Friday Entertainment

I got a good night's sleep last night, my first one this week, and I feel great. It's amazing what an extra hour or two can do for you. We also started watching Northern Exposure on DVD last night, and it seems pretty good. It's sort of like Gilmore Girls, but in Alaska, and with an astronaut. I'm enjoying it thus far, but for some reason there were only two episodes on the first disc, so we've just begun.

We took another load of stuff to the new place last night, and all of the little things that I had been disappointed by seemed far less bad. The parking was actually fixed by moving those garbage cans (who would've thought) and the alley looked much more decent on a nice day. We also noticed we have a good view of the softball games going on in the park, which should make for a nice distraction when you look up from your book for a moment. I did realize that the air conditioners for our place and our neighbors are mounted on the roof right above our bedroom, which is why the air conditioning noise is so loud in the bedroom, but that seems like the sort of thing you'd get used to. Plus, even if it is annoying, they'll only be on for a couple more months.

So moving preparations begin in earnest tomorrow, and the real deal goes down Sunday morning. I just got word from Pat that he's going to be around, which is really good news. There's a rather tight staircase up to the porch which I think would make moving a couch or a bed with two people pretty awkward. With three I think we can just pass things up.

Other than that noise, a coworker got to see Transformers last night, and he had nothing but good things to say about it. I'm getting downright giddy about getting to see this thing on Thursday. I'm sure you'll all hear about it quite a bit. Anyways, this will probably be my last post until we get our cable up in the new place on Monday. So I'll see you all on the other side of moving day - brining back an old almost-tradition, here's some Friday entertainment for you all:


Clark and Michael

Ongoing Chronicles of Moving

You may be sick of reading about this, but it's the only thing on my mind at least through the weekend. After getting the keys a couple of days early, Maria and I went back to the new place. Because of the very brief time we spent checking out the place a month ago when we signed on it, some of my impressions of the apartment were pretty far off. There were certain things nicer than I remembered and certain things worse.

The biggest thing I am dreading is the parking. I never tried parking in the spot before yesterday, and it is so tight and the alley way is so narrow that getting into and out of the spot could be a gigantic pain in the ass. Three cars are supposed to squeeze into a tiny area; I was physically unable to get my car out of the spot last night (after someone parked next to me), and there were only two cars there! After talking to our landlord about it, she says the garbage cans may have been in the wrong spot, which I'll have to check out. Moving those could free up a few feet, and help things a bit, so we'll see. I am not feeling very good about this. My hope that this won't be a problem is pinned on the fact that I am, reportedly, the first person to ask about it. Next time I'm at the house I'm moving those garbage cans as far over as possible.

Other than that, the alleyway is grosser than I remembered; lots of trash on the ground, lots of ugly backs of buildings, etc. It won't be the nicest end to a walk home. Our building is currently undergoing renovations, and there's a lot of construction in the neighborhood, so maybe things will look nicer soon. We were also there on a sort of drab, wet day, which certainly made things look worse. And finally, the front door is not actually a double door like I thought; it looks like it, but one side does not open, making it a normal door. So in general we don't like the twenty feet immediately surrounding our front door.

Enough of the bad stuff, let's get to the good! Once you get inside the apartment, it's great. It's a smaller place (we're ditching a lot of mid-sized furniture that we don't really need), and I think once we get our stuff in there it's going to feel very warm and homey. The den and kitchen on the first floor are going to be great to hang out in, though we will be losing a bit of space. There's a fireplace, nice kitchen, plenty of diffuse natural light, I like it. This is going to be an awesome place to hunker down on a cold winter day.

I'm also very excited about the fact that we have an upstairs. All around the second floor was a bit smaller than I remembered. It's going to be crowded in Maria's office/guestroom and the bedroom doesn't really have as much space as I recalled. The one room that does feel nice and big (at least compared to what we have now) is the bathroom, which is also very nice; good quality surfaces, a little counter space, whirlpool tub, and a shower head I can stand under. Plus the toilet has a weird flusher where you pull up on a knobby bit instead of pushing a lever - wacky! So long as we don't try to cram too much stuff in here, the whole house is going to feel awesome. The only new things we are going to go buy are a couple of stools for the kitchen counter thing, which will also serve as additional seating for the den. This will almost certainly be the last bits of furniture we buy until we move again.

