Saturday, July 16, 2011
Perfection on Standoff
So tonight was retro Halo night. Since Halo 2 was shut off last year, the earliest we could go back to was Halo 3. I loved Halo 3. I stil feel their maps were better than most of Reach's forgeworld map. So early in the night we got one of my favorite maps; Standoff. I love Standoff. Nice and open, no sniper rifle, each side has rockets and a warthog, and a laser in the middle. Mr Fusion 82 and I hopped in our warthog and kicked some major Blue Team butt! Perfection? Oh yes... perfection.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Kitchen Construction
Ok, so I just realized how long it's been since my last update so I decided for something quick and fun. As you may have read from my previous "Diary of a House" series, my house is a fixer upper and STILL in repair after 4 years. Well the way my house is laid out is rectangular. Narrow and long which doesn't make it very easy to rearrange things. Well the kitchen is the last part of the house and we've started tearing it down a few weeks ago. I thought I'd give to some progress updates on it.
About a year ago when the downstairs construction started there was a bit of talk about what to do with the kitchen. At the time there was a pantry turned bathroom off to the side and small doorway that lead to the dining room. The kitchen felt quite cramped and there was not much counter space to work on things. The tile was a horrible yellow pattern with an slightly less horrible black and white checkered pattern under it, with a terrifying green tile under that, with great hardwood floors under that. Yeah... that's right 4 layers of flooring. There was about an inch difference between the kitchen and the dining room. Took a few weeks and some stubbed toes to figure that out.
So last year we started ripping down the walls in the front living room, den, and dining room and my parents were over discussing what to do with the kitchen. I kinda had some basic ideas about the look I wanted but my parents had other ideas. Since my dad was the one doing the construction and footing a portion of the bills, I didn't want to argue with them too much about it. They felt that keeping things similar to the way they were would be good. I had other ideas. I wanted to redesign it to give me some more counter space and while also giving it a more open feel. They pretended to be listening but I could tell they didn't want to go for it because it meant more time, money, and labor. Well I just gave up with a huff and went upstairs to cool off. I didn't want to explode on them and seem ungrateful for the work they put into my house so far.
When I went upstairs I saw my girlfriend on my laptop and she said, "Take a look at this!" She had gone downstairs a few days ago and measured the kitchen and went onto the Lowes website and used their kitchen designer to come up with an idea of the kitchen. I took one look and my dream had been realized. It was almost exactly as I had described it to my parents. I immediately grabbed the laptop and headed downstairs to show them. They looked at it and spun the picture around to get a good look at the whole design and said, "Ohhh that looks really nice."
"WTF? That's the layout I described to you 2 minutes ago!", I thought. But I bit my tongue. I'll let this one go if it means that I get an awesome kitchen with space to cook and eat.
So here it is. My dream kitchen.
If you want to try out the Lowes room designer for yourself give it a go HERE.
So what do you think? Any tips or comments are welcome. I will be updating this and posting real pics when the construction is complete.
About a year ago when the downstairs construction started there was a bit of talk about what to do with the kitchen. At the time there was a pantry turned bathroom off to the side and small doorway that lead to the dining room. The kitchen felt quite cramped and there was not much counter space to work on things. The tile was a horrible yellow pattern with an slightly less horrible black and white checkered pattern under it, with a terrifying green tile under that, with great hardwood floors under that. Yeah... that's right 4 layers of flooring. There was about an inch difference between the kitchen and the dining room. Took a few weeks and some stubbed toes to figure that out.
So last year we started ripping down the walls in the front living room, den, and dining room and my parents were over discussing what to do with the kitchen. I kinda had some basic ideas about the look I wanted but my parents had other ideas. Since my dad was the one doing the construction and footing a portion of the bills, I didn't want to argue with them too much about it. They felt that keeping things similar to the way they were would be good. I had other ideas. I wanted to redesign it to give me some more counter space and while also giving it a more open feel. They pretended to be listening but I could tell they didn't want to go for it because it meant more time, money, and labor. Well I just gave up with a huff and went upstairs to cool off. I didn't want to explode on them and seem ungrateful for the work they put into my house so far.
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| This is my kitchen before. The door there leads to the back porch. |
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| Kitchen from another angle. The doorway on the left leads to the dining room and the door on the right side leads to the half bath that the previous owners had added in. |
When I went upstairs I saw my girlfriend on my laptop and she said, "Take a look at this!" She had gone downstairs a few days ago and measured the kitchen and went onto the Lowes website and used their kitchen designer to come up with an idea of the kitchen. I took one look and my dream had been realized. It was almost exactly as I had described it to my parents. I immediately grabbed the laptop and headed downstairs to show them. They looked at it and spun the picture around to get a good look at the whole design and said, "Ohhh that looks really nice."
"WTF? That's the layout I described to you 2 minutes ago!", I thought. But I bit my tongue. I'll let this one go if it means that I get an awesome kitchen with space to cook and eat.
So here it is. My dream kitchen.
 |
| Ahhh the new kitchen. Hardwood floors, The sink is right next to the dishwasher but for some reason the bowl and faucet don't show up. French Door fridge, more overhead cabinet space and a darker counter top. |
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| The bathroom is removed and converted back to a pantry, the oven is moved from the east wall to the south, and we added a ton more cabinets and counters. The wall separating the kitchen is removed and the counter there will be converted to a breakfast bar. I couldn't find a design for it on the room designer but I know they make them. |
If you want to try out the Lowes room designer for yourself give it a go HERE.
So what do you think? Any tips or comments are welcome. I will be updating this and posting real pics when the construction is complete.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Perfection on Reflection
This was the last game Mr Fusion 82, BodemanDSD, PahtomlordBWH, and I had on Reflection. I got the shotgun early on and dominated the rest of the match. 5 kills in I realized I hadn't died yet and smiled. Perfection was a distant thought in the back of my mind. 10 kills in I got an "Open Season". I had thought a Perfection was possible but unlikely. Then it started happening... 11, 12, 13 kills.... My hands were shaking as I gripped the controller tighter. 14 kills.... 1 more to go. 15! Woo hoo! Now to stay alive! Enjoy!
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Monty Pythons Flying Assasination
So me, Mr Fusion 82, PahantomLordBWH, and BodemanDSD were kicking some Blue guy butt on swordbase when I saw Mr Fusion 82 getting attacked from a jet packing fool. With one kill left I decided that action had to be taken in the most extreme way possible.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Flame On!
Any Halo: Reach fans out there that want to be FLAMING? Unlock your blue flaming helmets on bungie.net today. Hurry! It ends on bungie day! 7/7/11
Log into your bungie.net profile to unlock. Don't have one? Make one for free!
Bungie.net : Satisfying Your Mom Since 1991
Log into your bungie.net profile to unlock. Don't have one? Make one for free!
Bungie.net : Satisfying Your Mom Since 1991
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Typical Office Supply Store Shoppers
Please note: This blog will most certainly offend some people. Those people have never worked in retail.
I have worked at an office supply store for over 10 years now. In that time I’ve seen a lot of customers and have decided to share some insights into what I’ve learned in that time. Today I’m going to talk about those customers we all know, love, and loath: Oldies, Fatties, Cuties, and Foreigners.
Oldies: Time to crank up your Beltones Grandma and Grandpa. I don’t care how young you feel on the inside, you’re old and therefore don’t know anything about computers. You are too set in your ways to learn anything new, and I’m not going to teach you, so stop asking. Also, I don’t care about how much things USED to cost. I’m sure that back in your day, 59 cents was a down payment on a house, but now a days it will get you exactly one color copy. Tell me something…… when you were kids, didn’t the old people of your day complain all the time about how expensive things were, or was that so long ago that things didn’t exist? You must have been as annoyed back then as I am now. Or is it possible that back then you all belonged to some sort of tribe that worshiped the elders? Oh well, all I know is that modern medicine has come a long way and it has allowed most of you to live far longer than was thought possible. Probably longer than you should have. At least back in the days of the tribes, once you outlived your usefulness and became a burden to the tribe, you were sent off into the woods to die. Ahhhh the good old days.
Fatties: How many times has this happened to you? You are stocking a shelf, trying to run out the clock and not be bothered by stupid people in the process, when from behind you hear asking for help.
Unknown customer: “Excuse me, do you work here?”
You turn around towards the unknown customer to see who would ask such a stupid question. I mean really…. What average person goes to a retail store wearing a uniform exactly like the other store employees and starts working for fun? So you turn around to give them some sort of smart ass comeback, only to be visually assaulted by an obese person that looks more like Jabba the Hutt than a human being. You pray to a god that you don’t really believe in that they’ll be quick. Ha Ha Ha. You should have known you weren’t that lucky. Jabba wants to know where everything is on their list and wants you to walk them personally to each item because they’ll be dammed if they’re going to search for an item and burn up precious calories. They won’t let you go until every last item is checked off their list and crushed any hope of having a peaceful shift.
ATTENTION FAT PEOPLE!!! Stop wasting my time. I understand that you’re ugly and crave a retail employees attention because we have to help you and the outside world has shunned you and your over abundance of winter blubber, but please, lose some weight and become attractive. I will be more than happy to wait on you then. If you refuse to get thin because you’re lazy or would like to blame it on some mythical “glandular problem” then please, leave the store and go home to your pets. They are the only ones who will love you unconditionally. Be forewarned though. They only love you because you feed them. They won’t hesitate to eat you when you have a heart attack and die in the middle of your pork chop/ice cream dinner.
Cuties: This elusive breed of human is a rare treat. When one walks into the store and needs help, it can make your day. They look nice and smell nice too. Be careful though, there are many varieties of shoppers that will try and trick you into thinking they’re cuties to get you to help them. Here are some examples:
•The 20 foot away cutie: This is by far the most common type. She walks in as you look up from your computer in the copy center and see her walking past the cash registers. You wonder why your spidey sense didn’t go off. She walks into the paper shop and you see your chance to strike. You walk up to her and she turns around...
BAH! You are so repulsed by the non attractiveness of the woman that you wonder if you will ever get an erection ever again. You help the crypt keeper with her question and go back to the copy center making a mental note to make an appointment with the eye doctor for an obviously overdue exam.
•The from behind cutie: Another very common type. The from behind cutie is one that will have nice clothing, a nice body and even have an attractive head. You of course assume that since they’re good looking from behind, they must be attractive in the front.
You would be wrong. They turn around and are once again horrified by nasty saggy breasts, an unnoticed pregnancy, or a face that looks like they are about to go try out for the part of Sloth in Goonies II.
•The oldie who wants to be a cutie: This type is a former cutie who has been ravaged by time. The grim reaper is getting ever closer and in a desperate attempt, she will wear too much makeup or wear their daughters belly shirts in hopes of throwing the angel of death off the scent.
Word of advice ladies, don’t wear the belly shirt if you have had a c section. Very unsexy.
•Jailbait: (No picture here you pervs) You’re walking down an aisle and you notice a cutie at the end. She’s got an outfit that makes you think she stopped off for paperclips before going to work at the strip club. Hey... strippers need office supplies too right? You approach and she turns around. You just realized that she’s no older than 15. AHHHHHH!!!!! Stay away from these girls at all costs. 15 will most certainly get you 20. Go for the mom instead. You know she’s single because no father would let his little girl leave the house like that.
And last but not least;
FORIEGNERS: Uggggg…. Where do I begin? As soon as I said foreigners, I know you all thought the same thing. “I hate foreigners”. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that a few of you skipped over Oldies, Fatties and Cuties and came straight here. Well, go back and read it. I’ll wait.
Things we all hate about foreigners:
•Their smell
•Their over abundance of hair
•Their refusal to learn the language
•Over use of the term “My friend”
•Their incessant need to ask 1,000 questions the second they walk through the door despite the language barrier
•Their love of the clearance section
•The over use of bad coupons and their need to complain until they get their way (i.e. They buy a computer, ((the cheapest one there is)) and they try and use a coupon for 25% off any supply item but not valid on technology)
Now, that last one isn’t limited strictly to foreign people, but they easily make up the largest portion of the coupon complainers.
