LONG UPDATE! NOW WITH CORGI!

That right there is the face of the man I love holding a puppy that he's been wanting to own for over a decade.

Before Vince and I moved into our house and we were still in the early stages of house shopping, Vince did some research and looked into Corgi breeders. We went to a Corgi meetup last year and asked some of the owners for recommendations. He settled with Zion Corgis, located somewhere around Arizona. He filled out an online form and put a down payment to get on the waiting list around August. We were expecting to wait a little longer than the rest because we specified that we wanted a male Corgi, and the litter doesn't always get a lot of male puppies either.

Last week, Vince got an update from the breeder, Lindsey, asking if we wanted to get a male Corgi. The catch is that this Corgi is a little bit more expensive because she originally kept him to be a show dog. However, her other friends deemed him not show ready (I'll get to that in a bit) and she sadly had to release him for the waiting list. Vince and I talked about it and agreed to take the puppy plunge and let her know that we'd be driving over on Saturday morning to pick him up.

It was our first time ever to drive to Arizona and the drive was absolutely boring. There just wasn't a lot of interesting things to see along the way since we're just driving to another desert. Probably the only exciting thing was seeing a motorcyclist's getting flat tire as he was getting off a freeway exit and pulling into a gas station. And the roads had a lot of potholes that were badly covered up. This puppy was our sole reason to endure this trip. Also, seeing a bunch of Corgis running around at a ranch sounds fun too.

We arrived at Lindsey's place, which was huge. We saw she had a lot of crates in the living room with some adult Corgis just chilling in there. One of them just won a show before we arrived. She also had 2 cats, one of them being one of those hairless Mr. Bigglesworth breed, and she had kittens! They're actually pretty cute sans fur! Lindsey then led us to the puppy den that had 2 separate pens. One is for the puppies she's keeping and the other pen is for the puppies she was giving away. She picked up one big puppy and introduced us to Bullseye (her litter was named after Toy Story characters). Vince and I fell instantly in love with him.

She explained to us why she had to give up Bullseye. He didn't stand up straight like the other puppies. His elbows stick out and he walks around like a bulldog. She assured us it's not going to affect him as he gets older and he'll grow out of it. As a puppy being groomed to be a show dog, it's not acceptable. Plus, he had these stray white strands of fur on his mostly black body, and that was another no-no. She said Bullseye was her favorite so she was really sad about giving him up. We paid in cash and she gave us his folder of his information, like his shots and his certificate of pedigree (his parents are champs). She even bought us a crate, an exercise pen, and a puppy bed that we paid extra for, which saves us a trip). I drove the car on the way back so that Vince can comfort Gustaff during the long, now not-so-boring trip back to Vegas.

Vince told his parents about Gustaff and they wanted us to come over. We stopped by at Petco and signed up for a membership here, thanks to Lindsey giving us a Petco coupon book, and bought more things for him. We had to go back home and give him some food and water before we got ready to leave again. We grabbed some food from El Pollo Loco and then drove to his parent's place. His parents love him too! They couldn't stop laughing at how he looked like a stuffed toy. Freddie didn't really care for him at first but after a while they got to to formally introduce each other and sniff each other's butts, with Freddie nearly sitting on Gustaff. After that, we headed back home to play with him some more and set up his crate and pen in one of the spare rooms. Vince's plan is to not let the cats see Gustaff for a while. We want to introduce him slowly and get them used to each other, especially when both of us are not home during the day.

Our first weekend was a bit tiring now that we have a puppy to schedule around. This means Vince and I will be taking lunch breaks to go home and check on Gustaff mid-day to change his sheets and play with him. We have to wake up and sleep early, and the cats know something's up. Unfortunately, Gustaff's training with Lindsey is quickly wearing off so we'll have retrain him in the basic stuff like learning to use the puppy pads, getting used to being in a crate, and being more diligent with clicker training.

