Too many things gone wrong today to even begin to talk about them. Ugh.

Posted by bdhampel at 11:24 AM | Comments (3)

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intermedia.com @ 5/29/2002 3:29:25 PM
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It was the Intermedia domain that caught my eye. I was under the impression that Intermedia is no more. At the very least the network infrastructure piece -- BII (a/k/a old DIGEX) -- was sold off to Allegiance Telecom.

What really stands out, though? My site is buried 16 pages deep in the google listing. Someone was doing an awful lot of reading up on WCOM layoffs today.

MALIBU, CA - The Malibu Institute of Science and Creationism is now accepting applications for fellowships and grants pertaining to MISC studies.

Okay, so maybe not. The last thing I want to do is get that involved in another web game. I wonder if the girls over at Friends of Friends of Precogs realize what they're getting themselves into?

"You get what you give." ... "Create websites for the partnership organizations." ... "We might as well play along."

Where have I heard all this before?

I was safe, both times, damn it. And the name's Phydeaux, not Spot.

I got called up for the Daemons again today. Nothing outstanding to report, really. Remind me next time that this is only a rec league and that it doesn't pay to be aggressive and slide under the tag to score... only to be called out by the ump who'd already made up his mind while you were still rounding third and the ball was loose in the dirt behind the plate. Not only will you lose that battle, but when you later line drive to short, who bobbles it, and you beat the throw to first... your comments regarding said ump will still be fresh in his mind when he calls you out again.

I built a gate, and it is strong. Yeah!

The weekend began with an expression of friendship. ["Friends help you move; true friends help you move bodies."] My buddy Bob vacated his apartment to takeover a rennovated attic suite. I had to help him move, as it would be pretty rude of me to say "Nope, can't do it... but you're gonna help me next month, right?"

Moving Bob was interesting. The biggest concern he had was his brand new couch. Would it fit up the stairwell? Could it make the turn into the living room? Bob was an English Lit major, let's say he's not real good with geometry and leave it at that. After pulling the pins on a few hinges and removing some doors, he and his brother were able to manhandle the thing up the stairs and leave it standing on end on the landing. Unfortunately, there wasn't any way in hell it was going into either room on either side.

Option number two was to dismantle the couch, and while his friend Rob was determining that was an impossibility I was upstairs measuring window frames. Yep. Option number three, take it through an attic window. Picture it, two guys climbing a ladder and holding a couch between them! ["C'mon, Bob. It's a light couch."] Fortunately, a better way occurred to someone. We pulled the truck around to that side of the house, threw the light couch on it's roof, and then pulled it in through the window. Problem number two: this was the bedroom window and the couch still wasn't going through any doors up there. Bob had to switch the floorplan around and swap rooms.

That presented another problem, his cable tv hook up (and thus internet and phone, too) was now on the wrong side of the house. I got to shimy through the rafterspace and fish coax. It was a dirty job, but fun.

Late Saturday afternoon, I finally made it back to my own place to start working. One of the repairs needed to satisfy the homeowners' association was to replace a couple of trim boards on the back gate. Well, I wasn't satisfied with that as the gate was useless as is and needed a heck of a lot more than trim to make it useable. I spent the evening picking out 1x8 lumber.

Sunday, it took much longer than I anticipated to build the damn thing. Let me just say that being limited to a 10" hand saw does wonders to make one long for the luxury of an electric circular saw. Unfortunately, power tools are not in the budget right now. But it's done now, and damn it looks good. I almost wish we didn't have to stain it so that the rabble passing by could see it's fresh wood and quality construction and be awed by the shear impenetrableness of such a contraption. Oh well.

No, not the Hitchcock story. I'm talking about the ones in our range vent. They're gone now. It seem there were many more down there than I had supposed.

On Wednesday while waiting for the gas supply line guy, I let the momma bird do her laps. Every so often I'd check down the vent with a mirror, and note the four kids waiting for her to return. When the guy arrived, I had to close off the vent so he could work underneath it. Momma was not pleased. She fought and fought and fought. When we finally let her out a couple of hours later, she'd apparently made the decision that she wasn't going to do laps any more.

