So now the end of this last decade is upon us. It had its ups and downs. I think globally we had many more downs than usual so alot of people are glad to see it is over. Personally I had alot of ups. What with my better jobs, recieving salvation, forming two companies, getting married and the birth of my son it was a good decade. I am an optimist. I think the next decade is going to be the best one yet, even globally.

It will start with some mix of ups and downs. For instance right now my mom is living with me and Holly. Melinda took mom to Wichita a couple of days ago and had mom's doctor and home health care evaluate her. Apparently mom is not taking the correct medicine, is getting confused way too much and is not doing well in the grooming department. She has also lost 30 pounds this last year. So Melinda ethically could not leave mom at the house alone. We are waiting to hear back from her labwork, but she could have something else wrong with her causing this mass confusion. Mom of course is fighting this all tooth and nail, but I have faith mom will see the light. I think she needs assisted living or a nursing home. For now she is living with us. In the meantime we are still doing showings to sell our house. We are also still on track to close on our new home by the end of the month. Poor Holly has had to bear the brunt of most of these events as I have been working cause I have no time off anymore. I have the best wife in the world. Luckily I get New Years day off, so this weekend I can help work things out.

But I can look past all of these events and see the future and it is bright. Mom will find a place that can watch her and maybe even give her an improvement in memory and functioning. It may even be close to our new house so no more driving to Wichita. Then the new house I have dreams about increasing its automation by giving it voice recognition and maybe get some roombas to keep it swept. As far as my health goes I can see days of swimming alot in our pool, which is heated, and relaxing in our hot tub. I predict I will lose weight this next year. I can see me and Brennon playing in the park near the house. I can see maybe a brother or sister for Brennon. I can see financial stability and a very high quality of life. I can see us doing mission work to give back.

Globally I can see technology increasing at a more rapid rate. I can see virtual worlds and telecommuting in a virtual environment becoming the norm. I can see green initiatives lowing our electricity bills and cleaning up our air. I can see phones becoming so powerful we no longer need computers. They will have projectors, laser keyboards and will contain terebytes of data and will eventually become invisible and wearable. I see health care becoming affordable and helping all americans get healthy. I see new avenues opening for job creation that have yet to be invented. I see such massive supercomputers that our society will change as a result of it. It will be so smart it will be able to tell the weather to the specific time. It will be able to create genetically programmed medicines that cure all diseases and prevent all diseases from happening by vaccines. Even obesity will actually be cured by a pill. Cancer will become a thing of the past with advances in gene therapy. Then it will snowball. Space exploration will become an industry. Economies will merge. Life will be based not on location, but on what you can do in a virtual matrix. The world will become one mass intelligence. Quality of life will increase for everyone on the planet. I welcome the next decade. Happy New Decade Everyone!

So there I am curled up in bed with my CPAP mask wrapped around my head. It is last Thursday morning at 6:30AM. I am sound asleep and then hear the garage door open up and hear the SUV roll out. What in the world I think to myself. As I drift back into sleep I figure my wife must have decided to leave early to get to Wichita Falls before the snow hits. Eventually I get up and go to work. While I am there I talk to Holly. She says she barely made it to Wichita Falls and she avoided the black ice. Apparently 4 18-wheelers did not. It must have happened right after she arrived in Wichita. Having 4 18-wheelers jacknife on the road she was on shut it down for 24 hours. Elsewhere my friend Jason was stuck in traffic in Bowie and did not get back until 12 noon on Christmas day. Him and his family had to spend the night in a church as the great Christmas blizzard of 09 was upon us.

So there I am in Carrollton, waiting for Holly to bring mom back down and I get the news, the roads are not drivable. So I am like, well, I guess I shall spend Christmas eve alone and Holly will spend it with Brennon and my mom. I was home alone. Unfortuantely there was no bad guys for me to trick into falling down. So I decided to make the best of it. I think I must have consumed way too much cookie dough. Since Santa wasn't coming I had to evacuate the cookie dough to a safe place. Then I started watching the "A Christmas Story" marathon on TBS. I think I must have seen it like 3 times. Also there was a Star Wars marathon that I watched. It felt like I was single again. I did miss Holly. On Saturday her and my mother made it down and even my sister arrived from Missouri. We officially had Christmas on Sunday. We visited Holly's granparents in Weatherford and then swung by Grant's to visit his kids. It was a good time.

