Back in Austin....

Christmas was mostly good. I'll go into more detail later. Right now I just want to get into bed and be comfortable for the first time in a week. Since when did they start making mattresses with rocks? Ah... blessed, blessed memory foam mattress topper!

Hello from sunny (in theory, at least) Southern California! So far we're enjoying our holiday vacation here. We miss our bed (it has a memory foam mattress topper) but it's been fun catching up with our friends and Christmas Eve/Day is coming, so there will be craziness from that. It's weird, like the past 8 months has been just a dream. It's like we never left... except that new stores have popped up and the last time we saw everyone, the weather wasn't as cold. It seems like all we're doing is eating out since we're catching up with everyone and they all want to take us out to dinner. But hey, no complaints here. We just want to make sure we hit up In-N-Out and Del Taco before we go.

But I've got something to complain about here. Why do people automatically assume that if you wake up after noon or eat past 10 pm, that you are lazy and gluttonous? I mean, we get 8 hours of sleep every day (sometimes less) yet just because our sleeping hours are not traditional, we're lazy? People automatically assume that sleeping past a certain time denotes laziness. Geez, our shift doesn't even end until 3 am. What are we to do? Sleep for only 2 hours each night just to fulfill some stupid, uninformed notion of non-laziness? And so what if we end up eating late at night? That's dinnertime for us! Are we suppose to not eat the last 8 hours of the day and starve just because it's gluttonous to eat past 10 pm? It's like asking a normal person to stop eating past lunch. There are medical conditions for people who do that on purpose, and we're not going to make ourselves anorexic because stupid people don't get it!

Maybe it's just an Asian thing. I don't know if anyone else gets this kind of crap.

Just a quick update:

We found a house we like, and we've put in a bid for it. It's not a standard sale, though, so it will take awhile before we hear back. It may take up to 60 days for it to close, though our realtors gave an arbitrary deadline of January 31st.

Speaking of realtors, we figure the one that kinda pissed us off was having an off day, and so far she's working well with us on this house, so we're just going to let it slide. As Whateley knows, I hate it when people think I'm stupid, and I especially don't like being treated like we're stupid.

Our office holiday party was tonight, and it was fun. Sad to say, though, Whateley and I are very much wallflowers, and we're not so hip-and-happening at the party scene. I hope that's not going to bite us in the ass later in life. As we all know, the way to get ahead in a career is based a lot on who you know and socialize with.

We won the raffle for basketball game tickets, and it being Lakers vs Spurs, it's sure to be very much in demand. We're not too big on sporting events, but I've always had fun whenever I went to one. It's a big debate on going or selling them on eBay. I hear they would fetch a pretty penny. I'm not sure if it would be enough to buy a Playstation 3 with, but it could cover a good chunk of it. Any thoughts, my loyal readers?

A bit of drama with our Realtors... though I hope it's just a misunderstanding on their part. Technically, our only issue is with one of them. The one that's been showing us the houses (I think he's new and learning the ropes from a veteran) is great. I just hope this isn't a situation where just because our price range will result in a lower commission they'll treat us like crap. I'm sure every Realtor knows not to pull that kind of crap, but you never know....

I'll go into more details after this all blows over. Hopefully.

Saga continues in our home search. A few of our choices are getting snapped up, and there was a cute house in Cedar Park that went under contract... which means that barring anything major, that house is as good as sold. Ah, sad....

A part of me would like to live in South Austin since that's where all the hippie vibe is greatest. It's also closer to downtown. But traffic in this city is rather crazy since all the hippies were in denial that this city is growing, and they haven't developed the roads as much as they should for the population. So traffic is a major issue and getting worse. Coming from Southern California, the traffic is light in comparison (think LA to Orange County traffic at about 3 or 8 pm) at its worst. Still, an accident can shut down half the lanes and I don't want to have to drive through the entire city to get to work each day.

I'm steadily adding more pictures to my Flickr page, so keep checking for more views of "our" Austin. Keep in mind that we tend to avoid downtown and the University cuz it's crazy, and we also tend to keep vampire hours. If you need the link, just send me an e-mail.

I'm outtie!

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Ours was okay. Since we had to work on Thursday, we got together at a co-worker's on Tuesday for some Thanksgiving fajitas. She makes fantastic fajitas. We also got to see her in action with her kids. Dang, she's five years younger than me, and she's already got four kids. Well, to be fair, the last two were twins, but that's a lot of kids. And having four kids under the age of five was exhausting just looking at them.

On Thursday they fed us turkey and the works, but I'm guessing the higher ups forgot that the department grew four times when we moved to Austin, and they ordered the same amount of food as last year. So it was really sad getting in line and getting a meal the size of an elementary school lunch just to make all the food stretch. And it wouldn't have been as bad if we didn't have last year to compare it to, where we had mounds of food and enough for seconds and thirds. The cornbread stuffing was pretty good, though everything else was baseline turkey dinner. Eh, just whining.

We're set to go on our first house showing on Tuesday. Yay! I fully don't expect us to buy a house right away, yet... if somehow we find the perfect house for the perfect price, we may end up moving into a house of our own by the end of the year. But all in all, it's a good time to buy, we here, since winter is not a popular season to be buying and people are getting more antsy to sell. Wish us luck!

Christmas is coming....

