Washing with Pressure

You guessed it! Another weekend passed, another task completed!

A few weeks ago, my crazy next door neighbor who waters her lawn every day asked me how to take care of the black algae growth building up on our sidewalks. Admittedly, I had no idea what she was talking about until she pointed it out. I also admittedly didn't know how to clean it - she mentioned trying to bleach it out but being afraid that the bleach would kill her lawn - a fair assessment on her behalf.

Over the next several days, I started noticing people's sidewalks and realized that I had let my sidewalks get pretty nasty. Funny how, once you own a house, you start to notice things like this weeds in peoples' mulchbeds, the thicknesses of your neighbors' turfs, and now, the cleanliness of their sidewalks! I decided that I would go ahead and clean off my sidewalks, but not with bleach. Rather, I would go the brute force (and environmentally safe(r)) method - by pressure washer!

Only problem was - I don't have a pressure washer! Fortunately, my next door neighber came to the rescue. No, not that neighbor - the one on the other side of my house! He lent me his electric pressure washer with two different pressure heads. After about five hours (over the course of both days of the weekend), I had made good use of the pressure washer, cleaning not only my sidewalks, but also my driveway, the edge of the curb, and also the retention walls of my mulchbed!

I didn't get a before and after photo, which is something of a shame, but basically the results look something like the photo below:

So, now you budding homeowners know how to clean your sidewalks!

Gardenias!

The temperature is starting to crank up a bit here in Florida. I was in Iowa last week, and it was a fantastically beautiful 70 degrees during the day, with a nice breeze to boot. Not so here in the Sunshine State! So that means we don't have much time to try to get our garden looking in tip top shape.

A few weeks ago, we pulled out a bunch of our plants that did not survive the bitter cold of this year's winter. For you northerners, you can stop snickering now - for us, two straight weeks of sub-35 degree temperatures is frickin' cold! However, we hadn't gotten around to replacing them until today.

So we headed out to Home Depot and picked out our perennial of choice - some Gardenias. The guy at Home Depot also recommended that we get some compost mix to help the plants grow. So we grabbed seven plants and four 32-lb bags of compost and put the ol' Scion tC into pickup-truck mode:

I started digging around the mulch bed with our tiny little spade, but finally Cherry convinced me to go get some real tools. So, we hopped back in the car and went to Lowe's (which is a little closer to our house) and picked up a real shovel and also a hoe/rake type thing (obviously I'm not very good with my garden tools!):

About one hour later, the results:

For aspiring gardeners out there, I'm told that gardenias are easy to take care of. Plus they have these nice big white flowers that have something of a jasmine-like scent, which was the main reason we got them! Natural air freshener!

Another Week, Another Project

With Cherry back at home now, we've started fleshing out the house to make it look more like a home instead of the vast 1900 square foot cave that it was for the last few years. Hence, the new living room set, re-mulching, and the mulch-bed borders.

Well, we undertook another small project this past weekend. Our house has a small screened-in patio overlooking the lake. Up until yesterday, said small screened-in patio has been devoid of any form of seating or furnishings. In this time of year, it's especially nice to sit outside, so we started looking for patio set to take advantage of the remainder of our 70 degree Florida winter!

After going to my first company photography club meeting, we headed to Bed, Bath and Beyond and found the patio set for us - a six-piece set including two lounge chairs, two ottomans, a loveseat, and a coffee table. Amazingly enough, all of this fit in the back of my super-snazzy Scion tC, with the hatch totally shut! We had to scoot up the front seats a bit, but it is still pretty impressive that I was able to squeeze six pieces of furniture into the little car.

Of course, that was due largely to the fact that the set was in pieces requiring fairly substantial assembly:

But now, we can enjoy a nice cup of hot cocoa or Vita-Mix blended fruit-and-veggie smoothie in the comfort of our own patio!

Comfy!

Say Farewell to the All Season Tree!

One of the nice things about living in Florida is the great weather we get during months where the rest of the country is freezing their delicate parts off. That said, we had an unusual two week stretch this year where temperatures remained in the 20-30 degree range, and not just at night - all day! There were even reports of snowflakes in the Cape Canaveral area!

