Packing Up Christmas / New Years Eve at Home

Today Harry and I packed up all our Christmas stuff inside the house. We still have lights on the house. Those will come down next weekend. I like to start off the new year fresh and new. We had gotten so use to all our Christmas decorations since they have been up since Thanksgiving it was strange to see our house without them.

For New Years Eve we tired to get a small group together to hang at our place but that never happened. So Harry and I had a Star Trek Marathon. We watched three episodes of Deep Space Nine and from 11:30pm to 12:30am we watched Star Trek The Next Generation to ring in the new year. We had a great time.

So much for time off!!!

Today was to be my second day off of my four day weekend. Well I got a call from one of my editors informing me that she couldn't be the media drives to mount. Harry and I were just about to go shopping with our Christmas gift cards so we stopped by to check it out. Well it looked at first that the entire Unity (hard drives) crashed and everything was gone. I started to painc.. that would take us weeks to re-digitize all the media and in the middle of online would be horrible. Luckily I managed to restart the system and everything seemed to be okay.

After my small panic attack we went shopping and I went a litle crazy buying 75% off Christmas stuff. I spent well over my $50 gift certificate, but it was fun.

Four Day Weekend!!!

Today I start my four day weekend. I can't remember when I had four days off in a row.. I guess it was comic con this past July. Today I did nothing all day long and it was great. Watched TV, played on the Computer, talked with friends online, hung out with Harry and Daisy... it was great.

Pat on the Back

I normally don't give myself a pat on the back.. but last night I was at work till 1am working on the unity/avid problems. We have five avids at work (for those who don't know what Avid is, it is the editing system that we use to cut out show and Unity is the hard drive system) anyways we have had issues all season with the avids crashing and scanning drives (which takes up alot of time of the editors) so I spent yesterday trying to work out the bugs and I finally got all the systems up and running with no issues at all....nothing.. zero probelms. I am very proud of myself at getting this done.. this is a huge deal and should make everyones (the editors and mine) life much easier. Just wanted to brag for a moment. :)

More Gifts and Future Plans

Today we finally got the Christmas presents from Harry's best friend Sandra. She sent them off over two weeks ago and we were afraid something had happened to them.. but luckily they arrived this morning. Also in the afternoon Harry and I spoke with Harry's sister Gerda and her boyfriend Bernd about there plans to come visit for three week at the end of July, beginning August. They are coming for our commitment ceremony and staying for a vacation. Talking to them today made me realize that our ceremony is not too far off.. eight months will be here in no time.. have to start making plans.

Working Over the Holidays

One bad thing about being a freelance post production supervisor is that I don't get holiday pay. When holidays come up and the offices close you are pretty much out of luck. My current job is down from Dec. 22 to Jan 1st. Though the time off would have been great I really do need to continue to make money so I asked if I could come in during the holidays. Luckily I was able to work four days this (Christmas) week and three days the following (New Years) week. It's not a full five days a week but it's better then nothing.

Christmas Day

Today Harry and I woke up early so we could open our gifts before we had to get on the road. Harry and I were really good this year so Santa brought us lots of goodies. I know Harry was really excited to get Mac OS X Leopard and iLife. I was excited to get my very hard to find British Harry Potter and Doctor Who action figures. It was a very geeky Christmas at our house.

Around 11:30 we headed to my mom's for lunch and gift exchange. The past few years have been a bit crazy at my Mom's (my grandmother's dog and Daisy don't get along) so I really wasn't in the mood for the craziness this year. Luckily when we got there we found out that my Grandmother's dog Baby was not there so things started off well. Instead of the traditional spaghetti lunch that mom normally makes she decided to go with a breakfast instead (of course no knew this and we all eat breakfast beforehand). Anyways.. Harry and I had some of the breakfast, which was very good then we opened presents. The past few years my mom has been cutting back on what she would get us for Christmas. It use to be ten or so presents each now it's one or two. This year Mom and Chuck gave Harry and I some money to buy us a washer and dryer (which we still haven't found). So we knew we wouldn't have anything under the tree. She did buy us both several shirts just so we could open a gift. All in all a pretty good afternoon at mom's.

Around 4 we headed to Dad for a Turkey dinner and gift exchange with Dad, Mike and sister-in-law Lora. Dinner was fantastic. Everyone was very delicious.. Dad really out did himself this year. After dinner we started to open gifts.. unlike Mom's everyone had about ten to fifteen gifts each. It was a fun time. Got some cool t-shirts, action figures and more geeky stuff.

All in All is was a great Christmas, alot of driving which took it's toll on me but it was a great time had by all... MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christmas Eve at Renee's

Today Harry, Dad and I went over to my cousin's Renee's house. We have spent Christmas Eve with them the past few years. It's always good to see my Dad's side of the family. We try and see at much of them as possible since I found them only a few years ago.

We got there a little early to we could help in making Christmas cookies. When the got there the kids were well into it so we tried to help out were we could. It was alot of fun making cookies with the kids.

After cookies I helped with Dinner, which turned out to be fantastic. After dinner we opened presents and everyone had a great time.

Around 7:30pm Harry, Dad and I left the festivities because we still had to drive Dad home. Harry and I finally got home around 11 and we were exhausted and went right to bed.

Picking up Dad

Today Harry and I drove out to Corona to visit my Dad. Also I found out that he would be coming back home with us so we could take him to our family Christmas Eve party. This was the original plan but then I had heard it had changed and that my brother was going to take him to our Uncle Wally's house who would then bring him to the party. Well I guess plans change again and when I called my Dad right before we were to visit he, he informed me of the changes... it wasn't a big deal Harry and I planned to do "our" Christmas present opening on Christmas Eve morning but with Dad there plans had to change.

Birthdays

Today is two of my friends Birthdays. First Michael and I have known each other for many many years. We met online in a Star Trek chat room and became fast friends. He is in the military and moved to Socal so we actually got to meet up and hang out. We don't see each other as often as we would like but we talk online every few weeks. He is about to be sent to Iraq.. we wish him the best of luck and Happy Birthday Michael

My other friend Shaun is a great guy. We meet through a Star Trek group. Shaun and I are so much alike in the TV/Movies viewing. We are both uber geeks and love it. Again like Michael we don't get to see each other as much as we would like but we enjoy the time we do hang out together. Happy Birthday Shaun.

TV Night / Snowmen

Tonight was our last TV night of 2007. We of course watch the Christmas movie Elf. It was alot of fun. Richie, Gary, Bruce and Angie showed up. As everyone was watching the movie I had to make about 15 snowmen for Christmas presents for my co-workers.. of course I wait till the last minute and what is normally a week process I did in a matter of three hours.

Writers Strike

It's funny how many times I get asked if the writers strike effects me. So I figured I would blog about it so everyone will know how it effects me. The writers strike doesn't effect me at all. I have my job till April and since it is a reality/docu drama there are no writers and are show is moving along full steam. So thanks for all your concern but I am currently in a good place with my job.

Christmas Cookies

Harry got a late start of making Chirstmas cookies, but today he made a few batches so when I got home from work I of course had to taste test them.. next thing I knew I had eaten about ten of them and couldn't stop. His cookies are not super sweet which is great because you can eat quite a few and not feel sick. I eat so many that he had to make another batch so we could give them out for the holidays.

