Time to fire up the blog again…Summer 2015 life update

Reading: The A Swing-David Leadbetter  Listening to: Super Furry Animals-Rings Around the World  Playing: MLB 12 The Show-PS3

Its been a few months since I’ve updated my blog so here’s what’s been up:

Abbie and I have a (Lord willing) perfectly healthy kid on the way due in early August (no we don’t know the sex) and to prepare we’ve cleaned out our guest bedroom/storage room and are about to paint it and get some new baby furniture.  Hopefully that will be done by the end of this month.

Eliana continues to amaze me personally with how quickly she learns new things like her alphabet and counting.  Also things like puzzles and saying new words and phrases.  She’s an adventurer, nothing seems to scare her much.  She’s a lot of fun but also she’s very good at testing any and all boundaries that we set forth.  Part of being two I guess.  It will be very interesting to see how she adjusts to the new baby.

In mid-July Abbie and I are going to go to Chicago for a few days to celebrate our Anniversary.  We wanted to do it last year but weren’t ready to leave Eliana for multiple days yet.  We are going to eat at a “Top Chef” winner’s restaurant called Girl and the Goat as well as see the Shedd Aquarium.  We are taking Amtrak there and back too.  Should be a fun time.

Last month my dad and I completed a mini-project putting an attic fan in the house.  The house actually already had one but it was covered up and disconnected.  We removed the old fan, cut a hole in the hallway ceiling, built a wooden support box for the new fan, braced it in there, hooked it up, then put the shutters in and some decorative boards around it.  Took a couple of weeks but now we have a cheaper alternative to A/C in the spring/fall.  I meant to take a before pic of the ceiling and also a pic from in the attic but I didn’t so I just have the ones I am posting. This was my main house project this year other than the new baby’s room.

 

I’ll save talking about my golf game for its own blog piece, though that still remains my main hobby in my free-time. I also play some video games and board games from time to time. Outside those things I’ve generally stayed busy with work (and its ever changing schedule), house/yard work and of course spending time with Eliana (we like going to the park).

I’ve got a lot of ideas for blog posts that I’m hoping to hammer out.  I don’t really speak my mind much anymore online, which is typically to my benefit, so I’m not sure exactly what I’ll actually post yet.  That’s it for now though.

Mission(s) Accomplished

Just finished watching: Boardwalk Empire-Season 2and Dexter-Season 6

https://whoreadsthis.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/the-next-6-months-3-big-goals/

Back in November I mentioned 3 big goals for the following year.  Yes, I hoped they would happen within 6 months, which would have been April, but I’ll take early August and call it good.

The 1st goal was taking a beach vacation which Abbie and I did in February when we visited Aruba:

The 2nd goal was buying a house, of which i documented our many escapades involving that here on my blog and on facebook.  Despite all difficulties God blessed us with a home that should hopefully more than meet our needs for many many years to come.  And to think, after waiting over 6 months from the day we signed our offer sheet to when we signed our mortgage paperwork, it literally came down to the very last hour. We were either going to lose the house or own it. The 24 hours preceeding that hour were the most difficult of my life.

This is how it went down that last day: Bank of America had finally approved the mortgage but it turned out my banker had screwed up getting the appraisal transfered from my original lender (I switched lenders partway through due to a significant rate drop).  I was assured the appraisal transfer was no big deal and would be taken care of.  Well, it wasn’t.  Someone had dropped the ball and didn’t get it done.  And the guy who did the original appraisal was out of the country and due back literally the day of the closing.  My lender was able to get ahold of him a few hours before closing but of course all the final paperwork still took forever to show up at the title company leaving us all incredibly nervous.  The title company was getting impatient and if Bank of America didn’t get their money by the time the wire desk closed, the house would be lost.  I had never prayed so hard in my life.  God came through as He always does according to His Will and now we have our home!  (below are some of the realtor photos, I’m too lazy and not much of a photographer to take new ones)

The last goal was starting a family.  And on July 19th Abbie broke the news to me that we are having a baby due on March 26th!  It hasn’t hit me yet and it may not till the child is born.   It was cool hearing the heartbeat on August 29th, a mere 8 weeks after conception.  We should have sonograms in early november so no real pics to post yet.  Abbie isn’t really showing much either.  More to come on this I’m sure.

For now, its back to finishing my house fix-it projects to get the house the way I (we) want it to look and operate!  We look forward to having many of you by the house soon if you haven’t come by already.

