The other 95%

I have just recently updated the title of this blog to reflect me as a person. There is a story behind the title that I will explain at a later date. For now, just act confused (except for Mary) and wait for the story with bated breath!

Curling Review

Curling: potentially the second greatest sport ever (behind baseball). John, Robert and I did the curling thing on Friday. The result? A couple hours of heaven followed by a day of tight hamstrings. The evening started out with a short video on the history, rules, and scoring of curling. Since we had all watched the Olympic curling religiously, this was mostly old news for us. After applying a giant strip of tape to the bottom of our left shoes, we made our way to the ice, grabbing our brooms on the way. The instructors were kind enough to remind us that we should step onto the ice with our gripping foot and not the sliding foot. Despite the reminder, a few people in the class almost went down. The first thing to address was the throwing motion. We lined up along the boards on one knee with the brooms laid on the ice in front of us. We then pushed off the wall to learn the curling throw form. After a couple tries, we replaced the broom with a rock in each hand and again pushed ourselves off the wall. Again, after a couple tries, we moved on to the next activity. The next step was using the actual curling blocks (called hacks) instead of the boards. The first attempt at this was using a rock in the shooting hand and a "training wheel" of sorts (basically a plastic handle to lean on). After one attempt with the training wheel, we replaced it with the broom and we were curling.

After a few trial runs, they let us start throwing rocks the length of the sheet. All three of us left the first toss short. In fact, we didn't even make it to the hog line, which is the line that you must pass in order to leave the rock in play (either as a score or as a block). Of course, our second throws all went straight through the house as we all managed to over correct our weak first throws! After that, we started to put rocks in play with more consistancy. John was the first to place a rock in the house and Robert and I followed with house shots later in the night.

I can't begin to explain how fun it actually was. I would highly recommend the introductory class for anyone who is looking to fill a couple hours for one night. It was $20 and completely worth getting a glimpse into a completely new sports experience. We had so much fun, we are looking into joining a league. The problem is the expense of the league. The league costs $225 per person (with 4 people on a team) for a 10 week season. That is the nature of ice time in Colorado. Expensive. However, we are going to look for a sponsor to pick up half of the registration fees and team shirts. That might make it more reasonable for all of us. As always, I will keep you posted on the progress of our Olympic curling team!!

After reading Dunham's blog, I, too, realized that I have been blogging for over 2 years now. Time has truly flown by the last couple years and I am glad I have been able to throw some thoughts, observations, etc. down for other people to see. Hopefully you have enjoyed it as much as I have.

To the next post!
Mike

Curling. Need I say more?

Tonight, I am going to step into the awesome world of curling. Robert, John, and myself watched the Olympic curling religiously when we lived together on Lee Ct. About two months ago, I was bored and I went looking for curling locations in Denver. I found the Ice Ranch, near my parent's house. They had ice for curling and they had a mailing list, so I got on it. Last week, I got an email from the Ice Ranch that was advertising curling lessons. Obviously, we could not pass this up. So tonight, the three of us will be learning how to curl. This takes me one step closer to my Olympic dreams!!

I'll definitely have a post after the curling lesson. This is going to be sweet!

Married Life Pretty Much Mirrors Fiance Life

I think the title pretty much sums it all up. There are a few differences, obviously, but for the most part, married life is pretty much the same as pre-married life. The good thing is that married life is still pretty dang good!

There have been two specific things that have been the hardest for me to get used to. The first is calling Sarah my wife instead of my girlfriend or fiancee. You would not believe how hard it is to get that right the first few weeks after the wedding. In fact, after getting back from my honeymoon, I went to the Rockies' play-in game at Coors Field. As we were sitting there, the guy next to me and I were conversing about Jamie Carroll. I said, "My girlfriend thinks it is funny that he could fit in her clothes." Then after realizing what I had said, I said, "I mean my wife." He may or may not have given me a strange look. I told him, "It has been pretty recent." I'm not sure he was quite on board with my excuse!

