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March 16, 2012, 05:36:06 PM:
Farewell, Nate... You are missed.
December 15, 2011, 08:20:46 PM:
Long Time No Update?
October 18, 2011, 01:33:30 PM:
Burning Out
August 12, 2011, 10:54:12 PM:
Staying
July 27, 2011, 05:11:23 PM:
Out and About
June 30, 2011, 01:21:12 AM:
22
June 18, 2011, 01:32:30 AM:
Catsitting and Moving
June 02, 2011, 08:22:17 AM:
Posty from Worky
May 21, 2011, 02:11:39 AM:
I'm Gonna Die Tomorrow!
May 13, 2011, 03:37:11 AM:
Summer, Work, Money, Awesomeness!
May 04, 2011, 08:53:02 PM:
Job? What's That?
April 26, 2011, 12:59:05 AM:
Whew!! Moving on!
April 24, 2011, 05:04:02 AM:
AK49BWL Has a Blog???
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| Farewell, Nate... You are missed. |
Written on Friday, March 16, 2012, 17:36:06 by AK49BWL |
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It's hard to believe I'm now the longest-lasting non-supervisor on the overnight team at work... Having just started May of last year. But March 4th, one of my good friends and coworker died. I don't know any details about how it happened... All I know is, it happened on Sunday, and I didn't find out about it until the following Tuesday. Then, I'm asked if I want to work a few extra days, because Nate was scheduled to work them, and now obviously no longer can... So I said sure, and took over those hours. Well, later that week it was discovered that one of my other coworkers, Kyle, had quit. Nate and Kyle were the only two who had been working there longer than I (since another person left in November before Black Friday), who weren't supervisors. So suddenly, I find myself not only working my schedule... But two others as well, mostly because the manager knows he can rely on me, and I know just about everything there is to know on the shift.. I'm not afraid to say this because he's told me so himself. Most of this schedule loading is caused by the fact that we haven't had ANY new hires since mid-December... In fact, a good working truck team should consist of about 15 people.. We're down to 7 now, including both of the supervisors and myself. Things have been crazy over the last couple weeks... And according to some people I know, the strain on me is actually starting to show, particularly in some of my recent videos. Generally I'm able to keep it under wraps... I dunno. Maybe I'm just not getting enough sleep. Or maybe I am taking on more than I can handle. 6-7 day work-weeks are certainly not what I'm used to... But the money's nice, and I do need to save up for this coming move, because I am GONE from this state before the end of August, September at the latest.
Nate was always a fun person to work with.. A great sense of humor, always a laugh to provide when needed, never in a bad mood it seemed, just an all-around awesome guy to be around. He certainly kept the team's spirits up. One of my other coworkers wrote this on his obituary page, and it rings so true...
Nate you don't even know how much you are missed. Work is really not the same with out you there. I am glad that I got the chance to meet someone with such a good heart even tho it was for a short time. I light this candle for you my friend and hope that it helps guide your way to your eternal resting place. In Jesus name I pray for your family and friends that they have the peace and understanding.
Gone too soon!!! Love ya my friend!! God Speed!!!
Amen, K. You are definitely missed, Nate, by all of us.
On another note, Anchorage has officially completely smashed the 1954-55 snowfall record of 132.8 inches this year... And it just keeps on coming. In fact, we have another couple days of snowfall forecast over the next week or so. Polls are popping up in many places polling whether or not winter is ever GOING to end, or just keep on into 2013. So far, it's looking like the latter. Not looking good for our hopeful move this summer  ... Several commercial building roofs have collapsed due to the sheer weight of the massive amounts of snow and ice, and even our house is having issues that have never cropped up before.. Roof leaks, door frames warping on the upstairs level outside doors.. Thankfully they're not severe problems, but still nonetheless, will not help in the selling of this house.
The shelter sees less and less of me as time goes on, due both to work and rising gas prices once again... Prices here in Anchorage rose 30 cents in 5 days about 4 weeks ago, and since then, I've been keeping my driving to a minimum of to work and back.. And one shelter visit. Prices mid-February were hanging right around $3.799. Now they're at $4.159, and they'll only get higher as the year goes on. Summer gas prices always sock it to us hard. It's one of the many reasons I'm looking to leave ASAP. There's that, and I haven't gotten any new offers for house-sitting, which means even less cats for me... My closest friend here moved to Fairbanks and took her cat with her, so that's out. A cat-less Brandon is a generally low-spirited Brandon... Not to try to gain sympathy for myself, please don't get me wrong there. It's just getting old, living at home because I basically have no choice in the matter, and not even having the capability to get a cat of my own. Why is it so hard to simply survive? Why must the big corporations gouge us for everything we've got, when they've got more than enough of their share already?
