Goodbye, My Friend
I got a phone call today that I wish I didn't. The wife of my friend Chris, who was one of my closest friends when I lived in California, called me to let me know that he passed away. He was traveling for business, told to her that he wasn't feeling well and was going to take a walk. She didn't hear from him for several hours and had the hotel look for him, where they found him in the room. He was already gone.
The cause of his death isn't known yet. They ruled out seizure (he was epileptic), aneurysm, heart attack, and several other things. I just hope for the family's sake that they figure out what happened.
The worst part? They were expecting their first child in a couple of months. Life can just be so unbelievably cruel sometimes.
I'm clear on the other side of the country, so it's hard for me to process. I'm heartbroken and shocked nevertheless.
Where ever you are, my friend, I hope you are at peace. I love you, buddy.Labels: friends, happenings
Ugh...
I'm sick for the second time in a month, this go-round worse than the last time. It's tracking just like my last trip through flu-ville, so I at least know what to expect. This hacking cough is just a bit much, though... and my nose is chapped from blowing it so much (TMI, anyone?).
There's not much I can do... loads of people have had this thing twice, even The Boy. Thank goodness that he is so good at taking care of me.Labels: happenings, the girl
A new place to gather
Like we didn't have enough to do this fall, we will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year. We'll have the fam over, a total of 14 people and as many as 4 dogs... a full house to say the least. We're excited to have everyone over, but were concerned about where everyone was going to sit for dinner. We have a table that was generously given to us by The Danza's before they moved into the city, but it's not nearly big enough and also pretty wobbly with the leaves in place. What to do, what to do...
Enter our good friend Mike, who makes custom furniture and promised us a table as a wedding gift. We talked styles and he went out and got the materials for the job. The Boy and I generally let the experts drive a lot of the creative process in situations like this, because they're the experts and usually come up with way cooler ideas than we ever could. We basically showed him a picture in a magazine that we liked, told him we'd like to bring the outside in, and cut him loose.
We went to visit him and the shop this weekend to check out the process, and were amazed by what we saw... speechless, actually He went out and bought a single slab of wood, essentially a cross-section of a tree. His design was inspired by a designer named George Nakashima, who was an amazing furniture designer and a generally interesting guy. My favorite quote that I read by him:
A tree is perhaps our most intimate contact with nature. Each tree, each part of each tree, has its own particular destiny, its own special yearning to be filled.
But I digress... we saw the nearly finished tabletop, and it is badass. It'll be done for Thanksgiving (in truth, we were told to expect it "late Wednesday night"), and I can't think of a better way to break it in than having a meal with our family. Did I mention that it's about 9 feet long?
Check out the tabletop as it was on Saturday night. If you look closely, you can see Mike and even Bobo:
Thanks, Mike. You (of course)rock and we love you!!
Labels: happenings, randomness, the fam
Like deja vu all over again...
Having settled into our house for a year, we have identified some work that we need to do and have put into motion a plan to improve our house. One of those things is spray insulation under our great room. It gets really cold up here in the Ewok Village, and we were sick of freezing our butts off in our favorite room in the house.
We called a few places for quotes, made our decision, and made our appointment for them to come do the work... this morning. They were to arrive between 8 and 9 AM, so I was ready for them. At around 8:30, I heard a horrifyingly familiar noise... the BEEP, BEEP, BEEP of a truck backing up, followed by the revving of a large diesel engine, quickly followed by the loud scraping noise of metal on pavement.
Yep, you guessed it, my internet friends, the truck got stuck on the driveway, just like our U-Haul did last year when we moved in. After a few hours being stuck and doing all of the futile things we did last year to get our truck unstuck, they finally gave in and called the boss and for a tow.
I wandered down there when I saw the tow arrive to find two of my town cops blocking off traffic in both directions (I think it might have been everyone on duty this morning), and the tow truck driver putting a chain around the tree. At this point, all I could say to myself is my God, they're going to pull down a tree. I was also fighting the urge to laugh my ass off in front of them. Anyways, when the truck driver turned on the winch, all that happened was is that the TOW TRUCK STARTED GETTING PULLED TOWARDS THE TREE!! No truck rescue, no downed tree, just a sliding towtruck, chocks and all. After a little more finagling, they managed to get the truck free.
This is where it gets good...
At this point, I expect the owner to tell me that they'll be back tomorrow with a different truck, but no... He says this: "I'm getting that goddam truck up that driveway." He jumps in the truck, backs up the street at the proper angle, and guns the thing. One quick scrape, but the truck cleared it... until the wheels started spinning on the leaves on the steep part of the driveway. He backs down the driveway, cutting his wheel at an angle that made us think that the truck was going over on its side. I swear that truck was nearly at its tipping point. Admit defeat at this point? Hell no! He backs up the street more, guns the truck even harder and goes for the driveway. He clears the steep part, gets stuck a few times, adjusts, spins his wheels, adjusts, spins some more making smoke like I've never seen, and then HOLY CRAP, he makes it up!!
While this is going on, I turn to the two workers who were staring at their boss in disbelief. "He's a stubborn guy, eh?" "Yep." "Does he do crazy stuff like this often?" "Yeah, but nothing like this." The guy who was driving the truck when it got stuck in the first place, looking terrified, says "I'm afraid to go back down." I can't say I blame him. The boss tells them how to drive the truck back down and leaves them to do the job. They two workers were sweet and polite. I offered to buy them lunch, but they wouldn't let me. I'm going to have to write a nice letter of thanks to the company.
How did they do, getting down the driveway, you ask? I'll have to let you know... they're still here working!
UPDATE:
The guys finished and got the truck back down the driveway with no issues. The way down is always easier. I bet they're glad that this day is over!Labels: country living, happenings, randomness
Call Me Professor
Well, adjunct professor...
