Random Thoughts

We are trying to sell a bunch of our bigger stuff. If it’s big, it’s for sale. Check out the listing here. I’ll be adding more stuff later this week, so check back often to see what’s up and what’s left.

We got the word yesterday–we have a new home! The landlord called to say that everything was approved, and she stopped by the hotel late in the day to sign the lease. So that’s one more thing to check off the list! Looking back on it, it’s such a God-thing. The house has been on the market, empty, for quite some time. They have dropped the price twice, and a week before we were set to come up here the price dropped into our price range. I had been praying that God would provide us with a single family house, and we looked at but one. I had been praying for a place that had a yard and room to entertain, this one does. We really wanted a 2 car garage with some extra room. This one does. The only thing I didn’t get was a gas stove. But the electric one we have is a pretty good one, so I’ll have to work on my heat management skills.

So that’s a huge relief. We now have a place to go when we get here. And we set the lease to start the day we arrive, so we won’t have to stay in a hotel. We won’t have beds for a few days, but we’ll work that out.

Yesterday we visited the schools the girls will most likely attend. The big deal was with the high school. Bloomington has 2 high schools, and we wanted to be in Jefferson, though we’re technically in the Kennedy district. At first it looked like it may be an issue, but after a brief meeting with the principal, it looks like it’s just a matter of getting some paperwork filled out. We’ll have to decide what to do with Robyn…the middle school she’s supposed to be in is a pretty good one from all reports, so we may just leave her there.

I also took the girls to the Mall of America yesterday. They had been looking forward to that for weeks. The place is HUGE! It’s all of 3 stories (4 if you count the AMC theater…) and has an amusement park in the middle. They have a great selection of stores and it’s just a really great atmosphere. The girls weren’t wowed that much (thankfully!), however. It was fun, but I don’t think it will need to be a weekly event.

So here are some pictures of that trip, and later in the day when we went up to walk around Lake Calhoun. It’s a pretty spot, and the day was just gorgeous. It was about 60 and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I heard it was cold and cloudy in Rochester yesterday. Too bad about that…  For some reason WordPress is not letting me put pictures inline with text, so I can’t caption them (I’ll install the update when I get home, hopefully that will fix it). Instead, these are the captions.

Pic 1: Me and the girls at Bloomingdale’s. This is on the third floor bridge that connects the two halves of the store.

Pic 2: Legoland at the Mall. It gives you some idea of the scale of the place.

Pic 3: Katie and Robyn really love Jamba Juice and are enjoying some while looking over the lake looking at the city.

Pic 4: Downtown Minneapolis. Do skies get any bluer?

House hunting has been an interesting experience. Yesterday was a good day. Our first house was owned by a super-nice couple, and we liked it. It was a twin-home (we know them as duplexes), on a quiet street, but close to everything. The yard wasn’t great, but we could have made it work.

The second home was also managed by a super-nice lady. I had a great talk with her, and the house was great. It was one of two single family homes we were to see. It’s freshly remodeled and on a corner lot. It has a great patio and even a fire pit in the back.

Our third house was not as nice, and it was the beginning of landlords you don’t want to rent from. He never came to the house and when I called him he said, “Oh, just ask the neighbors, they’ll show you around.” Uh…OK. It wasn’t a great place anyway.

This morning we went to our second single family home, at 9 am, only to call 10 minutes later and hear, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot to call you, the house is rented.” Super.

The next house, the landlord didn’t have the keys on hand so we had to reschedule. That house was OK, but not great. At our 3:00, the guy never showed up, I called and he never called back. And these houses are empty! What’s the deal.

We went to our 5:00, the lady who owns it is really nice, and it’s a nice clean place. Also a twin-home, but on a little busier street, and it wasn’t laid out well. After driving by our other 2 houses (set for 9 am Sunday & Monday), we decided that the second house was our top pick.

It’s funny because I prayed (and continued to) that God would make it really obvious which one we should take. When I called Betty (manager), she asked how our house hunting was going. I told her well, but nothing compared to her house, and that we’d like to move forward with it. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear you say that,” she said. She showed it several times today, and kept praying that we would call back. So tomorrow we’re going over to meet her and fill out the app and get ready to move ahead. Here are some pics of what we’re pretty sure will be our new home.

Like I said, it’s ironic (or providential) that we all though we should stop looking after finding this house. We decided to keep on going, but all feel really good about the place. The fact that the landlord is really excited about us being there is another plus/confirmation.

The good news is that now we have a few days to just hang out and see some sights. Hopefully we will get to visit the schools on Monday and maybe even get a tour. And of course, we have to go to the mall.

I thought I’d post some shots of the trip. The flight to Chicago was a good one, we saw a beautiful sunrise at the Rochester airport.

Sunrise over ROC

Katie & Robyn Enjoy their first trip in a real airplane. We’re at about 25,000 ft. somewhere over Western NY here.

Skies don’t get much bluer than they are at 32,000 ft.!

At this point, we’re sitting at gate K-4 waiting for our plane. We just finished eating some really tasty bagels from the Great American Bagel. Yum!

Katie couldn’t wait to tell Mommy about here first flight (that she remembers anyway)!

Like I said, the flight to Chicago was good, once in Chicago, we hit trouble. After we sat at K-4 for a while, they moved us to K-1. We walked down there and found no plane. There were some maintenance issues they had to deal with, which was a pain. We ended up leaving over an hour late. How do airlines stay in business anyway?

Once we finally got on the ground in MNSP, we got our car (w/ GPS!) and found some lunch. We then looked at 3 houses, one of which we all really, really like. All three of us were ready to stop looking and just take that one, but we’re going to finish out today and drive by our Sunday & Monday houses to get an idea. I think I’m going to fill out the app and meet up with the landlord of our favorite house tomorrow (unless we find something even nicer).