There's a bit of drama with my in-laws about gifts this year. They want to make it a no-gift-card rule, but there is no way we're gonna pack a dozen gifts in our luggage and take it on the plane with us unless they can all fit in an envelope... a gift-card-size envelope. I think they'll see it our way, especially if we threaten to get everyone just Magic the Gathering cards or something. Do they play Magic? Hells no. Now that would be hee-lair-ee-yus.

Thanksgiving is coming too. We gotta work again this year, but they always feed us. A co-worker invited us to her house to do a pre-Thanksgiving-Thanksgiving, though not with turkey but with her famous fajitas. It's kinda nice, though. We won't be alone for the holidays! *cry* *sniff*

Not much more news on the "home-front." (har dee har har) But we're looking at maps and listings to see where we would like to live and how much we really want to spend. Whateley's talking about possibly even Leander... which is like living in San Bernardino and commuting to Orange County. It's doable... but land's so plentiful and cheap here, I don't see why we'd have to. The freeways are all messed up though. The I-35 and the 183 are roughly perpendicular (though they point north and then northwest respectively), but there's no freeway connecting the two beyond the point where they intersect in Austin. So the farther we go up either freeway, the cheaper houses get... but then the two suburbs end up far apart from each other, cuz you can't go from one to the other without going back south to Austin.

Lame.

Last weekend Whateley and I talked to our bank to be considered for a home loan. We got approved for a modest amount, and in Southern California, that wouldn't buy us squat. Actually, no, it would let us purchase a manufactured home. What are also called mobile homes. Yeah... not much choice there.

But surprisingly (or not-so-surprisingly), we could get a decent house here in Texas. I'm talking 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom in actual Austin proper (though a bit in the outskirts). We can definitely afford a nice house in Round Rock, which is a suburb just north, where Dell used to be. But it's not like an Los Angeles suburb where it takes 45 minutes to get to the city without traffic. It's only about 25 miles away. That's closer than the commute we used to have for work in SoCal.

So now, I guess we can shop around for mortgages to see if we can get a better deal elsewhere. But there must be stiff competition for mortgages nowadays since we got a really good program from Wells Fargo for first-time home buyers. Well, it helps that we've got pretty good credit. I am so thankful that Whateley and I are not huge spenders (perhaps me more than him... I've been known to keep a Vulcan grip on my wallet). We know too many people got huge credit card debt, especially in college. Whateley had a co-worker once who got a $10k limit credit card and maxed it out in 2 months. Yipes.

Anyway, we also need to contact a real estate agent. At least, I'm sure we have to, right? I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't think Whateley and I can buy a house without professional help. But the problem with that is, there are a bazillion real estate agents. Heck, my sister is one herself. Too bad she doesn't live in Austin. =) But how the heck do you find a good real estate agent? So far no one's come knocking on our door with free notepads, and we hardly ever step inside a bank, so there's no raffle to enter. (I actually won a gift basket that way once. I think the real estate agent was disappointed that the person who won wasn't looking to buy a house then and certainly didn't have a house to sell.)


On a different note, Halloween is coming! We actually have the day off. What will we be doing? Umm... probably playing WoW, giving out candy if any trick-or-treaters actually come, and maybe letting Whateley force me to watch a horror movie. What will you, my devoted readership, be doing?

Okay, I think I finally have a work schedule that will not change for awhile. It's now... 4 pm to 3 am, Thursday through Sunday. Yep, you figured it, we're on the 4-10 schedule. That means four days of work, 10 hours each day. So far, I'm liking it better. Before, we'd lose a day to running errands and such, so you'd feel sad when your only day to play is marred by thoughts of having to return to work the next day. But with three days, we get all or most of our errands done the first day, and then we have two days to do whatever! And inevitably, one of those days involve hanging around the house naked and playing WoW.

Tonight we went back to the gym for the first time in a long time. It was long overdue. We have no stamina, our strength is blah, and I won't even get into my weight. Sigh. Sad to say, my boobs look great right now. But I gotta get rid of flab, so I guess if my boobs get smaller... it's a good thing. Whateley's looking forward to knocking me up someday. I wonder if it's a healthy thing to keep lactating just to keep your boobs bigger.

On a different note, we've been on a crusade to find boba places, and there are a surprising number of Asian places here, and we're finding more and more the deeper we search. Unfortunately, so far only one place offers the barley that Whateley likes. But that's the one closest to the college, so the last time we went, they were packed with college kids. I wonder if that's how the people of Berkeley felt about the students?

Anyway, we've found many small Asian markets all over (including a Korean one) but this weekend we found an actual Asian supermarket! We didn't go in since we were running out of time, but we'll check it out next time. I think it's a Chinese or Vietnamese one, so I'm guessing we won't stop going to the Korean one anytime soon. Where else am I going to get choco-pies and home run balls and soft tofu stew kits?

Gotta go, the rice maker just got done, and we got some bulgogi marinade which we used pork instead of beef. Hopefully it'll be good. :)

It's Brewfest in Azeroth! I swear, that's why I love this game.

Schedule change, yet again. I'll post it once it becomes final.

On another note, we got Christmas off, and we're flying to SoCal to see family and friends! Send me an e-mail if I don't get in touch with you about hanging out!

