I'm Back

With little fanfare - 24Geek is back.

First of all - I STILL have yet to finish watching this season of 24. I have about 4 hours left and contrary to conventional wisdom these days, I am looking forward to watching them. Once I do you (all) will be the first to know.

Much has happened since I last posted something back in April but until now I always found some sort of reason not to jump into the Land of Blog and write about it. What has changed??? Nothing really except I have re-committed to the idea of trying to write and post something every day. I've decided that it doesn't have to be earth shattering but rather it just needs to be something.

My wife is in the midst of writing her first novel (has been since March) and also is working The Artist's Way so she spends a ton of time writing - but still doesn't get to write as much as she would like. For a while I was writing morning pages each day but I found I'd rather get an extra 30-45 minutes of sleep then spend the time putting pen to paper to write about whatever thoughts or feelings were clogging up my brain. Smart?? Probably not but it is what it is.

What I have decided to do instead is make sure that I write something (ANYTHING) each day here just to keep the artistic juices flowing. Do I have any idea what each day might bring?? Not a chance but at least at the end of the day I'll feel like I shared.

Today was a productive day. This is a good thing. One of the reasons we up and bolted from the Bay Area was due to the housing prices (along with just about everything else) being outrageously priced - and hence being WAY out of our grasp. Owning a home is something we have wanted for quite a while and the move to Oregon opened up that possibility. So...we've been looking around at the different homes, townhomes and condos that are being built in the area to see if we could find something that we liked. Fortunately we did (very much actually) and took the time today to sit down with a lender to find out exactly how things stand for us, what we might qualify for right now, and some steps we can take to put ourselves in the best possible position to get a loan. This is where the productive day kicked in. The individual that we spoke with (that would be you Adam), took the time to explain the home buying process , reviewed our credit (which turned out to be pretty ok...), gave us some steps to take to improve our scores and left us feeling optimistic about the idea of buying our first home.

Now the plan is to take those steps to move further down the path to buying. It's going to take some work (most good things do) but in the end we know it will help. I'm sure I'll end up writing more about all this as the days go by so for anyone out there who might care - stay tuned for more.

Misc. Tidbits :
> LOST - the 2nd half of the season absolutely rocked and the season finale was...WOW!
> If I had to vote for President tomorrow...John Edwards gets my vote. There's something about him that has me hooked. 560 days, 21 hours and 23 minutes until our National nightmare comes to an end.
> Saw the movie Pursuit of Happyness today - quite an inspirational story...but bring the kleenex. Hey, what do you want?? These things get to me.
> Another good flick - Chronicles of Narnia. Finally got the chance to see it and really liked it. Loved the book so I was glad they managed to pull it off.
> Two words - HARRY POTTER. The summer of Potter begins July 11th.
> Still haven't seen Spider Man 3 or Pirates 3 (or Casino Royale for that matter) but I will....in the near future.
> Dang it's going to be hot here in Oregon over the next few days. The forecast is calling for temps in the mid-90's for most of the week. No it's not Vegas hot (that's just plain crazy) but for those of us NOT living in the desert it will be warm. Thank heavens for the POOL!
> The Red Sox have a 10 game lead in the American League East at the All-Star break....WOW!
> The Yankees head into the break under .500 for the first time since 1995. Couldn't be happening to a more deserving group of guys.
> Alex Rodriguez is an incredible baseball player.
> I can't wait to see the New England Patriots in action this season.

Time for me to go to sleep.

Day 1 is done.

Stay tuned Bat-fans. See ya tomorrow. Same Bat-time. Same Bat-channel.

G'night.