All these words that I hear spoken... just promises broken now

Hey look at that! Today is the 27th and my last entry was on the 29th, so I appear to be right on schedule.

I did make it to the Pearl Jam shows last week so that was a blast as always. Seeing Ed pull some 13-year old kid on stage to jam on "All Along the Watchtower" (with his guitar no less) was really cool. I couldn't help but think that how for the rest of his life he can tell his friends that he was on stage with Pearl Jam. Anyways, here he is in all of his glory:



This makes a total of 18 times I've seen them now and I have to say the DC show on Sunday was probably the best overall with the VA Beach somewhere in the 10-18 range.

Our house is still treating us well. Yes there are boxes that still need to be unpacked but overall things are in great shape. There will be a trip to Lowe's this weekend to get a weedeater and some yardwork tools, so that should be fun.

Our vacation to the beach is coming up next week. To say that I'm anticipating a long road trip with our son the day after the 4th of July may be an exaggeration, but I know once we get there and settled in it's going to be great.

I purchased a PS3 earlier this month, so the circle is now complete. While it doesn't have a ton of games to offer that I can't already play on my 360, it's nice to have a Blu-Ray player so we can add to our HD-DVD collection.

I won't be making any more promises about how often I will visit, especially with a vacation right around the corner - but here's hoping I can find some consistency.

There's so much to tell you, so little time...

Well rather than wait an entire month to catch up on things, I figured since it was a slow day at work that I would remind myself of what this whole blogging thing is like. I won't use the fact that I haven't had internet at home for the last couple of weeks as an excuse, since the majority of what little I have done on here has been while I'm at work.

So anyways...

We were able to get out of our old house and into our new one without any major incidents. The moving itself was a pain, but that's unavoidable. Had it not been for some great friends and awesome family, I really don't think we would have survived or been out in time. We still have a good number of boxes that we haven't gone through and we've been there almost two weeks.

But these past two weeks have been soooooooo nice...

This is probably the third time in my life that I feel like I have really accomplished something. The first was marrying my wife who is probably out of my league and the second was becoming a father when our son was born (I'm listing these in strict chronological order in case you haven't figured that out). I mean I always had plenty of "things" growing up and had a good roof over my head, but I really feel like I'm living in someone else's house right now. Just to be clear, it's not THAT extravagant. It's just SO much nicer than our first home it feels like we're both out of our league right now.

There's still a lot to be done as we haven't even brought our dogs home yet, but for me it has made our last house a distant memory.

I'll leave it at that for now, but I promise there will be more to come for those of you literally on the edge of your seat.

Your Light Made Us Stars...

I found out today that a guy that I went to school with who was a couple of years behind me passed away yesterday. He was found in his bed and apparently died in his sleep. I last saw him at a friend's wedding and he was as nice as ever. He used to come into the music store I worked at for so long and would talk music with me. He truly could light up a room and was genuinely a super-nice guy. I wish I had a better way to honor him, but for now here is his Facebook page where others are sharing their thoughts:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=507026673

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.

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.

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.

Everybody's working for the weekend...

Wait, make that ON the weekend.

Well our house is officially on the market as of today. Now while this is exciting it wasn't possible without a ridiculous amount of effort and hard work by yours truly and a makeshift crew of willing participants.

First off, on Friday we figured we would go out for the evening since we knew we would be working all day Saturday and Sunday. Absolutely nothing was touched or done in the way of de-cluttering or cleaning that we knew was going to have to get done eventually. So unless bringing 7 or 8 new CDs home and playing "Rock Band" deep into the night somehow helped prepare our house for selling, nothing was accomplished.

Next came Saturday. Our goals for the day included, but were not limited to, pressure-washing the deck, painting the kitchen, doing some touch-up work in the bathroom, and moving a few large pieces of furniture down to the basement. Oh and the yardwork but I'll get to that in a minute. We were fortunate enough to have the help of my brother-in-law and his girlfriend, as well as my Pearl Jam-partner-in-crime and his fiance for the day. My main project was painting the kitchen while they worked on the other stuff, which just further supported the fact that I am not a painter as it took me somewhere around 3 hours to paint it. And technically it was only half because the paint below the chair rail is a different color and didn't even need painting.

So about this yardwork. Let me state for the record that I don't mind doing yardwork myself. While I don't have a wide array of landscaping tools at my disposal I will use what I have to make the most of it and try to get it looking as good as I can. But since we had so much on our plate for the weekend, I had made arrangements to have a good friend of my family to work on the yard since he does that sort of thing for a living. And yes, I was going to pay him. He had originally told me that he would be there around 9:00. Well, 12:00 rolled around and I actually called him to see what was up and he said he would be out in about 2 hours. Well, needless to say he never showed. My mom ended up speaking to him Sunday and he apparently came down with a virus after I talked to him and was really sorry. So what was our backup plan? Let's just say we didn't have one. We do have a neighbor that also does this sort of thing for a living but we gave him absolutely no notice on a Sunday and he wasn't able to help us out.

And that brings us to Sunday. We had decided to skip out on church given the circumstances to give us a little more time. We weren't expecting any help but were ecstatic to get a call from my brother-in-law asking if we wanted him and his girlfriend to come over for a little while to help out. Now we didn't know for certain that nobody was able to help out with the yard until around 3:00. This gave me around 4-5 hours of daylight to try to cut grass and trim our shrubs. Oh and it was rainy and rather cold. Well the lawnmower pulled it's annual "you haven't used me in months so I'm not going to start" routine so there was nothing I could do. What I could do however is have my wife run over to the neighbor's garage and borrow various tools without their knowledge (don't worry, we were given permission years ago to "help yourself whenever you need it"). I proceeded to trim our shrubs the best I could given the conditions and was told that help would be arriving in the morning. The only thing is, the weather was even worse this morning, so the yard still needs work but the realtor was still able to get some pictures for the listing, with the idea that they will be replaced once we are re-acquainted with sunlight.

