Been Busy!

Yeah, yeah, yeah... I've been gone awhile. But I've been busy.

Work, wedding stuff, more job stuff, ran for JC president (lost), etc.

But it's been fun. I've gone to Disney again (finally broke down and bought a season's pass - for if you go only 8 times in a year, it pays for itself)... and we're going another time in about 2 weeks.

All my time these days is spent working, Turkey Shooting (no, not shooting turkeys www.raleighjaycees.com for more info) and Haunted Housing (www.jchauntedhouse.com). I guess I have a pretty limited life... but that's ok. After the TS and HH are done, it'll be back to HOBY (www.hobync.org) for me.

But I really promise to write more.

Really.

I swear.

I HATE moving!

So I'm homeless at the moment. All my crap is in storage with the exception of my car, dog and computer (ok, and a few clothing items, too).

But it's the PROCESS that I hate. I think it's because I've done it too many times.

Starting from birth here are the moves that have involved 2 weeks or more in a given location:

1. Moved from home for unwed mothers (come on... it WAS the 70s) to Adoption Agency.
2. Adoption Agency to my parents home.
3. Parents first home to Texas (Dad had to do basic training).
4. Texas to Germany for Dad's Army assignment in Frankfurt.
5. Frankfurt back to US (Flossmoor, IL).
6. Flossmoor to Valparaiso, IN.
7. Valparaiso to summer camp in WI.
8. Valparaiso to summer camp in MI. (4 times)
9. Valparaiso to private school in Bath, Maine.
10. Bath to home at the end of the school year.
11. Valparaiso to military school in Mexico, Missouri.
12. Mexico to home at the end of the school year.
13. Valparaiso to summer camp in Indiana.
14. Valparaiso to military school again.
15. Mexico to home when I was dismissed from military school (interesting story... ask me sometime).
16. Valparaiso to summer camp in Indiana.
17. Valparaiso to summer camp in Indiana. (yes, again... three summers in a row)
18. Reverse move... I stayed in Valpo for college... my parents moved to Northfield, Illinois.
19. Valpo to Michigan summer camp to work for summer between Freshman and Sophomore years.
20. Valpo to Indiana summer camp to work for summer between Sophomore and Junior years.
21. Valpo fraternity house to Valpo dorm.
22. Valpo dorm to first apartment.
23. First apartment to second apartment (1.5 years later).
24. Second apartment to NC (3 years after that).
25. NC extended stay hotel to NC apartment.
26. NC apartment back to Chicago for work.
27. Chicago to NC when work and personal life conflicted.
28. NC apartment to NC house.
29. NC house to NC homelessness.

Wow. I've moved almost one time for every year that I've been alive. I should really stop doing this. I have a good idea that I'll be moving again in the relatively near future - becoming UNhomeless is my goal. :)

Feed the homeless here:

:)

NewJob

This is a crazy world.

From no job, to contract job, to self-job, to new job... the whole experience has been an adventure.

Have you seen the Monster.com commercials where they all end with "Today's the Day?" Well, I searched monster.com for MONTHS looking for jobs. I went on dozens of interviews, received some offers and then I got a call from a recruiter saying that she'd found my resume on Monster.

I got the job. I took the job. I started the job. So now, I guess I can say that Monster.com is why I have a job. Wow.

And just when I think things are going to settle down, I get ANOTHER job call. Another recruiter found my resume on Monster.com. How weird is that? So I turn down this second job because I already now HAVE a job. When it rains, it pours.

But I guess I shouldn't even PARTIALLY complain, because I'm now employed and things are starting to all come together. But I really wish it would've happened just a bit faster. :)

I have to look back through my calendar to see all that I've been doing in the last few weeks. Suffice it to say that I've been all over the place (did you know that you CAN, in fact, land an airplane in 40 mph crosswinds... and that when emesis is "deposited" on a plane, that the replace the seat and seatbelt?).

Anyways, the bulk of my days are consumed with trying to hawk raffle tickets for HOBY-NC's Vette Raffle. I can't believe we're actually doing it. But we are... and when I got an e-mail from the Sacramento, CA's DA's office, I almost lost my mind.

Apparently, the raffle is illegal under California law... and since I'd advertised it in a way directed at California residents, I was violating the law. I don't really think that's true. Neither does the HOBY-NC lawyer. But I don't feel like contesting the issue... so I withdrew our ads in California.

