Y2 D364

Another year almost down. Where the fuck has the time gone? Where has my sanity gone? Where is my mind?

Day two at the new job. Actually started *doing* something yesterday. At least I felt like I was doing something. The product isn't that hard to learn. After 13 years of being in this field, it's not tough to understand from a conceptual level what it is I am doing. It's more learning the little nuances of this particular product versus learning anything really new. Today should be more of the same. I can't remember if I mentioned this, but I did learn something extremely ironic. We were going through a list of the new company's customers and guess who was on the list? X2's old company. Imagine how it would have been if she was still working there and learned that I was now part of that company. Awkward to say the least. But she's not and I won't ever touch their stuff probably so fuck it.

Got a pass for the train yesterday instead of buying a ticket everyday but it looks like it takes a couple of days for the value to show up. I have to call them in five minutes to see if I can use it right now or if I have to wait. Also found out how our reimbursement program works. Basically they do a pre-tax deduction and then roughly 20 into the next month you get a hard check paying you back for the original amount. In other words, if I take $100 per check in deductions, the gross impact is about $85 to my net, but on the 20th of the following month, I get a check for the full $200. I just need to figure out how much per check and when to start it. I want to see how much my actual checks are going to be before I start taking money out. Insurance is only going to cost me $9 a month as they cover everything but the vision which is cool. This should get me like $50 - $75 more a month than I was getting which in turn will go right back to commuter checks.

I did have a friend come up to the city last night and meet me after work which was nice. We went and had dinner at this Korean place I found about three blocks over. Since he is Korean he interpreted the menu for me. Also he was able to drive me home which saved me a train ride and a walk. Got home about 8, went to bed around 11 as I was pretty wired from the day.

I did start looking up apartments and rentals in the city yesterday. I am looking at roughly $800 more a month to live in something comparable in the city. I am not ready for that. I will keep looking as I have a year until my lease is up here, but damn.

Time to call the commuter card people...