The Transformation Is Complete

One of the last things I have been able to accomplish since my move south has been the establishment of a credit rating. Having only been in this country for a little over a year and at my current job for about 8 or 9 months, the decision makers aren't taking any chances. I still have my excellent credit rating back in Canada; I keep getting credit increases on my cards, interests rates are lowered without any argument upon request, and I still get notices in the mail from my bank offering me lines of credit. But all those are in Canada... which is fine but it's just a pain in the ass paying the bills because of the hassle I need to go through. I can't pay online my bills from back home with my account here because they won't allow me to send money from my checking account to a Canadian credit card company. This forces me to either wire transfer money to my Canadian bank account at a cost of $40 to send and an additional $10 to receive, or write them a check from here and have them do the currency exchanges themselves..... which can take up to 10 business days.

My hope is to one day get an American based credit card so I can close the ones I have from back home and just deal with one currency and in a timely fashion. Unfortunately I get the same response from every where that I apply. They all give me that same excuse that basically says I haven't been here long enough yet. Yes I have a checking account but since it's so new, there's nothing to base my history on a background check. So I phoned Capital One in the States and asked them to contact the Capital One Bank in Canada to get a credit reference because I've held a card from them for years now and never have had any problems. Well, apparently even though they have the same name they are in fact two different companies and they refused to make that background check because it was in a different country.

It was kind of frustrating getting rejection letters from the American companies and letters of "Congratulations on your increased credit limit!!" from the Canadians in the mail on the exact same day. I finally gave up and decided to just wait a year or so before applying again.

Julie suggested that I go to a department store and get one of their cards, you know the ones that are given out to anybody with a face for a mere 39% APR. The plan of attack was to use the card for things we would normally buy anyway and pay off the balance every month in order to jumpstart my credit rating. Well the other day I got my first American based credit card!! A $300 limit at JC Penney! Wooo hoooooo!!

I have no idea what they actually sell there but they better have some sort of cafeteria. Who wants to go out for lunch... on me? :)

Happy Anniversary Hon!

Yeah OK I know I'm a few days late in writing this but *insert excuse here*.

Last Monday, on October the 18th, marked the one year anniversary for Julie and I. It has been an amazing year and it went by sooooo fast. I look back to where I was a year ago and I can't believe how much has happened and how much we've accomplished.

To celebrate our special occasion we both took some time off work and went away for the weekend. After debating between going to Maine, or going to New York City, or perhaps even Boston we decided on just sticking in the Connecticut area and keeping things low key. Maine was a 4 hour drive away, New York is a mad house, and Boston seemed a little far out of the way and expensive as well. All we wanted to do was to go away someplace quiet that didn't require a crap load of travel or money to do.

We woke up Saturday morning and headed for southern Connecticut to a town called Mystic. It's a tourist type of town down on the shoreline that is full of little shops and museums. It also is home to a restaurant called Mystic Pizza, which is also the title of a movie starring Julia Roberts (before she was a big name movie star). The place turned from a small family owned pizza shop to a huge tourist attraction that is now well known. Julie and I managed to get a table right at the front window and during our entire time there all we saw were lots of people coming up the sidewalk and talking pictures of the front of the restaurant. Inside the restaurant the walls are covered with pictures from the movie and behind the scenes pictures from when Hollywood came to town..... and took over. But what I wasn't really expecting was the quality of the pizza. Now, I have been a huge fan of Pizza Hut for as long as I can remember and in my opinion nobody even competes with them when it comes to pizza... until now. Mystic Pizza by far has the best pizza in the world!! My God I was absolutely stunned at how well it was made and just loaded with toppings. I am so thankful that this restaurant is over an hour away or else I'd have to forward my mail there. It's just.... awesome.

