Well, on Monday I sent my resume out to a few places, set up accounts at job/resume sites, and contacted the dude who helped me land my last job. I figured that he was helpful last time, and even if he didn’t have any work for me himself, he might know of someone in the area in need of my services.

It turns out that he is actually pretty busy right now, which is great news especially considering the economy. Right now he has given me a couple projects to work on freelance, to sort of see how I do and how things work out. If things go well, there is the possibility that I could join him full time, which would be great because that would mean a steady income.

Regardless though, having some projects right away means that I don’t really have any downtime between jobs and that I can earn money at a higher hourly rate as a freelancer. Of course, I will have to be sure to set aside money to pay taxes with at the end of the year, so ultimately for this reason as well I’m hoping to make it something more permanent and a position where I receive a W-2 instead of a 1099.

We shall see. I am excited that I was able to score some work right away though, so hopefully this is a good sign of things to come! I even got paid already for work I completed the last 2 days, which is great because I am going to Disneyland with Dave and a couple friends of ours (trip was planned pre-job loss) and it offset the cost of the trip a bit. Hooray!

Posted at 6:48 PM | (0)

While we didn’t win the overall at pub quiz this week, we did tie for highest score on two of the four rounds. We lost the first round on the tie-breaker, but on the last one, we won. Since the round we won was Round 4, that means that we got to choose the categories for Round 3 next week!

Since I’ve been playing we’ve only gotten to do this twice—last time though, we got a perfect 10 on Round 3. Hopefully we’ll be able to repeat this, especially since no one won the jackpot this week and it’s getting pretty high and I think there are only 2 tokens left!

No pressure though! :)

Posted at 11:46 PM | (0)

We are now back in SB after the trip down to “The OC”. While we were gone, Dave’s cat needed to be given some medication, so we had our friend Kristen do it, since she is responsible and also has a cat. Since her Guitar Hero set is over here, she asked if she could also play that while we were gone, and of course we said yes (not like we’d necessarily know otherwise!).

When we got back, however, we found that she and one of our other friends had been a bit mischievous. Since my office has a pink and lime green comforter that Dave hates, Kristen thought it would be hilarious to swap it with the more earthy-colored striped one that is in the main bedroom. Dave of course noticed this right away! Apparently the original plan had been to even try to swap furniture, but they decided that that would be waaaay too much work (and they probably also didn’t want to have to move it back!)

Anyway, it was pretty amusing that they played the little prank on us. I never would’ve expected Kristen to be the type to do that, but I guess you never know what people will do until you let them have free reign of your place for hours while you aren’t there! ;)

We already gave her a hard time on the phone, and she is coming over in a little bit to hang out with us and some other friends, so we’ll have to give her more crap for it then!

Posted at 6:11 PM | (0)

Well, right now I am with Dave down in San Clemente visiting his family. His mom is still in town until maybe next weekend or so, and since she came up to visit us a few weeks ago, it’s our turn to go down there.

We got in late last night, since we didn’t leave until after 9:30. A friend of mine had decided to have a little gathering for dinner and drinks and Enterprise Fish Co, and Dave and I decided to join in. We also got ice cream at Coldstone afterward, so that also took up some time.

Since we got in so late, we didn’t actually do anything except check into the hotel. Today, however, we went down to Trestles for a bit, walked around on some trail, stuff like that. We also went back out near the pier later on to walk around and check out the sunset. Luckily the weather has been nicer today—it rained off and on during our drive last night!

Tomorrow we leave not TOO late in order to get back up here so Dave can do some work and such. Fun fun!

Posted at 11:46 PM | (1)

Yesterday afternoon I got a call that I wasn’t really expecting. My boss called and asked me what I was up to. It was then that he started talking about how busy the company was with all this upcoming work and new clients and then switched over to the topic at hand—namely that the type of work we were getting didn’t have as much to do with what I was getting paid to do, and that after a lot of thought, they decided to remove my position and focus on having all employees in-house.

I can honestly say I didn’t really see it coming. I mean, I had noticed that lately I hadn’t been as busy with some of my work as I had been in the past. I didn’t think anything of it though, because project loads often ebbed and flowed and I just figured that it was more in the ebbing stage. I also knew that we were landing new, bigger clients, and that the increase in work we’d have to do was such that we needed to hire a couple new people. My company was hiring in a time of recession, so why would I be worried?

So I was caught a bit off guard and since I’m not in the office, the same city, or even the same state, I had to be told via phone. Losing your job sucks no matter what, but it also sucks when you didn’t know it was coming—when it coincides with you just moving and signing a new lease and all the money you shell out when you move somewhere new. Even more it sucks when it happens at a time when lots of other people are losing their jobs and fewer companies seem to be hiring.

