Not much happening. Since our house has been on the market, we've shown it exactly 0 (zero) times. This is somewhat discouraging, although we're hopeful something will happen now that Memorial Day is past. The house looks great. We've been managing to keep it clean, and the new kitchen floor looks fantastic. This upcoming weekend, our real estate agent is throwing an open house. Maybe that will yield something.
We have now made plans for moving ourselves across the country (but not our stuff). Sweetie and I sat down and planned a route, and then she spent a few days making reservations and reshaping our route. We will be leaving mid-July and spending 17 days on the road. I'll keep the route secret for now, since I'm planning on blogging during our trip. But I will let slip that we're taking a northern route.
This weekend we visited Grammy & Grandpa N. A fun time was had by all (except G&G's cats, who spent the weekend in the woods). Thing 2 spent a great deal of time splashing his toes in G&G's pond. (The fish loved that...) Sunday we went up to Hopewell Furnace Nat'l. Historic Site. Thing 1 and Thing 2 earned Junior Ranger badges, which was very exciting for Thing 1. And, of course, Grammy and Sweetie got cancellations for their NPS passports. I got some video, and Grandpa got to see chickens. How can you go wrong with chickens?
Monday, May 28, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Home again
Back home again. And what a trip it was.
Saturday I had nothing planned, so I decided to drive up to Topanga Canyon and maybe take a little hike. This ended up being a quintessential LA experience. To make it more scenic, I decided to try to follow the coast by taking the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), and it was pleasant enough, although (surprise, surprise) traffic was heavy, and it took most of two hours to get there. I parked in the lower parking lot and wandered over to the Dead Horse Trail head. There was a map that made no mention of how long the trail was, which vexed me, as I had brought no water with me and only a banana to eat.
I started up the trail and my first thought was that this looked like good mountain lion habitat. So now I was paranoid about being pounced on and began keenly scanning the undergrowth. Then I thought to myself that with all this scanning of the undergrowth, I was likely to miss any rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the trail and step on one. I was really enjoying my hike.
The trail turned out to only be about 1 mile. I saw no mountain lions or rattlesnakes (but lots of little lizards). My banana was a perfect snack, and I did not dehydrate. I did decide, however, to walk on the road back down to my car.
So now it was time to drive back down to San Pedro. I made the mistake of deciding to take the 405. Saturday afternoon, and it was a virtual parking lot. It took me most of an hour to get down to LAX, and then I got off and tried Santa Monica Blvd and the PCH. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to get back to the apartment. Ugh. All that for a 1 mile hike.
Sunday was my flight back home, except that an equipment failure led to the cancellation of the flight. After a full afternoon of waiting for my luggage to appear, I ended up staying at the airport Hilton (no sign of Paris; maybe she was locked up), and flew home the next day. A trip of minor catastrophes completed.
Our house is now officially on the market (see if you can find the listing in MLS). We are getting new kitchen flooring installed today, and we still need to get the hole in the wall repaired, but besides that everything is pretty much in order. Now if we can only keep it that way until it sells. (Encouragingly, a house down the street sold in 22 days.) Yesterday we had an open house for real estate agents, and they had very positive things to say about the house.
Now we just need to arrange our move...
Saturday I had nothing planned, so I decided to drive up to Topanga Canyon and maybe take a little hike. This ended up being a quintessential LA experience. To make it more scenic, I decided to try to follow the coast by taking the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), and it was pleasant enough, although (surprise, surprise) traffic was heavy, and it took most of two hours to get there. I parked in the lower parking lot and wandered over to the Dead Horse Trail head. There was a map that made no mention of how long the trail was, which vexed me, as I had brought no water with me and only a banana to eat.
I started up the trail and my first thought was that this looked like good mountain lion habitat. So now I was paranoid about being pounced on and began keenly scanning the undergrowth. Then I thought to myself that with all this scanning of the undergrowth, I was likely to miss any rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the trail and step on one. I was really enjoying my hike.
The trail turned out to only be about 1 mile. I saw no mountain lions or rattlesnakes (but lots of little lizards). My banana was a perfect snack, and I did not dehydrate. I did decide, however, to walk on the road back down to my car.
So now it was time to drive back down to San Pedro. I made the mistake of deciding to take the 405. Saturday afternoon, and it was a virtual parking lot. It took me most of an hour to get down to LAX, and then I got off and tried Santa Monica Blvd and the PCH. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to get back to the apartment. Ugh. All that for a 1 mile hike.