Chuck's Birthday

Today is my "Step Father" Chuck's birthday. It's been a tough year for him and Harry and I want to wish my a very Happy Birthday... we love you.

Another Christmas Party

Today Harry and I went to our friends Chris and Marks house in Pasadena for a Christmas/Game night. It was a lot of fun. We haven't been to a game night in quite a while so it was good to see some familiar faces and play some games.

First Show Is In The Can

Today I was in Online all day with the first episode of the second season of the show that I'm working on. It was a long rode but we finished it with very little problems. Now we move onto the second episode.

Joined the PGA (Producers Guild of America)

Today while at lunch with my friend/Co-worker she mentioned the PGA and said I should join. I didn't realize as a Post Production Supervisor I could join the Producer's Guild. So when I got back to work I checked it out and sure enough I could join. The PGA is not a union like WGA or SAG but you get some very cool benefits like free movie screenings, and during the award season you get DVD screeners and are able to go to the nominated movies for free. The fees aren't that bad. It's $350 for the initiation fees and $150 a year. I sent in my application and now I just have to wait and see if I’m approved.

Pushing Daisies

Today they aired the final episode of season one of Pushing Daisies... they got nine episode complete before the writers strike but wow what a great nine episodes. This is by far my favorite new series this season. I'm bummed that it's over till next year. But luckily it did well in the ratings and the two main actors were nominated for Golden Globes and the show was also up for best series. If you haven't seen this series you really missed out. Check out the repeats.

Harry Potter 5 on DVD

Today Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out on DVD. I was very excited to get this. As many of you know I’m a HUGE Harry Potter fan so I went out on my lunch to Target and picked up the special two-disc edition. Target had a special 3D cover (which is not pictured), free digital download and extra dvd with a BTS clip. This is one of the best Harry Potter movies... I say that with every new movie that comes out... I love them all. This one has one of the best battle scenes at the end between Voldermort and Dumbledore.

Secret Santa

Today I got in my mail my surprise from my Secret Santa. I belong to a really cool sci fi and fantasy forum called Treks in Sci Fi. I'm actually a moderator and spend hours and hours on there. Well we are such a tight group of people that we decided to do a Secret Santa and today I got my gift. It was from my friend Duffster and he got me the Harry Potter Scene It game 2nd edition and a Star Trek calendar. I have always wanted the HP Scene It game but never got around to buying it.. this version includes up to movie five which is AWESOME. And of course anything Star Trek is great... Thanks Duffster!!!!!

X-Mas Shopping

Today Harry and I had to go Christmas shopping. We still hadn't purchase stuff for his family that we have to mail out this week so it gets there before the 25th (for those who don't know Harry's family is in Austria). So we headed out and fought the traffic and crowds and went to several places looking for what we needed. Finally six hours later we were done. We had planned to go to the movies but both of us were very exhausted and drained so we hung out at home and watched TV. Well Harry worked on his "Home Video" for his family.. but I relaxed on the couch and watched TV.

The First of Many X-mas Parties

Today was our friends Gary and Steve's Christmas/Holiday Party. They live in the Hollywood Hills, so we decided to carpool with our friends Richard and Gary. It was a packed house and that's saying alot as they have a pretty big house. There were a ton of folks that we didn't know but there were some we did so we pretty much hung out with them all night. We did play some fun games. One was the Candy Kane Twist. You had to line up and one person started the music and while the music was going you had to hold onto a large candy cane, turn in a circle then pass the cane to the next person who did the same. This went on until the music stopped and the person holding the cane when the music stopped was out. Unfortunately Harry was the first victim and was out first. I did pretty good and made it to the final four but got stuck holding it and was out. Our friend Tom won that game. The next game was a numbers game where the person would call out a number and everyone would have to link together to make that number. So there are eleven people playing and the person says five. Everyone had to make groups of five and the person not part of the group was out. Harry didn't play this one and I was out after the second number. Our friend Bruce co-won this. All in all it was a fun night had by all.

Shooting Star

Tonight while driving to a Christmas Party I saw a falling star. I have seen them in the past here and there but normally it's out of the corner of my eye but this one fell directly in front of me as I was driving and lasted for a few seconds.. it's was pretty cool.. of course I made my wish.. well see if it comes true :)

Surprise you have to Work

Today I woke up at 10am and suddenly realized I didn't ask my night AE to upload the final LOCKED cut to the network so they could see it. This had to be done so I had to go in and do it myself. I spent about six hour doing this. Not what I planned for my Saturday but being boss sometimes you have do what isn't planed.

Finishing our First Show

Today we LOCKED (Completed) our first episode 201. We've been working on it for four months and this is our first episode of thirteen that we have locked. Nothing ever goes as planned but in the end everything always gets done. Now this episode moves on to ONLINE for final broadcast mix and we try and LOCK 202 by next Friday... and so on and so on.

TV Night

We have been doing TV nights for over two years and there is always a core group of us who get together every Thursday. The past few months it seems one or two folk’s cancel due to being sick or working late or various reasons, but the last few weeks everyone has cancelled. But today we had a full house. In addition to our regular crew our friends Richard and Gary joined us and brought along their friend, who was alot of fun. We watched one episode of Buffy season one and the rest of the time was socializing. It was a fun night.

Star Trek: The Tour

Today they announced Star Trek The Tour. It's launching this January in Long Beach. This is going to be one of the best Star Trek events of a lifetime. When I heard the news and that it was going to be close by in Long Beach I knew Harry and I would there. Tickets go on sale mid December and I'm so exited to get them.

Here's some more info.

In the last year, you've heard about some other legends on tour like the Police, Van Halen, and maybe even Led Zeppelin, but now comes the announcement of an event that will truly rock every Trek fan's world: Get set to book your tickets for STAR TREK THE TOUR !

This historic happening touches down on January 18 for a limited engagement at the legendary Queen Mary Dome in Long Beach, Calif., the beginning of a multiple-city tour across the United States over the next few years. Described as an interactive, action-packed experience, STAR TREK THE TOUR will feature exhibits from all five TV shows and each of the 10 movies.

THE TOUR will provide a unique opportunity to experience Star Trek up close and personal with sets, props and models, motion-simulator rides, merchandise and more all under one very large roof. One of the items that has us particularly excited is the chance to sit in Captain Kirk's chair from the Original Series, set on the Enterprise bridge. But that's just the beginning. Captain Picard's quarters are also on hand for you to see and experience, as well as the Enterprise-D bridge, and Dr. Crusher's sickbay.

STAR TREK THE TOUR has a pedigree of expertise as production designer Herman Zimmerman, costume designer Robert Blackman, make-up supervisor Michael Westmore and visual effects producer Dan Curry have all contributed to the production. Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry will also provide narration for a tribute to his father.

Other great opportunities include the ability to star alongside your heroes in an episode of your choice, and then take home the DVD to show your friends! STAR TREK THE TOUR comprises 50,000 square feet of exhibition space that allows you to leave reality behind and enter the Star Trek universe. This event is like nothing else ever attempted in the United States and provides literally tons of entertainment for adults as well as children, so bring the entire family! For more information, ticket prices, dates, location and more, please visit our STAR TREK THE TOUR mini-site for more!