Here’s whats up

Currently listening to: The Shins-Port of Morrow  Just finished watching: Columbo 1994-2003

haven’t talked about me in a while, and really lets face it, a day is far too long to not talk about me. let alone a few months.

Since late Janurary Abbie and I have been under contract on a house purchase out in west Shawnee.  We bought it for a lot less than the owners originally paid so the house was classified as a short sale.  Short sales take 90+ days to go through because the sellers bank has to approve the sale.  They have to work out a payment plan with the sellers to make up the difference and also figure out what they can get back from the mortgage insurers/FHA.  There is a ton of paperwork involved and banks in general don’t staff or prioritize short sales because they are sales at a loss for the bank.  frankly though i think its stupid because forclosure is much worse for all parties but whatever who am i to question the billion dollar banking system.

so our original closing date was to be april 26th and a week before that we heard the sale was verbally approved so we signed an extension till the end of may.  well, here it is nearly 4 weeks later and we still haven’t gotten written approval for the sale.  thats all that is left because our bank has everything ready, we can literally close in 5 days once we get approval. 

the house we are renting, we have to be out by may 31st so its starting to get a little stressful.  Its all up to God at this point.  cause i dont know what we will do if this doesnt go through by then.  get a month to month apt. i guess.  In the mean time we’ve started looking at other houses just in case. 

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Outside of the house stuff I applied for a yardmaster position at work.  I take a test next week for it then hopefully get an interview.  Its another thing where I’m just leaving it up to God because I’d like to get this job a lot, i think it fits what I’m good at and I’d still be here in KC.  I’ll go into more detail on what the job is another time, if I end up getting the interview.

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I have tickets to the All-Star game, I’m going with my brother in law.  Decided to get the standing room only tickets, it includes all the events.  I couldn’t pass it up, probably my only chance to go in my lifetime here in KC.  Pretty pumped about that, it might be the only game i go to this summer lol.  what a crappy year for the royals so far. 

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ok those are the major things.  Abbie and I did go to Aruba you can see photos and a summary on her blog http://petticoatsass.wordpress.com/ .  Its been a fun year so far, just have to continue to be patient and hope that some of these other things come together.

Aruba and a house

Currently watching: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia-Season 6  and Parks and Rec-Season 2

Just finished watching: Parks and Rec-Season 1 Just finished reading: An Idiot Abroad by Karl Pilkington

Been busy since the last time I updated.  Abbie and I officially booked a flight and place to stay in Aruba.  This is our pseudo 2nd honeymoon, maybe more like honeymoon 1.5.  Most of our vacations have been meeting up with other people and featured a busy list of things to do.  This will be all about relaxing at the beach.  We wanted to see the beach down in the gulf a few years back but it was cut short due to my work situation.  So we are making up for that amongst other things. 

The flight is about 6.5 hrs total flight time with a brief layover in Atlanta each way.  Aruba I believe is in the eastern timezone.  We picked Aruba because it is quite warm for this time of year, warmer than most carribean islands.  its also a safe place to travel and not overly expensive unless you stay in a resort. the resorts there are rediculous expensive esp in the peak season which is dec-feb.  seriously, the resorts started about $300/night and most were $500-$600 night.  the very best were $800-$1k/night.  crazy.  So we decided to rent a bungalo from a local couple there.  This is a common thing to do.  A lot of people own timeshares and also many of the locals own small apts/houses and rent them out to vacationers.  This is what we did for the whole week.  It came highly recommended as an alternative to hotels from what we read online.  Seems more fun too.

Like I said, we don’t really have much for plans down there other than relax on the beach and take in some local food options.  Abbie really wants to snorkle so I may give that a try too.  Can’t wait for the trip!

The other thing i’ve been working on is getting pre-approved for a mortgage which was just completed today.  We are officially approved now and will start looking at houses ASAP.  we have several in mind as a starting point.  My main thing is I just don’t want to get screwed so I will be looking for any and all reasons not to buy whatever house we look at.  I think I posted previously about what we are looking for but essentially aside from finding something in our price range, Abbie wants some land or at least not be in a crammed neighborhood, and i want to live reasonably close to work and in a nice school district.  We’d like 3+ bedrooms and 2+ full bathrooms.  I don’t want any kind of fixer upper, I dont like that kind of work or paying for it.   I’m optimistic we will find something we like before our rental lease expires at the end of April, God willing.

