Apartment hunting

How we found our apartment . . . actually how I found our apartment lol certainly wasn't easy. Living in Albany at the time and spending the weekends in Charleston with Chris didn't leave us much time to really inspect places. I spent months online while I was sitting at work in Albany looking for apartments. I looked on craigslist and tons of other websites. I would even use google maps to to see what the area looked like because I didn't always trust the photos people put up of places. When in Charleston Chris and I would ride around looking at the area of some places. Sometimes we would get there and I would say, "keep going, keep going, DO NOT STOP". Yea there were a few that were pretty scary looking hahaha. We wanted a place that was in a good safe area since he travels a lot and I would be by myself. He wanted to make sure I would be safe. After months of searching online, driving by places, picking up pamphlets and application paperwork, making phone calls about prices, we finally settled on this one. I found it on craigslist. I used google maps to see what it looked like since they didn't post any pictures. I liked it. It seemed alright and it may sound silly but when I looked at google maps I check out what cars are in the parking lot. It kinda of gives you an idea of the people that live there. Is that a little judgemental? Sure, but it's also true. The cars in this parking lot didn't look junky. They looked like they were kept up well and there was even a porshe. So we rode by to see things in person. We really liked it. It is a small 4 building place with 8 apartments in each building. It is on a small street next to Savannah Hwy so it was close to everything. Across the street is an older neighborhood which I really liked. I don't like how apartment complexes are out in the middle of everything. I like the cozy feel of a neighborhood. Luckily these apartments were built before there were zoning laws for apartment complexes that keep them from being built near neighborhoods. Chris later called about the apartment to find out the prices. We found out the man who owns it inherited them from his father who built them. He a very nice and involved man. He really takes care of the place and when something needs fixing he hopes to it quick.

Another reason we chose this place was the laundry situation. Of course we would love to have our own washer and dryer (we even have them) but right now we just can't afford an apartment that would have them or washer/dryer connections. I also wasn't fond of the idea of walking/driving around to an apartment laundry facility where I'd be sharing machines with EVERYONE that lives there. And I told Chris right off the bat I was not going to a laundry mat. lol. He understood and agreed. This place has a washer and dryer for each building. So we only share them with the other 7 apartments in our building, which I am completely happy with. Which by the way we really like the people in our building. It's crazy but two of them are actually from the same hometown as Chris! One of them went to the same high school just 10yrs before Chris hahaha. So we get along with everyone and never have any problems with anyone. We even live across the hall from the apartments manager. That comes in handy when we pay rent. We just walk across the hall and give it to him. So that's pretty handy.

We also like it because all the apartments are one bedroom so there aren't any kids. Not that we have any problems with kids, we're just not ready for them and it's nice not having kids yelling or banging around next door or outside. There also aren't any pets. Now I love dogs. I want one really bad, however Chris is allergic to them and it affects his asthma. Seriously in the past month since he's been out of his moms house away from Daisy (his moms dog) he has been feeling soo much better. By the way we miss Daisy so much. lol. I want to go kidnap her and bring her home. Oh well. So even though I would like to have a dog Chris's health is much more important and I want him to feel well more than I want a dog.

We had a fresh coat of paint on the walls and nice clean carpet when we moved in. We have ceiling fans and double pane glass windows that help with heating & air costs also being on the 2nd floor we stay pretty warm from the hot air rising from downstairs. We have one of those efficient toilets that help reduce the amount of water used. We are really happy that we chose this place for our 1st apartment together. We're very happy where we are.

my week

Just a little ranting about the week I've had.

I get home Monday and I'm doing laundry and one of the neighbors informs me that one of my tires is flat. Just great! So Chris and I get out in the parking lot, by the way it was dark outside, and change the tire. Ok so Chris changed the tire and I held the flashlight (it's an important job too). The spare tire looks real good let me tell you. hahaha. . . Oh did I mention that the tire that is flat is only 8 months old! Yea freaking brand new practically. Chris went out of town book buying this week and left on Tuesday morning, so I do have to be thankful that it went flat while he was in town and while we were home. If it had happened on the road while he was out of town I don't know what I would have done. It would have been 10x as stressful.

