My contribution to the Mt. Saint Helens buzz...

Below is what Mt. Saint Helens looks like right now, courtesy of the Mt. Saint Helens National Monument:

No nonsense, just links...

...care of the various places I look during the day...

G-mail invites (thanks Utterly Boring)

Does God really hate Bush voters? (thanks Beer Drinker)

Will Ferrell reprises his role as Shrub

Blatant Republicanism

Links to a couple of decent flash cartoon sites (thanks J.A.N.O.Y.S.com)

Catch ya later.

This is rich

Thanks to Jack Bog for noting this item, which you could buy even now.

E-Bay account: Almost free; Price for used pen: At least $2 shipping and handling; Berating your ex-wife on the internet for all to see: Priceless.

White Trash and random musings

Yeah, I know. I've been slacking, so now, like a good little boy, I'm checking in.

House update

Like you really care... Signed. Closing Monday. Move in the 4th. Rinse and repeat.

White Trash

So, last night the Pieman made his debut at Ms. Arroz's annual White Trash Bash, which is a delightful homage to the other side of the tracks.

The WTB had been scheduled originally to occur on one of the warm evenings of August (and the sweat on our brows would've added a nice touch) but, due to factors beyond the control of our hostess, it was postponed until this weekend.

The WTB is, as you may have guessed, a party where you can go and dress all goofy and pretend you are one of those relatives from your family reunion who you see only once a year and spend the rest of your time avoiding. The rules for the Bash are simple:

1. No political correctness allowed. You must be unapologetic in your stereotyping.
2. Noone's allowed at the party without something trashy on their person. Violators will be roundly heckled.
3. Teeth are optional.

Personally, I've been looking forward to this party. My wife has, too, but she neglected to go shopping for her WT outfit prior to the last minute. For my wife, not being ready at the last minute forces her into instant paralysis (was always fun while she was in college with a project due the next morning, she would always have put it off to the last minute, then found herself unable to do it). She sat on our rocking chair, bundled in a blanket (more for security than warmth) and, two hours before time to leave, fretted over the fact that she still needed to nap (she'd had a very long day at work), shower, and couldn't possibly get an outfit, but further couldn't possibly go without one, and finally couldn't possibly let me down by not going. A fine how-do-you-do.

Thank God for Goodwill.

My wife sent me on a mission to salvage our night. "Get me a t-shirt, a belt, and a gawdy piece of jewelry."

Perfect, I thought. I've been given carte blanche to trashify The Missus.

Goodwill is within walking distance of my current abode (which I didn't know until The Missus dispatched me to it), but given my time constraints, I drove. Once there, I was in hog heaven for this party.

Which isn't to put down Goodwill. As my friend Zack pointed out, most of the t-shirts there look like something I would own. I saw several, in fact, that I nearly bought. However, that would have been off-mission, and was therefore taboo.

My point is more that, while Goodwill has many useful items, there is enough variety in its offerings that you are able to find the stuff that some people with poor taste have given to benefit those who can't afford to exercise their own better taste.

I accomplished my mission in short order, and returned home triumphantly to bestow my gifts upon my wife. A horrendous belt, a gawdy bauble for her neck, and a t-shirt with disgusting colors celebrating pink flamingos.

Coupled with my old high school letterman's jacket (complete with numerals showing it to be 12 years young), she looked absolutely trashalicious.

Sad to say she was beat for trash-master, however, by Ms. Arroz, who showed up in a cheap wedding dress with a deflated exercise ball duct-taped to her belly, Hamm's in hand and cigaretted perched on her lips, portraying the ultimate in WT culture -- the shotgun wedding.

Well played.

So, it was a good night.

Oh, and by the way, JLowe took second place for the "Booty Hunter" t-shirt. But that's another story for another time.

Florida

So, is it just me, or do you have to be a moron to move to Florida?

I first started forming this opinion while watching Real World: Miami. That show, in a few episodes, undid all the cool in my mind that Miami Vice had spun back in the 80's. Once I realized that Miami wasn't all pastel-clad, stubbly cops with pet alligators and Ferrari's, my disillusionment soured me on the notion of Florida life. After that, the 1990's brought the spate of crimes against tourists in Dade County, which convinced me that the only thing worse than being a reality-TV participant in Florida was just passing through.