In the end, we were up past midnight on Sunday to get everything we could packed away and in the basement. I swear that if anyone sees the amount of stuff that is already packed in boxes that they would have no idea where we had it to begin with. But like I said in a previous post, at least that much is done if we do end up being successful in this endeavor.

There's rows and rows of houses...

So we will be putting our house on the market for the second time in about a year and a half next week. The difference between this time and the first time? We're actually making an effort to make our house look desirable during what appears to be the worst possible time in history to sell a house. This weekend holds the biggest challenge yet, which will include some painting, powerwashing, yardwork, and more de-cluttering.

Speaking of de-cluttering, we have a lot of stuff. That's actually why we need to move. Well, that and a bigger kitchen, more bathrooms, and central heat. The good thing is that it's an opportunity to "pre-pack" if you will. You know, pack everything away that you know you won't be using but are too stubborn to just throw away. That way if we're fortunate enough to find ourselves moving at some point, then a small battle has already been won.

My wife likes to obsess about something at all times, and once she obtains it she moves on to the next. I'm afraid that our overwhelming success at having a baby as soon as we tried may spoil her into thinking it's always that easy. Of course she knows it's not, but regardless of whatever is next on her list, I hope this one will be over with as soon as possible.

Just can't find the time to write my mind the way I want it to read

So maybe I should start saving some of these for days I have nothing else to talk about, but with tomorrow being Easter and all I figured I'd make up for it since I don't foresee having much spare time with family functions and all to contribute here.

Anyways, I came across a thread on a message board recently that I found interesting and just challenging enough to spend a few minutes on. If you're not a "list" person you probably want to stop now. But if you're one of those people that would come up with all sorts of "Top 10" lists while sitting through class then you might have fun with it. So here's the deal...

List your all-time favorite bands A-Z.

Now before you think that this sounds stupid, it's actually a great way to compile a list of artists that you like in a very unbiased way. No decades. No genre. Just one per letter.

Do you like 20 bands that start with "S" more than one that starts with "Z"? Probably, but therein lies the fun. The only rule I like to stick by is to be consistent on whether you use a first or last name of an artist. For example, one guy put Bob Dylan under "B" and Neil Young under "Y" because I don't think he was much of a Yes or Yo La Tengo fan.

But the point is to have fun with it so if you have to cheat then so be it. So without further delay, I share with you my list of my absolute, all-time, most excellent artists for every letter of the alphabet. I am aware of some glaring omissions, but I think this most accurately represents what I would actually listen to (for today at least).

Adams, Ryan
Black Crowes, The
Cure, The
Dylan, Bob
Eels, The
Flaming Lips, The
Guns N' Roses
Hendrix, Jimi
INXS
Jane's Addiction
King's X
Led Zeppelin
Metallica
Nine Inch Nails
Oasis
Pearl Jam
Queen
R.E.M.
Smashing Pumpkins, The
Tool
U2
Velvet Underground, The
Wilco
XTC
Young, Neil
ZZ Top

Now do I REALLY like ZZ Top? No. But I like them more than Frank Zappa, so there we go.

Oh I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands...

Have I mentioned that we love music? Not only do we actually own thousands of CDs, we've also been known to enjoy going to a concert here and there.

Now we've been together since the very end of 1999 and I would say that from then up until 2007 we probably went to around 30 shows. (Note that this is an estimate with a margin of error at +/-20) Now while some people can pull that off in a year or less, we never felt like we missed out on anything we really wanted to see.

We will refer to those years as B.X.

What exactly does that mean? It's quite simple. Before Xavier

Now let me beat everyone to the punch here and state that we were more than prepared to give up on things that aren't baby/child friendly when we decided to start a family. The rewards are far greater than anything you've experienced beforehand, so it's really not something you think about. Have we taken him out to eat with us from an early age so that he becomes accustomed to being out in public? Sure. Have we taken him to the movies? No. Do we think it's appropriate to take him to a concert? Of course not. (When exactly that day arrives will remain to be seen for a while, but we both agree that we want him exposed to good music in it's purest form from a fairly early age.)

Now I bring all this up because we once told ourselves that if we couldn't both go to a concert, we wouldn't go at all. For the most part this hasn't been that hard to accomplish and there have been a few exceptions, but now we're in a situation where if there is a show that one of us wants to go to, we have to decide whether those days are truly over or if there's a very obvious solution to it. So here's what I'm thinking... basically, if there were to be a show that I want to go to then I see that as an opportunity for Xavier to have some quality bonding time with mommy for what really boils down to a couple of hours once you take out the time he will be asleep. And of course if mommy wants to go to a show or anything for that matter then I fully support her and will be more than happy to return the favor and stay home.

Let me stress again that this isn't a question of priorities and I don't believe for one second that doing things like this take anything away from your family or makes you a bad parent. Of course I haven't exactly shared this way of thinking with my wife so I can't say that this plan will actually go into effect, but maybe when Xavier was born on the exact day that I had originally been selected to go on a business trip he was trying to tell me something...

Oh did I mention that Pearl Jam is coming around in June?