So...does anyone know what these mosquito-sized bugs are that are EVERYWHERE this year? I swore that they were going to carry me off when I was grilling last week.

I am up early for some hockey. I am not sure what my brain is up to. It is tired and not sleeping much, but it wants to be up. I hope I get through hockey well. I ran pretty hard on Sunday and hurt my knee. About three hours after running it started hurting in a bad way when going up and down stairs. It is almost better now, so I will give it a try on rink ice.

I got the screen on my CLIE PDA serviced about 3 weeks ago. It had a burned-out pixel and it was a floor model so I was not surprised by this. No problem, it was under warranty. Yesterday the screen cracked...right in half....while in my pocket at work (with no impact or instigation...it was a boring day at work...it certainly didn't fall and I don't remember even using it). I hope they have no problem replacing it because going back and forth about stuff like this stinks. I hate being without my Palm.

Nate Miller in his typical sweet-guy style gifted Anne this sweet basket a while ago. All he asked was a picture of pregnant Anne riding her bike with vegetables in the basket. Here you go, Nate.

Work is even good. I am getting a number of small requests that I can take it, and throw back within a half day. That is a good sense of accomplishment. That, and I have taught myself how to get much much better at clustering (the statistical art of creating optimally different statistical groups for the purpose of finding groups within groups).

The house is decent. The inspection turned out to be pretty good. We have to have the attic inspected (the previous owners had redone the ceiling and actually removed the attic access--they are putting in a new one for us now). The hot water heater is a little bit of an issue...it is old and I really want to just replace it with a new and efficient one. It is leaking CO and has an iffy exhaust anyway, so it would be best to just get it all done in one shot with a new installation. The radon test came back high! It is the owner's duty to fix it, so we will not have anything to worry about with that, though it certainly would have been nice to not have an issue with that at all. Apparently, a LOT of Perrysburg has radon. Oh well, you fix it and forget it. At least the house is decent all-around. There are a number of things to fix, but I hope the owner sees that we are not being picky and that she gives us a break on the few things we have asked for. Oh well, in another month we will be in there. We are very much looking forward to starting that neat time of our lives. Anne is happy. The fetus keeps kicking Anne's ribs with joy. By the way, we really need to get serious about that girl's name. Keep some girl names in the back of your head. I may want to solicit you, my dear friends, for some input on a name. Don't go nuts yet, I will make a post that states the rules of names. Yes, there are rules. Just wait.

This is a picture of the "dance studio" at the new house. I am going to the house today to hear what the inspector has to say and to make some measurements. Sorry for not being around much. I have been so stupidly busy since the accepted offer on the house that I haven't had time to post. It did not help that Anne was at a conference last week either! Now we are housesitting for a family we have housesat for before (just here in Perrysburg). I actually am taking my first day off today because I cannot stand going and going any more. The inspection makes a convenient excuse too.

The mortgage process was not fun, but through shopping around I saved a quarter from what I would have gotten otherwise. Lendingtree.com worked for me...well, it worked enough for me to get 5 "good faith" estimates so I could tell the local bank that I wanted to go through "beat this deal or I will go elsewhere." They did. I was almost going to go to etrade...they seemed pretty with it. All is done with that now. Now I have to boogie over to the house. Oh yeah, my parents got new carpet (not because it was old, but because it had a bad fit from the kitchen floor which is new), so I took the really great looking gently-used (or unused, in places) carpet for the dance room that is pictured above. I think it will be a great music lesson/practice/recording studio---but you don't want to do that with such a sound-reflective floor. I think. We shall see.

Life is changing.

Sold!

901 Oak Knoll Dr. Perrysburg, OH

Our offer was accepted. We now have to do some contract-initialing, bank stuff, and inspection-type stuff. I went through the yard with a friend who is a Metropark naturalist, and DANG, that guy knows his stuff. That tree in the middle of the picture has to be taken down (it is an ash which will definitely get emerald ash borers). Besides that, the outside is relatively good (one other tree has some issues). The house is strikingly similar to Anne's parents' old house that is about 3 blocks away. If you have been in that old house, you understand our new house. Trees and inspection stuff may require some wiggling and squirming within the confines of the contract, but what a relief it is to have the 8 month house search over. All-in-all, Anne and I are happy with the deal. I know the fetus will be too. Unfortunately, this whole process takes time, and I don't have much of that right now. Time to use a vacation day or two. I will be at Sal's movie night tonight--I hope to see some of you there.

More pictures of 901 Oak Knoll.

Apple-picking from last week.

