Who knew?!!

So, roughly 6 weeks ago, I did a post, which caught everyone up to speed. In the past 6 weeks, i can't count the number of times someone has commented to me "when are you gonna update your blog?" Who knew that you all were actually interested in what I had to say? Most of the time when I open my mouth, its usually combated with a quick shot back at me, or no comment whatsoever. A few noteworthy events have occurred since January 14th. Today, I looked at my stock portfolio, and my stocks were GREEN! It was only today though, but just strange to see that color these days.

Something funny that I realized. After I started my new job, and it started to get deathly hot in Pahonix, I said to my boss "I'd rather work in Alaska in the Winter than Phoenix in the Summer." Well, that didn't quite come to fruition, but I ended up in New Hampshire the last week of January. When I got to NH, it was 9... degrees not pm. It may have well been 9 pm, but who cares, it was 9 FREAKIN degrees!

So, an extended family member runs this gorgeous resort in Portsmouth, NH. He always said that if I was in the area, to stop by. Well, since I stay at Marriotts these days, and his property was one of them, we decided to stay the night. He gave us some of the best rooms in the building, on the top floor, overlooking the sea. There's a reason they call it Wentworth by the Sea. http://www.wentworth.com/ So below are two pictures out my hotel room the following morning. Please note: The marble floors in the bathroom are heated, and the Lobster Roll in the Roosevelt Lounge is fantastic



Many of you were aware of all my furniture issues. Dresser draws that I can't budge, a Chaise that broke, and a TV stand that the surface bubbled. Well, some good things have and are about to happen. After 3 months, I've finally convinced Squan furniture to deliver a new chaise and fix my dresser. I hope nothing else goes wrong with this furniture. My TV stand, well, that was a long search. I wanted something that concealed the center channel speaker, and found this great piece at Short-Circuit City for 500 beans. Well, I would say that right after Short-Circuit declared they were liquidating and closing all stores, the surface to my stand decided to bubble. I contacted the manufacturer of the stand, Laurier (a Canadian company), and explained that now I have a defective product, where I can't return it to the store I bought it from. Within 2 weeks, I had a full refund in my hand. Amazing customer service on Laurier's part, just wish their product was better. See bubbles below.



So, the Kitchen appliances are finally in. It took a while to get everything done, and its in there for the most part. Unfortunately the Damper for the exhaust fan wasn't installed, so I currently get a cold breeze that runs through my kitchen. I'm working on that one. Might be a job for my brother and I to do. You'll see my lovely Kitchen-Aid dishwasher, which for the time being, runs no risk of being overworked. Its fantastic at cleaning my 6 glasses and 3 plates that I may have used over the weekend!


Senior Samsung Microwave has gotten some use so far. I've made particular use out of the buttons, used for cooking. While I was shortly used to the time and temperature dials on my old microwave, I quickly adjusted to this newfound technology called "buttons." You push them, the thing beeps, and then bam, it cooks your food. Amazing! What will they think of next? Some sensor that cooks your food until it reaches a certain temperature? Oh, yeah I have that feature too.

The inaugural meal cooked on the Whirlpool Gold stove was Turkey Chili. Yeah yeah, stop the snickering. I decided to go slightly on the healthier side for those who are cholesterolly challenged. I thought it came out a little salty and not spicy enough, others said it was really good. One of the coolest features on my new stove is that the grates are integrated... So I can just slide pots and pans back and forth over the burners with little effort. Something is wrong with me. I'm excited about appliances and cooking. Um, Tailgate, Beer Pong, Chug. There, manliness asserted.

Another cool picture, this time from the left side of the plane.

A housewarming party will happen sometime in 2009. Things have just been super busy and hectic, and its taken a while to get things under control. Although its up for debate that I've never had anything under control. Regardless, the status can now be called quo, since I have a working kitchen. Peace out everybody!

This month in review...

So, the kitchen is almost done (only took 5 months). I haven't quite been around, and the plumber was on a vacation, so it took a little time for my appliances to get hooked up. Its not like I spend any time at my house anyway....

Other big accomplishments in the last month: I bought a desk (not pictured), and got lots of house stuff off my Christmas list (often referred to as a bridal registry) and am almost done hooking up the home theatre system. Being that it has only taken 4 months to hook this thing up, is one hell of an accomplishment. It only took three separate orders (roughly 2-3 weeks apart each time) to figure out exactly what and how many I needed. A little help from Kevin my brother, and Kevin my friend (while my brother is my friend, these are two different people), and John - the wiring is essentially complete. I can't wait until I can watch Top Gun, The Last Samurai or one of the Pirates movies on Blu-Ray!!!

If slow and steady wins the race, I'm definitely winning the race of home remodeling... Unfortunately I think new siding will have to be included in the 2009 budget. On a nice windy day, sitting on the couch, one can feel a chill emanating from the wall, or maybe even a breeze through the living room. Step out of the warm shower on the the cold tile, I get fears of turning into Flick from A Christmas Story: "ITHS STHUCK" Evidently in 1954, they deemed exterior insulation to not be necessary... Oh the joys of home-ownership. As I always include pictures in my post, here's few cool pics from the last month:


On a flight from Pahonix to Newark I snapped this pretty cool picture of the sunset over the wing. It was much more phenomenal in person though.



So, on December 19th, I flew from Pahonix to Detoilet. It just so happened that there was a huge snowstorm from the midwest to the east coast. In roughly 4" of snow, we landed 20 minutes early at DTW (thanks to a ground halt, and us being the only jet inbound, we were allowed to land). My coworker Rich was stranded for an extra 5 hours at the lovely Pahonix Sky Harbor airport with absolutely nothing to do, waiting for his flight to take off. Who'da thunk that flying to Detoilet in the winter, during a snowstorm, would be better than flying to NJ. So back to my flight, since its MY blog, we landed early. Evidently we had Ray Charles as our pilot and Stevie Wonder as the copilot. Approximately 40 minutes later (20 minutes late of the original arrival) we parked at the gate. The first gate was not plowed out, the second gate had some airport machinery stuck in a snow bank, and we parked at our third gate. I think Ray and Stevie just wanted to do donuts in a 737 in 4" of snow.

Rochester, Michigan, Home to Kevin Kassa, and the Rochester Mills Brew-Pub, had roughly 11" of snow. What is there to do? Well a 3 block walk to main street, see all the cool Christmas Lights, and another block to a fine establishment which serves food and beverage... mmmmmmmm beeeeeeeer. So the impending weather made certain people panic, and after some nagging, Kevin and I decided to leave Michigan on Saturday and head to NJ. A majority of the trip was without precipitation, and with good road conditions. The Ohio Turnpike on the other hand, seemed to have some icing issues. We went through a 6-mile stretch where we saw a spinout/jersey barrier induced Car-Be-Que, maybe 7 other cars off the road, and an 18-wheeler with flaming brakes. If you imagine that there is no sun glare in the picture below, you see some of the ice on the trees somewhere in Ohio. Look really closely!

So, after order # 2 came from Monoprice (needed more wire) I employed Kevin my friend/neighbor and John to come over and help finish up the installation of the home theatre system. They helped out a lot, and I was almost done. Just needed to order some more banana plugs (things you put on the speaker wire to plug into the plate and stuff). I made sure I had all necessary working tools. See man-fridge below.

Thanks for keeping up, and see you in a few weeks!