So after much back and forth with the Mayview people I think we are going to walk away from the table... I am scared that the price we could get it for would be hard to get out of the house given the fact that I think we could outgrow the house in 3 years.

Back to Square 1.

As luck would have it, Pine Needle received another offer significantly higher then ours, so it looks as if we are not going to get that house. We have since then entered discussions with Mayview about buying their home. Will keep you posted.

So we placed an offer on the Pine Needle House (the most recent photos below, the bigger house). We offered 88% of their asking price and expect a response by tomorrow. The seller didn't flat out turn it down so that is a good sign.

The house is still on a septic tank so that is a bit of a concern, but we are ok with it, and accounted for future improvements in the offering price. We hope to get an acceptance or counter by tomorrow evening.

If this doesn't work out, we are still interested in the yellow house.

I found some pictures of the other house we like... it is about 600 square feet bigger and 30k more... the back yard is also a lot bigger, but the "curb appeal" is lower compared to Mayview.

MUCH better day today... we saw 11 houses and all of them were worth looking at versus the 0/16 that we went for yesterday... We have two that we are very excited about and the words "this is the one" came out of Sherry's mouth today.

Both of them are FSBO so I only have pictures of one of them, but here are a few of them:









Going to see 6 or so more tomorrow.

So we went out for two hours driving around with Mandy, Mom and Don and then stopped to have lunch. After which we met our realtor, Jenn, and started going through 16 houses that we had picked out from going through houses online. Not such much luck, turns out people want a lot of money for some really ugly houses.

For example:
This house here
had a freaking 10 foot 2x4 holding up the second floor ceilng and a hugh hole in the ceiling plaster on the 1st floor... and they still wanted nearing $400,000 for it... crazy crap.

So needless to say, day 1 didn't go so well. We are hoping to have more luck on day 2 on the other side of the river. Will keep you updated.

Seems that there is a case of virtual mugging being explored in Japan. Important nuggets of knowledge to know before reading this article:

- The game allows A LOT of people play in a virtual world together online.
- "Gamers" care deeply about this game, and will pay actual money to purchase items from other gamers
- Once an item is sold (in the real world) the seller and buyer meet up online and exchange the sold item.

The article

We have played a little poker at the last two family gatherings my immediate family has had. They have been impromptu games, and therefore required us to use makeshift chips... the first time we had to go buy tri-colored pasta, and the most recent time we had to go buy 5 sets of kid's play money.

So I figured it was time to get a tournament set, and here they are:





Thanks to my friend Hal for having the desire to constantly upgrading his own set, which allowed me to get these for a very reasonable price.

So I can't remember my childhood that well. My mom and youngest sister (maybe the older ones too) think it is repression. I think it is binge drinking in college. Whatever the case I do sometime recall things when I am given the proper retrieval key.

On Six Feet Under last week, the Fisher family dealt with the loss of a brother and a son. It caused me to remember some things about going through my father's death. I was only 14, and maybe I have repressed much of those memories, but while watching that episode I strongly remembered the feeling of not wanting to be seen.

I remember my friends from church youth group coming over a day or two days after the worst day of my life, and I remember running upstairs and "hiding"... I felt bad and appriciated how hard it must of been for them to come over, but I just wasn't ready to deal with people.

I also remember walking into a church full of friends and family and not wanting to make eye contact with anyone, and the crushing weight of everyone's eyes on me.

I was talking to my youngest sister, Mandy, about this last night, and she told me that she often thinks about walking out of the church, down the aisle. And remembering my Mom's brother Bob walking her and my oldest sister down the aisle. I don't remember who I walked with... either my Mom or my uncle.

No real point to my story... just wanted to write it down... in hopes of remembering more, maybe.

Sherry and I are heading to Jacksonville on the 20th for the week to look for our new home. We would like to live close to my new office (in Riverside), so we are concentrating our search in that area. I am getting very excited about moving back to my old stomping grounds and raising my child there.

An old Italian man lived alone in the country. He wanted to dig his tomato garden, but it was very hard work as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament.

Dear Vincent,

I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me.

Love Dad

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Dad,

Not for nothing, but don't dig up that garden. That's where I buried the BODIES.

Love Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.

That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad,

Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances.

Love Vinnie

I don't know why Bill hasn't responded to the offer of 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter's hand in marriage?

On June 2nd, 2005 Sherry gave me the best news of my life... I was going to be a father. We have kept it a secret until now just to be safe, but as we enter the 2nd trimester we will safe enough to let the world know!

Check out the baby blog for more info: http://mcdonaldbaby.blogspot.com/

My father-in-law sent this to me today... pretty cool:

Newspaper front pages from around the world

Sherry and I will be relocating to Jacksonville, FL in October as I start up a new job there. The just of the story is that I will be part of the executive management of in information technology company that installs the hardware and software to help a doctors office move their patient data through the process of check-in, diagnostics, analysis and review as efficiently as possible. Currently the setup is to support the parent company, VyMed Imaging, but the 1 year goal is to have products in place that are applicable to other high paper traffic industries such as law firms, insurance offices, etc...

Very exciting times.

Sept 23rd is my last day at Symantec.