Message to all foreign people who may read this:
I’m sure that when you lived in the old country, it was perfectly ok to haggle over the price of things like you were in a market place. I’m also sure that it was customary to not bathe EVER. Well you live in America now pal. You’ve also probably lived here for some time too. Learn to shower, learn to speak English, and fucking learn that we put the price on an item, we do that so you won’t stop and ask us the price and try and barter with us. And for fucks sake, stop eating so much curry. It’s coming out of your pores and making me ill.
I have worked at an office supply store for over 10 years now. In that time I’ve seen a lot of customers and have decided to share some insights into what I’ve learned in that time. Today I’m going to talk about those customers we all know, love, and loath: Oldies, Fatties, Cuties, and Foreigners.
Unknown customer: “Excuse me, do you work here?”
You turn around towards the unknown customer to see who would ask such a stupid question. I mean really…. What average person goes to a retail store wearing a uniform exactly like the other store employees and starts working for fun? So you turn around to give them some sort of smart ass comeback, only to be visually assaulted by an obese person that looks more like Jabba the Hutt than a human being. You pray to a god that you don’t really believe in that they’ll be quick. Ha Ha Ha. You should have known you weren’t that lucky. Jabba wants to know where everything is on their list and wants you to walk them personally to each item because they’ll be dammed if they’re going to search for an item and burn up precious calories. They won’t let you go until every last item is checked off their list and crushed any hope of having a peaceful shift.
ATTENTION FAT PEOPLE!!! Stop wasting my time. I understand that you’re ugly and crave a retail employees attention because we have to help you and the outside world has shunned you and your over abundance of winter blubber, but please, lose some weight and become attractive. I will be more than happy to wait on you then. If you refuse to get thin because you’re lazy or would like to blame it on some mythical “glandular problem” then please, leave the store and go home to your pets. They are the only ones who will love you unconditionally. Be forewarned though. They only love you because you feed them. They won’t hesitate to eat you when you have a heart attack and die in the middle of your pork chop/ice cream dinner.
•The 20 foot away cutie: This is by far the most common type. She walks in as you look up from your computer in the copy center and see her walking past the cash registers. You wonder why your spidey sense didn’t go off. She walks into the paper shop and you see your chance to strike. You walk up to her and she turns around...
•The from behind cutie: Another very common type. The from behind cutie is one that will have nice clothing, a nice body and even have an attractive head. You of course assume that since they’re good looking from behind, they must be attractive in the front.
•The oldie who wants to be a cutie: This type is a former cutie who has been ravaged by time. The grim reaper is getting ever closer and in a desperate attempt, she will wear too much makeup or wear their daughters belly shirts in hopes of throwing the angel of death off the scent.
•Jailbait: (No picture here you pervs) You’re walking down an aisle and you notice a cutie at the end. She’s got an outfit that makes you think she stopped off for paperclips before going to work at the strip club. Hey... strippers need office supplies too right? You approach and she turns around. You just realized that she’s no older than 15. AHHHHHH!!!!! Stay away from these girls at all costs. 15 will most certainly get you 20. Go for the mom instead. You know she’s single because no father would let his little girl leave the house like that.
And last but not least;
Things we all hate about foreigners:
•Their smell
•Their over abundance of hair
•Their refusal to learn the language
•Over use of the term “My friend”
•Their incessant need to ask 1,000 questions the second they walk through the door despite the language barrier
•Their love of the clearance section
•The over use of bad coupons and their need to complain until they get their way (i.e. They buy a computer, ((the cheapest one there is)) and they try and use a coupon for 25% off any supply item but not valid on technology)
Now, that last one isn’t limited strictly to foreign people, but they easily make up the largest portion of the coupon complainers.
Message to all foreign people who may read this:
I’m sure that when you lived in the old country, it was perfectly ok to haggle over the price of things like you were in a market place. I’m also sure that it was customary to not bathe EVER. Well you live in America now pal. You’ve also probably lived here for some time too. Learn to shower, learn to speak English, and fucking learn that we put the price on an item, we do that so you won’t stop and ask us the price and try and barter with us. And for fucks sake, stop eating so much curry. It’s coming out of your pores and making me ill.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Halo Video 5: Perfection
The first of hopefully MANY Invincible badges. 32 and 0 with a lot of help from my friends Mr Fusion 82 and BodemanDSD. The other team was acctually TRYING! Too bad they were focusing on my friend Mr Fusion 82 in the banshee instead of me and my driver in the warthog. I bet that loss still hurts to this day. Do you still need a doughnut pillow to sit on guys? Thought so.
Halo Video 4: SPLAT!
While trying to rescue BodemanDSD from the clutches of a sniper and also gain a gunner for my warthog, I decided to splatter the sniper while he wasn't paying attention. However, I failed to see the grenade BodemanDSD threw from off screen at the sniper in question which propelled me over the edge of the hill and into another enemy. Result: Double Splatter Awesomeness.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Diary of a House: Part 6
Chapter 7: I am the man...ager
I had my interview and I was quite nervous as I had only met Paul once or twice before over the years. I thought my interview had gone rather well and when it came down to talking about pay he had mentioned that I would be looking to get a 20-25% percent raise. I did some quick math in my head and that was over $13.50 an hour! Woo hoo!!! I went back to the copy center and grabbed a calculator and did some more math to get an idea of how much my paychecks would come out to. I was set. No more worries of how I was going to pay my bills. Life was turning around for me finally. Then I realised that I had the interview, but I still didn't have the job yet.
About 2 weeks went by before I had heard anything about the job. Looking back at it now, it was that prick Pauls way of making me sweat. I finally FINALLY got a call from him and he offered me the job. I said I'd take it and asked about the pay. "Oh well we'll talk about that when the time comes but I'd say you're looking at around 20%." Around 20% as in maybe 25%? My mind was stuck on that thought as he said goodbye and hung up. What does around 20% mean? I know now that it meant I was about to get fucked over.
So Michigan City had opened up sometime in August or September, and Valpo was supposed to open sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I knew that it would be a little tough to make it till then with my current financial situation but I could do it as long as I tightened the belt a bit and didn’t start buying anything outrageous. Well I had also forgotten that my best friend Justin had finally proposed to his lifelong girlfriend Grace a while back and their wedding was coming up in November as well. They had asked me to stand up in their wedding as well which I was more than happy to do but I made it quite clear to both of them that me standing up in their wedding and paying for the tux rental was going to be my gift for them. No presents or a card filled with cash from Jim at the reception so don’t even bother looking.
Well after the wedding, money was tighter than ever so I knew that I’d have to be really careful about not pissing off Rob and getting my hours slashed like he did once before he got mad at me. Side note: Yeah Rob…. I remember that. I was back in the copy center and hadn’t worked in tech for six months. I get scheduled to work one night in tech which I was ok with. That just happened to be the day that the LP guy showed up and he found 2 or 3 computers unalarmed. Now most sane people would have been mad at the tech guy who set the computers up unalarmed in the first place, not the copy center guy who happened to be working in tech when the LP guy showed up. Rob threw his keys down on the ground at my feet and said in a very gruff and angry tone, “Just fucking fix it.” I thought to myself, “Is he blaming ME for this?” Yes… he was… Rob then went back to his office to work on next week schedule. And guess who only had 12 hours next week. Jim… the copy center guy. For the next month I had to float in vacation hours to help pay the bills. What an ass.
Anyway… back to the story. I knew that the Valpo store would be opening soon because one Sunday at Highland, Paul brought in 2 other managers to start doing training at my store. Woo Hoo! It won’t be long now before I leave the Highland store and move onto greener pastures.
Well about 3 weeks later, I find out that the Valpo stores opening date had been bumped back. How did I find this out? From Paul? From Rob? No, from my ex girlfriend who was also a manager at Highland. She heard it in a managers meeting the week before. The store would now be opening in February 2008 instead of late 2007. Well thank you very much you big bunch of asses. Thanks for telling me, the guy who needed money more than the rest of these chumps. Not only that, but I come to find out that our outside hires who were doing training at the Highland store were going to still be doing training. Not only that, but they would be receiving their full management pay while I would still be part time making my measly part-time pay. WTF? You mean to tell me that two chumps who never worked for this place a day in their lives are already making more than me? A guy who shed his blood sweat and tears for this fucking company? Vengeance will be mine!
I had my interview and I was quite nervous as I had only met Paul once or twice before over the years. I thought my interview had gone rather well and when it came down to talking about pay he had mentioned that I would be looking to get a 20-25% percent raise. I did some quick math in my head and that was over $13.50 an hour! Woo hoo!!! I went back to the copy center and grabbed a calculator and did some more math to get an idea of how much my paychecks would come out to. I was set. No more worries of how I was going to pay my bills. Life was turning around for me finally. Then I realised that I had the interview, but I still didn't have the job yet.
About 2 weeks went by before I had heard anything about the job. Looking back at it now, it was that prick Pauls way of making me sweat. I finally FINALLY got a call from him and he offered me the job. I said I'd take it and asked about the pay. "Oh well we'll talk about that when the time comes but I'd say you're looking at around 20%." Around 20% as in maybe 25%? My mind was stuck on that thought as he said goodbye and hung up. What does around 20% mean? I know now that it meant I was about to get fucked over.
So Michigan City had opened up sometime in August or September, and Valpo was supposed to open sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I knew that it would be a little tough to make it till then with my current financial situation but I could do it as long as I tightened the belt a bit and didn’t start buying anything outrageous. Well I had also forgotten that my best friend Justin had finally proposed to his lifelong girlfriend Grace a while back and their wedding was coming up in November as well. They had asked me to stand up in their wedding as well which I was more than happy to do but I made it quite clear to both of them that me standing up in their wedding and paying for the tux rental was going to be my gift for them. No presents or a card filled with cash from Jim at the reception so don’t even bother looking.
Well after the wedding, money was tighter than ever so I knew that I’d have to be really careful about not pissing off Rob and getting my hours slashed like he did once before he got mad at me. Side note: Yeah Rob…. I remember that. I was back in the copy center and hadn’t worked in tech for six months. I get scheduled to work one night in tech which I was ok with. That just happened to be the day that the LP guy showed up and he found 2 or 3 computers unalarmed. Now most sane people would have been mad at the tech guy who set the computers up unalarmed in the first place, not the copy center guy who happened to be working in tech when the LP guy showed up. Rob threw his keys down on the ground at my feet and said in a very gruff and angry tone, “Just fucking fix it.” I thought to myself, “Is he blaming ME for this?” Yes… he was… Rob then went back to his office to work on next week schedule. And guess who only had 12 hours next week. Jim… the copy center guy. For the next month I had to float in vacation hours to help pay the bills. What an ass.
Anyway… back to the story. I knew that the Valpo store would be opening soon because one Sunday at Highland, Paul brought in 2 other managers to start doing training at my store. Woo Hoo! It won’t be long now before I leave the Highland store and move onto greener pastures.
Well about 3 weeks later, I find out that the Valpo stores opening date had been bumped back. How did I find this out? From Paul? From Rob? No, from my ex girlfriend who was also a manager at Highland. She heard it in a managers meeting the week before. The store would now be opening in February 2008 instead of late 2007. Well thank you very much you big bunch of asses. Thanks for telling me, the guy who needed money more than the rest of these chumps. Not only that, but I come to find out that our outside hires who were doing training at the Highland store were going to still be doing training. Not only that, but they would be receiving their full management pay while I would still be part time making my measly part-time pay. WTF? You mean to tell me that two chumps who never worked for this place a day in their lives are already making more than me? A guy who shed his blood sweat and tears for this fucking company? Vengeance will be mine!
Monday, June 13, 2011
Halo Video 3: Getting Out of a Sticky Situation
This was a great game of Team Doubles Mr Fusion 82 and I played a long time ago on Foundry. We were behind for most of the game and made a great comeback at the end.The score was 23 to 24 and we needed a quick double kill to win. Mr Fusion 82 had rockets and told me to stay down because he could handle it. Too bad for him that both of his rockets missed and they were about to destroy him. It was Montyp2000 to the rescue in the end and I won us the game. Look out Blue... there's something sticky on your leg.
