What a Difference a Lifetime Makes

Welcome to the IRS’s version of ‘Thanksgiving’
In case you didn’t know, today is April 15th — not that it makes that much difference to me. I filed my return in February and my refund is already in the bank. Not trying to gloat, just sayin.’ However to be fair, it really does matter to a lot of other folks, and not too long ago I was one myself, so I’m honestly not without my due empathy.

But anyway, this morning I was on my way out the front door, my backpack and gym bag draped over my right shoulder and my left hand on the doorknob. It was then that my left leg began to throb.

“Who the hell is calling me this early?” I thought. Y’see, my cell phone generally sleeps in most mornings and issues neither a peep nor a shudder until at least noon.

The notable exception to that rule is when Michelle calls. She leaves for work a half-hour before I do, so if there’s an accident or a cop staked out with a radar gun somewhere along the path she and I share in our morning commute, she’ll give me a hollar to let me know. She’s really good about that.

So I immediately thought that might be the case, but when I fished the cellphone out of my pocket and checked the display, I was surprised to see that the caller was someone else who hangs out on my branch of the family tree: our son Shawn.

He was calling to ask about which part of the form he received back from his tax preparer to send in along with his check, this of course being the most sacred of national holidays, Tax Deadline Day.

Last summer we told both of the kids after their respective college graduations that we would still be there to help them in certain areas, but only in a pinch. They gladly accepted being nudged out of the nest, but to be sure, this would be a new experience for them.

One of the things that they both have been taking care of on their own now for the past two years running is seeing to the filing of their own federal income tax returns. Amy has filed the 1040-EZ form online, and Shawn, due to the fact that he too has followed in his Pop’s footsteps as a self-employed individual, has been forced to go out and find someone else to do the work, what with the potential difficulties of doing a business tax return on one’s own.

So as I answered his questions I’ll have to admit to simultaneously feeling a sense of pride that my boy was getting his feet wet in the goings-on of the ‘real world,’ right alongside a slight pang of guilt for suddenly realizing that I had brought into the world yet another man who just like me is completely incapable of doing his own taxes.

But after we ended the call and I continued out the front door, the chilly April morning air collided with bright warm morning sunshine and I reflected on how much different my life is now, especially in relation to the way I myself used to face April 15th each and every year.

I smiled and thought to myself, “Wow. What a difference a few years makes.”

Still the same…but different
I suppose it wasn’t really that long ago, but it feels like a lifetime ago; and perhaps it was. Perhaps I really was a different person back in the days when I used to avoid April 15th like the plague.

I knew I couldn’t really give it the slip, but I sure gave it the ol’ college try.

Being a freelance graphic designer for fifteen years, I knew that nearly every year we would have to ante up to Uncle Sam, so every year I waited until the last minute to prepare my taxes and never sent in my return (and that all-important check) early.

In fact, I was usually one of the guys who had to scramble just to get to the post office before it closed — despite the fact that they always stay open late on Tax Deadline Day

Many times we either got our money in late or not at all, and were forced to throw ourselves at the mercy of The Service, to accept installments. What was even worse, on three occasions we had to work through the millstone-around-the-neck experience of an IRS tax lien — the last one of which we were forced to pay off to become eligible to buy our first home here in Tennessee.

And as one might guess, it was a fairly hot-button issue between Michelle and me. Enough instances had passed in which my slothfulness had indeed bitten me in ‘da tush, forcing us to pay even more in interest and penalties to the IRS.

The subject of tax season always brought with it a predictable tension. “Have you gotten started on the taxes yet?” she’d ask repeatedly. “Nope, not yet. Soon, though,” I'd respond matter-of-factly, knowing full well that I had no intention of doing anything until no sooner than April 5th — which may seem like a plenty sufficient timeframe in which to get our return in, but it’s really not.

Anyone who has ever caught the famous comedy act of the ‘long form’ (Form 1040 and its lovable sidekick, Schedule ‘C’) knows that when you own a business or even itemize personal deductions, backup is everything. The IRS has certain things that are automatic ‘red flags,’ and one of those is a deduction I took annually that opened me up for scrutiny each and every time: the ‘Home Office’ deduction.

Home office deductions have to be carefully documented. The reason they’ve fallen under so much scrutiny in recent years is because so many people have abused the privilege. Too many have counted too much of their home as ‘used’ in their home office allocation — and in turn, too high a percentage of rent/mortgage cost, utilities, etc. And going overboard with the dollar amount is a big no-no — intentional or otherwise.

Consequently now, according to my former tax professional, bad home office deductions are one of the chief reasons someone may be audited. It’s vital that if entitled, a person does it right, with proper documentation and a realistic percentage of how much of their home and its expended resources actually went into the day-to-day cost of running the business.

Do it wrong, or worse, do so with the intention of pulling a little som’som’ over on the IRS, and you can be reasonably sure you’ll become a much more popular person. However when an auditor shows up at your door, they usually aren’t wearing party hats.

And I don’t know about you, but I’ve been audited once before (not by the IRS, but by the State of California for state sales tax discrepancies) and I can assure you it is NOT something I want to experience ever again. So I made the decision a long time ago to do whatever it takes to keep my nose as clean as possible. I’ve since always erred on the side of caution, and if I didn't have a receipt for something, well too bad, Chuck, that's a deduction that simply got away.

I’ve always used CPAs to do my taxes — probably to my own detriment, financially — but it’s money well-spent, in my opinion. I’ve never been a numbers guy, and given my history, I’m scared to death of screwing it up. Therefore I’ve never done my own federal return — ever. Even now, as it’s been two years since my last freelance side job, we still use a tax preparer. Until recently I always had at least a grand or two of annual income from freelance graphics or web work. I kept doing it for as long as those usually longstanding clients continued to feed it to me.

However as the work dwindled, so did my desire to pay our CPA nearly $200 per year for working my ‘other business’ income into his tax prep for what seemed to be so little ultimate benefit derived from it.

Then Michelle discovered through the grapevine at work that there was a retired IRS agent who did taxes as a side job. The guy is GREAT! Does the whole deal for $75.00, which is about half what we used to pay the CPA. And even though I no longer deal with saving receipts and breaking down utility costs into a room-by-room usage cost, Michelle still does for her Longberger basket business. And as I’m concerned, that’s what makes his service such a bargain.

My wife’s own freelance business income doesn’t do much more than support her ‘basket habit,’ so the deduction figuring doesn't amount to much work on her part, but now it’s she who must spend time recording and figuring out all the various nuances of business expense deduction.

It’s just nice for me to be able to ask her for a change, “Hey…have you gotten started on the taxes yet?”

Gone Corporate
I really never thought I’d say it — or further, honestly even think it — but I really don’t miss freelancing. Sure, I miss having the option of occasionally playing hooky and going to the beach on a nice summer’s morning instead of working; or working all day in the same get-up I rolled out of bed in. But I don’t miss the all-nighters, and the artificial deadlines imposed by clients who thought that all you had to do was ‘press a button’ to realize fully concepted and laid-out artwork. That was especially true in the early days of web design. People had no idea what went into creating a web site and sometimes had some pretty unrealistic expectations.

However I do miss having the radio on all day long, especially back in the mid-90s, when we’d just gotten into our first house and I was really beginning to discover the richness of my favorite radio station, Lightning 100.

I also miss the feeling of satisfaction and the heady sense of power that comes with being your own boss, and relishing the fact each and every day. Those are feelings that were made even more poignant in the mid-1990s, when our finances were in shambles and my world seemed to be collapsing about my shoulders, yet somehow, with a lot of hard work we came through it all.

Yep, I miss all those things, but there are a few others I don’t miss.

I don’t really miss the isolation. Yeah I know I’ve said on more than one occasion, that I’ve honestly never ‘felt’ lonely. And while it’s true that despite being very much by nature a social person, and have always been content to be by myself if necessary, I now believe that my dearth of daily human interaction that was at least partially responsible for my perceived need to seek out someone who would fill a space that my friends couldn’t fill (because, hello, I didn’t have any), or that my wife seemingly didn’t want to fill.

