Here is the virtual tour of the lovely new home. We have plans to rennovate the upstairs first, primarily enlarging the bathroom, currently when you sit on the toilet, which wiggles back and forth, you can also wash your hands in the sink, which is conveniently located in your lap, over your legs. Next, we're hoping to mess up the kitchen real good like and put in some new flooring, new cabinetry and a little island to eat and cook at. It'll be sooo cute!

When I'm feeling pissed at the world I'm going to go down into the basement and dig it deeper. That's the plan at least.

Oh yeah, and I wanna build a rooftop deck!!

From the entryway to the front door, facing out. The floors are totally sweet, though poorly redone. Two tone wood border, very chic.

The kitchen, obviously. There will definitely be a refrigerator in this room. There isn't one now, however

The back "yard" to use the term loosely.

the front bedroom, not much YET!!!

Crappy view of the middle bedroom

The miniature bathroom. To be biggerized

Damn folks, it's official. Jennifer and I (mainly Jennifer) bought a house the other day. We bought it on my birthday, in fact. We'll be moving to the mole hole sometime in June when everything finally closes. The place is a little two floor row house with a yard about the same size as my parents living room, but it's got cool hardwood floors, a kitchen big enough for two people to work in and it was the right price, cheap. The asking price was 89,000 dollars, and when all the fees and closing costs roll in, we'll have paid something like 92,000 for it. Considering that we were looking at crappier places for twice as much, it's really a bargain. The process of dreaming, revising, destructing and constructing will soon begin in earnest. My main backbreaker will be to see how feasable it'll be to dig the basement down 8 inches so that I can stand up. Let the labor begin.

If anyone with a strong back is thinking about visiting Philly this summer, let me know.

Hey Everybody! I've just discovered another career that I'm absolutely not interested in: Construction work!

I spent the last week at Jennifer's uncle's house working on his roof. The project is actually to double the size of his existing house by puttting a substantial addition on the back as well as a de-facto third story on his little house in Bethesda, MD. It was a learning experience. I learned something about putting on a roof, I learned how to effectively use a pneumatic nailer, I learned that safety is a relative term when dealing with construction work and re-learned a fair bit of Spanish. Dave has been using the help of two day laborers, Luis and Noel, great guys who speak nary a word of English. Dave has mastered about 20 Spanish words and uses them in varying combinations to communicate his intentions. An example sentence indicating that a board should be moved, "Luis, esta madera adios!" translates directly as "Luis, this wood bye bye." Fortunately for Dave, the guys don't make fun and they work really hard. I, with my vocabulary closer to 100 words was a substantially better communicator, but had the unfortunate disadvantage of not knowing what the hell I was doing. I did figure it out somewhat over the course of the week, but by that time I was pretty much pooped and my productivity level had already peaked and ebbed. I will not say that I was worthless, but I definitely would have been more help had I actually had some experience. Oh well, next time anyone needs a roof put on, I can help you with some moral support. You may convince me to even pitch in some manual labor, assuming that I've forgotten how much I didn't like this past week.

While riding through the ever-lovely streets of Philadelphia the other day, my mind played an interesting trick on me. Cruising along, my nose caught a whiff of the often-unpleasant aroma of rotten eggs, or maybe sewer gas. To me, this formerly repugnant smell signified something totally different, ONSENS!!! I was instantly jonesing for the lovely relaxation of sitting in a geothermal bath, nude, with 10 to 30 perfect strangers somewhere in the mountains of Japan. Shane, my man, if you're reading this now and it's raining and shitty in Montreal like it is here in Philly today, you know exactly what I'm talking about. What I wouldn't give to be in the lovely tide pools under the Yakushima stars cavorting with the mudskippers and Mr. Goshi-Goshi telling me to scrub my nuts with more vigor.
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On a different front, bike racing is going pretty well. Last week I ended up 5th in my category 3/4 race in Mullica NJ. This weekend was slightly less good, with temps starting at 52 and ending up somewhere in the 45 degree range on a rainy course through Farimont park. In the category 4 race I was only 9th, somewhat worse than I was hoping. My big problem was that while last week I was able to get away in a breakaway early on in the race, today was not quite so conducive to such attempts. The rain and the wind were de-motivating factors for a lot of other riders. My legs were also pretty frozen by the time the sprint finish rolled around, and one thing that we all know, is that Aaron can't sprint. I'm hoping to avenge myself tomorrow and work my way up in the rankings a little bit. I'd really love to win back my entry fee if nothing else.