I’ve blacklisted the terms “poker”, “casino” and “texas”. They can no longer appear in a url that’s part of a comment. Please let me know if these rules ever interfere with any legitimate posting on this blog or on any of the other notblog.com hosted sites.

There are just too many stupid gamblings sites looking for google rank at the expense of my blogs. Hopefully this will solve that problem. Please comment if you have questions or concerns.

I miss having friends at work. It’s really lonely eating alone. ):

I sure can feel for mikey.

(Did I say after work tuesday Jerry? After work Wednesday. Really!)

Oh, and did I mention that I think it’s funny that a tier 1 secure complex has less restrictive internet policies than Evil Inc?

Dave: 1
First Day: 0

I managed to make it out with sanity intact. It wasn’t bad at all really. It was 9.5 hours, but that’s the breaks. I started halfway through a 9/80 week, so I need to make up the four hours if I can. I may end up just going in for a little while on Friday.

Forms were filled out, signatures given. Pictures were taken for badges (horribly bad ones) and speeches on proper employee behaviour were digested.

(I got your message Jerry, I’ll give you a call Tuesday after work)

My first day at General Dynamics is tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it. I mean, the company has an actual process that new employees go through, to aquaint them with the building, company practices, etc.

I’m sure I’ll blog more about that later. This last week, we’ve been house hunting. GD gives me per diem for a seven day house hunting trip. In other words, I’ve eaten steak four of the last six nights. (:

Melissa and I have three houses that are strong possibilities still. We’re looking closer to work, so we’ll see what we can find in that direction.

I was able to finally “fix” the passenger door lock on the Exploder.

Melissa and I attended the Church of Detroit today. Excellent sermon regarding fear and it’s purpose and proper place. The upcoming sermon series is based on a book called “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker. Apparently the author doesn’t make any overtly Christian references, but the pastor felt that the author did an excellent job with his book, so pastor is tying the book into a Biblical perspective. Interesting, to say the least. I know my description doesn’t really convey that, but whatever. I’m a bit scattery at the moment.

Just trying to transition from the college-kid schedule that I’ve adopted back into a working schedule (ie, no more staying up till 2am) has been interesting.

Melissa and I spent another whole day house hunting. We have a couple strong possibilities. The trouble is, they’re each about an hour’s drive from work. That’s a lot of driving. The big question is if it will be a where’s-my-gun sort of commute, or a wow-that’s-a-nice-vista sort of commute. Time will tell.

Other than the drive though, this one house that Melissa and I have been looking at is a real strong possibility. We’re going to spend all day tomorrow looking for houses as well, so we’ll see if we turn up anything new.

I really wish I knew if I will be able to deal with an hour commute. I suppose it’s more of a mental fortitude check. If I can figure a way to get a few adders for my base fortitude of 12, then the fortitude check versus the 3d8 commute shouldn’t be too bad, on average, right?

• If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail
• Come on Froyd, this is the last time we’ll ever get to do this!
• Brint It!
• I saw him first!
• Did Ryan fall off the level?
• Floor vs Deck

There were so many others that Mikey and I talked about tonight, but I can’t remember them all. Hopefully he’ll think of a few more that I left out.

Feeling really melancholy tonight. Heading up to look at houses in the Detroit area tomorrow. Or rather, we drive up there tomorrow, then start looking at houses Monday. This place had started to feel like home.

Please keep Melissa and me in your prayers, friends who are faithful. Melissa and I are excited about the transition to a new job, house, area, people, etc. We’re also scared, sad, etc. Every new thing in life comes at the expense of an old one. S’ok. I’m not good at writing what I’m feeling down succinctly (butchered that spelling, I think) but when it comes down to it, I liked life here. It was good.

On to the next chapter.

Well, actually I didn’t. But I did find out that plumbing barefoot is a bad idea. Hot soldier on the feet. Ack!