Time Well Wasted

I work an erratic night shift schedule, which leaves me time to think as I stare at the clock.

Since moving to Pennsylvania and my subsequent lay-off last August, my attempts to find a full time and/or local job have yielded little results. Being under paid and highly over trained for the part time work I have found has left me disgruntled. I know everyone thinks health care was safe from the recession, but you are mistaken. There are a lot of nursing jobs, yes, but not many places are ready to hire until mistakes start reaching dangerous levels. Like any other business, health care is all about the bottom line.

I started toying with the idea of a complete career change a few months back. It's an idea that has been gaining strength with my current job. Upon being hired I was supposed to take a geriatric course to ensure I could work for this company. 12 people were hired with me under the same premise. As it turns out, that class is not being offered and we can only work for 120 days before being let go. After a week we are asked to reapply for another 120 days. And so on the process would go until such time as the course can be given at my current location. Wonderful business practices, huh? Just imagine how your family members are being cared for with a turn over rate like that!

Back to where I was going with all of this. I genuinely loved working in health care, but I think I'm starting to feel burned out. Nursing no longer makes me happy and I really don't have a desire to do it anymore. It has become less about patient care and more about paperwork and corporate images. It's not what I set out to do. I never got into this for the money, but for love of what I was doing.

I don't know what else I could or would do. Maybe go into computers and make oodles of money. Maybe sell a bunch of crap on ebay and become filthy stinking rich. There's always the lucrative sex tape idea, but since no one knows me or Joe that probably won't work either.

Sent from my BlackBerry

Cat's Out

Well, some people knew sooner than others...

Last Monday we received an offer on our house. We are thrilled. I will not talk about offer amounts, profits, etc. It's tacky to discuss that and rude for others to ask. What is most important is that we will be out of Pine Ridge! The home inspection was Saturday, appraisal should be following shortly. We have a tentative closing date of February 26. I begin to house hunt on Tuesday.

Our plan was to sell this house and move to South Carolina. It appears that might be on hold for another year or two as Joe's job has given him a raise and work has picked up quite a bit for him. So, I have to wait. I really could take that time to do my Master's Degree. There has been debate about if we should rent or purchase another home for such a brief time. I understand everyone has thier concerns, but with 6 pets, renting doesn't appear to be much of an option unless we lie about how many "kids" we have. Plus, should we become stuck here for 5 years instead of 2, I would rather own a home than have wasted tens of thousands of dollars on rent. Joe holds the same opinion that I do. The other debate that comes into play is townhouse, condo, or real house. It depends on what we can find, my friends.

We don't know much about the family purchasing the house. The husband is former military, the wife believes this is here dream home & the son that is possible autistic will get the former "man cave" as his bedroom.

UPDATE: Home inspection went well. Apparently there are 3 small issues, 2 the buyer can fix himself & the 3rd we might not even be asked to fix since it is so small. We have no idea what it is, but Joe assures me I shouldn't worry because when they say "small" they mean "stupid little thing". I just got a phone call from our realtors office that the appraiser would be thrilled (my words, not her's) to come by at 8:30 tomorrow morning. The hope is that the appraiser has a brain and can appraise a finished house, since they are so used to doing forclosures. Then at 11am I will be off to do my house hunt.

Las Vegas, Nevada.......Good Times, Good Times

What do ya know, Joe gets a turn on the blog! But hey, I've got something pretty cool to write about. But lets give you a little background first: Back in October, my cousin Ross received as a birthday gift a paid-for trip out to Las Vegas. He was ecstatic, and I was there when he found out. As I sat there, I realized that I had a week's paid vacation I had no plan for, and just threw out there that I'd go too if I could afford it. I guess it was planned that Ross would go with his mom, but they figured it would be better to have someone else with each of them to make the trip more enjoyable. And even though according to the Vegas odds that I was an underdog to go on the trip, my aunt had asked my mom to go with her, and as an early birthday gift to bring me along. The news got back to me in November, and the events were set in motion: I was going to Las Vegas for 4 days of who knows what I would do out there.

We flew out of Newark, New Jersey way early on Saturday, January 2nd. Some things had been planned for the trip, other parts were still in the air, but I'll go through all of that here day by day.

