A Homer's Travel's Look Back At 2008

This year has been a year of change.  The last time I had this much change was back in 1987 when I graduated from college, got a job, and moved to California.  Thinking back, that year of change seemed to have gone a lot smoother than 2008.

Let's look back, shall we:

• In January I resigned from my job with mixed feelings.  We tried to see Mary in the Mojave and successfully say a Google car.  We were visited by our good friend, the Loon Whisper, but we did not get to see the Whales.  I saw snow, surfers, Trona, and turd shape pinnacles.
• In February we put our House up for sale.  Our house was shown for the first time.  We met Just a Girl and GeekHiker before celebrating Chinese New Year with a parade .  We saw the Mythbusters live with the visiting Best Man and Matron of Honor.  I held my facial hair poll.
• In March we visited Nitt Witt Ridge and Bubblegum Alley.  The Wife had a health scare which threatened to derail our moving plans.  This ended with an operation and a sigh of relief when the worst did not happen.  The six to eight weeks this hung over us (starting in January) was the worst time of my life.  After the bad news became good we went on a well deserved vacation to San Francisco .  Unfortunately the vacation was cut short by more sad news - the passing of the Wife's aunt.
• In April we flew to Omaha to look at the job and housing situation.  This turned out to be our Rock Bottom moment .  Things got better soon after with our first and only visit to our dream house which would eventually become our new home.  After walking the art and celebrating a hot fiesta, we received the first and only offer on the house.
• In May, while waiting for the house sale to become final, I visited the Poppies in the Antelope Valley.  We took our last long roadtrip with the "J" up to the Point Sur Lighthouse.  Here we ran across the mad cows.  This was our last trip to Cambria and Harmony as well.  We finally entered escrow.  The Wife got job offers.  I did my last California hike up Topa Topa.  We prepared for the move including shredding history and having a garage sale.   I went to the Indiana Jones movie with GeekHiker.  The best friend "J" became the bestest friend "J" when she got us tickets to the Foxboro Hot Tubs (aka Green Day).
• In June the big move began.  Dumpsters were filled, paper shredders were killed, and I pledged to no longer be a paper pack rat (so far so good).  The movers came and packed us up - best moola we've ever spent.  We got forked by the "J".  We left California, stayed In Vegas , visited family in Rifle , and stayed with the Loon Whisperer in Columbus.  We moved in our new home and slowly started unpacking.  We discovered Robins under our deck.  Homer tries to cope with the rumble of thunder.  We bought our new big screen TV and I was entertained by the flashing of fireflies.  Heavy freakish winds left us in the dark.
• In July we went to the Olympic Swim Trials in Omaha's own Qwest Center.  Independence day was an horizon full of fireworks followed by a visit to the in-laws lake house.  Another anniversary (11) was celebrated.  The robins hatched and flew the coop.  I went to a free Feist concert at memorial park but wasn't impressed.  With all the weather we have here I had to buy a weather station for the backyard. I turned 45 in middle of a hot and muggy summer.  I took time to walk around downtown Omaha - the first of many such city walkabouts.  The Wife spends a week at Ellis Island at a cool workshop.
• In August I upgraded my network resulting in a brain-fart induced frustration that prevented me from going to Jazz on the Green.  I marveled at the huge spiders under our deck.  We had a great little family reunion at the Haverhill Social Club and the GodSon followed us home for some Omaha sight seeing.  The GodSon was followed by the Matron of Honor and Best Man's visit shortly after.  I managed to go see another concert - Orenda Fink.  I spent two weeks in an Olympic stupor.  I finally started to hike again with a walk through Boyer Chute.  I hooked myself to the weather grid and we survived the Loon Whisperer and her three girls.
• In September I set myself up for failure.  I Started the 100 push up program ... twice ... and stopped prematurely ... twice.  I never got past 60.  I did lock myself out of the house.  The bad was balanced with the selling of some of my pictures.  We visited the interesting town of Walnut, IA and I ended up with a speeding ticket.
• In October I walked the new Pedestrian Bridge.  The Wife's birthday was celebrated in uproarish style at a German restaurant in Minneapolis with the MoH, BM, and family.  We had our first heavy frost.  We enjoyed an awesome Joan Osborne concert and were disappointed with the Steve Miller Band.  I started to ride my bike until the weather put a halt to that.
• In November I posted everyday proving that quantity does not necessarily equal quality.  The leaves changed colors.  Obama was elected president.  I started cooking on Tuesdays.  I investigated the ringing in my ears and discovered nothing.  The In-Laws visited and the Jell-O flotation mystery was finally solved.  Christmas started early when I put up the tree before Thanksgiving.  We had a crowded Thanksgiving at the Brother-In-Law's before taking 8 members of the family home with us for some more celebrating.
• In December I posted several pictures that fit the Christmas season.  I  caught a cold from the Wife.  I took pictures of the closest full moon in some 13 years.  We had our first real snow though most of it was ice.  Christmas was celebrated at our place.
• The value of our old house in California dropped 6%.  Our new house in Omaha went up 3.7%.  (WOO HOO!)
• I managed to do 17 hikes totaling 161.77 miles this year, less than half of the 40 I did in 2007.  I found 91 geocaches also less than half of the ones found in 2007.  I did start riding my bike and managed to add 54.78 miles to my ledger before the wind and cold stopped me.  I will try to start it up again as early as I can next year.
  