OK long enough post.  I’ve got several posts in mind so hopefully this blog will be better this year.  I’ve been kinda lazy with it for a while now.

Some musings and some pictures

Just watched: Treme-Season 1and: The Ricky Gervais Show-Season 1Now watching: The League-Season 2

Now playing: Skyward Sword(Wii)Just read: Dexter by DesignNow Reading: Dexter in the Dark

***Work is going good, this might be the first winter since 07-08 that I will stay working full time.  Hopefully I am past being laid off ever again in my career.

***I’ve gotten fed up or bored or something with politics. I’m back to where I was a few years ago in that its just pointless to argue with people about politics or philosophy or whatever if they don’t have the same religous beliefs as me.   I’ve outlined that in detail on this blog, I don’t know why I got away from it.  I’m determined to stick with it, even admist a big election next year.  The Obama experiment speaks for itself, I’d be surprised if he got re-elected.  Though people who vote for him won’t care about his economic record, they’ll care about the fact that he’ll defend humanistic beliefs.  So theres certainly a chance he could win.  Its up to God I suppose.  I’ll just sit on the sideline.

***The K-State football season has been epic beyond belief.  I was skeptical as to whether Snyder could recapture what he did 10 years ago but he’s proven he can do it.  I hope he’s around at least another 5 years.  And I hope there will be a better plan in place when he does go.  I can’t withstand another Ron Prince.  Life is so much more enjoyable when K-State football is doing well.  Here are some photos from this season and some of the games I’ve been to:

First pic was from my dad’s season ticket seats for the KSU-Mu game. 2nd was from the amazing 4OT A&M game with my buddy Joe and his nephew. 3rd pic was this creepy ku lizard thing that was wandering around memorial. I couldn’t figure it out. it has a ku football jersey with ku basketball shorts. plus, ITS A LIZARD! Wasn’t scary enough for that little kid i guess.

Want to know why Turner Gill was fired? Just follow my in-game timeline of the KSU-ku game. Was all purple by the 4th quarter.

Last couple of pics were from the Texas game that me and some K-State friends roadtripped to. The one way up high was our original seats but the Texas fans we were near weren’t appreciating my enthusiasm so we moved down to the K-State section to watch the 2nd half and finish our celebration of a great win.

***Abbie and I have traveled around a lot this past year. New York City, Sweden, Branson, Omaha, and now we are planning a trip to Aruba during the 2nd week of February.  I promised Abbie a beach vacation after our honeymoon got cut short so now we get to do it.  After that trip we’ll hopefully be closing on a house.  Some pics from Branson:

That third pic is from a cave tour we did. I couldn’t help but take a pic of that formation.

The Next 6 Months-3 Big Goals

Just finished watching: The League-Season 1 and Entourage-Season 7 Now watching: Dexter-Season 5

Abbie and I, or at least me for sure (lol), have 3 things we’d like to accomplish in the next 6 months.

1. Take a trip to a beach somewhere.  Our honeymoon was cut short a few days back in August 2009 due to my work calling me in and it kept us from spending a few days on the beach.  I promised we’d go to a beach to make up for it and I’d like to make that happen early next year.  Not exactly sure where yet but I’m determined to make it happen.

2. Buy a house.  Our lease expires at the end of next April so we will be looking to buy a house a few months before that.  We looked some last summer but $ wise we weren’t ready.  Abbie and I both have a list of things we want in a house and so far we haven’t found much.   My list includes being within 30 min of my various work places, at least 3 bed/2 bath, a 2 car garage, fairly up to date maintenence wise, in a good school district, and costs less than $160k.  Abbie wants to have some land, or at least not be located in a neighborhood where houses are close together.  We pray this will work out somehow.  There are good deals to be had, just gotta find the right one.

3. Begin to possibly consider potentially probably imaginably maybe think about attempting to start a family.  I guess its just about that time.  Abbie is ready.  I’m just about there.  Want to get this house thing figured out first.  Key is my job is safe now, its what has really held us back the past few years on a lot of things.

Visiting Sweden

Just finished reading: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  and The Girl Who Played with Fire Now Reading: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest Just finished watching: Southpark-Season 14Currently listening to: Pavement-Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Abbie is doing a much more detailed look into our trip complete with photos on her blog so I recommend visiting it if you want that.  http://petticoatsass.wordpress.com/

What I wanted to do was give some broadbased impressions of the trip/country from my goofy little perspective, both positively and negatively.

