catastrophe_part.thrice

[this saga never stops...]

alright, so where were we? oh thats right, waiting for monday to see if everyone does what theyre supposed to.

[monday]

so monday morning arrives and at 8am central [9am eastern] i give the new roofer a call to see where we are. much to my surprise he answers the first time i call, and to my slight disappointment they are on their way to the house [instead of having been there the last 2 hours, lol]. but this is great news! its going to get done!

around 11am i get a call from greg who confirms that the tarp is on, the roof is sealed, and that his team is setting up and getting started with the tear out phase. sounds great, we're finally making progress! but wait... whats the tear out phase?

so heres my understanding of how water extraction works... first of all they have a list of items that over time and with whatever testing they do, have decided cannot be dried/arent worth the time it takes to fully dry/some other reason they dont dry them. so the very first thing they do when they go into a house is clean up any debris that has accumulated [such as ceilings falling down? yes...] then they begin to remove any type of material that is both wet and on their list. now to determine the level of wetness they have gauges and testing requirements and such to determine the relative level of water penetration and saturation of whatever the material is. in our case, the house has for all intents and purposes not had a roof to prevent water coming in for the last oh... week? week and a half? and through a series of large heavy rain storms no less. so... its kind of pointless to test a lot of this stuff at all when youre wading through water ankle deep...

items on the list for immediate removal? well. carpet, carpet padding, linoleum, vinal composite tile [or vct for you architecture types], anything with visible surface mold, ceramic tile [if the grout is visibly cracked and has allowed water penetration] mastic, caulk, underlayment boards, plaster, drywall, insulation.... hmm.... im not sure if there's more than that, but that just about covers our house.

so really, after the first couple of days, the only floor surfaces remaining in our house was the subfloor decking through out the entire house with the exception of the kitchen [where the ceramic tile held up pretty well and they decided to try and dry it from underneath in the basement] and the second floor bathroom - which magically managed to avoid almost all water getting in altogether. as far as walls go, they were going to wait and see how much they could dry out after the first week before tearing into them [with the obvious exception of any places that the plaster or drywall had already come off the walls - although there was little of this at this point to my understanding]. ceilings - all gone. drywall, plaster, insulation, i think the only ceilings that remained unscathed were again the 2nd floor bathroom, and then the first floor front room [parlor] and entry way - these two they were going to try to salvage if possible and attempt to dry them out.

so... end of week one, my house has officially been gutted. [see pictures here] the dry out process has begun and is going well by all accounts from greg, the roof has stayed sealed up with no leaking, and ive gotten a bill from the first contractors roof tarping attempts [about 500 bucks at this point]. but things are looking up!

at some point during the week i had spoken with ryan again who was glad to hear everything was going well and that we were back on schedule. however we discussed the interior remodeling once the dryout process was completed and he confirmed that there would be absolutely no money upfront to cover any material costs. if i was going to continue working with my original contractor he was going to have to eat that cost and he would be fully reimbursed when the job was complete.

heh, i'll give you 3 guesses how that went over when i gave the contractor a ring... if you guessed not well received, then you were right. so after a conversation with him about the situation we agreed that he wouldnt be doing the interior work either and that other than the bill for the tarping [attempts] still needing to be paid our business together was dissolved.

to be honest with you, i was a little relieved... dont get me wrong, i like the guy [still] hes a hell of a nice guy. but this whole fiasco and his refusal to work with the insurance company was just more than i could handle in added stress on top of the destruction of my house and being 2000 miles away.

however, now i was stuck, right? who the hell am i going to get to do the interior once the dry-out is finished [which i was told they were optimistically thinking would be no more than a week - however at weeks end that was no longer the case] well.... if youve done any snooping online since the last post then you probably have a good idea of what i did next. given that my relationship with rainbow international had been so positive from the first minute i happily called them up and informed them that id be giving the interior remodel work to them. thats right, if youve checked out their website you know, they are a full service disaster services company. not only do they do the abatement [and that includes mold and asbestos as well if i remember correctly] but they also do the work to come back and make it as good as new.

well at this point i was about as happy as i could be given the circumstances. rainbow was doing a hell of a great job, and greg was a hell of a nice guy, and i was sitting quite comfortably in the assurances that this was going to get done and get done right.

[meanwhile...]

i recieved the estimate from the roofer and faxed it over to the insurance company hoping for the best and was soon entangled in a new nightmare... for those of you that are as ignorant about insurance claims as i was, and specifically those that involve the destruction and repair of your home, get ready for a little morsel of information to chew on that i have been fighting with for weeks now. i cant speak to everyone out theres coverage, but if you have the standard coverage that i do, then yours probably looks near identical to mine.

in the event that you have to go through this hell that i am currently stuck in, it will be valuable for you to know up-front that when the insurance company does estimates and decides what they will and wont cover as far as replacement goes theres a little preface that they dont always mention up-front: no matter what damage occurs or what condition your home was in before the damage, the insurance company will only give you enough money to go back with exactly what was there before. thats it, no more, no less, exactly to the state it was in before the accident.

okay, now while you mull that over, ill clarify things for you with respect to my situation.

the roof.

the roof i originally had, if youll remember, was 100yr old roof joists, with 100yr old wide plank spaced decking, followed by a layer of tin/metal roof, followed by 6 layers of torch-down modified roofing membrane, [keeping in mind that because of the weight of that roofing system the structure of my roof had begin to sag in the middle causing a bowl effect and was holding water - which by the way had worsened significantly since this whole thing began and was now visibly sagging something like 3 inches from the reports i was getting] along with a large skylight cut into the middle of the roof [that was a great feature, but was never installed and structurally reinforced properly which added to the structural issues and was an on-going source of minor water infiltration].

so based on all that, just guess what that meant as far as what the insurance was going to cover... the tearing off of all existing roofing membrane and tin roof, and then coming back with one layer of torch-down modified roofing and the recommendation that we remove and cover up the skylight if we know whats good for us. the end. and they werent really allowing enough for the proper removal and disposal and cleanup of the entire flat roof at that.

so um... heres why this is worse than it sounds.

1. they determined that the structural situation was essentially a "pre-existing condition" that was unrelated to the storm damage and they would cover no structural reinforcing or repair. this means that if we put a new roof on top of the existing structure it would more than likely support the much lighter roofing system with no problem, however water would continue to pool and i guarantee that within a year it will have found its way through the new roof membrane and into the newly-remodeled interior of the house.

2. they determined that the skylight was not effected by the storm damage at all and wouldnt have anything to do with it, period. so.... whos paying to have it removed? me. and what about the fact that its a feature of the house that the potential buyer is expecting to remain? dont know, dont care. thanks guys....

3. the method of installing a torch-down modified roof system requires that the underlaying surface be completely smooth and solid so that the membrane has a surface to adhere to when it is torched-down. um... this doesnt work with a "spaced plank" system! that means there are litterally spaces between every plank in the decking that range anywhere from 1-3 inches... in the case of a tin roof [the very first layer] this isnt a big deal, you nail it werever you want and it covers everything. with a membrane system, there will essentially be sags in all the cracks and every one of those would hold more water and create a point of potential penetration.

