Hello Neighbor

So my move date is this Friday. Lots going on around the move right now. First off, thanks to my friends for coming down last weekend just to help me pack. We pretty much got me about 90% packed on Saturday. I couldn’t have gotten it done with out them.

The painters are finishing up in the new condo this week. I went and looked on Saturday and I think it will look good when it is done. The living room color is the only thing that made me take pause. But considering that there is no furniture in the place yet, we will see how it looks then. I think the artwork, rugs and furniture will pull it all together. My decorating consultant is also coming over tomorrow to talk with me about window treatments. I am not sure when we started calling them “treatments” and not curtains, but who am I to dismiss progress.

Not everything has gone so smooth though. I wanted to be moved today, but unfortunately my current building requires that you schedule your move with them. This is to limit the number of people using the freight elevator and the loading dock. And the only day they had available was Friday. So my great plans of leaving myself 5 days to get my apartment cleaned, the rugs done and the place inspected by my landlord all went into the crapper very fast. Now I have the maids, rug cleaners and my inspection all on Saturday as I have to be out of the condo that day.

Not to mention, then change in move date ended up costing me about $400. You see I get a discount from my work on a certain moving company and they were all set to move me today, but couldn’t do it on Friday. So I had to find a local moving company to do it. Which means instead of paying $75 an hour for movers, I have to pay $130. Yeah that sucks.

I am also thankful for Craig’s List. I put all my crap on the web site listed as “free” and I had people coming over within the hour to get it. Just goes to show you that one person’s crap is another person’s treasure. I only have a few things left to donate to Good Will, clothing mainly.

Still a lot to do by Friday. I will be sure to post some photos once I get moved in and at least slightly unpacked.

House Guests

I have houseguests this week. I am cat sitting for RC. She is out of town until Friday. Normally her dad would watch the cats, but he is also out of town this week. So, she asked and I said OK. It is nice to have animals in the house again. I got so used to having the food chain living with me for so long. I have had no pets for almost three years now. I have considered getting my own cat (s), but with my travel schedule, I figure it would be unfair to them. So instead I will make due with cat sitting.

I took a few pictures of them to share. The first is of Evvy. She is a beautiful cat. Her coloring is amazing. She is also the affectionate one of the two. She is constantly coming up to me and rubbing on me and asking me to pet her. She also jumps on my bed at night and sleeps with me for a while. She is sweet.


Then there is her brother, Hurc. He is the male cat and seems content with avoiding me all together. He comes around once in a while, but for the most part he has spent his time under my bed, in my spare bedroom or on top of the kitchen cabinets. He is also very vocal. He likes to meow very loudly at night and to be honest I am not sure he knows he is a cat. He tends to growl at people as they walk down the hallway outside my door. He makes a great watch cat.


I spent last week in Orlando. It is the second time I have been there this year already. I have to tell you that I can never see myself living in Florida. Too many old people there. Too many old people and kids in Orlando especially. The weather was god and the conference was nice, but it will be nice to spend a week at home. I REALLY need to start getting ready to move. I have been very lazy so far.

I spent my Mother’s Day at the ball game watching the Nats beat the Marlins. My next door neighbor and I went. He is an interesting guy. He works in IT, but owns a gun range in town as well. I run into him on occasion in the Mall at Morton’s. That is where I met him, and where we figured out that we live next door to one another. You would think we would meet in the hallway or elevator, but no, we meet at Morton’s drinking expensive bourbon. My next game is next weekend – Nats vs. O’s.

I would also like to wish my mother a happy Mother’s Day as well as to all the other mothers in my family – Sister J, Sister N, Sister T and Sister A…I hope you all had a great day.

I Have a Dream

I am getting close to realizing a dream. OK, not the dream where I find myself in the Playboy Mansion on my birthday. The dream I have had since the first time I got a chance to visit Europe in 1993. The dream to live in the European culture. My phone interview went pretty well this morning. It felt more like a formality as my interviewer and I have known each other for about a year now. We have not spent that much time together, but were very aware of each other. We talked for about 60 minutes and he let me know that he would get back to me in a week or so. He thinks if I decide to come aboard, notice how I made it my decision now, that I could be working in the role as soon as July. Things move slowly here for internal hires. However, I could be in London by mid summer.

Now, I know some of you are saying, hey isn’t Blue buying a condo this month. And the answer to that would be yes. I am in the middle of arranging financing right now. I think I need a place for tax purposes more than anything. Besides, you never know what is going to happen. AOL may decide to be cheap and not want to take care of my move or expenses. I may have to turn down the role. Either way, I still think getting my own place is a good idea. Besides, I can always rent it out if I leave. I may try to rent it out furnished as a corporate rental.

I am a bit concerned right now as my company, well my group, has just done a little re-org – for the third time in a year. We have new people coming in at the top and things could change so I could find myself in Europe with no job. A severance package and no job. Wait, is this a bad thing? Blue’s Extended European Vacation - can you picture that?

Release The Hounds

So I went house hunting this weekend. Well, condo hunting really. I realized that I am entirely spoiled and picky. Is there anyone out there that didn’t already know that? I mean I looked at about 25 places and like a total of 2. I did not say I loved two, I liked two. I also realized that I am more likely to get a place in one of the newer buildings. Somehow the buildings and condos that were built 20 or 30 years ago don’t seem to have the amenities that I would like, you know like cable outlets and air conditioning. I can also see that I am definitely only getting a one bedroom place for the money I am willing to spend. I know this because all the two bedroom places I looked at I dismissed as a possibility in about 5 seconds. They were all too old, too run down, too yellow. I don’t know what is up with painting your walls yellow. I know it is supposed to be soothing, but this is my condo, not the psyche ward.

Even the units that I did like, I could find fault with. One was on the ground floor and backed up to the street (noise could be an issue). The other had really light hardwood floors, I am more of a dark wood guy. Another had a sliding glass door in the living room that went no where. There was no deck, so why the glass door…how about some windows. I need to keep looking, but I know more about what I want now. It also seems that I will have to spend about $50K more than I wanted to. This isn’t a big burden, but I like to keep my mortgage less than 20% of my income and not 50% like it is for most people in California.

I am supposed to see some places in DC this week. I am not very confident that I will see much there as most of the buildings are old and unless I find something that has been totally refurbished, I doubt I will like it. You really pay for the location in DC and not the actual living space.

This really has started to make me believe that I will never live in Manhattan as anything I might be interested in there would cost a million dollars. Still searching though…wish me luck.