ugh.

I'm really sick of being broke.

Things have been really really good since Tandra got a job, but we haven't been making the mortgage payment because we've been waiting on my mortgage company to work out a plan for us to get caught back up. So that had to end some time.

Today I talked to them. For the next five months, they want me to make basically DOUBLE my normal mortgage payment every month until it's paid back.

That's a lot of freaking money.

That means scrimping and scrounging and being broke and no extras all spring just like it was all fall.

I am not happy about it.

I also hate my job today. We're releasing websites and publications to the public that have been designed by a woman here who is NOT a graphic designer, and her work sucks. It's embarrassing. My boss agrees with me, but trying to talk to his boss about it is like screaming into a black hole. He ignores me, deflects the topic to something else, and just generally avoids the issue. Cheap bastard. We need a goddamn graphic designer.

So yeah, hi, happy holidays everybody.

I just realized something. I can't make that double-mortgage payment without Tandra's help - I just don't make enough money. But this is supposed to go on for five months, starting at the end of January. I can't do that. At the end of March, Tandra's going to have a c-section and will have to take a minimum of 6 weeks off work.

See, I know that somewhere out there is the perfect job for me. I just don't know how to go about finding it and putting myself in it.

Travis and I were talking yesterday about how much we'd love to start a website selling performance auto parts. He's a graphic designer and I'm a web developer so between the two of us we could come up with the site's design (and therefore company identity) and the website (primary revenue generator) without outsourcing. We're both passionate about the field, so that would take care of motivation and the drive to know what we were doing. The big expense would be marketing, and really, a website that costs nothing to create is a pretty good overhead situation. Maybe if the business took off we could open a brick and mortar store with a garage attached or something.

Or, I've said before that I'd love to run a bed and breakfast, and now that Tandra's mom lives with us, it would be perfect. She'd love to get up every morning and cook and stuff, and Tandra would love to do all the decor, and I could probably run the place decently well. We've actually had this conversation, the three of us.

Or, I'd just love to work for a small web design company. A company that builds a website for someone and then moves on to the next. Small, innovative, on the edge of technology. I'd be so happy at a place like that.

Not here. The environment here is SUCKING MY SOUL AWAY. I hate it.

This is, of course, a case of whatever I'm unhappy about at the moment expanding to fill the part of my brain that holds stuff I'm unhappy about. This doesn't compare to last year when Tandra and I were having trouble. This is just at the top of my list of things I'm not content with in life, so now it's the main focus. I just don't feel like I have the tools to know what to do about it.

I suppose I should start actively floating my resume around and start looking into entrepreneurship. Do people give venture capital or business loans to a guy who just filed a personal bankruptcy? Somehow that seems like it might be a problem.

Also, with a new baby three months away, it seems not the time to be taking risks or having big changes happen.

:-/

I have the greatest wife in the world.

What good blogs do you read that aren't political, like dooce.com? I love a good blog.

Oh my god. this is the funniest sh!t I have read maybe ever.

So, I'd never heard of him before, but there's this guy who calls himself "Shizzy" who apparently likes to write prank e-mails and send them around to people.

I've only read one story, but holy crap. He e-mails this peon at Starbucks and convinces the peon that he is the CEO and gets him to do all kinds of unethical stuff, spying on people, etc. You gotta go see what he gets this guy to send to the real CEO of starbucks.

Crap, that's great.