We've done the final walk through, and closing is in an hour and a half. We have a box of cleaning supplies sitting by the door.

Now there isn't a whole lot to do but wait...

We're in the final stretch now, and I thought that you all might enjoy a recap of the last couple of weeks, since I haven't really posted. Last week, every day, I was faxing something to the lender. EVERY DAY. And every time I faxed something, I would ask "Is that it? Do you need anything else? Are we all set?" and he would inevitably reply "All set, no problem, that should be everything." By the end of the day he's e-mailing me or calling saying "I need this one more thing." By Friday he had everything he needed, and he sent it off to the underwriters.

For those who don't know getting a home loan is a multi stage process. First there is pre-approval. This is a lot like being pre-approved for a credit card. The company is pretty sure that you can have it, but you aren't really approved. Then there is approved for a loan. This is the bank saying, yeah, looking at your pay stub, and credit history, we'll give you $X, but you don't actually get to have it. So then you find a house that costs < $X and you tell the bank. Then they say "Great, send me your life's history in paper format and then maybe we'll give you money." So you do. And then you send more. Then, eventually, they say, "Ok, we're all set." You say "Great!" But then they continue with "Now were going to send it to the underwriters, and we should hear back later today. Sometime early next week at the most. The week after at the absolute latest!!"

This is pretty much where we're at. There isn't anything left to do. Just be stressed. I kinda wish I had class this week. Not that I'd be any good, but at least it would be something to focus on besides all this.

Last night after work Tigs and I decided to do a little pre-home-buying shopping. We started at Wal-mart to deposit a refund check at the bank, and picked up some killz coat ceiling paint. ( We will need a lot of this.) Then on to Roots to pick up a few grocery items, back around to Target to return some pants that didn't fit me, and lastly to Home Depot to get painting supplies.

In 36 hours we'll be signing the papers and buying a house.

I'm terrified.

I'm excited.

It'll be interesting

"Define interesting."

"Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die."

A little over 2 years ago I began a hunt, scouring the Baltimore metro area, looking for a new friendly local comic/gaming store (FLCS/FLGS). As you may recall it took a while, and I wrote all about it here. The funny thing is, I don't really read that many comics anymore. I used to, back when I worked at Sarges. Back then I read just about everything to get an idea what it was about, so I could better sell it, but beyond that I just read a lot. Batman, Superman, X-Men, Spiderman, Black Hole, Barry Ween, 30 Days of Night, etc., and everything put out by CrossGen Comics.

CrossGen? Yeah, it's a sad story in the end. They went under right around when I stopped working at Sarges. Since then I'm just not into comics any more. I still read a few titles like Knights of the Dinner Table, PS238 (which wasn't in our box last time I picked up), and Mouse Guard, but it's not like it was when I was buying every CrossGen issue that came out! It's too bad too, because there were some great stories being told.

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Things on the housing front are quiet at the moment. Everyone says things are moving along as they should, except apparently for the appraisal. It was (theoretically) done on Friday afternoon, but the report still hasn't reached the loan officers desk. Supposedly by this evening (5-6pm) the report should have been in, but clearly it isn't.

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The other night Tigs and I finished watching Stargate SG-1 season 1. Can I just say that I am really really impressed with this show so far? It's probably one of the strongest first seasons I've ever seen. I am so thrilled that there are 9 more seasons to go, plus five seasons of Stargate Atlantis!

It's really hard to get excited about buying a house. Really hard. And I should be excited. It's thrilling knowing that (fingers crossed) in a month Tigs and I will be home owners. Yet at every step we encounter roadblocks that seem almost deliberate. We find information that it seems like someone should have told us, we ask specific questions and get vague answers, or none at all along with claims of "well, we need more information before we can tell you that." Asking for them to theorize doesn't seem to work well without a whole lot of arm twisting.

Our lender is looking at an alternate program which theoretically would work out better for us (which is good) but would require the agreement of the sellers. Our realtor says this is why she doesn't do this full time any more.

Every day people do this. Successfully.

Somehow we'll get through it.

Then I'll be excited. For now? I'll just be glad when it's over.