I had a lot more to rant on and on about, but those things will have to be covered later... Or not at all. I've been up for nearly 26 hours as it is... Thank God I have tonight off from work. I need an outlet... Better yet, a purring cat to lull me to sleep... Not that sleep will be difficult now, lol. Heck, I'm typing sideways because I'm in bed right now... Gotten quite good at typing this way, too bad my space bar only works half the time so I have to go back every now and then  and the text is mostly blurry cuz I don't have my glasses on anymore, but I can still read the screen mostly so hopefully there aren't too many text errors lol. Anyway I'm outta here... Till later! |
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| Long Time No Update? |
Written on Thursday, December 15, 2011, 20:20:46 by AK49BWL |
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That happens a lot with me
Working lots, sleeping more, enjoying the money coming in but seriously missing being awake when the rest of the world is... Mostly because of the shelter lol. I don't get much time with cats anymore, and I've noticed that after a while away from them, I start to get irritable easier and just generally not ... fun to be around, I'll put it that way. It gets more interesting when you have to work 10 days in a row, get a single day off, then work 6 more days. Yes, this happened to me during the week before and following Black Friday And what more, the 10 days before included 7 truck unloads. Yes, you're reading that correctly, that is seven different trucks, all back-to-back day to day... I am SO glad I bought new shoes before that, otherwise my feet would have been destroyed by the crappy knockoff-branded Wal-Mart bought shoes  Never again. I'm finding out as I go along just how much I'm valued at work, mostly by how only a select few of us employees are allowed to stay late, or work through lunch (which I do, because otherwise I'm just sitting in the break room doing nothing), and lately I've been able to ask for certain non-truck days off and get them just like that.. That's mostly unheard of there, lol. Granted I do feel as though I prove my worth with each day, but it's nice to see the results coming back to me 
On another note, Anchorage has been getting flooded by storm after storm raising temperatures as high as the 40s and 50s with hurricane-force winds, breaking trees in our back yard (Chinook Winds Cause Tree Fallage - VLog 15, 12/04/2011- YouTube), then the next week plummeting them back to the teens and 20s, once again with high winds (R.I.P. Canon SX230HS + Extreme Weather - VLog 16, 12/11/2011- YouTube) and dumping 20 inches of snow on us in a single 24-hour period (WTF, Enough Snow Already!!! - VLog 17, 12/12/2011- YouTube).. THAT was interesting! (The videos are rather long, but don't let that stop you  ) -- I'm so about ready to call it in and move away from Alaska NOW rather than waiting until next summer
Hmm, one of those videos' titles reminded me of another subject... The death of my latest digital camera, my Canon Powershot SX230HS. If you watch that video all the way through, you'll discover my intense dislike for kids makes a rather noticeable appearance! I've never been much of a kid person, and less particularly so when stuff like this happens. Now I've already decided I'm eventually going to pick me up a new SX230 sometime eventually, but when I posted that video, something incredibly shocking happened: One of my YouTube subscribers told me she was going to send me her camera, which is a Canon Powershot SX130. This gave me a feeling I can't even describe, some mix of "OMG AWESOME" and "is this for real??" and "WTF!!" I should mention that this particular person (who wishes to remain anonymous) had also decided about a month or more ago that she was going to send me a bunch of other stuff for Christmas, which I think is so sweet of her.. I couldn't thank her enough haha. All of it just makes me so glad to have the so many friends online who care
There was one more thing I can think of right now that could be of interest.. Once again, I traveled out of my home city, 45 minutes north to Wasilla, to rescue a cat. This cat, who I eventually named Aries but also goes by Acey, had been dealing with sub-zero temperatures for a couple weeks outside of someone's home, and this person couldn't take her in, but was at least able to feed her. Back in this time, the temperatures were barely above 0 degrees and I can't even imagine trying to live in that, much less so being a cat having to live in that. The tips of her ears were frostbitten and one had completely fallen off by the time my friend and I were able to coordinate a rescue (as I had to figure out a good time between my work schedule).. Well, the person was able to pick her up and put her in a kennel, and said she seems like a really nice cat. So I get up there to Wasilla, and I can tell just by how easy it was to transfer her to one kennel to the other, that this was going to be a nice ride home. I got her into my truck and thought, hmm I want a good look at her, so I let her out of the kennel onto my front seat (where I had put down a blanket just in case I did decide to do something like this ).... IMMEDIATELY, she was on my lap purring and kneading away at my thighs, every now and then throwing this completely adorable meow my way. I nearly melted! She is AWESOME! Anyway, I called up my friend and let her know we'd be getting back into Anchorage in about 45 minutes, and to be ready for the most loving kitty ever -- I got her there, and finally I could see her in a full light-- She's this absolutely beautiful long-haired Tuxedo who just wants nothing but to be loved on. Probably thankful for her rescue, lol. Here's a video of the rescue from my view: Bringing Home a Cat?! - VLog 13, 11/14/2011- YouTube -- and here she is, in all her foster home glory:
![[embedded image]](https://www.ak49bwl.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi162.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ft245%2FBWL_AK_BLAZER%2FMisc%2F001.jpg&hash=47460d7167bf31b65208d9e85dc940488ac088a5)
-- Photo by her current foster mom
I worry she may never leave, as the person she's staying with is a major cat lover, but already has eight of her own... Haha! But, even if she does stay, that is probably the best place she could possibly want... That place is built for the cats.