I'd say the single biggest relief is just how silent the house is when it's closed up. Traffic noise is basically nil, and the only ambient noise I could hear was from the AC. Sweet, sweet AC. The location is much more protected and enclosed feeling than I thought; the whole apartment feels very private, with no windows looking into ours, no direct views of neighbors, etc. The building is brick, and feels very solid. I'm also pretty sure every apartment (except maybe one) has its own external door, which may be part of the reason each place feels so isolated.

I was also happy to find that the view from the top porch is much better than I remembered. If you look north (away from the Car-X) you have a pretty unobstructed view of the park and the nice neighborhood around it. Maria was also happy to learn the park actually has a small pool in it.

Anyways, moving will suck, and some things will take a little getting used to, but once we're settled it'll be great. I think after a couple of days when parking has been worked out, I've cleaned up around the house a bit, and we're settled in, I'm going to look around and be very happy. I'm not sure if it'll pan out, but right now I'm thinking I may read in the park as a substitute for our current porch, which is surrounded by trees (I will miss that porch). Meet me there with your aerobi.

Five Days until We Move

Can you believe it? Maria and I move into a whole new apartment in just five days. Our new apartment will have many good things:
Central Air/Heat
Fireplace
Our own Washer & Dryer
Dishwasher
Reserved Parking
Marble in Places
Two Porches
Skylights
Big Double Doors betwixt the Den and Porch #1
A Park 100 Feet Away

But there are also many dangers:
Low Ceiling above the Stairs
The Previous Owner's Paranah (it could still be lurking around)
Ashland Ave (a busy street) Just Outside
Car-X Next Door
Skylight Vandals
Giant, Man-Eating Tigers

Yes, it's true. Even during our short time in the new apartment I turned up three giant, man-eating tigers. One in a cupboard, and two behind the same curtain. I don't even want to think about what they were doing in there. The first order of business upon moving in will be tiger extermination - no small feat, considering their status as man-eaters. I only managed to escape earlier by claiming to be a cross-dresser, but surely by now they've run my fingerprints (which are on record due to my brief employment at M&I Data Services eight years ago), and discovered my true gender. I plan on going with a stab, stab, leg swipe attack, depending on the number of man-eating tigers I face at once.

Once the tigers are gone, I'm excited to investigate one of the many things I don't clearly recall about the place: what's the deal with the back gate? See, our apartment is on the back of the building, so the back of the building is like the front to us (opposite land!). And I park right behind (or in front) of the house in the alley, so I want to walk out my front (back) door, right down the steps and to my car. But I totally don't remember if there's a fence there, or if that fence has a gate in it, and if you have to lock that from the other side, or WHAT. It's one of the many mysteries that keeps me up at night these days. One other such mystery worth mentioning is the question of street/neighbor noise.

The street noise will be much worse than where we are now. Our bedroom will have a couple of windows that look down upon Ashland (though from a decent distance). I'm hoping that with windows closed, the noise of passing cars will be drowned into a din, save the occasional alarm or thumpin' beats. I'm also wondering what neighbor noise will be like; we only share, at most, two walls with neighbors (one wall of the den and one wall of the bathroom). I think the wall of the den may actually have the stairs the people who live in the front of the building use, but I'm not sure. The bathroom won't be a problem. And the floor of our den is the ceiling of the guy below us. Given our current neighbors, I'm somewhat worried we'll end up listening to the Sopranos music being pumped up through our floor night after night for the next two years again. The last couple of years have made me ultra-sensitive to annoying neighbors, but hey, nothing I can do about that now (not like those man-eating tigers), so I try not to worry about it.

