Anotherblog

New Home!

We have the keys. We wandered around inside last night after our semi-weekly games-with-Kat session (Dominion and Guitar Hero). We have a new home.

One until-now-unforseen problem is that the driveway is quite long and sloped, and you can’t turn around. At some point you would have do to do a long reverse. However, it’s quite easy to park on the street.

This weekend: new carpet quote. Much relaxing.

Almost settled…

I went to the final inspection today. The current owners were in the last frantic stages of moving things out, but otherwise everything looks good for settlement tomorrow at 2:30pm. I had a bit of a panic when the lawyer estimates of the total cost came out $40k above my expectation, but it was a typo on the cover letter, not something fundamental.
I still can’t imagine it. We get the keys tomorrow; the carpet people arrive Saturday morning for their quote. I kinda want to take Friday off work just to lounge around – maybe go for a swim – but there’s really nothing to do there until we get the carpets replaced.

Leyenda

I’ve been gradually learning a couple of classical guitar pieces that are much too hard for me, but will hopefully stretch my abilities upward. One of these is a childhood favorite “Leyenda”. I can now theoretically play it, in that I’m confident I have the majority of the fingering correct, and with a run up I can play each section mostly correctly, very slowly. The piece has a lot of very fast arpeggiatos which I can play at almost half-speed now.
Thoroughly enjoyable, as long as I don’t listen to the piece being played properly.

At some point, however, I’m going to have to approach the piece with a bit more discipline, otherwise I’m never going to get faster.

One week to settlement

There’s less than a week until settlement on the new home, now. It’ll be next Thursday at 2:30pm. Woooooooooooooo!
Von’s arranged for new carpet (the old carpet is… needing replacement) and we haven’t started packing yet, so we’ll probably be finished moving in mid-August. It still seems hard to believe that it’s actually going ahead!

Another People People video

I’ve pretty much finished editing another People People video from my Brisbane visit a few months ago:

Patents, Darths & Droids Pledge of Allegiance

I wish I didn’t get so procrastinatey when I’m writing patents. Oh, sure, it’s understandable. The patent language is a bit weird and you have to describe things in excrutiating detail, but it’s inherently a creative process: I’m describing something that (I hope) is new, and I like explaining things, and I like inventing things. I wish I could be more enthusiastic about this bit.

Anyway! The first of the songs we recorded on the weekend is now up. It’s the Darths & Droids Pledge of Allegiance. You can also sing it yourself with this version.

Weekend

Had a great weekend after a wobbly start on Friday (home early sick). Von and I went up to Canberra and hung out with Dave, Fiona, Jimbo and Evan. Dave & Fiona cooked up a storm, and Evan and Von and I worked on creating a couple of Spit-esque songs. More about those later.

Anyway, I’m totally pooped now. It was awesome, and I wish we could have stayed longer (if only for the relaxing). Conner “McGoodle” Versace was delightfully chatty. Thanks chaps!

Rich!

We’re rich! We also no longer own a house. Settlement was yesterday afternoon for Francis St.
Three weeks to go until we’re poor again.

Also, I’ve been saying silly things on Mezzacotta.

Von’s sick

Von’s been sick the last couple of days with flu, and I’ve been lucky enough (so far) to still be OK. But I’m taking today off to care for her, ’cause she’s in the achy muscles, sleeping heaps, not getting out of bed phase.
But since she’s sleeping right now, and I’ve done all the internet browsing and guitar playing I’m gonna do, I’m a bit stuck for things to do. Oh, there’s plenty I *should* be doing – video editing, “Decision Tree” writing, game programming, going for a jog – and plenty I *could* be doing – Half Life 2, Guitar Hero drums (though that’d probably be a bit noisy), etc. – I don’t really feel like it. So I’m just moping around, trying to be reasonably quiet.
I might try the old “sitting in front of the computer not doing anything until I give in and do some programming/editing”.