Oh did I also mention that only two weeks ago I went to take my car to get an oil change and they had to fix my front tires. Yea apparently when I bought two new tires last year at sams (you have to put new tires on the back, so they moved the back tires up to the front) they put the front tires on backwards on the rims. Now maybe you're like me and never knew that tires had a front and back but they do. So on top of an oil change they also had to turn my front tires around ($18 for each tire).

Now the newer back tire went flat and I'm riding around on the spare. Luckily I'm riding the bus to work. I only drive about 2 miles to the mall in the morning and then 2 miles back home in the evening. So I left the spare on there until Wednesday. I went by treadquarters on Wednesday evening after work. They checked out the tire and the whole time I prayed that where ever the invisible hole was it could be patched. The man comes back in and lets me know that he couldn't patch it. I need a new tire! I was so angry. Not at the man but at the situation. The continuous small problems with my car that are adding up to be an expensive problem.

Oh also my check engine light has been on for 2 weeks. hahaha. Yup good ol' car is starting to show it's age. I was sitting the the parking garage downtown waiting to go into work (back before I was riding the bus). That's all I was doing, sitting there in the car, parked, idling when the light popped on. It's still on 2 weeks later. We've been putting it off because of how much it's going to cost. Just for someone to look to see what the problem is will be $45. Then I have to get it fixed! So as you can tell I'm pretty annoyed.

All of that was just about my car.  There's still more to my crappy week. On Tuesday the bus was 10mins late so of course that made me 10mins late to work! It totally stressed me out cause I'm at a new job and still getting to know everyone and their personalities. It really doesn't look good being so late when you're new. Well even though I was mad I chose to ride the bus again on Wednesday. What do you know late again!This time the bus was only about 7mins late but then got stuck in traffic so I was 15mins late to work! I was livid! I have no decided to ride the earlier bus. I'll get to work about 20mins early but I can go sit in the faculty/staff lounge and eat my breakfast before going into the office. I rode the earlier bus today and it was great. Less people ride it and I wasn't sitting on the bus stressing out about being late. So that was a relief. I guess it all worked out for the better. I know God had a plan.

Onto the last little bit. Sleep. I thought that with Chris gone this week I'd sleep really good. I'd have the bed all to myself, non of his snoring or sleeping in the middle of the bed and pushing me up to the wall. lol. I thought it would sleep really good but I was wrong. It felt weird sleeping in my spot with him not on his. It felt weird sleeping in the middle of the bed. I couldn't get comfy and when I woke up during the night it took me forever to fall back to sleep. Especially last night. I didn't sleep worth crap last night. It was horrible! Apparently I need him sleeping next to me with his random snoring and movements. hahaha . . . Kinda sweet I guess. Thankfully he comes home tomorrow so hopefully I get some great sleep tomorrow night cuddled up next to him.

job hunting

Since deciding to move to Charleston I have applied to a ridiculous amount of jobs and sent my resume pretty much every where. To give you an idea just during the months of November and December I applied to over 50 jobs. Yea that's a ton! But I'll start at the beginning.

I dropped off an application for a secretary position at the police department on July 5th.  I got an interview with them on July 16th. I took a polygraph test for them on August 9th. In case you missed that is a 3 week space where I could have been doing other things for them such as the background check. On August 21st I received a personal history questionnaire which was pretty thick. I turned it back in on August 23rd. I had several email and phone conversations with the background investigator (mainly because she was incompetent and didn't seem to know how to read). All of my paper work from all of that was turned in to the Chief of Police to make a decision on September 6th. I had several phone conversations with the head of human resources about whether a decision had been made yet the last one being on Friday October 8th when she said she hadn't heard anything yet. The following Monday I received a letter saying that they had chosen someone else. Of course that means that the lady in charge of human resources actually lied to me on Friday. That made me rather angry. Over all it took from July 5th - October to make a decision, which is absolutely absurd. I found out later from someone I know that works in the police department that they chose someone else because I was way over qualified. Now if that sounds ridiculous to you you're not alone. Me and everyone I know believes that they had someone in mind that they wanted to hire but for some reason kept dragging me along. It doesn't take months to figure out if someone is under or over qualified for a position.