In my post before I lamented how I thought Christmas was just another day. It turned out, it was. So it wasn't that bad of an experience because i had low expectations. Next year will be different. Oh yes. How was your Christmas vacation?

This is Brennon's first Christmas. It might be a little sparse but nevertheless it is still Christmas. I think growing up I had an expectation of what Christmas should be - good presents, dreams of toys and the like. Yet this year I am now the parent. I think as a parent I now get to live vicarously through Brennon. I get to enjoy his sense of wonder at the holidays, as mine is long gone. Although right now his sense of wonder is about discovering his hands in his mouth. He is such a cutie.

I think it is just a phase, but right now Christmas just feels like another day. When I put things into perspective I then see the forest through the trees. It really is just another day. There are millions of people out there who have no family at all. There are people who have nothing but the clothes on their backs or just enough rent to get by. They just want food and not toys and stuff. They experience reality without expectations. It can be a good lesson, but it is bad in that people can lose hope. For them the message that Christmas should bring is that Jesus was born to give them eternal life. And that is a neverending hope.

On the flipside, I think in these times I can see how greed has taken ahold of many a middle-upper class person and child. Somehow I can see the materialism very easy, especially since I live in the middle of it all. It is like those commercials where someone gets a Lexus for Christmas. It would be nice to have that choice, but does that mask the true meaning of Christmas? Is that the intention or byproduct of materialism? To hide a lack of spirituality in people who have no beliefs outside their own selves? Maybe. Part of me is thinking, our new house will be our Christmas present to ourselves. But, that is not true. We did not plan on it like that. This year we have to cut back on all of our gifts because of the house, but I think people won't mind. As far as giving and getting goes I can see that growing up I did most of the getting. I think children have this innate sense of selfishness, or was it just me? Maybe next year will be bountiful and we can start giving back again. But is Christmas really about money and presents? Is it even about giving? Is it about being with family and friends? No.

I have seen on a couple of Christmas movies "you see, Christmas means something different to everyone." While true, it should be noted that the word Christmas is supposed to be a celebration of Jesus's birth. At first it was a pagan holiday. Then Christians used it as a holiday to overshadow that day. And now in the past 200 years the Santa Claus holiday has overshadowed the Christian holiday. I think this year I am going to go the religious route to the Christmas spirit. This Christmas spirit is usually manifested as good memories, food, Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, Jesus's Birthday and old-time melodies. The true meaning of Christmas is salvation. From the birth of Jesus to his death and resurrection we can be assured of eternal life. We can celebrate and be joyous in that God's gift to man was His only son. And that is the true meaning of Christmas. Merry Christmas to One and ALL!

Ok, so where to begin... How about this weekend? I had been stressed all week getting all of this paperwork done for our new house. On Friday night we stayed at home. Saturday morning the carpet people came over to replace the carpet in the entire house. It looks beautiful now. Saturday night we watched the Dallas Cowboys actually win an important game. Afterwords we had to clean up our house again because Sunday afternoon we had a showing from 1 to 3. It is amazing how messy our house can get in just one week. Sunday morning we went to Sunday school and then to the mall. I am just now starting Christmas shopping, so to my family, you may get your gift after Christmas. Sunday evening we went to our second Christmas party. It is so hard to get into the Christmas spirit I have practically given up. I think it is ok if we skip alot of festivities. If they are stressful then just don't do them.

And now for the dramas. Sunday night at about 9:30 I get a call from a guy who says,"do you know Linda Robertson?" I say, yes she is my mother. "Well she is broke down on the side of the highway." So he then gives his phone to mom. "Brian, I am in Benjamin or Guthrie. My car has ran out of gas and the battery is dead. Call Keya and have her come get me." "How in the world did you end up 2 hours away in Guthrie?" "Don't ask just call Keya." Apparently mom thought it was Wednesday afternoon and she had to go to her foot appointment. So she got in her car and went there and found out it was closed. So she started driving back home. At that point she got lost. Now there is a new overpass over Kell and Barnett road so I can see how she could get confused. So she kept on driving. For 2 hours. I have no idea how that happens. When her car ran out of gas mom tried to flag people down but no one would stop for a while until a good samariton did. My guess is her battery died at that point as well. So the guy who did stop called the cops. The cops filled up her car with gas and took mom to the police station where she could wait for Keya.

