Robert: “Where do you keep your nuts?”
Mark: “I keep them in my drawers”.
I then reached into my filing cabinet and handed him the jar of peanuts he had requested.
What did you think I was talking about? You people have dirty minds…
I've finally finished moving. My stuff is all here, and mostly unpacked. We've stocked up on all the household things we need, except for a couch and a coffee table. I got myself a new desk. I type to you from it now. It's pretty. My room is huge. I have all my furniture in here and I could still fit an additional queen sized bed it the open floorspace I have. More than that even. My guitars can once again be out on guitar stands. Friday night was my first night sleeping here. Tomorrow will be my first greatly shortened commute.
Being in a new living space is fun. You look forward to going home, and you still look around seeing possibilities in your apartment rather than just what is there. Having this much space to play with is fun, too. I'm a weirdo when it comes to filling a room. I'll crowd everything all together and up against the wall, so I can have some wide-open space in the middle of the room. I just like it like that. We spent $365 at Ikea today. Well, my roommate did. He says he has no problem with spending money on stuff for the house. That's what I like to hear from a roommate. I feel less guilty, because I am providing a living room full of furniture, a microwave, TV, DVD player, stereo, surround system, chairs and tables, etc. I also found the place and made all the arrangements. I'll allow myself to not feel guilty allowing him to get a kitchen table, silverware, dishes, utensils, supplies, etc. We still need to figure out that whole couch/coffee table thing, but there's no rush.
I spent a large chunk of today thoroughly cleaning the old place. That's the part I hate. I love moving in, but I hate moving out. Originally, my other roommates from the old place were going to stay there, so I thought I'd just clean my room and the bathroom, and be off the hook for the rest of it. Alas, they also decided to move. Ironically, if they'd decided to move first, we'd have gladly kept the house we had been in, it just wasn't big enough for the four (soon to be 5) of us. I'd already pretty much finalized this place by the time they told me they were going to move, too, so there was no going back. Besides, I like this place, and am looking forward to short commutes. But for now, I'm exhausted. 3 days straight, and most of 2 weeks, of moving heavy stuff and cleaning, and driving, have taken a toll on me. I'll give some pics when we get the living room finished.
You told them to follow, blind
Do as your told and close your mind
But did you think for yourself,
Or just for everybody else?
Your bliss is ignorance
You don't know just what you missed
You've never known
And since no rapture comes,
You'll have front row seats to what you've done
Reap what you've sewn
It should be obvious,
Since you expect to be rewarded
For flushing creation down the toilet
If one day Judgement does come
And the damned will fall to hell
You will fall well
One day the skies will open,
But you will see nothing but stars
Nothing but stars
And one day minds will open,
But you will leave nothing but scars
Nothing but scars
And if judgment comes,
there is a place for what you've done
You will fall well
Moving is going well. I'm way ahead of schedule. I've moved everything but a handful of small things, my bed, my dressers, and my computer. I have permission to use roommate Mario's truck tomorrow to finish if I wish. I hadn't planned on doing that, because the Internet doesn't get installed at my new place until Friday, and how will I type at you all in the meantime?
After unloading my last trip of the day with roommate Mike, and checking out a brand-new Italian restaurant in my new neighborhood (and it's cute, Russian-accented waitress), I came back to the old house to rest and watch a movie, planning to take tomorrow off of moving, and just finish next weekend as I'd originally planned. After Mario and I went to the store for beverages, he went to the bathroom, and I sat down to watch “The Queen”. After sitting through a MILLION previews and advertisements, the movie finally was about to begin. As the opening credits began, there was a quiet bit and I heard the sound of trickling water coming from somewhere in the house. I thought “Oh, the toilet is stuck again” because it always keeps running and just flushes over and over. So I paused the movie and got up to go jiggle the handle so the stopper would do it's job. Only I didn't get very far. I went from the living room, briefly through the kitchen around the corner to the hallway and was confronted with a vision of sheer horror and disgust. The trickling sound was instantly transformed from a minor nuisance into a major crisis. The hallway was filled with water. Fortunately, I still had my shoes on. I had no desire to look into the bathroom and confront the genesis of this horror, so I leapt the raging river to the garage door, and stormed into the garage, also known as Mario's computer room. “Mario!”, I gasped. He leapt up out of his chair, seeing the urgency of my facial expression. “Did you flush the toilet?!”, I blubbered. “OH SHIT!”, he said. Or maybe he just thought it loud enough for me to hear. He ran into the bath room and shut off the water supply to the toilet, which had been overflowing for the past 20-30 minutes. While he dragged his shop-vac into the bathroom to suck up the amazing amount of water that had over-flown, I went into my room and got all of my electronics off the floor. Then I went into Mike's room, which has been mostly emptied as well, and moved everything away from the deluge. Shortly after this, roommate Bethany, Mario's wife, came rushing out of the bedroom where she'd been sleeping, ready to rip Mario a new one for waking her up with a shop-vac in the middle of the night. She didn't make it to the bathroom, however, plunging headlong into the raging torrent that blocked her path. To her credit, she seemed more amused than angry at this point, which is the appropriate reaction in my estimation. She asked if there were anything she could do to help, and Mario assured her there wasn't. We quickly abandoned the shop-vac strategy as grossly inadequate, and feebly employed the All-The-Towels-in-the-House maneuver, at which this flood of biblical proportions guffawed with contempt. Resigning ourselves to seeking professional help, we trekked across the street to the miraculously still open grocery store to rent a “Rug-Doctor”. Rug-Doc had rescued our carpets after many a wild party. While Mario toiled to, in effect, squeegee the Atlantic ocean away, I inspected the extent of our damage. Some already packed boxes suffered from soggy bottoms, and a pile of yet-to-be-filled boxes in the garage were now useless, but since most of my stuff, and nearly all of Mike's stuff had already been moved, nothing of value had been damaged. I continued to follow the downhill flow of the water until, to my amazement, I made it all the way to the street. Yes, the street. It was then that I noticed a puddle in the front lawn had also formed. Think about that for a minute. Enough water had spilled out of the toilet to make it to the street and even to partially water the front lawn. Needless to say, I've re-considered waiting until Friday to finish moving…
Why yes, of course I took pictures!