Anyways after aaaalllll of that nonsense I really hit the job hunting hard. I sent out me resume to every photographer I could find in Charleston. I applied to countless adds on craigslist, monster, careerbuilder, indeed, and many others. I applied for receptionist jobs at dentist offices, doctor offices, hospitals, veterinary offices, salons, spas, construction company's, schools, church's, day cares, hobby lobby, michaels, barns and noble, and anything I thought I could do. I got many email responses, of course most being a computer automated thank you for your interest but . . . blah blah blah. I even got some scam responses where they would say some like thanks for your interest in the postion but it's been filled however I am looking for a personal assistant. Please email me back with your full name, address, drivers license number, social security number, and phone number so that I can do a back ground check. HA I reported most of them to craigslist and gmail. I did go on several interviews which I never heard back from. Finally I got a call from a lady at Randstad. It's a temp agency. I had applied to a job they had posted for one of their clients. Well I had an interview with her and went ahead and signed all the paperwork to work for Randstad. So now I am an employee of Randstad. She sent my information to several different clients she thought I would be a good fit for. I had an interview with one of them. Didn't get the job though of course. lol.

Finally she called up on Friday January 17th and said that there was a position open starting on Tuesday at the College of Charleston. I said yes, of course. I started working on Tuesday at the College of Charleston at the School of Business in the Student Success Center. I man the front desk which is pretty good so far. It is a temporary job but I will be considered for the position permanently once things settle down and my supervisor at the school and her supervisor sit down and discuss what they want to do. I'm hoping that with me being there for a while and learning the ropes they won't want to bring a new person in and have to start all over again. So I'm working hard whenever they have something for me to do. I'm trying to show them that I'm friendly and personal and mostly that I can be an invaluable employee for their office.

So that's everything I've gone through so far in a short little post and where I am now.

1st experience riding public trasnportation

Let me share my lame adventure of my 1st day riding the Express Carta bus to and from work.

So yesterday I choose to try out the Express Carta bus instead of driving to work and having to park in a parking garage which costs $12 and that was the cheaper one! The Express Carta isn't the regular bus. It makes only a few stops and is mainly for people who work downtown but live in West Ashley or Mount Pleasant. I live in West Ashley. Now it's a park and ride type of deal which is really great. The stop in West Ashley is at the Citadel Mall which is probably a mile from where I live. So it works out great. Instead of dealing with traffic getting downtown and leaving downtown I just have to drive over to the mall, leave my car and hop on the bus. Another great reason to ride the bus is it's $3 a ride for the bus which is half of what I was paying to park downtown. Also I get to sleep in about 10mins later than when I drove myself.

So back to my tale of how the first day riding the bus went. I woke up yesterday morning, got ready and headed over to the mall. My bus pick up time is 8:05. I got there around 7:50 since it was my first day riding I didn't want to miss it. The bus showed up, I got on, paid my $3 and sat down. Everything went fine. I got off the bus at the correct stop and walked the 2 blocks to work. I felt pretty good about everything. Now the ride home was a little different. I walked back to the same bus stop that I got off at. That was my first mistake. I looked around wondering if there was a bus stop across the street that I should be standing at instead. Yes, the thought did occur to me that I should be on the otherside of the street to catch a bus going that direction. Unfortunately for me I didn't see one. Now the bus stop pick up time in the pamphlet thing I had said the bus would be there at 5:31, well it showed up at 5:15. I was a little skeptical but got on it anyways. And of course it was going the opposite direction I needed to be going. So I rode it all the way to Mount Pleasant, which is the end of the line on that side, West Ashley being the end of the other side. So at the last stop in Mount Pleasant when everyone else had gotten off the bus, I went up to the bus driver and told him what happened. He was nice about it and explained that the bus turns around and becomes that bus and drives the route back to West Ashley. That's exactly what I was hoping he would say. So I sat back down and rode the whole route back to West Ashley. The bus driver was really nice and even pointed out the stop that I will be at in the afternoons. Finally after a whole extra hour of being on the bus I arrived at the mall. Totally I rode 30mins in the wrong direction, another 30mins in the right direction back downtown (btw I was the only person on the bus during that time) and finally the 30mins from downtown to the mall. 