I called Keya. By the way, Keya is mom's next door neighbor who stole $7,000 on mom's credit card. Mom still uses her even though I told Keya never to come over again. She brings over breakfast and dinner for mom. So I gave in and called her with mom on the line and Keya and Carlos drove down and picked mom up and her car. I got a call at 1:30 in the morning. It was mom. She had arrived safetly back at home. IMO, mom should not be driving and should be moved out and in assisted living. If you don't know the day and time, can't find your way home, have neighbors prepare your meals you are in need of assisted living. Mom refuses all help except from her neighbor of course and says she will die in her house. That is all frustrating. Luckily Melinda is back in the USA and will be flying here on Saturday. Melinda has an appointment with mom's doctor so hopefully we will be able to assess the situation better.

So that is the drama on my side of the family. On Holly's side, her grandmother was going to a Well's Fargo bank yesterday in west Fort Worth. Right outside of the bank in broad daylight two guys with guns pushed her to the ground and took her purse. She was a little bruised but is fine now. I think they were stupid criminals because there were cameras outside the bank and my guess is they didn't have masks. They were caught several hours later and she got her purse back. They are now resting nicely in jail on felony charges. All of these dramas lead me to the conclusion that in today's economy people think about themselves first. There is no moral guidance anymore. At least Christians have rules to live by and not stealing from old people is one of them. It is better to stop crime before it happens by teaching morals and ethics to everyone and not depend on police. Morals and ethics are the only way to go. I wish people would put Christ back in Christmas.

Well, I can't believe it. I am so happy. We got the house we wanted! Here is more of a detailed story of the events that aspired to have this all work out.

So as my last post indicated both Holly and I fell in love with this house as it had everything we both wanted and even more. I never even thought about a smart home till I found this one. This home has a famous history. Below is an article that mentions the home in Builder Magazine:

http://hbrnet.com/home-technology/network-superstore.aspx

Basically its owner was a vice president of CompUSA. When he built this house he designed it to be a smart home and then took that idea and expanded upon it to produce CompUSA's home networking group so that you could have one stop for all your home networking needs. Of course it does end a little tragic because CompUSA went under. But out of the ashes was left an automated networked home. The owner has moved to Dubai and is working as a retail consultant there. It is amazing what you can find on the internet.

So as a result, even though we have yet to sell our existing home, we put an offer on the home. Add a little back and forth negotiations and today I accepted a counter offer. I can't believe it! Because we haven't sold our existing home the loan place is treating this as an investment to get a second home. That makes everything more regulated and much harder to get. So this whole underwriting of the loan is going to take a while. That is the next hurdle. Our closing date is January 28th. Expect a massive super bowl party on February 7th. However, if we don't sell the house expect us to be penny pinching for a while. Two house payments can eat everything up.

So here is the link to our new house. I can't wait to move in! I've got a good feeling about everything.

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3105-Kimble-Dr-Plano-TX-75025/53115928_zpid/

One sentence weekend update. Went to Christmas parties this weekend and one was too loud so we took Brennon home and the other one I went alone. Ok now here is what is really happening. I can't believe we are doing this, but sometimes in life you have to take a risk to get what you want. So we went house shopping on Saturday. We went to three houses in Frisco and three houses in Plano that met our list. Most of them one of us would like but not the other. I could see how some people spend alot of time looking.

Then there was the last house on the list. It is located in Plano near 121 and Coit, close to Stonebriar Mall. I have been watching it on the internet for months, and just this last week the owner reduced it by 20K.. It is a normal looking house on the outside but is almost twice the size of our existing house. The whole neighborhood is conspicously clean. Lawns are all trim. There are no potholes. It is relatively flat and it has a side walk that goes on for miles. I think it is the homeowners association that keeps it all uniform. We pass a neighborhood park on the way to the house. It was a very spacious park with a playground, a huge community pool and a clubhouse. The local YMCA is also down the road. I can picture Brennon having alot of activities there.