The positives: 

First off, the flight went quicker and was a lot easier to handle than I thought.   I was able to sleep through a lot of it and it was generally quiet and the food was pretty decent compared to typical domestic flights.  I wouldn’t hesititate to travel internationally again.

I personally had never left the North American continent so this was my first real foray into foreign territory.   I will admit I probably never would have visited Sweden if my friend wasn’t getting married there but now that I’ve gone I’m glad I did because it was probably the easiest transition from American culture to a foreign culture that could ever exist.  Nearly everyone you run into speaks English and English is written out on a lot of the things you want to figure out or enjoy.  That right there makes it all super easy to navigate.  Beyond that most everyone who helped us on our trip was friendly and accomodating.  Of course, many were paid to be as such (hotel and restarant workers for instance) but it was still nice to not run into many who might get easily annoyed at foreign tourists.

The country itself was a lot more rural than I guessed.  We didn’t travel around that much but on our trainride from the airport to Gavle I saw a lot of farms, some wildlife, and a ton of big trees.  I can see why lumber and paper are big industries in Sweden.  It reminded me of traveling through Appalachia but without any mountains.  I guess I had the impression that Sweden was a lot more populated and city based.

Patrick and Frida’s wedding was in a wonderful old church–I personally prefer old churches for weddings, it feels like the best setting for a wedding–and even though it was all in Swedish I liked the traditional feel to it all.  Everything post-wedding was wonderfully planned and carried out and wasn’t much different than a lot of American receptions.  The biggest difference was that the reception featured a lot of toasts/speeches and generally was more intimate/emotional rather than just a big party (though we certainly partied) which was nice I thought.

Stockholm itself reminded me a lot of New York in that it has old buildings and architecture, it has a lot of people walking around, and it has a lot of touristy shops/food/bars (a ton of American “chain” places can be found) and things to see.  I really enjoyed the Royal palace and the history and extravagance that it offers.   Seeing that kind of elegance and stuff that is 500+ years old certainly isn’t available back home. 

Stockholm was a very clean, modern, and safe city.  It was nothing to be out late at night pretty much anywhere and feel perfectly normal.  I was impressed by the technology (texting to buy a candybar out of a machine!) and the public transit was efficient and also clean.  The internet was available everywhere.  I also liked that I could use my debit card everywhere.

More of an observation than a positive or negative but I noticed the people are very tall there.  Now, most everyone is tall to me, but Swedes seemed taller than usual. 

Negatives:

Pricey.  This was my biggest issue with Sweden.  The exchange rate wasn’t good historically so that didn’t help our cause but either way the sales taxes seemed to range from 15-25% depending on what you were getting (most seemed to be 25%) so when you added things up almost everything cost twice as much as it would in America.  A beer at a bar was around $9.  A Coke out of a machine was $3.  A decent meal was almost $30.   Our hotel room, which was about the size of half of a normal bedroom and did not have its own bathroom, was $100/night (nicer hotels were at least $2-300/night).  You get the idea.  When you consider that a Swede has exorbitant income taxes on top of high sales taxes, this would drive me nuts.  Though I do get that Swedes get their healthcare, retirement, schooling, and a lot of social services covered so to most it might be worth the high taxes to the people who live there.  Not to me, as most who know me would guess.

The perpetual dusk.  It never gets dark which really plays with your sense of time.  It looks like its 8:30pm outside but you look at your watch and its 3am.  Its so wierd.  I could probably get used to it, but I would need a room even darker than the one I have now in order to sleep everyday. 

The weather.  This probably isn’t fair but it was fairly cold and raining all but one day we were there.  It reminded me of Seattle more than anything.  I don’t think I would really enjoy a summer where the peak temperature is like 78 degrees and the winters are brutal.  I’m guessing its like living in Canada.

The food.  This will also be unfair because I can be extremely picky.  However, I just didn’t find things I really enjoyed to eat there (keep in mind I don’t like seafood so I was probably screwed before I started).  Maybe I just picked the wrong stuff, I dunno.  My favorite place we ate at (other than the meal served at the wedding reception which was amazing) was the Garlic and Shots place where everything had garlic in it.  I got a huge garlic hamburger and a garlic beer–more gimicky than Swedish though.  I tried to try some different things, some Swedish finger food stuff that Frida and Patrick had at their wedding were interesting.  Still, for the most part I was meh on the food in Sweden.  I will say I enjoyed the coffee.  It was top notch.  Some of the beers were good too but I think most were imported from other places in Europe.

