CaseyAndKelly.Com

So I guess its time for my quarterly update. I’m still alive and kicking, just don’t have anything interesting to say anymore (did I ever?).

As Kelly said before me, we did finally sell the house. Looking back on the purchase it was a very very bad idea. We knew it the moment we walked inside and realized the amount of work the house was really going to be to bring it up to the standards that we were accustom to. It was a great feeling of relief on Monday when I signed that last piece of paper and we were done with it. The housing market is going to continue to decline in this area for a bit longer, and since we don’t anticipate being here for to much longer we managed to get out at just the right time. We moved back into our old complex (again as Kelly already said), and it feels good to be back here. Not that I’m a huge fan of living in apartments either, but I don’t have to worry about anything either. If its broke I make a call and someone else comes and fixes it. We left our HD TV in the house when we moved as kind of an incentive to the buyer. So now I’m in the market for a new one. I don’t want to buy anything to crazy while we are living here in VA, so maybe a 37 inch Plasma or something. I will reserve the 55+ inch tube for when we finally find a place to live for more then a year.

As an added bonus, on top of selling the house I get a new job. The position I’m currently in is the most soul sucking experience I have ever had to deal with. I’m sure I have posted about it before, but honestly its the most depressing job you can imagine. Its not as if I’m overloaded with work, its just that the work environment is oppressive. But anyway, I spoke with my bosses and they are allowing me to transfer back to an organization that I’m very familiar with, and work as a Windows 2003 Design Engineer. Should be good work for now. I begin that position in a week or so.

We are back to Cox for our highspeed internet package. We figured that since we don’t have a “real” TV at this time we would get just internet and not cable. So we opted for the Premium package or 15Mbps down / 2Mbps up. I have rigged up my 21 inch Dell Monitor to my XBox and some computer speakers to make a working TV/DVR combo that we can watch moveis and such on. The internet connection is VERY fast during off hours. I was downloading some stuff at nearly 1.7 MBps, yes Megabytes per second. I can’t wait for the days of 100Mbit connections to the internet are commonplace.

I added a new block to the left side of the interface today. Listal.Com is a collection app much in the same vein as DVDProfiler, but its a web based product so we can use it from our Macs. I imported probably more then 2/3 of our collection, but I’m sure there is more that I’m missing. Last time I checked I think we had 800 or so.

We are heading out from work early today (James, Jun and myself) to go meet up with the boss for some wings and beers. Its been a long week with the move and everything so I’m really looking forward to it right now.

We signed the contract on our house on April 1st to sell and after a chaotic and emotionally grueling month we finally closed on it yesterday! We ended up moving back to the same complex that we were in when we first moved to Virginia (1/1/05-9/1/05) – Regent’s Park in Fairfax. Not only the same complex but also the same building, different apartment. We’ve had issues before with noise above us, so this time we chose the 4th (top) floor. 53 stairs up. 🙁 Because a lot of stuff was unknown till the last minute we had to rent a Budget truck on Sunday, park it behind our house on Sunday night and then after closing we drove it up here. Thanks to Jun, James, Lana, and Joe cause without them it just wouldn’t have been possible. The apartment is nice and we like the location (close to the Metro, shopping, and friends) but our apartment doesn’t seem to have been cleaned before we moved in and the dryer isn’t working properly. But I have until Thursday to fill out a move-in inspection sheet to document EVERYTHING so they can’t try and bill us for stuff later. The place is a wreck right now so I’m off to unpack…

In other news (since Casey probably won’t post this himself) he got the ok last month to transfer from his contract at ATR (federal government’s anti-trust division) over to the FBI contract. No, this doesn’t move us back to LA and yes, he will working for the same company just on a different contract. But this is the original job Casey applied for back in LA which takes place at headquarters in downtown D.C. and so he’s pretty stoked about getting to make the move and doing something different. PLUS, Justin will defintely be moving back out here with his girlfriend, Robin, and there’s a possibility that another friend Casey had from when he was traveling will be here too. We’re never going to end up leaving now. j/k He had to give 30 days official notice (they’ve known for months that he didn’t want to be there and have been dragging their feet about hiring a replacement).

So long story short (or after looking back at this, not so short) the house and job have been taken care of. Next up, graduation. Classes end next Monday – 6 days to write 3 papers. Yikes! Busy week ahead. Hope this all was worth your wait!

