Long Tiring Weekend and Begining of Week....Now off to BarCon

Well the weekend was a bit tiring and a bit of an ass kicker!! The movers showed up on Saturday and we got stuff moved in. Lucky for them we wanted our boxes in the Garage as we weren't sure where things should go and also figured it would make it faster for the movers. Ugh it was a long day. I helped out and seems like I might have moved quite a bit of the stuff myself. The Driver said I was a natural!! LOL!! Yeah years of hauling Hay for my Papa (Grandfather) I know how to pile stuff up and move it efficiently. As Papa always said "Work smarter not harder." Well it was a nice warm day and I got a little bit of red on my neck, nose, arms and legs. Not too bad as it doesn't really itch but my neck was probably the worst.

Over the next few days I unboxed the boxes we had them move into the house. Then got to work on the boxes in the Garage. That was a slow process and after awhile I felt like I was getting nowhere and that our Garage would never have room for the coches. So I decided to just concentrate on getting the boxes that needed to be inside the house close to where they should be based on the description on the box. Well finished that today(er make that yesterday, Wednesday, it's after mid-night now) around noon. Then got to work on starting to unpack what I could before the wife get's home. Ugh another story there she was supposed to land around 9pm but she landed just a short while ago. D'oh! Well I didn't get as much done as I was hoping but I'm so tired I know I did a lot of work. Moving into a 3 story townhouse is a good way to get into shape. I felt like I sweated away 20 pounds over the last 5 days. Yeah probably not really but it feels like it.

Well I'm off to BarCon, an annual event one of my best friends throws at his house for gaming over Labor Day Weekend. It's a complete blast!! I'm staying an extra few days to meet up with friends I won't see and haven't seen since we left.

Well report more when I get back.

Townhouse Is Ours

Well today we got the keys to the new Townhouse!!! Yeah we're now officially in Debt again!! LOL!!

Well not much else to report other then the painting has begun along with me sealing the grout in the tile floors. The painters got a good portion done this evening but before they showed up I took some more pictures and some videos.

Closing Delay

Well Monday afternoon we got some bad news the loan didn't fund so closing wasn't going to happen on Tuesday. What happened you might ask? Well Well Fargo had a nationwide computer issue that started on Sunday. Needless to say they didn't get it fully fixed in time so alas our closing pushed out. Luckily this morning they funded the loan and closing will now be tomorrow.

Well now hopefully our timing will not thrown off. We've got painters coming in to paint the house another color other then the base white. We're going with a Tanish color that is similar, for those who've been there, to the Ceiling of my room in the old house. Anyway they were supposed to start tonight with painting and I was supposed to start sealing the grout in the tile floors. Well now it's all pushed a day. We're hoping they'll be done by Friday as the Movers show up Saturday morning to move all our stuff in.

We also get our new Frig delivered on Friday as well. Had to get a new Frig since the appliances are all Stainless steel and our old Frig was White!

Well will report back more later and will post more pictures and maybe some videos as well.

House Orientation and Signing

Well yesterday was a full and busy day for us. We did our Construction Home Walkthough, Signed papers for closing at the Title company and attended a class put on by Centex. Below are some pictures from our walk through:


Living Room (or B!'s Play area Wii will be here)

Family Room Entertainment Nook and Fireplace

Other side of Family room and part of Kitchen


Kitchen (with sweet appliances and big Island)

I would like to show more but having issues with the editor placing pictures in the wrong spot then not being able to move them but instead having to move the text around. Once you have loaded a picture how do you link to it. I loaded some of these pictures multiple times but don't see where you actually reference them from within the editor if you want to include the same picture again. Any pointers?

Books, Books and Books

Well now that I have some time to do things during the day I've gotten a chance to read more books. Unfortunately sometimes it's hard to remember what I have and what I don't of certain series I'm on due to them being in storage back in Oregon. But since I've been down here I've read a couple of books.

First book was Book 2 of the Darkwar Saga: Into A Dark Realm by Raymond E. Feist. Now REF is one of my favorite authors of all time. How this came about was I got my first book by him for a Birthday many years ago by one of my Best Friends Bar. After tearing through Magician: Apprentice I went and bought his next few books of the Riftwar Saga. Magician: Master, Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon. This first two books were actually one book upon first publication called Magician. The books center around an orphan boy named Pug and his adopted, well somewhat, brother Thomas. The stories follow the path of both boys throughout the war. I'll keep from explaining more so as not to give it away to anyone who would like to read them. He since has gone on to write more books and stories for award winning video games that center around the world him and his friends created while making their own RPG based on the D&D core rules but which they found not up to snuff (See. Midkemia Publishing). Well for most of his books Pug is usually found with the exception of his one book outside this realm of fantasy called Faerie Tale which is set in the real world but is fantasy. I'd say more but it's been a while since I read this. Anyway, back to the book at hand. I blasted through this as I can never seem to set down one of REF's books ever. It was good but just not as good as the original series and the series he did with Janny Wurts which are probably the two best complete series he did. I continued the story of the Epic battle between the Conclave and a certain Diety. But in order to continue the struggle Pug and some friends have to make a trip to the dimension below theirs. Which without the proper guide and training would kill them within minutes of arriving. It also brings in the story of one young Dasati to give you, the reader, a look into the enemy's point of view. Good book can't wait for the next one as it left me wanting more.