I know it was business and not personal and that if it was just up to personal factors, I’d still have a job. I know everyone at the company loved me and appreciated the work I did. I was the first full time employee and, including time spent freelancing for them, I had 4 years with the company—a decently long amount of time by today’s standards. I do admit though that I was hoping my time with the company would be longer. I got paid to do something that I love and was able to stay in a city that I love, near all the people I know and love. All my coworkers were great people and I enjoyed working with them, and I loved the company environment when I would visit. I loved that my bosses were of the philosophy that people are responsible for their actions and so didn’t have conventional policies when it came to sick/vacation time. As a result, I’ve never seen anyone abuse the time off system.

I do have hope though that things will be OK. I have money saved up and it’s enough to get me through several months if need be, without having to resort to credit cards. The heads of the company will give out awesome recommendations for me and put in good words with companies they know here in SB, I have friends on the lookout for opportunities for me with people they are networked with, I have family that wouldn’t let me end up on the street (although I’m nowhere near having to worry about that). I just hope that I land a job doing what I love to do and do best, and also that it can be for a company with the type of people I had at my now former office.

Posted at 4:51 PM | (2)

Last night, a bunch of us were invited to a friend’s house so that he could cook us Indian food and we could watch a movie. He had made the food for some of us before, but there were much fewer of us and much less food involved. This time he had quite the undertaking making enough for all of us. There was a ton of food, but still things like the bread and rice ran out.

I know what some of you are thinking, though. You are a super picky eater, surely you did not eat any of this food?? On the contrary though, it was pretty innocuous fare. There was some chicken in a yellow curry sauce, some meatballs, and rice and bread. There was nothing really too exotic about the food, and despite the fact that he repeatedly asked worriedly whether we liked spicy food, nothing there was even remotely what I’d consider too spicy.

Quite a few people were in attendance—so many, in fact, that we all just got caught up in groups of conversation, and the movie portion of the evening never happened. That turned out to be ok though, because earlier in the day, Kristen and I had gone for a walk on what was a lovely, warm day to get some ice cream, and then after she brought her Guitar Hero World Tour set over to my place so we could rock. After we left the dinner, a bunch of us all came back to play some more, which was fun. It’s a good thing we have pretty sound-proof windows!

Posted at 12:10 PM | (0)

Last night a bunch of people we knew were going to be downtown, so Dave and I joined a small group to meet up with the larger group at Joe’s. While we were there, however, another group of people we know just randomly happened to show up. In addition to knowing all of us, they also encountered another group of people there that they knew. Ahh, SB—the city that isn’t super tiny in terms of population, but feels like a small town whenever you go out.

After Joe’s we went to Tonic because some people wanted to do some dancing. All was well for a bit, until one girl noticed that her purse was missing—her purse with her keys, wallet, cell phone, and brand new camera. At the end of the night we still hadn’t found it, but one guy was able to get her back into her apartment. The next day though, someone called her mom on her cell phone to let her know that she mistakenly wound up with this purse, and our friend got everything back. That person who returned the purse is entitled to some seriously good karma for that.

Today Dave finally got to turn in the keys to his old place, so he is officially done with Goleta, unless he decides he wants to go there for shopping purposes. No longer will he have to keep going back and forth to keep cleaning and bringing over miscellaneous leftover items. After we got the sign-off on the post-cleaning inspection from the property manager, we headed over to the nearby Monarch Butterfly grove. I didn’t go last year, so it was cool to check it out again. Dave, despite having lived right next to it for 2 years, had never seen it, so this way he got to check that off his list of things to do near his old place. It didn’t look like there were quite as many butterflies as two years ago, but it might also have been hard to tell, since previously I had gone a few weeks later in the season, when more butterflies may have been active. It’s amazing how many butterflies come to our neck of the woods.

Posted at 11:27 PM | (0)

This week has been fairly calm in the sense that we’re all settled in pretty much. I did have book club on Tuesday, which was nice always. We had a pretty decent turnout of 8 people, and for once, almost half of those attending were guys. We never really discriminated or anything, but for some reason, most guys didn’t decide to keep coming to a group that was predominantly female. I think it helps that the guys that are coming now are already friends with some of the girls in the group, which makes it more likely that they will continue to show up.

On Wednesday there was pub quiz once again. For the second week in a row, we didn’t do as great as usual—didn’t even win a single round. Funnily enough though, we still wind up in the top 5, which is more impressive when you consider there were like 25 teams or something in attendance. There were far too many geography questions this week, which is not one of our stronger categories. Still, we wound up with a score right around what we usually get.

