His Side

5/15/04 - Stacey's flying back today - good thing, because I was just starting to miss her. I kid I kid. I started missing her on Thursday. She found her dream house yesterday. See some pictures of it here. It's in Brandon, Mississippi, which is a suburb of Jackson judging on the maps I've seen. Bad news - the owner wants $185,900 for it, which is about $36,000 more than we wanted to spend. Good news - it's been on the market for 9 months. That screams overpriced to me. I'm probably going to fly out there in a week or two and meet our real estate agent and the owners, and see if I can talk them down in price.

I've been scrambling around all morning trying to make the apartment look clean. Notice I said look clean, not be clean. I don't think an apartment with three cats can ever truly be clean. We could vacuum every day and pull up a cubic foot of cat hair. I think we should put Nair on the cats - hair problem solved!

Okay, I'm going to get some breakfast and go to work. Hope everyone else has a good weekend.

5/11/04 - My wife is out of town looking for a house. Meanwhile I'm living it up as a bachelor. Tonight's bachelor living-it-up activities: do the dishes, balance the checkbook in Microsoft Money, feed the cats, cook myself dinner, update the website, and think up something sarcastic and biting to put on my blog.

Stacey should hook up with a real estate agent tomorrow and start some serious house shopping. I tried to coach her to respond to any question from agent with "Yes, but where do I put the goats?" I don't think she's going to follow through. I talked to the agent in charge of our overall relocation this morning for about an hour. Hooo boy, they sure do hook us up with the expense account. We're going to be reimbursed for Stacey's flight plus get $150.00 for food and incidentals. Did I mention she's staying with her mom? :) Now for the bad news. My project got pushed back... 6 months!!! No, just kidding. One or two weeks. This might actually be good, because we still need to have a garage sale and I don't know how long it will take to find a house and close on it.

I've started a new blog (ain't it awful?) that will chronicle our relocation experience and adaptation to country life. I might even have readers vote on names for our chickens. See if I don't.

Daily shout out (haven't done one of these in a while) to Dave, and his alter ego Dyno-man, who's finally back home with his lovely wife Danielle after spending far too long in Afghanistan.

Alyson, Pat, and I had some totally awesome sushi last night. Spicy tuna rolls 4EVA!

I had a new CD player installed in the Cherokee for our road trip back to the promised land. It's supposed to play MP3 and WMA files but I haven't tested that out yet. Any song suggestions for a good road trip mix CD?

5/6/04 - Sorry I haven't updated lately. I've been working some horrible hours in order to get our product ready for delivery at the end of the month. Then I'm going to Europe for a couple of weeks, so don't be expecting any updates from me then either. Not that anyone reads this side :p

That's right folks, my wife is leaving town to watch "Friends".

Cousin Jonathan posted a tricky puzzle on his site. See if you can figure it out.

So my cell phone starts beeping this morning, at 5:45 with a text message that says "OTA OK". Who is Ota and why do I care if he's ok? I didn't ask for his status. I'm minding my business, Ota should mind his. Since I was awake, I "downloaded the internet to my computer" and did a search for this Ota character. I went through some news about Iraq to see if there was any Ota mentioned there. No dice. Then I checked some obituaries (note: I don't know where to find obituaries on the internet, so you can now assume I'm fabricating a lot of this story, if you haven't already) to see if anyone named Ota had died. Then I smacked myself in the head! Stupid! Ota is OK! Turns out that "OTA" means "Over The Air" which means that the cellular company just sent or received some information from the SIM card in my phone. They're probably downloading my phone book to put into a telemarketer list and they're going to sell it to every political party under the sun. So when you're getting calls from the Vegetarian Workers International Solidarity Movement while you're trying to have dinner, I apologize.

Relocation update: I've been waiting for an offer letter and a relocation package for about five weeks now. I woke up early yesterday morning so I could call the guy in Mississippi as soon as he got to his office and find out what was going on. It turns out that they were waiting to see if I got promoted to "engineer 3I" before sending the letter because it was worded to assume I was already an "engineer 3". I don't know if I'm getting the promotion or not, but HR is going to re-word the letter to say that I'll transfer at whatever engineer grade I happen to be by June. Hopefully this means that I'll get the letter and relocation information express mailed to me either today or tomorrow.

5/1/04 - Remember that computer table that fell apart? We finally replaced it today with a computer desk from Ikea. We spent all afternoon putting it together.  When I fly to Sweden next month, I'll have to thank them for building such a sturdy desk. It's going to rock to have to take it apart again in a month and a half to move.