After finishing this book I immediately dove into the Final Chapter of the Harry Potter books The Deathly Hallows by J.K Rowling. Ok you might be asking how I got into this series. Well at first I thought they were just kids books but after seeing the first movie I loved the story line, characters, and originality so much I just started pounding through the books. One thing I love about these books is they are written for children but unlike many children's books these don't talk down to children. As she's gone through the series she has almost made them like a progression for children to increase their reading skills by including more vocabulary as she's gone along. The books are quick and easy reads for me as an adult but they also speak to me greatly. As for the latest, and possibly last installment from her on this subject matter (but that is a debate for another post), book it just one up the previous book as that book did to the previous and so forth.

See Possible Spoiler

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In this book we see Harry finally grow out of his angry teenager phase into while not quite adult at least a maturing young adult. While I appreciated his angry phase as I was once a unreasonably angry teenager mad at the world and everyone around him it was nice to see him come out of that. After the last book everyone was wondering who is Snape and what side is he on. I read one article that was quite nicely done if I could find it I'd link it. It was about is he on the side of the OOP, a Death Eater or possibly his own side. I personally thought Snape killed Dumbledore at his own request, which turned out to be true, but I also thought it was a elaborate ruse and that Dumbledore was still alive, which turned out not to be the case. I was truely bummed out about that one not being true. The body count in this book continued along and some characters we've loved time came to an end. Well in War people die and at least she wasn't afraid to go there and take down some characters she had devoted a lot too in order to make it more true to real life. The biggest tragedy for me was Dobby the freed House Elf. That was truely a tragedy for he was an Elf who fights the bonds of his master to help Harry out even if he almost got him killed/expelled, which as we all know is the same thing to Hermione, a few times. Dobby will be missed but his death brought about a key turning point in the chase for the Horcruxes so it was not in vain. Voldemort goes down with some help from the stories subtle other Hero Neville who takes out the final Horcrux before Harry finally brings Voldemort down. I aslo enjoyed the first day of school for the next generation of children and Harry's tribute to Snape.

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I'm now working on plowing through the next two books in the Star Wars series Legacy of the Force. I'm a big Star Wars fan. My friends and family call me fanatic but in the grand scheme I'm probably just a big Star Wars fan compared to the people I've seen at convensions and movie premieres. Ok yeah if I was artistic enough I'd make my own Stormtrooper, Chewbacca and Jedi outfits but alas my talents do not lie in that arena or at least I'm not sure where to begin on that. So maybe I'm just a fanatic in the wings. I've always loved Star Wars but never thought I'd get into reading the books since there were so many and I wasn't sure which would be the good ones. Then one day I got a shipment from the Science Fiction book club by mistake and it had a book called I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole. I read the book and immediatly got into the character of this book and Stackpoles writing. So I started at the begining of the story line with the X-Wing Series of books by Stackpole and others. These told the tale after RoJ and take place before the much acclaimed books by Timothy Zahn. In these books the Rogue Squadron group grows and then a second unit gets formed called Wraith Squadron. A great set of books if you want a good read and are into Star Wars at all. Since then I've read almost all the books in the Star Wars universe. I'm still short by about 10 or less books I think. The New Jedi Order series in my opinion changed how stories are told in book series. This was a refreshing idea they mapped out a story line over 20+ books and then assigned different Authors different points along the story arc. This gave the series an advantage over other long series in that you got a different voice to hear from in each book. Now that could have easily backfired on them but I think it worked out great as you never felt like you had read this before as you do with some long running series with only one Author. This led to the next mixed Author story chain Legacy of the Force which I'm now reading. It is a 9 book series writen by 3 authors who will each write 3 books in the series. I'm currently reading the 5th book Sacrifice. This is the story so far anyways of a potential Second Empire to come about by a new Sith Lord. One different twist in this series is we the readers got a chance to submit names for the new Sith Lord to take. So this gave us some ownership which is unique to anything I've seen before. In these books you see a rift forming in the Skywalker/Solo clans who throughout the years together have kept things going but apart will it tear everything they worked so hard for apart? Will history repeat itself? Well we'll have to stay tuned and find out.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post them. If you'd like more detailed reading lists for REF or Star Wars please let me know and I'll give you my opinion on where to start to see if you'll be into it or not.