More Action Figures

Man I don't know what it is.. but I bought more Doctor Who action figures today. It's a sickness I know, I can't help myself. New figures came out today and I just had to have them. the past few months have I have been really bad when it comes to buying action figures. I know I don't have the room but that doesn't stop me from buying. This past few months I have gotten Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Goonies, Labyrinth, Star Trek, and Lost action figures. Luckily Harry is cool with all these toys (one reason why I love him so much) he knows I'm addicted but he also know how much joy I get in buying this little pieces of painted plastic. I have cut down on what I get since the room is limited but I don't see myself ever stooping completely.

My Friends the Moyers

Today I found out that a friend of mine and his family were hit hard during the windstorms up in the state of Washington. His name is Rick and we met online in the Treks in Sci Fi forums. He's the kindest, most caring person you will ever meet He is a pastor with a heart of gold. When I heard what had happened my first concern was for his family. Luckily no one was injured but their house was damaged. The winds took off their roof and cause major water damaged inside. He and his family are having a tough time but they are surviving. Please think happy thoughts for the Moyer family from Washington.

Heroes is no more

Well due to the writers strike the second season of Heroes has been cut dramatically short. Tonight was the last episode for the season and possible till next September. It was a good episode, several of the main character's fate are in the balance. The wrapped up some of the storylines but still left quite a few open stories. The second season started off slow and moved along at a slower pace but of course they had no idea that the season was going to be cut short so alot of folks aren't happy with the second season of Heroes, I am not one of them.. I enjoyed every episode and can't believe we have to wait till next September for new episodes.. it's going to be a long 2008.

Visiting Dad

bToday I woke up and got started on my "special" Xmas gifts. Got a big part of it done.. but still alot to do.

Harry and I also went to see my Dad. We haven't been down to Corona in over a month since they have coming up here for various things. It was a nice visit. We had lunch at Hong Kong Restaurant (the best Chinese food in SoCal) and went a bit of Christmas shopping. Harry and I didn't find anything but Dad did. We then went home and spent the rest of the time sitting on a couch watching TV. It was a good Sunday.

Christmas Tree

Today I had to go into work for about four hours.. only planned on working an hour or so but things never go as planned.

When I got home Harry and I went out to buy our Christmas Tree. I always get our tree from Home Depot. Not only are they rather inexpensive but they have nice trees. This year we had a little trouble finding the right tree. Normally we take a look at two or three threes but this year we kept unraveling tree after tree with no luck. This year trees seem to be fuller on top then in the past. I wanted a triangle shaped tree and was determined to find one. So Harry and I looked at about ten trees before we gave up and went with a tree that we both liked but it wasn't perfect.

Once I got it home we put it up and it started to fill out more, as the hours passed the tree branches started to fall and it became more triangle. After several hours of letting it blossom open I started to decorate as Harry slept on the couch. I did lights first; I put over 400 lights on it. Just when I finished the lights Harry woke up and helped me decorate the tree. I can normally use all of our decorations but this year I had leftovers.. not sure if the tree is smaller or less round.. all I know if we put up a lot of stuff and couldn't fit anymore. I think in the end it turned our great and this is one of my favorite trees the past few years.

I also went and wrapped presets that we had already bought and placed them under the tree.

World AIDS Day

Today is a very special day. Let's take a moment and remember all those living with or have passed away from AIDS/HIV. I have many friends and loved ones effected by this horrible disease. All I can say is cherish every moment you have with them; you never know when they might not be around.

LOVE UNCONTIONALLY

Shrek the Halls

Tonight was a very specal Christmas show. Shrek the Halls premired on ABC . It had all the original voice cast and looked like a mini movie. It was short only 30 minutes but it was very funny and a new holiday favorite that I'll be watching year after year.

Decorated my Office

Today I decorated my office. Since I'm going to be in this little room for the entire month of December I figured I might as way make if festive. I put up lights all around the room, garland on my desk and stockings on the wall. Everyone seems to really like it. And of course I have Christmas music playing on my computer. Having my office decorated is a great way of keeping down my stress.

Xmas Shopping

Today Harry and I planned on doing a bit part of our Christmas shopping, of course I would have preferred to shop online but I can't get everything online and sometimes it's fun to actually go shopping. We made lists of all the presents we needed to get and started to work our way around town. It wasn't horrible out there, traffice was okay and parking was pretty good. We hit Michael's, Koels, Mervyns, Target, and Toys R Us then headed home for some lunch. Once we relaxed a bit we hit the Burbank Mall and Ikea. Every place we went to we managed to find something that we were looking for. So we are about halfway done with Christmas shopping this year. One more weekend and a few online purchases and we should be good. While watching TV at night I wrapped up everything we have gotten so far and if the pile is any indication we are going to have a great Christmas.

Christmas Lights

Today Harry and I finished putting up the lights on the house and then worked inside at decorating the inside of the house. We of course had to use our reserve lights that we had planned to return because we thought we were have plenty. You don't realize how many lights you need to cover a house. So on and off all day we would decorate and by nights end we had our living room/dining room all Christmas out and the outside looks like the Christmas Light fairy came by and work her magic. Christmas is both Harry and I favorite holiday so we go all out. And we still aren't done, this is only the beginning.

A Day Off???

Normally the day after Thanksgiving is a day off, but my current job do not have "holiday" pay and in order for me to get a full check this week I had to work Today and tomorrow to make up for taking off Thursday. There were only two other people who worked today so it was a fairly quiet day.

When I got home I had a surprise waiting for me in the mail. A friend’s documentary called "Pegwarmers". http://www.pegwarmers.tv/ This is a documentary about Geeks, collectors, DnD players, Costumers and anything else geeky. It shows people that we are like everyone else. We aren't all 40-year-old virgins living in their mother’s basements. This put a positive spin on being a geek. I have been dying to see this for about a year and he's been working on it for a long time. He said he was going to send me a preview copy and after months of waiting it finally arrived. Of course I had to put it on right away and watch it. Luckily Harry wanted to see it as well. It was great, you wouldn't believe it was a 'fan' made documentary. They currently have several companies interested in distributing it. I wish them the best of luck.

After watching Pegwarmers I decided to get a start on hanging Christmas light on the house. Harry and I pulled out all the Christmas light and started to check and see if they were still working. We also bought quite a few new strands and my Dad gave us a bunch of his. I figure that would be enough. It was getting dark quickly and I wanted to at least get the lights up on top of the house before it was too dark. After several tries and bad light strands we managed to hang all the lights ups on the rooftop. At least all the lights we had. We ran out which I didn't expect. So that was it for the night.. I plan on finishing tomorrow.

Thanksgiving

Like last year Harry and I went to my cousin Renee's house for Thanksgiving. This year was a bit different as her brother Darren and his family were not coming. Instead they had 10 young (19 -21) mormon Elders (priests) joining us. I don't know much about Mormonism but I guess when you become a Mormon priest you spend your first two years on a "mission" and since they didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving Renee invited them to join her family. Anyways it was a fun night, good food and great company.

Half-Day... Yeah Right!!!

Today was a half day here at work.. at least for some folks. Seems like people started to leave around 2 and by 3 almost everyone was gone.. well everyone but me and a few loggers. Instead of getting off early I actually stayed an extra hours and a half past my normal time I get off... so much for a half day.