4. no one [out of the dozen or so roofers i contacted, not a single one] will put a torch-down modified roofing system on a 100 year old house. in fact 90% of the roofers i talked to wouldnt install a torched-down modified system if the roof was in a condition they could! the risk of fire is too great and the system is decades out of date. the current standard in flat roofs is a fully adhered rubberized roof membrane, that is glued to a sublayer of insulating deck board, that is fastened to a smooth solid roof decking system, typically 3/4inch plywood.

so where does this leave me?

um... effed.

i finally convinced them that at the very least they had to pay for new decking for a membrane to go on top of if i ever found someone to install the system they wanted, and they agreed to 1/2inch [not what you want, will result in a more bouncy roof decking] plywood deck to cover the entire roof.

well at least theres that. now heres the worst part yet... all this is going to result in their estimate being right around $6000. the estimate that the new roofer gave me was upwards of $13,000. so um.... wheres that other 7 grand coming from? yeah, my pockets...

and so begins the next exciting phase of hunting for roofers that would be close to their numbers and provide the roof system they would actually pay for [thus the dozen or so we tried, to no avail] and that would install a roof on my 3 story house to begin with. [which only about a quarter of them would do. the majority only did shingle roofs and only 1 or 2 stories max height.]

joy oh joy...

stay tuned for more exciting catastrophe to come....

catastrophe_part.two

[the catastrophe continues...]

/*/ i forgot to mention in my previous post - and it probably goes without mentioning, but just in case, ima do it anyway - that as soon as all this roof business started things with the house selling got put on hold until we were able to determine what was going to happen and when that might be. through a series [i think 4 or 5 now...] extensions on the "inspection period" in the original contract we have been able to legally extend the deadline of the contract with the buyer, pending the outcome of this mess. to this day we are still in constant contact with the realtor and through him the buyer's realtor and the buyer and we have been ensured that she is still very much interested [possibly now more so, pending the anticipated improvements] and that she's just sitting back and waiting for things to get resolved on our end.... /*/

[agent 3]

so when i left off yesterday we had just said goodbye to jane [who was fairly worthless in this entire process so we werent exactly disappointed to see her go... bye jane.] ryan was also not from ohio. at first we were lead to believe that he would be from the local region and we wouldnt have to deal with another mobile agent from here on out - we were mis-lead. ryan was indeed another mobile rep. 3 or 4 days after we said goodbye to jane i got a phone-call from ryan. ryan wasnt irate or fuming, but its sufficient to say that when ryan called, he was extremely concerned.

apparently there had been another series of huge storms that blew through cincy and had yet again blown the tarp to hell [although apparently it was still on the roof and visible through the skylight on the 3rd floor - billowing and blowing around as it may have been....] and when ryan made his appearance on the scene and began to walk through the house he discovered that the tarp was doing absolutely nothing and that it was in fact actively raining in my house. his exact words were "water is pouring into the house" actually... at this point the new damage report was as follows:

ceiling down in every room on the 3rd floor, all but 2 rooms on the second floor, all but one room on the first floor. the carpet was saturated and puddling on the 3rd floor, 2nd floor, and the first floor was puddling in every room but the front room at this point. additionally, paint and drywall were wet, running, drippings, etc. all over the house. so... this is a bit worse, eh?

however, he did confirm that he could see the tarp through the skylight as i mentioned before and that this did confirm for him that we had made attempts to temporarily seal the house, but given the storms blowing through and the amount of rain they were getting, there was no kind of temporary repairs that would have sealed the roof from water infiltration and that we would continue to be covered under the original claim. [whew...]

at this point he advised me to immediately get my roofer back out to the house to re-tarp and seal the house and to take whatever steps necessary to ensure that the tarp was secured to the roof and would prevent any water getting into the house as best as possible - in fact he recommended that we find a tarp large enough to cover the entire flat roof and then roll over the edge onto the mansard roof approximately 6inches to 1ft so that it could be secured directly to the mansard roof [think of a lid on a jar]. in addition to getting the roofer back out to the house, he advised immediately getting in contact with an emergency water extraction company to come in and get the house dried out as soon as possible. with that, he said his goodbye and let me know he would give me a few days to get the roof sealed and the drying process started and hed be back in touch in 3 or 4 days.

obviously my first call was to the contractor. he didnt answer.... my second call was to our local insurance agent to get a recommendation on a local water extraction company that could get in there right away. he gave me a list of options [because legally they cant support one company over another of course] and i just called the first one on the list - rainbow international. well thankfully, the people at rainbow were extremely friendly, understanding, sympathetic, and eager to help me in any way that they could. we discussed the situation briefly and they got the paperwork going, within 10 or 15 minutes they faxed me the contract to go in and begin the extraction process which i immediately signed and faxed back to them. a few minutes later i got a phone call from the project lead for my case who had already been informed on the status of the house and was really just calling to quell any fears or worries i might have, to introduce himself [greg. we like greg.] and to see if there was any other way that they could help me out. i told him about the roof/roofer situation and gave him the contact info for the roofer and let him know that i hoped to have the roof sealed immediately so that i could get them in there to get started asap. obviously this sounded good to him so we hung up with me feeling much better about the whole situation although peeved to hell that the roofer hadnt called me back yet.... [anyone else seeing the pattern here?]

finally a few hours later, after several previous attempts that day, i was able to get the roofer on the phone and apprise him of the situation. the first thing he said when i was finished was that i already owed him money for the first time [and apparently 2 times following that after the wind had blown the thing up...] that he'd had to go and tarp the roof and he wanted to get paid for that as soon as possible. however, given the circumstances, he understood that the payment wasnt my fault [really, considering id seen no bill for it? how generous of you...] and that hed get over there as soon as he could [heres another one...] to get it tarped the way i wanted. at this point he also made sure to explain to me the cost that would be associated with a tarp that size and how hard it would be to find, etc, etc, etc... [whatever dude, i dont care! ill pay the 200 bucks for the tarp just stop the damn waterfall coming into my house!]

[4 days later - approximately 4:45pm eastern time]

i'd actually gotten so busy with work and greg from rainbow had done such a great job of calming my fears that i'd almost managed to forget about all of this shit. well, almost. and certainly not once i got the phone call and saw the number [or lack of number, for some reason any time these mobile reps called it was always from a blocked number, so at least that way i knew who it was. no one else ever calls me from a blocked number...] my heart sank and i knew i had to deal with this mess again.

this time.... yeah, ryan was irate and fuming. just guess what was happening...

thats right. the roof hadnt been tarped yet, and the water extraction team had yet to begin. he was beyond pissed and STRONGLY advised me to find a roofer that would get that roof sealed up asap.

obviously i called my contractor as soon as he hung up [and yes, i was PISSED]. the contractor answered the phone amid a coughing sneezing attack and let me know that he had the flu, and had been in bed the entire day and that there was really nothing he could do for me right then. hed looked for a tarp big enough to cover the roof that week but he was going to have to go to a special roof supplier to find something that large and he wouldnt be able to do anything till monday at the earliest and even then he didnt know if he was going to have the cash on hand to front me the cost of the material and labor to get the roof sealed the way i wanted.

at this point id had enough. however, i calmly asked him if it would be alright if we severed our agreement on the roof and i would find someone else who could get it done [and wouldnt worry about the upfront cost, apparently that was a big deal.... in fact, ill take a brief moment here to discuss that very aspect of all this.]