This fall I have been awarded the position of adjunct professor in the department where I earned my undergraduate degree. I will be teaching Photoshop, Illustrator, and other graphics applications to underclassmen. It's a totally new thing for me, one I have never done before. I'm excited to embark on this new path.
In case you're wondering... no, I am not leaving my current job. The teaching gig is just a part time thing. One thing is for sure. Between The Boy and I, our jobs, the classes we take, and the classes we teach, it will be a busy, busy fall.
Some day things will slow down, right? That's the plan! All this effort is to help us accomplish our bigger picture goals for our life and family. I'm just going to do my best to enjoy the ride and try to stay sane.Labels: biz, happenings, the boy, the fam, the girl
Fond Memories
Yesterday marked our first wedding anniversary. June 10, 2006 was the best day of my life and one hell of a party. Boy, I love you and look forward to many more anniversaries to come!
A brief recap of the day:
Labels: happenings, marriage, the boy, the fam, the girl
Bobo
I had a few weeks' downtime between my spring semester and my summer course. The Boy finished up his semester and graduated with his Masters degree. What did we do to enjoy a short lull in our lives? Take a relaxing vacation? No. Spend a day at the spa? Not quite.
We adopted a puppy!
Meet Bobo, our (now) 12 week old pug. We've had him for about two weeks now.
We honestly tied to give him a more dignified name, but Bobo is the one that stuck.
We adopted him from a small dog rescue in upstate New York. He was rescued off the auction block at a
puppy mill auction. Had he not been rescued, he would have lived his life in a tiny cage breeding over and over again... or find himself in the window of a pet store.
But alas, he is with us. He came to us with
kennel cough, but is nearly all better now. Luckily Logan is vaccinated against the virus. Since he's been feeling better we've thought up some nicknames for him:
- Batshit crazy
- Bobolicious
- Bobofet
- Peabrain
- Psycho
The list goes on... but all in all he's the cutest, funniest looking dog I've ever seen. Logan is adjusting to his little brother better than we expected, so we're thrilled. Welcome home Bobo!
Labels: bobo, happenings, moose, the fam
Time flies when you're having fun
This past Thursday was the 11-month mark since our wedding. We're also approaching the 8-month milestone of moving into our house (it still feels new to us). The Boy and I are both in complete astonishment that time has passed so quickly.
Where did the time go, you ask? Here's a brief rundown of the the past year.
We:
- Got married.
- Backpacked around Europe for 5 weeks.
- Came back home with the idea of casually house hunting, only to make an offer on our current home within about 2 weeks of our return. We've decided that we're incapable of doing anything casually.
- Resumed grad school, me taking two classes in the fall and again in the spring, and The Boy taking his last class for his masters degree. The Boy will be starting working towards his Sixth Year Certificate this coming fall.
- The Boy working as an adjunct professor, teaching two freshman composition classes each semester.
- Juggled homework and work with packing up our house and dealing with impossible sellers who made us jump through insane hoops.
- FINALLY got all of our stuff moved into the house and put away in time to have our annual Christmas party.
- Paid off all of our credit card debt (we just made the last payment... yay!).
- Started clearing out the jungle that is our yard. This will likely take us the rest of our lives.
We hear all the time from friends that we're the busiest people they know. Now that it's all laid out like that, it's easy to see why they say it!Labels: happenings, marriage, the boy, the fam, the girl
Gettin' Hitched
Here's to Brian and Heather, who got engaged last night. Brian sprung the question on Heather's 30th birthday. They're obviously thrilled, and we're so excited for them. Now they just have to tell us when the trip to Vegas is, so that they can be married by Elvis.
I told her that your 30s are better than your 20s, but she didn't believe me. Silly girl. ;)
Congratulations to you both! We love you guys!Labels: friends, happenings, marriage
2007 Catch up
Okay, Okay... I know I've been neglectful of my blog. There has been so much happening, it's been hard to keep up with my blogful duties. Many thanks to Kelly for a much needed kick in the pants to motivate me.
There's been so much happening, I will resort to the all mighty bulleted list. Oh, how I love me some bullets:
- I procrastinated other things I should have been doing to redesign my site, only to decide almost immediately afterwards that I hate it. I took the template code, which was poorly written, and messed it up even further. So, at another time, look forward to a variation of this site, which will hopefully be a lot better than what's here currently.
- I wrote a 20 page paper... twice. I was tired and wasn't paying proper attention, and accidentally deleted the contents of my paper. I spent the next 4 solid days rewriting the paper. I still managed an A, and will be developing it so that it can hopefully be published at some point.
- We held our first Christmas party at the new house and much fun was had by all and the grab bag reached new, inappropriate levels.
- Our first Christmas was fantastic, despite the fact that we both had the flu the whole following week.
- We resigned ourselves to a warm winter and even did yardwork the first week of January, only to have the temperature drop 60 degrees and last for weeks on end. We finally had our first big snowstorm on Valentine's Day.
- We bought a ridiculously huge snowblower to clear our parking lot and super steep driveway.
- I survived a layoff at my job.
- I'm currently in a class to learn Flash... Hopefully, I can make the site more funky. See what I made? It stars the Moose.
- The Boy and I have finally settled into our new house and are loving every minute of it.
There has also been a lot going on that has had me incredibly stressed. It's not anything that I can talk about here, but needless to say, I find myself at a crossroads again. It hasn't been easy, and I've been kind of bummed out and a little uninspired to do things like tend to my blog. I promise to try and do better for 2007.Labels: blogging, happenings
Welcome to the new Sasstastic
So, work is crazy... I have a 20 page research paper due in two weeks... there's still a ton of stuff in boxes all over the house... What do I do? I redesign my blog of course!Labels: blogging, happenings
