Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Livin' After Midnight...

Yesterday brought with it some fun and interesting events. The coolest thing by far was taking little Xavier to his first baseball game (Thanks for the tix, Johnny!). As soon as we stepped foot out of the car a foul ball came rolling right to us so we immediately had a neat little souvenir to remember the event by and to date accordingly. The Hillcats did lose 8-7, but they were down 8-1 in the 8th inning, so they made a great game of it and almost pulled off an amazing comeback. All in all it was a good time had by all.

About 15 minutes after we got home, our power went out. Now we noticed some police cars up the street when we got home but figured that there was just an accident. It turns out that electric poles can just ignite and catch fire, leaving almost 1000 people in the dark. It wasn't that big of a deal since Xavier was already asleep and we have already eaten, but it was still annoying to know that I would have to set the majority of our clocks again.

Now I have my hobbies like anyone, but the one I get the most grief for (not necessarily from my wife, for the record) is playing video games. Never mind the fact that the average age of a gamer is now over 30, it is still viewed by many as being for kids and that it's an immature waste of time. Regardless, I only play at night after everyone is on bed, so I'm not taking time away from anything else. Well last night marked the midnight release of Grand Theft Auto IV, and even though I knew I would be going to bed almost immediately after I got home IF I did go out, I am still fascinated at these events and always end up going, even at the last minute like I did last night (our power came on at 11:57, which ended up motivating me to go).

If nothing else, going to these midnight sales reassures me that I am certainly not the only one dumb enough to go out at a crazy time to pick up a game that I had reserved and that would still be there the next day. And it definitely reassures me that I'm not the oldest guy around playing video games. I'm curious as to what the early sales numbers are for this game, as many have predicted that it will keep people from going to see the first "blockbuster" in theaters this year, Iron Man. If this is true then it just further cements the legitimacy of video games as entertainment and art, just like music and movies. It was a bit alarming to hear people talking about how they were planning to stay up for hours on end or calling in sick to work just to play the stupid thing. I may be guilty to some degree for being there in the first place, but for me it's more about seeing some familiar faces that I no longer run into since I have stepped out of the world of retail. And yes, I was in bed within 15 minutes of getting home.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

It's so easy, easy...

Well it turns out that this whole house ordeal may end up getting done almost as quick as the pregnancy, so I'm hoping that my wife's next project is for us to win the lottery.

And yes, the house is ours and papers will probably have to be signed daily for a while to get everything completed for the sale of our house and the purchase of the new one, but there will be a day when all will be said and done where we will just be able to sit down in our new home and reflect on what we accomplished in a ridiculous short period of time.

I hope you like it babe, because we're not doing this again unless Xavier makes us rich one day.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The waiting is the hardest part...

Well, a lot has happened since I last chimed in, so let's start from the the top.

All that hard work that weekend seems to have paid off as we sold our house after only two days on the market. Woo-hoo!!!, right? The problem is, we didn't go house-hunting because the last time we put our house on the market, nobody made a single offer in over two months, so we figured it was be silly to get hooked on a house only to be disappointed and not able to buy it. We figured that it would be a nice position to be in after what we went through last time. Now let me address a vicious rumor that's going around the news regarding the current state of real estate. At least in the Lynchburg area, it is NOT dead. In fact, it seems to be a super-awesome, never-been-a-better-time-than-now, ideal time to buy AND sell a house. The first 3 or 4 houses we asked our realtor to look at were all under contract within days of being on the market, so there you go.

Now after looking at a number of houses last weekend, we finally decided on the first one to make an offer on. Now the catch is that someone else had put a contract on it, but they haven't sold there house yet. Since we have sold ours, we would like to think that gives us the edge (the sellers agree), but the other buyer has 48 hours to decide if they want to risk paying two mortgages for however long or to just let it go to us.

So the 48 hours will be up tomorrow morning at 9:45. At that time we will either be on our way to actually pulling this off in a very fast manner, or back at square one. I for one hope that I can start memorizing what our new address will be at approximately 9:46.