It wasn't bad or scary, just boring. I felt pretty stupid of course. At least it won't happen again and now I know where my bus stop downtown is.

The Move

For those of you catching up I have finally made the move to Charleston, SC. Chris and I moved in on Saturday the 4th. It was very hectic to begin with. I had an interview on Friday at 2, which of course I didn't get so it was a huge waste of time, and after the interview I drove to Albany to get all my stuff. My parents and I left at 6am on Saturday morning headed for Charleston. YES, 6AM! It wasn't totally horrible. We got the Charleston a lil after lunch and started unloading. My mom and I unloaded the easy things like the kitchen stuff and coffee tables. Chris and my dad unloaded all the furniture. Once everything was unloaded my parents checked into their hotel down the street and Chris and I unpacked some more stuff. We took them out for dinner to say thanks for all their help. Sunday my parents came back over. The weather was nasty out so they didn't want to go tour around Charleston so they went to the grocery store with me. Chris had to work. My parents left Sunday afternoon. Chris's mom and Tom came by Sunday night to check out our apartment. It was a quick visit.

Things have been really great our first week in our apartment. I've cooked every night and may I say it was pretty dang good. I've even made some banana bread which we've both gone crazy over. I still don't have a job but I have gone on some interviews. It works out well though because Chris has been working like crazy since it's the beginning of the semester and everyone is getting and selling the textbooks. So I've been available to deal with getting the internet hooked up, being at home for our landlord to come fix the hot water knob in our shower, go get grocery's, etc.

We're both so excited to be starting this new adventure in life together. Nothing in life is ever easy but things can always be wonderful when you're with the right person. Together we can do anything and we plan on doing everything. We're going to experience the world together.

quick update

I haven't written anything all that personal in a while because frankly I'm trying not to talk bad about all the stupid applications, interviews and people that I have dealt with. I've been job hunting in Charleston, SC. for over 5 months now. I had one job that seemed like it was going to come through but didn't ( I'll get into that another day ). So Now I'm pretty much just applying to anything. I've applied to doctor offices, dentist offices, vet offices, medical emergency offices, surgical offices, construction company offices, spas, salons, private schools, public schools, colleges, government offices, parks, photography companies, photographers, Barnes and Nobles, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, offices that I didn't even know what they were. I have literally applied and sent my resume to HUNDREDS of places! I am absolutely fed up with it all. I have gotten scam emails sent back, automated emails saying we'll be in touch if we want an interview, emails saying thank you but we've already filled the position. Most of the time however I hear nothing back. I've gone on 3 interviews and another interview was canceled and suppose to be rescheduled but of course I've never heard back from them (which is fine cause it sounded sketchy). One of the interviews I went on was just horrible. The person I met with was rude, angry and I'm really not sure what her problem was. It was ABSURD!

So even though I currently don't have a job there I am still moving. Chris and I have been apartment hunting the whole time as well and we've narrowed it down to 4 places. So now we just have to make sure they have something available when we need it. I'm so tired of driving back and forth. It's really taking a toll on us both (he drives to Metter to meet me and we leave my car there and ride back to Charleston together most of the time). I'M SO TIRED OF JOB HUNTING AND APARTMENT HUNTING!!!

Ways to create a zombie

5 scientific reasons zombie apocalypse could actually happen
I thought this was really interesting and also kinda funny.

So here is some of my ideas on realistic zombies:

Zombie Outline

Causes:

• Virus: Require a living host. They change the cells and copy themselves throughout the body.

• Rabies- infects the central nervous system & travels to the brain, where symptoms start.

