I Am Moving
It has occurred to me, through the great number of people that as of late have been asking me questions to which I thought they knew the answers, that not everybody knows about my upcoming plans. I will dispell all rumors now.
I am buying an apartment in downtown Kansas City. The building is called the Coffee Lofts. It is so named because it is directly across the street from a coffee factory. So even when the rest of downtown smells like the disgusting exhaust of a dogfood factory in North Kansas City, this two or three-block area smells like coffee beans. Maybe some day I'll get tired of it, but I don't see that happening just yet.
The place in question is a garden-level, two-bed/two-bath apartment with floors of polished concrete and over 1450 square feet for dancing and makeout parties. There are high ceilings with exposed pipes and whatnot, and there is ample non-free parking in the attached garage.
Seeing as it's a two-bed/two-bath unit, Jeff will be moving into the second bedroom, and we will both give New Quality Hill and big salute goodbye. I love the apartment on 11th, but the cost-cutting measures taken in the circa-1996 construction have begun to show. The buildings are very cheap, and the level of decay was not evident when we moved in, in 2003. I think Jeff summarizes the style of hasty inexpensive construction well with the term, "insta-slum."
The seller is excited enough about the unit that they accepted an offer for a heck of a lot less than the asking price, and they even agreed to buy us out of our lease, a condition without which this deal would certainly not be happening.
At 1:57pm on Wednesday, February 28th, the financing was assured, and it finally became clear and definite that the deal was going down. I've since given the leasing office a 30-day notice that we're going to move out, placed a moving order for our cable service(to possibly the wrong location), and now I need to start worrying about moving.
It has occurred to me, through the great number of people that as of late have been asking me questions to which I thought they knew the answers, that not everybody knows about my upcoming plans. I will dispell all rumors now.
I am buying an apartment in downtown Kansas City. The building is called the Coffee Lofts. It is so named because it is directly across the street from a coffee factory. So even when the rest of downtown smells like the disgusting exhaust of a dogfood factory in North Kansas City, this two or three-block area smells like coffee beans. Maybe some day I'll get tired of it, but I don't see that happening just yet.
The place in question is a garden-level, two-bed/two-bath apartment with floors of polished concrete and over 1450 square feet for dancing and makeout parties. There are high ceilings with exposed pipes and whatnot, and there is ample non-free parking in the attached garage.
Seeing as it's a two-bed/two-bath unit, Jeff will be moving into the second bedroom, and we will both give New Quality Hill and big salute goodbye. I love the apartment on 11th, but the cost-cutting measures taken in the circa-1996 construction have begun to show. The buildings are very cheap, and the level of decay was not evident when we moved in, in 2003. I think Jeff summarizes the style of hasty inexpensive construction well with the term, "insta-slum."
The seller is excited enough about the unit that they accepted an offer for a heck of a lot less than the asking price, and they even agreed to buy us out of our lease, a condition without which this deal would certainly not be happening.
At 1:57pm on Wednesday, February 28th, the financing was assured, and it finally became clear and definite that the deal was going down. I've since given the leasing office a 30-day notice that we're going to move out, placed a moving order for our cable service(to possibly the wrong location), and now I need to start worrying about moving.
Work and Midtown
One of our systems here at work puked all over itself a couple weeks ago. Ever since then, we've been taking turns sitting in the war room, watching the numbers in case another disaster flares up. It's a really quiet, boring job. Normally anyway. Today, the bulk of my work didn't start until after noon, when I took my seat and my turn watching paint dry in the war room.
Anyway, I have a couple eggs in my basket right now, but the biggest egg is homeownership, as BDC devotees already know. I'll let that one go, in this entry, I'll talk mostly about my evening out. I went out on Friday and had a great time.
Jeff and I met Eric down in the Crossroads, where Mark Funkhouser(our preferred mayoral candidate) gave a First Friday speech on his proposed policies. We were supposed to meet up with Eric's friend Mark at Mike Kelly's Westsider afterward, but he never showed. We enjoyed some dinner and Irish music before we piled back into Eric's car for Chez Charlie's.
We enjoyed ourselves there, though the smoke was a bit much for Jeff. We were about to call it a night when we stepped outside into the falling snow, exasperated that it had been over 70 only a few days earlier. Jeff looked to starboard and suggested that we head in that direction to Fitz' Blarney Stone, a bare 20-second walk away. Eric and I consented to further drinking.
