a brown-eyed handsome man

proud papa

2008-12-01T13:28:08Z

Olivia used the word "undead" for the first time yesterday (albeit, it was to describe medical resusitation, not actual living dead). Andrea and I were so amused.

Low on spoons

2008-10-12T01:11:47Z

Dealing with a head cold right now. Can't breath and there's constant pressure in my head. Unfortunately, couldn't go to the Twin Cities Book Fair with Andrea and Liv this afternoon. Liv came back with a cute button that she got at a booth for some crime writers group that says "accomplice".

Andrea's out to get juice and decongestant while Liv and I watch a Winnie the Pooh video and dinner cooks. Andrea's such a dear--I mentioned that I was in the mood for lasagna the other day and she's gone through the lengthy process of making lasagna this evening.

I need to get better before Monday, as this week was already going to be a killer. Two days auditing a potential supplier in Minneapolis, followed by two days in Indianapolis doing the same thing.

If anyone hasn't heard, I will be in North Carolina for about 4 days the week after. The Alphas are having a potluck for me on the evening of the 22nd.

Word of advise, if you have any investments, 401K, etc., just don't look at them right now. I went in to check on mine yesterday to see if a rollover had taken place and was dismayed to find out how bad things had gotten just in the last couple weeks.

Lyrics Quiz

2008-10-07T04:21:01Z

Stolen from lootsfoz, haven't done this in a while, want to see if my music still confounds people.

Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.
Step 2: Post the first line of lyrics for the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly.

1. "Pump up the peculiar, while I yell unique."

2. "Lying on the cotton sheets, you wish they were silk.

3. "There is a city by the sea, a gentle company."

4. "What gives, what helps. The Intuition" (ok, that's a giveaway.)

5. "Sunday morning, slow beats seething, through the screens in the open windows."

6. "Your brother was a friend of mine, nobody but a live wire."

7. "Here's another speech you wish I'd swallow"

8. "He never left a trace. They only found a note."

9. "I don't understand about complementary colors"

10. "Oh look I've found it, Oh I've really found it, How could such a thing be happening to me? "

11. "Look up, look up, look up now. It's a long way down."

12. "I can prove anything. I'll make you admit again and again."

13. "The ribbon round your neck against your skin that's pale as bone"

14. "Well I met her in a bar, the men with big guitars were playin"

15. "Keep close to me now, I'll be your guide."

16. "go to sleep, my dead end angel, say good-night dear precious one."

17. "And under the boughs unbowed, all clothed in the snowy shroud"

18. "Like a ghost writer's ending, she will send you down."

19. "he's a company man, your right hand, 13 years and counting. "

20. "Do you think shes swimming in your lies? Do you think its all just murky green? "

Crud

2008-07-01T13:42:42Z

Actor Don S. Davis (Twin Peaks, StarGate) died over the weekend.

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=2&id=57051

the_z_continuum @ 2008-06-25T23:26:00

2008-06-26T05:07:18Z

I keep thinking about things to blog, but I never seem to get around to it.

Actually, that seems to be a lot of my life lately. Things went to heck at work back around mid-January, got worse in March, and I then proceeded to spend a significant portion of April and May on the road--I saw 9 different suppliers in 7 different states during those months and conducted audits at 7 of them. And add a knee injury back in April that doesn't want to get 100% better. And I really have not caught up from all of that yet. I'm working 50+ hour weeks; not seeing enough of Liv or Andrea; not giving Psi matters their due attention. I need a vacation, but we can't afford much right now--I'll probably take the better part of a week off when we go out to WI to visit family in August.

I feel disconnected. I haven't been reading LJ regularly for months, though I'm trying to catch up. I don't seem to just chat with anybody on IM like I used to. I keep hearing about weddings that I knew were coming but in the past tense (btw, were are the detailed wedding recaps, people?). My responsibilities at work are being split up differently, so I'm losing about 2/3rds of the supplier relationships that I've been working to cultivate this past year.

