New job

I started a second job this past week. I figured since my main tax gig will only last through October 15th, I should have another job to tide me over until next February or so. So I handed my resume out to a few places and got a hit.

The job is doing bookkeeping – payroll, financial statements, and the like. It’s VERY part-time (like about 15 hrs a week), so for the next month I’m hoping I’ll be able to do both this and taxes at the same time, and after that the bookkeeping will have to pay the bills.

Trouble is, I’m not a big fan of this new place. Maybe it’s just because it’s so different from Harold’s office. Maybe I just need time to adjust. I’m hoping that’s the case. At Harold’s office, it doesn’t really matter when you show up or what you look like – as long as the job gets done Harold’s happy. Heck, during tax season we usually turn the radio on in the barn or watch Days of Our Lives.

So let me just rant for a minute here as I’ve got a few things to get off my chest.
At the new place it’s your typical “Office Space”-type job. Dress code, strict hours, and I swear it’s as quiet as a library in there. I feel strange even making a phone call in there because everything else is so deadly quiet. And I’m not making it up when I say there’s an older guy with thick glasses named Milton. He shuffles around and mumbles when he speaks. It’s really odd. I’m not sure my manager even knows my name. I haven’t had a REAL conversation with anyone else in the office (i.e. one that lasts more than 3 minutes or is non-work related) the two weeks I’ve been working. All in all, it kind of creeps me out there.

So that’s the scoop. If I can last 5 months there it’ll have served its purpose and I can get the heck out of there. At least I can work late afternoons and have the mornings to paddle and hike and such. Or watch my stories.

Surfing

Well, and while I'm posting, I may as well tell you about today. Christin and Steve and I all had the morning off work so we thought we'd try our hand at surfing. We've lived here over 8 months now and it's hard to believe we hadn't tried it until now. So we headed to the beach and rented a few boards for the day.

When we first got there we were having some trouble getting up. But there was a guy out there giving lessons - he called me and Chris over, and gave us a push a couple of times to get us going. And really, after catching that first wave it was a lot easier. Immediately after that we were both catching waves on our own. Steve did pretty well, too.

It was a blast. Needless to say we'll be doing a lot more surfing on our days off. In fact, I'm thinking of getting a board for my birthday.

Cop out

Yeah, so here are some pictures from the big island trip Steve and I took a while back. I guess the truth is, I'm a little intimidated to write about it because it was pretty epic, so hopefully posting some pics now will encourage me to finish it off with some stories in the near future. Anyway, here it goes:

Most of the pictures are from Volcanoes National Park, some are from the top of Mauna Kea (about 14000 feet), and some are from other places.