posted November 02, 2014 07:46 AM            

I have missed you around GU and elsewhere.

Is the old new job keeping you busy? Old/new hobbies to indulge in?
or are you & Jen honeymooning forever

I was talking to shura this morning ,(tomorrows her b`day) and she asked how you are.
I told her I imagine you are a papa and and elbow deep in household activities.
Thats the aquas imagination of life for AG so share the scoop on said life in sunny CA.!!

posted November 03, 2014 01:29 PM            

Well, we were hoping for parenthood, but it still hasn't happened.

My new/old job is in disarray. The bank isn't profitable, and the chairman of the board seized the opportunity to oust the CEO, and install himself in that position when the CEO became ill. He's completely changing the business model. A bunch of people have been let go. I'm supposed to be let go this Friday, but I'm never quite sure what's going to happen.

Jen started the year doing lemon law, which is essentially suing manufacturers and car dealers when they sell a car with extraordinary recurring problems. That went ok, but dealing with her friend quickly got on her nerves. He's frustrating in a myriad of ways. He's one of those uber-cheap guys that thinks he can game the system, like he would go to Peet's Coffee, and get a child's hot cholocate, and a shot of expresso because it was cheaper than ordering a latte (they eventually shut him down on that). Professionally, this attitude finds him wasting a whole day hand delivering his own documents rather than just getting a courier. He doesn't actually save money by putting himself on the road all those hours. Then, when he's in the office, he's constantly distracted, constantly on Facebook, or watching videos or playing games. He makes like $300k a year, but seemed to hate to pay Jen.

She's kind of moved on to working with another friend whom she used to work with at a firm in Berkeley. He wanted to do Prop 65 work with her. Prop 65 is an ordinance passed in California that requires companies to label products with known carcinogens. If they fail to do so, they can be prosecuted by virtually any private citizen on behalf of the State's Attorney General. The civil penalties go to the State, but reasonable attorney's fees go to the lawyers. The prosecuting citizen also gets paid some. They both did this previously at that Berkeley firm, and they're well-suited for that kind of work. Jen can do all the written stuff, and Dave is apparently great at verbal negotiations. Dave is also interested in getting in on medical marijuana business. He does have one co-op as a client. Jen worked for the county doing medical marijuana abatement, so she's also got a fair amount of knowledge about the law.

If I do lose my job, and if I don't get picked up by another bank I've applied to, then I'll work with them on the Prop 65 stuff.

I still do improv. It's also notably in transition. Our teacher (Capricorn) has broken up with her partner (Cancer). I could have told her that it wouldn't work. I have plenty of experience in that astro duo. Anyway, she's taking the rather drastic measure of moving to Louisiana in order to make it hard on her two ex's that have an interest in her daughter. She prefers to tell people that it's just cheaper to live in Louisiana. She laments that she'll never own a home in California. I don't think that's the real reason, though. I'm pretty sure she's just spiting both the ex that she had the daughter with as well as the more recent ex who probably legally adopted the daughter. There are rumors regarding what's going to happen with the improv group. Strangely, it looks like our director is turning to her former nemesis to take over our group. There was drama a few years back with this person, and our director felt very betrayed by her. This woman, Lisa, is a better improvisor, though. She has a lot more experience and training than Venessa. Plus she's more dynamic. My only real concern is that she may also be more critical than Venessa, which isn't always helpful in improv. Since I don't know what's happening with my employment status, and we may be moving in the new year I couldn't volunteer to lead the group myself, though I'd love to. If we do end up moving far enough away that I can't participate with my group, then I might have to take the scary step of starting my own group.

People observing me on Facebook seem to have the impression that Jen and I do a lot of fun stuff. I think it's true to a certain degree, but there's a lot of not doing stuff in between. We're just fans of fun and beautiful things. We went to Portland earlier this month. Hit the zoo, the children's museum, the Japanese garden, and the rose garden. We also went to a couple haunted attractions. It was fun, but kind of exhausting. We went to one of those art and wine activities last month where you go, and learn to paint a picture in a group setting while sipping wine. We did the Starry Night one. I tried to post a picture, but Photobucket isn't working at all for me, though I tried it in two different browsers.

Jen & I also just participated in a diet challenge (Meltdown Challenge) where you put money up, and then win it back by reaching your goal. I succeeded. Jen succeeded the weekend before it was over, but during the weigh-out times she wasn't quite there. After signing up for that one, I also found another site doing something similar (DietBet), and I succeeded on that one, too. I made 173% of what I'd put in ($25), for a pretty amazing return over a month's time. It made me want to just yo-yo diet and make that great return over and over again. I lost about 17 pounds over 6 weeks. The sad part is that that loss returned me to my average weight. I've been using an app on my phone to track my weight for a long time, and the average is just under where I am right now. I want to keep doing it. I think I could probably help other people lose weight, especially men. It really isn't all that stressful to me to diet. Meltdown Challenge still hasn't released results. I don't know what's taking so long, except that it had 8,450 challengers. Maybe it's just the volume of data to go through. I'm a little afraid of losing money on that one. The site's cut seems exorbitant, and they paid out a few things along the way to certain participants (most of which were drawings amongst eligible challengers). I'm hoping to at least get my money back.

You guys know that a lot of us are on social media, right? If you need help finding me, let me know. I'm on Facebook and Google+, though I don't regularly post to Google+. (That goes for anyone that might be lurking as well) You could be seeing all of the photos from all of my adventures. Jen's really big on taking pictures, so we do that everywhere.