The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.cryingwhileeating.com

You be the judge. Some I like, some not so much. Mildly entertaining.

Before

I'm finally to the point where more than 98% of my junk has been unpacked and properly stowed. I need to find a bar, but that's pretty low on the priority list. Rest assured, I can keep the liquor safe until then. I also need to find a couple of stands for my slot machines. We tried looking in some resale shops for something cheap and funky, but no luck.

After

Link: http://www.addictinggames.com/supermonkeypoopflinging.html

It's games like this that give poo throwing monkeys a bad name.

If we knew up front that it would be possible to close the sale of our home one day and close the purchase of a new home the next, we would have never moved our stuff the way we did. We really expected to be 'homeless' for a couple of weeks. Homeless in the sense that we did not own a home. To save money I suggested we sleep in a doorway near a vent with hot air, but executive privilege was invoked and my suggestion was quickly poo-poohed. Because we didn't know how long we would not need our furniture, we needed some storage alternatives. PODS seemed to be the answer. A cheaper answer, and one that probably would have worked better had we known the back to back closing scenario, was ABF UPack. The problem was that our stuff would have been stored outside. PODS are stored inside. Or so we are told. They're pretty mysterious on where those PODS go once they leave your house.

To jog your memory from a previous episode, you'll remember we had to resort to UHaul. Moving the stuff off the UHaul truck the night we closed was easy. We even took a break for several hours and drank beer. The following conversation ensued.

Me: I'll have a Guinness
Nancy: I'll have a Fat Tire
Waitress: (looking at me) That will be $7
Me: I'll go ahead and pay for both
Waitress: It's $7 for both
Me: Seriously? Sweet!
Nancy: Dude!

I may have made up the dude part.
All told, after emptying a couple beers, the two of us emptied a 26 foot truck in about two hours. The next day I dropped the truck off. Again, I can't say enough good things about UHaul, especially the guy at the West Alton store. The guy at the Springfield location was nice too. In case you wondered.

Eight days after that we got our stuff from PODS. Yes, you heard me right. Eight days. If you've come this far with the moving story you know that we packed the last POD another 5 days prior to that. Meaning, of course, that we've slept on a floor for two weeks now. Well, slightly less. We stayed in a hotel a couple of those nights. And on the 6th day after the hotel stay, Moses came from upon the mountain and he brought with him 2 PODS trucks. 'Yon holy trucks dropped two PODS and surprisingly both were filled with our glory of God. And by glory of God I mean our stuff. That night we unloaded most of the POD that I originally packed. I was pleased to find out that none of stuff I packed got damaged. I damaged them well after they were moved into the house. We're going to fast forward past that part. Moving on. This POD was loaded with boxes and it took a good solid 3 hours for the two of us to unload only 3/4 of it. And we were tired after doing so.

The next morning I started attacking the remaining 1/4 and in an hour or so I was done. Some of it I just moved in the garage so our hired help could deal with it. The movers showed up right on time. We only asked for two movers instead of three because unloading takes far less time than loading. It took the two of them a solid three hours to unload the POD full of heavy stuff plus move most of the heavy stuff out of the garage. They managed to get all of it moved with only minor damage. A heavy entertainment center had some damage that I had to fix, but then again this was the fourth time it had been moved. Stuff happens. All in all I have to say Sims Awesome Moving Company did a pretty good job. They were reliable, didn't look like Johnny Methhead (credit to Jane Poiter for the descriptive name), and for the most part they were careful with our stuff. If you want a no frills, get some guys to move stuff, Sims can take care of you. I tipped them heavily and bought them lunch, which we ate while watching Sportscenter.

PODS picked up the empties the next day, just like they said they would. No more driveway eyesore, which is good since I live in a hoity toity neighborhood on a somewhat busy street. I'm destined to live on busy streets.