Though it didn't get as cold where I live, I still got to see the "season change" for once. You see, many of the former Northerners that live down here complain that they never get to see the seasons change in Florida, referring of course to the leaves turning red and the grass turning brown. Well, we got to see both, as the weather shocked our lawns!

Fortunately, the weather warmed right back up to the high 70s within a few weeks, making it ideal time to get yet some more projects around the house done. For literally years, I resisted Cherry's pleading to place brick borders around our mulch beds, citing their insane heaviness and the sheer number of bricks we'd have to buy. Well, I finally gave in and I was wrong about neither the heaviness of the bricks nor the number of bricks we had to buy. I pretty much knew the cashiers and loaders at Lowe's by name by the time we were through with the project. But after 6 hours and over 120 bricks, it is now complete, and it looks pretty good! And as a side bonus, I'll finally be able to keep the grass from growing into the mulch beds!

My latest project is far less ambitious, but significant nonetheless. Visitors to our house no doubt have seen our "All Season Tree", the artificial Christmas tree we got during our first winter in the new house which I never took down after that holiday season. As a result, it adorned one corner of the family room for years until we moved our new furniture into that room, at which point we moved the tree to the living room. I finally got up the nerve to put it away and try to move it into the attic, but I wasn't able to negotiate my way into the attic with a 7" tree, so we just boxed it up and relegated it to the garage. But now, there is a big open space in my living room!

Guess I'll have to keep an eye out for something else to put there!

New Furniture!

My furniture came in today! It was a really close fit, both my loveseat and the TV console stick out a bit on the beveled walls, but overall it is pretty sweet!

Please excuse the footstool in the second pic...

Finally Moved In

So, if you've been following closely, you might know that I've been a homeowner since about the middle of August. Since then, we've mowed the lawn, painted the walls, installed ceiling fans, installed blinds, stained furniture, moved the vast majority of the apartment to the new house, sealed the tile, assembled office furniture, mopped the floor... it was only a matter of time before the day that we would actually move in and begin to actually live in the house came.

That day was Friday, September 28. That day, we moved the rest of our things from the apartment (primarily the airbed that we've been sleeping on since we moved our stuff from the apartment on September 15), had internet and cable installed, and stayed in our new master bedroom for the first time! Head to the photo album to see some of the pictures we took on our last day at the apartment that we've lived in for almost two and a half years.

Having a new house is fun and all, but we have been neurotically protective of it, making sure not to scuff the counters, scratch off paint on the walls, or leave water spots in the shower! To help protect the house, we went out and bought a bunch of organizers and rugs to keep from making messes and scratching up or dirtying up floors. To avoid using the big oven, we went out and bought a very nice toaster oven as well. And I had thought the heavy spending part was over!

On to football news, in what the media has dubbed "Insanity Saturday", the number 4 ranked Florida Gators were upset 20-17 by unranked Auburn on a last second field goal twice - Coach Meyer called a time out at the last second before the kicker kicked the first one to try to ice him - ending our 11 game win streak and Urban's undefeated record in Gainesville. Interestingly, despite we only dropped to 9th place in the AP poll, since "Insanity Saturday" also featured losses by number 3 Oklahoma to unranked Colorado, a loss by number 5 West Virginia to the new hot thing South Florida, number 7 Texas fell to unranked Northwestern, and all sorts of other craziness. As such, a win at Number 1 LSU this weekend would put us right back in the race! It's a big if, I know...

Last, but not least, today is the official launch day of the Legend of Zelda: the Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS, and we are heading over to Toys 'R Us right after work to get it! It will be my first official launch day purchase (assuming it's not sold out by the time I get there - crosses fingers!) Why Toys 'R Us? Why not Circuit City or Best Buy or any of the usual joints? Because at Toys 'R Us, you get the official player's guide for free ($20 value) when you buy it with the game! Ain't nothin' wrong with that!

Burnout!!!

What a week. Hell, what a three weeks. So much time has gone since my last post that Blogger's actually added a first-party video embedder in the blog editor! Problem is, I don't have a digital video camera, so I can't really take good advantage of that.

After Shawn helped me put up ceiling fans in the last episode of Grant's Pad, I enlisted Alex's help to put up a number of horizontal blinds. Cherrie and I finished the blinds job by installing vertical blinds on the sliding glass doors, and that more or less completed all the work on the actual house!

