Couch Surfing In Oregon

It’s my day off and I was really hoping for another hot and beautiful day outside. Apparently every weather man and woman in the east bay thought so too. It’s 3:38 pm and it’s supposed to be 81 degrees today in the east bay. Alas, it’s but only just broke the 60 degree mark and I figured that I should just chill at the apartment and write a blog instead of ride my bike or long board around Berkeley. Ugh.

Well it’s not all bad. With writing this, I can tell everyone the good... slash... not so good... slash... I’m really effing stoked... slash... kinda sad about... news. Now if that made any sense at all, I guess I shouldn’t be wasting your time anymore.

It has come to my attention that I am unable to find a decently paying job here in the bay area and heard that an old employer of mine needs some serious help back in Eugene. And since I am sick and tired of not being able to contribute to my relationship with Kendra monetarily, I’ve decided (after a few phone calls) to head back up north to make some money.

This might raise a few questions and I’m going to do my best as to answer them right now. One question that I got from one of the few that I have told this news to personally was, “Are you and your girlfriend okay?” My answer to this in all honesty, “Never better.” She is an amazing woman and I am so blessed to have her in my life. I made some sacrifices to move down here to be with her and it just isn’t really working out right now so I’ve made the choice to go where the money is. I’m used to working 40-60 hours a week between 2 to 3 jobs. It’s a bit of a financial shock when you go from 2 to 3 pay checks down to one tiny, minimum wage job with only 30 hours a week.

And, I thought this whole “Sugar Momma” thing was gonna be easy. Damn it.

Another question that was asked was, “Where the heck are you going to stay?” I’ll be hijacking Ken’s couch... well, one of his couches. Word on the street is that there is a enough couches in this house to facilitate a mexican family. Also, for those of you that don’t know Ken very well, he is one of my old house mates and good friend.
Shown here is the only picture that I have of my dear Kenneth that is neither

A) Not incriminating
B) Not nude, and
C) Does not question either of our sexual orientation.

Now whether or not B or C have anything to do with each other and the fact that he is planting a wet on me... well, let’s just say that living together with the same guy for nearly 3 years in a small house brings out the best in friends.

*ahem* Back to the questions. “Hey Jesse, when do you actually plan on being back?” To put it simply, I just put my two weeks notice in on Friday the 15th. So my last day will be the 29th and I’ll be there more than likely in the evening of the following Sunday the 31st.

Like I said before, I’m in a state of feeling happy/sad and excited/bummed. I feel like this is a good thing and quite honestly, the only option I have right now due to the lack of jobs around here. It’s definitely hard having these contrasting feelings about something in your life. I seriously recommend that you avoid feeling like this at all costs.

However, I am confident that this is going to work out and I thank all of those that have offered up your extra beds, couches, and back yards to pitch a tent in. It’ll be good to be near the family but you can bet money that I’ll be back to visit my girl as often as I can.

I’ll do my best to bring back some of the Californian sunshine with me. Now if I could get an answer from you guys that’d be great. How the hell did Zach’s mom find out about this before I even told my own parents? I only told Ken and Kolby and planned on telling others soon after, but somehow, Kellie Chambers got ahold of the news. Not that I mind but I swear that woman has got some kind of mental telepathy and mind raped me before I even knew what hit me.

I plan on keeping up on this blog, but I think it’ll be mostly for my bay area friends now. Or at least, until I’m back.

P.S.
Don't forget to click on my meaningless ads on the right. I'm almost a ten dollaraire thanks to Google.

Wayward Identity

It seems, as of late, I have been misplacing my personal items. Most recently, my drivers license. In the process of photo copying and faxing my identification, it has seems to have vanished. Best part about this situation is that I actually never had a chance to photo copy or fax it to the people who need it. I’m sure it’ll turn up. Or at least I hope so, because I’m almost certain that I do not qualify for residency in California yet, to get an ID.

Perhaps, for some strange karmic reason, someone will send it back to Oregon, to the address that’s on the license and my boys there will let me know... or keep it and sell it for $50 bucks to some underaged, Pete Wentz look alike.

Lately, the weather here has been outstanding, mid 60’s to mid 70’s. I really don’t have any complaints other than for some reason, my body thinks, “Hey, it’s nice outside. Perhaps now is a good time for me to make Jesse sneeze all the time and make him want to scratch his eyes out.” Right now, my body is in a full fledged allergy season mode. Which I find very strange, seeing as how there isn’t a single leaf on any of the trees and not one god damned flower in bloom.