The other thing that is a weird transition is the complete combining of our finances. Now granted, we had been very aware of each other's financial situations. We did just pay for a wedding and we had a joint "wedding" account. However, when it came time to buy Sarah's birthday present, it became painfully obvious that I was using her money (technically) to buy her present. It was a weird feeling. I can't really describe it more than that. It was just bizarre to realize something like that. It is a feeling you can't prepare yourself for. Weird.

Since the wedding and honeymoon, life has pretty much returned to normal (without the stress from the wedding planning). The last couple weeks of work have dominated my schedule. Both projects that I am working on have deliverables due the same week. This makes for lots of work with little time for Mikey. So I have been making myself comfortable in my little cube way more than I would like to be there. Thankfully, I have cooled out this afternoon so I can coast into the weekend!

By the way, my wife is the greatest wife ever. For multiple reasons. But one of the more recent reasons involves her buying me a Wii for my birthday/Christmas/Valentine's Day/Flag Day. The Wii is such an incredible gaming experience. The normal button pushing is still there, it is just combine with arm motions and craziness! I am a huge fan of all the games I have played so far (Mario Party 8, Metroid Prime: Corruption, Wii Sports, Madden '08, The Bigs, Tiger Woods '08). I think the next ones to try will be Guitar Hero and one of the Tony Hawk games. I'll let you know how it goes.

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November, the gunpowder, treason, and plot.
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."
On the 5th of November, Ron Paul's raised $4.2 million for his presidential campaign. That value is a GOP record for fundraising in a 24 hour period. His campaign staff used Guy Fawkes Day (November 5th), as a basis for their fundraising efforts. They wanted to raise awareness for the libertarian cause as they raised money for their candidate. Let's hope that Ron Paul's presence in the Republican primary opens a lot of eyes about the ridiculousness of our current government state.

The Colorado Rockies will be hosting a series against the AL Central Minnesota Twins the 16th through the 18th of May. Needless to say, I am quite excited for this weekend. I plan on being at all three games. Let me know if you are interested in doing the same.

Once again, I apologize for the delay between posts. With the wedding over and the work chaos dying down a little bit, I hope to be on top of this little blog thing.

Talk to you all soon,
Mikey

Waning Freedom

Here I sit just a few days away from being an old married man. The random thoughts as the day edges closer. . .

• For all of you single men out there, here is my advice to you. Find a girl that is not a girly-girl. Find a girl who doesn't stress out about little things and just goes with the flow. The last two weeks, when most brides crank up the bitch-o-meter, Sarah has stayed calm and composed. I am a lucky, lucky man!
• Working the week before your wedding is a joke. I normally lack focus from time to time, but this week has been absurb. Not much getting done here.
• Although it was nice to have the Rockies playing meaningful games in September, their success was very bittersweet to me. I love the Rockies, so I enjoy having them succeed. However, they were successful despite the fact that Clint Hurdle was their manager. Now because of the success, the Monforts can keep Hurdle around, screw the fans and prepare to unload all their awesome young talent. I hate those brothers.
• I hope the first two games of the season are not an indication of how the Broncos will play all year. We barely got by against two mediocre teams.
• I wish that Focus on the Family would crawl in a hole and never be heard from again. That is seriously one of the most annoying organizations ever created. I do enjoy those bumper stickers you see every once in a while that say "Focus On Your Own Damn Family".
• Speaking of bumper stickers, I have seen this one lately that cracks me up. It says, "Don't Steal: The Government Hates Competition".
• I, too, think that I should sue God. http://www.denverpost.com/ci_6926550
• One week from now, I will be relaxing in Mexico. Life is rough.
• Is it too early to predict a Stanley Cup for the Avs?
• Last night, on my way to my softball game, I followed an older (at least 70's or 80's) driver down Jamison St. from my parent's house. If I ever drive 10 below the speed limit, regardless of my age, please come club me in the face.
• California, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Maryland, District of Columbia, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota - Sarah and I have people coming in from each of these states for our wedding. We are lucky to have such incredible friends and family.
• I went golfing once this summer. Once. And it completely jacked up my softball swing. After a few games of either popping out or having weak grounders, I hit the cages for a half an hour or so last week. The average is on its way back up, thank goodness.
• The best thing about this wedding is the fact that we will get to spend some time with all the important people in our lives. Unfortunately, it is not going to be a lot of time. A lot of people will be in and out of Colorado fairly quickly.
• I am praying that we snap our 9 game losing streak this week.
• On that note, sorry to Adam Finney for making him miss the game! (He lives in Houston. This weekend may have been his only chance to see the Rams in person all year. Oops!)
• Sarah and I will have been engaged 18 months to the day on our wedding day. How about that for timing?