Halo Video 2: Rumble in the Jungle
So on my journey to complete Bungie's weekly challange of getting 1,000 kills for 15,000 credits, I decided to play some Rumble Pit. It's every man for himself in this gametype. 8 Men enter, 1 man leaves. Ok, so every man leaves, and there might even be a girl or two in there too, but you know what I mean. There can be only one! This is a game on Countdown, one of my favorite maps. Anyone watching this who was in that game, I'm sorry your butt hurts from getting it kicked so hard by me and my awesomeness.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Chicken and Rice
So I, like many of you, like Chinese food but sometimes the cravings comes at a late late hour or a Monday when every good Chinese place is closed. Well fear not! I have come to rescue you with an amazing recipe to satisfy those late night tummy grumblings. Chicken Fried Rice! (but not fried. and no egg. and I'm not Chinese.)
Here's what you'll need:
2-3 Large Boneless Chicken Breasts
1 Large Yellow Onion
3 Cups of Water
1 1/2 Cups of White Rice
3 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 Cup Frozen Peas and Carrots
Ground Black Pepper
Optional: 2 Cats for Supervision
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| Meet Toby and Sammie. Chefs in Training |
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| I used 4 here just because 2 wasn't enough and if I used 3 I'd have a lonely one left over that would probably be forgotten about in the deep dark corner of my freezer. |
Cube the chicken to 1/2" pieces. I like to slightly freeze them for easier cutting. Chop the onion to teeny tiny pieces. Some of you might not like chopping onions because the onions might make you cry and look like less of a man. That's why I use this:
 |
| As seen on TV: Onion Chopper of Doom 9000 Turbo Model |
 |
| Before |
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| After. The onion never stood a chance. |
Combine the onion and the chicken bits in a pot and cook on high heat until the chicken is cooked through and the onion is nice and tender.
Once the chicken is cooked, add the water, rice, and soy sauce. stir a bit and add some ground black pepper. I add enough to slightly cover the top.
Let the pot come to a boil then put heat on low and simmer with cover on. Stir every 4-5 min. After 15 min, add peas and carrots.
Continue cooking and stirring for a few more min until water is cooked out and the peas and carrots are cooked through. (about 20-25 min after lowering heat)
When it's all done it should be a colorful ricey batch of goodness. I like to add a few extra dashes of soy sauce and a bit more pepper on top.
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| Mmmmmm Deliciousness. But what about our toughest critics? |
Toby:
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| Does not care for the pepper and wants even more chicken next time. |
Sammie:
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| He loves it! Look at that smile. |
Friday, June 10, 2011
Halo Video 1
So I love Halo. My friends and I play once or twice a week to let off some steam from the weeks stress. Every week Bungie has a different weekly challenge to try and complete. This weeks was to get 1,000 kills in multiplayer with a reward of 15,000 credits. Well I knew that meant playing a lot of SWAT. SWAT is a good gametype because it moves very fast and can earn you a lot of kills in a short amount of time. I am quite good at this gametype as you can see from the video below. My friend Mr Fusion 82 on the other hand is not. Enjoy!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Diary Of A House: Part 5
Chapter 6: Bills bill and more bills
So my house had gotten some new siding and insulation in the summer of 2007 and I was really excited. Now the only problem was how was I going to manage the bills so I could keep my house and all that wonderful new vinyl siding and cellulose. Well Ron, my assistant manager, knew of my financial situation and was generous enough to give me as many hours as he could which helped out quite a bit. The computer jobs were coming at a pretty steady pace as well. But alas, it still wasn’t quite enough to pay all the bills. That’s were the credit cards came in. I know what some of you are thinking right now. Paying your bills with a credit card is a horrible idea if you don’t have the income to pay them back. Well you would be right. After a few months of that the credit cards were almost dried up and I needed money.
I had thought of selling some of my stuff on eBay but I took a look around my house and realized that no one would want my crap. I had thought of selling my plasma at the blood bank but found out I’d need to go every week and I’m sure that the homeless drunks I’d be sitting next to at the clinic would have wonderful stories as the nurse who barely passed her medical exams jabbed my arm over and over again trying to find a vein. I even thought of selling other bodily fluids for money. I thought to myself, “Hey…. I’m going to be doing that at home anyway, why not just do it in a cup and make a few bucks.” But then I realized that there is a chance that one day down the road, some boy or girl could come knocking at my door calling me daddy. No thanks.
I knew I needed a full time job, but at the Highland store, it was a rare thing to get a full time position as a regular associate. You could get a management position, but you had a better chance of getting struck by lightning than have a certain unnamed DPS manager retire like he should have done years ago to let someone better and smarter and funnier take his place. Well just as I thought I would drown in debt and have to declare bankruptcy and even worse, move back in with my parents, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. My company was opening up 2 new stores in the area. One in Michigan City and one in Valpo. I got super excited because that meant management positions were plentiful and I might have a chance to keep my house after all.
The trouble with the company I work for is that management positions open up at other stores every so often but we don’t hear about it until it’s too late. I’m sure that if I was friends with anyone at Hobart or Calumet City, I could have snagged a DPS manager position over the years, but who wants to be friends with them?
So I had two stores to choose from to run their DPS. Michigan City was farther than Valpo, but they were opening sooner, and sooner was better for me. My tech manager Ellen was going to be promoted to that store as an assistant manager which was good for me too. The drive would have sucked ass, and the area is crappy so I was still torn between the two stores. Work in a crappy area but get promoted sooner, or wait a few months and work at a nicer store. Then my decision was made for me. Krista, AKA: Big Fat Smelly was transferring to Michigan City. Valpo here I come!
So I looked on the computers every day for the posting for the DPS manager position in Valpo. Days went by, weeks went by, nothing. I saw positions for a regular dept manager for Valpo, but nothing for DPS. I was getting nervous. “Did they already hire someone? Am I too late? Am I going to have to go to Michigan City and work with Big Fat Smelly again?” Well as it turns out, the store manager in Valpo never posted an opening for a DPS manager. He only posted regular dept manager positions and he figured that he would get a feel for who would be best in the DPS and go from there. I found this out by accident from Tod, one of our tech guys who posted for the tech manager position. Paul, the old Hobart store manager, and newly promoted Valpo store manager, had called him and asked him if he wanted to run the DPS. Apparently he thought just anybody could run the DPS. Not a good sign.
Well as it turns out, four associates from our store had applied for management positions at Valpo. Tod, Stacy, Beth, and myself. Man that would have been sweet. It would have been great to have some familiar faces over there. Well about a week or two after I applied I heard that Paul was coming to our store to interview all of us that had applied. He was supposed to be coming on a day that I was not working. Now looking back, I know that just because I wasn’t working on the day he was doing interviews didn’t mean that I was going to miss my chance and not get a promotion, but at the time I was freaking the fuck out. Once again, I had visions of losing my house and having to file for bankruptcy all because of a scheduling conflict. Well as it turns out, nobody he was going to interview was working that day so he picked a day that we would all be there. I started my shift and was helping a few customers in the copy center while Paul was interviewing Tod. I was a little nervous because I wasn’t sure how long the interviews would take or what kinds of questions he was going to ask. It had been over 6 and a half years since my last interview and I couldn’t remember a thing that happened during the interview back then. As I was daydreaming I heard a voice behind me, “So Montyp2000…. Are you ready?”(On a side note to everybody: Don’t walk up behind a guy and say, “Are you ready?” It’s creepy and gives me a vision of prison rape.) It was Paul. My time had come. The long journey back to the receiving office where the interview was going to be held was the longest walk of my life. This was my only shot at keeping my house. I hope I don’t screw it up.
So my house had gotten some new siding and insulation in the summer of 2007 and I was really excited. Now the only problem was how was I going to manage the bills so I could keep my house and all that wonderful new vinyl siding and cellulose. Well Ron, my assistant manager, knew of my financial situation and was generous enough to give me as many hours as he could which helped out quite a bit. The computer jobs were coming at a pretty steady pace as well. But alas, it still wasn’t quite enough to pay all the bills. That’s were the credit cards came in. I know what some of you are thinking right now. Paying your bills with a credit card is a horrible idea if you don’t have the income to pay them back. Well you would be right. After a few months of that the credit cards were almost dried up and I needed money.
I had thought of selling some of my stuff on eBay but I took a look around my house and realized that no one would want my crap. I had thought of selling my plasma at the blood bank but found out I’d need to go every week and I’m sure that the homeless drunks I’d be sitting next to at the clinic would have wonderful stories as the nurse who barely passed her medical exams jabbed my arm over and over again trying to find a vein. I even thought of selling other bodily fluids for money. I thought to myself, “Hey…. I’m going to be doing that at home anyway, why not just do it in a cup and make a few bucks.” But then I realized that there is a chance that one day down the road, some boy or girl could come knocking at my door calling me daddy. No thanks.
I knew I needed a full time job, but at the Highland store, it was a rare thing to get a full time position as a regular associate. You could get a management position, but you had a better chance of getting struck by lightning than have a certain unnamed DPS manager retire like he should have done years ago to let someone better and smarter and funnier take his place. Well just as I thought I would drown in debt and have to declare bankruptcy and even worse, move back in with my parents, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. My company was opening up 2 new stores in the area. One in Michigan City and one in Valpo. I got super excited because that meant management positions were plentiful and I might have a chance to keep my house after all.
The trouble with the company I work for is that management positions open up at other stores every so often but we don’t hear about it until it’s too late. I’m sure that if I was friends with anyone at Hobart or Calumet City, I could have snagged a DPS manager position over the years, but who wants to be friends with them?
So I had two stores to choose from to run their DPS. Michigan City was farther than Valpo, but they were opening sooner, and sooner was better for me. My tech manager Ellen was going to be promoted to that store as an assistant manager which was good for me too. The drive would have sucked ass, and the area is crappy so I was still torn between the two stores. Work in a crappy area but get promoted sooner, or wait a few months and work at a nicer store. Then my decision was made for me. Krista, AKA: Big Fat Smelly was transferring to Michigan City. Valpo here I come!
So I looked on the computers every day for the posting for the DPS manager position in Valpo. Days went by, weeks went by, nothing. I saw positions for a regular dept manager for Valpo, but nothing for DPS. I was getting nervous. “Did they already hire someone? Am I too late? Am I going to have to go to Michigan City and work with Big Fat Smelly again?” Well as it turns out, the store manager in Valpo never posted an opening for a DPS manager. He only posted regular dept manager positions and he figured that he would get a feel for who would be best in the DPS and go from there. I found this out by accident from Tod, one of our tech guys who posted for the tech manager position. Paul, the old Hobart store manager, and newly promoted Valpo store manager, had called him and asked him if he wanted to run the DPS. Apparently he thought just anybody could run the DPS. Not a good sign.
