Our web sites are back up. We ended up not needing the Call-a-Nerd service and they didn't call us back after the first visit anyway. Between myself, Mrs. A and Mr. IG, we got it up and running. We even got the new laptop into the mix. Both sites are up, all machines are up and current. The office itself is shaping up nicely.
I'm going to try and learn myself some database functionality and maybe some ASP or PHP so I can set up a message board for my little book. It'll be dead for the next year, I'm sure, but it'll give me a place to post updates, art and what not. Yeah, I have a Live Journal account and this place and the site to post artwork, but I'm thinking I'd like something where people can talk to me about the story specifically and not just wait to see a new post about it. Plus it'll help me learn some technical skills I can use on my job.
Yeah, that's it.
I saw a thing on TV today about The Passout Game. Apparently a boy was found dead, hanging from a tree after doing this. For those not in the know, this "game" is a childhood activity in where you basically strangle yourself or otherwise cut off oxygen to your brain until you passout. When you come to, you get a small rush and tingle.
So I was watching this and I told my coworker that I had done this as a kid and I thought everyone did it. Turns out, according to law enforcement, it's something today's parents may not be aware of. I'm going to call bullshit on that. I think as soon as you find out that you can do this as a kid, you try it. And since there have been kids around for, um, ever, it's been pretty common. I also think you grow out of it pretty quickly, but that may just be my experience with it.
I haven't done crack or meth or coke, but I have held my breath until I passed out and then come back with a bit of euphoria. I remember several instances where I did it standing up holding onto the bathroom sink only to have crumpled up and hit my head as I fell.
Now, I don't think I'm a deviant because of this, but honestly, it may be why I'm not an Ivy League graduate, or why I didn't relate the gymnastic move the cartwheel with an actual cart wheel, or any number of similar intellectual faux pas.
I just think it's funny that the media has glommed onto this. Yes it's sad and dangerous, but this coming from the same people that gave us "Paris to dump her dog." Aren't there any real stories out anymore? I was waiting for the Shark Attack Summer, but I guess I'll settle for "Shit parents did as kids and are now shocked their kids are doing it."
Yeah, don't hold yer breath.
18.8.05
15.8.05
The Mundanity
Welcome back to regular updates, selectively tailored for friends and family, guaranteed to bore random readers into such a stupor that they may be unable to find the Back or Home buttons and end up becoming our next great fans.
First off, the oil change guys have a new sign and new cardboard cut-out. Darth Vader is most displease with your apparent lack of oil changes. I'll try to get a crappy cell phone picture.
So Mrs. A's birthday was Saturday. She turned an undisclosed age. Let's just say it starts with TH and ends in IRTY. That's right. Three decades ago, Mrs. Austin was brought into this world and the doctors didn't have the sense to warn the rest of us. Her birthday was spent jumping out of a plane. If you've already checked Flickr, you've seen the pictures. A very calm, very mellow Mrs. A went up some 2 miles before leaning out of a plane and calmy decending back to Earth at 120 mph. Chute opened, landed on her butt (to save her bum knee) and everything was right with the world. She would later describe it as "...the most peaceful five minutes of my life." She also said it was the best sex she ever had, which made me flinch a little, but that's a different entry that starts with D and ends with IRTY.
That evening we went with Mr. and Mrs. Invincible Girl, aka Mrs. A's brother and sister in law, to the Melting Pot and proceeded to get hammered while eating fondue. It's always a blast to go there because you have to sit and eat slowly. It makes for good conversation. No wonder the 70's Swedish swingers loved it so much. It's deliciously decadent and everyone should experience it at least once. Not the swinging part, the fondue, you sickos.
The remains of the weekend was spent swearing at our home network setup. After constant rebuilds of machines and (I'm sure) annoying calls to Mr. IG, we ended up calling a service. I won't say who because they haven't finished yet. It was a little disconcerting when after a couple hours the guy said it was a difficult issue to resolve and he'd have to call a bigger geek. As if I wasn't a big enough geek, now I have to hire geeks to help me in my geekness.
I have a mixed view of my role as tech support for Mrs. A. To me it's been a year long struggle to setup and keep up multiple machines on different operating systems, different network interactions and different purposes. When you have to restart all machines because the laptop can't get online, it's a problem with your setup.
Mrs. A seems to think that the glass is more than half full. I was able to keep the site up and the network stable enough for her to earn some money and be able to pay for the upkeep and the eventual overhaul. Very optimistic, but I still feel impotent that we had to bring someone in. It's all that Alpha Geek Male hormones I guess.
But, good news is the house is coming together. Got all the home theater stuff worked out, sort of. I still can't record TV, but I got it back to the way we had it at the old house, plus it's in a smaller room so the sound is a little better. Lord of the Rings is pretty awesome to watch now. We still have to set up the office, a task to which I'm not anticipating with anything but trepidation. (That was a terribly passive sentence, sorry writers.)
The kids are unchanged since we last spoke. Gregory is still having breathing issues. They've changed his medicine a couple times and he's had a few visits to the Pediatrician. He'll have to see a Pediatric Pulmonary and Pediatric Cardiologist for his little murmur and his breathing and in the meantime he's on steroids and some medicine in a nebulizer. For those who remember the first go round with the nebulizer, as you can see it's been a good year long fight with this and we just want him to be better. He wakes up every morning coughing, he starts wheezing if you play with him too much. It's just sad that he's not even a year old and he has breathing problems. It just doesn't seem that fair.
Well, I won't get mopey about it. I'm sure he'll grow out of it given time and proper treatment.
Oh, by the way, I hate computers.
First off, the oil change guys have a new sign and new cardboard cut-out. Darth Vader is most displease with your apparent lack of oil changes. I'll try to get a crappy cell phone picture.
So Mrs. A's birthday was Saturday. She turned an undisclosed age. Let's just say it starts with TH and ends in IRTY. That's right. Three decades ago, Mrs. Austin was brought into this world and the doctors didn't have the sense to warn the rest of us. Her birthday was spent jumping out of a plane. If you've already checked Flickr, you've seen the pictures. A very calm, very mellow Mrs. A went up some 2 miles before leaning out of a plane and calmy decending back to Earth at 120 mph. Chute opened, landed on her butt (to save her bum knee) and everything was right with the world. She would later describe it as "...the most peaceful five minutes of my life." She also said it was the best sex she ever had, which made me flinch a little, but that's a different entry that starts with D and ends with IRTY.
That evening we went with Mr. and Mrs. Invincible Girl, aka Mrs. A's brother and sister in law, to the Melting Pot and proceeded to get hammered while eating fondue. It's always a blast to go there because you have to sit and eat slowly. It makes for good conversation. No wonder the 70's Swedish swingers loved it so much. It's deliciously decadent and everyone should experience it at least once. Not the swinging part, the fondue, you sickos.
The remains of the weekend was spent swearing at our home network setup. After constant rebuilds of machines and (I'm sure) annoying calls to Mr. IG, we ended up calling a service. I won't say who because they haven't finished yet. It was a little disconcerting when after a couple hours the guy said it was a difficult issue to resolve and he'd have to call a bigger geek. As if I wasn't a big enough geek, now I have to hire geeks to help me in my geekness.
I have a mixed view of my role as tech support for Mrs. A. To me it's been a year long struggle to setup and keep up multiple machines on different operating systems, different network interactions and different purposes. When you have to restart all machines because the laptop can't get online, it's a problem with your setup.
Mrs. A seems to think that the glass is more than half full. I was able to keep the site up and the network stable enough for her to earn some money and be able to pay for the upkeep and the eventual overhaul. Very optimistic, but I still feel impotent that we had to bring someone in. It's all that Alpha Geek Male hormones I guess.
But, good news is the house is coming together. Got all the home theater stuff worked out, sort of. I still can't record TV, but I got it back to the way we had it at the old house, plus it's in a smaller room so the sound is a little better. Lord of the Rings is pretty awesome to watch now. We still have to set up the office, a task to which I'm not anticipating with anything but trepidation. (That was a terribly passive sentence, sorry writers.)
The kids are unchanged since we last spoke. Gregory is still having breathing issues. They've changed his medicine a couple times and he's had a few visits to the Pediatrician. He'll have to see a Pediatric Pulmonary and Pediatric Cardiologist for his little murmur and his breathing and in the meantime he's on steroids and some medicine in a nebulizer. For those who remember the first go round with the nebulizer, as you can see it's been a good year long fight with this and we just want him to be better. He wakes up every morning coughing, he starts wheezing if you play with him too much. It's just sad that he's not even a year old and he has breathing problems. It just doesn't seem that fair.
Well, I won't get mopey about it. I'm sure he'll grow out of it given time and proper treatment.
Oh, by the way, I hate computers.
8.8.05
Chicago, Chicago, not a toddler town.
We're back. That had to have been one of the worst trips I've ever taken. It's no one's fault, just a crappy string of things that happened. It was like every stand-up comedian's routine was played out for us in the 4 days we were there. I don't even want to recap, there was so much.
I'll talk about the convention a little, but only just. It wasn't much better than the travel.
I printed 100 books thinking that in previous years I'd done a minibook, black and white, kinko's special and sold maybe 15 books. This year, I'll have a fully realized script, color cover, professional printing...nothing. Zip. I sold one book at the convention. Mrs. A says I sold three, but I must have been away for the other two.
But shit, I'm arguing over two books. Out of 100. I sold a few online to some of my buddies at Penciljack, and traded books with PJers at the con, but strangers buying my book? One. I sold one piece of art, did two requests and sold one sketch. All this is the paying stuff. I think I drew about 40 pictures the whole time, other people's sketch books, just stuff to keep busy, but sales were freakin sad.
I'm off major conventions. I'm off them until I'm at the signing end of a huge line or have a fan base that would facilitate paying for my trip with the sales of the books. Other than that, there's no reason for me to go.
And here's why:
The numbers haven't come in yet, but I know when I was there two years ago, there were 65,000 people in attendance. That may break down differently for visitors or merchants, but leave it at "fuck-load of people."
The problem is, everyone is there to get noticed. It's like a young writers convetion with no publishers and only writers all hoping to make some kind of break or get some notariety or make some money, but only having other writers around doing the same thing. So, you end up buying some book because you support the small guy, but you as another writer are not the small guy's target.
I met some of my online people and that was nice, but the whole event was tainted by the fact that I'd spent a ton of money to go sit in a loud, crowded, weirdly lit cavern surrounded by questionable people for three days, doing nothing but draw for my own amusement.
So I'm off big cons. I'm not there to get signatures, or go to panels by people I don't know with 3,000 of my closest friends, or by books and toys and shirts. I want people to read my book and aside from maybe 10 people, 9 of which I gave the thing to in exchange for their book, no one has or will.
Maybe I'll write something when I'm not having to rebuild a webserver that's been down for who knows how long.
I'll talk about the convention a little, but only just. It wasn't much better than the travel.
I printed 100 books thinking that in previous years I'd done a minibook, black and white, kinko's special and sold maybe 15 books. This year, I'll have a fully realized script, color cover, professional printing...nothing. Zip. I sold one book at the convention. Mrs. A says I sold three, but I must have been away for the other two.
But shit, I'm arguing over two books. Out of 100. I sold a few online to some of my buddies at Penciljack, and traded books with PJers at the con, but strangers buying my book? One. I sold one piece of art, did two requests and sold one sketch. All this is the paying stuff. I think I drew about 40 pictures the whole time, other people's sketch books, just stuff to keep busy, but sales were freakin sad.
I'm off major conventions. I'm off them until I'm at the signing end of a huge line or have a fan base that would facilitate paying for my trip with the sales of the books. Other than that, there's no reason for me to go.
And here's why:
The numbers haven't come in yet, but I know when I was there two years ago, there were 65,000 people in attendance. That may break down differently for visitors or merchants, but leave it at "fuck-load of people."
The problem is, everyone is there to get noticed. It's like a young writers convetion with no publishers and only writers all hoping to make some kind of break or get some notariety or make some money, but only having other writers around doing the same thing. So, you end up buying some book because you support the small guy, but you as another writer are not the small guy's target.