Yesterday I didn’t have to work until 4:30 PM so I decided to go check out the local indoor climbing gym. Berkeley Iron Works is an outstanding facility and if i was a million billionaire, I would probably have a membership there. Maybe I haven’t completely adjusted to the fact that everything here in California costs more than it should. Regardless, I went climbing by myself and had so much fun. Unfortunately, my forearms and hands are so sore today, that I was having a hard time lifting my RedBull without trembling.

Last and certainly not least, I miss my family. I could use a hug from my dad, some encouraging words from my mom, a healthy pat on the bum from my brother, and a solid eye roll from my little sister.Photo taken by Kolby Schnelli Photography. (Check out Kolby's Flickr Photo Stream HERE)

Not So Sunny Santa Cruz

So yesterday we drove to Santa Cruz. Despite the weather being overcast and slightly drizzly at times, we had a really good time. We really didn’t have any goals while we were there mostly because we weren’t really sure what was going to be open. Even though the weather down here is tolerable t-shirt and jeans weather, most of the local attractions are shut down for the season. Surprisingly, most of the boardwalk in Santa Cruz was up and running with it’s roller coasters and silly haunted house. But the boardwalk itself was rather barren. Not a whole bunch of people hanging out. I imagine in the spring and summer months, it’s probably insane.

I threw together some clips and music for your viewing pleasure. Towards the end of the trip I made Kendra drive. She is a fantastic navigator and I figured it was time to let her shine behind the wheel but she wasn’t really happy with that decision... that I made for her.



One more thing, don’t forget to comment on these blog posts. You kids say you read them but you sure as hell ain’t calling me to tell me so. So leave a little NorthWest love for me on the blog. I miss everyone from home and think it’s about time for some visitation from up north.

Pimp Slaps and Pills

Oh my goodness. If you have ever had a problem getting enough sleep or keep waking up in the middle of the night, I highly recommend Tylenol PM. I slept for 11 hours straight and didn’t wake up once. I had the coolest and most in depth dreams I have had in years which makes me wonder what’s really in those glorious blue and white pills.

I’ve been working weird hours lately and which really isn't a problem seeing as how it’s really my only gig for now. On that note, there really hasn’t been anything terribly amazing happening other than we got our first piece of mail at the new place and I got my first Californian paycheck. Small as the check was and the single piece of mail was addressed to the anonymous tenants at our address, it kinda really solidified the fact that I actually live in California.

Dear God. How could I forget. Yesterday, I was just perusing the internets, when I couldn’t help but notice the sound of a lap dog being raped by an elephant outside my window. I looked down at the street and saw a large black woman producing the ungodly resonance. I realized that this would be a perfect moment to whip out my Flip Cam and take a few minutes of surveillance to share with you guys the amazingly entertaining displays of dysfunction that we witness out our very own windows.

It seemed to my eyes, that the gentleman on the right, (aka: dirty old bum) was harassing the large black woman, (aka: dirty fat bum). Then walks up this middle aged black man who wasn’t so dirty, (aka: possible pimp of the large black woman and assailant), this is where I started filming and well, the rest is in the video. Not very good quality cause it was shot at a distance with the zoom all the way up. My apologies for that, but I’m sure that you get the idea of the awesomeness that we are blessed with on a day to day basis here in the Bay Area.

The Most Stressful 20 Minutes Of My Life

Let me start this story off with how NOT amazing my night of sleep was. Yesterday, I didn’t really have more than half a cup of coffee. No RedBull (I know, I know, crazy, right?) I had a great breakfast and ate a pretty decent dinner. For some ungodly reason, I didn’t get one wink of sleep last night. I actually couldn’t keep my eyes closed hardly at all. I tossed and turned for hours and eventually got up and checked the MySpace and FaceBook world, played some video games, and eventually went back to bed.

I ended up tossing and turning for another hour or so and moved to the floor. Not sure why I migrated down there. I mean, it’s a wood floor... how comfortable can a wood floor be? Turns out, that the wood floor is actually more uncomfortable than the bed. Regardless, I ended up spending the rest of the night down there watching the clock move closer and closer to 5:30am when my alarm would normally have woken me up for work. I couldn’t bare to hear the awful sound it creates, so I turned it off a minute before and just got up.

Work actually went pretty well. It was busy, I learned a few new things, and it was all around pretty productive. Coming to the end of the shift, I was seriously starting to feel the effects of no sleep for more than 24 hours. But when my shift was over, I was assigned to attend a special training class with a few of my co-workers. Not a huge deal. In fact, I was pretty excited to get some serious training so that I can at least fake my way through a conversation with a snooty specialty coffee drinking customer. The plan was for me to meet the other two co-workers back at work and we would carpool to the class which was located at the Vine Street store in Berkeley.