So I should balance this out with some good things in my life right now:
-The Rochester house is a done deal; we closed May 30th.
-Work shows signs of getting better from a workload standpoint. I expect to have a much better outlook on that all in about a month or so.
-I really like how my current D&D campaign is going from a "quality of play" standpoint. Unfortunately, that's balanced by a very low quantity of play--only 4-5 hours once a month with Andrea, Cindy and Neal; took us better part of three months just to get through a sidetrek.
-As of last Sunday, Andrea and I have been married 12 years. We dropped Liv off with my co-worker Kim and her boys and went to the Melting Pot. Overpriced, but fun, though frankly I think I'd just be happy doing 3-4 rounds of the cheese fondue.
-As I said, I'm taking some time off in August.
-Have actually gotten out to see a couple of the summer movies so far.
-Andrea suprised me with tickets to see Bitter:Sweet at the Varsity in August as an anniversary present. After spending much time the last couple months depressed about not being able to go out and see any shows (mostly due to $$); it'll be nice to get out and see something before the summer passes us by.

More meme karma

2008-06-26T02:53:00Z

1. Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done.
2. See if anybody else responds with "I've done that."
3. Have your friends cut and paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their lives.

1. Saw the movie Independence Day on the 4th of July the weekend it opened in Roswell, NM.
2. Visited the grave of H.P. Lovecraft.
3. See the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.

Added three new states this year; suppose I should start working on the middle of the country.

2008-06-19T05:52:20Z

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Meme karma

2008-06-19T05:31:51Z

Responded to lootsfoz's, so I'm posting here for your meme pleasure.

1. Name:
2. Birthday:
3. Place of residence:
4. What makes you happy:
5. What are you listening to now/have listened to last:
6. Do you read my lj:
7. If you do, what is particularly good/bad about it:
8. An interesting fact about you:
9. Are you in love/have a crush at the moment:
10. Favourite place to be:
11. Favourite lyric:
12. Best time of the year:
13. Weirdest food you like:
14. Do farts make you laugh:

Recommend

1. A film:
2. A book:
3. A band, a song and an album:

Me

1. One thing you like about me:
2. Two things you like about yourself:
3. Put this in your lj so I can tell you what I think of you.

the_z_continuum @ 2008-05-13T22:24:00

2008-05-14T03:26:24Z

Quick update. Inspection went well; we are definitely selling the Rochester house.

Matt's Quote of the Month: March

2008-03-04T15:18:56Z

"When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."
-Buckminster Fuller

the_z_continuum @ 2008-02-28T19:31:00

2008-02-29T01:40:03Z

My sister had her baby yesterday, Ava Florence Klinger, born around 1 PM, 7 lbs 12 oz, 20 inches. Birth went wonderfully from what I've heard. My parents are now grandparent twice over. Big congrats to my sister Kaye and her husband Brian.

Also some big congrats to ladyleo on scoring an excellent new job.

Movie Quote Meme

2008-02-19T05:20:21Z

Stolen from lockholm

1. Pick 15 of your favourite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed.
5. NO GOOGLING / using IMDb search functions. Totally cheating, you dirty cheaters.

Here goes. Skipped the obvious Star Wars or Indiana Jones references.

1. "I'm lookin' at a tin star with a... drunk pinned on it. "

2. "There is nothing so dangerous as a virtuous man."

3. "A just question, my liege. Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear. 'Lathspell' I name him. Ill news is an ill guest."
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towersconjurdude

4."Major, you will order the men to strip. "

5."Think her family's gonna be okay that you're a white guy?"
"They think any woman over 30 who isn't married is a lesbian. She figures, they'll be so relieved that I'm a man..."
"Yeah, it's always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice. "

6."My master says make him betray her. If not, then kill him. Yes, he is my master. These talons were a heartbeat away from your throat. I could've killed you in an instant... but in the hour that I knew you, I loved you. "

7."This is a hobo suit, darling. You can't be seen in this. I won't allow it. Fifteen years ago, maybe, but now? Feh! "
"Wait, what do you mean? *You* designed it."
"I never look back, darling! It distracts from the now. "
The Incrediblesconjurdude (honorable mention to msmasucc)

8. " I think the human race needs to think about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good."

9. "Of course, if you think of the payments as an annuity over the years, the cost is really quite minimal. "

10. "Hey, what are you doing? You can't buy bullets with foodstamps grandpa."

