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Whoopsidaisy! Looks like early Spring went and got away from me. Time for a very slow lightning-round update on what’s new in RobbyLand!

In no particular order, either!

Bike! I got one, just this last Sunday. It’s my first new bike since I was a middle schooler, I think. I also haven’t ridden a bike more than once or twice since I was a preteen, until now. As a result, I decided not to spend a huge amount on the bike. I got one from Target – this one, in fact. It’s a hybrid, which means that it’s somewhere between a mountain bike and a road bike. Which means that I can ride on rougher trails without a problem, but still get the greater speed associated with a road bike. I’ve only been on one longer ride so far, but it was fun. And since next week is Bike to Work Week (hence the new ride), I’ll get plenty of practice all too soon. I’ll be riding a good 15-20 miles a day next week.

Volleyball! A few friends and I have formed a sand volleyball team for this Spring/Summer. I’ve never really played volleyball aside from a few very casual games, but I think it’s something I’ll enjoy even if I don’t excel. We’re playing seven games over the next seven weeks, with our first game being next Tuesday evening. Our team’s name is “To Kill a Blocking Nerd,” which I find awesomely hilarious (friend Tyson came up with the name).

Grass! Amanda and I hired a lawn service this year with the hope of making some real headway on our backyard (aka the dirt pit). They’ve fertilized, aerated and seeded our backyard, and they’ll continue to do some fertilization and week control as the year progresses. It really wasn’t as pricy as I would have expected – I think we’re getting the whole year-long deal for around $300. So far, I’m seeing grass sprouting in some pretty dead areas, so I’m excited about that. Unfortunately, the creeping charley also seemed to appreciate the fertilizer, and it’s gaining some major headway on the other side of the yard. I think I’m going to have to treat it before the new grass is fully grown, or I may not have any grass left when it’s done.

Basement! Very soon, Amanda and I are going to take the plunge back into DIY home improvement and start redoing the finished half of the basement. Essentially, we’re going to start over. First up, we’re going to tear up the carpeting and bleach/seal the concrete to make it more moisture resistant and try to remove the 40+ years of pet smells down there. Then we’re going to tear out the ceiling (and possibly the walls). Next, we’re going to redo the overhead lighting and close up a poorly placed intake vent (it’s adjacent to an output vent, creating a closed loop). Then we’re going to put up drywall on the ceiling and walls and texture everything. Once that’s done, we get to paint everything a nice bright shade of something. And finally, we’re going to lay down a new floor – probably a laminate hardwood. Just typing all that stuff exhausted me.

Wedding! We are four months and five days from the big moment we’ve all been waiting for. All the really big things are in place, so we’re down to the annoying details. We spent a long while last night working on the guest list, and we’re going to spend even more time on it. The problem we’re running into is: Amanda’s family is massive and her parents are pretty adamant about having everyone there, but we have limited seating at our wedding location (180 absolute max, 150 realistically – but we can fit more inside at the reception). So once we get all her extended family seated, and my much smaller close family seated (sorry third cousins), we have ~very~ little room for any of our friends. This frustrates me, because (no offense to anyone) I’d rather have a close friend attend our wedding than some second-great-aunt that I’ve never met and Amanda hasn’t seen in 15 years, assuming I had to choose between the two. So we’re working on a multi-tiered system currently – family and very close friends (mostly those in the wedding) will attend the wedding and everything else. Others will be invited to the dinner and the reception. And still others will be invited to attend the post-dinner reception and drink/dance the night away. It’s not an ideal system, but it’s the only one we’ve figured out so far that doesn’t violate fire and safety codes or put us several thousand dollars over budget.

Computer! My home PC started dying last month – randomly turning off and then not turning back on for hours at a time. So I decided it was time to upgrade my system. After all, I’d been using the same system since before grad school, which means it was at least 5 years old. So I did a bunch of research and bought a bunch of parts. The motherboard I purchased was dead on arrival, so I had to send it back and delay the building process, but the second one worked like a champ. For those who speak geek, I’m running an Intel E8400 3GHZ dual-core processor (overclocked to 3.6GHZ per core), a GeForce 9800 GTX+ w/ 512MB DDR3, 4GB DDR2-1066 RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. I also finished off my system with a new 23” monitor that runs at a lovely 1920×1080 resolution (yay for 1080p!). It’s lovely, quiet, very fast, and more energy efficient than my last system. Overall I’m extremely happy with it. :)

Enough for now! We have a very important super-secret company-wide meeting here in a few minutes, so I’m going to wrap this up. Hopefully the meeting doesn’t involve everyone being fired. Or at least not me being fired. That would stink too.

