This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
|
Drove under its own power for the last time on Saturday. Confirmed permanently dead by the mechanic this morning. 15 years and 9 months old. It is a sad day! Sniff. :-(
Well well, here we are. As of this moment… 16 Sep 2011 at 13:28 UTC (6:28 AM Pacific, 9:28 AM Eastern) I am the number of days old listed in the subject, which also happens to be equal to a number of years that ends in a zero, and starts with a 4. Yes, indeed, I am 400 years old. Oh, woops. Wrong number of zeros. But yeah. 40. Woo?
Of course, I have pre-scheduled this post. At the actual time mentioned, I hope to be asleep.
As of the moment this posts, at 04:16 UTC on September 13th (9:16 PM on the 12th Pacific, 12:16 AM on the 13th Eastern), Alex is exactly 2 years old. Happy Birthday Alex!!! These two years have sure flown by. I have not really posted any general updates since he turned 18 months old. So here goes again I guess.
- He is in that vocabulary explosion sort of stage. Using new words every day. Asking what things are called. He is using simple sentences like “Daddy Juice Mommy More” when he noticed my drink was empty, as he took it from me and gave it to Brandy to fill up.
- He and the dog continue to play with each other all the time. He is starting to learn to be a bit more gentle and (sometimes) back off when the dog has had enough. Roscoe definitely plays back too, it isn’t just a one way thing.
- He can now load the DVD/Blu-Ray player with the disk he has decided he wants to watch. Still needs help setting it up and getting it going, but that won’t be long now I’m sure. He already does turn off our entertainment system when he is done watching whatever he is watching.
- He says “Uh Oh!” when things go wrong or he finds something broken. This sometimes combines with the last bullet, as when we are trying to actually watch something else rather than a kids show. He realizes what is on is not what he was expecting, and starts saying “Uh Oh! Uh Oh!” and heads over to our receiver and turns it off. This is not always appreciated.
- He is generally a holy terror, running around the house and getting into absolutely everything. I understand this is expected at this age. But it is exhausting.
- As you may have seen in the video he loves playing with the hose. We will do less of this as it gets cooler I am sure, but at the moment this is one of his favorite things, that he asks to do almost every day. In addition to spraying the dog as seen in the video, he also will call me over, “Daddy! Daddy!” looking all innocent and such, then spray me as soon as I get close, giggling gleefully all the while. And then he’ll say “turn!” to let me know it is my turn, hand me the hose, and have me spray him.
- He is playing more and different games on our iPhones. One of the new ones is a Thomas matching game. He also has a physical version of this. He sometimes actually matches things, sometimes he just plays. Either way, he likes them.
- He is still upset and cries when we drop him off at day care, but by all reports he is OK and having fun right after we leave.
- He loves to climb. Anything and everything. It is only a matter of time before we find him on top of a bookshelf or whatnot. He loves to go to playgrounds, where he is climbing and playing on jungle gym equipment designed for much older kids. He is fearless. I stay directly under him, ready to catch him when he slips, but so far he hasn’t.
- He loves to draw. He’ll find a paper and then ask for a “Cran”, which is of course any writing utensil. Then he will happily sit and draw. Of course, sometimes he will draw on other things too. Basically any white or off white surface is up for grabs. This is also not always appreciated.
- When watching movies he is familiar with, he will talk constantly describing what is going on as best he can. We can’t always get exactly what he is saying, but he is clearly referring to characters and what they are doing.
- He points at every plane that flies over and excitedly tells us about the “ane! ane!”
- He points at every bus (or buslike vehicle) as it goes by. “Buh! buh!”
- Cars are still the best toys ever. He has many many cars now, and plays with them all the time.
Well, as usual, I’m there is a bunch more, but those are the ones spilling out of my head at the moment.
In any case, Happy Birthday to Alex! I can’t believe he is already two! It was just yesterday we brought him home and he was a tiny little thing. Now he is so BIG!
- The house we have rented for the last five years is officially on the market again (for rental). See the lovely sign in the yard? If anybody is thinking of moving to the Newport Hills area of Bellevue, WA, hey, house.
- After some back and forth on the topic, we decided there were other things we’d rather spend a few thousand dollars on, so we’re doing things the old fashioned way again and renting a truck and moving ourselves. This weekend. So if anybody in the greater Seattle area wants to help move boxes and furniture, we will buy pizza! (But we expect to do it all ourselves.)
- Between now and then… packing!
- Roscoe came with us to the new house for the first time today. We can’t let him loose in the back yard until we fix the latch on the gate, but he is getting to explore the new house for the first time, and we went on a short walk in the neighborhood.
- Alex’s room is pretty much done. Nice two color thing with with a border with cars and trucks and planes and such.
- Brandy’s office is all painted. Amy’s room is almost done being painted.
- We’ve moved in a bunch of dishes and groceries and other essentials and have been spending a significant chunk of time here since we closed last week.
- Internet (25/25 FIOS) will be installed sometime in the next 12 hours.
- As I write this, Amy, Alex and Brandy are all asleep. I will join them shortly. This will be the first time we’ve actually stayed overnight here. Of course, there are no beds here yet, so this is a strictly floor based endeavor.
- We hope to basically be moved by Sunday night, although we’ll still be moving some stuff from the old house, and dealing with cleaning the old house and such probably straight through until the 30th, which is when we officially have to be out of there.
From the Escrow Manager:
Date: August 30, 2011 22:48:42 GMT
Please see recording numbers attached.
We are final and the transaction complete.
Thus, as of just under an hour ago, we are legally the proud owners of the house you see pictured above and described in an older post. Woo!