I like the people I work with here at The Company. I like being with and feeling like a part of a team.

Yeah, as much as I always said I’d never ‘go corporate,’ right now, I really can’t imagine doing anything else.

Slow pay? No way!
But the one thing I by far miss the least is slaving away on a project for three weeks and then waiting another 30, 60, 90, or 120 days to get paid for it. Slow-to-deadbeat remittance is the bane of all freelancers; it’s what puts the ‘starve’ in the ‘starving artist.’

It’s the one thing that, try as you can to accept it, never ceases to get under your skin. It’s emotionally draining, and unless you are extremely disciplined as a budgeter, it can be financially devastating.

And that, finally, brings me back on point: why today is different from so many Tax Deadline Days past; why I feel so different now versus ten years ago.

I can now finally afford to pay my taxes. That was always my problem. My cash flow was just never such that I could afford to make the quarterly payments to the IRS like you’re supposed to. And if you don’t, not only are you looking at a penalty for said lack of prepayment, but much worse, you’re usually looking at a mountainous single-check payment — one I was never prepared for.

Just like any other endeavor in life, there is both cost as well as reward to the reality of being self-employed; tradeoffs. Things can truly be great, but there is no free lunch. And while I do miss the freedom I once had, I much more appreciate the security in knowing that I’m actually gonna get paid every two weeks.

Funny how a crazy little fact such as that can affect one’s outlook. It’s totally changed mine with respect to financial responsibility.

And by osmosis, hopefully, with regard to my son, Shawn, it’s now affecting his.

I’m especially proud of the way he hasn’t followed in his old man’s footsteps, although getting him to see the wisdom of doing right by Uncle Sam was something we had to work hard to illustrate.

From the time that we moved to Tennessee to start a new life, Michelle and I have been firm in our attempts to educate Shawn and Amy to not make the same mistakes that we had previously made with money. I was determined not to allow the sins of the father to be re-visited on the son and daughter.

As I’ve mentioned before, in recent years, Shawn has plied his trade as an arborist. Someday he wants to have his own company. He makes great money in his position, not only because it’s a dangerous job, being the designated treetop man in the outfit he works for, but also because he’s good at it, and is rapidly becoming an artist in his own right.

However one reason the money he makes is so outstanding is because he gets paid straight off the top (cue rimshot). Despite the fact that he’s been with the same company for over three years, he as well as everyone outside the owner is an independent contractor — or in my terms, a freelancer. The good news is, he’s not a middleman like I was in my line of work. He gets his money or the work doesn’t get done. So in that regard, he’s already on the plus side. Nevertheless there is one malady that befalls all freelancers, and it can really become a problem when tax season rolls around.

Freelancers get their full wage with no taxes withheld, because they’re contractors, not full-employees, and their employers aren’t held responsible to supply that service. From day one I explained to Shawn what that meant to him as a wage-earner. He was going to have to assume the responsibility for his own tax withholdings — and that’s a pretty tall order when you’re an early twentysomething college kid. I made him go right down to the bank and open a passbook savings account with no ATM access, just so he could bank the 20% of every paycheck he’d need to pay the government when April 15th rolled around and not be tempted to spend it by having easy access to the money.

And at first he did really well. Then a couple years ago he wrecked his car and had to buy a new one. Guess where the money had to use came from?

Oh…I dunno…maybe…the tax account?

And because he didn’t have the dough to pay his taxes when the time came, he had to file for an extension and had a ringside seat to watch just how much interest and penalty can accrue on a couple grand in six months’ time.

So he saved up and paid his taxes in August. That cured him.

Since then he still may not have quite the sense of urgency in getting his taxes ready that I’d like to see (but then, who am I to cast stones?), but he has always had the money when he needed it, and that makes me very proud indeed.

We’re trying our best to acknowledge the mistakes we made to our kids, so that they can spare themselves of the heartache and out-and-out dire consequences that poor planning and/or judgement can cause.

It’s taken a lifetime, but I think, maybe, I’m beginning to believe it myself.


finis

Oh, I’m Feeling Much Richer, Thank You…

As real as a daydream gets…
What a perfect evening. What a perfect show. On so many levels, this was a Nashville Sunday Night at its very best — with the main emphasis on ‘Nash.’

There’s a lot of great music in this town, and as I’ve mentioned many times before, my favorite outlet for tapping into that marvelous natural resource is a wonderful music venue called 3rd and Lindsey Bar & Grill and their weekly concert series, Nashville Sunday Night.

The series itself is made possible by Nashville’s equally incredible jewel of the airwaves, shining in the midst of an otherwise mediocre radio market: a truly GREAT radio station, WRLT, Lightning 100. The venerable progressive rock station has sponsored the Sunday evening concert series since 1996, broadcasting each week live on the air as well as via the web from Lightning100.com.

I've attended more NSN shows than I could possibly count over the years and have seen some incredible national, regional and local talent.

And last Sunday night was one of the absolute best.

The opening act was the wonderfully talented Trent Dabbs, doing forty-five minutes of his exquisite amalgam of power pop and folk rock. In 2005, Dabbs spearheaded the formation of the popular and critically-acclaimed Ten out of Tenn consortium of Nashville-based singer/songwriters. A pair of compilation albums and national tours later, Dabbs’ brainchild has gone a long way toward finally dispelling the hackneyed notion that Country is the only kind of music happening in Music City. As usual, Dabbs onstage Sunday night sported his trademark black blazer, decorated on the back with the hand-painted names of each TOT artist.

However, the evening’s true highlight (and rightfully so) was the return of Leigh Nash and Sixpence None the Richer.

Sixpence Reunited
This photo, fresh from the band's new MySpace page may not have been taken last Sunday (although I’d bet it was), but Leigh wore ‘The Dress’ onstage that night. She was quite proud of it don’tcha know...

Image courtesy Matt Slocum/Sixpence None The Richer

If the name sounds familiar, it should. Sixpence’s first hit it big in 1999, with the signature hit, Kiss Me — a belatedly-released single from their 1997 self-titled album. The song made it to #1 on U.S. charts and the album went platinum, thanks also in large part to their cover of The La’s 1990 alternative pop hit, There She Goes. Not only did the latter tune receive plenty of radio airtime back in ‘99, but it also that year found its way onto in the soundtrack of the film, She's All That and later in two episodes of the TeeVee series, Dawson’s Creek. Their back-to-back hits vaulted Sixpence to the Pop stratosphere as the new millennium dawned.

And even if those two songs don’t jog your memory, chances are you’ve heard Sixpence other times on the radio, in movies or on TeeVee and perhaps didn’t even know it. Throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, SNTR became the quintessential commercial cover band, spinning soundtrack and compilation send-ups and putting their own touches on popular hits; everything from You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch (from the movie, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) to Crowded House’s Don’t Dream it’s Over, to ABBA’s Dancing Queen.

Little did I know...
Aside from being aware of them as a local band that made it big, my experiential history with Sixpence was rather shallow until just a few years ago — well after the band had faded from the top-of-mind position they occupied so consistently on the pop music scene for five or six years around the late 90s. Prior to now, unfortunately, my most direct involvement with their music had been relegated to a singular circumstance that occurred sometime between late 1993 and early ’94.

On the occasion of my picking my daughter Amy up from an after-church party one Sunday afternoon, I was waiting for her to tear herself away from the giggling little girl mayhem that still ensued throughout the house when I arrived. So I happily struck up a conversation with the Father of her friend hosting the event.

The guy turned out to be a record company executive (and may have actually been the label’s owner for all I can remember) for an indie Christian label called REX Records. We talked a little record biz shop, as I was still at the time involved — though sparingly — with record packaging design. I remember the man being personable and particularly excited about one of his new artists’ upcoming first release. He handed me a pre-release cassette with the image on the cover of these two very young, fresh-faced teenagers. They were the band’s principals: songwriter and lead guitarist, Matt Slocum and lead singer, Leigh Nash.