/*/ up-front payment vs. payment upon completion or some other mixture of the two...

in my working with this contractor before he had always asked for a rather large portion of the total cost up-front in order to buy materials and supplies for the job and then final payment would come on completion. well in my mind, this does make sense. after thinking it over it made sense to not have expected someone to buy potentially thousands of dollars worth of material out of their own pocket to begin a job not knowing if the client was suddenly going to bail on them or be unable to pay or whatever else. it was a kind of insurance in my mind, so i understood, and i happily paid what he needed without question - in the past.

however, when mentioning this to ryan [soon after our initial conversation , i think later that day actually] the warning bells went off in his mind that that was definitely not how this type of business was done and that i seriously needed to consider finding another contractor...

so at this point i have learned that in the contracting business [and we're talking about residential construction and repair work here so this may not be all-encompassing. im still learning all the ins and outs of the larger commercial contracting and how they go about things] it is in fact the standard of any reputable and serious contractor to have capital on hand and set aside for the sole purpose of procurement. if a contractor ever asks to be paid up front for any part of their services, walk away. just. walk. away.

this basically means one of two things. 1. they are possibly trying to swindle you and get as much money out of you as possible before either not finishing the work, disappearing, or doing a really shitty job. 2. if they are actually trying to do a good job, this is a warning sign that they are a very small company and they potentially dont possess all the experience or knowledge necessary to do a good job for you. you are much better off to walk away and find another contractor - even if it means you arent using someone youve worked with before, or is a friend of the family, or that the process of getting your work done may be extended.

and just a side note to that, always, always, always get at least 3 estimates on any work you are going to have done if at all possible. /*/

anyway, he agreed between coughing and sneezing fits that that was fine by him and assured me he was still up for the interior work [well of course he is now that the entire interior of the house has been destroyed. shit, hes seeing dollar signs....]

anyway, i hung up with him and called the only other roofer i knew in cincinnati. they are a huge company, lots of billboards, and id had them out to give me an estimate on the roof a couple of times in the past. they answered the phone and seemed genuinely sympathetic to my situation, but explained that it was now 5:30 on a friday there and that all their people had gone home for the weekend and that there was really nothing they could do for me till monday morning, but that first thing monday morning they would have it taken care of - i could count on it.

and so.... we wait for the weekend to see what happens on monday morning i guess....

meanwhile. more storms blow through over the weekend. greg calls me saturday to see whats going on and i fill him in on the roof situation. he confirms things with his suspicions that in his conversations [ i think there were 2 or 3 of them] with the contractor that week that he was going to be extremely difficult to work with on this. i assured him that the new company had guaranteed to get the work done monday morning and that there was no way they could be that large of a company and not make good on their promises and that he should be able to get in the house and get his extraction team started late monday morning. he was happy to hear it and again tried to reassure me that everything was going to turn out alright and that he'd get the house dried out for me and that he'd be there monday ready to go.

and so... we're at another stopping place. i have to finish getting ready for and go to work, so ill try and post another part of this on my lunch break later today. happy thursday!

catastrophe_part.one

[and so... it begins.]

well i hinted a little in an earlier post that we've been dealing with a bit of an issue regarding the cincy house. theres much too much story to cover in one blog post [especially given the time limits of a lunch break balanced with the usual verbose posting a la moi]

so this all started with the move to texas. karen had just gotten into town, we were just getting settled in and we'd been working with the realtor in cincinnati via phone and e-mail to get the house on the market and try to get the dang thing sold.

at first things were actually going well. there appeared to be a decent number of showings in the place, and the feedback we were getting was positive for the most part. then, right about the middle of february we got a bite. a woman was interested in the house and put an offer on it and we started the negotiation process. considering all the factors involved with us selling the house [like not being in cincinnati for starters] we were pretty motivated to sell as quickly as possible, and seeing as this woman was legitimately interested, we gave in on a few items here and there and eventually signed a contract to begin the selling process. at this point we gave the buyer a few weeks to get inspections done look things over, etc. and then we'd come back to the negotiating table to finalize everything and get out from under this house.

well things were going okay at first. she got some inspections done and everything came up okay, but then she wanted us to turn the water back on - after we had just [2 weeks prior] had the house winterized and the water shut off. keep in mind it was still freezing in cincinnati at this point and we didnt want any issues with pipes freezing or bursting so under the advisement of our realtor we'd had it winterized. anyway, that was a bit of an issue because i felt like we got ripped on what we'd just paid for to have that done, but in the end we just bit the bullet and agreed. so she got the water inspection done and things were looking good. then everything changed...

out of the blue i got an email one day from the realtor with pictures of the backyard and the side of the house with all kinds of black material laying on the ground and the text reading 'we have a problem.' it was hard to tell from the pictures but it looked like tar paper so i was confused by this, not to mention my anxiety level shot through the roof, so i immediately called him to find out what had happened.

as it turns out, there had been a number of big storms that blew through cincinnati that weekend and apparently had blown off a portion of my flat roof. this lead to water infiltration during the storm which had dropped a portion of the ceiling on my 3rd floor/attic and had soaked carpet, etc. i would later learn that not only had it blown that large piece in the picture off my roof, but had blown more off that had damaged a piece of gutter on the neighbors house, littered her roof with debris, and had further blown debris into the neighbors yards 2 houses down the block as well... joy.

immediately i called state farm to let them know what was going on and start the claim process on the house. my insurance agent said he'd get the process started but that this was considered an act-of-god or catastrophe claim, and that those are handled by a different department of the company and that id have to wait for my claim to be processed and turned over to a representative before anything would happen. however, in the mean-time he advised me to do whatever i could to appoint a representative in cincinnati to handle things locally in my stead and to get a roofer out immediately to seal up the roof as best as possible to prevent further damage from occurring. ...and so the real fun began...

as soon as i got off the phone with the insurance agent my next phone call was the remodeler i had been working with to get the house ready to sell before i left and had had a long-standing relationship with and trusted. he'd done good work in the past and been great to work with, so i was hopeful that he would be able to help me out. as soon as he answered the phone he knew why i was calling. hed been out looking at a neighbors roof the day after the storm and while he was up there hed seen some of the damage to my roof and had seen my roof in the yards of the houses of my neighbors. he said hed have called me himself sooner, but he assumed someone would be looking after the house for us and would have let us know... [this probably should have been my first warning sign...] not wanting to waste any time i filled him in on the status of everything and asked if he could go over there and assess the damage and get the house sealed up, and he agreed that he could and assured me he would. well okay then. at this point, ive covered my ass as best as i can i think. as far as i knew id done everything i could on my end, now it was just a waiting game for everyone else to play their respective roles.... right? heh, sure....

[agent 1]

we'll call her jane. jane called me 9 days after i had initially filed the report. jane was not from cincinnati, jane had just flown into town and was ready to go look at the house and proceeded to get all my information, take down notes on everything that had happened up until this point, and assured me that she would be in contact with my contractor and realtor to go investigate the house and write up an estimate of the damage.

4 days later, i get a call from jane. she looked at the house with the previously mentioned representatives and she was not happy. the roof is kind of high, if you hadnt guessed. being that its a 3 story house, that would make sense. well seeing as its a 3 story house and theres no roof access hatch on my flat roof, she was unable to assess the damage to the roof and would have to have another team come out at a later date to assess the roof damage and she was only able to write up her estimate for the interior damage she saw. additionally, the roof had not been sealed properly and there was water leaking into the house when they were there - she was not happy about that. i would later find out that jane was not even qualified to be my insurance adjuster - she was still in the process of training and had her trainer with her during the walk-through of my house to make sure she was getting it even remotely accurate - which she didnt.

i immediately called the contractor to find out what the deal was and he informed me that at this point he hadnt sealed the roof because he was waiting for the agent to see it before he sealed it. they would have to look at the damage and anything hed done to seal the roof would have to be ripped up in order to inspect the damage so he was waiting for the insurance people before he could do it. while on the one hand this made sense to me, on the other hand i was a little pissed. i wanted that roof sealed almost 2 weeks ago and i was not happy it hadnt been done, not to mention that based on the way he was handling it, it wasnt going to get sealed anytime soon because now he was waiting other team to come out that was actually going to inspect the roof - in his eyes this was all the insurance companies fault with the delays and he couldnt believe they were doing this to me. i asked him to please just put down a tarp temporarily to try and prevent any further damage until the next round of agents came and he said hed work on it.... [yes, im an idiot. i believed him...]

