Taylor’s Blog

I’ve been hesitant to write about this since its not 100% finalized.. I could be jinxing myself, but I
have a good enough (gut) feeling, so I am not going to worry anymore..

My house in Cary is pretty much sold.. Offers been accepted.. Repairs have
been mostly completed.. All I am waiting on is final acceptance of the repairs from the buyers (all thats left to haggle about is replacing a window
pane).. Once thats agreed upon come January 19th i’ll get a fat check and no longer be a resident of this place callled Cary..

I am packing up some
more stuff now, and it makes me really happy to be done with Cary for so many reasons.. It has nothing to do with Raleigh.. Being here the last few days
reminds me of how much I miss this place already.. I heard another story about Justin Timberlake at the coverup.. I wish I had seen that.. I finally went
to a hockey game for the first time since June, and the first time since the Stanley Cup banner was raised at the ESA/Royal Bank of Canada Centre.. House
Parties in Raleigh.. I guess there are some in Greensboro, but I have yet to hear about them..

The main thing that makes me very happy about being
done with Cary is my housing costs are super low.. I can work a 10 buck an hour job and make ends meet if I want/need to.. I have far much finaicial
freedom, and it feels really good.. Maybe I will get the balls to go back to school full time? Anyway I am just happy as hell to know Cary is about over
and January 19th this house will be someone elses problem.. It never felt like home anyway.. Hopefully the new owners will be able to call this place
home..

So Thursday I finally went out in Greensboro.. It wasn’t quite a complete
throwdown since I had to
be in Charlotte for a meeting Friday morning.. Sheila and I went to the bar on the end of Spring Garden and Mendenhall that I kept saying “Hey.. We gotta
go there.. It looks as crappy as Jackpot.. It might be our new watering hole.. “.. Its called College Hill.. Cool little place.. Jukebox.. Interesting
selections.. Ran into some folks who just made the same move from RDU -> GBO that I sorta had a hunch would appear if we went out in Greensboro.. Sheila
seemed more shocked than I was.. I think everyone had a good time that night, but I felt very hung over the next day.. I am going to blame the taps since
I don’t think we had more than 6 beers the entire night.. To make things worse I took a wrong turn leaving Greensboro that morning, didn’t hit the
Bojangles to hope to settle my belly.. I swore I would never stop at Rotten Ronnies again after the fat extravaganza on the want to Bonnaroo, but the one
in Thomasville had this thing called food I needed to desperatly.. I headed to Charlotte for a meeting for work, ran into a buddy from High School playing
basketball randomly when picking up a lime for my mom at the grocery store, snatched up my dad, and headed back to Cary..

I figured I could get
some slave labor out of my dad.. In fact I did.. I finally got the cabinet installed back in the master bath, ripped out the nasty carpet downstairs and
put in the least expensive (well second least expensive) laminate flooring downstairs.. Its not done, but it looks SOOO much better.. I wish I would have
put it down before.. Its going to make the house loose much of its Hospital or White on White on White theme that I despise so much.. I really think that
I will get some sort of return on the flooring.. After 2 days of enslavement I put my dad on (not in front of) the (2 hour late) Amtrak from NYC to
Charlotte..

Step one.. Remove old carpet, and remove nails.. Don’t you
love how the old contractors just used the floor for a paint staging area too?

Laminate Underlayment.. This took much longer than expected.. I guess thats why the
stuff with underlayment started at around 2.00 a sq foot..

Where we left
it.. Of course I gotta finish the rest in the next few days..

I figure I am a week behind in getting my house ready to sell.. Good / Interesting
news.. The neighbors across the street are trying to sell their house that is almost the same as mine for a TON of money.. I doubt they will get it, but
if they come close.. Man.. All I gotta say is that if I could pull that kinda cash I am going on that trip to Austrailia..

Regardless getting this
place sold will finally close my chapter of life in Cary.. Seriously anyone know of anyone looking for a house? This is a great place for folks with
kids.. I will probabbly throw my house on Craigs list in a week or two whenever I get most of the major stuff taken care of.. If you know anyone send me a
message on here..

I will pre appoloigize for being vague about my job, but this is in the public and I won’t be giving
specifics related to my employer.. Sorry kids..

So as many of you may or may not know I have been talking about selling my house and doing
something.. I never seemed to know what that something was.. I always talked about quitting the job, but I am not ata good place to leave things.. I don’t
like to leave things unfinished.. I slowly was working on fixing up my house, but with no real plan, or end in sight it all seemed a bit pointless so I
always slacked off on it.. I did do some nice tilework in my master bath finally replacing the nasty ass carpet.. (Who has carpet in a bathroom..
Blech..).. The Cary life wasn’t quite cutting it for me, but without some new place to go it was easier to just coast there..

