Election Day 08

Posted on by Jordan

I was headed to work, and a little ahead of schedule today. My route to work takes me right past my polling place, and I could see that there weren’t many cars in the parking lot, so I figured maybe voting before work would be the way to go. I discovered a number of things:

  • My polling place doesn’t open until 8:00am
  • there were only nine people ahead of me in line
  • the entire spectrum of ages were represented, but the majority were definitely retired
  • we had the option of voting in booths, but a big table with chairs around it was also an option
  • our ballots were the fill-in-the-bubble type, like an ACT test

I am fairly proud of myself, I resisted the temptation to randomly pick an option for all the sections I didn’t know anything about. Last time I voted, the ballot felt way too much like a test and I couldn’t bring myself to leave a single thing blank.

-Jordan

One Year Ago Today

Posted on by Jordan

November third, two thousand and seven… The day I met Heather.

We knew each other existed before that day, but hadn’t managed to actually meet. I can tell you Heather was captivating, beautiful, and so pleasant to talk to that day. I don’t really remember what was said, but I remember the first time I saw her.

It seems like such a long time ago… I never would have expected that we would be so happy together, or that we could do so many things in just a year.

I can’t wait to see what the next year brings!

-Jordan

Moving Complete!

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I should amend what I said Friday about not having that much stuff. It turns out I don’t have that much furniture. I actually have a lot more stuff than I realized. By about 1:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, virtually the entire floor of “our” (formerly Heather’s, sort of mine now) apartment was covered with boxes, bags or piles. It really reminds me why I hate moving in the first place.

I discovered that Goodwill serves a useful purpose. The “helping a worthy cause” factor helps outweigh the delima when you need to get rid of something you clearly don’t need, but somehow feel you might need someday. I still found it distressingly hard to cut down on the amount of stuff I own.

It also turns out that it can be somewhat stressful to have your spouse-to-be really wanting to donate something that you are having a hard time parting with… Heather and I managed to negotiate through some minefields throughout moving and then the process of merging my belongings into the apartment. I wonder if you eventually start seeing stuff as “ours”… I suppose it depends on the object in question.

all in all it was a really good move, and surprisingly Heather and I managed to have almost everything packed away into sane places to store things by the end of the day Saturday.

I should give a special thanks to my roommate Brandon, and my sister-in-law-to-be Kelsey for helping out with the move! It was a lot of stuff to carry, and a lot of stairs to cover. As luck would have it the moving date came just two days after the ONLY time this year my knee has been sore after playing Frisbee. Having a few extra people helping reduced the number of stairs I had to climb, making things much less painful for me.

hopefully Heather and I won’t be moving down from the apartment for quite a while.

-Jordan

Moving Day Is Here! ( Give Or Take 12 Hours)

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The day to move over to the apartment Heather lives in is basically here! Its exciting, but sad because as soon as I get moved, Heather will head to Blair.

I got a birthday card in the mail at Heather’s, from my grandparents. It was nice to get the card, and really drove home the idea that I was moving last night when Heather showed it to me. I still haven’t tackled updating all my contact information for different accounts that need changed in order to continue to get statements etc. I can’t say as I am looking forward to that.

Moving tomorrow shouldn’t be too bad, as I don’t have that much stuff to move… Or thats what I have been telling myself for weeks now, ask me again in a few days, I may have changed my story. I have cheated a little by moving about 50 pounds of books and a few other items over during the week. The plan was to move probably twice that much stuff before now, but its still a head start.

Also, I turn 27 tomorrow, should be a fun day 🙂

-Jordan

The Projector Is Sold

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My first brush with Craigslist has concluded with success.

I think things could have gone a lot better but I did sell my projector, and it has been picked up before I had to move it. The downside is I under-estimated peoples interest in the projector, and was impatient in selling it. If I had been willing to take two weeks to sell it, and started the price about 25% higher, I think I could have sold it for quite a bit higher than I ended up making the sale for.

All the same any cash is a lot more useful to me than having electronics decaying in a closet somewhere. A 780p image stretched over a 110″ diagonal screen looks pretty good, but it will be obsolete by the time I live in a place I could set it up again. I would love to see organic displays come into their own, or something along those lines. Whatever happens I will be content to sit on the sidelines for a year or two and see what becomes the next cutting-edge.

