The Plan

Finally, it's Friday.

Our weekend move plan goes something like this, but I"m sure something will come up as always and turn it upside down.

Tonight we are going to relax a bit. It will be the calm before the storm. Hell, we may even watch a movie, but it won't be anything too energy draining.

Saturday morning we plan to get up and finish the packing of the apartment. This will be interesting. It doesn't look as if it will take us too long. However, as I have experienced the whole move-a-rama more than a few times, I realize there is ALWAYS more to pack than what you imagine. Nevertheless, I have tons of boxes from the warehouse I've brought home - we should be in good shape. Saturday will also be when we get the paint. We have a friend who will be helping us out with this - which is awesome! Beers will be on us for the help! We plan to wrap up Saturday with actually taking possession of the house, which is scheduled for 8 pm. Weird time, I know.

Saturday night we have decided to make fun. We're planning on taking over the paint, as many boxes as we can fit into our cars, and one (or two) bottles of wine. It's going to be a paint party for me and A! Hopefully the wine won't make us think we are artists who can paint outside the lines whenever we damn well please. Actually it probably won't be paint anyway, more like primer.

Sunday we will hopefully finish the painting - and in the afternoon we hope to continue shuttling boxes over from the apartment. Pretty simple day. I'm sure something will come up. At some point, either Sunday or Monday morning or Tuesday I hope to rent a pressure washer, spray out the garage, and seal it with some type of concrete sealant. We have brand new tile in the kitchen and a sealant on the garage - from where we will most often enter the house - will keep the grout in the kitchen a hell of a lot cleaner for a hell of a lot longer. I'm starting to feel like Willy Wonka with so much to do.

Monday morning will hopefully be a continuation of Sunday - boxes, boxes, boxes. We have to pay the movers by the hour, so the fewer things we can move over that they don't have to will save money. All I really need them for is the big stuff like the washer and dryer, couch, beds, etc... Monday afternoon the movers are scheduled to come at 'around' 1 pm, as the moving company slyly stated. Their estimate was four hours maximum. I hope to put a wrinkle in their little maximum by having most of the boxes gone by then. They do, however, have a two hour minimum.

I guess Monday night will be finishing moving stuff and putting things where we want them, as well as is the case with Tuesday. I'm sure there will be tons of odds and ends that will pop up which we will want to take care of.

So, the humor will come into play with this little plan of ours when I post what actually happened. Take notes if you ever plan on moving. I won't be surprised if nothing goes according to plan.

Here goes nothing.

Closers

Yep. That's right, I'm a homeowner as of today!

I have chosen to celebrate by drinking Red Stripe, eating Red Baron pizza, and watching the SportsCenter World Series Championship edition for the Chicago White Sox. A twenty four year old kid who was playing AA baseball in July came in the game in the bottom of the ninth inning with a one run lead. His name was Jenks. He Jenks-ed the Astros and won the game. What a dream come true. Now that is a closer!

While checking the MLB Web sites this evening I saw that Andruw Jones was awarded the NL Hank Aaron award. This award is given to the single player in each of the two leagues who was voted as the league's best offensive player. Congrats to Bravo #25. I also saw that I could pre-order Jimmy Buffett's Live At Fenway Park. You know that's going to be on my pre-order list. It also comes with a fifty-five minute DVD of footage of the two concerts. Sweet!

And speaking of closing....

I arrived at the house for the final walk-through at around 10:30 in the morning. We walked through, checked random stuff and made sure everything was basically still in tact, and of course it was. After the walk we headed over to the attorney's office for the closing. Since the seller couldn't close on the house he is buying until tomorrow we were the only people there. It was me, my real-estate agent, and my mortgage lady from the bank, along with the lawyer.

About sixty signatures and 30 minutes later I'm in more debt than I've ever dreamed of and couldn't have been happier for it. "It's not debt, it's an investment," I keep telling myself.

