Ixalopolis

A bulleted list.

2006-11-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

Hey, things are looking up. You know what I'm talking about, voters.

Recent accomplishments:
1) Completing Yoga Course Phase 1!
2) Scrum Master Certification!
3) Traumatic Bursitis of the elbow! My elbow has never been larger!
4) Poorly executed karaoke at Beerland!
5) Halloween ghost costumes made from sheets!
6) Halloween ghost pirate costumes made from sheets and hats!

Anyhow, progress is being made. Ryan and I are starting to kick around ideas for the next project in earnest. It has been some time! We're going to work with Rob Osborne and hopefully get something together for Staple in March. Yeah. The ideas. They are flowing. Like so much ... flowing stuff. Hot maple syrup, maybe. Or magma. Sweet, sweet magma.

Robyn and I are going to have a little faux-housewarming where people get together and play board games. Maybe we shall have a bigger housewarming later or something, but it is not high on the priority list!

We had a photographer over the other day so's that the architect could get some shots for his portfolio. We'll get a copy, so those will be coming soon.

Extra

2006-10-30T05:38:00.000-08:00

In Dallas today for some action-packed project manager training. At the end of the class, I will be a level 1 Scrum Master, which entitles me to an extra 1d6 HP, and I can cast an extra cantrip per day (or something like that).

On the plane, I sat a seat over from Chris Mulkey. Kooky.

Anyhow, all is well. The cats are cats and do cat things. The house is a house and does house stuff. I spend a fair amount of time these days thinking about my lawn and how not to kill it. So far, so good. I got a push mower and a weed eater and those things seem to do what they're supposed to - I push the mower and it mows stuff. Woo! The bamboo in the back seems to be thriving, while the Japanese maple seems to be ... not thriving. Still! It is a work in progress.

Ok. Scrum time.

Yoga, part II

2006-10-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have Yogad. It did not murder me. In fact, it was pretty relaxing. Mostly, it involved a lot of stretching and trying not to fall over. Of course, they did sneak in a little meditation bit at the end there. Sneaky yogists! My theory is it's pretty easy to feel enlightened when you're all hopped up on endorphins and you spend ten minutes listening to the sound of a gong, but that's just me. Either way, I think I'll go back. There are worse things in life to be than limber and relaxed.

WKND

2006-10-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

Virtually nothing of significance accomplished this weekend! Hooray! I mean, aside from some naps and some game playin'. This was mostly predicated by the knowledge that I had to work on Sunday. Fun.

However, the work on Sunday got cut a little short, and Robyn and I were able to mosey down the street to the Farmer's Market where they were having the 2nd annual Texas Bar-B-Q festival. Which was awesome. We were pretty glad that we walked, on account of the fact that there's a lot of Bar-B-Q at that festival. The market is right next to the Brentwood Tavern, where they have Lone Star on draft for a buck on Sundays. So, yeah. Cheap beer and locally grown produce. Good times.

What else?

The Crestview Neighborhood Association is having a meeting tonight, which I'm going to miss. Got a class. A yoga class. I have no idea what I am in for. Robyn shoots me the occasional warning glance and says things like "Are you ready?" I don't even know what being ready would begin to entail. Maybe I could drink a lot of Gingold or something.

Cats Galore!

2006-10-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

New cat. His name is Moogle. Yes I know. He won't shut up.

Need more time.

2006-10-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

So recently I had a vacation, wherein I got a lot of stuff done. I think I need about another week of that to catch up.

I've been working off of a "punch list" of "action items" for the house. Can you tell that I am a project manager? I can. I have also been checking in with the electricians who have been busy apparently not returning anyone's calls. Exciting! Hopefully all of that will be done today and the Home of the Future will be all TeleNetworked with the UltraNets, and we will be able to - say - hook up more than one phone. Crazy talk, I know.

What else? I hung some drapes. I seriously hung some drapes. All by my lonesome. Attached the curtain-thing to the wall-thing using screw parts that I picked out myself, while standing on the ladder I also acquired. Using tools from my toolbox. Ooooo. There's some other drape-related activity, but that falls under Robyn's aegis, so I'll leave that to her. I am not fabric oriented.

Additionally, we have another cat, which seems to operate within reasonable cat parameters. All is well.

Photos

2006-09-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

More to follow! Well, as stuff is unpacked.

Its all ours!

2006-09-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

Yup we own a house now. Closed last week and we've been in it since the 16th. Its all pretty awesome. A lot of the boxes are already unpacked, thanks to Andrew. All that's left to organize are our respective offices and that should take quite a while. Its amazing the crap you find in 3 year old boxes. We're both trying to get rid of old books and toys, we even have an ebay box. So if anyone has a request for toys, holla!

Shelving

2006-09-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

At this point, I am a total professional. I have just made a transaction where I ordered bookshelves in like record time. They look like this:

Or something like it. Modular. Flexible. Minimalist. And I think I can put them together without the use of sharp tools. Bonus. It's like Legos. I was thinking of using these for comics, too. This'll be a good trial run. Supposedly the shelves can hold about 55lbs, and comic boxes weigh less than 1/2 of that.

In other news, took a quick trip to Houston over the weekend. I've only driven out there once before, and that was just to use the airport. That was no fun. This was fine, though. There was a lot of highway, some kolaches, some Ikea time, then more highway, then some random Germanish towns, then back in Austin. Robyn and I listend to David Cross most of the way there, then random music and stupid joke-making on the way back. Huzzah!

In theory, we should have utilities pretty soon after we close. I have no idea how long it takes the city of Austin to hook stuff up. Cable (which I need to use the UltraWeb) is a different story. Apparently, I should have signed up to have cable installed before I left Virginia 5 years ago. There's a bit of a backlog. I had no idea. That's fine, though. I can go without for a week or so, and if I start to crack up, I have my trusty laptop, and the neighborhood bars and coffee shops all seem to have WiFi.

Done.