It's kinda scary thinking about Whateley and my future in Austin. We're looking to buy a house (as soon as we get off our duffs and go visit some banks for pre-approvals), and from what I've read, once you buy a house, you better plan on living in it for at least 5 years before selling to make sure you don't lose any money when you sell (it's 7 years in a falling market, like we've got now). So pretty much, we're signing up for the long haul as soon as we buy a house. It's kinda weird, cuz that means that if we ever want to go back to California, it'll have to be at least 7 years from when we buy a house. That's a long time from now.

We were working on Whateley's parents on getting them to retire out here. After all, their only grandkids will be here. But it's not as easy to work on them when we don't see them face-to-face. And we're both not very good phone people. Part of the problem, of course, is that our schedules just don't allow for us to be active when other people are. Which is just an excuse... but it's a better one than we're just lame people. :)

I remember a lot of people told us it was good to live out of state for awhile, and we can come back later. But having moved across three states, it's not an easy endeavor, and one we're not likely to take on again lightly. It cost us a lot of money and effort to move. Oh boy, you have no idea (unless, of course, you've done it yourself).

And it's different from moving away for college cuz you leave a lot of stuff behind at your parents' house and take only what you need. But we took everything we might ever want, including the stuff we don't need but don't want to throw out, like my old yearbooks and my stuffed animals. And that just added to the headache since that just added to our stuff. And we definitely promised ourselves that we'd never do it again if we don't ever have to.

So having said all that, now that living in Texas is a reality for us, and will be for awhile, it's kinda scary cuz we have to make friends, we have to plant roots, and we have to make a life for us. A co-worker got arrested the other day, and his roommates are scrounging to figure out how to make his bail. He's a Texas-transplant also, and he knows no one else here also, and his family is back in California. Heaven forbid Whateley or I should ever get arrested, but I'm not sure who else we can count on here to be there for us.

It's just scary pulling up and settling somewhere else so far away. Whateley and I are lucky in that we have each other. I don't know how the other people did it who came here by themselves, especially if they don't know anyone here. We're also making friends with co-workers, though it's getting difficult since our schedules are getting shifted around. Hopefully it'll stay still long enough for us to get a few more months in of stability. At least long enough to get some good gaming sessions in. Whateley's been dying to run a game for so long. If our old roommates from California ever make it out here, he'll be in heaven cuz our old roommate was a huge driving force behind gaming sessions back there.

Anyway, I'm in a contemplative mood. I'll end with this bit of news: it looks like we've become friends with another couple at work, and they'll willing to let us crash their Thanksgiving (assuming we're not working that day). Cool. :)

Yet another schedule change...

Tuesday through Saturday, 3 pm to 12 pm... CDT.

Awww... no comments about my and Whateley's poo conversation. :(

My company's been trying to be helpful in regards to our future and possible career paths. But the sad fact is, customer service is 80% of the company staffing, and while it is one way into the other aspects of the company, it's not a guaranteed route, and the skills needed for that end requires so much more other training/knowledge than what you can get doing customer service.

Not to mention, it's all still back in SoCal and we'd have to move back if I want to work in those departments. Sigh.

Like I was saying to Whateley, I'm not sure what lies in my future... but I'm not sure it's in the company that I am in right now. But then, maybe what we got from that company was a means to move out of Southern California. And perhaps one day we will move back, when the real estate market isn't so crazy and we actually have a snowball's chance in Hell of being able to afford a place and raise a family.

Meanwhile, I need to get off my duff and re-install Maya on my computer and work on my portfolio.

I need to stop being all depressy. So much a... woman. (Um... direct all outrages to Whateley. He's a MAN. It's all his fault.)

****** POSSIBLE GROSS-OUT ALERT *********

Some snippets from my conversation with Whateley while we were driving home from work (edited for clarity):

Whateley: "Ugh, that poo was so big... well, let's just say, the same amount was out of the water as in it."

Me: "So, it's like you gave birth to a baby..."

Whateley: "No, I gave birth to it's uncle."

Whateley: "I could have kept looking at it longer but the automatic flusher kicked in."

Me: "You have automatic flushers?"

Whateley: "Yeah. Why? Don't you?"

Me: "No, we have regular flushers." (makes hand gesture showing the flushing motion)

Whateley: "Well, it was that way back in SoCal. And I wish we had automatic ones."

Me: "What? People would actually not flush after going?"

Whateley: "Well, men can't give birth. When we produce poo, it's like we're proud of it."

Me: "That is so gross. Wow, I can't believe they took that into consideration for the men's room here. Is that so for all of the men's rooms?"

Whateley: "Yep, all three of them."

Me: "Wow."

Whateley: "Y'know how many women's restroom are there? Two."

Me: "Really?"

Whateley: "Yeah, I think our building used to be owned by Apple, and it looks like an executive bathroom. It's got a lock, even, though it's not turn on. But it's much nicer."

Whateley: "I know it may be sexist or something, but I think that's okay cuz there's way more men than women."

Me: "Oh, I agree. I mean, it's not like we have to worry about waiting in line in the bathroom."

Whateley: "But y'know, I was really proud of that poo."

Me: (groans) "So, why are we still talking about this?"

Whateley: "I love you."

Me: "Why else would I be listening to you talk about your poo."

And... scene.

On a weird note, I made Whateley some naeng-myun and he wasn't crazy that the soup is served cold. The package came with some mustard and we both put a bit too much in it. And now, for some strange reason, I have a craving for naeng-myun. It may be the shrimp chips we got today. It's spiked with wasabi flavor.

Too many things I need to do!