Funny story: Stacey got a new cell phone with polyphonic ring tones. So she's looking on the internet for some ring tones from some Christian bands she loves. She finds one website that had "polymorphic" Christian ring tones that were "guaranteed to make you the envy of your friends and family". Ignoring the sadness that welled up in my soul at the thought of someone being envious of a ring tone, I asked "Isn't that the kind of thing you DON'T want to accomplish with your Christian ring tones?" She ended up getting "Dueling Banjos" to celebrate our move to rural Mississippi. What pranksters we are. I got my hands on "Bad Moon Rising", because I love Credence. I also got one from The Cure, so if you call me, I will always love you.

Her Side

5/31/04 - OUCH!  An 11 day hiatus?!  How can I do this to y'all?  Well, to be fair, DSLextreme lost the site without a trace for a good two weeks (it still wasn't back when I wrote the update from the 20th), and then for the past week I have been incredibly busy... not to mention in a sugar-induced coma.  More on that later. 

A belated and restated happy birthday to the most wonderful, intelligent, hilarious, gorgeous man I know.  Happy birthday, shnookums, I'm glad I married ya. 

Dream house fell through, and we've decided to put off all further house-hunting until we actually move there.  We're unofficially moving July 6th, but don't hold us to it. 

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend.  I did, thanks for asking.  My ex-boss has a little camper that he parked at the beach, and he let me and Drew stay there alone last night.  We played cards, built a bonfire, ate some good cookin', had s'mores with Matt and Cecile, walked on the moonlit beach... it was the bomb.  Seriously. 

So over the past 6 days, I've eaten mince meat pie, strawberries with ganache, lots and lots of s'mores, gorilla bread, boysenberry cobbler, brownies, Cold Stone ice cream, Grandma's special cookies, icing balls, and a few 7ups.  Not to mention pastas and breads galore.  Yes, I have been a miserable adulteress to the low-carb diet that has treated me so well for the past few months.  I need a cleanse though, so nothing but veggies this week for me, then my low-carb relationship will resume. 

I got the pictures developed from my house-hunting trip.  Me, Rob, and Angie driving a tractor.  Whoda thunk. 

Anyway, promise, the site is back up and running.  I'll update as much as before.  My exciting life continues.  Stop laughing.  Go Lakers!

5/20/04 - Huh.  Would ya look at that.  All of a sudden, our website is gone.  Every record of it ever existing is gone.  Good thing we didn't build it using DSLextreme's server, or else it'd be lost forever.  In any event, don't expect any of the links to work, because one of us is going to have to upload every single one of the pages, and Drew has it so complicated that I'm going to let him do it. 

Sorry 'bout that, folks.  DSLextreme has no earthly idea why this would have happened, and can give us no indication that it will or will not happen again.  So if it does, trust that it'll be up again soonly.  Sorry again. 

Anyway - Drew's flying out tomorrow because he has to be in town next week.  He'll see dream house on Saturday, so hopefully we'll have made an offer by this weekend.  Dream house.  Ahhhhhhhh...

5/17/04 - So I wrote out the 5/16 update yesterday, but it didn't get uploaded.  Read ahead. 

Have you ever not really paid attention to a word until all of a sudden?  That word for me right now is "fret."  For some reason, while I never really saw the word before, now the proliferation of it's use is astounding to me.  It all began when my little sister said it.  It's not one of those words she normally uses.  Then I saw the word several other times and wondered if it was out to get me for some reason. 

If this update accomplishes nothing else, at least you will all notice the word "fret" or a derivation thereof for a few months. 

Sunset Home Improvements' baseball team, The Double-Hungs (it's a type of window) won their first game tonight.  I think it was because of their cheerleaders, though one can never tell.  They had a great cheerleading team.  On the way out we saw the team they'll be playing next week, and I'm not too positive, though as a cheerleader, I have to be.  The other team had an average age of about 25, and our team's average age is a good 15 years above that, and their team all has tattoos, so you know they're hard core.  They were all practicing their throws in this very organized fashion, and one of the best Double Hungs looked pretty impressed.  We're gonna have to beef up the intimidation factor next week. 

The husband is going out to see the house next Tuesday.  I hope they like each other (the husband and the house).  If so, we are SO making an offer...

5/16/04 - Before I go on and on about my trip, a few shoutouts, please.  DAAAAAAAAAVE!!!!  Kandahar sucks!  Welcome back home!  DANIELLE!!!  Don't let him go again!  And happy birthday, Matt. 