Now it's to the rest of the week. I have attempted using a Web site that is supposed to take your information and get you a lot of mover quotes but they completely sucked and didn't send me any. Tomorrow I plan on calling several and getting the quotes in person. I live on the third floor, my back is still tight, and I don't house the idea that it would be fun to attempt to move a washer and dryer down all those steps. However, before we can get to that point A and I will be up to our chins in packing boxes.

I'll keep you posted.

Congrats to Me!

Horror Story

In the spirit of Halloween; I've got a horror story for you.

On a cold and blustery fall day in late October.....

I was in my office. It was about 1:40 in the afternoon and I had been there for only around thirty minutes.

Ring.....ring.....rrrrring.

Someone was calling.

That's weird, I thought to myself. No one ever calls that line. I answered it just before the last ring to hear a nervous voice on the other end. It was the receptionist by the front door.

Shakily, she asks, "Are you in the building?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Are you coming to your 1:30?"

Her voice was trembling. My mind was racing.

"What 1:30?"

"Your interview with the Director of HR."

NNNNOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo

True story. Beware of the wicked hidden schedule monster. You never know when it will come out and get you.

A Weak Back Of A Week's End

Thursday afternoon I received a call from the lady at the bank with whom I am financing my home. She says, "Hey how's it going? You're approved." That was good news, although we had already received the pre-approval weeks ago. Still though, it is in my nature to have been a tad bit nervous that something was going to go wrong.

Also, there is a new law that states people in the home market cannot close more than once on the same day. In other words, if you are trying to sell your house you must close on it one day, but now you have to wait until the next day to close on the house you are purchasing. Before this law, it was customary to do both in the same day. Why this law came to pass I have no idea, but I think from what my real estate agent was saying it is federal.

Some more news I received Thursday was that I had to work Saturday, again. The supervisor who was responsible for the group working this weekend had military duty, which left you-know-who to cover for him. Arrgh.

Moving on to Friday, it was the standard go to work, the spot, home, then to bed. Only problem with the spot was that I didn't get there until after 1 am because we had quite a large bit of volume to process that night before I could leave. There was a rowdy drunken wedding party there and it was hilarious to watch the detective - who is a regular - threaten to take them to jail if they didn't settle down. We got a kick out of it.

Saturday my back got a kick out of me. I've never had problems before other than the occasional stiff back in the morning, however, I woke up Saturday morning in screaming pain. I think I must have either strained or pulled something Friday night while carrying a tank of propane too far without motorized assistance, because the whole right side of my back and the muscles over my rib cage were shooting sharp throbbing pains throughout the ol' backaroo. I jumped in the hot shower and tried to loosen it up a bit before heading to work. It didn't get much better until I took three ibuprofen upon the advice of my sister. Then it felt great, and didn't hurt hardly at all.

Oh, and by the time I got home the Vols had fumbled inside Alabama's five yard line in the fourth quarter of a 3-3 tie. Alabama came back with the only successful drive they'd had all half, kicked a field goal, and won the game in the final seconds. From now on in my weekend posts let's just assume the Vols lose, as is the trend, unless I state otherwise. We are holding on to a top twenty-five ranking by a thread with a three and three record.

Saturday night after work A and I visited the new local mall at which everyone was there to see what new stores have arrived in our small little town. All the window shopping gave us quite an appetite, so we headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant a few minutes away.

Here we go again. In the middle of the night the medicine must have worn off. I woke up thinking I was having a damn heart attack. (Well, not really, but it hurt like hell) I guess I really hurt my back from that propane tank and it was more than just a 'crick.' The medicine Saturday must have only masked the pain and kept me from guarding it as I should have. At any rate, when I woke up in the middle of the night I could have passed right back out. Pain. After I calmed down I just rolled over on my back and laid there waiting for the stores to open so that A could get some Aleve.

