Travel buddies

While driving to Louisville, Chicago, and back I was happy to have a couple travel buddies along the way. You know those cars that take off with you a little faster the Roscoe P Coltrain allows. Some how you all feel better in the group thinking that the Po-po can't pull all of you over. Going to Louisville I had Red cavalier and black Escalade as travel buddies and we took turns leading the way. Come back from Chicago I had Blue VW Golf, and Brown mini Van and Brown mini van and I waved good bye when we parted ways. Does anyone else notice these clicks that form on the road trips? I love travel Buddies!

Weekend in Louisville-Chicago

We just finished a whirl wind weekend that included a quick trip to Louisville to see LB run in the NAIA Track and Field National Championships, moving out of our apartment while the Indy 500 parade was going by in front of our building, and a couple days in Chicago for a lovely wedding. We finished it up by getting up really early this morning to start our first day of commuting a few hours each day. I am so glad that the week has started so I can get some rest.

Friday Night after class and work Kate and I jumped on Interstate 65 and made our way down South to Louisville Kentucky to meet up with Douglas and Fiona and watch LB run. Laura had run the 10000 the night before and had horribly blistered feet. She had the 5000 to run this time and Fiona told her not to run, her coach told her not to run, her dad told her to do what she wanted and that, as she always does, she did. She ran a courageous race on bloody feet but ultimately finished last in her heat. We had a great time with Douglas and Fiona and ended up getting home at a decent hour.

Saturday we were up bright and early to pick up a U-haul truck to get the last of the furniture from our house before the parade started. It was hard to get from one side of the town to the other but we got it done and I got to watch the parade while Kate worked. We left for Chicago once Kate got off work at 10 PM and arrived just after 1 AM.

Sunday I slept in while Kate went shopping with her sisters. We met up for some pinochle and food before the wedding. Kate's cousin Adam married Kelly in a short but sweet ceremony followed by a time of generous portions of the adult beverage kind. The meal was great, the free drinks even better and it was nice to be staying the hotel that the ceremony, and reception happened in. I snuck out a couple of times to watch the Miami-Detroit game.

Monday we made our way back to Indy and cleaned our apartment. We also grabbed the rest of the stuff that didn't go to storage and headed up to Tom and Kris's. That will be home for a while, until we find out more about the house.

Well there you have it, details you don't need about a weekend you don't care about. Ain't blogging great!

Festival Fever

I don't know if you have heard or not but there is a little race going on here in the circle city. Apparently every year they hold the Indianapolis 500 here and it is some what of a big deal in these parts. A couple of thoughts for you about festival week:

1. I just saw the parade and there seems to be 33 drivers in this year's race as there has been in the last 47 years. See the funny thing is if you watch the local news there is only 3 people racing. The lovely Danica Patrick, the favorite Tony Kanaan, and the IRL point leader Dan wheldon. Who knew that there was 30 other guys that had a chance to win.

2. With that said this race is all about Danica. She is not only the best looking driver in the race she is also the fastest. Tony Kanaan was jokingly complaining that he had pole position and yet everyone was talking about Danica. Well Tony it could have something to do with the 1.125 mile and hour lead she has had over you every day since qualifing, or it could be this.

3. This past week I have been learning all about the history of the Indy 500. I now know the difference between Carb day and Bump day. I know who hates who and can offer some educated picks as to who is going to win. But really the Indy 500 is one huge bar-b-que with copious amounts of adult beverages being enjoyed. The real race is watching all the drunks leave the track each day. I will thankfully be in Chicago while the big race lets out.

4. At some point in my life I want to spend some time at the track during these festivities. From all I have heard even if you care nothing about racing, which I happen to care a little less then nothing, you have a great time. I like a great time!

5. Notable parade participants: Patrick Dempsey from ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Cheech Marrin from the academy award winning film Up in Smoke, The Brady Bunch's Florance henderson, Jim Neighbors, Sergi Federov, and the ringless one Reggie.

Shopping for a house Take Two

After coming to terms with our dream house for now $45,000!!! not being in the cards Kate and I set out with fresh eyes to see what could be seen. We are still focusing our search on Irvington and Fountain Square with me leaning towards FS and Kate leaning towards IRV. Our wonderful realtor Karen sent us a long list of possible houses and we narrowed it down to about 8 that we wanted to look at.