2006-09-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

I am officially tired of moving. Ye old above map represents every time I've had to move over the past... 8 or so years. 14. 14 times. That's an average of a move every seven months. So, yeah. I'm done. I am over it. I am no longer excited about the prospect of relocation. I plan to get into my house and hole up there for as long as possible, only occasionally foraying out into the world for work or food or whatever. Some guys are going to come over to my apartment and do a whole bunch of work for me, and then it is going to be resolved. I am not bribing friends with beer and pizza. I did that for moves A-L. A through L. I am not loading a damn thing. I am not carrying a single sofa. I am not spending an afternoon figuring out how to fold space or whatever when an awkwardly shaped table gets wedged halfway up a flight of stairs, as has happened on virtually every move ever. Nope. I am not stealing milk crates in order to pack my probably ludicrous quantity of books, and then I am not reusing those milk crates as bookshelves (maybe). However, even if I do, I am not lugging them over from one place to another over the period of two weeks in the trunk of my compact car. Nope. Hiring some guys. It will all be done in an afternoon, and then I am taking two weeks off to stare at boxes and otherwise do nothing.

Starting next Thursday, when we close on the house.

Storage.

2006-09-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

Very close now. I would say 10-15 days. Ha! I feel like I have said that before. Ah wait! I did. This time, I hope it is for reals, as on Sept. 17th, we scheduled to be out of our current apartment situation, and into a new house-related situation.

They've started landscaping, which is a good sign. There are some small trees, of the Cypress and Japanese maple varieties. They look like they do tree stuff. I haven't really checked.

So the latest conundrum that I am mulling over is the question of storage. I gots me a lot of books. I also have a volume of comics that Robyn finds nearly appalling. Oh, and the Nerd Room in the new place doesn’t have a closet. Ideally, I’d like to get everything in some manner of “storage solution” that is not a “stack of boxes of comics”. Oddly enough, there’s nothing about this on MoCoLoco, or Apartment Therapy, or any of the other hipster-I-live-in-Manhattan-and-I-don’t-need-places-to-put-things websites. On the other side of the coin, of course, we have Spartan metal shelves with box after box. Or home-grown solutions that look like they were made by someone’s kid in shop class. Hrm.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

2006-08-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

Very close now. I would say 10-15 days.

We've seen the house recently, and it has come along quite well. I understand that there are railings, which is the sort of thing you need to really appreciate the stairs. Most of the fixtures ordered have been installed. There are countertops, faucets, and some appliances. Not far now.

So, yesterday Robyn and I endeavored to solve the closet problem. There are stores that specialize in this problem, and I expect the experience to go something like this:

"Here is the size of the closet. There are two of us. We do not - collectively - own an unreasonable sum of shoes."
"Ah, well here is your closet thing. There you go."

Instead, it is a longer, more drawn-out problem involving questions of torso size, belt volume, and a number of other things that I slowly lose interest in, as I realize that I have grown dehydrated from playing SimCity 4 all day. The sotre starts to close, and we take our printout that we swear we will follow up on, though we know that to be a lie.

Recognizing my growing surliness / dessication, we head over to the nearby Whole Foods, where I stand in line for some time trying to get something that vaguely resembles iced tea. The woman in front of me in line is carrying on something of an addled discourse with the person behind the counter, the high point of which is when she boldly declares that you shouldn't eat yams. No one should. I guess they contain vitamin DOOM.

Yams. The silent killer. Who knew? I certainly did not.

That Whole Foods is poorly designed, so the whole process of getting juice or tea there involves spending a few minutes jostling back and forth between several exactly wrong places to stand. All the while, the yam lady glowered around at the populace. Pleasant.

After that, we headed to the better grocery store and got better groceries. We made salads at the salad bar. Mine featured jalapenos, sunflower seeds, and garbanzo beans. I shouldn't be trusted to prepare salads for other people, I suppose. We chatted with the pleasant people working there when there was no one in line behind us. We saw some guy park a yellow H2 in a handicapped spot and called the fuzz on him. Good times!

Updata

2006-07-31T07:48:00.000-07:00

Ahem.

Recently went to the "nerd prom" in San Diego. Good times were had by all. The best thing about it, in a weird way, were the people who were asking me what I was writing next. Which is a strong indicator that I should write more. So... there's that.

The Sconces of Mystery were resolved. Resolved in the sense that we kindly instructed the sconcemeisters in question to cancel our order. We found some much cheaper ones which allow for a greater level of customization. We'll see how that works out.

We signed some papers which I swear look exactly like some other papers we signed 6 months ago. It's like a turing test or something. We'll get some more papers to sign in ... ten days? Something like that.

The house should be done by the end of August. For real. Or something.

We visited a few weeks back and took some pictures with Robyn's Colorsplash Lomo. Neato. Gives us some ideas for colors in rooms. I suppose you could get the same effect with photoshop. Sorta. But it wouldn't be the same. Uploading soonish!

Sci-Fi Fans and Quantum Probability.

2006-07-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

Through the magical interweb, I can see that some Fans of the Future will be arriving at Robyn's office today. Progress! One of the fans is on backorder (the Artemis), but we were able to find it at a place in Dallas. So, no fan issues remaining to deal with.

There was some tile minutia that came up the other day, but Robyn dealt with it deftly. Any interest I have in knowing things about tile has been effectively quashed at this point. The tile in question still fulfills all of my requirements and there's some traceability between those requirements and implementation. So my radioactive project manager heart ticks away knowing that all is well with the world. At least the world of tile.

The current nuisance is sconce-related. Let me give you some history:
1) We ordered some sconces.

Now, if you are like me, you would expect there to be a second step there. Like "We ordered some sconces and then a result occured." But right now, no result. We got a receipt, I think. But nothing after that. We've tried contacting the place, but all we get is voicemail. Sweet. We have no way of presently observing the existence or non-existence of our sconces, so they remain not so much actual sconces, but more a quantum probability of sconces. Schroedinger's Sconces, if you will. While that's fine and good and ha-ha-riffic, it is not something I can hang on my wall, and - say - have it emit light.