With that, I think I'm going to wrap this up... Hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas and a happy New Year! Be safe
w00tw00t, 1000th forum post!  |
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| Burning Out |
Written on Tuesday, October 18, 2011, 13:33:30 by AK49BWL |
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Not sure what more to say. More and more it seems like many days are turning into a single day... So don't ask me the date, because you're likely to get a date that's like.. Three or four days ago? A lot of that has to do with my working a lot more, with this being the busy season... We have been getting trucks to unload anywhere from three to five times a week... And a lot of people left recently, which means we haven't been getting everything done on schedule... Which means I have been making some decent savings, but it's also wearing me down. I'm writing much of this at work, though I know it will likely be amended and won't be posted until later... And I already know that tonight I will be getting two hours of overtime at the very least... It has been this way for two weeks now.
The only cat I've seen in the past week or so, ran off from behind where I parked my truck at home last night. I miss catsitting particularly; that's about the only time I ever get to pretend I have my own place and my own cat (or several, depending on location). Shelter time has been impossible due to my work schedule and the unending fact that the human body requires sleep... And when I do have a single day off, generally this is how it goes down: I get home at 6AM or so, get to sleep about 10AM, sleep until sometime between 6 and 8PM, stay up much of the night doing stuff either on the computer or watching a movie, maybe even playing something on my XBox I recently inherited from a friend who bought a new one due to this one being broken.. I fixed it, he said keep it LOL... Anyway. Fricken A.D.D. Then I go to sleep again to get ready for work which comes again that night. This is the biggest thing I hate about working nights... Everything is closed when I'm open.. And staying up during that day before working, not an option... Because I like being capable of working without falling asleep. And staying awake most of the day after I've worked is nearly impossible too because my job is quite taxing physically. This being the busy season with Christmas coming up, I've been working 4-6 day workweeks and minimum 8 hours, lately up to 11... With only one day off in between work days, and never really knowing which days they'll be, more than two weeks in advance. Today and tomorrow I have off... I'm gonna go get seriously catted up. Hope I find a really good snuggler...
Snow is making its way down the mountains and that's only adding to my general frustration with everything... Mostly stemming from the fact that Alaskans have no freaking clue how to drive as it is, much less throw snow into the mix. I'm fully expecting that my truck will be totaled (again, if that's even possible) before this winter is over, seeing as I drive 30 miles round-trip of in-city driving, and apparently my headlights aren't bright enough despite my having much-brighter-than-usual aftermarket headlights... Cuz people still pull out in front of me... Optional blinker use, headlight bulbs out that never get replaced, non-functional brakelights? This is all the norm in Alaska, be forewarned should you ever decide to come! Should have been out of here this year but no... Instead I got to spend $520 on a new set of winter studded tires because my old ones became my new summer tires when my old summer tires became too worn to safely use. Whatever... Wtfe... At least I'll be making money.
Was considering making a vlog, but instead decided that if I wrote this down, not only would I feel marginally better, but fewer people would have to see it... Actually I still ought to do a vlog anyway, because I'm ending my new "Slow Motion Saturdays" series.. Not enough interest for me to bother keeping it going. More of a pain in the ass actually. A comment on my most recent one reads as follows: "You are one, bored individual. Damn." I give up trying to branch out in different directions, as it's pretty frickin obvious people only come to my channel for the cats. Sure I'm over 1500 subscribers strong, but ten days after I upload five shelter cat videos, and my Slow Motion Saturdays (I have five of them) only have 624 views, and I've uploaded one every Saturday.. That may seem like a lot to some people, but consider that those views have accumulated over FIVE WEEKS, and one of those SMS videos (NOT the most recent one!) only has 45 views as of this writing... But the biggest thing is, those most recent five shelter videos (all shot on the 7th of this month) have 867 total views between them... 867!!!! That's 243 more views than.... I mean, really? That's a sign, people, that I'm wasting my time with SMS. I mean heck, even my vlogs don't get viewed as much as my shelter videos. And of course now YouTube is ****ing everything up again so no one is seeing anyone's videos due to a bug in the subscription system.. Makes me wish I could get near as much viewership from somewhere, ANYWHERE else. Damn monopolies. Stats: SMS video views in order uploaded, first one was put up on the 17th of September -- 201, 142, 142, 45, 94. Now, the five cat videos, all uploaded on the 7th of this month -- 158, 156, 180, 147, 226. My 1000th upload (Voices of More Shelter Cats) has exactly 500 hits as of this writing, and that was uploaded AFTER the first two SMS videos.. So let's combine the first two videos' counts, we get 343.. W...T...F. Yep, total waste. And I don't really like em anyway cuz I can't really put any sound to them, mostly because my camera doesn't support sound in video when working in slow-mode. So, no more. I may consider figuring out some other regularly-scheduled upload, or they can just wait until I get some time off to spend with some cats... Like today or tomorrow. How unfortunate, I'll need to make a video to drop the news cuz nobody knows my website even exists despite the link in the description of every video I've uploaded since the beginning of this YEAR.