At the doorway to this house you can see a camera staring down at you. As I walked in the door I felt like I was home. It was a very weird feeling. As I start walking in to all of the rooms all of a sudden a light comes on. Then when I leave the room the light goes off. They all have dimmers too. Then I notice little LCD screens in most rooms like the kitchen. I think with 7 cameras in the house you can see things and people at the door on the LCD screens. Then I notice automatic dimmers to control 64 different house light settings. Then I notice automatic blinds to control shading. Then I notice that there are speakers in every room embedded into the walls. The living room and game room have them set up in surround sound fashion. Then I notice the 2 multi-zoned 16 Seer air conditioneers that are programmed per room. There is also a Honeywell UV air filter and electric air filter attached to both units that cleans all of the air by 99%. We have officially entered an energy efficient smart home.

Holly notices the stone floor and long kitchen. We both notice the view of the backyard with a pool and an attached hot tub that feeds into the pool by waterfall, heating it, actually heating the pool by waterfall. I notice the master bedroom is on the first floor. It has a whirlpool tub and a view of the LCD screen in the bathroom and main room. As I walk into the walk in closet the light turning on makes me shout "this is so cool". As I walk up the stairs I can see, in the distance, the breakfast room. The view reminds me of my current home. Having the ability to look so far away and still see your house gives me a feeling of kinglyness. Holly is excited at the look and feel of the house. We agree. I want it and she wants it.

Of course, we do have a problem. We have not sold our existing house. But I figured if we could get approved for it, we might be able to swing it. So last night I pulled together assets and talked with a banker and actually got pre-qualified and pre-approved as long as the owner pays the closing costs. I visit the house tonight to check on all of the systems and verify they are all in working order. If it is all good we are going to put an offer down. I think this is actually going to happen. The process should take 45 days, so our move in would be the middle of January or February. Having two mortgages will put our discretionary funds close to zero, but it will be possible to survive. Just maybe Christmas this year might be very very light, and monetary gifts are always nice. But I think a new smart house makes a great present so we will be very happy with that. Everyone should own a smart house. It has a compass in the stock and a thing that tell time. A++++

Well, it is official. We are now listed. Here it is:

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1352-Riley-Drive_Carrollton_TX_75007_1114629304

If you go to realtor.com and type in something like Carrollton, TX 160,000 - 170,000 you will get about 14 houses. Ours is second on the list because of the way I priced it. You will also notice that all of the other houses around it were built in the 1980s. Our house is built in 1998. So I think we have one of the top houses in our categories. I think though I probably could have taken better pictures than them. However, I also think that it looks good enough to get people interested.

I guess now we may get some visitors to the house. I still need to clean my closet and rearrange the garage. I remember when I first bought it what sold me on it was the second living area overlooking the living room, the large living room and a small yard for easy maintenance, and the location to 4 major highways. It is the perfect house for easy commutes to Irving, Downtown Dallas, Plano, and even Denton. Everything is 30 minutes away. I can picture another single person or newlywed couple getting this house and getting the $8,000 tax credit.

You know I can see me missing this house when we sell it. I considered it a great achievement to be single and able to afford a house that nice. Even little things I liked, like the skylight in the master bathroom, the ledge in the master bedroom, the breakfast bar, the wood floor kitchen and the many ledges to put things on. Then there are the memories. Of playing music with my many band mates, having Christmas parties, watching movies on the huge TV, having BBQ birthday bashes, having guests stay over in the guest bedroom, and decorating the house for Christmas. It is hard to believe I moved in in February of 2003. I remember it well as that day a space shuttle crashed near the house. That is over 6 years ago. That counts as the second longest I've ever lived anywhere. I used to go from apartment to apartment every year. Then after two years of looking I found a place I could call home. Let's see if others like the house as much as I do.

