As Dracocheetahs get bigger they need more room right? Well, my programming aspirations got bigger too. In light of going after the iPhone market, I ended up getting myself a MacBook Pro to do software development on <.< >.>.

Hopefully Microsoft won't disown me.... (I AM installing Windows 7 on bootcamp at least <.<)

Kittens just got spayed (primarily because one of em went into heat ^^). Surgery went well and they're back home eating. Not looking forward to tomorrow morning when their pain medication runs out. O-o Either way, one more step towards them actually being adopted by me instead of just fostered. ^_^

Currently Preoccupying:

* Taxes are finally done
* Reading more about ColdFusion and ColdBox for work
* KITTENS! (Pictures coming soon)
* Canonizing the Snow Dracocheetah and making it MUCH bigger <.< (How much bigger I don't know yet ^^)
* Comic idea based off previous post
* Needing to huggle friends more O-o

Fun Remembering:

* The first view outside the plane when arriving in Washington DC after landing a job out of Florida.
* Eating the first "Iridium-Told-You-So" Mk1 burger at Five Guys in DC. (The "Iridium-Told-You-So" Mk2 burger was purchased today with double jalapenos and hot sauce ^^)

Things that are annoying:

* Too much "Mac vs Windows vs Linux" garbage both in work and off work. Windows is broken into a LOT and has a lot of viruses, but if Mac or Linux was the market leader, that OS would be most "broken". (ie, as soon as the market share rises, the OS in question WILL be exploited more, much as the iPhone is)

There's this week's look into a dracocheetah mind. ^^

Ok, I'm a SMIDGE exhausted from 2 weeks of pretty much nonstop moving (I had to work while doing so, which made it difficult to get everything done in a timely fashion) but it's done. I have my townhouse apt setup in Washington DC (TECHNICALLY Alexandria VA), which in itself was a substantial deviation of my original plan of moving in with Iridium thanks to lack of information (Long story).

Anyway, the place is setup... all the services are connected. I finally have food.... it's time to relax and look forward to getting out to see friends, family (mom comes up this Friday), and finally get around to reading Psudodrake's story so I can see just what Kirii and Iridium have been torturing me about.

Either way, the Snow Dracocheetah has arrived. And already happier then I had been in Florida.

Nice and quick as there's still much to do...

All my bags are packed up, I'm ready to go. But I'm not leaving on a jet plane.

Leaving for my new place in Washington DC either tomorrow (Tuesday) or Wednesday.

*wingwavvies*

Yea yea, I know bad pun. So to get strait to the point, this dracat just finished hir first full day in DC.

Few up from PBIA at 3:40 and arrived in DC 20 minutes ahead of schedule thanks to a nice tailwind. My economy car turned out to be a free upgrade to a Toyota Prius. Problem is that now I want one even more (even if it did take me a good 10 minutes to figure out how to get the "Brake" light to turn off to get the car moving. Finally met up with Iridium for a quick dinner before retiring for the night.

Today was a reletively eventful and full day of looking for places and evaluating housing options. Lunch was a quick trips to the Five Guys burger restaurant where Iridium LET me get jalepeno peppers on my burger. Turned out they were FRESH and about as hot as any habenero or scotch bonnet pepper I've had... so if the eastern seaboard gets scorched... uh... I blame the wolfess. *points at Iridium with a wing*

Thats it for the first update. Three days to go to solidify something. There's definately a lot to think about. O_o

On the bright side.... the new snow dracat form has definately come in handy. We'll see how I handle it when I go outside after sundown when the wind picks up ^.^

I'm about to put up a moderately, Mint-Condition, almost never used Acer Aspire notebook up on eBay, but will give anyone on here a shot at it before I do for the next few days. I'm looking to get between $200 and $250 for it.

Come with... well, EVERYTHING in the box. Item in question is here for comparison...

Acer Aspire AS4730-4857
14.1" screen

I did double the ram... loving bigness as I do <.< >.>

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16834115543

EDIT: Laptop was sold. Thanks to those interested. ^^

Seriously, I used to respect PETA when they were trying to better the lives of animals before medical experiments and food. You know, things man-kind benefits from.... but this is going too far...

http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/index.asp

PETA has officially turned from a rather noble organization seeking not to inflict UNNECESSARY PAIN on animals to something that wants us to stop doing anything with them. I'm sure in some way we can't understand, plants feel pain too...

