*whew* What a week! Fly to Los Angeles, attend Cynthia's graduation, fly to Australia and New Zealand on business, fly back to Los Angeles on Sunday, pick up my kids and drive up to Seattle in 2 days.

I just got back to Seattle, and I'm exhausted. But no rest for the weary, I've got to buy beds for my kids, finish prepping their rooms, and do some work before I am blessed with bedtime. I hope I don't oversleep, since I know I'm going to sleep like a log tonight.

Seeing my two youngest kids again, and having them home with me...

It's all worth it.

I gots it!

I'm writing this entry from my hotel room in Sydney Australia. Yes, I'm in Australia. My job has me traveling the world and I'm on a whirlwind tour of the lands down under. Today, Sydney, tomorrow, Bribane, then Wellington New Zealand.

I'm taking pics and I'll post them in a day or so.

W00t!

On another note, the Sailor Ranko comic is doing better than I expected. It's been on the top 100 for the last month. Not bad for a web comic that's only been around for about 10 weeks. :)

Seventeen years ago, I remember it like it happened yesterday. My daughter Cynthia was born. I held her in my arm, her feet tapping on my fingertips, her head resting inside of my elbow and she was peeking up with her big brown eyes from under a huge tuft of black hair, and smiled at me.

I held that little girl and rocked her to sleep. She softly cooed as I comforted the precious thing in the whole world to me, a newborn life.

Tomorrow, on June 19th, 2008, I'm going to watch that girl, the same one I who once was so helpless, walk down the aisle with over three hundred of her classmates and accept her high school diploma at Pioneer High School. I'm going to stand proud, as will hundreds of other parents, as my little girl, who is not so little anymore, end one phase of her life to begin another.

I sit here, on the eve of my flight to Los Angeles, to see my little girl grow up from that dependant child she once was and turn into a young adult, who soon will be off to college, and making her own place in the world.

It's a bit heartbreaking watching my kids, one by one, leave the nest. Once the house was filled with kids of different ages, all working together as a family unit. Now, it's a bit emptier now, with Maria, my eldest, long gone, my next eldest, Jacob, married, then Amanda living in Texas. I only have two left, and starting tomorrow, it's down to one.

I do wish that somehow I could go back to a time where I had my little girl on my knee and we would play "Monsters" on the computer (That was her pet name for classic DOOM). When my little girl would draw cute pictures I'd hang on the refridgerator, when she would ask me questions like "Why is that warm?" and when she would just say "I love you" out of the blue. I miss those times, and they'll live forever in my memories.

Presently, I'm looking up colleges for my girl to apply for. Since she hadn't picked her major, she hadn't applied yet. For now, she wants to get a job, earn a little money and enjoy her youth before picking the path that she follow for a decade or so.

I miss that little baby, but the little woman she's become is someone I'll treasure for the rest of my life.

This time, on business. This week, I'm on a developer tour of several firms in the Dallas/Austin areas. I've been having a devil of a time keeping my cell phone operational for more than a few minutes at a time, since the battery decided to expire over a week ago.

*sigh*

Supposedly, a new iPhone will be released tomorrow. If they fix the problem where I can type with the tips of my fingernails, then perhaps it's time to get a new phone, since it's already time to get a new battery and Samsung Blackjack batteries are a pain in the rear to find. I rejected getting the previous iPhone for that reason (Fingernail typing, and also the lack of true GPS turned me off).

Here's to touring Dallas, and drinking the Apple Inc. Kool-Aid.

I'm in the middle of unpacking all my stuff that arrived from California. I had two storage units (Pretty large ones) filled with personal effects from my home near Los Angeles. Once the house was sold last year, everything was put in there instead of being shipped to Dallas due to personal matters that have long since been resolved.

Now that I'm here in Seattle, I was able to get the money together to get all my stuff shipped here. Here's the kicker... Microsoft is paying for professional movers to move my things from Dallas to Seattle. Supposedly a first class operation, but NOOO. The moving company they use, Graebel movers, are a bunch of incompetent loons. First, they send me an email saying they are ready to inspect my home in Dallas. They then don't talk to me for over 3 weeks, and then they call their office in San Antonio to do the move. Uh, I'm in Dallas? Then they are angry at ME for it being a rush job once they finally get the Dallas office involved. Well, they knew about the move for 3 WEEKS and didn't do squat. No wonder it's rushed now. When they loaded things on the truck, they refused to take my ceramic casting table and other effects because "They weren't told about them". Uh, yes they were. How can you miss a 8 foot by 3 foot casting table? Hello?!? A water cooler, a table, water bottles... I'm still having to fight with them about how they are shipping the things they left behind. That casting table isn't something I can toss in the trunk of a car and bring it as a carry on bag on the plane.

The stuff from California? I used ABF which goes by the name http://www.upack.com which just drops off a trailer, you fill it, they drop it off in Seattle. No muss, no fuss. I had friends and family in Los Angeles get together and we got everything in the trailer. It arrived in Seattle over the weekend and with the help of two uhaul moving men, we got it all unloaded in 3 hours.

I'm certain I got my stuff from Los Angeles at a fraction of the cost Graebel is charging Microsoft, and I didn't have anything left behind.

One thing is for sure. I am NOT using Graebel movers nor will I recommend them to anyone. ABF on the other hand, is great if you're on a budget and don't mind getting your hands dirty. I've used them twice and have been happy both times.