Fans!

2006-07-10T08:07:00.000-07:00

In theory, there are some fans on a truck somewhere, being shipped to Robyn's office. Yee-haw.

Living room:

Cirque from Minka Aire.

Bedroom:

Artemis from Minka Aire.

Deck:

Nimbus from Modern Fan Co.

And there ya go. We also got some lights recently, most notably:

...for the big stairwell at the front o' the house.

Went by the other day to check on how things are coming along. From the outside, looks much the same, though they are putting in the driveway this week. They were doing a bit of painting, which means that the white sheetrock is covered in other stuff, which is in turn covered with white paint. Robyn and I both figured we'd want to see the space before we decide to paint it, though white is fine by me, actually. Apparently the "tile guy" was there last week, and the "landscape guy" will be there this week. That's exciting. Maybe they'll team up and tile the lawn, though probably not.

Lights, Fans, Knees.

2006-06-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Spent some time this weekend looking over lighting fixtures and realizing what I really want is just light without the fixtures. Also spent more time seriously looking at ceiling fans this weekend than I think I have spent seriously looking at ceiling fans in my life up to this point. I know I should be judging them strictly on aesthetics, but I start thinking about the volume of air that one fan can displace vs. another, and I am somewhat disappointed that this data is not one of the "Back of the box bullets" or "Unique sales propositions" involved in each fan's marketing materials.

We've made a couple of decisions on things (I think), like we are not going to get the builders to paint the walls kooky colors, and we're not going to get a bright orange countertop. So those things are good. We're getting bamboo flooring upstairs (renewable resource, yay!).

What else? Started jogging a bit again. After half a dozen different doctor visits over the past year and miscellaneous attempts at rehab, my knee seems up to it. So, we will see how that goes.

OMG there are walls!

2006-06-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

So we did a walk thru of the house today, lots of progress from the last time. Sheetrock should go up next week and then into the home stretch. Still about 2-3 months away tho. We are really excited and now get to pick out lights and counter tops! How awesome! Now the pics.

This is a view from the driveway, you can see the upstairs deck and front o da house.

View from backyard. It be tall.

View of living room and backdoor from carport.

Stairs from the kitchen

Andrew's nerd room!

Ps That is our realtor Ann and the builder Dean. They are nice.

...

2006-06-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

So... yeah. People ask when the house is going to be done, and I say "by the end of May" which in turn leads to a questioning look, as we just had the end of May, and the house is not done. I understand "late" and "scheduling difficulties". That is a good chunk of what I do. Track things and plan other things. Where I get irritated is when I say... "So when's it going to be done?" and the answer is....?

That's where we are. The lease on the apartment just went month to month, as we had sorta planned to be not there by now, which means we get the privelidge

The other thing...

2006-05-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

Ah, here is something else.

So I go to the dentist. It's one of those things that I do. And I like my dentist. The whole place is kind of "chill" as the kids say (although it could be argued that if I am using the term "chill" there's a reasonably high probability that the kids to not - in fact - say). Anyhow, as far as going to the dentist goes, it's a pretty relaxing experience. I lucked out in the dentist lottery or something. There's even a lady who will come around and give you a wrist massage while you're getting your teeth cleaned. Luxury dentist, I tell you.

Except for one thing.

As I mentioned, there's wrist massage lady. And there's teeth cleany lady. And they're both doing their thing. And I don't know what it is, but whenever I am there, they decide to talk about whatever vaguely horrible thing happened recently. Like massage lady found some dude in her living room, so she's packing heat while she's at home. Or "Poisonous Snakes of Austin And How They All Look the Same". Or today's topic: "What Happens When You Get Bitten By a Brown Recluse Part 3 - Necrosis." So while this woman with a steel hook is scraping away and talking about various yard-based monsters that would totally kill you if they got the chance, I'm trying to mentally calculate the net scorecard of relaxation vs. discomfort. Relax. I'm a professional.

Base: 50pts. It's 7AM.
Dentist: -30pts. Seriously. It doesn't matter how nice they are, someone has a hand in your face.
Massage: +20 points.
She's talking about crippling spider venom: -10 pts.
There's a poster of a puppy on the ceiling: +/- 5 points, depending on whether I think the puppy enjoyed his career as a poster model, and is receiving royalties.
Soothing music in the background: +10 pts.
What the Hell is that? The Gypsy Kings?: -20 pts.
Scented Candles: 0 points, as any benefit is weighed out by my internal questions on whether or not aromatherapy is quackery.
Are they still talking about spiders? Good lord. Could they at least go back to talking about American Idol? There the only monster is Paula Abdul, as I am pretty sure she's a sleestak: -20 points, but plus 30 for sleestak. Land of the Lost. That's some comedy right there.

Anyhow, I don't know how all this nets out, but I am hoping that next time I'm there, they find something else to talk about that isn't venomous.

Slow news week. Well, not at all, but sort of.

2006-05-11T12:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was New Comics Day, so I did what I do, which is get comics to read. On the way back, I cruised by the house to see how things are coming along. Things are coming along, as is clearly indicated by the presence of trucks and truck-like things. Other details of note include the addition of the metal surface to that front section. Looks pretty nifty.

What else? Recently, I sent Robyn a singing telegram, because I am a jackass. Well, and it was our anniversary. But mostly that first thing. Here's the thing about singing telegrams - they are surprisingly affordable. At least here. That may be a tertiary benefit of living in the live music capital of all of everyplace ever or something. However, I can't imagine that it really costs that much elsewhere. Something about supply and demand. The problem that I ran into while selecting a song for a singing telegram is that a lot of the music that I like is not really appropriate singing telegram material. So I just kinda went with what Singing Telegram Lady suggested, which likely made the experience all the more surreal. Apparently it was horrifyingly awesome, and all of her coworkers saw it. So... mission accomplished.

