Blog! I have a blog!

I just remembered that I have a blog. Well holy moley. I'd better get on that, it's been months.

So it's December, apparently. The year is rocketing by as it tends to do. The biggest bit of news that I have these days is that my lil' boy turned ONE. He's a year old already. It's funny, I'd probably written 700 blogs about Gwen during her first year of life, and I've probably written 5 blogs TOTAL in Joey's first year. I've been busy. (And yes, I know that I could easily figure this out by LOOKING, but I like to make up statistics. Did you know that 95% of statistics are made up right on the spot? ;^) )

It's apparently winter again. Everything is covered with snow. I'm once again the lazy last guy on the block to put up Christmas lights, but I plan on getting that done on Sunday. Ahh, plans. Other than that Kerry and I are jetting off (read: driving) to the big city (OK, SLP) because she needs to work at the nature center and I need to play some D&D. It's a crushing need.

For the D&D nerds out there: I'm about to take my players through the notorious Tomb of Horrors, as re-released for 4th Edition. It's going to be awesome. I'm excited for the notion of an adventure that forces them to use their minds. I know it's not really the way 4e works, but I'm thinking of giving xp bonuses to those that figure out the puzzles, because some of 'em are doozies. To add injury (no insult here, there's just going to be injury) I'm starting them on their trek through the garden of graves at level 7. It's ok, there are 6 of them, and they're pretty good in a fight. They need a challenge. Heck, a couple of them are still level 6. Hee hee.

In other news, for some reason I got suckered into playing Fantasy Football this year, and it's been a catastrophic failure. I actually got in a bit of a row with the organizer for comparing it to D&D, which really made me laugh. Like...hard. But that's all done with. I won the argument. It's D&D for the a*****s that used to beat up kids that played D&D. It's also not my thing, I'm currently 3 and 9. Obviously my bad statistics (see above) have hurt me in a game that uses...real statistics. Whatever, fantasy football is what it is, and I'm having fun with it -- I guess that's what's important.

That's about all that's new. I'll try to blog more, blah blah blah, but really, I won't. Work keeps me busy. I'm thankful for being a noob lawyer that actually has a job -- many in my graduating class don't. :(

Talk atcha later.

Too much going on

Yes! I have TONS of free time now! It's a crazy, weird feeling. Yet amazingly, I'm able to fill it up with a whole bunch of stuff going on. Too much! How do I do this to myself?

It's not entirely true. Yes, there's a lot going on -- mostly stuff having to do with unpacking boxes and organizing furniture -- but there have also been plenty of TV watching nights. Those fill up fast when I'm watching all three CSI shows, a bit of V, a touch of Survivor (for whatever reason) and a bit of Biggest Loser (to feel good about m'self)...yeah. Sloth is the NEW homework!

So yeah. Time to haul that treadmill back downstairs and get back to exercising. Or maybe just wii fit, which almost counts as exercise. It'll be nice to actually do some of that without a GIGANTIC PICTURE WINDOW through which the neighbors get to watch me doing yoga poses and running in place.

I went for a rousing D&D session at T-Rav's place last Saturday. We finally got a chance to try out 4th Edition, and it exceeded every expectation. Absolutely awesome. Thanks to Lars for driving me down, and to T-Rav, Lundo and Amy for playing.

Lars drove me back to Benson on Saturday night. Then on Sunday, I woke up and drove back to the cities for my new nephew's baptism. Sunday night we drove back to Benson. Know what? That's four trips to or from the cities in two days. Know what else? It wasn't bad at all. So to all ye bold heroes with qualms about the drive to Benson, COME VISIT ME! IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL! ;^)

I signed up for NaNoWriMo again, but I think I'm giving up. I just don't have the motivation that I had last year, when I was completely insane. My new motivation is to hit level 80 in WoW before the baby comes. We'll see how that goes.

The New House

Kerry, Gwennerpants and I (as well as the bun in the oven) have moved into a new house, which we are in the midst of purchasing. The sellers were kind enough to give us an immediate move-in agreement, which is super awesome. We LOVE the place.

Lemme give you the rundown. It's in a very new development of our new town, and it was built in 2002. When we moved in, there were kids playing football in the yard, and one of our neighbors came over and brought us a plate of cookies. This neighborhood feels like Utopia to me. From my driveway, a sidewalk stretches to infinity. Apparently I'm supposed to stock up on candy, because ALL the kiddies are gonna be coming our way on All Hallow's Eve, and I should expect over 200 trick-or-treaters.