A was great. I woke her up and she could have been pissed, but she was patient at 3 am and put up with my whining. Then when she woke up before eight she went to the grocery store and bought Aleve and one of those heating band-aids as I like to call them. By the way, they don't work very well so save your money. Needless to say, I didn't move from the couch more than four or five times Sunday. I laid around and watched the dreadful TV all day. There were some great Halloween movies on. Also, we watched two Netflix movies, Walking Tall and Monster in Law, neither of which were very good. Walking Tall was the one where The Rock is the town sheriff who was in the special forces for several years only to come back to a hometown turned upside down. He runs for sheriff, and the action ensues when he turns things back around. Monster in Law was just another cheesy J-Lo movie, what can I say?

This morning my back feels much better, but every so often it decides to send one of those shooting sparks of pain through. It's great, I probably go around looking like I've got the twitches. OH, OOh, Gee, I sound like Roscoe P. Coltrain.

This week is going to be busy. At work I am still in the process of interviewing for a new position, at home we have all this packing to do, which I should have been able to do this weekend - but the back - I am doing the final home walk-through on Wednesday, closing on Wednesday just after that, and we will begin painting probably Saturday night and into Sunday. So, it will be a busy, fun, and exciting week. My back is already just raving about it.

A Thirty Year Old Wiseman

I was just watching SportsCenter after returning home from work and saw something as good as what one could find on Comedy Central.

You may or may not have heard, but David Stern, the NBA commish, has implemented a dress code for all basketball players and staff while either on team trips, home games, or conducting any other type of team 'business.' The dress code is nothing more than business casual. In other words, pants and a tucked-in shirt; no jeans, no gold bling bling chains hanging down to your knees, no sleeveless shirts, etc... To anyone in the real world this sounds perfectly acceptable. (With all those oversized 'threads' how do they always manage to show off their underwear?)

Alan Iverson seems to disagree with Mr. Stern. He says the new dress code is just "not fair" and that since he is thirty years old he should be able to "wear what I want." I can only imagine what my workplace would think if one of us showed up in his type of attire. They'd probably send the individual home with a piece of paper, that's pink. The fact that Mr. Iverson is apparently wise beyond his years at the ripe old age of thirty is a shame. Maybe he's right. Maybe he shouldn't have to dress respectably. Maybe Warren Buffett will be caught stealing his nephew Jimmy's clothes and wearing them on Wall Street. Right.

Players claim Mr. Stern is attacking the "hip-hop culture." What the hell is that supposed to mean? Am I to think my culture is being attacked because I can't go to work bare-footed and overall-clad? Grow up! You're thirty, remember?

If Mr. Iverson wants to talk about what is 'fair' he need not look any further than the sixty-five year old janitor working everyday in blue pants and a shirt with his name ironed onto his chest who is putting his children through college with loans he can't hope to pay off anytime in the near future, ten-hour days cleaning up other people's trash - with no offseason. Fair? Is that damn garage full of eight cars worth a million dollars fair? Those cars could have paid for that kid's future.

I'll stop ranting, but I must pose the question of whether or not we are losing sight of what is and what ought not to be. Why is it that it isn't 'fair' for these glorified P.E. teachers to be requested to adhere to a dress code when even the most successful and amazing minds of all time have and are being asked (a societal norm) to do the same without even questioning it? I'll stop short of giving an endless list of examples of those who dress nicely and shouldn't have to do anything, ever, for the rest of their lives, for what they've accomlished.

Is the commissioner asking too much by trying to have his basketball players appear professional? Apparently.

A Monday Tid Bit

This is just a little tid bit for Monday because I just felt like posting and something interesting happened, bothered me rather, today during my lunch stop.

I had to drop off an updated pay stub to the closing people today. Nearby to the bank office is a sub shop. I walked in, decided what I wanted and placed my order. I told the young sandwich maker what I wanted on my sandwich, "Everything but onions and green peppers." His response? "Would you like pickles with that?" Arrrgh. At any rate, that isn't what bothered me, but I have very little patience for incompetence, call it a personality flaw of mine.