After Julie spent about an hour and half saying, "Ok Brian I get it..... you like the pizza! Now shut up already!" we headed for a beach that Julie likes to go to during the summer months. The whole surrounding area was pretty much dead because it was windy as hell that day and hovering around 14 degrees above freezing. Not Good. But you can sure tell that it is the place to be in the summer. The parking lots looked like airport runways, the shops and building near the beach were very well built with summer entertaining in mind, and the houses in the surrounding area were absolutely beautiful. Huge houses with tons of detailed wood trim and most of them built on high stilts because of their close proximity to the ocean front. We worked our way to the beach front and got out to walk along the beach. There are large sandy hills between the road and the actual beach itself but once you walk over that little hill I was pretty amazed at the scenery. Big long beautiful sandy beaches with the mighty Atlantic Ocean crashing down on the shoreline. I was really impressed and felt a great deal of respect for Mother Nature at that point. With the current weather conditions the waves were pretty big and that's the first time I've seen waves like that up close, it was quite intimidating actually. That's when Julie pointed out to me that this is also the very first time I've had to opportunity to touch the Atlantic Ocean so I walked down to the water and waved my hand through the ocean and sand..... it wasn't that cold actually. I remember when Julie came to Canada for Christmas of 2002 I took her to the beach in Vancouver and she got to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I guess she returned the favor :)

Everything was fine and dandy and we were about to leave when all of a sudden I hear Julie screaming out to me, "Brian! There goes your case!" I turned around and saw the leather carrying case for my camera tumbling down the beach at about 35 miles per hour. "Holy shit, that thing is like..... gone". But much to my chagrin Julie said that I should go chasing after it. *sigh* Dammit, she's probably right. So I took off running down the beach, and I'm guessing that nobody mistook me for a cast member of Baywatch, but even with a 40 mile an hour tailwind I was losing ground. It seemed like I was running for quite some time and to be honest, I got a little discouraged when I saw a sign that said "New Jersey - 15 Miles". But the Lord works in mysterious ways and I was finally able to catch up to my camera case and just as I did, the Lord worked in His humorous ways and sent a huge wave crashing down on me just as I was bending over to pick it up. I jumped up and out of the way and noticed the waves starting to carry the case back out towards the ocean. Oh shit. I quickly snatched it up and headed for drier land.

I turned around and started to head back when I noticed this very tiny spec on the horizon. "What the hell is that?" I thought to myself. As it turns out it was actually Julie still standing on the beach waiting for me. Holy crap did I ever run a long way for this stupid case. Now I had to walk all the way back to her in a 40 mile per hour head wind that was also picking up the dry sand. Needless to say I spent the next few minutes holding on to my pants so they wouldn't get blown off..... while being sandblasted from head to toe. I finally make it back to where Julie and I first started our day and that's when she told me that she was able to get pictures of me running up and down the beach getting my ass soaked. Awesome, thanks dear.

Later in the day we decided to check out the local aquarium. This place is huge and has lots of daily shows and exhibits. It costs $16 just to get in but is worth every penny. One of the main attractions they had there was the actual mini-sub used by the explorers who first found the Titanic on the ocean floor. The sub has long since been decommissioned and is now permanently on display here.... along with a whole venue of the Titanic's existence and disaster. They also have a replica model built of the Titanic that is roughly 20 feet long that apparently took longer to make than the actual Titanic itself.

Throughout the day we got to watch the sea lions in their pen, a bunch of penguins at feeding time, and a special tank where they have stingrays that you can touch. That was pretty cool. The whole aquarium has enough to offer that it can easily entertain you for the whole day.

Over the rest of the weekend we spent a couple days at the Foxwoods Casino and lost the humble beginnings of our retirement fund. We checked out some museums and pretty much didn't add any stress to our days off that we had together. It was a nice break in our hectic schedule and a nice way to celebrate our first year of marriage.

I still look back at my life over the last couple years and can't believe the changes I've made. It's been an amazing trip so far and if I ever had to do it over again I wouldn't hesitate to repeat everything all over again.

Happy Anniversary Julie. I have enjoyed every minute of our first year together and look forward to spending many, many more with you. Thank you for being so patient with me and being there whenever I needed you. I am forever grateful for your support, your love, and your ability to make me laugh when things seem at their worst.

I love you Honey, always and forever.

Crumble In The Bronx

An amazing thing happened last night, I found myself pacing back and forth with nervousness and anticipation while watching a baseball game. I've always had trouble following the three major American sports and baseball has always been the least interesting. The only thing I knew about baseball was the fact that I absolutely hated the New York Yankees.