It’s weird though to get used to doing really well and winning free drinks, and then have a couple weeks where you don’t manage to do that. It’s also amusing when you consider that when I first started playing, winning a round was never the norm.

Posted at 11:27 PM | (0)

This weekend Dave and I spent hanging out with his brother, mom, and her boyfriend when they came up to visit us. While his brother lives in Orange County, his mom had relocated to North Carolina, which means that the doesn’t see her too often. They all came up on Friday and stayed until Sunday.

We mostly just hung out, went to dinner, played some Wii Sports, talked a lot, that sort of thing. On Saturday we went up to Santa Ynez to check out some wineries, although we only made it to Firestone. We also stopped by Solvang briefly on the way back to SB to get some lunch.

On Sunday we headed down to the Wharf for a bit and then walked over to the Harbor, before going back to our place so that the family could pack up and drive back down to Orange County.

It was nice to meet some of Dave’s family, although I was tired by the end of it. It’s a good thing that I am not still doing things like putting away boxes!

Posted at 11:37 PM | (0)

Last night Dave and I joined a few friends downtown, because some people were in town visiting. Earlier in the evening though, we had randomly decided to go to Aldo’s for some dinner, wine, and dessert.

When we went downtown, we ended up at Tonic for the whole time, which was fun. We did some dancing after a bit, and stayed until fairly late, though we left before last call. The best part of the end of the night was the fact that we did not need to consider how to get to Dave’s place in Goleta. He now lives within walking distance of downtown, and if we choose to take a cab (which we did last night), it is only a few bucks. Of course, this is no different than how it was at my old place, but for him it is quite an improvement.

I think that the more he is social with his friends and doing activities downtown, the more he will appreciate the closeness of our location—especially once the memory of how much of a pain it is to move fades!

Posted at 10:58 PM | (0)

The move on Saturday went pretty smoothly—my parents came up to help, along with Kevin who was awesome enough to drive up from Burbank. I had already moved pretty much everything over to the new place before they arrived, so all that was left was to move the pieces of furniture and then clean the ancient room.

We got a truck and went to Dave’s first to get all his furniture before venturing to my studio to pick up the few things I had. During the holiday I had measured all the pieces of furniture and then put them into the appropriate room spaces using Photoshop. This turned out to be pretty handy because we knew exactly where to put each piece of furniture as it was brought into the apartment. With all the people we had helping, it didn’t take too long for all the furniture to be properly situated.

My mom was awesome enough to tackle the not small task of cleaning my studio (thanks mom!!). The building is old and not exactly kept in immaculate condition, so cleaning it was quite a feat and took a lot of time. Knowing how much there was to be done, my parents stayed at a nearby bed and breakfast so that they wouldn’t have to drive home exhausted.

We are actually pretty well moved in already, thanks to the furniture being all set up. Now all that is left is just to unpack boxes of non-essential items and find homes for them. In fact, we were already so set up in the essentials that we were able to entertain already and had a few friends over for an impromptu movie night. Hopefully after we get more moved in we will be able to have a proper housewarming party of sorts.

Posted at 9:40 PM | (0)

Well, the first day of 2009 is almost over, and I feel like I didn’t get too much done. Last night Dave and I went to Kristen’s apartment to ring in the New Year with a small gathering. There were some talks of going to another gathering as well after a few hours, but that fell through when the host of the party wound up elsewhere.

After midnight, we all decided to hit up the James Joyce to see what was going on downtown. We walked down there and stayed until closing and then hit up the house of the guy who had left his gathering. We wound up staying there pretty late, and as a result, didn’t wake up until after noon! We met up with Kristen and a friend of hers for lunch, but our choices were somewhat limited due to many places being closed for New Year’s. What’s up with that?

Anyway, the big news I alluded to in my last post is that, after 4 years in my teeny tiny studio, I am finally moving to something bigger and better. Dave and I are now going to be living in a 2 bedroom apartment that is only about a block and a half from my current place. It’s actually an apartment building, and not some old house that has been converted into individual units, and is in a nicely maintained complex with what seems like a really nice landlord. Two bedrooms means that I get to have an office, so there will be no more working from my bed (unless I really want to, I suppose! But I will try not to do that and work at a desk like normal people). The other awesome thing is that Dave will be a lot closer to things like downtown, friends, his office, etc. We have already been moving over a bunch of boxes this week, and on Saturday we will move all the furniture. I’m looking forward to finally getting everything set up in the new place, but I have not really enjoyed the moving process. Moving sucks, and I am reminded why I wasn’t super motivated to do it sooner—how did I do it twice a year for 4 years of college?!

So anyway, that’s definitely a pretty big change for the new year, and time will tell what else 2009 has in store.

Posted at 10:44 PM | (0)