Programmer, Analyst, Learner, Leader, Gamer

Between the Warhammer Beta, college, my car being broken into, changing job roles, possibly other opportunities, house hunting, preparing out household budget, moving finances, keeping my head screwed on, meeting with mortgage lenders to get pre-approved for a future home purchase, finding the PERFECT place, signing paperwork, working with a homeowner/landlord who’s not even in town, dealing with getting new teeth put in my mouth after fracturing two of them, and now packing and preparing to move by the 15th starting this weekend (wears me out just saying all that)…

Let’s just say I’ve been busy. More details forthcoming as I find the time to post.

My brain is out of control. I don’t know what I’m doing. I think the root of it all is my health. I think deep down I have no real control over my illness, so I’m trying to make everything right. I’m trying to make everything perfect and complete because this is one aspect of myself that I can’t fix myself, not directly so I feel out of control and I’m trying to medicate myself by making everything else perfect. When those things don’t go as planned I take it extra hard.

Is this what depression is like? Feeling out of control and redirecting my own misunderstood emotions onto other things? I’m used to maybe obsessing a little bit about WoW, but not to the degree I have been. I am getting depressed over the lack of coordination and getting upset at raids for no decent reason. This isn’t like me. I’m obssessing over things that normally I don’t care about, or if I do, it’s not to this degree. My brain is so scrabled now that I can’t focus on school, as a result I’m WAY behind on my math class (which is self-paced). I’m obssessing over my financials. I’m obssessing over a my house plans. I’m obsessing about Kerrie, about “us”. I’m obssessed with helping Kerrie with her business. I want to help her launch her website and get wrapped up in making her business launch “perfect”. I’ve started obssessing about my weight. What ever random thought enters my brain I start obssessing about it and I can’t stop until I redirect my attention to something else.

I’m not acting like myself and I think my parents are seeing it and being all worried. My dad brought me coffee yesterday, in the middle of the evening, which is not… normal. How do I break this cycle. Do I shut everything off? Do I shut half the things off in my life right now? Do I need to spend a night just lost in my own self thought? Am I going crazy? I’m sneezing again (my weird self defense mechanism), this tells me how worried I am about this subject. Sigh… I’m confused.

Took a drive to Ikea today. No, not to Seattle, but the new one here in Portland. Took my time as apposed to the first time I went with Kerrie where we were in and out in an hour, I spent 4 hours in there basking the in wonderment of the place. I figured out that I could outfit and entire house with the ideal stuff I wanted at around 5,000. This means that other than the little to no downpayment I’m planning for my first house, I only have to save 5K toward filling the house with stuff.

Spening a good part of the morning between projects catching up on mail. I’ve got several stacks, I’ve got my WaMu stack, Benefits stack, 401K stack (needs it’s own), My Dolphin Paperwork Stack, DeVry stack, and my HealthCrap stuff stack (all recent health paperwork like xrays, mri, etc). A lot of this still is preperation paperwork for Mark (my financial planner) so he can get a summary of how I’m doing, etc with my current financial situation. I even got a letter from Fred Bachofner, reminding me about him for my future home loan, I emailed him back telling him not to worry and that I haven’t forgotten about him. My car will be officially paid off by Feb 2008. I’m going on a vacation in late December to celebrate what will be at that point 3 Semesters of hopefully all A’s in school.

Well back to work, doing some cool cleaning of some of Hewlett Packard’s data right now. They really embrace our Lot transaction system and have some good control policies. I’m going back and fixing up some data that is incomplete before they tightened some of their transaction policies.

So for 375 ($500 -$100 Costco discount -$25 gift certificate) I am going to have Emeriprise financial completely work out an entire financial plan for me getting my house. They are going to evaluate my expenses, how I’m saving money, where I should be saving it, and how I van get into that house as quickly as possible and what kind of options I have for getting there. They will check my credit, evaluate when I should pay or my car or whether I have to or what. I’m so excited about this and looking forward to seeing good or bad what it’s going to take.

I think it’s completely bullshit that because I don’t itemize my deductions I basically get jack shit for buying a Hybrid this year. I mean seriously if I itemized my deductions it was 3450 deduction for purchasing a new Hybrid. But because I’m a middle class single guy who doesn’t own a house and I really don’t have much to itemize I get screwed. All things aside though I did end up paying less in taxes than I thought I was going to have to. I ended up paying 216 or so in taxes when I thought I was going to owe near to 800.

So you know those “put your card in here and win a free lunch” fish bowls at restaurants? Well today I took myself and 7 other of my co-workers to lunch at Henry’s with a little catch. We had to listen to a short presentation from Mark of Emeriprise Financial planners. I really liked what he had to say and I think that I might just pursue their services to help me plan toward getting my house. I know I could get Dad to do it, but if I do it with these guys, I dunno I think I might have a greater chance of sticking to it. I mean paid advice you have a tendency to follow because well you paid for it. Free advice you more easily toss aside or don’t follow as regimently.