I spent the month of October settling into my new routine. Forgive me for not blogging. I wanted to make it a point not to blog about my job, and I’d been struggling to find something more interesting to say than: “I went to work. I worked. I came home.”

I hit up a late night happy hour at The Blue Door on Wednesdays with my college buddies, aka “The Usual Suspects.”  It’s a small neighborhood bar with just the right atmosphere to get you through the middle of the week. I see the usual suspects about as much as I did in college, so that part of my life really isn’t too different.

Towards the middle of October, the company kick ball team went all the way to the finals and won the championship game. They didn’t have a trophy or prizes to give away to us winners - but that’s ok, because I figure I smell like a champion even without an old spice deodorant prize pack.

Also, Halloween was last month. Somewhere along the line of the costume planning process, I decided it would be fun to be a “hand turkey” for Halloween. I scrounged up some  construction paper and cardboard I had lying around from some recent IKEA purchases and came up with this…

And in case you’re wondering, those are, in fact, tights that I’m wearing. In all, the costume took about 2 hours to put together. The hardest part was finding someone with a big enough hand for me to trace.

Last but not least, I took the plunge and made my first (*gasp!) doctor’s appointment with my own insurance. Look at me being all grown up.

Last weekend I moved into my new place. For the sake of See Fox Run, I decided to take a few pictures of my new digs. There are no bear skins, neon beer signs, or mirrors on the ceiling in my bachelor pad yet, but rest assured that they’re coming.

I think that this place is definitely an upgrade from my old place. I don’t know if you remember me blogging about it, but this was probably the nicest part of it.

Here’s a big shout out to my folks for helping me drag all my stuff into the new house. And a big shout out to my old roomies for helping take all that same stuff out of the old one.

After much searching, I have finally found a new place to live. I signed the lease with the new landlords last week at a Mexican restaurant. It was a little uncanny signing a lease over margaritas, but definitely an enjoyable experience.

My new bachelor pad is a side-by-side duplex in SE Minneapolis. It’s a  real place, too. It’s sunny, has space for my drumset, and it’s got free laundry in the unit (w000000t!). Shoutout to my sister and mom for letting me wash my clothes at their houses all throughout college. Thanks.

In other news, I left the ostrich races (a specialty event, as they normally race horses only) at Canterbury Park last Sunday with my wallet a cool 20 Abe Lincolns heavier. That’s right, I made twenty pennies in a single afternoon.

How I managed to come out  just twenty cents ahead is beyond me, but I’ve always felt like once you win anything at a casino it’s time to call it quits.

My more reliable source of income (i.e. my new job) is going well. I’ve successfully passed training, and I’m happy to have it done. I moved into my new cubicle (in our brand spankin’ new building) the day after training. The new building is ridiculous. Come visit me at work sometime. We have a lady that plays piano  in the lobby every morning as we walk in. It’s awesome.

The company kickball team (which I’m now a part of) has its first scrimmage in a week, so I’ll be keeping you in the loop as to how that goes. Thanks for checkin’ in.

So for all of you who have been wondering what I’ve been doing with my time for the past month or so, let me assure you that I’ve been productive. I’m currently in the middle of an intensive two and a half week training program for my new job. It’s so intense that I have homework.

At first I was stressed out about this whole training period, but I’ve reached a point where I realize that I can choose not to let it the stress bother me. After that realization, my training has been sailing right along.

I’ve been keeping busy looking for a new place to live. My lease for this place is up at the end of the summer, which means that it’s time for Seefox to move out and move up. (My place now isn’t the nicest I’ve ever lived in, let’s just say that.) My latest hunt for housing led me to a joint by Lake Calhoun. It’s decently close to the office, decently nice, and close to the lakes, but the downside is that I probably couldn’t play my drums in an apartment building.

And who wants to live somewhere where you can’t play your drums?

“Not me,” said the bee.

I’ll keep you posted on how things unfold. Thanks for checkin’ in.

***Dear Readers,

Who’d have thunk that blogging would be such hard work? Needless to say, an update has been overdue. This is a belated update that I meant to post last week (ie the last week in June) instead of this week (ie the first entire week in July). Yikes. I’ll try to do a better job keeping you up to date in the next few weeks. With that, enjoy this older, yet still entirely enjoyable, blog post.***

Here’s the experiences from the past week, as outlined in an easy to understand format.

Bad Things:

-This heatwave! Minnesota is having hot flashes.

Good things:

-New AC unit

-Bike Lights!

-The world’s largest pepper mill

-Good times with new roomie B.Ryba

I will admit, it was a bit of a trick to get that new AC unit working. Apparently, there’s a small rubber stopper that you need to prevent the air conditioner from dripping water all over the place.

I first realized something was wrong once I stepped into the big puddle of water that had collected on my bedroom floor. I took the AC unit in the bathroom and cursed my rotten luck.

My mom called shortly after to inform me that I had managed to leave the plug behind. She dropped in the mail for me that day, but in the mean time I needed to cool my bedroom. I took a quick inventory of makeshift plug materials I had in the house. No putty, no sealants, no corks, no nothin’. With no help in sight and a sweltering, restless bedtime fast approaching, I had nothing left to do but improvise.

I grabbed a potato out of the pantry, took a few Qtips from the bathroom, and in a jiffy I MacGyvered myself a makeshift plug.

Fix an air conditioner. Just one of the many things you can do with a potato and a Qtip. You can’t make this stuff up.