Being jobless sucks but not as bad as I thought

My contract with WB ended on Oct 31st. I remember it clearly, even though I knew it was coming and did my best to prepare for it, it still hit me pretty hard. I didn't quite freak out but it was close. I have always been defined by what I do and how I do it, so being jobless made me feel really worthless. I know that is pretty bad because there are more things to life then being a recovering workaholic, but that thought didn't make me any feel better. Luckily I have been preoccuppied with being in love with Bill, otherwise I think I might have gone slighlty crazy. I'm not suprised that I can't find a job, but I'm a little worried because for my whole life jobs have pretty much fallen in my lap and this time it hasn't.

I have never taken a vacation between new jobs, so this time I made up my mind that I would take a much needed vacation after my contract ended. I figured I would start seriously looking for a job at the beginning of the year. I made up my mind that I would put being jobless of out my mind for the 2 months before the new year. So far I have been pretty successful and have really enjoyed my time off and spending it with Bill. Since my last day in Oct, we have stayed at Disney for 2 weeks, went to Laughlin, Sedona and back to Disney. So even though I'm jobless, which sucks and I've let it come into my thoughts a few times in the last couple of months, I've really enjoyed the downtime and spending it with Bill. If I'm not careful I could get used to this, because being jobless isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I have a good excuse, really I do

I know, I haven't updated my blog in more than 2 months, but I have a good excuse, really I do. It's not that me and Woodstock haven't had some excellent adventures, cuz we have. It's just that something totally unexpected happened to me in Oct. I fell in love... My life has taken a different path that I did not think was possible just 3 short months ago. I lived by myself for over 20 years and I liked it that way. I was free to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I never wanted to, or thought of the possibility of getting married.

Well, my life has changed drastically and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I love my life even better now. I now have someone that I can share my life with and we can still do whatever we want whenever we want. Me and Bill got engaged Thanksgiving week and just set the wedding date for Oct 24th 2010. Wow, Love is a wonderful thing which I knew but somehow forgot about. Thanks Bill for reminding me that life without love is not worth living.

The Perfect Sunday

I know I haven't posted in over a month... What can I say? life is just so full these days that my blog has taken a back seat. I'm going to try and get back on track with the one post a day thing again though.

Yesterday was one long workday, I ended up working something like 17 hours straight, so needless to say, I'm beat. Sundays are usually my veg days, but lately a certain someone is not making that very easy, so I haven't vegged on a Sunday in a few months now. Well today, I'm going to veg, first of all cuz I'm really sleepy and have no engergy and second, I just don't feel like going anywhere. It turns out that this is the perfect day for vegging, it's one of those dark gloomy days where you can stay in your cozy bed all day and surf the web and fall asleep in between every once in awhile. Not sure I'll be able to do that cuz Bill is coming over, but hey you never know. So yeah today is going to be the perfect Sunday maybe curled up on the couch with Bill watching movies or something, who knows??? I just know that I'm spending the day with someone I really like and I'm not leaving the house for anything.

Woodstock is lonely

Well I finally did it, I sold my 2005 BMW 325Ci. Actually I sold it last month, but I was waiting for the title to come so that I could sign it over to it's new owner. Yesterday was the day, the new owner met me at the DMV where I signed the car over to her, can you believe they charged her $1500 in sales tax? This was the first time I ever sold a car and didn't know they charged sales tax on a car that I had already paid sales tax on when I bought it. What a scam...