It was just in time as well, because last weekend, I had to attend classes in Orlando. I decided to carpool with two of my group members, Stephanie and Phil, back and forth between Melbourne and Orlando, so we had to head out towards Orlando at around 6:30 in the morning. It actually wasn't that bad, but man, at the end of the day, I was dead tired. Classes are pretty interesting, though I have definitely developed a preference to my Deterministic Methods in Operations Research (DMOR) class over my Organizational Behavior class. DMOR is a math intensive class that teaches how to make optimization models. It's taught by Cole, a fairly recent Ph. D out of Virginia Tech (who was gleefully crushed by LSU this past Saturday), so he's a pretty young, funny professor.

In stark contrast, Organizational Behavior is a very "touchy feely" class based around case studies of psychology in the workplace. It's taught by Dr. Tosi, whom Stephanie observed as the textbook definition of an old, Italian, Catholic man. Dr. Tosi is also a funny professor, but the humor is of a vastly different brand. Just ask Phil!

So, moving day looms. I've gone ahead and rented a truck for the weekend to let us move all of our furniture (i.e. the couch and the desk) to the new house, and recruited Shawn and Mike to help with the move. Between work, home improvement, and schoolwork, I haven't had any entertainment for weeks, except for weekend football. And even that may change, soon. Avid readers may recall that I only have basic cable because I'm too cheap to dish out an extra $60 a month to get digital cable. Well, in the interest of cutting additional costs, we've decided to not get cable at all when we move! I also haven't played video games in the said period of time. No DS for three weeks? Unheard of! I fully intend to make up for the lost time when the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass hits stateside!

Hopefully, after I'm all moved in, I'll be able to keep up with my writing schedule better!

Painting, Shooting, and, Yes, the Start of Football Season!

I guess it's not safe to simply assume that people will come to read Grant's Pad based simply on its reputation for fine expositions and great literary value.

I haven't only been away from Grant's Pad long and often - I've actually been away from work more than a small amount of time. Well, work, in the sense of right here in Melbourne that is. The TPR technician, Bob, actually greeted me as "Mr. Cedar Rapids" earlier this week after I returned early from yet another trip to that "City of Five Seasons" in Iowa. This particular trip was highlighted by the fact that I once again got to eat the Longbranch Restaurant's spectacular pork ribs once again (the best ribs ever, I re-emphasize), from the comfort of my own presidential suite, the best room the Longbranch has to offer.

I also got to rent a 2007 Ford Mustang. While I list this experience here as a perk, I have to admit that I didn't think much of the Mustang's performance. I think I must have gotten the plain ol' factory standard issue Mustang, but still, I expected a car that looks as cool as the throwback Mustang to have a little more kick than it did!

Still beaming from my last shooting experience with Ron, I went out again with Ron to the range, this time to shoot some clay trap with his 12-gauge shotgun. I quickly found out that I am a much, much better rifleman than a duck hunter, as I shot over 25 shells and only pierced a single clay trap with a single pellet. Ron, on the other hand, exploded three traps, shooting only five shots! Check out more photos of me shooting and running around in the 7-foot tall fields of Iowa corn in the Photo Album!

Another thing that's been keeping me away from the ol' blog is the work on the house that Cherrie and I have been doing. We spent about three twelve-hour days painting the house. When we're not painting, we're shopping for appliances and lighting fixtures and window treatments and god knows what else! We finally did finish the painting, but my complete lack of assembly ability has forced me to admit defeat and ask Shawn for help putting together my lighting fixtures. My lack of man-work ability was also evidenced in my first ever experience mowing the lawn. Living the sheltered life that I led, my family got lawn service since I was about 11 years old, and my lack of lawn mowing experience showed. Cherrie actually had to help me push my push mower through the six-inch tall grass to get the job done!

Well, it's been a long offseason, but College Football is finally back! Tim Tebow and the Gators opened their season with an impressive offensive outing, racking up over 500 yards but giving up about 200 yards to Western Kentucky University, who made its debut in Bowl Division Football (formerly Division I-A) this Saturday. The only thing that stopped the Gators was the weather - the game was called with over eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter due to lightning with the score 49-3 in favor of the good guys.