Robyn had a surprise road trip in mind for the next day, which took us to the Outlands of Texas. Well, about an hour from Austin. So not really that far. Anyhow, that's not the point. The important thing here is beer:
That thar be the Kosmas Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner and the home of Shiner Bock. We took the tour. They gave us beer. Good times. We spent the rest of the day knind of leisurely tooling around the area south and east of Austin, plotting semi-random destinations on the New Exciting Space Car's navigation system, and having it patiently lecture us on where to go when. Fancy. All in all, very little was accomplished. Day well spent.

What else? I have taken to obsessively organizing my MP3s, mostly for use in the New Exciting Space Car. This is a process which apparently requires a lot of cycles of iteration. There's three pieces of software going into this process, and they all have varying degrees of quality issues. The Musicbrainz tagger has the best DB, but doesn't seem to allow you to edit any of the tag data within the app, Windows Media Player has semi-OK information, and the best tag editing features, and iTunes just sort of sits there and sucks (seriously), but is required for export to my Heavily Marketed Portable Music Device. It's a dangerous life I lead, I know.

Before and After

2006-04-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

Ahh the joy of cats. Often retarded, always amusing. We've had lil Brainiac and giant fat Doolittle for about a year now, bringing joy and annoyance to our lives. Recently Doolittle learned to open doors. Yes, you read that right. We'll lock him in/out for being a brat and he will in turn open the door and come back in. *sigh* anyway, here's a walk down memory kitten lane.

Hurry up and Wait

2006-04-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

So, we're looking like we're about 9 weeks from closing on the house, which is all part of some Byzantine process that has yet to be explained to me. So, I smile and nod knowingly and generally try and look informed. I really would like to see some manner of Visio document reviewing each phase with notations as to dependencies and whatnot, but there are none to be found. Maybe I should hit the library. Or Google.

Anyhow, yeah. Nine weeks away, then I think after that we can move all of our junk and change our address and whatnot. I would like to show up on Closing Day with a moving truck and just be done with Apartment Living altogether. It's not that we live in a bad place at the moment (certainly much better than any of the dives I rented in San Francisco), but the closer we get, the more and more temporary it feels, you know?

Further, still waiting on the car, which I presume is right around here at the moment. Which is to say on a boat. Which is to say not in a place where I can drive it. Because I am not on a boat, nor are there many places to go while on a boat anyhow. The novelty of walking places has more or less worn off by this point. Especially now that the rainy / haily season has started. So, yeah.

Stone

2006-04-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

Hey, more progress. They've added the stone façade to the front of ye olde new house. So that's something. Earlier in the project, I expected something a little more industrial / European for the building material, but I am digging the way it's turned out. Maybe more mid-century American modern. More Eames than Saarinen. Maybe. Maybe I am just making things up.

My dad used to have one of those big Eames lounge chairs back in the day. I wonder whatever happened to that. Probably long gone by now. Hm.

When Avalanches Attack

2006-03-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

Look at that car! It is mighty! Vroom, vroom! It kicks up dirt! It does stuff! It is like a mighty barking puma or something! Vroom! Nothing can stop you! Especially not dirt!

Man, do I hate big cars.

This particular make and model of automobile is the same variety that slammed into the Echo this AM. That makes the third stupid truck-related incident that we've had since we moved to Tejas. The third. Allow me to enumerate:

1) Guy across the way neglects to use parking brake on truck. Truck takes opportunity to see the world, and explore new vistas. New vistas are apparently abundant in my car's trunk. Truck collides with car. Throught the miracle of Newtonian Physics, car ends up parked partway into my garage. Truck apparently does not belong to Guy. Guy does not want cops involved. Sucks to be him. Cops called. Car fixed. Garage fixed. Avoid eye contact with Guy.

2) Leaving downtown. Stopped. At intersection. Girl in giant truck with gaggle of friends backs into car from parking space. Claims there is minimal damage. Photos submitted as "evidence" seems to prove otherwise. Exchange information amicably. Car door needs replacing. Admittedly, no damage to giant stupid truck. Call insurance company to make claim. Girl denies accident occurs. Month of stupidity. Car eventually fixed. Swear to never not call the cops again.

3) This AM. Thunderstorms a-plenty. Fun. Robyn is on her way to work. Stopped at intersection. Gets ready to go. Another driver cuts her off. She slams on the brakes. Mighty Chevy Avalanche And Mighty Chevy Avalanche Driver decide that other cars are no obstacle, and the pursuit of... something... is part of their manifest destiny or something. I dunno. Point is, Giant Truck hits Small Car. Cops are called. It is revealed that Giant Truck Driver has neither a driver's license nor insurance. I walk down to the scene of the crime, and end up drenched. Truly, my morning is complete. Cops show up. Write Giant Truck Driver a barrage of citations. Oh, and it's his birthday.

Here's the thing that makes me livid. The MSRP on yer giant truck here is something like 37 grand. That's a big chunk of change for the base model. That's like Small Car + New Car put together. So... how is it that this guy can't be bothered to pay his insurance premiums? I mean, you just tell the guys at the insurance place that you want insurance, and they'll automagically take your money away at a regular frequency. You can even sign up using the interweb. It's like the future or something.

Bah.

House. Now with more house.

2006-03-20T09:57:00.000-08:00

Here's an update. Nifty. When I drove by the other day, looked like all of the glass was in. So, things are coming along. We have done Other Responsible Things recently, such as pick out a bathtub and a dishwasher, and other things where I am wholly out of my league.