Check out that awesome tile job! Good stuff

So things at work are always crazy
and I am in the midst of re-building my “empire”.. A good ammount my “group” are inept and it is taking forever.. (See previous blog for more
information).. At work to help getting things rolling faster to get all my tools working again we are getting 2 new folks.. Well they started, but
instead of working in the policital nightmare of Raleigh we got them started in Columbia.. This meant that I needed to go down there to get them started..
So Monday morning I got up bright and early and swung down to Columba to meet the new guys..

Talking with them goes well enough.. I realize they
have a brain, and most likely didn’t fake their degree like someone who shall remain nameless I work with (He is one of the B’s I have mentioned before)..
So my boss and I start formulating a plan of how we will utilize their skills.. It is about time for me to get back in my car and drive back to Raleigh
when my boss gets a call.. The B I previously mentioned is quitting.. Not only is he quitting but he is has been hired by my company to work in Puerto
Rico.. I am sorta happy cause he is getting out of my hair, but not pleased that he has been hired on full time.. I have turned down many a job in Puerto
Rico.. The politics there are crazy, and its relaly not that nice of a place once you leave the resort.. So I call my manager / friend down there who
hired him and it turns out that he has been hired 2 levels above me to do work that he has no skills or credentials in.. I have 6 years experneice with
this stuff and I am a level 2.. He doesnt know the first thing about wireless and he gets a level 4.. Needless to say I am livid at this point..

I
have previously been thinking that a good time for me to leave will be after the end of the year at the earliest.. We are deploying a new technolgy that
it will be vital for me to have if I am to stay in wireless at all so I need to at least get that knowledge under my belt.. If i quit now in 5 years I
would have worthless knowledge on my resume.. If I quite after december I would have new very needed knowledge for at least the next 5 years on my
resume.. By the end of the year I also can probbably get everything else at work back running like it should be and be able to step away and know I handed
off my work in good shape not some halfway done mess like it is now..

While I am driving back to Raleigh I keep thinking.. “I am going to milk
this place for everything I can while I am still here”.. I keep wanting to open up a bar / resteraunt or two somewhere and eventually become a slum lord
and let others pay for me to go on vacation.. To do that I am going to need a good knowledge of business.. Hrmm.. My briain keeps spinning.. I could
easily get that knowledge if I went back to school.. I could go get an MBA.. I could get work to pay for it.. Holy shit.. I got it! I then called my boss
and asked him what he thought, and he was like “good.. ” he also said I can take day classes if I prefer as long as I put in my time.. I already have done
this for them before as I got them to pay for my last year of undergrad while at NCSU..

To make a long story short I am going to get my work to
pay for an MBA.. I am going to need to stay in NC to get tuition that will be under what work will pay for, and I need to stay in a city where we have an
office I can work out of.. That leaves Raleigh, Greensboro, and Charlotte.. I refuse to live in Charlotte so that makes my choices the Triangle or the
Triad.. So far my options are.. NCSU.. UNCG.. I had NCCU most likely whacked from my list by Tori today who said they were horrible to deal
with..

Basicly the goal i am working twoard now is fixing up the house so I can sell in a few months.. Take the GMAT (How hard can that be?)..
Decide on a school and apply and make work pay for it..

That at least gets me 1.5 years of planing..

Any suggested schools? I am sort of
tiring of Raleigh after living here almost 10 years.. I am thinking Greensboro would be nice.. Besides Sheila is going there in the fall.. How convenient
you say.. So is UNCG the best choice? Wake Forrest is too much.. Maybe Carolina and stay here? They didn’t accept me for undergrad.. I am going to have
to get some kidna exception made for GPA.. I graduated from NCSU with a 2.2 or something pretty damn low.. Granted it was in Electrical Engineering and I
was working full time so I would think someone would give me a chance.. I ain’t dum..

Anyway kids.. Thats my plan.. I dunno if I am kissing
Raleigh good bye or not, but that house in Cary.. See ya.. Work.. See ya when I get my free MBA from ya!..

If anyone has taken the GMAT let me
know.. Any suggested places to get an MBA? Anyone?

Well Chompy (as he from now on will be know) is finally out of my house, and burried in the backyard..
I figured it better to recycle him and give him back to the earth than throw him in a landfill where he never would decompose as animal control would have
suggested..

My theory on Chompys death is now centered around Sly (my cat).. His paws are normally white, but now are a solid grey from fireplace ashes, which were
strewn everywhere.. Slys paws were solid white when this episode started.. I am pretty sure that Chompy got terrorized by Sly on the other side of the
glass, and was trying to escape.. Of course Chompy had no idea that he was protected by a glass door.. At any rate Chompy ended up latching onto the rod
that screen rides on, and hanging there to his death.. He wasn’t really stuck, but just had his jaw locked around the rod.. He could have had some sort of
heart attack or some sort of stress related quick death I can’t imagine him hanging there by choice until he died..