That is about it for me. I can't wait for all the festivities to begin! Next post: post Mexico, I would imagine!

Less than a month

Time flies by fast, but it speeds up more when a wedding is approaching. I can't believe I am less than three months away from being an old married man. Crazy. However, time does tick by ever so slowly when I have a terrible case of ADD at work like is happening right now. I swear it has been 3:30 for 3 hours now.

We are getting to the home stretch now. Last month of being the wild and crazy bachelor that I am now! We have started to write the last checks and make the last preparations. I will not be sad to see the planning process disappear. But enough about the wedding. Let's focus on some more interesting topics.

Restaurant Review:
Fortune City (Chinese and Vietnamese)
Located at Jewell and Wadsworth, Fortune City offers sit down, take out, and delivery Chinese food. Sarah and I have had food delivered from this place in the past and it was good, so we decided to stop in for dinner this past weekend. Sarah had sesame chicken, I had Mongolian beef, and we split an order of crab cheese wontons. Sarah's chicken was good but not spectacular. The wontons (with spicy mustard and sweet and sour sauce) were great. But the Mongolian beef was excellent. I would definitely recommend this little joint. For the money, it was good stuff.

Movie Review:
Superbad
I can review this movie with one word: superawesome. But why use one word when you can use many? This movie is hilarious. I was laughing beginning to end. When I say beginning, I mean beginning. The 70's style silouette dancing got the movie off to a great start. The jokes were dirty and immature, but when even Sarah is laughing, you have yourself a winner! The bad part is that I was laughing so hard at certain points during the movie, I missed the next punchline. I guess I will have to watch it again to catch the rest of the zingers. However, I was a little worried about the girl in the theater that sat next to Augie. Despite the fact that everyone in the theater was laughing (including all her girlfriends) she remained stone-faced the entire movie. Either she hates the world or she is a communist. Or both. All in all, I enjoyed this movie more than Knocked Up, which was written by the same people. Go and check it out.

Softball Review:
Taboma (Sunday night co-ed)
We ended the season in first place, which meant we all got hoodies that say "badass" across the chest. This particular park has one central tournament for all the leagues throughout the week. Since we won our Sunday league, we had a first round bye in a double elimination tournament. Unfortunately, four of our girls were unable to make the Saturday tournament. Two of these four girls are Sarah (college softball player) and Tina (solid softball player). They are also our two best girl hitters on the team. Kind of a big hole to fill. The girls we had play with us for the tournament were a huge, huge, HUGE step down. Couple that with the fact that our team couldn't hit the ball if it were on a tee, we lost our first game to the eventual second place team. So we moved to the losers bracket and proceeded to lose to a far inferior team that just annihilated our right fielder (a late add-on to the team). All in all, it was a pathetic attempt at softball from a good softball team. At least we got the sweatshirts, right? And for those of you who are interested, Taboma (the name of our team) comes from ancient Greek mythology. Taboma was a Greek god of anger and his name was derived from the phrase "Take A Bite Outta My Ass".

One month, 21 days and counting. . .

Nuff said.

Over a month? Damn!

