Todd's Blog

OK, here's some stupid stuff...

There's a bank downtown that has 3 drive thru lanes inside a parking garage. Above each lane, there's a lighted sign that either reads "open" or "Closed."

To the average Joe, this means that if the lane is "open" that you can use it, and if it says "closed" you shouldn't, because....it's CLOSED.

In the last few weeks, I've been at this bank making deposits for work, and as is the norm, two lanes are "open" and one is "closed." I've lived in this town for 12 years, and I've never seen the third lane "open." Every time I've ever been there, the first two lanes are open, and the third lane is closed.

But when I'm there, both "open" lanes are occupied. So, inevitably, someone then pulls under the "closed" sign and into the third lane. They roll their window down, stick out their hand, and attempt to push the button to get the door to open so they can get the plastic tube out. And the door never opens, and they never get the tube.

They push the button again. And Again. And then, in a huff of anger, roll their window back up, and LEAVE.

That's right. They LEAVE.

Instead of backing up and getting in line (which is never longer than the one car at the tube-sender), they leave. And they're frustrated.

I have no idea where they go, since the nearest branch of this bank is at least 25 blocks away. But their inherent stupidity results in their anger and their apparent decision not to do their banking.

I laugh at them. Because they're idiots.

Hey Keith, if you still read this, give me a holler, would ya?

I tried sending you an e-mail, but it got returned, and when I called, the lady said you don't work there anymore.

I'm glad to hear from you. I finally figured out how to find your e-mail address when you make a post, so I've spent some time responding. Check your e-mails.

I should be ashamed of myself that I haven't written about Moxie sooner.

Moxie is our girl. She came to our house when she was about 8 weeks old. Nobody knows where she came from, but she was found on a tobacco farm near the Kentucky River. From the start, she's been very passive. She didn't play as a puppy, she just slept.

<>We think she's a border collie/pitbull mix. When I got her, I started training her using Barbara Woodhouse's books. Moxie doesn't lick, doesn't jump up on people, and barks very rarely. She adapted very well. For the last year and a half, she goes to work with me almost every day. Everyone at work loves her. One of the ladies even taught her to 'shake' in order to get cookies. I never thought she'd learn a trick. She always acted insulted when I tried to teach her.

Now that she's approaching her 8th birthday, she doesn't play frisbee anymore. She can't run fast enough to catch the frisbee before it hits the ground.  We've even had to cut back on the tennis ball, because I think she's getting arthritis. She hobbles around for a good day after a game of fetch.

OK, we've been moved in to the new house for just over a week now.

<> My parents and mother-in-law were a huge help during the move-in. Dad did a lot of the basic handyman stuff around the house, Mom cleaned and unpacked boxes, Mother-in-law did landscaping work. We couldn't have done it without them.

Our city provides us with garbage cans for garbage, recyclables, and yard waste. We haven't received the recycling and yard waste cans yet, so my first lawn mowing wasn't a bag job. It still took about 45 minutes, and the skies opened up and rained on me about 5 minutes before I finished. Mowing and bagging is going to take even longer.

<> Our big purchase for the new home was a 50" LCD HDTV for the family room, where we spend most of our time. Once the DirecTV people got the satellite installed, we got to watch some serious HDTV. For those of you who don't know, HDTV is amazing. I've been watching the HD channels just to see HD programming. We're excited to find out Arrested Development is going to be on HDNet.<> I also can't wait to see the new season of LOST in HD.

<> My big project for the rest of the summer is to tend to the yard. Currently, it's infested with weeds. I learned from my Dad that taking care of a lawn is a big project, but making your lawn beautiful and weed-free is a glorious thing. I'm gonna have to get lots of weed killers to get it up to shape, and it's going to take time, since I refuse to use a lawn-care service. Here in Kentucky, we've got a particular weed called wild violet that is a pain in the butt to kill. It took years to get it out of my last lawn, and when the neighbors don't care to get it out of their lawns, it doesn't make things easier.

