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

While it is CB.Net’s policy to not talk about work issues; I do feel the need to pass along a bit of good news today. I received an offer for employment with a new company. In two weeks, I will hold the position of Data Analyst rather than that of a Software Tester. It’s a really exciting opportunity, but if you want to know more…. Well, you’ll have to know me in person and maybe even buy me a drink. 😀

Today, I have to travel to my company’s home office to teach a class. The day before I’m supposed to drive over I find I’ve got a voice mail. As I do 99.9999% of my job either via emails, IMs or F2F, this in itself was extremely odd. Then I listened to the message and found out it was a sales manager from dealership where we bought the new car.

It turns out that they want to borrow the car for a bit to have to their insurance people look it over (since it was on the lot at the time of the tornados hitting Iowa City). I thought this more than a little odd. As I was busy getting ready for my trip to the home office, I kind of blew off the message. Then this morning, I got another call from the dealership asking for the car again. I called the guy back and explained that I’m driving out of town today. He said it should really only take about 20 minutes and they’d give the car a wash while they had it. He also said they’d bring a loaner by for me, just in case.

I agreed to let him do it and then immediately got a tad nervous about it. I checked their website and found him on it. A little bit later our receptionist called and said a guy from the dealership was here. I went up to the front desk and the only person around was a scrawny looking kid. But he was wearing a sweatshirt with the dealership’s name & logo on it. Then he held out a key to him and we walked to the parking lot. The key was to a 2005 Volkswagen Passat. The stationwagon version. With a dealer’s plate in the back window, a sales sticker on the same. I felt a lot better about giving him my key and took him to my car. He drove off, and I hopped into the Passat for a quick peek.

Oh my God! The wagon is fully loaded with all the goodies Volkswagen has to offer. Now I feel slightly cheated in that I won’t get to drive this puppy for my trip. Don’t get me wrong, I love our new car and our new car does have more gadgets in it than any car I’ve ever owned. But still, that Passat sitting outside if so dang plush and luxurious. I could definitely enjoy driving that card. 😀 Oh well, at least I’m getting a free car wash. Though, now that I think about it; I’m wondering if I should have asked them to top off the gas tank. With gas at $2.84/gallon, that would have been a nice bit of savings for me. *shrug* That’s probably being a little greedy and they’ve been good to me already.

I’ve not been posting anything for a while because… Well, I just have not felt like it which is not to say I haven’t had anything to talk about. Today, I decided to update the world at large about what I have been upto in my little slice of it.

  • We survived the tornados and hail that hit our area a week ago. Our apartment and cars were not even get damaged by the storm. Below are a few links to some of the stores online about what happened.
  • Last weekend, we replaced Ariesna‘s car (1992 Ford Escort, aka Ghost) with a 2002 Volkswagen Golf (aka Grace, aka Gracie). The really odd part about getting the new car? Even though it’s a replacement for Ghost; Ariesna has been letting me drive it the most. Apparently, this is at least partly due to the amount door dings her old car suffered through in her office’s parking lot but it still seems strange to me. Then today, the dealership called me back asking me to come in and sign a new finance contract on the car. Why? Because they found me another offer which would drop the interest rate by 1.25 points! Now that’s what I call service. So a big thanks goes out to Carousel Motors for the excellent service.
  • Last weekend, Ariesna and I looked at a house. But it was too expensive for the amount of work required to make it a home we’d want to live (namely a musty basement and some bad remodeling in the family room, dining room and kitchen). We showed up about 15 minutes early for the showing and the realtor showed up just short of 15 minutes late. He did eventually call to let us know he was running late… 5 minutes after he was supposed to be there. I was initially a bit underwhelmed by the guy. But when he finally got there and let us into the house; he let us do our own looking around without trying to pressure us and listened to the comments we had about the house to get a better idea of what we were interested in.
Gossamer Commons, 16 Nov 2006

To borrow “snarkism”, somebody deserves a tasty, tasty biscut for today’s bit of hilarity over at Gossamer Commons.

If you do not regularly follow the strip; Malachite saved Keith from a Barghast by summoning forth Apokoryfoma. She’s a Neriad and the Viceroy of the Cul-de-Sac. She also happens to be Malachite’s ex-girlfriend. *laugh* If that were not bad enough by her code Keith is now required to make some sort of sacrifice to her, as a token of gratitude for saving him. Unfortunately, he’s not exactly overburned with resources at the moment and offers up a candy bar. Today’s strip is Appie’s reaction. Greg Holkan‘s art and Eric Burns‘ one line of text in this strip blend beautifully. Malachite’s reaction in the background of the strip is particularly worth paying attention to. 😀