I met some of my online people and that was nice, but the whole event was tainted by the fact that I'd spent a ton of money to go sit in a loud, crowded, weirdly lit cavern surrounded by questionable people for three days, doing nothing but draw for my own amusement.
So I'm off big cons. I'm not there to get signatures, or go to panels by people I don't know with 3,000 of my closest friends, or by books and toys and shirts. I want people to read my book and aside from maybe 10 people, 9 of which I gave the thing to in exchange for their book, no one has or will.
Maybe I'll write something when I'm not having to rebuild a webserver that's been down for who knows how long.
3.8.05
Project: Gemini #1
Well, it's official. Mrs. A went to the printer yesterday and picked up a box of 100 copies of my comic. If you've never had a bunch of literature you've worked on come back from a printer, imagine that scene from Back to the Future when the later, cooler, George McFly opened a box with his first science fiction novel. It's just like that. A brown box, with some packing material inside and a small stack of copies of your baby.
So, for all you folks who'd like to buy a copy, you can go here and plunk down your hard earned couch change for a copy of a small press comic book.
And now the fun begins. I plan on doing this as much as I can. The work was arduous but the result is a triumphant reward. I accomplished something I've wanted to do for almost 15 years, and it's taken me that long to do it. By myself, I've written and drawn a comic book. I still can't believe it.
But I can't sit on my laurels. I have at least 5 more to do with just this story before I can move on. Next time, I'll have better art, less printing costs, and maybe even distribution. Instead of 100 copies, maybe I'll get 200, or 500. Maybe I'll distribute online and have a few hundred people buying it. By next year's Chicago convention, I'll have 2 more books to sell, maybe 3.
It's stuff like this that makes me happy. That's a really weak and poorly constructed statement, but it's exactly how I feel. Mrs. A's photography makes me feel the same way, each time she gets a new booking I get a little smile.
Plus, I have to keep up with the Joneses. Mr. Darn Tootin himself just got an agent for his book. Good news again from Central Texas. He's a talented writer with a pretty pointed wit and I'm pretty happy for him. (I'll be happier when it's written, Rob.) ;)
So tomorrow we head to Chicago and spend three days immersed in total geekdom. I know Mrs. A has seen pictures and heard stories, but I still don't think I've been able to paint an accurate picture of the level of dork and nerd and freak that will be seen on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I write and draw my own books and I'm impressed with the abandon with which people fling their inhibitions. It's almost a cathartic release from the 362 other days of suppressing their inner geek and they are given ample time and space to don small skirts and alien antennae and proton accelerators and mandalorian armor and capes and bone bustiers and walk around like it was Tuesday afternoon at the local grocer. The conversations will all be about comics. The lectures, the movies, the guests, the merchandise. It will all be about the dorkiest of the dork.
I hope she still respects me in the morning. Who am I kidding, I don't think she respects me now.
See you on Tuesday with pictures.
So, for all you folks who'd like to buy a copy, you can go here and plunk down your hard earned couch change for a copy of a small press comic book.
And now the fun begins. I plan on doing this as much as I can. The work was arduous but the result is a triumphant reward. I accomplished something I've wanted to do for almost 15 years, and it's taken me that long to do it. By myself, I've written and drawn a comic book. I still can't believe it.
But I can't sit on my laurels. I have at least 5 more to do with just this story before I can move on. Next time, I'll have better art, less printing costs, and maybe even distribution. Instead of 100 copies, maybe I'll get 200, or 500. Maybe I'll distribute online and have a few hundred people buying it. By next year's Chicago convention, I'll have 2 more books to sell, maybe 3.
It's stuff like this that makes me happy. That's a really weak and poorly constructed statement, but it's exactly how I feel. Mrs. A's photography makes me feel the same way, each time she gets a new booking I get a little smile.
Plus, I have to keep up with the Joneses. Mr. Darn Tootin himself just got an agent for his book. Good news again from Central Texas. He's a talented writer with a pretty pointed wit and I'm pretty happy for him. (I'll be happier when it's written, Rob.) ;)
So tomorrow we head to Chicago and spend three days immersed in total geekdom. I know Mrs. A has seen pictures and heard stories, but I still don't think I've been able to paint an accurate picture of the level of dork and nerd and freak that will be seen on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I write and draw my own books and I'm impressed with the abandon with which people fling their inhibitions. It's almost a cathartic release from the 362 other days of suppressing their inner geek and they are given ample time and space to don small skirts and alien antennae and proton accelerators and mandalorian armor and capes and bone bustiers and walk around like it was Tuesday afternoon at the local grocer. The conversations will all be about comics. The lectures, the movies, the guests, the merchandise. It will all be about the dorkiest of the dork.
I hope she still respects me in the morning. Who am I kidding, I don't think she respects me now.
See you on Tuesday with pictures.
1.8.05
This old house.
Well, it's been over a week since the move and things are progressing better than the cable installation fiasco belied. We're finding that things in the new place just seem to fit. Weird objects, previously under appreciated photos, junk, tools, knick-knacks, rugs, they all seem to have a home.
I mentioned I was going to count outlets and light switches, and I will do so. It's hard to be taken seriously by Mrs. A while walking around with a notepad making tally marks every 10 feet. She knows what I'm doing and it's frankly embarrassing for both of us, so I try to do it when no one's around.
37 power outlets on the first floor, not counting the garage or outside.
The photo staircase project is at an end. We had some 60+ black and white 5x7's that needed to be hung and hang them we did. Mrs. A did most of it, I was brought in for the top row. It's a stunning display.
I also got some chairs for the "media room" or "tv room" or whatever we're going to call it. They're red. Yeah I know, red furniture. Well poo poo convention, I say. Live large, live bold, buy red chairs. Mrs. A gave me free reign to furnish that room and I wanted something different. It'd mod, baby. It'll go great with my pinstripe suit and mascara. (Ok, too much Velvet Goldmine.)
We also got a dog house for Chimaera, after two horrendous rain storms. We're such good owners.
We also wadded through the morass that is the Home Owners Association documentation; a three ring binder divided into roughly 12 categories totaling over 500 pages. Most of it talked about who does what and where the money goes and office hours and locations and stuff. We were worried about the restrictions. Man, this reads like a manifesto of Eastern European origin. I realize it's just to cover basis and if you don't like it, you can leave, but man, they're talking about lawns in inches and hedges to exceed certain heights and you have to get approval to plant a tree and playscapes or trampolines must not be seen from the street and you can't leave a car on the road for more than 24 hours and on and on. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely street and I'm sure the neighbors are nice (we met one already, he seemed...excited) but when I was cutting the grass yesterday I felt like people were looking out their windows wondering why on Earth I hadn't hired a service.
But, no Tejano music at 1am, so that's good.
Oh, if anyone is good with Audio Video stuff, like specific hookups given a fixed number of components in order to make certain functions available, give me a shout. The red chair room is alive with cables.
This week is also Chicago, so we'll have pictures and such from the convention as well as surrounding attractions if time permits.
I mentioned I was going to count outlets and light switches, and I will do so. It's hard to be taken seriously by Mrs. A while walking around with a notepad making tally marks every 10 feet. She knows what I'm doing and it's frankly embarrassing for both of us, so I try to do it when no one's around.
37 power outlets on the first floor, not counting the garage or outside.
The photo staircase project is at an end. We had some 60+ black and white 5x7's that needed to be hung and hang them we did. Mrs. A did most of it, I was brought in for the top row. It's a stunning display.
I also got some chairs for the "media room" or "tv room" or whatever we're going to call it. They're red. Yeah I know, red furniture. Well poo poo convention, I say. Live large, live bold, buy red chairs. Mrs. A gave me free reign to furnish that room and I wanted something different. It'd mod, baby. It'll go great with my pinstripe suit and mascara. (Ok, too much Velvet Goldmine.)
We also got a dog house for Chimaera, after two horrendous rain storms. We're such good owners.
We also wadded through the morass that is the Home Owners Association documentation; a three ring binder divided into roughly 12 categories totaling over 500 pages. Most of it talked about who does what and where the money goes and office hours and locations and stuff. We were worried about the restrictions. Man, this reads like a manifesto of Eastern European origin. I realize it's just to cover basis and if you don't like it, you can leave, but man, they're talking about lawns in inches and hedges to exceed certain heights and you have to get approval to plant a tree and playscapes or trampolines must not be seen from the street and you can't leave a car on the road for more than 24 hours and on and on. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely street and I'm sure the neighbors are nice (we met one already, he seemed...excited) but when I was cutting the grass yesterday I felt like people were looking out their windows wondering why on Earth I hadn't hired a service.
But, no Tejano music at 1am, so that's good.
Oh, if anyone is good with Audio Video stuff, like specific hookups given a fixed number of components in order to make certain functions available, give me a shout. The red chair room is alive with cables.
This week is also Chicago, so we'll have pictures and such from the convention as well as surrounding attractions if time permits.
24.7.05
Move Over.
When we last left our team, they were on the brink of devastation. Time and options running out, funds depleted, hope lost.
Or was it?
Our intrepid family never gave up the fight. Rather, they soldiered on, remaining stoic, agile, adaptive and patient. In the end, triumph would shower its splendor on the family and once again prove that good things happen to good people.
Yes, we have our new house.
Things did not go as smooth as we'd hoped, but it is now the Sunday following and we have a great deal unpacked and tomorrow starts our lives again from our shiny new domicile.
As our regular readers already know, Tuesday was stressful. It was the day before closing and we didn't have a number to put on a check to bring to the meeting to pay for the house. The story about Mrs. A's brother and his wife waiting in front of the bank the day of the closing would come to pass for us as well. On Tuesday it was told to us that we'd have to push closing back a couple days, maybe even next week. On Wednesday we were a wreck because all our utilities were switching over and the new people would be in our house on Friday. More on that later.
So on Wednesday I get a call from Mrs. A saying we have to be ready at a moment's notice because we may very well be closing today, but we still don't have a number. After asking if she should just bring her cell phone and wait in front of the bank for the call, Mrs. A was told that wouldn't be a bad idea. For real. These people do this for a living. So 30 minutes before close, they call her and say just bring X amount and the title company will cut you a check for whatever amount over you've paid.
That's right. Change. We got change for our purchase, like we were at Diamond Shamrock buying a Watchamacalit and a bottle of Disani.
Anyway, so Mrs. A has some bank problems on top of that, namely that the amount she required needs a manager's approval and the manager wasn't going to be back until 2:30, half hour after our close. So we ending up getting two checks to break it up so the teller could do it sans approval.
10 minutes to close.
Mrs. A drives as fast as she can to close and when we get there, there's our broker and realtor ready to go, but not the title company. They're still getting things ready. So the broker checks her watch and announces that she can't really wait, she's got to get back to her office so she starts the proceedings.
I'd like to take a break and talk about these two people. First, the realtor was a very nice guy. He did a lot of back and forth and helped us out a lot when we knew nothing about our situation. Toward the end, he went to bat for us quite a bit and got lower prices when needed and dates extended if we were having problems. The broker is a lady we've worked with before, and will again. I think the problems from this go 'round stemmed not from her actions but that of an associate who handled our case right up until the end. At the end, she took the time to come to closing, knocked a bunch of stuff off, waved a bunch of fees and said that when we refinanced she'd do it for free. It almost felt like she was trying to cover for some mistakes that were made.
Because let's face it, if two months isn't enough time to shop around for a lender and insurance and get a good rate locked in, then I'm in the wrong line of work.
So we sign all the papers, but no key. The key is still in the hands of the owners. But we'll get back to that. Time for the big move.
The movers show up at 9:07 am on Thursday, July 21st. We have exactly that day to be completely out of the house, hence the hiring of a moving company. We figure with all the house packed and moved into the garage and most of the furniture already broken down, the move should take maybe 4-5 hours. I'm surprised we thought that. We've done this before and it takes days. That's why you rent a U-Haul for the weekend. Actually, it probably wouldn't have taken that long, but we ran into trouble. The new house people were still in their house. They had to wait for the closing to get money for their new place, so they waited till the 21st as well. Their movers got there at 7, which meant, and they said as much, they'd be out before noon.
