blarg

so if you cant tell by my 5-6 month absence this year, ive either been busy, pre-occupied, or lost interest in this thing... im not entirely sure which is the winner. some morbid manifestation of them all? perhaps.

[cincy.house]
most of you are pretty up to date because one of the main reasons i started this thing was to update my long lost family back home on the status of the house and cincy in general [this was before the name change & relocation obviously] since relocating, i talk to most of you much more often and we discuss these things more often. but i suppose there are perhaps those of you out there that have read this blog from afar or perhaps dont stay in such close contact with me - to you, i do apologize, and will henceforth briefly update you.

the short answer is that nothing has happened. we finally finished reconstruction the last day of september, and we've paid everyone everything we owe them. we put the house back on the market, but had no interest worth mentioning in it since [nearly two months now?]

the crazy girl has popped up over and over and in the last 6 months we were forced to retain legal services and subsequently pay a shit-ton [i think thats metric] of money for essentially nothing. about every two months she pops back up with some nonsense amendment or letter that we have to pay to have our attorney, yet again, squash, disprove and render pointless... and then she disappears for two months.... i guess its about time for more of her nonsense? who knows. who cares. shes certifiable.

other than that, we discussed at great length the option of renting the house and have since gone through all the necessary paperwork and such to hire a property management company to handle things and get it rented out. they have another couple of weeks to find a tenant before the 45 day deadline - that come to think of it, i have absolutely no idea what happens after it expires. they seem certain that they can find a tenant before their time is up, so here's hoping they are correct. if we do manage to successfully rent this thing out it would cancel out the payments we're still making on it and in the end actually service as a modicum of additional income - sweet!

and that my friends, is the house update. such as it is.

[work]
work is good. staying moderately busy working on a handful of things. i still really enjoy my job and the freedom its granted me in addition to the obvious benefits of being gainfully employed. no worries here, i appear to be quite secure in the continued availability of my position as well as the continued happiness of my superiors. time and again i appear to have exceeded their expectations and they continue to assign me more responsibility, more respect, and more inclusion in things than i ever really could have imagined. as far as fellow employees go, i honestly like everyone ive met and have reoccurring contact with. there are certainly a few here or there that tend to have less than ideal personalities, but hey, to coin a common cliche - thats why they invented 32 flavors, eh? i dont mind. if im having a day where someone or someones are becoming an annoyance for whatever reason, i can simply turn up my headphones, shut my door and drown out my surroundings while i work away in the comfort of my office. [well, until i start to cook and have to allow in some ventilation, but those are sufficiently spaced intervals.] in summary, work is good.

[everything else?]
not really sure what to say. i could update you all on my wifes life, but really, shouldnt she be doing that? i dont really have the inclination.

||gadgets||
i did get a new toy for my birthday last weekend - yes, you missed it, and i'll only forgive you in the wake of lavish gifting - a kindle fire. you've probably seen them in the news, theyre supposed to be one of the most popular gifts this holiday season and are expected to be the only realistic rival to the ipad2.

i can say that in the few days ive had this thing it has completely abducted me. i am engulfed in its intricacies and discovering what all it has to offer. the main reason i wanted one was for games, movies, and books to take along on our cruise in a couple of weeks and so far im not disappointed in the offerings.

i havent yet started to purchase books for it, but ive done extensive wish listing on amazon and will soon make some decisions about purchase. the quality i can get in video is more than satisfying although i havent yet figured out how to get movies/tv shows directly to the device instead of streaming from the cloud... [apologies for all the tech-jargon if youre clueless] and lastly the games.

ive never been too terribly into mobile device gaming, but im starting to understand it a little better. other than a few word games that were mostly encouraged by the wifey, i hadnt really found any games that interested me much on them. oh sure, i test drove a few and they were fun for a little while, but after about 5 minutes, i was bored with most of them. not that i really have a ton of time for gaming anyhow, but its certainly part of the device experience these days. well, since acquiring my fire, ive found a few games im really enjoying. one is a pinball game that really took me back to pinball on our old win95. man its been years since i played that, but i rather enjoyed it then, and had a good time tinkering with it on the fire the other day. and then last night i really found some winners. i rediscovered mahjong [again, probably not since win95] and had a good time cussing it as i relearned the game, and even better was a crossword puzzle game. never been huge on crossword puzzles, but this proved to be very enjoyable as karen and i teamed up and spent a solid hour or two trying to solve the puzzles. we dont really play a lot of games together and this was actually a lot of fun for me, so that seems like a winner.