Well as it turns out, four associates from our store had applied for management positions at Valpo. Tod, Stacy, Beth, and myself. Man that would have been sweet. It would have been great to have some familiar faces over there. Well about a week or two after I applied I heard that Paul was coming to our store to interview all of us that had applied. He was supposed to be coming on a day that I was not working. Now looking back, I know that just because I wasn’t working on the day he was doing interviews didn’t mean that I was going to miss my chance and not get a promotion, but at the time I was freaking the fuck out. Once again, I had visions of losing my house and having to file for bankruptcy all because of a scheduling conflict. Well as it turns out, nobody he was going to interview was working that day so he picked a day that we would all be there. I started my shift and was helping a few customers in the copy center while Paul was interviewing Tod. I was a little nervous because I wasn’t sure how long the interviews would take or what kinds of questions he was going to ask. It had been over 6 and a half years since my last interview and I couldn’t remember a thing that happened during the interview back then. As I was daydreaming I heard a voice behind me, “So Montyp2000…. Are you ready?”(On a side note to everybody: Don’t walk up behind a guy and say, “Are you ready?” It’s creepy and gives me a vision of prison rape.) It was Paul. My time had come. The long journey back to the receiving office where the interview was going to be held was the longest walk of my life. This was my only shot at keeping my house. I hope I don’t screw it up.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Diary Of A House: Part 4
Chapter 5: Construction begins
So here it finally was… the rehabbing of my house was about to begin. Several of the upstairs walls needed to be replaced because of the extensive damage that had occurred from neglect. Well about 2 hours into the demolition my dad decides that it would be foolish to tear down just one or two walls and most likely have to do the rest in a few years, so he said we would be replacing all the walls. Thanks dad. Let’s not do some work now and some work in a few years, let’s turn a big project into a HUGE project and make me work twice as hard now. So we continued to rip down plaster and it was messy and heavy and made my eyes water and lungs fill with dust. After about 8 hours of hammering the plaster to bits and hauling it out to the truck, my dad decided that it was time to call it a day. Finally! I can now collapse on the couch and take a nap. No can do. My phone rang with a computer job. Well I needed the money so I got up to take a shower and head on out. Well you may not know this and if you don’t, here is a bit of advice should you ever run into this situation. Shake all the plaster dust out of your hair before you take a shower. I stepped into the shower and the water and plaster combined to form a nice paste on my head. It took 5 shampooings to get most of that shit out of my hair and even after all that my hair was able to be styled without any product.
New from Revlon: Plasterfique. You’ll never need moose or hairspray again.
For several weeks after that it was pretty much the same thing. Work at Depot 5 days a week then work on the house on the weekends. Eventually all the plaster was torn down and we started ripping down the lathe behind it. After ripping it all down from the walls we moved to the ceiling where we were once again greeted with two surprises. The studs for the wall that separated the two smaller bedrooms stopped at the flooring. My father was previously under the assumption that that particular wall was a supporting wall. We could now take down that wall and turn it into one big bedroom. This new revelation was a pleasant and welcome surprise to our project. The second surprise was less than encouraging. The studs for all the walls did not go all the way up to the support beams in the ceiling. They instead went up into the lathe and the lathe was nailed into the ceiling. So that means once the lathe was removed, there was about a half inch gap between the studs and the support beams overhead. Well after a lot of swearing by my dad, we now had another thing to add onto the list of projects; removing all the studs. So once all the studs were removed, I had a very large upstairs and a bathroom. Not too shabby I thought. Well my dad came over the next week and my dreams of starting the actual construction were trashed. Over the week he was thinking it would be better to tear down the bathroom and redo that too. Well I was a little frustrated that we would once again be tearing down plaster and lathe, but I could see where he was coming from. The pipes in the bathroom had to be as old as the rest of the house and they looked like they were put together by a family member who’s only plumbing experience came from watching a few episodes of This Old House. At least with the bathroom being removed, I wouldn’t have to look at the stupid accentuated plaster cracks Anastasia and her mother painted when we moved in.
After the bathroom upstairs was ripped out my dad decided to look at the rest of the plumbing in the house. We headed into the basement to look at some pipes and see if any of them needed to be replaced. They were mostly made of galvanized steel which was ok, but copper was preferred. Well we took out one of the pipes to see if there was any rust inside. Well there was. When I say that there was rust in there, what I mean is, “How the hell did water ever squeeze through those pipes and come out of my faucets?” How did I ever drink the water here? I’d go out and get a tetanus booster if I could afford it. So off to home depot I went to get some new copper pipe so I could have some clean water and not feel so dirty after a shower.
Plumbing actually wasn’t too bad. You get a whole lot of pipe, a bunch of connectors, a blow torch, some solder and start piecing stuff together. After two days I had all new pipes and the water pressure was fantastic. I love it when you can actually see the fruits of your labors. Now it was time to move upstairs and begin constructing my bedrooms and new bathroom. Or so I thought…
Well the weather started warming up and when the weather is warm you have to take advantage of it. To my father, that meant one thing. Yard work. I hate hard work. I put off mowing my lawn until the grass gets so long that I can actually trip over it. My lawnmower chokes and slows down when I mow because my lawn has turned into a mini forest of grass. My backyard has become a jungle of weird and ugly plants over the years of neglect and it needed to be taken care of pronto. One of the things that made me dread doing the yard work was the trees. There are these trees in my back yard that seem to grow like bamboo and are a pain in the ass to take down. I had 5 or 6 of them in the patch of jungle wilderness that we cut down and when it came time to take out the stumps I noticed that all of the roots seemed to be connected together like it was some sort of uber tree monster. Well the monster must be slain so away we hacked at the stumps and roots until the heart of the monster was taken out of the ground. About 3 weeks later when my lawn was starting to overtake my ankles and trip me on my way to my car, I decided to mow my lawn and wouldn’t know it? I got to the back and those trees had started to grow back! What part of hell did these trees come from? I went over to them and yanked them right out of the ground since they were so small but I knew then that this would be a battle I would have to face every week till the day I sold the house. Sigh… one more project for the list.
While the weeding and lawn mowing was in full swing, my parents surprised me with some good news. I would be getting new siding this year!!! Not only would I be getting new siding, but my parents told me that I would be getting a new back porch, new upstairs windows, and insulation!!! WOO HOO!!! This meant that I might be able to have some heat in my house this winter without breaking the bank!
So my dad called a guy he knew and we got a quote for the siding and the back porch. It sounded like a lot to me but I guess my dad thought it was a good price for all the labor so we went ahead with it. The day came when construction would begin and they started in full force. I don’t know if this is a compliment to their skill or the shoddy construction of my back porch but they had that thing torn down inside of 20 min. I can see it now. The construction crew looking at the back porch and analyzing it for a few min, making a decision on how to go about taking it down, making a few taps with the hammer and BAM! The whole porch just falls over into a heap at their feet. Well about an hour into the project, the supervisor comes inside and asks me to call my dad out to the house to take a look at something. Sigh… I knew it. Something else was wrong with the house and now it was going to cost me twice as much and take twice as long. Well my dad came out and I went out with him to find out what was going on and to make it seem like I cared. Well in another moment of laziness by the previous owners, they had another layer of siding under the old stuff. Son of a bitch. This really WAS going to take twice as long and cost twice as much! So my dad gave the go ahead and they continued taking down the old siding.
Two days later the supervisor came in again and asked me to call my dad. He came over and once again we ran into another snag. The front porch which we thought was ok was actually sinking and pulling away from the house just like the back porch. I gave another sigh and walked back inside to start drinking. In my drunken stupor I had visions of the construction crew moving into my house because it they were working on my house so long that they somehow gained part ownership of my moneypit.
So here it finally was… the rehabbing of my house was about to begin. Several of the upstairs walls needed to be replaced because of the extensive damage that had occurred from neglect. Well about 2 hours into the demolition my dad decides that it would be foolish to tear down just one or two walls and most likely have to do the rest in a few years, so he said we would be replacing all the walls. Thanks dad. Let’s not do some work now and some work in a few years, let’s turn a big project into a HUGE project and make me work twice as hard now. So we continued to rip down plaster and it was messy and heavy and made my eyes water and lungs fill with dust. After about 8 hours of hammering the plaster to bits and hauling it out to the truck, my dad decided that it was time to call it a day. Finally! I can now collapse on the couch and take a nap. No can do. My phone rang with a computer job. Well I needed the money so I got up to take a shower and head on out. Well you may not know this and if you don’t, here is a bit of advice should you ever run into this situation. Shake all the plaster dust out of your hair before you take a shower. I stepped into the shower and the water and plaster combined to form a nice paste on my head. It took 5 shampooings to get most of that shit out of my hair and even after all that my hair was able to be styled without any product.
New from Revlon: Plasterfique. You’ll never need moose or hairspray again.
For several weeks after that it was pretty much the same thing. Work at Depot 5 days a week then work on the house on the weekends. Eventually all the plaster was torn down and we started ripping down the lathe behind it. After ripping it all down from the walls we moved to the ceiling where we were once again greeted with two surprises. The studs for the wall that separated the two smaller bedrooms stopped at the flooring. My father was previously under the assumption that that particular wall was a supporting wall. We could now take down that wall and turn it into one big bedroom. This new revelation was a pleasant and welcome surprise to our project. The second surprise was less than encouraging. The studs for all the walls did not go all the way up to the support beams in the ceiling. They instead went up into the lathe and the lathe was nailed into the ceiling. So that means once the lathe was removed, there was about a half inch gap between the studs and the support beams overhead. Well after a lot of swearing by my dad, we now had another thing to add onto the list of projects; removing all the studs. So once all the studs were removed, I had a very large upstairs and a bathroom. Not too shabby I thought. Well my dad came over the next week and my dreams of starting the actual construction were trashed. Over the week he was thinking it would be better to tear down the bathroom and redo that too. Well I was a little frustrated that we would once again be tearing down plaster and lathe, but I could see where he was coming from. The pipes in the bathroom had to be as old as the rest of the house and they looked like they were put together by a family member who’s only plumbing experience came from watching a few episodes of This Old House. At least with the bathroom being removed, I wouldn’t have to look at the stupid accentuated plaster cracks Anastasia and her mother painted when we moved in.
After the bathroom upstairs was ripped out my dad decided to look at the rest of the plumbing in the house. We headed into the basement to look at some pipes and see if any of them needed to be replaced. They were mostly made of galvanized steel which was ok, but copper was preferred. Well we took out one of the pipes to see if there was any rust inside. Well there was. When I say that there was rust in there, what I mean is, “How the hell did water ever squeeze through those pipes and come out of my faucets?” How did I ever drink the water here? I’d go out and get a tetanus booster if I could afford it. So off to home depot I went to get some new copper pipe so I could have some clean water and not feel so dirty after a shower.
Plumbing actually wasn’t too bad. You get a whole lot of pipe, a bunch of connectors, a blow torch, some solder and start piecing stuff together. After two days I had all new pipes and the water pressure was fantastic. I love it when you can actually see the fruits of your labors. Now it was time to move upstairs and begin constructing my bedrooms and new bathroom. Or so I thought…
Well the weather started warming up and when the weather is warm you have to take advantage of it. To my father, that meant one thing. Yard work. I hate hard work. I put off mowing my lawn until the grass gets so long that I can actually trip over it. My lawnmower chokes and slows down when I mow because my lawn has turned into a mini forest of grass. My backyard has become a jungle of weird and ugly plants over the years of neglect and it needed to be taken care of pronto. One of the things that made me dread doing the yard work was the trees. There are these trees in my back yard that seem to grow like bamboo and are a pain in the ass to take down. I had 5 or 6 of them in the patch of jungle wilderness that we cut down and when it came time to take out the stumps I noticed that all of the roots seemed to be connected together like it was some sort of uber tree monster. Well the monster must be slain so away we hacked at the stumps and roots until the heart of the monster was taken out of the ground. About 3 weeks later when my lawn was starting to overtake my ankles and trip me on my way to my car, I decided to mow my lawn and wouldn’t know it? I got to the back and those trees had started to grow back! What part of hell did these trees come from? I went over to them and yanked them right out of the ground since they were so small but I knew then that this would be a battle I would have to face every week till the day I sold the house. Sigh… one more project for the list.
While the weeding and lawn mowing was in full swing, my parents surprised me with some good news. I would be getting new siding this year!!! Not only would I be getting new siding, but my parents told me that I would be getting a new back porch, new upstairs windows, and insulation!!! WOO HOO!!! This meant that I might be able to have some heat in my house this winter without breaking the bank!
So my dad called a guy he knew and we got a quote for the siding and the back porch. It sounded like a lot to me but I guess my dad thought it was a good price for all the labor so we went ahead with it. The day came when construction would begin and they started in full force. I don’t know if this is a compliment to their skill or the shoddy construction of my back porch but they had that thing torn down inside of 20 min. I can see it now. The construction crew looking at the back porch and analyzing it for a few min, making a decision on how to go about taking it down, making a few taps with the hammer and BAM! The whole porch just falls over into a heap at their feet. Well about an hour into the project, the supervisor comes inside and asks me to call my dad out to the house to take a look at something. Sigh… I knew it. Something else was wrong with the house and now it was going to cost me twice as much and take twice as long. Well my dad came out and I went out with him to find out what was going on and to make it seem like I cared. Well in another moment of laziness by the previous owners, they had another layer of siding under the old stuff. Son of a bitch. This really WAS going to take twice as long and cost twice as much! So my dad gave the go ahead and they continued taking down the old siding.
