Quick funny

Karen and James and I went out for ice cream the other day. I decided to sit on one of the bar stools in the ice cream parlor to eat my ice cream. I actually sat and spun around on the bar stool until I made myself feel sick. Am I a child or what?

New house day!!

I get to buy my new house tomorrow. Nothing like spending all my money to get me all exctied!!

They say that I am "weird" at work, because I eat "weird stuff". I bring in fresh blueberries, and no one wants any, or they try them and say they're weird. They said that the fresh berries taste nothing like the blueberries in blueberry muffins. I bring in organic breakfast cereal for a snack and no one will try it. I bring in dried organic fruit and no one wants to try that either. This is weird. I equate organic stuff with quality and good taste, the people that I work with equate it with weird stuff that hippies eat. My secretary asked me if I remembered to bring in my twigs and berries for breakfast today. For the record: I like my twigs and berries. :)

Lost post...

It seems that blogger likes to lose my posts. I actually created another post, but it disappeared. That makes me mad that I took the time to write something and now it is gone. Darnit! I wonder if it was my connection and not blogger at all?

A few random happy thoughts:

Only a few days left until we are in our new home! I get my stuff back and I get to sleep in my own bed again soon!!!

James said "boobies" right after did tonight, and it made me laugh a lot. I really have to watch what I say in the future.

Car closure...

I went to look at cars the other night and I found that they are beautiful, but I would rather have a new baby in the house. Babies are much more beautiful. I can happily drive my silver streak until the wheels fall off. I decided that my car really does not determine my self worth, so I don't need a sweet ride regardless of whether or not I can afford it. It is a poor investment that will cost me plenty of money and probably not make me any happier.

Awwww Yeah!

Okay, I just got back from Chipotle. That place rocks like no other place I know of. The food was good, actually it was very good, it was fast, it was cheap, and it was healthy too! I will be back soon! It may become our new favorite fast-ish food. All-natural vegetable ingredients and free range meats sound good to me, yo!

Only 5 days to go until we get our house!!!! We are totally excited, we can't wait!!!

I still like my job, but it seems like it may not be the walk in the park that I had originally imagined. The stuff that I do takes a ton of time, and it seems like I have so much other stuff to do that it makes my job very difficult. I have to sit through multiple meetings every day and help brainstorm for projects and soak up as much info as I can. I end up working a lot of long hours and spending a lot of time doing things other than the work that I need to get done. (not to mention that I would rather be at home playing with Karen and James (aka Naked Raygun)) I guess that's why they pay me, to do that whole "work" thing.

Tuesday night blogginess...

I really want to moan about stuff, but I will spare you. Suffice to say that I now know that I am not getting a new car. Waaaaaaaahhhhh!!! I want my Infinity G35 now!!! I am such a whiner, it's terrible. Instead of whining, I should be happy with what I have. Perhaps it is human nature to always want more, and never to be completely satisfied. I don't mean that last statement entirely, there are aspects of my life that are absolutely fulfilling and do not leave me wanting more.

When I was in school, I was completely content with mediocrity. I wasted a ton of my time doing nothing but being lazy. I was pretty much a bum all the way through college. Now that I am an adult, my motivation is completely different. I strive to go farther and do more than expected. I love to shake things up a bit and try to make things better. I want to impress people and earn the respect of my coworkers. Mediocrity drives me nuts, and ineptitude make me insane. I really want my family to have an easy life, but still know the value of hard work. I don't want to be wealthy in anything but love and happiness, but I don't want to have to struggle, either.

I guess that is my giant thought for the day. I skipped out on blogging yesterday because Karen and I went for a really long walk to panera bread for dinner. Panera food apparently gives us both horrendous gas. I had wretched foul gas all day today and I was trying like mad all day to not share it with my coworkers. I had to venture out into the plant (the production area is massive) a million times to do a little "crop dusting" to dissipate my foulness. It was the only way I could "crop dust" and not get caught. I think gas is hysterical, but I am afraid that my new coworkers might not appreciate my sense of humor. I think I managed to make it through the day without any accidental gassings, but I am not sure. My coworkers probably don't know me well enough to say things like, "Dude, did you let one? It smells like a rotten egg factory in here!"

Oops, we're broke again...

For anyone who thinks that discussing money matters is impolite, ya might wanna skip the old blog for a day.

I spent myself into a corner again. We knew the house that we picked out was going to need a little bit of updating and repair. I guess we had no idea how much this little rehab project was going to cost. I figured it would be a few thousand at most. So far, we bought the lights for the exterior of the house and we are almost half way through the first thousand bones.