I asked for you all to be patient (apparently 16 days ago) because I was waiting (and still am, to make one big update). So this is just a brief update to keep you all coming back for more but wait for the real update after May 1st. Most of you already know what the “news” is so it won’t be a surprise – I’m just trying not to jinx anything after the last month we’ve had. So this “news” has been keeping us more than busy lately and I can’t really say anything else cause this has been consuming us.

There’s lots of change around here so expect a major update in the next week or so and house AND work. Bear with us and keep checking back!

Quick update on our progress with selling the house on this the 8th day it has been on the market. So far we’ve given two tours (both on Sunday) and have received 3 calls. The good news is we had a couple interested in buying it and loved what we’d done with the place, the bad news is their lender called me and said they were approved for $25K less than what we were asking for it and we’re not willing to go that low because we can’t. Flyers have been taken by 15 people so at least that’s something.

Well the sign isn’t out quite yet but we haven’t gotten even a call or an email about the house. It’s been on the MLS since Tuesday. We’re definitely going tomorrow to get some more signs and arrows to really draw attention to things. So this isn’t really much of an update. Hopefully, I’ll have more to say later.

Happy Birthday to Uncle John and a Happy St. Patty’s Day to all. Make sure to wear a bit of green today so you don’t get pinched. Take time to celebrate!

Well this time it is officially official – our house is for sale. It’s supposed to (I think) go onto MLS tomorrow and the picture will be up in a max. of 5 days. In the meantime, I listed the house on Craigslist hoping to get another individual buyer without an agent so we won’t have to fork over any more money for a commission but if we do, I guess it’s a necessary evil. The house is in great showing condition – it’s clean and orderly, and everything that needed to be done is done!

It’s 86 out right now and pretty windy. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to lay out since it *is* my spring break. I can’t tell if I got any color yet but I did tan *safely* and put on SPF 15 before going outside. I miss the beach…

The DVDs for this week were: North Country, Domino, Into the Blue, Memoirs of a Geisha, Just Friends, and Serenity. It’s a pretty poopy bunch. North Country meant well but just didn’t do it for me in the end. While Just Friends was funny but ultimately very predictable. Where are the good movies? Thank God I’m not paying full price to see these!

Well usually I wake my daddie up in the morning by standing on his chest or licking his head. Today I was sleeping and daddie’s Blackberry started going off early so he went ahead and got up since he was supposed to have a conference call at 9 on his day off. Since he was up already I took the opportunity to go outside and potty. When he sat down on the couch in the basement, I tore up the stairs and went back to sleep with mommie till about noon. I’m really sick of mommie trying to get up earlier and on a more normal schedule. i stayed in bed till she started walking down the stairs and I followed. I went outside to potty again. While mommie and daddie were sitting on the couch on their laptops checking email and surfing, I decided it was time for a nap so I arranged myself on mom in my usual fashion and went to sleep.

A couple of hours later we all decided that Chick Filet would be good for lunch so we took a RIDE. I love rides, they’re my favorite. It was 80 today so I got to stick my head out the window. I’m thinking it’s about time to put my harness back on again and retire my collar for now because it’s hard for mommie and daddie to keep track of me when I’m hanging out the window. Daddie ordered me my own 8 piece chicken nuggets and he only ate 1/2 of one. They were good but I’ve had some pretty nasty gas since then. When we got home I was so hot from the car ride that I was panting and so I napped a little before we all went for a walk. Now normally I like to walk on the sidewalk or street instead of the grass because I pretend I’m human but today the asphalt was just too hot on my tootsies. We took a long walk where people oohed and aahed over me as I pranced down the street. I pooped when we got home and then took another nap.

For dinner tonight, mommie and daddie decided they wanted chow mein so I got another ride! We drove to the ‘burg and got some Panda Express. I drooled on mommie’s arm till she gave in and let me taste her nasty eggroll. (I’ll eat most anything but vegetables, except frozen broccoli it’s great.) We got home and I begged still I got some noodles (they’re my new favorite, I tried pesto for the first time this week). I’ve been snoozing since dinner but will probably get a second wind after I go potty again and it’s time to go to bed. The last time mommie and I went to the vet she grabbed me a couple of the free toothbrushes and I’ve been brushing my teeth each night before bed. Ahhh I’m so tired from this long day that I’m sleepy again. Good night.