Anyway, my response, taken strait from Futurama...

http://www.gotfuturama.com/Multimedia/EpisodeSounds/2ACV15/06.mp3

Just to say what I gave and what I got... for those curious minds out there.

What I gave (or still have to give):

* Full Course Hibachi Dinner for the family (happening tonight)
* Set of college books for my sister's fiancee
* Digital Photo Frame for the parents
* Revised / Updated the family home theater with some nice BluRay equipment
* Wall-E BluRay disk for my sister

What I got for others:

* New Jersey-knit bedsheets (oh these are soft) ^^
* Make your Own Hot Sauce Kit (Gotta keep my fire breathing going somehow)
* A Logitech Harmony remote from my sister's fiancee (to control all my various tech stuff)
* A super soft cheetah spotted blanket

What I got myself:

* A new Garmin Nuvi 260W GPS.
* A BD-ROM drive for my computer (it's my home theater.
* The Chronicles of Narnia L.W.W. and P.C. BluRay disks.
* Rock Band 2 music ^_^

Misc and other important stuff:

* (GIVEN) Growth Treatment - Some still in progress or have to be given
* (GOT) Brand new Snow Dracocheetah form (part still in process) for the item below.
* A new job in Washington DC pending Security Clearance.

Don't you love how the biggest gift got listed in the Misc stuff. O_O

*smiles hir typical not-so-innocent smile*

Just a short update while I get everything squared away here. I just got back from the cruise, though truth be told, the Norwegian cruise line was less then what I was anticipating. There were a few things that bothered me:

1) Everything worth doing cost additional money. 8 out of the 12 restaurants had cover charges ranging from $10 to $25. Shows and activities not teaching you HOW to buy something followed the same suit.

2) For a cruiseline that advertises two rules (You have to get on the boat, and you have to get off the boat), there sure are a lot of rules. No shorts in the dining halls. You have to dress up in another. Wear footwear at ALL times (I got yelled at heading to the pool). Yea... you get the picture.

3) Food repeats. There was a LOT of repetition and just kinda mediocre food on this cruise. Even a few years ago I remember even Carnival having better.

In general:

Sunday: Sailaway party (kinda fun knowing I could get away from work). FIRST good meal of the cruise.
Monday: Day at Sea (bored and discovered the "Everything worth doing charge")
Tuesday: Roatan, Honduras - Nothing like being 'hounded' by locals asking for money... hair braiding.... tours around the island, etc. We ended up spending another boring day on the ship.
Wednesday: Belize City, Belize - Kinda ok sorta fun. Visited the Alton Ha ruins. Climbed some for fun (yes yes.... cheetahs aren't good climbers). Discovered the progressively worsening menu and the 'cover charges' for specialty restaurants.
Thursday: Cozumel, Mexico - FIRST truly fun day. Went 'Jungle ATVing', then downed enough Tequila that I didnt' really care if the rest of the day was terrible (at least I remember the day, so that's good)
Friday: See Monday
Saturday: Cruise Line's Private Beach - Spent $20 to rent a raft and just sunbathed for 6 hours. Second GOOD meal of the cruise in the main (FREE) restaurant.
Sunday: Came hope RELIEVED to be home.

*sighs* Time to prepare for work. Further updates on this later...

Nice try PETA.... while it is a nice try to get us to eat only tofu.... I understand an animal has to be slaughtered for me to eat it. But you know what, I LOVE meat. ^_^ And frankly, us cheetah (and dragons) aren't exactly the most humane killers biting antelope necks to suffocate it before supper.

Fun game though ^_^

http://www.peta.org/cooking-mama/index.asp

An issue happened on Furaffinity that I GREATLY am reacting badly to. Since it does not apply here, I post the link as this dracat's suggested reading...

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/522023/

So, this will be nice and short.... ELECTION DAY... and I voted as I thought I should. Now truth be told, do I like either candidate enough to WANT to vote for them, no... not really. However, here's how I look at the system. Without DRASTIC reformation of the American perception, we are essentially a Two-Party system and nothing more. The chances of someone other then a Democrat or Republican winning office is slim to none. So frankly, I did what was smart, I voted for the lesser of the two evils. (Whom that is you guys can guess all ya want ^^, I don't talk politics, only taste it *nomnoms on the white house*)

Second, I know I asked for some community help in my last post. I've taken the advice and will soon make an announcement on the results. However, this will not stop me from persuing that story O_O.