Sometime this week, my stuff from Dallas is supposed to arrive sans the things they abandoned. I'm dreading what else they are going to screw up.

Yes, that's right. I lost a pair of jeans to my jean eating car. How? I sat down in the driver's seat, in a little bit of a hurry since I was running late for work when I heard a rip near my butt. Embarrassed, I got out and used my purse to cover up the small hole just below the rear pocket (No where near anyplace really embarrassing, but still...) and went back into the house to change.

It reminded me of a time three months ago when a very similar incident when I sat down and my pant tore except in that incident, the pant leg pretty much disintegrated. I chalked that up to my pants being worn out and promptly forgot about it.

But today's incident was a bit odd. The tear originated in the same spot and I had a small red mark on my rear leg that could only come from something hard and sharp, the item that took out my jeans.

So, after getting ready for work a second time and in a different pair of jeans, I went to my car and examined the left side of the driver's seat and I noticed the seat belt buckle was jammed between the door and the seat with the handle sticking straight up. It didn't take long for me to see that this was how I lost my pants. I sat down on this, slid onto the seat and this protruding metal, which wasn't sharp to break skin, but enough to catch fabric, proceeding to rip my pants in two.

From now on, I'll try to keep Kimiko's teeth away from my clothing or any other part of me. She already costs me a fortune in oil and gasoline. I don't need to add my wardrobe to her diet.

Here's a company that need to be outlawed. There is already a controversy about payday loans and how they are bleeding the lower class of all their money, but companies like Drivetime and Cash Call are more sinister. They prey on people who have less than stellar credit in selling them cars (Drivetime / Carmax) or cash loans (Cash Call) and hide everything possible about the terms of the loan.

Drivetime gives you a contract that has payment coupons for the term of the loan, but as the loan is being paid back, you are not given any sort of documentation about how your payments are applied to the loan. Online, all they do is accept payments, but again, there is no way to see how much is remaining; your interest rate, any fees added, nothing. You are expected to make regular payments (Timed to be exactly a few days after your paydays to ensure they will be first in line) and not ever expected to attempt to pay ahead to save money. They work the system to make sure you pay them the maximum allowable under the contract by stretching out your payments as long as possible.

It's bad enough their cars are way overpriced, but to hit you with 17% interest on top of that, extended as long as possible to make as much money from you as they can, is robbery. It's a recipe for bankruptcy for many people.

Cash Call goes one step further. At least Drivetime allows people to make payments over the internet, so they get their money. Why Drivetime even takes credit cards as payment! Rob Peter to pay Paul I might say. Cash Call doesn't allow payment at all from their web site, over the phone, or even by mail. They only accept Moneygram (You pay $6.95 for the privilege of paying your bills. Huh?) and direct withdrawals from your checking account. They already charge obscene interest rates (over 100% on most loans) and they try to hide it by quietly sucking money from your account, behind your back, to ensure that they get their most money they can and under no circumstances will Cash Call allow you pay in a way that they have to pay anything for receiving the money. Only recently was Cash Call forced to provide payment records to customers, but upon reading someone's records, I was appalled at all the fees tacked on. The only thing that separates Cash Call from the loan sharks in Grand Theft Auto IV is that Cash Call doesn't hire thugs to break your kneecaps, or do they?

Recently, legislation was being introduced that will clamp down on credit card companies from adding assorted fees to their bills like $39 late fees, $39 over the limit charges and the practice of sending out a credit card with $129 in charges for membership fees before the customer even uses the card once for a purchase. Let's hope they pass this, and then go after predatory companies who go out of their way to fleece people who can ill afford the lost monies.

No wonder there is a gap between the haves and the have-nots. It's cheap to be a have, low interest, no fees, and plenty of ways to pay. It's expensive to be a have-not with high interest, massive fees and very few ways to pay, causing delays that pile on more interest and late charges.

Go capitalism!

I went to a portrait studio last week and had my picture taken. Looks good, no?

My son and his wife flew up to Seattle last Monday and are staying with me until Friday (Today) so they can see the city and we can go house hunting. Yesterday, we found this really nice house for rent and we filled out all the forms and put a deposit down. Hopefully, everything will go through and we'll be able to move in in May.

Every evening, we went on little tours around the area taking in the sights and it's been fun. They are flying back today and I'll miss them. Thankfully, they'll be back for good in about four weeks from now.

When they came, they brought a suitcase full of my clothes from Dallas, and my cat Alucard. Now both of my kitties are here with me. One thing I forgot about Alucard, is that he knows how to open doors. As I wander around the apartment, I'm finding all the bedroom and closet doors mysteriously open and my cat Alucard sittng down looking innocent.

At least Bob isn't by herself anymore when I'm at the office.

My poor kitty is so sick now. She's almost 20 years old and she's acting her age. Most of her time she lies under a window basking in the sunlight. At night, she lies next to me with her head resting on my arm. With the way she's waddling instead of walking, I'm sure she's got arthritis. I'm afraid to take her to the vet because I don't want to put her to sleep. :(

Bob spends almost every moment I'm home by my side or lying on top of me when I sleep. I feed her gourmet cat food (Meow Mix Market Select wet food is her favorite) and I try to make her as comfortable and as happy as possible.

It really saddens me that my time with her is coming to a close. I don't know if it's week, months or even a year I have left with her, but I do want to make my kitty's last days, happy ones.