Sitting here at 10:00 PM with nothing much to do, I was checking my email and ran across one from Ben. He was asking questions about Cameron-Brooks, the placement agency I went through, for one of his friends. One thing he told me he liked about my blog was that it’s a “happily ever after story” kind of place. Not sure I agree with that 100%, but this entry is one of those.
As I mentioned in my last post, Wednesday we had our house appraised. Strangely enough, it was the same appraiser that did the job last November. It was a little hard to tell sometimes, but he was definitely impressed with all of the hard work we’ve put into the house. That and the thousands of dollars in appliances :-). Before he left, I had asked him about what the value was. He told me he couldn’t tell me as his client is the bank and not us. Fair enough. He did say though that the value was greater than the amount of money we’d put in to it.
Sharron got an email from the firm that he did the appraisal for today. Attached was the appraisal. $370,000! Nearly 1 year ago, we purchased the house for $272,500, so in under a year we’ve managed to increase the value of the house by $100,000! In THIS economy too!
I hope that none of you feel that I am bragging about this as I am not. Instead, I am merely feeling very good about all of the hard work we’ve put in to the house. It’s just nice to know that it was all worth it. :-)
I started collecting comic books my senior year in high school when Superman died. At the time I just thought that that issue would be an interesting collectible and I never expected to actually read it and enjoy it. Of course, as with most things, once you start, it’s hard to stop. Superman led to Batman, which led to lots of other titles over the years. I think at one point I was reading something like 30 titles a month! I did at some point realize that I was simply reading a book because I hadn’t stopped, not because it was good. This caused me to cut out a good number of titles and really focus on stuff I was enjoying. This allowed me to add in the occational new title to check it out and see if I liked it. However, towards the end of last year, I really didn’t have enough time to read them anymore. I started to have a box that was filled with unread issues, which I really didn’t like as it started to become a mountain that would be too hard to climb. I’d always want to read it, but probably never would. So, I cancelled all of my titles.
As you can imagine, having started in 1996 and collecting all the way until 2007, I had a great many comic books. Add to that moving from college to Colorado, to Alabama, to Japan and to Connecticut, I had quite the mish-mash of organization going on. So, one of my goals was to get them all sorted and documented so that I would know what I have. The problem is always time. When we first moved in, I knew that the game room in the basement would be perfect for this task. However, our first big goal when we moved in was to get the house in order. Painting, new flooring, etc. The game room was finally finished early in the summertime and I was able to start my project. Of course, this is where the time factor came in. I could either have fun in the evening after work, or work on comics. Or, I could do work with Sharron or work on comics. I’m sure you can see a pattern in there some where. :-)
This Wednesday, we’re having our house re-appraised. This will hopefully enable us to get rid of our Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) and allow us to have some more equity in the house. What I’ve learned from that show on one of the home improvement channels called, “What’s it worth” (or something like that) is that if your house is a mess or cluttered, you won’t get the same value as if the same house were clean and un-cluttered. These two things don’t change the house at all, but it’s all perception. So, Sharron and I have been a whirlwind of activity the last 2 weeks or so trying to get the house comepletely in order. Last weekend I managed to finally get all of the comics at least sorted by title, back into boxes and then I labeled all of the boxes so I know where to find everything. I did not have time to complete the spreadsheet part of this project, that will have to wait for another day. So yay! That’s done for now. :-)
Saturday’s lately have become out out and about day. This weekends was the longest yet! We left home at like 9:30 and headed to the Harvest Cafe for breakfast. We only recently tried it for the first time, but they have crazy good breakfast. Then we headed down to Newington for some shopping. We went many places. Lunch was fast food: Arby’s. I only ate curley fries. :-) Our last destination of the day was Linen and Things since they’re going out of business. We wanted to get a stool for the guest bathroom, but they were all gone. Dinner was at Outback. Ever since they come up with the $10 outback special (8 oz steak, 2 sides) we’ve been hooked. I mean, who can pass up dinner out for $25?
Sunday we did this!:
It only took us like 10 hours!