Two days later the supervisor came in again and asked me to call my dad. He came over and once again we ran into another snag. The front porch which we thought was ok was actually sinking and pulling away from the house just like the back porch. I gave another sigh and walked back inside to start drinking. In my drunken stupor I had visions of the construction crew moving into my house because it they were working on my house so long that they somehow gained part ownership of my moneypit.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Diary Of A House: Part 3
Chapter 4: The Pipe That Cracked The Camels Back
Over the next 6 months we noticed more things wrong with the house. Not big things, just a lot of little things. The leaky faucet in the bathroom, the rusted out drain pipe under the kitchen sink, the water pipe for the kitchen sink that froze a little too easily, and the water heater that wouldn’t make hot water in the morning unless you ran it for 2 min then gave it 15 min to heat up some new stuff. During that time winter had set in and the house was getting quite chilly. The NIPSCO bill had started to climb and we decided to get some things to help save some energy. I got some fluorescent light bulbs, water pipe wraps, and a new thermostat. Well as helpful as that was, it was no match for Anastasias love to be warm while wearing as little clothing as possible. I’m all for her not wearing any clothes but when I come home and start sweating, it’s too hot. Well as I predicted, the NIPSCO bill shot through the roof. It seemed to climb about $50 every month and my wallet couldn’t take it. I started to stay up late at night and wait for Anastasia to fall asleep so I could turn the heat down at night. That helped out a bit but NIPSCO would have the last laugh. The next month’s bill came and I got smacked in the face for $350! That was it. I put my foot down and told Anastasia that as much as I loved the skimpy clothes she liked to wear, she was going to have to start bundling up because the heat was going off.
After the heat incident I began to notice a strain on our relationship. We didn’t seem to get a long as well and Anastasia spent more and more nights at her moms house. Well I was ok with that because her and I were not in a relationship and I had a new girlfriend who liked spending the night. Having a house to yourself is nice when there is someone who wants to spend naked time with you. Well on Super Bowl Sunday Anastasia, my new girlfriend, and I made dinner and started to watch the game. I took out the trash and noticed that water had collected and froze in the bottom of the garbage can. Stupid me had forgotten to put the lid on all the way and snow had goten in, thawed, then froze. I took the can downstairs and turned it upside down in the utility sink to thaw and drain. Well what I didn’t foresee was the trash can was now top heavy and it fell out of the sink and landed right on the drainage pipe and cracked it wide open. I went downstairs to see what that noise was and noticed what had happened. This was bad. With the pipe cracked, we couldn’t use any water in the house! Well after telling Anastasia this news she blew up and screamed, “I hate this fucking house!” She then left to go to her moms house. That was kind of scary. She had gotten mad at the house before but never like this. I started to wonder if she would come back. I had visions of her moving out and leaving me with this house and all its bills all by myself. Well I fixed the pipe the next day and sent her a text letting her know it was safe to come home. She came back 2 days later and didn’t say hardly anything to me for another 2 days. Things had changed.
Then there was a light at the end of the tunnel. After months of my parents saying, “Your uncles house is almost done. We’ll be getting started on your house in a couple of weeks.” my dad finally finished up my uncles place and would be starting on my place next weekend. I was so happy I could hardly stand it. Well unknowingly to me it was already too late. Anastasia called me to tell me she had had enough of waiting and had made other living arrangements. My life flashed before my eyes. I was on my own. I had visions of not making the mortgage payments, losing the house, and being forced to move back home with mom and dad while I feebly attempted to climb out of debt and rebuild my trashed credit. I begged my friends to move in with me so I wouldn’t have all these bills to suffer through by myself but nobody wanted to move out of their parents nice, warm, and cushy houses. DAMMIT!!!! Why couldn’t any of these guys have horribly mean parent like I did and want to move out.
Well the move out date came and Anastasia packed up all her stuff and was getting ready to leave. She was generous enough to leave me with a TV stand and a redbull display case. She also left her grandmothers table and chairs in my garage because she didn’t have enough room in the truck for it. She said she would come back for them in a few days. It wasn’t until 20 min after she left that I noticed she still had her keys and garage door button. What a bitch! You move out, you leave your keys. End of story! I don’t care if you paid up till the end of the month. You screw someone over like that and you lose all coming and going privileges. Well I showed her, I unplugged her garage door and hid my spare button. Even if she did come back for the table, there was no way she was going to get it without going through me and leaving her keys. Stupid bitch. I never should have gotten this house. It was too late though because she was already gone leaving me with a house that I didn’t want in the first place and a mortgage payment I couldn’t afford. My worst nightmare was coming true.
So the next few weeks were really the roughest part of this whole ordeal. I went to work and came home. I hardly ate, I barely slept because of the nightmares I was having about being alone and poor. The only thing that kept me going was my girlfriend who stayed over 3 or 4 times a week. As wonderful as that was, I still had this pain in the pit of my stomach because I knew I would never be able to afford this house by myself. Well my parents came to the rescue. I know I talk a lot of shit about them and the crappy childhood that they and my sisters gave me, but I’m beginning to wonder if they saved all the niceness over the years for a time when I would really need it. Well the time was now and I gotta say… they came through in the nick of time. Mom came by with groceries once a week and dad and I began working on the upstairs. The only downside to all this generosity was the fact that I had to see them every week. Oh well.... it was a small price to pay for food and hard labor. Now all I needed was more money for the mortgage.
For many many years I have been a devote Atheist and believed that there was a logical explanation for everything that happens in life, but even I was beginning to wonder if there was a higher power out there looking out for me. My phone was ringing once or twice a week with computer jobs, and my copy center manager at Depot was taking a vacation which meant 40 hours for me! I thought to myself, “I might just be able to pull this off.”
Over the next 6 months we noticed more things wrong with the house. Not big things, just a lot of little things. The leaky faucet in the bathroom, the rusted out drain pipe under the kitchen sink, the water pipe for the kitchen sink that froze a little too easily, and the water heater that wouldn’t make hot water in the morning unless you ran it for 2 min then gave it 15 min to heat up some new stuff. During that time winter had set in and the house was getting quite chilly. The NIPSCO bill had started to climb and we decided to get some things to help save some energy. I got some fluorescent light bulbs, water pipe wraps, and a new thermostat. Well as helpful as that was, it was no match for Anastasias love to be warm while wearing as little clothing as possible. I’m all for her not wearing any clothes but when I come home and start sweating, it’s too hot. Well as I predicted, the NIPSCO bill shot through the roof. It seemed to climb about $50 every month and my wallet couldn’t take it. I started to stay up late at night and wait for Anastasia to fall asleep so I could turn the heat down at night. That helped out a bit but NIPSCO would have the last laugh. The next month’s bill came and I got smacked in the face for $350! That was it. I put my foot down and told Anastasia that as much as I loved the skimpy clothes she liked to wear, she was going to have to start bundling up because the heat was going off.
After the heat incident I began to notice a strain on our relationship. We didn’t seem to get a long as well and Anastasia spent more and more nights at her moms house. Well I was ok with that because her and I were not in a relationship and I had a new girlfriend who liked spending the night. Having a house to yourself is nice when there is someone who wants to spend naked time with you. Well on Super Bowl Sunday Anastasia, my new girlfriend, and I made dinner and started to watch the game. I took out the trash and noticed that water had collected and froze in the bottom of the garbage can. Stupid me had forgotten to put the lid on all the way and snow had goten in, thawed, then froze. I took the can downstairs and turned it upside down in the utility sink to thaw and drain. Well what I didn’t foresee was the trash can was now top heavy and it fell out of the sink and landed right on the drainage pipe and cracked it wide open. I went downstairs to see what that noise was and noticed what had happened. This was bad. With the pipe cracked, we couldn’t use any water in the house! Well after telling Anastasia this news she blew up and screamed, “I hate this fucking house!” She then left to go to her moms house. That was kind of scary. She had gotten mad at the house before but never like this. I started to wonder if she would come back. I had visions of her moving out and leaving me with this house and all its bills all by myself. Well I fixed the pipe the next day and sent her a text letting her know it was safe to come home. She came back 2 days later and didn’t say hardly anything to me for another 2 days. Things had changed.
Then there was a light at the end of the tunnel. After months of my parents saying, “Your uncles house is almost done. We’ll be getting started on your house in a couple of weeks.” my dad finally finished up my uncles place and would be starting on my place next weekend. I was so happy I could hardly stand it. Well unknowingly to me it was already too late. Anastasia called me to tell me she had had enough of waiting and had made other living arrangements. My life flashed before my eyes. I was on my own. I had visions of not making the mortgage payments, losing the house, and being forced to move back home with mom and dad while I feebly attempted to climb out of debt and rebuild my trashed credit. I begged my friends to move in with me so I wouldn’t have all these bills to suffer through by myself but nobody wanted to move out of their parents nice, warm, and cushy houses. DAMMIT!!!! Why couldn’t any of these guys have horribly mean parent like I did and want to move out.
Well the move out date came and Anastasia packed up all her stuff and was getting ready to leave. She was generous enough to leave me with a TV stand and a redbull display case. She also left her grandmothers table and chairs in my garage because she didn’t have enough room in the truck for it. She said she would come back for them in a few days. It wasn’t until 20 min after she left that I noticed she still had her keys and garage door button. What a bitch! You move out, you leave your keys. End of story! I don’t care if you paid up till the end of the month. You screw someone over like that and you lose all coming and going privileges. Well I showed her, I unplugged her garage door and hid my spare button. Even if she did come back for the table, there was no way she was going to get it without going through me and leaving her keys. Stupid bitch. I never should have gotten this house. It was too late though because she was already gone leaving me with a house that I didn’t want in the first place and a mortgage payment I couldn’t afford. My worst nightmare was coming true.
So the next few weeks were really the roughest part of this whole ordeal. I went to work and came home. I hardly ate, I barely slept because of the nightmares I was having about being alone and poor. The only thing that kept me going was my girlfriend who stayed over 3 or 4 times a week. As wonderful as that was, I still had this pain in the pit of my stomach because I knew I would never be able to afford this house by myself. Well my parents came to the rescue. I know I talk a lot of shit about them and the crappy childhood that they and my sisters gave me, but I’m beginning to wonder if they saved all the niceness over the years for a time when I would really need it. Well the time was now and I gotta say… they came through in the nick of time. Mom came by with groceries once a week and dad and I began working on the upstairs. The only downside to all this generosity was the fact that I had to see them every week. Oh well.... it was a small price to pay for food and hard labor. Now all I needed was more money for the mortgage.
For many many years I have been a devote Atheist and believed that there was a logical explanation for everything that happens in life, but even I was beginning to wonder if there was a higher power out there looking out for me. My phone was ringing once or twice a week with computer jobs, and my copy center manager at Depot was taking a vacation which meant 40 hours for me! I thought to myself, “I might just be able to pull this off.”
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Diary Of A House: Part 2
Chapter 2: The move
So now Montyp2000 has a house.
It was a sad day when I had to go into the apartment managers office and tell them that I was leaving. I grew to love those nice ladies that I handed money to each and every month. But alas, I was moving on to bigger and better things… so I thought.
