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December 21, 2006
swap, furniture, unpacking
We had our office Yankee Swap a short time ago. I ended up with a $15 Dunkin Donuts gift card.
If you're not familiar with a Yankee Swap, it is like a modified Secret Santa. Everybody puts their gift on the table and then picks a number out of a hat. Number 1 picks a gift and unwraps it. Then, number 2 picks a gift and unwraps it. If number 2 prefers the gift that number 1 got, they trade. Then number three unwraps a gift. Of he or she prefers the gift of either number 1 or number 2, they trade.
If you are number 1, you are able to trade gifts after all the gifts have been opened. So it is best to be number 1, followed by the highest number, and so forth. It's pretty fun, as you have a certain degree of control over what gift you get. But generally the most popular gifts end up moving around a lot, and if you are a low number and you get the really cool gift, you can rest assured that you're not likely to leave with it.
So ending up with a gift card was pretty good. We go to Dunkin's enough that I'll get some use out of it.
We are continuing to work on the house. There was a slight snafu with our furniture; the saleswoman put us down as ordering a chair, not a love seat, and we didn't notice it on the receipt until it actually got here yesterday morning. But, although the delivery people told us that we could certainly work it out with the company to trade it in for what we wanted, we ultimately decided not to. Because of the way the room is laid out, the person sitting on the love seat (if we put it where we planned) would have a poor view of the TV, whereas a chair can be angled in such a way that it is more useful. Bottom line, we only lose a single seat, and we have plenty of chairs around for that contingency, and it all looks very nice.
I love furniture you don't have to put together yourself.
The last thing to do in the bathroom is hang some towel racks and put the star candleholders on the wall. The office is basically done except for putting the computers together and such.
We still have a lot of boxes laying around, but we really need to take our time unpacking so we aren't just stuffing things in closets to have them out of sight. I predict we will be donating a lot of stuff to the Salvation Army.
Posted by Mark at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2006
back up?
If this shows up ok, it should mean that my new hosting is working...
Addendum: Yay!
If you send me email, it might take a little longer for me to get it. I am still working out that part of things.
Posted by Mark at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2006
house, school, study
Caulking is hard. The can I used should have caulked like an Olympic swimming pool. I think I used a bit much. And that's all I'll say about that.
The bathroom is so tantalizingly close to being done, I can taste it. We put up the new permanent (screw in type!) shower curtain rod, replaced the outlet, cleaned a.nd put a new cover plate on the showerhead, and put up the tension rod shower caddy thing in the corner. Everything is shiny chrome-style metal and it looks awesome with the blue.
I still have to finish a tiny bit of painting, and then we're done-done. Well, I mean, we have to put the towel rods and stuff back up too, but that's small potatoes. Can't wait.
Kara moved stuff around in the living room, and now we have room at least for our new furniture. There is a LOT to go through, but we can do that over the course of the next few months whilst sitting on the couch watching Law & Order on the TV on the TV stand I finished building before work this morning.
The place is really starting to look good and is coming together.
Oh, almost forgot...I finished my first semester of grad school today around 6:30 when I electronically turned in my accounting final. I think I did ok on it. I think I made some good points on why I answered questions the way I did. Overall, I'm really pleased that somebody like me, who has never taken an econ course in his life and is not very good with numbers, could come out of a course like that and actually be able to talk intelligently about some aspects of finance.
In closing, a great semester. Everybody should go to grad school, and an MBA isn't a bad thing to go for.
Oh, really in closing: I think I want to call our office "the study." It just sounds so awesomely pretentious, I love it.
Posted by Mark at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2006
fake christmas
Just got back from Fake Christmas in Rockport (since we're in PA for Christmas, the gathering with Kara's family has been christened "Fake Christmas") and boy, did we make out. We got a ton of neat stuff.
I got Neil Stephenson's latest book, Anansi Boys, from Kara's mum, along with a nice new shirt, a neoprene 6-pack holder, a Home Depot gift card, and money earmarked for a couple new pairs of shoes. Brian and Christina (I just realized I don't know if she spells it with a C or K...I'll edit this tomorrow when I find out) got us some great Crate and Barrel coffee cups and some mint-flavored Bailey's for Irish coffee. And we all enjoyed some great food, lots of shrimp, and perhaps a glass or two of wine.