[agents 2]

dont know their names. 3 or 4 days later they met up with the roofer to get on the roof and inspect the situation on the roof. i found out later that both of these guys had been flown in from the south and while one of them actually did have roofing experience [the other one is still out to the jury] neither of them had ever worked on a flat roof and didnt seem to have a clue what they were doing. the result of the inspection determined that the roof was a total loss and would have to be replaced - wow, thanks guys. way to be thorough. the contractor supplemented that with a core sample and discovered that the existing roof was comprised of 6 layers of torch-down modified roofing membrane over a layer of tin roof over 100year old 1inch thick, wide plank, spaced, decking over the roof joists. well that was a start at least. now we know what was actually up there all this time...

not long after this i received janes initial estimate in the mail which resulted in a phone call with me being as calm as possible while pissed the ef off at this nonsense. she quoted slightly less than $6000 total for the roof and interior damage combined and estimated that the entire interior damage amounted to a single 4x8 sheet of drywall worth of repairs as well as a little spackling and painting to finish it and that my carpet could be cleaned for a reasonable price to repair the damage [from it being completely saturated when they were there???] this was not good. my estimate from the contractor was upward of 13,000 for everything he needed to do at this point. i wont even go into the saga of actually getting a freaking estimate from my contractor.... [at this point i really should have known where this was going...]

a few days later i get an irate phone call from jane. the roofer had finally tarped the roof at some point, but the tarp had blown up in another storm and there was extensive further damage from the storm. more of the ceiling had fallen down, now in another room on the third floor, the carpet was soaked throughout the 3rd floor, there was a piece of ceiling that had fallen on the second floor under the original area the water had started coming in on, and she was fuming that i had not gotten the roof sealed properly and was in breach of my claim requirement to mitigate further damage to the house.

i tried my absolute best to talk calmly to jane and calm her down and discuss what needed to happen at this point and what the heck i was supposed to do from 2000 miles away. eventually she did calm down, apologized, and expressed her concern that i was being taken advantage of and couldnt believe that someone had actually put down 6 layers of roofing on my roof - for anyone that doesnt know, thats waaaaaaay too much. the weight alone from that much roofing is a serious structural problem, i dont know how the roof never caved in. not to mention that over time that weight had caused the roof to sag and hold water [the bowl effect] and that was causing even more problems...

so after calming her down she spoke with her supervisor and called me back to inform me that state farm was sympathetic to my situation and wouldnt hold me personally responsible for the damage not being mitigated and would roll the new damage up into the existing claim [and save me the additional 1500 deductible for a second claim, thank God] and we'd be going from there. however, at this point, her time in ohio was up and she was flying off to the east coast somewhere [to possibly get some real training?] and would be handing off my case to another mobile agent that would be in town soon and would be in contact with me...

i think this is a good place to stop part one. now that we've gotten rid of jane and are about to meet agent 3. hopefully hes less useless....

until we meet again...

pseudoephedrine.mut-tacular.ampersand.carpal-tunnel

!!-- WARNING! Due to the Graphic Content of this post, Parental Discretion is Advised. It is also suggested that you not eat within 30 minutes before or after reading this post. Possible symptoms may include: laughter, self-indignation, or eye-rolling. Women who are pregnant or are at risk of becoming pregnant should definitely, well... consider, not reading this post... i guess. Consult your PCP (Primary Care Physician... not the other stuff...) for further recommendations and advisements. --!!

does anyone else find it rather odd that blogger/blogspot is completely non-iphone friendly? i mean... since google took over years ago and google is revolutionizing everything on the web these days, youd think blogger/blogspot would at least be relatively iphone friendly, but no. not even a little. i can even get as far as into the edit screen after signing in with the teeny tiny non-mobile-optimized site, but once there, the text forms are non-responsive to touch sensor technology. it just clicks and clicks and clicks and never lets you actually enter the field.... or maybe im the only one having this issue.... i tend to think that im not the only one having any particular issue at any given time, maybe it makes me feel better, like im not really crazy, the rest of the world has random issues as well, but then again... perhaps i'm wrong. maybe i am the only one having some of the bizarre issues i have....

speaking of google, i started using chrome again. its been roughly two years since i stopped. i was having any number of problems with a buggy beta version back then (one of which being flash compatibility - and speaking of buggy. flash 10.2, right? right? right? wow adobe....) so i gave up on it and found myself enjoying v3.whatever of safari at the time. then safari started to annoy me come v5 and ive been bouncing back and forth between it and firefox for the last year or so, but man, this new chrome. im feelin it! for the time being... i digs.

so anyway... i cant sleep.

ive been trying to get sick for the last few days apparently. it started with my usual allergic reaction to staying at the in-laws this weekend. they have cats, and while i love their cats (zoro y diablo es loco, lol) i some-how or other developed a cat allergy (not the like super severe, omg-im-going-into-anaphylactic-shock kind of allergy, but the itchy-watery-eyes-cant-sleep-oh-my-freaking-god-it-itches-make-it-stop!! kind, you know?) while away at grad school after having lived with a dozen or so of the creatures my entire childhood... rather odd in my humble opinion, but apparently it happens... anyway. thats how it started. then it moved on to becoming this just rather gross nasaly-itchy throat feeling. so i started on the meds, because thats how it always starts for me when i get sick... then yesterday i woke up just feeling like shit. spent the whole day in this state of clammy-sweaty, pale & flushed (yeah, tell me how the hell that happens at the same time), sloshy/sludgey stomach feeling. have you ever had that? where you feel like your abdomen has somehow been pumped full of some-kind of toxic ooze and its just sitting there, sloshing around everytime you move... that back and forth liquid movement feeling... ugh, its almost like getting sea-sick for the first time... anyway, so that was yesterday. so of course ive been taking the regular attack cocktail of aleve, some kind of otc multi-symptom cold thing, and the prescription strength pseudoephedrine on 12 hour intervals (well, the otc multi-symptom on 6 hours) anyway... so i think thats part of why i cant sleep. im in the middle of one of those mildly-dehydrated-over-pseudoephedrin-ated-drug-highs that makes you feel kind of spacey and light-headed, but at the same time the sinus drainage is coming back so the meds must be wearing off, so why do i feel like this, kind of things. youve been there right? this isnt another "just-me" thing is it? meh.... the other excuse for my mild/insomnia is that i went to bed at about 9:30 because i was feeling pretty shitty, and with work and getting up at 5:30 every morning, my body is getting itself into the pattern of only getting roughly 6.5 hours of sleep each night, and so... that would partially account for my being awake between 3:30 and 4, hm?

or... maybe its just day-light savings time throwing me off........ ? ;]

