Blog Master G

We celebrated the start of summer after work yesterday with a happy hour patio party at the new Marriott in town, not a far walk from our house. Justin, Niki, and Seth joined in the fun. Although the vodka lemonade was weak, you can’t beat free finger food, including shrimp and clams.

Last night concluded my power run through the first three seasons of Alias, which began back in April. Some nights I’d watch as many as four episodes in a row. It’s an exceellent show and I find myself now comparing most other shows and movies to it, including Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Batman begins, neither of which could hold a candle to Alias in terms of production quality, tightness of story, and pure entertainment. I’ve had more than one Alias dream, too. I’m not sure what I’m going to do until Season Four is released.

The rising cost of local living | Region rides wave of rising home prices

Summer officially arrived at 2:46am this morning, but it’s felt like it’s been here since Memorial Day and the unofficial start of summer, despite some of the insane thunderstorms we’ve had. We’ve also already seen much hotter weather than usual: “June thus far has had an average temperature of 72.5, or 7.4 degrees above normal.”

I spent about an hour-and-a-half last night on yard work: mowing, weed whacking, and watering. I really enjoy it and feel as though I’m starting to understand it more. Not that I ever didn’t enjoy home ownership, but I feel like I’m getting the hang of it now. A year ago when I did things like mow the lawn, maybe I hadn’t bonded with the house or the land yet. Or maybe it had just been years since I had mowed any lawn and I’ve finally built up the experience again. It’s like that feeling Jen and I occasionally have when driving around town and share a memory about having been in that spot right when we moved to town — and how it looks and feels different; the orientation is off somehow. Maybe I’m finding my Chi. Or making this my Zen place.

Either way, it feels good.

Every once in a while a dog photo shoot is in order.

You can only catch a glimpse of it in the first couple seconds of this video, but every time Happy gets a bath, he does this little dance to dry himself off. He hates being wet. Next time, I’ll grab the camera earlier on in the dance so you can see more of it. It cracks me up every time.

Watch Happy’s towel dance video

On April 21, 2003, while living in our San Francisco apartment, Jen and I each wrote down ten personal goals. During our recent spring cleaning, I came across the sealed envelope at the back of my top dresser drawer. We decided to open the envelope. Some of the goals were funny and were stretches, but all were real things that we wanted to achieve.

Two years later, we had both achieved more than 50% of our goals.

At least one of my goals was very specific: “Own a 2-bedroom, 2-bath house with private, southern-facing yard, hardwood floors, and gas stove.” You know what? Add a bedroom to that description, and that’s our house. I might have had a San Francisco house in mind when I wrote that down, but I didn’t actually specify, and our life course changed in such a way that we were able to achieve that goal.

I’ve been an extreme optimist my entire life. My parents always told me that I could achieve anything I set my mind to. I believed them and still do. When I was young, my mom always told me the importance of writing down goals. I haven’t always done it — usually I just envision something or make up my mind that I will achieve it — but now I have proof that it really does work.

So write down those goals. What do you want out of life? What do you want to achieve for yourself and your loved ones? As much as we all hate that age-old interview question, where do you see yourself in five years?

Dear Congress,

It’s despicable to think that you might do away with the important resources of NPR, PBS, and public radio on which we rely for unbiased news, education for our children, and in-depth reporting about the world in which we live.

These are all qualities that one is hard-pressed to find in the mainstream media, especially with conservative businessmen like Rupert Murdoch advancing his own agenda with FOX News.

Quality journalism is a dying breed and I urge you NOT to cut funding for public broadcasting.

You know that email petition that keeps circulating about how Congress is slashing funding for NPR and PBS? Well, now it’s actually true. (Really. Check at the bottom if you don’t believe me.)

Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS:

http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/?t=1

A House panel has voted to eliminate all public funding for NPR and PBS, starting with “Sesame Street,” “Reading Rainbow,” and other commercial-free children’s shows. If approved, this would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch.

The cuts would slash 25% of the federal funding this year — $100 million — and end funding altogether within two years. The loss could kill beloved children’s shows like “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” “Arthur,” and “Postcards from Buster.” Rural stations and those serving low-income communities might not survive. Other stations would have to increase corporate sponsorships.

The next vote on the cuts will take place today (Thursday). Help us reach 500,000 signatures to be delivered to the committee members.

http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/?t=2

Thanks!

P.S. Read the Washington Post report on the threat to NPR and PBS at:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=745

Jen and I certainly came to Saratoga Springs in search of easy living. The verdict is in, and we found it. But we’re not the only ones seeking the good life here. An ongoing challenge of a popular, quickly growing small town is to figure out how to keep it that way — how to keep its small-town charm and its vibrant downtown, while preserving all the big-city reasons we and others decide to plant roots here (Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the Spa State Park, the New York City Ballet, the museums, the Race Course, etc.).

