CaseyAndKelly.Com

We’re officially and finally homeowners!!! I’m no longer feeling any buyers’ remorse even after seeing the amount of our mortgage payments but relief that it’s almost over. In less than a month we will be in our spacious and newly decorated home BBQ’ing and thinking about the amount that we’ve been throwing away in rent for the past 5 years. We stopped by Lowes today and picked up some paint swatches and have been planning out the house colors. Hopefully the next 3 weeks (well about) will fly by and everything will go smoothly. Closing costs and buying points ended up coming in at less than we had anticipated so we were pretty happy about that because it will help offset breaking our lease and buying new appliances.

We FINALLY got our AC recharged. Whew! The guy at Jiffy Lube measured the air coming out of our AC and it was blowing 110 degree air. Some air conditioner, it was cooler outside even though it was 102 today. But no longer we are now riding in comfort at a cozy 55 degrees!

We’re still waiting (paitently) to close on our house. Originally (for the last 6 weeks) it’s been scheduled for July 20th, then on the 19th it got moved to the 22nd and now it’s tenatively scheduled for the 26th. I guess what happened was the seller was required to get a termite insepction prior to us being able to by the house from him (this happened 3 weeks ago) well the seller’s agent waited to tell my agent until the day before we were supposed to close that the termite inspection failed because of all the fire wood piled in the back yard. The house doesn’t have termites but with all the wood there it stood a greater chance of getting termites. Anyways I guess the seller was moving the wood off the property (saves us, we wanted it gone anyway) this weekend and it’ll be reinspected tomorrow (the 25th). If all goes well we should be official homeowners on Tuesday. If not, well there’s nothing we can really do at this point I guess.

Last weekend the biggest excitement was ordering Nine Inch Nails tickets. They’ll be here at the MCI Center in November – our first concert since the Beastie Boys.

Monday, the 18th, was my mom’s 50th birthday! Happy birthday to my mom (I did call her on her birthday so it’s not really belated except as far as posting goes). Hawaii was her birthday present so anything that happened ended up paling in comparison. 😉 Tuesday was Marla’s birthday and this coming Friday is my Grandma’s so it’s a big month for birthdays.

On Thursday I attempted to volunteer by donating blood at the Red Cross. After waiting 20 minutes I was told I couldn’t give because my dad was stationed in Germany during the period between 1980-1990 (we were there ’88-’91) but they couldn’t tell me why that meant I couldn’t donate. After talking to my mom I guess we could have been infected with mad cow disease so we no longer have to feel the pressure to donate – they don’t want it anyway. Does anyone know if this is forever? Well I still ended up being able to donate, I stopped by HART (something Animal Rescue Team) and dropped off stuff and was asked to volunteer since I obviously love animals, then went to the Fairfax County Humane Society and dropped off a bunch of other stuff. Tax deductions are our friend this year!

Friday I met Casey at some dive joint in Chinatown for lunch. I was a little leery since there were no ratings in the window to at least ensure cleanliness but Casey raves about it so I gave it a shot and it was good, although I could have done without the red food coloring.

Today we went and picked up a ton of once used Uhaul boxes for $40! That is such a great deal considering the move from LA to here cost us $310 in just boxes not including bubble wrap and tape. I know what I’ll be doing this week.

The black Walmart dishes we have been using that we bought when we were dating have finally seen the end of their life. Over the years they have broke from various things (being in the microwave, being dropped, etc) so I finally went out and purchased some new ones. After eating on black for so long Casey insisted on some color so I opted for Fiestware. While I don’t consider myself a collector I did buy 8 place settings in different colors (scarlet, tangerine, sunflower, shamrock, turquoise, cobalt, plum, and persimmon).

Now we’re just adding to our productivity for the weekend. Yesterday we watched the Back to the Future trilogy and today we’re finishing up Sopranos Season 5.

Home owner’s associations (HOAs) are such ripoffs! Casey’s pretty bitter about the whole HOA thing and would rather just shovel snow from our own sidewalk instead of paying $65/month for it. And if the pool is anything like ours is now (parents using it as a childcare center for their kids and them screaming and taking over the place) then we probably won’t be using that either making it an even bigger waste of $65.