Clearly I was jumping the gun a little when I said that I'd have to retire the tag "house hunting" soon. I mean, yeah, it is going to be soon, like a little over a month, but on the other hand there is still plenty to write about. Today for instance I have been in contact with titling companies, and an insurance company, all for quotes. Some have arrived, some I'm still waiting on, and time is ticking.

---

So there's this matrix (car) ad that shows up on Yahoo now and again. It starts off showing an attractive woman and says "meet singles looking for love." Then the orange colored matrix rolls into the ad and its headlights turn on, and the woman is replaced by someone in a raccoon costume and the tag line changes to "meet singles looking for trouble" then there is the fade out and fade in to show the matrix with the new tag line "All new Matrix 2009 – Get in touch with your dark side" Does this mean furries are both trouble and the dark side? I just find it a rather strange ad, and I can't quite grasp what their message is. I mean your average joe probably doesn't even know what a furry is, and wants to know why this woman is dressed in a school mascot costume.

Actually I kind of want to know why this woman is dressed in a school mascot costume too.

---

I feel so zonked today. I blame the fact that it's Tuesday. It seriously has to be the worst day of the week. Don't get me wrong, Mondays kinda suck too, but there is always the promise that this week will bring something new and exciting. Tuesday on the other hand is still at the beginning of the week, and the promise of Monday has disappeared. Wednesday is hump day, so you know your half way done. Thursday is exciting because Friday is right around the corner. Friday itself isn't too bad, cause you know once you're done, you're done!

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Humanity is doomed.

That's ok. Every form of life is doomed. Eventually the universe will fling itself apart, the stars of the galaxies will cool and darken, and life will cease. But back to humanity, presuming we don't kill ourselves, or get blasted into nothingness by some stray rock, or wiped out by some alien life form (probably one that's microscopic) we're not really designed for long term survival, not like the cockroach or shark. We've only been around for a little less then 200,000 years, and at a guess we've got another 200,000. Eventually (sooner rather then later) our technology will develop to the point that we'll be able to mess with our DNA to the point where we're no longer homo sapiens, and if that doesn't happen, nature will do it for us. Being the self interested species that we are though, it's going to be a fight. So what do we need to do to survive? Well, we need to get off this planet. Being confined to a single biosphere is very dangerous. Our local stellar cluster seems to be relatively quiet, so there isn't too much of a rush to go out further then that, but we do need to get away from Sol. At least some of us. So what's involved in actually sending enough humans to matter to a local star with a habitable planet? (This is of course presuming that there is such a planet). Well, the Ultimate Project is probably a good place to start.

Tonight I did our federal taxes. I owe eighty bucks, and tigergladys is getting a hefty little refund. I'm saving the state taxes for another night, probably this weekend. I'll also be doing my accounting take home test this weekend, which actually means I don't have class on Thursday. I should probably do homework on Thursday though.

Actually I should have done homework tonight, but instead after work I met tigergladys at the real estate agents office, and we signed the final accepted bid offer. It took about 3 minutes. On March 28th, if all goes well, we will sign a mountain of paperwork and then get handed a set of keys.

I'm going to have to retire the tag "house hunting" for a while.

What a day! It started with a revised counter offer, which we countered, and now are waiting on a response. It continued when I talked to the mortgage guy to have him run yet another set of numbers for us, which didn't exactly jive with some he had shown us before. It almost looked like he applied the wrong profile to the numbers I asked him to run. He even had the county wrong.

Tonight's exciting plans include cleaning Andy's cage (as it's beginning to smell) and doing our taxes. Unlike last year and next year, this year we'll be filing with the EZ form, which means it should take no more then half an hour to get the federal taxes done. With luck we'll see rebates for each of us. Maryland's taxes will have to wait for another night as after I finish the taxes it'll probably be time for agility.

On the health front I'm feeling tons better. I still have an occasional cough, and I still feel a little stuffy, but I am on the mend! Of course a week of herbal tea has had a lasting effect. It seems my travel mug has absorbed that herbal flavor, and this morning's coffee was the unfortunate victim. Here's hoping a little bit of water and vinegar can help clear up this unpleasant aftertaste.

It seems that a final answer on the house may have to wait till tomorrow.

Today while at the Obedience Show N' Go I got a call from our realtor. The home owners came back with a ridiculous counter offer. $215k (down from their $220k asking price), and they didn't even know what it was we'd asked them repair. We asked our realtor to send them a copy of the home inspection report and suggested that we'd consider their price if they replaced the roof. Otherwise, they can get back to us once they see just how much work will need to go into the house.