Here are a few (there are actually many other minor ones that don't bear mentioning) projects that we are going to undertake:

1. Repaint several interior rooms and ceilings. (fairly cheap, maybe $200)
2. Replace all the light fixures in the kitchen (not half as cheap as I thought, probably $300 or more)
3. Replace the siding (holy crap is this stuff expensive, it looks like many thousands can go here... this alone goes over my previously imagined version of a budget)
4. Add soil to bring up the grade level on the outside of the house (dirt cheap, har har har, maybe $50 to $100)
5. Rewire the basement fixtures and install GCFI outlets in all of the requisite spots (about $100)
6. Lay ceramic tile the entryway from the garage and tile two bathroom floors (maybe $400 to $500, if I can borrow or rent a wetsaw)
7. Replace the old wood garage doors with insulated steel doors (more thousands here, I was thinking one, but it now looks like it is closer to two thou)

Holy crap.

It appears to me that many of these projects will be pushed back until we have managed to save up enough money to complete them. As much as starvation sounds like a party to me, Karen and James think that it might be a bad idea.

On a much lighter note, Karen and James and I went down to the pool today to play and James really dug the waterfall. He spent close to twenty minutes smacking the falling water and giggling. Good times!

Weekend!

Well, it's the weekend. We had a great inspection and we are on our way to buying our next house! I have to say this (buying and selling a house) has been more than a little stressful, and I am glad that it is almost over. We can't wait to get into our house and start making it ours. The current interior lights look like they came from a sailboat, and the exterior lights look like they came from a dentist's office in 1970. Very strange... We are asking Santa for Home Depot cards for Christmas so we can make our new house look like our home, instead of a funky modernistic fashion statement gone wrong.

Did I mention that our bathrooms are painted silver? Our kitchen has been splatterpainted, too. Ewwwww...

Other than a little siding repair and some re-decorating, the house is wonderful, and we can't wait to move in!! Pictures will be posted soon!!

Home Inspection Friday!!

Tomorrow is home inspection day!! I really hope it goes well. If it goes poorly, this is the last chance that we have to walk away from this house. If there is a whole ton of problems with this house, we are back to square one, looking for a house again. I hope that doesn't happen, there are no other houses available in the area that we want to live. I know that the house needs some minor siding repair, which I can handle, I just don't want to hear that the house needs $10K to get it in tip-top shape.

IT'S PAYDAY!! I like payday, it always makes me a little happier, even though I never get to actually touch the money. I got a raise to move out here, so it was even nicer to see a little extra money today. Most of it will go toward the new house each month, but I am okay with that.

Here is the really fun part, the home inspection tomorrow is at noon. I have to leave work early to observe and participate in the inspection. The inspection will last for somewhere around three hours. Once the inspection is over, our weekend begins!!! I should be on weekend time around 3:00 tomorrow!!! I have been working fairly long days trying to get up to speed at my new job, so the early start to the weekend is a really, really nice thing.

Just in case I don't post tomorrow, I wish all of you a happy and healthy weekend!!

What would you do?

I find myself wondering if I would like to read my own blog, and why I would read it. The truth is that I don't really know. I like reading about the story of other people's lives, so I might read my blog, but I might only read it once and never stop by again. I almost feel like I haven't spent much time putting a lot of thought into what I have written so far. I think I will spend more time thinking instead of being such a prolific writer. I feel like I haven't talked about anything that I am passionate about, and I really haven't tried to be as witty or humorous as I think I should.

Maybe I just love to babble? Yeah, that's probably it.

Today's update on my new job: I learned one small slice of my scheduling job and it was fairly challenging. I may be in for a rough few weeks until I get it all figured out.

Karen and I have been watching this TV show called "going tribal". It's about a guy who goes out in the middle of the jungle to live with different totally isolated groups of people and tapes his interactions with them. It is a quite good show, very funny and interesting, we both dig it. Give it a watch if you get the chance, it is really entertaining. It's on the Discovery channel, but I don't know what time it's on. I think it comes on Tuesday nights at 9 or so.

Kansas City Life

Kansas City is a big city; it has nice parts and it has yucky parts just like all the other big cities. On the whole, it is a generally a very nice city. I actually like it much better than I like Chicago. The population is small enough and the infrastructure is large enough that the traffic is really not bad most of the time. KC has slow-downs and accidents, but they are pretty tolerable. Kansas City has a highway that goes all the way around the metro area, just like Indianapolis. The highway makes it somewhat easy to get around without having to take surface streets that would make a long trek really tedious.