The 'tid bit' I referred to is what drove me crazy. It was crusted to the side of his damn lip, right there in front of me, for everyone to see, was a chunk of crust or whatever it was, pasted on his face. This guy was making my roast beef sandwich and all I could think about was that crust on his lip. I should have asked him if he wanted pickles with that damn thing.

Enough ranting. Please excuse my impatience for punk sandwich shop employees with crusty lips and no brains.

Yeah, We've Got A Nice Little Weekend Planned Out!

My last post was about the "norm." This post is about a weekend that really was the norm, almost. It was completely normal with the exception that A was out of town. She went home for the weekend.

Friday night was, yes, the usual. My work friend and I went to the Friday night spot. We ended up staying until it closed. It was a bit ironic - at about the same time we were taking the first bites of those wonderful cheeseburgers this place serves, we were discussing what a drag it was compared to a typical Friday night. Shortly thereafter an interesting character came up and sat beside us. He ended up being an old timer who was very knowledgeable about classic basketball, which I am not anywhere close to as I'm not a big basketball fan. My friend is though, and they sparked up some great conversation. It turns out the big tall ex-basketball player did a stint in European professional leagues.

Saturday again was the usual. I woke up at around 10:30 and called another friend of mine from work to set up a golf game. We ended up playing a course we'd never played before. I'd heard tons about it and everyone who has played there raves over it. Now I know why. It was one of the best courses around and at an unbeatable price it just won the spot of my "home" golf course. There are ten holes guarded by water and nearly eighty bunkers. It had tight dog legs and lots of uneven lies to get pissed off at from having to hit out of. It was a great course, and I played relatively well.

Saturday night I came home, cooked a pizza, watched some baseball & football, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, and then went to bed. The movie was an excellent idea, very creative. However, it dragged a bit in the middle. But, the beginning and end were exceptional. I gave it a three-star rating.

Sunday (today) I began preparations for moving out of our apartment. I ended up cleaning out my closet and getting tons of clothes I don't wear all packed up. I realized about half way through the ordeal I'm way overdue for a trip to Goodwill. After tiring of the domestic duties I went to a furniture outlet that has all the scratch and dent stuff deeply discounted and looked around for ideas. I grabbed a sweet tea and a bag of chips from nearby Lenny's before coming home and finishing the laundry. Shortly after that A got home and we decided we were hungry. We went to a restaurant named Bonefish. I'd eaten at one of these places in Dallas (I think) a couple of years ago. It was absolutely wonderful. I had the Wolffish and Scampi meal with a glass of Eco Domani Chianti. MMMmmm. A had the same thing but with a very girlie Espresso Martini with Bailey's, not that other chocolate liqueur. We enjoyed our entrees only after our appetizer of fried calamari, which was delicious. It was nice to go to a new spot and we both enjoyed the evening. After dinner we came back to the apartment and watched In Good Company. Another movie from Netflix, we enjoyed it. I give it a three-star rating for it's not so sappy ending as one would expect.

And now the movie is over, A is in bed, and I'm watching SportsCenter while trying to figure out how the hell the Astros are beating the Cards three games to one.

The Norm?

What a weird week thus far. Nothing has been normal.

Monday night the supervisor who relieves me came in looking quite terrible. Apparently he had contracted the same illness as had one of the day shift supervisors who relieves him. After I realized how terrible he felt, I told him to go home and that I'd pull the double to cover for him. I don't know, maybe it was the fact he was nearly passed out at his desk, or that he kept stating how cold he was just after he said how hot he was. Either way, I didn't want to end up sharing his funk, and he went home.

So, with that said, Monday night my sleep schedule was thrown upside down, literally. And of course, as we already know, it's an adjustment having to get used to the Braves not being on TV at night.

Tuesday was supposed to be a day off in response to the double, but again I was asked to cover for a co-worker. I only had to go in for a few hours, and it was later than I normally go in. So, here we go with the schedule getting out of whack again.

