Good Condition

Good news. My home inspection went very well. No major problems at all. Just a few minor problems.

The only thing I have to do is some minor updates, which might even be taken care of by the sellers.

I will keep you posted on my future projects and include a mess of photos before and after.

Here it is.

Here is a shot of the new house. The picture does not do it justice, so I will try and take a new photo when I have a chance.

Good thing is there is a Baskin Robbins, Little Caesars Pizza, and a Schnucks Grocery Store about a block away.

It is official....

I posted a little bit ago that I was looking for a house. Ok, so after 34 years of living with mom and dad, I have made the move. My parents are still close enough that I can still visit and they can visit me (2 miles). I found a house that that was within my price range to not make me house poor.

I take ownership of the house on April 18th, but will not move in until I clean it up and make some minor changes. I will be listing some of those minor changes later. I will be posting updates on what I do to the house and any problems I encounter.

I will post photos of the inside later and distribute the address to those that I know. So, if you want to know you can always comment and I will decide if you are worthy.

Keep an eye open for photos of the house after I move move in.

I want my Apple TV

Ok, so is the hype for the Apple TV all it is cut out to be or should I wait till generation 2. It seems like a great concept. I would be able to watch all my movie downloads on a full TV screen. Is the 40 gigs enough for a full movie collection? I seems like you can stream the video content from your laptop or desktop.

Let me know if you think this is worth it or not.

Lost

No, I am not talking about the TV Show Lost. I am actually talking about the music on my itunes. It seems close to 200 songs inexplicably disappear. Even songs downloaded the prior night. Not sure what happened. All I know is that I am not a happy camper. I guess one positive it that about 40-50 songs will go un-missed. Once I cleaned up the mess I was sure to back-up the 1000 songs I had left. True, it could have been worse. My collection could have been as big as Zack Perry's collection and I could have lost way over a few thousand.

Be sure to back-up you music, especially if you pay for it.

Tea

Recently, I have started drinking tea in the hopes of shedding my dependency of Mountain Dew. Not that I am really dependent, it is just my version of coffee. True, some tea still has caffeine, it is just healthier than Mountain Dew. I have a few favorites already.

Now all I need to do is find myself a good coffee cup. So, if anyone sees any cool looking coffee mugs send them over. It would be especially nice to have one from Krakow.

Paella Time

Last night I got lucky and got to enjoy some great Seafood Paella. Of course, my mom did most of the prep work and I did the cooking outside on the Paella Pan. It turned out pretty good. It had Shrimp, Lobster, Scallops, Clams Mussels, and Octopus. I only ate the first 2.

Some photos can be found at Flickr.

The picture blur should prove that I need a new camera.

APICS

So I started my new job about a month ago and everything so far is going pretty good. I got to visit 2 of our mills. In the process of learning my day in and day out task I will also be taking some additional training.

I have signed up to take APICS training to try and learn all I can about Supply Chain Processes. I have to attend 6 classes and have already attended one. So far everything seems pretty simple. We will see how everything goes when I complete the class and take a test in 6 weeks.

IV Cocktail

Ever have an old roll of film that was never developed until a few years later. Well, that recently happened to my brother Francisco. He found about 5 rolls of film and just had them developed. Some of those rolls dated back to the year 2000. I thumbed through them and found some interesting shots.

A few years ago, he went to Peru to go to Cuzco and got a little altitude sickness or ate something bad. Below is a photo of him in the Cuzco hospital enjoying a nice IV Cocktail.

Photo Scanning

I am going to try and start scanning all the families old photos from years past. I know I mentioned a while ago in regards to looking for a company to scan all the photos, but the cost is not really worth it right now. Of course, it may take me a few weeks to scan every photo the family has in the old format. The tough part will be how to sort all the photos.

Keep an eye open at flickr.com. Unfortunately, not all photos will be posted. Not all family members want their photos online.

Road to a house

This afternoon I took the first step to getting a house. I had an appointment to check out a crib for sale. Overall the house did not look bad. It did have lots of wood paneling, which I would for sure get rid of and replace with drywall. Of course, there are a few other things I would change if I were to get this house. Below is a small list.

-Remove carpets and take advantage of the wood floors.
-Remove all wood paneling over time.
-Landscape the front yard. It needs a little work.
-Turn closed in garage back into a functional garage.
-Remove all wallpaper.
-New fence around the back yard.
-Change all outlets and light switches
-Change all light fixtures.

So as you can see it does not need much money put into it, it just needs a some work.

However, this is just the first house and I will need to keep looking around.

Random Krakow Photo

Here is a photo I came across from my last trip to Krakow, Poland in January 2006. It is a head statue located in the Rynek Glowny. Most tourist like myself will get inside and have their pictures taken inside peaking out. Bad part is that those drunk at night figure it is their public toilet. So be careful walking in as you never know what you will set in while in there. Lucky me I saw the mess inside and avoided stepping in it.

Movies

I usually wait months for movies to hit Netflix before watching a movie. Right now, there are 2 movies I can't wait to see at the movie theatre. It's not that I don't like watching movies at the theatre, it just that I refuse to pay close to $10 to sit in uncomfortable seats for almost 2 hours. I could rent movies for a few bucks and watch them on my nice comfortable couch. and take breaks without missing good parts of the movie. The other benefit is that I do not have to hear the constant chatter or ringing phones by other movie goers, not to mention snacks are at my fingertips.

The first movie is Black Snake Moan. It just seems like a very original movie. Not one of those recycled movie plots.

The second movie which is technically 2 movies in one is Grindhouse,which seems to be another original movie by the Tarantino/Rodriquez duo. This has 2 movies "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof". Movie industry folks are trying to get Taratino/Rodriquez to split the movies completely so they can get twice the cash. I hope the greed doesn't take over.