Category Archives: Personal News

Getting Fit, Saying No, and Other News

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My internet connection is STILL having problems. I’m also spending lots of time at my parents’ house and sleeping there to facilitate showings. So it’s difficult to update the site. To make up for that, you get a big entry today.

First, Elvira is here, and she rocks! If you need a car, I recommend Hondas, and I recommend getting yours from John Eagle Honda in Dallas. Talk to Anthony Hickman. He and I worked out the deal over email, and the whole process was very smooth. The Honda Fit is fun to drive, easy to park, very flexible, and has lots of great extras like cruise control and speed-sensitive volume with the Sport trim. Katy is borrowing my old car until the wedding because hers died hard. Soon afterward I’ll give Sarah to IBC.

We got the first offer on our house, but it was unusual. The buyers wanted to close in TEN DAYS, and their financing was odd. We couldn’t agree on the terms, so the deal fell through. It was encouraging to get an offer within the first month, though. We’ve had a few showings since then and still have hope for a good outcome.

I saw an amazing movie recently called Hotel Rwanda. It’s about the Rwandan genocide and civil war in 1994, an event that the West largely ignored at the time despite the deaths of nearly 1 million Rwandans. The founder of ALARM is from Rwanda and lost family members and friends in the tragedy. The movie tells the true story of Paul, a hotel manager who turned his hotel into a safe haven for over 1000 refugees and helped many of them to escape. It draws you in emotionally from the beginning with fantastic acting (particularly Don Cheadle, who plays Paul) and a great script. Today we have a similar situation in Sudan near Darfur, with similar apathy here among Western political leaders. I wonder how our reaction would be different if sub-Saharan Africa held the oil reserves of Iraq.

Jenny and I went bowling last night for Date Night. We visited Golden Triangle Bowl in Irving, a place where I attended a lock-in back in high school. I was thrilled to find that Golden Triangle is now SMOKE FREE! One employee said they’ve gotten lots of comments about the policy, both good and bad. I told him I thought it was great. My lungs didn’t shut off during the two games we bowled, and I didn’t come out smelling like smoke. I think and hope that most public buildings except bars will be smoke-free within 5-10 years. We are winning!

Doubletime and Its Benefits

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One of the things I love about my job is the opportunity for overtime. Until I became a dispatcher, I was either paid either straight salary regardless of hours or hourly without any chance for overtime. But now if I want to make some extra money, I can sign up for extra shifts. If I’d rather keep my days off, I can. Well, except for Saturday morning, when so few people had signed up for overtime that they had to start at the bottom of the seniority list and find someone legal to cover a shift. That someone was me, so I got called around 3:30 AM and semi-forced to come in for overtime even though I hadn’t signed up. I was supposed to help Katy and Eric move that day. I hated to break that commitment, but I must say it was nice to sit in an air-conditioned office making time and a half instead of lugging heavy boxes and furniture around in the muggy Texas heat. Anyway, our contract says that if someone works two or more overtime shifts during scheduled time off, every shift after the first is doubletime. Since I’d already been “juniored” on Saturday and had several days off ahead, I signed up for every overtime shift I could get! I worked two shifts on Sunday from 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM and another Monday afternoon. I was tired by the end, especially after Sunday, but it will give me a very nice bonus in my next paycheck. Note: I’m not trying to brag. I just thought you might find this process interesting. =)

That bonus comes at a great time since we’ve finally decided to replace my beloved 1996 Dodge Avenger, Sarah (11 years, 137,000 miles, the car I’ve driven since my senior year of high school), with a black 2007 Honda Fit, a small SUV-hatchback type car that offers great gas mileage, mucho flexibility, and Honda quality. I had to reserve it because they’re hard to find and in demand. Mine is currently sailing over from Japan and should arrive within a couple of weeks. I’ll be very sad to see Sarah go, but I’m really excited about getting a new car of my own. I’m probably going to donate her to Irving Bible Church’s car ministry. I’m working on names for my new Fit already. Since she’s black with tinted windows, mysterious and sexy, the frontrunners are Elvira (as in Mistress of the Dark, not the Oak Ridge Boys song) or Avril (as in Lavigne). Write me if you have any suggestions.

On the Market

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As of early this week, our house is officially on the market! Alicia just posted our listing today. I also created a house page with more details, pictures, and commentary. Feel free to send the link to anyone you might know who’s looking for a house in our area, and tell your friends as well. Alicia hired a stager named Anna who visited our house, rearranged furniture, cleared out lots of our “personality” from the house, and generally made it look more like a model. It was a bit difficult for Jenny to have another woman come in and tell her what was wrong with her decorating, but the results are great. We even repainted the blue accent wall in the kitchen. It seems like half of our possessions (the half we seldom use) are in storage. Now it feels like we’re living in a hotel – the bed is made unless we’re in it, the kitchen sink is always empty, the countertops are always clean, and our toothbrushes are in the cabinet. Now the waiting begins. I’m really curious to see how many people want to see the house, how long until we get an offer, and what the offer is. I think we’ve priced our house very fairly, less than you’d pay for a comparable new house from the builder, and it has lots of upgrades and nice touches to help it stand out. Tonight we celebrated with a bottle of raspberry wine, which is FABULOUS. Pick up a bottle at World Market.

Want a House?

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For some time Jenny and I have been planning to move closer to work. We LOVE our house, but the 30-mile commute each way is burning lots of gas and putting lots of miles on both our cars. I crunched the numbers and realized we could literally save thousands by moving closer. So we’ve actually started thinking about moving to West Irving. We found a nice neighborhood west of Irving Mall. Alicia Jackson, an old friend from my youth group and Baylor, is now a Realtor (btw, there are only TWO syllables in “realtor”, so don’t add one in the middle and pronounce it “real-a-tor”), and she’s going to take us to a few houses Thursday night. Nothing is set in stone yet, but I think there’s a strong possibility we’ll be living somewhere else by the end of the year if not the end of the summer. So be sure to email me if you’re interested in a nearly new, four-bedroom house in north Fort Worth!

Also, I know it’s a bit late, but I finally added some wedding pictures to the wedding page, so check them out.

Wife’s Bday

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I haven’t heard much in the way of comments (besides a freak-out by Lisa, but she just fears change), so I’m going to stick with this new design for now. Jenny suggested a pic with more bluish tones, so there you go.

Today is my beloved wife’s 31st birthday. We both took the day off to sleep in and play. This afternoon we plan to visit BodyWorlds in Dallas. I saw it in Chicago and loved it, and now Jenny and I can share it. We’re having dinner at Red Lobster and then spending the night at the Renaissance Hotel in Dallas. We might watch the Stars-Wings game on TV since we’ll have CABLE! Tomorrow morning we have massages scheduled at a local massage school (cheap cheap!), and if the weather is nice, we might hit the North Texas Jazz Festival in Addison. Should be a busy weekend! One thing I love about my wife is that birthdays are not traumatic for her, but instead something to celebrate. Let the party begin!

New Look

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In case you haven’t noticed, after MANY years of using the same overall look on andybox.com, I have changed it! This might not be the “permanent” look, but it’s something I’m trying out, and I’d love to know what you think. I made the background white, the text dark blue, the main font Arial, and the top nav bar light blue, trying for a cleaner look that’s easier to read and a bit faster to load.

In other news, the garage sale was a big success! We raised over $1000 for Less is More, helped declutter the lives of several friends and family members, and helped lots of people get great deals on some useful and/or interesting items. A friend hauled off most of the things we couldn’t sell, which made cleanup much easier.