other than that, karen seems to be a bit annoyed with the thing, and im afraid shes starting to regret gifting it. i dont feel like ive really been playing with it to the extent of ignoring her or neglecting my husband-ly duties, but she certainly seems off-put whenever i pick it up. im not sure why really, but im obviously not seeing things from her perspective. honestly, im just really enthralled with figuring out all that it can do and how it does it, and once the newness and the mystery wears off, im sure itll be less enthralling, and hopefully less intrusive. either way, i am enjoying it. =]

||house||
the only other item i really feel inclined to comment on is houses. not the one in cincy though, here in houston. for those of you that dont already know, karen and i have taken a serious look at things and have decided we are ready to buy in houston, and as such, have begun the process. we met with a mortgage adviser at our bank and found out that i have awesome credit and we've been unofficially approved for a more sizable  mortgage than i had ever expected and with a very reasonable interest rate in my perspective.

we've enlisted the help of a close friend/realtor to help us with the search and have started scouring the city for that perfect house. so far we havent found it, but have been able to really start nailing down what things we do want, dont want, areas and neighborhoods we are and arent interested in, things we're willing to compromise on, and the price range we actually want to be in - and what that looks like in terms of potential houses.

its a process and its ongoing. ideally we'd like to close on something before january 1st for financial reasons, but at this point its not looking terribly likely. who knows, perhaps that perfect-for-us house is lurking just around the next corner. in the meantime we have some solid options that we're planning to try and get showing for by the end of this week. we've already done one round of these that was a little disappointing, but thats all part of the process, im not discouraged yet.

hopefully it all turns out.

hmm...
so i guess thats all i have for now. not much of an update, sorry. hope i didnt ramble too much. really hope you all had a happy thanksgiving - please do me a great favor and ignore anything and everything fox news is reporting about the president's non-official thanksgiving you-tube video. actually, if you really want to do me a favor, never watch fox news again - what a bunch of idiots...

okay, thats it.

wow.what.a.week[+end]

so i realize its been a little while since i updated. i do apologize to all those loyal readers. its been a heck of a busy week and weekend [if the title of this blog didnt already clue you in to that.]

so we last left off the weekend before this most recent one [11.16ish]

well for the sake of brevity, we'll try to make this a pretty quick summarizing recap. [for those of you that really love the long-winded details, im sorry, theres just so much i could say this time around, i honestly will never have the time.]

monday [11.17.08]

first thing in morning the newest roofer guy calls me and tells me hes at the house and has decided to start today instead of wednesday. wow-o! alrighty, get to it! so we discuss a few variables and hes off to do his thing. the plumbers are there too, and not long after i talk to them as well. they should be 3/4 of the way done today and then it should only take another day after that and we could move in if we wanted. sweet. so monday comes and goes, work as usual, and we head to the house after work to check on the progress and do some more painting. also, the roofer was going to meet us to get a down payment [half] to cover materials and to do a little walk through and see the inside of the hosue to satisfy his curiosity.

so after work we went home, had a quick dinner and then went over to the house and not long after the roofer showed up. about an hour later wed given him the full tour, discussed all the work we were planning to do, and given him a check and were ready to start painting. the first coat of the wall paint and the second ceiling coat were dry, the plaster was still drying in the stairs, haha, and the walls desperately needed a second coat. so we got down to the business of painting and before long we had a second coat of paint on the walls and were much happier with the way it was looking with the wet coat. it had gone on much thicker, although it was obvious it was still going to need at least one, if not more than one, coat before it was done. ugh. so we left fairly soon after that and went home and to bed. 