• This year I managed to read 9 books this year - one better than last year.

The coming year is going to be one of preparation for me.  I want to prepare myself for the 2010 Pilgrimage of Saint James.  There are a couple trails including the Steamboat and Cowboy trails that should provide good training.  I also intend to do more Omaha walkabouts to add miles to my legs in between bike rides.

I want to continue taking pictures.  It is something that I enjoy doing.  While my first photo safari was a bust, I intend to do more.  Who knows, maybe I can find a money making opportunity in there somewhere.

Most importantly, I'm wishing for a less stressful 2009, especially for the Wife.

Here's to a Happy and Prosperous New Year for all.

May all your dreams come true in 2009.

Big Screen Ecstacy

On Tuesday our new 46" 1080p LCD HDTV was delivered. HDTV is right up there with crack and ecstasy. We are both in heaven. That is if heaven is non-stop, mind numbing, gray matter killing reality TV and CNN election coverage. This might explain why I haven't posted much lately. We are still drooling over the crystal clear picture. Of course,no matter how big the Television, the programming is still crap. Then again, watching losers bounce off the big balls of Wipeout was much more bounce-irific on the big screen. I do wish the Sci-Fi channel would broadcast in HD - Battlestar Galactic would be awesome - but I will just have to be happy with the Discovery and National Geographic channels.

Later today the rest of our new furniture that we picked out last Saturday will be delivered. We bought a china cabinet, two nightstands, four new cairs for our dinner table, and a desk for our computer. The desk will have to be assembled so I expect I know what I'll be doing later today.

The Quests Of Homer:The Chaser Of Bunnies

It's been a busy couple of days and we are far from being finished. I'm guessing we have a month or two before we are completely settled into our new home. Here is an mish-mash of what has happened in the last couple days.

On Tuesday the sellers were supposed to be out by 1:00 PM. We showed up at 11:15 AM and chatted briefly with their movers (The sellers had already left town - their movers were unsupervised). The movers said that they had about an hour of work left. This would work as our movers would not be showing up until 1:00 PM. We went to have lunch (Old Chicago - good chain restaurant food) and came back around 12:30 PM. The movers were gone so we went into the house. What a mess! There was junk in the basement. The chest freezer that was supposed to stay was gone. The place was filthy. There was about an inch of dust and a a herd of dust bunnies were hoping around the master bedroom wood floor. We just walked around the house cursing out the sellers. Probably the grossest thing were the whisker clippings in the bathroom drawers. The Wife made some frantic calls to our Realtor and the seller's Realtor while I went to the nearby Wal-Mart to by a swiffer to battle the dust bunnies with. The Realtors are going to get us compensated for the mess.

Our movers showed up on time. Shortly after their arrival, the seller's movers returned. What?!? Anyway we got the seller's movers to get the stuff out of the basement while our movers moved stuff into the upstairs (Our house is a ranch style house with a walk in basement). I decided to leave all the chaos to the Wife and my Mom, who was helping (Thanks Mom!), and drove back out to Columbus to pick up Homer.