Well, everyone was behind a bit. By 11:30 we had our first truck load ready, but the new house wasn't vacant, so we sent the movers to lunch. We had lunch as well then went back to clean a little. At about 1:30 we checked the new house, there was no one in it, but no key and there was a handful of stuff inside. A call to the realtor and he pauses for a moment as says, "You know what? The accounts funded, it's your house now. Do whatever you want. You don't have to wait for that guy." So we were going to have the realtor come out and give us a key when the old owner showed up with his cleaning crew. He was an ok dude I guess, a bit removed and stuffy, but decent. He showed us the speaker system in the house and had some diagrams drawn up for the hookups. Left the garage door openers and all the HOA and manuals in a drawer, like you do. We did the same thing, we left keys, openers, hardwood cleaner, oh and some trash.
But we'll get back to that.
So we unload the first load and head back to get the second, which is all boxes this time. On the estimate, Mrs. A said we had 100 boxes, because really, after about 40-50, who's counting anymore. The moving guys say they stopped counting at 250. So, we're going to get charged more. That's fine. Plus we didn't mention the trampoline, the 2nd fridge, the freezer and a host of other smaller bits. But the movers were great guys, totally took it in stride and were very polite the entire day.
Second load done, movers are sent home. It's about 6pm. There is still a half of a garage full of things at the old house that I have to go back for and fit into one of our SUVs. I get one load done before I'm completely exhausted and have to call it a day. The next morning we get coffee and Mrs. A takes the kids to school while I get the remaining items, including a 3' x 4' x 4' work bench and tool hanging board. Somehow I managed to get all of it into the car. We leave behind two very full trash cans, about 15 flattened empty boxes and a shelf that we didn't want in the garage. The house itself is immaculate inside.
Finally done. All items in the new house, in the garage or in some cars. We give the new owners a call to say congratulations, if you have any questions call us, hope your move is going well. They try to give us the "well you weren't out by the 21st so we're only going to give you $900 of your $1000 deposit back" at which point Mrs. A says, "What are you talking about? We were out last night? You guys aren't moving in yet?" Totally snows him. She's great.
So we're in the new place. First off, there's no gas yet. We don't know this until last night when we're trying to make dinner and the range just clicks repeatedly with no fwoomp sound. Gas company's closed on Sunday unless it's an emergency, so we're fucked for a hot shower until Monday. So Mrs. A calls up and says she tried the stove and saw a shimmer in the air like a puff of gas, but there's no ignition and she's worried. Hey, sudden emergency. Sunday a guy comes out and sets us up.
That wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest issue, the most stress inducing event came from the cable install. First off, the cable company has contractors that do the installations. Not all the time, but some times. Enough that you know it works like that. So our install guy comes out between 8 and 12 on the day of the move, calls first, and we say go ahead if the people moving out will let you in.
They won't, assholes. So he has to come back later when his route is done. He does, works till about 9pm and has to call it a day and come back tomorrow.
Now, when you leave a job and it isn't finished, when do you think you should start on in the next day? Right away or after your shift? I know how these guys work and they put all their crap jobs at the end of the day so they have good numbers for installs. That way they can push off all the problem children till later and still make good numbers. But that's a weird line of work and I'm glad the rest of the world doesn't work like that. "Sorry boss, I know I didn't finish that heart surgery before 5, but I'll get to it first thing tomorrow, after I do 3 kidneys, a bladder and a liver."
So the guys comes back out on Friday in the evening and tries again to get all our stuff hooked up. It's really becoming obvious there's something going on that's preventing him from finishing his job. Either we have the most fucked up pre-wired cable system in the western world or this guy's a giant mook brain. Mrs. A is getting pissed because every hour she's not online she's losing money. She just sent out emails to brides and they have no way to contact her. Her brother was nice enough to put our web server on his network so her site stayed up, but no email. She was getting really out of sorts.
So they tech wraps up Friday saying we have a few options, blah blah blah, he can't make what we want work, even though the previous owners apparently had no problems with it. We say we'll take option A, whatever it was, and he says he'll be back out tomorrow with the needed equipment for that plus his supervisor to assist. So goes another night without access for poor Mrs. A whose about to come unglued. Luckily we had some company and some liquor so she was ok for a while.
Saturday comes around and about noon or so the supervisor shows up and inside of about 15 minutes figures out the problem and in about an hour has us up and running. He does mention that there were a lot of problems and a lot of splits that were screwing up the signal and what not, but I'm still convinced the first guy didn't know beans from bollo ties when it came to cable.
But, we got access, she got her server back, we got it up last night and set the rest of the home LAN up this morning. It's like it was at the old house.
I know, that doesn't really give you an idea of what the house is like, but be patient. It's not like we're moving soon, we've got a 30 year mortage to pay for. I will say that we got the space we wanted and needed and everything just seems to fit really well. Tomorrow after work, Lil Miss Austin and I are going to walk around the house counting light switches, cuz there's a freakin ton of them.
Or was it?
Our intrepid family never gave up the fight. Rather, they soldiered on, remaining stoic, agile, adaptive and patient. In the end, triumph would shower its splendor on the family and once again prove that good things happen to good people.
Yes, we have our new house.
Things did not go as smooth as we'd hoped, but it is now the Sunday following and we have a great deal unpacked and tomorrow starts our lives again from our shiny new domicile.
As our regular readers already know, Tuesday was stressful. It was the day before closing and we didn't have a number to put on a check to bring to the meeting to pay for the house. The story about Mrs. A's brother and his wife waiting in front of the bank the day of the closing would come to pass for us as well. On Tuesday it was told to us that we'd have to push closing back a couple days, maybe even next week. On Wednesday we were a wreck because all our utilities were switching over and the new people would be in our house on Friday. More on that later.
So on Wednesday I get a call from Mrs. A saying we have to be ready at a moment's notice because we may very well be closing today, but we still don't have a number. After asking if she should just bring her cell phone and wait in front of the bank for the call, Mrs. A was told that wouldn't be a bad idea. For real. These people do this for a living. So 30 minutes before close, they call her and say just bring X amount and the title company will cut you a check for whatever amount over you've paid.
That's right. Change. We got change for our purchase, like we were at Diamond Shamrock buying a Watchamacalit and a bottle of Disani.
Anyway, so Mrs. A has some bank problems on top of that, namely that the amount she required needs a manager's approval and the manager wasn't going to be back until 2:30, half hour after our close. So we ending up getting two checks to break it up so the teller could do it sans approval.
10 minutes to close.
Mrs. A drives as fast as she can to close and when we get there, there's our broker and realtor ready to go, but not the title company. They're still getting things ready. So the broker checks her watch and announces that she can't really wait, she's got to get back to her office so she starts the proceedings.
I'd like to take a break and talk about these two people. First, the realtor was a very nice guy. He did a lot of back and forth and helped us out a lot when we knew nothing about our situation. Toward the end, he went to bat for us quite a bit and got lower prices when needed and dates extended if we were having problems. The broker is a lady we've worked with before, and will again. I think the problems from this go 'round stemmed not from her actions but that of an associate who handled our case right up until the end. At the end, she took the time to come to closing, knocked a bunch of stuff off, waved a bunch of fees and said that when we refinanced she'd do it for free. It almost felt like she was trying to cover for some mistakes that were made.
Because let's face it, if two months isn't enough time to shop around for a lender and insurance and get a good rate locked in, then I'm in the wrong line of work.
So we sign all the papers, but no key. The key is still in the hands of the owners. But we'll get back to that. Time for the big move.
The movers show up at 9:07 am on Thursday, July 21st. We have exactly that day to be completely out of the house, hence the hiring of a moving company. We figure with all the house packed and moved into the garage and most of the furniture already broken down, the move should take maybe 4-5 hours. I'm surprised we thought that. We've done this before and it takes days. That's why you rent a U-Haul for the weekend. Actually, it probably wouldn't have taken that long, but we ran into trouble. The new house people were still in their house. They had to wait for the closing to get money for their new place, so they waited till the 21st as well. Their movers got there at 7, which meant, and they said as much, they'd be out before noon.
Well, everyone was behind a bit. By 11:30 we had our first truck load ready, but the new house wasn't vacant, so we sent the movers to lunch. We had lunch as well then went back to clean a little. At about 1:30 we checked the new house, there was no one in it, but no key and there was a handful of stuff inside. A call to the realtor and he pauses for a moment as says, "You know what? The accounts funded, it's your house now. Do whatever you want. You don't have to wait for that guy." So we were going to have the realtor come out and give us a key when the old owner showed up with his cleaning crew. He was an ok dude I guess, a bit removed and stuffy, but decent. He showed us the speaker system in the house and had some diagrams drawn up for the hookups. Left the garage door openers and all the HOA and manuals in a drawer, like you do. We did the same thing, we left keys, openers, hardwood cleaner, oh and some trash.
But we'll get back to that.
So we unload the first load and head back to get the second, which is all boxes this time. On the estimate, Mrs. A said we had 100 boxes, because really, after about 40-50, who's counting anymore. The moving guys say they stopped counting at 250. So, we're going to get charged more. That's fine. Plus we didn't mention the trampoline, the 2nd fridge, the freezer and a host of other smaller bits. But the movers were great guys, totally took it in stride and were very polite the entire day.
Second load done, movers are sent home. It's about 6pm. There is still a half of a garage full of things at the old house that I have to go back for and fit into one of our SUVs. I get one load done before I'm completely exhausted and have to call it a day. The next morning we get coffee and Mrs. A takes the kids to school while I get the remaining items, including a 3' x 4' x 4' work bench and tool hanging board. Somehow I managed to get all of it into the car. We leave behind two very full trash cans, about 15 flattened empty boxes and a shelf that we didn't want in the garage. The house itself is immaculate inside.
Finally done. All items in the new house, in the garage or in some cars. We give the new owners a call to say congratulations, if you have any questions call us, hope your move is going well. They try to give us the "well you weren't out by the 21st so we're only going to give you $900 of your $1000 deposit back" at which point Mrs. A says, "What are you talking about? We were out last night? You guys aren't moving in yet?" Totally snows him. She's great.
So we're in the new place. First off, there's no gas yet. We don't know this until last night when we're trying to make dinner and the range just clicks repeatedly with no fwoomp sound. Gas company's closed on Sunday unless it's an emergency, so we're fucked for a hot shower until Monday. So Mrs. A calls up and says she tried the stove and saw a shimmer in the air like a puff of gas, but there's no ignition and she's worried. Hey, sudden emergency. Sunday a guy comes out and sets us up.
That wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest issue, the most stress inducing event came from the cable install. First off, the cable company has contractors that do the installations. Not all the time, but some times. Enough that you know it works like that. So our install guy comes out between 8 and 12 on the day of the move, calls first, and we say go ahead if the people moving out will let you in.
They won't, assholes. So he has to come back later when his route is done. He does, works till about 9pm and has to call it a day and come back tomorrow.
Now, when you leave a job and it isn't finished, when do you think you should start on in the next day? Right away or after your shift? I know how these guys work and they put all their crap jobs at the end of the day so they have good numbers for installs. That way they can push off all the problem children till later and still make good numbers. But that's a weird line of work and I'm glad the rest of the world doesn't work like that. "Sorry boss, I know I didn't finish that heart surgery before 5, but I'll get to it first thing tomorrow, after I do 3 kidneys, a bladder and a liver."
So the guys comes back out on Friday in the evening and tries again to get all our stuff hooked up. It's really becoming obvious there's something going on that's preventing him from finishing his job. Either we have the most fucked up pre-wired cable system in the western world or this guy's a giant mook brain. Mrs. A is getting pissed because every hour she's not online she's losing money. She just sent out emails to brides and they have no way to contact her. Her brother was nice enough to put our web server on his network so her site stayed up, but no email. She was getting really out of sorts.
So they tech wraps up Friday saying we have a few options, blah blah blah, he can't make what we want work, even though the previous owners apparently had no problems with it. We say we'll take option A, whatever it was, and he says he'll be back out tomorrow with the needed equipment for that plus his supervisor to assist. So goes another night without access for poor Mrs. A whose about to come unglued. Luckily we had some company and some liquor so she was ok for a while.