It would take several more days to get the bulk of our stuff put away, and there are still a number of things laying around in boxes. I hope to get them squared away this weekend. Finally getting the unfinished part of the basement clean was a big step in getting that project moving and this weekend I'm dedicated to making it happen. I'll post a before and after picture. The before pic will be titled, Box Mountain.

We did have a full service company come in and give us an estimate of moving us from Edwardsville to Springfield. For them to pack, load, move, and unload the cost was $8500. That's quoted in American dollars, not Italian Lira. We managed to do it for slightly less than half of that, but that has a couple of caveats. One, we had to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Two, the full service quote did not include any storage time, which as it turns out would have been very little. We didn't know that at the time. To tie up one of their trailers for two or three weeks would have been another $1500 at least. PODS I could have left in storage for another 2 weeks past when they delivered at no extra charge. For another month it would have cost a small fraction of $1500. All in all, despite the long wait to get our stuff and the snafu with them unable to accommodate us last minute during the load process, PODS was a good solution for us.

Next time we move, and as far as I'm concerned that can be a very long time from now, we are hiring full service movers. And we're getting rid of a lot of our crap.

My good friend John sent me this picture and asked if I 'missed this crap'. The answer is a resounding no. (That's John with his back to the camera.) Think for a second that working on the river is not dangerous? These guys are chipping ice on a 4 foot wide deck. One slip over the side and they will be sucked under the boat and promptly diced by the wheels (propellers for you non river folk) into fish food. There would be no rescue crew throwing a life ring. It would happen in a matter of seconds and the other deckhands would be left standing there in shock.

You'll also notice that it appears the chain handrail has been taken down by large ice chunks and part of it is under the boat. I know John didn't leave the handrail up because he knew the ice would come up on the deck. He's seen this movie before. Had to be those dumbasses on the other watch that left it up.

Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,486809,00.html

Although you'd expect to see a lot more Doritos and Hot Pockets.
Yes, I know. He who is without sin cast the first stone. Ha, ha. I said stone.

During the course of our recent move I didn't buy much music. Maybe I should caveat that. I didn't buy my normal amount of music. I still bought music, just not as much. And then somewhere during the move I completely messed up my iTunes library. I didn't lose any music. I was just moving my library off my already filled laptop hard drive and onto a portable drive. Somehow in the process I managed to lose all the info about my purchased items. I have no idea what order I bought stuff. I'm sure I'll miss one or two and I know I'll mess up the order I bought them in, but for the sake of getting caught up I'm just going to find a couple and write about them.

Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold

Atmosphere is a walking exception to the hip-hop genre. Most glaring is the fact that they are white. Yeah, Eminem is white and so are the Beastie Boys, but you get much past that you start delving into the Vanilla Ice territory. The second odd fact about Atmosphere is they are from Minneapolis. Not exactly the hip hop capital of the world. In the years that east coast battled west coast, Atmosphere was making records from the land of Prince. Not with Prince, but in the same town that brought you Prince and Paul Westerberg and Bob Mould.
I can appreciate some gangsta rap every once in awhile, but I tire of it quickly. I like Eminem and the much harsher D12 style but again it delves into gangsta territory. If not gangsta, then certainly violence and drugs. No, I don't have a problem with violence and drugs. Just don't sing about it over and over and over again My hip hop tendencies tend to gravitate toward the socially concsious style of rap. The Pacific Northwest is cranking out a lot of these guys: Blue Scholars, Common Market, Michael Franti, etc, and Minneapolis is still cranking out Atmosphere. This style tends to be less aggressive, has smoother beats, and raps about real life in ways that make you question whether American life is really so good for everyone. If it is, how come so many people fall through the cracks? Music in the sixties was really good about enlightening the masses about social injustice. Today, in a world where social injustice is just as prevalent, there are few groups willing to explore that territory. Those that do typically get pigeon holed into the Move On crowd. (See Steve Earle) Somehow the socially conscious rappers manage to be included in that political spectrum without being defined by that solely. Perhaps that's just the nature of hip hop, impossible to corral.
This release richly explores the world of those that are struggling to make it in America and the pitfalls that confront them. Drugs, unexpected pregnancies, dead end jobs, bad relationships, and the realization that the American dream does not come to everyone. Laid back rhymes, reserved beats, and slick lyrics are the trademarks of Atmosphere and this release is covered up in them. You is probably the standout track on here as far as infectiousness, Yesterday walks the fine line between John Legend piano jazz and rap, but In Her Music Box is far and away one of the finest heartfelt rap songs ever written. Call this stuff candy ass if you want, but it shows that the hip hop genre is much wider than gangstas, bitches, and ho's. For that you should give it a chance.