As for removal I was pretty freaked out by hanging dead squirrel so i ended up having to have a friend help me get him down, which I am very thankfull
for.. I can scrape road kill off the road, but the hanging thing really weided me out.. Once he was not hanging in my fireplace the task was easy, and I
had him burried in the backyard within a minutes or two..

Poor little dude..

Last night he came down out of my chimney for a bit, and I tried to get him out.. He wasn’t in shock
so I couldn’t just trap him in a box, he was in fight or flight mode.. I really didn’t want to get into a fight with him.. He eventually leaped back into
the chimney.. Before then I caught this photo of him last night.. Sadly that was the last time I saw him alive..

I now have a dead squirrel in my fireplace I need to remove.. Oh well.. Sorry little guy I wish I could have helped you.. There were a good number of
folks pulling for you..

So i come home from lunch with some friends, and I getting myself ready to do my favorite thing in the
world.. Shopping.. As I walk in the door I see something odd on my couch..

It looks to me like mouse shit, which is quite odd (yes thats Sly in the photo).. I can’t think if what the hell would do that and wonder what is in the
house, but dismiss it for a second or two.. At this point I sit down and check my email (yes I am a computer geek).. Nothing exciting.. Then I decide to
walk into the kitchen to get something to drink since my throat has been sore since I caught some kinda cold shit on I *THINK* Friday.. Shot Face maybe?

At this point I am about to get Sly stuffed.. On the left window sil it normally is lined with shot glasses, yet only one is standing.. I wasn’t so
concerned about the pot since the mint had died from lack of water weeks ago.. So now I am really begining to wonder what the hell is going on.. I look
over into my living room and I notice that the fireplace is sitting open..

Of course I never leave it open like that, and then I notice that one of my blinds is severly fucked up..

At this point I start to walk over and fix the blind and see a squirrel run across the house.. Sly doesn’t seem phased, but doesn’t do his instinctive
feline thing and kick some squirrel ass..

At any rate the fucker runs back into the fireplace where I close him in and block it.. I would be glad to let the fucker out if he would ever come down,
but he is hiding somewhere in my chimney..

So I decide to go look outside and see where it has come into my house.. Sure enough the bastard(s) have tried to build a nest in my chimney.. I guess
until I get him outta there I won’t be having anymore fires..

So you can see part of the nest hanging out of my chimney.. What is worse is that chimney is about 40 feet up in the air, so I won’t be cleaning it out by
myself.. I guess I will have to get someone to at least keep an eye on me cleaning that crap up so if I fall I will at least live to be a paraplegic.. And
yes thats my TV antenna if any of you geeks are curious what that shit in the background is..

So now I have a squirrel living im my chimney.. At least I got all my shopping done.. I even went to the fucking mall.. Anyone who gets a present from me
from the mall you better appreciate it.. I don’t go to the mall for many people.. At least I got a Boston Kreme and Medium Coffee from Dunkin Donuts..
MMMmmmm Boston Kreme..

On another good note it looks like I can take C-Tran to work now until I sell my squirrel and mole infested house to someone with 2.5 kids, wife and a
dog.. Really it’s a nice house I swear..

at least thats what my brilliant neighbors would try to convince me.. About a week ago I noticed that
my water meter was filled up with water to the top.. I thought it might have been rain runoff since it had rained very heavily the day before.. I fished
it out, and checked my meter.. My meter was not going up, and the water didn’t come back 10-15 minutes later when I checked.. I dismissed it, and thought
nothing more of it..

The next day i noticed there was a very soggy spot in my yard, and then I checked my water meter.. Sure enough it was full of water again..

I then went back to the soggy spot, and noticed that it was only in a few places in my yard, but i followed what seemed to be a path of sog, and it turned
out that my neighbors entire side yard was one complete soggy mess.. I then checked their water meter and sure enough theirs was filled up with water as
well.. I noticed theirs wasn’t going up, so I figured weather it was my connection or theirs it was clearly a break on the cities side.. Simple.. I
figured since it was mostly in my neighbors yard, and their yard is elevated above mine by a bit it was their responsibility..

I have never liked these neighbors.. She is a real estate agent, he is some computer looser who runs some lame-o fix it computer business, but hey what
can you do.. I wasn’t asked if I liked them when they were thinking about buying the house..

I figured I would be nice and leave them a note saying that their water main most likely was broken, and their yard was very soggy.. I also noted that
their water meter as well as mine was full to the brim with water.. Simple right?