Monday – Sick as a dog. Went to work, was basically sent home about half way through the day, and then I went to bed. Everyone skipped rally, and Tigs ended up taking Lucy to agility while I went to bed.

Tuesday – Election judging. Wasn’t even sure I was going to make it through the first hour without vomiting, but I did. I confined myself to doing poll book duty (a job I could remain sitting for) and managed to make it through till the polls closed at 8. BUT WAIT! They didn’t actually close at 8!! Someone in government, in their infinite wisdom, decided that because the weather was bad, the polls would stay open an extra 90 minutes! That’s right folks, when there’s ice on the roads, your government wants you out driving in the dark! Of course no one told us the polls were being kept open, so we were closing up and sending people away. It wasn’t until ten after 8 or so that we found out and had to reopen things. Fun. During that entire extra hour and a half, we had maybe 3 more people come. By the time we did get to close things down I had to let my car run for about 10 minutes to warm up enough so that I could chip off enough ice to see through. I got home, took a shower, and went to bed.

Wednesday - I was back at work, feeling only slightly better then the day before. I left early for the home inspection, which went about how I thought it would. It turns out the house has some issues. The roof, the water heater, the air conditioner are all functional, but at the end of their expected useful life, the dish washer leaks a whole bunch into the basement, and there are some issues with the wiring. Then I went to school.

Thursday - more of the same, with less housing inspection.

Today - I had to go into work early (joy of joys), stay late (rapture of raptures), and then leave to offer someone sums of money (which I don’t actually have, and will be indebted to a corporation for the next 3 decades) for small patch of land and a structure that may or may not be my home in a couple of months. This mostly involved Tigs and I signing and initialing a bunch of papers. Then we left to go to an agility practice, except we forgot to give the realtor the earnest check, so I had to go back to do that. Then I met Tigs and Lucy at practice, worked with Lucy on some stuff, came home, and had dinner. Now I'm going to go take a shower and go to bed.

( Fifteen on Friday )

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I made mashed potatoes tonight, in anticipation of cooking roast in the crock pot this weekend.

I've put in a little bit of extra time just about every day this week, plus I'm working a shift (maybe a half shift) tomorrow. We're counting inventory so we can go live with a new system next week. We'll basically go until we've counted everything, so it may take 3 hours, or it may take 6. Mostly it depends on how much there actually is, and how many people come to help. I'm hoping that all totalled I'll get about 8 hours overtime this week. That would just about cover the cost of the home inspection that's scheduled for Wednesday.

Unlike the average home buyer who gets the inspection done after they make an offer, we've of course got to do things the weird way. It's not unheard of, but it's not often done. I was hoping to do it on Monday, but the inspector was already booked. Tuesday would have worked, except that I'm election judging again, and that goes from 7am till 10pm. (Wish the check from that came sooner) So Wednesday, and then an offer after we get the report.

If you were buying a home, and they were looking for $220,000, what would you offer?
Things to keep in mind:
3 bedroom
1 bath
unfinished but full basement
large fenced yard
street parking
divorced/separated owners, husband living alone with his lounge chair and big screen tv.
We're going to be asking for help with the closing costs. Around $7,000 total.

Poll #1135576 What would you offer?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What would you offer?

This morning we were up pre-dawn to get tigergladys and Lucy off to tracking. Then I followed out the door a little while later to go get my car serviced. The fuel injection system needed a cleaning, or so has been said to me a couple of times, by a couple of different places. I was the 3rd car in line (you make an appointment for the day, but it's first come first serve), and waited from about 7:50 till 8:30 before they opened up. Totally worth it to get there early. I told them what I was here for, and then sat in the waiting room. I am continually amazed at just how crappy most TV is. They've got this big screen, and it was playing one of those morning shows. Then, after the morning show, it changed to a game show with local high school kids from 3 different schools. Oh so bad. All of it. Bad bad bad. I'm so glad we don't have cable TV!

After that I cam home and wrapped the things for paperbackswap and swapaCD and the econ text book that I sold on half.com, and then went to the post office and the gas station. Then home again.