It has been over a month since my last blog. I'm probably not going to get any offers to blog for ESPN.com at this rate! So here is what has been going on.

The siblings graduated within a week of each other in May. As always, the graduation ceremonies were enlightening and wonderful. Get real. We started with Kato's at CSU. Her commencement speaker was THE WORST commencement speaker I have ever experienced. And I have been to several college and high school graduations. The guy was a hippie, liberal, hermit, retired psychology professor that lived in the woods west of Fort Collins. He was old, he mumbled a lot, and he took WAY, WAY too long. It was so bad that at some point, you couldn't hear him in Moby even if you wanted too. Everyone had completely tuned him out and were having side conversations. Terrible, terrible speaker. I can never figure out why they don't have better commencement speakers. They always go for the "elite" alumni and former staff that are out of touch, don't have a clue, and can't annunciate. My goal is to get connected to the people who select commencement speakers so that I can give the commencement speech at my brothers graduation (which will be 4-8 years from now). I could burp and fart into the microphone for 10 minutes and it would still be more rewarding to the graduates than some of the other speeches I have heard. Speaking of my brother. . .

Mullen's graduation was the following Thursday. Chew's graduation was much better. It is a full Mass at Boecher (that spelling doesn't look right) Concert Hall. It is the usual pomp and circumstance, but much more bearable. And we didn't have to sit through a horrendous commencement speech! In August, Chew heads off to CSU. I think my family has a slight love affair with Fort Collins! He's going to live in Braiden Hall and he's hoping to get a degree in Biomedical Science. He is excited (as expected) and my parents are looking forward to being empty nesters for good. I'm guessing some traveling will be in their future. They might just take off right after dropping him off at the dorms!

Now back to me and Sarah. . . apparently, we are getting married in a couple months. Two months and 5 days, to be exact. Things are moving along, but there are so many little details that you just don't think about. Last night, we stuffed most of our invitations, so they are almost ready to go. We only had a couple typos and one address that we forgot to change. One of Sarah's former coworkers printed all the addresses for us. It was a huge help and one less thing for us to worry about. Other than that, things are moving forward. We have a long laundry list of things that we need to get done this week. We are to the point where we have to start writing all the remaining checks for the church, the flowers, the photographer, the DJ, stuff like that. Thankfully, we have been really good about budgeting, and we will be good to go on the financial end. I know I have said this before, but I am continually amazed at how much cold hard cash goes into a wedding. It doesn't help that Sarah and I both have pretty large families! But we want them to be there, so that makes the financial burden a little easier.

The rest of my time has been one of four things: working, softball, sleeping, and eating. Not much else.

Work is going well. I am fortunate in that my company is getting a ton of work right now. I (until just recently) was basically booked full time on three separate projects. Since we just hired another lower-level engineer, I'm only booked full time on two projects! As a result, I have been working a fair amount and I have been busy when I am in the office. I don't care what anybody says, being busy at work is 100 times better than not having anything to do. It makes the time go that much quicker.

I'm still playing softball 4 nights a week. I have two games left in my HDR league, so that will open up my Tuesday nights after next week. Our Friday league is starting to wind down, so I will be down to just Sundays and Mondays pretty soon. It is a blast, like always, but it will be nice to open up some extra time to just relax (meaning work on the wedding).

And this is for you Timmay:
Rockies: 46-46, 6.5 games back in the NL West
After losing a series in Milwaukee, the Rockies took the first game against the Pirates to bring their record back to .500. They almost lost a 9-1 lead, but pulled out a 10-8 win. The late relievers (Hawkins, Julio, Corpas) pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings to put a stop to the Pirates late rally. Tonight, Josh Fogg takes the mound for the Rox as they try to win that elusive road series victory.

Twins: 49-43, 6.0 games back in the AL Central
The Twins swept the A's in Minnesota to start the second half of the season. After a inconsistant and streaky first half, the Twinkies look to find some consistancy in the second half. They started off on the right foot with good pitching across the board and a productive offense through the whole series. Up next is a three game set with the AL Central leading Tigers.

