Desperate Times
Twelve days into Christina's business trip and I am somehow managing to hold down the fort. The place is messier then it should probably be, but the cat is getting fed and the bills are getting paid, so you can't ask for much more.
I am doing a couple things in honor of my wife-lessness that Christina probably wouldn't approve of: helping a neighbor build a mini ramp and growing a mustache. The mini ramp is shaping up nicely and will be done this weekend. I don't think Christina will be too stoked with me skating it, but hey, at least its not in our backyard.
As for the 'stache, it really looks like crap. I realize now that if a mustache doesn't look decent after a few days of not shaving, letting it go for a dozen more isn't going to make it better. But I promised myself to see this thing through until Christina gets back next week, so she'll get a nice surprise at the airport. I have a feeling her reaction won't be like Lois'
Dec 12 11:44:44 am 4 comments
Try the shrimp cocktail
It's Christina's second day in Indianapolis and so far all she knows is that she needs to eat the shrimp cocktail at Saint Elmo's. She's seriously gotten this recommendation from 3 separate people, one before she even got there.
Dec 2 02:47:19 pm 1 comments
Happy Halloweiners
Hope everyone has a safe and fun halloween. I'm not going in my usual costume this year unfortunately. Actually, we're babysitting for my nephew Kasey so Mike and Jackie can go out for his birthday.
In other news, Christina got a new job at Eli Lilly and will be peddling Cialis among other prescriptions. The matching bathtubs should be arriving shortly.
Oct 31 11:48:54 am 4 comments
Rough Month
5 weeks ago we found out that not one, but two of our tenants were breaking their lease early. All of a sudden we had to flll both our old house and the townhome.
Luckily, the old house is in such a good location all it took was a "for rent" sign out front for a week to get that place filled. As for the townhome, a couple years ago we tried renting it through craigslist and it was a huge waste of time. We ended up paying our friend (and realtor) Todd to get it rented for us. Thanks to the economy, our margins have become much thinner in the past 2 years and we weren't looking forward to giving up a month's rent. So, since Todd was going on vacation anyway we gave it another shot on craigslist and to our surprise, it managed to come through for us in only a week!
At that point the hard part was getting both of the places ready for the next tenants. After 2 straight weeks of nonstop painting, plumbing and scrubbing, we got both tenants in this past weekend and can finally call it a rest.
Oct 2 10:47:02 am 0 comments
Olympics
Is is me, or have Olympic swimming records' life spans become shorter than that of a housefly? It's gotten to the point that I find myself looking with disdain at any swimming gold medal winner that doesn't break the world record. Whats that? You won but only broke the Olympic record? Come back in four years and try again, slacker.
also those new unisex swimsuits are horrible looking. with the caps on, you can't tell which ones are men and which ones are women. Oh well, i guess all fashions come back around.
Aug 13 05:41:56 pm 1 comments
Summertime Chillin
Christina and I are doing well and just enjoying our summer. No big trips planned but we did have a nice weekend in Naples a while back, and are planning another trip to St. Augustine in September.
The big news of the summer is that Christina started a new job as an account manager for a small healthcare staffing company. She is working longer hours but the pay and benefits are excellent. We were especially assured in her choice to leave after yesterday's news of Wachovia shutting down it's entire wholesale division. This means that Christina managed to get a jump on the job market over her 150+ former associates who will soon be without a job.
Jul 23 03:13:31 pm 2 comments
2 Months In
The house is finally feeling like a home, but there's still some transitions that I need to get used to:
- The garbage disposal - I've never had one of these in my life so learning what can and can't be put down there is still a bit of a novelty to me. My favorite is when I find a roach in the house and play Jabba to the disposal's Sarlacc Pit.
- Laminate flooring - I got used to waltzing into the house after a trip to the beach and throwing all the wet stuff wherever I please. But the biggest issue I have is that the mop is out and the swiffer is in. The feather duster is probably the only un-manlier cleaning tool then the swiffer. I think my balls shrink a bit every time I stuff the corners of the swiffer pad into those little rubber diaphragms.
- The massive refrigerator - If you had seen the tragedy that was our last fridge, you would know that none of our drawers worked any more, so everything was out for display on the shelves, which made for an easy assessment of the available foodstuffs. Now, our new fridge is freaking huge, plus all the drawers work. I need a snack just to get up the energy to find myself a snack.
- The 2 bathrooms - It's great, my lid is always up, I have my own shelves, and there's no massive hairball clogging my shower's drain. This house was worth every penny.