Saturday comes around and about noon or so the supervisor shows up and inside of about 15 minutes figures out the problem and in about an hour has us up and running. He does mention that there were a lot of problems and a lot of splits that were screwing up the signal and what not, but I'm still convinced the first guy didn't know beans from bollo ties when it came to cable.
But, we got access, she got her server back, we got it up last night and set the rest of the home LAN up this morning. It's like it was at the old house.
I know, that doesn't really give you an idea of what the house is like, but be patient. It's not like we're moving soon, we've got a 30 year mortage to pay for. I will say that we got the space we wanted and needed and everything just seems to fit really well. Tomorrow after work, Lil Miss Austin and I are going to walk around the house counting light switches, cuz there's a freakin ton of them.
19.7.05
It can happen to you.
My brother in law and his wife recently moved into a new house. They moved about 3-4 months ago. They told us horror stories about sitting out in front of their bank mere hours before closing, waiting for the call from the mortage company to give them their closing number. They were on the phone with them that morning while the company said they were still working the numbers.
Oh my god, we exclaimed. That's horrible. I bet that was totally stressful. That company is a bunch of jerkholes.
Yes, don't use them.
Now it's our turn. Our house sold in less than 12 hours, we got full price and the buyers were already approved. The place we were buying was priced to sell and was not taking contigency offers. They wanted to move and move quickly. We'd been house hunting for 3 months previous and had already started working with the mortgage company two months before even finding a house.
It is now less than 24 hours from our appointed closing time and our mortage lender hasn't given us a number. You heard right. They've had almost two months to work on this and yet it's the 11th hour and still no official number. Well, there is a number, but it changes with the wind and could threaten to push our closing date back a day or more.
Our utlities will be cut off in two days. Our phone number will change. Our mail will go to the new house. There will be cable and phone people at the new house in two days. We will have movers at the old house at 9am on Thursday. Our temporary lease to the new buyers runs out on the 21st.
And the mortgage company doesn't have a number for us.
Our entire house is in the garage or in boxes.
And the mortgage company doesn't have a number for us.
Apparently, our PMI has changed. Mortgage insurance. It's changed. What they thought it was, isn't. It's going to be more. More. On the day before closing it jumped by $200, making our mortgage exceed the limit of our income just enough to where we can still afford it, but only if we don't eat.
I'm super pissed. Mrs. A is sick on top of all of this. These guys had two months. We gave them everything they asked for within 12 hours of them asking. Sometimes on the same day. We were originally going to close on June 30th, shouldn't they have been ready by then?
This whole process has been one big clusterfuck. We waited and waited and waited for various parties to contact us with anything they'd need; paperwork, signatures, deposits. All we asked is that they keep us informed. I feel like no one in this situation has had our best interest at heart, they only want their points or percentage or money.
Had our realtor told us that our buyers had already closed, we could have told the mortgage company and got them to start sooner. Had the mortgage company asked for all the paperwork they needed up front instead of one piece every week for 5 weeks, they'd be done by now. Aren't we paying these guys? Aren't we giving them several hundred to several thousand dollars to make this work? We have decent credit, we pay our bills on time, we only have one paid off credit card. We own a home, we make good money. Why is this so fucking difficult to figure out?
It's the DAY BEFORE CLOSING!!! We're sitting in front of a bank waiting for you to call and give us a number, the number you said you'd have a month ago. Not a number that's three times what you promised us, not a number as we walk into the title company office. What's wrong with you people?
If I did my job like this, I'd be fired.
And I can't understand it. The first time we bought a house, it was a snap. Loan went through great. We got an awesome rate, all we had to do was fix a few things on our credit. So now, we've had a mortgage for three years AND have fixed part of our credit and yet we're having problems. So, the next time (and trust me, there won't fucking be a next time) my guess is that we'll have owned the home for 20-30 years and refinanced or paid it off and we'll go to buy a boat and it'll take 7 years to get a loan and it'll cost 175,000 dollars. That's apparently how the system works. The more you work, the harder you have to work next time.
Sunsabitches!
Oh my god, we exclaimed. That's horrible. I bet that was totally stressful. That company is a bunch of jerkholes.
Yes, don't use them.
Now it's our turn. Our house sold in less than 12 hours, we got full price and the buyers were already approved. The place we were buying was priced to sell and was not taking contigency offers. They wanted to move and move quickly. We'd been house hunting for 3 months previous and had already started working with the mortgage company two months before even finding a house.
It is now less than 24 hours from our appointed closing time and our mortage lender hasn't given us a number. You heard right. They've had almost two months to work on this and yet it's the 11th hour and still no official number. Well, there is a number, but it changes with the wind and could threaten to push our closing date back a day or more.
Our utlities will be cut off in two days. Our phone number will change. Our mail will go to the new house. There will be cable and phone people at the new house in two days. We will have movers at the old house at 9am on Thursday. Our temporary lease to the new buyers runs out on the 21st.
And the mortgage company doesn't have a number for us.
Our entire house is in the garage or in boxes.
And the mortgage company doesn't have a number for us.
Apparently, our PMI has changed. Mortgage insurance. It's changed. What they thought it was, isn't. It's going to be more. More. On the day before closing it jumped by $200, making our mortgage exceed the limit of our income just enough to where we can still afford it, but only if we don't eat.
I'm super pissed. Mrs. A is sick on top of all of this. These guys had two months. We gave them everything they asked for within 12 hours of them asking. Sometimes on the same day. We were originally going to close on June 30th, shouldn't they have been ready by then?
This whole process has been one big clusterfuck. We waited and waited and waited for various parties to contact us with anything they'd need; paperwork, signatures, deposits. All we asked is that they keep us informed. I feel like no one in this situation has had our best interest at heart, they only want their points or percentage or money.
Had our realtor told us that our buyers had already closed, we could have told the mortgage company and got them to start sooner. Had the mortgage company asked for all the paperwork they needed up front instead of one piece every week for 5 weeks, they'd be done by now. Aren't we paying these guys? Aren't we giving them several hundred to several thousand dollars to make this work? We have decent credit, we pay our bills on time, we only have one paid off credit card. We own a home, we make good money. Why is this so fucking difficult to figure out?
It's the DAY BEFORE CLOSING!!! We're sitting in front of a bank waiting for you to call and give us a number, the number you said you'd have a month ago. Not a number that's three times what you promised us, not a number as we walk into the title company office. What's wrong with you people?
If I did my job like this, I'd be fired.
And I can't understand it. The first time we bought a house, it was a snap. Loan went through great. We got an awesome rate, all we had to do was fix a few things on our credit. So now, we've had a mortgage for three years AND have fixed part of our credit and yet we're having problems. So, the next time (and trust me, there won't fucking be a next time) my guess is that we'll have owned the home for 20-30 years and refinanced or paid it off and we'll go to buy a boat and it'll take 7 years to get a loan and it'll cost 175,000 dollars. That's apparently how the system works. The more you work, the harder you have to work next time.
Sunsabitches!
14.7.05
Geek Stuff
First, I had a shirt design approved to be voted on over at threadless.com.
Next, I did some coloring for a shirt for the guys at Poorboy Comics. They should be selling them at San Diego Comic Con. You can see that here.
Next I got all my stickers and shirts in the mail for the Chicago convention. If you'd like a Polaris Comics shirt or a Project: Gemini shirt, please go here.
Finally my comic is completely drawn. I need to letter it and do a cover. Then print. I'm pretty psyched but I'm not out of the woods yet.
Carry on.
Next, I did some coloring for a shirt for the guys at Poorboy Comics. They should be selling them at San Diego Comic Con. You can see that here.
Next I got all my stickers and shirts in the mail for the Chicago convention. If you'd like a Polaris Comics shirt or a Project: Gemini shirt, please go here.
Finally my comic is completely drawn. I need to letter it and do a cover. Then print. I'm pretty psyched but I'm not out of the woods yet.
Carry on.
6.7.05
OLN
It's that time of year again, when addicts like me tune to cable channel 470 to watch the Tour de France. I love the Tour, I've been a fan since Jr. High School. In high school I did some training with the idea that I'd try out for the University of Colorado cycling team. My heros back in the day were Greg Lemond and Stephen Roche. I've always know about Miguel Indurain and Jan Ullric (von Lichtenstein) and I'm pretty sure I remember hearing about Lance Armstrong even then. CU is in Boulder, CO and is a prime mountain training area for world class cyclists. Moving to Austin and hearing he was a local boy, I was a bit torn. I thought he was local to Colorado. Maybe somewhere, a small city in Idaho also claims him as their own.
At any rate, it's that time of year again for OLN to gain a marked increase in viewership for a couple weeks. I love watching cycling and always have, but it's like having a love for rugby or jai-alai or fencing, it's just not something the average joe sports fan is rabid about in the States, unless you're from Austin.
There are Go Lance tags all over the roads here. The yellow wristband is an epidemic, was since this time last year. You can't go 10 feet without hearing news about Lance, not The Tour, but Lance. I'd like to know who won each stage, who's wearing the white, green and polka-dot jersey, not just the yellow. I want to watch each stage unfold. I want to watch the heartbreaks and triumphs and falls and sprints. I want to see the speedy time trials with the post modern futuristic helmets. I want to see the peleton swallow up the leaders.
I don't want News 8 Austin and NPR to give away the endings before I can get home to watch it. Time delay or not, people, there are fans that would like to watch this stuff. Talk about it tomorrow.
So anway, the viewing in our house now is OLN and Futurama and that's about it. Besides, I should be drawing.
Page 15 is done.
At any rate, it's that time of year again for OLN to gain a marked increase in viewership for a couple weeks. I love watching cycling and always have, but it's like having a love for rugby or jai-alai or fencing, it's just not something the average joe sports fan is rabid about in the States, unless you're from Austin.
There are Go Lance tags all over the roads here. The yellow wristband is an epidemic, was since this time last year. You can't go 10 feet without hearing news about Lance, not The Tour, but Lance. I'd like to know who won each stage, who's wearing the white, green and polka-dot jersey, not just the yellow. I want to watch each stage unfold. I want to watch the heartbreaks and triumphs and falls and sprints. I want to see the speedy time trials with the post modern futuristic helmets. I want to see the peleton swallow up the leaders.
I don't want News 8 Austin and NPR to give away the endings before I can get home to watch it. Time delay or not, people, there are fans that would like to watch this stuff. Talk about it tomorrow.
So anway, the viewing in our house now is OLN and Futurama and that's about it. Besides, I should be drawing.
Page 15 is done.
5.7.05
Happy Birthday, America!
My brother turns 29 and the country turns 229. Isn't that weird.
Little story about my brother and America. He was born on June 29th, 1976. Bicentennial Baby. If I remember correctly, his due date was July 4th, 1976. I don't think he would have gone through life without any ass-kickings had he been born on that date, but damn that would have been cool.
This is all heresay because I was just turning 3 myself so what do I know. I'm pretty sure my mom (if she'd ever comment on this) would set the record straight. I know I was supposed to be born in August but came out about five weeks early weighing in at a scrawny 5 lbs. 6 oz.
So, it's America's birthday. I'm writing this a day later, but you get the idea. Last night was the first night in a long time that Mrs. A and I didn't have to call the cops because our neighbors were firing off firecrackers at two in the morning. In fact, it was a relatively calm evening. Kids went to sleep pretty well, dog didn't freak out. There were a few pops and what not, but overall I think it was quiet by about 10:30. Mrs. A had a wicked headache, but after some drugs and some readin' to, she passed out. And, AND, Yogi slept all through the night!
I thought he was dead.
Most parents do that. First time a baby sleeps through the night when they're infants especially, you get that mindset in the morning of, "Oh, God! They've got a blanket wrapped around their head!" Now it's just a relief. He's over a year old and the likelihood of him not being able to breath is greatly reduced, so it's a blessing and nothing to panic over. In fact, tonight he'll wake up at 2am again.