Maybe if I used this blog thing more often, the posts wouldn't be so long. I'll work on it. And I still owe you all some pictures of the house and Sarah's car. We did just get new furniture, so I think now is a good time to take some pictures of the pad! Hope everything is well with all of you.

Mike

Well, I'm definitely not getting better. . .

. . . at this posting thing. The good news is that I have been so busy, the blog hasn't crossed my mind. Sarah and I have both been working a lot of hours lately. Add a few nights a week for softball (4 nights a week starting this week), Jessica's prom, Matthew's prom, Matthew and Kato's graduations, una quinceanera, more and more unpacking (it never ends), pictures to be hung, catching a few winks here and there, buying a car (pictures to come with the house pictures), working on the Saturn to get it ready for Jess, lawnwork, extra lawnwork due to the ridiculous amount of rain we have received in the past two or three weeks, and we have ourselves a busy time. The great news is that the wedding is creeping up on us!

So instead of talking about what has happened, I'm going to focus on what is upcoming.

This week:

• Grandparents come in tomorrow (5/10/07)
• Aurora softball game Friday night
• Kato graduates from CSU (Go Rammies!) on Saturday
• Mother's Day/Hyland Hills softball game Sunday night

Next week:

• Men's softball game Monday night
• HDR softball game Tuesday night
• Graduation party shopping with Mama Flick at Sams Club Wednesday night
• Matthew's graduation Thursday night
• Aurora softball game Friday night
• Graduation Party for Kato and Chew on Saturday
• Hyland Hills softball game on Sunday night

Sarah and I were looking at our May calendar last week and we had three days open. Tonight is one of them, next Wednesday (which we promptly filled with a shopping adventure with Mama Flick) and the 23rd were our only days where nothing was scheduled. And June is shaping up to be the same. . .

So hear is my promise to the avid blog readers out there: pictures of the house and Sarah's car will be up shortly. Updates will be posted more often. And I will try my hardest to make them entertaining (even though there isn't much that is that entertaining in my life right now). Until then. . .

Mike

Apologies

Almost a month. I feel terrible inside. This is the second worst blog on the internet (next to my cousin Claire's). I am so ashamed.

Ok. I'm over it now. Lots of stuff to talk about. New house, moving, working, softball, skiing, Rockies, Twins, Spanky, Gizmo, DIRECTV, DVRs, unpacking, throwing away crap, finding crap I forgot I had, wedding planning. Crazy, crazy stuff. Let's get right to it.

I am in the new house. We closed at 2:00 on the 22nd of March. Sarah and I had filled a U-Haul trailer of our storage unit by 11:15 that morning. We left the U-Haul at my apartment and went to the closing. We went straight from the closing to my apartment and took the U-Haul to the house. Talk about being eager to move!! That night, we got assistance from my family (sans Sara and Kato), Sarah's family (sans Wes), Nat and Deuce, Augie, and Jorge. Almost everything was out of the apartment by that night. It was a quick move. Friday night we got more help from my siblings (sans Sara again), Jorge, Natalie, and Robert. The apartment was empty with the exception of a few cleaning supplies after Friday. Saturday was spent unpacking and moving things around. Sunday, Sarah and I cleaned the apartment. I am done with that place forever!!

As for the new house, it is coming along. The kitchen has been done since day 2. The bedroom is almost completely unpacked. The living room is bare (mostly on the walls), but has no boxes. There are a few rooms that have some work to do and the garage is still a mess. But all in due time. Once again, I don't have pictures of the house. I will try to remember to do that tonight (maybe?). I really like the whole house ownership idea. Randy (Sarah's dad) and I have already drilled some holes through the masonry to get wiring to the TV. Sure can't do that in an apartment without repercussions!