Part of this process has involved spending a lot of time in appliance stores, which is an area where I really have little or no expertise. I mean, I have a subscription to Consumer Reports. I have worked on countless technology evaluations. These things should be enough. But it's not. Instead, there have been at least half a dozen aimless trips to the Appliance Store where I have staggered around like a consumer zombie adrift in an endless sea of plastic, metal, and pricetags. At this point, Robyn and I have a List of Things which we generated through some unbeknownst alchemy, and I am refusing to change it. I know that way madness lies, and my cryptic cypher of serial numbers in Notepad is the only thing which keeps strange eldritch appliance related forces at bay. It's like the Music of Erich Zann. Except different.

I did work out the network topology the other day, which was a new trick for me. So that's something.

Concurrent with this endeavor has been the acquisition of a second car. Well, the beginnings of that process. When I got the LanternMobile, I had a much different experience. I went to the car place. People were very eager to help me part with my money. It could be said that I was sold a car. One I've been very happy with, I might add. I don't know what's happened over the course of the past 6 years, but that no longer seems to be the car dealer's M.O., particularly if you should show any interest in a hybrid car whatsoever. Here's my process:

Spend a lot of time staring at Consumer Reports
Go to places where there are lots of cars, and not having any idea what I am doing.
Attempt to speak to people who are in the business of selling cars. Get met with blank stares.
Repeat.

Funtastic.

So, I turned to the internet. What was fascinating is that - once you submit a request for a quote that way, you get a lot of phone calls. One dealer was calling me every other day. However, when I would show up to talk to someone... The Return of The Blank Stare. Eventually, I got a low quote, and took it to the guy who was actually helpful, asked if he could meet it, then started another exciting process of consumer debt. Sweet. My Exciting Civic Hybrid is being manufactured on the 30th, and then shipped over. Once it arrives, I will use it to do car things. Like drive.

Holy Crap its a haus!

2006-02-27T13:33:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend we went to the property with the builder and took a look. It's really coming along at this point and they have started to install windows. Next will be sheetrock so any changes we want have to be done fast. Here is an exterior shot with some dorks.

more pics

2006-02-17T14:27:00.000-08:00

These were taken last week and you can really see some progress. As we pulled a guy was looking at the construction and when we walked up and started talking, he seemed none too pleased about the houses. I say screw em. People have no vision.

Stuff!

2006-02-01T20:27:00.000-08:00

So after months of waiting for the foundation to be poured, they are now throwing up the wood frame at a massive rate. Here are some pics from last weekend and one from this evening.

Operation Concrete

2006-01-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

Holy crap we have a foundation! Yes its all very exciting in the Land Of House. Just this week the poured the foundation and are now, hopefully, on their way to throw up our house in 4 months! We'll see. In the pics you can see our lovely chunk of concrete, kitchen and utility room on left as it faces the street, dining room in front right, and recessed living room. The carport is in back and we will have a lovely back/side yard for grilling. Sweet.

Holiday

2005-12-19T11:10:00.000-08:00

There's appears to be a fence around the yard, and so that's something. Well, "yard" is a euphamism for "enough space for a hibachi" but that is about all of the yard that I require. Really, I could probably get by with one of those cityscape lightboxes from the Resident Evil movie. I had enough lawn-mowing in my youth, and while I realize that I could - in fact - continue the tradition of hiring neighborhood youths to mow lawns, I'd rather just forego the whole venture and settle on my small, nicely groomed microfraction of a hectare.

So there's that. The holiday season is underway, and I have made the most of it by avoiding the infernal shopping mall at all costs. Once again, I have done most of my holiday shopping using that thar interweb. Everything should arrive on time and everything. Not sure what we're going to do for the holidays as such. I have been suggesting movies and Chinese food, as is my tradition. Robyn gets ver few actual days off for the holiday, which is lame. Also, we haven't gotten around to getting that 2nd car yet, which is sort of lame as well. Plus, it is cold, and the coffee place nearby has coffee of questionable quality. So, it looks like I will be spending a lot of time in the apartment, reading and playing games. Then again, that's not so bad.

Foundation

2005-12-12T07:35:00.000-08:00

Yes, so there was some freezing rain and whatnot last week, which can make for some harrowing driving if you're not used to it. However, having grown up in a place where it snows, we were fine.

Recently, we've taken to driving by the lot at odd hours and seeing what's going on. What we do when we get there is thoughfully look around, hem and haw, and nod appreciatively at the piles of dirt and other building materials that are in place. If course, the truth of the matter is that we really have no idea what's going on - they could be building a Mayan temple and at this point I would have no way of knowing.

Apparently, there's some foundation work that's been completed and some pipes are in place. They look pipelike. Robyn assures me they are for the kitchen, but I can speculate that they may also be for some nefarious Quetzacotl-related sacrifice as well (see, Mayans). They are probably for the kitchen, though.

Percipitation

2005-12-07T07:30:00.000-08:00

So apparently its not hot here all the time. Now it is bitterly cold and rainy. As of last week they were getting ready to pour the foundation. I sure hope they finished.

Lot, Weekend

2005-12-02T07:07:00.000-08:00

Progress has been made. We drove by the house the other day on our way to dinner, and saw that the foundation work has, in fact, begun. We didn't get any pictures, on account of the darkness, but imagine something like this except with some more wood stuff, some dirt piles, and a portajohn. Yee-haw.

So there's that. I think we're supposed to meet with the builder in the next week or so to go over schedule and dependencies and et cetera. I remain a project management nerd even in my real life.

What else? Things have been quiet for the past week. Mostly playing games (Shadow of the Colossus, CoV, and some Dragon Quest for hard-core old-skool RPG action) and futzing about with things here or there. Got some Medusa 5.1 headphones from mysterious Europa (well, Germany by way of the U.K., not the moon) which so far appear to be well worth the investment.

This weekend should be swell. Robyn and I got our V.I.P. season tickets to the roller derby for next year, and there's a match on Saturday vs. the Tuscon road team. Nice. Additionally, we have our Company Holiday Party this evening, for which Robyn has acquired new shoes. Honestly, I think that's a pretty thin justification. I think she would have acquired the new shoes for any event regardless of its magnitude. Like an art opening. Or movie night. Or lunch. However, they're some pretty serious shoes. So who am I to complain?