11. "We may be witnessing a Biblical prophecy come true - 'And there shall be destruction and darkness come upon creation and the beasts will reign over the earth.'"

12. "Cricket? Nobody understands cricket! You gotta know what a crumpet is to know cricket! "

13. "Mom? Mom! Are vampires real?"
"Yes, Yegor. They are little boys who have been known to suck all the life out of their parents."

14."I am the God of bingo!"

15."Selfish bitches, always have been."

Matt's Quote of the Month: February

2008-02-03T19:13:18Z

"If you were going to hide a body, where would you bury it?"
"In a cemetery."
-Howard and Munch, "Homicide:Life on the Street"

Matt's Quote of the Month: January

2008-01-02T16:34:54Z

"And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy any more. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused just about anything if you're a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions."
-Susan, "Hogfather"

the_z_continuum @ 2007-12-27T13:17:00

2007-12-27T19:25:06Z

Didn't get a ton of music for Christmas, but the stuff that Andrea and I did get is very good, and I already have a very nice skeleton of material for my usual Spring mix. (And yes, I know that I still owe some of my regulars the Fall mix from this year.)

Incidentally, Red, a number of items from your 2007 mix will either be on this next one or were featured on previous mixes.

Also, while I'm on the topic, trying to figure out a song for another mix that represents a group of people hanging around and being bored. Something along the lines of the song "Wallflowers" off the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, but I don't want to use that song. Any suggestions?

Good news, everyone ....

2007-12-15T13:10:08Z

Andrea and I rented and watched Bender's Big Score last night, the direct-to-dvd Futurama dvd that came out a couple weeks ago. Highly recommend it to anyone, particularly Futurama fans as the thing is chalked full of incidental references to prior episodes. Particularly funny to me was Al Gore's numerous appearances as himself. jessamine6 might be interested to know that (due to the heavy time travel element in the story) we get to see more of Fry's dog in the past. It's got a ton of extras, too, including a full-length episode of a sitcom called Everbody Loves Hypnotoad.

Matt's Quote of the Month: December

2007-12-10T18:51:01Z

"We're drawing up a plan for world domination. The key element? Coffeemakers that think."
-Riley, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

stolen from conjurdude

2007-12-10T01:12:33Z

Go to the Wikipedia home page and click random article. That is your band’s name.
Click random article again; that is your album name.
Click random article 15 more times; those are the tracks on your album.

Band Name:
Spread Your Wings
Album Name:
Claudiopolis
tracks:
1. South Bay Surfer (obviously a cover, since it's a Beach Boys song)
2. USS L. Y. Spear (AS-36)
3. Via Mizner
4. Massachusetts's 4th congressional district
5. Gateway Center (Pittsburgh)
6. Deir
7. Huguccio
8. Microsoft Query by Example
9. Lesser tubercle
10. Claridge Casino at Bally's
11. Subbaraya Sastri
12. Battle of Damour
13. Edward Hill Brewer House
14. General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge
15. Middleton One Row

Sweden and Finland Pics

2007-12-09T17:57:03Z

"My dad went to Europe and all I got was this expensive sweater!"

Rest of my Sweden and Finland pics are here:
http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b296/mbzander/Sweden%20and%20Aland/?start=all&paginator=top
Unfortunately, I didn't bring my good camera with, so the quality on these is pretty mixed as I used either my cellphone camera or a cheap disposal one that I bought at the airport. Please excuse the occassional finger in frame.

Sweden and Aland Travelogue

2007-12-02T02:35:09Z

Wrote to following yesterday:

So I'm waiting in the Stockholm airport for my flights back to the us and I figure I ought to jot down the travelogue that I'd meant to have been writing this whole time. Of course, there's no internet here, so I'll have to post this later.

Left the Twin Cities last Saturday night after spending the day out with Andrea and Liv.The flight out of MSP ran late because of some technical problems with the plane. Was glad I was travelling business class, for the extra room amd the meals if nothing else, but even with the extra room I still didn't sleep well on the overnight flights. Had a nice chat with the
woman next to me though--she was an Icelander who had come down to the Twin Cities with her fiance to do their Christmas shopping. Apparently, it's pretty expense to shop in Iceland; I was very amused at her description of finding big bargains at Wal-Mart on Thanksgiving Day; imagine coming all the way from Iceland to Minnesota to go shopping at Wal-Mart.