[mut-tacular]

im suprisingly lucid right now given the self-medicated-ly induced, depreciated state of my higher-brain-function, and yes, i can maintatin the some-what linear thought patterns outlined by my title up there [which i almost always invent and refine before the commencing of the actual rambling on... is that odd? i feel like its backwards, like i was taught at some point along the way that the title is supposed to come last. like the writing will inform the title. but if i dont have a title, how am i supposed to know what im writing about? man, maybe i really am odd.....]

so mut-tacular. if you cant relatively guess at the meaning of this strange term, then you need sleep more than i do. context-clues people, context-clues. anyhow, its one of our many many ridiculous little nick-names (why not peter-names? or jo-names? why nick? who the hell was nick to get this extra-naming... naming rights?...) for the silly little dog that follows us around snoring - regardless off his state of consciousness, or the time of day, or his current activity. anyway, i just wanted to briefly talk about him. i dont know how, well... thats not true at all, i totally know how... but hes become ever increasingly ornery to the point of just, wow. this dog is so freaking spoilt. lordy... prime-example. i keep getting up to go to the bathroom or roll-over or get water or something, because i cant sleep, and everytime i come back to bed he just looks at me with his head on his paws, and makes this half-grunt, half-sigh sound as he cocks his little buggy-eyebrows at me. as if to say "would you effing quit it already? im trying to get my beauty rest here..." [did i mention hes a total queen? total...] anyway, if thats not enough, this last time this happened, i stop short of climbing in bed and go around to my wifes feet where hes sleeping to scratch his little head sympathetically, as if to say "sorry buddy, cant help it" at which point he decides that his cue to get up, walk over and on top of his mother, and plop down next to her head and right on my pillow. totally stealing my spot in the bed. can you believe this non-sense?? freaking little... so i walk around to my side of the bed, flabbergasted as i am, and he just cocks his head a little and scootches over closer to moms head so i can get in, all the while looking at me like "what? i didnt do anything..." seriously... this dog has freaking attitude... so then after i get in, he does this little number that hes gotten into the trend of. he splays out flat between us and buries his head between our pillows. lol! i tell you, if he didnt rub me the wrong way all the time with his obvious lack of respect and defiance towards me, id never stop laughing at him... well, actually, i dont. lol! realistically, karen and i are much-more-than-likely completely fabricating this entire personality that we've cooked up for him. but then again... he really is a total queen. its all based on reality, even if it is ever so slightly embellished in our odd little minds... oh mut-tacular.........

[carpal-tunnel]

so the last couple of days, the last two [ring & pink] phalanges on my left hand, as well as the backside... [what do you call that? the karate chopper? ill have to inquire with my sensei...] from the end of the pink up to my wrist, have all been kind of just, numb. not like completely useless dentist lip numb, but like all the sensation has been drained from it and now theres this feeling thats just on the cusp of pins&needles, but not quite there. not painful, just... lacking the usual feeling - if that makes sense. and like all 22nd generationers [its 22now right? i cant keep up...] (i think i meant generation-y here... i was a little goofy on the meds, not entirely sure. forgive me.) of course i simply googled my symptoms to self-diagnose... myself. my first thought was stroke, yeah, gotta be stroke. or something... anyhow, carpal-tunnel was basically the only search result that came up. dozens and dozens of comments and keywords about carpal-tunnel. what-ever. i think this whole carpal-tunnel thing is a joke. we've been hearing about it for a decade, but ive never believed it was real... besides, why my left hand? im a righty. i do all the clicking with the right. clickity clickity click. all freaking day. you ever drawn in cad? thats a lot of effing clicks. but noooo no, if im to believe i have carpal-tunnel, because the all-knowing gods of the inter-google-webs say so of course, then its because of some b.s. poor keyboard posture? heh, what keyboard posture? i never learned to type. i took a typing class, but that home-keys crap. nah. not for me. i make up my own rules. i type just about as fast as the next guy [hell these long-winded posts typically only take me 45minutes to an hour] and a lot of the time im not even looking at the keyboard. especially for the letters l, pl, tr, f, s, m, cp, ro, ma & xref - LOL! [heh, cad humor. love it!]

hah, how about that. my alarm just went off. guess its time to go hop in the shower and start my day, lol. great timing, i was pretty much out of things to say at this point anyhow. well kiddos, until next time....

...stay anticipated.

[timestamp published 5:38, timestamp initiated 4:37]

lone.star.livin'

as i sit here typing, the window next to me depicts the serene images of leisurely life at its utmost. the palms gently swaying in the sea breezes, the small song birds happily chirping and flitting around playing a lively game of tag, the hint of saltwater and sand floating on the air, and of course the rousing chorus of the 3 pugs chasing each other, fighting over the most select toy, and all-the-while attempting to breathe through their genetically deformed air passages... [the latter, perhaps less serene...]

yes thats right y'all, im in texas. and on the texas coast to be more specific. home-again-home-again-jigitty-jig.

its been several months since i last updated the ole' blog, and much has changed. most of you that actually read this are close enough that you're already aware of most of the events of my life, however, supposing there are the rare few out there in the entire world [and beyond...?]that might per-chance stubble upon this and decide its worth a read, follow-along as i briefly wrap up the major events of the recent past and set the scene for future-posts.

[the.job.situation]

when last we spoke [er, wrote?] i was embarking on a little adventure of landscaping with my friend from n'awlins and we had completed a few little jobs with some success. well that lasted about as long as you read.

we never ended up getting another job [i think it was really just the seasons changing] even though we bid on a number of them. after a couple of weeks however, i was desperate for cash-flow again and sought some other income situation.

i still had the itt job at this point and was enjoying my first class [and getting the hang of it a bit more as time went on] however the minuscule salary of a new adjunct teaching one class is not something to sustain one's extravagant lifestyle... ;]

so to shorten the longevity of my verboseness in the instance, i posted an ad on the church website boasting my qualifications, and through a series of serendipitous events, i ended up working for jones the florist [the name in florists in the greater cincinnati area] that ended up being a pretty great experience for a few months. i started out doing candy bouquets[if you dont know what that is, just go to their website...] and as it would turn out was quite the craftsman. i picked this little skill up very quickly and in a few days was pretty much the fastest person on production in the place. so i candied for a couple of months while they got through some big seasonal orders and then when the seasonal time was up i inquired about staying on for a bit longer if theyd have me...

meanwhile - in those months at jones, i had been offered and accepted another classes for the following quarter at itt, took up karate in my "spare" time, and then as i looked into extending my stay at jones, was offered and accepted 2 classes for the upcoming quarter and had a couple of promising interviews.

one of the interviews was with one of the biggest architecture firms in cinicnnati [and while i wont play the dropping names game, they're huge and "worldwide"...] and i was very excited about the prospect. this was the dream job in the cincinnati area and since karen and i had resolved to sticking around there, this was a big deal. in conjunction with that, i started interviewing, via the vast world-wide telecommunications network, for a position in a construction firm in houston. [spoiler alert! if you havent yet read the title of the blog.... um.... dont.]

well jones decided to hire me on as a delivery driver because of my mad-skillz and obvious awesomeness and i enjoyed working for them through december. the interview with the b-i-g arch firm was less than fruitful in the immediate present-tense sense of things - although it was a great feeling knowing they were interested and seriously considering me! - and as it would turn out i was offered and accepted the job in houston. [shocker. i know.]

thus begun a whirlwind of activity revolving this drastically life-altering occurance...