Homer had been a good boy with the Loon Whisperer and her brood. She had gotten sick the day we left and the Vet was getting sick when I got there. Fortunately Homer is an easy, low maintenance dog.

When I got back, the movers were gone and everything was in the house. We'd put all the boxes in the basement and most of the furniture upstairs. This way we can bring one box up at a time to put stuff way and the living space can stay clutter-free. We ended up, so far, with only a couple broke things. Of course they broke the most irreplaceable thing. When moving in our piano, which happens to be about 104 years old, they dropped it and busted off two of the casters on the bottom. It will be interesting to see how they fix that for us. They also lost a bed frame caster and two casters off the wet/dry vacuum. Apparently the movers had a thing for casters.

Then came the first emergency. We haven't bought our big screen TV yet and we are relying on a cheap-a$$ 20" piece of crap for our TV viewing. You can't do anything with this TV without it's remote control and the remote control was packed. To make things worse, the NBA finals game was starting in three hours. So, for the next three hours, I cut open boxes, shifted stuff around, unwrapped packing paper, lifted boxes, sweated like a big dog, and searched until, in the last box, I found the remote. I found it 15 minutes before tip off. The Wife was very grateful. Yay for me!

Yesterday the Wife tackled the old kitchen cabinet liner paper (She had to use a razor blade to scrape it all off) while I set up the Internet (my connection is about 50% faster than my old Time Warner connection). I then started unloading some of my clothes and doing laundry. The Wife said she would be mowing the lawn soon so I decided to plug in our cordless mower to get it all charged up. If only I could find the charger. It took me another two - three hours of more box opening, moving, lifting, sweating (like a big dog), and searching before I found it in the least likely box. I tell you, these quests for small items suck! The basement is now a maze of boxes, a few only half full. In other words, a mess.

On a lighter note, Homer encountered his first Nebraska rabbit. I spotted a rabbit in our backyard. It was in an area that had been a garden once munching on some weeds. I told the Wife and she decided it was time for the Homer to go Pee Pee. Homer got in the yard and the bunny froze. I watched it from our deck. Homer trotted around oblivious while the bunny hunched down like a statue. Then Homer got a little to close for the rabbit and it bolted. Homer ran after it but the bunny got away. This morning he had a second run in with another rabbit but it too got away.

We ended the day with some Dairy Queen ice cream. Today, we will try to do what we couldn't finish yesterday: unpack the kitchen and our clothes.

Homeless No More

We are officially Nebraska homeowners. We drove into Omaha to do our walk through and sign our papers.

When we reached the house it was still occupied. We started the walk through and we were startled to find the house full of stuff. We're supposed to move in tomorrow and the current - ex - owners stuff was still not moved. On top of that the place was dirty. We went to the realtor's office and asked about it. Turns out they were told to vacate by 1:00 PM on Tuesday. We assumed we would own it at 12:01 AM. We made a call to our movers who were scheduled to deliver all our stuff at 8:30 AM, and rescheduled the delivery to 1:00 PM. We were lucky we could reschedule so late in the game.

While I was looking for the movers number, the Wife talked to the Realtor about getting the house cleaned. He assured us it would be clean by 1:00 PM.

Tonight we stay at Moms and tomorrow we move in officially. Can't wait to be in our own bed again.

Good Bye Rifle ... Hello Columbus

On Sunday we got up early and left Rifle. The next leg was going to be a long 10 hours and would end with us staying at the Loon Whisper's place.

The drive though Colorado is beautiful until your reach Denver. After Denver the terrain flattens out and segues smoothly into the flat, straight that is Nebraska. I was tired as I haven't been sleeping well lately.

The drive took us past Silt,CO, No Name, CO and Worm, NE. The restaurant of the day was the Smilin' Moose Cafe.

We made it to the Loon Whisper's home and we introduced Homer to Spud and her sisters, the spudettes. They were a little unsure of him so he explored the backyard until the kids went to bed.

The Vet, the Loon Whisperer's husband, gave us a welcoming gift of a DVD: "Beef Reproduction Module #1: How to Get Cows Pregnant". I'm sure, since this is module #1, it will probably end with a cliffhanger. Can't wait to check it out once we buy our big screen TV.