The move itself was fairly painless. Having moved 3 times already before, I was getting fairly good at it. Most of my belongings were still in boxes from the last move so that was nice. My friend Justin had been so kind as to lend me a hand in my moving because he is such a generous person. Ha ha ha ha ha… I know I know… he isn’t. He only did it because he knew I would be helping him move out of his house soon enough and all his kindness would be paid back to him with interest. We had just about everything moved into the house in a day and I even had my room set up. I and my faithful friend Justin moved all the big items while Anastasia and her mom moved all the little 5lb boxes. Stupid girls. They want equal rights and equal pay and to be in the military, but when it comes to lifting heavy things, that’s a mans job. That’s right ladies, we’ll get the couch while you take the cushions. That’s fair. The couch was defiantly the worst part. It was far too big to get through the back door so we went through the front. It took us 30 min and a lot of swearing to get the couch past the porch and into the living room. For some reason, only 2 of the 4 legs on the bottom of the couch would come off. Well after all the sweat and agony of getting the massive and comfy couch into the living room we decided to plop it down right in the middle of the room and take a rest. Now this was obviously not where we were going to leave it but no sooner did we sit down to relax but Anastasia came into the room and says, “Don’t you think the couch would look better over there?” Justin and I looked at each other to make sure we heard that right. Did that bitch just tell us to move the couch? She must not realize that couches and beds and dressers and TV’s and TV stands weigh a lot more than the boxes of clothes and flatware that she and her mother were hauling. After the move was finally finished it was time for relaxing. Sigh…. Sometimes I am so naïve.
Chapter 3: If it sounds too good to be true…
There are some things to know about my house before we go any further.
The house I bought was in a nice area. It was built in 1908 and has 2 stories on it with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms… sort of. The house was previously owned by an old couple who lived there for most of their lives. They got too old to go up and down the stairs so they shut off the upstairs some 20 years ago and had been living in the den ever since. Well the only bathroom in the house at the time was upstairs so they took off a section of the living room and turned it into a shower room. That’s right… just a shower room. It has the old people handle in it and the big rubber flowers and everything. In the kitchen, they did away with the pantry and turned that into the bathroom. Well in the 20 years of isolation, the upstairs went to shit and required some major work before Anastasia and I could live up there. We decided to live downstairs until the renovations were done. Anastasia being the selfish person that she was decided to set up her camp in the dining room right next to the air conditioner. I set up my room in the den which offered more privacy, but was hotter than hell. I didn’t mind though because we knew it would just be temporary. Ha ha ha… what a fool I was.
My dad was going to help us with fixing up the house but unfortunately for us he was currently working on my uncles house in Chicago. It would be a few months before he would finish up over there and start on my house. In the mean time, Anastasia and I wanted to get started on little projects that we could do ourselves. Anastasia, her mother, and her friends all pitched in and tore down the ugly wallpaper in the kitchen and painted. It was great. I left in the morning to go to work and when I got home it was like a brand new kitchen had sprung up from the ashes of the old one.
I decided to be a bit more daring and attempt to remove the carpet from the stairs and upstairs rooms. The carpet that was there must have been installed in the late 60’s. It was a pea soup green and had a pattern woven into it. Hippies from the 60’s liked that kind of crap back then. Anastasia said that she kind of liked because it was retro. I am not retro. I hate hippies and I hate old carpet. Out it must go. Well upon removing the carpet from the stairs I noticed something fantastic underneath. I had a house with hardwood floors! Woo Hoo!!! I was hoping there would be little surprises like this in the house waiting for me. What I didn’t realize was how many surprises there would be and that the hard wood floors would be the only good surprise out of all of them.
After the great job they did in the kitchen, Anastasia and her mom decided to move upstairs to the bathroom. It was really the only room up there that didn’t have anything major wrong with it. So they started painting and repairing the small holes in the plaster but soon found out that there were too many cracks in the plaster to cover up with filler. They decided to cover it up with paint instead. Well as you may have guessed, it didn’t look quite right. They then decided to paint the cracks with a grey paint in some attempt to accentuate it and make it look stylish. I can see why they thought it might look good. It worked for ripped jeans back in the 80’s; it’ll work here with plaster and paint. They were wrong. So so wrong. It looked awful. The paint accentuated the cracks and in fact made it look so bad that it looked like the rest of the upstairs. I let it go though because we were living together and you don’t want to piss off the person you depend on for half of the bills.
After the painting was done, Pam cleaned the tub and toilet. I, my mother, Anastasia and my nephew Evan were downstairs talking when I heard rain. I glanced out the window to see a cloudless sky and realized it was not coming from outside but inside. I looked into the dining room to the sight of water coming out of the ceiling and pouring into the living room! I ran upstairs and saw Pam fiddling with an overflowing toilet trying to get it to stop. I turned it off for her and she told me how she had finished scrubbing the toilet and flushed it when it started to overflow. Well my dad came to the rescue and after some inspection we found out that the drainage pipe for the bathroom upstairs was an old cast iron pipe and over the years of not having been used or flushed, the inside of the pipe started to rust and flake. The flakes would fall to the bottom of the pipe and collect. Well accelerate to 20+ years later and there was a big pile of rust blocking the water from draining and turning my living room into a scene from Singing in the Rain.
During my fathers repair of the plumbing he discovered another little hiccup with the house. I had no insulation anywhere. “Well ain’t that a bitch” I thought. Not only does my air conditioner suck because it was 20 years old, but my house won’t hold in any of the cold air that the ancient air conditioner will spit out anyway. Add that to the list of things to fix. Right in between the sinking back porch and the electrical in the upstairs that looks like it was installed by Edison himself. Ahhh the joys of owning your own home. Well after all that, things calmed down and we settled into our new house. I had a hi-def TV and a DVR for my satellite dish and Anastasia’s friends came over quite a bit to drink and hang out. Life was good again.
Then it started raining. A lot. I went down into the basement to check and see if there was any water in there. When it rained there would be a small trickle coming somewhere from the concrete steps but it wasn’t anything major. This time there was a lot more rain so I wanted to make sure things were still ok. With the increase in rain, I finally saw where the water was coming in from. There was a slight crack on the side of the stairs and the water was coming in slowly but surely. Then I noticed it. There was a piece of duct tape of the crack and it had been painted to over it up. Those old cheap bastards! The more I lived in this house, the more I noticed how half assed they did everything. “Should we go out and buy a coat hook for this coat? No way! We’ll just put in a nail in the wall.” That was the mentality they had for everything they did in this house. “Let’s not do it right, lets just do it so it looks halfway decent and doesn’t cost too much.” Well me being the fool I was, I pulled on the tape that was on the stairs to see how big the crack was. Big mistake. I opened the flood gates quite literally. Water started coming out of the crack like a garden hose. I tried feebly to put the tape back but it was too late. I was screwed and my clothes were soaked. The water went down the steps and started to pool at the bottom. It eventually made its way to the sub pump but the pool started to grow and move towards the middle of the basement. I, in a moment of brilliance, taped a garden hose to the crack where the water was coming out and hoped that it would drain the water right into the sub pump. It worked! I couldn’t believe that such a long shot of an idea of mine worked! Well after the water started to go down, I heard a whistling noise near the washing machine. I went over to the wall and saw a small hole in the cement that looked like a pipe had once been there. I put my finger near the hole and felt air coming out of it. The noise was getting higher in pitch and before I knew it, water started shooting out of the hole like a fountain. Once again I had more water to clean up. “I HATE THIS HOUSE”, I screamed. Once again I had to run outside to the garage to get the other garden hose. Well I finally stopped the water park I had in my basement and cleaned everything up. All the while Anastasia stayed upstairs and watched TV. Thanks a lot you spoiled brat.
So now Montyp2000 has a house.
It was a sad day when I had to go into the apartment managers office and tell them that I was leaving. I grew to love those nice ladies that I handed money to each and every month. But alas, I was moving on to bigger and better things… so I thought.
The move itself was fairly painless. Having moved 3 times already before, I was getting fairly good at it. Most of my belongings were still in boxes from the last move so that was nice. My friend Justin had been so kind as to lend me a hand in my moving because he is such a generous person. Ha ha ha ha ha… I know I know… he isn’t. He only did it because he knew I would be helping him move out of his house soon enough and all his kindness would be paid back to him with interest. We had just about everything moved into the house in a day and I even had my room set up. I and my faithful friend Justin moved all the big items while Anastasia and her mom moved all the little 5lb boxes. Stupid girls. They want equal rights and equal pay and to be in the military, but when it comes to lifting heavy things, that’s a mans job. That’s right ladies, we’ll get the couch while you take the cushions. That’s fair. The couch was defiantly the worst part. It was far too big to get through the back door so we went through the front. It took us 30 min and a lot of swearing to get the couch past the porch and into the living room. For some reason, only 2 of the 4 legs on the bottom of the couch would come off. Well after all the sweat and agony of getting the massive and comfy couch into the living room we decided to plop it down right in the middle of the room and take a rest. Now this was obviously not where we were going to leave it but no sooner did we sit down to relax but Anastasia came into the room and says, “Don’t you think the couch would look better over there?” Justin and I looked at each other to make sure we heard that right. Did that bitch just tell us to move the couch? She must not realize that couches and beds and dressers and TV’s and TV stands weigh a lot more than the boxes of clothes and flatware that she and her mother were hauling. After the move was finally finished it was time for relaxing. Sigh…. Sometimes I am so naïve.
Chapter 3: If it sounds too good to be true…
There are some things to know about my house before we go any further.
The house I bought was in a nice area. It was built in 1908 and has 2 stories on it with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms… sort of. The house was previously owned by an old couple who lived there for most of their lives. They got too old to go up and down the stairs so they shut off the upstairs some 20 years ago and had been living in the den ever since. Well the only bathroom in the house at the time was upstairs so they took off a section of the living room and turned it into a shower room. That’s right… just a shower room. It has the old people handle in it and the big rubber flowers and everything. In the kitchen, they did away with the pantry and turned that into the bathroom. Well in the 20 years of isolation, the upstairs went to shit and required some major work before Anastasia and I could live up there. We decided to live downstairs until the renovations were done. Anastasia being the selfish person that she was decided to set up her camp in the dining room right next to the air conditioner. I set up my room in the den which offered more privacy, but was hotter than hell. I didn’t mind though because we knew it would just be temporary. Ha ha ha… what a fool I was.
My dad was going to help us with fixing up the house but unfortunately for us he was currently working on my uncles house in Chicago. It would be a few months before he would finish up over there and start on my house. In the mean time, Anastasia and I wanted to get started on little projects that we could do ourselves. Anastasia, her mother, and her friends all pitched in and tore down the ugly wallpaper in the kitchen and painted. It was great. I left in the morning to go to work and when I got home it was like a brand new kitchen had sprung up from the ashes of the old one.
I decided to be a bit more daring and attempt to remove the carpet from the stairs and upstairs rooms. The carpet that was there must have been installed in the late 60’s. It was a pea soup green and had a pattern woven into it. Hippies from the 60’s liked that kind of crap back then. Anastasia said that she kind of liked because it was retro. I am not retro. I hate hippies and I hate old carpet. Out it must go. Well upon removing the carpet from the stairs I noticed something fantastic underneath. I had a house with hardwood floors! Woo Hoo!!! I was hoping there would be little surprises like this in the house waiting for me. What I didn’t realize was how many surprises there would be and that the hard wood floors would be the only good surprise out of all of them.
After the great job they did in the kitchen, Anastasia and her mom decided to move upstairs to the bathroom. It was really the only room up there that didn’t have anything major wrong with it. So they started painting and repairing the small holes in the plaster but soon found out that there were too many cracks in the plaster to cover up with filler. They decided to cover it up with paint instead. Well as you may have guessed, it didn’t look quite right. They then decided to paint the cracks with a grey paint in some attempt to accentuate it and make it look stylish. I can see why they thought it might look good. It worked for ripped jeans back in the 80’s; it’ll work here with plaster and paint. They were wrong. So so wrong. It looked awful. The paint accentuated the cracks and in fact made it look so bad that it looked like the rest of the upstairs. I let it go though because we were living together and you don’t want to piss off the person you depend on for half of the bills.