I most certainly did find my dream house.  Now tell me that's not the most beautiful house you've ever seen.  Thankfully, Drew doesn't have a dream house.  He just wants a big kitchen and a big master bedroom suite.  No problem.  There are more pictures at Drew's moving blog, including pictures of the yards, sheds, porches (wraparound porch!!!!), etc. 

Anyway, I had a GREAT time during my house hunting trip.  I arrived on Monday, and Mom picked me up at the airport and we went to Ma Spiehler's and ate dinner, then drove back to Brookhaven.  Tuesday, Mom and I drove around Brandon (which is no small task, because geographically, it's massive) and Pelahatchie, then ate in Jackson.   Wednesday, my dad drove 10 hours to see me for 6 hours.  Daddy's awesome.  Shoutout to Daddy.  Thursday, Angie, Rob, and Charity drove up to visit me.  If ever there were a funnier thing than seeing a guy from Staten Island driving a tractor... you let me know.  Oh!  I know, seeing that same guy scream bloody murder at the sight of a vulture.  It's okay, dude, they scared me too.  Friday is when I found dream house.  I left Saturday. 

The other houses I looked at were just sub-par.  Par, of course, being dream house.  No seriously, the other houses I looked at either had major problems or were too small or whateva.  I do hate that dream house is so expensive but Mom thinks it's really negotiable.  There are cosmetic problems, which we can use to our advantage, and the fact that it's been on the market for 9 months HAS to work in our favor.  There were a few signs that we're meant to get the house.  First being the fact that my pen ran out just as I was starting to take notes on the house I looked at after dream house.  Secondly, the name of the street (it's a person's name) is the same name as Drew's co-worker.  First and last name.  Third, the fact that I dreamt about it last night.  Man, I hope I hope I hope.

I'm outta here.  I can't believe "The Practice" is ending tonight.  That's good... now I can have my Sunday nights back.  Bye! 

5/9/04 - Cousin Nina!  I've tried to e-mail you twice and got bounced twice!  Do I offend (smelling armpits)?  Am I the black sheep?  Have you disowned me?  Or is your work e-mail just acting up?  Thank goodness for this public forum...

Whiny shoutout over.  Anyway, I'm leaving tomorrow for a week, and although I know this will disappoint a few of you, I may not be able to update until next Saturday.  And since I'm spending a week in Mississippi, my next update may have a slight accent.

Drew's May 9 entry in his blog is really good, and I encourage everyone to read it.  Honey, we're gonna be SO unpopular in Mississippi.

Will my maladies never end?  I went to the beach yesterday, and although my arms and legs are right about where I want them to be, the sunscreen somehow missed some areas on my face, including right around my eyes.  My eyes are so puffy right now, I look like I've been crying all night.  The swelling had better go down before tomorrow, lest I face ridicule from my family. 

Anyway, I've got some shopping, laundering, and cleaning to do.  I might be able to update using DSLextreme's site, but I'm not quite sure how to do that.  Until then!

5/8/04 - On the season finale of "The O.C.," a song played over the end sequence that I adore.  It's one of those songs that you hear and you love, but you never know who did it or what it's called.  After some pretty good private investigation (read: Google), I found it.  It's called "Hallelujah," and the original was done by Leonard Cohen.  I listened to a sample of it at http://www.circuitcity.com, but knew it wasn't the one I've heard so many times and loved.  Upon further investigation, I found that it was redone by Rufus Wainwright for the Shrek soundtrack.  "Ho-ho!" I said to myself.  "That's where I'd heard it before!"  So I listened to that one and sure enough, it was the one I'd come to love... but it wasn't the one that played on "The O.C."  Having investigated further, I learned that Jeff Buckley also covered it. 

So I downloaded the ones by Rufus Wainwright and by Jeff Buckley.  Thing is, this is the kind of song that's a little lulling, but absolutely beautiful, and one of those songs that make you just want to close your eyes and get lost in the lyrics.  Rufus Wainwright's version does that.  Jeff Buckley's version does that for most of the song, but then at the end when he's trailing off singing "Hallelujah, hallelujah," for some reason he just yells it.  Twice.  That really breaks you out of your lulled state.  So I'm going with the Rufus Wainwright version.  Sorry, Jeff (I know, he's dead). 

Other songs I'm obsessed with right now:  "Ballroom Blitz," by Sweet; "Naughty Girl," by Beyonce; "Tipsy," by J-Kwon (who is not at all Asian); and "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. 