Then, it's colder outside now. I'm not used to going outside to sixty-five degree weather when last week I was going outside to eighty-five degree weather. On top of that, mid-south winters aren't so much cold when speaking in relative terms. Oh sure, there are days when it freezes and we have very occasional snowfall, but in the end it doesn't stay that cold for very long. The thing about winters here is that they are in such sharp contrast to the summers, and there seems to be a very short period during which one can say, "it's Fall." The summers are extremely hot, humid, and have very little rain. The winters are cold (relatively, remember?), almost completely overcast and gray, and it rains what seems to be almost every day. So, you can see there is a big transitional period - which is now.

Today I think is beginning to become more stable, but we'll see. The day has just begun.

Wait...what's that? I just now heard the lady across the parking lot yelling something absurd followed by a loud crash. I imagine she yelled something like "Look out below!" just before letting the trash bag fly from the third floor.

It's good to have things back to normal around here.

"This" Is Baseball

“It gets old when you battle your butts off and don't get rewarded. We're tired of playing in these classics and losing. It reminds me of the game [seven] in Minnestota -- the Greatest Game Ever Played. But we lost. This was probably the Greatest Division Series Game Ever Played. But we lost. ... ”
— John Smoltz

Is this happening?

I first watched the Vols get crushed by Georgia. That in itself is enough to at least put a damper on an otherwise wonderful fall weekend. Then I watched that night as the Braves went down 2 to 1 in the NLDS.

And now this. A five hundred and fifty-three pitch eighteen-inning five hours and fifty minute marathon. This will go down in history as the longest game ever. This will go down in history as one of only two times in the long and extraordinary career of Roger Clemens in which he appeared as a reliever. This will go down as the best game ever played. This will be the unforgettable game that shows up on Sports Illustrated videos twenty years from now. And this is what I get to listen to for the next five and a half months. This, this, this. This was the time when Atlanta's starter threw a gem, an absolute gem, and his bullpen gave up a six-run lead.

I'm convinced The Babe has moved from Boston to Atlanta, but only comes south when it starts getting cold...say, October?

Sunday - today - was the end of 162 games of hard-fought baseball. Complete devastation. It wouldn't have been so bad if we would have lost by 10 runs. Hell, we did that last year. But the fact we lost after giving up an insurmountable lead after eight - devastation. After the game, which endured for an agonizing six hours, I had to get out of the apartment. A and I decided to drive by the new house to cheer us up. It worked. We drove by, checked out the neighborhood people, which continue to look really nice, and then went to get a feel for things like how close is the nearest grocery store. We did, and found a Kroger pretty close by, along with a branch of the bank we both use. We ended up hitting a major road, went north for about ten minutes, then turned around. On the way back we stopped at what is to be our new local bar, I'm sure. After two beers we headed back to the apartment. We watched Ladder 49. I'm not quite sure what to rate it yet, but I think I'll go for a four.

I absolutely cringe, freeze up, my face feels like someone rubbed icy hot all over it, and I start sweating and getting a nautious feeling in my stomach when I say...." there's always next year."

But there is always next year, and there is always baseball and the Braves and great homers by Andruw. There's always cheap seats and guys like me wearing jerseys in their dens and screaming at the TV. And, there's really crappy weekend-ruining heartbreakers and bottomless bullpen scoring and heroes who always seem to play for the wrong team. There's the torture of watching the cover being knocked off the ball and hitting the fans on the other side of a wall that says 405', with your guy standing in center field watching it helplessly. And then, when it's all over, you realize something wonderful has happened. It's times like 'this' that make baseball such a pure and legend-laden pastime. I reckon it's times like this that made people who don't even like baseball root for the Red Sox last year. It's definitely times like this that (suck it up) make guys like me, with my jersey and my beer and my screaming, confidently say "We'll get 'em next year," time and time again.

My congratulations go to the fourteen-time division champion Atlanta Braves. The most successful modern day major professional sports dynasty in North America. This time the boys of summer did it with a record-setting number of rookies on the club. And you know what this means.....next year it's on!

