Update + I need Breakfast

Allright, so here's the update...

Successfully got moved out of the apartment. It's always weird to see a space you've lived in get so damn barren and impersonal...clean though, a hell of a lot cleaner than when I lived there...but that's part of the impersonality.

Matt came up the night before Apex did their little walk through and helped out with cleaning his room and the carpet and whatnot. They did a quick-assed walk through and the rest'll be up to Matt towards what fits his standards of clean and he'll go through the place with a check-list. So, they'll determine the amount of moo-lah I and Matt get back based off that check-list...looks like we'll be getting a good amount back, hopefully. If I don't get a check by Mid-August, I should be calling them and asking about it.

Financially, things are looking pretty good. I've been working a bunch at Grapes & Grains and have my last day coming up this week. I've had to dip into my graduation funds a little bit, which I will be paying back once I get reimbursed for the trips down to Monroe and over to Morgantown. If I can walk into my new set-up in Monroe with that $800 in the bank, that'd be pretty damned sweet.

I do want to get a rather large 4 wheel drive pickup or SUV for hauling shit from place to place in Monroe & getting around in the winter time. It doesn't look like I have the money yet, but I think I'll be able to put up to a grand towards that goal come August or September. Don't need a pretty one and don't need one that'll last forever, just need one that'll get me around when it's treacherous out there on the mountain roads and'll haul a chair or whatever from place to place.

I do want a pool table and to be saving up for solar panels as well. The pool table will come first and the solar panels are more of an..eventual goal. Damn state doens't have shit for financial incentives, so hopefully that'll change in the future to make them more affordable.

It'll be weird to leave Grapes and Grains...Cheryl has been damn good to me over the past four years and three of them working for her. Don't think I'll ever have that sweet of a job again...working for a cool ass, responsible, respectful boss in a locally owned beer & wine store. I don't know why I'm leaving that...

Check this, so many connections in this one. Tominda's dad works in mountaintop removal. I ask him whether he knows of a town named Nellis, that's where John's parents are from. He tells me they're about to rip the top of the mountain off of a mountain near there. I tell John, he tells his parents. His parents go down to Nellis for an annual reunion and see a pending permit in the local newspaper down there. They comes back up here for a Maxey family get together and we talk about it at great lengths. We are now trying to stop the project that Tominda's dad is working on. Plus John's parents know the friend of mine who is working on Mountain Justice Summer stuff in the Coal River Valley, who I point them towards. There is a town there, Nellis, which is on the National Historic Register. There is an Indian Burial Mound that may be impacted by the project as well. That Indian Burial Mound should be well protected by federal law, which trumps state law (go federalism!) and there may be a way to protect that and stop this project.

Crazy shit.

SEAC's Activist Training Camp is coming up and there is a lot to be done on their Energy Action Coalition funding. Much to do, much to do.

Gotta go to Frederick today to try some beer that we may have at my birthday party. Gotta stain the deck and chop down some underbrush to clear the way for people's camping, gotta continue to pack up my shit more efficiently than I did when I left the apartment.

There is much to do, and I haven't even had breakfast yet.

Damn