And now, courtesy of the Drudge Report comes this picture:

Really, I give up. Why would anyone voluntarily subject themselves to Florida? Sure, it's all sunny and nice every now and again, but after about the hundredth hurricane in the last 3 years, you'd think people would avail themselves of the opportunity not to come back from one of these forced evacuations. But, no, they keep coming back and trying to rebuild on the soaking wet remains of what used to be, only to get washed away again the next year. And, unbelievably, other people keep joining them.

Ecch. The retardation inherent in the human condition is enough to make me want to cry.

So, these are the thoughts that fill my mind when I'm not sitting down to blog all the time. To some extent, maybe blogging less would be a good thing, because I'm more productive when I do finally sit down after having a day or two to think of stupid stuff.

But then I couldn't give you the dailty recap on my home acquisition. What fun would that be?

So I leave you now, as always, to play X-Box. However, The Missus is out tomorrow night on a business roadie, so I imagine I'll dredge up something to dazzle you with come Tuesday evening. If you care to read it,

Catch ya later.

Quality link

Thanks to Defamer for this new gem. Many an hour will be spent chortling at these morons.

Ewww...

Courtesy 99 Interesting Pictures:


ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Ilker Yilmaz snorts milk up his nose and squirts it out of his eye in a bid to set a new world record. Yilmaz squirted the milk 2 meters 79.5 centimeters, surpassing the exisitng world record of 2 meters 61 centimeters. Organizers said the record must still be verified. (09/01/04 AP photo)

So nice to see a person realizing their whole potential...

Old friends

Man, getting old sucks.

Recently, an old friend of mine and I finally got in touch with eachother.

Let me step back a moment.

My friend, Rob, is someone I knew WAAAAY back in the day. Like in junior high. I think I may have even knew him back at Wilcox Elementary School, which is now just another abandoned brick building where school funds are being spent to not accomplish anything.

But, back to the topic.

Rob was a year ahead of me in school. Way back when, I was able to fool my simple-minded teachers into thinking that my short attention span and knack for yelling out stupid phrases was actually some form of intelligence. So Rob and I spent much time together, as I ended up in many of his classes. And he was freakin' hi-larious.

I wish I could tell you why. When you are a child, you don't really realize how unfunny the funny stuff is. However, as a child, you don't need to understand anything. You just need to laugh. And we did.

There was this song Rob would sing, which was actually a naughtly little tune from the perspective of a drug dealer trying to get laid. It went "Free fix for a f..." um, a little hazy on what that last word was, sorry...

Rob would just randomly bust out with this song, in his pre-pubescent middle school voice, trying to sound all rough and macho, and then we'd sit there laughing and laughing until, finally, he'd do it again.

Then we'd get in trouble.

The other thing that sticks out is a game we had called "Spell it Like it Sounds." (Here, Mak, is the explanation). In "S.I.L.I.S., " the goal was to take a common word, imagine all the sounds that were a part of it, and try to spell that out. You would start with something like "dog," spelling it D-A-U-G-H-G-G, and then get increasingly more ludicrous until you just didn't make any sense at all to anyone but the other player, who was willing to suspend disbelief because he knew that, soon, it would be your turn to listen to him, and all players were entitled to a laugh.

Anyway, I haven't seen Rob since some time in high school. After he broke free of the surly bonds of Glenhaven Middle School (later Vocational Village, and most recently an arson target), Rob preceded me to Madison High, where he got lost in the crowd before I could catch up. Though we saw eachother around, and were friendly when we did, our glory days had passed.

So, anyway, another old friend of mine, the aforementioned Mak, randomly e-mailed me the other day reminding me that Rob was still alive, that she'd once told me to e-mail him, and gently bugging me to do so again. Instead of ignoring Mak, I decided to get a hold of Rob, and I'm glad I did.

Rob, like me, has aged. Rob, like me, is relatively hairless. See for yourself:



But Rob, like me, seems to have turned out alright. No longer the mindless psychopath of youth, he is actually now an insurance agent, and if you need quality insurance products in the Greater Portland area, you can e-mail him for assistance.

Why am I sharing this all with you? First, because I tend to wax nostalgic, as all three of my readers know. Second, and more important, because my wife just went to a movie, but not before programming our VCR to record those crappy shows Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill, which prevents me from consummating my love with X-Box.

So, here I am, drowning my forlorn X-Box-lessness in Coors Light and writing about Rob.

Rob, it's good to hear from you. Mak, keep in touch. The rest of you,

Catch ya later.

Random picture of the day

Courtesy dreamwill.net

Wow

I find John Kerry astounding.