Sweet Jesus I complain too much for someone who has it as good as I do... |
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| Staying |
Written on Friday, August 12, 2011, 22:54:12 by AK49BWL |
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So the house "For Sale" sign officially came down yesterday. We're staying in Alaska another winter. But you know? It's really not so bad, because right now I'm in a good situation. Truthfully, I'm in a lot better situation than most my age... As much as I hate to admit it I live at home rent-free, I have a job, plus a little side income from my YouTube videos, not to mention several people calling me to do catsitting jobs all over the place.. You know I don't turn them down .. And then I've got the shelter cats and all my friends at the shelter, best decision I ever made for myself, starting volunteering there.. Some would say I've got it made. I almost feel bad for my brother who is moving to the dorms of a Reno, Nevada college, because he will be paying his own way down there... Then I remember that he's the reason I like sleeping in places other than home, lol. His truck is now for sale; I just did a complete tune-up on the sucker yesterday and it's running 10 times better than it did before... Amazing what some routine maintenance will do, eh? I was almost surprised his truck was still running with what I pulled out of it. But anyway... Now that I know we're not leaving, I can actually make plans again, with no worry of whether or not I'll be here to carry them out! That'll be nice. But knowing this same deal will just happen all again next year... Ehhhh I'll deal with it then lol. My room is pretty much staying as-is because I'm virtually not even living there anymore with all the catsitting jobs I've taken lately It's all good
The big news in my world right now is the camera I just bought.. YES, another camera, Canon PowerShot number 3 I've gotten in the last 3 years! My first was the SD770IS, bought by my parents for me Christmas of 2008, then the SX20IS I bought the first day of February 2010, and now I have a brand new SX230HS, which I just bought around 10 days ago! The most awesome feature about this new camera? High Speed Video, 14x zoom in a small package I can fit into my back pocket with ease, 720p time-lapse capability, full HD 1080p video shooting, 12 Megapixels of picture awesomeness, and so many features and shooting modes! As I've already told most of my viewers on YouTube with this video, I'm quite satisfied with this buy, and it may be my last for quite some time! I think my next buy will likely be a DSLR, but I've determined they're way out of my price range at the moment. As for now, the SX230HS takes some amazing photos -- It's also the first camera I've owned that has a CMOS sensor rather than a CCD sensor, which is quite a step up. One of the many pictures I have yet to upload from this camera can be seen below. That is Sally, which leads me into my next paragraph 
Once again, I am catsitting in a house of 8 cats, and it's the greatest thing ever. Four of them can't get enough of me, Sally and JB the most so, with BB and Moose closely following. Bullie comes up every now and then, while Minnie, Woodie, and Sadie tend to stay away.. I have never once touched Woodie. It makes me sad because he's the most beautiful orange and white tabby guy ever, but so scared of everything that moves.. I don't understand it either because he's lived in this house all his 6 years or so of life and has the greatest owner a cat could ever ask for... Other than me - Maybe he's just a one-person kitty. Nothing like Sally, who comes up to everyone to say hi! So I'm here for the weekend, but at the same time I work tonight, Saturday, Sunday, AND Monday nights... Bleh! One thing is for sure, I can count on JB and BB to get up on either side of my head and purr me to sleep when I get in at 6:30, haha! Ah I love these cats so much. And they are seriously fuzzing me up with all their shedding!  I'll need a change of clothes just to go to work!
Today marked the first really sunny day in over 2 weeks.. A very welcome change. Especially since Wednesday evening, the skies exploded on us .. Haven't seen rain like that since August 2007 in Houston, Texas... And in that instance, we almost got flooded out of the place we were staying because drainage couldn't drain the rain fast enough. Someday I may upload the footage I took of that particular storm.. Assuming I ever find my old DV Tape camera and its tapes. Today we hit 67*F, and it was really nice being able to put all my windows down in the truck and not get drenched And it's really funny because I consider 67*F to be warm... Texas just might destroy me. But I was able to get out and somewhat enjoy the weather this afternoon, which was nice.
In the meantime, I am about ready to head back across town to my actual home to eat, go feed Nudgie, and then get ready for work... Oh yeah, I'm doing DOUBLE cat-sitting duty, LOL! 9 cats are relying on me currently... 