What a pain in the butt. :)

I've got to write more about the job search... sorry if that's boring... but it's really unbelievable.

There has been a position posted for this area (first cool thing) doing what I do (second cool thing). It pays pretty well (third cool thing) and it's been open for awhile, too (fourth cool thing).

So I applied through a search firm. And then I started to find "similar" jobs from other recruiters in this area. But they weren't exactly the same. So I wasn't sure whether to apply to all of them or not (you can't usually apply for the same job through two recruiters - it just doesn't look good to the employers) because I didn't know where they were.

One of the recruiters was initially really interested in me. Then she told me that she was going to submit me. And then she dropped off the face of the planet. Oh well.

So I talked with another recruiter. SHE also thought I was a match. She fell off the face of the planet.

And then I talked with yet another. SHE thought I was a match. She said she was going to submit me. I called her again today. She said she did, but didn't know the results and regardless was going to submit me again with additional information just to get me in the door to talk with the hiring manager.

Let's recap. One (apparent) job. THREE recruiters. ZERO follow through on their part. Which is interesting considering that they will make about 30% of my starting salary just for getting me hired. Not a bad days' income for doing almost nothing (since I was finding THEM).

Pisses me off!

Oh well, I just do what I do. :)

Tina and I went to see Duke play Valparaiso University (my alma matter) in basketball at Cameron last night.

Want to guess who won?

90-something to 50-something.

It was a slaughter. But we had fun there anyways! I received lots of stares as I was wearing a maroon Valpo sweatshirt. :) Next year they're playing at the United Center in Chicago. So Tina will look out of place in a Duke sweatshirt. Heh.

OK... time to get back to invitations. We have to address the INNER envelopes now, then put everything inside. Then lick, stick and send 'em away.

I was raised on McDonald's, Burger King and Domino's Pizza. I LOVE fast food... not just the fact that I think it tastes good to me (given my finiky food behavior), but that it's just easy to get and I don't have to prepare it.

But the truth is that I should eat healthier meals. And Tina's been encouraging me to cut back on the calories - since my lazy butt has been on a couch for a lot of the last few months. :)

So I went to the grocery store to find something that would be fairly quick and easy to prepare to encourage better eating habits. I found the Healthy Choice bowls in the freezer section - more specifically, a Chicken & Rice bowl which was just perfect. I bought them by the boatload. I LOVED these meals.

Well, one day, I could no longer find them in the closest grocery store. I had to go online to find where else they were stocked. Visiting about 10 other stores in the Raleigh area, I cleaned out every one I could find. But the very next time I went back, there weren't any in stock anywhere.

OK. Don't panic. Go to the customer service desk and ask them if they have any in the back. No, none in the back. Alright, can you special order them? Sure. No problem. How long til they arrive? No clue. Fine, I'll just check back later.

For three consecutive weeks, I would call to check to see if they were in. Nope. Never. Sorry. So at this point, I was getting REALLY worried, as I only had 1 or 2 left! I was going to have to eat out more often if I lost my bowls.

I decided to call the manufacturer. I wanted to know where they recommended that I get them. Wanna' guess what happened? Oh yeah.... they were DISCONTINUED!!! I couldn't believe it. Apparently, the Chicken & Rice bowl wasn't very popular. I was crushed. Because now I was FORCED to eat out again!

But as usual, Tina came to the rescue. She told me to go and pick something else out at the store. After several failed attempts, I think I might have found another meal I like. Woo hoo! Can you guys tell McDonald's that I won't be around much?

(Note: This is a cross-over blogisode - meaning that it's the same post here as on the Wedblog with minor differences. Thanks for playing along.)

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!

I'm tired of addressing wedding invitations.

My fingers feel like they're going to fall off. But at least the outside envelopes are done, now to do the insides.

What's that you say? Why am I doing it by hand? What possessed me to grab a caligraphy pen and hand-write 200 or so invitations?

Well, I'm a sadist, really. And I'm cheap. An addressing service (yes, folks, there are people paid to address envelopes) will do it for about $1.50/envelope. This includes the outer envelope - the one with:

Mr. and Mrs. Full-first-name-middle-name-last-name
Fully spelled out street address
Fully spelled out city, state and zipcode

And the inner envelope:

First name of each adult on the first line
First name of each child on the second line

But as I'm only done with the outer envelopes, I still have to repeat the process with the inners. Sound simple? Sure. Simple for me? Of course not.