Flags at Half Mast in 9er Land

It is with a heavy and sad heart that I write this entry. Bill Walsh the man who is the San Francisco 49ers to many of us fans passed away this past week after battling leukemia. The Bill Walsh era of the 49ers happened during my childhood so it is the 9ers that I remember the most and still to this day love. Eddie DeBartalo, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Dwight Clark, Tom Rathman, Ronnie Lott, Roger Craig (the greatest and most under-appreciated RB)..... The list goes on for those teams of my childhood but the man at the helm has always topped that list in my opinion when it comes to the 9ers. While he had all those great players it was his ability to get the most out of them and to utilize their talents properly that made all of them Super Stars.

I can remember one year in College when Stanford came to play my Ducks I sat there the entire time looking at Stanfords sidelines looking at the living legend for the entire game. I can't even tell you who won that game because one of my Idols from childhood was there doing what he does best coaching. And I see it as a great great honor that I got to have that experience in my lifetime. The only thing that would have been better was to be at a 9er game when he was still coaching.

Well Coach Walsh you will be missed but you have impacted many people over the years that you will live on in memory for a very, very long time.

Back Online and Ready to Write

Well it's been longer then I thought since Last I wrote on this site. Well a lot has happened since last we met.

Let's see you already know our house sold very fast and has since completed. One thing you may or not know is that we also in that time span purchased a Townhouse in the Bay Area for what we feel is a great deal. We're upgrading footage but lowering the number of bedrooms. Only snag is it isn't ready until August 21st. So we had to scramble get the movers to now store things for like 2 months and to find temporary housing. Luckily we found out that my wife's company was going to foot the bill for the storage and the temp housing which was huge and a dramatic change from what they had said before.

The movers showed up on the 25th and started the packing process. They were in luck as my wife had done a ton of pre-packing for them. Which was also lucky for us as it saved us some money. Then on the 26th of June the movers packed the last of it and we took off in our overloaded vehicles for the long trek down to the Bay Area. The first day we were just heading to my Grandparents place who were just about the half-way point and gave us a good excuse to visit them since it had been a while. The first leg of the trip went by without much excitement other then the guy biting it ahead of us on the road. Didn't see it actually happen but did see them pass us then probably less then a 1/4 mile he bit the dust in the road. He could get up and stand not necessarily meaning he was OK. Gees who's OK after hitting the ground doing 75+ MPH. But as 5-6 cars had already pulled over and were helping him out and since we hadn't seen the actual accident we kept going. We had a nice diner and breakfast with my Grandparents then headed off for the second leg of the trip. This one went really uneventful until we go to the temporary housing we had. Now that was an adventure. First thing that struck me as odd was the place didn't know to expect us and never asked for ID or anything. Strange yes? Well guess that's how the service we were using works. So anyway we get the keys after they had to make a set for us then headed into the garage to unload the cars. Well we try the key in the apartment and wouldn't you know it they didn't work. So my wife headed back to the office and got a different set of keys. So we then try those and they work. Great right not so fast there people! We open the door and there's stuff in the apartment already. Yeah we were getting a furnished apartment but I don't think clothes and jackets are part of that deal. Oops something isn't right here. So the Wife call the company we're going through finds out the had re-assigned us to another apartment in the complex, luckily would have sucked if we had to go somewhere else as it was getting late. So we got those keys and got in and this looked much better. Well after that was over we unloaded the cars and got everything in here. That took some time then we had to unpack everything. So now we're here....... or are we...

Well the next day the 28th I'm on a plane pack to Portland for work for 5 long days. Short end of the stick we were doing an upgrade and it didn't necessarily go very smoothly. I got back home and worked out of the apartment until the 13th when I went on Vacation. Well "Vacation" was better then working but still I was working at least an hour a day if not more until the glorious last day arrived the 27th of July!! Whoot the end of my 12 years with my company. It was a great feeling but at the same time a very sad moment as I was leaving behind many good co-workers that I enjoyed talking to and working with. The biggest hit I had was my office mate who I've known for my entire 12 years with the company. She I will miss the most but luckily we're friends as well as fellow employees so hopefully that relationship stays in contact.

Well that brings us up to date as far as what's happened so far in my life since last I wrote.

Stay tuned for more posting in the very near future.