Before I moved to the States back in ‘96, I used to have a cat and was forced to leave it with a neighbor when I moved, since I think it would have been hard for it to adjust to a new environment. I had every intention of getting a new kitten once I got there, but for some reason or another, it just never happened. I always told myself that once I graduated college and got my own apartment and everything, I would adopt a little kitten, because they are just so cute and provide great companionship.. especially if you live by yourself half-way across the world from everyone you know…
Since I am finally half-way settled into my new apartment in Munich, I decided it was time to adopt a kitten. Her name is Molly. She is very cute. At first glance, she looks looks completely black, but she actually has gray stripes. Her exact birthday is unknown to me, but I’m going to go ahead and set it on July 1st. I adopted her from a farm north of town where she would have had an otherwise short and miserable life. Karen helped me pick out the name, because I am terrible with thinking up good names and someday, hopefully, it will be her cat too. 
I’ve been working as a freelancer for the past 6 weeks since my arrival in Germany and yesterday I decided to take a real job. I made the 5-hour train ride all the way to Hamburg to meet the new boss and sign a contract and then rode all the way back. So starting next month I am what the Germans call, an “Angestellter”, meaning that I am employed. This makes a lot of things significantly easier, since it isn’t really a problem now to get a work visa, etc.
The apartment is coming along. I finally got some furniture this past weekend and my clothes washer-dryer unit is pretty neat, as it is just one unit that washes AND dries my clothes. Can’t complain about that. I’ve obtained some dishes and made a few trips to the local Ikea store to get ideas about furniture. I’ve got just about everything I need, except I still have no tables at all, no desk, no coffee table, nothing. So for now my work consists of sitting on my couch with my laptop computer on my lap.
After waiting 3 weeks for my internet service to be connected and activated, I finally received a letter from the internet service provider saying that they cannot fulfill my requested service contract for some unknown reason, so it looks like I have to go with someone else for service. It is kind of ridiculous that I have to wait so long for a DSL connection in this country. The house is wired and everything. They should be able to flip a switch and send me a bill. I guess things just move slowly in this country.
That is all for now.
In reference to a previous post about geeks and nerds, I should add another category: Gurus. These are the people that have truly been there and done that. I should mention that my father is a true guru in most things computers. And now that he is so impressed by how extremely cool his son’s blog is, he decided to try his hand at it. I guess these things are contagious. So if you really want to see a geek (guru) in action, check out his blog at randalldow.com. Hopefully he’ll blog about cool, geeky, technical stuff from time to time.
Well, it’s back to the coal mines for me. At least it’s Friday and I only have eighteen thousand things to do this weekend. That’s better than last weekend.
Greetings to everyone that I have told about this blog and to everyone who just randomly stumbled onto it, because they have gotten so bored and have already read the entire rest of the world wide web, that they are left with no choice but to start reading pointless blogs like Jabba Rants.
Not completely pointless… I get to write a blog about random things in my life (this is my first blog ever, by the way) and you get to read about random things in my life that probably mean nothing to you. See? Everybody wins.
A note about the name: My name is Justin. Through a mere coincidence, that includes a long story and background, nothing of which has to do with the Hutt by the same name, my friends have taken to calling me ‘Jabba’. It stuck, and many people just call me that. The ‘Rants’ part of the title is tentative, and I picked it because I have seen other blogs on the web use it, and I figure that it works for them, plus I like to half-seriously complain about random things, so you could say I like to rant about stuff. There you have it. See you next time.
