Walked through

Had the walkthrough this morning. Nothing spectacular. The only issue was a few areas that needed to be patched up after some leaks were fixed. You see, once they turned the water on -- to do the home inspection -- some things leaked. So drywall was cut, and pipes were fixed. They did a "satisfactory" job in patching and repairing.

It seems like every time I go to the house the rooms get smaller. And I notice more things that need to be fixed or cleaned or both. Like all along the trim there is a nice layer of dust. Hands and knees, hands and knees.

Closing is today at 1 p.m. Pretty stoked. I think after the closing, I'll swing by the Lowe's, pick up some new locks and then go to the house. A bunch of packed tubs/suitcases will make it over tonight. I haven't really decided on the "cutover" to the new place for myself yet.

House!

Just heard from the mortgage guy -- the loan is good! No exact date/time for closing yet, but there are no longer any hangups! So excited!!

CostCo

So every once in a while when Nick and I get bored at work and are pining for a cheap lunch (cheaper than peanut butter and jelly, of course) we head over to the CostCo. Not for the free samples, but because you can get a hot dog (kosher) and a drink for $1.50. And then a slice of pizza (way too thick and cheesy, so you only really need one) for $2. If you're ambitious (as I am) you'll opt for the $1 churro as well. Total cost today: $4.80. And I'm stuffed. Not exactly healthy, but it works out well.

The funny thing is that my membership expired in August, and I haven't bothered renewing it yet. But I've still got the card which gets you in.

Still freaking out

So, I gave the bad news to the mortgage guy -- namely that my condo fee in Pittsburgh is what it is. There's not way to lessen it despite my efforts -- even though it covers more than just the maintenance. Anyway, it's in the hands of the underwriter as we speak, and I'll find out this afternoon if it's all going to happen or not.

I'm not sure how to feel about all of this. On the one hand, I feel that they want this to happen just as much as me. And would be willing to do whatever it takes. On the other hand, if I'm out of getting a house and thus my earnest money, I'll still save money long-term by renting after our lease ends at the end of this months. I don't know where we'd live or if Maria would still be up for living downtown, but I guess we can face that issue later.

Freaking out

So I'm spending today freaking out. You see, there is one letter remaining that we need to have to make this closing happen. And of course it's in someone else's hands, and it's taking a long time to get back to me. My fault of course for not getting it earlier, but really, I didn't think they'd need documentation for every freaking thing in my financial life.

The issue is that the closing is slated for Thursday. Each day that we go past that, it's a hundred bucks that I have to pay. So we're already looking at a Friday closing. And a Monday one would be $300. So annoying. The only good news is that it's freakin' beautiful out today. And I am continuing to rediscover the joy of microwave popcorn.

Tub move

So this time for the move, I'm going to focus on using giant plastic tubs to haul the stuff to the new house. Screw the cardboard boxes. Nick was able to give me a few boxes, and I bought a bunch from WalMart and Lowe's. I found out that if you buy really cheap bins, they smell really, really bad. You need to get the nice ones from Walmart or Target or whatever.

I also realized the other day that this move will be about 2.5x what a sole move usually is. And what I'm used to on my own. So it's going to be a little more painful. Cause like, Maria? Yeah. Lots of clothes. And stuff. That kid's got a lot of stuff, too! It's all tiny, but there's a lot of it. So if you integrate ...

Also, I learned that if you go to a restaurant, and they use "cheese product" on their nachos (like whiz) that you should never order them again. I made that mistake last night, and things are still rather unsettled today. Oy.

Power test

So I've got this fancy exercise bike that tells you how much power you're putting out. My buddy, Nick, who lives in Omaha (also an Indy transplant) rides to work and coerces me to go on long Saturday morning rides as well. However, this Saturday I convinced him to come over and do a Power Test to find out his functional threshold power. You can then repeat this every month to see how you are progressing in terms of fitness.

The test can be done two ways. The first is to just do an hour "time trial." That is, go for 60 minutes as hard as you can, but still keeping up the same effort for the whole hour. It's a tricky thing to determine.

The other way (the way that he did it) was to warm up for 10 minutes, go all out for 5 minutes (to wake up your body) then take it easy for 10, then time trial it for 20 minutes followed by a cool down. Then you take the 95% of the average over the 20 minutes and use that as your power.

After seeing him do this (I packed and did some laundry and tried to encourage him as much as possible) I decided not to put myself through a similar hell. I also certainly didn't meet my goal of 100 miles over the weekend ... ended up doing an easy ride for an hour while I watched football on Sunday. It gets so ... boring. And painful. Since you're not moving and there's no cushion between you and the "road."

Baking

Since I have some time, I've decided to try my hand at baking. Last weekend I made some zucchini bread, and there are two loaves of pumpkin bread in the oven. I'm not really particular about the recipe. I search for one online and use whatever comes up first. They're pretty basic, old-school versions -- several cups of sugar and all.

Last week's zucchini bread yielded two loaves. One went to work and got eaten up in about an hour (there are about a dozen of us in the office now) the other I worked on myself.

I can smell the pumpkin permeating through the apartment as we speak. Glorious.