Update post-meeting: Yay economy. The company is having to drop our 401(k) matches and is instituting a company-wide pay cut (variable dependent on pay bracket) in order to stay afloat. This is the point when Amanda and I working at the same company isn’t as cool as it was before, as we’re both taking a pay cut on the same day. Positive: we both still have jobs.

I have a new video camera! And here’s the initial aftermath:

Let me know what you think about this style o’ communication, if you don’t mind. I’d be interested to hear what people think. It actually takes longer to post this way… but it’s more fun, too. Perhaps thats a worthwhile trade-off. That’s for you, the viewer, to decide.

Hey faithful readers! And you faithless ones, too, I guess. Nyah to you, as I’ve managed to post again, and it’s only taken me, what? Three months? I’ve had worse.*

So, where to start up again? Well, I’ll just catch you up as things cross my mind. This is going to be a little stream-of-consciousness, to warn.

Amanda and I have the major details of the wedding nailed down. We have a date (September 12, 2009), a venue (Jester Park Lodge), a caterer (Christiani’s), our groomsmen (Eric Gookin, Justin Ladwig, Tom Wurzinger) and bridesmaids (Sara Reimer, Anne Janotta, Lindsay Reinert), and as of last night we also have a DJ (Sound Extremes) and an officiate (Rod Glazebrook). And weekend from next, Amanda’s brother Tom is coming into town and we’re going to go check out tuxes. Eric, if you’d like to come too, you’re more than welcome.

I’m keeping pretty busy work-wise. Last Friday I launched a redesign of a big website for August Home – WoodsmithShop.com. It didn’t launch until 11pm on Friday, which meant (in case you’re bad at math) that I was working pretty late hours to get this out the door on time. And then that weekend, I turned around and spent a good many hours working on a couple of freelance development projects (Ant’s Eye View and Connected By Distance) and then wrote a fairly long article for CSS Newbie. On top of that I’m also currently teaching my continuing education web development course – though today, I’m stuck emailing the lady in charge and letting her know this will be the last time I teach the course this year. I’ve simply too many plans, goals, and obligations to keep up.

Last week Iowa experienced a wicked cold snap, resulting in one of the coldest nights on record. Therefore, our furnace died the day before and couldn’t be replaced until the day after. I spent a good 36 hours tending the fire in our wood-burning stove every 90 minutes or so to ensure that our pipes (and selves) didn’t freeze in the -20F weather, and came out of the ordeal sleep deprived and smelling of smoked meat. But! We also came out with a new furnace and water heater (cause it was old and dying too), so it wasn’t all bad. The good news is, we didn’t have to buy on credit, as we had savings. The bad news is, I wiped out my part of the wedding savings. But we will persevere, seeing no alternative. Oh, and the kind people at City Wide were very nice and gave us a good price. I’d recommend them.

CSS Newbie is still tottering along. It got a redesign and was relaunched on December 1st – ten months to the day from when I first officially launched the site. It’s still not quite as profitable a venture as I’d like to see it become, but I have ideas in that regard. Which is part of why I’ve decided not to teach the web class for a while – that time could be put into developing CSS Newbie into something… more.

Amanda and I are no longer trying to sell our house. In fact, we only tried for six weeks before giving it up as a bad job for the short term. And now that we’ve just invested beaucoup funds into the infrastructure, we’ll probably be more encouraged to stick around for a bit longer. We’ll have to see what the future brings, I guess.

And otherwise? Well, that depends on how much detail you want. Here’s some: we bought a new chair for the den, we have a room we call the den now, my niece is now four and my god daughter is one, with help from dad and friend Ben I managed to wall mount my downstairs TV, I’m working on my first mix-tape in a decade, I’m rereading an Ayn Rand book (Atlas Shrugged) given to me by Danielle many years ago, I’m actively looking for freelance web work, and we’re having a Super Bowl party at our place.

That should do.

* Note: I haven’t had worse.

So… what’s been going on over here? Long time, no see! Glad to see you’re all still hanging around. Although I’m starting to worry you only exist when I’m directly interacting with you. And that in turn makes me feel guilty for ignoring you for so long. And my ~guilt~ in turn makes me want to ignore you all over again. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle, people.

Life is pretty busy over on this side of the computer monitor. Amanda and I are still trying to sell our house, though it’s not going as well as we had hoped. I think we’re going to have to drop the price of the house a touch in order to get the sort of traffic we need to get it sold. This here economic crisis thingy isn’t doing us any favors, I can tell you. Part of our problem, I’m guessing, is that our home is well-suited for first-time buyers, older buyers on a fixed income, and young families — and those are the exact people that are going to have a hard time getting approved for a loan right now. Luckily, Amanda and I have really good credit, and we’ve already been pre-approved at several banks. But we have to sell this place before we can move. Anyone looking for a solid lil’ house in a quiet neighborhood?