They didn’t exactly strike me as rock stars — and more accurately, with their somber, serious-looking pose for that first album cover, they looked more like they’d just been called into the Pastor’s office for passing notes in church.

To be honest, I remember being fairly unimpressed. And what was up with that name, anyway — Sixpence None the Richer?

Well, after nearly 15 years of wondering, I finally took the time to find out just what the significance of that unusual moniker actually was.

From the official Sixpence None the Richer website:

Time and again, from Regis to Leno, the members of Sixpence have found opportunity to speak their faith by simply answering questions about the literary reference that birthed their name. With each encounter, they patiently tell once more the story that Nash recounted in her appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in August 1999.

Although Nash has never completely overcome her youthful nervousness on stage, she bravely walked over to a chair on the “Late Show” stage following her band's performance.

After asking where the band's name came from, Letterman teasingly interrupted Nash to ask if he could stop by her hotel room after the show. Nash's blank silence stopped him cold, chastening him into an apology. With that, she proceeded to finish her story.

“It comes from a book by C. S. Lewis...called Mere Christianity,” she resumed. “A little boy asks his father if he can get a sixpence — a very small amount of English currency — to go and get a gift for his father. The father gladly accepts the gift and he's really happy with it, but he also realizes that he's not any richer for the transaction...”

“He bought his own gift,” Letterman responded. “That's right,” Nash continued. “C. S. Lewis was comparing that to his belief that God has given him, and us, the gifts that we possess, and to serve Him the way we should; we should do it humbly...realizing how we got the gifts in the first place.”

“Well, that’s beautiful,” Letterman stammered, with uncharacteristic earnestness. “If we could just keep that little sliver of enlightenment with us, things would be so much better...”

World-renowned theologian C. S. Lewis provided a fitting foundation for the impressive platform Sixpence None the Richer built to change the world. Following in Lewis' footsteps, Sixpence understood that to reach people, one must communicate in their language, and do so with honest imagination. And each, in word or song, gained the ear of their generation, conveying orthodox truths to a waiting, watching audience without ever compromising art or thought.

And here, thanks to the magic of YouTube, is the actual Late Show conversation from that ’99 appearance (sans the bio writer homogenization, yo):



At any rate, you’d have to agree, that’s a pretty heady mission — even for a Christian band — but ultimately I’d say they’ve been extremely successful in crossing over into the secular music world, yet never compromising their values.

Trouble in Paradise
But even with their considerable success, fairly soon after the turn of the millennium, the band hit a wall. On February 26, 2004, Matt Slocum announced that the group had officially disbanded.

In the wake of SNTR’s initial breakup, lead singer, Leigh Nash, left Nashville with her husband for the promise of a new solo career in Los Angeles. Apparently the changes in her life were just beginning.

Nash, whose signature ethereal voice made SNTR’s unique sound what it was, became pregnant with her first child, a son, shortly following the breakup of the band. Little Henry would serve as the inspiration for many of the songs she would subsequently pen for her first solo effort, Blue on Blue, as well as that of Nash’s own record label, dubbed, One Son Records, through which the CD was released in August of 2006.

And as much as I enjoyed Sixpence’s music, it had always been in passing. It was only at the point that Nash began releasing music on her own that my causal curiosity became somewhat of a wistful obsession.

I LOVE this woman's voice! Hers is the type of sound that literally places me in another dimension. But as is my inexplicable custom, even in her earlier days with Sixpence, I loved what I heard on the radio, but never got my ass out of the chair to go down to the record store to buy any of their CDs.

That won’t be any problem for me now. This guy’s on a mission.

It all began late in the summer of 2006, after hearing on Lightning 100 the first single from Blue on Blue, Ocean Size Love, I discovered Leigh’s MySpace page. I read a bit, listened to a few more of the samplings featured from the new album and instantly fell in love with it. And of course I subscribed to her blog!

I have since followed her career for the past two years almost exclusively in that vein.

But as with so many other friends that I’ve met and followed here in Blogland, connecting with Leigh through her blog has given me a tremendous and much rarer appreciation for the person as well as the artist.

Apparently life hasn’t exactly been all fun and games for her these past five years or so.

From within her MySpace sanctuary, Leigh has revealed the circumstances for some of the changes in her tour schedule and/or lack of activity: family difficulties, the untimely death of her Father last November, and the grand adjustment that being a Mother continues to make on her life.

Her blog posts come across as genuine and eloquent as her music, and I feel extremely privileged to catch the glimpses that she grants to us of her innermost thoughts. It truly adds a dimension of truth and clarity to the emotion she expresses in song.

Nash-Bridges
In addition to her solo pop effort, Leigh had also begun to spread her wings in other musical directions. At around the same time she was working on her solo album, she was also involving herself in another more eclectic project, providing the lyrics and vocal tracks for another album of recent vintage released last year. It was a long-distance collaboration with fellow production company colleagues: Nettwerk Productions musicians, Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber of the Ambient group, Dellirium.

The album is called Fauxliage, and it’s outstanding; a project to which Leigh’s hauntingly lilting vocals are a perfect compliment to the electronic beat-melodies of Delirium’s dreamscape sound.

Having my musical tastes influenced significantly by the late 80s/early 90s New Age Music movement and my time at Mesa/Bluemoon, this was a real treat. As if Leigh’s regular solo work wasn’t awesome enough already, this one just put me over the edge.

Having somehow missed all of Nash’s local appearances (I believe there were at least two or three of them) from her solo tour during the latter part of 2006, I was now extremely anxious to hear her live, hoping desperately that another opportunity to see her locally would avail itself soon. The next time, I vowed, I would NOT miss.

Then on January 17, 2008 came Leigh’s best blog yet. She announced that she had pink eye.

Oh, oh yeah, and one other thing: they were getting the band back together!

Leigh revealed that she and SNTR collaborator, Matt Slocum, had met for coffee last November and acknowledged that they had both experienced somewhat of a void in their lives since the breakup of the band. She said they realized that “the two of us were more powerful than one of us alone...” So they decided to revisit their musical relationship and begin writing and touring on a limited basis...indefinitely!

That decision spawned their recent engagement to critical acclaim at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas in March, which gave them the juice they needed to pursue a full-fledged reunion tour.

And much to the delight of the hometown Nashville fans, they decided to kick it off with an appearance here, and at my fave venue, 3rd and Lindsley to boot!

I’ve gotta tellya, I haven't had a musical experience so totally satisfying in a very long time.

Leigh's voice has a quality that defies description. It cuts through your soul like a hot knife though butter. The travail of her recent life's travels are now apparent in her once flawless complexion, but as she sang, you could just see the healing release the music injected into her countenance.

Ohhh, and the crowd was feelin’ it too, folks. It was a packed house and the crowd was hanging on every word out of Leigh’s mouth, and taking in every tasty lick wafting from Matt’s guitar.

She seemed so content; so alive. It was awesome to experience it en masse with her and the 400 or so other SNTR fans in the room.

They played most every famous Sixpence tune (well, DUH), along with a few from Leigh’s solo album, including the incredible Ocean Size Love, which made me a very happy camper.

I was at my traditional corner-of-the-bar seat, about 12-15 feet from the stage, taking it all in. Wow. What a great show. Wait...did I say that already? Well, sorry.

Partyin’ like it was 1999
Another kind of interesting sidebar on the evening’s experience was the age demographic of the crowd. As I looked around, I didn’t see a whole lot of gray hair. The bulk of the patrons appeared to be in their mid-to-late twenties. As the bright, twentysomething gal sitting to my left confided, “This is a trip back to my high school days for me,” and I’m sure she wasn’t the only one there looking forward to the same thing, as the heyday of the band was indeed around 8-9 years ago.

