by on March 30, 2009

Happy Anniversary to Us

My wife just reminded me that it was one year ago today that we took a giant leap to come back to some unfinished townhomes we took a tour of the day before. We saw a couple of models we liked, but it was hard to envision how the one we’d be buying would look when it was done. All in all, we decided it was a good decision, went back to the leasing office to see what our numbers generated with their mortgage lender rather than ours, and we left $1,000 lighter and a whole lot happier to have a contract on a brand new house!

So, one year later, it’s amazing to think about what has changed through small projects, gifts, and super sales deals that we had our eyes out for:

  • our screened-in lanai
  • a more size-appropriate entertainment center and coffee table
  • wall to wall shelving in the garage
  • a guest bed in our 3rd bedroom
  • a new bedroom suite from an overstock warehouse
  • beautifully re-painted the downstairs
  • a new grill for my 30th birthday

All of those little (and big) things made things feel more like home and less like a dream vacation that we were pinching ourselves to be sure things were actually this way. I never thought we’d have that much to do to our brand new place, but I guess the “make it your home” bug bites everyone pretty hard. Life is good, and so is our home, no longer a house.

Filed Under: Townhome
by on March 26, 2009

American Idol Season 8 Top 10 Post-Show

picture-29Wow, what a suckfest of a start to the show last night. We ended up going to bed last night after the 6th performance and watching the rest this morning. The difference between the two sets of singers was striking because when they showed the recap at the end of the show, we didn’t really have any recollection of them as we were watching the last 4: Lil, Adam, Danny, and Allison.

I had some major disappointments with some styles and the execution of some of them, namely Megan Joy’s “who the heck possessed her body for those 2 minutes?” and Michael Sarver’s shaky-quaky hand and body movements inside every beat of the song making it look like he was having a seizure. I won’t even go into how Lil Round was supposed to dominate because that would be racist to expect a black person to blow it outta da box on Motown night, wouldn’t it? Yeah. Didn’t stop them from saying it, though. Racists. 😀

Adam, Danny, and Allison are for sure Top 3 material, and the rest can try to duke it out for #4, but it doesn’t matter, because no one else will win it with those 3 in the running. Kris and Matt, “dude” you guys blew, and not outta da box. Scott wasn’t far behind in the “wanna go home” category and Megan completely self-destructed by tossing her unique voice in the garbage and shouting the whole thing at 120 beats per minute. Her rehearsal with Smoky got me looking forward to hers and she figuratively jumped off a bridge.

I’m going with Megan going home, with Michael in a close second. It is all up to sex appeal and fanbase at this point for those two. Kris could go at any time, but I think those two might have saved him this week unless they have more fans than I’m accounting for.

Filed Under: American Idol Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
by on March 18, 2009

American Idol Top 11 Predictions

The show has begun, but it’s only on DVR for now, so I’m making my prediction now and will expand on last night and my reactions to the results later.

My prediction for the Idol leaving tonight is Kris Allen. It is really close between him and Scott McIntyre, but Kris was too lame.

Update: Looks like I was wrong on both counts. Oh well, neither of them will beat Adam or Danny.

Filed Under: American Idol Tagged With: ,
by on March 16, 2009

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

I heard a very thought-provoking message recently that really got me thinking about our current global situation. Regardless of who you are or what you personally believe for yourself regarding your eternity, the vast majority of the globe acknowledges the existence of a real man named Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, etc. and can relatively easy confirm scholarly records from ancient Roman time if Jewish records aren’t good enough.

One of the most commonly known tidbits about His life is that he recruited 12 men to live, follow, learn, and ultimately come to an intellectual and spiritual knowledge of his divine identity. What most of us don’t think about is the makeup of his troupe and how diverse they were, which is what blew my mind in a fit of deep thought that prompted this writing. Let’s run down a few of them, as that will be enough to boggle minds worldwide:

  • Jude: a farmer, a man of the land.
  • Matthew: a tax collector – worse than today’s IRS, these guys pocketed money for themselves and often charged as much as they could regardless of the tax rate.
  • Simon Peter: a fisherman, so think Cape Cod fishy dude with rough hands and smelly hair.
  • Simon: a zealot – we have those today. They are called terrorists. Zealots in the day would attack and kill Roman soldiers and other gov’t officials. Terrorism isn’t anything new.

Let’s try to put a religious terrorist extremist (Hamas or KKK, take your pick), corrupt IRS agent, the Gorton fisherman, and a redneck farmboy from Iowa in a dormitory setting with someone, anyone, as their mentor and let’s see how long everyone stays together… or alive. That must have been some group that would automatically generate respect and admiration from local authorities in today’s media hungry society looking for a shocking story.

That’s all I have for now, and maybe I’ll have more later, maybe not.

Filed Under: I Wonder, Personal, Politics, Relationships Tagged With: ,
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