It’s Been A Good Week

Sometimes the power of a wonderful sunny week is amazing. With the weather in the mid 70’s all week, I’ve felt rejuvenated like Captain Planet. It even feels like it’s been a really lucky week. To recap:

• We got the mortgage! I don’t think it’s completely sunken in yet, but we actually own a place (sorta) now. Bunky and I haven’t had a lot of help out of college, and we feel like this is a really huge accomplishment.
• I don’t have to go to Bunky’s Law Review banquet. I was tricked into getting dressed up and going last year, and it bored me to tears. To make matters worse, we almost got a ticket while leaving, since the major entrance to the parking lot is only one way. The cop watched us inch up to it and then turned on his lights and sirens just to be a jerk. It turns out you have to go this crazy roundabout way to exit the parking lot, and the tiny signs are invisible at night. Interestingly enough, he let us off because he thought we were prospective students. I guess the nice garb and the Cornell sticker on our back windshield fooled him. Win!
• I got that “courtesy” discount from our ISP. I still can’t believe they would give us free internet right after we finished our $5/month promotion.

Of course it’s not all peaches and cream. Apparently we have to be present at the mortgage closing, but we probably can’t have anything moved in before we close. Normally this is no big deal, but we are really worried about our two Angelfish. Angelfish aren’t that hardy, and we were already concerned about the water hardness in Pittsburgh and the 7+ hour ride up there.

Now if we can’t get them plugged in and situated until the next day, their chances of survival drop even further. We can’t really fill up the tanks and plug them in at Bunky’s aunt’s place, because once you put the water in the tank, you can’t move it (too heavy). This is becoming way too big of a headache, and we are seriously considering selling/giving the fish to a good owner. It seems sad, but it beats going through so much trouble and having them die when we get there. They’re pretty big too, so it would be horrific if they perished. Looking back on the experience of moving them 20 minutes away a few months ago, that was pretty difficult. So multiplying the difficulty more than 21 times sounds bad.

Also, the fishtank smell in the car would be strong after so many hours in the heat…

Well There Goes the Money

Nevermind, have that money routed directly to the people who just gave us a mortgage. Yay for having a place to live, but now we are poor!

Thanks for the Free Money

So we got our cable/internet bill and it was quite a bit higher than we were comfortable with. Armed with stories from Velius and Ender about strong-arming the telecom company into lowering their rates, I called up Cox Communications and told them I was thinking about switching back to Verizon DSL (which is not really a possibility). They offered me the lower speed service and I said that sounded like it sucked. To make matters worse, there were no promotions for existing customers.

Faced with my growing petulance, the sales representative then offered to credit me $39.99. For what? As a courtesy. Courtesy! Awesome, that was absolutely worth holding for 12 minutes on the phone. I’m here to tell all of you that threatening your ISP works! So now we have paid $5 for High Speed Internet for 2 months, and it was free this month. Based on this trend, I predict Cox will be paying me to use their service next month, and then we’re skipping town for PA. Thanks for all the memories, Cox!

Prepare Countdown

Every spring it feels like the work comes in tsunami-sized waves, but today I had a thought that made it more bearable: we are now less than 2 months away from blastoff out of Virginia. I’ll miss parts of Williamsburg for sure (the amazing weather, the nice clean look about town, the ease of driving), but I’m getting kinda amped up about job searching. In previous attempts, I had no work experience and I was really limited by where I lived. However, moving to a city and having worked several years full-time now, I’m hopeful that this searching experience will go a little smoother than previous attempts.

It’s interesting being on the job when everyone slowly finds out that you will be leaving in a few months. I made it known pretty far in advance, so I suppose I will get to train my replacement. I’m sure that will be quite an experience.