Money!

Good news: I got paid this weekend. I went from "I wonder if I'll have enough money when I go to Taste of Madison" to "I wonder where I should start furniture shopping" in a matter of hours.

I just finished up with a week of training. It was tough sitting in class for seven hours five days a week (flashbacks of high school! Aaagh!), but I learned a lot. This coming week I'll have some free time, which I'll dedicate to getting closer to taking certification exams and probably goofing around with a couple of servers.

I'm having a quite low-key Labor Day weekend on the social scale. I was mulling going home but due to my previous lack of funds I scratched that idea. Yesterday I had a pretty fun time. In the early afternoon I went for a bike ride with some co-workers of mine through the Arboretum. I borrowed a bike from a friend of mine and had a nice leisurely bike ride. Afterward we met up again to go to the Taste of Madison at Capitol Square. A lot of restaurants from Madison (some big chains too) have small entrees for $4 or less. I had polish sausage, paad thai, french fries, and an ice cream float. It was delicious. I had a lot of fun showing off to my co-workers (two from Illinois and one from Minnesota) my familiarity with Wisconsin.

Today I did quite a bit. I hit up Craigslist and bought a set of chairs and a desk from a guy about to move to Canada. I saw the chairs about 20 minutes after they went up, called him and checked them out. I bought them and he asked if I wanted anything else at his place. He had a nice looking desk for a decent price so I jumped on that. He even disassembled it for me so I could fit it into my car. I just assembled the desk and am now sitting at it.

I still have quite a bit to do. I'm not sure I want my desk where I have it. I was originally planning on putting it in a more open part of my living room but I decided to put it next to where my cable modem and router are. (Loyal reader: "Well, Ted, we all have no idea what your place looks like!" Me: "Okay, I'll clean up my place relatively soon and take some sweet pictures.")

I also need to furniture shop again tomorrow. I went and scouted out different furniture stores for mattress and bed prices. There wasn't one store that popped out at me as THE store to get my furniture, but at least I know a price range so I can plan it out and attack tomorrow. Here's all of what I need:

• Bed (frame, preferably wood)


• Mattress with box spring


• Dresser


• Coffee table

Steinhafel's is having a pretty good sale and American will throw in a LCD TV if I spend enough money, so I'll check those places out. I'm also considering a place over on East side that a friend recommended. Big day tomorrow!

Re-Connected

Okay, so I finally got the Internet again. Charter (the Internet company) took a while getting here (I guess it didn't help that I was only available weekends) but they got everything set up.

The first two weeks at Epic (hello, all my co-workers reading this) have been pretty good. I've been meeting a lot of new people and doing a lot of orientation and training. I did get an opportunity to do some semi-hands-on stuff this past week and I really liked it. I'm really looking forward to finishing up training.

My new apartment is pretty nice. I'll try to clean it up here pretty soon and take some pictures for all to see. It's on the west side of Madison about 2 1/2 miles away from the office I'll be spending most of my time at. It's spacious, the management is nice and it has a pool (which I haven't tried out yet). I still need to put some effort into furnishing, however: while I do have a couch, TV, kitchen table and Xbox, I still need to get a bed (I've been sleeping on a portable mattress), a dresser, chairs and some more living room furniture. Once the money starts coming in it shouldn't be long.

This afternoon I'm probably going to be going to a sweet corn festival in Sun Prairie with some co-workers. I love sweet corn. As for this week, I'll be doing some more training and some more tinkering around with and getting used to things at work. Should be fun!