And the picture of Sally, like I said before:
![[embedded image]](https://www.ak49bwl.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffc00.deviantart.net%2Ffs70%2Fi%2F2011%2F224%2F7%2F4%2Fsally_28_by_ak49bwl-d46cl6z.jpg&hash=e81caf424042b0152e14c06c2af76857de8e5f73) |
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| Out and About |
Written on Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 17:11:23 by AK49BWL |
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Haven't slept at home in over a week.. And I love it! Though that's mostly due to the cat that lives at the place I'm staying being the most snuggly purr machine kitty EVER! Nudgie is the greatest  and it's so quiet here otherwise... The house is way off the main road, on the quiet side of town. It's not like at home where we live on a main artery to the upper hillside, and my brother stays up all hours of the night talking to himself and friends on the computer  .. And when he's not doing that, he's got "Today's Best Music" playing on his iPod, which is.. Crap, put lightly; I still maintain that the 70's put out some of the greatest music of all time (I'm particularly fond of The Eagles). Makes me wish I lived down the hall rather than right next door. And no... Closing the doors to the rooms does not help.. The walls are too thin.  Yes I'm complaining, but when I can only manage 3-5 hours of sleep a night because of it, yeah I'm gonna have something to say! *Sigh* 
I'm using a lot more smilies in this post than ever mostly because I finally got them all installed a few days ago!  And for good reason, too: 64 posts in 4 days from several members of a less-than-stable cat forum that I'm helping out... That's cause for something to happen, LOL. Got a couple forum modifications up my sleeve as well as multiple selectable color schemes (for the forum at least, not sure about the rest of the site yet), but I've been taking my dear sweet time on that, sadly enough... Been working and sleeping a lot. I feel like I'm actually worth something at my current job, and I have never felt that way before... But the work sure takes my strength right out of me by the end of the shift, haha! Hence coming "home" and falling asleep with a loudly purring cat next to me is really nice. But anyway... It's almost hard to believe I've had this site up for a little over 2.5 years, and to see it being used like it has been in the last couple days.. Gives me mountains of incentive to keep it going! I started writing this about 3 hours ago and have since completely forgotten what I was going to write then...
So I'm kind of in an iffy mood lately... Not depressing per-se, but not fantastic either. The big part of this is the lack of prospective buyers to the house, and the heightening potential of staying here yet another winter. I know I said in my last post here that "I've come to a final decision" blah blah, but the reality is, I don't have a clue what I'm doing or when I'm going to do it ... My brother has a definite flight out of here around the middle to end of August, but it seems he's the only one... And I know he won't miss this place. Though he really does need to get off the computer at some point to fix his truck and sell it, but as usual, his should-be-high priorities, simply put, are not. Whatever. I've offered to help him with it since I'm really good with the trucks and know exactly what his needs, but I'm not going to do it all myself. In the meantime, I'm swaying back and forth between staying here with my parents for another winter, or finding someplace else to live, whether that be still in Anchorage or down in the Lower 48 somewhere (likely Texas). Gah... Why can't someone just buy this place? It'd make everything so much simpler.  <-- I like this smiley. It makes me .
My kitty has finally decided to get up and go outside for a bit, so I figure I should probably get up and do something with the day as well.. It's not raining like crazy anymore so I may just go climb a mountain  ... Hmm, I've got several videos to edit and post, and lots of other things to do, but I just do not have the will to mess with them right now. I do, however, have to share this picture of Nudgie, who is completely crashed out to the point where I can do anything with her and she will NOT wake up!! Yeah it's a bit blurry, but it's a 2 second exposure, you cannot expect perfection 
![[embedded image]](https://www.ak49bwl.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffc07.deviantart.net%2Ffs71%2Fi%2F2011%2F208%2F4%2Fb%2Fnudgie_deep_sleep_by_ak49bwl-d41ujxv.jpg&hash=65a20e73823e5636ce71a0e4d5d5ef8da795a5fe) |
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| 22 |
Written on Thursday, June 30, 2011, 01:21:12 by AK49BWL |
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It's that time of year again.. The time where I get to find out how many forums I'm on that I haven't visited in ages.
Yeah, I'm going to be 22 years old tomorrow, go me. What's kind of sad though, I can't really get excited about it, because I'm fairly certain it'll be just like any other day I've had... Not only that but I'll be working and then sleeping through most of it, haha! A $2100 check mails out with my name and address on it tomorrow, and I can't even really get excited about that because I won't be able to keep but maybe 100 of it... I owe too much to my parents for paying my truck's insurance the last year I haven't had a job, lol. I told them I'd pay it back when I had the ability, and well... Here it is. SO I can't really complain too much about that I guess. Interest-free loan. And now that I have a job and a bit of income, I can pay everything off and start paying my own way mostly... Still live at home rent free, until this fall rolls around. I've come to a final decision that I am going to move out from my parents this year, even if the house doesn't sell. May not be the smartest decision I ever make, but I'm tired of living at home, and even if I did stay, I would be kicked out before too much longer anyway because I don't know how to shut up ... Oh yeah, and the threats of kicking me out are grating on the nerves as well. My brother's going off to Reno, Nevada for college come August, and there's no way I'm still hanging around much longer after that. Ultimately, I'd much rather leave on my own terms, and on GOOD terms. Otherwise, what is there to fall back on if this does end up being the stupidest thing I ever do?