While the Gators won their game as expected, the same could not be said for several other programs in the country. The Notre Dame media machine was slaughtered by a Calvin Johnson-less Georgia Tech, Tennessee lost a hard-fought offensive shootout against California, but most shocking of all was Number 5 Ranked Michigan's 34-32 loss to Division I-AA Appalachian State in what is more likely than not the worst upset in possibly any sport, ever.

One guy I will definitely keep an eye on this season is Hawaii's Colt Brennan, who is on his way to shattering every QB record in history. Brennan completed 34 of 40 passes for over 400 yards and six touchdowns in Hawaii's victory early Sunday morning. Oh, and I should mention that he sat out the entire second half of the game!!! Frickin' incredible!

I'm a Homeowner Now!

First things first, I apologize for the very long hiatus since the last post. Interestingly, even with all of the time off, Grant's Pad got its fair share of visitors, presumably from loyal readers such as yourselves. I should mention, however, that for some time, a sizeable number of visitors found themselves at Grant's Pad looking for information about the Mustang used in the Transformers movie! Guess that shows what a little branding will do for the littlest publication!

Now, as for the reason for my long break from writing - I've been in and out of town quite a bit, traveling to Cedar Rapids for business (and, as you will find out, a little bit of pleasure!) and taking a week off to Orlando during Cherrie's summer break. My trip to Cedar Rapids was a pretty slow one, but it started off pretty rough. I almost left for Iowa without my work badge, which would have been a very bad thing, since I would not have been able to get into the building without the door guard having to check with my manager back in Melbourne every single day. I'm sure my manager would have a fit with that one!

What was particularly fun about this trip was getting to travel around with Ron (mostly for business, of course!). We went to Bellevue for a day, where he showed me around our plant and also took me to see the mighty Mississippi River at a lock-and-dam! I've seen quite a few dams in my life, and maybe even a lock-and-dam at some point, but I'd never actually watched one at work. Basically, a lock-and-dam is a dam which has a special lock area that lets barges and boats traverse from one side of the dam to the other, not unlike the "airlock" found on spacecraft and submarines. Since the level of the water on one side is higher than the other, the boat must first get locked inside the lock, then the water level in the dam would be adjusted to match the level of the destination side, and the boat would then be pushed through the gate smoothly and go on with her journey!

Another very entertaining point of my trip to Iowa was getting the chance to shoot Ron's rifles at the rifle range. I haven't shot a gun at a range since I was about ten years old! I did actually shoot a .22 inside Kaveh's apartment when we were young and very stupid in college, but a .22 is nothing like the guns Ron has! I shot ten rounds on his M1A1 (basically a civilian M14 rifle, similar to those used in Vietnam) at a target 100 yards away using only "iron sights", or without a scope. I think all but one bullet hit the target. Most of my shots were inside the second circle, and two of my shots were within inches from the bullseye! I took my target home to Florida and put it on my cubicle wall to warn co-workers to not upset me...

Ron himself fired his World War II vintage M1 Garand rifle, which was an even larger caliber weapon. Plus, he shot his gun way faster than I did, ripping through two magazines in under a minute each! I took around one minute for each round I fired, to give you a frame of reference. And he was accurate, too - even at that rate of fire, he got all of his shots in about the same place around the 7:00 angle in the second belt of his target. After playing with the guns, Ron let me take a picture with both of his rifles to send to my friends (and my dear readers!). The picture to the left is of the M1 Garand, and the picture in the paragraph above is of the M1A1.

I returned to Melbourne on Friday afternoon, when I was supposed to close on our new house. However, due to some paperwork and transfer issues, the bank was not ready to close yet, and so, we just relaxed over the weekend. We rescheduled for Monday morning, but even by then, the parties were not ready to close. I finally put my foot down and headed to the title company at 1:00 PM, six hours after the initial schedule, and we lucked out - they had just received the necessary transfer. So, as the title of this post boldly proclaims, Cherrie and I are now official homeowners! Now, the REAL spending will have to take place, as we start working on painting and doing homeowner things like getting furniture and mowing the lawn and so on!