In other news...

* I finished a phone screening for a job in DC, here's hoping it turns into an interview... then an inperson...
* After 3 weeks I FINALLY got around to installing my second hard disk drive.
* Left4Dead demo launches on the 11th.
* The bowflex revolution is REALLY easy to fix surprisingly.
* Dracats need to get bigger...

So to start off on a good note.... I'm at least slowly starting to get SOME uplifting news. Between spending more money than I could possibly think of right now, I've been having a blast with Red Alert 3, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Farcry 2, and Guitar Hero World Tour. On the non-computer side, I got new StarWars Saga Edition RPG books (still need Threats of the Galaxy) so I'll hopefully start a new game soon to replace a failed 4th edition game. On the physical side, I've started my first new workout... just now have to ramp it up.

Now on the job side... I'm hopefully going to follow up on one job, specifically the one Brenna originally filled me in on.... Then theres two others (one with a staffing firm and one with a direct defense contractor), all three which will get me up to DC. So as always, if there's any suggestions, keep throwing them out (connections are even better ^^).

Finally, the fabled Question for the Community... DocWolph recently did a GREAT re-rendition of my character helping to give me a more 'mature' look. The thing is, I'm getting comments on why I 'shrunk', 'weakened', 'What-have-you'. Despite that I'm no smaller, and am actually larger, it just LOOKS smaller (probably from being less 'ripped'. So, what are some suggestions to actually make the new mature look... well... LOOK bigger then it had been? (Picture in question being http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1573951/ )

That's all for this one.

So its finally the End of an Era. Due to my mood, lack of interest, or any other number of events, It's finally the end of an Era.... my Playstation 3 has finally been unplugged. It's just a matter of now either auctioning it, or trading it out for commishies or something. It's one of the old school first release units, the 80gig ones with the Emotion Engine, so I'm hoping it'll fetch something.

Beyond that, yea.... I've been in a SLOWLY improving mood I guess, despite lacking good news on my job hunts. It might be time to give myself a well deserved canon 'upgrade'. Might have to ask my mate, family and friends for inspiration on that one.

And finally, current updates:

* It's been yet another week, and thus far I'm still holding myself up well enough. The trick thus far has been for me to just pretend that I'm gonna be stuck there indefinately, the advantage to that is while at work I don't loose my mind, but it usually involves a nice crash after work. Thankfully, at least it's a job I can somewhat enjoy doing.

* In regards to the job hunt, I'm slowly starting out a hunt in the DC area. I'm going to start posting resumes to.... well, just about anything I can find.

* Dracat is still awaiting Jumpgate Evolution.... but in the meantime... DeadSpace is definately a winner in my book over Silent Hill.... Fable 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour are coming out.... FarCry 2 is still in the option.

So I got around to thinking about it..... Here's the Timeline of events that I believe contributed to the crash.

* Brenna introduces me to one of her friends
* Her friend takes my resume, hands it to boss up in Washington DC
* Dracat resume gets looked at by hiring manager
* Dracat gets interview and told to look into setting up interviews. Dracat gets VERY happy at the prospect of leaving Florida and working with a company with that corporate culture.
* Family starts having minor complications due to grandmothers failing health. Dracat does what's right and supports family, planning to sus
* In process of trying to reschedule, current intern manager springs job offer on Dracat and only given 5 days to accept or deny. Dracat feels pressured to accept a 'sure thing' over a possibility. Decides to hold off TEMPORARILY to look into position again in a month.
* Local friends 'drift'...
* Family strains increase due to Grandmother's failing health.
* Grandmother passes away. Home life strains.
* As dracat is ready to reapproach job and try to get interview rescheduled due to life events FINALLY stabilizing, economy tanks and subconciously destroys dracat's hopes, fearing job no longer exists even though in proportion shi'd work for cheap comparitively (and be as loyal as a canine doing so).

-_- *eardroops*

This is going to be short and.... well... short....

Things aren't working out and the dracocheetah has had a pretty serious mood/home/etc crash, one that easily rivals the one LONG before when I practically disappeared for 3 months.