Wendy, our realtor, told us that we have 3 days from the time we picked up the book to look over it and we could cancel our contract if we found anything in the HOA rules that we couldn’t live with. From what I read they’re pretty anal but it’s nothing we can’t deal with so we’re going ahead with everything. Wendy is out of town until our closing date so we don’t have a time scheduled yet but she assures me that we’ll be able to get in without problems.

I *think* that I finally have all of the paperwork sent in that’s needed for closing. I say *think* because everytime we send them what they ask for they ask for more. It’s a never ending process to leave an intricate papertrail to cover their butts. As long as it’s done that’s all I care about.

After sitting in the parking lot that is the 95 every Saturday for over an hour to get down to pick up the HOA book and sign more paperwork we decided to take the back roads home. Virginia’s planning for roads is seriously lacking and the same road can go north, south, east, and west. We looked on our atlas and saw how to get to 28 (the back way home) and ended up taking the long way around. To make sure we were on the right track we stopped at some podunk bait/beer store to ask the toothless man in the parking lot directions and were pleased to find after driving for 30 minutes we were only 6 miles away from this “shortcut”. Maybe it’s from living in LA or from dealing with stupid drivers but I’d rather be stuck in traffic on the freeway than on a two-lane road not going any faster with stop lights and other distractions that cause people to drive even worse. I like the simplicity of taking a straight shot from point A to point B with no lights and the possibility of going a respectable speed of at least 70 (don’t get me started on the ridiculous Virginia speed limits).

For dinner last night we met Kevin and Kathy at Bone Fish which is apparently a chain seafood restaurant owned by The Outback. I ordered the grouper and was pleased to find it fresh and properly prepared although the price tag was a little much for the casual environment – it’s still the best seafood I’ve had since we’ve been here.

We always feel bad whenever we have to leave Stoli cause she has to be in her crate. Starting Thursday when I was at Safeway for 20 minutes or so, I decided to test her to see what kind of damage she’d do left to her own devices. I shut all the doors and pulled out every toy she has and lined them up on the floor. She ended up being a good girl and we’ve left her out twice since then for 3-4 hours at a time. I’m surprised she’s doing so well and hope she can keep it up.

Another example of Stoli not liking things out of the ordinary is tonight she was standing in the kitchen and I was leaning over the counter and she could see my reflection in the stove and started freaking out cause she saw me with another dog (her). She got herself so worked up she backed herself into the trash can and ran over to me to make sure I wasn’t “cheating” on her.

We managed to get two movies in this weekend between the episodes of CSI and X-Files. They weren’t our Netflix movies and since we haven’t been keeping up with watching those because I’m always waiting for when Casey’s home I’m going to send them back for stuff I can watch while he’s working and then get ones for him and I to watch on Thursdays so they’ll get here on Fridays (the distribution center is only 23 miles away). We watched The Manchurian Candidate (the remake) and Million Dollar Baby. In my opinion, they were both only mediocre especially considering the raving reviews they got. At first The Manchurian Candidate seemed incoherent but managed to get slightly more interesting with the twist at the end. Million Dollar Baby while better than Mystic River was still not on par with the Clint Eastwood movies that I like from the 90s. After all of the buildup throughout the movie the ending was disappointing.

Our 4th of July weekend was pretty fun and staggered so we weren’t too tired on Tuesday. We went out to dinner (read to the Buffalo Wing Factory in Ashburn 30 miles away) on Friday before coming home sleeping for an hour and then picking Matt & Julie up at the airport…in Baltimore (54 miles away). But they’re worth it! On the way back there was torrential downpour which made the drive home even worse because I was forced to slow to like 35 on the freeways and kept getting past by ambulances. When we pulled out the mattress from the couch, Stoli freaked out and started crouching and barking at it. Everything has to be just so or she doesn’t know what to do. Casey’s boots were in a spot that he doesn’t normally leave them and she started barking because that’s not where they belonged and she didn’t want them in her space. 🙂 Such a personality!