The house itself is huge, compared to our previous digs. It's got over 3,000 finished square feet, an attached 2-car garage, and much unlike our last house, a kitchen that's big enough to open both the dishwasher and the refrigerator at the same time. The basement is all finished, and there are two huge family rooms down there, both with fireplaces. The lot is also twice as big as our old lot, and there are swingsets as far as the eye can see.

For whatever reason, my wifey is bringing the hammer down on the basement decor, and not letting me "geek it up". Apparently she wants to hang out down there as well or something. Oh well, the term "man-cave" is stupid anyway. Sorry, Voltron III poster, I guess I have to hang you up in the kid room and pretend my 3-year-old is the one that digs your lion-combining awesomeness. I managed to sneak a sword onto the fireplace mantle, though. We'll see how long it lasts. Perhaps I'll just need to pull out all the goodies for D&D sessions.

Work is going great so far. I love it. I have never had a job where I actually enjoy going to work in the morning. It's amazing.

The first part of the final book of the Wheel of Time came out this week, and I picked it up off of audible.com, because I have too many other books to read and had credits available. During my commute (LOL less than 5 minutes now) I listened to the forward, where the new author, Brandon Sanderson (one of my new favorites, because of his incredible Mistborn series) talks about the Wheel of Time's influence on him, and especially its author, the amazing Robert Jordan. Sanderson talks about Jordan's death and the shock of it all, and of being chosen to complete the series. Honestly, that forward choked me up. I'm excited for the book. If anyone can pull it off, it's Brandon Sanderson.

I'm so thankful that Terry Goodkind wasn't chosen. He would have had Rand ranting about the evils of communism for entire chapters. I'm also thankful that George R. R. Martin wasn't chosen, because honestly he's not going to be around much longer and probably wouldn't have finished it. I want GRRM to keep working on his OWN series, which has a bazillion fans chomping at the bit.

Update

SO...wow. A lot's been going on. We sold the house, as I've probably mentioned. The closing is tomorrow, and the buyers take possession on Sunday. Therefore, we're gonna motorboat down to the cities (that's figurative...literally going to the cities in a motorboat is probably possible with the amount of waterways in this state, but I'm not about to try it) and load up a second truck full of all of our stuff, thereby clearing out the house for its new owners. I'm gonna do my darndest to never sell a house again, because it's a huge pain.

We're also negotiating a purchase of a home here, but I'm going to play my cards close to the chest on that. This is a very small town, and everybody's business becomes public knowledge almost instantly.

Let's talk about that, shall we? This town, the town that I grew up in, hasn't really changed much. Sure, there are a couple of buildings where there weren't before, people have remodeled, and the traffic lights now actually have left-turn arrows and lanes, but other than that, things stay pretty constant around here. It's quiet, it's friendly, and it will be a nice place to raise the kids.

However, something's gotta be done about these @#$%@ trains. True, there's no rush hour around here. There are trains rolling through town every 15 minutes (it seems) though, and that has about the same effect. I'm going to start lobbying for a bridge. They're relatively simple in form and function, and despite the fact that some of our Minnesota bridges fall down tragically (OVER THE LINE!) the idea has still been around and functioning well since antiquity. Please, people. Build a bridge.

Other than that, life is good. For the first time in my LIFE, I can truly say that I love my job. Things are lookin' up.

I still can't believe that I passed the bar exam. My brain keeps telling me that I need to start studying for it again. I don't. WOOOHOOOO!

The,space,bar,on,this,new,computer,doesn't,work,very,well,either.

Everything's comin' up Wilcox!

Ladies and gentlemen, after nearly a year on the market my house is finally selling. And that's awesome. In fact we had offers coming in from more than one party, which created a bit of a bidding war and ta-da! We're not only selling the house, we're breaking even.

I say that as if it were a good thing, and in today's market it really is. I know so many people who are completely upside-down it's not even funny. Every day I see someone apply for a refinance only to find out that their home is worth half of what it was a few years ago. It still stings, though, because we put our hearts and souls into that house. We made a bunch of really nice improvements to the place. Granted, a lot of them are cosmetic and don't add to the actual value of the home -- tile floors, changing the yardwide garden into an actual yard, etc.

The thing is, it wasn't supposed to be this way. Purchasing a home is supposed to be the single best investment ever. Alas, that's not the case. On the plus side, we'll be buying again in the same market. On the minus side, we'll acquire another home to make improvements on.

Still, this is a huge relief and a large weight off of my back. To quote my father-in-law when talking to my wife, "Good. Now Ben can stop having migraines and you can stop crying into your cereal." So true. The headache is almost gone.