Shopping Online

As I get older and the crowds get more rude I find myself turning to the internet for Christmas shopping. Not only do you get to avoid the traffic, parking lots and rude people you can shop while working, hanging at home or any free moment you have. The only down side to shopping online is that you pay for shipping, but since online prices are normally lower the shipping isn't so bad. I shop online mostly for DVD's and hard to find Ebay items. I still like shoping in 'real' stores but as I get older I can handle crowds less and less. After two hours of driving and dealing with people I'm ready to go home. So this year I'm trying to do more and more shopping online.

TV Strike

Well today was my first TV viewing casualty as a result of the writer’s strike. The Big Bang Theory is in repeats, no more new episodes. As much as I'm behind the writers it's hard to accept that this years TV season is going to be cut short.

Home Improvements

For our house warming party / bbq several folks gave us money and gift certificates so of course Harry and I had to go shopping. Our first stop was at Target. We got a new door knob for the garage (previous one didn't have a key), we got more Christmas decorations, we got another deep fryer (we love our french fries and our last fryer died), and we bought several Christmas gifts. Our next stop was going to be Michal's craft store. The only one I knew of was the one in North Hollywood, well after driving several miles we found out that it was gone, no longer at that location. So we decided to head to Home Depot. At Home Depot we got a screen door for the back door and a 6 foot ladder so I can hang Christmas lights.

When we got home we decided that we would put up the screen door. Well we figure we watch Trading Spaces and all those home improvment shows.. this was fairly straight forward... well we were wrong. Two hours later and three attempts to get the door on right we gave up and went to putting on the new door knob on the garage door. Again, this seemed like a simple task. I got the old door knob off.. no problem. I figure we could use the same inside guts and just put the new door knob on. We did this and shut the door we me inside garage and Harry on the outside. Of course I got locked in the garage and couldn't get out. Harry and to go around and open the front garage door so I could get out. Come to find out that the inside guts are different from the old knob.. so we have to replace everything and after several attempts we got the door knob on and working. YAY!!!!

Feeling good that we got that done we went back to the screen door. I figured you would measure your door and go and buy one and a few screws and it's up... yeah right. We got the screen door, and you have to cut it down, screw in the door handle, screw in the braces to hold the door on and so much more that I was not expecting.. of course we don't have the right tools so Harry and I use what we have and manage to get the door on and after five or six tries we got the handle on and working. We now have a back door screen door and it looks great. By this time we had spent about four hours putting up a screen door and putting in a new door knob... fun times.

House Warming Party

Today was our house warming party/ bbq. Harry and I cleaned the house from top to bottom the past few days. We had everything done by 11am and started to prepare the food. The part was to start at 12 noon. Well our first guest arrived at 12:45 and once one person came they rest followed quickly. Everyone liked the house and jaws dropped when folks saw my toy room. It was a good BBQ, our friend Gary was kind enough to take over doing the BBQ so I could continue to welcome guests. The final group of people left about 6pm. We had around 25 people show up, fun was had by all. BTW.. Daisy did really well with all the people.. she stayed in the backyard with everyone all day long.

Christmas Music

Well this morning we got into the car and I turned on KOST 103.5. Every year they play Christmas music all month long but they normally start sometime in November. And today I turned it on and I was there for there launch of there Christmas music. I was so excited. Christmas is my favorite time of the year and I am in such a great mood. And the other cool thing is that they are now streaming there broadcast online so I get to listen to Christmas music all day long at work which will help with the stressful enviroment. Listening to Christmas music has made me want to start to decorate. I have been trying to wait till after Thanksgiving,,, but I might start putting up lights this weekend :)

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Preparing for the House warming BBQ

Today Harry and I went to Ralphs during my lunch hour to get food for our House Warming BBQ this Saturday. I expected to spent some money but didn't expect to spend nearly $200.00. But we did buy 30 burgers, 20 hotdogs, beer, soda, chips, potatoe salad, cookies and all the fixings and that stuff tends to add up. The weather should be nice so it's looking to be a fun house warming bbq.

Pushing Daisies

If you are not watching this series you are really missing out on a very unique TV series. Pushing Daisies has become on new favorite TV series this season. It's quirky, charming, romantic, funny and the sytle is very cool. Check it out Wednesday at 8pm. Of couse with the strike there is only a few episodes left before repeats. I hope it did well enough in ratings that they bring it back next year.

Toy Room is complete!!!

Well after four weekends I have finall completed my toy room and it looked AWESOME!!!!!! I'll post some pics as soon as I figure out how I'm going to light the area up. Right now there are some dark corners that the light can reach.. once that is figure out I'll take some new pixs... it's great having it done and I think it turned out great.

Mom's Birthday

Today is my Mom's Birthday. She had a dinner part at Acapulco's mexican resturant. It was alot fun. Got to see some of my mom's friends as well as my aunt, uncle and two cousins.

Xmas Shopping

So it begins.... today Harry and I went out Christmas shopping. I love the holiday season and Christmas is my favorite holiday but man we were out only 3 1/2 hours and I was at my wits end with the stupid people out there shopping. I think the older I get the worse I get with crowds and traffic. We went to Target, Mervyn's and Wallmart and buy the time we left Wallmart I was ready to go home... I had had enough. So this was the best start to the holiday shopping season but we did buy a bunch of lights for the house.. I'm going to have a great time decorating our new house this year... I CAN'T WAIT.

Roaming Dogs

Maybe it's just because I lived in apartments all my life but I have never seen so many animals loose in the neighborhood. I see tons of cats but that's not really unusal. What surprise me were all the dogs running loose. Having Daisy and her being dog aggresive it's always tough when owners walk there dogs unleashed. But at our new place there are random dogs walking around the neighborhood unattended. This morning when I took Daisy out for a walk we noticed one across the street. As soon as this dog saw Daisy both dogs stopped and stared. Luckily I noticed this and started to head back to the house quickly as the dog started to run towards us. I got back in the house just in time but Daisy kind of gave me a look like that had to be the shortest walk ever.. instead I took her out in the backyard where it was safe. I think I'm going to have to buy some mace or pepperspray or something that I can use on "attacking" dogs.

Our Ebay Store

We now have over 200+ items in our Ebay store. We also just posted some very nice Holiday items and discounted some cool Halloween items. If you haven't looked at the store lately.. check it out...

http://stores.ebay.com/Federation-Outpost

Writers Strike

Well the TV and Movie writers have gone on strike. Many people have asked me will this effect my job since I work in TV. But for once I'm happy to say I work in reality TV and we don't use writers. That's not to say that reality TV isn't highly produced but we don't have official writers, plus we are a non-union show. So my job is safe and actually if the strike goes on for long there will be alot more reality show being done. I do hope the strike is resolved quickly. This strike not only effects the writers but soon it will have a trickle down effect and start effecting all the supporting jobs.

I'm a huge TV person and I know some shows have a few extra scripts already written that they can film.. but soon enough they will run out and then will get no more new TV. Which will effect production and postproduction a lot of people will be out of work. This could be the beginning of a very hard holiday season.