Fortunately, that left two of the kids to become adventurous. Shannon kept calling me at work to give me updates: "Hey! He's climbed up onto the ledeg again! Oops, the other one tried to climb up and pulled the first one down!" Heh. Sibling rivalry, I guess. Those two eventually got out on their own, and then Shannon chased them around the house until she could get them outside.

The trapper showed up Thursday afternoon and rescued the other two I'd seen. Unfortunately, he also removed three others who didn't make it. There were seven in there!?! Shannon said the ones who didn't make it were pretty little; definitely smaller than the ones she'd chased around. They'd probably been gone for a long while.

$175 later, the trapper has cleaned up the vents and sealed off the opening with wire cages. Next item up for bid on The Price Is Right: a fresh circuit for the microwave. The electrician made his appearance on Friday morning. He had another job to get to, but he at least started ours. He got the junction boxes installed and the conduit fished, and he'll be back later to hook up the outlets and the additional circuit breaker.

BDHampel: Hi. Is this Dayna or Chris?
CDT1234: I don't know you why did you send me a message?
BDHampel: Ah, you must be Chris. Sorry to intrude. I knew Dayna from an online game last year. I hadn't seen her in forever and thought I'd say "hello."
CDT1234: I'm not Chris. You have the wrong person.
BDHampel: Oh? Then I'm very sorry to intrude. My apologies.
CDT1234: That's ok it wasn't your fault.
CDT1234 signed off at 6:38:58 PM.

I could've sworn their primary ID was cdt1234. Oh well.

Jason's been kind of depressed recently, because of the layoff and all. I suggested that he help me set up a statistics page, so that we can see how many precogs there really are, and where they live. He didn't think that was a good idea - is this the general consensus? Email me if you know.

posted by Sarah at 10:20 pm

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Not really, but it sounds a whole lot better than "Birds in the Range Vent."

I got to the house this morning to wait for a master plumber to estimate the kitchen conversion to gas. What I found was a bird flying around the upstairs bedrooms. I checked all the windows and couldn't figure out how she got in. I chased her out and looked around, and I figured she must've come in through the bathroom vent which is uncovered.

I was wrong; it wasn't the bathroom vent. Later, while I was hanging in the kitchen still waiting, I heard more birds. Babies. In the range exhaust vent. We don't have a rangehood installed right now, so apparently this mother bird had gotten into the house from there.

The inspection told us we had birds in the vents, but I never thought they'd go spellunking and find their way inside.

So, I'm futzing around the open vent trying to figure out how the babies got where they did, and how to get them out again, when *scrabble*scrabble*scrabble*poof!!! Momma bird drops in again. I guess she scrambles in form the outside, drops down the vertical shaft, and catches herself on the lip of the opening. Not much I can do except open the door and chase her out again.

After the second time, I just left the door open. She probably made 8 circuits while I was there. In through the vent, drop some food, out through the door.

So, the gas conversion is going to be close to $600. Add $250 to that for downgrading the electric to accomodate a microwave. Factor in another $150 for the humane trapper I called to come rescue the baby birdies. It's been a thousand dollar morning.

Update: Shannon checked the house at lunch and found momma bird trapped upstairs again. I've got to figure out a better way to keep her out of the house without cutting her off from her babies.

One a.m. I've just finished a bowl of won ton at Yuet Lee's. The owner has pictures all over the walls of himself standing with famous patrons. I get into my cab outside and a young couple come running up.

"Can you take us to Daly City?" the guy asks.

Sure. We head down Stockton and I see in the rearview they're kissing and laughing and talking. Then there's silence.

After a couple of minutes of this, he gives me an address off John Daly Drive. And he asks me, "Can we get naked?"

Not you, I tell him. I have rules in my cab.

She smiles, peels off her pullover and dress and hands me her underwear. "Hold these," she says.

I'm not going into what happened next. Besides, I couldn't see anything in the rearview. It was too dark and hazy in the back seat.

Surprises found in the back seat

So I'm a sleaze, so what?

...At that moment, we get hit by one big gust of wind. Bam. The cab rocks and rolls a bit. The wind seems to enhance her body oil...