So I am now protected from the pig flu. This morning I went in to the docs for my cholesterol and blood sugar labs. I asked him if I should get the flu shots since I have a three month old and he said yes. Holly needs to get it as well since she teaches 4 year old special needs kids in oak cliff who already get sick a lot. So I got to have the regular flu shot in one arm and the swine flu one in the other arm. The regular one just felt like a little pinch, but the swine one felt hot. You know, a lot of people, including myself, act like the shot is a big conspiracy and isn't tested and will make you sick. But logic overrides that. Why? Because it is the flu that makes you sick, not the shot. This flu shot was tested to prevent the swine flu. It was also FDA certified.

So now I will go into a diatribe about reality and fantasy. It is a fantasy or even witchcraft to think that an untested herb can heal you but a FDA approved scientifically tested drug will hurt you. The reality is also math. The number of people hospitalized from the flu is so many they have stopped counting. The number of people hospitalized from the shot is probably none. Doctors are the smartest people we have. If you can't trust them who can you trust? I know first hand that their knowledge about the human body would put the local conspiracy theorist to shame. Then when you put hundreds of them in a pharmaceutical company doing hundreds of tests what comes out is pretty good. I think the fantasy is that somehow someone is "out to get us" by giving us a pill to take. What if it is the opposite conspiracy theory? What if only those who get the pig flu shot survive when something man made is released into the atmosphere? Obviously that is fantasy, but it is in the opposite direction. Fear is the real enemy. Beware anyone that uses fear to control your thoughts and actions, even the environmentalists. Logic and reason should control your actions, not fear.

So was it because of fear that I got the shots? I have to admit maybe a little, but really it was just me asking the doctor a logical question: "should I get the shot?" that made me do it. Because I trust him I go with what he says. If he would have said no I would have said no. So I signed the papers and got it. He also took my blood for the labs. Then of course there is the ole talk "lose weight" discussion. My heel still hurts so I am still sidelined, but I can tell it does not hurt as much. I think by New Years I will be heeled. I then asked him a question regarding my taking a lot of medicine. Should I get surgery to fix my deviated septum and tonsils so I won't have sleep apnea? If I get some kind of lap band would that cause me to lose weight which would in turn lower my blood pressure and maybe stop my apnea. He said maybe. I think the ball is in my court as to whether I want to pursue any options since the medicines work. Heh, I think I'll be neurotic about it another post. For now I will never say oink.

So the smudge is back. What is the smudge you ask? When I was in 4th - 9th grade I had a habit of putting pens in my right front pocket. Now I wasn't a typical nerd in that I had a pocket protector. But I should have been. So what would invariably happen during the course of a week would be that I would chew on my pens, put them in my pocket and then they would leak ink all over my pockets. Now this showed up as a smudge on the outside of my jeans. Sometimes it was a red smudge, a blue smudge or a black smudge. Eventually most of my jeans had a combination of colors right where my pocket was. After a while I didn't care anymore.

Now in the past couple of months the memory of my smudge has come back full force. It is like the ghost of the smudge. It is like the sequal to the smudge. So say I get up in the morning and put on dockers khakis. By the time I get to my car there is this big black smudge over my right pocket. I check my pocket - no pens. Yesterday morning it happened so quickly I don't know what it was. I don't know how it gets there. As my wife was home yesterday she looked at my pants and shrieked. Why? Because she sees the smudge every day. She even takes them to the dry cleaner and they come back perfectly clean. Then within 15 minutes in the morning a new smudge arrives.

Today a coworker noticed the smudge. I have been trying to hide it by wearing a jacket. I can't explain it. I think what I will do will setup a video camera near my path to the car. Then I will analyze when the smudge occurs. I think the solution is to catch it on camera and analyze how it gets there. My current theory is that somehow there is something black on my car that rubs against my pants on the way to sit down, like maybe the inside of the door or something. I am like the bigfoot hunters. I am like searching for the loch ness monster. This time it is the Smudge Monster. Coming to theaters near you.

So this weekend was a big push to get things cleaned up. I am proud to say we did accomplish that. It was all so a photographer could come at 2PM on Saturday and spend 10 minutes taking pictures of the house. Our house looks better than it ever did, even when I moved into it. Probably because there is no more wallpaper and the walls are painted very nicely. For some reason the paint color makes me feel taller. This week our carpet should arrive as well. I think it is going to be listed on Wednesday or Thursday. Let's hope we can get some hits. I used my Search Engine Optimization techniques to adjust the price we were selling at. Originally we were going to price at 169,500. But as I looked at Realtor.com's search results I noticed it lists its highest price first. Now if someone were to type 150,000 - 170,000 for their query it would turn up one 170,000 then alot of houses priced at 169,900 putting our house way down the list. So by setting the price at 169,950 we now get second on the search results.