Later that night I get a phone call from my neighbors.. This is where the fun starts.. He told me that he had noticed that the yard was a bit soft, but
that he was 100 ositive it was the work of a mole.. I then said “how can you be sure? What about the water in our water meters?”.. He proceeded to
tell me how he would be putting out a mole trap, and the issue would be taken care of.. I tried to argue with him that no mole could possibly make his
entire yard like a sponge, but he apparently was too brain dead to be able to differentiate between a tunnel underground weaking soil vs. water saturating
it to the point that it became like a sponge.. This is where I figured that maybe he was right, and it was the work of some super moles who can urinate
10000x thier body weight in a day.. I wish I had gotten a photo of the mole trap he put out.. I also am no animal expert,but don’t moles make lots of
holes in the top of a yard?

I just went out to check one more time before i call the city, and sure enough the super moles have been a-pissin some more..

This picture is from where I took a step in his yard.. Clearly the work of moles.. Granted it rained all day, but it was exactly the same 3-4 days ago
before all the rain started.. So tomorrow I will be calling the city since my inbred neighbors are going to stick with the mole theory.. I figure I ought
to do that before my house falls into the sink hole that they are trying to create..

this weekend reminded me I ought to post this in case any of you ever forgot how shitty Cary is..
This is pretty old, but its a fucking riot..

So I went out to Arizona to see a friend for a few days. When I get back in the mail I have a
certified letter waiting.. So I go and pick it up that afternoon at the post office and this is what I got..

What so funny about all of this is that I had mowed my lawn
before I left and the grass was still 6 inches (well within the 8 inch limit stated above).. I also had 3 days left to fix the yard and I had no idea what
the fuck was wrong since its a vague as shit form letter.. I called up the worthless town of Cary and decided I would be nice instead of initially saying
“What the hell is your problem.. Do you have so little important to do that you mail out letters about lawns not being up to snuff?”..

I end up
leaving a message for some assclown there and finally the next day I get a call back.. He says he has no idea what is wrong with my lawn, but that I was
on “his list”.. (Think of L7 – Shitlist).. I tell him I really need to know whats wrong becasue I want to fix it so I don’t have to deal with this
bullshit again.. We go back and forth on that a few times, and then I ask “So how does the town of Cary determine what properties get letters? Neighbors,
The Cops, or do you pay people to drive around and look at yards”.. I figured I was just being a smart ass, but he told me “Well sir actually its all of
the above..”, to which I ask him “So you are teling me the town of Cary actually PAYS people to drive around looking at yards?”, and he tells me that is
the case..

So at this point I am starting to get mad and tell him that if he can’t tell me whats wrong with my yard I will just make a guess and
if thats not good enough that I am not going to pay for whatever yard service they provide for a minumum fee of $100.. I also tell him that I really don’t
know if I will be able to get it fixed by the deadline becaue its raining and that I was on vacation the last few days.. He then tells me in a very joking
way “Sure sure you were on vacation”.. At which point I say “Listen you spent my tax dollars to send me this stupid letter about my yard certified and you
don’t know when I picked it up at the post office?”.. At any rate then he was appologetic.. I pulled a few weeds out of my yard a few days later and
never heard back from them..

Moral of the story.. NEVER LIVE IN CARY unless you are a yard nazi and have no soul.. It also was the final straw
that said there was no way I could keep my sanity and live here any longer.. Now I just have to finish up my remodeling projets and sell this place..

In an effort to use my blog on the Murdoch owned MTV replacement addiction that is worse than crack I
bring you my latest insights into life..

When I worked at Media Play in High School I had a manager who told me the best way to get a divorce was do to a project with your spouse involving
wallpaper.. Now many years later it has all become apparent what he was talking about..

For those who don’t know me very well I own a house in Cary (Don’t ask thats a *LONG* story).. The people that owned the place before me loved plastic
gold and the white on white on white theme.. Not really to my taste.. After some long period of procrastinating I decided I was going to do something
about my hospital themed home to (A. keep my sanity while I still live here so I don’t think I am in Dorthea Dix B. Fix up this place so I can dump it and
move somewhere where I want to be (5pts?)).. My favorite deocating from the previous owners was the wallpaper in the master bath..

Point being I have been taking that crap down.. I do not wish this pain and suffering on my worst enemy.. So if you are in a relationship and want a cop
out reason to split I would suggest doing a project involving wallpaper.. I have done other home improvement projects and nothing compares to the mundane
agrivating crap that removing wallpaper and scrubbing glue off of drywall is.. Laying tile isn’t even close to this level of frustration..

At least I have made some progress.. Too bad there is no Neu Romance tonight it would be a nice break after hours of wall scrubbing..