Supermassive Black Hole
Title courtesy of the band Muse. I'm starting to really dig these guys for some reason. I always liked a handful of their songs, but never gave the rest of their stuff a listen, its pretty damn good, I have to admit.
Anyway, yeah, so sorry if it seems like I have fallen off the face of the Earth and into a black hole or something. It was completely not intentional, we've just had a ton of stuff going on, all around. Work has been really busy, there's house stuff going on all the time it seems, then there was the holidays, and then my birthday. But now that I have a second to breathe and relax on this wonderful four day weekend, here I am writing!
I'm not going to really talk about work, mostly because I'm trying to avoid thinking about it while I'm not there, much in the same way I forced myself to ignore all things office related before the wedding. Its just better for my sanity, you know?
OK, so the house. For about the past two weeks Missy and I were under the impression that everything was all done with and we were just waiting for the lawyers to fight it out and set a closing date. I got a little impatient after not hearing from my lawyer for a week, but it turns out the guy was on vacation, so I called him Monday and he said that the last time he checked with the banks attorney we were not clear to close. So then I hopped on the phone with the guy I've been dealing with at the bank (who has been awesome by the way, actually, its been a pretty pleasant experience with everyone I've had to deal with) and he said it was because there was no proof of homeowners insurance. I had lined up homeowners insurance, and car insurance through a company earlier in the month, but everyone I spoke to, including the guy I was talking to at the moment said that it didn't need to be in place fully until we had a closing date. Now, we couldn't get a closing date because it wasn't in place. Catch-22 at all? So I called the insurance guy and explained the situation, he said he'd take care of it and fax over to the bank whatever they need to show that we have insurance in place, so we can proceed. Low and behold, Tuesday afternoon I get a call from the attorney's office asking what dates for a closing would be good for us. So hopefully we'll have a date this week!
In other house related news, although we don't even have a closing date and obviously are not even in the house yet, I've already made a major purchase for the house. And that was? A nice big LCD HDTV. The thing is going to be beautiful. I went to Best Buy yesterday with my dad (I could tell he was formulating some plans of his own for a new TV for somewhere in the house) and picked out the model I wanted. The sales guy showed me the same model line TV that I got, but in a smaller size, hooked up to a Blu-Ray player and the picture just looked insane. I've never seen something that clear before, ever. I got a little carried away, and got the Blu-Ray player! But, its going to be a Hanukkah gift from my parents. So I can't wait. I bought the wall mount for it and Best Buy is going to come and install it, calibrate it and wire it up all nice and neat. I have no den furniture, but I'm on my way to having a kick ass entertainment center. Priorities, right? I know mine are in the right place. Right?
Onto the holidays. They were good this year. Since Missy and I spent Thanksgiving at my parents last year, we were at her parents this year, leaving the crowd at my parents a little thin, but we'll be back next year. It was a nice relaxing day of watching a lot of shitty football games. Not a one was entertaining. All blow outs, no fun. Of course I ate to many appetizers, drank a few too many beers in the afternoon, slept for way too long while the game was on and woke up with my stomach all out of sorts. So much so that I didn't really eat anything at dinner. I felt really bad about that, but what can you do? Force yourself to eat and make it worse? Thankfully i was feeling better by the morning... because the day after Thanksgiving... was my birthday.
The big 3-0. It was a little rough to take in, being 30 and all. Missy kept saying that I have no right to complain as she's already 31 and will be 32 in April. That put it into perspective. We went out to breakfast at the local diner that morning, and since I didn't eat that much the night before, I was starving. Missy wasn't at all, and only had a banana. We then went out to my parents, as my aunt, uncle and cousin was in, the latter in all the way from Ankara, Turkey where she's working for the US State Department. So that was pretty cool. My cousin needed a ton of help cleaning up some stuff on her Mac, so I gave her my expert services. Then we took her to Best Buy so that my mom could get her a Hanukkah present, a new iPod Nano. I couldn't believe how tiny the thing was. Its pretty crazy. Especially since it holds more stuff on it than my iPhone, but whatever. It was cool.
After that we went home to the apartment to relax for a little while before the party. We rented a small party room at a restaurant/bar/pub place about 20 minutes from the apartment, we had about 33 people coming, including ourselves. All in all, it was a pretty awesome party. It was really cool to have all of my family and friends there to celebrate. Missy made up, with my help of course, a word jumble featuring 20 of my favorite things, and a multiple choice quiz, 30 questions about me, one for every year. Her intention was to give out prizes for whoever got the most right, but there was no way to do that with 30+ people, so we just kept the prizes for ourselves (two boxes of candy!). Missy put together the party with a Superman theme, complete with Superman goodie bags filled with candy, balloons and red and blue paper for the quizzes. She also put together some fun facts about 1978, the year of my birth, and some famous people that share my birthday, November 28. All in all, an awesome party. And, I got some awesome gifts. My in-laws gave me a Jets jersey with Brett Favre's name and number on it. I will definitely be wearing that this afternoon while I watch the game. I got a ton of gift cards to Best Buy which went towards the TV, the usual cash, which also went towards the TV, some beer mugs for the house, some clothes, some DVD's and two games for my Nintendo Wii. Like I said, no complaints, a kick ass birthday party.
So that's about it. The four day weekend is almost over, which is a little depressing, but what can you do? Today we have to go into the city for a baby naming for one of Missy's friends. That's cool with me, as long as we make it back for the 4:15 Jet's game!
Alright, that's all for now. I'll try to be better in the future.