March/2004

I go to a fast food place, hand them my debit card. They run it, hand it back to me, and give me my food.

?

I've been under the impression that using a card required some form of authentication. If debit, a pin number. The back of my card says "SEE PHOTO ID". If they run it as credit, don't they need a signature? (People not checking sigs or checking and ignoring the ID request is another topic altogether.)

Any schmoe can use my card without providing -any- form of identity confirmation. That really, really sucks.

Deena makes fun of me from time to time, because she says that sometimes have a ‘manly man' mentality, yet I don't do anything even remotely manly. I suck at automotive stuff, I don't care one little bit about sports, and I historically tend to make things worse when I try to play handyman and ‘fix' things.

I basically only know about how things work after they break, and someone else shows me how to fix them -properly-. (Case in point: the motorcycle.)

With all that said, last night I installed a new power cable into the dryer that came with the house (the one that it had didn't fit the wall outlet) and rewired my first light switch. I'm feelin' the testosterone pumpin. As long as we don't have a surprise wall fire, I think it's safe to say that wasn't very hard, and I might become a handyman yet. Woo woo.

Got the keys to the house yesterday, so I spent until about 12:30am moving boxes. When I first walked into the kitchen, someone had put a freezer there, which by itself, would have kicked all kinds of ass. Then I opened it. Trevor had bought us the freezer for a housewarming gift, and then went and -totally- filled it with various alcohols and beers, mainly optimator (my favorite.)

So Trevor, your new mission is to help me drink it over the course of a few months worth of Starcraft marathons. Thanks man. :)

Random thought. I moved stuff for about 5 hours last night, but I don't feel like I made much of a dent. I've come to the conclusion that after 3.5 years of marriage, we've somehow managed to accumulate an enormous amount of shit. Before I was married, I could move myself across town in a few hours. This feels like it's going to take all week. I blame my wife.

Flipped a coin.

Shaved my head.

Feelin' good.

So, after a few months of random discussion, Nadine and I decided to buy a house. A good friend of mine's Aunt is a realtor, and Nadine's sister is a broker - we gotz the hookups. From saying to the realtor "find us a house" to actually getting one.... 2 weeks, round trip. Crazy fast... my head is spinning. For some reason, I thought the entire process would be complex and expensive, but I'm really surprised at how easy it was. We just went through the inspection this Monday - lots of little weird things, but no show stopping problems. Yay! Basically - expected stuff from a house that was built in the 1930s. Gave myself the 1st home project after fixing the little things - already ordered a bunch of x10 goodies. After wiring the whole place, (and doing electrical grounding where it is needed) I'll probably setup a home asterisk server so I can get voicemail emailed to me... and have some sort of voice menu for controlling x10 remotely. Gah - so, so nerdy.