This afternoon we had an appointment to go see the house again. 2nd viewing!! Still looks good. raven296 and her husband came to see it too, and I think the realtor thought we were even weirder because of that. I feel even worse for the guy still living there. However the house looks good. We figured out where the attic access is, and checked that out. There isn't any insulation on the roof itself, so that'll be something to work on for next winter. We also spent a lot of time in the basement looking for any water that may have come in from all the rain we've gotten the last couple of days.

We didn't find any!!

Now, just need to get some cash for the earnest payment to go with our offer.

It's now 6pm, and aside from a little more reading and dishes, I don't really have anything to do tonight!

Well, we all survived Pet Expo, but it was a long weekend! And we were only there for 2 of the 3 days. With all the running around, and moving equipment, and then packing equipment, and then unpacking equipment I was so sore yesterday. Tigs and I even swapped Lucy’s classes last night; I took her to rally, and she took Lucy to agility. It was a little rough for both of us, but overall I think it went well. I wanted to do agility, but my legs were too sore.

The coolest thing about the Pet Expo had to be being invited to the judges dinner on Saturday night. Now, sure, I had a final I needed to do by midnight for my econ class… but dinner out with the judges? At a nice restaurant? Did anyone think I would miss that? I will admit I was a little hesitant, and it took Tigs telling me to go (though it didn’t take all that much effort on her part), but I went. And it was fun, and the food was really good too!

Unfortunately the grades for the class haven’t been posted yet. Coming up, I have Intermediate Accounting II and Advanced Accounting II this semester on Wednesday and Thursday nights. It’s going to be a tough semester, and maybe I should have picked a fluff course to go along with the whole home buying process. We’ll see. That is why my minis are staying all packed up. In fact that makes tonight my only real night freedom before I start with this round of classes.

In housing news we’ve decided we’re going to put in an offer for the house, and with the fed rate cut last week, and the fed rate cut predicted for tomorrow, now is such a good time to be getting a loan! Plus with the decline in sales of existing and new homes (reported last week and yesterday respectively) I’m sure that the seller is feeling worried, which to be honest is where I want him. Now the question is can we draw this out so that we sign the paperwork at the end of March, so that we don’t have to make our first loan payment until May.

Do you think it would be unethical to print out a bunch of articles about the housing market, and the economy in general, and leave them in the seller’s mail box?

Oh, and apparently last night was the State of the Union . You know, I watched/listened to ever single one of these from around 1990 on until a couple of years ago. I just can’t stand to listen to him. Next year I’ll listen. Besides, from what I’ve heard, I didn’t miss anything.

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So far tonight, my planed night to relax before everything goes completely nuts:
Laundry
Dishes
General tidying up
Burning hands from the dishes
Fail to locate camera to list minis on e-bay

You know what’s scary? A lot of things. Some fears are little personal fears, and others are giant world altering fears. Tigs and I are in the process of buying a house. Right now we’re still looking, and I’m worried about whether we should just go ahead and put an offer on house #3 or if we should keep looking. And if we keep looking, will someone else put in an offer? And what if house #3 was the best one we’ll find? But what if it isn’t?

There is an economic term called an opportunity cost. Basically it means that every choice you make means that you passed on doing something else. If I watch a couple of episodes of Bones tonight I’ll lose out on the chance to paint miniatures, or study, or search for more houses to look at. Economists try to quantify the value of each of these activities, but it’s hard to rank them objectively and harder to even guess what the results will be. What is the opportunity cost of putting in a bid for the house? What is the cost of waiting?

Right now we’re thinking we should spend another weekend (maybe 2) looking and then make a decision. That puts us squarely into February. If we then make a bid, get the house inspected, negotiate on the details, let the banks know, etc., we could theoretically own a house by April. We’ll be homeowners for our birthdays.

And up to our eyeballs in debt for the next couple of decades. Tigs says she is already up to her eyeballs in debt because of school, so any more is only a drop in the bucket.

"...The greatest danger facing us is ourselves, and irrational fear of the unknown. But there's no such thing as 'the unknown,' only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood."
- Captain Kirk, Star Trek

I feel like I should update. So here goes. I've spent more time on my economics class then I really expected to have to. Not that it's hard; just time consuming, especially with all of the online components. But I'm almost done. At this point there is one test and a power point presentation to do. I'm going to start working on the presentation tonight while Lucy and tigergladys are at Rally. I really hope the test gets posted sooner rather then later, as this weekend is Pet Expo, and I know exactly how much free time I'm going to have (none). Either way it should all be wrapped up by the end of the week. And then next week I start up with my accounting classes.