tuesday[11.18.08]

tuesday was a little less exciting. the roofer was at it again and called me to find out our thoughts on shingles so karen and i spent the rest of the day discussing shingle colors and made a decision and were ready to talk to him about it again whenever he called us. when we talked to him at the end of the day, it turned out that once he started tearing out all the gutters he discovered that the rafters for 3/4 of the house behind them were all in really bad shape, were rotten out and were going to need to be repaired and so he got started doing that [and he said he wasnt going to charge us for it! is this guy this best roofer ever or what??] not to mention they were already tearing out trim, fascia board, and crown that was rotted out and he was getting materials to fix those as well. 

talked to the plumbers as well and it turned out they were going to be almost finished but not quite just a couple of hours on wednesday and theyd be done. but theyd hooked most everything up and had even put on the new faucet in kitchen for us [and it looked great!]. also, the faucet in the 3rd story bathroom he was able to repair and didnt need to use the new one we bought, so we could save that for a later day. 

wednesday[11.19.08]

well we went the whole day without hearing anything from the roofer... odd... the day itself was nothing special, just another work day [work was starting to wear on me, i was really needing a break from it for a while... good news coming up there] after work we went to the house to check things out and couldnt see any difference in the roof stuff, so i assumed theyd had bad weather, hit a snag with materials, or something else had come up. the pump-jacks were still there as well as a ladder and some other tools, so they obviously werent abandoning us. theres a good chance they had done something, it just wasnt anything we could see in the dark [nothing obvious]. 

we also talked to the plumber and he was finished! woohoo! we checked out the plumbing and it looked great! he even put in new copper waterlines and wasnt going to charge me extra for that. not to mention all the new cpvc, new water heater, new gas lines to the water heater [the old ones didnt meat code] and all the fixtures hooked up and working [even fixed the leak in the washing machine line!]. and all of it for the exact cost we'd agreed upon in the beginning, even though hed run into a few snags! awesome! 

one final word from the plumber though. we needed to fix our thermostat. the house needed to stay at the very least above 40degrees to keep the pipes from freezing, and he recommended we keep it above 50. he said when hed arrived that morning it was 40 in the house and that was not a good sign. now for those of you that remember, we had replaced the thermostat with a digital programmable one in the weeks before, but we had been having issues with the auto features working. basically it wasnt kicking on when it reached any set temperatures or kicking off when it reached any certain temperatures either. 

so wednesday night karen and i decided to tackle this little problem and get it fixed once and for all. we opened up the thermostat and checked everything, i went through all the directions and actually programmed every part of it [we'd just used the override settings originally] and we tested it. no change... hmmm.... so then we opened it up and i checked all the wires and we conferred with the manual...

originally, i was in the parlor hooking up lights when karen installed the thermostat. i never actually looked closely at the wires or anything, she was just reading the instructions and asking me questions. well in the picture it shows all the wires coming out of the wall all nicely labeled and theres all 5 of the necessary wires, etc. haha, our house isnt exactly that "optimum" wiring situation. there were two wires staring at karen neither were nicely labeled and she asks me okay it looks like i have a red wire and a brown wire here, what do i do? well i ask her what it said and she rambled off the letters on the sheet there were a w, r, r2, y, & g. i said that the red was most likely red, and the brown [based on my limited previous knowledge and not actually seeing the wires] was usually a ground, so that was probably her g. so thats how she hooked it up and it worked for the most part [other than the auto stuff] so we had no reason to think shed done it wrong. 

well when i opened it up, i looked at the wires again and was double checking everything to make sure they were getting good contact and stuff, and then it occurred to me... haha, this "brown" wire wasnt brown, lol! its obvious to me its a white wire, but karen had never seen wires before and just assumed that it was brown because it looked brown to her. hahaha, this is why i love this girl. she never even thought about it being old or a little dirty, it just didnt look white to her, haha. so anyway, i switch it to the w and we hook everything back up and there you go, now the auto is working, haha. we test it a few times and it works every time, so we set it and leave laughing at ourselves but happy we have the thermostat issue resolved!

