Packing

There are now five people in our condo packing everything we own. I'm going to live out of a suitcase for a week or more, and Ap's going to live at a friend's house for a few month's. Seems weird to be displaced already, even though I'm not leaving till Sunday! Oh, and there's a possum that refuses to leave the outside closet again. Hopefully he'll be gone by tomorrow.

Good Bye Sherman

A 1991 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Station Wagon is no longer a member of our family. For 17.5 years it's served us well, and today, at 132,477 miles, it moves on to another owner. Strange, but I'll actually miss that car - that piece of family nostalgia - even though I ended up cursing it more than loving it these past few years. Hopefully my new Mazdaspeed 3 will be as steadfast and durable as Sherman has been for me since 2000.

Halstead Tower!

For better or worse, we're going with my initial impressions and living in the Halstead Tower on King Street for at least the first year of our tenure in the DC area. It's on the 13th floor, has a nice view, many very bourgeois amenities (as Janaina puts it,) and is very close to my job. It's easy enough to move in a year if we decide we hate it, or need a more central location. It's now time to focus on finishing out the Houston condo. Egads I'm stressed. I haven't slept more than 5 hours a night since Sunday, have been up for 18 hours today already, am 4 30th floor balcony beers (yay Yeungling!) past the end of a day that saw me looking at 15 different apartments from 7 locations, have been on the phone for more than four and a half hours solid (recharged my cell battery twice today) with apartments, AP, mom, local friends, work, my real estate agent and various others, and still can't get my sorry self to bed. Still lots to do, but at least one big decision is made.

Bring on tomorrow.

Fairlington Condo

Video Walkthrough.

Google Maps

Here's a map of the locations of 3 of my favorite apartment possibilities so far (plus CNA.) Clicking on the markers should give a few details and links. You should be able to bring up the DC metro map overlay as well, to give a better idea of where things are.

Halstead Tower Video

3 minute video of 13th floor 2/2 in Halstead Tower

Halstead Tower
Floorplan C3 (mirrored) - 1149 Sq.ft.
13th floor


Kitchen
Master Bathroom


2nd Bedroom

Main Room

Main Room / 2nd Bedroom

Family! Graduation!

Lots to update, little time. Matt's been here since Monday - Awesome. I love it when he visits, even though I can never think of super kick-ass things to do in Houston. Still a blast. Emily, Mom, and Papa came in on Thursday, increasing the family awesomeness quotient at least threefold. Yesterday was the Doctoral hooding ceremony, which was nice, short, and indoors - the first relying on the second two. Today the graduation ceremony held in the main academic quad was blessed with glorious cloud cover that managed to reduce the excessive sweating inside full academic regalia to a sustainable level without causing severe dehydration. That's always a plus. Now we're off to lunch and better things in the future. Hooray for family and Graduation!

On a more somber note, My grandmother passed away yesterday after a long and full life. She had been personally ready to go for quite some time, but was still sharp as a tack and fun to talk to even only a few weeks ago, when last I spoke to her. She will be missed dearly, even though distance didn't let us see each other as much as I would have liked.

Plane Nonsense

Was a bit tired yesterday on the flight home from Detroit, and felt like writing a bit in my slightly altered mind-state. It was nice to wake up and go to sleep in the same city, but all the travel in between was a bit much. I mean, I was on a plane yesterday longer than I was interviewing. Anywho, enjoy. Or don't. I only wrote it for me, really.

Thirty Thousand Feet

Soaring like kings
or maybe sardines,
for a fare
cloudscapes from above
become commonplace.
The wonder is there, in the back
of my mind, craning
to get a better view
and drink it all in
with an unending draught
of amazement.
Who would have thought
a thousand years past
- or maybe only enough that
you still had trouble tying
your shoes –
that such wonderful sights
would someday be ignored, or worse –
forgotten even as they appeared –
in favor of everyday things
brought from below
to keep us grounded. Travesty?
Maybe there’s more lost
than appreciation
to be gained and spent
on aesthetics, when perspectives
can be changed for a charge
to heights as lofty
as this.
Still,
it’s too easy to forget
that aircraft grade alloys
are just dead weight
but for ground-level nuts
and bolts.
Can I find a balance
on the wing?

Biker Gang

Our biker gang is kinda small at the moment, but we're focusing on quality before quantity.

Sugar mama.

April is officially my sugar mama. She decides that the old setup just won't do, and enlists my help to buy some new stuff. Here's a quick before and after.

Before: 27" Daewoo CRTV, Aiwa receiver (w/ only 2 composite inputs working.)


Reciver Comparison: Onkyo on top, Aiwa below

After: Onkyo TX-SR605 receiver, Samsung 50" plasma HDTV, Xbox360
Woot! Surround sound and a huge HD screen make me never want to leave the couch! I'm never going to graduate!!! (oh, and rock band, too. did i mention rock band?)