The Presidents Of The United States - These Are The Good Times People

Are the Presidents of the United States of America a novelty act or are they legitimate? Kitty at my feet and I want to touch it!? She's Lump!? Moving to the country gonna eat a lot of peaches?! WTF! Surely this makes for a solid argument for a heavy lean towards novelty. Couple that with the fact that these guys started playing on a 3 string guitar and a 2 string bass and you have to say they are definitely a joke. Plus their songwriting material is pretty hokey. They sing about animals and insects in the same way that Gary Larsen used to draw them in his Far Side cartoons. In literature the device is called personification. I guess it would be the same for music too. The Presidents are the kings of this and they don't let up with this new release. In the past it was boll weevils and cats. This time it's butterflies and ladybugs.
Write them off as a novelty act and you grossly overlook the obvious; these guys write funky little tunes that are hilarious and catchy. They Might Be Giants are the cerebral version of this. Weird Al Yankovic is the most successful at it, but his method is kinda hackneyed. I'm not saying he's not funny, I'm just saying song parody's are hackneyed. I also throw The Flaming Lips into this type of music. They're pretty good at the comic relief when they want to be. But the Presidents are the most fun at it. Just look at the lyrics to More Bad Times and you can't help but laugh.
The debut release from Presidents of the United States is still probably the best offering but this new one gives it a run for its money. Try Mixed Up S.O.B., Ghosts Are Everywhere, So Lo So Hi, or Warhead. You'll probably wind up buying the whole release just for the sheer fun factor.

Link: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/0C9BB78B6796B57C8625754D000553AB?OpenDocument

I can't decide if this is better or worse than him filming women dropping a deuce at his club/house/restaurant/swinger compound. I can't really remember where it was he filmed them, I just remember he liked to watch 'em poo.

I had to dig through the crates to find out what the last thing we did with Robert (and I wrote about) might have been. Other than the two year anniversary, the last thing I wrote about was the air show at Scott Air Force base. That was a long time ago. We've done a lot of stuff since then, most of which I can't remember. I'm sure there was some guitar hero and food consumption and belching. We may have watched a movie or two. Since I can't remember all the stuff we did I'll just start in with the things I do remember.

Christmas Eve

This was probably the first time that Robert and I had hung out in three weeks. With all the packing and looking for houses and coordinating the move we just didn't have time. Plus Robert has that job as a hedge fund manager and doesn't have a lot of empty slots in his schedule to work us in. Actually, a lot of days we worked in Springfield and returned home at 9:00 at night, only to go to bed and do it again the next day. On Christmas Eve an opportunity presented itself, however. One of the things we rushed through in closing on the house was the inspection. I could have just not showed up for it but it wasn't something I wanted to skip. Instead I figured I'd drag Robert up there with me.
I picked him up really early and we grabbed some McDonald's breakfast before heading out of town. On the way I told him that he was going to be the very first person (other than Nancy and I) to see the house. He seemed to think that was pretty cool and was excited to pick out which room he would stay in when he spent the night. After we dropped off some loan papers at the bank, we headed over to the new house. The inspector was already there and he briefed me on the couple of things he had found. As I said in my post about buying the house, there was nothing major and in the end nothing the builder wasn't happy to fix. Well, maybe not happy, but willing. The inspector was really cool and he got Robert involved in the process by letting him make sure all the faucets ran hot water and all the toilets flushed. He enjoyed helping out but near the end he was pretty tired of the whole thing.