I was bored today. Burnt out. I read a few local papers that aren't local to me. I saw this column while checking up on LE and the Bay To Breakers marathon. I'm posting it because I like the way it read. No other reason.

All right, which one of you boneheads deleted the ring's home page?

BDHampel: Your move still set for Saturday morning?
Macbeth395: yup
BDHampel: Cool. 9am?
Macbeth395: Yup, 8 if you want McMuffins
Macbeth395: You gonna come and help?
BDHampel: I have to. It wouldn't be fair to bail on your and then have you move us.
Macbeth395: LOL
Macbeth395: ok
Macbeth395: cool, I'll have 6 people then
Macbeth395: It should go pretty quick
BDHampel: Sweet. We're looking at either Sun 6/9 or Sat 6/15. You're gonna pencil them in, right?
Macbeth395: yup
Macbeth395: just let me know
BDHampel: Cool.
BDHampel: Our house is gonna be real nice by then, I hope I hope.
Macbeth395: LOL, good
BDHampel: But you're not allowed to laugh at the powder room or the fireplace. We can't afford to correct them yet.
Macbeth395: Uh, ok
Macbeth395: Painted the wrong colors?
BDHampel: The powder room is 20 yr old decor... bamboo/straw textured wallpaper.
Macbeth395: oh, ouch
BDHampel: And yes, the fireplace is painted. Somebody spraypainted the bricks a fuschia variation, and then hand-painted white over the mortar lines.
Macbeth395: AUUUGH
Macbeth395: That's awful
BDHampel: I think we're going to cover it in a nice thick latex.
Macbeth395: LOL
Macbeth395: Well I'm still painting every night
Macbeth395: I won't be done until Wednesday or Thursday
BDHampel: That's coming. Now that Shannon has the floors worked out, she's turning her attention to the walls.
Macbeth395: cool
BDHampel: So far I've just done little fixes. Garage door remotes, a bunch of door knobs, some toilet seats, pulled out some poorly wired phone/cable, and swapped a couple of doors to hide a hole.
Macbeth395: LOL, well painting is a long freaking process, have fun!
BDHampel: Yesterday I filled some holes in the backyard that kept turning my ankles and I took an inventory of the lumber I need to fix the gate.
Macbeth395: Ahhh, domestic life :-)

This girl walks into a supermarket and buys the following:

1 bar of soap
1 toothbrush
1 tube of toothpaste
1 loaf of bread
1 pint of milk
1 apple
1 banana
1 orange
1 plum
1 peach
1 grapefruit
1 tomato
1 lettuce
1 kraft single
1 samoosa
1 muesli bar
1 pie
1 single frozen dinner
1 single frozen pizza

The checkout guy looks at her, smiles, and says, "Single, huh?"

The girl smiles sheepishly and replies, "How'd you guess?"

He says, "Because you're fucking ugly."

It's ours. We have the keys and the mortgage to prove it. Settlement yesterday was a stressful pain in the ass. Our final inspection was late morning, and settlement was scheduled for noon. Then settlement was scheduled for one. Then we got there and sat alone in the conference room for an hour and a half while our realtors negotiated some final items. Then we got down to signing papers. By the time it was ours, it was 4:30 pm.

There's still some big issues to be handled:
1) the roofer used the wrong color shingles, and the HOA said, "Nope." The roofer says, "my mistake" and will be laying the correct shingles in about a week. He'll be putting them over the top of the incorrect ones, which means we'll have a two layer roof that ought to be good for 30 years.
2) the a/c compressor is questionable. It failed the original inspection, "does not operate." The seller claims that an HVAC company looked at and passed it. But they didn't charge him anything for looking at it and didn't mention it on any invoices or workorders. It appears to be working, at the moment. But there's no written validation anywhere. And the seller doesn't understand why we can't just take his word for it.

I just spent $1500 on an HVAC unit for the condo on Tuesday, I'll be damned if I'm gonna set aside another $1500 for this unit, too. I've paid my dues to the freon gods, it's someone else's turn on the wheel. After much debate, the seller agreed to escrow it pending what I'm going to call "proof of workmanship." If that's a letter of confirmation from the guy who looked at it, cool. If that's a receipt for a replacement compressor, all the better.