Sunday was my flight back home, except that an equipment failure led to the cancellation of the flight. After a full afternoon of waiting for my luggage to appear, I ended up staying at the airport Hilton (no sign of Paris; maybe she was locked up), and flew home the next day. A trip of minor catastrophes completed.
Our house is now officially on the market (see if you can find the listing in MLS). We are getting new kitchen flooring installed today, and we still need to get the hole in the wall repaired, but besides that everything is pretty much in order. Now if we can only keep it that way until it sells. (Encouragingly, a house down the street sold in 22 days.) Yesterday we had an open house for real estate agents, and they had very positive things to say about the house.
Now we just need to arrange our move...
Friday, May 11, 2007
Hot time on Catalina
I went out to Catalina Wednesday morning on a University boat. It was a nice smooth crossing. I visited the house in which we are going to live, and it was bigger than I remembered it, although there weren't two little boys filling it up. Didn't really do to much else that day. I re-acquainted myself with the computer I'll be using on the island, and did some preliminary set-up type work. John and I talked a little about projects.
Thursday was mostly more of the same; hacking around on the computer a bit. It was cool on the island, much cooler than LA was. LA was baking hot - 90 degrees and dry, dry, dry. Catalina was probably only about 75. Long pants and a fleece were appropriate. The wind was blowing steadily. About 3:30 in the afternoon, just after I got the email saying I might be able to log in to the USC system, suddenly the internet connection went out. As it was about dinner time on the east coast, I thought I'd call Sweetie while the internet was down, but, hmm the phones didn't work either. Then John appeared and said the land line was down. The construction guys on the island (who are building a new conference center) swore it was nothing they had done, and they were right. A fire had broken out on the island and burned down the microwave relay tower. The wind was pushing the fire toward Avalon, the big town on the other side of the island. We were relieved it wasn't heading our way. Then the power went out. So there we were with no power, a fire, and no method of communication with the mainland. Sticky.
We grilled some food for dinner, and played some Yahtzee with the kids. After the sun set, you could see the glow of the fire over the ridge. A few people managed to get cell phone calls through by walking up to the top of the ridge and getting a signal from LA. In the morning, a University boat arrived at around 9:30am. The director had brought over dry ice, batteries, satellite phones, and a portable generator. They were making a run back to the mainland with a group of students, so I hopped that boat. And here I am back in LA.
The fire seems to be controlled now. They have no idea when power will be restored to Two Harbors - might be a week or more. I guess such fires will be a fact of island living, although everyone was saying this was a very rare event. It was good to see such a quick, organized response from both Orange County and the USC staff.
Well, I'm rattling around LA today. Back home tomorrow.
Thursday was mostly more of the same; hacking around on the computer a bit. It was cool on the island, much cooler than LA was. LA was baking hot - 90 degrees and dry, dry, dry. Catalina was probably only about 75. Long pants and a fleece were appropriate. The wind was blowing steadily. About 3:30 in the afternoon, just after I got the email saying I might be able to log in to the USC system, suddenly the internet connection went out. As it was about dinner time on the east coast, I thought I'd call Sweetie while the internet was down, but, hmm the phones didn't work either. Then John appeared and said the land line was down. The construction guys on the island (who are building a new conference center) swore it was nothing they had done, and they were right. A fire had broken out on the island and burned down the microwave relay tower. The wind was pushing the fire toward Avalon, the big town on the other side of the island. We were relieved it wasn't heading our way. Then the power went out. So there we were with no power, a fire, and no method of communication with the mainland. Sticky.
We grilled some food for dinner, and played some Yahtzee with the kids. After the sun set, you could see the glow of the fire over the ridge. A few people managed to get cell phone calls through by walking up to the top of the ridge and getting a signal from LA. In the morning, a University boat arrived at around 9:30am. The director had brought over dry ice, batteries, satellite phones, and a portable generator. They were making a run back to the mainland with a group of students, so I hopped that boat. And here I am back in LA.
The fire seems to be controlled now. They have no idea when power will be restored to Two Harbors - might be a week or more. I guess such fires will be a fact of island living, although everyone was saying this was a very rare event. It was good to see such a quick, organized response from both Orange County and the USC staff.
Well, I'm rattling around LA today. Back home tomorrow.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Thumb-twiddlin', or not
All's well that end's well, as the bard says. After yesterday's 'wrinkles', I wasn't sure whether I was going to be able to successfully complete all my administrative tasks this week, but thanks to the help of the Wrigley staff and the USC administrative staff, I have now completed as much as I can until my information is processed by the bureaucracy and I am assigned an employee ID. This leaves me with time on my hands.