Last night was also the first time in a long time that we actually had fireworks to light ourselves. Yes, they were sparklers. Yes we got some pictures. Yes someone got burned a little. I remember back to my days as a kid when dad would come home with a box of stuff from across the county line and we'd spend the evening in the backyard with the black cats, bottle rockets, sparkler tanks, pinwheels, roman candles, smoke worms and punks. We'd have a few friends or family over and do a bar-b-que or order pizza and just have a blast, pun intended.
The height of the gun powder frenzy was the pop-bottle rocket fights I'd have with my friends when we were in high school. We'd stand in the cul-du-sac and light a PBR and wait till the fuse was almost out, then we'd throw it at a friend. Ah, yes. Nothing like the possibility of digit loss or blindness to make an afternoon more enjoyable. We had a neighbor when I was growing up that made his own fireworks. Everyone had this guy as a neighbor growing up. He had 7 fingers, a but of pet turtles and snakes. He invented a lot of things. He also had a pick-up truck and smelled of tobacco and dirt. He had a great backyard, very lush and jungular. Anyway, he'd always put on a great show. But the 7 fingers is why Mrs. Austin won't let me play with fireworks now. Even though I'd never actually deal directly with powder and fuse assembly, the danger of blowing my hand off or one of the kids eyes out is just too much.
I'd love to find a friend who owns a farm. I had a friend in CO who lived occassionally with his grandma on the family farm and we'd go up on the 4th to have a bon fire and dinner and firework shooting party. Man that was great. That was in college when we could drink too.
I'm making a great case for myself, aren't I? Drinking and blowing your fingers off. Yee haw!
Little story about my brother and America. He was born on June 29th, 1976. Bicentennial Baby. If I remember correctly, his due date was July 4th, 1976. I don't think he would have gone through life without any ass-kickings had he been born on that date, but damn that would have been cool.
This is all heresay because I was just turning 3 myself so what do I know. I'm pretty sure my mom (if she'd ever comment on this) would set the record straight. I know I was supposed to be born in August but came out about five weeks early weighing in at a scrawny 5 lbs. 6 oz.
So, it's America's birthday. I'm writing this a day later, but you get the idea. Last night was the first night in a long time that Mrs. A and I didn't have to call the cops because our neighbors were firing off firecrackers at two in the morning. In fact, it was a relatively calm evening. Kids went to sleep pretty well, dog didn't freak out. There were a few pops and what not, but overall I think it was quiet by about 10:30. Mrs. A had a wicked headache, but after some drugs and some readin' to, she passed out. And, AND, Yogi slept all through the night!
I thought he was dead.
Most parents do that. First time a baby sleeps through the night when they're infants especially, you get that mindset in the morning of, "Oh, God! They've got a blanket wrapped around their head!" Now it's just a relief. He's over a year old and the likelihood of him not being able to breath is greatly reduced, so it's a blessing and nothing to panic over. In fact, tonight he'll wake up at 2am again.
Last night was also the first time in a long time that we actually had fireworks to light ourselves. Yes, they were sparklers. Yes we got some pictures. Yes someone got burned a little. I remember back to my days as a kid when dad would come home with a box of stuff from across the county line and we'd spend the evening in the backyard with the black cats, bottle rockets, sparkler tanks, pinwheels, roman candles, smoke worms and punks. We'd have a few friends or family over and do a bar-b-que or order pizza and just have a blast, pun intended.
The height of the gun powder frenzy was the pop-bottle rocket fights I'd have with my friends when we were in high school. We'd stand in the cul-du-sac and light a PBR and wait till the fuse was almost out, then we'd throw it at a friend. Ah, yes. Nothing like the possibility of digit loss or blindness to make an afternoon more enjoyable. We had a neighbor when I was growing up that made his own fireworks. Everyone had this guy as a neighbor growing up. He had 7 fingers, a but of pet turtles and snakes. He invented a lot of things. He also had a pick-up truck and smelled of tobacco and dirt. He had a great backyard, very lush and jungular. Anyway, he'd always put on a great show. But the 7 fingers is why Mrs. Austin won't let me play with fireworks now. Even though I'd never actually deal directly with powder and fuse assembly, the danger of blowing my hand off or one of the kids eyes out is just too much.
I'd love to find a friend who owns a farm. I had a friend in CO who lived occassionally with his grandma on the family farm and we'd go up on the 4th to have a bon fire and dinner and firework shooting party. Man that was great. That was in college when we could drink too.
I'm making a great case for myself, aren't I? Drinking and blowing your fingers off. Yee haw!
29.6.05
Happy Birthday, Joe!
My brother Joe, or Mr. Denver or Manservant Hecubus, turns an unspecified age today. Let's just say it's not quite 30.
So on this day, please join me in wishing him the best. We'll raise one for ya, mon frère.
So on this day, please join me in wishing him the best. We'll raise one for ya, mon frère.
28.6.05
Hallelujah
I don't plug places very often. If I deem it worth my time, it'd be part of the links section. However, my Livejournal page and my comics page all have different links catered to the type of viewer I think will be trapsing across the cyberwalk.
Anyway, I've read PVP for a good many moons. Scott Kurtz is in Dallas, so there's some sort of weird "I have to put up with it too" feeling, even though I know him not, and he knows me less. His stuff always makes me chuckle.
Add it to your bookmarks, haters.
27.6.05
Arkham Asylum
So I sat down to write about how crazy it's been here the past week, how everyone is sick and tired and overworked and crabby and in serious need of a break, then I read back a few paragraphs and realized I sounded like a complete ass and I'm pretty sure no one wants to read Life In Assville.
So with my malicious diatribe behind me I can focus on things of a more banal nature; just the facts, ma'am.
Fact one: This house is bat-shit crazy. I mean it. I know my parents moved from a duplex to a house when I was about four and my brother was one. What the hell were you guys thinking? This is complete and utter, gibbering monkey, fiddling fish, insanity. So...so you know what I did to help matters? I built a fort. That's right, a fort for Lil Miss Austin. Seemed like a good idea at the time. She was sick and had to stay home so I built her a little fort with blankets and chairs. THAT WAS THREE DAYS AGO! For some reason, the fort has yet to be taken down. You know why? If I do, she'll cry until she's twelve and I can't take anymore crying. So, the fort stays up until the Mexicans come after our canon.
Fact two: This house is sold. We signed the papers today. We're officially homeless. We paid the new owners the lease money and we will close on our new house n the 20th of July and move the following weekend. No more lock box, no more sign out front, no more trying to keep the place liveable. It's moving time. The boxes have been broken out and taped up. The items that haven't been touched in a year are shivering with anticipation at being kept in a warm box in the garage for another month. My Legos are going to kill me.
Fact three: This house is one sick puppy. Just when we think we've seen the end of the Stomach Bug that Ate Cleveland, I get it. Friday night, at the movies with Mrs. Austin, I start to feel like Violet Beauregarde. Could it have been the soda and licorice combination? Surely not. I know, I'll spend 2 days in the john just to test my theory. Ah HA! Stomach Flu! Brilliant! So I walked around like a zombie for two days. Yogi cried incessantly, LMA flamed on with a week's worth of fevers and now Mrs. A's stomach is starting to cramp. I've already emailed HR explaining that there's little I can do with sick kids when daycare won't take them, luckily they're very understanding.
Fact four: This house is busy. Did I mention we're packing? And hosting a couple sick parasites disquised as children? Well, we're also drawing slowly for a convention in just over a month and staying up with tech support till 3am fixing new laptops and almost losing months of art and photos. I told Mrs. Austin that I would feel much better offloading all this hosting stuff to a company. I mean, it was cool and all when I could say, "Yeah I have my own web server." But let's face it, I did very little work to set it up, and I've done even less work to keep them running. I don't know enough to make her business run the way she wants. I don't even know enough to allow one machine to talk to the other for more than a day. Plus her laptops just aren't working. (That's right. Plural. She bought another refurb to replace the damaged one. It's a business tool, not a plaything. Unfortunately.)
Did I mention I did away with the old entry for this one? I must have been crazy.
So with my malicious diatribe behind me I can focus on things of a more banal nature; just the facts, ma'am.
Fact one: This house is bat-shit crazy. I mean it. I know my parents moved from a duplex to a house when I was about four and my brother was one. What the hell were you guys thinking? This is complete and utter, gibbering monkey, fiddling fish, insanity. So...so you know what I did to help matters? I built a fort. That's right, a fort for Lil Miss Austin. Seemed like a good idea at the time. She was sick and had to stay home so I built her a little fort with blankets and chairs. THAT WAS THREE DAYS AGO! For some reason, the fort has yet to be taken down. You know why? If I do, she'll cry until she's twelve and I can't take anymore crying. So, the fort stays up until the Mexicans come after our canon.
Fact two: This house is sold. We signed the papers today. We're officially homeless. We paid the new owners the lease money and we will close on our new house n the 20th of July and move the following weekend. No more lock box, no more sign out front, no more trying to keep the place liveable. It's moving time. The boxes have been broken out and taped up. The items that haven't been touched in a year are shivering with anticipation at being kept in a warm box in the garage for another month. My Legos are going to kill me.
Fact three: This house is one sick puppy. Just when we think we've seen the end of the Stomach Bug that Ate Cleveland, I get it. Friday night, at the movies with Mrs. Austin, I start to feel like Violet Beauregarde. Could it have been the soda and licorice combination? Surely not. I know, I'll spend 2 days in the john just to test my theory. Ah HA! Stomach Flu! Brilliant! So I walked around like a zombie for two days. Yogi cried incessantly, LMA flamed on with a week's worth of fevers and now Mrs. A's stomach is starting to cramp. I've already emailed HR explaining that there's little I can do with sick kids when daycare won't take them, luckily they're very understanding.
Fact four: This house is busy. Did I mention we're packing? And hosting a couple sick parasites disquised as children? Well, we're also drawing slowly for a convention in just over a month and staying up with tech support till 3am fixing new laptops and almost losing months of art and photos. I told Mrs. Austin that I would feel much better offloading all this hosting stuff to a company. I mean, it was cool and all when I could say, "Yeah I have my own web server." But let's face it, I did very little work to set it up, and I've done even less work to keep them running. I don't know enough to make her business run the way she wants. I don't even know enough to allow one machine to talk to the other for more than a day. Plus her laptops just aren't working. (That's right. Plural. She bought another refurb to replace the damaged one. It's a business tool, not a plaything. Unfortunately.)
Did I mention I did away with the old entry for this one? I must have been crazy.
22.6.05
The Good, The Bad and The Sick.
Have some slices of life.
There is a mechanism in your brain that shuts off all voluntary muscle activity when you sleep. It’s to prevent you from hurting yourself when you dream. Your body and brain apparently haven’t worked out that signals sent from the brain during sleep shouldn’t be interpreted, so nature created this stop gap.
This manifests most commonly when you wake from a nightmare and can’t move. It’s not because you’re paralyzed with fear, but that your brain forgot to turn the body back on. It’s also not entirely full proof and occasionally you can tell when your dream state performs a physical action and your body responds, usually jarring you awake.
As you get older, this mechanism, like all others, breaks down. Some of the most common injuries of elderly women are due to their husbands reliving a wartime scenario in their dreams and acting them out on their sleeping spouses. It’s pretty frightening and wonderfully intriguing at the same time. Not the old wife beating part, but the part about the brain having this valve to activity in the first place.
Why all the info? Well, my switch was left in the on position the other night when I was having a dream about adopting a new dog. All I remember is the dog running up to me and me giving it a good lovin’ on it’s head; i.e. furious petting and scratching. The next thing I know, Mrs. A is shouting, “Get the fuck off me! What am I a dog?!”
Uh, well, you were for a split second.
There is a new trend now for grease monkeys to hawk their trade on busy thoroughfares, waving, giving thumbs up, and carrying balloons. (Incidentally, do you actually carry balloons? Aren’t you really restraining them?)
Anyway, there they are, always happy at 7am to stand under your dirty car, pumping it full of fluids and lubricant. I’ve written about this already, so I won’t delve to far.
The fact of the matter is, I drive by one on my everyday route to take Lil Miss Austin to school. I almost wrecked the car when I saw a cardboard cutout of Chewbacca holding up the sign and wearing the company’s hat.
Apparently, times are tough for the wookie.