Oh! I should probably explain the choice for his name. His full show name (just for kicks) is Gustaff Growlithe Gallifrey the Third. We have seriously planned this name for like 2-3 years. His name is a combination of our nerdy passions:

• "Gustaff" is named after Tron Bonne's robot from Mega Man
• "Growlithe" is from Pokemon
• "Gallifrey" is from Doctor Who
• "the Third" is from Lupin The Third

Even better was seeing the names of his family lineage from the certificate of pedigree. The certificate lists his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, etc. by their full registration names. Vince told me he spotted "Triple H" somewhere and he was right; from both sides of his family, he had great, great grandparents named "Triple H" followed by a baseball reference. Anyways, we love him so much and we hope we can raise him to be a good pupper.

Update!

Hey! ... I gotta update this more frequently. So random stuff happened since my last post.

• I dyed my hair dark blue for our friend's Halloween party. Vince dressed as Bojack Horseman and I dressed as Diane Nguyen. Since a part of my hair was already lightened, that part of my hair came out bright blue. I kinda like it! Last time I had blue hair was when Vince and I went to the the Comic Con at Mandalay Bay.
  
  
• Later on that week, I hanged out with my coworkers for a late Halloween party. It's been a really long time since I hanged out with them outside of work. Got to see some familiar faces (i.e. the people who don't work at Pololu anymore), drink, played games, and have fun. I brought One Night Ultimate Werewolf and it was just absolutely fun to see everyone open up and debate about who to believe and stuff. I mean, I worked with them for 4 years now, I gotta hang out with them some time.
  
  
• I joined a gym! Fitness 19 is pretty close by to our house so I decided to join there and pay a little extra for 1 guest in case Vince wants to join me. It's pretty weird for me because I feel so intimidated by everyone and I have a bad habit of staring. On a plus side, it's comforting to find a few people that are just casually working out so I'm not alone. The reason I joined was because I was getting annoyed by Vince asking why am I not doing any exercises at home. He has free access to a gym at his work and I don't want to use the gym we have here at my work. Even though one of our rooms has temporarily converted into a gym, I'm not doing any exercises there because I just don't feel like doing it when I get home from work. Vince wouldn't be the shape he is now if he just worked out at home with just 2 sets of dumbbells and an olympic bar and weight set. It really helps to be in a different environment with right equipment to stay motivated.
  
  
• On the pro-wrestling front, I'm fully on Team Smack Down. I may watch some portions of RAW either on TV or with their youtube clips but like I said before, I can't invest 3 hours with the show. Smack Down is just easier to get through. Speaking of which, Ambrose and Styles are going to be headlining TLC (A Smack Down PPV) next month again and it might be the final blow-off to their feud. There's no major title defense match this month. Everything's sort of on hold for now because both brands are gearing up for Survivor Series next Sunday. It's also going to be The Shield's 4 year anniversary since their debut!

Update!

Hey! So, I have a bit of time to do a quick update. I haven't blogged as much because we moved! To a house! And it was fucking exhausting! And financially draining!

We had to do everything in a week. I'm actually grateful that my work was able to grant me 2 days off on such short notice. We basically had a 5-day Labor Day weekend to move. Highlights include:

• Moving some stuff we had loaded into our car on Wednesday night and driving straight to the house after work
• Being greeted by a neighborhood cat named "Kitty"
• Getting a rental truck and moving all the heavy stuff on Day 1 (Thursday)
• Moving the smaller stuff with NO ELECTRICITY on Day 2 (Friday)
• Finding out that we almost left on bad terms with the San Moritz management due to miscommunication from their weekend staff members. Jennifer apologized for saying that we don't have to pay the second $895 (October rent) until someone moves in. Her manager Judy wanted to make sure we were properly moved out since we were long-time residents.
• Our 3 cats, Hibiko, Ayumi, and Tsukiko, becoming enemies for a few days because Tsuki segregated herself, and smelled different to them
• All of the neighbors coming to us to introduce themselves. We look like the youngest couple in the neighborhood.
  

So we're all settled in. We have a bunch of house projects to do for the next few months. It's nice to have an actual home :)

Also...

AJ Styles is the new WWE World Champion

I'm a little sad that Ambrose dropped the title at Backlash (which was a pretty great Smack Down PPV) but honestly, Styles really deserved it. It's an amazing accomplishment for someone that was in TNA, ROH, and NJPW, and now part of WWE in under a year. Ambrose didn't have a terrible champ run but he was starting to slip after Summerslam (thanks Ziggler). He is back on the chase again and he is absolutely pissed. Aloof champion Ambrose was fine. Angry and relentless Ambrose is the guy I became a fangirl of.