After work we met up with Karen and started phase two. The first house was nice on the outside but really strange inside. First off there was some one renting it out and they were sitting in the living room watching Opera while we scrounged around their stuff. Maybe it was the strange walls or maybe the creepy person in the living room but that wasn't the right place. Next we had 3 houses in a row that looked as if they would fall down at any moment and we quickly passed on those and moved on to 1230 Woodlawn Ave.

The picture does not do this house justice. There are 3 small bedrooms down stairs, a living room, dining room, entry way, kitchen, and bathroom downstairs and an attic that runs the length of the house upstairs. The attic is unfinished but huge and we saw our bedroom up there right away. Downstairs there are 12 foot ceilings and old hard wood floors covered with burbur carpet. The windows are about 6 feet high and start about a foot off the ground. Both of us really liked this place a lot. It was equal parts livable and potential and we were both able to see what was and what soon could be with a little elbow grease and the right kind of friends (mark, bing, chuck, meg, marv, kris.....)

We then called the Mortgage people to explore some options and move forward towards putting an offer on this house in the next month or so. The next day some one else put in an offer and we had until noon the next day to put in an offer ourselves. It is odd, the pace of life, some times. We talked with the mortgage people, our parents, our realtor, and each other and came up with an offer that was accepted! We are now in what 90% of the US calls escrow but what Indiana calls simply Closing.

We need to get the house, built in 1900, inspected, we need to set up home owners insurance, and we need to gather up all the loan materials that our broker needs to finish up the mortgage before our June 30 close date. Oh by the way we are moving out of our apartment downtown on May 31, Kate is starting a new job, I am going to school and interviewing for jobs, and we will commuting two hours each day. It's a good thing Lost, Alias, and Desperate Housewives have had their season finales otherwise we might be really busy.

Bonge's

This past Friday Kate and I joined her parents, her parent's neighbors, and her parent's neighbor's friends from the Miata club at a hole in the wall restaurant in Perkinsville Indiana called Bonge's (pronounced bong geeees) Tavern. Perkinsville is a half stop light town North East of us right on the White River. According to the mural out front the place has been open since 1934 and it has a really limited menu.

In the dining room of Bonge's there are about 12 tables and they are completely full from about 5:30 until 11:00 so people waiting for tables tail gate in the parking lot. Tom brought his RV and we setup a couple card tables, one for snacks, one for gambling, mixed up some tasty adult beverages and sat down to wait for our tables to be ready. We played some high stakes 31, a quarter a hand for the loser, and decided on who would sit with whom once we got in. It was decided that the guys and girls would sit at separate tables.

The guys got in first and we snuggled into our booth. I was worried about the conversation since we were all tenuously linked and we had such a wide age range but those worries were quickly alleviated. We talked Business, Golf, Home Ownership, Women, and a host of other topics as we enjoyed our sautayed Mushroom appetizer. I got the ribs, Tom got the Perkinsville Pork and both were excellent. This was an odd place for sure but it was just crazy enough to be a lot of fun.

So to recap: Middle of no-where restaurant + people I have never met + tailgating + gambling + great food = one of the best nights I have had in a long time. If your ever find your self in Perkinsville you simply must try Bonge's.

Basketball Jones

Last Thursday night I spent the evening with my Father in-law watching a little basketball game in a small gym in the center of town. It was Game 6 Pacers v. Detroit at Conseco Field House. Detroit was up 3 games to 2 and the Pacers had been finding it really hard to get baskets lately. We were handed thunder sticks when we walked in and we made our way to the Suite behind the North basket early for once.

Tom blew up his thunder sticks and grinned like a three year old every time he banged them together. Indiana started out hot and lead for most of the game. With about 6 minutes left they ran into their series long shooting woes and Detroit took control of the game. Reggie Miller gave his best effort to try and pull off another miracle but it wasn't going to be. With 15 seconds Reggie was pulled out of the game for the last time in his career. After 18 years for one team, the NBA all-time 3 point leader, one of the 50 greatest players of all-time was calling it a career and we were there to watch.

We stood and clapped, Tom banging his thunder sticks like Bonds before drug testing, with 20,000 other people and it all of a sudden got real dusty in the arena. I am not much of a Pacer fan, not much of a Miller fan, but I am a huge basketball fan and I got to see one of the greatest players ever play his last game. I was caught up in the moment and leaking from the eyes with the rest of the appreciative fans that stayed to the bitter end to thank Uncle Reggie for the memmories!