Cars are metallic colors for a reason. The reason is, people don’t wear metallic colored clothing. If you have a yellow car, you must never wear a yellow shirt. If you do, you’ll end up looking like you’re selling something or part of a cult.
On to the house front.
Yesterday I was home with two evilly sick children and trying my best to network into the office and do some work. I didn’t get a lot done, what with the constant pooping and puking and fevers and aches and potty accidents.
What I did get done is some cluster-fucking with our realtor. And now it burns when I pee.
For real. We’ve been kind of in a holding pattern over New House International Airport while we wait for other parties to figure out loan paperwork and find new houses. The whole time our agent has been MIA. He made a big deal about contacting us twice a week with updates, that hasn’t happened.
So the last we knew before yesterday was that the buyers of our new house had just past their option period during which they could back out. The sellers of the other house had yet to find a place so that closing was still unknown.
Yesterday afternoon, I called the realtor. I needed info on closing dates for our loan company so they could process the paperwork and be ready. Our agent said that the buyers had already closed and were waiting to move and the sellers found a place and could close any time. In a 10 minute conversation we went from being the waiters to being the bottleneck.
So, our closing date for both is the 27th of June, but we can’t move until the 21st of July, which means three weeks we have to pay a lease to the buyers, a sum that equals 3 times what our current mortgage is. They have reasoning behind it, and the sellers have already signed a contract saying they won’t pay for any time they live on the property after closing, so we’re out a couple grand.
Why is this? Well, the first problem was the timing. We thought selling our house in one day was a wonderful thing. If the sellers had a house ready to go, we could have closed and move next week. But because they didn’t, we had to wait. Not our fault.
Second, the realtor didn’t tell us shit. Every conversation was initiated by us. If I hadn’t called them yesterday, we’d still be waiting to hear when all this was going to go down. I mean, the buyers of our house already closed weeks before and were waiting for us to move! Isn’t that something, as a realtor, you would tell your clients?
This relationship with this agency has gone really sour. I don’t trust them anymore to speak for me, I don’t like them anymore for not having my best interest at heart. When I told them that we couldn’t afford and extra 4x our monthly payment for the lease, their response was, “The buyers won’t budge.” Well, then, what the fuck do you want me to do? This is your fault we didn’t know about it, and if we’d have known, we would have found a vacant property and moved in right then. But because we hadn’t heard from them, now we’re out money.
It’s not fair and unfortunately we have few options.
Not to totally burn all my bridges, and Mrs. A has been just as stressed out about this and other things as I have, but we also haven’t agreed on much of this lately. I think we’re being screwed and am stubborn about not paying anything extra due to no fault of our own, and she is wanting to bluff them into thinking we’ll walk away from this whole deal while at the same time saying that she’s going crazy in our house and needs to move.
Add to that the following factors: Mrs. A’s laptop died, with a wedding full of pictures. I’ve got 42 days until Chicago and I need 12 more pages drawn, then lettered, then a cover (colored) and back page material. Both kids have been out for 3 days with stomach viruses. Both our jobs have major personnel and project-oriented problems.
And there was no hockey this year.
Surprisingly we’re not complete basket cases, but neither of us have had 8 hours sleep in months and you can tell. I don’t want to jinx this home buying endeavor with negative thoughts, so this is the last you’ll hear of them. I still like the house, and I still would like to move there. I think selling our house in one day spoiled us. The house we’re in now we didn’t have to go through and agent and we didn’t have to sell the place we lived in, so it was a breeze. This is probably just par for the course.
Still, Chewbacca wants you to get your oil changed, life can’t be that bad.
There is a mechanism in your brain that shuts off all voluntary muscle activity when you sleep. It’s to prevent you from hurting yourself when you dream. Your body and brain apparently haven’t worked out that signals sent from the brain during sleep shouldn’t be interpreted, so nature created this stop gap.
This manifests most commonly when you wake from a nightmare and can’t move. It’s not because you’re paralyzed with fear, but that your brain forgot to turn the body back on. It’s also not entirely full proof and occasionally you can tell when your dream state performs a physical action and your body responds, usually jarring you awake.
As you get older, this mechanism, like all others, breaks down. Some of the most common injuries of elderly women are due to their husbands reliving a wartime scenario in their dreams and acting them out on their sleeping spouses. It’s pretty frightening and wonderfully intriguing at the same time. Not the old wife beating part, but the part about the brain having this valve to activity in the first place.
Why all the info? Well, my switch was left in the on position the other night when I was having a dream about adopting a new dog. All I remember is the dog running up to me and me giving it a good lovin’ on it’s head; i.e. furious petting and scratching. The next thing I know, Mrs. A is shouting, “Get the fuck off me! What am I a dog?!”
Uh, well, you were for a split second.
There is a new trend now for grease monkeys to hawk their trade on busy thoroughfares, waving, giving thumbs up, and carrying balloons. (Incidentally, do you actually carry balloons? Aren’t you really restraining them?)
Anyway, there they are, always happy at 7am to stand under your dirty car, pumping it full of fluids and lubricant. I’ve written about this already, so I won’t delve to far.
The fact of the matter is, I drive by one on my everyday route to take Lil Miss Austin to school. I almost wrecked the car when I saw a cardboard cutout of Chewbacca holding up the sign and wearing the company’s hat.
Apparently, times are tough for the wookie.
Cars are metallic colors for a reason. The reason is, people don’t wear metallic colored clothing. If you have a yellow car, you must never wear a yellow shirt. If you do, you’ll end up looking like you’re selling something or part of a cult.
On to the house front.
Yesterday I was home with two evilly sick children and trying my best to network into the office and do some work. I didn’t get a lot done, what with the constant pooping and puking and fevers and aches and potty accidents.
What I did get done is some cluster-fucking with our realtor. And now it burns when I pee.
For real. We’ve been kind of in a holding pattern over New House International Airport while we wait for other parties to figure out loan paperwork and find new houses. The whole time our agent has been MIA. He made a big deal about contacting us twice a week with updates, that hasn’t happened.
So the last we knew before yesterday was that the buyers of our new house had just past their option period during which they could back out. The sellers of the other house had yet to find a place so that closing was still unknown.
Yesterday afternoon, I called the realtor. I needed info on closing dates for our loan company so they could process the paperwork and be ready. Our agent said that the buyers had already closed and were waiting to move and the sellers found a place and could close any time. In a 10 minute conversation we went from being the waiters to being the bottleneck.
So, our closing date for both is the 27th of June, but we can’t move until the 21st of July, which means three weeks we have to pay a lease to the buyers, a sum that equals 3 times what our current mortgage is. They have reasoning behind it, and the sellers have already signed a contract saying they won’t pay for any time they live on the property after closing, so we’re out a couple grand.
Why is this? Well, the first problem was the timing. We thought selling our house in one day was a wonderful thing. If the sellers had a house ready to go, we could have closed and move next week. But because they didn’t, we had to wait. Not our fault.
Second, the realtor didn’t tell us shit. Every conversation was initiated by us. If I hadn’t called them yesterday, we’d still be waiting to hear when all this was going to go down. I mean, the buyers of our house already closed weeks before and were waiting for us to move! Isn’t that something, as a realtor, you would tell your clients?
This relationship with this agency has gone really sour. I don’t trust them anymore to speak for me, I don’t like them anymore for not having my best interest at heart. When I told them that we couldn’t afford and extra 4x our monthly payment for the lease, their response was, “The buyers won’t budge.” Well, then, what the fuck do you want me to do? This is your fault we didn’t know about it, and if we’d have known, we would have found a vacant property and moved in right then. But because we hadn’t heard from them, now we’re out money.
It’s not fair and unfortunately we have few options.
Not to totally burn all my bridges, and Mrs. A has been just as stressed out about this and other things as I have, but we also haven’t agreed on much of this lately. I think we’re being screwed and am stubborn about not paying anything extra due to no fault of our own, and she is wanting to bluff them into thinking we’ll walk away from this whole deal while at the same time saying that she’s going crazy in our house and needs to move.
Add to that the following factors: Mrs. A’s laptop died, with a wedding full of pictures. I’ve got 42 days until Chicago and I need 12 more pages drawn, then lettered, then a cover (colored) and back page material. Both kids have been out for 3 days with stomach viruses. Both our jobs have major personnel and project-oriented problems.
And there was no hockey this year.
Surprisingly we’re not complete basket cases, but neither of us have had 8 hours sleep in months and you can tell. I don’t want to jinx this home buying endeavor with negative thoughts, so this is the last you’ll hear of them. I still like the house, and I still would like to move there. I think selling our house in one day spoiled us. The house we’re in now we didn’t have to go through and agent and we didn’t have to sell the place we lived in, so it was a breeze. This is probably just par for the course.
Still, Chewbacca wants you to get your oil changed, life can’t be that bad.
19.6.05
Years One and Four
I just got done scanning their "school" pictures and I thought I'd share. I'm actually drawing as much as possible this weekend, but while I was in the computer room doing some tech support for my wife's photography site, thought I'd scan some photos. I'm sure these will go on the flickr site soon enough.
I'm biased, but I think they're pretty cute.
I'm biased, but I think they're pretty cute.
15.6.05
Ah, normal life. How I've missed you.
Amidst the hullabaloo of house buying and selling and business running and comic book making, it's hard to remember that you have to deal with normal things in life.
Normal thing one: Traffic violations.
That's right, three Austin Police were waiting for scofflaws like me at a bottle neck where a road dead-ends onto a feeder and you have to stop and wait for traffic. Perfect place to be yanked out of line and told your stickers expired, two weeks ago.
Really, I got a ticket for a two week old expired tag, the other tag is current. For those living outside Texas, we have two windshield stickers: One is the vehicle registration (current) the other is the safety inspection (expired). In Colorado, your "tags" were on your rear plate so cops could bust you from behind (naughty, don't go there) but in Texas, they're both on the windshield. I'm not sure if emissions and safety inspection are the same thing. Mrs. A seems to think they're not, but I'm too lazy to follow up.
Normal thing two: Sick kids.
Man, these kids are ill, and not like the Beastie Boys. Lil. Mr. Austin just keeps finding new ways to make his mom freak out. Yesterday we thought he had pink eye because his eyes were gooey and he was running a little fever. I took the day off, ran to the Doctor and found out he was fine...
...except for that ear infection that hasn't gone away...
...and that heart murmur.
That's right, heart murmur. Now don't panic, it's not a major deal. The doctor said she's not a train pediatric cardiologist so we'll have to get Yogi checked out, but she said it was enough to cause her to tell us about it.
That and his ears are keeping up awake at night. Lord, let it be his ears and not some crazy sleep pattern. He's on antibiotics, still, for his ears. He's up every hour until about 4am and then you have to grab him by his ankles and swing him around till his head hits a door before he wakes up...because he's exhausted from staying up all night.
Man.
Normal thing number three: Sports.
To me, there are no sports until hockey comes back, so I have to watch basketball. I just wanted to point out that just because I live in Texas, doesn't make me an automatic Spurs fan. I like the Spurs if they're playing anyone else, but I like the Pistons better. I'm glad they won last night.
No new house info as of yet. We had another appraiser come by last night which made me a little nervous. How many of these things are required? I sure hope nothing bad happens.
Normal thing one: Traffic violations.
That's right, three Austin Police were waiting for scofflaws like me at a bottle neck where a road dead-ends onto a feeder and you have to stop and wait for traffic. Perfect place to be yanked out of line and told your stickers expired, two weeks ago.
Really, I got a ticket for a two week old expired tag, the other tag is current. For those living outside Texas, we have two windshield stickers: One is the vehicle registration (current) the other is the safety inspection (expired). In Colorado, your "tags" were on your rear plate so cops could bust you from behind (naughty, don't go there) but in Texas, they're both on the windshield. I'm not sure if emissions and safety inspection are the same thing. Mrs. A seems to think they're not, but I'm too lazy to follow up.
Normal thing two: Sick kids.
Man, these kids are ill, and not like the Beastie Boys. Lil. Mr. Austin just keeps finding new ways to make his mom freak out. Yesterday we thought he had pink eye because his eyes were gooey and he was running a little fever. I took the day off, ran to the Doctor and found out he was fine...