Of course, for some crazy reason or another, we can’t get the keys until tomorrow.
Whatever though. It is ours. We now have to figure out moving logistics and such. We have an overlap with the current house until the end of September, so we don’t have to rush it.
All the papers are signed. We should be home owners again for the first time in about five years sometime tomorrow. Woo!
47.775473-122.346405
Remember that house? I have neglected to post updates along the way, but everything went the way it was supposed to. Offer was accepted by both the sellers and their bank. (Well, the bank wanted slightly more than our offer, and we went up a tad… ends up being an extra $20 a month or something.) Inspection found no major issues. Appraisers appraised it for more than the mortgage. All loans and such approved. The last thing that seemed to have even a little uncertainty attached (and there never seemed to be much) was cleared over a week ago at this point. It has just been various people going through bureaucratic motions since then. A couple of hours ago we got a note from one of the bureaucrats saying the target was various document signings on Monday and Tuesday, with final closing on Wednesday.
If all goes according to plan, that means we’ll have the month of September overlapping between the new and old places so that we can spread the move out if we want and have plenty of time to do things in a non-rushed fashion.
Never the less… I hate moving. In the end we’ll be in a better, bigger house… for less money! It will be nice, even though I will miss the old place too. But the moving itself. ARRGHHH!
Well, we just made an offer on a house.
I’ve mentioned on the podcast that the last month or so we have been looking at options for buying a house this fall rather than continuing to rent the house we have been in for the last five years.
Our goal is to make a sideways move. Switch from renting to owning again, but basically end up putting out the same (or less) each month once you consider rent/mortgage, utilities, and all the random other expenses one expects.
Anyway…
We settled on a house. Everything in the price range we are targeting has compromises. We could go higher of course, but then we would miss our goal of a sideways move money wise.
The short version of the trade offs on this particular house:
- Larger and nicer actual house
- Not as nice a neighborhood
The longer version of the trade offs:
- Brandy and I really liked it when we first saw it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was one of the only ones that we both liked when we saw it. (There were many we both hated, and a few one of us liked but not the other.)
- Alex really liked it. Ran around spinning and saying “mine mine mine” through the rooms when he saw it. (There were other houses where he would immediately say “GO GO GO!” and try to push me back out the front door.)
- Amy hated it at first, but we were able to bribe her with a larger room… she will get the room that would have been the home theater room instead of one of the smaller bedrooms. (That would have been smaller than the room she has today). So now she is OK with it. It means we will need to be creative on where (or if!) to set up our home theater stuff though.
- About a 3rd larger inside than our current place…
- but laid out very differently… other rooms bigger, but “common” spaces smaller. (For instance, huge master bedroom, but tiny living room.)
- Significantly less back yard area. (This is probably actually good. We love our current large back yard, but we have never had time to keep up with it properly.)
- The “neighborhood” is more cookie cutter and with the houses closer together than I would like and feels a bit less walkable than where we are now. Especially if you take a right when leaving the house. Going to the left is nicer. :-) (I’m talking about how pleasant walking the dog is, not being able to walk to things like stores. :-) )
- The city it is in is not quite as nice in general as the city where we are now. I’m talking less trees and older less well maintained infrastructure and less upscale and such though… Not violent and crime ridden or that kind of thing. At least I hope not!
- My commute will be 30 minutes instead of 21 minutes… with no traffic. Double those numbers with traffic most likely. So 60 minutes rather than 42 minutes in traffic. Well, actually, I tried the commute yesterday at rush hour and it was 48 minutes. Longer than I would like, but doable. It will be less if I avoid the rush hour peaks, which I often do.
- Much “nicer” inside the house in terms of fit and finish compared to our current place, where lots of things are really showing their age.
- It backs onto a small protected wetland, so at least directly behind us there isn’t another house, and probably won’t be any time soon. (There are houses on the other three sides.)
- This also means that quite a few of the windows in the house look out on trees instead of other houses
- There will be (small) spaces for both Brandy and I to have offices. My office will be smaller than in the current house, but Brandy will actually have an office, rather than just a corner of the living room like she has now.
- There is a neat under-stairs storage area that can be like a clubhouse for Alex.
- No real place that can serve as a guest bedroom (although we may be able to be creative there and figure something out)
- Down a little private driveway tucked behind other houses instead of right on the street
- Nice large modern kitchen
- One of those huge nice new master baths, plus two other full baths
- Much more energy efficient than our current house, which is horrid on that front
- Lots of windows and light
- We will actually own the place, so we’ll be able to change things and fix things when we want.
Etc.
Anyway, if all goes well and according to our preferred schedule we will move Septemberish.
Of course, they may not accept the offer or something else may go wrong. But we’re hopeful.
We shall see I guess.
47.614243-122.204846
Oh, I almost forgot to mention. On Sunday afternoon, for the very first time, Alex used the potty. He was very very excited and spent the next 10 minutes or so dancing around very excitedly and squealing with glee. It will probably be awhile until the next time. But still, important milestone. One that I’m sure he will want immortalized here when as a teenager he finds the archive of this blog.
A little over four hours ago my mom got the green light to start driving again, go back to work, and generally to not need someone like me hanging around and “observing” to make sure she is OK. There are no ongoing effects from last week’s episode. Basically, she is fine. Yay! And whew!
So slightly over 24 hours from now I’ll be getting on a plane heading back home.
It has been great having this extra time with my mom. It was a nice change of pace for me too.
But I miss my family. It will be good to get home.
39.63328-84.090438
|
|
