Something spurred me to look something up on my blog yesterday and that made me realize how long its been since I last wrote - it hasn't been often since I started this thing that I actually missed a whole month, but I managed to do it again.

It has been straight crazy - non-stop - since I hit the ground here in January. I've worked in 5 countries so far (including here in Kenya), 2 of which - Rwanda and Malawi - were new additions to my passport. I've been working minimum 60 hour weeks just trying to keep up, and not doing a very good job of it. I've done a good job of forcing myself to take weekend breaks thanks to out-of-town trips and lots of fun with my (mostly) new friends here - Ultimate on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon/evening, softball on Saturdays, and the random BBQ, poker night, dinner out, dinner in, movie night, church on Sunday morning and looooong brunch after, what have you. (Whew, long sentence) I need to be writing about this stuff, but with the weekends full of all of that and the weeks chock full o work...my reading / writing time has plummeted.

So there's a whole slew of things in that last paragraph that I need to write about and maybe I'll actually try to get back on it this week (hah, yeah right). In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to take a spin back through the to-do list I made back before I last left the states:

- get a medical screening done for WV
check. only had one parasite - blastocytis, a pretty common one. probably got it in ghana or maybe tanz. had it all fall and didn't know it.

- see a travel clinic to update any of my immunizations
nope. i don't think i really needed to do this anyway, but don't worry mom, i promise i'll (try to) get around to doing it real soon.

- meet with my financial guy and sort all the 401k rollovers out
half-check. we met, i still haven't gotten any of the rollovers done. or my taxes! you get 2 extra months if you're out of the US but I'm fast burning through that.

- interview potential sub-letters for my place
half-check. had a couple people look at it but never got it rented. this was a major bummer but here i was way too busy to do much about it.

- host the NYE party at Lincoln center
check. i knew all of 3-4 people (Erin, Amber, other hosts) out of the 300 or so, most of my crew were at other events so it was mostly the other hosts' friends. i guess that's what you get for up and moving to Africa.

- schedule an appointment with the derma doc
not a chance. its fine though, hands are back to normal now that i'm back to the land of perpetual no-winter. its like the opposite of the start of Narnia.

- figure out how to transfer all my personal stuff from Outlook and OneNote to the home computer
check of super awesomeness. how i cleaned that bad boy out and actually backed up both those programs and all the user data locally is beyond me, but i made it happen, cappen.

- back up the home computer
dangerous no-check. it suffered some internal jostling on the way over and i've been having issues getting it running but the memory's still in decent shape so hopefully i have it up and running by friday and can spend my weekend doing my taxes. yay.

- get new headphones, an external hard drive, a projector to serve as my TV in Africa, and potentially a DSLR (woot)
check, no-check, check, check. got the newest shure SCL4 headphones and they're great, just like the e4c's were. didn't get the small external drive i wanted but i still have my 1.5tb here with me to backup everything. got the projector (albeit late, via a friend bringing it from the US, along with the headphones) - let me just say its the best consumer decision i've made in years, probably since i built the home computer. it is hours of endless movie awesomeness. oh and i used all my amex points from the accenture card to get the DSLR and some lenses, i've got about 8gb of pictures from the last 5 months waiting to be DL'd, edited, and flickr'd.

- find my old receipts and submit them for work expenses
check. no idea how i did it, but i got my monies.

- finish all the administration around leaving the company
same as above. i need to write about the feeling of walking out of that building for the last time. wasn't great - more like "did i just do that?"

- send some thank-you cards
no-check. i am a bad person.

- pay my parking ticket
no-check. THANKS MOM.

- find a new bank account that won't screw me on withdrawal charges in Africa
no-check. i still hate you BoA.

- figure out where I'm going to store my stuff
check! it now fits in a 5x10 instead of a 10x10. its sitting quietly in a unit across the river from the UWS. i'm hoping next time i get it all out i can find a way to reduce it to 5x5, i love reducing the amount of stuff i have. its the books that are an issue. they keep growing.

- start packing
check. holy cow was that a nightmarish last 72 hours of no-sleep insanity.

- find some jeans sample sales
nope. maybe in August when i'm back briefly?

- get a living will drafted
nope. arg.

- send my (late) holiday cards
the great thing about the cards i picked out for Christmas 08 (the first time i think i ever was going to try to send holiday cards, mainly with a "oh and btw i'm leaving the country letter" as the underlying motivation) is that they will work great for cards sent from Africa for this year's Christmas. its like i was planning ahead (maybe i'll even put an "oh hey i've been out of the country all year in case you were wondering" note).

- finish all the on-boarding paperwork for WV
nope. still haven't sent them my W2 or my personnel form. oh well.

- see Grand Torino
check. fun times with hol, man that was an unexpected ending.

- switch all the bills over to Dave's name
half-check. gas and electric yes, cable and internet no. need to shut off cable.

- figure out how to get out of my Sprint plan without having to pay
quarter-check. did it, but a few months late.

- eat slightly healthier and perhaps even get a few runs in
can't remember for the life of me. i think i was running. i know i was getting rides in with Kuz too.

Also, I have decided that I will be acquiring a pair of dogs once I get settled (so to speak) in Kenya. This makes me happy.
awwww man this one is a bummer. i saw all crap apartments, one of which would allow a small "house dog" (i don't think they had 2 rotties in mind). then i found the place i'm in now, which is super awesome, but no dogs. i'm going to keep an eye out for other places that might work in the meantime, but no dogs in the immediate future. given my work schedule right now its probably for the best. sigh.