So I have this list of stuff I would really love to have for my birthday, but I'm prepared for the disappointment of not getting any of them... Haha. Mostly because everything I want is either too expensive or too large; I don't want more large items to have to pack and move, like a new computer monitor or a TV, as much as I would love to actually have one of those things. I think I may already have too much stuff to fit into my little Chevy Blazer. May have to buy or rent a uHaul or other small enclosed trailer. Lots of stuff to think about. There's also the daunting question of whether or not my truck will make it through the 4000+ mile drive from here to Texas, trailer or not... I mean, it's in good shape right now, but things tend to happen when you least want them to. Like the first time we drove the Alaska-Canada highway in 2000, my dad's 1990 Silverado blew an alternator, and the trailer we were hauling exploded a tire and a hub cap... And I want to say it was 2002 when we tried to go on a camping trip and destroyed the transmission's 3rd gear in the same truck.. Granted that trip was still made fun overall, but replacing that transmission afterwards was a b!tch-and-a-half. Then 2003, a driving vacation to California turned into a vacation from hell when my mom's dad died, and the 1994 Suburban we were in tried to blow its engine to pieces, and in 2007 while we were in Houston, Texas, my dad broke his foot getting out of a boat, then we nearly got flooded out of the place we were staying by a tropical storm... Yeah. We don't really have good luck in the "long drives" or "vacations" department. And I'll most likely be going alone if this place doesn't sell? Hmm. Seems I'm just asking for trouble.
Well that puts an end to yet another long and most likely pointless only-one-person-will-ever-read-this blog post... Have a good night, and if anything of interest happens tomorrow I'll be sure to report back. Maybe. Or maybe I'll take a few notes from DudeLikeHELLA and start a vlog on YouTube. At least that'll be noticed lol. 1346 subscribers and counting! As for now.... It's time to go to work. |
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| Catsitting and Moving |
Written on Saturday, June 18, 2011, 01:32:30 by AK49BWL |
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So finally, THE HOUSE IS ON THE MARKET! This move is getting closer and closer! We already have one person scheduled to visit the place at 1PM tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon, so we have to be out of the house before 12:45 I think... Fun fun, I know where I'll be! My shelter kitties miss me
Meanwhile, I will be returning home tonight from a 1.5 week-long catsitting job with Sammy and Miss Kitty, two of the most awesome black cats ever. Kind of sad I won't be seeing them on a daily basis anymore, but I can always visit... However, there is one cat there I can't just visit anytime: Bucky the backyard stray. He seems like he's been people-friendly before, but is no longer entirely trusting. He's a beautiful lynx point short hair with bright blue eyes, and he stops by the house every night between 12:30 and 3:00 AM for a helping of whatever food he can get. Now I don't really know for sure what kind of socializing the homeowners try to do with him, but he's a very skittish cat.. However, over the course of this past week, I've been slowly bringing him around.. And then my efforts were brought to a halt when the skies decided to let loose with torrential rain. UGH! You can sort of follow what I was doing with him by watching these four videos: So Close to Bucky! - Ever Closer to Bucky - Sitting Outside With Bucky - Bucky Took Food From My Finger!! ... I'm really going to miss Bucky.. And I hope he'll be okay out there.. Really hope he actually has a home and just roams around whenever he wants... But his skittish demeanor states otherwise.
In other news, my room is cleaner than it has been in years... A little too clean for my liking but hey! If it'll get the house sold faster, I'm all for it! Not to mention, now I know about how much space all my stuff will be taking... It's really not as much as I had thought it'd be. I'll be able to just throw the little bit that remains in use into boxes, and get rid of the bed and nightstands (which are not going with us), and my room will be completely empty lol. Now if I can just figure out something to do to keep this website up while I have no place to plug in the server... This site is hosted at my home, for those that don't know. Thinking about picking up a remote host temporarily... As much as I don't like the idea of remote hosting, lol. Not to mention, from what I've been told, it's next to impossible to get a host that allows connections on multiple ports... And I really want a Windows server, not Unix. Granted I can deal with Unix (as this website had a FreeBSD Unix server back-end for almost 6 months before I switched to a Windows-based OS), but it's definitely not preferred. Dedicated would be nice too.. But those get expensive. So that's one dilemma to deal with at some point.. I really don't want to be paying for that remote host for any longer than I have to, although my revenues from Google Adsense would probably take care of it... Eh, I'll figure it out. I just hope it doesn't take too long to get settled once we get down south.
In the meantime, with Miss Kitty sleeping on my lap, here's Sammy enjoying the beautiful day today I love these cats.
![[embedded image]](https://www.ak49bwl.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffc06.deviantart.net%2Ffs70%2Fi%2F2011%2F163%2F5%2Fa%2Fsammy_11_by_ak49bwl-d3ip21l.jpg&hash=db7cd92e7d730bcd9cc517e50d9b7d5236b57923) |
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| Posty from Worky |
Written on Thursday, June 02, 2011, 08:22:17 by AK49BWL |
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Go away post about death nothing happened... I mean, duh.