Sailing the Seas of Cheese

2005-11-25T07:11:00.000-08:00

So, some time ago Robyn and I bought a fondue set. Why? Because we like cheese. And why wouldn't you?

Anyhow, we scouted around and found a aesthetically pleasing fondue set at Crate and Barrel while I alternatively mused what happened to my punk rock youth and pretended to be a space monster with the assistance of various housewares. The fondue set in question promised many nights of molten cheese satisfaction, with options to pursue other non-cheese fondue options. MADNESS.

Here is the thing, though. The fondue set requires Sterno, right? Apparently, since the great Chafing Fuel Riots of 1976, buying Sterno is impossible. On the night of spontaneous fondue pot acquisition some months back, we scoured north Austin for Sterno. Grocery stores, camping stores, and the lot. Eventually we found a 6 pack wedged in the back of the H.E.B. Cheese was to be ours at last!

Sadly, that's not the end of the story. Apparently, there was a specific form factor of Sterno required. We attempted preparation with what we had on hand, but ended up with a gooey beery cheese slurry rather than the desired end product. So... chalk that one up to experience, I suppose.

Anyhow, we decided to try again. For Thanksgiving. Because what do I have to be thankful for? Amongst other things: cheese. There, I said it. So, I decided to do a little more research into the whole "Sterno" issue. What I was able to discern - through interpretation of the rather cryptic manual - is that I was correct. There's a specific type of fondue canister required to properly melt cheese - the ST05010. A-ha! Well, that should be easy.

So I called Crate-to-the-Barrel. Nothing. Hardware store. Zip. Kitchen stores. Squadoo. Restaurant supply. Snobbery. The internet is no help either. Sure, places sell the legendary ST05010. Sadly, in no quantity lower than "case". I need a case of Sterno like I need 10 pairs of shoes, or a hole in my head. Which is to say I don't. I mean, maybe I could resell it. Stand out in front of C&B and wait for apparently happy couples with fondue sets to walk out the door, then ambush them with my tales of Sterno seeking horror, then offer to sell them a bit of the "sweet stuff" for the low-low price of ten bucks a can. Surely, I would make my money back in no time! Unless they had mace or something.

Of course, I was making all of these calls on Wednesday. Clearly, I was planning ahead. Well, I should say - I almost did not plan ahead completely. And we were commited. We had spent significant quality time in the Cheese Provence of Central Market (the really do have quite a bit). We had "the goods". What to do? I mean, aside from curse the name of Crate and Barrel, and their false promises of fondue. I felt like I had been suckered into buying an 8-track player. Jerks.

Salvation presented itself in helpful advice from a kitchen store clerk. Unbeknownst to me, they apparently have electric fondue sets. Which can be acquired for approximately the same cost as a case of Sterno plus shipping. So there you have it. Two fondue sets in a year. Swell.

However, cheese. What are you going to do, eh?

Anyhow, Thanksgiving rolled around - the next day, oddly enough. And you know what? There aren't even any True Tales of Comedic Mishaps. It just worked. Which is pretty great. So we had some Bonny Doon Cardinal Zin (which may not be appropriate for cheese, but like I care. It is tasty.) and watched Manos, the Hands of Fate. Some cheese with our cheese.

Rawk.

Orange Creamcicle

2005-11-18T14:06:00.000-08:00

There you have it. We got some samples. We liked some of them. Others Andrew threw at Mr DeLuca in the Holiday Inn parking lot. That's just how we roll.

Domestic Partners in Crime

2005-11-16T11:39:00.000-08:00

Yee-haw. Robyn and I just fake eloped to get fake hitched. Well, not really. We did get a notary to stamp a piece of paper proclaiming us as domestic partners to the world! What this really means is that we can both be on my superior health insurance, and we are one step closed to Joint Property Ownership.

We had our reception at Subway, and as we waited in line I made up stupid songs about being fake hitched. Then we spent a little time with the cats, who were uninterested - as usual - in any of my shenanigans.

Cyborganized

2005-11-14T08:13:00.000-08:00

So... Sunday is typically Get Stuff Done day at the house. Or it is for me, anyhow. It's small project day, which usually includes making sure that the place is reasonably clean, the hard drives have been defragged, and other similar maintenance. Which is cool. I get a lot done before noon, and I have the rest of the day to screw around as a result. Go me.

This weekend's primary mode of screwing around centered around City O' Villains, which is pretty swell despite the fact that it's like CoH+"red". I got the chance to play with some of my friends from my college days, which is always a good time. I created the Cyborganizer, shown here with his cadre of robots: Sorter, Collator, and PC Load Letter.

The only downside to this endeavor was the fact that my goddamn computer seemed to crash about every 15 minutes. Deliriously arbitrarily crash. Frequently to the point where I was making stupid jokes in the "Describe what your were doing when this crash occured" box ("Making crime", "Robbing a bank", etc. I stopped short of swearing, song lyrics, or writing personal letters to the QA Lead, who I know from Charlottesville). This actually used to happen to me with WoW, and the only thing I was able to trace it back to seemed to be a very edgy weird case caused by the fact that I had two sticks of RAM which - though the same model and spec - were from two different manufacturing runs. That problem automagically went away, though. So, I stopped thinking about it.

But it was back. Plus, CoV seemed to run like - and I think this is the technical term - "ass". So I spent some time trying to figure this junk out. Tried updating all my drivers. Updating most of them worked fine. Updating my SATA drivers (which I had tried before) causes the machine to stop booting, so I figured I'd pass on that. Defrag. Nothing. Disabled all non-critical services with MSConfig. Zip. Dropped all my settings in CoV. Game looked like ass, ran poorly, and still crashed. Messed around with BIOS settings, which sometimes produced less than stellar results. Bupkis. Checked and rechecked temperature. Everything steady. Flashed my BIOS, which caused my computer to stop booting for a bit, which is exciting. No notable signs of improvement. Got new high-performance paired RAM. Expensive. Crashomatic, still. Updated SATA drivers (the ones which previously caused my machine to not work) and reinstalled COV. Machine boots. Game runs perfectly. WTF.

