Current mood:	forlorn
Current music:	Sean Paul - Heb de lady gon baw wid us

Startling Update!
So I worked at this crappy job for a couple weeks after we got here where I ran around in the ninety degree sun all day taking pictures of cars, and they gave me shitty equipment that didn't work, and I ended up quitting. We were living with Dani's mom Kathi and her husband Newton who's Brazilian and acts/sounds quite a bit like a two-year-old. He ended up moving out around October and it doesn't look like they're going to get back together, which is probably good for everybody involved.

A week after we got here, Katrina hit. It was only a tropical storm at that point, but it still knocked down trees in our apartment complex. In October, Wilma was headed for us just about the time Kathi had a job interview up in Tallahassee. Everyone said Wilma wouldn't be a big deal, but I had a bad feeling about it (because every time a storm hit the gulf around that time, it went frickin' nuts) so we ended up going with her. We went to the state capitol building and to Wakullah Springs, which was pretty cool. I also went on a film shoot with Justin who I knew from my film club back at Northwest MO State. He's majoring in film at FSU now and I got to hang out on the set for a few hours, which was very cool. Wilma hit and pretty well fucked up about half the state, so we decided to stay an extra day, and then decided to stay a few more days in Orlando. We went to Sea World and I had a dolphin jump onto this ledge next to me at the dolphin cove and let me pet it for a while, which was cool. Eventually, we headed home to Ft. Lauderdale. We got back at night. There were no lights, no traffic lights, debris and trees in the middle of the road. It took about a week after Wilma hit before our water was safe to drink, and about a week and a half to get our power back. For some people, it took a month to get power. It seems like about half the trees in South Florida either got torn down or at least ripped up pretty bad and stripped of a lot of their branches. A lot of trees that were 50-100 years old, and had obviously seen a lot of hurricanes, were torn down. Still, it obviously could have been worse.








Anyway, back to the beginning. After that crappy job with the cars, Kathi hooked me up with a job at Florida Atlantic University with their executive accounting program. Dani's dad is the executive director of the pogram, and Kathi is a program coordinator. My official title is IT assistant. I pretty much help people whose email is screwing up and stuff like that. I also wake up at 5 AM on Saturdays so that I can be there by 6 AM to set up video cameras and computers to record the lectures for the program. That part kind of sucks, but they pay me a lot more than I'm worth, and I'm starting to get to do some pretty cool creative stuff. I'm working on updating their websites, getting ready to do some marketing videos, etc. I'm hoping they'll make me full time pretty soon, and I'll get insurance and all that good stuff.

Dani's been working at Chilis doing to-go pretty much since we got here. The tips aren't great, but she likes it there. She also became a Hooters girl a few months ago. She makes anywhere from $50 on a slow daytime shift to $200 on a good night. Most of the girls that work there are pretty nice, and she's becoming friends with some of them. We've both been trying to go to school, but we missed registration for this semester, so hopefully we can get going next time.

Besides that, we went back and visited the family before Christmas. That was pretty cool. We saw Kyle and Dave and I got to drink a lot of Boulevard Wheat beer because they don't sell any good wheat beer down here and that's my favorite. We got back on Christmas Eve. I call my parents every Sunday. I also talk to Kyle about once a week. Hopefully he'll find a good job soon. He's a good friend and he deserves it.

I guess that's about all for now. I'll post again in another four months or so.