- get oil change
- get a haircut
- write the IRS to get my money back
- schedule an appointment with the bank for mortgage pre-approvals
- get RAM for my computer (this is more of a should I or shouldn't I thing)
- install Photoshop and Maya again
- find my tablet and fancy dice set
- make sweet tea
- call Cigna and demand a new insurance card
- find out where the DMV in this town
- find a hose to wash off all the bird poop from Pip

Ooh, it's getting late. Better go to sleep!

I was telling Whateley today how weird it was that I got used to the patches of grass on the side of freeways being green. In SoCal, the world was usually brown, and it wasn't until after a huge storm, or even a very wet season, that the wild grass would be green and you wonder why the world looked so vibrant that day. I think I made a post a long time ago about driving home from church one day, and being amazed at the green hills and making it look like I was in Ireland or something.

Sure, Austin's having a record rainy season, but it's always so humid, I'm guessing the grasses are always green... except perhaps in the one day of winter. :)

Whateley's been amazed at seeing fireflies at night. I've forgotten what they're like, since the last time I saw them was in Illinois as a kid, but it's cool to see little streaks of light in the air in the dead of night. I'm amazed at the really loud bugs that inhabit the trees. I think they're cicadas. Really, really loud. Crickets too. It weird that the giant bugs aren't freaking me out as much... well, just a little. Some people on the radio was joking that there were so many bugs this summer that the bats that live under the South Congress bridge don't have to fly off, they can just eat where they are. Largest urban bat population is in Austin, by the way. One of these days, we're gonna have to haul our butts there before 6 pm and watch them fly away for the night's feeding.

So how am I liking my new city? So far so good. We're sad that we don't have family here, but we love our new life. We gotta get off our lazy duff and go talk to our bank about mortgages.

We've also gone Southern in one way! We started making "sweet tea," which is just pre-sweetened ice tea. We watched an episode of Good Eats, where Alton showed how to make simple syrup which is a better way to sweeten the tea instead of table sugar. Anyway, it's pretty good! We're gonna have to serve you some, my faithful readers, if you ever come visit us.

That's it for now!

Update:

So, right after Whateley finished training, I got called in for a meeting and got offered a position in another department, different from Whateley's but on the same level in the overall company strata. And before I knew it, I the last two days of my week ended up being training for the new department (at 8 in the morning... but I'll get into that later).

So my new schedule will be Wednesday through Sunday, 1 pm to 10 pm.

Which is good since Whateley and I can still carpool and we still have one day off together. It's kinda sad, though, when I realized that we won't have a full weekend off together. But I guess that's good in that we can foist off errands on each other, and I'll have time to go to the library and stuff on my solo day (for some weird reason, Whateley doesn't like going to the library, although he likes bookstores... something to do with late fees... though I'd rather pay a buck in late fees to check out a book rather than buy it and then find out I hate it).

I am excited about my new position. I'll be dealing with less bitchy customers since I'll be dealing with more specialized cases. I can't really discuss it on a public blog, but let's just say, it's a better position... at least, I think.

Okay, gotta get going. We gotta go run errands... which means we're going to the comic book store and getting a boba. :)

Today was Whateley's first day of training for his new position at work. He's going to a different department, which will look good on his resume when he tries for the higher positions later on. Our department's growing like mad, and they didn't get enough supervisors to come over from SoCal, so it seemed like a lot of people were getting promoted in a much quicker time. So Whateley's got a good chance once he proves himself in the new department.

His training was at 8 am, which is about two hours after we normally go to bed. We tried resetting his clock a bit by waking up at noon the day before (which meant we would've gotten about 5 hrs sleep). So we were tired and cranky all day, but at least we were tired when it came time for Whateley's new bedtime. Last night I woke up after 4 hours and I couldn't go back to sleep. So I ended up hanging out in our living room, finishing up a Star Wars novel that I got from the library. (I've pretty much have given up on Star Wars novels, but this was one by Timothy Zahn, who, other than Michael Stackpole, is the only Star Wars novelist that I don't expect to frak up the franchise.) I finished the book just as Whateley's alarm clock rang to get him up at 7 am.

After he left, I crashed and woke up 7 hours later. Erg. When my body wants sleep, it will take it! I went to Costco by myself, the first time I had done so since we got to Austin, and it took me a little longer than we usually do cuz I got lost a few times trying to get on the freeway. It's annoying.

After Whateley came back from work, we got some boba, went to the comic book store, walked around University of Texas (ahhh... reminds me of Berkeley, except Berkeley was never this hot and humid), then got pizza from this popular college pizza place called Mellow Mushroom. They have some pretty good pizza. We entered the trivia contest, which that night was about Family Guy. Apparently, Whateley's lack of sleep smothered his expanse of useless Family Guy trivia and we got 7/10 correct. Here's one question for you: How many times has Peter and the Giant Chicken fought?



Answer: 4 times. They fought in 3 episodes (and almost came to blows in a 4th) but in one episode, they fought, made up, went out to dinner, argued about who'd get the check, and then started fighting again. So that makes 4. Apparently.

Anyway, on a different note, our company's trying to boost morale by offering more incentives and recognition. The bad part? It was all happening in SoCal, so we weren't eligible for them. Finally they decided throw us a bone by giving all the SoCal-transplants a party tomorrow afternoon. So that means I better get up early so I can get there in time.

