Christopher Schmidt

Apartment Hunting

Yesterday, we were apartment hunting. The first one we saw, I absolutely fell in love with.

Plusses: Quiet neighborhood, with lots of trees, no traffic, and house is set back from the street. Interesting layout that will allow noise to spread out throughout the house. Top level has three bedrooms (although one is kind of small) meaning that the adults can have the upstairs which is just for them. Second floor has small (Very Small) bedroom area, which opens into larger, open mezzanine area overlooking living room, ideal for children's room (just beds) and toy/play area. Patio area out back. Decent sized kitchen with lots of counters and cabinets, small eating area. closet with lots of storage space - leads into a crawl space. Less than 10 minutes walk from Central Square. Did I mention the tons and tons of trees? In good shape. Reportedly has a nice landlord. Kids next door. Well priced. Awesome high ceilings, impressive master bedroom. Available July 1st.

Minuses: A bit cramped, although nothing not workable. Very little non-bedroom living space - living room, eating area, kitchen are pretty much it, but it's still a more than we've got now.

In any case, we talked to the landlord on the phone, and left a deposit with the current tenants. She should have picked up the check this afternoon, and will be running credit checks on us. Hopefully, barring any questionable behavior on any end, we'll have an apartment by mid this week. Hooray!

Now I just need to find a job. Shit.

DDR

While in town yesterday, we stopped by jennifer and david_grana's apartment. They were both playing FFXI (note to people: never let anyone buy me that. I do not need the combination of my RPG and online addictions: one at a time is bad enough.) I promptly leaned up against acerbic and fell asleep: woke up a couple hours later to stumble home, only with an extra DDR pad and two DDR games.

I am hopelessly addicted already. My legs today are absolutely destroyed: last night I danced for several hours, and more this morning. The girls (Alicia and Julie, 7 and 4) have both been playing it, julie basically just dancing about, Alicia actually doing relatively well in beginner mode. Jess played a couple times too, and is pretty good herself: I think she'll enjoy it, which is good because it seems to provide a relatively good CV workout (even if it doesn't give much upper body).

Father's Day

Took advantage of the fact that today is Father's Day to visit Canobie Lake Park, where my admission was free so long as I brought kidlets with me. Took Alicia on her first roller coaster - the Yankee Cannonball, which is a pretty cool wooden out and back coaster. It's apparently been in operation in one way or another since 1938, which makes it by far the oldest coaster I've ridden on, and it's in pretty good shape. Rode a couple other rides - convinced Jess to get on the dragon coaster (which is actually quite frightening, considering what it's supposed to be: I was somewhat surprised at the speed of it. This is not your carnival dragon coaster.) Used my Father's Day free dinner to get a crappy Cheeseburger, 16oz sprite and some absolutely wonderful fries for free, while the girls munched on Candy Apples and Jess ate popcorn. All in all, a worthwhile trip.

Post Canobie

Booked it out to the Airport to get the newest communist, pezstar. Booked it a bit too fast - got pulled over by what we decided was probably a sheriff when I was going 53 in a 30 zone. (Yikes!) I honestly had no clue I was going that fast - I thought 40 at the most. Had my license and registration ready when he walked up, handed him it before he even said a word, at which point he let me know how fast I was going. He let me off without a ticket - "Only because you have a clean record - keep it that way" - for which I am very grateful. I definitely think I learned my lesson in this case: I'll be watching my speed a lot more closely now.

Got to the airport and parked just as Jenn called. Ran up to security, got her, she and Jess went outside so she could get a cigarrette fix. (We will break her of that habit. If no one else does, I will.) Grabbed her two bags, made it home, dropped the kids in the tub to wash off candy apple, and I came upstairs to set up Jenn with ethernet and so on. Kristna came home, and the three girls are having a man-free dinner right now, which I think should do Jenn much good. After they come home, they will each get 20 minute massages, and I will curl up in bed with the most wonderful girl in the world and sleep until tomorrow.

This week

Should hear about apartment. Girls have no school or daycare, so it will be fun fun fun for the communists. Cleaning will occur: it already occured with the help of bluebuggy and kingnixon, something for which I am very grateful for. I can see more green on this floor than I have in months. Lots of work at wedü, and I will need to look for a job. Last week's trip to California, although fun, failed to result in a job offer, so I am highly on the prowl for something in cambridge. Parents coming out in about 2-3 weeks for a family occasion - spreading of the ashes of my great grandmother, who died last winter. All in all, life is good, and there are lovely people here that I'm sharing it with.