So there you go.  All in all a great trip, I’d go again someday if we had the money.  Was a great time that gave us a lot of pretty cool memories.

New York City trip (part 2)

After a day apart, Abbie and I met back up, along with Adam (Emily, Adam’s wife, was on an extended stay at her parents for Christmas), for an eventful New Years Eve in New York.  We started the day with a trip to the “Top of the Rock” (a view from the top of the Rockefeller building).

After that we ate at a little deli inside the Rock called ‘wichcraft which is Tom Colicchio’s (off of Top Chef) sandwhich shop.

From there we headed toward Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History.  It had lots of dinosaur bones which I enjoy, plus a blue diamond that was bought for 23 million in an auction a few years ago.

We were at the museum for quite a while and when it was near closing Abbie and I decided to walk around Central Park for a little bit while we waited for our group to finish up in the museum.  After that it was time to head toward Times Square and the New Years Eve ball drop!

Times Square gets shut off in the afternoon and its blockaded by police at least 3 blocks out on all sides.  So the only hope is to catch a glimpse of the ball from several blocks away (less you want to stand in Times Square for 10+ hours…it sounded miserable to us).  We ended up at West 42nd and 5th Avenue which is next to the original New York public library building (the 1st photo shows the crowd we were in).  We walked up and down 5th avenue trying to find a better view but believe me, this was the best we could do and it was satisfying as we could see the ball fall.  A memorable experience.

All in all an excellent trip.  We would have loved to spend more time there, you could easily spend weeks and not see everything.  I’m sure we’ll come back someday.

New York City trip (part 1)

Now listening to: Radiohead-King of Limbs  Now playing: Zelda-Twilight PrincessNow watching: Columbo-Season 4

Finally getting around to posting about Abbie and I’s trip to New York.  Only 2 1/2 months late on this.

So after K-State was announced to the Pinstripe Bowl I decided it would be a great opportunity to see my team, visit Adam and Emily Thiesen (who live in Brooklyn), and for Abbie and I to site see in New York. It worked out to do this because I was only working part time at the railroad at the time so we had a good 4 days open.

Day 1: We got in Wednesday afternoon on December 29th and quickly went right at it.   Here’s some of the places we saw the first day:

That evening we ate at a nice Italian place where I enjoyed Gnocchi for the first time.

Day 2: This was bowl game day for me and Adam while Abbie went to visit her friend in New Jersey.  Adam and I went and saw a few other places before heading to the game:

Then it was off to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium for the game:

After the game Adam and I went out for some drinks at a local bar where they played live jazz music at.  Was a good capper to the day.

Stay tuned for part 2–pictures from our very eventful New Year’s Eve in New York City!

 

Some updates

Just finished playing: and  Currently playing: Now reading: Timeline-Micheal Crichton 

Haven’t updated things relating to work and life in general for a while.  I’m very close (like within 5 people) to returning to full-time work at the railroad.  All the harsh winter weather has led to a manpower shortage over the past few weeks.  Plus business is generally up too, about 5% ahead of last year.  Throw in retirements and its looking good for me to return to work, perhaps permanently, within the next month or so.  For now I’m still working Mondays and Tuesdays only.

Abbie and I are officially going to Sweden for Pat and Frida’s wedding during the week of June 18th.  I applied for my 1st passport and look forward to leaving North America for the 1st time ever.  We were hoping to make a bigger Europe trip out of it, but with my uncertainty at work it makes it difficult not only to afford that kind of trip, but to get the time off if/when i return to full-time (I do not have any paid vacation this year, I didn’t work enough last year to qualify).  We plan on visiting more of Europe sometime soon.

I paid off my car loan last week leaving me out of debt for the 1st time since I bought my car in October 2006.  Abbie and I have been working to pay off all our loans starting with the higher interest loans first which happened to be my car loan.  We are going to work to payoff her student loan and car loan next.  We hope to be completely out of debt as a couple in the next year or so, God willing.  It mostly depends on me working.

A decision regarding Abbie and I’s living situation is coming up in June and for now it looks like we will stay where we are at.  We hope to go month to month on our lease so we have flexibility if we wanted to get a house though its unlikely we would be able to buy a house anytime in the next year.  The house we rent has its flaws but its in a good location and its pretty affordable and meets our minimum needs.

Thats it for now!