Or at least I thought it did. I decided to stop by and visit with a few faculty members on my way in this morning, and this has yielded no less than three scheduled appointments today. One is just a noon seminar, but the other two are about potential future projects. I have to admit it's gratifying to find that people are interested in my skills, but I'm also a little overwhelmed and wary of getting involved in too many projects too quickly.
Or at least I thought it did. I decided to stop by and visit with a few faculty members on my way in this morning, and this has yielded no less than three scheduled appointments today. One is just a noon seminar, but the other two are about potential future projects. I have to admit it's gratifying to find that people are interested in my skills, but I'm also a little overwhelmed and wary of getting involved in too many projects too quickly.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Out in LA
This post is brought to you from sunny southern California. I could also say sunny Southern California, because I am on campus at USC (and it is, of course, sunny). I am out to go through orientation and payroll sign-up, etc, and of course there are wrinkles. The first is that although I thought I had to attend meeting Tuesday morning, I actually don't. I only need to go to the one Friday morning. But there's a wrinkle there, too. Friday is graduation day, so the meeting has been moved to Thursday. Oh, but there's a wrinkle there. On Thursday I'll be out on the island. Sigh. So we're trying to schedule a time I can meet with the benefits people. The Wrigley staff has been very friendly and helpful.
The house is ever closer to being ready for the market. This weekend we straightened the basement and did more painting (ugh). Sweetie worked more on the landscaping. Thing 1 and Thing 2 successfully avoided making any big messes. All the cabinets are back together, the floors are looking good, I installed the backsplashes on the countertop, and the garage is full of stuff. (I guess we still need to work on that.) Our real estate agent wants to list very soon. This may actually happen.
And now a technology tale: When we painted the kitchen, I moved the cable modem down to the cellar. I connected it back up using the same splitter and cable that the installation guy used upstairs. Since then, however, our cable connection has been spotty at best, and this weekend it was out completely on Saturday. On top of this, on Friday I decided to update some of my linux packages and ended up killing the X server, thus no nice windows-based GUI. Most of the time this would be aggravating, but tolerable. However this weekend I was trying to finalize my travel itinerary. I hadn't yet printed out my plane and car reservations, maps of campus, forms to fill out, or the itinerary itself. All of this was in my email and on the web on my linux computer. I was thinking, as I checked in at the airport with just my credit card, got my car with just my name, got to where I'm staying using my GPS unit, and arranged meetings with people on my cell phone, that if technology fails on a grand scale, we're screwed. (While I'm sure my father would point out that people survived thousands of years without such technology, they didn't have to fly to California.)
The house is ever closer to being ready for the market. This weekend we straightened the basement and did more painting (ugh). Sweetie worked more on the landscaping. Thing 1 and Thing 2 successfully avoided making any big messes. All the cabinets are back together, the floors are looking good, I installed the backsplashes on the countertop, and the garage is full of stuff. (I guess we still need to work on that.) Our real estate agent wants to list very soon. This may actually happen.
And now a technology tale: When we painted the kitchen, I moved the cable modem down to the cellar. I connected it back up using the same splitter and cable that the installation guy used upstairs. Since then, however, our cable connection has been spotty at best, and this weekend it was out completely on Saturday. On top of this, on Friday I decided to update some of my linux packages and ended up killing the X server, thus no nice windows-based GUI. Most of the time this would be aggravating, but tolerable. However this weekend I was trying to finalize my travel itinerary. I hadn't yet printed out my plane and car reservations, maps of campus, forms to fill out, or the itinerary itself. All of this was in my email and on the web on my linux computer. I was thinking, as I checked in at the airport with just my credit card, got my car with just my name, got to where I'm staying using my GPS unit, and arranged meetings with people on my cell phone, that if technology fails on a grand scale, we're screwed. (While I'm sure my father would point out that people survived thousands of years without such technology, they didn't have to fly to California.)
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Finishing old tasks
Well, between a busy last week of work, working on the house, and various internet outages, it has been awhile since I last posted. Actually I must review what my last post was...ah yes.
We have had some major successes on the house front. The boys bathroom is done. (Huzzah!) Sweetie finished painting the cabinets, and made some curtains, and it looks great. The new carpet has been laid in the family room. (Huzzah!). This means the family room is done except for the hole in the wall. This weekend Sweetie worked on the curb appeal. She planted annuals and hung some baskets and, again, it looks great. Yesterday, the lawn was mowed. (Huzzah!) Now our house looks occupied. The new microwave is installed. (Huzzah!). The kitchen cabinets are done. (Huzzah, huzzah!) What a pain they were, but it has really made a difference. The whole kitchen looks updated, and the dingy old floors even look better. Besides painting the kitchen (and installing the backsplash on the countertops) about the only thing left is cleaning and decluttering. (Which will be a huge job.)