First we had to order the invitations - you can read about some of that adventure on our WedBlog. We paid a little extra so the envelopes would arrive sooner than everything else (with the idea being that I would actually get started addressing them sooner. I tried.

I say, "I tried," because my first few envelopes were done with a caligraphy marker... and without me knowing that I was supposed to be doing the full-name-no-abbreviation thing apparently required by formal southern tradition. OH, and I had wanted to do the caligraphy in purple. Apparently, only black is the allowed color. Oops.

So first was a trip to get black caligraphy markers. I came back, did a few envelopes and Tina then informed me (after an hour of addressing) that while these were fine for my friends, it wasn't going to work for her family. I realized that this meant that I was doing it wrong for everyone and was going to have to go back to the store.

See, the marker has a wide tip. I needed to see if there was a smaller version. I found two more black caligraphy markers and returned home to discover that nope, they're the same size. Which meant that I just wasn't going to be able to use markers for this. I was going to have to (insert dramatic pause here)... buy a real caligraphy pen. (I also had to get a "light box" - a little translucent table with a nightlight installed under it - so that I could project guidelines drawn on a piece of paper inserted into the envelopes. This way, it appears that I'm really great at making letters of equal height and in a straight line.)

Three guesses on who doesn't know the first thing about caligraphy pens but had to learn quickly while standing in the aisle of the store! :)

Yes, I found what I thought I wanted, went home and opened the box. These pens aren't the $2 bizillion pens that they used to use for nice writing. They're idiot-proof pens for people like me. I followed the directions to insert the ink cartridge, attach the right "nib" and tried to start the ink flow.

Hmmmm... no ink flowing. I wrote with a down-stroke, an up-stroke, a side-to-side stroke. No flow. I tried a damp paper towel to help siphon the ink down the nip (this is a real suggestion made on the instruction sheet... I didn't just make it up myself). No flow. I tried shaking the pen. No flow. Finally, I shook the pen in sharp downward motions (like I was 'resetting' a thermometer) and then used the paper towel method. Flow.

Now I started addressing. It's an amazing thing to see how small I can get the letters with a real pen.

And today, two weeks after I started (and LONG after the rest of the invitations arrived thus showing us that we wasted a bit of cash on the envelope rush order), the outer envelopes are complete. But only because I did 80 of them yesterday.

So my fingers feel like they're going to shrivel up and fall off.

I had an interesting day yesterday.

I love my car. What I love most is that my car has a bunch of cool gadgetry that makes my driving experience better than farfegnugen. But every once and awhile, some of that cool gadgetry goes Inspector Gadget on me.

The other day was my remote door locks. I have a nifty little feature called Passive Keyless Entry, PKE for short. PKE "senses" the presence of the keyfob and unlocks the door(s) when you approach and then locks the doors when you turn off the car, close the door and walk away.

The fob also has buttons for unlocking/locking the doors and popping the rear hatch. I realized things weren't working the day I turned off the car, pulled the keys out of the ignition and the doors locked me in and then the hatch popped open. Taking the car to the dealer, I found that I had a VERY expensive problem or an even MORE expensive alternative. So luckily for me, I just had the VERY expensive issue.

After a week or so, the car was ready to go. The keyfobs were reprogrammed to the car and the mechanic demonstrated that everything worked as it should... and that my rear hatch shouldn't pop as I'm driving down the highway. Of course, two days later, Tina needed to get in the passenger side of the car and we realized that the passenger door didn't unlock with the driver's door - which it used to do up to this point.

Tina feels like I'm not attentive as a result... and I'm pissed because I felt that the repair folks didn't do their job and I was taking the heat. I grabbed the car's manual, checked the appropriate pages, and saw how there were three PKE settings: Off, Driver's Door Only, Both Doors. I followed the instructions to change the settings to Both Doors. But it didn't work. Nor did it work the next dozen times I tried. Now you've got the background to understand what happened next.

As luck would have it, a lot of my interviewing trips were coming up, so I didn't have time to take it back to the dealer until yesterday. When I talked with the mechanic again, his response was "the car doesn't do that..." and "it's not something I can set up for you...". I pulled out the manual again, showed him where it said it was an easy setting to change.