I left my apartment with tons of time to spare, but everything was working against me. I was lucky enough to hit every single red light on the way back to work and still make it there with some time to spare. “Oh, good”, a parking spot that isn’t just barely big enough to fit a Smart Car. I park, grab my bag and race in the store to meet my co-workers.

Wait, they’re no where to be found. I run to the back to ask my manager if they left with out me and of course they did. Apparently they won’t let you into these training classes, not even a second late. Which I’m okay with, cause that always annoyed me back when I attended school, to have the lazy ass kids come in late and disrupt my learning.

I roughly knew where this Vine Street store was so I raced back to my car to find out that some giant bucket of Summer’s Eve decided to park his Prius six God damned inches away from Thug Passion. If you know anything about Thug Passion, you’d know that her drivers’ side door lock is broken and can only be unlocked from the inside. Unfortunately, Captain Massengill was parked so close to me that I had to unlock the passenger side door, reach in and unlock the back door, open it up and try and crawl in. Here comes the best part of the story, right here. This Prius driving tampon had boxed my car in so tightly that not even my skinny ass could fit in the back door that I just tried to open. I had to unroll the back window, crawl in, and weasel my way to the driver’s seat.

“I’m in!” I thought to myself and started up the car, backed out, and started my breakneck journey to my class. Even then, there was a small inkling of hope that I might make it on time. As I was leaving the parking lot, I looked in my rear view mirror to discover that my bag had been left on my trunk and fell off when I accelerated. Luckily no one ran it over, so I backed up and retrieved the fallen soldier. I raced down the street named Shellmound to hopefully turn right up 65th when there was an Amtrak the length of the whole state of California crossing the street where I needed to cross.

I finally gave up and called my boss back and told her that it just wasn’t possible for me to make it in time. Thus concluding the most stressful 20 minutes of my life.

When I got back home I sat down and decided to take this picture. I haven’t felt this crappy in a long time. I’m not sick but I sure am on my way if I keep up this pseudo-insomnia. I think tonight I am going to have to resort to some sort of sleep aid, such as Tylenol PM... or Chloroform.

Ah Crap!

Much to my dismay, I have been denied the opportunity to work in the great state of California thus far. As I have said before, I have been relentless in my search for gainful employment and it seems that it was mostly in vain.

I say mostly because everywhere that I have had the opportunity to have an interview, I have, not to sound boastful, blown them out of the water. I have no problem telling you that I am an amazing worker and I am really good at selling myself to an employer. So it seems that every interview that I have been a part of ends in, "We really want to hire you but we can't right now. We'll give you a call in January." This failing economy has finally materialized itself in front of me and I am unfortunately on the receiving end of it.

With that said, Kendra and I have found it clear that we have no known scheduling conflicts with a trip back up north for a much needed visit with friends and family. We are both so excited and really stressed about it too. Stressed because we have been denied once again in our search for a new place to live. Not only was the dude we had to deal with a old burnt out hippie that thought he owned the whole city of Oakland but it took him the better part of a week and 6 phone calls from me to finally give us an answer.

The best part was that while we were looking at the apartment the dude was telling us of the previous tenants and how the “younger COUPLE” had been there for 8 years. His reason for denying us the apartment was only because he and his “partner” felt more comfortable giving the apartment to a single person rather than a couple.

Anyway, with our trip north I am going to try and make a few calls and work while I am home. If any of my old Dutchies are reading this, put in the word that I’ll be in Eugene in the need of some work.

On a lighter note, I can’t wait to see you guys and hope everyone is driving safe in all that snow that’s been dumping on you up there.

P.S.

Something absolutely insane just happened while I was posting this. I'll repost something in a couple of hours. I gotta go talk to the cops right now.

Great Weekend and Good Reasons

I suppose if your reading this, you just might want to know why the heck I moved down here to San Francisco from Eugene. Two big reasons are my girlfriend got a very good job working for a place.

The other reason that I moved here is that I applied and was accepted to the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking. This school is legit. I’m so pumped about going here, but it doesn’t start until March of 2009. Which really isn’t that bad, because it gives me a little time to get my feet on the ground and find a job. Apparently when you leave the state, you still have bills to pay... who would have guessed that?

The only problem is that the school wants $30,000 for the year and I don’t really have the ideal credit score that they are looking for to loan me that kind of money. Not a bad credit score, but more of a, “not enough credit history” credit score. I’m sure I’ll figure it out though. Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.

On a different note, Saturday and Sunday, Kendra and I went for a walk down to the marina that's near by and had a good time. There is so much to do here and just as long as you have a sugar momma, you can totally do it all. :)