So back to Whateley's promotion (which is more of a lateral move, but it's still considered a promotion since you can't directly enter that department from the outside) means that we won't have the same hours anymore, though he lucked out and got the same days off. And I'm trying to get promoted, so our schedule may not mesh together for awhile. It's kinda sad that Whateley and I can't carpool together anymore, nor take our breaks together, or even have lunch together. Can you believe that since mid-November of last year, we were together 24/7? The only times we were apart was when one was sick while the other was not. I don't know if that makes a healthy marriage or not, but I'd rather we spend too much time together than not enough.

Oh well, we'll always have Azeroth.

I admit it, we got our Harry Potter books from Walmart. Where else are we going to get them at 1 in the morning without a pre-order?

Not much to report right now, just trying to get all the things we need to do done. Erg.

More later... I swear!

Ergh. I'm not sure how costs compare when paying a mortgage versus rent, but at least when we have our own place, we will have our own washer and dryer, and we won't keep losing money to machines that will suck up our money but not work! Argh!

Vegas was great, btw. Sigh. I'll make a bigger post about it later. But in 13 hrs, we gotta go back to work again... and we won't be able to take any more time off until the holidays... if we're lucky. Sigh. Back to the grindstone.

Oh, and I was watching Victoria Beckham: Coming to America, and dang, I don't know if her ditzy-ness is an act or if it's real, but damn, she is a complete airhead!

Wow, as of yesterday, Whateley and I have been married for one year. How time flies.

And we're headed off to Vegas to celebrate tomorrow! Wish us luck in Megabucks!

Our couch from IKEA broke. Luckily, we can still return it. But we realized that one of the "load-bearing" parts of the couch is actually made up of pieces of wood glued together, and that's not enough support, it seems. It actually split along one of these seams.

Anyone know of a good furniture store in Austin? I've never bought furniture before except from IKEA, and personally, if all of their couches are made from this type of glued-together wood, I'd rather spend a bit more money and get a quality couch that will last us 10 years.

Whateley tried Tuna steaks for the first time today! Of course, he had it fully-cooked, which isn't as good as it could be. And next time, I will make sure to make it rare instead of medium-rare, which I realized cooked out too much of the yummy goodness inside.

I'm very proud of Whateley for his willingness to try new foods, especially fish. I've heard of a Thai place w/ an all-you-can-eat sushi lunch deal, so it looks like we'll have to drag ourselves out of bed early one weekend to go there.

We had an interesting talk with the Chase Bank representative today regarding mortgages. Apparently, first time home-buyers that are planning on buying a home to live in have pretty good opportunities available to them. Mainly, we don't need the 20% down payment that Homebuying for Dummies says we need. Yay. So there's a good chance that at the end of our 6-month lease here, we'll actually move in to a house instead of extending our lease. Yay! :)

On a different note, I finally got a library card so I can happily borrow all those books that I want to read but not buy. Though, sad to say, I think the state of Austin's libraries are sorely lacking compared to the vigorous bookstore industry here. What does that mean?

Oh, and I'm suppose to say something nice about Whateley here since he keeps pouting that I say mean stuff. Anyway, Whateley has been very sweet to me lately, and he's been telling me that I'm byoo-tee-ful every chance he gets, which just makes me go all jelly-like. He's such a sweetie-pie. :)


Alright, that's enough of that.

Ugh. This month's Discovercard bill is gonna suck. Not only does it have many of the hotel charges for our drive to Texas, it also has all the shopping trips to Target and Ikea to set up our place. And it also has our new car insurance payment, since we had to switch over to Texas liability limits, etc. And... it also has the charges for the plane fare for our trip to Las Vegas for our upcoming first wedding anniversary. Urgh.

We're trying to keep our spending as low as possible, but that's just hard to do. I found out it costs more money to set up utilities because of deposits and initialization fees and whatnot. Just more money being hemorrhaged out of our house-buying fund. :(

I'm most likely being paranoid. After all, part of moving here meant a $2 an hour raise for me, and cheaper medical insurance since I can get my own. (It's true, it costs more for Whateley to insure himself and a spouse, than for us to each get our own insurance. I'm not sure how normal that is.) But I'm thinking due to an increased cost of living (since we're living on our own and not sharing an apartment with roommates), all that will even out. At least for the moment.

Sigh. My parents were paying for my car insurance until recently when we obtained our own coverage in Texas. (Long and faithful readers, or just friends and family in general, will remember my really bad accident on August of 2005 made my insurance go through the roof.) Anyway, since Whateley's the primary driver now, my car insurance has gotten much cheaper. My mom offered to send money to help pay for it, but I asked her to send money when we're ready to buy a house instead.

But that's another thing! Most books and websites say you have to have 20% in down payment if you want to get a decent rate. But 20% of a $200,000 house is $40k! I mean, we could go cheaper by moving away from the heart of Austin, possibly even to a nearby county or suburb. But Austin's so small already, it doesn't seem necessary. I am amazed by the housing prices here though. I see listings for homes that are $120,000 that could easily fetch $600,000 in Orange County. I know there are ways to spend less on a down payment, but I haven't gone past skimming the first chapter of Home-Buying for Dummies yet.

What's funny is that Austin is Texas's most expensive real-estate, although I hear parts of Dallas are really pricey. Which makes me wonder how cheap it is to buy a house in a podunk town. But then, why would I want to live in a podunk town? It was a small victory when I realized there were Asian markets in Austin, and we found one place that sells boba with barley.

