📅 January 2013

I am no longer a landlord. I wasn't cut out for it. We sold it for 75k which was a good deal but I owed a bunch to the bank and my parents because I remortaged it to finance the downpayment on my primary residence.

Anyways yesterday we got an email saying that the buyer wanted the remaining items removed from the house before closing this morning at 11am or he would charge us $500. So from 10pm (when I got done with my 12 hour shift) to 12:30am @terry and I hauled out all the remaining crap my grandfather hoarded over 30+ years into e:heidis truck.

Bushels of rocks, tires, scraps of wood and wire, tar paper, and boxes. All kinds of crap. Add to that the shit @enknot and e:samathon left. That poor tv went through so much. They wouldn't even take it at the dump. Not even the scrappers stole it. Its sad because when the journey started it was a working set. By the time it was done, its pretty much junk. The junkyard also doesn't take tires.

Anyways it was sad leaving the last time but I think its for the best.

Part of the process was filling out some paper work with her death date. I wasn't sure so I typed "nonna died buffalo" and the first thing that came up was my @paul #31977 a blog titled "Waiting While Nonna is Dying." Someday when I go old ans forgetful this blog will be an invaluable resource.

I really need a new position or a salary increase, preferably both. Luckily I really love what I do but my job has gotten substantially more complex over the last four years. In the last two years especially. I just wish I could finally have some authority and some people working for me as I really know what am I doing and have some great ideas but spend so much time having to ask permission and jump through hoops. The systems I am creating involve scores of servers intercommunicating and hundreds of thousands of lines of code in many different languages and on multiple platforms. I do so much work, that I honestly can't even believe it myself. Today, on my day off, after already putting in 40 hours as of yesterday I ended up with two very last minute work mandates from the top of the org.

One involved a whole bunch of programming in order to add a new feature to a complex app to help a very important person and the other was graphic design. Its been so long since I had to promote something graphically and with text. I do graphic design stuff all the time, but not brochure/flyer stuff with text layout.

This tiny new system feature was a huge hit. Basically, we are trying to advertise a new system feature I created that allows users to unlock their account from anywhere so that there is no more "locked your account our at 3am typing the wrong password into webmail and need to call the helpdesk to get back in." type of situation. Really I pushed for the system because I am that guy with the overly complex password that I am typing into my phone at 3am but once we rolled it out there was so much positive feedback. It used to suck to have to call the helpdesk and wait to get unlocked, especially if they were busy and you were in the middle of something important, or they had to wake up to help you. It also sucked for them because they are busy with lots of other stuff.

I tried my best and ended up with this slide. I just got one slide so even though the system has all kinds of other cool features, I focused on the "cloud unlock" portion. Hope it works out.

The meal itself was delicious but the desserts were over the top. My moms cousins brought so many desserts and my mom already had a lot. I was so stuffed by the end.

Remember when $12.99 seemed expensive for rack of lamb?

I wish it would stop steaming so I could eat it.

I was searching for "normal" egg chairs which run like $1000 and which I thought were prohibitively expensive...



...when I found this.

This Arne Jacobsen Egg Chair is ~$14,000. It blows my mind that any chair could cost that much. At the same time, if I was a millionaire I would want it.

When 4G LTE first hit my phone it was so fast. I remember the first day because it was the day of my pseudo car jacking. Then after the iphone 5 came out it started to suck.

Its weird because the speed I am getting appears faster than ever but pages are starting to hang on load sometimes. Maybe its just the websites I visit but it seems like at that speed everything should load instantly at least as fast as they do on wifi.

The other day @YesThatCasey and I had to stop at my house to pick up some papers. As I came around the corner and tried to pull into my driveway I was stopped by a car parked in the skirt. The skirt that I shoveled the night before.

I got out and told the people that it was my driveway and that I needed to get in. I ended up just parking them in as I went to go get the stuff I needed. Same old story. In fact it seemed rather uneventful and I would have never even bothered writing about it until I got this letter. Apparently, me bring angry that I couldn't get in my own driveway came across as too rude for them.





Here is my response:
Dear Church,
0. The best neighbors possible would be ones that never park on my property.
1. I am but one secular human, free of miracle and I manage to shovel my driveway by hand. It doesn't require any special service contract being fulfilled. If anything with 20 people you should be able to shovel it infinitely faster.
2. My rudeness was minor and uneventful, I said, "Why are you parked in my driveway." To be honest I didn't even know they were church people. When the woman responded, 'because we are unloading for the church" - I said, "You could just shovel your side of the driveway, its not that crazy of a concept."
3. Normally, I just let it slide when people are parked in driveway for a few minutes unloading, it happens more than you think. However, this time I was in a rush and needed to get in my house. Why should I be inconvenienced and have to park a block away because you guys didn't have the foresight to clear your driveway. I spent the previous evening clearing mine so that I could get in and out during the day when I knew I would be in a rush.
4. I have no neighborly desire to extend any special privilege or access to my property just because you are a church with a small congregation. In fact I am less likely to do so because I am infinitely annoyed that you pay no tax on your huge property while it is barely used for spiritual activity.

Paul

This was a very tasty lunch. I sauteed some onions in white ice wine and then added them to mussels and broth. Then some crispy bacon over the top of it all. I actually ended up eating a half pound of bacon.