Now of course I wasn't in high school in the late 90s, but I remember the music as fondly as if I was. And it's interesting to think back on it now, but the music of the 90s was so good, I really thought it would continue on that way forever. I thought the incredibly variant and eclectic variety of alternative jam and power pop would continue to evolve and dominate the music scene. And I suppose that even more I believed that access to that wonderful cornucopia of music here in Nashville would continue on as well. Unfortunately it didn't last; but that’s a story for another time.

Sunday night, however, everybody at 3rd was partyin’ like it was 1999.


finis

Upgrade Hell

Just a quick note to cry ‘wolf’ for a second. Well, hopefully not that, but just in case something else comes up I guess my bases will be covered.

I’m pretty frustrated right now over something that, given past history, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised about in the least.

Every time I go to make any kind of significant system upgrade to my computer there are always hiccups. It’s been this way for the past several years, and is one reason I hesitate to make such changes very often. It’s not that I’m not competent to do the work, I suppose it’s more that I’m just too damn cheap.

I’ve never purchased a ready-made computer; I’ve built every one of them I’ve owned since 1989. Only my first machine, which in turn was built by my friend and former business partner, Randy, came to me ready to use. I have since, with much guidance from Randy those first few attempts, been switching out motherboards, processors and components as PC technology has increased from the days of the 486 to now.

And why do I put myself through all this instead of just going out and buying a computer from BestBuy?

As of this moment, who-the-hell-knows?

Back in the 90s, it was a no-brainer as to the logic in being a computer Build-It-Yourself’er: cash-o-lah. Computers were comparatively much more expensive back then, with the average Macintosh setting you back well over $2,000.

Quality PC Clones, powerfully equipped enough for my purposes as a graphic designer ran at least $1,200-$1,500 out of the box as well. So why wouldn’t you want to put one together yourself for half-to-three-quarters of that cost? Personally I really had no choice; that’s the primary reason I never bought a Mac; couldn't afford one and I bristled at the idea that they had to be so expensive in the first place; after all, I know what goes into the darned things.

So I built, and I continue to build almost twenty years later — but unfortunately, almost never without some sort of hang-up. Usually it’s user error, but I always seem to figure things out (usually after a call or two to my comp-guru, Randy).

But in the end, I guess it’s the satisfaction of putting it all together — something I’m not all that accustomed to doing in other areas — that has driven my ‘puter BIY’er tendencies.

Some guys are really well-disposed to do-it-yourself stuff; be it cars or home improvement. I just kinda get by on that sort of thing. Again, it’s not that I can’t do it; it’s more that the perfectionist in me won’t leave ‘good enough’ alone. It has to be done right. I don’t do half-assed, and I’m just anal enough to refuse to even try if I have any doubt that I can finish the job to my own high standards.

But building computers has always sort of been ‘my thing.’ It’s one of the few things I do well that the majority of guys I know wouldn’t even attempt. I suppose it’s my compensation for not being an (auff-auff-auff) ‘Tool-Time’ kind-o guy.

But geeze-louise, I’m a little out of practice with today’s computers! The speed of these new dual-core processors requires heat dispensation like nothing I’ve ever dealt with before. The cooler fan and heatsinks attached to them are ginormous, and more than just a little daunting when you’re installing one for the first time — knowing full well that you could easily cook your entire system in a flash if you don’t do it right.

So now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, suffice it to say that things haven’t been going smoothly in my latest venture, which began a little less than two weeks ago.

I decided to make the quantum leap from a 1.7 MHz processor to a new-ish 2.6 MHz AMD X2 Dual-Core processor. The differences between the two are like night and day, system requirement-wise. Of course I didn’t know just to what extent those differences would figure into the hassle factor related to all of this.

My goal in building systems — and another reason I’ve never been keen on buying ready-made machines — is upgradability. I always like to leave my options open to adding functionality and speed to my system incrementally if possible. That's the best way to keep costs down as well as providing the most bang for the bucks you do spend. This is why I hadn’t upgraded my motherboard since 2002 — I didn't really have to. I was able to, however, upgrade my processor three times along the way, and my RAM memory twice.

But I had pushed that mobo as far as I could. It was time to move up to the new generation of dual-core-ready interfaces for the trusty AJ-built machine. So I sunk the ungodly sum of $300 into a new, state-of-the-art Gigabyte mobo, a not-the-latest-but-still-recent AMD 64 X2 processor, and 2 Gigs of very fast DDR2 RAM. Not a bad haul for so little dough when it comes right down to it.

However, the cost I didn’t anticipate was that of my time — and sanity, not to mention the realization that this wouldn’t be just a hardware-only upgrade.

What it all boiled down to was this: I successfully negotiated that stinking massive heatsink and fan, got the mobo installed without a hitch, and then hit a brick wall when I tried to boot up WinXP on my old (but still very compatible) hard drive.

I thought it was something to do with the configuration, maybe a wrong BIOS setting, maybe the faster-than-necessary RAM I obtained strictly for its built-in upgradability when I eventually upgrade my processor to an X2+...

I went through every possible permutation, but still no love.

Then Trey, my Web-mate at work, and also the person who guided me through the minefield of choosing the components for this system upgrade (he had recently done the same upgrade on his own system at home, and ironically had been using the same processor that I had previously), told me pretty much the last thing I wanted to hear.

“Man,” he sighed, “I think it’s your Windows installation.”

Fabulous.

He said he believed the configuration of the hardware, the drivers, settings, etc., from within Windows XP was just too different for the new hardware to accept. I know, I don’t really understand it either, but given that Trey did an almost identical upgrade on his own system, I’m inclined to go with his suggestions. Unlike me, he did a clean install of Windows when he did his upgrade, whereas I just plugged the old hard drive containing the operating system back in, expecting it to work like it always had.

So all that to say, guess what I’ve been doing every night at home this week?

Yeah. Joy. Five years-worth of programs and personal files that have to be moved from the hard drive I can’t use to a temporary place so that I can re-format the drive, then reinstall Windows, then spend the hours and hours it will take to reinstall the programs.

And to make matters worse, I’ve been covered up like mad with work here at The Company, having to bring some of it home with me as well (to be done on Michelle’s computer).

So all that to say, the reason you haven’t seen me in this space lately is because I’ve been in hell — Upgrade Hell.

I actually have a post that I’ve GOT to post tonight before the subject matter gets any colder than it already is (I wanted to post it on Monday).

Look for it this evening. And pray for my deliverance.

From Hell.


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Referrer Blogging Redux

To the ‘Checkers’
I see you. I know you’re out there, and I appreciate you — just in case you’ve ever wondered.

I’m speaking directly to those of you who faithfully check this space for new content; those who consider the things I write to be interesting enough that they would take time from their busy days to look in — often on a once or even twice-daily basis — but whom have never left me a comment or sent me an e-mail.

Yeah, I’ve made posts similar to this one in the past, although not in quite awhile, but I consider this a highly necessary thing to do, if for no other reason than to exercise my only direct means of communicating with those of you who wouldn’t otherwise comment; those who prefer to remain in the background as silent observers.

So how do I know about you? Simple; I check my Sitemeter daily to see who visits. Most of you know how these things work. They record the ISP, location, and IP address of all blog visitors, depending on the level of reporting security that their respective ISPs have set up.

Based upon how people get to my blog — i.e.: the links that they use, be they direct links (bookmarks), search engine results, or comment/blogroll links from other sites — I can usually determine whether or not a person finds their way here on purpose or merely by chance.

These days, it’s far more often the latter, as my diminished post count has made my blog less and less relevant as a daily destination for some of the previously more regular readers. But please, don’t take this as AJ whining about his lack o’ traffic again. I have voluntarily curtailed my output over the past two years for reasons that are well-documented; I don’t need to reiterate them here. I post when I can, and no longer rake myself over the coals for it.

