Author: Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

FIT One of the many appealing aspects about the new job is the significantly shorter commute, cutting at least 20 minutes off my old tip-of-Manhattan adventures on a good day; as much as 40 minutes when things really get bogged down (aka, a typical day!).  I can now leave home as late as 8:15am and still walk into the office at 9am on the dot.  It's great for bad weather days, too, because, if I choose, I can be above-ground for a combined ONE BLOCK now that I can take the D-train, which is mere steps from my front door, and switch to the…

Retirement Plan Baseball season starts tonight, and it promises to be an exciting season as the Mets march to their third World Series title, defeating the Yankees in 6 games. That's right; I'm calling it in writing! I bought one of the cheapo Value Packs this year, 2 nosebleed seats for 5 random games, and a huge group of us are also going to the Autism Awareness Day Game on April 22nd, which should be a lot of fun. It will be the most games I've ever been to in one season. Yesterday morning, I gave out uniforms to my Pee Wee Marlins Tee…

Gomez, Me Friday was my last day at the Floundering Yo-Yo Publisher as it will be known from now on -- 3 positions (officially), 4 reorganizations, 6 bosses -- after 4 years, 1 month and 8 days of working there, and as much as I'll miss some of the people, the place itself can't disappear in my rearview mirror fast enough! Seriously; what a clusterfuck! My exit interview was interesting in that much of what I had to say wasn't really news to the HR person, despite the fact that she's only been there since January. There's routine turnover, and then there's "Abandon Ship!" frenzy,…

[x-posted from http://www.popcultureshock.com/guild-wars-nightfall-owns-my-soul/41256/]   Nightfall Casa Gonzalez got a computer upgrade a couple of weekends ago, replacing our spyware-hobbled, Windows XP-powered, ABS tower (circa 2001) with a spiffy new Windows Vista-powered HP Pavillion. It’s not a fancy rig by any means, but it’s got 2GB of RAM and a Core 2 Duo processor, the latter of which my Tech Geek cousin explains is a very good thing. I’m just loving the silence as it speeds along with multiple windows open, and none of the incessant grinding from the old 40GB hard drive we’d gotten used to the past couple of…

Grey's Diagnosis: Which Character Are You Most Like? Greys Anatomy Quiz While she's not my favorite character (that would be a tie between Addison and Alex), I'd be lying if I said I didn't see the resemblance! Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Yesterday, at approx. 6:15pm, I handed over a cashier's check and was handed back a receipt acknowledging our final debt -- a CitiFinancial loan we took out two years ago to consolidate debt when we were ready to buy a house -- was paid in full. The car's paid for; our credit cards have zero balances; we're even paid up on car insurance through August. My credit score has jumped 50 points over the past six months, to the point where a bank probably won't laugh at us when we inevitably have to get a new car in the next year or two. Not…