[h-t-x]

so... heres the run-down on h-town.

i interviewed for this position for a bout a span of a month's time and on the friday before karen and i were supposed to leave for our annual christmas voyage to the south to see the family, the construction company emailed me the offer letter.

i thought it over [but not for long - this was an amazing opportunity!] and discussed it with family and friends over the weekend, and then first thing monday morning i accepted and we got the ball rolling.

the next day [tuesday] karen and i flew out to texas for our holiday vacation and i stayed in loose contact with my new boss via email - and while we were in texas anyway and so near our soon-to-be-home, we decided to get started on some of the more menial tasks of setting up bank accounts and starting the apartment hunt...

on the 28th of december we flew back to cinicnnati and at this point it had been decided that my start date would be january 10. for anyone not doing the math, thats about a week and a half that i had to be back in texas and ready to start the job with my truck, and any belongings of mine that i would need in texas, as well as helping karen as much as humanly possibly to pack up our house, get rid of whatever we werent taking and generally begin the moving process...

i needed to embark on the cross-country drive by no later than the 5th to have 2 days for the actual driving part and a couple of days to get settled in and ready to start work on the 10th.

so between dec 28 and jan 5 karen and i worked like crazy people to go through our entire house and get rid of anything and everything we could do-without so that we didnt have to move it cross-country.

we sold off furniture on criagslist, had an extensive garage sale to rid ourselves of smaller items, donated a ton of stuff to the church and local clothes-closets, had contractors come in and do some of the final repairs we just hadnt gotten around to yet on the house and now had no time to do and needed to be done before the move/sale, got the house put on the market and worked with the realtor to figure out the best plan of attack, said goodbye to as many dear friends as i could before i left, and in the end... karen still ended up having to stay in cincinnati another 3 weeks after i left to finish all of the above...

of course that then precludes to the ensuing madness of my driving to texas and staying with josh and cassie for the short-term while i searched for an apartment and a place to move all of our crap, started the new job and got settled in, had miscellaneous issues with the truck that needed to be dealt with [for instance i ended up needing to have all 4 tires replaced after the journey south, or the entire engine maintenance checkup i was 10,000 miles over-due on, etc., etc., etc.... ]...

in the end however. we arrived safely. we got everything moved. we found an apartment. i started my job and have settled pretty well into it. karen has since found a temporary job shes enjoying teaching swimming lessons in houston, while still searching for that perfect career job of her own. and last - but certainly not least - we have had quite the rollercoaster of events surrounding the sale of the cincy-house....

but that my friends... is a story for another time.

and with that - im signing off. hope to post more soon-ish, but with life's many obstacles, who really knows?

god bless texas, and have a good-un y'all. =]

off day|day off

haha, that title speaks endless bounds to my current predicament. im quite pleased with myself for that one =]

yeah, no work today. we were busy all week last week, finished 3 jobs actually, but so far this week we've got nothing officially on the books. we have a number of bids out and such, but its a waiting game to see when we actually get one. in the meantime, still waiting on checks to come in from last week so... we're definitely playing the waiting game.

yesterday i got a ton accomplished and honestly, im drained from it. im actually kind of glad that i have the day off because to be frank, im feeling rather fizzled. so yesterday, i went to early church - per-yuge, came home and got laundry a-goin, - well, what was left over from saturday that is - then i cleaned the kitchen, then i cleaned the dining room, ate lunch at some point, talked to the wifester a little online before school, wrote my lesson plan for this week, wrote my assignment outline for this week, wrote my quiz for this week, laid out all the laundry on the couch in the parlor so it didnt get wrinkly, cleaned the entry way.... didnt make it to cleaning the parlor or to actually putting the laundry away.... i know, i know, im a terrible husband. but ill get around to it before she gets home. and even if i dont.... =P

then i ended up spending a couple of hours online chatting with one of my kiddos about music. surprisingly, she actually has pretty decent taste in music for a teenager, lol! most of the kids i run into these days listen to nothing but crap. and i introduced her to all the greats from when i was her age, hahaha! yessir - project86, mxpx, living sacrifice, SUPERTONES! ahhhh!!!! so much fun reminiscing... and then, i ended up staying up late enough that i got to chat with the wifester a litte more after school before i passed out for the night. hmm... maybe the late hour could have played into my lack of enthusiasm or concentration today. maybe. ;]

annnnyway... i suppose i could post a few "after" pictures of 2 of our jobs from last week [only afters, because i forgot the befores, oops...] if you guys are into that i mean... no? well alright, i mean i offered and all...

heh. i love being in charge of the blog. i get to have all these fun little conversations with myself, and ya'll [gasp!] just have to sit there and keep reading if youre actually interested in getting to the meat n potatoes. control complex? who me? never... just your average twisted sense of humor, irony, and satire all blended up into a nice delicious blog-smoothy.

alright, so enough benign banter, heres the pictures youre waiting for.

[job.1]

so i came on board with colin for the second half of this job. i think he got in a little over his head if hed actually done it on his own, but with my experience and aesthetic eye, we were able to pull it off way faster than either of us expected, although it was still a LOT of work. this bed was HUGE! colin had done a good bit of the hard part grubbing out the existing weeds and ivy the owner didnt want, and actually cutting in the main bed. of course, my "expertise" helped smooth out some kinks all around, and then we proceeded to acquire plants, mulch [damn near 5 yards! whew!] etc, and get everything in and laid out nicely. overall it was a bit of a grueling project, but we managed to pull it off i think. enjoy. [appologies for the image quality, theres only so much i can do with a cell phone...]

so you have to ignore the leaves in the beds, they were raining down continuously the entire time we were working, there was just no way to avoid it. no, the rubber bed liner edge was not my idea, and i wouldnt normally put something like that in because it ends up looking a little tacky, but you have to do what the client wants. and no, we didnt purchase the hastas like that, theyre in bad shape i know, but they were transplants from another part of her yard and colin had already dug them up before i got there. next time we'll try to be a little more careful... over all i think it turned out pretty well. its a little sparse, but the bed was HUGE and we totally blew our budget on plants, good thing we got em wholesale ;]

[job.2]

This one was much less glamourous. essentially a cleanup job for some existing "beds" although there werent really beds to begin with. so we weeded, removed some dead shrubs and some nuisance plants and cleaned up what was left, then we actually cut in the beds to give them a nice clean edge and mulched it all up. [this one only needed 1 yard for comparisons sake...] it turned out really well i think, i really should have taken before shots of this one, it was a serious mess... oh and see that lovely decorative grass on the end there? yeah, that thing hated me. my entire right arm is sliced and diced from wrist to ribs. those grass blades were like razors and i have what amounts to dozens of long papercuts all up and down my arms, they burned like friggin hell that day, but now a few days later, theyre healing up nicely and the pain is gone. =]

MUCH cleaner than it was, let me tell you... =]

alright, well, i think thats all ive got for now. im just hanging out, watching a little tv, maybe a movie, reading some, and potentially - if the motivation comes along - working on some school stuff... but i doubt it. haha, after all, the title speaks for itself, lol! thinking maybe chinese for dinner... anyone wunna go to red pepper? or is there a better chinese place in cincy i need to try?! do tell ;]

hope you all have a happy week, feel free to comment if you feel so inclined. =]

i dont have a witty sign off this time, sorry. ill try harder next time round.