I try to be apolitical on my blog. Yes, I put up little bits here and there, but I think I tend to poke fun at all parties, because I'm not here to prosthelatize.

But it's crazy to see Kerry flip-flop in more egregious ways all the time.

John Kerry, who a month or so ago said he would have gone to war in Iraq, now says going to war was wrong, and it would be preferable for Saddam Hussein to still be in power. Not because he liked Saddam, but because a stable dictatorship is a healthy one.

Ugh.

I'm not happy about the war. I don't like the mounting numbers of dead. I don't know that we're in a great position right now in terms of having a cohesive strategy for dealing with the Iraq situation.

That said, Saddam Hussein was a ruthless, evil bastard and this war was justified if for no other reason than removing him from power. I hope and pray that we are able to promote some stability in Iraq (not the Hussein-ish bad stability, but something more positive that won't result in a leadership gassing its own people) and exit Iraq as soon as possible. Until we do, I commend George Bush for making some tough choices, and I think removing Saddam was one choice that he was right on.

Commence the flaming, if you wish.

Catch ya later.

Oops, she did it again

Alright, that may now be one of the most over-used introductions to this story.

Not satisfied with one failed marriage in a calendar year, Britney Spears has taken the plunge again.

Really, does anyone expect this to last?

I hate to cast doubt on young love, and generally if people are going to take the plunge I'll do what I can to be supportive, but given the spate of poor decisions made by the Divine Ms. Spears (er...Mrs. Federline) in her more recent history, starting with her participation in that ode to crappiness, Crossroads (can you believe that website is still there?), continuing through her turning in her new hotness in favor of her flirtation with the old 'n' busted, cracked-out PWT look, and on to her failed marriage to her high school chum Jason Alexander, young Ms. Spears is not necessarily batting a thousand, and I don't suspect that this marriage is either meant-to-be or destined-to-succeed. I can't root for it if I don't believe in it.

That said, should make for a good celebrity divorce in about a month or so.

I'm starting a pool. Whoever guesses the right date will get a fabulous prize. Just how fabulous is determined by what my house payment hasn't devoured when the magic day comes. Place your bets below.

Catch ya later.

Random picture of the day

How I feel most days...

Addictive game

I've been continuing to play, despite my frustration, for 20 minutes. Must be addictive...

Twenty-five great Calvin and Hobbes strips

Thanks to Utterlyboring for pointing out this link to samples of the greatest of all comic strips (except, perhaps, for Bloom County).

Random picture of the day

I love the optical stuff. If you can't see it, save, open and enlarge.


Courtesy dreamwill.net

Coming down to crunch time

So, pardon me if I seem like I always discuss the same ol' crap here, but I'm entering the world of private land ownership and we're coming down to the final week of independence.

Just to catch you up, I've lived, now, for 30 years without ever having to take responsibility for my living space.

As a child, I freely broke windows and destroyed carpeting with the warm assurance that, although my mom would be wicked pissed, I'd never face the prospect of paying to repair the harm I caused.

As a college student, I revelled in frat house living. Actually, I learned in my fraternity that "you don't call your fraternity a frat, just like you don't call your country your"...well...you know what I'm saying. So, ahem, sorry. I revelled in fraternity house living. There, although we engaged in a solid week of maintenance and renovation projects every year, and took turns doing chores, I didn't have to personally worry when the occasional sewer line broke (in the rich dumb kid's room, which was a bonus...) or when some drunken partier from the Sig house decided to shoot their potato gun at our house, breaking windows in our dining room.

In law school, we freely held raging parties at our apartment, in the assurance that although we may lose our cleaning deposit, we would not lose our freedom.

Even later, when common sense set back in, my landlord had to fear my living habits more than I did.

In my first three years of marriage, I've been blissfully free of repair work. I remember, last year, going to JLowe's relatively new home and watching him swear as he pulled improperly-disposed vegetable bits out of his drainpipe as water attempted to shoot back and drown him. All I thought was "thank God I'm not a home-owner." Thought the same when he had to replace his water heater. Or dig up the various disgusting fauna in his yard. Or tear out the carpeting besmirched by his crazy cats. And so on.

Now, though, I'm stepping into a new era. And I'm scared.

Anyway, it's this fear of responsibility which is causing me to shut down, mentally, and deny the truth as it approaches me like a Mack truck. And I'll live in this self-imposed denial that life is continuing in spite of me until sometime after October 3rd-ish.