With my father-in-law leading the pack of in-laws who cheer for the Boston Red Sox, I find myself becoming more and more interested as well. The playoff atmosphere is very contagious especially when cheering for the perennial underdog (sorta like watching the Canucks year after year). Well with the big bad mighty Yankees holding a 3 games to none lead in the series I watched as most of New England rolled up the carpet and called it a season. But the next thing you know here we are last night sitting down and about to watch game 7 being played in the Cathedral known as Yankee Stadium.

What the hell was going on? This wasn't supposed to happen! I tried sitting down and watching the game from the very start but as usual.... it was hard for me to keep interested until about the 6th or 7th innings. It was also ironically at that time that Boston was showing signs of complete collapse after building a substantial lead in the game. I think watching the Canucks all these years has got me addicted to watching my desired team wreck like a locomotive. But something weird happened. They actually got themselves out of a jam and ended the threat of the Yankees closing in and cutting their lead on the scoreboard. The next thing you know we are in the 9th inning with a 7 run lead and only 3 outs away from heading for the world series.

The crumble in the Bronx was complete. The most expensive, talented, intimidating, and arrogant team in the league was knocked out for the season by their arch rivals.... and on their own home field. Man, gotta love it. :)

Now Boston waits to see if they play either Houston or St.Louis in the world series for a chance to win for the first time since 1918. My guess is that after all these years of losing to the Yankees and having to watch those bastards parade around America with all their championships that there ain't nobody gong to stand in their way now. Whoever they play will get demolished.

It'll be fun cheering for the team that actually causes the train wreck this time.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

Oh dear Lord, what have I done? I started navigating through the options of this blog page and clicked on a few buttons. I like the new look, it seems easier to view and is more appealing. I also noticed that there is a "comments" section under my previous post so I'm going to go see if I can actually post a comment. Please feel free to do so as well!

If for some reason I mess around too much and destroy this blog by accident..... it was nice knowing you and thanks for visiting my blog! :)

On The Job Front

Have I mentioned that I'm getting frustrated with my job? Yeah, I'm really looking forward to starting a new career once this schooling is over, or perhaps even sooner.

I recently received a few phone calls from a staffing agency based out of West Virginia. After playing phone tag for a few days I finally got a chance to talk to some guy named John who found my resume online. He told me that he has a client who is a major furniture manufacturing company that has once again just expanded their manufacturing plant and are searching for someone with supervisor experience. The position requires someone to run the production plant and work along side the engineering department. He said that the pay rate would be significantly higher than what I'm making now but there was a relocation involved. Apparently this company is based out of Georgia. I asked Julie what she thought about the idea of moving to Georgia and after she stopped laughing she told me she wasn't very fond of the idea...lol. I talked with a couple people online who I know live in Georgia and they had nothing good to say and pointed out that the weather is freaking hot as hell and extremely humid. That was the final straw for me.... thanks but no thanks.

Although my intention was to finish my schooling, make a trip back home and then look for a new job I actually went and applied for a new position the other day. I saw a posting online that was a metal work company looking for an entry level guy to run machines and to be taught how to operate and set up a Bridgeport lathe. I figured if I could land a job in this industry now, as well as being taught a different machine that I'm already going to school for then I should jump at this opportunity. The only bad part so far is the starting wage is too low. But I figure if they are willing to pay a somewhat decent wage for a completely inexperienced person off the street that maybe they'd be willing to be a bit more flexible for someone like me who has extensive machine operating and set up experience. So I went and filled out an application but the boss was on holidays until Monday. I guess we'll have to wait and see until then.

The best part about this potential new job is that my commute would go nowhere NEAR that dreadful Interstate 84. That was incentive enough.

Odds and Ends

So much to say but with so little spare time. I'll try to catch up as much as I can.

Julie and I recently attended a wedding on three consecutive weekends. I hope it's a really long time before I hear a DJ play, "We Are Family" again.

Talk about the signs of being a Redneck: Over the last couple of months we've been to quite a few small carnivals, fairs, and other types of celebrations and looking back now I never realized how Redneck some of these events actually were. Back in Julies hometown of Hinsdale, Mass they held a carnival to celebrate the towns 200th birthday. They sold raffle tickets all day and were giving away such prizes as.... a case of motor oil. I was so disappointed in myself that I didn't think this was funny until a few hours later. I think I'm losing my touch.