Feelling Better / Toy Room

Well today I was feeling better.. other then waking up in the morning with a stuff nose I felt 100% better then yesterday. So since I felt better I wanted to get some stuff done. Harry and I posted a bunch more items out our Ebay Store (which btw is doing pretty good). I also worked on my Toy room some more and got all but the bookshelves done. It looks great and I can't wait to show it off.

Under the Weather

Today was a horrible day.. I woke up with some sinus pressure, earache and sore throat. By mid day I was in the bathroom for hours on end have major stomach/bowel issues.. by the end of the day I was exhausted and didn't feel like doing anything. We did manage to watch the first five episodes of the new Bionic Woman series. It was very enjoyable, enough so that we want to keep on watching it.

Our First Meal

Today I got to cook on our stove for the first time... it was great. You don't realize how much you miss something until you don't have it. I made pork chops and chicken rice on our new magtag gas stove, it was great.

When Dusting Goes Bad

While I was getting ready for TV night I wanted to dust off my beautiful Star Trek Collector plates that I have had for 15 years. They are sitting on the fire place mantel. There are seven of them and I did a great job on six but when I got to the seventh one I dusted a bit to hard and knocked of off the mantel and watched in slow motion as it hit the chair then wall and broke into four pieces. I couldn't believe what I had just done. It was very upsetting. Those plates have managed to move from apartment to apartment and there has never been a problem... I get near them with a duster and they are dust.

Of course I go to Ebay because I have to replace it. It’s part of a 30-Year Anniversary set. And of the six different one I manage to brake the rarest and more expensive one of them all. Sometimes life just isn't fair.

The Stove Arrived

Yay!!!! After three weeks of eating out, microwaving and BBQing we got our new stove this morning. It looks great and is in perfect condition. The guys arrived at 9:30am and had it installed in less then 10 minutes. IT'S AWESOME!!! Can't wait to cook a meal.

Halloween

Well this was the first Halloween that we are living in a house and expect to get a bunch of kids tricker treating. Normally living in apartments you don’t' get many if any kids knocking on your door.. so I was really looking forward to this night. Of course I bought a ton of candy and also bought a full box of Hershey full size bars. I wanted to be the cool guy who is giving out full candy bars. Well come to find out my friend Tom was having a Halloween party that night as well, which I totally forgot about. So I got home and wanted to spend at least an hour handing out candy before we went to the party. It was so much fun. So many cute kids in costumes. I was handing out handfuls of candy knowing I had very little time to get rid of the stuff. Well around 8:30 we had to get over to our friends Tom's party. I got rid of about half of the candy so we still have a big bowl of candy sitting in the house.

We had a good time at Tom's. Saw some friends that we haven't seen in a while. We watched Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror and a really crappy cheesy murder mystery type of movie that we all made fun of. It was a fun night.

Toy Room

Today I worked on my Toy Room some more... I have been telling Harry the past three weeks that I was going to finish it and of course it never happened. We seem to always be doing something on the weekends. Well today I was determined to do nothing but the toy room, and for the most part I did. I got about 80% of it done and it's coming along nicely. Of course not everything is going to fit in the room as planned but it still looks great and I did manage to put out my favorite toys. Once this room is done we will set up a day for our house warming party..

Halloween Party

Tonight Harry and I went to our friend Christopher's Halloween party. I dressed up as Harry Potter of course and Harry went has himself. My friend Christopher goes all out for Halloween.. his place looked great. It was a lot of fun sitting around, drinking and chatting with friends.

New Stove and more

Today Harry and I went to Home Depot, we planned to get some curtains for the house. We also wanted to look at screen doors. What we didn't expect was to find a Gas Stove. I have been looking online for a used stove but when we saw this stove and it was on sell for $399.99 we couldn't pass it up. We both agreed that it would be better to have a new stove rather than a used one since we were dealing with gas. So with the purchase of the stove that limited us on what else we could get at that time. We picked up a few light switch cover plates, two cutains rods and four really cool multi color curtains. We figured we would do two in the living room and two in the dining room since they are connected.

The stove will be delivered on Thursday, we are both very excited since it's been about three weeks since we had a really good cooked meal that wasn't microwaved or BBQ.

We went to put up the curtains and sure enough just two curtains weren't enough for the front living room window, so we had to steal one of the curtains that was suppose to go up in the dining room. So now we have to go back and buy one more curtain so we can at least finish the living room/dining room area.

Friends who have houses always say that you are never at a lose for buying stuff from your house.. and that is so true.. Harry and I had so much fun walking through Home Depot. So many cool things to buy.. too bad we don't have the money to do so. I guess will get a little at a time. Next up is paint for the living room, dining room and kitchen.

Relief in sight

Well the fires are far from out.. but with cooler weather and less wind the firefighters are making headway with these horrible fires. Still no word about the cabin but we're pretty sure it's still standing.

My Mom's Cabin

One of the many fires in SoCal is called the Slide fire. It's up near Green Valley Lake. This is where my mom's cabin is. Harry and I along with many friends have visited this area the past few years. Now the first has completely surrounded the small town. Everyone has been evauated and reports are coming in that of the 300 strutures 200 of them are burnt down. Also of the six buildings that make up the town of Green Valley are gone as well. It's a very sad down. Green Valley was such a beautiful place to relax and now it's blacken and smuldering. The last we heard the fire was two streets away from the cabin but it looks like the cabin was spared... at least for now. This fire is 0% contained. Just have to keep our fingers crossed.

You can see the lake in the middle of this picture.. the red outline is what has been burned.. Green Valley is completely surrounded by flames.

The Brown Moon

With all the smoke in the air we have a very brown full moon. It's very bizarre. Some fires are getting under control but other are still on the rampage.

Fires, Fires, Everywhere

This has been a really bad few days. There are fires all around Southern California. From Santa Barbra to San Diego. Thousands of home have been lost and half a million people have been evacuated. This has been the worse wildfires I have seen in years. It's super dry and the santa ana winds are blowing. Today I walked out of work and looked up at the beautiful blue skies. Then looking at the horizon there was this thick black/brown smoke all the way around me. We had fires on the north, souch, east and west of us. We had ash and smoke coming from 70 miles away. It looks like all of SoCal is on fire.

The Vet

Today was Daisy's biannual Vet visit. She is always happy to leave the house and today was not exception. But once she realized where we were going and when we pulled up to the Vet building she started to whimper. It's like dragging dead weight when going inside. I really don't understand her fear since the Vet hasn't been a horrible place for her. She occasionally gets shots but that is the extent of it. Everything went well, she lost some weight, which is good. The only thing the doctor said is that she'll need some dental work. And with dental work the knock out the dog so they had to do some blood test to make sure everything would be okay with the anasteshia. Well for that they had to take blood and would be doing in the back. So the vet picked Daisy and carried her way. The look on her face was of sheer panic and confusion on why we were giving her away. About ten minutes later the tech person comes back not looking too happy and handing us Daisy back. He mentioned that they will be having a dental sale on Feb and we should wait to make our appointment then. We really like this Doctor. We were good to go and I went to pay the bill. $450.00. I almost fell over.. our normal visits are about $100.00 so I was not expecting this. Oh well she's our little girl and her health is very important. So now we have to wait till Feb to make an appointment for her dental work.. which I know she is just going to love.

