We have an easy job of moving this time with a garage-to-garage load/unload. It actually looks like we will be somewhere between ok and an abundance of people when it comes to having enough help to move. Don't think of not coming for this reason, or it will change to there being not enough. See how that works? This should be a great time if all goes as planned...we will have plenty of time for hanging out after moving and before the baby shower group hits. Also, I should note that we will put up some directions to the new house on our apartment door, in case people come to the apartment and discover that no one is there. I can guarantee that we will be at one dwelling or the other!

Well, things could be going a little better than they have been. I think that almost every person involved with this closing has dropped the ball and made me remind me to have them pick it up. Financing, insurance, title agency, selling agency...everything has needed a number of calls. I cannot imagine doing this without a good buying realtor who cares about your situation.

We went through the house last night and discovered that the selling agent failed to list a number of things that make the house desirable...like the 15k in basement work that was done to install new piping under the basement floor/backflushing the system. We had no idea until the sellers told us directly. The sellers are very nice and amiable people. I have a feeling that it is the selling realtor who is giving us BOTH such a hard time (getting contractually-specified remediation done has been a big hassle because the agent kept making bad choices about contractors and has been making us hussle around to hear about it/see that it was done correctly.

Oh well, it will all be over very soon. 2pm, actually. Well, 2 for us and 3 for the sellers. We get the house friday at noon when their movers have emptied the house of all non-appliances.

We are really excited!

Brady beat Sal and me in Wizard. It is a card game...like Euchre sort of, but much more thought-provoking. Last night, Casey, Sal, Randy and I were at Brady's and had a good time chatting, beating up the Big Fish, Lil' Fish (note the spelling) deck and playing Betrayal at House on the Hill (this is a fun game).

Plans are finalized! The rental place does noon to noon rentals only, so I have the truck Friday at noon to saturday at noon. This forces me to do Friday off of work and I will spend most of the day moving stuff on my own (though if you can POSSIBLY help...even after work, I would REALLY REALLY appreciate it). I have the super-heavy-duty appliance dolly with the stair-roller-thingys so we can do the washer, dryer, and anything else that may look heavy. I suppose it would be most responsible to say that we are meeting at the apartment at 8:30 on Saturday and we will move until 11:45 with the truck. That should give us plenty of time to get the stuff we need the truck for. Most of the little stuff can be gotten either way. Then we do the move stuff around the house thing and then Anne and the baby shower crew come to our house and we have a big party with movers and baby-ers.

Baby name guidelines:
1. Unambiguously female
2. Unambiguously spelled (if you cannot guess it on the first try, it is no good)
3. Cannot have "Anne" in it, because we don't want to play the "Big Anne, Lil' Anne" game.
4. Must not be on the list of most popular 100 names. We don't want her to have a name that everyone else has.
5. Must be transferrable into other languages with a minimum of problems. This is a loose requirement and I am not even sure of exactly what it means, other than I don't want our daughter to have a name (like mine) that is ineffable in Africa (well...Ghana, at least) and Spanish-speaking countries.
Those are the guidelines...now get those comments out there with baby names! Feel very free to post whatever names you want to, these are just fuzzy guidelines. The more names the better!

Fun at Randy's...this is the middle of an intense game of Big Fish, Little Fish. Later on, we played Settlers of Catan. I like both of these games.

I think we got really old all of a sudden. Anne and I hit the Black Friday sales...but we almost entirely got junk for the house: a ladder, a shop vac, etc. I got a single toy: a bluetooth headset, and that only because it was super-cheap (though I have used it for a while today and I like it a lot).

I hear that we should expect to have another get-together tonight (perhaps with Casey).

Also, if you are interested in helping move us next Saturday, let me know. I am definitely up for knowing who is coming and I cannot wait for that day! It will be a really nice reunion and celebration time. Don't worry, we are packing like CRAZY now, so we will have the boxes filled and ready to move onto the truck. I also hope to have a few of the big things out of the way by taking Friday off to move some stuff. Anyway, let us know...and thanks!

Good weekend and stuff

Anne and I were at Camp Mowana near Mansfield this weekend. It is a Lutheran camp that operates year-round. They had a senior high retreat thingy that we went to with the youth group. It was a good (very laid back) time and the youth were really really cool. It was also nice to just get into nature and out of the office/home environment for a little while.

One bad thing that happened is that my left knee was hurting pretty bad this weekend. It is the sort of pain that feels like if someone were to pull to separate a joint (like pulling on your forearm to separate your elbow) and it only hurts a lot when I am walking on it. There is no popping, swelling, or tingling. I had made no big deal of it on two previous occasions, but this time it hurt too much to even walk lightly on. The other two times it hurt it was directly related to running (once after a hard run, once two weeks after that at the beginning of the run (which was very short due to the knee pain). This time it was due entirely to light walking--but probably only 2 or so miles of it over several episodes! Anyway, I think I will have to get it looked at.

MOVING UPDATE: Things are going smoothly, but they take time and our "close before" date is not until December 3rd (which is a Saturday--which means, effectively, the 2nd because you cannot close on a Saturday). This would give us December 3rd as a logical day to do the bulk of the moving. Anne's baby shower is that same day, so it will be only guys (or perhaps girls who don't want to see baby shower stuff, though I doubt there will be any/many takers on that, but feel free). Anyway, please plan on the 3rd. I will get the 15ish foot UHaul and I would like to start moving maybe 9ish in the morning. Because we are moving 5-ish blocks, we will be able to take many small trips that don't need to be SUPER well packed. Our apartment is only a first floor and the house is 3 floors. The baby party will be done around 2 or so, so I have the dream of Anne seeing the new house with the stuff moved in. Then we can move the baby stuff in from the shower. That house won't know what hit it.
Anyway, let me know if you can help. I know it is a hard time of year to do for some of you, so it is cool if you cannot make it. I have a few good heavy-lifting youth lined up, but the more the merrier (and trying to do this with only 3-5 people would be really painful). Besides, I really want to see you all and to celebrate this neat time and to have you see the house and stuff. We am really excited about the house and baby stuff. It is hard to wait... 

See...she gets even cuter.

I just discovered Medeski, Martin, and Wood. Man, this is some really good music. I think it is because I have been in this John Scofield thing for quite a while now and I had no idea that MMW did the band stuff that for one of my favorite Scofield albums. Dang, this is good "groove" stuff.

Anne says I should write about something else. Ok, I got 3 HPW-630ETR WinCE devices (mini-PC tablet things, or HUGE PDAs, depending on which way you look at them) and I am not sure what to do with them. WindowsCE 2.12 is not exactly the hot platform to have sweet applications for. I have this dream of them interfacing with my wireless network and becoming home MP3 players for each level of the house. Oh well, I got all 3 (with accessories) for $17 from a work "obsolete equipment" sale, so no big loss if they turn into a WinCE teething device for the baby.

Anne is officially at the "so pregnant she is cuter for it" stage. The baby is rolling and pushing around noticably now.

There has not been a whole lot going on that is exciting. Time has been really tight. Work is getting more busy--it is now almost too busy. We saw the HS play this weekend. It was surprisingly decent. It was kind of funny how at one point in the play there were 6 people on stage and 5 of them go to Zoar. There are even more youth who are doing stage crew or other involvements. I have been chugging away at the dissertation, though last night was a fun break over at Johari's parents place for hanging around and watching "Millions." Beyond these little life things, we keep thinking about the baby, house, and what life will look like in 2 or 3 months. It hardly seems real yet.