We will spend our first night in Nebraska at the Loon Whisper's home.

Tomorrow, Homer will stay with the spud and spudettes while the Wife and I continue on to Omaha to walk through our new house and sign the final closing papers to make it our own.

Good Bye Las Vegas ... Hello Rifle

The drive from Oxnard to Las Vegas is a pretty ugly drive. The California dessert is rather blah and boring. The drive from Las Vegas to Rifle, on the other hand, is amazing. From the Virgin River Gorge in northwestern Arizona to the spectacular dessert vistas along the western I-70 n Utah, the awesome sights are none stop.

I have driven this route a few times and the 11 miles of I-15 through the Virgin River Gorge is one of my favorite stretches of road, right up there with Highway 1 between Monterey and San Simeon and the Going To The Sun in Glacier. It was just as incredible as I remembered.

We managed to get past St George, UT without breaking down. We passed restaurants like the Hoagie O Yoagie and the Garden of Eat In Restaurant. We passed an advertisement in Parowan for the Nuclear War Survival Plan. If I'd had more time, I would have stopped along the way at all the weird places but I really wanted to get to Omaha so we can sign our papers.

The next great stretch of road is from the Junction of I-15 and I-70 to just past Green River. The landscape is a panople of reds, oranges, yellows, and whites. Every corner I rounded revealed another breathtaking view. I felt the urge to hike the red bluffs tugging at my gut.

We arrived in Rifle, checked into the hotel, and called the Wife's aunt in nearby Parachute. We were looking forward to great conversation and a home cooked meal (Our first in a week). They did not disappoint. The food was delicious and we talked and talked quite a bit later then we had originally planned. Homer, of course, was a good boy in their house.

We made it back to the hotel just in time to go to bed. We had an early morning on Sunday and we were tired.

Good Bye California ... Hello Las Vegas

We are on the road ... finally. The Wife finished her College Application Camp a little early and, after a quick lunch at Wendy's, we hit the road. It felt good to be on the road and out of the tiny hotel room we were in.

The drive wasn't bad and we didn't hit traffic until Las Vegas. I was hoping to take a picture of the "You Are Leaving California" sign on our way out but there is no such sign. This made the whole leaving California experience a non-event. A little of a letdown. A thought it would affect me more - leaving California after almost 21 years - but it was just another line on the map.

We arrived in Las Vegas five hours later and checked into a hotel on the north-east side of the city. We decided that we weren't interested in staying in a cheap hotel near the strip because, frankly, it would be a cheap hotel near the strip along with all the unsavory characters that those types of hotels attract. Instead we found a cheap hotel a long way from the strip. So far away it doesn't even have slot machines. At least the room is bigger then our last room.

Because Homer is traveling with us (He slept most of the way to Vegas) having a nice, sit-down meal is not possible. Fast food is really the only option. I thing my salt and saturated fats are going through the roof. It's sort of a mini-Super Size Me experiment. By the time we get to Nebraska I'll be fed up with all the crap I've been stuffing my face with.

Tonight I watch Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica (our hotel has Sci-Fi!). Tomorrow on to Rifle,CO.

Internet Travails And Other Minutia

On Monday I returned our DVR. As I returned it, I specifically asked that the Internet not be disconnected until Wednesday. Later that night I tried to post and found that ... I had no Internet connection. Those Bastards!! I figured this wouldn't be an issue as I would have Wi-Fi at my hotel.

Monday night was weird. The house was completely empty. I walked in and said hello and heard "hello ... hello ... hello." A kind of haunting echo. All we had was an inflatable mattress and two sleeping bags. We were so bored that we went to bed at 8:00 pm.

On Tuesday, after taking Homer to the dog park to play with his friends, I checked into our hotel and paid my $2.99 for Wi-fi access. I flipped open my laptop and ... failed to connect. I called the 800 number on the access card and talked to someone who was not helpful. She said she would raise the issue to the next level. I then called the office who was even less helpful. They said, call the 800 number. So after putzing around for a couple hours, I called the 800 number again and got someone who at least sounded like he knew something. After asking some very intelligent questions he said he thought the server or the access point at the motel needed to be reset and he would make some calls and hopefully everything would be up in an hour or two. Well, it never came up and I decided to ask the office for a refund of the Internet fee. They refunded it with little argument. I expect it must happen often.