Mexico Pictures

Hidey Ho, strangers. I've been back from Mexico since Sunday - what a wonderful trip. Lots of riding motorcycles with April's Dad and his Lake Chapala friends. I did about 150 miles average each 7 of 10 days we were there, half, or more, on dirt. I took a lot of pictures, most of which are complete crap, but decided that instead of singling out the good ones and posting them here, single-file, I'd give Picasa and Google's web albums a try. So here's one of my favorite scenery pictures I took this time, and the rest can be found on my picasa page.

Porch

Finished at last. What do you think?



At the very least, it's a lot better than the stained, dirty concrete that's under it.

Doin' the porch

My feet ache. My back aches. Ten hours on the back patio today and I'm not even done the measly 65 square feet that I'm tiling with slate 12x12s. I'm such an amateur. But I guess that's to be expected. I was hoping to at least get the tile laid today and be able to grout tomorrow, but it looks like my two day tiling experiment will turn into a three of four-day extravaganza. Slate is kind of a pain in the ass since it's uneven and some pieces are thinner than others. I hope the grout will help smooth it out a bit. All in all it's not too bad, if I do say so myself, though I'm glad I'm practicing on the porch before tackling the bathrooms and kitchen. 250 square feet versus 65. I don't even want to think about it right now. I need more Advil.

Kittens, Kittens, and more Kittens

I know I haven't posted in almost two months, so no one will probably read this. However, the kitten thing is getting a little out of hand, so I thought I'd post a few more pics of the 5, that's right, 5 kittens we now have living in my bathroom. We're hoping to get them adopted through Petsmart's program, but in the meantime we've got to find some money for basic vet stuff before they'll take them. It seems worth it at the moment, 'cause boy, are they cute! Just see for yourself.This was the day after we started putting food out for them. At first they were fighting each other for it, they were so hungry. Now everybody's happy and full, and we've got ourselves a pot full of kittens!
How could we keep this little bugger outside any longer?

So we brought them all inside and kept them in the bathtub for a little bit while we medicated some of their crusty eyes.


Hello! I'm too cute for words! Now bow to my commands!!!

Return of the Pointless Blogger!!!

I'm back in action, oh faithful reader. That's right - reader, singular. Don't you feel special?

Not that there's been anything to read since April, but what the hell. Now there's more. Read away!

So instead of updating all that's happened in the nearly three months since I last posted, I'll just jump in with what's going on now - it's kinda hectic.

Last Saturday, we (wunnerful gf and I) rented a Uhaul and moved my roommate to his new apartment in the Galleria area. He really didn't have much stuff, so it only took about an hour - after which we went and got the rest of April's stuff from her now ex-apartment. She gave up a ten minute walk to lab for a 3 mile drive and the chance to live together for a few months. I'm really excited, too. It's been great so far, even though there are still boxes everywhere. And the roommate bedroom (Quads room, Aaron's room, Tim's room) is now the guest bedroom, computer room, and cat room, since they're still petrified of Shiva, the 75lb terror that she is. (I think she'll pounce on just about anything that moves quickly as long as it's less than a quarter her weight.)

So this new "guest bedroom" has already seen its first guest! On Sunday we get a call from April's dad saying that he'll be in Houston on Monday to pick up a new Kawasaki KLR650 with his friend Ray, and they need a place to stay. So we borrowed an air mattress and shoved some boxes aside and played host for a few hours after a nice dinner at Goode Company Seafood. Trout Almondine - tasty! They left at 8 to get to the shop by the time it opened so they could get back to Lake Chapala at a decent hour the next day. Right. Did I forget to say they drove from Mexico? Hell, I'd do it - those bikes kick ass!

The last and strangest thing at the moment is that now the animals in our house outnumber the people 2 to 1. A very vocal 1.5lb orange kitten decided to take up residence in the storage shed on the porch over the weekend, keeping me up for two straight nights. For my own health and sanity we finally caught it and managed to keep it quiet in the 2nd bathroom last night. But really, we just don't need another animal in our 2 bedroom condo. April's vet says that at this time of year the ASPCA will just put down any kitten under 2 lbs since they're already overcrowded with cats, so we're not sure what to do with it. It's really scared of everything, obviously misses its mother, but now lets us pet it and play with it, albeit only in the relative safety of the bathroom. After all, Shiva's too scary to let your guard down if you're only 2% of her weight.

So do you know anyone who wants a ridiculously cute kitten? It's free to a good home, and I'll probably put up a posting on craigslist tomorrow if I can't find anyone I know personally to take it. Think of the kitty! (Please hurry, April's already nicknamed it Sydney.)

Long Overdue

So, it's been something close to eternity since I last updated this little blog-thing - not that you all didn't notice. I mean, with readership like this I'm quite frankly astounded that I only saw 32 articles on CNN about my startling and prolonged absence from the blogosphere. And lets not get into Fox. Those guys were practically having a party! Sorry to bust your bubble, Rupert. I'm back.