My employment here at the place I've been working at for nearly seven years officially ends on September 30th. It's been a long ride, full of ups and downs. I'll miss the place, and I'll miss the people, but it's fo' shizzy time to move on, and I'm super excited.

Now hopefully I passed the bar exam. If I didn't, it's really gonna suck to have to tell you all about that. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Down with Disease

First off, Happy Birthday to my wifey! Honey, you're the best, and I hope your day is as wonderful as can be. I love you!

Now on to other things. So last night, I once again had a fever. That's twice in a week. Here's the standing theory as to how that went down. I came down with a mildish stomach flu last week on Monday. I started feeling like crap while I was brewing over at Ryan's place. That night I had a fever. I went to work last Tuesday, but was feeling very crappy when I got home that night. In the middle of the night, I puked a couple of times and proceeded to stay home from work for the next day and a half.

Gwen then got sent home sick with a fever, but she didn't have any of the upset stomach action that I did. She bounced back very quickly.

I think that Gwen had something other than what I had, and that last night I caught whatever Gwen had. I feel much better today. Nothing that's too big a deal. I think that Rhyno also mentioned feeling crappy when we saw him on Sunday. Perhaps he had the same mumbo jumbo. I think that it goes away quickly. Woot for NOT having Swine Flu. (Yet)

Other than that, not much is going on. We did some remodeling in the basement, which now looks much better than it did before thanks to wall paneling and floor tiles. We also dropped the price on the house yet again, and it's depressingly listed for less than it was listed for when we bought it. That's not how it's supposed to happen. Of course, that's how it's happening, everywhere. Stupid second great depression, I hate you so much.

Tonight Kerry and I going to dinner at Claddagh Irish Pub in Maple Grove, to celebrate her birthday. She'll have to shy away from the Guinness due to extreme knocked-uppedness, but I don't have to be shy at all. Woot.

Things are moving fast

So, I'm noticing that I'm terrible at blogging lately. It's something that I haven't had a ton of time for these days, because there's a ton going on both at work and at home. I'll try to fill you in...

My work informed me that my last day is going to be September 30th. This is something that I expected, and is a part of my plan. Still, having that official end date makes things suddenly crazy, because there's a ton that I have to do before the big move.

I'm starting with my dad on October 5th, and will probably find out about the bar exam right around then. (GULP). I'm nervous as all get out, but even if I didn't pass the bar there is still a lot of work I can do whilst studying for bar exam number two. (Ugh. I sincerely hope that I don't have to go through that again.)

I've had some opportunities lately to do the things I used to know and love. I played some D&D with friends last weekend, and it was a lot of fun. I went to the Reniassance Festival one day last weekend, and hope to go again this coming weekend with my in-laws. Last night, I brewed some beer (it had been MONTHS!) with Ryan. That was a ton of fun. I've played a couple of rounds of golf, and although my game is still fairly terrible, it's been a lot of fun to get out and play.

The house still hasn't sold, and that's a huge pain. We're going to drop the @#$%% price yet again, and make some improvements on the basement. Not much we can do at this point. We entertained the thought of putting in a bathroom, but it would be cost prohibitive. Therefore, we'll do what we can.

Eight years!

Today marks my eight year wedding anniversary!  By no coincidence, it's also the eight year wedding anniversary of my wife.  So really both of us.  Cuz we got married.  Eight years ago.  Yep.

It's been a crazy awesome eight years, too, and I can't even begin to think of all of the stuff that we've been through.  It's had its ups and downs, but I gotta say with absolute certainty that these have been the very best eight years of my life, because I've had my wife to share them with.  OK, that's not totally accurate of course.  I knew my wife before I married her.  So technically I've been with her for like a decade.  But the life that we created with each other as husband and wife is pretty darn awesome, if you ask me.

Other than the rocket-fast eight years thing, life is now plodding along fairly slowly.  No one wants to buy my house, still.  That's just the way it's gonna go, I guess.  Still, I have faith that everything will come together.  It will.  I've got all the time in the world.  My future job isn't going anywhere.  All will be well.

People continue throwing houses at us for after we move.  That's a rather hilarious side effect of moving to a small town.  Everyone knows that you're the only one that's planning on moving there, and suddenly everyone that wants to sell their house has your home phone number, and will stop at nothing.  Hey Lars -- you should buy a house in Benson.  People throw them at you.

One final interesting side note: this week is the first full week of classes at William Mitchell.  SUCKERS.