And why am I telling you this?

Just so you won't be surprised if I'm a little sporadic and uninspired in my blogging. Probably just a lot of links and afterthoughts for the next couple of weeks. Wit and foolish stabs at brilliance will follow shortly after.

Thanks, all two of you, for your prayers and support. I'll see you on the other side.

Catch ya later.

You must be kidding me...

Courtesy of Defamer: The next sure sign of the Apocalypse -- Bobby Brown TV, coming to a station near you.

Random Picture of the Day

I like this one. Currently serves as my desktop.


Source unknown (or unrembered, all the same to me...)

Couple of links

Regarding the possibly forged Bush documents.

New DNC video attacking Bush.

Here's one of the funnier pictures I've seen lately. Whole new meaning to "Speed Trap".

Gresham's recent 9/11-slash-War on Terror monument.

Revealing details of Kobe Bryant's life, as told to police. (As a side-note, I know that there would be so much temptation in life if I were an NBA star, but at the same time, should they really be able to use that as an excuse? Why the heck would you bother getting married and promising yourself to someone if you're going to engage in a life of filandering? This stuff makes me sick.)

What the hell happened to Al Gore?

Hey, Al...



Time to mix in a salad.

Random picture of the day

Compliments of dreamwill.net

I'm an idiot.

So, today, I was driving The Missus to 24 Hour Fitness for her session with her personal trainer, and I was planning to work out while I waited for her.

My wife and I benefit from a low monthly price thanks to knowing an employee at the Beaverton 24 Hour Fitness. What that means to me is that I regularly make trips to the 24 Hour in Hollywood or at Mall 205 as my workday allows.

What that means to my wife is that she goes every few months when I threaten to cancel her membership.

That is, until recently. After clearing up an accounting problem we were having with 2HF, my wife went to re-up her account at our friend's location (which is very out of the way), and while there got talked into buying time with a personal trainer. Now, that's a good thing and it's a bad thing. It's good because now she has a reason to go more than twice a year. It's bad because the trainer is the only thing that will keep her there, and he costs $50 a pop. Eek.

Anyway, so I had to drive her out to B-Town, and once there I realized my gym bag felt a little light.

That'd be because I forgot my tennis shoes. And I was still in my church clothes, which don't make for quality sweating.

I looked in the back of our gas-guzzling SUV where I used to keep a pair of old sneakers, and realized I'd chucked them because I finally had accumulated two pairs of newer sneakers and was no longer interested in wearing hole-y shoes at the gym. All that I could find were some of my wifes thongs (flip-flops in the modern vernacular) and she forbade me to wear those.

So, I rushed home to grab some shoes, but have realized by the time I get them and get back, she'll be done with her work out and I'll just have jumped on the elliptical machine, so I thought instead I'd tell the whole world that I'm an idiot.

On another note, today I did something I never, ever do, and that is I flipped off another driver. The other driver was a Domino's Pizza guy. The flip resulted from a rarified set of circumstances. First, I was on one of the narrow, narrow streets in my neighborhood. Second, I was waiting for two other cars to pass through the gauntlet of the narrow, narrow street as I couldn't proceed while they were in the way. Third, another car was attempting to park in a too-too-small space in front of one of the two cars as we all waited for him to clear so that they could clear the gauntlet so that I could proceed. And, finally, the Domino's guy was behind me and honked not once, but twice to encourage me to defy physics and forge ahead.

The first honk I let slide.

The second, however, sent me into a blind rage, and my rarely-seen finger poked up and saluted.

My apologies to the pizza guy. I try not to spread the venom that the rest of the world so freely shares. Next time, however, a little patience would be appreciated.

So, right about now, my wife is about 2/3 done with her workout, which means I should be off.

Remember:

1. I'm an idiot.
2. Flipping off other drivers is bad.
3. Physical trainers are a mixed bag.
4. Leave extra sneakers in your gym bag.

Catch ya later.

Interesting video...

regarding bias in our universities. Brainwashing 101.

Random picture of the day

Courtesy dreamwill.net

Runner up...

Courtesy 10eastern.com

Catching up

So, how are you doing?

I'm alright, thanks for asking.

Had a busy long weekend. As you may have read, my friend Joe D. came to town.

But before that, my old friend Crime-Dog Kerry showed up.

Back in the day, down in Salem, I hung out with a pretty cool set. When I got hired as a Deputy DA down there, I knew that I would enjoy my job not only because I'd worked there as an intern, but also because several of the attorneys in my section (misdemeanors and DV) were former law school chums. So I had a good time.