Today we went to Kara's Dad's place, and John and R.M. really got us a ton of stuff. We got a set of stainless steel cookware, and a matching tea kettle. Also, a block of chef's knives...
Quick aside: I never realized until probably a half a year ago how great a real knife is when you're cooking. Look, I have some kinda cheap non-stick pots and pans, and they've actually worked well, and silverware that isn't the greatest, and I have to admit that I really actually prefer my waiter's wine opener (that I can't find right now, but that's true of 80% of my personal possessions, right now) to any of the other wine opening gadgets around the house. But I've suffered through the years with the el-cheapo deluxe "knife set" with the chef's knife and the bread knife and the whatever. First: serrated knives suck. They suck. They get dull ("never needs sharpening" pardon my French but MY ASS), they rip stuff apart more than they cut, and, oh, you can't sharpen them if you wanted to.
So, ok, Kate, my old roommate at Alton Court, brought a real set of knives with her. I think I was making something with chicken, and I decided to cut some raw chicken breasts before I cooked them, and I used one of her knives. WOW, what a difference. It actually CUT through the meat. Didn't shred it or drag it around, just lasered through it like the proverbial hot knife through butter. I think I cut up some chicken wings later on with that same knife, and I think I sliced through the bone while I was cutting, without any effort.
Point being, if you cook, spend the money on getting at least one good quality chef's knife. You don't need the $1000 Henckels knife block with the bread knife and the filet knife. You just need one good knife, a knife which, if you should get into a cookoff with God, God's brisket would be cut.
That's all about knives for now. Ok, so we also got some very nice flatware, which is much better than the stuff we bought at Target for about $10 to get us through the next year and is already showing signs of wear. This also saves us from the agony of deciding on a silverware pattern.
Bobby and Karen's family got us a great set of 4 martini glasses and a vodka tasting kit, with a glass decanter and 7 really quite nice shot glasses. Which brings me to the next gift, the kicker:
The 12-bottle countertop wine fridge. I mean, how cool is that? It's funny, we've been in stores lately and have walked by these mini wine fridges and said, "oh, that would be nice to have at some point," but haven't really gone and made the purchase, and John and R.M. get us one. Awesome. It's in the kitchen, and I had meant to set it up tonight, but I'll try to get to it tomorrow.
Anyway, we got home tonight, and Kara moved the living room around a bit in partial preparation for the furniture delivery on Tuesday. I put the futon together, and I'm actually sitting on it right now. It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself, and it matches great with the pine theme in the office. Actually, I'm thinking now that the desk we got for Kara at Staples might have to be replaced with something in pine, because it's going to look funny with a mismatched desk in here. Anybody need a nice oak-finish desk with a hutch/
Also, I won a small victory by getting her to let me put the Syracuse wall hanging on the back of the couch as a blanket. Thanks Nonnie's couch for giving me the idea!
I also started putting the entertainment center together, although I'll wait until later to finish because it involves some hammering.
So that's it. I still have to finish my accounting exam by tomorrow night at midnight, and we have to move some more stuff around in the living room, and also figure out where we're going to put our new stuff in the interim. I also want to start putting together a box of old stuff to sell or donate to family or whatever. I knew we would end up with extra stuff as we consolidated our households, and getting this nice new stuff just accelerates the process, but we also have a lot of still very nice and very usable pre-owned things. I think a lot of stuff is getting put on Craigslist or otherwise going to friends and family in the near future.
Fake Christmas is the best.
Posted by Mark at 11:39 PM | Comments (1)
December 15, 2006
the news
Just a quick FYI, I'm transferring my hosting of my website to a new host. Thanks to Mark Anderson for providing hosting for me all these years!
There is a chance that this site and/or my email might be unresponsive as the transfer takes place, so this is a heads-up if you happen to read this.