Harlem Globetrotters

We've only really had one bad experience with Robert. We took him to a Harlem Globetrotters game and he didn't want to leave. I wound up carrying him from the Savvis Center parking garage to Union Station. We found out later at the one year anniversary that the thing he liked the best out of all the things we had done together was the Harlem Globetrotters game.
So two years later we get a chance to see them again. They are coming to Springfield but it wouldn't work because it's on a Tuesday night. Instead, we had to settle for a Saturday afternoon in Peoria. Robert's mom was gracious enough to let me pick Robert up on the way home from working in Saint Louis and have him spend the night with us on that Friday. On the way to Springfield we stopped off at the storage area in Glen Carbon to pick up a load of stuff I was still moving. We also stopped at Sonic and loaded up on fried food. It's one thing to eat delicious, fried, fast food. It's quite another to sit your fat ass in the car and have someone bring it to you. Robert and I are proponents of the latter.
If you want to make Robert go to sleep, put him in a car. He fell asleep as we left Edwardsville and didn't wake up until we got to Springfield. He stayed awake for about 45 minutes at the house and decided he was tired and wanted to go to bed. That was somewhere around 9:00. The next morning I cooked a delicious breakfast of pancakes and bacon for us and we were off to the Peoria Civic Center. Surprisingly, at least to me, Peoria is a scant one hour from my new house to downtown. (It was at this moment that I realized I am only an hour away from two separate Missouri Valley schools and would have two shots every year to see SMS play) Our seats were right behind the Washington Generals bench. The Globetrotters did basically the same show I had seen for the 4th time now. However, this time the Washington Generals coach was way more into it. He proclaimed that today was the day the Generals would win and he bet that if they lost he would wear a hot dog costume or a tutu. Crowd's choice, and in true marketing fashion you could vote by texting. The Globetrotters of course won and the hot dog suit was an overwhelming fan favorite by a 2 to 1 margin. Robert seemed to have a good time watching and we stuck around at the end so he could get a mini basketball signed by two of the players. He read the program guide on the way home for five minutes before falling asleep all the way to Alton.

Band Concert

There was no Christmas Concert this year, which I guess was a blessing given our moving situation. Also a blessing because the last Christmas concert was awful. Instead, on what is so far the coldest night of the winter, we headed to Alton on a Thursday after work. Robert said I had to be there at 6:40 and the concert started at 7:00. I reminded him that he needed to be there at 6:40. I could show up right at 7:00, which I did. It turned out to be the same time that Robert's mom and her boyfriend arrived. She told me that Robert forgot his trumpet and she wasn't sure he was going to be able to play. I wanted to knock Robert in the head (figuratively) but I realized it might not have been his fault. He left school on Wednesday expecting to go to school the next day. A day where he had access to his trumpet for the band concert that night. He didn't count on the the below zero temperatures and the closing of the Alton school district. Then again, he should be taking it home every night to practice. I know I did.
The band sounded way better than it did last year. They even played Gary Glitter's Rock & Roll Part 2, which I questioned. You'd think a school district would want to shy away from anything resembling inappropriate behavior with kids when they were a scant one year removed from a band director doing exactly that. Maybe I read too much into things. The 7th and 8th grade bands, of which Robert's sister is a member of the flute section, were actually quite good. It was clear that the band directors are way into their jobs and the quality of the performance showed that. I know Band is a dorky thing but I still stand firm on my theory that those who play music are smarter than those who never have. And because of that I will continue to encourage Robert to keep up the trumpet. I know I did.

Someone said it was a buyers market.

As it turned out, we had planned ahead and scheduled a day of house hunting the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Even without a contract on the house, we felt like it was time to actually walk into a few houses and get a feel for the area. Our realtor was very pleased to learn we had a contract on our house when we showed up for the long day of house hunting. I could see the dollar signs in her head because I'm sure she wasn't seeing a lot of buyers in this market.

