realtor called tonight at 1l pm. I had to print a document to fax back, and my printer is out of ink.
And, I can't yet get on the internet at work...youch!
This is a really good ride I'm having here.
I really am loving every minute of it.
I've found that at times things just work out all screwy, for what seems like, no reason at all.
I thinks its fun though.

Get on

 

jim it was me that calloed sonny said i was ruth i asked if you guys had left yet and he said around twelve-thirty sunday he asked how i was feeling and i thought he was asking about when i had to go to quick care. it was not your ex wife that talked to him but me it was ma and he must have thought it was your ex sorry he must have gotten us mixed up since we both have the same first name. hope this clears up the confusion. lol

Sonny said she called.
She was worried that something terrible was going to happen to me.
He said she sounded good, and that she wasn't going to die.
He said she said she just has heart palpitations.
How does one go from a diagnosis of Stage IV cancer to heart palpitations?
Someone is crazy. I'd bet her husband (Ricky) is going crazy...lol.
THAT IS SUCH A HUGE LEAP! Her husband said they are in irrecoverable debt.
She said she was going through chemo therapy, and they gave up on her.
I know prayer can do a lot of good when it comes to illnesses.
But isn't that like praying someone didn't lose their head and another one pops up!
Now that I think about it...its one heck of a tale!
Is it possible for someone with Stage IV to watch Benny Hinn on TV and get cured. Wowsers
I should buy one of his DVDs instead of  a "Full Workout Video with Chuck Norris" to lose weight.

First, the bad things:
- The rooms are tiny and inadequate.
- There is no storage in the bathroom, not even a hook!
- They give you two (one drawer) night stands, and one (three drawer) chests.
- The kitchen has one cabinet and no drawers.
- The stove is a two burner, no oven, with a dorm size fridge under it. The 2" gap between the stove and the fridge is where we keep the silverware, LOL.
- They should advertise their kitchens as having "The Worlds Tiniest Microwave". 
- The hotel doesn't provide ice trays and there is no ice machine on the property.
- The dining table is 2 foot wide, and its wobbly.
- We upgraded to a room with a sofa bed, but its not worth the $4 a day increase.
- There are no easy chairs.
The good things:
- A 24 hour convenience store shares the parking lot. We're on the first floor, and have the closest room to it. It takes 40 seconds to walk there. The stores warmed food is Excellent (first time I ever said YUM to a Sloppy Joe). The cops seem to love it too.
How we improvised:
- We brought a plastic 6 drawer chest of drawers. Its strong enough to hold the hotels 30" TV.
- We brought 2 smaller 6 drawer storages units. One is in the bathroom.
- We bought a 3' x 4' steel camp table from Sams Club fo $42.
It stores like a thick pole in a carrying bag, and folds out to full size and it has adjustable height and width (its amazing).
We put it in our kitchen.
- We brought a small hot/cold water dispenser. The kitchen table is JUST big enough to hold it.
I only booked this room for 2 weeks.
Extended Stay America has identical room rates, and probably 20% more area.
They offer
- A full size refrigerator
- A chest of drawers (six drawers), plus two night stands.
- A breakfast bar in the kitchen,
- two laptop stations,
- two easy chairs.
- AND, they have ice machines.
The down side is, you have to drive to a convenience store.

The freeways here take some getting used to.
Their off ramps split into other off ramps.
Picked up a camp table at Sam's Club
Its really cool. Its all metal, totally adjustable, and almost fits in your pocket. Its perfect for two laptops.
Went to Ajilon for my Orientation.
Those guys are pretty great. Actually, everybody in Louisville is great!
It took 2 hours, but I managed to get a T-Shirt from them. :0)
Ate at a buffet today.
$5.95 per person. They had shrimp, Chinese food, and deserts. What a great deal!
Went to Caesars Indiana tonight.
It took a while to find, since we just barely knew the directions to it.
It looks just like Caesars Palace in Las Vegas used to look 10 years ago.

The Forum Shops are similar to Vegas,
Much tinier. They have $22 lobster buffet.

Its amazing how many factories are around Louisville.
Across the river from Louisville is where our Crest comes from...wow.

Denver Downtown

Denver's buildings seem as tall as the Las Vegas Stratosphere

Its COLD in Denver, even in June!

Eastern Colorado...and lots of it! 
We crossed about 200 miles of rolling grasslands on I70.

Eagle Canyon

The Pass


The Shrubs

Long drive. We took 3 naps.
Utah and Colorado were incredibly beautiful.
I even liked Kansas.