Other news, the condo is coming along. I finally got sick of painting the office last night...it is tough, because the corners and edges aren't anywhere near being perfectly square, so trying to paint a nice clean edge is an exercise in frustration. I think it is good enough for right now, and definitely looks better than it did. I might go back and touch it up by hand at some undetermined point in the future. But, we have Julie and James in town from England for New Year's weekend, and we need to have the office/guest room inhabitable by then, so there comes a point when you have to put the brush down.
Last night I spent an hour or so scrubbing paint off the floor, and we did some electrical work too. I am now a junior electrician! The old electrical sockets and light switch were mismatched, missing covers, poorly installed, or whatever, so I decided that I wanted to replace them all with shiny new white ones...none of that off-white "ivory" color. So we spent a half-hour identifying which outlets in the condo are controlled by which circuit breaker switches, turned off the power, held our breath, and changed the sockets and wall plates. Light switch and phone jack too.
Tonight we're picking up our futon and I'll put Kara's new desk together, and by tomorrow, the office should be more or less assembled. I have some more work to do on the bathroom and we have to clean up the living room enough to have space for the furniture by Tuesday, but we'll have one room down.
Today I took my car in for some work. I had been losing coolant, and the car was running rough and making funny noises. Turns out I need a gasket in the coolant reservoir and another new serpentine belt. Guess the serpentine tensioner wasn't adjusted properly and was wearing the belt out. Merry Christmas!
I'll put some photos of the condo work-in-progress up soon, now that I've found my camera picture transfer cable.
Also, I have one more final exam to turn in by Monday and then my first semester of grad school will be done. We're going to Rockport this weekend for "fake Christmas" with Kara's side of the family. And we had a nice time out two nights ago for our company Christmas party.
And that's the news.
Posted by Mark at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2006
wish list addendum
A couple of quick additions to the Christmas list:
I'll put these at the bottom of the other Christmas list too.
Last night we put Christmas lights out on the balcony and came up with the last of our gift lists. I'll put pictures up at some point, after I find the transfer cable for my camera.
Posted by Mark at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2006
christmas list
It's a little hard to say what I want for Christmas this year, since I'm still unpacking the stuff I already have. And I already have a ton of stuff. I think I seriously need to avoid starting any new hobbies for awhile.
So there's nothing that I'm like "Oh I really need to have that for Christmas." I'm fine with people coming up with whatever, gift certificates, etc. But here's a rough list if you need an idea:
(Note: I added the ipod stuff to the bottom of the list after I originally wrote this)
That should get you started. Basically, I kinda want a DS Lite because I think I'd play a mobile video game system more than I would a Wii, although I think it's a neat game and eventually I'll get one. But I have a bunch of regular video games already anyway, so I don't need another one right now. Otherwise, I really like interesting little toys and stuff. The kinds of things you see in a Skymall catalog. In fact, I just love free catalogs.
Also, I've wanted a camera tripod for awhile but haven't gotten around to buying one. I could probably take some neat pics with one.
In other news, we started painting last night, putting the primer on the office walls. We'll finish with color on Wednesday most likely, and I hope to have the bathroom at least started by the end of the weekend. We're shooting to have the living room painted before New Year's.
Posted by Mark at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2006
house to home
Bit by bit, our new house is becoming a home. Last night I spent some time playing Tetris, just rearranging boxes to clear a little bit more space for working and moving around. The bedroom is coming together, and clothes are actually in drawers. I'm going to start stripping paint from the office tomorrow.
There isn't a day that goes by that we don't have this conversation:
"We live together now," Kara will say.
"We live together," I will confirm.
It's still a little weird. You talk about this for a long time, but when it actually comes about, it's still strange that it has finally happened.
It hasn't been too hard. We both compromise on things here and there. It would be harder if one of us was already established in the place, to give up control to the other, but it's a new home for both of us. No territory has been staked out yet.
Unrelated, but I may violate my self-imposed ban on buying new computer games until I finish existing games, because of this. I mean, it's basically Scrabble RPG. How cool is that?
Posted by Mark at 11:33 AM | Comments (1)