After a half-hour of talking with other folks there who were supposedly "experts" on this particular vehicle, it was time to call Second Level Support from the Auto Manufacturer because no one there supposedly knew that the PKE system could unlock both doors. After ANOTHER half-hour, we found that there were a few possibilities... most likely it was a short between the ignition and the remote system receiver that was replaced during those expensive repairs. Of course, the only way to prove it was to rip open the dash board and test the wire. So I decided to live with the idea that the system only unlocks the one door for the moment.

But my favorite quote of the day came as I was getting back into the car to go home. The mechanic was smiling, joking about the extent to which they'd have to go to test that one piece of wire. And then, still smiling, he says "you're the only one who wants that setting... everyone else wants us to turn it off so that only one door unlocks...".

And I drove off... but wait a minute, didn't we start this adventure by him telling me that such a setting doesn't exist?

Not much to really talk about these days.

Job hunting is always a trip. I wonder why people post jobs that a)don't exist or b)don't have all the NECESSARY qualifications listed.

The house is still for sale. I've had a LOT of showings. I just keep waiting for a real buyer.

Hunting for jobs is NOT fun. I don't care whether you're looking for an hourly position or a salaried job. Sending out resumes, making cold calls... whatever you're doing, rejections are derigeur. And they're going to come in by the boatload. If you want more, come get some from me. :)

So I'm innocently sitting at my computer the other day and I get an e-mail from Tina. It is a challenge to me to take a "political candidate" test to see who matches up with my personal beliefs. [Quick background note: Tina's pretty far Republican. I'm not. She's also politically inclined. I'm not.]

She taunts me with the idea that Joe Lieberman is actually in the top three of her list. She's doing this to prove to me that I don't know what the various candidates really stand for - and she's right. My test is abysmal. Al Sharpton is the 100% match with my views. Scary. I guess I'll be voting "independent" come November.

In other news, we're going on a double-date with Carmen tomorrow night. She's taking US out with the gift certificate we got her as a Christmas present. That's pretty good return on investment - get to hang out with our friends AND get dinner for free. Cha-ching!

Oh, and house sale news... apparently the person who wants my house is a total home buying newbie. She's completely skittish and doesn't really want to negotiate. But what she has been told to get is $3,000 in closing costs. After about 5 back & forth offers and counteroffers, I finally gave an ultimatum tonight. I'm tired of dealing with this. If she doesn't want the house, that's fine. I'm tired of playing around with her. She is either going to have to pay for it or go find someplace for free (which is apparently what she feels she deserves as a new home buyer). Hehe.

And I got another job offer. In yet another town somewhere other than Raleigh. This is getting out of hand. Why can't someone let me stay here?

Not much happened today except that I made 100 phone calls for HOBY. Each school in North Carolina is invited to send one student to participate in this leadership weekend. But we don't hear from all of them, so we try to followup with them to see if they're going to send anyone. Thus the calls.

It took me three hours or so to do it. My fingers were sore from the dialing. And I got pretty tired of asking to speak with the guidance counselor, too.

And when I wasn't on the phone with a school, I was receiving calls about jobs and about selling my house. You'd better make an offer fast, or the house is going to be gone. :)

I am all for going out and having a good time, but I'm stumped as to why it costs more to go out on a Friday night than a Sunday afternoon.

When I returned from Detroit on Friday night, I mentioned that I wanted to go to Kanki for dinner. It's the nicest Japanese Steak House in Raleigh - and dinner for two starts around $50. Tina was tired and I wasn't doing too well either (still in a suit from the interview). So we talked for a few moments and decided that a Sunday afternoon date would be better.

So we woke up this morning and planned out our date day. We would go to lunch at Kanki, hang around the mall (where the restaurant is) for a little while to kill some time, then go to a matinee showing of Big Fish.

By the end of the afternoon, we'd spent just over $40. Woo hoo! But I still don't understand why it was so much cheaper.

Lunch: $28.00
Snacks purchased at Target rather than the theatre: $1.25
Movie tickets: $11.00
Total: $40.25

So our advice to people who want to do a lot with a little? Stay at home on Friday night, go out on Sunday afternoon. :)

Life can be incredibly unfair at times.

I'm hunting for a new job. I've had interviews all over the country - Atlanta, Los Angeles, Nashville, Washington DC, San Antonio, New York and I've got another one in Detroit tomorrow. Until yesterday, the jobs I get aren't ones I want... the jobs I want aren't ones I get. But all that changed in an instant when I got the job offer of my dreams at a salary higher than I've ever been offered before. But I can't take it because even at that salary, I can't afford to live in the location of the job. They're not willing to let me telecommute (which is something that's possible given what I do), so I'm stuck, because while it APPEARS to be a lot of money, it's really less than what I made here. How's that for bad karma?