A recap of the rest of the month -

• Wedding planning is coming along. It still amazes me how many things could easily be overlooked if not careful. I'd like to give a big "Thank You" to theknot.com for having that sweet checklist that Sarah and I refer to all the time!
• We decided that a DVR would be a great idea. We were right. I don't think I will ever go back to not having one. I love missing the beginning of sporting events without missing a thing! Just fast forward through some commercials and you are back in line with the live TV! I also ordered DIRECTV (through the Qwest bundle). It is the first time I have ever had digital cable. Great fun. Lots of channels. Now to get HD. . .
• Work is going well. I have been really busy as of late. Most weeks I've been putting in overtime and I still don't get everything done. As long as they keep writing the checks, right? I did take enough time off to catch Opening Day (as usual).
• Speaking of that, the Rox look good. They are 8 games into the season (4-4), their starting pitching has looked stellar, and they have been in every game. A run or two in each of those games and they could be 8-0. I'm excited for the rest of the year. If only we could get a quality middle reliever!
• The Twins started great until they hit the Yankee series. Then they dropped two big games. Hopefully, it is just their usual sucking against the Yanks and they will get back on track soon. I can't have the Twins suck. It will break me!
• I never get more excited about the beginning of a season than when baseball starts. There is nothing that is better in this world.
• Spanky and Gizmo love the back yard. They also love Mango, the boxer mix that lives right next door. I think they have contests to see who can run up and down the common fence the most in an hour!

That's a (fairly) quick synopsis of my life for the last month. Hopefully, I will be able to update this more now. No promises, but I need to stay ahead of Claire's blog. (It is linked on the right, in case you are interested!)

One week and counting!

One week from today, Sarah and I close on our first home! So exciting. All those days of throwing away money to rent will be gone! Awesome. The packing has started at my apartment. Slowly but surely boxes have become filled. It is amazing how much crap has accumulated in less than a year at that place. Gizmo is pretty excited about the move. He has been showing me his excitement by trying to eat every cardboard box in the apartment. Nothing shows excitement quite like that!

The wifey is good. The dogs are good. The car is finally whole again. Things are starting to fall into place and I am quite ok with that.

March Madness just started. I won a bracket for money for the first time ever last year through my company. Hopefully, I can do that again this year! This is the year of the #16 seeds, right? I'm just hoping for lots of big upsets and good games.

More from me later. . .

Time for an update. . . sorry to the 4 people that read this that have seen nothing new in the last half of a month!

Closing day is approaching fast. We close on Thursday, March 22nd. I think that after closing, Sarah and I are going to empty our storage unit. Then we will move me out of my apartment that weekend. I'm ready to get out of there and have my own place where I can do what I want to do. Plus there is a garage. I think I am mostly excited about the garage. Hopefully, the Xterra fits! I found a couple pictures online of the house:

The front view

The kitchen (minus a fridge)

The added-on sunroom (perfect for summer entertaining)

The guest house (as we call it)

Very, very exciting (and scary) this home ownership thing.

Now onto the X. I got my car back, it was running fine. The ignition cylinder was working great. The remaining CD's that were in the car were removed the second I got back to my apartment. For some reason, one of the buttons on my steering column that control the radio was not working completely. It is used to switch from my 6 "A" presets to my 6 "B" presets to my 6 AM presets to the CD player and then back around. However, it would cycle through the A and B and AM presets and then get stuck on the AM ones. I finally took a CD out to the car with me and tried to load it into the player. No dice. The CD player is busted. At first, my insurance wouldn't cover it. They said that there was no way to link the damage to the incident. I said, "It was working before the break-in. I have not had the car at all. It is now not working." They said (basically), "screw you!" With the help of my local agent, we finally got an estimate that stated that the damage to my radio was incident related. Now I am waiting for the claims estimator guy to come see the radio to get things rolling. But I won't have to pay for a new stereo, which is what insurance is supposed to do. The thing that I noticed is the importance of having a relationship with your insurance agent. My family has been with this guy since we moved out here in 1991. He knows us all. He insures everything my family owns. He knows that I wouldn't be trying to screw him out of money. I could have done that years ago if I really wanted to. So he and his staff basically bent over backwards to help me out. So, so awesome. If you don't know your agent or their people, I would suggest getting to know them before something bad happens. It makes everything a hell of a lot smoother.