  Sonny,    That's great Jim! Ruth called about an hour after you and Becky took off. She was worried that you might encounter a problem or something. I told her that I would let you know that she called and that you would most likely be okay. After thityy five hours and you are still running now on nothing but caffeine and adrenalin everything must look what you'll be dreaming about for the sixteen hours. I look froward to your further comments in your blog.   All is very quiet here on the home front. Squirt seemed to know that you and Becky were taking off but he hasn't made his usual graphic expression on the living room carpet yet. I guess he can learn after all. I'm taking Jessica with me today, of all places, to the Hilton for that fantastic Star Trek experience. Because of past experience, I will avoid eating in The Quartz or whatever it was, restaraunt. I'll be looking for some more comments about eight or ten hours from now.                                                         Love Sonny

Funny. They had the same Dangerfield comment about Jeffwee Hock. It went "Yea, Jeffwee has a big heart.... but also has a very tiny pee pee". He does drive a Corvette!!! Speaking of Jeffwee, he says she called him too and had trouble pronouncing his name too, and couldn't (or wouldn't) get around to asking the important questions. Like your work abilities or ethic, etc. She kept asking where you two knew each other from.

Sounds great Jimmy. Better than me. I am fully brain dead. I stayed in a Suburban Extended Stay here in the Orlando, July 2005 for a week and hated it for the tiny rooms. As far as a "bad side of town", I suspect theirs is nothing compared to Heavensville's (L.A.) "bad side". But even there, things are not that bad, as long as you look for the good, and don't give anybody any kaka. Got a call from Becky at Alijon yesterday afternoon, wanting to do a reference check. Seems late in the process. I told her that you didn't know how to code. You act funny around female coworkers, and don't bathe. But that you don't steal, so you're ok. HaHa.... Just kidding. I was in the middle of doing an emerency fix that had to get done RIGHT AWAY and told her you were a good guy and a hard worker, but told her I'd have time. She asked when we worked together, and I told her about MGM and M2. She said she'd email me questions, and that way I could answer offline. She never sent me the email, so you may want to get her my email address. She seems a little dim witted. I say that, because she really mangled my last name, and couldn't understand mike -=-=-=at-=-=-= ginsburg.net was my email address.

It was a girl who thought we processed loans 24x7.
We rambled on, I explained that I'm am just a humble Notary Public, and I only notarized loans.
She explained she was from Utah, got into a bind and she needed a loan.
Wellio, we ended up joking and laughing about things.
Then somewhere along the line she invited me over to offer herself to me.
That just figures.
If you can't find a woman in Las Vegas, you ain't looking.
People come here for many reasons: to vacation, to get rich, or simply just to break the circle they're stuck in.
Everyone here is looking for something they feel they can't get anywhere else, and its not friends that they want.
Welcome and Goodbye to Las Vegas....

Life seems like a perfect chaos.
How can it be that nothing happens the same way twice, but there are perfect circles?
How can it be that you can't get something from nothing, when consciousness is just that?
How can it be that a perfect vacuum doesn't exist, when all matter floats around in one?
How can it be that once a circle is complete, it has no beginning or end?
Life is full of paradoxes. Perfection and chaos cannot exist together, but they do. They need each other. It's a paradox.
These past two months have been a perfect chaos.
I'd be a fool to not realize I'm being led me into leaving Las Vegas.
The condo, the association, the loan, the late ad, the new contract; the dragging out of things.
If I'd gotten the loan, or the ad came out, I'd be staying in Las Vegas.
The following is not normal:
The condo's association soured, after 30 years, and after we finally got good tenants.
The loan failed, after everything everything was signed at the title company. It should have been finalized.
The Be Quick ad failed to come out for 3 months. It came out the day after I accepted the job in Louisville.
My contract in Louisville was sold, and delayed, each week, for a month. That is not normal.
All these things caused me to almost go broke (within a couple hundred dollars, and thats not my style).
Its just all too phenomenal.
But if there's a reason for the above, why the delay?
Its like something is waiting for Becky and me, and it's timing our arrival.
I guess, I'm impressed.
I feel like I'm experiencing some kind of miracle.
I don't believe in ghosts, or anything else surreal.
The Mustang's fuel filter failed and a tire blowout within 10 minutes of each other.
It happened the week before our taking off. I see no connection between the two.
I wasn't going to take the Mustang, but after the delays in the contract, I decided I had to take the truck.
Okay, the fuel filter needed to be replaced, and the tire needed to be replaced.
And Sonny needs a vehicle to find a new job. 
I had to do the right thing. I had to fixed the car before leaving.
The car would have broken down when Sonny was driving my it.
An insane person assigns reason to phenomena.
EG: "The crops are dying because God is mad at us."
Perhaps thats what I'm doing.
Or it may be its my knowledge of gambling,
I understand the roll of the dice may may appear chaotic,
but I know a 7 will come up, on average, every 6 rolls over the course of a million rolls.
When you understand what is going on, there is no chaos. There is a perfect circle.
The dice roll the way they do simply because they have too.
So if say, 12s roll 1,000 times in a row, its because they have too. It only seems phenomanal at the time.
This pattern will repeat forever, as long as the dice are rolled.
This life seems chaotic right now. I'm seeing 12's roll 1,000 times in a row. 
Everything this life has shown me so far, has been completely wonderful and incredible beyond belief.
I can see a blade of grass growing, but I don't understand how, or why its growing.
I just know that it is doing it, it is necessary, and that it has to do what it does.
My life will end in the years to come, and my end will meet its beginning. 
I hope I'll come to realize my purpose and why I was necessary?
Everything large and small, living and non living, is significant.
And all things seem to exist for a purpose.