Rain for the first time in almost three weeks... Hey, I can handle that! Went and got myself sunburned last week sleeping in the front yard in partly cloudy weather because I had been awake since the previous day's 11:00... Yeah, never do that when you have to work nights lol; sleep in until like 2 or so, or sudden passing will occur
And SPEAKING of the job... I am very much enjoying myself. My supervisor is great, sure to tell us when we're doing well, almost constantly if our work is just that good... I gotta say, it's not too often you get a boss like that. (And no, I'm not brown-nosing... I'm pretty sure my boss will never even know my site exists, haha!) The job pace is great, and the scheduling is VERY consistent; I can count on a 15 minute break at midnight and 4AM, as well as a 30 minute at 2. Always. And! $1 20oz sodas! They sell my favorite mountain dew here, Voltage. Kick of caffein AND ginseng. Energy for the night. And the very best part: NO CUSTOMERS!
So um.. Maybe I forgot to mention WHY I stayed up for almost 36 straight hours last week... Well, up until this past weekend, we've had a contractor working on completely replacing our front porch and steps. Yeah, the concrete one built in 1968 was falling apart, and on top of that, was not up to code standards... And it was ugly. So now we have a really nice and well-built wood porch and steps; the only thing left from the original build is the bottom concrete platform. So why was I out there? I could easily have slept through the work (ha, guess I did anyway lol). But I had my cameras out there, one taking time lapse, and one capturing individual moments. I have yet to edit all of the 37 separate clips together... That's a job for when I have a good, completely free day... And those are not coming lightly these days, what with an impending potential move, house sale, garage sale, and I've been made aware that this weekend we're due a delivery of a crapload of soil to fill in the rest of the porch headwall and holes in the backyard... Ugh, but hey, if it'll help the house sell, bring it on.
Trying to think if there was anything else worth mentioning... Nope, nothing coming to mind. I'm tired and running on caffeinated auto-pilot so gimme a break
Because I'm typing this on my iphone on my breaks at work, and I'm too lazy to go through the extra motions required, no pic today lol. Maybe I'll make up for it in my next post and hopefully this posts and I don't have too many Damn You Autocorrect moments, LOL. |
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| I'm Gonna Die Tomorrow! |
Written on Saturday, May 21, 2011, 02:11:39 by AK49BWL |
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Anyone who believes the title is as stupid as this whole "rapture" thing. That's all I'm saying on that matter, lol. And what's funny is, even if it IS true, I won't have to answer to anyone about it because I will be dead... But really though... Don't get your hopes up.
First night of actual work at my new job was GREAT! It's an incredibly fast-paced environment, which is awesome because it keeps me awake at those hours of the night (10PM to 6AM). They liked the way I work and I'm definitely on for a few more nights this month. Money, yay! About time someone gave me a chance to prove my worth despite my admittedly crappy job history (don't ask)... I'm not as bad as they all say lol. And they sell 20oz sodas in the break room for a dollar... Which is absolutely unheard of in Alaska. Best part is, they have Mountain Dew Voltage, my favorite of all the Mountain Dew drinks.. Pure win right there! That vending machine is going to get a lot of business from me lol. I think I'm really going to enjoy this job as long as I have it... Which should be a very long time if I have my way about it.
I need more to do on my site... I've debugged all my scripts so I get no errors about them in the error logs.. The blog page is finished completely now, I have no current intentions of doing anymore work with it... Thought about maybe doing a page for all the cats I've done video of, and linking in pictures for each of them... Heh, talk about dialup-unfriendly .. Well then again I guess my videos are about the same if not worse for dialup users. But really.. Who uses dialup anymore anyway?
So, those of you who really know me, know I'm not really much of a gamer... I have a desktop that is technically designed around game play, but it gets more used for video editing. I play Halo once in a great while, and that's about it. Well, recently, my brother got me to try out a more recently released game (which is still in beta), called Minecraft. And.... It is addicting!! He found this multiplayer server that is basically an under construction model of the original Pokemon red/blue/yellow region, Kanto.. And I, being the poke-nut I sort of am still, just HAD to get in on this! I think I played for nearly 5 hours straight before I realized it had even been more than 30 minutes I mean wow, not many games I play, I get really into like that anymore. It's pretty awesome. It's a good thing it only really runs well on the desktop... Because I don't start the desktop much for anything but video rendering, so truthfully Minecraft probably won't get much attention from me. But it's still awesome.