Anyway, I'm going to the beach today.  Not only did my kidneys do irreparable damage to my trust in their abilities, they also did nearly irreparable damage on the tan I'd like to have right now.  I'll be going to repair that now.  Ciao!

5/7/04 - "Friends" was AWESOME!  Well worth my trip to Yucaipa to watch it with my friends.  Of course, the scene where Monica and Chandler were packing up and getting ready to leave was a little hard to watch.  And yes, that's right, Ross and Rachel DID wind up together. 

Alas, my dreams of laying out for several hours were dashed to the wind today, as I had a kidney stone this morning.  Folks, it was like no pain I ever knew, and I didn't know what it was, so instead of spending the morning and early afternoon working on my tan in the perfect sun that only San Bernardino County can provide, I spent the morning at the emergency room.  What stinks is that the excruciating pain left as soon as it came.  It was there, then not.  But I decided to stay at the emergency room for closure.  And sure enough, kidney stone.  I recommend not getting those, by the way.  It was absolutely horrible.  Stomach pain, shaking, cold sweats... I could hardly talk.  But as Alyson said after I cracked a joke in the middle of my pain-induced hysteria:  "She's still a smarta**, she'll live."  And so I did.  As Kelli drove me back to Terri's from the hospital, she said "So now I can call you a stoner."  She gets some serious points for that one - I laughed for a good 5 minutes. 

Oddly enough, WebMd says the most common cause of kidney stones is decreased fluid intake.  The reason that's odd is that I have been rocking my fluid intake.  I drink, on average, at LEAST 70 ounces of water a day. 

By the way, it kinda started to hit me today that this was one of the last times I'll see my goddaughters before I make that big trip to country-ville.  It was a little hard on me, so I hugged them an extra long time.  I had to say my first moving-away-goodbye to my aesthetician, and that was really hard.  I'm sure I'll NEVER get someone as good to do my brows. 

5/6/04 - How dare you, Drew.  I'm not leaving town to watch just any episode of "Friends."  I'm leaving to watch THE episode of "Friends."  That's right, the one everyone will be talking about for years and years to come.  That's right.  I'm driving two hours to watch the sun set on an empire.  The end of an American dream.  The finale of the biggest show in history.  How dare you trivialize such a thing.

Don't let him fool you, folks.  Drew LOVES "Friends."  He says he was reading The Hobbit, but only during commercials.  He's even been known to say "I love Joey!" 

Besides, I get to see my goddaughters (the most adorable children ever), hang out with my good friends, and hang out by a pool. 

5/5/04 - Hey, next year this time, it'll be 5-5-05.  Won't THAT be a trip.  I think I'll walk outside at 5:55 next year and wait for the sky to fall.  Of course, I could do it at 6:06 on June 6, 2006, but that'll be my good friend's 40th birthday (but I won't tell you who because he still tells girls he's 27), so I don't think the sky will ruin it. 

I'm a little punchy because the season finale of "The O.C." didn't leave much to look forward to.  If there's anything I despise more than hangnails, it's a cliffhanger.  Especially since I have to wait 6 months for the next one.  One thing I'm wondering about, though.  Teen dramas and abortion - why do they ALWAYS have to go there? 

So I'm not just dieting the pounds away (20 pounds, people, 20 pounds), I'm also exercising.  I bought an exercise ball, and for some reason, it's inspired me to dust off some of the other thus far useless exercise equipment.  So, it is with trembling arms from pushing up my massive frame 20 times that I write this update.  I only did 20 pushups because I did 30 last night and as soon as I did the first one tonight, my arms screamed in pain. 

Terri gave me a gift certificate for a manicure and pedicure for my birthday last year, and I didn't use it till today.  Get off my back, so I put it off for 9 months.  The pedicure was GREAT.  I can't say anything nice about the manicure, though.  I'd redo it myself if the polish didn't look so hot.  I'll let the lady's shortcomings go, though, she was Scottish and that is the COOLEST accent. 

Breaking news - a really funny conversation between me and Craig: 

Craig: So is that one older lady on the OC still seeing the young guy her daughter was going out with?
Stacey: No, she married the young guy's ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend's foster mom's dad.

Did y'all write that down?  Because I'm wrong.  She married the young guy's ex-girlfriend's EX-boyfriend's foster mom's dad.  Ryan and Marissa just broke up tonight.