Saturday we took Matt and Julie sighseeing around DC. Well, Casey led the way since I have only gone down there a couple of times and have only sightseen (is that a word) once since we’ve been here and that’s when Julie was here at Easter. She knows more out the touristy stuff and Metro stops than I do! I figure I’ve already seen a lot of it before having lived in the area when I was younger so I don’t make a point to go see it again. The new thing I saw this trip was they completed the World War 2 Memorial which is pretty substantial and impressive. DC has one of the biggest fireworks displays in the country as you can imagine and it was packed with tourists so we tried to do the quickest walking tour of “all the white buildings” as possible. That and the humidity was making us sweaty and miserable. They even raised parking rates in DC to deter tourists from clogging the already congested streets and encouraging them to take public transportation.

Sunday we went to the Air & Space Museum (part of the Smithsonian Museum because you can’t really fit all those planes into a building in downtown DC) that’s out near Dulles Airport. Matt’s a pilot and an aviation geek so we were there over 3 hours! I could have seen everything in 10 minutes but I was a good sport and just kinda meandered around because I knew Matt and Casey were digging it. Casey’s boss, Joe, made some BBQ pulled pork for us to come pick up for dinner (6 pounds of it that only lasted 2 days) and we stayed in and drank White Russians and watched The Big Lebowski.

On the 4th we went to see a movie. Now since we haven’t gone to a movie since we saw Ocean’s 12 in LA we didn’t know how to get to the theater we always saw from the freeway. We tried to take the exit that should have taken us right to it but it was only open during the week and with the holiday was closed. We ended up not getting to the theater soon enough for our intended showtime but we were already late so it worked out better that we got there late so we coould get there early if that makes sense. It was a really nice stadium seating theater and even had a bar inside but you couldn’t take it into the theater so not really an asset. My only complaint next to the inflated ticket prices ($7.75 for a matinee) was that they served Pepsi instead of Coke. I’ve never gone to a theater that’s served Pepsi, it’s un-American! I was glad I brought my water bottle, better water than Pepsi! It was pretty good – on the Netflix rating scale I give it a 3 of 5 stars. It was full of action but some of the scenarios seemed far fetched and not well executed as far as the ending was concerned especially. I’m actually this is the movie that broke our no-movie record. Now we probably won’t make it to the theater again until my movie, The Skeleton Key, comes out on August 12th. I’ll probably have to see it twice because the first time I’m gonna be looking for my feet, hands, and my backside so I’ll probably miss a lot ofthe story – good thing I read the script! Matt and Julie left after the movie and flew back to Louisville (as the trailer for ‘Elizabethtown’ pointed out it’s pronounce Louavull).

We were not tempted in the slightest to try and brave the crowds downtown to fight for a spot on the Mall to see the Nation’s firework festivities. Nor did we want to claw our ways back out of the city and onto the Metro with cars that Casey compares to Indian buses with legs being shut in doors. I guess they created some alternative routes or something to try and move people efficiently and speedily out of the city but with so many people it still would have been such a waste for 30 minutes of oohing and aahing that we do every year and could see on TV if we were that interested. We weren’t. We could hear the fireworks and see a glow over our building but there are so many trees and other tall buildings in our complex and we’re at the bottom of a hill that it was hard to see the shows that were going on around us. But we’re all adults here so nothing we haven’t seen before right? Besides I’m sure it would have freaked Stoli out anyway – what doesn’t? I’m proud to be an American but as I get older firework displays in large crowded areas don’t seem as appealing. I’m all for BBQ’ing and watching them being shot into the air from a safe distance across town.