I've been really wanting to buy a new camera lately... But I literally just cannot decide what I want. I'd love to have a DSLR, like the very recent release of the Canon T3i... But at the same time, I want something I can take really good video with, and not have to worry about messing something up... I've heard that using live-mode on DSLR cameras can do adverse things to the image sensor over extended periods (false or not, I don't know.. Need to research this)... But the ability to zoom in and out at my own rate rather than waiting for the zoom motor to do its thing would be a MASSIVE plus. The other thing is, the DSLR doesn't have any sort of internal memory, whereas most camcorders have at least 8-16GB internal memory... And you don't have to worry about the speed of the SD card being too slow because the internal memory is good enough.... And for the video shooting I do, the files get taken off the camera before the memory even has a chance of filling up. There's also another thing I really want.. Video time-lapse. My Canon PowerShot SD770IS has it. I cannot find it on ANY camcorder or DSLR (though maybe they have the feature and I'm just not looking hard enough). This drives me crazy lol. I really like taking time-lapse video, and the ability to shoot it in HD (and longer than 2 hours at a time) would be REALLY nice! On an opposing front, I would also love the ability to shoot faster than 60 frames per second (fps), which would give me the ability to shoot a video and slow it down a ton, but the final output would be sooo smooth (think of it as being able to see a bullet as it leaves the gun sort of video). The weird thing I found is, Canon doesn't even have any camcorders that can shoot more than 60 fps! I'd have to look at some other brand, which wouldn't be my choice as I'm a Canon lover.. But alas... The search continues. Maybe I'm just too picky, and the perfect camera for me doesn't even exist  I should probably save my money anyway.
But with that... Not much more I can say Have a good death tomorrow |
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| Summer, Work, Money, Awesomeness! |
Written on Friday, May 13, 2011, 03:37:11 by AK49BWL |
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Ahh the weather has been so nice lately! I've landed a job, been accepted for partnership on YouTube, and there was one other thing.. I'll think of it in a minute. It's almost like my luck is making up for the failure that was 2010, lol... Not complaining in the least! Now if we can just get this house on the market for sale, things will REALLY be looking up! Granted that may not mean we'll sell it, but it's still a start... And if we did manage to sell, that would be GREAT!!
So today marked the end of my new job's "general" orientation process... Tuesday was great, all the applicants were together and doing the same thing, and able to interact with each other... Today, well.. I almost fell asleep They had us on computers today for almost 5 hours going through the store orientation stuff like store layout, safety, job specifics... And it's not that any of that is bad... It's the orientation software they used, it's sooo BORING!! It's almost like they're catering to an audience of 12 year olds who can't comprehend the English language rather than 20+ year olds. And I wasn't the only one to think so; two others actually brought that up to the supervisor, and she AGREED haha... But we had to do it so it was more a case of shut up and bear it really SO, thankfully that is over. I'll be starting the actual job portion on the 19th (a week from now), as that's when the first real opening in the schedule is. One thing I really like about the position is, I can wear basically what I already do.. Jeans, logo-less t-shirts.. I'm so very happy about that, as that means I won't have to change anything in that regard. Oh, and related, if we DO manage to move this year? I asked the manager, and Kohl's should be able to transfer me to another Kohl's in whatever location I end up! SWEEEET! Just please don't make me do that orientation again..
The lights in the sky are staying on much longer... I can tell that's going to possibly be an issue with my scheduling, but we'll see how it turns out. My shades ought to help. But with that, the temperatures are also rising, and there's barely any snow left anywhere except much higher elevations. The local hiking mountains are still buried, but even they're clearing out quite a bit. It feels so nice to be able to drive with all the windows down and not freeze to death, haha! Or get sprayed by vehicles spewing the slush everywhere... Now that's fun. I'm so happy summer is almost here!
I remember what that other thing I was thinking of is now.. Something REALLY interesting! I finally decided to let go of a much older version and upgrade Mozilla Firefox from version 3.5.19 to 4.01 on my primary computer. Not a big deal really, but I must admit it's about 5 times faster than the older version, and I was even able to keep most of my 3.5.19 add-ons. Funny thing is, I know that even FF4 is going to be obsolete soon, because they're already working on FF5 and 6, lol! Whatever.. I might upgrade when it comes out, or wait another two years and keep version 4 like I did with 3.5, lol. Oh, did I really say that was interesting? Oh well, MSIE sucks!
On a computer-related topic, let me introduce you to the concept of YouTube partnership, which I mentioned in my first sentence here, but I've been asked by several people what it means so I'll elaborate a little. YouTube partnership is where you have a lot more channel features, and the ability to earn revenues on any video you post and choose to monetize (if all the content in the video is not copyrighted content, of course), in exchange for YouTube posting advertisements on and next to your video... Basically you earn a share of the revenue made from every view that advertisement gets... And even more if it is clicked. (Note: Please do not click-spam me.. Google Adsense doesn't take kindly to such things That goes for this site's ad banners too.) In addition to that, I can now pick and choose my own video thumbnails (so I can put my higher-resolution and better photo of the cat there instead of the default video screenshot), put a big banner image on my channel page, and other fun little things... But needless to say, the biggest perk is making money off making and uploading videos. I'm happy to have another source of income, even if it is very little.
Well that about wraps this post up. Let's do something a little different... Check out Flattop Mountain and its surroundings!
![[embedded image]](https://www.ak49bwl.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffc04.deviantart.net%2Ffs71%2Fi%2F2011%2F132%2F7%2F7%2Fflattop_and_surrounding_by_ak49bwl-d3g7m47.jpg&hash=ad3a7ec9f86c152cc76c853fa12a40b6212b9454) |
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Quite fun with cats, especially playful ones.. Check out around 1:44 in this video: 