On Wednesday I took Homer to the veterinarian for his shots followed by a trip to the Fur Stylist for his spa treatment (bath and a nail clipping). There was a gap of time between the vet and the spa so we went down to Hueneme Beach and walked around a little. I got back in the car and fired up the laptop and found an unprotected Internet connection. Careless of them. I jumped on long enough to download e-mail and to check some stuff. I feel a little guilty since you could consider that stealing but ... if you leave your door open, people will look in. I was on-line for no more then 10 minutes so I doubt they noticed.

The past three days have been really weird. It's hard to describe. I feel like I'm in purgatory. I'm limited in what I can do since Homer is with me all of the time. I think the main feeling in anxiousness to get moving. I can't wait to hit the road on Friday. Until then, wait ... wait ... wait.

Update: I decided to see if I could get on at the motel again. This time it connected. It turns out the access code I turned in for the refund still works. Go figure.

Loopy Hole In My Vocabulary

Oh yeah, almost forgot. Have you ever had one of those days when the simplest of words just don't come when you need them? Today I just couldn't think straight. I couldn't think of the words: Birdbath, Doormat, and several others throughout the day. The fact is the Wife and I were completely loopy most of the day. To be honest, most of my attempts at humor today were 'totally lame' as opposed to the usual 'mostly lame'.

I think the completion of this moving stuff, the light at the end of the tunnel, and the sudden lifting of stress has made us giddy.

Boxing Day

The packers showed up today and the time just flew by as we sat on the couch and watched boxes being loaded up. We both thought it would be boring and slow but time flew. They were nice enough to leave the TV out so the Wife could watch the NBA Finals though they did pack the remote control.

We'd packed the car with all the stuff that was not going to be packed by the movers. The Wife's car is full of our china and other valuable/sentimental breakable. My car would carry the computer (my valuable/sentimental stuff :-) along with Homer's stuff. (I was going to pack the computer after the packer had gone for the day.) He'll be riding with me.

Here is a lesson that I should have anticipated. The packers are very aggressive. They pack everything that's not nailed down. I'd told them not to pack the computer, which they left alone. I'd set aside some foam rubber to use to pack my computer. After the packers left for the day I went upstairs to pack the computer and ... the foam pad was gone. I suspect they packed it and I'm sure I will find it in Omaha. D'OH! I had to go dumpster diving for the remains of a rug mat the Wife had used to pack some pictures. It wasn't quite enough so I used a blanket and a sweatshirt jacket that we had in our car trunks to finish the packing. I just hope it all survives the week riding in the trunk of my car.

The packers return tomorrow to finish packing and loading the boxes and furniture on the truck. Tomorrow night is going to be very ... boring and uncomfortable. We bought an inflatable bed and have sleeping bags but nothing to sit on and no TV. I'll still have internet for my laptop. I'll be packing that stuff up tomorrow night. I hope to keep posting as long as I have internet in the hotels.

Tuesday through Thursday we are in a hotel in Ventura. Friday we drive to Las Vegas. Saturday we drive to Rifle,Colorado where we will visit one of the Wife's aunts, and Sunday we will be staying with the Loon Whisperer, the Vet, Spud, and the spudettes. Monday we do our final walk through and sign our closing papers. Tuesday we get the keys and our stuff is delivered. The only thing left after that are all the little details like unpacking, utilities, and rearranging furniture til it's just right. It's all down hill from here!

The Exchange Of Coin

Well, today the money exchanged hands and we have until Wednesday to vacate the premises. I just received the call from the realtor. We both are grinning from ear to ear. I can't wait to go to my bank's site to see our account balance (No, it's not there yet ... I checked).

We also found out today that our moving company will be delivering our stuff in Omaha a day early. Early! How rare is that? Things seem to be progressing nicely.

Tomorrow we're going to celebrate with a breakfast at Mrs. Olsen's and a trip to Chinatown and Olvera Street. The "J" will be riding with us. The Wife is planning to do some early Christmas shopping. It will be a short trip as we have a lot to do before they come to pack our stuff on Sunday.