Kerry started after me (by about a week, if memory serves) and we hit it off instantly. She ended up being about my favorite co-worker, and it was a little harder to say goodbye to her than most others when I left my office for my new stomping ground in Portland.

Kerry left shortly after to be a Californian, and the end of Marion County's Golden Age officially set in (I still contend that it ended when I left, but to be polite I'll just pretend her departure was the true beginning of the slide into oblivion in Salem).

Anyway, whenever Kerry makes a trip up from Salem, I try to make sure to catch her for coffee, lunch, dinner, whatever.

This time around, Kerry and Erin from the Port came out with me to the lovely Montage.

Erin from the Port is, of course, another friend from Salem. She went to law school with me (graduated a year ahead), flunked her first bar like me, and ended up in the office she interned in like me. Other than that, we are very different. She is one of those beautiful people, I'm just a plain guy. Everything she says smacks of some wittiness, I have occasional fits of comedic brilliance surrounded by a bunch of lame jokes. She's very popular in her circles, I'm very popular without really having a circle. And, as her name suggests, she hails from a sea-faring town, while I hail from the icy tundra of Minnesota.

Anywho, after supplying Crime-Dog and 'Port with many tasty food suggestions (most of which are located on the right of this page), we ended up going to the one place that Erin really wouldn't enjoy.

But it was a lovely time. I had Sea Bass, we shared Gator bits, I drank Rainier, and we had great conversation. I'm always happy to be at the Montage, so much the better when you have great friends to eat with.

After that, it was off to hang with Joe D, who flew in a couple hours after Kerry.

As expected, Joe's visit was fun. We played (too much) X-Box, we ate (too much) food, we spent (too much) money, and he left (much too) soon. Fortunately, we didn't manage to go see Harold and Kumar, which Joe still swears is the movie equivalent of Manna from Heaven.

And, God willing, I never will.

So, I'm back. Even played softball today. We won, but I won't bore you with the details, because S.Gray's not around talking about imaginary waterfowl, so really, what's the point?

No links tonight. I think I'm going to stop doing mass links at the end of long bits, because I tend to intersperse more short blurbs that are mostly link-driven. I find it difficult to fight the urge to just plop links into my blogue at the expense of writing; partially because writing takes so long and must be done during off-hours, and partially because I'm having difficulty finding things to write about.

But that's neither here nor there. I'll deal with my problems, and my faithful readers (Frodo, Crime-Dog, JLowe, and the occasional JackBog) will feign interest in my rambling.

Until my next ramble,

Catch ya later.

House photos

And, no, they aren't mine.

Jack Bog's blog points towards another blog which points towards these photos on a real estate site, showing a lovely home. You also get to see the affection the seller's pets have for eachother (3rd photo down). At least we know the home is filled with love...

So, which hero are you?

I'm this one:

Welcome to Miller time

Behold the wisdom of Brain Terminal.

If you're bored...

This site's a good time-waster.

Oh, yeah, by the way....EEEEEWWWWW!

This is kinda icky...

Question: who'd they get to test this?

Briefly...

Big holiday coming up. Anyone have any big plans?

At The Piehome, it's time to celebrate the annual visit of Joe.

Joe D., that is. My old roommate. See his full shortness below.



Joe's an interesting fella. I met him at church after I got out of college and started hanging out more in town again. Joe was sort of a friend of a friend, and we really didn't talk at all.

Somehow, though, Joe felt friendly enough with me and old J.Lowe that, at one point, he asked us if he could crash on our couch. It's quite possible that Joe was actually J.Lowe's friend; I've never been too sure. I have a fuzzy recollection of how Joe and I became chums.

Anyhoo, Joe did end up crashing on our couch. And that began a long span of Joe being my roommate.

Shortly after Joe lived on our couch, J.Lowe and I finished our second years of law school and J.Lowe headed off to jolly olde England to study powdered wigs and tea. I was left in a bit of a lurch, and begged Joe to let me stay in his fancy new Beaverton apartment. He obliged, and I spent a summer crashing on his couch. We had fun. By day, he was a pseudo-architect and I was a pseudo-lawyer (both of us learning our fields, he as an assistant and I as an intern at the Marion County DA's Office). By night, we played obscene amounts of Playstation 2 (which, now that I think of it, has actually been around quite a while...it's actually ancient as game systems go...).

