Bewildering Balderdash

Came home last night after dinner with Mom, dreamtigress  and Wilma. It was 9 pm by the time I got home (I also did a little grocery shopping) and I pretty much did whatever was mission critical and went to bed.

Tonight I worked a little late and did not get home until 6 pm but was able to get a few things done for the good of the household (and dogs).

dreamtigress really got a LOT done over at Mom's while she was there this past week. The house is looking MUCH better and hopefully we can make things work with the real estate agent and the guy that is building a house right down the road from me.

Life at work is busy, busy, busy. Between the roll out of the new production stuff, over-time issues, creating the transition plan for me to move into production management and much more, my days go by pretty darned fast. Now if only the commute would go by fast as well! My boss let me know today that she wants my office to be the "fish bowl" ... one that is centrally located with a good view of the mail shop floor. It has this good view because two walls are solid glass. Oh boy.

In other work news, we've hired someone that I used to work with at AKA and he's a good addition to my production team.

Speaking of the commute, for the most part it seems that the back roads are a much better bet.

::: yawn ::: I need sleep!

dreamtigress and I had a very nice prime rib dinner with Mom at a new restaurant in Culpeper. Dinner was very good and they sang happy birthday to Mom too!

Commute in: Not too bad, maybe an hour and 20 minutes
Commute home: an hour and a half (I left the office at 4 pm)

Had the pleasure of interviewing a former AKA co-worker with Kim today and was tickled when Kim was as excited about the prospect as I was. While another person is not really in the budget, this would be a great opportunity for both parties and I hope that we can make it work.

Bleh ... just read the fine print on the deal that www.letstalk.com has on the Motorola Droid and learned that it requires a contract of $79 a month or more; I'll need to investigate further. If that is for cell only, I will most likely not qualify (although it would be great to have at least Mom on the same plan). If the data plan can be included, then I will (sadly) hit $79 a month easily.

When I was walking out to get the mail, I found a box turtle in my yard which was a wonderful treat. A few times now I have pondered if trying to keep my home is a crazy idea and finding the turtle is a good sign.

What is not a good sign is the smoke I had in the house last night. I had made a fire in the wood stove since the temperatures were still quite cool. The fire was a little slow to catch (not that unusual since I am no boy scout) but it eventually got hot enough for me to shut down the stove for the night. As I was sitting at my PC, I started smelling smoke and when I checked the living room and kitchen both had some smoke, so I opened some windows and ran the house fan for a bit. The smoke cleared out and the fire seemed ok, so I came back to the PC.

Fast forward another 20 minutes and I smelled smoke again. However when I went to check this time, the living room was filled with thick dark smoke! ACK! Running around to open windows and get the fan on so that I could open the stove safely I realized that the smoke was REALLY bad. I grabbed a wet wash cloth to cover my face with and shut the dogs in the spare room. (Tucker was going nuts barking because he knew something was wrong.)

Eventually with both the house fan running at full blast (and my heat turned on since it was so chilly) the thick smoke finally cleared. Since I was pretty paranoid by this time, I stayed up until 11 pm so that I could babysit the stove to make sure it was going to be okay through the night.

The smoke alarm never went off so I will be replacing it soon and Mom gave me a fire extinguisher tonight since Brian took the one that we had. Before the next wood-burning season, i will need to have the chimney sweep come out and do a full examination of the stove and chimney and hopefully not have any more scary episodes with the wood stove.

Commute in was not too bad.
For the commute home I decided to try the back roads since I left much later than I had planned and 95 was backed up. Miracle of miracles, I remembered all of the correct shortcuts and enjoyed a traffic-jam-free commute on the Wing. YAY!

Seems I get to go shopping for a spiffy new cell phone that can do email since I will be getting a cell phone allowance from ABR. Of course, this means I will be tied a bit more to the office but it should come in handy for days when I don't/cannot make it in.

WTF fact of the day: The invoice came in the for first HVAC visit ... addressed to "Bruce Robertson". Hello!?!?! I'm just lucky that the post office did not forward it to the ex!

Hopefully the push mower will be ready for pick up tomorrow since my yard is looking like a jungle. I swear the grass has grown 8 inches in a week.

Talked with someone from Chase about the fees associated with the mortgage assumption. The closing "should" be much lower than the estimate since any money in escrow will left in the escrow account (the document the ex needs to sign waives his right to it), insurance will not be double billed and there is a slim chance that the flood certificate may still be valid. Government fees/taxes account about $1,000 which is ridiculous!

Treadmill = zero (does commuting count as exercise?)

Today was the meeting express train at work.

Production meeting at 9:30 until 10 am
QC meeting from 10 to 11:50 am
Software training from 12 to 2 pm
CSR/DP meeting from 2 to 3 pm

Somehow I actually got two projects accomplished.

Commute in went well despite a back up at Quantico.
Commute home was about 1 hour, 45 minutes. I stopped for gas and to return the nipple extractors that did not work to solve my shower pipe issue.

HVAC guy due tomorrow to check out my cranky AC unit. Hopefully it gets fixed for real this time.

It finally dawned on me that since Mom and I always seem to need a pick up truck for something, that once I have some money again I will put a trailer hitch on the Endeavor. There was a great deal on a 4x8 trailer on Craigslist a while back but I would have needed a hitch just to go get it.

With the futon moved to the big spare bedroom, I moved the dog crates around in the small bedroom to make things a bit more user friendly. If I can't find a roommate (or figure out that I don't need one once I get caught up with finances) then I will just fix up the bigger room as a nice spare room for my guests.

Treadmill = zero (during the week is going to be a challenge!)