So yesterday (Monday) was my last day at the Institute Formerly Known as TIGR (they're still trying to come up with a symbol for that...) The day was mostly spent packing boxes and talking to people - saying goodbye - but I also had a nice lunch with some colleagues and sent some thanks-and-keep-in-touch emails. It was very odd carrying out my boxes of books etc. to the car and turning in my security badge. The feeling was not that I wasn't going back, but that I couldn't go back. Having spent eight years feeling secure in the knowledge that I could walk into the building anytime I wanted and do the things I do, I now am on my own with significantly reduced (or at least unknown) resources. I have definitely stepped outside my comfort zone.
Maybe I will start developing a new one next week. I will be flying to LA for a week to go through new employee orientation and sign up for benefits, look at housing on the island, and coordinate with John about work moving forward. I should have some time off, both at the beginning and the end of the week. Perhaps I can do some sight-seeing (stupid question, but what is there to see in LA?), or visit an old roommate.
Friday, (note the complete lack of linearity in this posting) there was a happy hour at the local pub to honor my tenure at TIGR. It was good to see people who don't often attend happy hours to show up: my office mate, certain other colleagues who are married with kids. I tried to get around and talk to everyone, but I'm not sure I did. I had a great time, reminiscing and just feeling good about both my time there and my decision to leave. A fun evening, although I really should've eaten something. I woke up early with a splitting headache - not ideal when the rest of the day was going to be taken up painting.
I should note that the Ebay auctions went well. I think only one item didn't sell (the bucket truck). Shipping all this stuff is a bit of a hassle. Hard to believe some people make their living doing this. (Where do they get the boxes?) I am thinking of auctioning off some more things, but perhaps I'll take my mom's advice and use one of those auction services.
Well, tomorrow will be a new adventure, just like every day. Best get some rest.
We have had some major successes on the house front. The boys bathroom is done. (Huzzah!) Sweetie finished painting the cabinets, and made some curtains, and it looks great. The new carpet has been laid in the family room. (Huzzah!). This means the family room is done except for the hole in the wall. This weekend Sweetie worked on the curb appeal. She planted annuals and hung some baskets and, again, it looks great. Yesterday, the lawn was mowed. (Huzzah!) Now our house looks occupied. The new microwave is installed. (Huzzah!). The kitchen cabinets are done. (Huzzah, huzzah!) What a pain they were, but it has really made a difference. The whole kitchen looks updated, and the dingy old floors even look better. Besides painting the kitchen (and installing the backsplash on the countertops) about the only thing left is cleaning and decluttering. (Which will be a huge job.)
So yesterday (Monday) was my last day at the Institute Formerly Known as TIGR (they're still trying to come up with a symbol for that...) The day was mostly spent packing boxes and talking to people - saying goodbye - but I also had a nice lunch with some colleagues and sent some thanks-and-keep-in-touch emails. It was very odd carrying out my boxes of books etc. to the car and turning in my security badge. The feeling was not that I wasn't going back, but that I couldn't go back. Having spent eight years feeling secure in the knowledge that I could walk into the building anytime I wanted and do the things I do, I now am on my own with significantly reduced (or at least unknown) resources. I have definitely stepped outside my comfort zone.
Maybe I will start developing a new one next week. I will be flying to LA for a week to go through new employee orientation and sign up for benefits, look at housing on the island, and coordinate with John about work moving forward. I should have some time off, both at the beginning and the end of the week. Perhaps I can do some sight-seeing (stupid question, but what is there to see in LA?), or visit an old roommate.
Friday, (note the complete lack of linearity in this posting) there was a happy hour at the local pub to honor my tenure at TIGR. It was good to see people who don't often attend happy hours to show up: my office mate, certain other colleagues who are married with kids. I tried to get around and talk to everyone, but I'm not sure I did. I had a great time, reminiscing and just feeling good about both my time there and my decision to leave. A fun evening, although I really should've eaten something. I woke up early with a splitting headache - not ideal when the rest of the day was going to be taken up painting.
I should note that the Ebay auctions went well. I think only one item didn't sell (the bucket truck). Shipping all this stuff is a bit of a hassle. Hard to believe some people make their living doing this. (Where do they get the boxes?) I am thinking of auctioning off some more things, but perhaps I'll take my mom's advice and use one of those auction services.
Well, tomorrow will be a new adventure, just like every day. Best get some rest.
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