Eventually J.Lowe came back, and we all shacked up together in a house in Multnomah Village. It was there that I developed a thorough understanding of how frustrating Joe D. could be.

Joe D's from California. I think I'll blame that sole fact for all of his afflictions. Did you know that Californians are the strangest people on earth? Joe was a stereotypical Californian, as is displayed by this simple fact: he was obsessed with climate control. In the summer, Joe would jack up the A/C as high as he could, never satisfied unless the house was a cool 55 degrees. In the winter, he'd turn up the heat until our house was warm enough that he could feel comfortable in his summer clothes. I asked him once, during my summer frustration at seeing our sky-high power bill (Joe was the only one of us with a real job, since J.Lowe and I were still in our third year of law school) "Joe, now that it's summer, why don't you just pretend it's winter, and then you'll feel comfortable in a warm house?"

He'd have none of my logic. We often caught him trying to defy the democratically imposed restrictions on his power abuse, and many a day passed where he was duly chastised.

That wasn't his only issue though. Joe has no memory for what you've told him. My wife says my memory is bad, and she's right. But Joe makes me look like a freaking elephant with his forgetfulness.

This came in handy, though, when our friend Luke moved in for awhile. Luke could never remember what he'd told you earlier, and would constantly repeat the same story or idea to the point where he'd look at you, you'd tell him what he was thinking, and he'd be amazed at your powers of perception.

Needless to say, we made Luke and Joe share the upstairs of the house. They had many great conversations, all the same, and all interesting to both of them.

Joe eventually left us, though, and went back to California to pursue his dream of being an architect.

Joe comes back once a year, and we have fun for about 4 days. By the end of that period, of course, I've gotten impatient with his repetition and his long showers that use all the hot water, and he's grown sick of my grumpiness and irritability at having to repeat everything over and over, and he leaves and we count to 10 months before he can come back again. But, really, if he ever moved back it would make me, The Missus, and even J.Lowe happy. Because, darn it, we like ol' Joe D.

Welcome back, Joe. Can't wait to get sick of you.

Anyway, Joe's gonna be here until next Wednesday, which will necessitate less writing. I'll throw out bits and pieces, but nothing big for a few days. Hope you can stand it.

By the way, in case you're at all curious, word is the seller on my house is acquiescing to all of my demands, and we're again on track to close by September 24th. Which makes me happy, primarily because it keeps The Missus happy.

Anyway, that's all.

Catch ya later.

Good thing I'm allergic... Thanks dreamwill.net 

Too good to pass up. Thanks to www.dreamwill.net. 

This just in...

Clerks 2?

(Thanks to MetaFilter)

Food Guide, and home-buyer frustrations, and what-not.

Food Guide
So, I have a friend coming into town Friday who I'm taking to dinner, and I've been given the task of finding a good place to eat.

There are many here in Portland. I've noticed that Portland has a bevy of fine dining establishments. You can get steaks, Chinese, Italian, burgers, whatever. And it's all good.

Why, then, do I spend so much time going to Red Robin? Because it's easy.

So, I'm starting to compile a list of favorite restaurants. It will be showing up on the right. Anything you see on the guide is something I love and would dare you not to try once. I have a limited time to work with, though, so you can see other greats (Stanich's, Brasserie Montmarte, Fat City Diner) later when I have more time.

Home Buying
Well, this home buying thing is dragging on. We are at the cusp of running out of time on the inspection period, and still no firm resolution on the roof issue.

We had the roof checked by an official roof inspector and they've said it's shot. So, we've forwarded that info and a bid to the seller and told him to fix it or we walk. I think he was hoping not to have to sink anymore money into the home (which is understandable) and is balking at fixing the roof with no financial help from us (which is also understandable, given he's not getting the full asking price) and is uncomfortable with where the situation has left him. However, I continue to persist that he's getting a pretty good deal from us (the house is a little small for what we're paying) and any buyer is going to require the roof to be done if they are getting a loan on the home, so it is good business sense just to get it done and move on with life.

We'll see how this shakes out. As insurance, The Missus and I are again combing the listings for nuggets.

What-not
Apparently there is a burgeoning population of lawyers (especially criminal law practitioners) who blog. I've started to post what I've found on the right. Although you may get the occasional musing from me on my work, I choose not to be defined by where I work, but more by what I like or don't like, so unless something really moves me, you won't be getting much prosecutor talk here.

Catch ya later.