If the house doesn't sell in a month or doesn't get any hits I might actually build a website for it and redo the pictures. I think though because of all the work we've done that we beat out a majority of the houses in Carrollton. Actually most houses in Carrollton were built in the 1980s. The fact that ours is built in 1998 is a big selling point. However, our work is not done yet. We still have to clear out our garage. I do not know how to move a 300 pound television from my garage to the curb. I think I might invest in some kind of super dolly. Then there is still some closets to clean out. It is like our work will never be done.

Princess Leia will probably go live with Holly's mom for a while, since we can't have her in while the house is being showed. Alot of lifestyle things have to change to. Like I actually have to make the bed before I go to work. I have never liked making a bed because logically it will get unmade again that night so what is the point. Then there is the general cleaning up after ones self. I usually wait until I am bothered by a mess to clean it. If it doesn't bother me then I figure it is not worth the effort to clean. Now it is like our house has to be clean every day. I suppose a "normal" family is clean most of the time and doesn't leave things lying around. Holly and I are just to easy going to be stressed like that, but I think our stress levels are going to change as well. Maybe we can develop good habits from this experience. Maybe not. We'll see.

Hmm, what are my thoughts? How about this. It is cooold outside. I broke down at lunch and bought a jacket. I am now not freezing. I wish it did snow so I could have stayed home, but it didn't. Brennon is doing well. He is cuter and cuter. One of these non busy days I'll get to post more pics of him. A professional photographer is coming to take pictures of the house tomorrow. Maybe I'll include him in the pictures, just as long as people don't think he comes with the house. It is still a little messy. Fortunately our contractor is going to be doing a "make ready" today so that should help clean things up a little. I think I might end up buying a chainsaw to remove the bushes in the front yard. Let's hope it is not a Texas chainsaw massacre.

I talked to Melinda on Thanksgiving. She is back in the states. Apparently they didn't visit Hawaii cause the exchange rate is really bad. Her new job will be a travelling neurologist at the Mayo clinic subsidiaries. There are numerous subsidiaries all around Minnesota. She is finally going to be making a doctors salary. I have been beating her all these years, now the tables have turned. They will also probably be getting a new house next year. The kids were good on the flight back this time. I think Melinda is planning on coming down to Wichita Falls this Christmas and check mom out. Maybe we might have Christmas there? Things are still up in the air. I should probably finalize the details with her. Greg says the latest Jawbone is really cool and will probably be released early next year. I don't know about bluetooth headsets. In my experience they make the iPhone battery lose power a lot quicker. When you drive a phone like I do by listening to music and watching TV on it all power is important. Maybe they fixed that problem.

In other news I have been watching the traffic on RideSearch increase slowly. We are now at 10,500 members. I think when all of these life activities die down I will hire a business salesman to sell it for me. I am sure it is worth something. I got at least 1400 visitors last month to the site and some people have actually carpooled. This year alone I have had 14,000 visitors and 68,000 pageviews. Although last year, when I was on TV and invested alot of money I had 72,000 visits and 367,000 pageviews. That is probably in the top 10% of the web by most standards. Of course it is not alot by super web standards of a million visitors a month. It is all about perspective, but this site deals with the real world so it is tops in that category. I just like watching the statistics because the graph looks like a heartbeat. The site is still alive just because there isn't much of a reason to cancel it. RideSearch.biz however is in its death throws. So visit it before it goes away. Paypal charges me $30 a month for a shopping cart that has no sales. Not worth it. Anyways, I think my hobby of making websites will come back. I still need to write for GoogleReviewer.com. That can be fun when it doesn't feel like a job. Can anyone think of something new that has a low maintenance cost and no comptetition and is hard to duplicate by someone else? Those are some keys to success. I have learned it the hard way but I have learned it well.