When I was in Iraq, I read a book by Dean Koontz called Odd Thomas. I really liked it. Last year, I discovered on accident that 2 more books (now 3) have been written about Odd Thomas. Keeping an eye out for them at used book stores, I finally found #2 and recently read it. Not as good as the first, but definitely interesting enough for me to want to jump right in to book 3. I picked that one up at the library earlier this week, so you know I must have really wanted to read it. :-)
At one point in this book there is a very suspenseful chase. I was actually scared because of it. The last time I remember being scared by a book was WAY back in 7th grade when I was 13! That time it was by a book called The Dark is Rising. Not very scary by my standards today. :-)
Thinking about this, I was reminded about how I read. I talked with Sharron about this and she doesn’t think this is the same for her. When I get in to a book, the words go away. I know I’m still reading them, but in my head the images of the book are like a movie to me. I’m not sure if this is true for everyone, but when I was reading the description of what Amazon is trying to accomplish with the Kindle, they mentioned a similar phenomenon. So, just like with a scary movie, this book caused me to be scared. :-)
Just for the curious, the last movie that scared me was 1408.
I can’t remember which of my friends I’m quoting, but I think it was possibly Ben. The thought was that on everyone’s calendar on election day, the caption reads, “Vote!” Then the day after the election the caption reads, “Drink Heavily.” :-) For better or for worse, the election is over and we can now look forward to seeing what our newly elected officials will do. I’m definitely curious.
From a personal perspective, yesterday was the first time in my life that I voted in person. For every other election I voted by mail on an absentee ballot. It was a pretty interesting experience. As I said yesterday, Sharron had to wait in line for 30 minutes before voting. I left work at 4:00 to give myself enough time to wait in the expected long lines. However, when I got there I found the place mostly deserted. It only took my 5 minutes! It was a nice surprise.
I’m not going to say who I voted for, but I will say that I voted right down the middle. Of the 4 candidates we were electing, I voted for 2 democrats and 2 republicans. My friends and I have talked about this a lot. To me it seems that these party lines that seem so important to the news media are not as important to people my age and younger. Looking at how the democrats will soon control the Senate and Congress and Obama is president elect, perhaps this is not as true as I thought.
Sharron and I both got up early today to make sure we could go out and vote. She made it out of the house early and arrived at the voting station about 10 minutes after they opened. She had to wait for 30 minutes! After she told me that, I changed my plan to vote after work instead of on the way to the bus stop. With wait times that long, I would have missed my bus! My co-worker Michael told me he tried to vote on the way in as well, but that he couldn’t find a place to park!
Last night I did my final bit of research into the candidates and have made my decisions as to who I’m voting for. Sharron said she felt a greater peace about the day now that she’s voted, but I’m already a lot more peaceful now that I’ve finally made my decisions. I’m going to head out early, probably on the 4:10 bus this afternoon to go to the polls.
Thinking about all of this, it’s hard to not get discouraged. My biggest problem is not with broken campaign promises, but instead with voting records. Many of the sites that talk about the candidates talk about if they’ve voted with their party or not and how often. I think I’ve decided that that statistic is pretty useless. What I really want to know is if the candidate will or has voted with what their beliefs are and what they campaigned that they are. Instead, if they stuck with the party line and didn’t vote like they felt they should, I don’t want them in office. I instead want someone who’s willing to stand up for what they belive in. If it happens to be with or against the party, who really cares?
Thursday night I had a business dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse. My boss, Keith, had asked our 3 vendors to come in to town for a strategy meeting on Friday and wanted to have dinner the night before. Jokingly, as I was setting it up, had suggested Morton’s. The vendors thought this was a GREAT idea though, so I set it up. Only later did I find out that it’s traditional for the vendor to pick up the tab in this type of situation. I had been to Morton’s once before, back in July of 2002 when I’d taken a trip to Vegas. I remember paying something like $150 for 2 people. Being young and not having much money at the time, I probably didn’t order anything extravagant either. I spoke to my vendors about this and they assured me that it was no problem. Apparantly we are giving them enough business to cover this sort of thing. :-)
So anyway, with a party of 12, we didn’t qualify for either of the private dining rooms, but were still able to get one when there was a last minute cancellation. Working ahead of time with the staff, I was also able to get all of the companies logos printed on the menu as well. This was a HUGE hit. Of course, in these situations, to be polite you’re supposed to go in knowing what you want to order ahead of time and to not really order anything extravagant or extraneous. When my vendors starting ordering several appetizers and bottles of wine not seeming to care what anybody ordered, it was hard not to really enjoy yourself. We ended up staying from 5:30 until around 8:30 – 9:00. As I’d learned after my last visit, you simply MUST order a dessert souffle. I made sure mine was chocolate. No one else seemed interested as I don’t think anybody knows what they are. I did convince Mario, who was sitting next to me, to order one though and he agreed with me that they are quite exquisite. For my steak I had the double filet mignon. It wasn’t as good as the souffle. :-)
So anyway, I had a REALLY good time and I wish that Sharron could have gone with. Next time I go it will be with her!
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