Quick Update…

Nothing major, just an update. :)All set up here in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.  New full-time job starts Monday in Nashville, doing technical support and help desk for the military.  I truly think that this job is what I was meant to do.  I really hope that it works out.  Over an hour drive one way to work, but we plan to move in March to a bigger and better place in Clarksville, Tennessee, about half an hour closer to my work in Nashville, closer to one of Holly’s jobs, and closer to the college that she wants to go to this fall.  So I am looking forward to that.Holly and I are getting along better than I have gotten along with anyone before.  Kinda scary.  Kinda makes me wonder, “what’s the catch?” – but really, she’s just a very sweet girl, that has a great heart… and that’s what I really need around me these days, is good friends and loved ones.I have always told myself that I need to get all of my ducks in a row before I can get the ball rolling in the correct direction, and finally, after 30 long years, it’s all starting to happen.  I’m pretty excited, to say the least.  We’ll see what happens.Next trip back to Kansas, for now, I am planning on it being April 1st or so.  I will be back to visit friends, family, get my other vehicle, and move the rest of the stuff that I left behind, since I did have to get out here in kind of a hurry the first time for the job.  I also will have to have appointments set up to see the surgeons about my post-surgery progress.Also, I have gotten a new iPhone, to replace the one that was stolen from me, so I will be much more organized than I have been recently.  I was a mess while I was without it.  If there are any outstanding projects that I missed between the iPhones, please email me and I’ll get them completed for you.Needless to say, lots going on right now, lots on my mind, and lots of things to keep track of.  Saving up to get a house, a truck, for visits back to Wichita and Denver, for storm chasing equipment on the truck, for getting my computer and photography businesses started out here once I move to Clarksville, and just generally getting a foundation started out here.  There’s a lot of opportunity out here to help out people and make some money, just need to get it all ramped up.Also have been in contact with the local emergency management officials out here, as well as the local Skywarn group, and the local Ham Radio organizations out here, and have all of that lining up as well.  The Skywarn group I am working with out here, new link to them on the right hand menu, feel free to have a visit.  Great people to work with.  Should be a VERY interesting storm season this year.I have contacts in the Wichita area that will be picking up my recurring clients from all of my businesses out there. With the computer business, I will be doing remote assistance for software issues out here, and a friend of mine, Rick, will be handling my hardware issues.  A guy by the name of Brandon will be handling all website work out there.  Brandon will also be picking up all of my emergency management work that I left behind.  Wichita photo shoots will be scheduled for when I am in town, and for photo shoots that need to be done while I am not in town, a good photographer in town by the name of Eric, will be handling all of my work there.My online radio station is once again back up and running.  See the link on the right.  I am in the middle of redoing my Michael Brian Photography business website, as well as my Hypertech Computers site.  I am going to try and have those both done by March, at the latest.  They, amongst many other things, are on my massive “To-Do” list.  Wish, by the way, if you don’t know this already, no matter how hard you work, the list gets longer, not shorter, especially the older that you get.So, I am back into the groove of things.  Pretty soon I’ll be doing 10,000 things at once out here, like I was in Wichita.  I plan to make some friends out here, but I insist on keeping in touch with my old friends as well.  It’s pretty important to me.  So, please add me to Facebook, if you haven’t already (see links to the right), add me to ‘skywarn69’ on Yahoo Messenger, or email me at mike.mathia@gmail.com to get a hold of me.  I love hearing from everyone, and I promise to keep up better with email, than I have been in the past.This blogsite will always have the most up to date and accurate information on how to get a hold of me or my businesses.The next chapter of my life starts on Monday.  🙂