But that being said, I do still feel at least a little bit guilty for the sake of those who find my blog more by happenstance — usually based on a Google search for a subject that one of my stories has hit upon — and then decide read a little more, and so on, and so on. Though they may become habitual reader/visitors for a time, they don’t often become commentors.

Consequently I don’t have the opportunity to experience them on a personal level, as has been the case with so many of my Blogland neighbors from years past; some of whom have become genuine RT friends, and whose presence in my life is and always will be precious to me because our bonds are real; they’re based upon that which is internal rather than merely external.

So with that in mind, there are a few of you that I just wanted to acknowledge — some who have been readers for a long time and one in particular who, more recently, has become a daily ‘checker.’ I know it’s kinda weird of me to go this route, but this is truly the only way I know to reach out to you directly.

So please forgive my calling you out. And don’t worry — what I actually know about you is pretty sketchy. I don’t know and wouldn’t try to find out anything more than what Sitemeter tells me, and I will refer to you only as the associated ‘referrer’ information gives me course.

For example, I don’t know where you live, only where your ISP is located. I don’t know where you work, but I have a pretty good idea, given that most of your visits are during business hours. So, equipped with this gunshot spray of would-be empirical data, I’m going to make a general stab at identifying you just enough so that you’ll know who I’m talking to.

To the reader in Upstate New York (Carthage? Watertown?), who appears to work for a telecom company: You have been one of the more hardcore ‘checkers’ my blog has ever known. I hope to give you more of what I believe you’re looking for soon. Thank you for your daily visits.

To the reader in Montgomery Alabama who appears to work in the surgical health services industry: You may or may not read this, as it’s been awhile since I’ve noticed one of your visits. You were a daily ‘checker’ as I recall, a year or more ago, and ever since your streak of daily visits, I’ve wanted to write a post like this one to acknowledge and thank you as well. Thank you so much for your interest.

There are others of whom I have suspicions, but none that I have enough evidence of to determine whether they are one person or simply a glut of visitors with the same ISP.

Family ‘Outing’
I also wanted to take this opportunity to officially thank another former anonymous ‘checker,’ who is no longer on the down-low: my cousin, Jeanté (she just ‘checked’ my blog earlier this evening as a matter of fact).

Jeanté and I have had an interesting rebirth in our relationship. We hardly knew each other prior to a couple years ago. We were a part of our family’s large clan of Indiana cousins as we all grew up together in the 60s. We parted company when I moved to California in 1969, but really hadn’t spent any considerable time together even prior to that.

However in June of 2006, I stupidly brought a printed copy of one of my blog posts about my brother Alex to our annual Cousin’s Reunion held in Anderson. At that point no one in the family knew I blogged other than my eldest brother, Jack, and I only brought the story at his behest. He thought it would be good to have it available to those wondering about Alex’s condition.

I wasn’t real hip to the idea, but I figured it’d be okay.

Little did I know that cousin ‘Té would not only read through that hard copy, but also glam onto my blog address and proceed to plow her way through my entire archive when she got home that night. She read every last word over the next several days.

Oh, did I mention that Jeanté reads for a living?

At any rate, let’s just say her activities didn’t exactly fly under the Sitemeter radar. I took notice of those twice-to-three-times-daily visits of an hour or more each and wondered who the hell in Indiana could suddenly have so much interest in my blog. I knew it wasn’t Jack. Then my above-average power of guestimation went to work. I began the process of eliminating the likely suspects. When I looked up the ISP from Jeanté’s e-mail address, I knew.

At first I didn’t know what to expect in response to someone reading accounts that I had really never intended to be leaked to the motherland. For all the while, as she read through my blog from stem to stern, nary a comment did she utter.

I had to know what she was thinking, so I blew her mind by blowing her cover in a ‘the jig is up’ kind of e-mail. It was all good however, and although she was a bit embarrassed by my family ‘outing,’ that ice-breaking opportunity led to further e-mail correspondence and several phone conversations. It provided the common ground for us to become real friends for the first time as adults. I now truly treasure our relationship and the closeness we share. I hope she feels the same way.

Oh and BTW, she comments all the time now. I can’t shut the girl up! ;)

So out’cherself already
So I guess the primary purpose for this somewhat disjointed post is my invitation to those of you who have been reading for awhile, but have never talked back, to do just that.

I’d love to hear from you. Besides, I know you’re out there; I hear ya breathin.’

G’head. You know you want to.


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Time flies when you're having fu...uhh...I mean...when you’re busy.

The new Casa AJ on Closing Day: Thursday, January 24, 2008

Michelle & AJ: The Happy NEW Homeowners

Geeze...Has it really been six weeks?
Just a quick post to celebrate the six week anniversary of our being in the new house. The photos above are courtesy of one half of our real estate agent tag team, Realty Gal Leslie. She was even kind enough to take the first photo (top) and run it through an illustrator-type filter in Photoshop, creating a lovely watercolor-like image that she had nicely printed and framed for us as a housewarming gift. The picture is now proudly displayed in our entryway.

And speaking of housewarming, we're just two weeks-plus away from our official open house gathering of family and friends to celebrate the wonderful fortune that God has granted on our behalf. Yes, this new home is something that we did work very hard for, but in the long run — the way it all came together — we definitely consider it a gift from above. We've made an open invitation to all of our friends to join us and partake of Michelle's luscious cuisine, play pool, hang out, and just have fun on Saturday March 22nd, from 5:00 PM to whenever.

So if you're in town that weekend, do stop on by!

But just remember, you have to let me win at least one game of pool, aiight?

Am I getting warm...yet?
Other than the obvious correlation to the six-week anniversary of being in the new house, I mostly wanted to post the pictures today because I couldn't believe so much time has flown by already. It seems like just last week we were moving in. In fact, it seems like every day is moving day, we’ve got so much crap to unpack, go-through, and install.

Michelle's and my weekday evenings typically consist of the following: if we don’t subsequently have a Predators game to rush off to, we get home from work, usually around 6:00 PM, have dinner while watching one of out fave primetime TeeVee shows, then force ourselves to get up and get busy.

Weekends, same thing, ‘cept it’s all day and all night long.

Like I said previously, I need a vacation.

Michelle has devoted the bulk of her time to making window treatments and decorating, both with the stuff from our old house and with a few new items we've purchased that lend themselves better to our new surroundings. She's the painter in the family, and has already painted one room, and will eventually do two more before the party.

And that's the primary reason we decided to wait nearly two months to have our housewarming; we needed the time, and it still might not be enough.

As for me, I’ve been hanging stuff up on walls, putting up laundry room cabinets, assembling new furniture, and installing additional kitchen and bathroom hardware (towel racks, utility shelves, and the like).

It's all tedious, boring, but necessary stuff that makes a house a home. But some of the chores are less boring than others...

...Like...installing cue racks.

Um...have I told you about my pool table yet?

AJ's coo...I mean...pool table

Oh yes, we got trouble...
With all apologies to The Music Man and Robert Preston, the only trouble I’ve had with my new pool table is trying to pull myself away from it every night (you didn’t think I worked all the time, did you?). But as much as I would like to play, so far I’ve only been able to justify the time to do about a rack or two per evening, unless of course our son Shawn swings by with a six pack of beer (I mean, c’mon, let’s be reasonable). Bottom line is, there’ll never be enough time for me to play as much as I’d like to; that’s just how much I love it.

It's a beautiful eight-foot Ohlhausen Eclipse, a ‘better pool hall-quality’ table with midnight blue felt. It plays like a dream. Mind you, I didn’t say that ‘I’ play all that great — yet. No, I’m attempting to overcome one of my biggest frustrations in life: being a mediocre-to-bad pool player. If there’s one thing that a guy in our culture should never want to admit, it’s that he’s an easy mark in the pool hall.

That's one egregious character flaw I hope to correct.

I’ve loved playing pool my entire life, but haven’t done so often enough to acquire the consistency to be even an average player (in my own estimation). But if there’s one thing that I am, it’s a good loser — especially when it comes to pool. I enjoy the game so much that I can say honestly, I could play it every single day, not win once, and still enjoy myself.

