So, I was off to a good start this year, reading 5 books in the first part of January.  I’m a little at a standstill right now, mainly because I’m getting sick of Sherlock Holmes on my PPC (but am determined to finish the collection.  Ugh), and am out of Audiobooks to listen to on my commute.  I should probably make more time for reading paper books (I  finished two on my last business trip), since that’s where I have a bit of a queue lined up.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I’m abandoning Dune, an audiobook I’ve had for awhile.  I was a bit apprehensive to try it to begin with (20 hours is a big commitment), but then saw it on a list of 1000 books you must read.  So I tried it out.  I think this comic explains the main reason I put the book down.  Less than one part into the book, and I couldn’t understand half of what was being said.

At least I have a few good audiobooks waiting for me in the next few weeks.  Hopefully I don’t become too stagnant.

Well, that’s it. It’s the end of the world as we know it!

Speaking of baby names (no, you’re not getting a hint yet…and actually, who was speaking about baby names? anyway…), I ran across an interesting definition the other day. “Quaking aspen tree meadow.” I was going to post this mysterious phrase and then ask people to figure it out, but I’ve already given away that it was a name meaning. And anyway, if you put that into google, you hit a few dozen baby-name sites. Waverly means “from the quaking aspen tree meadow.” Tres bizarre…

It’s kindof funny living in an apartment sometimes. We don’t really know any of our neighbors well, but there is one lady who is kind of the head ambassador/gardener/welcomer/sweet-old-lady of the building. We’ve met her a couple of times and she knows we’re expecting. Actually, apparently, the whole building does. It was rather funny when she knocked on our door yesterday. We were both home from work, expecting to have the baby today, and she had asked whether or not we’d had it yet. Then she asked if I could install a cable splitter for her, since earlier I had told her I’d be glad to help her out.

I realized how much gossip travels when she got a phone call while I was behind her TV. I heard the voice on the other end say “I just wanted to let you know that both 205 cars are in their parking spots.” Then Mary Lou said, “well I actually have both of the 205-ers in my apartment at this minute. And no, they haven’t had the baby.” 😛 So I guess everyone’s waiting on us. I thought it was funny.

I also learned I don’t want to deal with MHTC’s TV-over-the-phone lines. It’s a great concept, but like satellite TV, you can only watch/record 2 or 3 channels at a time… and they run through a converter box. So forget setting up your Tivo (or TV-equipped computer) to record channel X at a certain time. You have to program two things just to get what you want. Cable may be a bit more expensive, but it’s definitely more convenient (well, I don’t have digital cable; maybe that’s a different story… but I digress…).

That’s a given. But it’s really sad when it costs over $30 to fill up a little Chevy Cavalier. I miss living in Iowa. Gas prices have gone from $2.35 to $2.49 to $2.72 here in the last week and a half. Why did I think commuting was so great? Of course, I’ll probably look back on this in a couple of years and wish I could pay $2.72 a gallon. *Sigh*

Well that last update seemed to go well; now I’ll ramble on about the apartment.

It’s been almost two months since we “oficially” moved into the apartment, and we’re finally getting things settled down. As I said in the last post, the den is cleared out a bit more and is somewhat live in-able. We still don’t really have things up on the walls yet, but we HAVE ORDERED WEDDING PICTURES! So… that will happen in time.

One of the perks of working at Epic is the internal Classified Ads. It’s a suitable replacement for “Cheggpost” back at ISU: a local selling board with items available with no shipping charges! Although, you do have to deal with transporting things when you live in Dodgeville, and everyone else lives in Madison. I found a really great washer and dryer on there for $200. After checking them out and finding that they were practically brand new, I agreed to buy them. Um… who know U-Haul charged by the mile? (everybody) In the end, another Epic resource saved me. I’ve been in classes since I started, and I just met a guy who’s in a wheelchair; he sits by me in lab. When he heard about my predicament, he offered his van… along with the lift. Talk about easy! Without rambling too much more (I have to run to a church thing), suffice it to say Keith is a really cool guy and Amanda and I now have a nice almost-new washer and dryer in our apartment.

All the moving boxes are hidden in the storage closet, and everything else is coming nicely into place. Maybe I’ll get some picures up on the gallery one of these days (if I ever get server access to the files!).

That’s all from the Flessner’s for now. Adios!

So far so good. Nay, so far so great. I love Epic. Of course, all I’ve been doing is orientation this week with a lot of free time. But there are lots of fun people there and I think I’m going to get along really well.

I’m starting in a class of 137, the first one ever to break 100. Wow. And they’re expecting 150-ish next month! We’ve been broken up into three groups, and I’m getting to know the others in group A pretty well. We’ve had a bunch of “Intro to…” classes together as well as overviews, benefits meetings, and even city tours! (Nothing like getting paid to eat ice cream at the UWMU!) I’ve started learning M (aka MUMPS, aka Cach�) and it’s pretty straightforward: similar to, but in some ways radically different than, C, the language I worked on in college.

It’s somewhat of a bummer that I live so far out of Madison. It’s about a 40-50 minute commute, but I’m getting used to that; it’s not a big deal at all. But there have already been some invites for social gatherings for the new hires that I really haven’t been able to go to. I suppose in the future these may be planned out a little more, so it won’t be such an immediate issue. But for now, sometimes I feel left out.

I have been meeting new people, though, and I remember some of their names, so that’s good. Hopefully I fit in a little more in the coming weeks.

Anyway, love the job so far! Looking forward to see where it goes from here!

According to the car timers, I’ve been on the road 17 hours in the last two week, and that doesn’t count the time I spent driving from Ames to Waverly to Darlington… wait, maybe it counts one of those… I just know I’ve been on the road a lot! We’ve effectively moved three loads to the new place. Now Amanda just has to pack up all the little things in her apartment.

More rambling about the new place…

The kitchen is nice… tons of cabinets which is good since both of us had pretty stocked apartments and then we’re getting married which means a bunch more random kitchen items. There’s a good-sized, fairly new dishwasher, and the stove has a timer on it. Oooohhh! 😛 I guess I didn’t mention the building is a security-locked building, so we have a cool buzzer that unlocks the front door from our apartment (it’s a gadget… I like gadgets!). There’s a tiny deck and room behind closet doors in the 2nd bathroom for a washer and dryer if we ever get one. Otherwise the laundry room is right next door (adjacent to the 2nd bathroom… NOT the bedroom). I seriously have to take my tape measure and figure out how much closet space we have here. It’s a ton!