May 29 12:30:33 pm 1 comments
Help My Friend
An old friend of mine has been fighting ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) for a year. Beau MacVane, his family and friends are participating in a national walk next weekend to raise funds for research.
Beau recently did five tours of duty with the US Army Rangers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is a story about Beau and this will take you to "Beau's Platoon" where you can join the walk or make a donation of any amount. Any help meeting Beau's fund-raising goals would be most welcome.
Apr 15 02:42:23 pm 1 comments
One Week In
since the house was a foreclosure and we got it relatively cheap, we had to buy the house "as is"; that is to say, with some issues that the bank just won't fix. at this point, we have the inside of the house about 70% painted, got our plumbing issues fixed, and have a roofer coming out next week to fix a couple of small leaks. we are still awaiting the first appliance delivery, which will come this weekend and will get us a microwave and a dishwasher. thankfully, row-z let us borrow his small fridge until ours arrives next week.
i didn't mention it before, but i managed to pull my back while snowboarding and am still recovering, so my lifting capabilities are greatly diminished. my parents have been a big help out in the yard, and many thanks to all our friends who have been coming over to help paint or move stuff in. overall, the house is really coming along.
on a side note, i finally had a moment to write myself a widget to update the links on the right, so now they will be in reverse chronological order, and new stuff will be frequently added.
Apr 3 11:30:08 am 3 comments
Closing Day!
you know how nice that feeling is to go to the bathroom in a restaurant, get back to your table and have the food waiting for you? well we've got it 10 times better as we found out a week ago while in Utah that the title finally cleared and we're good to close! the deal's going down in about 40 minutes and i'm so stoked - the vagaboond life we've been living this past month will finally be over.
snowboarding was great, by the way. pictures of everything will be coming soon...
Mar 25 12:20:21 pm 2 comments
Title Woes II
oh man, these past couple weeks have been brutal. long story short, we're not going to be closing in time to get into the house before our tenant moves in on saturday. so last weekend we got ourselves some smartboxes™ and started filling 'em up. we have a lot of crap but did a good job stuffing it all in.
so currently we are living on a couple lawn chairs with record crates as footstools, eating with plasticware on paper plates, and sleeping on an inflatable mattress. it's the high life.
luckily, we have lots of family in the area that have offered up rooms to us until we close, and we also have a snowboarding vacation coming up on the 14th, so things aren't so bad.
Feb 27 02:07:56 pm 4 comments
Title Woes
i didn't mention it in the previous post, but the house we're buying is a bank foreclosure. a lot of times this means problems with leins so you really need to make sure the title is clean when you get into one of these. we already knew this going into it.
but now we found out another gotcha - the title is clean but it's just not in the bank's name yet. i guess the foreclosure is fairly recent and it takes time to actually switch over to the bank's possession.
since this takes court approval, we've been harassing the local clerk's office all week. we hoped to close today to have the 3 day weekend to do some fixing-up and moving in, but unfortunately that won't happen. so christina and i will wind up with a relaxing weekend instead, and it will be appreciated.
Feb 15 10:48:48 am 1 comments
Cooper #1
so the dolphins fans still get to hang on to their last shred of respectability, as their perfect season still stands alone. it's amazing how the entirety of the NY-hating south florida crowd got behind eli and the giants. as a matter of fact, the only one rooting for the pats at the superbowl party we went to last night was my wife, and thats just because she has a thing for mr. bundchen.
my final thought on this situation is that miami needs to do the right thing and take cooper manning with the #1 pick in the draft, and ride the manning mojo to SB XLIII.
Feb 4 02:37:12 pm 2 comments
Big Move
i didn't want to write anything for fear of jinxing it, but christina and i are buying a new house! we started looking only after we got some estimates on an expansion of our existing house, and found that with the low interest rates and lower market, that it would be more cost-effective to buy a whole new one while renting out the old one until the market turns around.
we're actually quite close to the new place, less than a mile away and in the same neighborhood. i'm sad to be moving out of "walking distance" to the beach, but we're still close enough.
needless to say we're very excited, because now we have the 3/2 we've been wanting, plus it has all the upgrades as well - a new kitchen with granite counter top, crown molding throughout, and wood flooring.
we're signing a lease with a tenant tonight, and plan on closing in a couple weeks. i will put up some pics of the new place tonight.
UPDATE: pics of the new house are up here
Feb 1 10:47:39 am 3 comments
Trinity Part II
a great postscript to my previous post on Trinity's play is that they ended up winning $100,000 in scholarship money from pontiac. it's nice to see the little guy win, and now maybe the school can afford to get the cheerleaders some gym equipment, or maybe even some lipo. seriously man, they were rugged.