thursday[11.20.08]

thursday we didnt do any house stuff. we left work and went home to have a quick bite before karen had to go to class for a presentation. so i spent the next few hours cleaning up the apartment a little and packing for the weekend and karen got home around 10:30 and did her packing. so my sister's wedding was this weekend and we were heading back to tx for the next 4 days to do wedding stuff and see the family and just take a break from everything in cincy for a while. our flight was leaving at 6am and the airport was a 2 hour drive away so we ended up having to get up and get ready at about 2:30 [after going to bed at just after midnight when it was all over with, haha!] anyway, not a fun way to start the weekend but we went to sleep ready to leave with little preparation required in the morning, and were definitely ready to have a little "vacation!"

well, thats the week recap. now for the weekend recap. and ill keep it even shorter. 

weekend [the.wedding.extravagganza!]

ill summerize it all to say this. kimberly's wedding was beautiful and it went off without a hitch [or actually with a big one considering the event, lol! but without any real problems]. we attended her bachelot/bachelorette party on friday and had a lot of visit time with my parents and a lot of fun. saturday we hung out with karens folks and did all the wedding rehearsal/dinner stuff again a lot of fun and some great food! [man i miss mexican food!] sunday was the actual wedding and it was great. we got to see all the family and spend a lot of time with them and catching up with people, not to mention a little good food, great cake, and a little dancing on the side. monday started off fairly relaxing as we got up, packed, said goodbye to her parents and spent some more time with mine. had a nap, watched a movie, just chilled in general before going to the airport and saying goodbye to my parents. and then all the fun really began. it was a jam-packed weekend, there wasnt as much vacationing as we were hoping, but it was really great to get to see everyone and feel all the love! we love all of you guys and miss you like crazy up here in cincy!

monday.night[yeah...life and all its fun has found us again.]

so we arrive back in cincy at about 8:30pm est, right on time. the flight was fine [minus a little more turbulance than karen cared for] and i read a new book [the visitation - frank e. peretti] pretty much the entire flight while karen worked on a presentation for school this week. we even got a nice little snack. and the flight back was waay more comfortable than the one to tx on this tiny little jet that held about 20 ppl.

anyway, we got to cincy, went and picked up our bags with no problem, actually remembered where we parked the truck pretty luckly and only got charged for 3 days of parking [dont ask me how] and were on our way home by 8:45! and this is where everything stopped going well...

we hadnt even gotten out of downtown columbus when i start hearing something funny on the right side of the car and after a few second pull over to check it out and see if we were dragging something or what. well after inspecting the truck, i dont see anything and we get in to see if it just works itself out [this damn truck is old and this crap happens way too often... see the trip to denver posts for more on this...] well instead it starts getting worse so i pull off the highway and we find a small empty street and i get out and have karen drive around in a little circle to see if i can see anything when its actually moving. well i dont see anything, but i can definitely hear something and i can start to make out a smell around the front right wheel. so i get back in and tell her we need to find a repair place or something, but theres no way im driving it for 2 hours like this. well, on the way to find a gas station or anything to pull over in i start losing break pressure and im pretty much on the floor board before it responds at all... not good. weve got to get this thing fixed asap or figure out another way home...

so we find a shell station open, i call my dad and talk to him about whats going wrong, then we talk the guy at the shell. he tells us theres nothing open but a walmart up the road a few miles, so we get back in and very slowly and carefully drive down this road for what seems like forever till we find this walmart. well the walmart doesnt even have an autocare center. great. so we decide at this point to call triple-a and see about getting it towed to a shop nearby or whatever we need to do...

well as with the last time talking to triple-a proved to be a task in its own but we actually managed to get somewhere with them after about 45 minutes of talking and holding ans what have you. so basically heres what happened - in a nutshell. triple-a sent a tow truck out to pick up the truck and take it back to cincinnati and to a shop that was one of their approved shops or whatever and they did it for free because we were just under [2 miles!] the 100 miles free towing. [whew!] while waiting for the tow truck we ordered a cab to pick us up and take us back to the airport to rent a car - because apparently the car rentals at the airports are the only ones open passed 6pm... well the freaking taxi showed up at 11:15, and the car rental placed closed at 11:30, so we had to race to get there in time and beg them to stay open and wait for us while we were en route. we got there at 11:34 and they had waited, and so by about midnight we finally had rented a car and were getting in. 