I'm also curious to check out just how exposed I feel on our porches. There's a large ex-warehouse now-condos building across the alley form us (so like twenty feet away), and I don't recall if there are windows right across from us or not. I'm hoping we'll be able to have the doors to our den open without looking straight into someone's condo. I'm also hoping there's a brick wall there that we can project videogames on to (but that's almost certainly not the case). I think between the porches and the park near by this place could add up to some great summer fun. Do you have an aerobi? See you in the park.

Liveblogging Madison

Sunday Morning

The complete lack of blogs yesterday was due to the fact that we were away from Dan's house pretty much all day long. We slept in late after a night out at the bars. I got to see Jess & Kat, Marcus and Jeremy & Kate, which was awesome. Having gotten up at like 8:30 (see the liveblog), I was more or less literally asleep by the time we walked home. Luckily Dan kept me from eating too many brains as I shambled along behind him.

When we got up we hit Red Robin (of course), saw Ocean's 13, and then went out to Rory and Autum's place in Lake Mills. It was pretty sweet - they made us chicken, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, a banana cream pie (this pie is bananas, b a n a n a s), you name it. We also got to check out Rory's absolutely AMAZING, five foot tall safe. The contents of the safe included:

Several shotguns and rifles
A heavy bar of pure silver
A large novelty coin of silver
The deed to their house

Things that the safe did not include, but obviously should have:

That bar of silver melted down and made into bullets
Expensive cigars
A wad of at least $5,000 in $100 bills
A pile of those large pieces of paper - securities or whatever they are
Some sort of 40 year-old single malt whatever maybe

It was pretty fantastic. It made me want a big safe of my own. I was also very impressed by all of the work Rory and Autum have done on the house - especially finishing the basement. So nice work, you guys.

After that we came back to Dan's, and I was pretty tired. I ended up falling asleep even before Pat could finish Zelda. So I don't really know what happened after that. People probably talked about how great I was and went out to buy me gifts that they'll give me later this day.

We're heading out to the farmer's market later this morning, then probably heading out sometime in the early afternoon. If you're reading this in Madison, come on our and meet us at the square!

Liveblogging Madison

4:30
We're back at Mootzy's, where we've met up with Megan. Pat and Megan spent the last two hours trying to learn how to play Free Falling on the guitar and watching Tegan and Sara videos on You Tube. I spent that time playing Command and Conquer and Trauma Center. It's been a pretty awesome afternoon - awesome, but hot. And humid.

Tonight is shaping up to be a pretty rawkous night on the town. The picture Laura posted of herself on Life After 208 got us pretty worked up:


By 8pm tonight I should be at a bar on the capitol square. Just look for the girl with the jug of whiskey - I'm in there.

Liveblogging Madison

2:30pm
Games played on laptops at Panara since work was finished:

Line Rider
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2
Joy Zone Minigolf (or something)
Desktop Tower Defense

Pat also got an older woman to hit on him by using his flashy external mouse.

Liveblogging Madison

It's a little after 2pm now, and Pat and I are holed up in a Panara on the far west side, each wrapping up a little bit of work and waiting for Dan to get back from the office. When Dan comes home he'll loosen his tie, sit down and open a beer, his briefcase thrown into the arm chair next to him. We'll ask him if he wants to do something and he'll snap, and throw his empty bottle at Pat. We'll cry, which will only make him madder. It's tough when the guy you're staying with bring his work home with him.

The good news is that after three or four tequila shots, Dan will warm up. "Mass tequila!" He'll scream, and hug each of us with each arm. Then we'll know it's safe to tell him about the lamp we broke while he was out. "Ah, is jusa lamp," he'll assure us. Then perhaps we'll get a demonstration of his nunchuck skills.

Only one part of that whole big there was NOT made up. Fantastically, it is the fact that Dan has (and knows how to use) nunchucks. If you have him demonstrate, do NOT do it in the kitchen. The kitchen is too small, and what should be a delightful expose turns into a terrifying ordeal, with chunks of wood spinning about mere inches from your face.

If you're in Madison, we're heading to the capitol square and it's bars tonight, probably starting around 7 with some dinner at the Brokah (that was spelled wrong). give me a call, or expect one from me - in either case, prepare for shots.