The sad part is how appallingly close to reality that aforementioned scenario is in terms of my competitive billiards experience. I’d like to turn that around, if not 180 degrees, then at least enough to heighten my enjoyment a little more and embarrass myself a little less. That’s why it’s pretty much a dream come true for me to own this wonderful piece of recreational furniture at long last. I now have the ability to practice — something I’ve never truly had the opportunity to do before.

Not only is it something that I’ve wanted to have in our home for years, but Michelle too has always seemed enthusiastic about the idea of owning a pool table. However it was always a ‘one’a these days’ kind of thing — something we wanted, but could never quite afford or justify shoe-horning into the discretionary budget.

Even with the windfall of profit from our previous home’s sale, which gave us the ability to furnish our new abode in ways our typical cash-flow would never allow, the pool table was close to last on our list of priorities when the money we had to work with was finally meted out.

The two things that we wanted but didn’t quite have the cash leftover to purchase were a fence for our dog and a pool table. They were both about the same money, but in the end we decided to go with the pool table. We purchased it on credit — something I never do — but not on a revolving plan like a major credit card. Instead, the billiards retailer offered a six-months-same-as-cash plan, which gives us more than enough time to save up and pay it off. As long as nothing crops up to interfere with that plan, it looks like we’ll be able to have our breaks and eat ‘em too.

Nevertheless I’m still a little bit nervous, as the thought of borrowing money in any amount nauseates me like bad tuna fish. However I’m reasonably certain that between our upcoming tax refund and Uncle Dubya’s tax rebate check, we’ll probably have the sucker knocked out within a couple of months.

Back to Blogging
Although I still feel good about my new policy to never apologize for not posting (especially when there is as good a reason for it as have been my circumstances lately), I am itching to get back and finish up a few series that I started but left idle in January before the move.

Going back chronologically, I think my first priority should be to wrap up this whole Moving Experience deal. That series has about two or three parts left to write, and I will backfill/backdate those posts and announce here when everything’s done.

Then, I’ll re-address the series that I know a lot of folks are anxious to see the conclusion to, the Two Tales of One City saga involving my brother Alex, which will follow shortly thereafter. Again, in order to keep all the parts together in the blog contents list, I will backdate those as well, and offer links to them in a new post at the time they’re ready to view.

Thanks as always to all who continue to hang in there and check this space daily, weekly, and monthly. I see all of you (in my Sitemeter) and deeply appreciate your support and interest in this blog.

Have a great weekend, all.


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Well, okay...here’s something better...

Amy and Michelle in Louisville last weekend

Hmmm...Maybe things aren’t so bad after all.
I guess life can't suck too badly when a guy has two gorgeous women that are a part of it all, huh?

This is a pic I just received from my daughter, Amy (left), that she took of herself and her Mom in Louisville, KY last weekend. The occasion for their visit was Amy's tryout for the prestigious Actors Theater Apprentice Company that’s based there. If she’s accepted, it's a one-year commitment with many exciting potential benefits.

Not only will she receive valuable experience and exposure, participating in master classes with distinguished artists and administrators, including agents, casting directors, guest directors and actors during that time, but many participants who've engaged this opportunity have gone on to find career-establishing connections throughout the country in their pursuit of a life in the theater. It's an amazing opportunity, and we're excited about the possibilities for Amy.

However this is by no means a slam-dunk deal. The candidate screening is highly competitive, and Amy's been through it once before, last year. She clearly admits now that she wasn't ready, and was perhaps a bit overwhelmed a year ago. However she is confident that she's ready now and reports that her audition went well. So we're keeping our fingers crossed. She should find out in a few weeks whether or not she made the cut.

Meanwhile, Michelle provided moral support (not to mention gas money) to allow Amy to relax and stay focussed. They had a great Mom & Daughter roadtrip together. My daughter, who is turning out to be quite the talented photographer, snapped a number of handsome photos, this being just one.

I'm pretty proud of my kids. Hope you don't mind my bragging on them.

Happy Leap Day, all. Have a great weekend!


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Wish I had something Better to Say

‘Bad Day’ doesn't say it well enough...
I don't know what I'm doing here 'cept blowin' off steam. I've got nothing nice to say, so I guess I really should just keep my yap shut — but I can't.

I'm having a pretty shitty week, y'all, but if I was looking for sympathy I'd probably have been writing about it long before now.

No, I really don't even want to explain it more than to say I'm just busybusybusy, and in being such, making mistakes at work that are making me look bad and feel worse. I haven't got a whole lot of self-confidence right at the moment.

I need a vacation.

The house is coming together though — I guess that's good news — but even that is rapidly sucking the life out of me. Finding a place for everything; continuing to have to spend more and more, ‘oh...forgot about that’ money; having to devote every minute of every weekend to house-work; everything we’ve been dealing with has been depressing enough to sometimes make me forget about how excited I was a couple of weeks ago when we’d first moved in.

It’s just that we've worked so hard for so long — dating back to last spring when we began this new home adventure — that I'm simply ready for it to all be over with and for everything to be done.

I'm just plain tired and cranky and out of sorts.

Hope I'm not bringing you down with me, but here's hoping there's a little sunshine around the corner soon for all of us — weather and otherwise.

I'm ready for Spring.


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Casa AJ Update

In case you were wondering...
This just in: COMCAST SUCKS! Here’s some brief ventage directed towards the new AT&T (read: monopoly) of the cable TeeVee business. This ginormous cable & Internet provider, who also has a stranglehold on service in my area has gotten on my last nerve.

Not only had several of my e-mail accounts with them been screwed up for nearly two weeks (an issue that was just resolved today), that was merely a pimple on the acute acne outbreak that has been my cable/Internet/phone service conversion experience since we moved into the new house. Actually it goes back further than that. I've had nothing but headaches with Comcast since moving to an apartment following the sale of our house last August.

I really don't want to get into all the gory details, but suffice it to say, the left hand doesn't have a freaking clue what the right hand is doing over in that bloated outfit. I have now been without any Internet access at all for 48 hours, as they apparently had to break one thing to fix another in the litany of problems we've had with our service.

Oh, they were all courteous and, “we'll get to work on that and call you back in 30 minutes” in addressing my issues, but on more than two occasions, after promising to call back, never did. I’ve tried to be understanding and give them a little more time, but have been rewarded with only more delays and hand-offs to a never-ending series of techs and/or departments.

Would it be unreasonable to assign a permanent account number to a customer who has been with you for seven years, Comcast? Is it really necessary to completely start from scratch with a new account whenever a customer merely change addresses in the same area? Apparently not, as creating what seems to me to be an unnecessary layer of red tape to entangle everyone in is what you regard as an efficient way to do business.

I mean, gimme a break here!

But now that my e-mail is back online, I'm hopefully going to get my connection issue resolved later today, however I'm not holding my breath.

Hopefully all this will be a bad memory in a matter of days...

Sorting it all out
In the meantime, Michelle and I have found it a lot more daunting to find a place for all of our stuff that's been in storage since last summer than we anticipated. That, and determining what and how much to spend on new items for our new home, have taken a huge toll on both our free time as well as our collective psyche; we're just plain worn out.

Good new is, the pool table has been ordered and should be delivered in another week or so, and the areas that we have been able to sort out — like the living room — are really looking good. Nevertheless, we're still a ways out from being able to see light at the end of the tunnel.

I spent a good portion of my time this past Saturday and Sunday assembling new furniture and miscellaneous storage pieces (a TeeVee Credenza, bathroom wall cabinet and a set of tip-out storage trays that fit in behind the kitchen sink cabinet panels), while Michelle is still trying to decide what stays and what goes in her new kitchen.

It's all a process that is time-consuming and mentally draining, but also one that is ultimately quite satisfying as we move closer and closer to seeing things round into shape here at the new Casa AJ.

