Bank of America has slow tellers

Posted by mobile phone:
So far bank of america isn’t really impressing me. All I need my account there for is to deposit checks I receive, so I can then shuffle the money to my ING account. You’d think deposits are something banks should have down pat. Yet, it always takes a really long time.

I don’t think I’m being too harsh. I banked with Washington Mutual when I was in california, and they were fast. You would have your money in and you’re out the door in 2 minutes maybe.

I’m not going to do anything about it, because I already have my account. But if anyone is thinking about banking with them, I’d suggest going another way.

This might be how I post from now on

Posted by mobile phone:
I keep forgetting that I can post from my blackberry whenever I want. That, coupled with the fact that I can write in my ‘notes’, then copy and paste will ensure I don’t lose anything I write. I can also compose a post even in periods of no cell reception. I like this.

Why haven’t I posted in over a month? Short answer is I’ve been busy with real life things. People will be suprised to hear I’m a little tan from all my adventures outside. I’m doing some hiking, though I want to do even more than I’m doing now.

I had my first violin lesson yesterday, and I was pretty happy with it. Fatima is a good teacher. She’s been playing since she was three. She is new to teaching, but she’s super excited about it, so its fine. Learning from someone who wants to share is a great thing.

How are my coding projects coming? Not so hot. Its due to spending lots of time with cousins and relatives instead of being a hermit. I’ve pretty much determined to not do much until after summer. I have 15 years of missed summers to make up here.

This is good for now, I don’t want to write too much in case this doesn’t work.

Rain against the window

It’s late at night, and I’m tired but not sleepy, so I’m writing here.

Weird thing happened to me the other day. It was raining outside, and I was just waking up. I laid there, listening to the raindrops hit the house softly, and then something popped into my head.

“Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day. Little Timmy wants to play.”

I actually sang it in a quiet voice. I haven’t even thought of that song in a long time; as in I can’t remember when I sang it last. I was little, I know that. Probably I stopped before I moved to California when I was ten, I’m not sure. I don’t know what caused me to think of it again. Is it because I’m back in Maryland now? Or is it the sound the rain makes here?

I know I sound slightly ‘off’, but rain sounds different here in Maryland. In California, rain is an intruder; the people and the land don’t really welcome it, they can do just fine with as little as possible. Here, you can almost see and feel the land welcome the rain like a good friend. It’s a feeling I get when I see it rain.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about relationships. Things are still being worked out, but I’m working on a list of my observations on relationships and on love. I don’t know what the point of it is (the list), but I want to put it up here soon.

Well, this has been fun, but it’s late and I have a big day tomorrow. Sorry for not updating more; I will try.

What lagging!

I’ve been busy doing all sorts of things, hence the lack of updates. Went hiking a lot, check out the pictures HERE. Also, I was up at my cousins place from monday to thursday, just hanging out, reading, etc. It was a good little break, but now I’m starting to feel motivated to do stuff. Starting this week, work is going to get done.

I received authorization to do a lot of work on a site I admin for, so that’s good. My other goal is to finish a story I wrote by the end of the month. It needs a good 8000 more words. Also, I need to pick up the place, because some visitors will be arriving soon!

I’ve also started playing Lord of the Rings Online, and it is very fun. I’m on the ‘Landroval’ world, in case anyone else plays.

Take that, Earth!

So, yesterday, in appreciation of Earth Day, I went and spent my upcoming Economic Stimulus Package money on a 32″ LCD VISIO TV! Check it out, doesn’t it look nice in the metal rack?

Here is what my little living room / office look like:

Now, I realize buying a new TV is kind of anti my position on being affluent. The way I justified it in my mind is, I waited 2+ years to get a nice LCD TV, while waiting for the prices to go down. Also, this TV is thin and light, so I can actually take it with me when I move again. It’s a long-term display.

I didn’t know it was earth day until my friend Justin mocked my unintended insult to the planet. I will be keeping this until it dies, and then recycle it, so I’m not like Saruman, poisoning the lands of the Shire or anything.

Here is the spooky Grandfather clock I talked about yesterday:

In other news, I’ve added a publicly viewable google calendar in the links on the right-hand side there, so people can see what plans I have, what nights I’m free. It’s pretty easy to use, I’m liking it so far. Also, this way I can always go and look to see what I’ve promised I’d do.

My plan today is to do some exploring around, get some minor things from the store, then read! Only read one book all month, and you all know how much this distresses me.

I’ve been busy

Ok, so it’s been a while since I updated this. My reasons are, I just moved to Baltimore, and am super busy. When I’m not super busy, there’s so much stuff to write about that I kind of get overwhelmed, and end up not writing anything. So, I decided to break my moving tale into this:

I drove from Sacramento, CA to Baltimore, MD in four days. My Dad came with me, and it was a good time. When we got to Baltimore, we visited with family and prepped the place I’m staying. Now he’s back in Sacramento, and I am here, and things are going good.

There.