Saturday Tigs and I again went house hunting. We had picked out 5 houses to look at this time around, but on Friday I drove by all of them. One was located just down the road from where we live now, but was practically right under the beltway, and perched on a busy road across from a gas station. Another one (the biggest of the bunch) was in a neighbourhood that was too run down and unsafe feeling. So even before we looked inside we crossed them off the list. Remember what the top three words in real estate are: Location! Location! Location!

The remaining houses were as follows (as described by Tigs):

• House #1 needed every wire in it replaced, as the electricity has not been updated since it was built in the 50's. (And all the windows, and the whole kitchen, and the furnace, and the basement had a giant crack in it, and it didn't come with a hot water heater...) Every time I walked into a room I thought "Thousands of dollars of repairs in here! Akkkk!"

• House #2 was very clearly used by its former occupants as a base of operations for their Christian-themed cult. (you could tell because of the descriptive murals they had painted all over the walls). It was in AWFUL shape. (I guess the cult didn't end well?) It also had tons of asbestos in the basement. (Where you put the cult members who have invoked your wrath?) And every single room had been converted into a bedroom. Including the kitchen.

• House #3 was GREAT - good shape, all new appliances, nice layout, fenced in yard, great neighborhood, etc etc etc. Want to move into it tomorrow. But of course it's $20K over our budget.


Nice hua? I'd link to it, but I don't want you buying it out from under us! :-P

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I currently have a very tired puppy on my lap. Since she grumbles every time I move I will now share some links.

Star Trek XI teaser trailer. Not bad. Kinda neat to see the construction of the good old 1701

This is a friend of Lucy's doing zoomies in the obedience ring. I can see Lucy doing this...

If your D&D group was a bunch of goblins this is what it would be like. You can start here. The art gets better!

Do you have a whole lot of books you've read, and don't want to keep? I bet someone else wants them! And you'll get new books out of it! Works for CDs & DVDs too.

Snow! Finally some snow! I must admit I was a bit jealous that those north of here had already gotten snow, where as we’ve only seen cold winds, and a tiny bit of ice. Up until yesterday anyway! Now we have about 1.5-2 inches of snow on the ground, which looked peaceful as it was coming down. Of course it’s cold out and so cold in the house too. It was a mere 55 degrees in the living room this morning. Brrrr.

Not that I’m looking for an excuse to turn on the heat. I like my BG&E bills to stay down below $70/month, and while the house is chilly it isn’t cold. I do however need to get another sweater, as Tigs has all but stolen it from me, only to return it long enough that it starts to smell like me before she steals it again. At this point I only have that one sweater and a Naugatuck High School Chamber Singers sweatshirt. Hmm. That means its 12 years old now.

The group project for management class was completed successfully. I’m pretty sure that just about everyone in the class will be getting an A. Unless of course the participation reports that are getting turned in strongly say someone didn’t participate.

Meeting with the mortgage councilor on Tuesday raised more questions then I think it answered, and I’m not really sure I’m comfortable with the answers I did get. That means it’s time for some verification from an independent source!

Accounting class last night was… well it was mostly empty. There are about 25 students total (maybe more), and I think there were only 8 that showed up. That’s rather poor turnout for the last class before the final. The final is going to be a lot of theory, rather then problems, which I must admit I prefer when taking multiple choice tests. He hasn’t graded the extra credit yet, which was actually the thing I was most looking forward to getting back. He did let us out early due to the weather, which was nice.

This weekend I made a stew, using up a lot of left over stuff that we had in the house. Some potatoes, red beans, 2 onions, a bunch of garlic, mushrooms, and some vegetable broth. Final verdict – eh. The textures are good, but the flavor is a little lacking. I may try adding some mustard, which I found works really well for bland chili.

So far today I've:

• Gone to the farmers market in Baltimore with tigergladys.