This gives an idea of what I first saw upon coming around the corner.
Here, the deluge slowed to an ominous ooze, threatening my room with soggy doom.
Mario is not amused. Neither is the fellow in the picture to his right,
who is just waiting for Mario to get within chair-strike range.
Here, the raging river made it's way through the garage. Shop-vac futilely attempts to bar its passage. 
Toilet water gets a taste of sweet, sweet freedom, exiting from the garage door. 
In this badly taken photo, where the shadow of my car, the lawn, and the sidewalk meet is where the puddle formed in the front lawn.
Although it had mostly dried by this point, here is where the flow found it's way to the street. Notice a bit of accumulation in the gutter.
The grisly aftermath of the All-The-Towels-in-the-House maneuver. (All the towels, incidentally, were freshly washed and were grabbed from the dryer).
.
Come see us! Live! Be happy!
(Literally translated: Skies of May)
It was the weekend of Cinco De Mayo, the Mexican 4th of July. It was also the weekend of one of the biggest boxing matches in recent memory.
But I wasn't there for any of that.
It was the weekend of our annual Mother's Day Vegas excursion. I know it wasn't Mother's Day this past weekend, but we always go the first weekend in May to beat the crowds. Of course, De La Hoya vs. Merriweather made sure that the crowds we beat weren't as big as the ones we didn't. But, since we were staying in old downtown rather than on the strip, we didn't really get much of the fight crowd, or the Cinco De Mayo partiers. We did, however, get the “Race for a Cure” event. This meant that we had a loud rock band playing outside our hotel window starting at 7am Saturday morning. I didn't really mind, since we'd crashed out pretty early Friday night.
Vegas with my mother consists of this; follow her around to various slot machines, occasionally playing one myself, then eating. Then retiring to the room when I've gambled my daily budget and read. Vegas is good for eating, I'll give it that.
Fortunately, my brother and sister-in-law were there as well, so I was able to hang out with them. They, like me, weren't interested in 72 straight hours of slot play, so we found other things to do. On Saturday, we went to tour Ethel's Chocolate factory in Vegas, which was tasty. And we also visited their cactus garden. Why does this chocolate factory have a cactus garden? Well, they've perfected a water purifying plant using natural plants and algaes to absorb toxins from the water. The purified water is then used to irrigate their extensive cactus garden, which was very impressive. It was a valuable lesson in green waste processing that more businesses could follow as an example. I got lotsa neat pictures from the cactus garden and I'll post some examples below.
There was also one very good omen upon my arrival to Vegas. It had been raining and was still cloudy and misty. As I pulled off the freeway, This was my first view of the hotel: 
Talk about “Skies of May”. Now, I was staying at Fitzgerald's, who's theme is the whole “luck of the Irish” thing with four leaf clovers and Pot's of Gold at the end of Rainbows. Unfortunately, I didn't find a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. However, at about the time this photo was being taken, a woman did win $221,000 on a slot machine in this casino. So maybe those leprechauns know what they're talking about…
I have decided that the theme for May, 2007, shall be “moving”. Why? Well, first of all, I'm moving. Beloved married roommates Mario and Bethany are expanding their family by spawning a “Living Human Larva”, and they need more space. I need more space. Other roomate, Mike, needs more space. Space is needed by all, and had by none. So, my co-worker tells me his mother is renting a couple of places in my old neighborhood, La Mesa, and I got him to take me by to look at them. One is a cute little adobe-style 2 BR house with a backyard and garage. It's a neat place. I liked it. The other is a more plain, less aesthetically pleasing “unit” sharing a lot with three other “units”. It is also 2 BR. This place, however, is significantly larger than the house, and is significantly cheaper. I bet you can guess which one I chose to go with. Other roommate Mike liked the place, too, and is jumping ship with me. Mario and Bethany decided they would find another place, too, so we're all abandoning this little house that has been our home for 2.5 years. We are also planning to have a “House Cooling” party, which would, obviously, be the opposite of a “House Warming” party. I'm stoked. I like moving. Well, I like moving in. I hate moving out. It seems like such a waste to scrub spotless the house you are leaving. But, it must be done. Mike and I are currently accepting living room and dining room furniture donations.
Also in the theme, I've moved ahead with my previously tentative plans for the trip of a lifetime: To Peru! Good friend Lindsay and I have signed up for this here trip because both of us had decided that our lives needed to move in another direction. What better way to do some soul searching than by hiking the Inca trail to Macchu Pichhu! Ok, we'll be hiking the Inca trail, and going to Macchu Picchu, but we'll actually be hiking to Choquequirao and taking a bus to Macchu Picchu. We'd like more people we know to be on the trip, so if anyone else wants to join us, we're signed up for Aug 5-19. Expect billions of pictures to be posted here in late August.