What a headache

So when I was about 14 or 15, I used to get migraine headaches. Really nasty migraine headaches with auras that would knock me out of commission for a long time. I hadn't had one in about 17 years...until this Tuesday evening. Sheesh.

I'm sure that there was some sort of perfect storm of stress, fatigue, and other factors that combined together to smack me in the face. Or forehead, actuall. I was alone with Gwen that night, and she was being a difficult toddler for a while but an angel for the most part. I sat down on the couch and started reading a novel in kind of low light without my glasses on, and my mom called me and told me that my 90-year-old grandfather had had another mini-stroke.

Almost instantly after getting off the phone with her, my vision started to blur in my right eye. The blurring became a strobe-like flicker as Kerry came in, and pretty soon I lost the ability to form words correctly. I would say something, and something different would come out of my mouth.

The speech disturbance lasted about 10 minutes, and then the headache started in earnest. It's pretty much gone now (two days later) but I'm still feeling kind of wonky. So I went to the doctor yesterday. They confirmed that it was indeed a migraine headache, and that nothing further needs to be done at this time. So that's good. It's kind of a scary situation when migraine symptoms mirror those of a stroke.

Speaking of headaches, the second annual Jabbergathering took place this past weekend, and was awesome. Because of this awesomeness, I had a much differenty type of headache all day Saturday.

Another huge headache is this effing house. It's nice to hear all of the optimism from everyone everywhere, telling me, "Chin up, buckaroo! It will sell!" The only problem with the optimism is that the @#$%^ thing still hasn't sold. I can't convey how frustrating it is to spend four years of your life preparing for a large life change, only to have all of your hopes and plans completely fouled up by a stupid house that won't sell. I'm not supposed to be here anymore.

Ben is a Bad Blogger!!!

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written anything -- quite possibly the longest lag between posts in the history of this Stupid Ostrich. There are a number of factors that have contributed to that. I'll try to touch on each in turn.

Work has been crazy. If you look at things like mortgage rates, you'll note that they're very very low. This has caused an avalanche of people who think that now is a great time to refinance. For the most part, they're absolutely correct. However, there are things that they'll have to keep in mind: It's gonna take a while. Seriously, if you apply now, you probably won't get a call back for at least two weeks. Refinances are the mortgage world's bottom-of-the-barrell, and the fact of the matter is that everything else (namely purchase) comes first. Crappy customer service on the part of mortgage lenders? Probably. But it's the best we can do in this situation.

Everyone in my department is working overtime, and most are working Saturdays as well. I haven't yet come in on a Saturday -- it's just not something that I can do. Why? Because of the second reason for not blogging: School.

WOW! I had my LAST CLASS of law school EVER. I'm currently in the midst of my last finals week. EVER! It's a very surreal feeling. Every time I get back to the building, I feel the last four years of my life. Although it often seems like I'm one of the very few, I'm actually quite proud of my school and the trial-by-fire that I went through to walk its hallowed halls over almost half a decade. Stop calculating that. Four years of law school plus a bunch of orientation and school visits before that equates to almost a half of a decade.

My last final is next Thursday, and that's it...until the following Monday when I start my bar review course. That's gonna be a bear. Due to the work mess I've had to rearrange my schedule considerably, because this so-called "night" class meets during the day on nine separate occasions, including the entire first week. Therefore, I get to...drum roll...come in at 7:00 AM every day, work for one hour, come back to work after class at 3:30, and work until 6:15. That counts as a half day of work. Believe me, it's tempting to just not come in. 'Course, in the incredibly unlikely event that they fired me, I'd have to disclose that on my bar application, and yeah. I don't wanna.

Still trying to sell the house. Anyone want a house? I love my house, but it's time to leave it and move on to bigger and better things.

I'll try to be a better blogger. I'm sure life will be full of zaniness over the course of the next few months, and my diligent (all four of you) readers will be chomping at the bit to read all about it.

30 K???

So I started NaNoWriMo as kind of a larf, not thinking that I would actually be able to do it.  To my complete and utter shock, I'm basically on pace.  I just cracked 30,000 words today (with a goal of 50,000 during the month of November).  I don't mean to toot my own horn here, because seriously (as I'm sure I've mentioned) the book is kind of crappy.  But there it is.  I'm 3/5 done.  OK maybe I do mean to toot my own horn a bit.  It's not the best story, but it cracks me up as I write it.  Also, I'm writing a novel, going to law school, working a full-time job, raising a child, and...um...playing World of Warcraft.  (OK you shouldn't count that last one as a feat).  Ladies and gentlemen, I do this all without cocaine!  Now, admit it:  I'm awesome.