Wally's Birthday

Today was my uncles birthday party. It was going to be at his daughter's Renee's place out in Hidden Hills. When they have parties they are pretty much and all day thing. We haven't been to Renee's since last Christmas so I wasn't exactly sure I knew the directions. But I figured between Harry and I we would managed. Well we start to drive and continue to drive and I start to notice that none of this looks familar to me. We get past Agora Hills and I turned to Harry and say " I think we went to far" but I didn't see a sign that said "Hidden Hills" or Mulhollun Drive. Harry says "oh I saw a sign for Mulhollum a while back. So we turned around and headed back and of course there the exit was, only 2 miles from where go got on the freeway. So we found the exit and I tried to call my Dad because I couldn't remember the street she lived on. Well his phone had no siginal so we were on our own. After three attempts at dead ends we finally found the right street and made it there.

The party was fun. We got to meet Wally's sister Betty who was visiting from Hawaii and also having a birthday. We hung out and ate for about five hours. I knew we had to take Dad home so we left around 7:30pm and went home to pick up Daisy. I was already super tired and I still had to drive an hour and a half to Corona to drop off day and then back again. Well by the time we got home.. around 11pm I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.. after watching the news for five minutes we headed to be for some much needed sleep.

Dumbledore is Gay

Yesterday while on her press tour, J.K. Rowling was asked about Dumbledore's love life. Jo said she always felt that Dumbledore was gay.

Now there is no mention of this in the books but I always had my suspicions that this was the case. Of course this revelation has caused quite an uproar. There are three camps, one is made up of people who kind of knew and is happy that it is finally announced. Another would be people who had no idea but still are cool with it and the third of course are people who now say the books have ruined by this info.

I belong to a lot of Harry Potter yahoo groups made of people from all over the world. I can't understand why when people here gay they think of pedifiller. I have read many comments about how gross it is now knowing that he is gay and the kind of relationship he had with Harry. I also can't believe people say that now that they know this information they can't like Dumbledore anymore, even though nothing has changed in the books.. Dumbledore is still the same Dumbledore.

Being a gay man might skew my view, but I don't see what Dumbledore being gay has to do with the story of Harry Potter. Nothing is ever mentioned in the books. The stories haven't changed, we just get a little background info on one of the main characters.

I'm proud of Jo for making this announcement, it shows that strong, powerful people can also be gay and that it's okay. I guess you will always have "religious" people spewing their hate and mean comments... oh well… such is life.

Nothing much going on.

This week has been a fairly quiet week. Didn't do anything fun or special. Worked hard as work is really getting crazy and when I get home I plan on organizing my toy room but very little of that actually gets done because I'm so tired. Instead I spend a few hours with Harry before I head to bed.

I did enjoy some good TV this week. Little People Big World is back and is a good as ever. Another funny Big Bang Theory, an awesome Heroes, and very charming Pushing Daisies.

All in all not much is going on.

Things End... New Beginnings

Well today is offically the day. It's our last day in the apartment. We haven't been there for a week but today is officially they day we had to be out. The only thing we had left was to put the shower head back on and take the cans to recycling.

I had gotten up early again and started to unpack the toy room and organize. Once Harry got up we went to the recycling place and turned in about 3 1/2 bags of crushed cans and got about $80 bucks. We then went over to the apartment, put on the shower head, took one last look and said our goodbyes. It was a good apartment. It was the first place Harry and I got together. So there are many good memories there.

Once home I kicked in to over drive and started to organize the garage, office, bedroom, living room and toy room. By the end of the day I had finished everything I wanted to.... well almost everything. The house is unpacked and everything is in it's place except the toy room. That will take me a bit longer to complete. After I finish the toy room we have to move on to the garage where we have several boxes that need to be gone through and decided to keep or trash. The house looks great and Harry, Daisy and myself are very happy it's all over. Now we can enjoy life in a house.

Soon as I have finished my toy room will be having a house warming party.. be on the look out.

Moving the Jeep

Well today I attacked my toy room. I really wanted to finish unpacking everything and start to put things up. but we had to move Harry's Jeep, which I knew would take several hours. It is currently non-operational so I had asked my brother, who has a ball on his truck to come help tow it to the house. Well my brother, sister-in-law and dad arrive. We go to UHaul and find out that in order to use there car dolly you had to disconnect your drive shaft from your rear tires. It sounded like a lot of work for such a small thing. It was also going to cost my $39.95 to rent the dolly. After hearing what we had to do to tow it Michael said I should just use AAA. Of course I had thought of that but wasn't sure they would move a car from one place to another, it really wasn't an emergency. Well we figured it would be cheaper and a lot less hassle to try. So I called up AAA and since I have the "classic" deal I get 7 miles of free towing and they had no problem moving the jeep.

Before we called AAA my dad, lora and mike took a look at the Jeep and said it sounded like it was fuel problem, that it was either the fuel filter which was easy to change or the fuel pump which is a bit tougher to change. So Harry and I replaced the fuel filter but still it didnt' work... it seems it's the fuel pump.

So I should have went with my first instict and went with AAA but instead I spent about five hours of my unpacking time dealing with the Jeep.. but in the end the Jeep made it to the house safe and shound and we are a few steps closer to getting it repaired.

I did get back to unpacking but I was very tired and only got a bit more done. Oh well there is always Sunday.

It's Over... FINALLY!!!!!

Today on my extended lunch I went the the apartment and packed up the last of our stuff into my Jeep. That is all.. there is nothing else to move. Well that's not totally true. We still have Harry's non-operational Jeep sitting in the underground parking. We are going to get that this coming weekend. We also have to go and clean the place up. I know we aren't going to get much of our deposit back so we aren't going to do a super cleaning.. just get rid of the trash and clean here and there. But it's over.. no more moving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now the fun part of unpacking and making the new place look cool.

Will this ever end!!!!

During my extended lunch (I have had quite a few of these the past few weeks) I headed to the apartment to pack what I could into my Jeep. It was mostly odds and ends but still couldn't get everything in... one more day!!!

Big Screen TV and Moving

Today we got to sleep in a bit till 9am. We had to be down in Newport Beach to pick up a Big Screen TV that my mom bought for Harry and I for our birthdays. It belonged to a neighbor of hers. We arrived at 11am and picked up the TV, we strapped it in and then my mom said we could have her patio set. Which consisted of a table, unbrella and four chairs. She was also giving us four ouside chairs and two small tables. Now the plan was to fit all this in a small pick up truck. Well we had the TV, table, four chairs, umbrella and two small tables. We couldn't get the four other chairs and will have to pick them up later. We tied everything down and made sure it was nice a secure. We made our way home and got to Sunset in West LA on the 405 when we hit a bump and Harry said.. I think the TV shifted and sure enough I look in the mirror and the ropes and blankets were flapping in the wind. We quickly pulled over and tried to re-secure the items but we were close enough to take streets home and after two more stops to secure things we made it home safely. We unloaded everything then went to Target to get a few things for the house, one being a Microwave since we have no stove at the moment and were tired of eating out food. Well $400 dollars and two hours later we left Target and dropped everything off at the house and then had to head to the apartment to finish up there. We managed to bring everything down to the living room and we knew it would take more then one more trip.. so we packed up what we could in the truck and jeep and brought it over ot the new house. I was disappointed that we couldn't get everything, I so want this to be over... but it will happen. By this time it was about 10pm and I still wanted to organize the living room, I really wanted to set up the Big TV and watch an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. So as tired as I was I moved around boxes and furniture until Harry and I were happy with the set up then we sat down and turned on the big screen TV for the first time and popped in a TNG episode and kicked back. It ended just past 11:30pm and again exhusted I headed to bed.

