CafeChatNoir

I absolutely adore the little ones that don’t really quite know what’s going on yet, but they do know there is candy and dressing up involved, and HOW COOL IS THAT?!! Had 2 dinosaurs, Yoda & Princess Leia, a character from Half-Life (the kid said I was the only one that recognized who he was.), 2 Jack Sparrows, and the usual smattering of zombies, ghosts and other undead.

Nice weather tonight, and we had a decent amount of kids come along, which is somewhat unusual – we live at the bottom of two hills, so lots of times the kids turn around before they hit our place.

Will be getting dolled up for SportsCenter at the pub – past 2 years I’ve gone as a beach bum, which is basically just being me. :)  Tonight I am going to go dressed up as a girl.  Let’s face it – I go there for sports and unwinding and pretty much never give a crap about how I look.  Skirt, heels, makeup, hair, the works. :-D

Britney Spears’ mother is writing a parenting book! Because, well, really now – do I have to say anything?

Why I never want FEMA near me in an emergency: FEMA employees pose as reporters for press conference. Next thing you know, they’ll be interviewing disaster “victims” about how well FEMA responded to their plight…

Damn, I can’t remember the last time there were fires like these out there. I remember how bad the Santa Anas could get and that is what is driving these and it’s not pretty.

SignOnSanDiego.com has setup a Google map showing where the fires and evac centers are – I had to look. The Witch fire is abour 4K from where we used to live out there. It has 2 decent sized streets it would have to cross, but with the winds the way they are, I have to wonder if the neighborhood will still even be there in a few days.

Supposedly one of these fires was arson – nice work, jackass. I hope they find who did it and just let all the homeowners take a whack at him.

One of CNBC’s correspondents lives in San Diego and has been evacuated – he was saying that folks just keep calling their houses and if the answering machine picks up, then they figure things are still intact.

I’m just hoping that the numbers of houses destroyed that I’ve heard so far are too high and that when they can get back into these neighborhoods safely they’ll find that it wasn’t as bad as thought.

Couple weeks back I got one of the Donors Choose coupons via LJ and went hunting for a project to support.  I specifically looked for Virginia schools in low income/high poverty areas in need and found a request for triple beam balances for a science classroom.

Today I got a note back that the project has been fully funded!  It’s great to know that a donation actually did what it was supposed to do.

And the timing couldn’t be better since we just got the cable upgraded and fully functioning and ready for internet.

The DSL has been down all day and currently I’m dialed in at an impressive 26.4 Kbps.

They just called and said there is a short in the line and they want to send a Covad tech out. Sorry, I’ve already put in my order with Cox and I’ll be picking up my modem and connect kit in the next day or so. I’m not monkeying around with techs and $200 service calls for a service that I won’t be continuing to use.

Seriously, wasn’t it just Sunday night? The week totally got away from me to be sure. Not because of anything of any great import, it just seems that I blinked and it was already over. I hate it when days just run together like that.

I have discovered that when it rains for the first time in 34 days, people are afraid to leave their homes. Went out for the usual Friday night pints last night, and of all the late regulars, there were only 3 of us there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the place that dead on a Friday night. Frankly, it was a little disturbing.

My Caps are now 3-4… And the season had started off SO well.

The champagne was popped open last night and I am now the happy owner of only 1/2 of one house. I cannot even begin to describe how NICE it is to not have this on my mind anymore.

Of course, this now begs the question – where to next? :)

Well, the closing is done, but guess who gets to go to the townhouse tomorrow and meet with contractors? Yup, that would be me. Sometime this week the thermostat on the heat pump went tango uniform and wouldn’t work on the final walkthrough this afternoon.

I can’t say I’m really surprised.

It seems I am continually underwhelmed by any and all service industries, so when someone actually does their job well or does something extra, it’s a really nice surprise.

My real estate agent has been completely on top of everything with getting everything done for today’s closing. Everything on our end is totally locked down and under control, and I’ve only had to do a very few things. Very nice. When I bought the place, I recall the seller’s agents were completely out to lunch most of the time.

Talked w/my grandmother’s broker this morning (first words out of his mouth were “nothing is wrong, everything is OK!”) and my grandmother is making a couple changes to an account and he needed some info from me on that, and when she needs to sign the papers, he’s going to go to her house for it. I know that will make my grandmother feel better cause she’ll know that she’s signed on all the right lines. It will also apparently keep her taxes simpler, and her broker knows how spooled up she gets at tax time and that was the big reason for the change. Good to know he’s looking out for her. (We’ve known him for years, this move doesn’t really surprise me, but it’s still very nice.)

Shame everyone can’t work that way.

Tomorrow I make copies of the various & sundry receipts from the past week’s repairs and empty out the townhouse once and for all. (Sorry buyers, I won’t be forgetting the good vacuum cleaner.)

Closing is Friday at 3PM.

Eep!