Obviously, given all of this, I haven't had a lot of time (well...none, really) to write, but that will be changing soon. I'm getting that balloon-brain feeling again and really need to force myself (much like I'm doing right now) to sit down and get the blog-ball rolling once again.

Juxtopposition
On a much more somber note, if you feel so inclined, Michelle and I would covet all your prayers and good thoughts on behalf of my Father-in-Law. The skinny is, he's not doing well, and the reality of it all is beginning to hit us like a ton of bricks.

Michelle’s Pop has had bouts with various skin cancers most of his adult life, but has always come out on top. About 20 years ago he suffered a heart attack and had multiple-valve bypass surgery to correct blockages in his heart. Unfortunately the same thing happened to him again just a couple years ago. However after a second bypass procedure he once again was fine.

I mention all this to underscore his current situation. About a year ago he developed more than just the usual elderly male issues with his bladder. Doctors suspected prostate issues but instead discovered a malignant tumor on his bladder, albeit still isolated and new enough to be treated effectively.

However, because of his age and multiple bypass surgeries, doctors were reluctant to attempt either surgery or chemotherapy, due to the instability of his heart and the stress such procedures would place on his body. He opted for radiation therapy, which isn't quite as effective as chemo, but it seemed to do the trick.

Unfortunately his cancer didn't want to go away quietly. Doctors recently discovered that the tumor had returned, and this time, had invaded the adjoining muscle tissue of his lower abdomen.

The tumor is still treatable, but without the option of surgery or chemotherapy as a first course of action, the outlook is not good. It has now been deemed an ‘extremely aggressive cancer’ and what happens in the next few weeks could have a huge impact on our family.

Michelle’s Dad is 77 years old and his overall health has been declining for years, which also makes him a bad risk for surgery. However the condition of his heart exacerbates the circumstance even more. Any kind of major surgery, due to the very real possibility of him dying on the table, can only be considered as a last resort.

All that leaves the air around our house pretty thick these days. On the one hand we're all smiles about our situation as new homeowners; on the other, Michelle is facing the possibility that her Dad may not be with us much longer. Personally I just can't bring myself to consider the latter.

The kicker is that this all comes at a time when we were optimistic that Michelle’s folks might be able to move to Tennessee to be closer to us. That effort has been scuttled thus far by an extremely depressed housing market in Florida where thy currently live. Their house has been on the market for well over a year. It just won’t sell. They desperately want to move, but are held pisoner by their house. And now this.

They go back to see the doctor on February 21st, and will presumably consider in detail what all the options for Michelle's Dad are.

But before they decide to do anything, they want to come up to Tennessee to see us and the new house. After Dad begins whatever treatment they decide upon, all bets are off as to if or when he could travel again.

So please shoot up a few good thoughts to the Man upstairs for us. This is truly a bittersweet season in our lives.

Closing Time(Movin’ on up to the East Side)

Tuesday 01-22-08
This post will grow a little each day between now and Thursday as I have time to add to it. But for now I just wanted to throw something out to announce that the end of our exile is near; Michelle and I will finally reach the promised land this week.

Yep, we had the walk-through on our new house yesterday and we close on Thursday. This week is gonna fly by because we obviously have a bunch of things to do in the meantime.

Although it won't be nearly the chore it was to go from the house to the apartment, there's still a considerable amount of packing that needs to be done to get what little stuff we still have in 'living space' ready to go to it's final destination, our new 3,000 square-foot home, on which finishing touches are now being placed.

I have this morning already done the legwork to have our utilities transfered/initiated on this Thursday and Friday, our first full day in the new house.

I'll have lots of pictures to post at the end of the week, as I'll also be adding daily installments to this post as we get closer to Closing Time.

Tuesday 01-29-08
The new house is wonderful, but I’m not so giddy right now. After a weekend of joy (emotional) mixed with pain (physical), we’re all moved in, but have experienced our first post-close gotcha. So please forgive my frustration; I’ll have a lot of GOOD things to say later, but now I need to vent.

The reason I’m just now posting is that we JUST got our Internet access installed today. Comcast was supposed to come last Friday to hook us up with Cable TV, Internet and Phone Service (we’re doing the Comcast Triple Play offer for one year). However they never showed, and I was waaay too busy to put up a fuss.

So I called first thing Monday A.M. and a guy did come out promptly to hook up the TV service (seems they were just too busy to make it on Friday, and apparently too busy to pick up the phone and punch in my cell number to let me know as well), but we had to wait until today for the ’Net and phone.

And then in the midst of the ’Net access install this afternoon, I found someone else to get steamed at: our builder — or, more specifically, the A/V networking vendor who supposedly did the home network wiring during construction. I say ‘supposedly,’ because I was informed this afternoon by the Comcast tech that the network nodes I paid a premium price to have installed in my house don’t talk to each other; the connection wires that were supposed to physically link three rooms in my house were never connected as I was told they were when we went through our final walk-through.

This is a long and arduous story that I don’t have time to get into right now, but will fully expound upon once I have all the facts. And I will say that I was afraid this would happen because of how all the final preparations came down during the last week before we closed. I’m going to give that A/V vendor a phone call/piece-o-my-mind later today. I’ll let you know all the details soon.

So while we do indeed have phone and HDTV service as scheduled — be it five days late — our Internet access is limited to my computer only, which will be plugged directly into the cable modem. Michelle is none too happy about this and neither am I.

In a quick fix to solve the problem, I could go with a wireless network, but not without shelling out more money for a new wifi router, something I was planning to do anyway, but later on down the line. We’ve been spending money like crazy and there are a lot more things on the list we need to invest in instead of throwing money at a problem that shouldn't exist.

Like I said, it's a lot to talk about and I will a bit later on, once I get all my facts straight. What I do know, however, is that I shouldn’t be dealing with this right now.

On the bright side, the house is absolutely beautiful! Michelle took this week off from work to do her magic and transform it into a showplace with her mad decorator skillz. Multiple pictures to come.

But for now I gots some bugs to get worked out. I know, I know, I need to stay positive, and honestly, I am. I suppose it was almost inevitable that someone would piss in the punch bowl at some point; I should probably take this in stride and look at the bigger picture, and the truly miraculous event our acquiring such a wonderful home really is.

Holiday Hangover

Beside-Myself Busy
Things are goin’ like 90 here at the temporary Casa AJ compound, rapidly coming to culmination in yet another move, but this time will definitely different from the last.

The new house is 80% finished, and after a few bouts of heartburn, dealing with some fair-to-medium construction issues, Michelle and I are finally seeing the light at the end of the exile, in this gawdforsaken one-bedroom apartment.

The Holidays have come and gone, and I for the first time wrote neither a Christmas or New Year's theme post. It wasn’t for lack of inspiration, but much more, time and opportunity. Things have far more disjointed for me these past several weeks than ever anticipated they'd be.

The Holidays were a blur, filled with activity with the kids being around — particularly our daughter Amy — who actually came up from Chattanooga to stay with us for four days, making this sardine can-of-a-place even more cramped than it was before.

But it was all good, and I'll be posting about it within a few days.

While I wouldn't say that I’m still experiencing some kind of Holiday hangover, the Season certainly did do a number on my routine and I look forward to getting back to normalcy, positioning myself to blog again on a more regular basis. I definitely need it for my own mental health and have missed it greatly.

Work has also been crazy, as we seek to launch a new web site for one of our ancillary companies here within the first month of the New Year. I, in fact, had to go in yesterday afternoon (Sunday) to finish up a couple things that didn't get done this past holiday-shortened week.

I hope you all had a great Holiday season and are as excited about 2008 as I am. Aside from the obvious giddiness over moving into a new house, I realized the other day that I have more than just a little history going in my favor with regard to my outlook for the coming year.

The Pattern Reemerges
I’d been somewhat mindful of it for a number of years, but given the apparent rebirth of the phenomenon here recently, I just have to make note of it.