Personal Post

I haven't done these in a while and for once, it's going to be positive!

So after the whole thing with Vince's job situation, he ended up getting his job back at his previous job (the same one where he was basically furloughed) and is happily quite busy again. As for me, I'm still here at my same job. It didn't occur to me that I would be hitting my 4th year in November. It still feels like I left my previous job 2 years ago. Speaking of which, I got a call from my manager, Alex, out of the blue. He was looking at laser cutting stuff and wanted to see if I was still working there. I should stop by and visit when I have some free time.

Anyways, job stuff aside, our interests has changed this year. Vince and I were hitting our stride with keeping up to date on comics books and breezing through graphic novels. Last year, we sadly had to give it up after Vince lost his job, so now we're left with 2 big box of unfinished comic book issues. We're also not that interested in comic book conventions anymore, at least for the time being. We skipped out on this year's Wizard World Las Vegas (Vince even skipped out on meeting Paige) and we'll probably skip out on the upcoming Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con in the summer. It was an expensive habit to get into and we were getting overwhelmed with trying to keep up with all the new series and storylines that were being churned out. Comics are out and pro-wrestling is in.

Back in February, Vince and I went to ROH's 14th Anniversary PPV at Sam's Town. I recently got Vince tickets for WWE's Money In The Bank PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in June as a birthday gift. And I just bought tickets for ROH's 2nd Vegas PPV, Death Before Dishonor, at Sam's Town in August. My interest in wrestling has gotten out of hand, to say the least. I've been through fandom phases before but not one as serious as this sicne Doctor Who. This is due to watching other promotions besides like ROH, NJPW, LU, etc. I'm still very much a WWE fan and I'm hoping my current favorites - Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, Cesaro, Sami Zayn, and AJ Styles - will have a good year now that the Authority vs Reigns storyline has finally ended.

Right now, our plans for the end on the year are up in the air because we're in the middle of looking at houses. Our contract for our apartment is ending soon and we hate that it's been steadily going up every year. Getting a house means we can finally get a Corgi! Priorities man...

Personal post

I haven't done any weekend recap posts because I didn't feel anything exciting happened or is worth talking about. Then again, all of my recent posts where WWE-related so it's still a weak explanation. I feel better talking about wrestling because it's a nice escape. Anyways, I stopped doing the recaps because I was feeling a bit depressed. There's Vince's job situation and then there's my general frustration with my work and family life. I won't go into details about it but I will say that it's getting harder to stay positive.

That was, until yesterday, when Vince got some great news: He got his job back.

He's a contractor so he wasn't exactly fired or let go, they just didn't have any projects for him. This went on for 5 months and he's applied at several positions in and out Nevada with very little luck. He's a bit sad that during those 5 months, he never really got any big offers or callbacks, despite the work he put in. It greatly affected his integrity and confidence and I can't blame him. He finally gets a callback and it's from the same job that said we have nothing for you. He was the first person to be called back and he starts in 2 weeks. I assured him that it's still better than nothing. It's better than wondering what he has to do in the next few weeks. He's relieved that he has a job again but at the same time a little sad about it.

And then something else happened; he got a job interview at California for a studio that does movie props. He has to drive there for the interview this Friday, which is a 4-5 hour drive from Vegas. We talked about it and Vince said he wants to go for it. This is a job where he can do 3D modeling, his top skill, whereas as his other job, he was interviewed as a 3D artist but brought in as a Flash 2D artist (it's some messed up thing that corporate does when hiring for a specific job positions and then putting them in an entirely different position).

So we went from being assured that he was going back to work in 2 weeks to now being excited for a job interview this week. Vince worked out with Dan and he'll be staying there for a day to get a bit of rest before driving out for the interview, which is about an hour away from where he's staying. This is an exciting opportunity for him.

