Kipworld

Just purchased a TV from Abt Electronics… It’s the Sony 42″ LCD rear projection. This should last me for years.

So, anyway, drove out to Glenview w/ Todd and my brother to scope it out in person. They didn’t have the 42″ out, just the 50″, but for all intents and purposes, they’re the same. We walked around looking at custom kitchens and stuff while I mulled the purchase over in my head. Went to lunch, more mulling. Then, bam, back, ordered it, it’ll be here Fri.

I’m excited.

Just got internet set up at the new place… Grr, the router I got from Staples doesn’t support WDS, so my airport express is lying on the floor of the living room, gasping for air. I ran a cable from the kitchen over to the living room so that the Tivo could phone home and I could play some Halo. I’ve got my priorities straight.

Cooked my first grill dinner at the new place tonight: cajun drumsticks and jerk drumsticks. Mmmm.

Also ordered bookcases from Crate and Barrel. I’m excited; they’re like Tetris for the living room.

I’ve got 3 hours til the arrival window of my movers. Think it’s mostly packed. If not, it’s not the end of the world. I’m pretty excited to have my own place as I was woken up this morning around 7AM by the kid downstairs throwing a temper tantrum. In the new place, I’ve heard absolutely no noise from either side, ceiling or floor. Mmmm. Anyway… time to go take over a preliminary load.

Military Jokes Military Humor

If WWII were a real time strategy game. Awesome.

El and I painted the new place over the weekend. The living room is Pottery Barn green (actually “Grape Leaves” at Home Depot) and the bedroom is blue with hints of gray (”Sonata”). Paint color names are awesome. I wanna be the guy who dreams them up. Like “Happy Grass” or something. Hm. Too many drug connotations. See? It’s tough.
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And… I’m done. I own a condo. The attorney explained it this way, “When you own a single family home, you own the land, from the surface down to the center of the earth. Now in a condo, you get a box.”

I’m cool having a box.

The closing itself wasn’t too horrible. Just lots of signing. My lawyer was good at explaining all the docs (although I made him repeat about property taxes many many times). The other lawyer in the room… not so on top of things, it seemed. But oh well. While we sat around waiting for the checks so everyone could get paid, they all traded war stories about 4 hour closings and lawsuits and stuff. Real estate seems to be this big club.

And then it was over. Welcome to lifelong debt. Woohoo!

This weekend is painting, then I’m going to have a hardwood floor put in next week. I feel really old.

But happy. I own a box.

Time to go sign my life away…

I went to get the cashier’s check for the condo down payment last night right as the bank was closing. The manager had to come over to approve the large sum.

“Buying something?” she asked.

“Gumballs.”

Happy 4th of July, everyone, if anyone tunes in anymore. Life’s been sorta crazy. There was El’s graduation and all the hoopla of that (congrats, sweetie!) Then I’ve been caught up in the purchase of my condo. I close in 2 weeks. Things are pretty nuts when you’re making a large purchase. I’m going to be moving to a 1BR in a high rise. It’s going to be the first time I’ve had my own place to myself. I move in a month. The last thing to freak out about it whatever the hell I’m going to do w/ my foosball table.

Anyway, there’s so much that’s happened in the last month that it would do the events a disservice to try to write about all of em in detail in this post… Instead, I’ll talk about fireworks.

I remember the first summer that I got to light fireworks in my backyard (on the nonflammable patio). My Auntie Helen was in town and we had all these things from Chinatown: sparklers, poppers, and a cherry wheel that never quite did the right thing. Small firecrackers, but so were we.

In the summer of 5th grade, some of my friends got in trouble for filling 35mm film canisters with gas and lighting them in the street. So on the 4th of July the following year, we weren’t expecting to get to do much. However, my friend Ryan’s uncle brought a big box of stuff for us to blow up. Roman candles, cracklers etc for us and a big multistage one for him.

I can’t remember the last time I lit a firecracker… That summer might have been it Pretty sad when you think about it. Brookfield started to put on a great fireworks show around that time. It was at Wirth Park, so we’d go to Jason’s house and walk over. I remember climbing a fence with some of the other guys so we could watch it from the baseball diamond area. Another year, we jumped across the stream so that we could get close to the launch point (although the mosquitos made sure that we never tried that again).

Summers at CTD, we’d watch the Evanston fireworks from the Norris lawn.

During these big shows, I love the bright ones that explode with a huge bass bang. I also like the smiley faces. The cracklers on their own sort of suck, but in the big finale, they provide a cool background boom while the flashier ones are going off.

Fireworks on the 4th are way better than fireworks at New Year’s. Who wants to freeze their ass off while watching? No one.

Enjoy your booms today.

A Laptop Like You - a love song for a PowerBook.

My sister found this guy based on his Ikea song. MP3 downloads available here.

Software designer who write smart funny little songs on the side? I should ask him to make a Bull and Bunny soundtrack, or something.

Friday: El and I had dinner with my brother at Koi. Mmmm, sushi.

Saturday: Rick came into town around 4 ish. I picked him up from the airport and we chilled out a bit. He logged in as Adam on Xbox Live and we did some training. It was really funny to hear the people we were playing with freak out over the level 24 in the room and then mock him after the game (he had a couple no kill games).

We went to the Hopleaf that night. Standard Hopleafness.

Sunday: Woke up in the morning and threw some clothes into a duffel and drove up to Milwaukee for my nephew’s christening. It was at Gesu (the big Catholic church by Marquette U). We went to the mass before hand and I entertained nephew #1 by putting my hand in a hymnal while he tried to slam it closed. The resounding echoes were very satisfying to a 2 yr old. Nephew #2 got the water and the oil on his head and we headed up to my sister’s for the post baptismal party.
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