So I did receive another call from Microsoft the other day. After the initial worry and anxiety involved with the first interview, this one was much more relaxed. Plus the questions seemed a lot easier, turns out the reason they were easier was because this was Microsoft PSS calling this time instead of MCS. ‘ Whats the difference?’ you might be asking, well allow me to tell you. So say you are having trouble with Windows XP and you can’t find your geeky friend (or I’m not answering my phone), you call the Microsoft Tek Support Hotline the jokers on the other end of the phone work for PSS. MCS on the other hand are the super geeks, Microsoft Consulting Services. These are the guys you go to when you want the best damn Microsoft system designed for you from the ground up. So the questions that this guy was asking me where more in line with general troubleshooting of group policies (RSOP), network connectivity (DNS,DHCP), design theory (DIT,Schema, blah blah blah). So anyway, after talking with some friends of mine I kind of came to the conclusion that who cares if I don’t get hired by Microsoft now. My friends that work for them didn’t get the jobs there until they were in their early 30s, I have at least 5 more years to become the engineer that I want to be before moving to Microsoft. No hurry at all.

I spoke with our Senior Project Manager yesterday about James coming onboard over here in DC, to work with our team. He seemed excited about getting someone with some real knowledge and experience. So hopefully things will get into motion soon and James and Lana can get their butts out here.

I recently picked World of Warcraft back up. I’m well in control this time around though, it really is a great game and it keeps getting better with each patch. And the time I took off allowed some of the other guys that play in our group to get caught up to me (Justin, Ben). So I’m excited to do some of the higher level contect as soon as I get some free time. I guess I will just keep logging in every 4 days and making the items with cooldowns, and log back out.

I spoke to Justin for about 30 or so minutes last night. He was kinda giving me the updates about what has been going down in Los Angeles since Kelly and I have been gone. Especially the skinny on what is going on at the Field Office out there. He says that he is easily filling the position that I have vacated and is taking on tons of tasks, he is already doing way more then I did while I was there. I can still skool him on SAN knowledge though, although he can spell better then I can. heh.

Work is still going strong, I don’t think I will hit 46 hours of OT on the next check, but I’m still getting a TON of overtime. Good thing too cause we still need gobs of cash to pay some points on the mortgage when the time comes. Its a good thing points are tax deductible at the end of the year, since we are buying the house so late, we should see a pantload of money back when we file our taxes next year…. hello plasma TV.

I have been looking at the new Samsung i730 as my next phone of choice. Kelly and I have been considering dropping T-Mobile like a bad habit and going with Verizon, since they are the 800 pound gorilla on the east coast. But anyway, the i730 has some great features, including EV-DO, WiFi and Bluetooth, what is not to love about all that wireless goodness. A little pricey, but maybe I can convince my company to buy one for me. If you are interested in it check it out here.

Ok enough slacking back to work you lazy bums.

So it has been a long time since I have posted here, Kelly has been picking up most of the slack for me though and providing regular updates. I figured I would chime in on this humid Friday morning and let everyone know what has been going on in my world.

As some of you may know I have been working 16 hour days for about 4-5 weeks now. We are in the final stages of implementation on the current contract I am on, and it requires a ton of hours to make sure it is done properly. We are rolling out only about 600 or so Dell workstations and laptops, but they is also a lot of back-end administration that has to be done nightly along with deploying the computers. I have developed a lot of scripts that do the work for me, but there is still a lot of time involvled. The good thing about working all of these hours is the overtime, I recieved my pay stub in the mail yesterday and had 46 hours of OT on this paycheck, on top of my regular pay…. that extra cash is really going to come in handy when we prepare to close on our house.

Speaking of our house (link), yesterday Kelly and I drove to Stafford to walk through the place with the home inspector. He poked around for almost two hours pointing out the things that may need to be fixed or replaced soon. He pointed out th at our place was one of the most well maintained units on the block, only a few minor fixes, most of which I can probably do. So we did not modify our contract at all, so the seller is off the hook for any repairs. So now its all about saving up some cash and finishing paperwork and then by the end of August Kelly, Stoli and I will be in our new pad.

A couple of you may know that I was recently trying to get a job with Microsoft. A friend of mine works for them and dropped my resume on his boss’s desk, this is the same friend that recommeded me for the position in Los Angeles. So I recieved a few calls from various people asking me questions, primarily about Active Directory and a few other key Windows 2000/2003 technologies. On one of the interviews I had the interviewer mentioned that due to the fact that I have very little actual Design experience that it may be a hinderance to me getting a position. I was expecting a phone call yesterday to be asked to the face to face interviews that we suppposed to be held today at the Microsoft campus in Bethesda, but alas I recieved nothing, not even a nasty email telling me to never contact them again. Oh well. It would have been great to work for Microsoft, but maybe I will give it another try when I have another year or two under my belt, not to mention my MCSE. So now I’m focusing on the my future with my current company and trying to ensure that on the next contract I get assigned to, I surround my self with brilliant and equally capable people.