A Damn-Near Tornado

Whirlwind. Yep, that's what I'd call it. A fast-paced-wear-you-out-weekend whirlwind.

Let's get started.

Friday night I left work at around 10 pm and headed back to the apartment to pick up A and my already-packed bag. We were on the road by 11, ignorantly thinking we had a chance to make it the whole way home that night. Yeah right. We stopped half way and stayed in one of Marriot's new business targeted hotels - but not a Courtyard. We paid full price for about three hours of sleep, because we were up at five and gone by six in the morning. The continental breakfast (coffee) helped out.

Saturday morning it was on the road again. Like I said we were on the road by about 6 am so we could get to Knoxville for the VOLS game. We got there around 10:30 or so, parked on the strip at Rocky Top Books, walked up to Liquid, sat down right up against the rail looking over the strip, and ordered a few beers. I had scored tickets from a season ticket holder here at work who was not going to use her tickets. So we relaxed as opposed to trying to buy them. Kickoff was at 12:30, so we started walking towards Neyland Stadium at around 11:45. We got in, saw the band making the Power T, the team ran through it, the ground shook, and the game was on. We beat Ole Miss rather easily, but our offense still has a lot of work to do in preparing for Georgia this weekend. They need to step it up a bit. Anyways, a win is a win, and we won, and that's it for the game - GO VOLS.

We left with about four minutes remaining in the game, which ended up making a huge difference in the amount of time it took us to get out of Knoxville. We kept driving towards home. We got there later, at around 6:30 or so and picked up my Mom, and kept driving. We went up to see my sister,brother-in-law, and nephew, who live about forty-five minutes away from my mom. We ordered pizza. It was good. I was tired. So was A. We went home. We crashed immediately. It was a long damn day.

Sunday, after attempting to recover with sleep, we woke up and got started on "keeping in touch." We really didn't get a good start until lunch, where we ate at the very best fast food restaurant in the world, only found in the region. MMMmmm. It was great. After lunch with mom we headed over to my grandmother's for a visit with her and dad. It was pretty cool. She took us to an antique store downtown where she had a lot of stuff from several years ago when she moved from her big ol' house on the hill to the condo she lives in now. Since we are moving into a house, she thought we'd be interested in some of it. We got a few lamps and a beautiful oak dining room table that was my mom's. Needless to say we are very grateful we won't have to be entertaining on a card table. Thanks mom, lulu, and dad.

Sunday night we went back up to see the R,W, & A fam. We picked up some Zaxby's chicken on the way and dined in. It was awesome chicken. So far I don't feel like I have the bird flu so I think we are ok. After dinner and of course playing with my wonderful nephew whom I made laugh - by the way- we headed to a Marble Slab Creamery to meet P & K for dessert. We ended up getting our ice cream and eating it on a bench outside. We stayed and talked for damn-near two hours. It was great to see them again, and we are excited about them coming to visit us in the new pad. After ice cream we headed back to base camp at mom's.

Monday morning we woke up early to get an early start on the long drive. We ate biscuits and gravy at the heavenly Bean Barn. We ended up buying a gallon of sweet tea there because the kind they make here just doesn't size up. We stopped in Knoxville to meet T for lunch at Moe's on the strip. It was great too, and we ended up talking to T for a long time after the time it took us to actually eat. I even saw a guy I haven't seen in years. I used to play soccer with him and his dad was our coach for a while. He seemed to be doing well, he was obviously working, and it was great to see him.

After lunch it was on the road yet again. We kept at it, and finally made it back home at around 6:00 pm. Whew. We unpacked the loaded-down car, carried all that stuff up three freakin' floors of apartment, and then went to eat at the Mexican spot we love. When we got home we were a bit numb and brain-dead. We ended up watching Cellular and The Longest Yard from Netflix. They were both pretty good. I give them three and four stars, respectively.

So, now you know what I was talking about with the whirlwind. It was damn-near a tornado.