"i'm all jacked up on mountain dew! i will come at you like a spider monkey!" - official landscaping quote of all time - thanks to my former landscaping crew, you guys are awesome!

inspiration.

well, i have no excuse. its been something like, idunno, a millennia since my last post, and im sure none of you even keep tabs on this thing anymore. i dont blame you, i dont. lol!

the truth is, after i got laid off, i went through a lot of emotion and got too busy to blog, even if i had wanted to. i was depressed for a long time about the work thing and it really took its toll on me, so i stopped writing. i didnt want to be that guy that just bitches to his blog-o-sphere about how shitty everything is... [please disregard the 3 or 4 blogs that did get published that follow that pattern... whoops...] so i postponed. then i more or less forgot about my blog altogether.

but now im back, at least for right now, and.... we'll see what happens.

so what have you missed? ha! like im going to re-tell 10 months of story-line. you guys would never make it. i used to get complaints from a certain brother-of-mine about the length of my blogs when it was still a weekly update, i cant even imagine 10 months... i will however, hit a few highlights for you guys. [and just a fair warning, its still probably going to be hella-lengthy, you know how i roll...]

[work. well... sorta.]

the fact of the matter is, work has been a constant struggle since getting laid off last year. for a long time i just floated around in the unemployment abyss, desperately searching for any kind of a nibble, but to no avail... eventually i decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and forget the dozens of architecture firms that were straight up ignoring me, and make something happen for myself. well, it didnt exactly happen over night or anything, but eventually i caught a few bites here and there and in january i started doing some freelance consulting and training for Revit. if you dont know what Revit [pronounced rev-like an engine-it] is, then im not going to bore you with all the details, but essentially its a newish software thats being used in the aec [architecture/engineering/construction] industry and i happen to be proficient in it. well, more than many as it would seem. and as it also turns out, im pretty good at evolving with it, so as they continue to update the program and make everything totally screwy, i can still keep up with it.. anyway, enough about Revit... so i did that for a while and made a little bit of money, certainly not a lot. but i did make some good contacts and got lots of positive feedback on my abilities and such. always nice.

meanwhile, when that part of the get-up-and-go phase started to fizzle out, i picked up some work with the census bureau for the 2010 census. if you didnt fill out your census, shame on you. if you have strong opinions about the census, keep em to yourself, i really dont care. so the first 6 weeks of census work went really well. i essentially got paid to sit around in an air-conditioned room and read a book while i waited to assist anyone with a question about the census. yes, i am aware this sounds like a huge waste of taxpayer money, i completely agree with you that it could have been better spent somewhere else, however, thats the way it worked out and i needed the cash, so im not gunna hate on it. that lasted for about 6 weeks as i think i mentioned a second ago, and in that time i read something like 10 books [and im not talking about 100pg short stories, im talking 500 page novels with some girth to em...] that ranged from the new dan brown, to a number of tom clancy's, and then eventually restarting the left-behind series [which i am currently still working through...]

so after the first 6 weeks of census work, the phase i was working on [QACR for anyone interested in the big government acronym...] ended and i was back to being unemployed and feeling somewhat unemployable. haha, only somewhat... anyway, at this point there was a random phone call from the heavens and i was offered an interview for adjunct professor at ITT Tech. for the next 4 or so weeks i continued to tag along to interview after interview and filling out paperwork after paperwork in their extremely lengthy hiring process, until they finally officially offered me the position and i became an adjunct prof, hence checking that little item off my lifetime to-do list.

simultaneously, about 2 weeks after the first census stent, they called me back and offered me another position and i graciously accepted the work [hoping against all odds it would be a similar cake walk and i could get back into reading mode...] well, this time around they had me in a different phase of the census, obviously, [NRFU-RI for anyone still interested in fancy government acronyms...] and well... turned out to not be anywhere as much fun. in fact, it was downright awful. so i trudged along in virtual hell for 3 weeks, i think, doing that and making like no money, because again - worst. job. ever. x infinity. - when i started to take seriously an inner tug id been feeling toward landscaping.

so completely randomly, i was leaving church one fine sunday morning and spotted a truck in the parking lot for a landscaper, quickly jotted down the number and then totally out of the blue called and asked if they were hiring. we set up an interview for a couple days later, and on the spot i got hired on - so now i was officially a landscaper. not on that lifetime to-do list, but hey, we can write it in just to check it off, right? ;] well the best part was that i got to call the census and quit. WHOOP! which made my life a LOT happier at that point. i started landscaping the next day and thus started the exciting world of two-jobs!

yes, thats right, my teaching gig started at the same time as the landscaping so i was working 40hours a week landscaping, plus another 20-24 on the weekend preparing for and teaching my first class ever. im sure you can all do the math on that, it made for not a lot of playtime... luckily, a week after i started landscaping, karen graduated from her architecture grad program [congrats sweeite!] and flitted off to san francisco for the summer again [see posts from summer 2009 for more info on that little gem...] so i didnt really have a whole lot to do in my "spare" time anyway.

alright, so fast forward 5 or 6 weeks... and i get laid off. boom. haha. yeah, thats the way the world works sometimes. luckily, this time around i was in a MUCH better place, and i just took it in stride. at this point, i have to break on work [and we're all the way up to the beginning of july now on the time-line anyway, so youre really pretty caught up] and we have to switch gears a little. dont worry, we'll come back to work in a bit.

[church. yes, i said church. maybe i should say god, or faith, or something else, but you get the idea...]

so as im sure you remember - or after a little re-reading, you might remember - church had always been there in the background of my blogs. karen and i had been going pretty much every single week [minus the rare week we didnt go, or when we were out of town or something...] and we were enjoying the church we'd found up here in cincy. i wouldnt say there was a whole lot else to it at that point, a year ago or whatever, it was just what we did on sunday mornings. i had faith, i believed in god, i was a regular, but i missed my church in denver something awful, and really didnt feel all that at home in this one in cincy. it was nice, but it wasnt my home yet.

so we'd been going for a year and some change, and it was still nice, getting to be more comfortable, but certainly not home and definitely still overwhelming. i dont know if i mentioned it before or not, not that it matters because i doubt youd remember at this point, but the church we go to has a membership of something like 15,000 people. no, thats not a type-o, thats not an extra zero, fifteen thousand... i believe. i could be off by a couple hundred, so sue me. anyway, as you can imagine, that many people makes the place a little daunting when you think about "community," or even just meeting people. obviously theyre freakin everywhere, but i wasnt in the habit of walking up to strangers, even if we did go to the same church, and introducing myself. so... about the same time as the freelancing gig - early-january-ish - karen and i had a conversation. we decided that it was time to actively start making cincinnati feel more like home. we were tired of just owning a house and existing here. we were tired of not really knowing anyone or having many friends... so we came to the decision that we were going to start getting more involved in our church, and specifically - our church community. at first we didnt really know what this was going to look like, but then everything started spiraling out of control, lol. tome calls it the snowball effect, i suppose that works. anyway seemingly simultaneously three big things happened.

1. i was really starting to get a tug on the ol' heart strings that i wanted to get involved with habitat for humanity again and do some volunteer construction. id been feeling this way for a couple weeks when. boom. we go to church and they announce its time for info sessions for go new orleans. go nola is essentially a pretty big campaign at our church that has been happening for 4 years now, where we send a ton of people to new orleans to work with habitat for humanity to help continue the re-building effort post hurricane katrina. i know its hard to believe, but yes, its been 5 years and parts of the place still look like an atomic bomb went off a few weeks ago... its really heart-wrenching... so obviously all the neon lights in my head went off and i was like, yeah im gunna do that.