Immediately after closing on the house, we headed to Orlando to take our little vacation. Because I had gotten an invitation from the folks at Orange Lake Resort to attend a tour and let their sales sharks try to talk me into borrowing $12,000 at 17% APR and spending $650 a year to maintain a condo that I get to stay at for one week each year, they gave me four days and three nights at the nearby Clarion hotel, as well as two tickets to the Disney park of my choice. I picked the Magic Kingdom for two reasons - first, we haven't been to the Magic Kingdom since the beginning of 2005 when my friend Jose visited from Holland, and second, so I could download the special treasure for my Pirates of the Caribbean DS game! Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, so we didn't take any photos at Disney.

Immediately after our four-day, three-night vacation, we headed up to Gainesville so I could attend my first classes for UF's Outreach Engineering Management program. The first day and half were comprised of orientation stuff, and they put us up at a very, very crappy hotel. I'm told we were supposed to stay at the very snazzy Country Inn and Suites (where, incidentally, one of our upscale socials for the weekend with exotic hors d'oeuvres was held), but they didn't expect a grand total of fifty-six students to show up, and so, they had to move some of us unluckier ones to the crappy Extended Stay America. Our first room was incredibly smokey, and it seemed as though they had just sprayed a ton of RAID everywhere to kill some roaches or something right outside the door. Plus, our air conditioner had leaked all over half of the room! After some work, we were fortunately able to move to a much better room.

Well, I figure that's about all I have - any more and I'll probably have to take another hiatus just to get away from the keyboard for a little while! No new poll this time, I have to think of something else good!

Day Off after 2 Years

That's right folks. Your friendly neighborhood Grantis Mantis has been a working engineer for over two years since last Wednesday! I actually didn't notice this when I decided to take a day off this Monday - the reason for taking the vacation day is, quite simply, that I've accumulated too many days over the past year and if I don't start using them, I'm gonna lose them!

So, what did I decide to do with my long weekend? Well, as some of you may know, Cherrie has started doing volunteer work at Brevard Zoo, working at the special Summer Butterfly Exhibit. I'd never been to Brevard Zoo, despite having lived in Brevard County for over two years now! That seems to be a fairly typical thing - we never tend to visit the attractions that are right near our hometown. Take me, for example. I lived in Boca Raton for six years and have only been to Miami Beach, which is just an hour away, one time. Or Cherrie - she stayed in Xi'an for four years of college and never once went to the awesome Mount Hua or the famed Terra Cotta Warriors archaelogical site. Maybe something in our heads just says, "You live here! You'll always get another chance to go there!" every time we want to visit a nearby attraction...

So, on Saturday, we decided to take advantage of Cherrie's free admission to the zoo (although I still had to pay for my tickets), and I went to Brevard Zoo for the first time ever! Some quick facts:

• Brevard Zoo is somewhat small, featuring four main areas - the Rainforest, the Florida Wetlands, Asia/Australia, and Expedition Africa
• Brevard Zoo was built entirely by volunteer workers. In retrospect, this made the zoo seem quite a big effort
• Brevard Zoo is the only zoo in the country that features a kayak tour right through their wild African animal habitat

That third one is actually really cool. It's also a guided tour, made possible because most of the workers at the zoo are volunteers. It's a little more expensive than the train tour, and, in my opinion, rightly so. You see basically the same stuff, but it's more fun on a boat!

The number of animals at the zoo is actually pretty good, and morst of them have a fairly large habitat, rather than just cages. The giraffes (one of which was born just 18 months ago at the zoo) have over five acres to roam (though they share with some small antelope and big Rhinos), the apes have their island, and really the only animals in cages were some of the smaller monkeys and the snakes and large lizards.

Check out the photos from the zoo in the Brevard Zoo Photo Album! Big Cats! Tall Giraffes! Chinese People!

I started on my homework over the long weekend. I never thought I'd say this, but it was kind of fun, doing math problems for homework again. Over the course of the weekend, I studied and did homework for about eight hours, and if it weren't for the fact that it cut into my DS playing time, I might not have really even noticed - the time went by pretty quick! Of course, it's only the beginning of my management degree career - if I'm still saying this kind of stuff in two years, then I'll be impressed!

Quick update on Grant's real pad - it's still growing very quickly - the tile was put in this past weekend, and the exterior is pretty much all complete! Check out the photos here: House Building Photos

Bloody Pirates!

