More Mundane Meanderings » Life in General http://blog.lot42.com/blog Yet another rider on the blogging bandwagon. Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:18:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Homeowner No More http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2008/08/18/homeowner-no-more/ http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2008/08/18/homeowner-no-more/#comments Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:15:11 +0000 Mike http://blog.lot42.com/blog/?p=111 Our house sale closed today, finally. It was a bit more of a hassle being overseas that it would have been if we were local, but it wasn’t too bad. Actually, the biggest problem we had was finding legal-sized paper to print out the final documents that the escrow company had sent us. After looking and calling all over the place, we eventually had to go bum some off of the legal assistance office at a nearby Army barracks. The final documents needed to be physically signed, so we had to print them out and send them overnight back to the States (overnight was actually two days, but still, not too bad for halfway around the world).

It’s a bit weird to think that someone else is living in my house now, but it’s been quite a while since we’ve lived there ourselves. I hope they like it as much as we did.

]]> http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2008/08/18/homeowner-no-more/feed/ 0 We’re back (minus luggage) http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2007/02/26/were-back-minus-luggage/ http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2007/02/26/were-back-minus-luggage/#comments Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:39:58 +0000 Mike http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2007/02/26/were-back-minus-luggage/ I said I’d post while I was in Sweden, but we only had internet access on our final night. The trip was lots of fun and I woke up this morning in my own bed feeling a bit depressed that I was back in the mundane world. Our luggage apparently was feeling the same way yesterday and spent an extra night in Copenhagen. We hope it decided to catch the flight to Seattle today.

I’ve got a bunch of pictures that I’m sorting through, and I’ll post them on Flickr once I’m done. I’m also planning on writing up some good posts about our day-to-day adventures. In the meantime, here’s a video of a band doing a sound check at the Ice Hotel.

]]> http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2007/02/26/were-back-minus-luggage/feed/ 1 Great start to my vacation http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2007/02/16/great-start-to-my-vacation/ http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2007/02/16/great-start-to-my-vacation/#comments Sat, 17 Feb 2007 06:48:32 +0000 Mike http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2007/02/16/great-start-to-my-vacation/ After a 2-hour commute home, we walked into a 56° house. Apparently our furnace decided to go on vacation, too. After a bit of calling around, I found a guy to come out and install a new igniter. It wasn’t cheap, but at least it was a quick fix. I hope the cats appreciate it while we’re gone. :)

We’re just about packed and ready to go. Hopefully our flights stay on schedule and I can get some sleep on the plane. Twenty four hours from now we should be touching down in Stockholm.

]]> http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2007/02/16/great-start-to-my-vacation/feed/ 0 Tuition Increases http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/11/16/tuition-increases/ http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/11/16/tuition-increases/#comments Fri, 17 Nov 2006 05:58:31 +0000 Mike http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/11/16/tuition-increases/ I was doing some random web browsing tonight and ended up back on a page at my alma mater, Case Western Reserve University, or CWRU (actually, it’s not CWRU any more, it’s just Case, due to lame marketing reasons). Tuition has gone up over $10,000 dollars since my freshman year (see the data). It went from $16,300 in 1995-96 to $26,500 in 2004-05, for an increase of 63%.

Holy crap.

]]> http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/11/16/tuition-increases/feed/ 1 I used to be a Rock Star http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/04/11/i-used-to-be-a-rock-star/ http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/04/11/i-used-to-be-a-rock-star/#comments Wed, 12 Apr 2006 04:43:40 +0000 Mike http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/04/11/i-used-to-be-a-rock-star/ Well, I was never really a rock star. I was in a band, Blue Nova, for a short while around in 1996. In honor of our tenth anniversary, I’m rereleasing our one and only album, Songs from the Groove. Don’t feel a need to listen to any of it, but my favorites in random order are Scared (both regular and club mix), Tie Dye, Taking Over the World, Shoelaces, and In My Room.

I played guitar. The rest of the band was Andy Minton on guitar, keyboards, and vocals, Albert Christy on vocals, Aaron Bjork on bass, and Tony Marra on drums. We practiced in a barn on a friend’s farm.

This album was recorded on one long night in my church’s basement, on a single-track cassette karaoke machine with one microphone for vocals and another for all of the instrumental stuff. I later transferred the songs from the cassette to my shiny, new Pentium 75 Packard Bell and cleaned them up as much as I knew how using Cool Edit. Given our poor equipment, our non-existent sound engineering know-how, and our general lack of talent, the songs turned out to be not too bad.