• Danced with Lucymonster


• Baked a pumpkin pie using my own recipe (we'll see how that works out) (eggs & pumpkin from the farmers market)


• Cooked bacon so we could have BLT's for lunch (bread provided by farmers market)


• Put a stew in the crock pop, made of many ingredients from the farmers market.


• 2 loads of laundry


• 1 sink of dishes

I think that makes it a very good day so far!

Now we're off to an open house. Later!

Tonight when I got home I called the number to see if they actually wanted me for jury duty.  Not only did they not want me, they didn't want anyone.  *sigh*  And I was really looking forward to it too. 

We did go to the home buyers workshop tonight, which was quite informative.  I actually feel more confident about our chances of actually owning a house by April.  First though, we need to find it, and we really can't start looking till January.  It would suck to find it this month, and then have to wait to try to buy it. 

Anyway, off to bed, as I now have to be at work early tomorrow. 

1. Have you ever been pulled over? How many times? I’ve been pulled over a couple of time for speeding, and driving with an expired registration.

2. What are you most likely to be pulled over for? (Speeding? Reckless driving? Expired tags/inspection? Bad signal/headlight?) In the future? Probably something stupid like a bad signal.

3. You're driving along on your merry way when you see a police car. What is your first thought? I check the speed I’m going.

4. When you see a cop car, do you hit your brakes or keep your foot on the gas? I keep my foot on the gas. Maybe let up on it a bit, depending on how fast I’m going.

5. What's your personal speed limit? How do you determine what it is for any given road? Usually around 5mph over the listed speed limit. This of course depends on how much over the limit everyone else is going.

6. What’s something you suspect you regularly overpay for? Car insurance.

7. What’s something you suspect you regularly underpay for?

8. What’s taking up more of your time than it should? The leasing office

9. What’s causing you stress only because you let it? Life.

10. If all your karma were based on your positive and negative attitudes, would it be in good shape, in bad shape, or perfectly in balance? It would be in good shape, but it would need a little work.

11. If you were a full course meal what would you be?
soup: French Onion
salad: Caesar
meat: Roast Pork
dessert: Pumpkin Pie with Vanilla Ica Cream!
beverage: Spiced Apple Cider

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Over the weekend tigergladys and I spend a couple of hours each day painting agility equipment at the club. Each day we went early and met up with the owners of another puppy named Tonks, and we gave the puppies the chance to play with each other. It went really well, they really liked each other, and they tired themselves out with greater ease and pleasure then we could do. The best part was that they offered to take Lucy during the day over the next couple of weeks, rather then us putting her into doggie daycare at Petco or the vets office.

Tuesday was Lucy’s first time spending the day not at home and not with us since we got her. She loved it, and now seems to love us less. She also came home completely exhausted. We needed to make a quick trip to Trader Joe's, and because she didn’t even get off the couch as we were leaving we decided to not lock her in the kitchen. When we got home, she had moved to the floor, but that was it. She was so exhausted I had to carry her upstairs at bedtime. She was ready to sleep on the couch rather then move!

As most of you know Friday we got a letter from the leasing office letting us know that they would be doing inspections of the property between the 4th and the 14th. With the arrival of the letter I contacted the bank where we got our car loan about getting pre-approved for a mortgage, and Tuesday we heard back. We’re pre-approved for $190,000, which depending on where we look can get us a fair house. That is of course, more then we can currently afford, though by the time Spring rolls around I should be making significantly more. So now it’s time to contact a realtor, and get ourselves into our own house!

In addition to painting, finding some place for Lucy to go for the next 2 weeks, and calling the bank, we spent a whole lot of time cleaning. It’s probably one of the top 3 cleanest the house has been since we moved in. It’s kind of nice having it all clean, but having to keep it clean for the inspections is a pain.

I finished the game of Galactic Civilizations that I was playing before. I won through cultural domination of the galaxy. It happened rather quickly too. I think I’m going to go for a variety of game styles as I go along, including an alliance/diplomatic victory, a military victory, and a technological victory, just to see how the game plays differently while attempting those styles. I have however discovered that trying to ally with some of the minor civilizations isn’t all that great an idea. It doesn’t work all that well.