Not much to say today, just writing to fill the void.

Last weekend, when we visited my parents before their trip to Taiwan, we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. I haven't ever said much about Pirates, but the fact of the matter is, since Johnny Depp strapped on his sword and hopped into his pirate boots as Captain Jack Sparrow in The Curse of the Black Pearl, I've been a huge Pirates fan. My fandom is manifested on my desktop wallpaper at work and in my Facebook profile as well as my Blogger profile. Though I didn't enjoy Dead Man's Chest nearly as much as I did Black Pearl, I had to go see At World's End, if for nothing else than for closure of the series.

At World's End is actually the only movie of the Pirates series that I saw in the theater. Unfortunately for me, I decided to see it at a theater in Boca. Even with my trusty, expired student ID, my ticket was $7.50! That's not plain ol' highway robbery, that's piracy! In any case, I found At World's End to be quite good, though not as good as the first film. It was easily the largest production of the three films in the series, highlighted by the fantastic sea battles and an outstanding portrayal of Captain Hector Barbossa by Geoffrey Rush. It was also quite long, spanning nearly three hours. Apparently, its length was the source of criticism from many viewers, but I never really had much of a problem with long films - the more the merrier, right? I was somewhat disappointed that they didn't showcase more kung fu - after all, they recruited quite a cast of Hong Kong action actors, and it would have been cool to have a battle that pitted Chinese swordsmanship against Western fencing.

I think the biggest thing that I have to say about Pirates 3 is this. I don't really understand why Disney deviated from what I thought was the most enjoyable thing about the first film. The best parts of the first movie were when nothing really was going on, and they just let Captain Jack Sparrow do his awkward bumbling and sharp witted conversationing. The characters were what made it Black Pearl such a masterpiece, not the supernatural special effects, or even the sea battles (although I have to concede that the sea battles in At World's End really got my excited). However, the sea battles, the locations, and of course, closure, made the film worth seeing.

Moving right along, my house has entered the next major phase of its birth cycle. The drywall and interior is being worked on probably right as I type this. The exterior stucco has alread been put on, and the construction manager tells me that my walk-in date should be July 13. That means that the house will probably be ready for me to move into towards the end of July! Unfortunately, my lease doesn't end until the end of September, and my apartment manager won't let me get out of it early. On top of that, for some reason mortgage rates have skyrocketed over half a percent this past month alone! There's piracy everywhere!

Check out the photos of my house's progress here: House Building Photos

New Guy, Pokemon, Football, Driving Range, House

Seems like it's about the right time for another Grant's Pad Potpourri Post - a little bit of everything, in convenient digest form!

Interestingly, visitation to Grant's Pad has been very consistent these last few weeks, despite the lack of new and exciting posts to keep readers interested. Hopefully, I don't ruin the visitage-karma by posting something today!

Work has been uber busy. Cognizant engineering is quite a bit of work. Hopefully it translates to quite a bit of dough! I do a lot of sort of "liaison" type work, transmitting information about problems with the product from one group to another, or even customers at some points. In a way, I feel kind of like that guy Tom in Office Space. You know, "I talk to the customers so the engineers don't have to!" Only, I am an engineer... so I guess it's not really that similar after all...

One thing that has been interesting is we recently hired a new engineer out of UF, Alex. It's pretty cool to have another young guy work in the group. I've been the only young guy in the TCAS/TPR group since Nick was transferred to the EMI lab. What's even cooler is, as Cognizant engineer, I'm a bit of a mentor to Alex, showing him the ropes of TCAS and Transponder. It's actually pretty amazing how much I've learned about these products since I started at two years ago.

One point of interest these last few days was my purchase of another DS game - Pokemon Pearl version! It's kind of funny. Years ago, when the Pokemon craze first struck, I never knew it was actually a video game - I thought it was just a dumb card collecting hobby for kids. Granted, it's still quite kiddy, but the game itself is pretty awesome. Strangely, the older I get, the more at ease I am doing kiddy things. My friend Karn got the Diamond version of the game, so we can trade Pokemon that are unique to each version! Again, kiddy, yes. But awesome.

