Things are looking up!

So, the past three months have been very difficult financially. With only one income, my wife and I have felt the weight of our monthly bills and due to late payments, our credit is taking some damage. However, because of our apparent difficulty, two of our creditors have offered solutions to help us out.

Chase bank, who owns my credit card debt, has offered a plan, which reduced my interest rate significantly and sets up a schedule to have my balance paid off in 5 years. Now, we're talking a reduction from a 30% interest rate to 2%. Yeah. And our payments will drop almost $150 a month.

The other is EdFinancial, who own my student loans. They have turned me onto a Unemployment Deference, which will defer my loan payments for 1 year, and the federal government will pay my interest. All I have to do is register with the Unemployment Commission, and fax them a letter of intent. So guess who's registered with the Virginia Unemployment Commission, and guess what I'll be doing tomorrow.

So once all the paperwork is done, our monthly bills will drop almost $350. That is so huge. We're also going to look at other monthly expenditures, and see what else we can dump.

The Target job fell through, which is upsetting because big box retail should be a slam dunk for someone like me, and I'm just not sure what's going wrong. Someone suggested Wal-Mart, but I feel like that's a step towards a bad end. The idea makes me feel dirty.

I'm heading back to the Friday night gaming table for the first time since October. I'm going to be super far behind as far as the story and everything that's been going on with D&D as a game, but I'm excited to be gaming twice a week again. We're starting Shadowrun up again Monday, and I'm excited about that too.

Does anyone want to buy a old style PSP, a few games, and several accessories for a reasonable price?

Ok, so once a week is more realistic...

So, I've got an interview at Target in about an hour and a half. I thought I did well at the Best Buy interview, but that fizzled out as if it never happened. I'm trying to stay optimistic, but constant dissapointment (in the world and in myself) is a tough storm to weather.

On the up-side, we've got a new gamer at the table. I'll have to wait to see what she names her character so I'll know what to call her here. We played Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, which I haven't played in some time and it went fairly well. Sven was fed to the crocodiles, and I eeked out a victory over Mal. She-who-has-not-yet-been-named didn't do well, but it was her first game out the standard Milton Bradley fare and she was just playing a little too safe.

Afterwords we talked about Shadowrun and I gave her my book to look at. We'll probably sit down before the next week and get her character made. Which is exciting. There's nothing like making a character with someone who's almost never gamed before.

As promised

So Calidax (I'm going to be using D&D character names for my friends instead of their real names when applicable) is in Illinois again this week. I remember him saying that he would be gone for only three weeks, but now I'm believing he said five. As it's been three weeks and he won't be back for another two. So there's no role-playing until he gets back because we're going to be getting back into Shadowrun.

So for the past three weeks we've been playing board games, which I am super-excited about as denoted here. The first week we played Arkham Horror, which is a very large game, but can feel simply overwhelming before coming to a anti-climactic end. For the past two weeks, we've been playing Puerto Rico, which is much lighter in size but still has plenty of strategy to keep everyone's attention.

My weekend went well and while I showered and such Saturday, I just let myself go entirely on Sunday. Didn't shower till today, and have imbibed nothing but Dr. Thunder since Friday. I watched movies and spent hours playing video games without a care in the world. I did miss my wife and daughter, but the weekend was a nice palette cleanser.

Still jobless. I'm having trouble securing even the menial of positions, so if anyone has an inside track on a position... any position... I'd like to hear from you.

The Eve

Wifey and Daughter are leaving with Father in Law tomorrow morning around 8am. That should get them to where they're going by mid afternoon. My plans for tomorrow are as follows: 1) Turn off baby monitor (although the white noise that's been pumping into my ear for the last 6 months may make it hard to sleep without it); 2) Get out of bed whenever; 3) Clean the carpets in the living room and the baby's room; 4) Clean bathroom; 5) NOTHING ELSE!

That is, of course, besides grinding out level after awesome level in City of Heroes. I'd be playing right now, but they took down the servers for maintenance reasons. It's unfortunate that the first evening of a double XP weekend they have to take down the servers.

Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, redux

So I've always been enamored with having a Blog and exerting my thoughts on the world at large, et al, etc.

That being said, I haven't posted in two months so I've decided that the best thing for everyone is for me to call "do-over" on the whole thing and so, with a fresh coat of paint and a new name, I begin again.

The changes you will see are two fold. The first is anecdotes and insights on the gaming I get done Monday nights and the other gaming I do throughout the week in addition to anecdotes and insights into being a largely unemployed father and husband. "But Chuk," you say. "There are a maxillian other Blogs about gaming, what makes yours so special?" Well, I'll tell you: Besides the fact that those other Blogs aren't written by me, nothing. "Oh," you reply, clearly uncomfortable. "OK." The second dealy is that I'm going to try to keep myself on a schedule. Monday nights after the game, Thursday, and Saturday.

So, Wifey and Father-in-law are taking Bug on a trip to see extended family in West Virginia. This is the longest period that I've been on my own in a year and a half. It is also a Double XP weekend for City of Heroes/Villains (CoX) so I intend to have a superpowered weekend full of superpowers.

It's not just you...

As some of you may know through the social osmosis that is Twitter and MySpace/Facebook, I lost the job I had at Fulton Bank. It was a temporary position sure, but I was comfortable there and got along fairly well with my coworkers and did the best I could at it. According to my agent at AppleOne I was let go to be replaced by a college student. So it's been a week since I've worked and my mood has been up and down. I've been trying to find solace in the idea that it's hard all over and that many people are in a similar situation. It doesn't really help, but I keep trying.

Bahie let me borrow Lost Odyssey and I'm digging it so far (although for a bunch of immortals they seem fairly predisposed to crumpling over and dying).

I really, really want to be reading more. So far I'm 3/4 of the way through Bonehunters and 18 pages into Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

Beyond

Ok, yes. It has been nearly two months since my last post and for the ones and ones of you that read this blog, I apologize. Of course, since so much time has past it's going to be impossible for me to relate everything that's happened over that time.

So instead, I'll talk about a few things that have been going on recently:
Today, I'm sick. Maybe. I've been feeling off all day, and since both Miranda and my mother in law have had fevers, I assume the headaches and "swimminess" in my head are due to the on set of some sickness. Chance of it being the swine flu? Minimal.

So yes: Miranda has been sick. I came home Friday night looking forward to a fast and loose evening of not doing much and ended up spending a few hours of it at Patient First where I paid a $30 copay for them to take a few possibilities off the table (i.e. It's not strep or flu). So at the end of the weekend I had convinced myself and Amanda that it was side-effects of new teeth coming in. Then mom in law and myself come down with something, and now it's all weird. Miranda, on the other hand, was zooming around all morning without a care in the world. So at least she's feeling better.

As some of you may know, I host a Monday night gaming group where we've been enjoying a rousing Shadowrun campaign run by my buddy Nate. In it I play a Troll mafioso by the name of Slabber (as in, he puts people on slabs) who acts in most situations as either a negotiating liability or a meat turrett (he's terrifying with an assault rifle). Starting last week I shifted gears a bit at the table and started running a Feng Shui game. I had to cancel tonight's game as I am sick. However, I'm excited to be behind the GM Screen again and telling tales. I really enjoy running games because you can start off with a story in mind and have it shifting week to week as the players say and do things you'd never be able to prepare for.

I'm going to try to update again later this week and then keep it to an update a week after that. I also want to keep my community involved, so if there's a subject you'd like me to comment on, let me know.