2. about that same time they announced sign-ups for go cincinnati. if youll recall, karen and i did go cincinnati last year, and its essentially a day where a couple hundred churches all get together and have like 4000 people go out and just love on our city. we do various projects ranging from cleaning, to painting, to landscaping, you name it. if theres a need, we try to fill it. well, karen and i really enjoyed it last year, so we signed up for this year as well. ...to be continued...

3. free. so again, about that same time, our church began its annual "all-church-journey," which this year was focused on the topic of freedom and getting the freedom god wants for your life. well, last year, karen and i were still pretty new to the church and decided to um, skip the journey thing. we didnt really feel it at that point, however, this year we were like, yes, lets get into this. so the journey is a 3 part thing, you get involved in a small group, you work individually on your own personal stuff, and you participate in the main church services each week that supplement the first two. its like a 6 week journey, so theres a lot of time spent digging into the topics and getting your jesus on. well, karen and i were both feeling a nudge this year, to not only do the journey and get involved, but also to open our home up and lead a small group. so it turned out we had an amazing group of folks join our group and we spent the next 6 weeks getting to know these awesome people, share our personal stories, have some social time, and most importantly - get free.

so getting back to the go cincinnati thing. one of our group members, who also happens to be our across the street neighbor, was apparently a higher up in the go cincinnati echelons, and called up randomly about 2 weeks before go-day. there was a need for someone to take the lead on one of the projects, and she felt like after getting to know us better during the journey, that we were the perfect people to take this one. well the project was a mural, and the moment karen heard "mural" she pounced like a lioness on a helpless little gazelle. needless to say, we were in.

it was an arduous process, however we had a blast working on the mural and it really turned out to be an amazing experience for all of us involved. i wont go into the lengthy detail of the experience, many of you know all the ins and outs anyway, but there were a number of obstacles that popped up and we overcame all of them and had a really awesome turn-out.

so all of this to say, this year G.o.d. has really taken a much larger role in my life and we've gotten a lot more involved in the church and i was really looking forward to go nola at the beginning of july. and.... now we can jump back to work/church... well, its a slash, so i dont know if it counts as a jump. anyway, back to the more recent past... if that makes any sense at all... meh, just humor me.

[work/church]

okay, so i just got laid off. again. but me and god are pretty tight these days, so im not really stressin it. also, go nola is next week, so i was going to have to take off from work for that anyhow.. =]

so i went to new orleans. we had a freaking INCREDIBLE time in new orleans. id never been before and i really didnt know what to expect - this was also my first "mission trip" - but it turned out to be SUCH a blessing. i met dozens of awesome people and we worked HARD while we were there and i mean just... i dont have the words really. some pretty amazing things happened in new orleans, and i really felt like i was getting some serious jesus vibe while i was there. a couple of different things were going on in the weeks leading up to and including nola.

1. i was really loving this landscape thing. i had never really paid too much attention to landscaping until we got the house, and then my garden became a bit of an obsession this year - being laid off and all, whats a guy to do but putter around in his garden? ;] - and along with that, i really started beefing up the remodeling work on the exterior of the house [no, not going to get into all that in this post, sorry, maybe later...], and i was really feeling like this was what i wanted to do. id been thinking about it, and talking about it for a couple weeks, but basically i had this really serious desire to get more involved in design/build stuff. now i'll elaborate, i dont mean like a huge design-build firm that does these big commercial projects, etc. if youre familiar with the term design-build, you may understand what im saying here, but thats not what i wanted. i wanted small scale design/build where i actually got to do both. i want it all. i want to design, i want to build, i want to get dirty and work with my hands and hopefully make some money. so thats one of the things that was going through my head while i was in new orleans, and for some reason the whole week i kept hearing him telling me to let go and trust him. and well, i was like okay, thats what ive been doing this entire year with this job situation... and i kind of ignored it. but i knew he was being specific. he was telling me to trust him and specifically to trust him to go and do my own thing, to follow this desire in me, and not worry about working for someone else or where the money will come from... so we'll get back to that in a second...

2. while i was in nola, i dont know what it was, but i was really feeling this twinge, for lack of better syntax, regarding teenagers. now, when i was in denver i worked with the childrens ministry and had a blast doing it, but since we moved here, ive never had the desire to get back into the childrens ministry with our new church. but thats not what this was, this was more specific, this was high-school kids. and ive never really been interested in that before, if anything i was worried theyd annoy the crap out of me. because, well... i didnt like high-school kids when i was in high-school, i cant imagine theyre any better now, lol! anyway, regardless, i was getting this "twinge" or nudge, or calling, or i dont know what it is. and the entire week, all these high-school kids seemed to be gravitating to me. maybe im just imagining it, but i can think of 5 or 6 different teenagers off the top of my head that seemed to always be around chatting me up. and i really enjoyed it, it turns out there actually are some cool teenagers out there and i felt like i wanted to get to know them more and get involved with them. so... as of yet, i havent completely pursued this avenue. when i first got back i inquired about getting involved with the csm - thats the "youth group" at our church - and discovered that its not only a pretty involved process of getting into it, but they also want a 2 year commitment from their volunteers and at this point... im just still thinking/praying about it. i dont know whats going to happen with working and living situations, and whatever else over the next 2 years. my life has been pretty insane the last year, well, the last 2 years really, so i feel like its going to continue being insane, and i dont know how i feel about making a 2 year commitment. what if i end up needing to move? i certainly dont want to have to go back on my word or disappoint a bunch of teenagers who think im going to be around and build relationships with them... so im still pondering that "twinge"... maybe theres another outlet thats going to pop-up that i can serve in, i guess we'll see.

so getting back to the work thing and that trusting thing and the design/build thing...

i just got back from new orleans, last week, and have no prospects for work. not one. ive exhausted my architecture firm quarry, and i dont feel like i want to work in an architecture office right now anyway, ive still got the professor thing, [and they offered me another class for next quarter!] but that well, doesnt pay. anything. really. so... i didnt know what i was going to do for actual money/work, and then my phone rang. and just like that, out of the blue, i got a call from one of the guys i worked with in new orleans and actually spent a good amount of time with in new orleans and he essentially asked me if i wanted to partner with him in his landscaping/remodeling business. just like that. it was pretty obviously a sign, and of course i said yes.

so as of this week, we have partnered up. so far weve already worked and completed 2 different jobs and have a 3rd lined up for tomorrow and it seems like, the projects are just falling in our laps. i know thats not whats really happening, and i know that colin [thats his name if you didnt get that] has done some things in the way of advertising in the past, but nonetheless, weve stayed busy all week and we have a job lined up for tomorrow [friday] and a couple of prospects for the future. so i dont know where all this is going to go, and i dont know how consistent its going to be, but im excited about it and i really feel like this could be a good thing. either way, im going to just keep having faith and trusting that God is going to take care of it all and i know everything is going to work out.

other than that.... um... well, karen is due back from california in less than two weeks now, and im extremely excited to have her back, but otherwise, haha, theres not a whole lot to tell. believe it or not, thats the majority of the highlights for the last 10 months, and im really just waiting to see what interesting events tomorrow - the collective tomorrow - holds.

anybody seen inception yet? if you havent, do so. ab-so-friggin-lutely spectacular film. i might see it again... although, i should probably see despicable me first, want to so bad! any takers? this weekend?

...from all of us here at channel 4, you stay classy... cincinnati ;]