numbersnut

My first Friday night off in 3 years. Really my first Friday off in 5, because even when I didn't work Fridays I had work at 6:00AM on Saturday so the night was a waste anyway.

The perfect storm is brewing tonight. Meeting up with a ton of the coolest people I know, money in my pocket, and I've been loading up on water for two days in anticipation. If I don't wake up to that momentary panic of "Where the hell am I?" this night will have been an utter failure.

Whoa. We now return to our regularly scheduled postings. Move along.

Well, I'm done. *crosses fingers for the finals*



numbersnut
2006
Bachelor of Science, Biomedical Engineering

I've been ramping up my water intake for a couple of days now. My friends know this can only mean one thing: Tonight, it's Miller Martini, Long Island, JagerBomb, and Jameson on ice Time!

Tonight is oddly emotional for me. Not emo-tional, but rather happy anticipation emotional. I'm miserable with my time, the quintessential procrastinator and I always have been. As such, I've pulled my share of all nighters in my college career.

And here I am again. One final exam left, one all nighter left. My last all-nighter.

I can't put it in words yet, but I'll try sometime soon here. The closest I can come to it at the moment is that I feel like a caged bird about to be let free. I've flown before, and I've crashed before; but for the first time I feel ready to fly. Trained to fly. Free to fly. Not a thing in the world holding me down or back now that the crushing burden of school combined with my work week are so very nearly behind me. I was trying to remember the last time I had a day off, a real day off. For the last 5 years the closest I've come is when I have either work or school and not work and school.

Who knows how I'll do, how things will go. But I do know this: I'M FINALLY FREAKING DONE! (well almost! stupid chemistry final... :)

I've often referred to finals that are worth 40% or more of a total grade for a class as "High Stakes Finals". That's because it doesn't really matter what you have walking into the final, if you bomb it you'll kill your grade. Turns out I didn't know what high stakes was. High stakes is where if you don't pass, you don't graduate. If you don't graduate, you don't get the job you thought you had. If you don't get the job you thought you had, and you've already quit the job that you do have; well, that's often called homeless.

The stress is un-FUCKING-real. It's too much. The human brain can only process so much at a time, and when part of what you're trying it process is a difficult engineering course it doesn't leave much processing power for much else.

Ah, so that's what happened yesterday.

Got some more pics of my future new place. Turns out the master bedroom doesn't have a vaulted ceiling, the vaulted ceiling is on the main floor including in the living room and the kitchen. I was a little disappointed in the flooring and paint in the interior, however I reminded myself that what ever was in there I probably would have redone the carpet and tile anyway, just because I can. Seriously, when you know how to do things like tile, any floor sucks unless it's your floor. I'll also probably remodel the upstairs. They tried to fit 4 rooms up there, just because basement rooms are the kiss of death I guess. Being an Arizona native, I don't have much experience in basements. Anyway, the rooms are tiny, so I'll probably take the 4 rooms and turn it into 3, divided across all three rooms, not just removing one wall. Also, only a fraction of the basement is finished, WooHoo! There's two rooms and a bathroom down there, but the rest of it needs work. That means I'll be able to design it the way I like.

Anyway, got more pics:


That's a jetted tub baby! I feel a bit dumb, but it took me about 30 seconds to realize that someone hadn't in fact put a vanity light inside the shower, but that it was simply a reflection.



The spa is mine! It's going to SUCK having a yard this size. If I had kids, blah, blah, blah, but at the moment it just looks like a lot of work. I think I'll also put a balcony deck out there that the master bedroom opens out into. I'll have to find out zoning laws and all that, and I'll have a lot of work to do on the inside first.

All in all I think I'm pretty happy with it. I have a little bit of buyers remorse, but that's pretty normal after blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oh god, what'd I do?

For all intents and purposes anyway. Just haven't, you know, paid for it yet.
It's funny the way life works. I always pictured that when I bought a house I'd be walking hand in hand with my wife, maybe pushing a stroller, talking over things at night, stressing out... Well you can plan all the live-long day, but sometimes things just happen and ya gotta go with the flow.

Instead, my boss' wife, who's a realtor, emailed me 22 pictures of properties that they own. 10 minutes later I emailed her back, and done. Just last night I was telling a friend that I'm a "see and touch" guy when it comes to making purchasing decisions too! When I got my new job the original plan was for me to relocate to his basement for a few months (well, actually my original plan was to get an apartment, but my boss wouldn't hear of it.) so that I could save up for a down payment; instead he decided that he wants to remodel, so he offered me one of his properties at a semi-cut rate. He owns the place outright, so it was an extremely painless process (which as of now simply entailed him taking the house off the market). When I get there, he's going to spot me a 20% down payment out of a relocation bonus and my salary, and then I'll get the financing.


So what'd I get?


It's a 6 bedroom, 4 bath, vaulted ceilings in the master bathroom (with a jetted bath tub!), and a mountain view. It has a basement and then a main and second floor. I'd like to say more about it, but I haven't actually seen it yet!

6 bedrooms! Can you imagine the tour? "This is my bedroom, here's a guestroom, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another." Actually, I'll probably have to put in an office, a den, an exercise room, a dungeon (j/k), and then a guestroom.

It's going to be pretty boring in there for a while though. I might have to get a pet tiger or something just to make living there more exciting, because that's what it'd take. I went from my parents house, to a college house with 3 roommates, and since then I've always shared a residence with at least one roommate, girlfriend, or family member. Change is in the air!!

I'm thinking about using this journal for more personal stuff again. When I started Cascadeddesign.com I had intended to use it as a more professional site than it currently is. And now that I'm starting my career that's suddenly become important. The site is doing really well, as far as I can tell from the logs it is syndicated by a few thousand people from all over the world, and in its 5th or so month it has a Google Page Rank of 4. I've also enjoyed meeting tons of people through email, particularly other bioengineers working on their school projects.

I'll still keep up with some light-hearted stuff there for all the readers, but I'm going to start watching my language and topics; not that it was all that racy to begin with or anything, it just wasn't all that professional either. The stuff in this journal will be strictly friend-locked, if I don't feel a need to lock something then it's going to go on Cascadeddesign, not here. Because of that, I may be tidying up my friends page even further to people who are either 1) total and complete strangers, 2) Real-life friends, 3) Real-life internet friends; ie, people I chat with or talk on the phone with, but haven't actually met in person. 4) Specific request.

At the moment I'm too busy to write much of anything, so this is just a heads up on future plans...