• Symptoms:

• Fever, headache, weakness

• Insommnia, anxiety, contrusion, partial paralysis, excitation, hallucinations, agitation, hyper salivation, difficulty swallowing, hydrophobia

• Mania, coma

• Incubation period:

• several months to travel the nervous system

• Several days once in the brain

• Mad Cow Disease- infects the nervous system

• Symptoms:

• Depression, loss of coordination, anxiety, paranoia, OCD, psychosis

• Dementia, memory loss, personality changes, hallucinations

• Incubation period:

• Typically fatal within 13 months

• Movie references:

• 28 Days Later/ 28 Weeks Later- "rage" virus, change in 30sec., bitten by chimp

• The Crazies- "Trixie" virus, change in 8hrs, in drinking water

• I am Legend- Measles lik virus, opened the adrenal gland and caused high metabolisms

• Resident Evil- "T-Virus", mutagenic virus, causes need to feed to replenish the energy produced by the virus, destroys higher brain functions, damages the hypothalamus, and causes rage

• World War Z

•  Parasite

• Fungus spores affect the brains of ants causing them to climb up onto a plant and latch onto the underneath side of a leaf or stem. The fungus consumes the insides of the ant and produces a plant which grows from the head of the ant. Once fully grown the plant releases spores which continues the cycle. This can also affect other insects as well.

• Toxoplasmosa Gondii– infect rats causing their instinct for self-preservation to switch off. Often times the rats are compelled to get eaten by cats so the parasite can reside in the cat

• Neurogenesis- the use of stem cells to re-generate brain tissue. Scientists are already able to regrow brain tissue in labs. If they can reanimate brain stem tissue in a brain dead patient technically they would have a zombie. (chickens living without a head for extended periods of time)Nanobots- machines or robots whose components are at or close to the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters.
• Nanobots- machines or robots whose components are at or close to the scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters.
• Uses:
• Drug Delivery System
•   Researchers at Harvard and MIT have been able to attach special RNA strands to nano-particles, filling them with a chemotherapy drug. These RNA strands are then attracted to cancer cells. When the nanoparticle encounters a cancer cell, it sticks to it and releases the drug into the cancer cell. This drug delivery method has greatly influenced the cancer treating community by avoiding the negative effects of chemotherapy. 
•  Find and destroy diseased cells such as cancer or toxic chemicals in the environment
•  Detection of toxic chemicals, and the measurement of their concentrations in the environment
•  Future medical nanotechnology is expected to employ nano-robots injected into the patient to perform work at a cellular level.
•  Tissue Repair (Re-Animation)
•  Another useful application of nano-robots is assisting in the repair of tissue cells alongside white blood cells. The recruitment of white blood cells to the affected area is the first response of tissues to injury. Because of their small size nano-robots could attach themselves to the surface of recruited white cells, to squeeze their way out through the walls of blood vessels and arrive at the injury site, where they can assist in the tissue repair process. Certain substances could possibly be utilized to accelerate the recovery.

Tissue Animals

15 natural wonders of the world

15 natural wonders of the world

There are so many amazingly beautiful places in our world. I hope I get to see many of them.

Pumpkin Carving 2013

This year I didn't get a chance to carve a pumpkin for Halloween but I didn't care. I carved one afterwards. I had wanted to do this pumpkin for a while (the merry go round over the whole pumpkin) and just had to whether it were Halloween or not. I went to Marks Mellon Patch on Monday and picked out my pumpkin. It took about 45mins to draw out and then 3hrs to carve. It's now Wednesday and my index finger and thumb still hurt lol. I'm really happy about how it looks. I did sort of rush it because it was late and I had to get up for work early for Election Day. It was well worth the work and soreness.

all drawn out

cleaned out

the first horse looked kind of rough

EMHE:Beaufort County Press Conference 2011

So I found the article about Extreme Makeover Home Edition in Bluffton that I got to shoot for. Here is the article from the press conference to announce that they were coming to Bluffton, S.C. I got to shoot the press conference and they used my picture for the article!

I really wish I had a hard copy of it but oh well. This is pretty cool still. 

"Are you sure I'm a tiger"

I love this bit by Katt Williams.

42 Idiom Origins - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep. 29)