I don’t know if it’s because of playing Galactic Civ that I’m also in the mood to work on my Battlefleet Gothic stuff, or I’ve been playing Galactic Civ because I’m in a sci-fi mood. And I don’t just want to paint them, but I want to do some converting and even some scratch building! Of course all this desire will come to very little. There is too much else going on that needs to be taken care of right now, and many other projects that have a significantly higher priority. Besides, I need more storage for my painted minis. I can keep the unpainted ones in ziplock bags, but ones that I’ve actually finished (and want to keep) need someplace safe to go.

Speaking of higher priority, Wednesday night was accounting. 201 seems to be more about theory and a deeper understanding of why we did all of the things we did in 101 and 102. The professor has stated a couple of times now that it’s not a bookkeeping course, it’s about understanding why you do bookkeeping the way you do. This is, as far as I’m concerned, a great thing. I love theory. Everything works and makes sense, in theory. We’ll see if theory matches reality in this case.

Thursday was payday, so we went to the bank, then came home and watched some TV.

Friday I took off to take Lucy to the vet. She was about due for her rabies vaccination. Her appointment was at 8:30, so up early we headed off. Lucy, thinking we were going to see her friend Tonks again was thrilled to get in the car, but when we hadn’t arrived after about 20 minutes she started to get a little upset with me. She eventually settled down, and just watched out the windows as we drove along. Things went fine at the vets, and he complimented Lucy on how beautiful she was. I agreed, saying she was a pretty girl. He then said that, yes, she is pretty, but he was talking about her personality.

Once we finished up at the vets I took Lucy off on a house hunt. I had found an online listing for a house from 1850 with over an acre of land for a mere $119,000. Ok, it is out in the middle of nowhere, but I’m willing to do the long commute thing for a house at that price. Anyway, we eventually found it (I forgot to print directions, and only had the printable flyer from the web) and it was awful. It was built in the 1850s, maybe updated once in the 1950s, and apparently by midgets who hate windows. Standing on the porch I could hit my head on the ceiling by standing on my toes. The sides of the house each had only one window. The front had 5. The sheds and barn on the land were kinda cool, though also needed some structural work. All in all it was a little disappointing, but not really surprising. Also it is right next to a quarry. That’s what that big white thing is on the map. It’s in a great little town though. Shame.

We then rode back to Frederick , swung by Two Paws Up and Brainstorm Comics, and then onto the park to relax, enjoy lunch, and get some homework done. We succeeded in the first two, and then Lucy started to feel the vaccines. On top of that the day was getting rather hot by this point, so we packed up and headed to the dog club building to get out of the sun. In spite of not feeling all that great Lucy really wanted to play, so again, not a lot of homework got done. Around 4 we headed home, and spent the rest of the night vegging out.

That was all last week. Tomorrow (maybe) I'll post about this past week.

I’ve written at various points about what I’m looking for in a home, in a house that Tigs and I would own. We’ve thought about how we would go about getting our home, be it finding the perfect house, finding something that we can build on and turn it into our dream home, or building it from scratch. In any case there is one major feature that we are in agreement on, and that’s the garage. Tigs doesn’t like garages, and I don’t have a strong opinion about them, as a concept. However the trend of new buildings that include attached garages just bugs us. A big part of it is that in these new McMansions with their 2 or 3 car garage, the garage seems to suck up a third of the entire structure. And most of the time, the car sits in the driveway and the garage gets used as storage space. This is both wasteful and stupid. Plus, it’s ugly.

I would much rather utilize the space as living space. I would rather have a library, gaming, or craft room then a garage.

If we do go the route of building our own place, the chances that we’ll be able to use an architectural design out of one of the many home plan magazines that are out there are slim at best. The other night Tigs and I went through a total of 4 of them that we borrowed from my aunt. I saw 1 or 2 designs that had features that I liked. That’s it. Most of them incorporate the garage to such an extent that it couldn’t be chopped off and still be a usable plan.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to simply design it myself and have an architect draw up the finished plans based off of my design. Either that or go through some really classic stuff, like Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs.

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I feel like Tigs and I have been somewhat neglectful of Netflix. Recently we have finished watching season 2 of Boston Legal which we borrowed from Kim, working our way through Charmed, also from Kim and we are about to wrap up Deep Space 9. The thing about it is that for the most part with the fun dark days of winter we've been wanting fluff. Something to relax to. Ah well, I guess that's one of the benefits of no late fees!