After the painting was done, Pam cleaned the tub and toilet. I, my mother, Anastasia and my nephew Evan were downstairs talking when I heard rain. I glanced out the window to see a cloudless sky and realized it was not coming from outside but inside. I looked into the dining room to the sight of water coming out of the ceiling and pouring into the living room! I ran upstairs and saw Pam fiddling with an overflowing toilet trying to get it to stop. I turned it off for her and she told me how she had finished scrubbing the toilet and flushed it when it started to overflow. Well my dad came to the rescue and after some inspection we found out that the drainage pipe for the bathroom upstairs was an old cast iron pipe and over the years of not having been used or flushed, the inside of the pipe started to rust and flake. The flakes would fall to the bottom of the pipe and collect. Well accelerate to 20+ years later and there was a big pile of rust blocking the water from draining and turning my living room into a scene from Singing in the Rain.
During my fathers repair of the plumbing he discovered another little hiccup with the house. I had no insulation anywhere. “Well ain’t that a bitch” I thought. Not only does my air conditioner suck because it was 20 years old, but my house won’t hold in any of the cold air that the ancient air conditioner will spit out anyway. Add that to the list of things to fix. Right in between the sinking back porch and the electrical in the upstairs that looks like it was installed by Edison himself. Ahhh the joys of owning your own home. Well after all that, things calmed down and we settled into our new house. I had a hi-def TV and a DVR for my satellite dish and Anastasia’s friends came over quite a bit to drink and hang out. Life was good again.
Then it started raining. A lot. I went down into the basement to check and see if there was any water in there. When it rained there would be a small trickle coming somewhere from the concrete steps but it wasn’t anything major. This time there was a lot more rain so I wanted to make sure things were still ok. With the increase in rain, I finally saw where the water was coming in from. There was a slight crack on the side of the stairs and the water was coming in slowly but surely. Then I noticed it. There was a piece of duct tape of the crack and it had been painted to over it up. Those old cheap bastards! The more I lived in this house, the more I noticed how half assed they did everything. “Should we go out and buy a coat hook for this coat? No way! We’ll just put in a nail in the wall.” That was the mentality they had for everything they did in this house. “Let’s not do it right, lets just do it so it looks halfway decent and doesn’t cost too much.” Well me being the fool I was, I pulled on the tape that was on the stairs to see how big the crack was. Big mistake. I opened the flood gates quite literally. Water started coming out of the crack like a garden hose. I tried feebly to put the tape back but it was too late. I was screwed and my clothes were soaked. The water went down the steps and started to pool at the bottom. It eventually made its way to the sub pump but the pool started to grow and move towards the middle of the basement. I, in a moment of brilliance, taped a garden hose to the crack where the water was coming out and hoped that it would drain the water right into the sub pump. It worked! I couldn’t believe that such a long shot of an idea of mine worked! Well after the water started to go down, I heard a whistling noise near the washing machine. I went over to the wall and saw a small hole in the cement that looked like a pipe had once been there. I put my finger near the hole and felt air coming out of it. The noise was getting higher in pitch and before I knew it, water started shooting out of the hole like a fountain. Once again I had more water to clean up. “I HATE THIS HOUSE”, I screamed. Once again I had to run outside to the garage to get the other garden hose. Well I finally stopped the water park I had in my basement and cleaned everything up. All the while Anastasia stayed upstairs and watched TV. Thanks a lot you spoiled brat.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Diary Of A House: Part 1
Sigh…. I miss my apartment.
So my name is Montyp2000 and I am an American Homeowner. You’ll notice that the word “proud” was not in that title. I, like many of you, thought that the American Dream was to move out of your parents place and to buy a house of your own and live happily ever after. How foolish I was. I now see that the American Dream is to move out and get an apartment, or condo, or townhouse you can afford and never have to worry about fixing anything for yourself ever again. EVER!!! This is the story of my house. How it came to be and all the problems I’ve had to face so far. If I can stop just one person from buying a moneypit like I did, then it will all have been worth it.
Prologue: The Apartment
I was once a proud renter of an apartment. It was nice. You show up once a month, hand them a check, and go back to a wonderful apartment. It was fairly modern, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, decent size kitchen, big living room and on the ground floor for easy access to your car, dumpster, and laundry room. It was right in the busy part of Schererville but it was still close to my friends which was important to me. Friends came by to visit and we even filmed a movie in it. A real movie, not the dirty kind. I never had to worry about my apartment. In life you always need to be prepared should something go wrong. Well I never had to worry about that at the apartment because if anything broke, the maintenance guy was just a phone call away. Life was good to me.
My roommates changed a bit over the 2+ years that I have been away from home. Some have been slobs, some stunk up the place with smoke and cat hair, and some bought big gigantic greyhounds without asking. (yes I’m still bitter about that one BoB. That dog pee’d on my Nintendo!) I needed the room mates because my crappy job at an office supply super store did not afford me the luxury of living alone. If you can walk away from this blog with one lesson to learn it’s this; never rely on anyone to support you except yourself….. and maybe your parents if they are nice enough.
Well my 2nd room mate BoB had a girlfriend when we first moved in together. From day one I wondered in the back of my mind what was going to happen when it comes time to renew the lease. Is this girl going to still be around then? Probably not knowing BoB but what if she is? Will it be serious enough between them that they will want their own place next year? Well time flew by and 10 months later I was sorry to see that they were still together. (No offense Becka, but at the time I was concerned about where I was going to live. I couldn’t have cared less about your happiness)
So BoB and Becka moved out and to my surprise and good fortune, my friend/hairstylist Anastasia said she was looking to move out of her parents place. I thought to myself, “This is perfect! I have a room mate! She’s cute, pays rent on time, not too loud, and has good looking friends. Just my type of woman. Well the problem was that she wanted a house, not a wonderful and glorious apartment. So we went looking. Working part time at a retail job does not afford the type of house we were looking for. You know the kind I’m talking about. Good ones. Instead we had to look at fixer uppers. I didn’t really have a problem putting in a little hard work to make a so so house into our dream house. Well the only place that had these types of houses was Cedar Lake. I’m getting shivers just thinking about it. We looked all over Cedar Lake at houses for sale and I must say, there are a LOT of crappy houses out there and you wouldn’t believe the condition that these places were in. We kept coming back to the same one. It was $76,000 for a 3 bedroom house with a big basement and hardwood flooring in the living room. Not too shabby I thought. Then my dad came to look at it. I gues I was looking at the house through rose tinted glasses because to me it looked pretty good. Not to my dad though. HE's been a homeowner a long time and has had shit break and need fixing. Oh the things he found... The roof needed to be replaced, the foundation was cracked and leaking, siding would need to be redone, there were snakes, the neighbors had a live turkey that could have been a pet or dinner, and to top it all off, my dads secretary who lives in cedar lake said the neighborhood the house was in was filled with bikers and rednecks. For a Cedar Lake resident to say the area was full of hicks is really saying something. I wouldn’t have lasted a month there.
So I was back to where I was before. The chance to renew the lease at the apartment had come and gone and we only had a month and a half left on the current lease. I needed to find a house fast or risk moving back home with mom and dad. AHHHHHHH! Well wouldn’t you know, mom and dad came through after all. Dad drove past a house on the way home from work and saw a for sale sign in the yard. They took a look at it and thought it would be worth getting. Anastasia and I went to take a look at it a week later and it was in pretty good shape. My dad pointed put a few things we would need to touch up here and there but it was in livable condition and there was a lot of potential here. So I emptied out my life savings and bought a house. YAY! Montyp2000: American Homeowner.
So my name is Montyp2000 and I am an American Homeowner. You’ll notice that the word “proud” was not in that title. I, like many of you, thought that the American Dream was to move out of your parents place and to buy a house of your own and live happily ever after. How foolish I was. I now see that the American Dream is to move out and get an apartment, or condo, or townhouse you can afford and never have to worry about fixing anything for yourself ever again. EVER!!! This is the story of my house. How it came to be and all the problems I’ve had to face so far. If I can stop just one person from buying a moneypit like I did, then it will all have been worth it.
Prologue: The Apartment
I was once a proud renter of an apartment. It was nice. You show up once a month, hand them a check, and go back to a wonderful apartment. It was fairly modern, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, decent size kitchen, big living room and on the ground floor for easy access to your car, dumpster, and laundry room. It was right in the busy part of Schererville but it was still close to my friends which was important to me. Friends came by to visit and we even filmed a movie in it. A real movie, not the dirty kind. I never had to worry about my apartment. In life you always need to be prepared should something go wrong. Well I never had to worry about that at the apartment because if anything broke, the maintenance guy was just a phone call away. Life was good to me.
My roommates changed a bit over the 2+ years that I have been away from home. Some have been slobs, some stunk up the place with smoke and cat hair, and some bought big gigantic greyhounds without asking. (yes I’m still bitter about that one BoB. That dog pee’d on my Nintendo!) I needed the room mates because my crappy job at an office supply super store did not afford me the luxury of living alone. If you can walk away from this blog with one lesson to learn it’s this; never rely on anyone to support you except yourself….. and maybe your parents if they are nice enough.
Well my 2nd room mate BoB had a girlfriend when we first moved in together. From day one I wondered in the back of my mind what was going to happen when it comes time to renew the lease. Is this girl going to still be around then? Probably not knowing BoB but what if she is? Will it be serious enough between them that they will want their own place next year? Well time flew by and 10 months later I was sorry to see that they were still together. (No offense Becka, but at the time I was concerned about where I was going to live. I couldn’t have cared less about your happiness)
So BoB and Becka moved out and to my surprise and good fortune, my friend/hairstylist Anastasia said she was looking to move out of her parents place. I thought to myself, “This is perfect! I have a room mate! She’s cute, pays rent on time, not too loud, and has good looking friends. Just my type of woman. Well the problem was that she wanted a house, not a wonderful and glorious apartment. So we went looking. Working part time at a retail job does not afford the type of house we were looking for. You know the kind I’m talking about. Good ones. Instead we had to look at fixer uppers. I didn’t really have a problem putting in a little hard work to make a so so house into our dream house. Well the only place that had these types of houses was Cedar Lake. I’m getting shivers just thinking about it. We looked all over Cedar Lake at houses for sale and I must say, there are a LOT of crappy houses out there and you wouldn’t believe the condition that these places were in. We kept coming back to the same one. It was $76,000 for a 3 bedroom house with a big basement and hardwood flooring in the living room. Not too shabby I thought. Then my dad came to look at it. I gues I was looking at the house through rose tinted glasses because to me it looked pretty good. Not to my dad though. HE's been a homeowner a long time and has had shit break and need fixing. Oh the things he found... The roof needed to be replaced, the foundation was cracked and leaking, siding would need to be redone, there were snakes, the neighbors had a live turkey that could have been a pet or dinner, and to top it all off, my dads secretary who lives in cedar lake said the neighborhood the house was in was filled with bikers and rednecks. For a Cedar Lake resident to say the area was full of hicks is really saying something. I wouldn’t have lasted a month there.
So I was back to where I was before. The chance to renew the lease at the apartment had come and gone and we only had a month and a half left on the current lease. I needed to find a house fast or risk moving back home with mom and dad. AHHHHHHH! Well wouldn’t you know, mom and dad came through after all. Dad drove past a house on the way home from work and saw a for sale sign in the yard. They took a look at it and thought it would be worth getting. Anastasia and I went to take a look at it a week later and it was in pretty good shape. My dad pointed put a few things we would need to touch up here and there but it was in livable condition and there was a lot of potential here. So I emptied out my life savings and bought a house. YAY! Montyp2000: American Homeowner.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
God is Dead
God is dead. There… I said it. God is dead. Deal with it.
I remember from a rather young age being dragged to church every single Sunday. I was never sure why we had to go there every week. I was convinced I was being punished for something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Every week it was the same thing. Get up early, dress up nice, comb my hair, then go off to church and sit on a wood bench for a small eternity and listen to some guy I couldn’t actually see, due to my lack of height and bad eyesight, talk about some dude named god, or jesus, or something. And to top it off, it wasn’t just sitting. It was sit…. kneel… stand… kneel…. stand… sit. Over and over again. What’s going on? Pick one and stick with it!
