Category: Life

Sometimes, I feel the need to talk about me (imagine that).

Before I explain why I’m feeling giddy, I’d like to thank one of my readers by the name of Robin. Yes, you Robin. I didn’t reply to your email before now as it got accidentally caught by my spam filters. Sorry about that. When I read your offer to advise my wife & I; I was totally flabbergasted that a total stranger would offer to do that for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t see your offer until after things have been settled upon. So thank you very much for the incredibly generous offer of your time and expertise!

Which brings me back to why I’m feeling so giddy today. Ariesna & I made an offer on the house we’ve been looking at and the offer was accepted! We take possession next month1 and begin our journey as first-time home buyers. The house is a charming, older home in a great neighborhood. Hardwood floors, central air, a basement (pretty much required if you live in Iowa), ceiling fans in most of the rooms2 and the neighborhood is loaded with mature trees. We were at the house today taking a final look through before putting in the offer. The a/c was off but with the windows open and all the trees in neighborhood; it was perfectly comfortable. Compare that to the apartment we’ve been living in for 8 years with a window a/c unit stuck into the wall of our living room and with all of our windows facing to WEST. It’s going to be heaven once we’re moved into the house. As an added bonus to the house, my daily commute to work will drop down to about 15 minutes. Sure that’s not as good the 5 minute commute I used to have with the old job, but it’s massively better than the 30-45 minute commute I’ve got now. Did I mention how the neighborhood is loaded with trees? I just love that part. 😀

1 Technically, we’re setting up an appointment with a house inspector for next weekend to check over the entire house for problems. However the house has been very well maintained, so we do not expect him to find any problems that would kill the deal.
2 1 in the living room, 1 in a sitting area on the top floor, 1 in the kitchen and 1 in each bedroom. Though the one in the master bedroom will have to go, as the ceilings are a little low in there and I can look directly at the blades of the fan without standing on tippy-toes. Sometimes being tall can really suck. :p

Between posting my solution to challenge #8 and finally getting a chance to sit down & read me email this evening, I got hit with 6 emails and a few comments about it. Rather than trying to reply to all of you individually, I’ll just post my answers here. Sorry this comes so late, but I’ve been swamped today.

Krystal wrote:

I am having a hard time with the latest Treasure Hunters Challenge…When I pick up the Gold Dabloon (sp?), all I get is either an extra pair of goggles or Laird’s wallet. I took out the business card from the wallet and typed in “Emergency Support” in the Visa “department” line, it says I do not need emergency support at this time. Can you help me??…I’ve been putting Library of Congress also and I haven’t gotten anything like that either 🙁

As I recall from last night, there were 3 items on the river bed: a wallet, a boot and the doubloon. First, empty your web browser’s cache and then restart your browser. In the IRC channel I had been hanging around on last night, that seemed to clear up most of the really weird stuff. If that doesn’t work make sure you are following my instructions step-by-step. If you get stuff out of order, things may not work right. If you’re still having problems and want more immediate feedback, try going to NBCTreasureHunters.com and following their instructions for connecting to the IRC server & chatroom they are using. It’s a really good resource for getting help with the puzzles. If all that fails, leave a comment on this post with a detailed workflow of what you’ve tried and where you are getting stuck.

sandra r. wrote:

i need help week 8 is there any help for me

on disability need money so bad please help me

Hmm, well there’s the help I spelled out in my solution to challenge #8. There’s the NBCTreasureHunters.com website (and their instructions for getting to an IRC server where you can chat live with other hunters. However, you should keep in mind even if you solve all the puzzles correctly; the official rules state “the Administrator will select ten (10) Winners from all eligible entries in a random drawing.” This means there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get any money from playing along with the NBC Treasure Hunters online game.
Beyond that maybe one of these websites can assist you:

neil wrote:

what is the combination for the final clue? I dont have a printer to do the folding thing.please help! thanks

Check out the footnotes at the bottom of my solution to challenge #8.

rob wrote:

any luck with the 8th challenge, i got the coin and things but when i get back to the boat the seagull knocks the backpack into the water. was not sure if it is something i am doing/or not doing.

Check out my solution to challenge #8 starting with step #14.

Tristine wrote:

Hi, can you please help me with the order for the final puzzle? I have the cutout of the star and have entered all the possible combinations that I see (“feather symbol”, sun, door with “c”, hands, book, arrow, other door) and I cannot get it to work. Please help! Thanks!

Check out the footnotes at the bottom of my solution to challenge #8. To be perfectly honest, I had my wife do the cutout thing for me, couldn’t figure it out and relied upon the kind people chatting about the puzzle in the #steeple_media IRC channel on AccessIRC. You might also want to read one of the comments on my post covering my solution to challenge #8.

ben wrote:

how do you arrange the puzzle pieces? it looks right but the fireplace is not opening.

Make sure your pieces on the gameboard are arranged in exactly the same method as shown in the image on my solution to challenge #8 post. If you’re still having problems, try clearing your web browser’s cache, restarting your webrowser and trying again.

First off, the lack of recent updates is due to 2 factors:

  1. I’ve been busy with the new job and I don’t really talk about such things here.
  2. Ariesna and I have started some serious house hunting. Well, to be perfectly accurate we’ve seen a house we like and now we’re mortgage hunting.

Still, while I won’t discuss who I work for or what exactly I do for them on this site; I do have to share some thoughts that occur to me at the office. Which brings us back to the title of this post, it’s the strangest thing how different companies treat office supplies. In my old job, there was one stapler provided to each department and it was always jealously guarded. In the new job, I got a stapler given to me practically as soon as I walked in the door. In the old job, the newest computers generally went to the people with the most seniority. In the new one, I got a brand new machine my first day while a co-worker who’s been here a while is still waiting to get a new one. In my old job, if you needed things like paper or pens or whatever, you had to go ask one of the secretaries to get it for you. In my new job, I was shown where to find things in the supply closet on the first day.

Corporate culture is really weird sometimes, but at least here it’s weird in a good way.

Day 1 at any job tends to consist of new employee paperwork, introductions and maybe some light work. Day 2 tends to be a bit more interesting. Today, I got more of a taste of what my new job is like and so far, so good. That my work computer is a shiny, new laptop faster than any computer I own doesn’t hurt my attitude. Plus the heat wave we’ve been having finally broke today and the temp maxed out in the eighties rather than the 90°/100° temperatures we have been having. 🙂