Stuff we need to do:

• arrange to have the furnace re-inspected;
• have the utilities put in our name;
• call for phone service, cable tv service, and maybe digital cable internet service;
• have a gas line run to the kitchen stove area;
• have an outlet put in the kitchen stove area (for a microwave range hood);
• order the appliances and have them installed;
• get keys to the postal box;
• do the change of address thing;
• have the upstairs carpets installed;
• have the living room and dining room hardwood installed;
• have the breakfast room and kitchen tile installed;
• remove some garden debris and regrade the minimal landscaping (per HOA);
• replace the backyard lighting fixture (also per HOA);
• relocate the cord of firewood stacked in the garage and attracting termites;
• and you thought Dusty's lists were bad. ;-)

The first thing I did last night was install and program new remotes for the garage door opener. I'm gonna love having a garage. I already love having a garage.

domain: HAMPEL.ORG
created: May 15 2001
last-changed: May 15 2002
registration-expiration: May 15 2003

Bummer. He renewed it. :-( Well, at least I'm glad I didn't spend $69 bucks on that steal-it-back service.

As of 5:30 pm today, I no longer own a condominium. Woo-hoo! Tomorrow at noon, we should be the proud owners of a two-car garage townhome.

Take the What Kind of Slacker are you? Quiz:
There's no way around it — you ARE the ultimate slacker. I'd invite you to join the slackers webring, but I started to put it up years ago and decided it was too much work.

Harry here... and the world has just gotten weirder. Way weirder. I'm talking really weirder. Walt Disney Studios has decided to make a Hong Kong Style re-telling of the SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES.

Hrm... I think I need to learn to use that "extended entry" function.

Ya think ol'Nickie has a yarn to spin? Then gather 'round chilluns, and let Unca Dave tell y'all a tale of two houses...

You might remember that on Monday, I had this to say: "There's the possiblity that apprasisal of the property can jeopardize my financing." Well, damned if it didn't come true. The appraisal came in at about $12.5k less than the contract price we'd all agreed upon. Now, we've already been approved for the mortgage and the lender has no qualms about giving us a boatload of money... just not for that house.

It seems there were a bunch of things that didn't go our way with the apprasier. When we made our offer, we knew that there was a house in the neighborhood that sold a couple months back for a simillar price. Turns out, it was only listed for a simillar price. Seems that it, too, was appraised at less and eventually sold for less. Strike one. Also, it seems that there was a house on the block that sold recently for much less. We didn't know about it because it was one of those friends and family type transactions that never made the realtors' listings. Strike Two. Finally, the planned rennovations specified in the contract and allowed for as part of the sale price were not considered. Strike three.

Lucy went into overdrive. First she called Shannon to let her know the bad news, and to put us in the frame of mind that we might have to walk away from this property. Then she called our lender and told him to start working up numbers for a sale at the appraisal price. Then she began negotiating with the seller. His counter-offer was at the appraisal price, but with none of the credits and allowances we'd been counting on. That leaves us paying out of pocket for the much needed appliances and flooring. Well, not replacing the carpets might be okay... but there are no appliances. Lucy's now working on trying to get some cash out of him for that.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... I got on the horn with Lender Joe and he talked me through the changes he was making to our financing. With a little tweak here and there, moving dollars from one bucket to another, we came up with a viable solution. By going with the lower sales price and taking a slightly higher interest rate and adding a couple of bucks to our monthly payment, we were able to cut the downpayment amount in half. This leaves us with substantial cash in our savings with which to fund all those extras that had been in the plan, and now still are. Joe's obviously a salesman; by the time I got off the phone he had me almost convinced that we were better off this way. Buying the home at the appraisal price means we start building equity right away rather than waiting for the neighborhood values to catch up to us.

Well, I said almost convinced, didn't I? I had to run some numbers myself, being Mr. Accountant Guy and all. The old price net of all the cash back came out to approx. $249k... and the new net price comes out to $247k. Right on top, we're saving two grand? That can't be right, can it?