What I want to talk about today is the grandfather clock that is in the back room here, where my office / living room is. It’s from my great-grandfather, so historically it’s nice to have around. The issue is, it hasn’t ran in over ten years. When my Dad was here, him and my Uncle properly seated the face of the clock, and got it running. Now, it needs a cleaning, and as a result, all the chimes are a little bit off, and some of them don’t always hit.

Result? It sounds like a haunted house grandfather clock. At first, it kind of creeped me out, hearing the discordant chimes every fifteen minutes. Especially at night. But now it just kind of makes me laugh, so I’m going to keep it alive, by raising the weights on it every couple of days. And I like hearing the manly ticking noises it makes. Makes it feel very Victorian around here.

Anyway, now I need to find a bank to join around here.

Day 2, now located in North Platte, NE

So we started at Park City, UT and ended up in North Platte, NE. Almost 650 miles. It was really touch and go for a while, the weather was looking NOT GOOD. Until 6am today, part of interstate 80 we were going to use was closed due to blizzard conditions. But by the time we got there Mr. Snoeplow took care of business.

It feels a little odd driving in the snow at 75 miles per hour. It’s what the sign says though, so I’m sure it was safe.

My gallery is acting wacky today, my pics are up at flickr for now. Check them out here.

Tomorrow we’re thinking of going crazy and shooting for an 850 mile day, to get right up to Indianapolis. You will be kept ‘posted’.

Day 1 of Epic journey

Made it to Park City, UT. Covered 670 miles today. We might be kind of stuck behind the genormous storm that is crossing the US. Hopefully we can continue to at least make 500 miles a day the next two days. We’re going to shoot for at least getting to Cheyenne, WY tomorrow if we can make it. 550 miles, but there will be some light snow we need to go through..

I added a couple pictures to my gallery.

I’ll do better tomorrow; I’ll use my neo to work on my post when I am on my passenger shift..

Big News kids.

I haven’t mentioned it here on my blog, due to not knowing who might read it before the time, but I am moving to Baltimore, MD in April. A big move, almost 3000 miles.

Today they announced at work that I’m leaving the company April 4th. It is a good feeling not to have to hold all the thoughts in anymore. There was a lot of times I had things I wanted to talk about with co-workers about my moving plans, but couldn’t.

I’m getting a lot of well-wishing from everyone, which is nice. It’s a good group of people here, I will miss that. I’ve explained my reasons for quitting and moving, and the more I talk about it,the more excited I become. I’m psyching myself up, which is a little funny.

I think I’m going to work on a big post on all my reasons, both logical and crazy, on why I want to move to the east coast.. Yes, I’ll do that this evening in between my CoH play.

Anyway, now it’s nearing crunch time for me. My planned departure date is April 10th, which is 13 days away! I have a fair amount of stuff to do, but I think it’ll be doable.

The big things are:

- Move music and DVDs to big CD case

- Visit Berkeley friends the weekend of the 4th. Due to a dentist appt, I won’t be leaving here till like noon on saturday, but that’s ok.

- Go through clothes, donate what I don’t need anymore, ship the rest to my Uncles.

- Ship all my books, air purifier, old gaming comp, LCD monitor to Uncles.

- Unhook, clean, and pack all my tronics

- Wash and wax up my car.

- Get car tuned and ready for a 3K mile trip.

- Fill up my 4GB USB stick with stuff to listen to for the drive.

- Get my box of kitchen stuff packed.

- Get bathroom stuff packed.

That’s really all I have left to do. I think I could do most of it in two days if I needed to, but I’ll probably do a little every night to make it not so bad.

I’m working out my route and stuff for my drive out there. This kind of stuff is really fun for me. I <3 maps.

Anyway, so yes! Maryland peoples, rejoice! The coolest person in CA is moving near you.

Shallowness of Mass Media?

I just finished ‘Survivor’ by Chuck Palahniuk, author of ‘Fight Club’. The book was pretty good; there is a lot of social commentary in it. Almost like the plot is just an excuse to talk about certain things.

One section really helped verbalize some things I’ve been thinking for a while.

“We all grew up with the same television shows. It’s like we all have the same artificial memory implants. We remember almost none of our real childhoods, but we remember everything that happened to sitcom families. We have the same basic goals. We all have the same fears.

The future is not bright.

…

Everything is so derivative.

A reference to a reference to a reference.

The big question isn’t ‘What’s the nature of existence?‘. The big question people ask is ‘What’s that from?’”

(End of Ch. 22)

That hit me kind of hard. Although I watch a lot less TV than most people, I still have a whole head full of television and movie knowledge and quotes. In normal conversation, myself and people I interact with are always inserting lines from movies that fit the situation. We’re considered clever if we can make a tie-in with our current conversation and a movie. How is that clever? It’s just parroting the lines we’ve heard. How can new ideas come if we just try to mimic what we see in the movies?

It feels like if we’re not careful, we’ll all just be like scribes in a monastery. Everyone thinking they’re working hard, doing good, but in reality just a copier. A tape recorder. How can we be independent thinkers if we program our speech to follow what we’ve seen?

I believe this line of thinking has some merit. I need to think about it some more.