We Are Officially Owners of Our Own Personal Fortress of Solitude

Earlier this year I uttered the absurdly unprophetic statement that "it will be so nice to have Christmas week off because it will be the first time since I was laid off at Kemper that I've had a week off that wasn't specifically to go anywhere or do anything. It will be really relaxing." Then we decided to move. Whoops. Anyway, I don't think I've ever come back from a "vacation" more exhausted. It seems like every day we make only very marginal headway and half the time once we get done with a particular project it gets ripped down or we decide we need to replace it; so we know it will get ripped down.

Anyway; enough complaining for now. The bottom line is that yes we are in fact officially homeowners (actually condo owners). All in all the closing and moving process went well, although there were a few snags (aren't there always?). The most major of which was the sellers trying to assign us not once but twice a parking space that has a pole directly in the middle of it. Fortunately I had scoped out the spaces the night before during the inspection and we didn't fall for it. I guess it's true that they really will try anything when you get around the closing table. The other annoyance was that we didn't get a final settlement statement until we showed up at the closing, but that turned out to be a pleasant surprise because we ended up owing a lot less than we thought we would. As for the actual move, we pretty much could not have picked a worse day for it: cold and snowing. I guess the positive way to look at it is that it made the decision to hire movers seem a lot wiser. To anyone who has never hired movers before, I know it's hard to believe but it is almost more tiring than moving it all yourself, albeit a different kind of tired. When you do it yourself, I think you're so focused on bringing the next box in and so exhausted after a while that you don't have time to worry about it all. But when you have movers all you do is observe them taking every piece out and it just makes you constantly stressed and mentally exhausted. But apart from a couple scrapes on the wall, a chunk off the corner of the TV cabinet, a broken vase, and some irreparable damage to my limited edition Luke Skywalker Return of the Jedi Remastered Opening Day action figure we appear to be no worse for the wear.

Yesterday and today I got my first experience of the long morning el commute and so far it's not too bad. I can tell that I'm gonna get through books pretty damn fast: in the 3 rides thus far I've read about 150 pages. In theory I could use that time to study for the CPA, but I'm not really mentally prepared to do that first thing in the morning so I'll just make it my goal to do that during the commute home.

Tonight Christy and I will be taking a much deserved break from the world of boxes and assembling furniture to go out to dinner and a movie. I think we're going to try a BBQ place in downtown Evanston that is supposed to be good and then we're going to see Juno, which I'm really looking forward to.

Lastly, let me just take a moment to applaud Obama's victory in Iowa last night. Nothing to get too excited about yet, but practically speaking had he not won it pretty much would have been the end of his campaign. I'm also glad Huckabee won, not because I like him but because it's good for McCain. Hopefully in 5 days New Hampshire will produce Obama and McCain as winners and then I'll be very happy. If somehow we end up with those two fighting it out in the general election I will be happy no matter who wins. On the other hand, if we end up with Giuliani vs. Hillary . . . um, let's just say I'll be less than thrilled with my choices. Who's the Libertarian candidate again?