Anyway, I'm sure this drama with house-buying will continue throughout the coming year. At least for the next 6 months, we'll be in our little apartment (which is very nice, btw! pictures to come as soon as I find the usb cable for our camera). If anyone wants to come visit, you can sleep on our nice couch from Ikea!

Please come visit?

So far, I have mixed feelings about Austin. I like our new office building, I love that we can afford to live on our own without forking over half our paychecks to rent, and I'm starting to like the quirkiness of a college town. It remind me of Berkeley... without as much homeless people. And since it's the summer, it's actually the quiet time of the year, which is the opposite of places like Santa Monica, which is a tourist town and summers get busy. Supposedly there's a millionaire homeless man (or woman... I mean, with a name like Leslie it's hard to tell) that likes to run for mayor.

But the humidity is driving me nuts! Which is sad cuz my skin's never been better. But I really hate having my clothes cling to me when I step outside for five minutes. We got our first electric bill, and sigh, air conditioning is going to bankrupt us. Well, it's not that bad, our computers and TiVO probably suck up more juice, but still....

And the freeways and roads don't make sense. It just doesn't. I mean... it sort of does if you think about it, but you do wonder why they decided to do it that way. For one thing, each freeway (or highway) has an access road that runs alongside it that goes one way. Each cross street has a loop that lets you get from one access road to the other side access road. My question is, why have access roads at all? Why not just have regular two way roads, and have on and off ramps off cross streets? You don't know how many times we've stayed in the left most lane expecting to make a left turn only to end up making a U-turn because we entered a loop.

I do have to say, if there's one place we've really come to like, it's the Kerbey Lane Cafe. Well, there's four locations, but it's not a chain. They try to focus on natural, organic food with especially locally grown produce. And the best part is they're open 24-hrs a day. Whateley and I have been making a weekly date that on Saturday nights, after our shift ends, we go there and begin our weekend. We've invited other people to go with us, and tonight was the first time we've actually had people accept. Which is weird since we're both not social butterflies, and we rarely plan things and try to get people together. So it was just a bunch of nerds and geeks hanging around talking about WoW and whatnot. We discovered that the men's bathroom has a fountain like sink where the water just flows in sheets... and the women's has a plain faucet. So not fair. Whateley was going to sneak me in to look but a couple of burly guys were in there, so we decided against it.

Anyway, if anyone will actually come visit us, we're totally taking you to Kerbey Lane Cafe. And maybe to see the bats go out in the evening. We haven't even done that yet.

Quick entry:

Whateley compared Mabo Tofu to Hamburger Helper, especially since we upped the amount of ground meat (turkey) and served it over rice.

I was trying to find an eloquent way to express that Mabo Tofu is not Hamburger Helper, but words escape me. If anyone else wants to try, please do.

... I mean, he's talking about making Mabo Tofu without tofu! You... you can't do that. That's like having... well Hamburger Helper without hamburger!!

Oh, and we found a Korean market here! Several asian markets, actually. And Whateley had his first taste of Choco-pie. And he'll soon have a taste of mabo-tofu, shin ramyun, chapagetti, and Home Run Balls. I'll turn him Asian yet!

And of course, we've found a couple of boba places, although only one with the barley that Whateley likes so much.

Wow, I've gotten some positive responses (okay, only 2) about my road trip description. Which is kinda funny since I described the worst of it and not the more interesting parts of it. :) So here's more about our drive to Austin:

When we made our first lunch stop, we were looking around for places near Phoenix, and that's when I realized that not only are the Phoenix freeways weird (similar to Austin's actually), they're elevated, so you can only see the signs that are high up like the famous golden arches, and you can't really get out without some careful planning. Oh, and MickeyD's is dead to Whateley, so there's no way we're eating there. (One day I'll post a list of the things in the world that are dead to Whateley, and a few that are just on notice.)

Anyway, so we stopped off on the edge of Phoenix and while we got gas, there was this Ma and Pa sub sandwich place, so we decided to eat there. I gotta say, that was one of the best sub sandwiches I've ever eaten. It was a big more expensive than a Subway, but it was pretty dang good. So Whateley and I decided to try to eat at only Ma and Pa places while we're driving. It didn't quite end up that way, since that night we just ended up getting take out from Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The next day, on our way through New Mexico, we thought we'd drive straight through and eat in El Paso, but then there was this giant thunderstorm over El Paso, so we stopped off at this truck-stop-y place where they had a 24-hr buffet restaurant/gas station/souvenir shop/fast food court, and so we decided to stop, get gas, eat lunch, and wait out the storm. Well, this place was interesting since it was probably some sort of chain but we've never heard of it before since it's only in truck stops. I ordered the chuck steak cuz I was having an odd Alton-Brown-moment where I remember his show on how to make chuck steak taste good, and I got curious about how chuck steak tasted. Well, there's a reason why it's cheap. And also I could think was, didn't I have this before in those elementary school lunches? Anyway, that was my last time ever consuming chuck steak, and I'm not sure if I ever want to again.

I wasn't sure how long we could wait out the storm before we'd lose too much time. I even called Bleusky just thinking I needed to wait out the time. That and Whateley and I were having a debate about what time zone we're in. Turns out I'm right... of course. :) (Hey, Whateley can post his own rebuttal if he so chooses.)

