For the past couple weeks, I've been busy with a lot of crap and things here at our new place in Overland Park. As a result of the move, we've been without the warm glow of the high-speed internet connection we've gotten so used to. Instead, we've had to rely on 1,045 free hours from AOL over 25 days (which works out to 41.8 hours per day), on a dialup connection.

So instead of being able to find some funny graphics to go with this update, I had to search my hard drive and make due with whatever pictures I already had. Unfortunately, the ones I had weren't that great, so I chose quantity over quality. Sorry about that.

The move went well, and the new place is really nice. We still have some boxes to finish unpacking, but they're all down in the garage and basement, where we can ignore them for months to come.

Sonja and I moved out of Lawrence for a few reasons. First and foremost, both of us were driving 40 miles to and from work every day, and that did suck eggs. We also needed to get away from all the idiots, morons, and drunks that surrounded our apartment in Lawrence. There was seldom a moment of silence between fartcan exhaust pipes, drunken stumblers in the hallway, and heavy bass from upstairs and behind us. When we moved here, we were pleased to find some peace and quiet* for exactly 3 days, until a couple of guys moved in next door. At the moment, it sounds like they are playing that damn Kylie Minogue song on repeat with the bass all the way up and their shirts all the way off.

Overall though, we're happy with this town. Every time we drive somewhere, we end up discovering another 40 blocks of city we haven't seen yet. Also, since I'm from Iowa, I had always assumed that all the jokes were exaggerations, but there really are a hell of a lot of Starbucks.**

Tomorrow we're supposed to get our DSL hooked up, so you can count on frequent updates again. In the meantime, you can do what a lot of other types of people have done lately and post in the forum. What will I do? Well, I'll probably go back to doing what I've been doing. Watching Exotic Time Machine II: Forbidden Encounters*** on Cinemax.

[Footnotes]
*Sean shows his old age.
**There was one in our basement and another in our bathroom when we got here.
***This is an actual movie.

01.22.03 6:08pm

Remember when you were in elementary school (or college), and on the morning after a big snowstorm, you'd sit in front of the TV, praying that your school would be cancelled, so you could go sledding all day (or, depending on your age, drink all day). Well, my classes were hardly ever cancelled because the superintendent was a jerk.

Anyway, while my friends in other districts had the whole day to sled, build snowmen, or drink themselves into hibernation, I always had to go to school. And school, as we all know, sucks.

Now I work at a news station, and last week I came to a realization while working on the 4am newscast. While we're broadcasting all the area school and business closings, we will never be so lucky. I'll never get a phone call from my boss telling me that we're going to be closed tomorrow, so sleep in. If anything, I'll get a call telling me to be there earlier, as was the case last week.

So, to my friends still in school who think they might someday want to work at a TV station, keep that in mind, and only apply where it never snows.

We're still packing everything up for the move, and I'm sure that moving in the middle of winter will be a good time. I can't wait to see how a big U-Haul truck handles on a layer of ice.

Finally, as a follow-up to my last update, someone out there has a pretty sick mind.

01.18.03 1:00am

How did you find this site?

...and did you get that door fixed?