Last night we had dinner with the Norton’s. Sarah is the children’s director for CPS, her husband Craig works for Habitat for Humanity. They have 2 boys, 11 & 15. They live up in Hopkins, which is one of our target cities. It was a nice time, and we enjoyed getting to know some people here. Robyn fell asleep in a big comfy chair after dinner, but it was a long day…

I’ll post a few house pics later…

We’re getting ready to fly! This pic was taken at Rochester Airport just before we boarded the plane. We’re wheels up at 7:30 AM–getting the girls up and around was fun! Actually they did great, we made it through security w/ no problems and we’re looking forward to an uneventful flight. We could see the moon and the sunrise from the gate. Very cool!

Well tomorrow’s the big day. We have to leave the house at 5:50 or something so we are at the airport on time. When Denise & I flew, it was on a Sunday, and the airport was pretty dead. I’m not sure what to expect this time around. I’m going to check in online shortly, so we’ll have boarding passes all ready to go. Hopefully that will save us some time.

The prospective house count has risen to 10. Denise spent a good deal of time this week lining it all up. What a ton of work! Today will be crazy for me as I have to ship some stuff I sold on eBay, get up to church and finish wiring the patchbay, help run soundcheck, then get home and pack. I also need to get to the bank. And make up a checklist of things we want to look for in a house. I should take my last 1/2 personal day today! What was I thinking?

Things are winding down at LaBarge. There’s not much to do right now, production is pretty slow. I’ve been working doing some upgrades to the database I built and trying to teach Dave & Jason what I know. That’s been, uh, interesting. Yesterday I went on what I think is my first shoot in about 6 months. I could barely remember how to run the camera. It seems strange that I work for a video production company and I do more video production at church.

Actually, I’m really looking forward to doing more of that at Upper Room. Being away for so long, I found I really miss it. Anyway, need to run and check in for the flights. Pray that God will make it abundantly clear where we should live!

Well, we’ve reached the 30-day countdown. 30 Days from today we will be leaving NY and heading west. It’s kind of exciting and terrifying at the same time. There is so much that we have to do and coordinate and get settled. The good news things are falling into place.

We’ve been trying to sell some of our furniture so we don’t have to move it. That’s been going reasonably well. Craigslist rules! We still have some big stuff go get rid of, the playset, couch and loveseat, window air condintioners, but overall it’s going well.

On Friday, Katie, Robyn & I fly out to Minneapolis to find a place to live. Thanks to the internet, we have at least 8 appointments to look at houses. Denise has been doing a great job lining that up. We’ve narrowed it down to two communities around the church, Hopkins and Bloomington. Bloomington is looking more likely, but we’d really like to end up in Hopkins. God knows for sure, and I’m confident we’ll find a good place that we can afford and will work for us.

I’m looking forward to going back up again. I think it will be so good for the girls to see the place and meet some people. The church has arranged for the girls to spend time with youth leaders and we’re going to have dinner with the family of a staff member one night.

So that’s it. The countdown is on. It’s going to go quick!

Stuff. It’s amazing how much we accumulate. We did an interstate move just 2 1/2 years ago, and I can’t believe how much stuff we’ve stacked up in this house. As I’m starting to pack out stuff (and in some cases, re-pack), I can’t believe how much stuff I moved from Ohio. Yesterday, I  found a box full of various weights of motor oil, gear lube and brake fluid. I don’t even use that kind of oil any more, and yet here is a box of it. So I gave it away.

We’re trying to sell a bunch of our furniture so we don’t have to move it. I’m amazed at how much bigger the house looks now that we have less stuff. The thought came to me, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” I’m not one who is really attached to my stuff (except maybe my Mac and my tools…), so I don’t have a problem getting rid of it. I really hope that this moving process will be an opportunity for us to simplify and cut down in the clutter in our lives. Perhaps with less clutter, we can spend more time with each other and with others.

This weekend is my last weekend as the service tech director at Crosswinds. I realized tonight that I have only 3 weekends left here. Next weekend I’ll be in Minneapolis finding a house (hopefully!), the following weekend I have no responsibility for the  service (and I’m getting together for dinner with some old friends that Saturday), and my final weekend “working” will be the on after that when I will mix my last services at Crosswinds. We’ve developed such a great team of techs here, I will really miss working with them. Sadly, after upgrading all the sound gear, it finally sounds good and now I’m leaving! Oh well, another church beckons….

Today I will spend most of my day training my boss on how to do my job. I’ve been working on the Adobe project for about 6 months now, dealing with their software and learning the intricacies of it. On the surface, it looks easy to use. But when you dig down into it, there are a thousand little tricks and games I play with the software to make it do what I want. Now I have to try to convey in 7 hours what it’s taken me a few months of trial (and mostly error) to learn. I just hope he has good recall!

At long last, Apple has set a release date for the next (and last) version of OS X. On October 26 (which is, incidentally, the day we fly to Minneapolis to look for a house) Leopard  will be shipping. This of course means that when I go to Upper Room my new laptop will have Leopard. Sweeeet!

There are a few really cool new features in Leopard that I’m really looking forward to. Time Machine, Spaces, Core Animation and a few others.

What is totally ironic about this is that when I talked Crosswinds into getting me a MacBook last spring, it was just before the scheduled release date of 10.5. I thought of waiting until it was released, but went ahead with 10.4. Now that I’m moving up to Upper Room, my new MacBook (Pro?) will finally have 10.5. So we’ve come full circle. Just one more confirmation we’re doing the right thing.

Yeah, OK, basing major life decisions on the basis of a computer company may be a stretch for some, but I am a hardcore Mac guy. So there you go.