We must lose it back in the financing: the old deal results in us putting down a lot of cash up front, and getting a lot of cash from the seller, and dipping into our savings also to get the house the way we want it... on the other hand, the new deal means not so much cash up front, getting virtually no cash from the seller, but only dipping into savings about $3k less. All for the same house, with the same new floors, and the same new appliances.

We save $3000 in exchange for $30/mo? That puts us ahead of the game for the next eight years! Hrm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. More of our payment will be going into interest. Well, the interest is negligible in the short term and tax deductible to boot. And, certainly we'll be able to re-appraise and re-finance along the way. All is happy in the world, right?

I said this was to be a tale of two houses, didn't I? You've all heard how my condo currently doesn't have air conditioning. You've heard that I'm dreading an inspection that's gonna point this out, even though I'm in the midst of having the damn thing replaced anyway. The inspection is set for tomorrow... but all is not lost! All week long, the power company has been working on a main circuit that leaves half the complex without power from 10am-4pm. The inspector won't be able to tell the a/c's dead because he won't be able to turn it on! So, ha! Nevermind what kind of further inspection issues that's gonna cause.

Meanwhile, all's not quiet on the western front. Lucy calls back and gets the okay from us that we're still willing to continue. And she's still going to push for cash back, which is just icing on the cake. A nice, sweet, buttercream.

Mmmm... icing.

I showed up at the softball game last night, on spec. And spec is what it was... spectator. Actually, Kendal did give me a couple of innings in the second game. I am out of shape and out of practice. Last Friday was a cakewalk, gave me a false sense. But we won.

Daemons 16 - Webster & the Home Fries 15
Daemons 19 - Webster & the Home Fries 16

And my place on the roster has been clarified: I am #11 out of 10, or something like that. First back-up player to get called if needed, but no regular spot. Oh well. Serves me right for putting the mailing list "on vacation" last summer and missing the call for players this spring.

Xman: Kendra, we need you to do this. Xgurl: But I don't want to sleep with Jenkins. ...

Ha ha ha ha. So, I'm cleaning up my bookmarks and checking out which links are still active when I find this. Thanks for the nod, Fescado. I'm glad you appreciated it.

I see I mentioned the realtor last post, and I thought I might update you all on our living situation. It's still entirely in flux. The good news is that both places are once again under contract.

Our condo sale is set for settlement 5/14, and we're getting more than our asking price in exchange for kicking some cash back into closing costs. That doesn't really mean anything to me because the net is the same, but it's good for our neighbors because it prices their units just that much higher should they also want to move. Things to do: get the goddamn HVAC company to call me back about when they can install the goddamn fan-coil that's keeping me from having any air conditioning. Since mid-April I've been living under the threat of our new buyers wanting a home inspection (not having heat or a/c could really throw a cramp in their desire to buy, don't you know).

Our townhouse buy is set for settlement 5/15, and while we're under a ratified contract there are still so many things that could kill this deal. This place used to be a landlord & tennant situation, and the tennants left it awful (damn near unliveable) condition. We made the guy a generous offer over what he was asking, but that offer included a lot of things he'd have to do to bring the place up to spec. By the time it's all said and done, the offer's not so generous for him. We asked for certain repairs up front. Then we hit him with more repairs after the home inspection. On Thursday, he's going to get hit with even more when the State does their termite inspection. Plus, our realtor keeps hinting that he's going to get hit again by the homeowner's association because he has to meet their cosmetic regulations before they'll okay the sale.

When you look at all these details, you might think that we're getting a pretty sweet deal, no? Well, think again. The costs keep going up for us, too. The seller agreed to give us an allowance towards replacing the appliances and the carpetting. The beauty of this is that we get to pick our own stuff. The ugly side is that this puts our material selves within reach of luxuries we wouldn't ordinarily be able to consider... and we're stretching pretty thin to get to them.

