This past weekend, that all changed. I am now (half) living in Portland again. Thus far, it rocks. My commute this morning as a three mile bike ride down hill into the city. Not a bad way to start summer.

My goal for the weekend was to move my day-to-day things, making sure I could begin living at the new place by the end of the weekend. Strong friends were busy this weekend, so, at times, that seemed like a challenge. After seven car loads and no truck, we got it. I am now living at the new place minus my bed, couch, dining table, and desk.

Planning a move around a holiday is less than ideal. Tomorrow I leave for Wisconsin.

Now I have mooched off a couple people from time-to-time to avoid riding home at 4:00 a.m. or the monsoon that was May in PDX. I, like most people, am far from perfect.

The car took a couple cranks today, but mostly had no issues starting. For a 14 years old, this car is lasting quite nicely. GM might take note of how it used to make cars.

How did I celebrate my re-entry into the car world? Apartment hunting, purchasing bike parts (ironical), sitting in traffic (woohoo), and grocery shopping. (For all those would be no-car-peoples out there, grocery shopping is a pain without a car.)

No, I am not going to now stop biking. I will be riding to work tomorrow – rain or shine. Pattern continues. I will probably only drive to errands.

I actually have not felt this great, physically, in years. About seven years. Exercise rocks. With exercise comes, eating to keep up. For those of you who thought I ate a ton before, now I eat double that, making grocery shopping even that much harder.

Hopefully, I will be moving to PDX at the end of this month.

I had just a moment a couple weeks back. This time a song caused it. When it came on my Pandora station, I literally stopped working and could not focus again for about a half hour. Since this day, I have had the song on repeat.

The song: Where have I been all my Life from George Strait.

You can listen below:

God bless.

Going into the day, I was still leaning toward actually attending the auction. Yes, yes, I know I said I would not buy a house this year. Looking at the possible purchase prices of some of these units, I was curious enough to get more information.

The building was open to the public, so we went through about a dozen units. I found two units I was really, really, really interested in 1618 and 2018. Both are the same floor plan – one bed, bath, and study – facing Southwest.

I spoke with two realtors while traversing the building. One basically told me I would be an idiot to not – at my age – buy one of the units. The other thought anybody who bought was an idiot since purchase prices were expected to be 60% of the minimum auction price. This person also told me unit 1218 – same floor plan as I liked – was a short sale she was trying to sell. The most recent offer on that until was $215k, putting it at ~40% increase.

Those purchase prices plus huge taxes and larger HOA convinced me to not buy – again. Although it is a lovely place in an area of town that is most likely going to boom, I still should not buy.

After taking this test (hoping I passed), I had a question. Why is this process manual? In today’s world of data aggregation, we still manually obtain Census data. Really? I would imagine there are data feeds out there to get the ball rolling in the automation realm of this process.

Private industry should be conducting the Census and selling it to the Department of Commerce with wicked audits. In its ten-year Census off season, it could, for example, generate much of the data for the Department of Labor and Statistics.

Anybody out there agree? Disagree?

Today I took the time to find the top of my desk between researching for an interview I have at the end of the week. I found out a couple things about myself:

• I have a ton of books. Holy crap. In addition to a bookshelf containing all my textbooks from college, there are also five moving boxes full. For some reason, I enjoy keeping these. The shelves on the bookcase are beginning to sage from the weight. I think I will need a new one in the future.
• The computer I took to college is now broken. It will not even load in Safe Mode. I guess seven years will do that. I had intended this to be a backup for music, movies, etc. This may not be necessary in the near future. Either way, I might have a project coming up.
• Finding the top of my desk really just meant moving things from the desk to my futon or my living room. The living room pile, mostly old electronics, will have a ceremonial departure. The rest needs to be in a filing cabinet or something. Go projects.

My goal will be to use this room more often. In the near future, I should have plenty of time to create a work inducing environment as I look for a new job.

I also feel I need a new desk. My current desk is nice and all, but it has an oak top. This surface is not nice to write with. Although I do not actually write with a pencil/pen often, but when I do, this desk is not sanded finely enough. The surface area could be bigger too.

This post is not the most entertaining I have written, but, personally, I am glad I have the first of this cleaning done.

Listen up folks; I am going to Europe in two days. Four (maybe more) countries in 17 days. Here we go and no holding back.

Here I come Dublin, Barcelona, Pamplona, Paris, and Amsterdam.

(Note: If I were to die from bull injections or otherwise while over there, I hereby give all my assets to my sister, Kirsten L. Digmann. DJD)

I think it might be time to get a new microwave.

Go Pack Go.