The whole book thing is probably the reason for the complete and total lack of blogs this month.  You know, I can only write so much.  I look at a blog and say to myself, "Jeez, that's 200 words that could have been in the book!"  I'm a huge dork like that.  Heh.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot going on.  The first open house went well -- we had 5 parties come through while we were out.  I spent the time over at Rhyno's place with my lil' girl (who flat out refused to even think about napping, but sat quietly with me for maybe 30 seconds and talked about the Vikings) and two cats (who cowered in fear and anger under the guest room bed.)  Hopefully one of those 5 parties went away with a really good impression of the house and will buy it.  We'll see.  In these days of housing market doom and gloom, I'm still optimistic.

I'm starting to get into my usual panic about school.  Finals are approaching rapidly, and as usual (and even more so during fall semester, it seems) I feel like I haven't learned a stinkin' thing over the course of the last few months.  I know it will all come together like it always does, but I'm looking at a light at the end of this long, dark and dismal tunnel, and all I can think about is fearful panicked thoughts about failing all of my classes.  Realistic or not, fear is still fear.

Hmm...seeing as how I'm currently sitting in class, perhaps I should pay attention.  That brings up a different point, though.  I'm in a class that meets once a week.  For the last four or maybe five weeks, there has been a guest professor.  How is that even remotely cool?  Our professor is doing nothing.  It's a bunch of dag-gummed malarchy if you ask me!  With several other made up old-timey sounding curses!  A pox on the man, by jove!

/Ben out.

In a nutshell

I've been a bad blogger lately, obviously. My posts have dwindled severely of late. I think that 10 days might very well be the longest that I've ever gone between posts. Hopefully this will be a nice, long blog full of stuff to make up for the lack. ;D

Let's see here, what's been going on. The last time I posted was on election day, and I'm happy to say that things went the way I wanted them to. Enough about that, we don't need to get all political. Hopefully things will turn out good.

Kerry and I put our house on the market last week. There's a big 'ol for sale sign out front and everything. If you know my address, you can find the listing online. Due to the state of the market, we obviously have to ask for less than we would like for the place, but that's the way things go. At least we're not asking for less than we owe, which would really suck and is still within the realm of possibility.

Things aren't all bad, no matter what housing doom and gloom you hear these days. Home sales went up 24% in September. That's a LOT. Some people think that our country's downturned economy will last forever, or for years, but that's simply not the case. Things will get better! Now...everybody do your part and go out there and buy a house. Start with mine. Thanks.

School has been plodding along. I'm into the last three weeks of the second-to-the-last semester of my law school career. I registered for classes for the last time EVER yesterday, and I'm happy that all of the stress of that crappiness are behind me. I'm pretty much taking all fluff classes tought by professors that give really high average grades. It shouldn't be too much of a hassle, I'm hoping.

I kegged up my porter, and now I have a keg full of beer in my house! It's warm, but it's very good. Not my best batch, but it's a very good and delightfully strong porter. I shudder to think of how beer on tap will change my life. I'm becoming something like a chocoholic, except with alcohol. Just kidding. I've had the keg filled for almost a week and have had two glasses of the stuff thus far. No need to plan an intervention.

The latest WoW expansion came out yesterday, and it's awesome. I've only played for about 45 minutes, though, because (of course) everybody with a WoW account is playing WoW now, due to the expansion's release, and there are queues of over 1000 people waiting to get on some servers (including mine). That means it takes about an hour to log on. I'm not too worried about it, though, because that's just time to work on my novel.

That brings me to the next point. I'm still hard at work doing National Novel Writing Month. (Sometimes it amazes even me how much crap I take on to do at a time). I'm basically halfway to the 50,000 word mark, which means I'm right on track. My novel gets increasingly sillier with each word I type, but as I mentioned before, it doesn't have to be good. I can write really quickly when I don't have to cite anything. No need for stimulants, just good time management.

Yep. That's the last week in a nutshell.

Another Weenend Down

Admittedly, I'm becoming a tad lackadaisical with my blog posting. I've gone a week since the last one, and that's just not acceptable. My readership is suffering! I feel a bit like Robert Jordan...except not dead. Maybe more akin to George R. R. Martin. That's it.

The tile floor is now finished. On friday night, Kerry and I did all of the grouting. I managed to literally wear a hole in the tip of my right hand index finger. I had to plug this oft-bleeding hole with superglue. As such, I've now got a blob of superglue sticking out of my finger. This makes typing interesting.