MOVING DAY

It's funny calling this moving day since Harry and I have been moving since last Sunday. But today was the day when we rent the UHaul and get the bulk of our stuff over to the house. By today we had moved about 2/3's of the boxes but there were still quite a bit of stuff to move. I rented the 17 foot UHaul and figued we would have to do several trips. A few weeks ago when we got the house I sent out a mass email to all of our friends for help with the move. I know moving sucks.. believe me I have done it enough and though I hate it I always help out friends when needed for this task. Well I got a few responses from my mass email and of those responses a few had plans (it happen to be Gay Day at Disneyland) and several were injured and could not help out but the majority just ignored my email....so we were on our own. Luckly my brother, his wife and my Dad did offer to help which was great.

Harry and I got up at 7am and picked up the UHaul, we still have some stuff to pack and did that for a few hours. By 9am we started to pack up the truck. Mike, Lora and Dad showed up about 10:30am and the moving really started to pick up. We had the truck loaded in no time. We went to the house, uploaded and headed to Denny's were I bought lunch for everyone. During lunch my brother informed me that they would help pack up the second load to the truck but had to leave after that, due to the fact that he had to go out drinking of something. So we packed up the truck for a second time and Mike, Lora and Dad left. Harry and I drove the truck to the house unpacked and returned the truck to UHaul before they closed. We still have stuff at the apartment but we were exhusted and knew we still had Sunday to pick the remaining stuff up. Back at the house we made a makeshift bed and fell asleep...

Work Craziness and oh... still moving

Today I was called into the Executive Producers office and told that she and the company were parting ways. Work has been falling behind but I never expected this. This happend midway through today and things just kind of got crazy. After work I headed home to pack more. I am one to have everything packed and ready to go before we start to move but this has been a really crazy few weeks and so there was still quite a bit to pack. I was hoping to go home and do some packing and get to bed early because we had to be up at 7am to get the UHaul truck. Well as most of my plans, it didn't turn out that way. Both Harry and I were up late packing. We were exhusted from all the moving during the week and all the packing at night. We knew this weekend it would all be over and we couldn't wait for the weekend to be over.

Working, Moving, Working, Moving

This week it's been pretty much work, move, work, move. When I'm not working, I'm moving. Harry continues to take stuff over to the new house while I take stuff in my Jeep to work then while on my extended lunch I'll take the stuff over to the house, met up with Harry and have lunch. Then when I get off work I had either to the apartment and pick up more stuff or over to the house to grab more boxes so I can go back to the apartment and pack up more stuff. And I'm doing this while not feeling so hot. I think all the stress and no sleep has finally taken a toll on my body. So now I get to work, move, work, move and be sick.... ahhhhh life is good. I gotta keep telling myself.. we are moving into a house.. so it makes all this worth it.

Finally Sleep

Well I've had 3 hours sleep in the last 48 hours... It's been a rough few days, but I'm still functioning. I've had my good hours and my bad hours. Work is just crazy and everyone is feeling it. Harry managed to take another load of boxes to the house and was there most of the day organizing and unpacking. I stopped by for a bit to have lunch and see Harry and Daisy. We still can't beleive we live in a house now.. it's very exciting. Okay... sleepy time now. good night...

Working in the wee hours

Well it's 2:30am and I'm at work. I'm exhusted from the previous day move. I have been up since 6am and can't believe my mind is still able to form words. I'm preping an output of our first episode, the producers and editors have been here all weekend. This was suppose to happen Sunday afternoon but as it always happens there were delays and now it should be done around 3am then I get to convert it to a quicktime which should take an hour or so then upload which can take three to four hours. Then I get to go home for a few hours and sleep, then come back to the craziness. At least that is the plan.. will see how things go... I'M SOOOOOOOOOOO TIRED!!!!

Pre-Moving Day

Today I couldn't sleep, I was so excited about starting the move to our new house. I woke up around 6am and couldn't fall back to sleep so I decided to get up at 6:30am and began to organize boxes and what stuff remained in my toy room to pack. Harry got up shortly after and we headed over to our friend Chris's place to pick up his pickup truck. He and his wife are in Hawaii for a few weeks and he said we could use his truck. We got back with his truck and loaded up our first load and headed over to our new house. We met up with Bill paid our first rent and started to move in. The place looked alot bigger now that the previous owners stuff was gone. Harry and I walked through the house and choose which rooms would be my toy room, office and bedroom. We did a total of five trips and moved about half the boxes we had in the living room. It's slow going but it's a start. By next Saturday Oct 6th (our big move) we should have most of the boxes already over there. Both Harry and I are very tired not only from all the moving but getting early in the morning.

Packing, Packing and More Packing

Today Harry and I spent the majority of the day packing up my Toy room. Now that we are a few days from Oct 1st, I am felling the pressure to have everything packed up and ready to move. We got a call from Bill and he told us we would be able to start to move stuff in Sunday September 30th, we were very excited. Late in the day we ran out of boxes and instead of buying more we knew we would start to move stuff over tomorrow so we could unpack stuff and re-use boxes. Can't wait till this is all over and we are in our new house.

Only a half of month in the Apartment

Today I got the apartment people to only charage us half of the month of October. When I gave notice on Sept. 10th I gave a 50 days notice that meant we had to get out by Oct. 31st. I had no idea we would find a place in only 10 days.. we don't have that kind of luck, but we did. So now we were stuck paying for rent in October for two places, good thing was that we could take our time moving, bad thing was it was alot of money. So I asked the apartment people if we could only pay half of the month of October and be out by Oct. 14th. I got a reply stating that since we gave notice on Sept. 10 that we could leave by Oct. 1th and only pay for 10 days. I did not like this as I wanted at least two weekends in October to move and I emailed them back asking if we could get an extra five days. They agreed and now we are only paying half of October's rent and we get a full two weeks to move into our new house.

More TV

Since we only watch Eureka on Tuesdays, which is AWESOME and next week will be it's last for a while we were able to catch up on Monday nights CBS comedies. How I Met Your Mother and the new one Big Bang Theory. How I Met Your Mother was funny, it's been good since it premired two seasons ago. The big surprise was Big Bang Theory. I have to say I have never laughed so hard before at a TV show. This is by far the funniest comedy I have seen in a long time. If you haven't seen it you must catch it next time. If you are a geek, nerd or just like to laugh out loud you'll love this show. I could identify with so much of it, it was scary. Big Bang Theory airs Monday at 8:30 on CBS. Check it out.

TV is Back

Well the summer is over and today is the first day of the new fall TV season. There are quite a few new scifi-ish type of shows on. And of course the return of my favorite sereis from last season Heroes. Monday nights we are watching on NBC Chuck, Heroes and Journeyman and on CBS How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory. Here are my thoughts on the first three from NBC. Won't be about to watch the CBS stuff till tomorrow..