I can't wait to get to Omaha!

As The Homer Moves

Time for another chapter of As The Homer Moves. Since my last post we have been going through all our stuff and filling up a dumpster. By Saturday evening the dumpster, a large four cubic yard jobby, was filled to the brim. We have about another half of a dumpster to go I'm guessing. They'll come to dump it tomorrow.

The Wife did yard work for the last time in California. As she did this I emptied out my computer desk. Emptied it so well that I killed my shredder. When it comes to paper I am a major pack rat. The desk alone was about three or four bags of shred. Today I was taking stuff down from our storage loft in the garage and came across more paper (I'm guessing four or five bags of shred worth!). So off to Office Depot I went and bought a new shredder. This time I got an 18 page capacity one that was on clearance for half price. It's doing a pretty good job so far.

I make a pledge that I will no longer be a paper pack rat. To satisfy my need to keep things, I plan to scan stuff as it arrives and then immediately shred the physical evidence. Cross my heart. Really! I'll even promise to oil the shredder regularly. On an aside, I had some oil that I could have used to oil the shredder but it went to the hazardous waste disposal site with all our other stuff. D'oh! Now I'll have to buy some more. Damn my poorly planned efficiency!

On Sunday we got rid of the dining room set so our final haul from the moving sale was $1,518.00 A satisfying number. The only thing we have to get rid off, besides garbage, is the donation stuff. I call Salvation Army to request a pickup on Friday and they never showed. I went online to check and the site said the pickup was completed and even included a receipt. Someone's being a fibber. Naughty Naughty. I guess to get things done right you have to do it yourself. I plan to take all the boxes of donations to the donation center tomorrow. The desk we were going to donate will be torn down and put in the dumpster once they empty it. I'm not feeling too bad about that since it's in marginal shape as is.

Things are progressing but, as usual, they never seem to progress fast enough. On one hand I need the time to get ready for the packers coming on Saturday. On the other, I want it all to be done. *sigh*

Where Are These Guys When You Need Them?

by Dan Piraro, 25 May 2008

Shedding The Detritus Of Everyday Life

It's Saturday evening and it's time to update everyone on the happenings of the past few days.

Thursday evening was our pot party. In three words: Not Very Successful. We only had three people show up. It wasn't a total failure as we got rid of quite a few plants.

Friday was moving/garage sale preparation day. The Wife and I both dreaded this day. We especially didn't look forward to moving all the furniture out to the garage. At one point we even contemplated hiring some burly men to move the stuff for us. Turns out we were worrying for nothing. It took us just over an hour to get everything out to the garage. My estimates of which items would be the hardest to move was completely wrong. I expected our 36" Tube television would be the worst but that turned out to be relatively easy. The entertainment armoire that held the TV was by far the hardest. I thought that would be one of the easiest. I was wrong again.

After an hour rest, we went back into the garage and sorted things into different price ranges (25¢, $1, $2 and over). I'm guessing we had at least 200 25¢ and $1 items alone.

After sorting, we rested for another hour or so before we went back out to the garage one more time to actually tag all the items. It turns out it took less time then we expected. The Wife said she thought we still be preparing well into the night but we were finished before 4:00 PM.

Saturday we got up at 5:15 AM to get everything in place. We weren't officially opening shop until 8:00 AM but people were pulling up at 6:00 AM as we were still putting things out on the driveway. The first big items to sell were our 10 year old washer and dryer. The guy who bought these returned 15 minutes later and bought the TV. A good start.

The "J" stopped by to help with the sale. As usual, she was pretty handy.. Thanks "J"!

The next six hours were full of starts and stops. People seemed to come in waves. Unfortunately the rain also came in waves. Yes. You read me right. Rain. It never rains Memorial Day weekend in Southern California. Well, almost never. This year the weather decided to be freaky so three times we had to cover everything in plastic to protect it from the rain. This may have slowed some of the foot traffic but we did pretty well, nevertheless.

The last thing to go was our Bedroom set. We did have a hit on our dining room set but they were supposed to get back to us by 5:00 PM and they haven't called or come by yet. Bummer.

So, what was the final tally you ask? $980 profit. Not bad at all. We didn't sell everything of course but that will be solved by a trip or two to the Salvation Army and/or Goodwill. If the dining room set doesn't sell, it will be donated as well.