What was really confusing was that my mom would drag me and my sisters to church every week but my dad was spared this punishment. Why did I have to go but dad didn’t? I DO remember asking my mom once why dad never went with. She replied, “Your father works very hard during the week and he needs his rest.” Surely she was joking. I mean yeah… my dad works hard. Harder than anyone I knew in my 7 or 8 years of existence. But seriously…. I was tired too dammit. I worked hard in school. Those dodge balls weren’t going to get thrown themselves you know. Hell…. I went to a catholic school for the first few years. We went to mass once a week already. Why was I made to go twice?
I remember sitting in the pew….. hee hee…. pew… that’s funny… anyway, I remember sitting in the pew thinking, “what am I supposed to be doing here? Who is he talking about now? I’ve never heard that name before. What does ‘smote’ mean? Why are we standing again? Ooooo time to sing. I hope we sing the wheels on the bus song. I know that one. Oh… another song I don’t know the words to. Why is everyone going up front? Are they eating? I’m starving… when’s it my turn? Why is everyone holding their hands and looking at the ground? Is everyone sleeping? Better have a look around. Uh oh…. Mom looks mad. Better sit back down. I wonder what we’re having for dinner….
Needless to say I was never really moved by church and Christianity. I could never understand what the priest was talking about. I remember him telling stories about some group of guys called the apostles going off and doing heroic things and saving the day. Or was that Batman? I know that each week it was a different adventure for these guys and that I could never remember what happened last week or if it was even important to remember. Can I get a recap here? Last week on Jerusalem 90210… Maybe next week will be more interesting. Same god time, same god channel.
Like I said before, I was sent to Catholic school for the first few years of elementary school. We even had a nun for 1st grade. Apparently nuns and priests worked for this god person which was good because I had questions about god. Surely they would know. Anytime I asked a question, I either never got a straight answer or was told to go stand in the corner for disrupting the class. I had come to the conclusion that she was not the one to ask.
One day back in 1st or 2nd grade our teacher told us we would be going to confession. For those of you who aren’t Catholics let me tell you about it. It’s just like they show it on the TV. You walk into a booth and kneel down and tell some guy in another booth right next to you all the bad things you’ve done. There’s a little screen that is supposed to block the priests view of seeing you, even though you can see right through it. So you tell him all the bad stuff you’ve done and he gives you a homework assignment of prayers you have to say and all is well. I remember thinking several things when the teacher told me this.
1. I have to tell him all the bad stuff I’ve done? Why? I wouldn’t tell my parents what I did wrong, why would I tell this guy?
2. We have to say prayers afterwards to be forgiven? Why do we say prayers throughout the day then? Did I do something wrong in class and not know it?
3. If god knows all and sees all, why do I have to say it out loud? Shouldn’t god already know the bad stuff I’ve done?
Well I asked the teacher the last one and she told me to go stand in the corner. She obviously didn’t know. I’ll ask the priest when I do this confession thingy. If anyone would know the answer, it would be gods helper elf.
So I went to confession and I made up some bad things I probably did. (Hitting my sister, not eating my vegetables etc…) The priest then asked if there was anything else I had done wrong. I told him that was all. He assigned me some prayers and told me I was forgiven. I told him I had some questions for him about god and he told me to go ahead and ask. I asked him all sorts of questions about god. Why do people die? How did Noah get all the animals on the ark and why did he leave off the dinosaurs? Why doesn’t god answer my prayers for a million dollars? If Jesus was put on the cross, why didn’t his brother Hercules come save him? If god loves us, why would he send us to hell? Why would he make hell in the first place? If god only created Adam and Eve, how did we get all these people on the planet and where did black people come from? (Yeah I know that last one was racist, but I was 7 and didn’t know it was racist. It was a legitimate question) The priest then gave me extra prayers to do for all my questions. Not one of my questions went answered.
These kinds of questions popped into my head off and on throughout the years but after confession, I learned that it was just easier to keep my mouth shut. I knew that nobody there could answer my questions and that it would only get me into trouble. I wondered to myself how is it that nobody else is asking these kinds of questions? Is there something wrong with me? Am I going to hell for questioning the bible and what my teachers tell me?
A few years later my sister and I had been transferred to public school because catholic school was getting too expensive. I met all sorts of kids there and we didn’t have to wear uniforms. I liked that part because the loafers my mom always made me wear were slippery on the tile floor and I had a tendency to want to run and slide on the floor, but usually ended up falling down in the process. It was during my 6th grade year that I met a kid named Mike. We were in art or band class together. I don’t remember which. I do however remember asking him one day what his religion was. I knew there were different types of Christians, and knew about Judaism too. He told me he didn’t have a religion. I was really confused. “How can you not have a religion?”, I asked.
“I don’t know… I just don’t”
“Well what religion are your parents?”
“We don’t have one. My parents didn’t raise me to believe in god.”
“You can do that?”
“Yeah I guess.”
My mind was blown away. I had no idea that you could NOT believe in god. I mean come on… if you don’t believe in god, how does he expect to get into heaven? That one was a brain scratcher.
One day in 8th grade I was in line for lunch. I wasn’t sure what to have that day and when it was my turn I just ordered a hot dog. What I had forgotten was that it was Lent and also happened to be a Friday. I was informed of this by a little fat kid name Nate. I really didn’t like this kid. He was short, fat, pushy, and loved telling people when they screwed up. I walked past him in the lunch room.
“Hey Montyp2000, it’s Friday.”
“Yeah I know… so what?”
“It’s lent… you can’t eat meat stupid.”
He was right…. Oh I can see his smile start to form. He had won and was acting all high and mighty. I’ll show him.
“I don’t believe in god fat boy!”
Then it hit me…. Wow…. I don’t believe in god. Did I really just say that? Did I really MEAN it? I looked up. I don’t know what I was expecting. Was the mighty hand of god going to strike me down? Hmmm nothing happened. Wow… I don’t believe in god.
Better not let mom find out…
I remember from a rather young age being dragged to church every single Sunday. I was never sure why we had to go there every week. I was convinced I was being punished for something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Every week it was the same thing. Get up early, dress up nice, comb my hair, then go off to church and sit on a wood bench for a small eternity and listen to some guy I couldn’t actually see, due to my lack of height and bad eyesight, talk about some dude named god, or jesus, or something. And to top it off, it wasn’t just sitting. It was sit…. kneel… stand… kneel…. stand… sit. Over and over again. What’s going on? Pick one and stick with it!
What was really confusing was that my mom would drag me and my sisters to church every week but my dad was spared this punishment. Why did I have to go but dad didn’t? I DO remember asking my mom once why dad never went with. She replied, “Your father works very hard during the week and he needs his rest.” Surely she was joking. I mean yeah… my dad works hard. Harder than anyone I knew in my 7 or 8 years of existence. But seriously…. I was tired too dammit. I worked hard in school. Those dodge balls weren’t going to get thrown themselves you know. Hell…. I went to a catholic school for the first few years. We went to mass once a week already. Why was I made to go twice?
I remember sitting in the pew….. hee hee…. pew… that’s funny… anyway, I remember sitting in the pew thinking, “what am I supposed to be doing here? Who is he talking about now? I’ve never heard that name before. What does ‘smote’ mean? Why are we standing again? Ooooo time to sing. I hope we sing the wheels on the bus song. I know that one. Oh… another song I don’t know the words to. Why is everyone going up front? Are they eating? I’m starving… when’s it my turn? Why is everyone holding their hands and looking at the ground? Is everyone sleeping? Better have a look around. Uh oh…. Mom looks mad. Better sit back down. I wonder what we’re having for dinner….
Needless to say I was never really moved by church and Christianity. I could never understand what the priest was talking about. I remember him telling stories about some group of guys called the apostles going off and doing heroic things and saving the day. Or was that Batman? I know that each week it was a different adventure for these guys and that I could never remember what happened last week or if it was even important to remember. Can I get a recap here? Last week on Jerusalem 90210… Maybe next week will be more interesting. Same god time, same god channel.
Like I said before, I was sent to Catholic school for the first few years of elementary school. We even had a nun for 1st grade. Apparently nuns and priests worked for this god person which was good because I had questions about god. Surely they would know. Anytime I asked a question, I either never got a straight answer or was told to go stand in the corner for disrupting the class. I had come to the conclusion that she was not the one to ask.
One day back in 1st or 2nd grade our teacher told us we would be going to confession. For those of you who aren’t Catholics let me tell you about it. It’s just like they show it on the TV. You walk into a booth and kneel down and tell some guy in another booth right next to you all the bad things you’ve done. There’s a little screen that is supposed to block the priests view of seeing you, even though you can see right through it. So you tell him all the bad stuff you’ve done and he gives you a homework assignment of prayers you have to say and all is well. I remember thinking several things when the teacher told me this.
1. I have to tell him all the bad stuff I’ve done? Why? I wouldn’t tell my parents what I did wrong, why would I tell this guy?
2. We have to say prayers afterwards to be forgiven? Why do we say prayers throughout the day then? Did I do something wrong in class and not know it?
3. If god knows all and sees all, why do I have to say it out loud? Shouldn’t god already know the bad stuff I’ve done?
Well I asked the teacher the last one and she told me to go stand in the corner. She obviously didn’t know. I’ll ask the priest when I do this confession thingy. If anyone would know the answer, it would be gods helper elf.
So I went to confession and I made up some bad things I probably did. (Hitting my sister, not eating my vegetables etc…) The priest then asked if there was anything else I had done wrong. I told him that was all. He assigned me some prayers and told me I was forgiven. I told him I had some questions for him about god and he told me to go ahead and ask. I asked him all sorts of questions about god. Why do people die? How did Noah get all the animals on the ark and why did he leave off the dinosaurs? Why doesn’t god answer my prayers for a million dollars? If Jesus was put on the cross, why didn’t his brother Hercules come save him? If god loves us, why would he send us to hell? Why would he make hell in the first place? If god only created Adam and Eve, how did we get all these people on the planet and where did black people come from? (Yeah I know that last one was racist, but I was 7 and didn’t know it was racist. It was a legitimate question) The priest then gave me extra prayers to do for all my questions. Not one of my questions went answered.
These kinds of questions popped into my head off and on throughout the years but after confession, I learned that it was just easier to keep my mouth shut. I knew that nobody there could answer my questions and that it would only get me into trouble. I wondered to myself how is it that nobody else is asking these kinds of questions? Is there something wrong with me? Am I going to hell for questioning the bible and what my teachers tell me?
A few years later my sister and I had been transferred to public school because catholic school was getting too expensive. I met all sorts of kids there and we didn’t have to wear uniforms. I liked that part because the loafers my mom always made me wear were slippery on the tile floor and I had a tendency to want to run and slide on the floor, but usually ended up falling down in the process. It was during my 6th grade year that I met a kid named Mike. We were in art or band class together. I don’t remember which. I do however remember asking him one day what his religion was. I knew there were different types of Christians, and knew about Judaism too. He told me he didn’t have a religion. I was really confused. “How can you not have a religion?”, I asked.
“I don’t know… I just don’t”
“Well what religion are your parents?”
“We don’t have one. My parents didn’t raise me to believe in god.”
“You can do that?”
“Yeah I guess.”
My mind was blown away. I had no idea that you could NOT believe in god. I mean come on… if you don’t believe in god, how does he expect to get into heaven? That one was a brain scratcher.
One day in 8th grade I was in line for lunch. I wasn’t sure what to have that day and when it was my turn I just ordered a hot dog. What I had forgotten was that it was Lent and also happened to be a Friday. I was informed of this by a little fat kid name Nate. I really didn’t like this kid. He was short, fat, pushy, and loved telling people when they screwed up. I walked past him in the lunch room.
“Hey Montyp2000, it’s Friday.”
“Yeah I know… so what?”
“It’s lent… you can’t eat meat stupid.”
He was right…. Oh I can see his smile start to form. He had won and was acting all high and mighty. I’ll show him.
“I don’t believe in god fat boy!”
Then it hit me…. Wow…. I don’t believe in god. Did I really just say that? Did I really MEAN it? I looked up. I don’t know what I was expecting. Was the mighty hand of god going to strike me down? Hmmm nothing happened. Wow… I don’t believe in god.
Better not let mom find out…
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