Day 1
We arrived at McCarran International Airport, and had a bus take us to the resort we were staying at: the MGM Grand. We checked in but had to wait until after 1pm to actually get into our rooms. Ross and I explored the resort, got lunch at the Rainforest Cafe
(literally a cafe in the middle of a jungle) and walked around to see the 4 resorts in our area: the MGM Grand, the Tropicana, New York New York (not a typo), and the Excalibur. The Grand had enough for us to do, and you'll hear about it all later. We hit the Tropicana, and left pretty quickly since it looked pretty crappy. New York New York was a really cool looking place, and would be another place we'd hit again. The Excalibur was cool too, though we didn't really venture there afterwards. After finally getting into our room and settled in, it was time to go to what I knew would be the highlight of my trip: UFC 108- Evans vs. Silva.

I won't recap the entire fight card, but I'll recap the experience. The Grand Garden Arena in the Grand was awesome, and everybody there was into the fights the whole time. It was unlike any other sporting event I had ever been to before. We got a great night of a fights, a few beers in us, and got to leave happy. Afterwards, we hung out by the arena to catch the fighters leaving. I didn't get any autographs or pictures, but got to see some cool people: referee Mario Yamasaki, ring announcer Bruce Buffer (who had two floozies with him), fighters Junior Dos Santos, Mark Munoz, Gilbert Yvel, Ryan Jensen, Paul Daley, and Jim Miller. Miller I actually got to talk with because he actually lives in Sparta, New Jersey, and I grew up a half hour away in Montague. Afterwards, it was time to get some good drinks, so we hit the one bar in the Grand that wasn't packed. Centrifuge became the stable for my hard liqour for the rest of the trip (blue lights, Jack Daniels, and having the waitresses and bartenders dance on the bar from time to time is good enough for me). We turned it in around 12:30 that night.

Day 2
After grabbing breakfast at the buffett in the Grand that morning, it was time to gamble a little. Ross went to play Texas Hold 'Em, and at first I just hung out figuring he'd bust out soon. After 45 minutes, I got bored from watching the football games at Centrifuge (keep in mind it was after noon time, so I was OK to have beer) and decided to put $40 on the line in some Hold 'Em too. After no real action, the dealers switched and I got hammered. I lost it all after some beat hands, and caught up with Ross who had gotten cleaned out a little before I did.

To get a little rush to make us feel better, we went on the Manhattan Express Rollercoaster over at New York New York. Having not been on a rollercoaster since I was a teenager, it was fun. We then made our way to the Mandalay Bay resort nearby by way of tram. That was the coolest resort I had seen so far, and where I want to stay if I make it back out there with some friends. We then headed make to meet up with the moms to take a night tour of the city. Before the tour, we had some time to check out the Coca-Cola store and M&M's Factory, which are a couple of the kid-friendly attractions left in the city.

The tour took us to several high-up resorts in the city. We started at the Venetian, which is where I want to take Casey if we can go out there. The Venetian was a representation on Venice, Italy, and was really cool to see. It had the Madame Tussauds' Wax Museum, which served as a place for the wackiest pictures we took out there (we took advantage of being able to freely get close to each wax model), and was across from the Mirage where we saw the "volcano" erupt out front. Next stop was the Rio, and we were first brought up to the Voodoo Lounge, located on the 54th floor with an outdoor bar that gave a view of the entire city. Back down in the casino they had a little musical show similar to what you might see at Mardis Gras. From there we went to the Bellagio, and huge resort with some interesting architectual showings (ceramic tile floors from Italy, glass flower-shaped ceiling, and a chocolate waterfall). Outside was the well-known fountain show that was pretty cool. The tour ended with a stop to Freemont Street, the place where Vegas really began (FYI, we passed by the pawn shop from the show "Pawn Stars" and the drive-thru wedding chapel along the way). Freemont has the famous TV ceiling, which gave us a show with a KISS theme while we were there. Not much to see other than an outdoor bar were we had a shot of Petron to loosen us up.

