kahunaburger

… as much as I did. This sums it up perfectly:

Comments(0)

This is borderline hilarious: My colleague Steve sent a Christmas card via FedEx way before Christmas. I just received it today (1/29). He used Adobe’s internal mail department to ship it. For whatever reason, they had an old, old address on file and tried to send it to the wrong address. When it finally got returned they contacted me and I corrected the address mistake.

That’s not hilarious, but what follows is: I open the envelope and find another trashed FedEx envelope inside. I can see the old address on that envelope, but I also find some of the drivers notes on it. Here’s a scan:

In case you can’t make out the comments:

12/21 - Muddy road - Can’t go up - Won’t get out
12/24 - Snow packed road - Can’t get up hill

I hear from our ex-neighbours that the road conditions were really bad around Christmas last year. While I miss the view from the house, I certainly don’t miss the road. Here’s what it looked like on a sunny day from a distance (that was from the flyer we used when we sold the house):

Comments(0)

If you were in the area yesterday evening and you saw a guy in slippers, t-shirt with a camera - it was me - freezing my bottoms of while I was waiting for the light to change. Just before the sun went down the sky exploded with colors and I had to run outside to take a picture.

This was taken right behind my house around 5:30pm. That’s one of the reasons why I like it here so much.

sunset from the house

Comments(3)

Last night I got fired from my job - by my 7th-grade Latin school teacher. Isn’t the dream-landscape a wonderful one?

Comments(5)

DIY: Cheap Image Stabilizer for Your Cameras - holy moly! This is simple and pretty amazing. Where are my washers?

Comments(0)

Los Angeles Times : A tipping point? “Foreclose me … I’ll save money” - wow, this is a crazy-ass alternative strategy. Guess the lenders are now getting their receipt for lending money to people who should not have gotten it in the first place.

Comments(0)

I just returned from 1st Metropolitan Mortgage in Santa Fe where I refinanced my current mortgage. My previous mortgage was a 30-year fixed loan with a 10-year “interest only” option. So for the first ten years I would only pay interest on the loan, but the principal (loan amount) would stay fixed. After ten years I would pay principal+interest, which actually begins to reduce the loan amount.

I did some number crunching over the past few days and it turned out that the lower interest rate make a huge difference. After the refinance I’m paying slightly more every month, however I’m paying down principal immediately. This is going to safe a huge bundle in the coming years.

I expect to close on the new loan in a few weeks …

Comments(1)

For the last few weeks, something magical has been happening at the new home. Around 9am, the sun shines through the little window of the shower and hits the glass door of the shower. The rounded edges of the shower turn the sunlight into a rainbow that is cast on the floor and cabinets. Pia is actually waiting for the magic to happen and several times this morning she went to the bathroom pronouncing “No yet!” when it was too early to see the phenomenon. She was filled with joy when she saw it minutes later and asked me to take a photo. There you go: Pia with magical rainbow on the bathroom floor in front of the tub.

bathroom rainbow

PS: Apologies for the mismatched PJ-top/bottoms - somebody had an accident earlier on and the bottoms needed to be replaced …

Comments(1)

Oh, where were you when I was looking for christmas presents?

War on Terror - the board game (TM): I think I have to get one for Pia …

(logo on the right borrowed from the official site)

Comments(0)

The well my house is on serves two other lots. One of them has a structure on it and the other the other one is empty. The structure is not occupied (”for sale”). So, I’m the only one drawing water from the shared well. Yesterday morning I had a shower and noticed how the water pressure was gradually getting worse. Initially I thought the whole-house water filter was dirty and replaced it without thinking further about it. Then in the afternoon I tried the sink in the kitchen and there was no water.

I checked the filter over and over again, but even without it, there was no water coming out of the main pipe. The time was 4pm. And I had to pick up Pia an hour later. I ran over to the unoccupied house and tried the outside hose-connection there. Sure enough, no water coming out. At least now I was sure that the problem was not isolated to my home. Called my plumber - on vacation. Called the previous owner of the place (who happens to own some other lots out here) and he agreed to come out and check things out.

When I returned from picking up Pia he was in the well-house nearby and told me that the switch that sends the well-pump the “go” signal had frozen over and that he was thawing it at the moment. It froze over a few days, perhaps even a week ago. There’s a huge holding tank in the well-house and I had been drawing water from the tank, which happened to be completely empty yesterday afternoon. He promised to have a crew out here today to work on the insulation and add a heating element to the switch.

Comments(0)