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Finding Living Space in a bigass Hurry
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Bleh, fixed. Ah well, still happy with my much shorter walk.
Jesus, what a clusterfuck. Glad you're doing well though, KiTA!
PS4:MrZoompants
As far as cleaning up, I find the best time to do it is the moment you walk in the door after work. Don't let yourself sit down or get distracted by anything else. Just tidy your place up. If you do it every day, it should only take 5 or 10 minutes after the first couple days. Your place doesn't have to be spotless, just get your goddamn undies off the couch and throw away all the obvious big junk, papers, wrappers, etc. Do the thorough cleaning on Saturday morning before you start doing anything else. Do your dishes as soon as you're done eating and they'll be easier to clean than if you let everything dry on and harden for hours or days. If you have a dishwasher, rinse the dishes of everything that will easily come off before you put them in it (which you should be doing immediately after using them).
Cheap food ideas for you -
Greek Chicken Sandwiches - mix a cup of white vinegar with a cup of olive oil. Whip with a whisk until they're thoroughly blended. You'll know when they're mixed enough when it starts to turn cloudy and thicken slightly. Add generous amounts of basil, oregano, and thyme. THis is basically a Vinaigrette. Insert a couple of chicken breasts and let them stew in there for a while - hours if possible. Put the chicken breasts in a small oven-safe dish and pour ~ 3/4th of the mixture over them so they're swimming in it. Throw in the oven @ 350 for about 35 minutes. Cut into the thick part of the chicken to make sure it's done all the way through. Chop up some romaine lettuce, pepperoncinis, and/or black olives (I use kalmata olives, but they're expensive. Black will accomplish the task.) Mayo up some big onion buns, smack a chicken breast on it, throw your veggie mix on top of that, and then sprinkle it with some of the leftover sauce. If you want to make more smaller sandwiches, butterfly the chickenbreasts and seperate them so you have more thinner chicken slabs. Have some of the veggie mix & vinaigrette on the side.
Shepard's pie (slightly modified) - Brown a pound of ground beef. Throw it in an oven safe bowl or casserole with 2 or 3 cups of frozen mixed veggies. Add 1-2 cans of cream of mushroom soup. Mix. Spread mashed potatoes over the top, an inch or so thick. You can use instant potatoes if you're feeling lazy, but I highly recommend mashing your own. Its really not that much work. (Cube, boil til soft, smash with a cup of milk and a few tablespoons of butter. Leave the skins on for simplicity and awesome). Once topped with potatoes, cover and bake @ 350 for 45 minutes or so. This is excellent for taking to work. If you're not a fan of cream of mushroom, you can substitute beef stock.
Try some indian - You can get decent indian sauces pre-jarred from indian food stores, if you can find one in your area. We like this one, this one, this one, and this one. All of the Shere Khan sauces are actually really good. Pan fry 1-2 chicken breasts add some carrots (which you can julienne with your mandolin slicer) just before the chicken is ready, add sauce, simmer for 10-15, serve over rice. The vindaloo will be by far the most spicy and works better with cubed lamb, but chicken is still good. If you want, you can even make the dish cheaper by dropping the chicken all together and going with just veggies like carrots, broccoli, and red peppers. Indian can be a bit of an aquired taste, but start with something like the butter chicken or tikka masala and you might like it. Its stupid easy to make.
Bacon wrapped chicken - Pan fry some frozen (thaw first) spinach with some mushrooms in a little olive oil for ~5-10 mins. Throw some feta on top. Slice a chicken breast open from the side and make as large of a pocket as you can inside it without actually cutting it in half. Stuff full of the spinach/mushroom/feta mix. Grab some bacon and start mummifying the breast with strips of bacon. The look you're going for is roughly this. Put in oven safe dish and cook @350 for ~30-35.
Roast potatoes - could not be easier and go with roughly everything. Cube potatoes in roughly 3/4 inch cubes. Leave skins on. Toss in a pan with a fair ammount of olive oil - you'll want the pan to be fully covered with 1/8th of an inch of oil or so. Salt and pepper liberally. Let them pan fry with a lid on and stir regularly until they crisp up like this. We make ours even more done than that, we like em crispy on the outside. May take some experimentation to find out how much is "enough" oil for the amount of taters you cook. If it cooks off before they're done, just add some more.
Anyway, I'm pretty undomestic myself, but my fiancee has been dragging me into the whole cooking thing. Yesterday I made a red beans and rice dish on my own which turned out pretty well, but it needs time to make. I don't have the recipe on me at the moment, but it's basically red beans (soaked in water the day before), sausage, onions, peppers, and some other stuff thrown into a pot and cooked for about 2 hours. Then add cooked rice and serve.
My fiancee also got me into chana masala, which seems an easy meal to make. Chopped tomatoes, chick peas, and a bunch of spices.
My Backloggery
sorry to make you do that dude
google maps and street view makes fools of us all
So yeah, the dryer repairman was here at like 9:15, left at 9:30 without doing anything, it wasn't making the noise. I should just head out to work, but I have the day off paid and while if I did head to work to finish the day out I'd re-gain that paid time off, on the other hand... three day weekend.
