April 27, 2002

10:00pm

This week was a very long one. Between work, bridge playing, house buying, and church choir - I'm not sure there was much time for myself, until now.

Work was pretty productive, even though I was working some really wierd hours. Our projects proceed apace using the Extreme Programming method, although my assigned tasks were completed in the one day others thought it would take, and not the two I thought it would. That was greatly helped by the others having already written the two most complicated objects for me in their own work. :)

Bridge playing with my Dad this past week was a lot of fun. Monday night we placed 2nd - just 1/2 a board out of first, which means any one board (hand of bridge) that would have been performed just a little better, would have given us first. Thursday night we placed 3rd after a grueling evening of feeling sick & trying to stay awake.

This coming weekend we are all traveling up to Normal Illinois to play in the Grand National Teams Qualifying event, where we think we have a great shot at cinching it for our flight.

House buying is not for the light-hearted. The first house closes this Wednesday, and just yesterday was I finally approved to close on the house by the lender. That's cutting it really close. It's empty at the moment, with a fermenting refrigerator freezer (gross!); however, it'll be ready to occupy after this weekend. Which means it's time to come up with leases, application forms, credit check forms, security deposit acceptable forms, receipt forms, incident report forms, repair request forms, and so on.

The second house had some major items wrong, we asked sellers to repair, and they agreed. Thank goodness! They are nice people, from what I've seen of their house and their attitude. Closing is June 3rd, the monday prior to Simucon. A major oops on my part, since I'm involved in those details as well.

Directing the choir this weekend went great. I had much fun, the choir performed very well, our substitute pianist (who was herself a substitute for our regular substitute, while our regular pianist is out tending to newborn baby) was a blessing to work with, and I was much more relaxed.

During the practice for this choir last week, I found the opportunity to ask whether my directing symbols were clear, confusing, ambiguous or other areas for improvement. I received the valuable feedback that my head and mouth were the easiest and clearest to follow, since I was singing the song in-time and nodding like I used to when I led with guitar around my neck. I was really concerned about that issue, while not taking away from the power of the Angels to perfect out singing of the Mass, it's my responsibility to be technically proficient and expressive.

It's would be a major miracle for me to have won the Lottery, but it would be an even greater class of miracle for me to have won without buying a ticket. :)

Amusingly I think I was running a few degrees of fever during church, and had taken some aspirin right before leaving for the church building. I could feel my fever break during the sermon, as I broke out in a profuse sweat. What was amusing was, Deacon George (I think that's his name) was talking about how hot it would be if something or other was happening - i don't recall specifically what he was talking about, though.

April 21, 2002

5:00pm

This week has been pretty relaxing.

Yesterday was my first time directing the choir at my church. It was supposed to be next weekend, but I was asked at 1pm Saturday for 5pm Mass, and (of course) I accepted. I had quite a bit of fun, and I either got tired or more relaxed as the Mass went on - at first I was all stiff and "inside the box" for my directing cues, but along about the Eucharistic Prayer I started using wider motions until at the end, it was full width "italian gesturing" style directing. Like I said, a lot of fun!

I can think of a few things I would change: eye contact, difficult when you aren't quite sure of where ALL the cut-offs are in the musical score and you want to provide the right direction; better coordination between the piano & the other melody musicians (trumpet and flute); and more practiced motions, as I discovered I can't give the "end the song" signal (left hand, side by side across the neck) and count time (right hand, in a pattern) at the same time. That's okay, as I can't pay my head and rub my tummy at the same time, either.

Work proceeds on closing for my new rental property on 5/1. This is a lot of work, more than I expected, but not more than I can do; I'm responsible like that. We came up with a sample advertisement for it, too:

2 Bedroom, 1 Bath, Spotless main floor, with refrigerator, stove, washer & dryer; Basement has office/study, playroom, and utility area with workbench. Carport, storage shed. Large fenced yard with multiple garden areas, including grape arbor. St. Charles Hills subdivision. Lease, deposit, credit check. $975 + utilities. 2500 BOLTON. 636-300-9331.

Not bad, eh?

April 14, 2002

10:30pm

Today was a pretty cool day.

Especially with the past 24 hours of my brain revving and spinning out of control about a personal matter, I've been in desperate need of distraction & a vacation.

Yesterday and today at my church we had first communion sunday, part 2. Then for this afternoon a good friend from work invited me to his daughter's first commuion at a local (different) church. There was exactly one seat remaining near his family (four generations of family present), and I took it. :)

I had the chance to hear three different first communion sermons, one dealing with recognition of Jesus in various forms & substances, one dealing with becoming more like Jesus (while avoiding the cliche "you are what you eat"), and the last dealing with ways to remember Jesus. All addressed to the children (2nd graders), and each excellently done.

After the FC at Sacred Heart, we headed over to his house and had a great BBQ of a hot-oil turkey cooker thing. There's a reason why I enjoyed the similar BBQ outings at work... and now I know what it is. :) It was thoroughly enjoyable, as I spent 6 hours with people that I didn't know at all (or very well), and didn't have to think about the upcoming events in my life.

House inspection number 2 is tomorrow at 10:00am. Hopefully this one will go as smoothly as the other.

My current debate is whether to set up an LLC or not.

April 13, 2002

3:00pm

April 10, 2002

11:00am

9:00am

I'm currently suffering from a heavily stuffed-up sinus cavity that is yielding a headache of monstrous proportions.

April 9, 2002

1:00pm

As I said last month, it's been one heckuva month.

Last month I was kept busy at work pair programming on Hero's Journey stuff, the boards, the price change, and a bunch of other stuff. I also explored becoming a landlord with investment property for rent. And of course, Easter happened with all of its concomittant responsibilities for music at church, family at home, and keeping up with relationships.

This month, aside from the normal grind of work, I've also dropped my dad off at the airport for his monthly consulting trip, and bought two properties - both in good neighborhoods with strong appreciation potential, and able to command a good rent for a profit. I've discussed the financial structure with the mortgage broker, I've decided on a corporate structure for owning the houses while protected myself from personal liability, gotten insurance quotes, finance quotes, loan quotes, bank quotes, home inspection quotes, home warranty quotes, and unfortunately none of them were found in Bartlett's.

Other than that, it's been a lazy month so far. :)