OK, we've hopefully gotten past all the mortgage issues. They tried to drop a $1400 addition to our scheduled closing costs, but since I did some research and found this to be an error that shouldn't have been made in the first place, the bank agreed to eat the entire amount out of their fees. It actually lowers our monthly mortgage payments slightly. Hooray!

Closing is on July 21, and we can start moving our stuff in immediately afterwards.

The worst thing is that the weather is predicting temps in the 90s with a chance of thunderstorms. The temps are to be expected for late July, but the chance of precipitation really stinks. 

Good news from the house-hunting front, so far.

We found a house, a split level, 3-bedroom, 1.5 bath in a good area of town. It took us all of about 45 minutes of negotiating to settle on a price, which was almost $5000 less than the sale price, and $13000 less than the original asking price.

We're currently waiting on the appraisal to satisfy the bank, and the inspections will be done Wednesday.

For anyone that actually reads this, I apologize for not having made any entries in a while.

I've been otherwise occupied as my wife Michelle and I have been house hunting for our first home. As neither of us has much idea about the process, we've been getting a crash course from friends and parents and realtors and loan officers. It is occasionally a headache.

But we aren't making irrational decisions. We've figured out how much we can spend without stretching the household budget too thin to account for unplanned/emergency expenses. We're learning how to use the local Property Valuation Assessor's website to decide how overpriced some of these houses are for their neighborhoods, and we're praying that God lead us to the house He has intended for us.

But the mortgage process is purely a work of Satan. You'd think that the interest rate you get charged would be sufficient for the bank to get its money, but no, they've got plans to bleed you for thousands of dollars more in other fees. For the sake of comparison, I wonder how it would work if you got your loan on the black market, or just somebody with cash on hand that was satisfied collecting the interest associated with such a loan, with the deed as collateral.

Anyway, we're taking the next week off from work to really hunt for a house. Hopefully, I'll have good news by then. 

I’ve got something to admit to everyone who doesn’t know me from way back in the day.

I have, on multiple occasions, dressed up like a woman. Nope, that’s not a typo. I’ve been out in public, and seen by others, dressed like a woman.

The last time I walked on the pink side, believe it or not, I was doing the Lord’s work. I was on a mission trip to Pittsburgh, Pa., where I wore a pink dress, that when stuffed with balloons, looked quite shapely on me. I had makeup on my face, but no wig or something that would substitute for one. Lack of resources. It was a part of a skit where about ten of us were wearing the girls’ choir outfits and singing something I can’t recall. There were photos taken, but I sure don’t have any of them.

Looking back, it seems like I could be accused of conspiring to get more and more people in on the act, because the second time I dressed like a woman, there were only two of us doing it. I was part of a brainstorming session for our high school’s Project Graduation group, though I can’t figure out why, other than I knew the guys who were in charge. We needed ideas for a skit that we would perform in front of the entire senior class hyping our drug & alcohol-free post graduation party. Well, from not knowing how I got to the meeting in the first place, I ended up being one of the two guys dressed up, on stage, like the ‘Men On Film’ characters from the sketch comedy series “In Living Color.” Our skit wasn’t as baudy, but we really played up the gay accents, and got to make comments about a prize winner who had to come up on stage to claim his prize, and we ‘accidentally’ dropped his prize so he’d have to bend over to pick it up and give our characters a view of his backside. (On a side note, he never pounded me for that – he was a nice guy.) There was, at one point, video of this, because it was on the local news the next afternoon, but I hope there’s no pictures.

Got a podcast yesterday from Ryan and Jen, the original LOST podcasters, that announced the demise of their awesome podcast, The Transmission.

While it's disappointing to see them go, I'm glad they made the decision on a repeat week so we LOST fans wouldn't have a conniption when the next new episode airs.

I really enjoyed their contributions to the podcasting world, and wish them the best in whatever they do in the future.