In fact, I was able to dial up a number of settings (full-screen bloom, particle physics, character and terrain detail) that I had dropped before. The only weird case is that if I have full-screen bloom running, any refraction effects get munged, though water looks great. If I have less than full bloom, refraction looks fine, but water is b0rk3d. Awesome. So, I disabled Water FX and all is reasonably well with the world. Gah. Project complete!

Team Us, not Team U.S.

2005-11-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

"What are you celebrating?" the waitress asks as we raise our glasses and prepare to toast. We smile at each other, and I look up at her. It's funny - people always seem to ask that.

"Nothin'."

And we joke around and carry on and generally act like the dorks that we are through the rest of dinner. And there you go. That's how we roll. Way to go, Team Us.

Some Imagery

2005-11-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

Here's a thumbnail. It's thumbnailtastic. I have a better render at home, but I would need to scan it (which requires digging out and hooking up my scanner) or taking a picture of it, which I am sure would look craptastic. So, preview my house of the future in TinyVision! The real one will be much larger.

As is demonstrated here. The downstars is all what the kids call "flex space" which is a fancy way of saying "no walls". There's a recessed area for the living room and whatnot. There are big windows which face our rather modest backyard (probably also more yard than is required). There's a kitchen. Presumably one puts kitchen stuff there. And a dining area, which I may use for dining, and probably not playing Risk. Risk is for jerks.

And the 2nd story, which is really interesting, though parts of it you can't see because we are only operating upon two dimensions and not all three. Anyhow, what you can see is that there are rooms. A bedroom, a spooky art girl room (2nd BR), and my nerd room (office). There are windows facing each other from the nerd room to the spooky art room, so Robyn and I can practice our semaphore. There's a porch. It's covered. I will not get rained upon when I decide to go play Civ 4 in inclement weather. The porch will also probably at some point feature lounge chairs and Bloody Marys.

Apple is jerks

2005-11-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

In my continuing series on "Apple is jerks", I present part IV: Apple Still Jerks.

That's just obnoxious. The nifty thing about the iPod is the portability (from system to system, as it were). This just jinxes that up. Some more.

Dibs.

2005-11-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

So I guess I have somewhat backstoried enough. We had a moment not too long ago where I looked over some contracts (some very serious brow-furrowing there) and we wrote what promises to be the first of many checks. We have officially called "dibs" on the house, and we have that in writing. Now all there is to do is pick stuff out. I guess. Oh, and paperwork. Reams upon reams of exciting paperwork, I hear.

Kittiehouse

2005-11-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

OMG our cats would so love this. But they would probably figure out a way to get stuck inside and then meow their guts out at 3am.

Commentia.

2005-11-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

Hey kids. Comments. They're enabled, which they weren't before. Well, sorta.

Good Haul

2005-11-04T07:25:00.000-08:00

Picked up a few books on something of a random trip out to the bookstore last night. Guns, Germs, and Steel, Al Franken's The Truth (with Jokes), the new issue of Dwell, a "Don't spend all of your moolah on video games and comic books because you're buying a house for God's sake" book, and - most importantly - Freaked.

I fucking love that movie. I must have seen it a dozen times over by now. Still not enough! If you're one of the few who though The Idiot Box was ten times better than Liquid Television, you should see Freaked.

So there!

This is the "More Later"

2005-11-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

So, I spent some time looking around Austin for houses. And there were some interesting, if odd, "housing opportunities". I took a look at tiny bungaloes and opulent McMansions (which was interesting, because I have never had someone attempt to bum-rush be into buying a house before - thanks Skeevy Real Estate Man for making my decision easy!). I thought about downtown condo loft urbane urban extravaganzas. I even thought about buying me a big ol' piece o' dirt and then building on top of it.

Not by myself. God no. I shouldn't be trusted with Tinkertoys.

Anyhow, I kept coming back to one builder in particular. It's a guy with a number of projects around Austin. I had taken a look at a bunch of them, and most were like almost exactly what I wanted. Almost. Painfully almost. And there you go. He had a bunch of neat projects, but none that I was quite willing to shell out the sheckels for. So, stuck.

Well, except he had this one weird idea he was working on. A sort of warehousey space on North Loop. A weird lot, with a weird design. Lotsa square footage. An experiment. Which we were up for. So we looked at plans, renders, and some other stuff, and said "Okay. Let's do it."

And that was that. We took the blueprints home, put them up on our walls, and started planning on where to put the couch. Neat.

Well, except that wasn't that. The problem with an experiment is that it's an experiment. And we knew that going into this - it might not be possible to build the house with that space and that plan and keep the right price point. I understand. I make software. Expensive-to-make software. Sometimes there is just no way to get from A to B - that is one of the points of frustration in the business as it were - hitting the immutable wall of technology.

So that was the next step.

Anyhow, here's the thing: When you work with an architect / builder you like and one thing doesn't work out, but you like everything the team does and they have a half-dozen projects, chances are pretty good you won't be out of luck for long. I think for us it was like 48 hours. It's like "Oh no, I won't be able to get super awesome house A? How about super awesome house B through X? Any of those? Well, they are all pretty awesome."

And really, it's going to work out better. There were a couple of daunting points about the warehousehouse (maybe too much space, maybe too experimental, heating and cooling, maybe a few hundred square feet that wouldn't ever get used). So, moving on was not such a bad thing. I mean, we won't have enough space to put a roller rink on the ground floor. Drat. However, we will have more than plenty o' space for me, the girl, and two cats. Well, 2.5 cats. One of the cats is sorta huge.