well... their airport is in a similar state of affairs as every other airport ive visited lately in that theres tons of road construction. so i dont like admitting this, but it was late, and i was tired and as we left with the rental car [which is a BRAND NEW dodge avenger by the way - very nice!] i somehow took an exit at a fork instead of the onramp to the highwayright before leaving the airport and for the next half hour to 45 minutes we were completely lost driving in a huge circle around the airport and neighboring suburbs before eventually going back through it and finally starting over where we'd originally begun. this time i took the onramp. gr.

so now 12:45am - weve FINALLY gotten on the road home from columbus, we're both completely exhausted and drifting off, and ended up having to pull over at a rest stop twice for a 20 minute nap and switch driving once between before we finally got home at about 3:30am.

tuesday[today, the present, now...]

this morning we both called in till after lunch and slept till around 8:30 - 9am. i got up and got in the shower and no sooner was i out that the phone was ringing. its the autoshop. the guy has my truck up on the rack and he tell me whats wrong with it. now im not car guy, not at all, but esentially these are the parts of what he said that i kind of understood. the right front wheel bearing siezed, causeing damage to the spindle, which in turn caused damage to the seal on the rotars and the ball joint. or something like that. he was going to need to replace the spindle, outer bearing, inner bearing, rotator seal, and both ball joints on the right side. after further inspection the ball joints on the left side were in pretty dire need of repair too and if i didnt replace them now, i would definitely need to soon. total = $1200.

for those of you that are up to date on the truck and all its issues, you can imagine my reaction here... so after i stopped screaming profanities in my mind and regained my sanity a little, i told the guy id call him back. karen and i then discussed our options, conferred with our respective sets of parents, and came to the conclusion that putting any more money into this truck is a complete waste of time and in my opinion, an act of insanity [repeating the same action and expecting a different result is the DEFINITION of insanity...]. so we're going to figure out how to get rid of this pile of junk [that for the record i have had a long love/hate affair with and will probably miss terribly at first... for a few minutes.] and get something else new to us. 

we called the guy and told him it was a no go and he thanked us and put it back in the parkinglot where he found it, meanwhile we called a number of salvage places and looked up the blue book value on the junk truk. so far... all the salvage places are offering about 250 bucks, and the bluebook on it was something like 527 dollars. great. it really is WORTHLESS. grr... so i dont know what to do now. we'll figure something out im sure, but right now im really hoping someone steals it and we can get more than 500 bucks out of the insurance claim. [its wrong of me i know, im probably going to hell, blah blah blah, what would you be thinking?! lol!]

on a lighter note, the security people installed the alarm system this morning and its up and running so i feel much better about that. the roof looked the same still when we were there and we hadnt heard anything from the roofer all weekend. however, about 45 minutes ago the roofer called me and said that theyve been ready to start removing the roof since last week, but because its been threatening to rain everyday since, they hadnt gotten into it because they didnt want to let any water in the house, but now that the weather appears to have cleared up a little hes planning to work all day tomorrow and hes going to get us some samples of the shingles to look at tomorrow as well. cool. i guess theres a silver lining somewhere... the entry still needs another coat of paint. 

well kids, adults, and fans of all ages, thats it for now. youre caught up to this very moment with our lives [and obstacles.......] i'll let you know more when i do, but for now thats all ive got, and ive wasted as much time today as i possible can at work, lol! [dont worry, ive been working too! just taking little 5 minute breaks every now and then to work on this] life is really somethin huh? well, at least its not boring, lol!

keep us in your prayers, wish us luck, or whatever custom youve got thats appropriate, we'll take it!

see you next time!

[sorry this got so lengthy, but to be fair, i really DID try to keep it to as much of a summary as i possibly could!]