Also my new monitor has an HDMI input port, so if I really really need to see something in HD I can use that 🙂

-Jordan

Bank Update

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I mentioned seeing a moving truck and lots of boxes in my local bank branch Saturday. I had assumed that was bad news, but they were open last night.

Had a check to cash anyway, so I stopped inside. They have all-new carpet (complete with an overpowering fresh glue smell!), new fancy eight foot high plate glass cubes for their bankers, and a redone floor plan that moves the little desks you go to for filling out deposit slips etc before seeing a teller.

They also only had two tellers on duty, so I stood in line for about 15 minutes waiting for the 4 people in front of me to finish their transactions. Personally I would have opted for the old furniture and one more teller station open, but that’s just me.

-Jordan

And It Just Gets Worse

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I suppose I should take the hint and stop complaining about weather on the blog. I said it was cold yesterday, and now today is not only colder, but driving to work required scraping my windows!

Scraping ice isn’t a chore I really mind that much, but doing it today was depressing. Its not even November yet, I didn’t want to start doing this every day quite yet. Then again, Saturday was nice enough I didn’t even need a coat, so I shouldn’t act like its going to be bitterly cold until March. The weather will swing the other way a few times I am sure.

I might have my projector sold, but it will be a few days until I know for sure. Selling off a few things I own, and cutting ourselves down to just one round of rent and utilities for the remaining time until the wedding is going to do wonders for our goal of paying off all our debt ASAP. Dave Ramsey would be proud I am sure 🙂

Only three more days until I move, and I am maybe 15% packed… you would think I could have used some of that time last week when Heather was gone to get that take care of, but I really didn’t accomplish much on that front. Moving is more fun if you wait till the last minute anyway, right?

-Jordan

(Doing these rambling multi-topic posts is messing up my nice clean plan for categories and tags, you would think the editor would crack down on that)

Brrrrr

Posted on by Jordan

Walking outside I start to think winter might be getting here soon. I am really not ready for that yet 😦

we might make it to November without snow, but its getting a lot colder all of a sudden.

Heather returned from her loooong trip to KC last night. She brought back all kinds of exciting things! Such as an example of our completed wedding invitations, and a really cool Nebraska Football themed quilt her mom made for me, given as a birthday present. I might get a picture of the quilt up at some point. The invitations you will just have to hope to be on the list to get one in the mail 🙂

I tried a recipe I found for some low-sugar peanut butter cookies yesterday afternoon. Had the dough all ready when Heather came back, and we tried a few fresh out of the oven. Sadly no pictures, but I trust you can all imagine a peanut butter cookie. The verdict? Splenda sweetened baking still tastes a little different than “normal” cookies, but they were really quite good.

-Jordan

Changes

Posted on by Jordan

Well…

I listed my projector for sale today. I don’t know how interested people will be in a slightly used projector, but I can say I don’t feel bad about selling it. It’s kind of exciting, one more step towards setting up a new household with my wife.

In other news, I drove past the local branch office of my bank today. They had a big moving truck backed up to the doors, movers all over, and all I could see were piles of boxes in the windows. It seems like that’s a bad sign, given the bank industry heath of late. Even if that branch is now closed, it works out well because I am moving in a week, so I didn’t really loose my local branch 🙂

-Jordan

Another Landmark Day

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Its now three months until the wedding. October 24th – January 24th… its also 91 days until the wedding if the countdown I have been running is setup correctly. With two major holidays and my birthday in the upcoming months, I have a feeling they will go buy fast.

At the same time I haven’t seen Heather in almost four days, and won’t see her for another two! I know, I know…. we are both spoiled, but it just makes this week seem really long and I wonder what its going to be like once Heather is living in Blair.

In other news, I just found out Left 4 Dead won’t run on my gaming rig. I knew the day a game completely eclipsed my PC with hardware requirements was going to happen sooner or later, I just didn’t expect it quite yet.

Have I mentioned I will be spending my Friday night alone? blah… its just not the greatest day 🙂

-Jordan