Greetings from D'ville!

Well, all the stuff has been moved into my new place. I'm sitting in my new living room now typing this, watching my Big Bang Theory DVDs, as my cable has not been activated yet.

I estimate I've got 3/4 of the unpacking done. It's been exhausting. I don't think I've ever been this tired--having to do this alone is almost more than I can bear. I am lucky that my company paid for movers to pack up my stuff and move it--no way I could do that myself, or afford to pay somebody to do it for me.

My new place is smaller than the old one--as much junk as I got rid of, I still have to find some places for a lot of my remaining stuff. Still, it's looking pretty good.

Strangely enough I have found myself in these new surrounds really missing Atari. I don't know why. It comes in waves--I'll be fine, then it'll just come washing over me, wave after wave of missing my Big Silly dog.

Which in a way makes me dread tomorrow, when I have to go back to my old apartment to clean up and turn in my keys. That place is empty now but to me it is full of ghosts--I lived there around nine years or so and there are a lot of memories there. Atari's ghost still walks down there--everywhere I look I'll see something that reminds me of him. His ashes are here and will be guarding this place while I'm gone but I feel like he's with me everywhere I go.

So, Big Silly, this one's to you. I love you and I miss you so much, Atari.

The end of an era . . .

You know, I've been working in the same building for 24 1/2 years. Yep. Damned near a quarter century.

That came to an end yesterday. I am now officially on vacation, in preparation to my move to the new Douglasville office.

Yes, it was a bit sad, but I"m also looking forward to beginning this new chapter in my life. I like the new apartment, and the area seems to be pretty cool. We'll see.

I still have quite a bit of work to do. Still got a ton of stuff to haul out to the dumpsters. I got lucky earlier today--I was tossing this cheap, beat up old electronic drum kit and when I came back to the dumpster to toss the pedals one of the guys landscaping the property here was fishing the drum kit out and putting it on a little cart. So, I took advantage of this opportunity to get rid of my old and extremely heavy TV set--dude was happy to take it off my hands. Since I actually gave it to the guy instead of making him have to dig it out of the trash he also got the remote that goes with it, too.

Anyways, I estimate I'm maybe two thirds of the way done going through all my stuff. I need to hurry--have to be done by Thursday morning, when the surveyor comes by to come up with the estimate for the movers. I think I can make it.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

2012 looking ahead

Well, the year will be over in a few short hours, from where I'm sitting.

I won't be sorry to see it go--on the whole, 2011 sucked. While some good stuff happened this year, most of it was off-set by the bad stuff that also happened this year.

So, while I intended to sort of sum up this year I've decided instead to talk about what I'm looking forward to in the coming year.

I'm developing an idea for a novel I had a few days ago. Still have a long way to go on it--still creating characters, deciding on the plot, all that--but I can tell you it'll be a science fiction/detective story, set in the not-too-distant future. Sort of a dystopian thing. When I finish it I'll probably self-publish it, as there would be no point in even trying to submit it to a regular book publisher.

I also had an idea for another song cycle that has nothing to do with the novel idea but is also a science fiction story--I'm calling it People of Earth . . . It's about an alien takeover. Or is it? It'll probably be six or eight songs, many of them instrumentals. I may write a little story to sort of explain it. Or I may not bother--I may just let the listener decide what the story is about.

I'm moving to Douglasville near the end of March, so that is about to become the next Big Thing in my life. More than likely most of my literary and musical pursuits will have to wait until I've got that behind me, as I hate having to stop in the middle of something and try to pick it up again later, and there's going to be a period where I'm just not going to be able to concentrate on anything else until this is done.

I've got mixed feelings about this move thing--I've lived in Savannah for years. But, maybe it's time for a change. Most of my friends have already moved on. There really isn't anyone left here in town that I'm all that close to anymore. Plus, the area I'll be moving too looks kind of interesting, just on Google Maps. I haven't actually been up there yet.

As far as the New Year's Eve thing tonight, I'm probably going to be sleeping. I lived in the Historic District of Savannah for years and have many New Years celebrations under my belt--now I'm more interested in relaxing, sleeping, chilling out, than I am going out and getting pissed as my Brit friends would say.

So, what are you looking forward to in the coming year?