So, to keep this from exploding into a long, drawn-out post that nobody will want to read (even more than usual) here's the abridged version of what I probably would have posted in my absence.

Easter Weekend: Overall - Great! Family - Great! Food - Great! Vegas - Hot, but great! Excalibur hotel - Meh. Not bad, but not great. April losing her cellphone - Really not great!

Beer Bike: Not even. The badly-planned and poorly executed rain date for this Rice tradition was turned into Beer Run because of the high winds blowing the puddles all over the track. Lame. The rest of the weekend was Great, though! Saturday after the B.R. had a pool party (heh, i almost typed poop larty! just pretend i'm five.) with fantastic food, a frozen margarita machine, keg-riding, windy temperatures in the fifties, but water temps in the high eighties! a call from some friends had April and I rushing from the pool to downtown in less than an hour to catch a showing of "Wicked" at the Hobby center. Fantastic. Then another party after that made for a busy Saturday. Sunday had a BioE-sponsored trip to see the Houston Aeros minor-league hockey - also fun. All in all a fun-packed weekend.

Typical work week with too many hours spent for the amount of tangible goals accomplished. Gotta stop doing that if I ever want to graduate. Trust me. I really, really do. Really.

Last weekend saw April and I driving up to Corsicana to visit her family. Her parents were in town from their normal abode in Mexico, and I got to meet the rest of her immediate family after we went sailing Saturday morning. (A really light catamaran and 20-30 knot winds make for some fast, nerve-wracking sailing.) I finally got a motorcycle-fix, too, getting to ride Jerry's SV650 along some of the fun back roads while he was on his Valkyrie. Bowling after some tasty dinner at the Old Mexican Inn (OMI to the locals) was fun, but I've literally never bowled worse - which was embarrassing in front of everybody, especially 200+ bowler Eric. Ah well.
Haydon and Peyton were bunches of fun, too, and kept us entertained for much of Sunday. Or was it the other way around? Either way, it was a good weekend, except for April's car needing fixing, but that ended up being a pretty minor fix.

This week has some more Matlab work to be accomplished, with hopefully interesting data analysis results to follow. Thrilling, I'm sure. Pics to follow when I've got a chance.

Cowabunga, Dude!

You've gotta love remakes of your commercialized childhood playthings, especially ones that involve innocuous animals, toxic ooze, ninjas, and the requisite pinch of California surfer slang thrown in for good measure. Well, maybe you don't. There have been a bunch of bungled attempts to squeeze a buck out of my young generation's arguably misplaced sense of nostalgia already, which may have soured your desire for any more stumbling trips down memory lane, led by a myopic, asthmatic, one-legged tour guide. But TMNT was still a fun movie, if exactly what I was expecting - a visually pleasing rehashing of previous "turtle" themes and ideas for the younger, ADD, sorry, ADHD pre-teen crowd. There really isn't much worth writing about - if you were a fan of TMNT in your younger years, then you've probably already seen it and know what I'm talking about. In a similar vein, since they're really starting to pound home the advertising, I hope Transformers doesn't take the same route. With the names and budget behind it, it could be so much more, though that often doesn't mean much.

Two things...

First, I thought it worthy of mention that I was rear-ended on Wednesday afternoon, not 100 yards from where I wrecked my bike a few weeks ago. There's no visible damage - Sherman's a tough Chevy - but I haven't had time to get it looked at yet. I was stopped at the Shepherd red light going east on Rice, as was the car behind me, and the car behind it, as well. The left turn lane gets its arrow before the lane going straight, where I was. For some unknown reason, the woman two cars behind me decides to hit the gas when the turn lane started going. Unfortunately, all the cars in the lane she was in were still completely stationary, at least until she slammed into the car behind me, knocking it into me. What fun! Now I'm just waiting for a third vehicle-related incident before I start to breathe easier on the road. Maybe, though, the blown tire, ruined wheel, and dented quarter-panel from the tow last summer when a friend borrowed Sherman to haul hardwood flooring was the first. (Of course, that could also count as three incidents by itself, and it was a while ago.)

Second, and less immediately pertinent, but interesting none-the-less, is the widening income gap in the country. As explained by the NY Times article about newly released 2005 tax data, the top 300,000 earners in the country had the combined income of nearly 150,000,000 of the bottom earners. The real ratio is closer to 440:1 between the two groups, but it's still almost double what it was in 1980. Another stunning comparison is that the top one percent of incomes in 2005 enjoyed the largest share of the total increase in US earnings since 1928! Egads. For me, the fun part is that I could possibly go from one extreme to the other over the next few years, (hell, I could quadruple my current income and still not make the top ten percent, so it's not likely) but I still think the imbalance is far too large, and even a bit foreboding. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it will spur some much-needed change here in way taxes are assessed and maybe even used. A man can dream, can't he?

Net Neutrality

If you're at all interested in the whole net neutrality issue, Engadget has a good article by the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review on the current state of things with the FCC. Give it a look-see.