Moving on!  I have quite the day tomorrow.  First, I'm going for a blood test at 8:30.  If you care why (and you don't) just ask me.  Then, I get to go to the happiest place on earth, the orthodontist, at 10:50.  Then, at 2:10, I get my eyebrows waxed.  Seriously, laying on that waxing table knowing in a scant moment my eyebrows will be looking tip-top could possibly be one of the best feelings in the world.  Then, with my gorgeous eyebrows NOT flowing in the wind, I will head out to Yucaipa for a night of tears and laughter as Terri and I watch the last episode of "Friends."  It had better be more laughter than tears.  All I know is, if Ross and Rachel don't end up together, give Terri a few days.  I don't think she'll ever forgive Pacey and Joey. 

Then Friday, I hope to be a very lazy person indeed and lay out by Terri's pool... on the concrete, though, because I'm scared of her chairs.  While Terri slaves away in her office, I'm gonna hang by her pool.  Man, I have great friends. 

Last but not least, today is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.  While it's almost over, you can head to http://www.teenpregnancy.org and find out more.  Take the quiz!  I've got game!  Bye!

5/4/04 - Terri gave me the first season of "Smallville" on DVD for Christmas.  Since Drew's been working weird hours (for example, it's 11:17 pm and he's still at work) I've been watching it lately.  I remembered tonight that I read a few years ago that Michael Rosenbaum, Lex Luthor on "Smallville," graduated from the same high school as I did.  Now I'm talking Newburgh, Indiana, a black hole of all things interesting.  It's worse than Smallville.  I feel a little affinity with him.  And add this to your small world files... He dated my ex-business colleague's ex-girlfriend.  Six degrees, baby, six degrees.

Drew had the night-talks again a few nights ago.  I stayed up a little after he went to bed to read, and when I turned out the light and flopped over to go to sleep, he snorted a little and said "Wow."  Of course, I engaged him.  "What is it, honey?"  "Look at all this junk!"  "What junk?"  By that time, I think he had woken up sufficiently and had snapped out of whatever junk-pile he was in. 

I went to the beach yesterday, and despite Alyson's admonitions to not get burnt, I did.  I don't know how.  I missed some spots with the sunscreen, and the sun found them, and the sun at the beach is a harsh, harsh sun indeed.  I have a splotch on my left leg that looks a lot like Europe, only backwards.  There's what looks like a corn stalk on my right leg.  My upper thighs are pretty red, as are a few splotches on my forehead and the tops of my feet.  But I apparently got my entire back through some form of contortionism.  Not a single burn there. 

Well, it's 12:20 and Drew just got home.  Are you wonder if I've really been on here an hour and this is all I've typed?  Sorry, my ADD requires me to do more than one thing at once... especially if I can't concentrate on any of them.  :)  Night!

5/2/04 - My mom and stepdad celebrated their 12th anniversary yesterday!  Congratulations and may y'all have many, many more happy years together. :)

Is it MAY already?  'magine that.  I guess I've started to realize it's getting closer to summer since it got really hot all of a sudden around here.  In reality, it's hotter in New Orleans so this shouldn't bother me.  Problem is, VERY few people in Southern California have air conditioning and we're among that demographic.  I love it when it's hot outside - in fact, I'm happiest when it's 80 degrees - but when there's no reprieve unless you get in your car and turn on the a/c, it's miserable.  I would have gone to the beach today except there was a veritable traffic jam on the way.  I guess I'll go tomorrow. 

I actually didn't get the dueling banjos ring tone.  It was awful.  I unfortunately subscribed to a ring tone website where for some reason I can't hear the samples so I downloaded the dueling banjos ring tone without hearing it first.  When I got it on my phone, it didn't sound right at all.  Listen to it here.  (Go to Deliverance: Movie Theme and click on the little headphones thingy under "poly.") 

By the way, I'm also looking for cool wallpaper. For those of y'all who aren't "in the know," that's the background on your cell phone, if you have a newer color screen one.  Right now, I have a cute little aquarium, but that's so five minutes ago.  I want a picture of Drew on there (I have a REALLY good one of him).  Anyway, I was looking through was Ring Tone Jukebox had, since I still have 3 credits to use there, and it's mostly stupid stuff.  I also noticed, however, that there are very scantily clad girls you can use as your cell phone wallpaper.  How does that show up on a resume?  "Posed as semi-nude model for cell phone wallpaper"?  Jeez, women have GOT to start having a little more respect for themselves.  Many of them don't even show their faces, just T&A.  I feel a feminist rant coming on.  But I gotta go do housework now, as is my place, so more later.