Liveblogging Madison

Blogging has fallen by the wayside yet again, this time due to craziness at work coupled with unusually busy evenings. But today is relaxed. Today is safe and warm and familiar. Today I am in Madison!

Dan "Mootz" "The Mootz Who Couldn't Roost" Fencehouse is at work right now, leaving Pat and I to hang out in his lovely apartment for the day. We have big plans including:

*Shoe shopping, where Pat will want (but not buy) shoes
*Lunch, probably at the Hong Kong Cafe? But maybe not.
*Breakfast, perhaps at the original pancake house (since it won't be busy today)
*Cohort blogging (watch Life After 208 for some updates, if you're lucky)

I went to OPH once before on a weekday - the day I took Monday off and hung out with Jess, Marcus and Kraft (fantastic day). It was great being there when there was not only no line, but only like two other people in the place. If we go I will be eating something along the lines of hashbrowns, I think. I want something hot. I also really want coffee right now (unfortunately Metz lives in the Vilas neighborhood, at leat six miles from the nearest thing that isn't a house or a zoo or a hospital).

Anyways, it's 8:30am right now. Pat's still sleeping on the next couch, and I just woke up. Oh wait, Pat just hit the table. I'm not sure if he's actually awake. Oh shit he's throwing boxes. (I'm not making this up, this is really happening right now). Now he's asking me what I'm doing. He's mad - he wanted me to wait for him to blog. He wants to know what I'm writing. HA HA HA HA - it's him. He seems flattered. He just said "What the frog??" and then yawned. It's going to be a good day.

Discussions of Potential Interest

This is one of those posts with lots of little things in it, so I'll use the magic of strong tags to seperate them out for easy browsing! They could be seperate posts, of course, but that'd just be flashy.

On being a Saab Owner
Let's just get this out of the way. I love my new car. It's fun to drive, safe, good gas mileage, etc, etc, etc. The windshield is fixed and financing is finalized, so I'm completely done with the buying process; now I just wait for my first monthly bill. The only things I've found to do on it thus far are as follows:

1. Clean up the scratches on the exterior
2. Clean up the interior (carpet, seats, etc)
3. Order a couple of little bits of plastic that it's missing
4. Have the gas gauge checked out

The only one of any significance is #4 - my gas gauge isn't reading properly. From what I've found on the forums, this is a rather common and easily fixed condition. It also sometimes just resolves itself, so I'll give it another tank or two before I visit a dealer for my first warranty service.

I've been checking out various Saab forums and blogs for the last few weeks, and if anything I'm more interested in them now that I'm an owner. I read a great quote over on Trollhattan Saab describing Saab owners that seems aimed squarly at me:

"Our research shows that the Saab buyer, globally as well as in the United States, is remarkably similar demographically," Shannon said. "He or she is the youngest buyer in the entry-level luxury segment, the best educated, and passionate about the brand." -Steve Shannon (Saab General Manager)

But they left out most handsome.

Impending Madison Visit
While I will not be driving the Saab, I will be visiting Madison from June 14 - June 17. My arrival will coincide with Flag Day, to mark the importance of the 'ol stars and stripes. All of my old roomates (save James, who unfortunately is trapped unter a 600 pound, 130 year-old tortise in Orlando) will be coming up and it'll be a wonderful time.

If you actually already live in Madison and did not live with me at one time and any trip to Madison demands your presence, I'd say that Friday is probably going to be the day to meet up with me and recieve your excited hug. Give me a call, or just wait for the phone tree to reach you. The phone tree is as follows:

Me -> Jeremy
Jeremy - > Marcus, Jess
Marcus -> Mantsch, Kate (ironic, eh?)
Jess -> Everyone else in Atlas

I don't know, whatever. You guys can figure it out, I'm sure. I will not be at Atlas, so I really hope you can all come out on Thursdy or Friday (or Saturday, if you're also skipping shows).

Meeting Google
Today we meet our Google reps in person for the first time. We spend a lot of money on Google ads, so we have the highest level of customer service, including two people who work on our account. We'll have to see, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some seriously amazing Google loot. Keep your fingers crossed for a race car or a train.