I’m also currently teaching my web class again through Des Moines Public Schools, which means my Tuesday and Thursday evenings are filled from now (well, starting two weeks ago) through mid-November. The class is going really well this time around; students are asking lots of questions, which means we’re falling behind, but it also means they’re interested in what I’m teaching. And that makes up for any scheduling hassles it might cause. I was planning on this being the last time I taught this class, but I’m enjoying it enough this go around that I might sign on for another tour of duty.

CSSnewbie still helps to keep me busy when I’m not otherwise occupied. And I’m happy to report that I’m inching ever closer to being able to give the site a complete facelift, which I’ve been itching to do since around late February of this year. My designer friend Jeremy had some free time (or at least made some free time) for me, so we’re hashing out a new design now. He and I are also throwing ideas back and forth for a web-based business I might start up on the side that has me pretty excited.

Other than that, I have a group-type meeting (Des Moines Web Geeks) every other Monday evening, an exercise class after work on Wednesdays, and social stuff most weekends (Amanda and I were in Minnesota for a wedding two weekends ago, and we had engagements Friday, Satuday, and Sunday nights this last weekend). So what I’m saying is, if you would like to catch up with me in person, you might want to somehow be associated with one of those things mentioned above. Or schedule several days in advance: I already have tentative social plans for this coming Wednesday, Sunday, and Monday evenings, and a possibility for a Saturday evening thing, but Friday is currently free as far as my calendar knows. Call now! Operators are standing by.

Oh, and one last thing: today is the Two Year Anniversary of me buying my house! :) And since I won’t be around tonight (see above), Amanda and I celebrated last night. We made pulled pork burritos with slow-cooked onions and green peppers, refried beans, Spanish rice, and salsa verde. We also topped off the meal with a ~fantastic~ bottle of Bordeaux we brought back with us from Paris. And I have to say: it was the best Mexican-American-French fusion we’ve EVER made.

Okay, I’m finally ready to make the big announcement. Sorry about the delay, folks: it was a combination of a lack of spare time and a desire to wait until I had something definitive to report. But here she is:

Amanda and I are selling our house and moving downtown! At least, that’s the goal. And we’re making good progress on our goal.

As of yesterday, our house is officially on the market. We’re listed through Burnett Realty, who has been great to work with so far (our realtor, Marce Peters, fairly rocks). We spent all of Labor Day weekend cleaning, repairing, and de-cluttering the house to get it ready for its big public debut. And frankly, I think the house looks pretty nice right now. In fact, if we weren’t already moving, I would like to live there. :)

So, if you know of anyone looking for a good, solid house in a great neighborhood, send them our way!

Of course, Amanda and I are not so bold as to put our house on the market without at least an idea as to where we would like to move next. Instead, we came at this problem from the opposite direction: we decided where to move prior to deciding to sell our house. Two nights ago (the same night our house went on the market), we officially put an offer down on a brownstone at Midtown Heights (their website has lots of info and pictures, so check it out). Specifically, we’ve made an offer on 2110 High Street. If you drive by, it’s the caramel colored one next to the red one. :)

And I’m very excited to say that, as of this morning, our offer has been accepted contingent on the sale of our house! What that means is this: Hubbell (the builders) have accepted our offer, and they’ll generally stop showing 2110 to prospective buyers. Of course, if someone else comes along with a better offer in the meantime, they can still accept that offer over ours. But if our house sells before that happens, we already have somewhere new to live. :)

So since I’m sure there are people curious, here are a few reasons why we’ve decided to move to Midtown Heights:

• We’re generally urban people. We spend most of our time in the downtown area: we work here, we play here, and many of our friends live here.
• Midtown Heights is smack dab in the middle of all that. It’s a two block walk to work, six or so blocks to the library, eight or so blocks to our favorite restaurants and bars on Ingersoll, and only a mile and a half bike ride (or walk, really) to the Court Avenue district. As such, we’ll be able to sell off one of our cars, thus reducing both our monthly debt load and our carbon footprint simultaneously.
• It’s a relatively affordable way to move downtown. Many of the other condos we looked at were more expensive. And those that were less expensive just aren’t what we were looking for.
• We think there’s a decent chance that the brownstone will retain its value, and possibly even grow in value. It’s in a good location that’s only going to improve – there’s several million dollars worth of commercial construction going in across the street, the city is expanding the sidewalks all along Ingersoll to make it more pedestrian-centric, and it’s right next door to the very chic Sherman Hill neighborhood.

So that’s that. And now you have our big news. Again, if you know of anyone looking for a house, send them our way!