And, besides the money issues, I've got things to do that I just can't find the opportunity to do while I'm at work. Why is it that I have to conduct business during business hours, hrm? These people should cater to my selfish whims. I need to call the gas company to get a permit to have a contractor convert the kitchen from electric range to gas. Then, I have to call a contractor to do it (funny how that works, eh?) assuming we can afford it. Then I need to call an appliance guy and get us a time to go over some stuff. Simple stuff like "is the range gas or electric?" (I don't know yet, depends on the estimate.) "How tall is the opening for the dishwasher?" (I don't know yet, it depends on whether or not we can afford to have the kitchen tiled.) "Do you want a microwave rangehood?" (I don't know, it depends on whether or not the range goes gas so we can use it's electric circuit for the microwave.)

Oh, by the way, I have to do all this on the assumption that we're going to get the townhouse. There's still a distinct possibility that the seller will throw a fit and try to get out of the contract when the termite thing comes up. He can't get out legally, but that doesn't mean he can't try. There's the possiblity that apprasisal of the property can jeopardize my financing. Given it's condition before we make our planned renovations, it could possibly not be worth enough collateral to the bank. There's the possibility that our condo sale won't happen, in which case the financing will also fall through -- they've already told me that I can't have two mortgages, not even for a day overlap. The condo must sell before the townhouse.

All this stress and, oh yeah, work still sucks.

Got a call on Wednesday night that kind of surprised me: old friend Kendal wanted to know if I was willing to be reactivated on the softball roster, just for one game. The final double-header of the season was running a week late with rain-outs, and he needed to field enough guys to not forfeit.

My reaction: "Is it softball season already?"

I've totally lost track. Two summers ago I blew out my shoulder and went on the disabled list. Last year, I opted not to play the spring league because we were still in the running for volleyball nationals... and then, of course, I blew my arm out again while there. I haven't swung a bat or thrown a ball in 18+ months. I haven't taken my cleats or my glove out of the trunk of my car in all that time, either. I have no idea if any of the leather is any good anymore. Not to mention that I'm on call to meet with the realtor at all hours since we have multiple contracts pending on documents needing signatures ASAP. I can't possibly play.

My answer: "Which field?"

Thursday got rained out again, and it was immediately rescheduled for tonight. I saw a bunch of old friends. I played a couple of innings of both games. I kicked it off of with a line drive RBI double that sent the pitcher side-stepping, and when I finally rounded home I got to gloat that I was "still batting a thousand at the end of the season." ;-)

I miss being part of a team. I didn't really notice it while not playing volleyball this past winter. Well, I did miss playing volleyball and I did miss having somewhere to go and something to do. But it wasn't until I was back with a team that I realized what else I'd been missing. Besides, these people are a hoot. I hope the invite to play again extends into their next season (which starts Tuesday). I'd really like to keep with it.

I really need to put together my link list here, so I can stop going back to Geo and supplying them with ad impressions. I was thinking of a separate page:

Concentric Circles of Fire
(Six Degrees of the Burning Ring)
1st Degree Burn: The Ringers
2nd Degree Burn: People We Read
3rd Degree Burn: People They Read
4th Degree...

Well, you get the idea. The problem is some of you keep so many links that by the 4th degree it's way too massive a task to hand code. I'd really love to link everybody together with some sort of imagemap/sitemap, and I know there are apps/scripts out there that do it, but I can't find them. WebBrain would work, maybe, but I know I don't have the resources to host that beast. Livejournal used to have a function that would display a Friends Map, but it never worked for me ("Awww... Bermuda has no friends!") and now it's gone.

Anyone have any suggestions? Please chime in anytime.

Much thanks to everyone who came out to the Majestic Wake yesterday. I had a blast; seeing lots of old names and a couple of new ones.

As is my wont, I have a full transcript (in many pieces) running twenty-one hours from 7:00 am thru to 3:30 am (right coast time). I'll be posting that to [mudacom] as soon as I can stitch it together.

I think that will be Muda's swan song; it's time to retire the name(s). Yahoo won't let me FTP a blog anymore, and won't let me pop3/forward my mail anymore. It's too much of a pain in the ass to make any updates, and it doesn't make sense to relocate (people would never find it again at this late stage). So, he will drift quietly into the night just as the game did.

Until he's needed again, that is.

Of course, that doesn't mean that you've gotten rid of me. I'm still going to be a perpetual thorn in your side. Deal with it. ;-)