KC is famous for babeque, and they do indeed like their barbeque. As far as I have seen, they like the "wet" barbeque sauce method more than the spicy dry-rub barbeque, or a combination of the two. I actually prefer the dry-rub barbeque without the sauce so that I don't have to endure the copious amounts of sugar in the average barbeque sauce, but the food out here is excellent nonetheless. I have yet to find bad food here, and I have been to several barbeque places in the past few weeks. They also have all of the normal places that you find in all of the big cities, like: cheesecake factory, buca di beppo, chili's, applebee's, p.f. chang's, etc...

One of the biggest draws for KC is an area called "The Plaza". It is the equivalent of the magnificent mile in Chicago, but the people are friendly, and there are only a few bums. There are a bunch of really nice stores, including designer clothes stores and neat little downtown shops. This is weird - four lanes of traffic will actually stop when you step off the curb to cross the street. No one honks, and no one gives you the finger. The plaza has horse drawn carriage rides and everyone appears affluent. THE DOWNTOWN PARKING IS FREE, AND THERE ARE FREE PARKING GARAGES ALL OVER THE PLACE. Can you imagine this in Chicago? Karen and James and I have already been to the plaza twice in the past two weeks. It's a great place to go to shop, eat, and generally hang out. They have street musicians, artists, outdoor festivals, cafes, and all sorts fo stuff to see and do. We really like it.

KC is also famous for fountains, and they are everywhere. Some of them are really cool, and some of them seem like the crappy songs that an artist puts on an album just to have a full album. I think that if someone is going to have a fountain, they should at least make it interesting. What is the point of spending all sorts of money putting in a boring fountain, just so you can say that you have a fountain out front? Whatever, I guess. They even have fountain tours, if you are so inclined. That seems really geeky to me.

The area that I live in is southwest of the city, in an area called Overland Park, in the middle of Johnson county. Johnson county is one of the richest counties in the US, and it definitely shows in the houses and in the autos. (Not my house, BTW, I live in a normal house) There are gigantic mansions all over the place, there are more houses over 350K than under, and the local amenities are designed for the wealthy. I often find myself sitting in traffic next to Ferraris and other various super-pricey exotic sports cars. I must say it is a little weird for me, sitting in traffic next to cars that I usually only see at car shows. I am afraid of looking at them wrong, let alone bumping into one of them. I have no idea what it would be like to have that kind of money to spend frivolously. I don't think I want to know, they certainly don't look any happier than me.

The closest I can come to explaining Overland Park is to say that it is a very upscale suburb, kind of like Naperville. The shopping is absolutely phenomenal and there is a ton of stuff to do and see each weekend. The schools in this area are the best in the state, and some of the best in the nation. It has been routinely named one of the top ten best areas in the country to raise a family. The people around here have a lot of the midwestern charm and genuine friendliness that I was hoping for. I really like it here, and I was very skeptical when I first decided to move here. I honestly think that we will be very happy here.

I am not saying that this is the best area in the world, but there are a lot of things that I like about this area so far. I think that the best thing that the area has going for it is the people. I have met some of the nicest people just walking down the street and in the grocery stores.

So far, the pizza is not as good as in the Chicago area. We had a pizza tonight that was almost cheeseless. Weird...

Baboon

When we were at the zoo, we showed the baboons to James and repeated "baboon" to him several times. Since then, he has been saying "boomboom", every few hours.

Week two, day one...

It's weird to have people asking me questions when I have only been on the job for a week. I feel like a doofus for constantly saying, "I don't know, but I'll go find out." I think I will really enjoy this job a lot more once I figure out what the heck I am doing.

James is starting to walk around a lot more these days. He is not quite ready for solo flight, but he can walk behind his little lawnmower-esque toy like a madman.

I edited my blogger profile today. I didn't know that it would show up on the front page of my blog and I signed off before I checked it out last night. I would not have included the moaning about "butt rock" if I had known that it was going to be foisted on everyone. My bad... I don't want this page to be all about complaining. I like to see more positives than negatives, so I will try to project that in my blog.

The weather has been beautiful the last few days, except for the occasional rain, and I am a happy cat. We went to the zoo on Saturday and got poured on, but it was still a blast. yesterday was Karen's birthday, so we went shopping and ate tons of birthday cake. Good times. :>)

James loves computers, he helps me type and steals my mouse all the time. I have had several posts completely deleted by him, for which I was thankful. I am a much too prolific writer lately, and he helped eliminate some extraneous unimportant stuff. James definintely makes everything a little more interesting lately.

Just a note...

If anyone wants me to add their blog to my blogroll, just let me know and it shall be done.

Thanks,
-John

We are homeowners again!