And a long day it was. Our target price ranged from slightly below our previous house sale price to what I'll call 'a significant amount above that'. That opened a lot of possibilities for us and since we didn't care whether it was new construction or not, it opened up even more. We started the day near the low end and slowly moved our way to the upper end of the price range. Twenty-two houses later we had a good idea of all the areas south and west of Springfield proper and what each area offered. What really stood out to me was that there was a clear difference in house just above the midpoint of our price range. It's not that the house near the low end weren't nice houses. They were. But once you got to a certain price level you started seeing granite counters, real wood floors, and real ceramic tile. Nothing we saw this day really stood out. There were houses that would certainly work, but none that jumped out at us. Well, maybe one that jumped out at us.

Four days later we were back at it again after work, viewing 5 houses in Sherman. We did it again the next night with 4 more. Eight days later we looked at nineteen more houses. For those of you counting, that's 50 houses in a span of 14 days. Most people can't believe we looked at 50 houses and I'm sure our realtor was tired of squiring us about but if she was, she never let on. We looked at more than 80 homes when we bought our first house, most of those on our own via the open house method.

By the end of that weekend we narrowed the list down to five. Seven days later, after walking through them again, we ranked them as follows.

1. Fox Meadows West
2. Tara Hill
3. Centennial Park
4. Panther Creek (home of the LPGA State Farm Classic)
5. Piper Glen (a well respected public golf course

The Piper Glen house would have probably been number one or number two mainly because it was a bargain at the price. You don't see too many houses that are on the course at that price range with a walk out basement. But, before we could see it a second time, someone else recognized it for the bargain that it was and beat us to the punch. Somebody got them a steal on a golf course house.

Information is king. Again, if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be in the business I am. The house in Tara Hill was actually listed well out of our price range. By a little more than 15% out of our price range. Our realtor ran into the builder and during the course of the conversation he asked her if she was showing houses to anyone. When she said yes he asked why she hadn't shown his house. The simple answer was, it was out of our price range. She also told them what our max price was. He told her she should go ahead and show it to us. That little conversation told me that I could get the house if I was willing to spend max dollars, a 15% discount on list price.

The problem was that we still liked the Fox Meadows West house a little more and since it was listed right at our max bid, we would offer far less. The house had been on the market for more than 300 days without a single offer so we figured a lowball was in order. We lowballed. Not a ridiculous lowball mind you but a lowball nonetheless. Hey, given the market and the fact they hadn't seen a contract in a year, they should have been happy. We even gave them room to come up a little. However, if they reached above the 'come up a little' level, it made more sense for us to take the Tara Hill house. The house in Tara Hill was bigger and had an extra bedroom on the main floor. That, to me was worth the 25K difference, and that wasn't even factoring in the custom cabinets. The sellers, unfortunately, countered with a darn near list price offer. I told the realtor to not even bother countering back. We offered on Tara Hill and the house was ours. A gentleman's agreement. We knew we got a deal and in return, we weren't going to beat up the seller on the inspection items. Very little turned up in the inspection, we asked for less than that, and the buyer fixed more than we asked for. A win-win for everyone.

The offer was accepted on December 18th. I truly expected to be 'homeless' until at least mid January. Our realtor thought we'd be in right after the New Year. I laughed. I may have even LOL. He who is still nervously laughing knows he is wrong. Our banker told us the following Monday that she could close on the 29th if we wanted too. We asked to close on the 30th instead. It pays to live in a small town, work for one of the premier employers, and work with people who have lived their lives together since birth. We closed at the same bank where the builder had his construction loan and I received a $200 discount at closing for being an LRS employee. Our president (and founder) has a vested interest in the bank. I also get 5% off at Quizno's if I show my LRS gold keychain. If you need a toasted sub, I got the hookup.

And then the unpacking began.