Oh well... I keep looking. Maybe something new will come along.

But we finally made it out of the neighborhood yesterday. And as suspected, only my neighborhood still had ice on the streets. The people who live on the road that connects my neighborhood to the main city street have parked their vehicles on the street. They apparently don't care that as a result, the street scrapers can't get by and clear MY block.

But folks are still getting into accidents out there, sliding around on the pavement. I just don't get it. You'd think that even if people were totally unfamiliar with icy roads, it would only take ONE ice storm for them to learn that cars don't have traction on ice. Even four-wheel drive vehicles don't have traction when there's NO tractable surface available for ANY of the wheels to touch.

Unfortunately, they don't. So people die. Sad, really.

Anyways, I have another house showing today. Maybe these people will buy it - no train, ya' know.

I've had it with weather that the locals don't know how to handle. I'm from a tiny town in the NW corner of Indiana - very close to the border (and thus Chicago). We get TONS of inclement weather and more snow in a day than some folks in NC have seen in their lifetimes. So I really don't understand why folks down here can't figure out how to remove the relatively tiny amount of snow and ice we get from the roadways.

Today alone they're reporting that there have been over 1,000 traffic accidents. Now, it seems to me that if the state/county/city doesn't know how to REMOVE the snow/ice, that folks would realize this and also realize that they don't know how to DRIVE on said snow/ice. They should just stay home. But they don't. The result is that the universe has a few less living people today.

But I guess I can't say much because Tina and I tried to go out today (she's staying with me for security purposes). She called her office and found out that it was scheduled to open on a two hour delay. At 9am, I went downstairs and started shoveling the driveway. I cleared the bulk of the ice from her car and the drive and when my lungs felt like they were going to burst, I went back indoors.

So at about 10:30am, we tried to leave home. We got off the driveway, down my block and around the first corner. The next road was uphill, and about a block into the trip, we saw an SUV on the side of the road just sitting there blowing exhaust. Tina wondered aloud what they were doing just sitting there - blocking the road!

As we passed them, traction became non-existent and we started spinning the wheels. A kid was standing about another 25 yards ahead at the top of the hill, waving us on as if we were having to watch for cars coming around the bend. But it didn't matter because we weren't moving forward anymore and the front of her car was drifting to the left.

We stopped completely, I got out and promptly lost my footing on the sheet of ice formerly known as pavement. I tried to help Tina in any way that I could... but we quickly realized that we were going to just head home and spend another day inside. Two minutes later, I was on the ground - plopped down on my butt because I couldn't stand straight.

Returning home was fairly simple and with a little speed, we made it back up the driveway without further incident. Tina almost took a spill simply trying to walk back to the front door. I was upset because we weren't going to be able to get any more groceries and I was out of french fries.

To be honest, the rest of the day was almost entirely uneventful and it really runs together with the other two days of being trapped in the house. So I can't honestly tell you what happened today versus what happened yesterday.

The last two hours, however, are pretty fresh in mind. We had dinner (still no french fries and I'm even running out of potato chips - please, someone ship them to me... the US Post Office delivered mail again today so THAT's available), watched some TV and now we're putzing around before bed.

Oh, and my virus scanning software is still running. This is about 5.5 hours now - scanning about 250K files. I don't know what it's doing, but it's not finding any virii. Again, I'm on a Mac, so I'm fairly immune to most things out in the wild - but I was trying to be vigilant considering the new e-mail worm that's been out here for the last 48 hours. Maybe one of these days, the scan will end. I dunno'.

I guess I'll post again when I'm sure I'm clean.

I'm trapped in my house. It's been snowing (with a coating of freezing rain for good measure) for the last two days. So I can't go anywhere.

Lucky for me, I've got friends nearby. And of course, there's Allie.

First, she needed a bath today. I've been avoiding this because I don't like having to clean her, then clean the tub and then clean myself - all because SHE needed a bath. I really wish she'd grow out that dew paw and make it an opposable thumb. Perhaps she could bathe herself. Then again, she could just become a cat. Either way, I could stop trying to cajole her into the bathtub for something NEITHER of us likes to deal with.