The wedding plans are moving along too. We had a food tasting last weekend that went well. The food was delicious, so those worries are gone. There is still a lot to do, but one by one things are dropping off the list.

Work has been busy. I'm working on a project that includes I-70 at the US 6/US 24 intersection west of Vail. It is the Minturn exit and if you have driven that recently, you might know where this section of highway is. There are five severe curves on I-70 through the Eagle and Gore River canyons. We are currently writing up a Findings Report to get an idea of which direction CDOT should head to fix the safety, capacity, and maintenance issues of the corridor. It is different than the work that I normally do. Mostly, I do a lot of design work in CAD. So far, this has been mostly conceptual and more writing and researching. It is a nice break from the norm.

I have been up skiing 4 times this year. Three times to Breckenridge and once to Keystone. I went on Monday to Breckenridge with Mom, Dad, and Matthew. The snow was incredible but it was cold and windy and snowy all day. Still a blast. Remember, a bad day of skiing is still better than a good day working! And it was definitely not a bad day of skiing. I think my sister and I are going to head up the hills this weekend. Apparently the Vail resorts (Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Breckenridge, A-Basin) got 2-3 feet of snow in the last week. Should be good.

Hope that calms your anxiousness to hear about how I am doing! I keep saying this and someday I will follow my own advice, but I will try to be more on top of updating this thing. I hate watching my buddy's sit idle for so long!

Until next time,
Mike

Finally - a House!

Sarah and I have found a house. After months of looking, we put an offer on a 1200SF ranch with a basement and a two car garage. After a quick counter back from the sellers and a few changes to the counter, we agreed to a contract. On Monday, we had an inspection and the house looked good. It looks like we are a go from here on out! We close on the house on March 22nd. After that, I can start moving out of my ghetto apartment! Hooray! For those of you who know Denver, the house is in Lakewood, west of Sheridan on Arkansas. Stay tuned for news on a open house or something.

Robert and Natalie lucked out. They happened to be over at my apartment when we found out that the house was ours. We had also found out that the realtor, before getting the house under contract, had set up an open house. So Sarah and I assumed different names, jumped in the car, and the four of us checked out the house again. Natalie and Robert seemed to like it and Sarah and I like it more every time we go in there. That's a good sign. I already have a list of things that Sarah/I/both of us want to do to the place, but it is nothing too big. Fun, fun, fun. I am incredibly excited for this. I'm sick of throwing my money away towards rent. Equity, baby!

Hopefully, I will be getting my car back later this afternoon. Worst case scenario, tomorrow. But I am sick of being carless and I am ready to get my baby back.

Thinking of Daytona. . . only three days away. . .

This week: Not so Flicktastic

Tuesday began like every other work day. I got up, showered, changed, fed and walked the dogs, had some breakfast, grabbed my work bag, and headed to my car. Upon reaching my car, I realized that my car had been broken into. The took a bunch of random things - CD's (naturally), some marriage prep stuff, my CSU football helmet magnets, my notebook with my mileages, sunglasses, loose change (maybe $2 worth), and who knows what else. They also tried to take my car. The ignition switch was missing and there was serious damage to my steering column. Apparently, this idiot was an amateur and they couldn't steal the car. So they just ripped the ignition out of the steering column and destroyed the steering column. The worst part of this whole scenario is this: the bastard who was trying to steal my car smoked in there as he/she/it was trying to take it. So it smelled like a used ashtray the next morning when I found it. My poor, poor X-Earth.
Obviously, I am quite upset about the whole situation. It pisses me off that people do those sorts of things to other people. I would never in a million years try to inconvenience someone like that. Think about it. I have spent a ton of time on the phone with the police, the insurance company, the towing company, the body shop. I have to pay my deductibles just to get my car fixed and my stuff repurchased. So because of some asshole who is too lazy to work a little bit harder to make things work, I have to spend money I can't afford to spend, waste time that I can't afford to waste, and increase my stress in my life that I can't afford to increase. Thank you, you heartless, waste-of-space, worthless subhuman. Thank you for ruining my day, my city, my state, my country. I hate you and everything you stand for. You are the reason that our society cannot trust anything. You are the reason people live in fear. You are what is wrong with this world. I hope that karma catches you quickly and viciously.