Well, most of the storm had passed so we decided to head out. Now El Paso is an interesting city. If you don't know, it's close to the border of New Mexico, but it's also on the border to Mexico. And if you look over the train tracks, you can see a fence and beyond it was Mexico. And y'know those "Save the Children" type infomercials where they show shanty towns of starving kids? They were right there on the hill facing El Paso! Weird!

Border security is tight there, and pasty-white Whateley and model-minority-Asian me got waved through. But when I talked to my co-workers who made the drive, some of them were pulled over and their stuff was searched. The main difference? They were either darker-featured white, or lighter-featured black. In other words, they looked Mexican. Wow, racial profiling in action.

So yeah, that night, I got icky food from a T&A cuz that was the only place that was open, although the lady who worked there said there was a Subway that was also open, but by that time I had already gotten my food.

So once we left Sonora, we soon left the Interstate and we were either getting spotty reception or we were roaming, so we didn't call each other much. We were driving through "country" so there were just fields of grass with the occasional ranch here and there. And trees were starting to pop up... a lot. We stopped off at this one location in the middle of nowhere to take a bathroom break, and it was weird cuz we were literally driving through a run down street with old, broken down buildings with an old "For Sale" sign and a few scrabbly people walking on the streets, and we stopped at a gas station that looked like it was the only business left in town. Kinda creepy.

So yeah, here's what we figured out as we're driving this highway: there are tons of trees in Texas! As we've discovered when we experienced the 4th or 5th thunderstorm in 3 weeks. So it was weird just driving down this four-lane road (speed limit 70 day, 60 night), and we pass mostly empty grasslands followed by clumps of ranches. Real live Texas ranches. So the stories are true. Oh, and whenever you had those westerns that took place in desert-like areas... well, that's probably because they filmed in the friggin' desert and not in Texas.

So when we arrived in Austin, the freeways were a bit weird (still is... but we're getting used to them), and then we arrived at our apartment complex, parked, and I opened the door... and was promptly met with a wall of humidity. Erg.

Yadda yadda, I'll just describe our first meal here. The lady who went through everything with us and gave us our keys, then told us of this Thai restaurant nearby, so we went over there. It was pretty good as Thai places go, though it wasn't by far the best. But we noticed there were some pictures on the wall of the owner with Keanu Reeves. (Which, of course, made Whateley crack, hey, see, there's at least one Asian person in this city.) Anyway, by chance we happened to rent A Scanner Darkly a few days later, which coincidentally was shot and produced all in Austin, and we think while they were filming it, Keanu Reeves ate at that restaurant a lot. Or at least once.

Anyway, if anyone wants to visit us, we are compiling a list of cool places to visit and eat (mostly eat), so c'mon, dust off that old planner and plan a trip to good ol' Texas!

Okay, another post! I wouldn't mind talking about our drive here, actually:

So the day before we took off the movers were coming, so we had pretty much stayed up all night finishing up the packing. We crashed at 6 am, but fortunately, the movers didn't come until about 5 pm, so I was able to sleep 'til noon and get at least some sleep. But Whateley, as I found out, used to be a nervous, stressed out wreck all the time. He's calmed down in the past few years, but moving brought it all out of him. So while I got 6 hrs of sleep, he got 30 minutes.

So that night, when we were staying the night at Whateley's parents' house (since we had to move out of the apartment that day), we just crashed at 10 pm. Which was weird considering 10 pm was when we usually ended work.

So we got up, had some breakfast, and we got on the road! And that's when I found out that Whateley has never caravan-ed before, so after a tense phone call of me going, "where the hell are you?" we met up again, and then we were off.

Anyway, I had an iPod full of Morning Stories and the drive was for the most part uneventful. We only set out to drive about 8 hours, although it ended up being more like 9 or 10 since Google maps is a liar! We first stayed in a town right on the border between Arizona and New Mexico, and there wasn't much there. We crashed and woke up early, so when we took off before 10 am, I figured, hey, we're making really good time! We should end up at our stop tonight around 6 or 7 pm!

Well, y'see, that's when we discovered this one crucial fact. Arizona is in the Pacific Time Zone. New Mexico is in the Mountain Time Zone. Texas, for the most part, is the Central Time Zone. So our next stop, which was in the western portion of Texas, was two hours ahead of where we started off in the morning. So when we arrived, it was almost 10 pm (the extra hour, again, due to Google maps being a liar). And this place, Sonora, TX, is a hot tourist spot cuz of some caverns nearby. But apparently, you can't get something to eat past 9 pm. Our only option was food from a convenience store. :-6

Erg. But we arrived in Austin around 3 pm the next day, and thus began our Texas adventure!

One note, the humidity was incredibly thick that day and I had a panicked feeling that that was normal. Luckily, a local told us it was not, and after a few days, the humidity turned down. It's still more humid than SoCal, but it's actually very nice. I'm realizing now how dry the air was there. I haven't even used any moisturizer on my eczema-affected face.

Okay, more later!

Dang, it's been such a long time since I posted!

Anyway, for those of you that don't know, Whateley and I moved to Austin, Texas. I know, why the frak would we do that? Hmm... why did we?

Well, our company opened up another center here, and we decided that the cost of living is much cheaper out here than in SoCal, and we have a decent chance of buying a house within a year instead of 5 years later like it would take in SoCal. So... we up and moved. We have no family and no friends here, outside of our fellow co-workers who also made the move. It was crazy and a part of me still wonders if we did the right thing.