...except for that ear infection that hasn't gone away...
...and that heart murmur.
That's right, heart murmur. Now don't panic, it's not a major deal. The doctor said she's not a train pediatric cardiologist so we'll have to get Yogi checked out, but she said it was enough to cause her to tell us about it.
That and his ears are keeping up awake at night. Lord, let it be his ears and not some crazy sleep pattern. He's on antibiotics, still, for his ears. He's up every hour until about 4am and then you have to grab him by his ankles and swing him around till his head hits a door before he wakes up...because he's exhausted from staying up all night.
Man.
Normal thing number three: Sports.
To me, there are no sports until hockey comes back, so I have to watch basketball. I just wanted to point out that just because I live in Texas, doesn't make me an automatic Spurs fan. I like the Spurs if they're playing anyone else, but I like the Pistons better. I'm glad they won last night.
No new house info as of yet. We had another appraiser come by last night which made me a little nervous. How many of these things are required? I sure hope nothing bad happens.
11.6.05
House Update and fun things.
It a twist of fate, the people we're buying the house from won't be able to close on June 30th because they haven't decided on a new house yet.
Let me remind you that these were the same people who didn't want to wait until July 22nd and so we had to remove the contingency portion of our offer. Their reasoning was they didn't want to have to wait for our house to sell.
The realtor's words were, "They can't agree on a house." So they have a couple in mind, but are being finicky.
It makes me want to hurt people.
Here are the reasons why this makes me nervous and upset. First, most people will close close to the ends of the month. Since June 30th is out, it's now July 31st. June 30th, other than being my birthday, would have been perfect due to the following three day weekend. Good time to move.
Second, the Chicago convention is the 4th of August. Let's say we now close on the 31st, which is Sunday. That means we have to move Mon, Tuesday and Wednesday, days we have to take off of work, because Thursday we're leaving town. When we get back, it'd be to a house that's not unboxed.
Now, if they are cool and decide that the original close date of the 22nd works out better, then we have a good week buffer before things get crazy.
The final reason being, these guys were so anxious to sell their house they wouldn't entertain a contingency offer AND the price was so low as to almost ensure a quick sell BUT they didn't have a new house lined up yet. I don't think they planned this well, I don't.
So, not moving on my birthday probably unless they find a house tomorrow, and even then it's not likely. Plus now we have to pay a months mortgage to our buyers as rent, if they fly with that. Knowing how things are progressing, I wouldn't be surprised if our buyer said, "Nope, sorry. My place out. Hit the skids, people!"
So we're in the computer room sorting through documents, when Mrs. A opens up an old envelope from my last company. After looking and looking and several explatives, she hands the check -that's right, the check- to me and says, "We should open the mail more often." Turns out I had two checks sitting in a pile of tax information. They totaled roughly $1,300.
I don't know why they were sitting there. I had direct deposit and the pay stubs I received were handed to me. These came in the mail, at the end of Janurary. I probably assumed they were tax documents. Low and behold I think I was just cashed out of my vacation. Had I opened those earlier I wouldn't have had to sell my body back in April.
Yeah, I didn't raise any money with that.
So with our new found liquidity, we got a new washer and dryer and a Dyson Ball. The washer and dryer were a must. We'd been clinging to a dryer Mrs. A's brother lent us over 5 years ago and a washer we got at a scratch and dent from Best Buy. It was time to trade up. The dryer didn't run well if we vented it outside (like you're supposed to) so it just blew lint everywhere. Aside from being a huge fire hazard, I think we had a few unwanted guests using the little outside entrance.
The vacuum is amazing. First off, the color scheme is wonderful. I may use it to revamp my web sites. Next, it seems very well put together. Finally, it could suck the chrome off a tail pipe. We filled the damn thing up just going over a rug. It should be a wonder in the new place with all that carpet. It's a very exciting purchase. The wonder-hoover we have now couldn't pick up anything larger than a proton and smelled of burning dog hair, so I'm glad, again, we were able to trade up.
Moral of the story, open your mail.
Let me remind you that these were the same people who didn't want to wait until July 22nd and so we had to remove the contingency portion of our offer. Their reasoning was they didn't want to have to wait for our house to sell.
The realtor's words were, "They can't agree on a house." So they have a couple in mind, but are being finicky.
It makes me want to hurt people.
Here are the reasons why this makes me nervous and upset. First, most people will close close to the ends of the month. Since June 30th is out, it's now July 31st. June 30th, other than being my birthday, would have been perfect due to the following three day weekend. Good time to move.
Second, the Chicago convention is the 4th of August. Let's say we now close on the 31st, which is Sunday. That means we have to move Mon, Tuesday and Wednesday, days we have to take off of work, because Thursday we're leaving town. When we get back, it'd be to a house that's not unboxed.
Now, if they are cool and decide that the original close date of the 22nd works out better, then we have a good week buffer before things get crazy.
The final reason being, these guys were so anxious to sell their house they wouldn't entertain a contingency offer AND the price was so low as to almost ensure a quick sell BUT they didn't have a new house lined up yet. I don't think they planned this well, I don't.
So, not moving on my birthday probably unless they find a house tomorrow, and even then it's not likely. Plus now we have to pay a months mortgage to our buyers as rent, if they fly with that. Knowing how things are progressing, I wouldn't be surprised if our buyer said, "Nope, sorry. My place out. Hit the skids, people!"
So we're in the computer room sorting through documents, when Mrs. A opens up an old envelope from my last company. After looking and looking and several explatives, she hands the check -that's right, the check- to me and says, "We should open the mail more often." Turns out I had two checks sitting in a pile of tax information. They totaled roughly $1,300.
I don't know why they were sitting there. I had direct deposit and the pay stubs I received were handed to me. These came in the mail, at the end of Janurary. I probably assumed they were tax documents. Low and behold I think I was just cashed out of my vacation. Had I opened those earlier I wouldn't have had to sell my body back in April.
Yeah, I didn't raise any money with that.
So with our new found liquidity, we got a new washer and dryer and a Dyson Ball. The washer and dryer were a must. We'd been clinging to a dryer Mrs. A's brother lent us over 5 years ago and a washer we got at a scratch and dent from Best Buy. It was time to trade up. The dryer didn't run well if we vented it outside (like you're supposed to) so it just blew lint everywhere. Aside from being a huge fire hazard, I think we had a few unwanted guests using the little outside entrance.
The vacuum is amazing. First off, the color scheme is wonderful. I may use it to revamp my web sites. Next, it seems very well put together. Finally, it could suck the chrome off a tail pipe. We filled the damn thing up just going over a rug. It should be a wonder in the new place with all that carpet. It's a very exciting purchase. The wonder-hoover we have now couldn't pick up anything larger than a proton and smelled of burning dog hair, so I'm glad, again, we were able to trade up.
Moral of the story, open your mail.
8.6.05
In Russia, he'd be called Grigori.
Amidst all the chaos that is New Home Buying and Old Home Selling, our fine readers should not forget the fact that there are two kids involved in this Life we call Austin. Mrs. A would contend there are three children in our house, but that's for the therapists to decide.
I officially started LIA when LMA was about 14 months old, having missed most of her "firsts," a fact I'm not particularly proud of. But what we lacked in quantity at that time, we made up for by having another kid.
I realize I haven't talked much about Little Mr. Austin much and that got me thinking that I also haven't given him much. I haven't spent every second with him while he figures out how to use his hands or plays with his toys. The evening hours are spent just trying to get him to be quiet and placid. Not having a written record of what LMA was like at one year, it's hard to go back and say, "Huh, well, crap. He's just like she was," or "Yeah, she never did that." Mrs. Austin and I agree that both kids are vastly different both physically and mentally, but it's hard to go back just a couple years and make a spot on comparison.
It's also terribly unfair to him.
Gregory, and I'll just use his name here, because that's who he is, is a wonderful little kid. He's a pain in the ass sometimes, but none-the-less a fabulous mini-human. He's sweet and funny and cute. I see in him a lot of what makes me who I am, kind, gentle, friendly but tempermental and prone to outbursts. In fact, I'm probably more like a little kid than I am an adult in that respect. He head butts things a lot -things like floors, cabinets, people's faces- and he still cries a lot at night. One of the reasons I've gone back into the archives is to find out when LMA started sleeping through the night. Like a scientist checking the logs for anomalies against a control, I've been unsuccessfully researching when we can expect Yogi to finally just say, "You know what, I'm fuckin' beat. I'll see you cats tomorrow."
An example, last night he went to sleep around 8:30. He was awake at 11 at which point he was changed and given a small bottle of water. At 3:30 he was awake again, another small bottle of water. At 5:30 he was awake again but was left to fall asleep on his own. Each time he wakes up, Mrs. A and I lay in bed, grumpy and awake, waiting for the other to get up or make some kind of deal. "I'll get the bottle if you change him."
The problem is, we've done both coddle and ignore and neither work real well. We've let him cry for almost an hour at times, we've picked him up immediately others. Neither seems to work well for any given length of time. Plus, even though this is #2, we're still running into the age old baby questions: Is he hungry? Sick? Wet? Lonely? Probably a combination of each, plus a dash of Pissy Baby.
(Man this entry has to be boring for you guys.)
But he's not a baby anymore. Last week his daycare officially moved him to the toddler room. He wears shoes, walks around with other kids, eats big people food and no longer requires that we bring formula or milk. He's off breast milk and formula at home and we're slowly moving away from bottles. He can walk...pretty well. Sort of like a drunk at a fun house, but there are still steps. He doesn't have any real clear words yet but "hi" and "achoo" are really close. I think he even knows what "hi" means. He can wave, point, grab small things and use a fork to come Spaghettios into his hair. He can crawl up into a chair and lower himself off the couch.
He crawls like his pants are on fire.
Lord o' mighty I've never seen a kid crawl that fast. One of my favorite things to do is wait till he's going full tilt then start stomping and teasing from behind and watch as that extra gear kicks in and he leaves little flaming marks on the floor.
For all the sleep and crying crap we give him, he loves to hug people, namely his big sister, and he's just about the cutest kid I've ever seen. He loves to smile and play and squeal. He's a good kid.
For now.
I officially started LIA when LMA was about 14 months old, having missed most of her "firsts," a fact I'm not particularly proud of. But what we lacked in quantity at that time, we made up for by having another kid.
I realize I haven't talked much about Little Mr. Austin much and that got me thinking that I also haven't given him much. I haven't spent every second with him while he figures out how to use his hands or plays with his toys. The evening hours are spent just trying to get him to be quiet and placid. Not having a written record of what LMA was like at one year, it's hard to go back and say, "Huh, well, crap. He's just like she was," or "Yeah, she never did that." Mrs. Austin and I agree that both kids are vastly different both physically and mentally, but it's hard to go back just a couple years and make a spot on comparison.
It's also terribly unfair to him.
Gregory, and I'll just use his name here, because that's who he is, is a wonderful little kid. He's a pain in the ass sometimes, but none-the-less a fabulous mini-human. He's sweet and funny and cute. I see in him a lot of what makes me who I am, kind, gentle, friendly but tempermental and prone to outbursts. In fact, I'm probably more like a little kid than I am an adult in that respect. He head butts things a lot -things like floors, cabinets, people's faces- and he still cries a lot at night. One of the reasons I've gone back into the archives is to find out when LMA started sleeping through the night. Like a scientist checking the logs for anomalies against a control, I've been unsuccessfully researching when we can expect Yogi to finally just say, "You know what, I'm fuckin' beat. I'll see you cats tomorrow."
An example, last night he went to sleep around 8:30. He was awake at 11 at which point he was changed and given a small bottle of water. At 3:30 he was awake again, another small bottle of water. At 5:30 he was awake again but was left to fall asleep on his own. Each time he wakes up, Mrs. A and I lay in bed, grumpy and awake, waiting for the other to get up or make some kind of deal. "I'll get the bottle if you change him."
The problem is, we've done both coddle and ignore and neither work real well. We've let him cry for almost an hour at times, we've picked him up immediately others. Neither seems to work well for any given length of time. Plus, even though this is #2, we're still running into the age old baby questions: Is he hungry? Sick? Wet? Lonely? Probably a combination of each, plus a dash of Pissy Baby.