On Christmas Day, the kids were obviously home, and our son Shawn hadn't been out to see the new house in a few weeks. So we had decided in advance to take a trip out to show the kids how the new construction was coming along.

Shawn's girlfriend, Shannon, joined us for the ride. She had yet to see our new home-in-the-making, so she was particularly excited. Late that afternoon we all piled into the car and took a drive out to Nolensville.

The house at that point had been recently drywalled, and the kitchen cabinets had gone in just two days prior, so the place was really starting to look like a house.

Shannon was agog, going out of her way to express her excitement for us. She commented on the spaciousness of the floorplan, the wonderful location of the lot, which backs up to a wooded greenspace that will never be developed. “Wow, it really looks like this is gonna be your year, huh?” she gushed.

And then it suddenly occurred to me that the pattern was repeating itself once again.

Some twenty years ago, I recall thinking about the fact that the latter portion of the decade of the 1960s and that same portion at the end of the 70s were similar for me in many respects.

For most of my life, the 'seven-eight-nine' years of each decade have been particularly eventful, with the pendulum-swinging ever-increasingly in the direction of good fortune towards the end of each ten-year period.

I remember thinking about how strange it seemed that both 1969 and 1979 were banner years for me personally. In ’69, we moved from Central Indiana to Southern California and my life was forever changed. I’ve always acknowledged that as perhaps the single-most important natural event of my lifetime, as it is for me the linchpin under which everything else has been secured.

Ten years later I married Michelle, and have been as blessed by that occurrence as any man possibly could be.

These are the kinds of things that swirl around in my head constantly; comparisons, examination of events. Were they coincidences? Were they divine appointments? How would my life have turned out if just one or two details had been different?

I don’t necessarily dwell on things I can’t control, but I love to ponder the implications. And when I do, I am undeniably left with one conclusion: I am blessed.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, in responding to Shannon’s comment, I was struck with that same overpowering realization. On the fly, I put together a list of decade-to-decade circumstances that nearly gave me the chills for their almost spooky serendipity.

Over the past three decades, the last three years have all borne strangely similar qualities with regard to their overall fortune in my life. The 'Sevens,' while not entirely horrendous, have easily been among the most difficult and trying in each of the last three ten-year periods. Something always seems to impede my momentum.

The ‘Eights’ have been the transitional years, marked by at least one major positive event upon which other things seem to build. My sense of the ‘Eights’ years has always been one of hope and positive anticipation.

The ‘nines’ are gravy. In each of the past four decades, the last year has shined for me personally. Will the string continue in 2009? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

As I explained my impromptu revelation to Shannon, I was amazed at the examples that were coming forth. Although my explanation was limited to the divergent comparison of the ‘Sevens’ versus the ‘Eights,’ so as to amplify her implication that 2008 would be ‘our year,’ I’ll detail the ‘Nines’ here as well to complete my point.

Cue Leslie Feist.

The Seventies

• In 1977, in my Junior season of collegiate gymnastics competition, I suffered a severe back injury after screwing up a dismount on rings in a league finals meet. I was hospitalized overnight and thus began my continuing on-again-off again struggle with lower back and neck pain. My love life sucked too, as I went through relationships that year like Sherman went through Georgia. It was a confusing time for me, but one that turned around quickly.
  
  1978 brought with it an apparent complete recovery from my injury, a trip to the NCAA Finals on Rings, and my engagement to Michelle, in a whirlwind of a year that I’ll always treasure in my heart of hearts.
  
  ’79 the good times continued, as Michelle and I tied the knot in March and with our whole lives in front of us, I felt like I was the King of the World.

The Eighties

• The ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ decade in my life was filled with both joy and disappointment, but the contrast of the two was never so marked as between ’87 and ’88.
  
  In 1987 I was at the end of my rope career-wise, not knowing whether my association with the Art Director I was working with at the time was helping my career or hindering it. Bills were piling up and Michelle’s hope was tanking.
  
  Then in August of 1988, my friend Randy saved my life. He asked me to join him in a new desktop publishing design company effort and I was introduced to computers as a tool to ply my craft as a graphic designer. There’s no way of describing what a stroke of good fortune that was for me.

The Ninties

• In 1997, we were flat broke and in debt up to our eyeballs. There was no possible hope that we’d be able to afford to send our kids to college, and just keeping a roof over our heads was considerably more than a given.
  
  In 1998 however, the tide began to turn. Coupled with the momentum gained by Michelle’s job with Ford Credit, and my income delivering pizzas for Papa John’s, we really started making progress when I also took a fulltime web design position with The Company, with whom I just recently celebrated my nine-year anniversary.
  
  In 1999, we became debt-free except for our mortgage, and have lived on a cash basis ever since, allowing us to put Shawn and Amy through college and live comfortably.

The Aughts

• This past year has been particularly interesting. Back in April, just a month beyond the 30th anniversary of my gymnastics-related back injury, almost as on cue, that greatest of thorns-in-my-flesh revisited me. I’ll expound more upon the details in a later post, but suffice it to say, I was in misery for a period of about six weeks, leading into the time in May when we decided to build our new house.
  
  ‘07 was truly a mixed bag, with continued uncertainty associated with my job standing, along with the back pain flare-up juxtaposed the pride and satisfaction of witnessing our children’s respective college graduation ceremonies, and the excitement of our new home adventure.
  
  And now 2008 looms large as a continuation of this decades-old cycle of my life’s circumstances. Am I superstitious about it? Not in the least; I know that it’s all coincidence. However it is interesting, no?
  
  Will the coming year provide smooth sailing, as we prepare to move into the new house that we hope will carry us into our retirement years? Or will the increased mortgage payment we will take on turn around and bite us in the bum somehow?

Another Good News/Bad News Situation
It’s a bittersweet scenario. On the one hand we had an extremely comfortable mortgage with our first home, which was right at 20% of our monthly take-home pay. That allowed us to still afford to pay about 85% cash for our kid’s college tuition (the remaining 15% was in Stafford loans that Shawn and Amy will repay over the next ten years), without completely hamstringing our lifestyle. We lived pretty well, eating out at least once a week and maintaining season tickets to Nashville’s NHL Hockey team, The Predators.

On the other hand, the lack of storage and other amenities our old house offered, while amenable in the beginning had begun in recent years to really become an irritation. We now have the opportunity to truly have the house we’ve always wanted, but at least at this point (we still haven’t locked in our loan interest rate), our monthly payment figures to jump from 20% to somewhere between 30% and 33% of our combined monthly income. And while we no longer have to shell out thousands of dollars per year on tuition and monthly support for Shawn and Amy, that new mortgage is still a pretty significant commitment. This is especially the case given that we now must begin some serious saving for retirement, just 15 years or so down the road.

Now I’m sure that to many reading this, the thought of merely a 33%-of-monthly-income mortgage payment is a joke. I’m well aware that a lot of people are forced to commit up to 50% of what they make just to keep a roof over their heads; and to you I tip my cap, because I’ve been in your shoes. However there is no disrespect intended in my saying that I refuse to go there again.

Not to tempt fate, but I have no intention to place myself in a position of such stress to maintain a mortgage that I’m tempted to borrow to buy everything else. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Michelle and I will just have to wait and see how our finances shake out. I’d imagine I may need to do with a less few beers during football season or a few less lattes at Starbucks. My lovely wife may need to practice curbing her enthusiasm more often when spying that occasional ‘gotsta-have it’ item at the antique store, and perhaps we’ll both have to cut back a bit on getting that weekly Mexican cuisine fixe at Pancho’s.

Who knows? Maybe once I complete my ongoing training to learn the web development skills I’d been so late at learning until last year, my boss, Katie will actually make good on her promise to bring my salary up to the going rate for someone in my position. Just a low-to-medium-sized bump would make all the difference in the world.

I’m sure that something will happen. And I’m confident that it’ll be good.

I mean, c’mon; next year is 2009, if you get my drift…


finis