Real Kato Blog: Whatchew Been Up To? (Redux)

It's been so long since I've posted anything about myself, "whatchew been up to" is, I suppose, a legitimate question now. Unlike before.

Lately, a lot of people have been coming up to me and saying, "I've been reading your blog". Some of them are people I don't know all that well, and I'm not sure what kind of impression they're getting of me. If they go back far enough in the archives, they'll hit all the online dating stories and the pants-pooping episode, but if they've only been reading recently, they'll figure I'm just obsessed with American Idol, Apple, and Barack Obama.

I guess that's not too far from the truth.

So anyway, for all my new readers, as well as my several faithful followers from over the years, here's a brief look at what's been going on in my life (and Amy's).

I should start with the fact that we own two houses, because this plays into most of the other things that are going on. Remember the house I moved out of, like a thousand years ago? Well, I still have it. I rented it to a friend, and the idea was that she'd rent it for a year or so, giving me time to get the house fixed up and ready to sell. But she moved out last December because she needed more room, and so basically the house has been an empty money pit for five months.

Amy's ex-coworker's boyfriend is a contractor, and we recently hired him to finish all of the fix-up projects for us. So maybe it won't be too long until that house is off our hands (and our budget).

Meanwhile, though, the extra house payment is leaving us cash-strapped. I'm not going to say that we're broke, or even that we're struggling, because that would be obscenely obnoxious to all the people who are really struggling to make their rent payments and pay for their gas and groceries. It's just that we don't seem to be getting ahead. Every time we save a little money up, some big-ticket bill seems to pop up to negate it. I could dip into our savings and investments to pay for things, but that's supposed to be retirement money, so I'm loathe to do that.

We got a stimulus package tax rebate, sure, but it was only just over $500 instead of $1500 because apparently we made too much money last year. (Someone tell that to our bank account.) $500 is barely a month's worth of drinking money around here.

Meanwhile, Amy is temporarily out of work, and my own career future is somewhat uncertain.

So the upshot of all this is, we're probably not going to Japan this summer. Again. We'll probably take a summer trip to somewhere close by; maybe D.C., maybe New York, maybe Boston.

It's not all bad news. Apple stock has rebounded (I, uh, told you so), so on paper at least, my net worth is going up. Most of the people who owe me money are sending payments. And I've started to pick up a few side gigs doing web site design. Only a couple of them have been paying gigs, but right now I'm just working on building up my skills, and my portfolio. (Check out this one; I kinda like how it turned out.)

As far as non-financial matters, life has been pretty good. We haven't been going out as much lately, though. That's mostly my fault; I've just been so tired lately that I all I want to do on weekends is sleep. But I'm starting to miss all my friends. We'll try to get out more soon, and now that summer is here, we'll bring back our meat-sweat-inducing cookouts.

So there you go. That's what I've been up to.

(Also, I ate a ham sandwich. And a pickle.)

Permalink 5 Comment

Posted by Ken in: life

Comments

Comment #1 from Phil (marsosudiro)
2008 May 17 - 4:34 pm : #

Hey, a ham sandwich! And a pickle!

Last night I had Asian snax with my American friends. They were good. Though I'm less fond of oyster sauce than I used to be. Maybe I was using it wrong. Not good as a straight-out-of-the-jar condiment for fish balls.

Good luck with moving your housing project (and your web projects) along at whatever speed you'd like.

Comment #2 from John Corey (Guest)
2008 May 17 - 10:59 pm : #

I did not look at your website. As everyone knows, if you look at a website interface designed by and engineer, you will die in one week. thanks for the update.

Comment #3 from Brett (Guest)
2008 May 18 - 1:25 pm : #

I ate a baby today. A human baby. A crunchy, chewy, delicious human baby.

Comment #4 from Brett (Guest)
2008 May 18 - 1:29 pm : #

I'm sorry, that came out wrong! I meant to say "taco," not "human baby!"

Boy that would have been awful! I mean, right??

Yeah, pretty sure I definitely meant "taco"...

Pshhh...human babies....(licking lips)

Comment #5 from Phil (marsosudiro)
2008 May 18 - 2:14 pm : #

Speaking of pickles, here's a N&O blog that I think you could write a nice reply to. Rebuttal or otherwise. I think you'd have a nice way of showing that the writer's assumptions about pickles are wrong:

http://tinyurl.com/5zjcuk

Phil (who tinyurled it because the N&O is just too messy with its URLs)

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