Can't say much about the Reykjavik airport; since the flight from MSP was running behind, I basically had to rush through it. After eight years of owning one (and three international trips to Canada), I finally got my passport stamped in Iceland. :)

Arrived midday Sunday (local time) at Arlanda Airport, low on sleep but otherwise ok. Caught the train to Uppsala okay and met up with Julia and Daniel. They took me on a short tour of the sights in Uppsala: the downtown area, the ugly concert hall that they kept calling the Borg Cube, the Cathedral where the past kings of Sweden are buried, some of the main University buildings and the castle. It was a dreary, foggy, rainy day.

They then took me back to their apartment and they treated me to a swedish dinner (potatoes, several varieties of pickled herring, beets, crackers) and then we hung out for the rest of the evening before knocking off.

Took the train down to Stockholm on Monday morning and checked into the hotel. Set off across Gamla Stan (the island in the center of the city where the Old Town is) to catch the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace (which was cold, even with the sun out). The numerous national museums at the palace are sadly closed on Mondays, so I set off to take the self-directed walking tour of the Old Town out of the Rick Steaves guide. Took a wrong turn or two and didn't see everything in the order that Rick suggested, but otherall did do the entire tour and it was good. I particularly enjoyed finding the little Iron Boy statue, which was something I wouldn't have found on my own.

After that, grabbed lunch a great hole in the wall restaurant on Gamla Stan and then set out across the main shopping areas in downtown Stockholm. After walking the stores for an hour or so, I set off for the Vasa Museum which is supposed to be a mustsee if you're in Stockholm. Basically, the Vasa is a huge 17th century warship that sunk in the harbor on it's maiden voyage and then 330-some years later they raised it, towed it to shore and built
a museum around it. Worth the trip, though sadly none of my pictures of it turned out. The atmosphere in the museum is controlled to keep the ship from deteriorating and because of either the ship itself or the methods they used to preserve it, the museum has sort of an odd smell. But as I said, still worth the trip.

Taxied back from the Vasa (as the walk out to it wore me out) and did a little shopping before heading back to the hotel for dinner and unwinding. Sadly it was at this point, after I'd done most of my shopping for this trip, that I decided to sit down and doublecheck the exchange rates. My jaw hit the floor when I realized how much I'd spent (nay, overspent) getting a few items for Andrea, Liv and myself. Now, I know some of it was the exchange rates and that I was spending a lot of time in touristy areas, hotels and airports, but even then, it doesn't account for how expensive stuff generally is out here.

The Hilton Slussen, where I stayed in Stockholm, was very nice (and expensive)--probably one of the more elegant hotels that I've stayed at and it had a very nice view of the Old Town. The room itself, though, was tiny, just enough room for a bed, desk, minibar and bathroom. Prides itself on being very environmentally conscious; the key card for my room was made out of birch wood instead of plastic.

Got up early tuesday to get to the airport and take a short flight out to the main island of Aland. For reference to any Techies, Mariehamn airport is pretty much the same exact size as the Houghton Airport. In fact, overall, Aland reminded me a lot of the Keweenaw--similar weather and foliage, relatively remote from civilization, dotted by tiny town/hamlets, dependant on tourism dollars to some degree--it's a bit flatter and therefore has a bit more agriculture. Met up with Kevin, the lead auditor for the audit that we were going to be conducting, and we used the few remaining hours of sunlight to drive around the island a bit. We saw a castle and the remains of the fort that the Russians built here back when Aland was part of their empire. Walked around Mariehamn a bit in the late afternoon before catching dinner.

The hotel was not great--lousy shower, no in-room internet--but the staff was very friendly and the restaurant was great.

Not going to get into too much details about Wednesday or Thursday as mostly it was boring (to you the reader) work-related stuff.

Now it's Friday. Was up a bit too late last night and got up very early this morning to catch the single AM flight back from Aland. Got an extra hour or so of sleep here in the business class lounge--comfy chairs plus free munchies, fruit, drinks and alcohol. Going to be a long day as I deal with the jet lag. Hoping I can sleep in tomorrow.