Last night, Greg and I had plans to go to a metal show at Station 4, featuring the viking stylings of Amon Amarth. Well, we got there and they had already started, and it turned out to be $25. Since we're a couple of cheaparses, we went with plan B: Not seeing Amon Amarth. We went back to my house, drank some beer, and spent some time playing Golden Axe on the wii. That was quite fun.

I was dismayed to find that my Wii Sports disc has a hole in it. Yep, a hole going straight through the disc. I blame Nintendo for not giving me a case for it, but I really know that the blame somehow falls squarely on me for not taking care of it, or on Gwen for somehow managing to put a hole through the disc. Anyway, if anyone has a copy of Wii Sports that they don't want anymore, I would be interested in making a purchase from you.

Big weekend

It is finished. Well, mostly. This weekend, my parents came to town and went to work. On Friday night we finished ripping up all of the old vinyl tiles from the kitchen floor. It was backbreaking, sticky business. Sticky because of all of the adhesive that was still on the floor. This made for some hilarity whenever a cat or Gwen tried to cross the floor, because their little paws or feet would just...stick. It was funny. Poor kitties and Gwen.

Saturday morning I went to class as usual, and my Dad started tiling the floor. That project lasted until 8:00 pm, so he worked for 12 hours and I worked for 8 (with a break to mow the lawn). It's done now, and it looks awesome. It's not such a gigantic change aesthetically, because the tiles are still white. They just look a whole lot cleaner and better and are ceramic. I now have to go through the process of grouting, which is a chore but shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Kerry was camping with her friend Megan all weekend. She had a blast, but I missed her (of course). Gwenner is quite the handful these days, because she's just about two. I had a lot of fun hanging out with my girl.

Saturday night I had some dudes over to play poker, and we had a lot of fun. A good bachelor night was had by all.

Yesterday was rainy, so Gwenner and I went shopping, because I was getting cabin fever and there was nothing else to do. Our first stop was Best Buy, because I wanted to pick up the newest Flogging Molly CD. I have most of my music in digital form these days, but I really wanted a CD that I could hold, look at the artwork, flip through the booklet (in my hands, not on a screen)...that sort of tactile thing. I think that it's unfortunate that those feelings of removing the shrinkwrap from a CD and opening it up and holding it in your hand are all kind of going away. I'm going to hold on to them as long as I can.

Well, we got to Best Buy, and it was closed. I had 20 minutes to kill, so I went to the Target that was nearby. Gwen and I meandered around the store, looking at pumpkins, and I made some random purchases. (A ream of paper, a 12-pack of diet coke, and most importantly, a new ivy cap). When we got to the car, I immediately placed the hat on my head and went to Best Buy. Gwen just held my hand in the store, and we walked up and down nearly every aisle. She got sucked in watching a 60" TV that was displaying elephants and zebras and giraffes and monkeys and all manner of creature that she knows and loves. I was able to pry her away eventually, and we succeeded in my mission of finding music.

It wasn't until I got to the cashier that I realized what a tool I was to be purchasing Flogging Molly while wearing an ivy cap. Ahh well, I'm positive that I wasn't the first.

Projects!

A great and total transformation is currently underway in my kitchen. My wifey has taken it upon herself to completely redo the floor. OK, not completely all by herself, but so far yeah. We're going to replace our ugly vinyl with some nice ceramic tile.

Kerry started ripping up the vinyl on Monday night. We had a bit of hope that under the vinyl we would discover wonderful hardwood. When the first tiles were pulled up, we realized that lurking under the vinyl tiles were....

...more vinyl tiles. Which is kind of lame, because they're probably the original 1954 floor, which could mean that they contain asbestos, which means that we don't want to rip them up. No siree. So, we'll continue pulling up the more recent vinyl, and put some ceramic tile on top of what remains and it will be beautiful and wonderful and so on and so forth.

I'm trying to organize a poker game for this weekend, because my wife will be out of town. So far, responses have been slow, but hopefully something comes together...it would be a shame to waste a perfectly good bachelor night. Gwen will be sleeping at that point, which is good, because she's a heck of a poker player and I would hate for her to embarrass my friends. ;)

Well, that's about all I've got for right now. The sun is shining, the air is crisp, and all is well.

I'm old!

They're married! Rhyno and Meghan tied the knot this weekend in a beautiful ceremony and a superfun reception. I was successful in most of my best-manly duties, and gave what I thought was a pretty darn good speech. The day was a lot of fun, and I offer sincere congratulations to both of them. Have fun in Cabo.