Anyways, for those of you who KNOW Allie, she's very fond of the outdoors. This is evidenced by the fact that every time it even appears that I'm going to go outside, she runs to the door nearest myself (even if it's an interior door), sits as close to the door as possible... and waits. But it's not just any wait, it's a sit and a scoot closer to the door. A pant and then another scoot closer to the door.

I think she believes that the closer she IS to the door, the closer she is to getting THROUGH the door. Unfortunately for her, she's pretty opaque and isn't able to go through the door. But I'm a reasonable guy (and I've got a fenced-in backyard), so I'll let her go out there whenever she really wants to go.

Today was no different and when she asked to go out, I let her (yes, AFTER she was dried off from her bath). But not before turning on the outside light so I could watch her slip-slide her way across the yard to do her business. Hehehe... she loves to play in the snow and she can't tell that it's got an ice coating. It just looks white to her, I suppose.

So she falls on her ass several times and I'm laughing at her. Of course, with her super-hearing, she can tell, so she comes running back to the glass door because of the noises she hears me making. Not having any traction, she slides into the door. Hehehehe!

OK, I'll move away from the door so she can go potty (that's her code word for "go-ing" and if you ever meet her and tell her to "go potty", she will almost immediately - so use this doggie kryptonite sparingly and remember that she's probably at your house and not mine). She still enjoyed running around the yard, breaking the ice with her paws. I love my dog.

Since I'm in the house all day, there are a limited amount of things I can do inside (especially now that I took my train down). I can hunt for jobs, surf the web/send e-mail, play with Allie, clean the house (yeah, right) or eat. Care to guess what I did the most of today? Let's just say that I'm not going to be using the new body-fat calculator this week.

So I'm blending into my couch, chomping on potato chips, watching TV and surfing the web. But did you know the mail was actually delivered today? Those folks are nuts. I did get my Duke-Valpo basketball tickets in the mail (anyone looking for men's BB tix?). Woo hoo! I'm going to get to watch MY almamater get their collective butts handed to them as a tolken scrub team to keep Duke warm between real games. Tina, as a Duke alum, thinks it's fun. She can't wait to go to the game - just so I can be humiliated and she gets to sit in a real seat in Cameron (for those in the know, Duke students almost NEVER actually get a seat - they STAND for the entire game).

Anyways, the TV weatherpeople say that the weather tomorrow isn't going to be much better than today. So my guess is that I'll be stuck indoors for another day. Such is my life. But I'm running out of potato chips. If you have some of the new lower-fat Ruffles (have rrrrrrridges), please mail them to me. With the mailman coming by even in this crap, I have a reasonable chance of getting them sooner than me actually getting to a grocery store.

Oh, and just a quick advertisement. Kathy C got me hooked on a game called Bejeweled for the PalmOS. If you have a Palm device, I highly recommend this game. Totally addictive and cheaper than crack.

Good night!

I'm a negotiator. It's what I do. It's who I am.

Most people would argue that what you do isn't who you are... but such is not true for me.

I seek out things to negotiate, arguments that need settling, prices that need shaving. I'll negotiate with you, with your boss or your mom. It's sort of like arguing for sport. Only I get paid for it. Yep, I'm a professional.

But that's not the point of this. I, like every other blogger, am a frustrated writer. I would love to write a novel, a short story, a screenplay, a poem. Something that would get published somewhere and by someone who would send me a check for doing it. Since that's not happening for a career, I can resort to Blogspot.

So let's start with today. I woke up at 10:30am today - realized that I didn't have much to do and headed down to the couch to check e-mail and flip on the TV. I'm trying to sell my house and my realtor likes to e-mail me the comments she receives from people who view my house.

The comments today are "Price is great. Backyard is great. Will keep it on our list". She then
asked about the train set."

For those of you not in the know, my house has a train. And not just any old train, this is a lego train. It runs on a lego track which sits on glass shelves that are installed around the edge of my kitchen at ceiling height. Pretty useless, but cool. A great conversation starter.

As you might imagine, however, the train isn't really popular with people who want to buy my house. So there's been an ongoing discussion on how to market the house with the train. Long story short, we have said that the train is "negotiable" - loosely translated it means "we know you won't want it, but we're too lazy to remove it now."

But this new realtor of mine thinks it's time for it to go. So I spent the better part of three hours removing the train and patching the holes in the ceiling... all while watching "Bands Reunited" on VH1.

Now my ceiling looks empty. Barren, even. Oh well... perhaps I should increase the price of the house to compensate.