Monkey Wrench

Wow! How quickly plans can change. I just found out this morning that the place I was hoping to move into wouldn't be available till later on, like August or September. That's really going to throw a wrench into my plans!

I guess for now, we'll just stay put, while we find another suitable dwelling to move to down there. Until then, I'll be dealing with the LONG commute and the daily bridge toll. It kind of sucks that they don't give free toll to motorcycles anymore, because California is BROKE! Even with the motorcycle advantage, there's still traffic, although it still beats driving the cars. The bike gets 50+ MPG.

I'm just thinking about when it's really time to move, it'll probably be in the most inopportune time. But maybe I'll be able to hold it off till I get a break between semesters. Still, I'll need time to clean up this house and get it ready to rent out. Being short on time, I might even have to hire a property management company to find me some tenants. But if that's what we'll have to do, so be it. So for the time being, I'll just hunker down and enjoy living in beautiful Pleasanton while I can.

Suddenly Things Are Getting Crazy

Well, we've made the decision to move down to the South Bay in order to cut my commute basically in half. From Pleasanton, the drive to campus is 40 miles one way, plus the bridge toll. I would estimate a 75-minute commute, even on a motorcycle, since it's during the morning commute. We've got the green light to move into Emmy's sister's rental in Sunnyvale- from there, it's an easy 20-mile commute to campus.

Suddenly, I'm in a mad scramble to try and organize and make moving arrangements, plus at the same time, I'm having to fix things around the house, trying to prepare the Pleasanton house to rent out! There are so many little things to get done and some fairly major things to do too, like stain the deck and repair the blisters at the bottom of the hot tub!

I'm hoping to be moved into Sunnyvale before the middle of the month, so I can have almost a full two weeks to clean and prepare the Pleasanton house before classes get under way. CRAZY!!! Hope I can hold it together!!

Bought Some Markers

I've been shopping around on the web for a couple of weeks now for some X-ray markers. Most of the markers I found looked pretty standard are were fairly pricey, in the $12-20 range, plus shipping. I decided to cruise my favorite shopping venue, Ebay, and found some pretty cool markers there!

They come in the two initial or three initial variety. For both sets including shipping, the total came to just under $22! Can't beat that!!

Good-Bye, Gurnick!

Today I took a trip to Concord to drop off my books and uniforms to Gurnick. I swear it must've been 40 pounds of textbooks! As always, there was no one manning the receptionists desk- I probably waited almost five minutes, before someone finally arrived. I explained that I was retracting my acceptance to their rad tech program. I was armed with a letter of withdrawal. The receptionist went to the back offices to speak with Anna, who was apparently at lunch at 4PM and didn't want to speak to me. She told me just to leave the books and that's all I needed to do. I asked if she might be able to provide me with a sign-off sheet or something recording the event that I actually dropped off the books. She went to the back, again, to talk with Anna. She showed up a minute later informing me that the main Gurnick campus, in San Mateo, will be mailing me a letter within thirty days to finalize things. I mentioned that I was a little nervous about just leaving the books and that I was thinking of taking a picture as proof, but I didn't end up doing that.

Later that night, I realized that between all the back and forth communication and confusion that I had forgotten to drop off the issued uniforms. Shit! Do I really have to go back? But then again, when I was originally issued the books and scrubs during the "orientation" meeting, I never actually checked anything out! I guess they're pretty loose about things around there. Maybe they won't notice that I didn't drop off the scrubs? I dunno.

Good News- I've Been Saved!!!

Well, not in the religious sense, but I have been waiting for a month for this to arrive.... Every day, I wait with baited breath for a fat envelope in the mailbox. I didn't matter to me if the envelope said Kaiser-Allied or Cañada College, it just had to be fat and substantial.

Today, when I heard the mailman leave my porch, I ran to the mailbox. There was a whole bunch of mail, which was a good sign! Quickly I sifted through the mail only to find that every single piece of mail was addressed to my next door neighbor, the house on my right! Argh!! I walked it over and dropped it in their mailbox, but started thinking that maybe the mailman just got all the mail one house off, so I dropped by the house on my left, hoping that perhaps they got my mail.

I rang the doorbell and spoke with Lisa, my neighbor, and explained my mail conundrum, and that I was expecting a very important piece of mail, but only if I were so lucky. She checked her mail, but regretfully nothing was addressed to me. Disappointed, I went back home to accept consolation from my dog, Cookie.

Later on this evening, I heard an email arrive on my cell phone. I went to check it and to my astonishment, it was an email from Cañada College. Not really knowing what to expect from an email, I opened and read it. The email stated that I had been accepted into the Cañada College rad tech program!! That was so bizarre- I kind of felt like this notification sneaked through the back door. But I'll take it any way it comes!

What this really means is that now I don't have to start classes next week at Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts. And if I don't start classes, I don't have to pay any tuition! My bank account is feeling better already! What a relief!