The Prettiest Table in all the World

2005-11-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

Some of you may know that I am a Geology nerd. Probably not tho. But I am. I swear. So when I saw this table I fell in love. But alas I cannot afford a $3k coffee table right now. Maybe some day.

How work affects things

2005-11-02T07:18:00.000-08:00

So here's a thing. For a while I worked on a Sims-Related project. You might call it an Online Sims-Related Project. I did some design. Interesting work. Work that had a lot of side effects. I started thinking about routes and efficiency a little bit too much in my day to day activities. Additionally, I started thinking about furniture. Aesthetics. Subjects I know little to nothing about. So I read. So I make guesses. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Orange is a guess. There you go.

You know what I'd really like to do? So there's this CAD program that the architect is using, and it creates (oddly enough) a 3d model of the house along with the blueprint. Neato. So, what I'd really like to do is figure out whether or not their file format for their CAD junk is portable, and see if you could, say, import into Max, Maya, ... or Unreal. I mean, maybe it's possible. I'm kinda at the point of banging rocks together here. I am just that primitive.

orange sherbet

2005-11-01T18:35:00.000-08:00

So we have this wacky idea. We want to have an orange kitchen. Now let me explain. Our house is going to be uber awesome so we need an interior to match. We've already gotten paint chips and some corian samples for the kitchen counter. I don't want to reveal too much, as the anticipation is already killing me and we have 7 months to go. But it will be quite a sight indeed.

More backstory, as it is relevant

2005-11-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

So here's what has happened so far: About a year ago, I started poking around at this house thing, which everyone assures me is really easy but I have my doubts. It takes me a few months to agonize over which video card is really the right one for my PC. The thought of purchasing a house is a couple of orders of magnitude larger in my brain, so I don't expect that I'll just rush out the door and find exactly what I'm looking for.

To be fair, I started looking a little more than a year ago, when I came down to Texas to interview. My bosses hooked me up with a real estate lady, who drove me to places and looked at me a little funny when I laughed and laughed. You see, I moved to Austin from San Francisco, and while in San Francisco, I lived in a number of overpriced shitbox rentals. The running joke has been "I could afford to get two houses, and make them fight!" and that is kinda true. Between that, the team I would be working with, and seeing The Flametrick Subs that weekend, I was ready for Texas.

Anyhow, so I looked. And I took a number of tours around town with my very patient Real Estate Lady, and we found a number of places which fit a fluctuating set of criteria. While I sort of had some idea of what I wanted, I really had no idea of how to get there. So, a lot of MLS searches, a lot of places that looked good on paper. A lot of polite hemming and hawing, and no positive traction.

More later.

volvos

2005-10-31T18:00:00.000-08:00

You are a jerk. I will never drive a Volvo unless it is a vintage P1800 with blue fleck paint. There, I said it.

Sports cars.

2005-10-31T14:56:00.000-08:00

That whole Lotus thing is a fib. I said Volvo.

Anyhow, I would never buy a sports car. You know why? Buying a sports car is like buying a bong. You're not going to use it for anything legal. Seriously. I honestly - in my day to day existince - do not need a car with a spedometer that goes over 80. I don't think my current car could go over 80 if you dropped it from space.

As a youth, I lived in Leesburg. Part of that time in a condo complex. Now you know that about me. It wasn't superb but it wasn't horrible either. It's one of those places that looks like every other suburban three story apartment complex. Anyhow, one of my neighbors used to drive a Ferarri. A Ferrari. Now, maybe I'm crazy, but I am pretty sure a Ferrari is a reasonably expensive car. It belongs to that range of expensive objects that is sufficiently expensive that it's really kind of difficult to find out how much it costs, because if you have to ask then you probably can't afford one anyhow. Anyways, it became pretty clear to me that Herr Neighbor was presented with a choice at some point in his life - a Ferrari or a house. And he went with the car.

My friend Dave and I used to sit on the balcony and imagine that guy sitting in an empty apartment on a milk crate, staring at his pager (cheaper than a phone!) waiting for someone to call. We were jerks. We probably still are.

Suckered

2005-10-31T14:44:00.000-08:00

Its hot here. Even when it's cold. But I like cats so that was one of the selling points for me to move here. Plus Andrew promised to buy me a Lotus if it did. I like the silver one. Thanks.

The Deal

2005-10-31T10:55:00.000-08:00

So here is the deal.

In this past year, a lot has happened. Nothing bad - nothing like getting hit in the head by a meteorite covered in alligators - that's a bad change. Just a lot of change. Allow me to enumerate:

Turned 30, which happens to a lot of people and is not really that interesting. It just helps to set the stage, establish a little backstory as it were.
Moved to Texas which is a little more complicated. Turning 30 was something I did on my own. I didn't even have to practice. Moving to Texas required trucks and boxes and stuff. More moving parts, therefore more complex.
Got Shacked Up which ties into moving to Texas. Sort of. Well, I moved to Texas and I suckered Robyn into moving with me. Which is working out pretty well for me, if I do say so myself. We have cats and stuff.
Landowner. Sorta. Well, I'm getting into it, which is what this is about initially. Getting a house. A homestead. Property. Not Yet Another Fucking Rental, but actual property which I will own and can sit on the "front stoop of" and protect from "revenooers" with a "boomstick" (aside from the fact that I won't actually do any of those things, nor do I own a boomstick, though that could change at any moment [it won't] so don't get any ideas! I have cats! They will protect me!).

So, where was I before I started a list? Ah, yeah. "Why?" So, a lot has changed. So I am writing it down, which is sort of a thing I do. Like a hobby. I had another "journal" as it were, but it really described another part of my life. This is the Frasier to that Cheers, the Bionic Woman to that Six Million Dollar Man, the Third More Obscure Funny Reference, Such as "Enos" to an Established Pop-Culture Franchise Such as "Dukes of Hazzard". I'll Be Making a Number of Such References and Also Abusing Capitalization Just So You Know Right Up Front.