We managed to negotiate a deal on a house! We have a house again! I will post some pictures very soon, as soon as I get moved into the new house. It needs a little work, the lady that lived there before us had strange taste in decorating, but it has a ton of potential. It is a much larger house (4 bedroom, 2.5 bath) than we are used to, and it has a bigger back yard for James to play in. We are very excited about the new house and we can't wait to move in. Right now, the closing date is set for August 30th, with posession immediately after closing. The only thing that might screw things up is if the home inspection finds lot of bad things. If we find out that there are big, expensive things wrong with the house, we are allowed to bow out of the deal. Other than that, we should be moving into our new digs on August 31st!

To car or not to car...

I have a dilemma. I really want a different car, but I can't decide if I should actually get a different car. I have a 2000 Honda Civic EX, and I don't like it very much. The Civic was originally my wife Karen's car, but I got it when our son James was born. I used to have a 2002 Ford Escape XLT 4x4, which is now Karen's chariot. The Escape makes it much easier (and safer) for us to carry James, his stroller, and all of the stuff that you have to tote with you when you have a baby. Taking back the Escape and giving Karen back the Civic is not a consideration in the least.

Pros: The Civic is a great car, albeit a small utilitarian car. It gets great gas mileage and it costs almost nothing to maintain. It has only 68K miles on it, and it has never even been in the shop for repairs other than to replace the tires. (I do all of the routine maintenance myself, including brakes.) The car will last me another ten years if I want it to, and cost almost nothing to operate.

Cons: I really don't like the Civic. I feel like it is a high school or college kid's car. It is in good shape and the paint is shiny, but I am a little embarassed by it. I really feel like a kid driving it, and I wonder if people giggle at me for driving it. I find myself eyeing all of the other nicer cars around me while I am out in traffic. I totally dig the newer Nissan Altimas and Maximas. I also like the look of the new Mustangs, I really dig Lexus, Infinity, and the German go-fast imports, but I am either not having a mid-life crisis or I don't want to spend that much on a car. Cars are horrible investments, you almost invariably lose a lot of money on them.

Note: I am 31 years old and have achieved a relatively decent level of success in my opinion. I can afford a much nicer car, I just can't decide if I want to do it enough to take the plunge. I am usually pretty good at decision making, but this one has left me scratching my head for a long time. I have a hard time getting rid of a car when the only reason I want to get rid of it is because I am a whiner.

I am lacking fishiness...

I just realized that I have not mentioned fishing yet. I can't believe that I took this long to realize it.

I like fishing. I like fishing a lot. There are really big fish in the Kansas area, I have been talking to the fishermen at work about it almost daily. I don't have a fishing license yet. I have to hurry up and get into a house so I can change my address on my license and use it to get a Kansas fishing license!!!

Another thing that I haven't mentioned yet (but is on my mind all the time) is my son James. James has a walk-behind toy that is shaped sort of like a lawnmower. It allows him to balance himself and walk around the room. My wife Karen and I clap and cheer when he does it, so now he has associated laughing and giggling with this toy. As soon as he gets near it and starts pushing it around the room, he starts to giggle like a madman. I will try to make a video of it and put it up somewhere for everyone to see. It is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time.

First week's in the bag.

I finished my first week at my new job, hooray!! I even went to Chili's to have some cheap beer and a cajun chicken sandwich. Good stuff!

We also put a bid in on a house this afternoon. I think it will be a really good investment for us, it will offer us an opportunity to a little money if we put some work into the house. My wife got us a really sweet deal on financing, so we won't starve too much while trying to pay for the house. I hope this deal happens quickly so we can get it over with and get out of the apartment. It is hard to live out of a suitcase. Almost all of our stuff is sitting in storage.

What is good at "Chipotle" restaurants? There is a chipotle restaurant in the area, but I have never been to one. I imagine they have good food, they are constantly packed. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations.

So far the blogging experience seems to be a lot like a personal diary, with a hijacked key. I have to take the old laptop over to my house-to-be tomorrow night to see if I will have free internet access from one of my new neighbors. I really hope I don't have to pay for internet access for a little while. Free wireless internet has made me the blogger that I am! I can't blog from my beautiful T1 line at work, and dial-up access is so darn slow that I might never blog from home.

Thursday's thought

Ever since the doctor told me that I had to lose weight, or else I would die young, I have been eating differently. That is probably not a surprise to hear. After all, I am 31 years old, and it scared the heck out fo me to hear an educated person say that to me. For whatever reason, I believed him, and I have been eating healthier since. I won't say that I eat entirely healthy, but I do eat healthier. I will still eat just about anything if it has chocolate on it. I doubt that will ever change.