I was replacing the fuel filter on the Mustang and bingoooo, I got the call.
I passed the drug test.
I was sweating some muscle relaxers I took on 7th when I was suppose to be working for US Consultants.
I passed the 20 years of background screening
It was supposed to be only 10 years.
So now, my resume is as clean as it can get, even with all of the acquistions that have happened.
We may take off tommorrow night

I think so.
Most of whats going on seems typical for a good job.
- If I get this job, and we sell the condo,
We won't have any money problems at least for 3 years.
I'll be 54, Sonny will be 59, and Becky will be 48 when things start going south.
Thats if our investments pay nothing. The key word here is, investments .
We can't go on a spending spree and we have to live cheap.
- If I get this job and we don't sell the condo,
I'll be able to pull everybody's weight.
- If I don't get this job and we sell the condo,
we should be able to scrape by on Be Quick
- If I don't get this job and we don't sell the condo,
things will start going south by October.
 We have assets, they're just not easily converted into cash. 
A lot of things can happen in three months. We could finance!
I'll figure something out.
We've been on an $1,800 a month budget
Which is pretty cheap for a homeowner and two people in Vegas.
Lately, trying to refinance, buying tools for Be Quick, going to Disneyland, Adventure Dome, Star Trek Adventure...
has put us way over budget. We've been spending way beyond our means.
We've got to think rich and act poor.
Some things that have happened in the last two months are pretty unusual.
I'll just blame them either on bad luck or bad judgement on my part.
Without a causal connection, though, the odds of what happened yesterday are phenomenal.

Popped a tire. Fuel pump went bad.
Both unrelated..I think. What are the odds of that?
We left Frys about 4pm today.
It seemed kind of weird, to pop a tire while entering I215, then the fuel pump giving out 2 miles later.
We really weren't sure our tire popped at all, and it didn't seem like we needed to pull over.
But about 2 miles down the freeway, the engine started slowing and racing sporadically.
Then it died.
Freeway Assistance came by, but after a few minutes it, it would start again.
We didn't notice a flat tire.
A few miles later, at the Warm Springs exit, the engine died again.
It finally started and we made it somewhere on Warm Springs.
Then the tire started flopping around.
So I replaced it with a donut, all the while, burning my hands on the tools, and ruining my new dress pants.
It looked like my tire had melted (I'm serious).
We got another mile, and the engine died, again.
Cars were whizzing by us at 80mph.
Finally, it started again, and we made it to Paradise and Warm Springs.
We stopped and called our insurance for tow.
We had no water. We had no one to call. My tools were too hot to touch.
After two hours of waiting, we'd managed to get the car to a Rebel Station nearby.
Finally the tow truck pick us up, but all of the repair shops had closed.
The tow driver dropped us off at Pep Boys. They said I couldn't leave the car parked there.
So, we drove it home.
Its now 8pm.
I'm thinking tommorrow, we'll replace the fuel pump, fuel filter and get a new tire.
OH, I took my drug test.
We won't know the result until Friday or Monday.
Everything is being cut pretty close.

The reason this all happened was that you went to Fly's without me... Oh, how I miss visiting Fly's stores. And harassing the cashiers. Next time you're there, as a cashier to "print out an F8".