(Man this entry has to be boring for you guys.)
But he's not a baby anymore. Last week his daycare officially moved him to the toddler room. He wears shoes, walks around with other kids, eats big people food and no longer requires that we bring formula or milk. He's off breast milk and formula at home and we're slowly moving away from bottles. He can walk...pretty well. Sort of like a drunk at a fun house, but there are still steps. He doesn't have any real clear words yet but "hi" and "achoo" are really close. I think he even knows what "hi" means. He can wave, point, grab small things and use a fork to come Spaghettios into his hair. He can crawl up into a chair and lower himself off the couch.
He crawls like his pants are on fire.
Lord o' mighty I've never seen a kid crawl that fast. One of my favorite things to do is wait till he's going full tilt then start stomping and teasing from behind and watch as that extra gear kicks in and he leaves little flaming marks on the floor.
For all the sleep and crying crap we give him, he loves to hug people, namely his big sister, and he's just about the cutest kid I've ever seen. He loves to smile and play and squeal. He's a good kid.
For now.
1.6.05
House Update
It's hard to keep track of who knows what, but I think my parents are covered.
To update everyone, here's the short version. Our house has a contract pending on it. We accepted the offer placed and now are waiting for the option period to expire and set a closing date.
The new house accepted our offer and we're waiting to here if an earlier closing is possible.
Now the long version.
Our House
We're working with the realtor who showed us the new house. We said we needed someone to sell our house so we got him to do it. So we signed all the paperwork to sell the house (see a few entries ago) while my mom and aunt were in town, so that was Sunday. Mon-Wednesday we spent cleaning the house and got someone to come out to do the yards on Thursday. We tried doing the lawn but dammit that takes a long time to do when you have to tag out to watch kids and your knees and backs don't work like they used to. I don't care, these guys did a bang up job.
So we get the whole thing cleaned up. Family pictures taken down, flat surfaces uncluttered, kids' rooms cleaned, floor swept and mopped, bathrooms scented and polished, the whole shebang. The kitchen has never looked better.
The house officially goes on the listing service Saturday, just in time for the long weekend. We get a couple calls that morning asking to show the house. We had planned on this and we split up, Mrs. A doing some needed photo work and I took the kids to various shops and restaurants. We left about 09:30. At 12:30, eating Chinese food, we get a call from our realtor that the first person that came by submitted an offer. Full asking price, assuming all closing costs. Only thing they required was we get everything that's not nailed down out of the house. It's an investor that will buy it and rent it. Other than a straight cash offer, our realtor says it's the cleanest deal he's ever seen.
Asking price, the first day listed.
Amazing. So, you'll notice our status is now Pending - Accepting backups. We've had one showing since that day. It's hard to keep the house clean, but it's a small price to pay and it's a short time comparatively. An old friend tried to sell his house and it was on the market for 6 months. He had lake property as well that was listed for 18 months. My long time coworker friend is selling her house, it's only been a month but I'm pretty sure she hates me now.
Our New House
I feel like I may be jinxing it a little by calling it our new house. There are still things that could go wrong; financing problems, seller backs out of our deal, the world could end, etc. However, I'm fairly confident that by this time July 1st, we'll be all boxes and unarranged furniture in our new pad. It's a great little place and cute up front to boot. The backyard is nice with a great covered patio. The cost per square footage is wonderful. It's heavily carpeted, which may have to change, but I don't mind right away. I remember when Mrs. A and I did the floors in our house and how it only took a few days with both of us taking time off of work, but man it was a big pain in the ass. We busted hump getting it down and still had to call Lowes to come finish the parts I was too lazy to do.
But other than the carpet, it's what we need in a house. It has plenty of room, island in the kitchen, office space, entertainment room space, nice living area, good backyard, and if you mapped it, it's about 5 blocks from our current location.
Oh, and we get to use the realty companies moving truck for free.
Yay for us.
Little Mr. Austin is moving up in the world. We had a meeting today with his care takers and he's moving from the Infant Room to the Toddler Room. He's got little shoes so he can go outside and play and he's officially off formula and breast milk. Unofficially he's been off breast milk for about a month, just kind of lost interest. The hard part now is the bottles. He loves the bottles, so moving to sippy cup is going to be hard.
Both he and his sister are doing well. We seem to have shaken our colds, though Lil Mr. A has an ear infection that's keep him up at nights.
Mrs. Austin has some news that I was not aware of. It involves photography and book deals and magazines. I don't know that she'd like me to hand out specifics, but if you'd like to leave a comment that you're interested in hearing about it, I'm sure she'll tell you about it.
For some reason I didn't know about any of it till this last weekend, so I don't have all the facts.
But that's not really anything new.
To update everyone, here's the short version. Our house has a contract pending on it. We accepted the offer placed and now are waiting for the option period to expire and set a closing date.
The new house accepted our offer and we're waiting to here if an earlier closing is possible.
Now the long version.
Our House
We're working with the realtor who showed us the new house. We said we needed someone to sell our house so we got him to do it. So we signed all the paperwork to sell the house (see a few entries ago) while my mom and aunt were in town, so that was Sunday. Mon-Wednesday we spent cleaning the house and got someone to come out to do the yards on Thursday. We tried doing the lawn but dammit that takes a long time to do when you have to tag out to watch kids and your knees and backs don't work like they used to. I don't care, these guys did a bang up job.
So we get the whole thing cleaned up. Family pictures taken down, flat surfaces uncluttered, kids' rooms cleaned, floor swept and mopped, bathrooms scented and polished, the whole shebang. The kitchen has never looked better.
The house officially goes on the listing service Saturday, just in time for the long weekend. We get a couple calls that morning asking to show the house. We had planned on this and we split up, Mrs. A doing some needed photo work and I took the kids to various shops and restaurants. We left about 09:30. At 12:30, eating Chinese food, we get a call from our realtor that the first person that came by submitted an offer. Full asking price, assuming all closing costs. Only thing they required was we get everything that's not nailed down out of the house. It's an investor that will buy it and rent it. Other than a straight cash offer, our realtor says it's the cleanest deal he's ever seen.
Asking price, the first day listed.
Amazing. So, you'll notice our status is now Pending - Accepting backups. We've had one showing since that day. It's hard to keep the house clean, but it's a small price to pay and it's a short time comparatively. An old friend tried to sell his house and it was on the market for 6 months. He had lake property as well that was listed for 18 months. My long time coworker friend is selling her house, it's only been a month but I'm pretty sure she hates me now.
Our New House
I feel like I may be jinxing it a little by calling it our new house. There are still things that could go wrong; financing problems, seller backs out of our deal, the world could end, etc. However, I'm fairly confident that by this time July 1st, we'll be all boxes and unarranged furniture in our new pad. It's a great little place and cute up front to boot. The backyard is nice with a great covered patio. The cost per square footage is wonderful. It's heavily carpeted, which may have to change, but I don't mind right away. I remember when Mrs. A and I did the floors in our house and how it only took a few days with both of us taking time off of work, but man it was a big pain in the ass. We busted hump getting it down and still had to call Lowes to come finish the parts I was too lazy to do.
But other than the carpet, it's what we need in a house. It has plenty of room, island in the kitchen, office space, entertainment room space, nice living area, good backyard, and if you mapped it, it's about 5 blocks from our current location.
Oh, and we get to use the realty companies moving truck for free.
Yay for us.
Little Mr. Austin is moving up in the world. We had a meeting today with his care takers and he's moving from the Infant Room to the Toddler Room. He's got little shoes so he can go outside and play and he's officially off formula and breast milk. Unofficially he's been off breast milk for about a month, just kind of lost interest. The hard part now is the bottles. He loves the bottles, so moving to sippy cup is going to be hard.
Both he and his sister are doing well. We seem to have shaken our colds, though Lil Mr. A has an ear infection that's keep him up at nights.
Mrs. Austin has some news that I was not aware of. It involves photography and book deals and magazines. I don't know that she'd like me to hand out specifics, but if you'd like to leave a comment that you're interested in hearing about it, I'm sure she'll tell you about it.
For some reason I didn't know about any of it till this last weekend, so I don't have all the facts.
But that's not really anything new.
27.5.05
Serenity: You Can't Stop the Signal
ATTENTION: REVIEW CONTAINS POSSIBLE SPOILERS
you've been warned
Down go the lights. Up comes the static and grain of the projection. Joss Whedon's clean cut but tired head appears on the screen.
There are no commercials, no previews. Wayne Brady isn't whoring for Will Rogers. This is an unfinished, rough cut of the little show that couldn't.
This is Serenity.
In 2002, Fox ran a Friday night death-slot sci-fi show about a small group of traders aboard a shipping freighter. The show held promise, but Fox ran the episodes out of order, on a bad day of the week and at a horrible time. The final episode was the pilot. Three episodes never aired.
In Fox's infinite wisdom, they canceled Firefly because of poor ratings and cost. The story seemed to wander, never find focus and eventually it lost what few viewers it had.
That is, according to the network.
What happened after the show aired, then canceled, can be placed in the Pantheon next to Farscape and Spencer for Hire. The fans amassed. Their voices were heard. Late in 2003, rumors begin swirling the net and convention circuit that Firefly would have a feature film. In March of 2004 that rumor was proven true as Universal announced officially that it was producing Serenity.
Now, more than a year later, the little show that couldn't has become the little movie that will.
For fans of the show, this will be a return to greatness. The show itself had a high budget, but it never appeared that anything was overly rendered. The world Whedon created was a real, tangible, plausible universe. A universe where American and Chinese cultures have merged. A universe in which there are no sound effects in space. A universe where people die, even though you may like them.
This had every part of why the show itself was such overlooked splendor. The writing, the acting, the staging and directing, are far beyond any sci-fi or action or adventure movie since the beginning of the genre. The film doesn't beat you over the head with special effects or bore you with plot lines so contrived you need to read comic books or novels to understand what's happening. It also delivers the history of the universe in a quick, painless prologue. It's perfect for the non-fanatic and allows the movie to stand on it's own. It pretends you've never seen a single episode of the doomed show.
And that's the greatest compliment I can give it. The movie stands on its own.
As Joss Whedon said in his pre-movie speech, this film is the result of the fans screaming into the void, demanding the story be told. If the movie is good, tell your friends, tell everyone. If it sucks, well then it's your fault. If you love it, tell people, if you don't, now's the time for quiet, contemplative thought.
But he needn't worry. The plot is simple and easy to follow. It's linear and clean with few breaks for exposition. The characters are well defined, full of purpose and as amiable as a family dog. You can't help but love everyone in this cast and crew for the job they did. Even in this rough, 80-90% completed version, the signs of greatness are there. Left as is, I would put this among the all time bests. Polished up, I fear for the rest of the movies this summer.
But here's the problem, it's still a little movie. Serenity appeals to a broader audience, but the broader audience must know about it. So here's where you come in. Tell you friends. Tell your AIM buddies and your blog commentors and your message board friends. Tell your brothers and sisters and mom's and dad's and college buddies and bridge partners and mechanics and grocers. Tell everyone you can think of that this is the movie to see this summer. You have to get the word out because in the light of the high dollar trademarks coming out that are bound to or have already disappointed, we, the fans, have to speak up and let Hollywood know that good movies are appreciated.
Little shows should be too.
Huzzah to Universal.
Huzzah to Joss Whedon
Huzzah to the Browncoats.
For more information about the movie, please visit The Browncoats
Starring: Nathan Fillion (Capt. Malcolm Reynolds), Gina Torres (Zoe), Alan Tudyk (Wash), Sean Maher (Simon), Jewel Staite (Kaylee), Summer Glau (River), Ron Glass (Shepherd Book), Morena Baccarin (Inara), Adam Baldwin (Jayne), Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Operative), David Krumholtz (Mr. Universe), Raphael Feldman (Fanty), Yan Feldman (Mingo), Michael Hitchcock (Dr. Mathias)
Director: Joss Whedon
Rated: Unrated
U.S. Opening Date: September 30, 2005
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