Capital News 9 / One-on-One with Mayor Michael Lenz:

In too many corners of Upstate New York, the story is the same — a struggle to attract people and keep them. That, though, is not the story of Saratoga Springs today. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

“You know, we have challenges that we face as a community, but all the challenges we face are born of success. I mean we really are in a situation where so many people want to come to this city, to live here, they want to work here, they want to raise their families here. And it’s a wonderful thing. But the reality is that even successes have challenges, and we are trying very hard to deal with them,” said Saratoga Springs Mayor Michael Lenz.

In that way, Saratoga Springs is a city drawing in people in search of easy living. But as more people come, preserving that easy lifestyle becomes harder and harder. With the people, comes the spotlight and it can get hot. In this case, it can get exclusive. Saratoga Springs is still small town America, and there are many willing to pay any price for a piece of it. A price that is, for many, too high.

More…

One year ago today Jen and I became first-time homeowners, realizing the American Dream. It’s been an amazing year and I love owning a special home. Aside from the obvious benefits of not paying rent, we’ve had so many great memories already, from the parties to the bocce to the BBQs to porch sitting to the snow blowing to the mowing, and countless more to come.

Some home improvement highlights from the past year:

• Had the hardwood floors refinished (then | now)
• Painted our guest room
• Had flashing installed on the roof above the porch
• Had two new support beams added in the basement beneath the first floor
• Had the plumbing fixed
• Fixed a leaky pipe
• Sealed some holes to battle our mouse problem
• Reseeded and planteed new grass

Some things we’d like to do:

• Paint the exterior
• Paint the downstairs
• Trim the spruce tree branches
• Buy new furniture/decorations
• Maybe replace the original windows with modern, more energy-efficient (and less pain-in-the-ass) variety

Home is not only where the heart is; it’s part of who you are.

(We also returned from our last trip to Vegas one year ago today.)

This was probably the hottest weekend it’s been in the year-and-a-half we’ve lived in Saratoga Springs. It was in the high 80s/low 90s. Throw in the humidity, and it probably felt like 100 degrees all weekend long. (It’s only 7:30 in the morning now and already it’s 85% humidity.) It’s so humid that the paint on doors and kitchen cabinets is sticking to itself. It’s so hot that I ran out yesterday to buy a new window air conditioner for our bedroom since the old one broke. (The heating and cooling service place comes later this morning to fix our big, downstairs unit, which is only piping out uncooled air.)

It’s so hot that yesterday we brought our new dehumidifier up from the basement to use on our first floor all afternoon and into the night. In the basement, the machine drains via modified garden hose into our sump pump hole. Upstairs, I was astounded at the end of the night to find the 35-pint dehumidifier at least half-full of water! Having grown up in California where humidity is nothing like it is on this coast, the concept of sucking water out the air blew me away. I had to call my brother to share in my amazement; he was equally astounded.

There are more scattered thunderstorms in the forecast this week, so hopefully the rain will cool the air and bring some much-needed relief to this heat wave. It’s hard to think when it’s this hot. It’s also pretty incredible to think I now live in a place where the temperature varies by more than 100 degrees throughout the year (nearly 20 below in January to 90 degrees and higher the past week).

Despite the heat, other adventures this weekend included grilling delicious cajun catfish and watching Empire Falls last night with my mother-in-law; mowing the lawn and doing other yard work yesterday morning; going to dinner and seeing Mr. and Mrs. Smith in Albany with Tracy and Christine Saturday night; hitting the farmer’s market Saturday afternoon; playing Elfin Dressup and hitting the town with Justin Friday night; and walking a lap at the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life Friday night.

How cool is Google Sightseeing? Whether it’s the UFO blobs over Florida and LA, CIA headquarters in Virginia, or SBC Park in San Francisco, the site chronicles and comments on all the cool sights across America. You can view an index by locality or by category.

Sure, you can also explore Google Maps on your own, creating your own virtual satellite itinerary, but Google Sightseeing does a superb job of finding with this amazing technology all the incredible buildings, ships, bridges, and famous sites our great country has to offer.

Even though LG, which now owns the rights to the Goldstar brand, denies it, I’m convinced that our Goldstar DH2510 dehumidifier, which we inherited with the house, is defective and should be part of the recall. I discovered the recall over the weekend, and it instantly explained the burning wire smell we experienced in December. But there’s little use fighting a big corporation that won’t budge. It’s probably better not to mess with a defective machine anyway.

Regardless, with summer in full swing and humidity levels rising, the basement really needs a new dehumidifier. Add to that the fact that Monday’s thunderstorm brought with it a bit of basement flooding, and the need is even more imminent. We’ve been researching products and nearly bought one on Amazon but decided it might not be worth the 25 dollars in shipping. So today I plan to hit Sears with the list of Consumer Reports-recommended dehumidifiers in hand.

Just the latest joy in the world of home ownership…