Without further ado, here is Blue Nova’s Songs from the Groove:

Tape Cover
Side I:
Taking Over the World
Losing My Head
Belle Boy
Tie Dye
Down Here 		Side II:
Scared
Shoelaces
Strange This Day
In My Room
Scared – Club Mix
]]> http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/04/11/i-used-to-be-a-rock-star/feed/ 2 How to sell a car http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/03/02/how-to-sell-a-car/ http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/03/02/how-to-sell-a-car/#comments Fri, 03 Mar 2006 04:26:39 +0000 Mike http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/03/02/how-to-sell-a-car/ I’ve been browsing craigslist car listings, tossing around an idea to buy a cheap car and convert it to an electric vehicle. While it’s still a fairly low probability that I’ll actually get around to doing that, it’s still fun to look through car listings. My favorite so far had the following:

And here’s the kicker, 4 reasons you will never hear from a used car salesperson of why you should buy my car:

1. You will make new friends. My volvo is rather distinct, and I’ve been driving it for a while now, so anyone who sees it on the road will think its me driving, they will give you a super friendly wave, and then have a moment of realization, have an akward laugh, thus, giving the two of you an icebreaker. My friends will soon be your friends.

2. She has character. It may be hard to believe, but the character vibe that surrounds the volvo, it’s not just me. It is the car itself. Thats all I can say really, you just need to be near it to understand. Have a good lean against her, you’ll be sold.

3. She is the perfect place to hang out. Thats right, you don’t need to find somehwere to go with friends, just somewhere to park. You can chillax in the back, on the hood, or my personal favorite, in the trunk. Not when the trunk is closed of course.

4. You will be cooler. Yeah, I’ll go there. Driving this car will actually make you cooler. It will change you, for the better. You won’t even need to feel embarassed to sing in the car with people watching. You will make the people who don’t sing ashamed. Yeah, you and the volvo will put others to shame.

Unfortunately, it’s an automatic and therefore not a great candidate for conversion.

]]> http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/03/02/how-to-sell-a-car/feed/ 2 Goal for 2006 http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/01/01/goal-for-2006/ http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/01/01/goal-for-2006/#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2006 04:57:26 +0000 Mike http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/01/01/goal-for-2006/ My wife recently read the article in Time naming Bono and Bill and Melinda Gates as Persons of the Year. She told me I need to make a billion dollars so we can also start saving the world. I’ll add that to my To Do list.

]]> http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2006/01/01/goal-for-2006/feed/ 0 How to get my business http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2005/12/31/how-to-get-my-business/ http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2005/12/31/how-to-get-my-business/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:33:27 +0000 Mike http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2005/12/31/how-to-get-my-business/ As a means of procrastinating, I was clicking random signature links on Slashdot and came across a somewhat interesting blog post: Five Things You HAVE To Do In Order To Get My Business.

It brought to mind a general feeling that I’ve been having over the past few months about the need for ethical behavior and honesty in business and in life. I’m not sure I’ve thought everything out enough to do a decent post about it yet, but the gist of it is that if you’re not honest enough to own up to your product’s shortcomings or your mistakes in general, I really have no desire to do business with you. I can feel a rant about advertising building up, but since that’d be going off on a bit of a tangent, I think I’ll save that for later.

]]> http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2005/12/31/how-to-get-my-business/feed/ 0 Women’s Lib vs. the Post Office http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2005/11/19/womens-lib-vs-the-post-office/ http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2005/11/19/womens-lib-vs-the-post-office/#comments Sat, 19 Nov 2005 17:48:55 +0000 Mike http://blog.lot42.com/blog/2005/11/19/womens-lib-vs-the-post-office/ Here’s a reason to consolidate last names when getting married: the US Postal Service doesn’t recognized you as being related unless you have the same last names. Since both my wife and I kept our own last names after getting married, it was a bit of a hassle picking up a package for her today at the local post office. I even brought a bank statement showing both of our names listed at the same address. That wasn’t good enough, though, since our last names are different. Better safe than sorry, I suppose, since I could really be an evil roommate trying to steal the brand new bread knife she ordered. (Of course, I could be an evil roommate with the same last name and still steal her mail, but better some safegaurds than none, I suppose.)

Luckily, my wife is also in the Army and I have a military I.D. card that states that I belong to her. That was good enough for the USPS, and I successfully returned from my mission with the package underarm. I don’t think her I.D. card has any reference to me, though, so she still wouldn’t have an easy time picking up a package addressed to me.

The lesson here? Marry a soldier. Or better yet, somehow end up with the same last name as your spouse when you get married.

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