Some random thoughts/observances:
-Europe is expensive: As I mentioned before, I found it very expensive out here, even when I got outside of the beaten path. Example, I went into a used CD store in Mariehamn and the base price for any CD was 20 Euros (~$26 American). I was amused to see the Violent Femmes for sale though. :) Also, trying to be smart, I figured that since I was going to EU countries, I'd just get Euros at the currency exchange, but Sweden still uses the Swedish Crown (Krona in swedish) as currency. Luckily, Stockholm is so touristy, that I could use my Euros when I had to and just suffer some odd looks from merchants and cab drivers.
-Harry Potter: The swedish translation of Deathly Hallows came out relatively recently, and I have to say that I like the covers on the Swedish-versions of the books (Not just Hallows) much more that I like the american covers. They have a sort of anime look to them.
-Language: I bought a Swedish phrasebook; I never used it. So many people speak english over here and speak it well, so I never felt particularly bad about speaking to them in English. Most signs are in both languages, as well. In contrast, I've been to rural Quebec twice when I worked for Big Blue, and had a completely different sort of experience--outside of the hotel and the plant, I ran into difficulties talking to French-speakers who had poor command of English, the signs were only in French, etc. It was funny, though, watching the people parse out the Irish accents of my audit team members (it was me and three Irish guys), though I had a pretty difficult time myself of understand Padraig's thick accent on occassion.
-American culture: Seems to be everywhere here in Sweden--on tv, in bookstores, on the radio. I swear, 90% of the music I heard on the radio or in public spaces was in English. Same thing with the television and the movie theaters where at least 2/3 of the stuff was american/english.
-Bathrooms: This is probably going to sound odd, but I really liked the prominent toilet design over here--it's sleeker, makes more efficient use of space, and often incorporates a water-saving half-flush feature. Also, more often than not, in the public restrooms, the stalls are seperate little rooms with brick-and-mortar walls and a real locking door, not the cheap metal partitions that you generally see in America.
-Bedding: Took me a bit to figure out the nordic-style bedding at both hotels I stayed at. In each case, there was a regular size bed spring with a thin mattress pad on top. Over that was a thick single-person blanket in a cover and pillows. No seperate bedsheets. At first I couldn't tell if the blanket was a blanket or some sort of additional mattress padding. Half the time I slept on top of the blanket with the blanket from the other half of the bed over me. The blankets, regardless of how I slept with them or what I wore to bed, were very warm, and I usually woke up in a sweat the next morning.
-Food: Cooked whitefish, very good; smoked salmon, roe and pickled herring, not so good.

Overall, had a good time, wish I'd slept better, miss my girls. Looks like we'll be boarding shortly. I'll post this with pics as soon as I can.

Update: PhotoBucket is being pissy tonight, so I'll get the pics up a little later.

the_z_continuum @ 2007-11-10T22:58:00

2007-11-11T05:32:20Z

So, the trip is definitely on. Two weeks from now I'll be on a series of Icelandair flights bound for Stockholm. Plan is to land on Sunday the 25th, spend the day up in Uppsala with Julia and Daniel. Spend the day in Stockholm on Monday; fly over to Aland on Tuesday; spend the next two days working at the supplier and then fly from Aland all the way back to Minnesota on the 30th. Glad that I'll be doing the tourist/social stuff first because we're auditing the supplier and audits can be a lot of work. It'd be nice to be on KLM, so that I could get the frequent flier miles for Northwest, but the Icelandair flights schedule out better and were ~$2000 less than the KLM flights, so it was pretty much a no-brainer.

We had lay-offs this past week at work. Lost three people that I work with on a regular basis; most significantly, my manager. It was a pretty somber week there.

Andrea and I are trying a new church tomorrow morning. We're going out to St. Cloud to check out the UUA fellowship there. Sadly one of the things that we lost moving out here was the large UUA congregation in Rochester, and unfortunately there's nothing that close here; nearest UUA churches are in Fridley, St. Cloud, Buffalo, and Minnetonka, so we haven't been out to any of them yet. Andrea went to a Catholic service down in Big Lake a couple weekends ago with her parents while they were visiting and came to the realization that that just wasn't for her anymore, which is largely how I've been feeling lately, so we decided we'd make the drive and check out the one in St. Cloud.