Effective at the time of this writing, I will NOT be disappearing completely, as I'll still be posting journals, MAYBE persuing commissions, etc.... but I'll be extremely rare on the IMs. Below is the deal....

* I'll still be posting journals, persuing things that cheer me up..... etc
* I'll still continue job hunting so I can get out of Florida.
* I WILL still appear on IMs.... however, it's only to let people know when I'm online and to show I'm still around.... however, please note its nothing personal to anyone, but I set the IM client to privacy mode, which means.... well, I likely won't respond most of the time...

This is a matter of something I need to do. I'm not myself, and it's not fair to anyone to pretend it is. So I'm doing as some of my close friends have and am stepping back, only to return once I've fixed what's broken, and mended what is hurt.

All I can hope is I return to what I left.

I'll keep the updates coming either way.

(+) An already large cheetah-dragon hybrid (cheetah dominant) looking to get bigger.... <.< >.>
(+) Extremely happy that shi finally got hir new Bowflex Revolution assembled and in position to work out with.
(+) Immensely humbled that people shi hasn't even met are willing to help hir...
(+) Releteively open with people
(+) Enjoying hir games as a 'life-destraction' (much as Silent Hill: Homecoming scares hir fur stiff)
(+) Extremely happy with the TYPE of job shi's doing.... coding in C++/C# and web technologies.

(-) Is feeling immensely poor at how shi's been treating a particular cougaress lately, but can't find a way ouf of that loop yet.
(-) Has traced hir entire mood to a long-lasting desire to move to the DC-Metro area for a Government/Defense releated job in IT, but finds hirself unable to really get anywhere without some inside help.
(-) Has crashed HEAVILY in mood after said job hunt and the turn around in the US economy made hir realize for the next few years, finding jobs is going to be tough and its likely going to trap hir here... completely smashing hir goals into itty bitty pieces.

As always, if anyone knows of places hiring or looking for a hard working dracat seeking a career in Software engineering / programming-analyst work in the DC Metro area well... I could definately use a hand on that.

So.... I'll make this short.... as everyone knows I've been in an absolutely terrible mood lately because of... well.... wishful aspirations. I've done bad things, taking a lot of it out on a cougaress that didn't deserve it. And for that I feel immensely bad....

In general though, I've gotten a bit of unusual support.... from people I haven't even met. And that got me thinking.... wallowing and drowning in my sorrows isn't going to help anything. Truth be told, that comes from 2 years of being defeated, so I kinda got a defeatist attitude... which is NOT one of my strong points...

So I'm putting out this plea.... if any of you have contacts, ideas, etc for positions in the DC Metro area.... don't hesitate to toss me a note.

A little bit of inside contacts and luck is needed at this point if I'm to keep what hope I got left alive and stop taking it out on one of my favorite tawny fuzzballs -_-

So there's this song by Bon Jovi in Rock Band 2 that I could swear I've heard before but just couldn't for the life of me recall (at least that I can remember), "Livin' on a Prayer". In many ways, it tells a lot about what I'm going through. Despite the fact that, unlike the song, I'm not REALLY just scraping by, I AM doing so on the emotional level as many have known.

The problem.... I'm finding I have "triggers" now because of this situation.... and an unhealthily short fuse once those triggers get set off. As many of you know, under my normal 'self' (the bouncy, energetic, playful Xili) I tended to be patient, dedicated, etc. The problem is, this 'me'.... isn't me if that makes sense. It's not a fair representation for newcomers approaching me no is it fair to friends, myself, or anyone.

Here's the problem... I'm highly doubting I'll be able to "Take a hand [to] make it..." even from friends through this little predicament of mine. The problem is when an offline message from a friend sets something off in the back of my mine just informing me of being out of town something's wrong. The issue is, the mood surrounding this behavior and preventing it from deflating is 100% out of my control.

The spotty dragoncat CAN'T just disappear forever because... as those who know me know.... it's more of a 'representation of me' then a character or general fursona (ever wonder why I'm not a shapechanger O-o)... however, it's unfair to everyone to hang around out in the open behaving as I am...

I'm greatly considering making myself scarce until I can at least normalize my behavior to something more 'socially acceptable' without hearing a "Yes [Xili], please come to [insert preferred job location here] to talk to us", because I'm doubting that's going to happen anytime soon.

The question is... when everything returns to normal, what will have changed besides myself? Thats what I'm scared of most.