Locally we went to the Terryville Fair that is held on some very open, grassy fields. It just so happens that we went the same weekend that Hurricane Ivan was sweeping through and turned the whole place into "Muddy Gras". They tried to make the ground walkable by spreading bales of hay all over the place. The highlights of the night were the riding lawnmower races and chainsaw competitions. The winning cutter was able to cut through a 12 inch log 3 times in 2.37 seconds. Sweet. In other news the God Bless America T-shirts were outsold by T-shirts that said, "Git-R-Done!" written overtop of the Confederate Flag.

We went to "The Big E" up in Mass a couple of weekends ago, for those who don't know what this is it's exactly like the PNE held once a year back home in Vancouver. There was a moment when I was standing near the bottom of the Log Ride along side some other gentlemen waiting for people to return from the ride. The guy next to me yells out, "Hi Sweety! I can see you!!" as he waves to his young daughter. She squeals as the ride comes crashing down and splashes into the water. He laughs out loud and then turns to me and smiles. "Are you waiting for your kids too?" he asked me. "No, *sigh* I'm with her" I replied as I pointed to the very top of the ride just as Julie was about to come crashing down into the waves with her sister and cousin sitting behind her. "Hey Bubba!!!!" Julie screams at the top of her lungs as she violently waves both arms in the air. Julie then comes running off the ride and towards me while yelling, "Look! I'm soaking wet Bubba!!"

I asked her to take back her purse, stuffed animals, and small bag of donuts before I start kicking my own ass for looking so gay....lol. Good times :)

The Adventures of Dumb-Dumb: My boss's dog who is actually named Oscar but is best known as "Dumb-Dumb" has been up to his usual antics. One day my boss showed up about 25 minutes late and fuming mad. Apparently he stopped at a gas station on the way to work to gas up but left the keys in the ignition of his truck. While he was in the store paying for gas Oscar accidentally hit the doorlocks with his paws and locked Jimmy out. He kept trying to yell at Oscar through the closed windows to hit the door release button but Oscar was just panting away with his big dumb smile on his face and tilting his head. Jimmy had to call his wife to come with a spare set of keys and open the doors for him...lol.

Jimmy told us that at home he puts Oscar on a 40 foot lease on the sundeck to keep him from running away too far. Well one day he was watching T.V. when he heard this huge grinding and rumbling sound followed by a thundering crash. Apparently Oscar had done a lap around the set of patio furniture before spotting a squirrel in the yard. As he took off down the steps of the sundeck he dragged 6 chairs and a table umbrella set along with him....lol

During the summer months Jim told us he has an air conditioner in his home office next to his bedroom. He does this so that the bedroom gets cool during the night without having the noise right next to you while trying to sleep. But in order for this to work well he uses a bungee cord to hold open the hallway closet door to the bathroom door, this prevents the cool air from escaping to the rest of the house. Well one night Jim's wife was coming home late from work and Oscar heard the garage door opening. Jim woke up to the sound of Oscar running down the hallway and thought to himself, "Oh nooooo..."
Thump,thump,thump CRASH!! as Oscar comes screaming down the hallway and runs into the closet door.

Work has been going down the same old path. I'm still the only one who puts in a 40 hour week. I'm getting sick of the commute home though because Interstate 84 has been under construction since the three Wisemen were on their way to see Baby Jesus. I either can get home in 35 minutes or an hour and 20 minutes, it all depends on that damn highway. Ugh.

My evening class at the local Tech School has been going very well and I look forward to finishing the course and looking for a new job, preferably something closer to home.

Oh and a message to everybody involved in the labor dispute between the NHL and the Players Union: Screw you! Screw you for not being able to split hundreds of million of dollars in a way that will make everybody happy and thus robbing us of the greatest game ever to be played by mankind. P.S. - Screw you. And since you have stopped the games from being played and now have so much time on your hands..... SCREW YOU! I hate how greed has destroyed the major sporting leagues of our time.