They didn’t mention that in the recipe.
Oh well, they’re still tasty.
(Yes, this is partly just so I can get a post into the Food category which I had created when I opened the blog but haven’t, until now, once used. There are a few desperately underwhelming categories I have to improve in due course.)
I’ve been working like crazy over the past few days to deal with a few metaphorical fires that started burning both at my own site and a nearby one, due to the other site’s IT guy being out sick suddenly. Between that, and the heat, and the stress of buying the house, and the overall general stress of existing (you must understand what I mean by that, since you all exist too!), I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately.
I also haven’t been biking to work at all this week. Again, between the heat and lack of sleep, it’s hard to muster up the energy in the morning. I did work from home yesterday, due to having worked until 2:30am the night before, which was good, except that I pretty well worked from 8:30am straight through until 10 or 11pm with a short break to play some Diablo 2 around suppertime. Working from home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be sometimes. Yes, you get to be home, not waste gas and thus money on going into the office, stay in your pyjamas (or in my case, due to the heat, nothing but a pair of shorts) all day, and eat and maybe even catch up on sleep at your leisure. The downsides are that you don’t really actually stop working until people stop bothering you. I easily put in over 10 hours of solid work yesterday. I’m on salary though, so my only solace is that I got to stay home. Well, that, and a member of the other site’s management, with whom I never get along, put in a kudos e-mail to both my direct boss and the president of the company for my efforts. I’m sure we’ll turn around and go back to butting heads in due course.
I’m also reestablishing communications lately with my closest friend. And yes, reestablishing, because we constantly lose and reestablish contact with one another. This is a particular failing of mine, one which Jodi has in the past rightfully chastised me, and one to which I spoke in a recent post. It’s nice to re-connect, and it seems to be coming at a timely juncture, as we can both hopefully help one another work through our particular stresses at the moment (granted, hers involves a thesis, so I think hers trumps mine).
The house situation is putting along. I have to look into insurance, we’re considering getting an inspection anyway even though we don’t really need to, my dad’s money order arrived, and I’ve gotten the lease consent form, purchase and sale, and addenda, to the mortgage brokers. It’s a waiting game again now, though I do have other issues and minutia I should address.
Should, and will. Tomorrow, though. I need sleep now. More desperately than the last time I said so on this blog.
The seller has signed our offer, and the signed copies of the offer are in the hands of her lawyer. Once they wend their way to my lawyer, I sign it, give the lawyer a $100 deposit on the closing costs, and then have to get that paperwork to the mortgage brokers to get the mortgage on the go. The closing date is set for August 18th, and I’m taking a week’s vacation to get this place packed and moved to the new one.
As for the closing costs, we’re depending heavily on selling one of those two computers mentioned earlier, however neither of them are generating the kind of interest they should be getting. My father’s agreed to loan me $500 until such time that one of them sells, or if they don’t, then until I can save up enough to pay him back. Hopefully the closing costs won’t be nearly as expensive as most other places, since there won’t be a title search, survey, or other such legal trivialities to undertake, what with it being leased land.
The fact that it’s leased land, though, gives me a different piece of paperwork to have to do — the lease consent form, that basically says the mortgage brokers are aware that it’s a leased land and are allowing it, and that the leased land owners do not have any claim over the house itself. This is turning out to be a bit of a hassle, with both the land owners and the mortgage brokers demanding the other sign first. I happen to agree with the mortgage brokers, on reading the text of the document — despite my not having a legal background, I can read high-level English and can usually get at least something out of the documents. It’s in the land owners’ hands now, having been faxed to their head office. Hopefully it doesn’t come back with another request to get the mortgage brokers to sign first, but we’ll see.
It’s been a while since I’ve played a game that’s really drawn me in. For a while I played Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and, despite its endless content (with downloadable plugins and content created by the user community), sandbox world style gameplay, and certain absolutely brilliant modifications that alter even how the game engine itself works, I eventually lost interest. It might have something to do with my being such a completist that I spent most of my time playing every single side quest and getting every single item and upgrade I could, ignoring the main plotline. That’s probably my biggest problem with sandbox games — they don’t hold my attention for long enough for me to actually get around to completing the plot. For instance, despite greatly enjoying the series, I’ve never completed a Grand Theft Auto game.
(way more below the fold…)
I promised Abby I’d upload some pictures I have of Bathurst, which is my hometown. There’s a map on Google with some pictures, as well, showing where they all are in relation to one another.
I haven’t actually put comments on most of them, as it’s rather late and I have work in the morning. I’ll do what I can to comment them tomorrow.