Now I'm face with a reality check: Either Vince gets the job and we finally get out of Vegas or Vince sticks with his old job and stays in Vegas. There are obvious pros and cons here and it all depends on how this interview turns out. When Vince and I first started going out, he talked about the possibility of us leaving Vegas. I felt I wasn't ready for it, just like how I wasn't ready to leave Guam before moving here. Of course, times changed. Most of my immediate family isn't here in Vegas anymore, I graduated college and am stuck with student loan debt for the rest of my life, and I've gained enough work experience to make a hopefully decent resume. I'm pretty settled here but if we need to move, I would be excited for it.

I'm ready for surprises. Ehhh probably.

Personal post

Well, this was excessive.

A photo posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Oct 15, 2015 at 6:01am PDT

Wednesday night, I was suddenly hit with excruciating belly pain after I came home from work. I tried laying in bed for an hour, putting a pillow on my tummy, eating through the pain (it's cow tongue, I ain't passing that up), and even took some Advil. The pain was there but it was like rolling. It got to a point where I couldn't sleep. Vince then took me to Mountain View hospital around 3:45 am.

On a pain scale of 0-10 (to being the highest), I went with 10. It was hard to move around and walk. I had to get my blood drawn, which is not good because I'm deathly scared of needles. So I had to shut my eyes and deal with the horrible belly pain on top of getting this weird tubey thing sticking out of my arm.

Then the stupidest thing happened when I was waiting on a chair before going into the room: The pain went away. Immediately. I was so damn scared of the needle that my pain vanished.

I was subjected to an EKG and an ultrasound. The nurse said that they needed a urine sample from me (which was bad timing because I went before we got to the hospital) and they won't release me until I did. My blood pressure was low so I had to be put on an IV drip. Actually, my blood pressure was low because I was fucking scared of the needle. Even the nurse said it was just a little below average but the doctor said I needed 2 giant saline bags. My arm was cold O_O

Vince stayed in the room with me for a few hours but I eventually told him that he could go home until I got released-- which was like 20 minutes later. My pain never returned so they chalked it up to acid reflux (even though the pain occurred way before I ate dinner) and they prescribed me some Prilosec. I called up Vince and we were home by 8:00 am. I already called in at work to let them know I won't be coming in.

Just when I thought we could catch up some sleep, our apartment manager knocked on the door to remind us that they are conducting fire alarm inspections (from 8:00 am - 2 pm). That alarm was SO loud and Vince forced himself to sleep through it somehow. After the testing was done, I went to sleep.

I spent the afternoon resting, eating normally (until I saw I was suppose to be on a liquid diet. Oops.), and catching up on shows. My pain never returned. I think it was probably serious menstrual cramps. Or, as I said jokingly to Vince, it was probably because he couldn't let me fart around him. Vince was pretty worried but I'm sure he was relieved that it never got worst. The only bad news I got was that I had a fatty liver.

I can't wait for the bill to show up in the mail.

"This is room temperature saline going into your body temperature arm. It's going to feel cold." O_O This was a few hours ago. I'm home now but extremely sleep deprived.

A photo posted by sheila antonio (@sajcfan) on Oct 15, 2015 at 2:34pm PDT

Personal Post

So... the personal post I made last month regarding Vince's job situation has changed but not in a good way. He was interviewed by 2 different studios in his work and did a phone interview for another company in Reno, which made us hopeful that he had a good chance of getting a job pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the only one that guaranteed him having a job was at Reno, and the 2 local studios here simply showed no interest in him, despite being the first to be interviewed and be recommended.

And that sucks. It fucking sucks. I did my best to stay positive for Vince during the last few weeks and hearing the news just made me fucking livid. We're both frustrated.

He applied for other casino game studios here so we're really hoping he gets something here. Reno is the last resort for him. I found it sadly funny that around the time Vince graduated from AI and when he was laid off from the game studio, he told me that there will be a chance that we might move out of state for his job. He never got any job opportunities outside of Nevada and he reluctantly accepted that we're going to settle here. I hate the fact that Vince has not stayed in a job for too long because he either finds a better job opportunity or he gets laid off. He leaves a job that just pays the bills for a job that fits his passion but then gets laid off from passion job. This is a stupid pattern and a stroke of horrible luck and he doesn't deserve this.

Godammit.