At least Austin in the one spot of blue in a sea of red. I mean, sure our votes won't count for anything in any presidential elections, and any state-wide initiatives probably won't go our way, but this city is electic on its own. After all, the unofficial slogan is "Keep Austin Weird." We went into the comic shop the other day and one of the T-shirts they were selling showed Bush holding the Statue of Liberty like a vampire holding it's victim, and you see two red fang marks and blood dripping from his mouth. So I'm glad not all Texans are blindly pro-Bush.

Right now our work schedule sucks cuz we're setting everything up and hiring like crazy and training people like crazy, but it promises to get better as time passes. Hopefully Whateley and I can get a schedule where we can meet up with our WoW buddies and do raids. Now that we're in Central Time, we can better meet up with our Pacific Time buddies.

We just finally got Internet, so in the next coming days, I'll post about our drive to Texas and more about our impressions of this odd little city. Little, cuz geographically, it's actually smaller than Orange County.

More later, please feel free to comment!

Okay, okay, I sure haven't been good about keeping up with this blog. I've been busy. More on that later.

Anyway, today we had my dad's 60th birthday bash. His legal birthday was actually before mine on February, but we decided to have the party closer to his lunar birthday (the actual day they remember it being) since it would give us more time to plan. We tried to keep it as simple as possible, but boy, it still took some coordination!

For any of you that don't know, the 60th birthday is big in Korea. It's sort of like the 100th day, 1st, then 60th birthday were your big milestones. The first two because if you lived past those dates, then you were probably going to keep living. The last was if you were actually lived long enough to see that age, it was a big deal. Anyway, modern medicine has made these milestones more symbolic than anything else. But hey, any excuse for a party.

Anyway, I had less-than-subtle hints from my grandma that this had to be done, so craziness aside, we buckled together and put together something simple and not too much work -- which means at a restaurant. It was at the Chinese restaurant that my family's been going to for years. We know their food like we know Mom's cooking. I hope they didn't mind the gaggle of people. More showed up than we expected. Kinda like our wedding, actually.

Wow, my dad's 60. That means we're getting old. As much as our relatives want to call us kids, we ain't no mo'. Heck, we're about to pass out of our twenties very soon, and my sister already has. It's also kinda making sad to realize that while my parents probably have 20+ years left in them, they are in their late autumn years and they're not too far from retiring. Perhaps like Whateley's parents, they too are looking forward to seeing grandchildren and whatnot. I'm glad to see their lives getting better after decades of struggle, too.

Anyway, I guess I'd best be signing off. Whew, one more thing off our list!

My computer died recently. It's been horrible. WoW-withdrawls!

Luckily, my new computer will be arriving tomorrow. Yay!

Anyway, there's been much going on, but I'll blog about it after I've had a chance to make sure I've broken the news to everyone I know in real life first.

4-day weekend ahead!

Whateley and I took a couple of days off in addition to our normal weekend, and we're gonna spend that time going places and relaxing. We need it!

Our shift is so timed that around the last couple of hours of our shift we go from "hey we're taking volunteers!" to "you have no choice, you're staying on overtime" to just as we leave overtime they say, "hey, it's back to volunteers again!" I know. Sucky. Perhaps we'll have to switch shifts around so we miss that window.

Not much news now but more news to come soon... I think.

Dang, it's been almost a month since I posted!

Not much has been going on. Whateley's birthday passed and he lamented about turning 28, which is so damn close to 30. He also got really sick and had a 103-degree fever at one point. He was miserable for a week. There were a couple of days where I went to work without him. That's when I discovered this: work sucks. The only reason why it was fun was cuz Whateley was there sitting next to me.

My birthday's coming up and this morning (well, morning in our time) we got together with Whateley's extended family (with visiting relatives!) for brunch to celebrate. I told myself this time, screw looking proper, I don't care if my in-laws think I'm a pig, I'm gonna eat 'til I'm stuffed! Anyway, it just reminded me how different Whateley's family is from mine. For one, we were the youngest ones there, and lamenting about being almost 30 was met with absolutely no sympathy.

There ain't much more news, other than we've discovered the wonders of Trader Joe's soups. I'm a few episodes into the third season of Babylon 5, and it's a really good show. The writing is superb. The budget was cheap and they couldn't hire the best of actors, but it's still a very good show. If anyone wants to see an anti-Trek sci-fi show, that is it. (If anyone cares for an explanation, then please pipe up!)

Anyway, the only drama seems to be virtual, where our guild lost a few people due to getting kicked out or leaving the game. I'm having fun. I don't get why other people aren't. Maybe they're not treating it like what it is, which is... a game. There's no need to base your entire social existence on that game.

If anyone has any news or links to share, please feel to post them in comments!

So I'm reading this article which was basically a summary of Terry Irwin's (Steve Irwin's wife... or widow, I guess) interview on TV, and there's a picture of her on the verge of tears with a sad expression on her face... and all I can think is, boy, she's got a lot of wrinkles on her face! Dang, she looks like she's going on 60!

I know, I know, I'm going straight to hell.

But this only proves the point: if you're white (well, just lack a good deal of melanin in general) and you spent a lot of time outdoors, protect your skin! Sun damage will age your skin faster than cheese!