My friend Modesta climbed out of a cab when we approached the door, gave me a stunned smile and said, "Hey, I know you!" She and a whole troop of her attractive friends were keeping the heating bills down inside. We went in and thoroughly appreciated the $5 pitchers of Flying Monkey. While we were there, some dude got the pride beat out of him in the bathroom, along with a startling quantity of blood. The bloody mess prompted the bartender to close off the bathroom and call the police, who arrived with startling speed.
We went to DB Cooper's after that, convinced that it was a 3am bar. It is not. It was at one time, but it is not now. The bartender headed us off on our way to a table and told us she had already called last call. She saw the sad looks on our faces, and almost immediately said, "oh, okay. one drink." We each ordered a PBR, and she retorted, "do you want a pitcher?" She obviously wasn't that interested in getting us out the door.
Jeff and I caught a cab home, ate pancakes, and called it a night. The next day dawned with a slight headache and a vigorous toothbrushing for the death-breath. Jeff's began with four trips to the toilet, as some microbe, he claims, was doing a little dance in his stomach. He was out for the day.
One of our systems here at work puked all over itself a couple weeks ago. Ever since then, we've been taking turns sitting in the war room, watching the numbers in case another disaster flares up. It's a really quiet, boring job. Normally anyway. Today, the bulk of my work didn't start until after noon, when I took my seat and my turn watching paint dry in the war room.
Anyway, I have a couple eggs in my basket right now, but the biggest egg is homeownership, as BDC devotees already know. I'll let that one go, in this entry, I'll talk mostly about my evening out. I went out on Friday and had a great time.
Jeff and I met Eric down in the Crossroads, where Mark Funkhouser(our preferred mayoral candidate) gave a First Friday speech on his proposed policies. We were supposed to meet up with Eric's friend Mark at Mike Kelly's Westsider afterward, but he never showed. We enjoyed some dinner and Irish music before we piled back into Eric's car for Chez Charlie's.
We enjoyed ourselves there, though the smoke was a bit much for Jeff. We were about to call it a night when we stepped outside into the falling snow, exasperated that it had been over 70 only a few days earlier. Jeff looked to starboard and suggested that we head in that direction to Fitz' Blarney Stone, a bare 20-second walk away. Eric and I consented to further drinking.
My friend Modesta climbed out of a cab when we approached the door, gave me a stunned smile and said, "Hey, I know you!" She and a whole troop of her attractive friends were keeping the heating bills down inside. We went in and thoroughly appreciated the $5 pitchers of Flying Monkey. While we were there, some dude got the pride beat out of him in the bathroom, along with a startling quantity of blood. The bloody mess prompted the bartender to close off the bathroom and call the police, who arrived with startling speed.
We went to DB Cooper's after that, convinced that it was a 3am bar. It is not. It was at one time, but it is not now. The bartender headed us off on our way to a table and told us she had already called last call. She saw the sad looks on our faces, and almost immediately said, "oh, okay. one drink." We each ordered a PBR, and she retorted, "do you want a pitcher?" She obviously wasn't that interested in getting us out the door.
Jeff and I caught a cab home, ate pancakes, and called it a night. The next day dawned with a slight headache and a vigorous toothbrushing for the death-breath. Jeff's began with four trips to the toilet, as some microbe, he claims, was doing a little dance in his stomach. He was out for the day.
Virb
I've had a relatively active profile on myspace ever since my friend Ryan created a page for his band and invited me to "be its friend." I was swept up by social networking- a site that almost everyone used. I had been on friendster before, and I think I even got an orkut invitation, but neither of them were very busy or even useful. They, just like myspace after them, provided useless statistics, like telling you that someone is "connected" to your "personal network." Unfortunately on myspace, everyone that opens an account is automatically connected to Tom, the site's founder. So as a result, everyone is in everyone else's personal network. Useless.
I happily used myspace for a long time, sending and receiving comments, taking in the ease of communication, and the carefully-taken pictures of plain women, made to look exotic or artful, and not just plain. I got in touch with people from high school and college. I talked to people with whom I hadn't talked in years. It was a nice escape, because in the case of most of the more serious users, it wasn't reality, and that's fine. The internet is what you make it.
Unfortunately, the world made myspace stupid. Myspace was ripe for stupidification though. As a friend put it, it appears that myspace was written, and was then rewritten over and over to either add features or fix problems, instead of trying to learn from the mistakes of predecessors. I'm not sure about the English in that sentence, but I think you get the idea.