On the better side of things, because of this unfortunate circumstance, my house shopping has been ramped up. I am done with parking on a street and living in a ghetto apartment complex. I am done with it, completely. Hopefully, a house will appear that Sarah and I can get excited about. I'll keep you posted on the hunting. For now, just know this - house shopping is excruciating. Gizmo is doing well too. His in-house accidents have decreased as the days go on. He and Spanky are used to each other now and have a blast together. I think Spanky is excited to have someone to play with all the time. Gizmo is growing (how much, I'm not exactly sure) and only has one more week before he gets his last shots. That means he can play with other dogs! The dogs are fun and they sure cheered me up during my crappy day yesterday.

Nothing else as of right now. Kyle promised me those bachelor party pictures too. Have I seen them? No. Get on it Steve!

Gizmo

Yes, it is official. Sarah and I have a new dog. His name is Gizmo and he is another miniature schnauzer. This picture is his first night at my apartment. He is 14 weeks old there. He has been a blast. He has been awesome so far. He is quickly becoming housebroken, he sleeps through the night (in a kennel), and he and Spanky are getting along well. The two of them like to wrestle each other for hours at a time! He has been a blast.

On to other news, since it has been a while since I put anything on here. Wedding planning is going well. We have our church, reception hall, flowers, cake, DJ, photographer, tuxes, wedding dress, and bridesmaid and flowergirl dresses set up. Things are definitely falling into place. Planning a wedding is way too stressful for my tastes. Besides the obvious reason, I think I would avoid divorce just to avoid planning another one of these! Thankfully, Sarah and I have had an extended engagement, which give us more time to do everything. I have no idea how people do all this in a couple months! To top everything off, we are also house shopping. House shopping makes wedding planning look like a jog in the park! The good news is that we found a lender we are comfortable with and we are closing in on a house we like. Then the fun (haggling) begins! Thankfully, Harry's mom, Debbie King, has been helping us out a ton. We both went into this blind, having never bought a house before, and Debbie has been an incredible asset. I'm pretty excited to get into a place where I can live for more than a year. Plus, my house won't have roommates that get married and leave me stranded (thanks John and Robert!).

What else? I just finished a great book the other day. It is a book Kato got for me for Christmas that is called "Rat Pack Confidential" by Shawn Levy. It is an incredible, behind-the-scenes look at the Rat Pack (and more specifically, Frank Sinatra). Being a big fan of those guys, it was a page turner for me. Shawn Levy had a lot of information that people do not (or will not) put into biographical literature. He wasn't afraid to bring up the political connections, the mob connections, the fights, the infidelity, the drinking, the gambling, the partying. It showed the true colors of what was then the most powerful group in the United States. Very good book. I would recommend it.

I'm currently reading Bill O'Reilly's newest book, "Culture Warrior". Although I don't necessarily agree with Bill on all topics, his books are always good reads. He is unabashed at calling out people for doing wrongs either against an individual or against our country. He tells it like it is. I have a great amount of respect for the man, regardless of his opinions. I'm a little past half way through the book. I'll let you know how the rest of it goes when I finish it.

The month of February is awesome. The Super Bowl. The Daytona 500. The skiing. The ridiculously awesome depth of the snow on the ground in Denver. Spring training being only a month away. Ahhhhh.

NYC

New York City, here I come!