1. Discovered Rice Cookers. Yum.
2. Dell is closing down the Twin Falls Idaho Callcenter. 11/11/09 is our last day.
I am royally, royally fucked.
Don't be bashful about applying to a temp agencey, such as Kelly, Account Temps, RHI, Modus, Source Allies, Tek Systems, anything. The worst that happens is they tell you they can't place you.
I have no idea what I'm gonna do that this point. Try and find a copy of my resume first off, I guess..
And seriously, apply for unemployment like yesterday.
Someone suggested I apply for this position, where she works at:
https://www.uakjobs.com/applicants/jsp/shared/frameset/Frameset.jsp?time=1252674597492
Not sure Alaska is... a great fit for me, but free Tuition at The University of Alaska, nice.
Alaska is fantastic. If nothing else you could do it for a year or two while you ride out the bad economy. That'd give you a nifty life story, some travel experience and let you continue to eat and have a place to live.
The link doesn't work, which University of Alaska location is it at?
I don't know if you can actually file while you're still technically "employed", but you'd need to call around to confirm. Since you know the date of your impending unemployment, they may let you start the process early.
EDIT: And Darkewolfe is correct, you can't simply slap a resume on Monster/CareerBuilder and sit and wait for a job to come to you. A majority of the people who will actively contact you through that site will be trying to get you into a "sales" position and not worth your time, but you may get lucky. If you upload it, though, you can send it to dozens of job listings.
God, I wish I could find my old resume.
A new one will probably be better. Anytime I get anxious and start applying to "other" jobs I start from scratch. Too much to forget, and too much to consider, otherwise.
What up? If you have any questions re: OKC let me know. Thats where I be.
Also, there are more jobs here once you are here if interested. Teh "recession" doesn't seem to have hit us so hard.
p.s. Cost of living is hecka cheap, I think I remember you paying $650 for rent, that is like a house payment here.
Edit: Taking out the URL for the time being.
I don't drive (a problem I am hoping to fix this month) -- does OKC have public transportation? My buddy in Nash says that it's a 90 minute commute to Dell from his house.
$650 is a house payment here, too. But my apartment is as close to my job as you can get, it takes me 7 minutes to get to work. No car makes THAT a primary concern. I am somewhat glad I didn't end up buying a house a few months ago, however, I would be PISSED right now.
Oh, and it's currently $850. They let me out of my lease and THAT is how much they want for month to month. Last year it was only an extra $100 per month for non-lease, they upped it. Fortunately, one way or another, I'm only staying here for 1-2 months at that rate and it's cheaper than a $1750 lease termination fee.
Why would they do that? It's not like they're paying for your unemployment benefit.
and severences don't work like that. you can collect both. making you quit to get a check is probably illegal
for the culture, it really depends. There is some cool/good stuff to do, but you have to search it out sometimes. It really just depends on your tastes. OKC isn't Austin, but there are a lot of good people, who become solid friends, and lots of stuff to do. There are a couple of cool art districts, and the asian district is really neat (I'm biased, I live right by there, and love to try to new restaurants)
Compared to 10 years ago? OKC Is light years ahead of where it was. Downtown has really improved, and honestly I like living here. It is hella deep south though, I mean I still say y'all and all that. It's not horrible, but it is southern.
As for the Public transportation, honestly, you are going to want a car. No matter what. Mostly because I know where the dell campus is, and you do not want to live there. The only way I see a 90 minute commute, is if you want to live in like Tulsa. We have buses, but they suck and take longer than riding a bike because of the screwy routes.
You will want a car.
What kind of culture are you looking for?
OKC is one of those places where you can start up a conversation with a complete stranger in the grocery store. I think Oklahomans are some of the nicest people in the country.
Also, I should specify that I don't live in OKC anymore. I grew up there but I haven't been around for 3 years, however, I can still point you in the right direction when it comes to where to live, where to eat, etc.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahaha
You will need to buy a car if you move to OKC. It is impossible to get anywhere without a car. Welcome to the midwest.
If you have spent more than a few hours in a car in your life, this is honestly enough for most modestly intelligent adults. Also, there is no fee for applying or penalty for failing, so it's not like you ruin your life by screwing up the test the first time or ten. There's a short waiting period before you can retake it, and that's all.
The driving portion of the test is a different story, you will want to have handled a car at least several times in your life.
Ah well, my buddies locally have said they'll take me out to the random fields outside of town for driving practice.
Edit: Anyone mind peeking at my resume with me?
Actually, it's bad. There's no way I can compete with all these other guys for L2 stuff. My career at Dell is essentially over. It's a liberating feeling.
Take the damn interview. You're going to blow your first job interview anyway. Go in there and do your absolute best, because you'll discover you have some interviewing flaws you forgot about/didn't know about. You'll face some of the questions you'll be facing again in other interviews, and you'll realize some of them will catch you flatfooted. Interviewing is something you have to practice to really do well.