Chuck - I have to admit I watched this premiere because it was on before Heroes and it looked somewhat interesting. After it was over I enjoyed it enough to watch the next episode.. it didn't blow me away. I did like the mix of comedy and action. Some of the fighting scenes were great and the action scenes where fun too. I look forward to seeing where this show goes. It has one of my favorite guys Adam Baldwin.. I'd watch just for him.

Heroes Season Two - This is the one series return that I have been looking forward to the most and it didn't disappoint. I thought it was packed full of information. They caught up with a few of our favorite Heroes and introduced a few new ones. I loved the whole Claire/Noah stories. The family sitting around the dinner table being bored out of there minds... priceless. The Hiro/kinsei story is good, I am a Hiro fan and I just hope they don't spend to much time on his story. I knew Nathan and Peter were coming back so seeing Nathan was no biggie and I kept waiting for Peter to show up. I did like Mr. Nakamora calling Mrs. Petrelli out about their sons and was cheering when Nathan kicked his mom out. And I'm not so sure Mr. Nakamora is dead.. he may have a power, maybe he can heal?? And it was great to see more heroes with the say powers, ie the boy Wes who was floating and watching Claire, creepy.. yes.. but cool. Can't wait for the next episode and see what's going on with other Heroes.

And finally Journeyman - So I watched this new series and I enjoyed it.. I was a bit confused as to why he was jumping and I'm sure they will explain more as the series goes on but it was enjoyable.I really liked that you thought through out the episode that he was there to save the man's life but really he was there to make sure this man's unborn child was born to be a great man... that was awesome. I look forward to next weeks episode.

Our New House

Since we hadn't seen our house during the day we thought we would drive by after having our birthday breakfast. So here it is... it's our new place. The neighborhood is a more lived in area.. looked a bit better a night but it's not horrible. Can't wait to get the keys and start moving stuff in.

Happy Birthday To Me!!!

Today is my 37th birthday. It started at 7am when Harry and I had to get up and drive to my Mom and Chuck's because they wanted to make Harry and I a birthday breakfast. We had a nice time, Chuck made us breakfast. Mom and Chuck's neighbor was selling a large screen TV, So mom bought it for us for our Birthday (they still haven't bought anything for Harry's birthday). So we have a new 50" plus TV. Don't really know how big it is but it's nice. It will be a good in between TV before we get our really large HD TV in the future. The rest of the day we have just been packing here and there. Been getting Happy Birthday emails and phone calls all day today. With the move happening in a few weeks I decided not to really do any kind of birthday party so it's been a pretty mellow birthday.

Rainy Day

Today we finally got rain after five months of nothing. It rained hard but it was well needed. Harry and I stayed in all day to pack, pack and oh yeah pack some more. Continued to pack up my toy room. Boxes keep going out but it seems that I'm not making a dent in the toy room. I'm happy to be moving, but man I hate the packing part.

We got the HOUSE!!!!!!!

I got up early the today so I could get to work around 8 to fax my application for the house we say the previous night. I wanted to be the first to do it since I knew the other couple were very interested. I got to work and faxed it over to Bill. He called a few minutes later and told me he got it and will let me know by Friday. Well about two hours later he called and said I'm almost ready to give you the house but I do have one question. Since you are freelance would it be possible to see your past few years of tax forms just to make sure I make enough on my own. I told him that's not a problem. He said great let me talk to my accountant and I'll give you a call back in a few hours. A few hours pass and he called and says I would like to offer you the house. I was over the moon, I couldn't believe we finally got some good luck and got the house. I was so excited the first I did was call Harry. I had never heard him so excited before in my life. We were talking and being all giddy.. it was pretty funny.

We planned to meet at a local McDonalds and sign the lease at 7:30. Of course work was hell and I really had to force myself to leave to make it on time. I got home around 7:15 and couldn't find my tax forms so I started to panic. I did manage to fine an older tax paper and a Dec 06 paystub with my total gross and I did print out my balance in my savings. So we headed to McDonalds, where Bill was just finishing up dinner. We sat down and I showed him my paperwork, he looked it over and said.. looks good. So we started to go over the lease and the pet agreement and I signed on the dotted line. We now have a one year lease with an option to sign another one year lease. After I signed we sat there for an hour or so and just talked. Come to find out that, that house has been up for three or four weeks at $1850 and he has had alot of people look at it but he didn't feel the chemistry with them. He said there was on girl and her boyfriend who were very close but the day he was going to call and give it to her she called him and said boyfriend got cold feet and didn't want to move in together. He had just lowered it the day I saw it and have gotten hundreds of phone calls about it. Bill told us he didn't care about the money he wants good people who will really enjoy the house as much as he did. It was the first house he and his wife bought, they raised their kids there. The house means alot to him. We really connected with Bill. He's going to be an awesome landlord. So we feel very privilege that Bill chose us out of quite a few people. As I type this I still can't believe we are going to be living in a house. We now have a month to move in since we are paying rent at our old place and the new place. So it should be a fairly stressless move.

House Searching

So today towards the end of my shift I decided to take a look at craigslist and see if there were any houses for rent with in our price range. I have been looking three or four times a day for houses since we have to be out by the end of Oct. I see the new listing for a Three bedroom, 1 bath house in Reseda. Now Reseda is a hit and miss kind of city. Some parts are very slummy and some aren't so bad. They were asking $1750 a month for rent. It's a bit above where I wanted to pay but it was three bedrooms and said it had a very large backyard, another thing Harry and I are looking for. I normally don't like to bother people late at night so I decided to call in the morning. Well in the ad it said to call and leave a message and they would get back to you. I figured it was a voicemail system and why not call and leave a message.

Well I called and a man picked up the phone. I told him I was interested in house. He had a friendly voice and we chatted a bit about the place. He told me that he was showing the house tonight at 7:30 and gave me the address. I told him I wasn't sure what time I was getting off work but we would drive by and check out the area and then give him a call.

I did manage to get out of work early and I called him up and told him we would love to stop by and check out the house. He asked that we get there at 7:45 so he could show the house to a couple right before us. We got there a little early and we really liked the area. It's a lived in neighborhood but not run down and the house was cute and had a well taken care of look to it. Just as we pulled up three people walked out of the house and talked in front for about ten minutes. This couple was very interested and he gave them applications and they left. We got out of the car and walked up to the front door and met Bill (the owner). Just like he was on the phone he was a very friendly guy. He showed up inside and told us a little history of the house.

The living room/dining room is fairly small but nice, we then checked out the three bedrooms, Master bedroom is a good size, second one is a bit smaller and the third one is the smallest. It has a pretty nice bathroom and there are tons of cabinets and closets. The house was built in the 50's and has really cool architectural features. We next went to the kitchen, there are no appliances and it's fairly small but it's workable. Next was the backyard and that did it. The house is cute and nice but the backyard is AWESOME. The house sits on a 3000 sq feet lot and the house is about 1300 sq. feet so the back yard is about 2500 sq. feet. It has a nice patio area and an extra concrete rock patio on the side. And it had a one car garage.

It was everything we were looking for. The owner Bill was a super nice guy. We told him we were interested and really wanted this to work out. Bill seems to really like us also. He gave me an application and told me to fax it over to him first thing in the morning. Keep your fingers crossed that we get this place... we will be very disappointed if we don't.. it's perfect for us.