The house is starting to feel weird. Half the furniture is gone. We are now watching TV on a 20" piece of ... junk instead of our 36" beauty. Our bedroom has clothes piled on the ground as there are no dressers anymore. We have about two more weeks in the house. The next step in our big move is donating all our leftovers to charity and trashing everything not worth donating. After that, the movers come in and pack our stuff, load the truck, and away we go. We'll be in Omaha before you know it.

Time For A Pot Party

We're having a pot party tonight. I wish I could have seen the faces when the Wife announced this to her friends. It's actually quite benign. Nowadays when you hear the simple word "pot", it just doesn't mean what it used to. Many eyes bugged out. We have house plants and potted plants out in the garden. Since we don't want to move them, and we like many of the pots they are in, we're having a pot party. Our friends are dropping by with their own pots and we will transplant our plants. Of course, beer, chips, and dip are also involved.

We may even get some help moving some of our sale furniture out to the garage.

Psst ... I'm Having A Sale. Don't Tell Anyone.

OK, I am brilliant. I go to the Ventura County Star (VCS) website and type up the Moving Sale announcement for the paper. I check it over several times and I'm happy with it so I submit it. Thirty minutes later I receive a phone call from VCS asking me if I would like to put the address for the sale in the announcement ... I.am.such.an.idiot. I forgot to put our address in the announcement. How stupid is that. No, our sale is a secret sale. You have to know the secret password. HA!

Sometimes I wonder if I'll survive this move.

Inspector Anxiety

I have found something more aggravating than being at an open house and listening to people make comments about your home. It's being in your home as the inspector goes through your house looking for problems. I was paranoid there was deal-breaker hidden somewhere that we didn't know about. As he left, the inspector told our realtor that there wasn't anything major. The buyer seemed happy. Phew!

One step closer.

Shredding 20 Years Of My Past

I am slowly starting to get ready for the move. I'm having trouble getting started even though the moving/garage sale is Memorial Day Weekend. I spent most of today shredding old documents. While I'm not the only person who has that pack rat problem, I have a thing about throwing away documents. Over the last couple months I have gone through my records and shredded. Fourteen (14) bags full of little bitty pieces of paper. Investment records from the early 90s. Pay stubs going all the way back to 1987 (!) including my very first one. Health insurance claims from the 90s. Crap ... all crap.

As I shredded it though, I had this weird feeling that I was destroying twenty years of my life. Was that all I was for the past twenty years? Manila envelopes full of pay stubs and insurance policies? My only consolation was that my trail went down with a fight. My shredder, supposedly capable of chewing through ten pages at a time, hardly could handle more then four and overheated after only fifteen minutes of constant paper feeding. 15 minutes grinding ... 20 minutes cooling off. 43% uptime is pretty pathetic. I guess I should be proud of the toughness of my history. Then again, it was only paper.

Another Hurdle

I'm still recovering from my hike yesterday so I will only post a short but happy one. The Wife received two ... count them: one, TWO job offers. WOO HOO! Now, they really aren't the Wife's first choices but they'll do until she can find the dream job.

Keep the good thoughts and prayers coming.

Stoned Homer

Last Wednesday night, Homer began scratching. By Thursday night he had scratched/bit/licked himself bloody on several parts of his body. He was miserable, the poor guy. That is why we took him to the vet on Friday.

The vets diagnosis was allergies. He is now on steroids and antihistamines. The meds are definitely working but I'm guessing the antihistamines are not the non-drowsy type. Homer has been sleeping even more than usual and when he is awake he looks totally stoned.

I guess it's better to be stoned than bloody itchy. The vet thinks he will have less allergy problems in Omaha. I'm not sure I would agree but I hope he's right.

We keep telling Homer that he'll soon be a mean Nebraska farm dog but he just stares off into space. There are a bunch of new experiences awaiting Homer - Thunderstorms (not good), Snow (Possibly funny until he needs to poop when it's below freezing), being able to see people (The yard has a chain link fence instead of the wooden privacy fence we has here so Homer can actually see out), and don't forget playing with Spud and the Spudettes (Total Chaos). It's going to be fun.