Returning to the Grand, Ross went back to the poker tables (he lost again) while I hit Centrifuge again for some more drinks, and stopped at another bar to catch the NFL scores before getting back to the room at around 2am (this was the most hammered I got out in Vegas.......Petron, two beers, and 4 Jack Daniels on the rocks.......I was happy)

Day 3
There were a few quick highlights for this day. All for of us took a day-tour of Red Rock Canyon (it was at 1pm, so I was sobered up fine). I thought of Casey the whole time, knowing she would love to see this place. One road goes around the whole park area, and we made a few stops at some of the mountain areas and interesting spots, where I got to climb some rocks and explore a little. The tour wore us out a little, but still had enough left in us to check out the parts of Mandalay Bay we didn't see, as well as the Luxor resort. Just to spend time with my mom, we went to an Asian restaurant at the Grand where I got to have some good sushi, and educate my mom on it since she'd never had it before.

We had time to kill before a show Ross and I went to that night, so I hit the poker table one last time, which Ross joined in later. I did far better with the $50 I had, and had some really good hands. I had a killer full house against a woman with a weaker full house, and that gained me back a lot of what I had lost during the first few hands that day. I also had a good 2 pair hand a against a guy playing with just one pair. I wanted to keep playing, but it was time to go to the show, so I cashed out with $14 less than what I started with. Oh well, that's as much as I allowed myself to lose, and I still did better than my cousin did.

We then went to see stand-up comedian Frank Calliendo, known for his various impressions of celebrities. A band played some music before the start of the show, and a guy named George Sutter opened with some decent comedy. Frank's show was hilarious, and we got an unexpected bonus with a meet-and-greet right after. I bought his DVD for him to autograph, and got our picture with him too. The night was supposed to end after hitting a different bar, but Ross was out of it and went to bed. Following the structure I had set up from the previous 2 days, I went to (guess where! I'll give you a moment........................) Centrifuge. Got a couple of drinks just to help me sleep since the next day we were leaving, so I wanted my sleep. Hit the bed around 12:30.

Day 4
The end was here, and there wasn't much happening for the day. We hit a couple of stores to get any last-minute souveneirs, and made our way to the airport. Let's see if I can remember all the souveneirs I got while I was out there: a deck of casino cards from the MGM Grand, a UFC hat, a long-sleeved cool Las Vegas shirt, a joke shirts with a guy looking at a stripper with the words "I love my wife.....I love my wife.....I love my wife....." written around it, a sweet Silver Star shirt made for UFC fighter Georges St. Pierre, and a Las Vegas shot glass that came with dice and a poker chip. I did make sure to bring something back for Casey (besides the shampoo and soap from the room). My mom had gotten her a set of polar bear coasters and a stuffed penguin from the Coca-Cola store, and I got her a flower-shaped container of M&Ms and a stuffed lion cub.

Alas, I miss Vegas and had wanted to do so much more while I was out there. The Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, a burlesque show (those all belong in the "educational" group, don't they?).......but there wasn't enough time. Considering that it's economically feasable to travel out there, I do plan on going again at least 2 more times. I definitely want to plan a guy's trip out there for a UFC event, and go crazy with some booze and gambling; and I also want to bring Casey out there to see the nature-type stuff and enjoy the more intimate sceneray out there. But this vacation has been one of my favorites, and I went to a place that I had heard about and seen on the many repeats of "CSI", which none of what I'd seen on the show happened out there. Ah Vegas, you are so misunderstood...........

Welcoming In The New Year

I realize I haven't posted anything for the new year. Now that I'm plopped in front of the TV watching CMT while the wind is constantly knocking out the power, this seems as good a time as any. Joe has left for a 4 day trip to Las Vegas. I'm sure he will write all about it once he returns.

The media has begun its typical "resolution overload". It's annoying to have everyone talk about making resolutions and in the same breath talk about how you're going to fail at most of them. Thanks for the encouragement, people. I stopped making resolutions. The new year is a chance for a new start, but a person shouldn't us that as an excuse. All those people who claim they will quit smoking, start eating better, or whatever on January 1st really aren't ready to make the change. You don't need a special day to kick it off, just the motivation. For example, this fall I realized I no longer find joy in my career the way I once did. That's when I began to put a plan into action to begin to seek out a new career. I am fortunate to have the support of a wonderful husband in whatever I decide I want to do.

Alas, it is 2010. I'm not immune to wishing for this to be a better year. So, here we go...