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The New Chapter: Nashville

Howdy.I’m writing this partially to keep everyone in the loop (that wants to be) on what’s going on with me, but also, to help me wrap my head around everything that is going on. Things are moving so fast right now.First, surgery recovery. I am recovering well from surgery. The swelling has gone down, pain is slowly going down, the tumor is obviously gone now, the jaw reconstruction is working well, and my neck is healing well from where they had to cut me open to finish the surgery. They said 4-6 weeks to recover. It’s been a little over a week. I still cannot feel anything on the bottom right lip or chin, and I never will again. I’ve been retraining myself to talk and eat correctly again, I’ve been pretty successful so far. The strangest thing is shaving my chin without feeling it. That tripped me out a lot.I haven’t needed much help in the recovery, but what little help I have needed, I’ve had all of the support I could ever ask for. And I’ve never been more thankful to friends and family. Thank you.So after my surgery, on the 16th, I came into my work at SSI and picked up my paycheck, asked them where my schedule was, so I could resume work. The said to take all of the time I need to recover, feel better, and contact them when I am ready to come back. Where as I was able to work, I was not ready to truly come back.A few days prior to that, since I was doing some job hunting during my recovery, (yes, I never give myself a break) I received a job offer in Nashville. After getting my paycheck, and not having a schedule, I contacted them and told them that I could be out by Wednesday the 18th for an interview. Late night on the 16th I packed up and left. By the evening of the 17th I was where I am now, in southern Kentucky, staying with a special friend of mine. She’s been generous enough to let me stay here until I get everything settled in. I went to the job interview, and acquired the job. Basically, what I will be doing, is high-end tech support for the military. I cannot get into any more details, except that it’s requires a top secret clearance to do the work. The pay is generous, and it’s right up my alley. I’ve been needing this change for a long time now. There was a narrow window of opportunity to grab this position, so I did, and pending paperwork, I should be starting sometime in December. I’m definitely looking forward to this. In the meantime, I have been relaxing and recovering. The pace of things out here is very laid back, and I like it a lot. It’s nice to just be able to chill once in a while, and it’s definitely something that feels new and refreshing to me. Starting next week though, things are going to start ramping back up. Later today, Holly and I are going to go into Nashville, kinda just check out the town and see what all it has to offer. Tomorrow I will be filling out the extensive paperwork for the job, maybe visit one of my old friends, that now lives in Bowling Green, KY. Monday I am going to run some errands in town here, meet up and talk with the local emergency operations center here and discuss what I could do to help out here, like I did in Wichita, get a hold of some Ham Radio operators here, get into the Skywarn stuff out here, maybe even look for a second part time job in case something falls through with the first one. Turns out, they have a news radio station in town here that has the same programming as KNSS did in Wichita, so I could do production and on-air work for them, without any training. Although the on-air part, might be a little tricky, after the surgery and all. Tuesday I have to go back down to Nashville and fill out paperwork, get fingerprinted, and all of that for the job, so I will be busy then too. Wednesday I plan on tying up any loose ends here, doing various things, and confirming dates and times on things here. Thursday I am having cable TV installed here just before I leave back for Kansas. Leaving for Kansas around 6p to be back in the Wichita area by around 6am Thanksgiving Day. I will sleep, spend time with family and friends. Then, from the 27th and the first week or so in December, I will be in town to tie up loose ends there, pick up paychecks, pack up more things, get a few doctor appointments in, say goodbye to friends and family, etc. By December 8th, I plan to be back here again in the KY/TN area. Predicted start date of this job is on or around December 11th, and if it starts later, I will want to be working another job by then anyways, to bring in more money. If you want to see me while I am in town, you should get a hold of me soon, so I can get a time slot for you. I will be very busy once I am there, but I want to see as many of you as possible. Use my links on the right side of this blog to get a hold of me. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. My phone number, most people have, but if not, it’s on my Facebook. Contact me and we’ll hook up.I also will have a few photo shoots that I will be doing when I get back into town, and have room for a few more, so look me up for that as well. So anyways, I’ll come back up here to the Nashville area, start working, start saving up for my own place, and get everything ramped up out here. Provided that finances allow, I will be trying to fly back again to the Wichita area around whatever Christmas break I can get, to spend time with family and friends for Christmas, and then be taking my Oldsmobile packed up with whatever I had forgotten or couldn’t fit into the Celica, back with me to Nashville. The Olds is in great shape, practically brand new, no miles and works perfect, and nobody seems to want to buy it from me for what it’s really worth, so I am going to just take it with me. It’ll be nice to have a backup ride in case something were to ever happen with the Celica.The goal is to then again, get back here to the Nashville area before New Years, and start 2010 here in Nashville, new chapter in my life. =]So last night I was online catching up with friends of mine and stuff and some weird shit has been going down out there in Wichita. Like, I guess one of my idiot officers at SSI (that I couldn’t stand) pulled someone else’s gun on another officer. Yeah, couldn’t believe it either. The idiot officer obviously doesn’t work there anymore. But the guy that has the business end of the gun pointed at him, disabled the idiot, and let it go. Better man than I. I would have killed him where he stood. And I would have been legally allowed to as well. There’s no way that someone is going to pull a gun on me, and live to see another day. If you plan on putting a gun into my stomach like that, you’d better make plans to pull the trigger a few times, because it’ll be the last thing that you do, if you don’t. I respect the officer that disabled the tard officer that thought that something like that would be funny, and commend him for doing nothing further. After talking to him, he basically said that his family flashed before his eyes and wasn’t worried so much that the tard would actually kill him on purpose, but more so that his stupidity would get him accidentally killed. Needless to say, the tard officer, Logan Hertel is his name, was caught on tape doing all of this, and no longer works there. But if you hear or see this stupid kid, don’t hire him, he’s just dumb enough to do this type of thing again, and it’s disgusting that he’s still alive.So the gun wasn’t Logan’s. It was someone else’s. One of the new dispatchers that works up there now actually. I guess he felt the need to bring his personal weapon up there. He’s brought it up there a few times, and there’s nothing wrong with that, until the owner of the company tells you not to bring it up there. Then you don’t. But he brought it up there anyways, Logan took it, and did the above. Jeremy, the new dispatcher, gets fired for having the gun up there, understandably. He was told not to have it up there. Simple. Logan was obviously fired too, and the officer that handled everything well, the good friend of mine, is being backed by all of his other officers, as well as the company owner 110%. Jeremy, the new dispatcher, goes home to his girlfriend, to tell her that he lost his job because of this idiot (as well as himself for having the gun up there) – his girlfriend is pissed that he lost his job (tough job market and all), Jeremy gets pissed and goes looking for Logan for like 3-4 days I guess, and doesn’t find him (which is a damn shame). After having nowhere to live, after getting fired from his job for having the gun up there, after losing his girlfriend, after looking for Logan and not finding him, Jeremy shoots himself in the chest, and dies. Yeah. Told ya I was having a hard time wrapping my head around everything that has been going on, maybe now it’s more clear as to why. So I am filing my resignation there when I get back, was going to before I found out about all of this happening, but especially now. They are missing me as a dispatcher, new guy no longer there now, Tracy is leaving, our most experienced dispatcher. That leaves one person. And me, if I were to stay there. I appreciated my job there, don’t get me wrong, but all of this shit happening, and more to probably happen, at $8 an hour, having to pick and choose which bills to pay, or come to Nashville and work for double the pay doing half as much with none of the drama.Which one would you choose?Crazy times. Tis’ the season I guess.That’s all I have for now. I would appreciate any and all comments.Thanks for listening/reading.