House #1 Bad foundation: Notice the broken gutter and hole in the roof. Racoons climb the tree and trapeez into the hole according to the neighbor. 

Shopping for a house: Take one

We went and looked at a house earlier this week. We had a list on Sunday that we narrowed down and this one was far and away the top of the crop. Kate and I are looking for a place that we can fix up, so the top of the crop looks a little different to us then it might to you. We talked to our new Realtor Karen and set up a time to see this diamond in the rough. I had spent the last couple of nights pouring over the Web learning all I could about a good fixer upper vs. a money pit and felt pretty good going in.

When we got into the house we saw that all the floors were covered in carpet and the previous owners had walled in the old fire place for some reason. We pulled up some carpets in the dinning room to reveal hard wood floors underneath. Bingo! The kitchen was large and had a bay window looking out into the side yard. The house reeked but Kate and I only saw what would be. The next door neighbor had said that there were animals in the roof and that there were at least three roofs on the place. It looked as if we would need to replace that and probably the eves as well. As we went up stairs the real problems started to mount. I saw a couple door frames slanted a little and cracks up the wall leading from the sloped entry ways. I didn't want to see it because I knew right away it meant a bad foundation. Then more and more tell tale signs presented them selves. Floors slanted down towards the back and there were cracks in the back porch. Our four bedroom fixer upper for $54,000 was slowly looking to be more work then we were up for. Kate was so excited about this place but I had to be the bad guy and say it was too much for us. She was really disappointed and didn't want to look at other properties that night but after some time she came around. We picked out ten more places and set a time with Karen to check them out. Our diamond in the rough is out there!

We gonna party like it's your b-day

Yesterday I turned 31 though my wife seemed to have missed the memo. Of all the well wishes and singing I received my wife's was not amoung them. She forgot, or she thought it was May 4 on Thursday not Wednesday and only realized it when she had to write down the date at work. When she came home she was so apologetic but to be honest I didn't even notice that she didn't tell me happy birthday. Kate tried to make it up by making me dinner. She turned on the oven to make some biscuts but then checked her email. I made the biscuts and the soup (beef for me, vegatable for her) and served my wife once she finished on the computer. So to recap, no happy birthday in the morning, then she played on the computer while I made the birthday dinner she offered in retribution. If she wasn't so damn cute I would be upset :)

Bing's woody tear drop trailer. Finished before moving to Oregon, Bing drove it up last month. One or two things left to do but a great looking job so far! 

A season for change

Some of you may have noticed some changes to the page. You are very perceptive and will be rewarded with a CD is you leave a comment and tell me what you think.

No longer pregnant a Blog about being pregnant is just creepy. Instead we have a blog about me. I'm not much, I know, but I'm all I think about and all you should think about as well. That is not true at all but if you want to follow along please come back often.

I went with Green because green is spring, new life, rebirth, and all that. Kate and I are looking for a house to fix up and I will be posting often on that process as well as posting on what a tool I am in day to day life. Those who know me are well aware that I will have plenty to write about.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy sharing it.

Monday Mourning

Monday Kate had the D&C procedure in the morning and was back home by the afternoon. She is one tough cookie that girl. Tougher then I am, but then you all knew that already. We got to the hospital at 9 for the procedure that was scheduled for 10. They had to draw some blood and set up an IV. While they were trying to get that going I started to turn green and was on the verge of passing out when the nurse asked me to leave. I was worrying Kate to much for her to relax. Good times! I am too much of a distraction for my wife cause I am such a sissy I can't sit and hold her hand while they prep her for surgery. I went and got some water and tried to stop sweating like G Dub at a spelling bee. After about twenty minutes the nurse came back out to get me to see Kate before she went under. I got up real quick and spilled my water on my pants so when I stood up it looked like I wet my self. Freaking Phenomenal. The nurse looked at my pants and then back up at me with pure pity in her eyes.

Waiting for the procedure to finish and Kate to wake up was a horrible time for me. I strongly dislike hospitals and I strongly dislike my beautiful wife going through all this. She on the other hand sailed through it like a champ. Poised, strong, and a good sense of humor. She needs that with me, I'm a walking train wreck!