Yesterday was the anniversary of my birth. I am now officially 32. Funny, I don't feel a day older than 31. Har har har. It was a pretty low-key day, as the mornings after big weddings usually are. I took my tux back, did some hanging out with my parents, racked my mead, played some video games, read some more geek book, and watched most of a movie with Kerry. It was nice.

Kerry got me a kegging system! This means, ladies and gentlemen, that I will have my own homebrew on tap at my house. That is sofa king cool. No more running upstairs for beer during D&D sessions. Oh no! Just reach over to yon tap and fill thy frothing mug with ale! My lovely wifey also got me a Flogging Molly T-Shirt, because she rules.

Yesterday afternoon, our 2nd realtor came over after having done a market analysis. It was like night and day compared to the first lady that came (see previous post). The news was much more to our favor, and this lady really has her stuff together. The last chick seems to have been doing exactly what I thought: Trying to get a quick, small payment now rather than wait out the winter. Well, good luck to her in her endeavors, she won't be selling our house.

It sucks to be back at work, because the weekend went by like lightning. That's always the problem with a power-packed weekend. So, here goes. Time to work.

Arrrrr

Arr arr HEEyar arrrrrrr arr. Happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day, ye scurvy sons of sea hags! Tis September the Nineteenth today, and I can hear the wail o' the wind an' smell the salt o' the sea, callin' ta me, down ta me boney bones.

OK enough of that.

It's been a pretty uneventful week for me, unfortunately. I can't really recall anything particularly spectacular that's happened, it's just been kind of the same old situation. Work's been workish, school has been schoolish, and everything has been trudging along. The week has plodded it's merry way toward today, blessed Friday, and the utter awesomeness that is a weekend. This weekend in particular.

Of course, I have to get through class tomorrow morning, but that oughtn't be too tough. It's a pretty entertaining and engaging class.

Tomorrow at approximately noon, I set sail (parrrrrdon me seafarin' references!) for lovely Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, in wanton celebration of the death of Rhyno's bachelorhood. Don't worry, Ryan...it's not such a bad thing to lose. If I know anything about you, it's that you're ready to get married to that blushing bride. First thing's first, though, and that first thing is a party.

So that's what we're a'gonna do.

Other than that, we've got the second opinion realtor coming over tonight. That should be fine. We'll see what she has to say (doubtfully anything of substance tonight, we'll find out more later)

I'm playing pirate ballads at work today. People are confused, but when they ask, I just tell them that I'm celebrating the holiday.

Well that really sucks.

Ugh. All I want to do is sell my house. Well, not all – I’m still holding out for the offer to open for Clutch on tour. Selling this house is a big priority right now, though. It doesn’t really matter when – I graduate next May, and don’t take the bar exam until July, so I’m fine with sticking around. It would be better for us, though, to sell the house early and have to live in an apartment than to not sell the house and have to stay in my crappy job ad infinitum. This brings us to our sordid tale of woe known as the current mortgage market.

Let’s start from the beginning and bore you with details. As much as I would love to blame George Bush for the current state of things (I’m sure he’s got something to do with it, right?) the fault can be placed on the shoulders of idiot lenders that gave mortgages to people that really shouldn’t have had them. Said idiot lenders were handing mortgages to other idiots who would then idiotically buy houses that they couldn’t afford. Due to an extremely sharp rise in the prices of houses, a lot of these houses were actually selling for considerably more than they were worth.

Suddenly, the terms on many adjustable-rate mortgages came due. Like a shotgun, people that were barely making interest-only payments at 5% or less now had to pay three times what they were paying before, due to a higher rate and having to pay principal. (Lost? Sorry if I’m skipping definitions, I’m trying to be brief. Heh.) Long story short, these people (and there are LOTS of them) couldn’t make their payments. Their houses went into foreclosure, and are now being sold dirt cheap by the banks that took them back.

What does this mean? It means that in my neighborhood (and likely yours too) there are 47 houses for sale in a 6-block radius and 30 of the 47 are foreclosed properties. This produces an effect that makes me want to go on a violent rampage: Person A has a house for sale at $200,000. Person B got their house (similar in every way to person A’s) foreclosed upon because they couldn’t afford it. Bank C sells person B’s house for $30,000. Person D, a generic consumer, sees two identical houses, one for $200,000 and another for $30,000. Yeah. Tough choice.

As a result prices of houses everywhere go sharply downward. (Yes, I know there’s more to it. I’m simplifying here. There’s a story, after all.) The infuriating result of this is that when Kerry and I contacted a realtor, she said that our house could sell for a maximum of about $60,000 less than what we want for it.

That’s a lot. That’s out of the question.