Enter Virb.com, a complete rebuild of the whole idea of social networking. It's a well thought-out, fully pleasant website. There are numerous reviews on the web that talk much more fully about it, so I won't try to reinvent the wheel. Use the googles to find them.
The bottom line is: get off myspace and get on virb.
The next bottom line is: if you were scared away from social networking sites like myspace because of the morons that frequent them and ruin everything for everybody, virb is your chance to get in on the scene without having a pantload of bad html, teenybopper myspace "pimpers," and ridiculous slutty pictures of camwhores and bots dropped on your business.
Come to Virb and say hello.
I've had a relatively active profile on myspace ever since my friend Ryan created a page for his band and invited me to "be its friend." I was swept up by social networking- a site that almost everyone used. I had been on friendster before, and I think I even got an orkut invitation, but neither of them were very busy or even useful. They, just like myspace after them, provided useless statistics, like telling you that someone is "connected" to your "personal network." Unfortunately on myspace, everyone that opens an account is automatically connected to Tom, the site's founder. So as a result, everyone is in everyone else's personal network. Useless.
I happily used myspace for a long time, sending and receiving comments, taking in the ease of communication, and the carefully-taken pictures of plain women, made to look exotic or artful, and not just plain. I got in touch with people from high school and college. I talked to people with whom I hadn't talked in years. It was a nice escape, because in the case of most of the more serious users, it wasn't reality, and that's fine. The internet is what you make it.
Unfortunately, the world made myspace stupid. Myspace was ripe for stupidification though. As a friend put it, it appears that myspace was written, and was then rewritten over and over to either add features or fix problems, instead of trying to learn from the mistakes of predecessors. I'm not sure about the English in that sentence, but I think you get the idea.
Enter Virb.com, a complete rebuild of the whole idea of social networking. It's a well thought-out, fully pleasant website. There are numerous reviews on the web that talk much more fully about it, so I won't try to reinvent the wheel. Use the googles to find them.
The bottom line is: get off myspace and get on virb.
The next bottom line is: if you were scared away from social networking sites like myspace because of the morons that frequent them and ruin everything for everybody, virb is your chance to get in on the scene without having a pantload of bad html, teenybopper myspace "pimpers," and ridiculous slutty pictures of camwhores and bots dropped on your business.
Come to Virb and say hello.
11:10 PM, Mar 28, 2007 
Oh, Hello!
I didn't see you there!
I am a lazy, lazy man. I have been lazily preparing for home ownership, getting a new roll of pictures together for you, working on the heightening pile of work at work, and throwing together such a social life as I can muster.
I'm moving on Saturday, so I've been trying to tie up loose ends regarding that. I have filled one garbage bag with useless crap that won't be making the move with us. Jeff did me one better and secured a whole load of boxes to package up his many personal effects, which handily outnumber my own. I will complete my crap-up tomorrow, and make a pathetic attempt to pack in an orderly fashion.
I know I keep saying it, but I will be updating this site more, once the craziness settles a bit. All next week, I'll be working nights with nothing to do. You'll probably get some random inane thoughts out of me then.
Odds and Ends
I was just going through some old, yet unpublished pictures from when the family visited KC back in January. I though some of you might like to see them.
I was just going through some old, yet unpublished pictures from when the family visited KC back in January. I though some of you might like to see them.
It Is Official
I am a homeowner. More to come.
I left work to get a cashier's check for a buttload of money at my bank, and made a beeline for KC Title, where I closed on the condo at 1 o'clock. I received the gift of beer from Raina, my buyer's agent, and also discovered that the condo was appraised for $13,000 more than the amount I paid for it. So I already have equity!
I came back downtown on the edge of tears of joy, scornfully entered my shabby apartment, and walked my aloe plant down to the place. It was given to me by Joel and Susie years ago when they moved away from KC, so I thought it'd be ideal for the first item I move into my first home. It all doesn't seem quite real.
Now, time for sweat.
I am a homeowner. More to come.
I left work to get a cashier's check for a buttload of money at my bank, and made a beeline for KC Title, where I closed on the condo at 1 o'clock. I received the gift of beer from Raina, my buyer's agent, and also discovered that the condo was appraised for $13,000 more than the amount I paid for it. So I already have equity!
I came back downtown on the edge of tears of joy, scornfully entered my shabby apartment, and walked my aloe plant down to the place. It was given to me by Joel and Susie years ago when they moved away from KC, so I thought it'd be ideal for the first item I move into my first home. It all doesn't seem quite real.
Now, time for sweat.
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