So, I've played in a total of four company football games so far this season, and we have been blown out in six games (remember, I missed the first two because I was in Cedar Rapids). I haven't really found my position yet, mostly because I haven't really demonstrated a great ability to catch. What I have shown is my speed and shiftiness, which was showcased during practice when I returned a kick for a touchdown and also in the games that I did play in as a QB rusher and a cornerback. I think I feel pretty good playing cornerback, but someday I'd like to play a little offense too! One thing that has surprised me is Nick's all-around athleticism. For a guy that was (and still is) a bit overweight and out of shape, he has quickness, size, speed, and great hands. Definitely an asset to the team!

I went to the driving range the other day with Clint, the captain of the football game and an all around nice guy, if not a bit on the kooky side. I remember going to the driving range many many years ago and REALLY not enjoying it - golf swings seem to really aggravate my tendonitis. This time was no different - my forearms were (and still are) in quite a bit of pain. It sounds dumb, but I really think my arm muscles are too hard, so they pull easily on motions like a swing of a club or a bat! I guess I have to take the good with the bad!

Last but not least, my house is coming along pretty well. You can keep track of the progress of my house by looking at the photo album here! The construction manager said that we should be able to close on the house by around August, so you'll be able to see it grow and develop right in front of your eyes!

My House Is Growing!

I received a call from Charles, the construction manager for the first couple phases of the building of my house, while I was in Cedar Rapids, telling me that the slab would be poured last Friday and that they were going to start laying the concrete this week and the frame would be complete around the end of the month or something like that. So Cherry and I headed out to the construction site on Friday to see what our slab looked like. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my actual camera, so the photo below is from my cellphone. As you might be able to tell from the photo, the slab looks kind of small. So small, in fact, that we were questioning whether the builder might have confused our house for a different floorplan! But we figured since the floorplan we specified is part of the contract, we don't really have to worry about that. I imagine building the wrong floorplan would be a major breach of contract!


So, as you know from my previous post, we went ahead and spent the weekend in Boca with my parents. After work on Tuesday, I told Cherrie, "Let's go check the progress on the house, I think they were supposed to lay the brick this week!" We headed to the homesite, and this is what we saw, a mere two work days after the photo of the slab above:


My goodness, they grow up so fast!

Raisin' a Roof

We stayed at home for most of the weekend, or at least within five miles of our apartment, but it was a big weekend for us nonetheless.

For those of you who've paid attention for the past year or so, you might know that our anniversary is on March 11. Yep, we've been married for two years already! Never ceases to amaze me how fast time flies. Anyhow, we went out to eat a couple of times and I bought movie tickets from Debbie, the senior admin in our building, who was nice enough to write an IOU for me since I didn't bring any cash with me, but we never did get around to going to the movies this weekend, instead watching Selena and The Sixth Sense on TV.

Most of the SEC Basketball Tournament occurred this weekend. Traditionally, this tournament hasn't meant much for me, but with all the success the Gators have had in all kinds of things (basketball last year, football this past season, dancing with the stars, etc.), I've taken a little interest in it lately. I only watched one game of it - the Final - and sure enough, we were in it. We ended up beating Arkansas by twenty-something points, and according to the newspapers, we'd only trailed in the SEC tournament one time - 0-2 in the beginning of the game against Ole' Miss. The victory over Arkansas gave the Gators their third straight SEC championship. Now it's on to the NCAA tournament!

The biggest thing that happened this weekend, by far, is our starting the process to build a brand new house right here in West Melbourne! Twice in the past two years we've tried to find a house we liked for the right price, but both times to no avail. In addition, the craziness of the housing market over the past few years (like the prices in Florida doubling since 2002 and crashing nearly twenty percent in the last year) made every price look not-so-right. Interestingly, it seemed that building a new house was actually less expensive in most cases than buying a resale home, when considering the same features and price per square foot of the house. In addition, we could choose many of the features we wanted, such as tile and colors, that weren't necessarily available. So, after a couple months of researching the builders available to us and learning about the home building process, I finally pulled the trigger and voila! We are on our way to building our very first home!

So, from now on, Grant's Pad will have a new label, appropriately called Home Building, that will be tagged on any posts that have to do with building our new house! Hopefully, it will be a good learning experience for us and a good home as well!