Anyway, my friend who bought the car always drove old hand me down clunkers and this is her first nice car. I went over all the car's features, just like they do at the dealership and after all was said and done she left. I looked in the garage and poor Woodstock looked so little and lonely all by himself in there. Poor thing had to sleep by himself last night, he's always had big brother BMW next to him. I know both of us will eventually get over the loss. =o(

Lemon Law Process

As much as a love my cute little Woodstock, we've had some great times but we've also been to the shop 1 too many times, (over 65 days at the dealer for some major repairs). It was fine when I had 2 cars, but since I recently sold my BMW I don't have the luxury to have such an unreliable car. It's sad really cuz aside from the numerous problems he runs really good. I'm just worried that one of these days I'm going to be stranded somewhere. I contacted a Lemon Law lawyer who states that I have a pretty solid case. It will take around 6 months to complete, so we'll see how that goes. I really want another MINI, I just don't want to get another one and have the same kinds of issues. It seems like many people are having reocurring clutch, transmission, flywheel failures and MINI hasn't addressed these problems yet. So for now, I'm not sure what kind of car I'm going to get, it's a toss up between a MINI JCW or a BMW 135i so far I'm leaning towards the 135i

Back at work

Well after a last minute reprieve from joblessness on the 31st of July I'm back at work. I got to work but I have no access, so I decided to update my blog. Lets backtrack just a little. My last day was the 31st of July, I had already cleaned up my desk and was deleting all the stuff off of my computer when I was told that I got extended until Oct. Wow, was I surprised. I had already made plans to do the swap meets and take a break for a couple of months. This was great news, the only problem was even though they put in the paperwork for the extension, It had not been approved yet. So they told me to take a vacation for a week and come back today. Wow a 9 day vacation, boy did I use every min of that vacation to try and get caught up with my life. I got stocked up with tshirts for Stuck On Minis, sold my BMW, had lunch/dinner with friends and just a had a really nice relaxing 9 days off.

So I'm now back at work for at least another 2.5 months and hopefully the economy will get a little better by the end of Oct so I can find another job, or maybe they'll extend me again? At this poing who knows what the future will bring job wise, but at least for now I'm working which is a good thing.

09 Wine Country British & Euro Car Show 08/23/09

Just wanted to give you a heads up that Stuck On Minis will be a vendor at the REME (Redwood Empire Mini Enthusiasts) sponsored 2009 Wine Country British & European Car Show on 08/23/09 at 5525 Old Redwood Highway (Between Fulton & Shiloh Roads) Santa Rosa, Ca. A portion of the proceeds are to benefit the Safari West Wildlife Foundation
So far there are many MINI/Mini's, MG's, Rolls, etc signed up, it looks like it's going to be a really nice event.

Please come out and join us, it should be a great day with all the classic British Cars in attendance.

MINI's at the shooting range

I love to go to the range and shoot targets, I used to go at least once or twice a week. Ever since I got my MINI, I have been doing "MINI" stuff pretty much every weekend and my shooting activities have been sidelined. Well this weekend, me and my fellow Maniacs, some experienced, some newbies got together and went to the Oak Tree Gun club. We all had a blast, some of us shot trap and some of shot steel and paper targets. I'm so glad that I was able to share my other passion with my MINI friends. I hope we do it again soon.

MINI's at Mission Tiki Drive-In

SCMM had it's 4th annual MINI's at The Mission Tiki Drive-In on Sat to see Transformers 2. This was kind of a last min event so the usual amount of people could not attend. We did get a respectable showing of 24 MINI's including Tavis's classic mini, an Acura (Scott just sold his Classic MINI) and another non MINI.

Even though we didn't have the 80 cars that we had last year, we still had a really nice time. There was an original Hawaiian Shirt Contest and a raffle. Ontario BMW came out to promote their new MINI Dealership (it will open in Nov of this year) and they raffled off many cool MINI items. I won a nice MINI keychain and my sis won a t-shirt. They will also send an email to 3 lucky Ipod winners. I hope I win one...
Looking forward to next years event...

The countdown begins

There are only 21 days left in my work contract and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get extended. I've had a bunch of interviews but nothing has panned out. So I think if I don't get a job, I'm just going to hit the road with Woodstock and be a vendor with Stuck On Minis at some of the car show events and swap meets in California. I've always wanted to have my own business and I think this is the perfect opportunity. Who knows maybe if things work out I won't have to go back to a "real" job.