There’s more to it than that, even. I may very well be projecting here, but I’ve got some severe misgivings about the realtor we spoke to. See, I know that she’s in a difficult financial situation (because I’m a snoop, a spy, and a person who knows people), and I know that she’s done some kind of shady things in the past. I’m thinking that she wants to sell a house immediately, because she wants a smaller commission now rather than a big one later. It might be wishful thinking on our part, but either way, yeah…not gonna be going with her, I’m thinkin’.

Wait, why did we call her in the first place? Because she's a very nice person who was our agent when purchasing the house, and we wanted to see what she could do. Yeah, not so much.

But wait, there's more.

I'm sure that most of you have already read a lot of this on the Jabberboard, but I'll save it here for posterity:

Wow. So the story totally did not end. [Tuesday] night was fine. There was not a word spoken, not a wave given...I didn't see the guy at all. Then [Wednesday] he showed up at my house. At my front door. He asked if I had found anything out [about a supposed legal problem that I had previously told him I would not research]. I told him to go see a lawyer. That part was just fine, of course. The weird part was that he said, "Yeah, I saw you guys through my binoculars." I laughed at his joke. Then he said, "No I just like to watch the birds and stuff outside my window."

RED FLAGS!

He then said that he was now staying in the apartment until september.

RED FLAG!

He said that he wanted to be friends, and that if we're having any parties or anything that he wants to come down and hang out.

NO!

So yeah. The conversation ended aaaaaaaaaaand...



Kerry called the cops. Who showed up. And went and talked to him.

The cop called me after talking to him, and told me that his name is J@mes J0seph G@rcia, not the name that he had given us, he is indeed moving but is most assuredly not moving to Plymouth but rather moving to some other apartments about a block away...basically the whole thing is a pack of lies and my initial gut reaction of creep-outitude was spot-on.

The police officer said that she doesn't think he's violent and doesn't think that he'll retaliate -- she thinks that he'll try to apologize (which we also do not want).

So I chatted with my 'rents about it. Dad's opinion was that the action we took was the exact right thing to do. Mom's insight was that for the first two years that my family lived in Benson, there was (unbeknownst to them or the rest of the area) a murderer living across the street who was likable, talkative, and eventually carried away by a S.W.A.T. team. So, there are Creepyguys everywhere.

Last night Kerry was gone for a work-related overnight, so it was just me and the Gwennerpants. Ryan came over and we played magic and swilled homebrew for several hours, and it was awesome. I would have been decidedly less comfortable if I were home alone. I'm not physically afraid of Creepyguy himself. I really don't fear violence. I just don't want to talk to him at all. I know that he's probably hurt by the situation. Whatever. I have a lot of anxiety that I'll have to tell him to get off my property or to stop talking to me or something. He needs to learn that those actions make people uncomfortable. I have a wife and daughter to think about.

Thankfully he hasn't come by. Kerry and I are headed out to the lake this evening, so we won't have to deal with him. What a tool.

Stuff and random things

I got a new coworker this week, which is both good and bad. Good because I finally get another person to help me to do the work of two people. Bad, because I no longer get to blast obnoxious music at any time of the day. That could still turn out ok, though, because it turns out that she’s got good taste in music. In fact, she was at one of the Clutch shows that I attended (the one at the Quest). She was there to see Fu Manchu, though…oh well. Nobody’s perfect.

There has been no recent sign of Creepyguy. I’m starting to breathe a little bit easier. Soon he will be on his merry way. My wife had a very interesting take on the whole situation. “Honey,” she said, “There are unsavory people everywhere you go,” (ok I’m paraphrasing). “You’re going to be a lawyer, and you’re going to have to talk to lots of them, and you’re not going to want to.” That’s true, I suppose. I wanted to counter with the fact that I’ll be getting paid, but that’s not necessarily true at all. There are probably going to be plenty of people that just need to have a conversation with a lawyer but don’t have any means of payment. I expect that there will be a great many times in my life that I’ll talk with people that I don’t want to talk to, and I won’t be expecting any type of payment for it anyway. Then there is the simple fact that the practice of law is adversarial, so a lot of the people on the opposing side will be people that I just don’t want to talk to. I’m totally rambling now, but the point of this section is that this guy is not a big deal.

I’ve got beer a’brewing, and tomorrow night it shall be bottled. I’m excited about that. I still have a good bit of hefeweizen left, because I kind of held off on drinking it until it can mature a little bit more. Yum. I’m excited for my IPA. Mmm…hoppy.

Well, I’m off to work on my freeze ray.