OK the phone calls are already starting this morning, better wrap this up and get to work.

James and Lana are officially engaged and Lana is now sporting an awesome rock to prove it (or so I’ve heard well and seen in pictures)!!! I can’t wait to celebrate with you when you get out here!

The paperwork is finalized and we are the owners of a townhouse (pending the closing process). Casey saw it for the first time today and approves of our new end unit townhome of 2200 square feet. We won’t be able to move in until the middle to end of August but the seller will be renting it from us so it won’t be too much of a concession for us. The inspection is supposed to be on for next Saturday so pending that too, we should be in good shape. Check out the gallery for some pics.

Sadly, of the two movies we’ve watched today – Cellular and Be Cool, Cellular was the clear winner. Although it was a blatant ripoff of Phone Booth (same writer, similar premise) it kept our interest more than Be Cool (what a pile of crap). What is wrong with the movie industry these days? We didn’t end up seeing Batman Begins this weekend but may be able to catch it next weekend before the Dave Matthews concert. Here’s hoping for dry, semi-mild temps for that. We’ll probably be in need of some tailgating beforehand to avoid the overpriced beverages inside, although the nachos always do me in. Enough news for now…

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there – those that are related to us and those that are otherwise fathers – enjoy your day!

My extreme craftiness has finally paid off. i have completed a 12×12 scrapbook of about 40 pages in exactly a week. I’m at a loss for what to do next. i just need more stickers. i have to get the few digital pictures that i do have from our dating time printed and those “real” prints scanned so I can use them again if need be before really beginning. The next album I’m gonna start is our dating album – I have a majority of pictures and the album and i picked up a paper pack I like so once I get started I’m hoping it won’t take another 4 years like the first one.

Tried a new wing place on Thursday night – I was craving them and couldn’t wait. We tried out Buffalo Wing University which is only 2.5 miles away and pretty good – somewhere between Hooters and Buffalo Wing Factory. We felt naughty and like we were cheating while we were there for partaking in the enemy’s wings. The place is a lot more college friendly (as the name suggests and) and there is a lac of children dining there.

We just got back from the Buffalo Wing Factory where we stuffed ourselves with wings and beer. Argh – most fulfilling! Now we’re back at home catching up on some movie watching again. We’re finishing up The Aviator right now and I watched Bounce yesterday which, as bad as I expected it to be had a good concept just flimsy execution. For now we’re making a dent. I’ll update again soon with news…

I did some more scrapbooking yesterday and am now in desperate need of some filler pages. I put off all of my errands today and will be forced to do those tomorrow. Since Casey’s going to be working for several more hours tonight I still have some time to get some done if I can conjure up some creative juices.

i’ve watched quite a few movies that I borrowed from Rachel lately including: White Noise (sucked), The Forgotten (idea was there but not properly developed so don’t bother), Hero (I didn’t like, maybe I compared it to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Drago or other Jet Li movies which I like but Casey might have a different opinion), A Door in the Floor (completely pointless and unbearable, I gave it an hour and that was painful enough), Under the Tuscan Sun (borrowed or wouldn’t have watched, not as bad as I would have expected, solidly average but definitley a chick flick), Emma (watching now and it’s not looking good), Crazy/Beautiful (crap), and something else, apparently not memorable.

Since I plan on graduating in the spring of 2006, I have to fill out some forms stating my intent to graduate. This is a seemingly stress free start to the fall semester considering prior ones, especially since I’ve registered early and have gotten my financial aid in order.

We’re still looking at houses and put in another bid on Saturday. The contracts were supposed to be presented to the seller at 5pm today and so far we haven’t heard anything yet. i’ll post more details as we find out but I’m trying not to put too much thought or energy into thinking about something that is not certain.