The point of my story is this: I have started to fancy myself as a chef lately. I make concoctions out of the stuff I have in the fridge all the time and I make my own adaptations of old recipes that I have made in the past. I even watch cooking shows and make comments about the techniques that the TV chefs use, as though I know more than they do. Completely laughable, certainly. I wonder if I would like to be a chef? I don't know if I would like to make the same thing over and over. I think part of the fun for me is in making the occasional masterpiece and the occasional wretched trainwreck meal.

I also love farmers markets. I go out of my way to support the local farmers whenever I can lately, and I have been really impressed with the food. Perhaps it is the fact that it is super fresh, I dunno. I just feel better getting some of my food from people who are "my neighbors", I guess. It is usually about the same price as the commercial farm produce in the grocery store. Sometimes it is a lot more expensive, and sometimes it is dirt cheap.

Perhaps I will go to culinary school after my back gives out from too many years of gardening...

New job, day three...

So far so good. I like my new job, thank God. The most important thing to me is that I like the people that I work with. So far, I really dig the people that I work with. Thank you God, again.

I don't know if I am just trying to see the silver lining to this adventure, or if it is really a good thing. I am usually a pessimist at worst and a realist at best, but I seem to see only good things so far. I almost feel like this is where I want to stay until I am old enough to move to the tropics. I wonder if I will ever move to the tropics. I always thought I was going to move someplace warm, and the closest I have gotten so far is Kansas City. It gets hot in the summer around here, but there are still four seasons and there is plenty of snow and ice in the winter.

There is one other option that still sounds like a really adventure for us to possibly try in a few years. My sister is going to create her own landscaping business in the New England area. I think it would be wicked cool if we moved out there and worked with her as gardeners. My wife and I are both gardeners and we love to play in the dirt. I occasionally try to imagine the kinds of things that we could do for some wealthy New England people who have deep pockets and can afford to let our collective imaginations go nuts in their huge yards...

A little more about me and my family... We are quickly adjusting to life in Kansas. We have found several Target stores and two of them are even SUPER TARGETS!! We are big fans of Target stores. I am thinking of getting a red bullseye tattooed on my bum.

First fishy post

Truthfully, I actually don't really want a blog, I just wanted the blogger account so that I can post to my pal scottie's blogger-based blog, Southern California is a Paradise - http://socalparadise.blogspot.com/ It is a well-written running commentary on life in the L.A. area by a guy who is not your average Californian, rather a midwesterner who has been transplanted to the west coast.

A little about myself. I am a fairly nice and very happily married geek who has a rather ordinary existence that usually keeps me happy. We recently decided that it would be a fun adventure to take a new job that was offered to me. The most interesting part of the deal was that we lived in Indiana, just outside Chicago, and the new job is in the Kansas City area. Sound like fun to you? Neither my wife nor I have ever moved far away from "home" in Indiana. We also have a one-year-old baby boy who is the most wonderful and good-looking kid that I have ever seen. (I will probably talk a lot more about him in the future) My parents and my wife's parents all live in the same area that we used to live in, just outside Chicago. The adventure began last week, when we packed up our prodigious pile of stuff and headed to Kansas for some fun and adventure in the middle of the country.

I can't make fun of the Kansas City area, as much as I would like to. It is nicer than where I came from. It is cleaner, more affluent, the people are much more friendly, and the shopping is fantastic. I think the people in this area are just fine being just a little behind the times. Heck, I am a lot behind the times. Who cares if the fashion is not as avant-garde as the coastlines. I think the best way to describe the area is to say that Kansas City fits the way your favorite pair of broken-in jeans fits. I am a geek, I like being comfortable, not flashy.

I also left the Chicago area with a little bit of skepticism about moving to Kansas. I thought Kansas was going to be a scary redneck stronghold, but I really haven't found half as many scary rednecks as there were in Indiana. Not what I expected at all. I have to say that I really like the area so far. I hope that doesn't change.

We (my wife and I) are having a hard time finding a house that we really like that is close to where I work. We both liked our old house in the Chicago area, and we wish it lived in Kansas. The houses in the Kansas City area are priced similarly to the Chicago/Indiana suburbia that we came from, as long as we look at houses far away from where I work. Nice... I was hoping for a very short commute, but that doesn't seem to be the way that it is going to turn out.

I am a little freaked out by living in an entirely new area of the country and not knowing anyone other than my immediate family that I brought with me. Perhaps I am not the first to experience this. (Tongue planted firmly in cheek.)

I also have an entirely new group of people to go to work with. They haven't even heard me burp yet, which is just totally strange. It took me several years to be able to burp at work when I was in Chicago, and now I have to start all over. Tough work ahead, I work with a lot of women who may be offended by my, um, "noises"...