Monday was one of those days where I felt like someone is running a computer program on my life. What I mean is that many conditions were met that would not have been met had I done something different. To start with I woke up at 9AM when that is the time I should have been at work. Then my car died in my garage, giving me a good reason for being late. So then as a result of that I got to spend some time at home while I was waiting for the tow truck. Had I not spent time at home I probably wouldn't have been able to answer my phone and spoke in long conversations. Had I not had motivium.com up and running someone wouldn't have googled powerbuilder and COM and seen my site and called me and given me a little side project to help their developers. So now I have a little side thing and Motivium has a new contract without any conflict of interest.

Now later on when the tow truck arrived the driver dropped me off at Bankston Nissan. He said he thought it was the fuel pump because the lights were on it just wouldn't turn over. So had the tow truck driver not have said that I probably would have waited on my car. Instead I had Nissan get me a rental car. Had it not taken to 12 to get all this done I probably would have returned to work. Instead I decided to take the afternoon off because I knew they could be finished pretty quickly. The day before my laptop's hard drive started to make the sound of death. I know that well and I know that I needed a new hard drive or laptop before the old one dies. So I researched the perfect laptop for a developer and knew what I wanted. It was cyber monday so I still had deals to make. So at lunch I called around and found it at Staples in Frisco. Its not like an alienware laptop. Instead it is an HP 18 inch quad processor with a blue ray player. It is pretty sweet for a good deal. Had I not had a contract I probably would not have decided to let Motivium buy the laptop. So as a result of me sleeping late I ended up with a new laptop and a new contract. Plus it turned out that the car's battery was dead and my warranty paid for the towing and all I had to do was shell out $50 for half a battery.

It doesn't end there. I still had some spare time so I went to Lowes to order the carpet. When I was there I remembered that we needed to replace the doorknobs in the house. Had I not gone there I wouldn't have remembered. As a result I bought the new doorknobs. Later that evening as I was putting one in a couple of screws were stripped in the door. So I had to go back to Lowes to get a drill bit to remove a screw. Had that not happened Holly would have not remembered to tell me to go to Walmart to pick up her meals for the week. So there it is. As a result of me sleeping late I got a new laptop, a new contract, new doorknobs, a new car battery and Holly got her meals for the week. Who says waking up late is a bad thing?

Wow, so things have been hectic. Thanksgiving was good. Holly cooked a good turkey. George and his family came over and we watched the Cowboys win. That makes our turkey digest easily. Holly went and got mom who stayed with us on Wed-Fri. Apparently "someone" decided to forge moms name on some checks to TXU with their account number on it. The cops are now investigating. This time I can press charges and will. Anyways, it was good to talk with George and fam and see Brennon's new cousing Simeon. I am sure they will be good friends.

During all of last week we continued to remodel the house. On Friday the storage people came and moved half of my stuff, while I took mom home and came back. Then the fence people came and gave us a new fence. Then the paint people came and removed the wallpaper and painted it. Today the tree people come to trim our trees. Soon the carpet people will come to replace the carpet and the vinyl. Then all that is left is for a maid to clean the whole house from top to bottom and we will be listing our house. The house already looks great. I didn't realize how much space I had till half of the stuff was moved out. And now that the kitchen is a light brown color it makes me feel taller whenever I walk in it. Talk about an optical illusion. I really like this house. I don't see me being that flexible on offers given that we have just poured in about 10K into it. It is better than it ever was and with new carpet it will be in mint condition.

So this weekend was spent camping out in the living room as painters were all over the house, except there. Holly took Brennon to her mom's to avoid the fumes. Also, our toilet got backed up. So at one point I was in charge of 4 fence guys, 1 plumber and 6 painters. I would walk around occaisionly to inspect the job they were doing. Most of them spoke Spanish so I just gave a thumbs up. Sometimes I think, I wonder if they do speak English, they just don't want to. Holly and I are saving the economy. We spent 10K to fix the house, some new homeowner will get 8K to move in, we will get 6.5K to move up and the workers, banks and home improvement centers will get the 24.5K. I really think all these stimulus bills do make a difference. It isn't trickle down economics, its more like super soaker economics. There is a great shifting in the class structures and it all leads toward home ownership. Might as well take advantange while the gettin is good. How was your Thanksgiving?