6 things of happiness...

2007-11-05T00:54:11Z

renface tagged me a while back.

The rules are easy, just post 6 things that recently made you happy!
Then tag 6 people and force them to post this on their LJs. Because it is good. Everyone needs a little happiness once in awhile.

1. Hugs from Olivia
2. Sprechers Root Beer
3. Seeing my Brothers at Rutgers
4. Getting to travel for work
5. Additional proof that I married the right woman :)
6. A straightened garage courtesy of my in-laws visit

I tag solcita, musicalmoils82, erzsebetnadasdy, eviltoaster, lockholm & unipride.

the_z_continuum @ 2007-11-01T21:29:00

2007-11-02T02:57:39Z

A couple updates:
-Work's been less than spectacular again this week. Was out the first two days this week for an auditing class, but that just means that I'm well behind on everything. We had a department meeting today that I was particularly unhappy with and will likely mean more of these long weeks. Additionally, we have layoffs coming next week, and while my area is not going to be affected, morale at the plant is not great.
-We had some people through the Rochester house this past week, first traffic that we've had, and Joel (our realtor) was pretty upbeat about it. Additionally, we've managed to work out some things to keep ourselves from going broke if we don't sell it in the near future, so that's reduced some of our stress.
-I am going to Europe. The trip to Aland for work is on. Last week of the month. I'll probably also get a couple days in Stockholm and likely see my friend Julia. Very excited.

the_z_continuum @ 2007-10-26T21:02:00

2007-10-27T02:56:55Z

Good things:
-Last Saturday's pumpkin carving event at Dennis and Doreen's down in LaCrosse was a lot of fun despite the long drive there and back. Plus Andrea and I had some good discussion in the car.
-New house is cleaner than it's ever been.
-In-laws are here this weekend and next and it's been nice having a couple extra hands around the house.

Bad things:
-I worked at least 50 hours this week, barely got any sleep and barely saw my family.
-With her recent illness, flaming_rose will not be visiting us next month, and will likely have to postpone her visit until next year sometime.
-No movement on the house in Rochester.
-Unfortunately, Andrea and I have reached the conclusion that (assuming a large windfall doesn't fall into our laps in the very near future) we will not be going to Convention this March. Not being able to sell the Rochester house has proved to be a fairly significant drain on our resources, and even if we sell the house in short order, the likelihood of us recovering in time for Convention is extremely unlikely. I'm disappointed; when I acquired the Board of Trustees position, I fully intended on not becoming an absent PBoT, but I can't ignore the harsh reality of the situation, and having made trips to Raleigh and the Pi chapter install just in the last couple months, I don't really feel like I've been "absent" per se. The '09 convention should be at Zeta, so we'll definitely be there and after that we should be back in a position to afford the annual pilgrimage.

Neither Good nor Bad (yet):
-I hate to bring this up because half the time trips for work do not materialize, and my involvement in this trip has already gone through one off-again-on-again fluxuation, but this one is interesting enough that I figure it's worth mentioning. There's a possibility that I'll be in Finland next month to audit a supplier. Actual, the supplier's on Aland, an semi-autonomous island in the Baltic Sea, but it's a Finnish province. This is exciting because I've been off the continent before and because I might be able to see my friend Julia who lives out in Sweden. Not as exciting, I'd be there the week of Thanksgiving, probably just getting back in time for Thursday (thanks to the time difference). I'll keep you posted.

Lost Weekend

2007-10-15T19:38:08Z

Spent the entire weekend down in Rochester working on the old house. We've gotta get this thing sold sometime soon. I left directly from work on friday and didn't get home until after 8 last night. Barely got any sleep on Friday and Saturday (maybe 2 1/2 hours between 7:30 AM Friday morning and 1 AM on Sunday morning), and when I did sleep, it was on the floor. At least Andrea and Liv and our friends Shelly and Jeff came down on saturday to help. Net activity for the weekend: new vinyl tile floor in "breakfast nook area off of kitchen along with new baseboards, restained front window ledge, restain front door, leaves picked up and some other general cleaning.

At least we're going to a party next weekend.