We offered on a house, but it was rejected. More on this later. I am getting serious about the numbers (well, we have been for a while...but it is coming down to the wire). An amazing thing is happening. Interest rates go up and people still think their houses are worth what they were when rates were 4.25%! When those rates go up, prices go down. They almost HAVE to. Perrysburg sellers don't seem to be able to accept that much. They wait until they have to sell at a loss because they are covering the expenses from waiting. No one wins! They are content to let the houses sit vacant. I hope we have a winner here, but that all depends on price...don't most complex purchases do that?

Anne is at the National Youth Workers conference now and will be back in a few days. I wish I could be with her a lot.

Work has been interesting. I worked really late two days but we had a "mini-golf" day today, so no one did work. The idea is that each department makes a mini-golf hole and then prizes are given for creativity and such. My team spent a good 2 hours yesterday and another hour or two today making ours...it was a Rube Goldberg-like hole that involved a K-NEX rollercoaster. You cannot argue with getting to do K-NEX at work. Other teams put in massive hours and effort, but they had incredible holes. One team had a Hummer replica. Another had a pneumatic cannon that was used for a pirate theme. You shot your ball at a ship instead of putting. It was a fun idea, but I hate to think of the loss of productivity we had. Good thing I don't get paid to care about that stuff. On that note, my work has been going pretty well! It is a good feeling to make a client happy with your work.

Man, this house thing is really getting me unsettled...Anne too, of course. I have been in a really weird mood since putting an offer in...sort of spacey.

Things are pretty darn happy with me now. I have been quite content lately. It is gorgeously fall, I have been working well and have not wanted to jump out a window at work. Strangely, I am feeling more appreciated in terms of the work I am doing being considered valuable and being used. That is a nice feeling.

Youth stuff is cool. I am getting to know a few of the youth pretty well and that is a very nice feeling.

We are still house hunting. There are a lot of houses out there and we still don't know what to do. Budgets are confusing, location vs build quality vs space vs economics vs resell vs homeyness vs just making your mind go nuts because it has cool nooks and a huge garage.

We went to a cool "world mission comference" on Saturday. I actually won a basket of free-trade stuff as a door prize. That was pretty cool because Anne had ordered stuff from most of those donor companies at one time or another and this time it was free. Anyway, we did world music stuff with Eric Dickey (Zoar's sweet music director), Roger Schupp (BGSU percussion prof), Will Kinsey (jazz drummer at Zoar) a good bassist and B3 organist, Anne and me. We sat around and talked about world music and how we can incorporate musics from other cultures into our congregations. Quite fun. After that, Anne and I went with some youth to go apple picking. Then we hit Saranga's and watched Casablanca. It was really good. I remember it being good, but it was even better than memory served. For Saranga congratulations purposes, Sal won (again) the BGSU ACM programming competition. Give him some applause next time you see him. Then applaud his hair, which is now officially sweet.

So bizarre. This reminds me of a cd I got out of the Finders bargain bin...it was a Japanese guy singing Rolling Stones songs to bad (mainly electrical) background music.

STuff is good here. I was in Detroit yesterday. It rocks that they are using my work in very concrete and important ways. It makes me feel like I am valuable at work because that my work matters. All of a sudden, work seems good.

Ok, now it is time to find that CD.

Dang, I love this season... I have played hockey twice in this past week. Before one of them, I went to the orchard in BG that I love so very much. All sorts of apples are out. There were even some really really good pears. I have eaten more fruit than is reasonable, but that is what this season is good for.

We are picking up the pace with house shopping. I went to a house auction yesterday and was amazed to see a nice house go for about 40k less than what it was worth. I would have bid, but I was not prepared in the slightest for it (not having seen the house before that day). It was exactly what I hoped it would be...a learning experience. Now I have to jump out of auction cheapy-house mindset and find a house for real. Of course, the market around here is awesome for buyers--lots of houses are for sale and we are practically the only ones looking because there have been very few sales of things we have looked at. Things are more likely to get pulled from the market for not selling than to be sold from the market.

All else is cool. Anne (i.e. the fetus in Anne) is showing more every day. I am looking forward to wrapping up a few projects at work and transitioning into being an expert on a single dataset. I am getting more serious with the Detroit client, and I hope that continues to go well. The dissertation is looking decent. I have been working at coffeeshops lately (work gave me a laptop so I can be mobile enough to go to Detroit). I think today will be a great coffeeshop day after finishing doing the brakes on the Corolla...and after gorging myself on apples. Mmmm.