Sad weekend

It was a sad weekend for me and my family. My paternal grandmother (Grandma Baschnagel) passed away on Friday after struggling with illness for a few months. I will miss her very much. I was particularly close to her because I lived with her for 9 years while I went to college and graduate school at the University at Buffalo. She was 80 years old. Though I'm sad that she is gone I know she lived a good life.

Rest in Peace Grandma!

Moving...right along...eventually

Well Jocelyn and I made it to NY. It was quite an effort but we did it. Here's the story. First, we had a moving company (Ultimate Van Lines) hired to move our many boxes. Jocelyn hired them in June and they seemed to be very responsive and helpful at first. We had a nice 3 day road trip planned with some site seeing. Then as we got closer to the move date Jae had a hard time getting ahold of the rep on the phone. Then come the move day (Monday, August 4th) we tried to call and get a time for when the truck would show up. We couldn't get a hold of anyone for half the day and we left messages. Then we finally got hold of customer service and they tell us we are in the system but they don't know where the truck is. About 4pm, we call again, and the customer service rep says they just found out an hour ago that the truck broke down on its way. We ask how long until they can get a truck to us, they say they don't know but maybe 2-3 days, we say that's not going to fly. They tell us they will attempt to find another company to pick up the job. The next day we call, again many times before we actually reach someone, they can't find another truck so we tell them to cancel our pick up. Not a very good company. We understand that trucks break down but we don't appreciate bad customer service or a second rate business. We then go to Budget, rent a 24' truck and pack it (Tuesday, 8/5). Wednesday we finish packing in the morning, pick up the car trailer, and head to NY. Jae was excited to cross the MS state line. We stopped in LaGrange, KY for the night then finished up the next day at Jae's parents house in Lockport,NY about 7pm Thursday 8/7. Then on Friday, 8/8 (jae's birthday, happy 30th Jae!) we drive to the appartment (see pic above) in Rochester to unload the truck. Jae's dad helped us out and after about 6 hours of tedious unloading (unfortunately our apt is on the 2nd floor) we are done. We are ready to return the truck but notice when we go to hitch the car trailer back up to the truck that the trailer's jack is broke (it bent and would not lower the trailer onto the hitch, see pick above). So we spend another hour waiting for a repair truck. Finally we get it fixed (well enough to hitch it back up) and return it to the Budget dealer. Yeah, finally its off our hands!!! Needless to say, it was a pain in the ass to move. Diesel sucks as there are not as many diesel stations and the smaller ones are not 'big truck with a trailer' friendly. We had to do some very creative manuvering to fuel up at one station, after we wasted 30 minutes finding the place. As Jae can attest to I swore alot and don't get me started about the stupid drivers in small cars that match your speed when entering the highway instead of either speeding up or slowing down. One nice thing though is that we had bought a TomTom Go 930 GPS unit which made it so much easier to navigate. Now we're hanging out in Lockport for a little while visiting family before we go back this week to unpack all those freaking boxes and get ready for our new jobs!

Wedding anniversary and surgery

Yesterday was Jae's and my 3rd wedding anniversary. We celebrated like most couples by having a surgery. :) Well maybe not like most couples. We actually went out for a nice dinner the night before because I had surgery on the 23rd. My surgery was to reduce my turbinates, tissue that covers some bones in your nose that fill with blood to warm and moisturize the air you breathe in. In my case mine were a bit too big and would swell too much causing me to not be able to breathe very well through my nose, which lead me to not be able to sleep very well. The surgery went well and now I have a bloody nose for a few days. Nothing like surgery on your third anniversery.

quick updates

Quick updates:
-My brother Andrew just got engaged in the past week with his girlfriend Kathryn.
The wedding's likely to be in may or june after he graduates from med school.
-less than a month before Jae and I move to Rochester.
-band recording is wrapping up, now I have to really focus on mixing and mastering, once the album is done it'll be posted online. Another album from a band I'm in that is released after the band has disbanded!!! ha. Oh, yeah the band played our last show on June 30th, 2008.

ok that's all for right now.

Music Update

A few new albums have come out or are about to that I recommend.
1.)Weezer-The red album just came out and I'm really liking it. Its closer to their original sound. The video for the song 'pork and beans' is pretty cool. You can check it out on youtube.
2.)Mar Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath was recently released and its really good. If you are into modern progressive rock I think you'll like it.
3.) One of my favorite bands, Dameria will release their latest album on the 24th of this month. I've heard the tracks and they're pretty good as well, though in my opinion not quite as good as the bands previous releases.

My own band is still working on recordings. Some of the songs are close to finished but I've been a bit busy and its taking me longer to mix and master the songs we have finished recording. I will finish them though and post them online somewhere once they're completed.

Cheers!

Quick Post- NIN

Hey, if you like Nine Inch Nails, they are giving away a new CD for free. Go to their website, NIN.com and follow the instructions. I downloaded it yesterday and gave it a listen and I like it so far.

Listening to books...

Ok. Its been a few weeks since I last posted and I want to try to keep this blog updated on a semi-regular basis. So this short post is an update to what I've been doing lately. I've continued to study for my licensing exam and feel I'm much closer to being ready to take it. I'll be glad to get that over with. Jae and I continue to prep our house for the market, and I continue to play soccer on Sundays and play music with my band. One relatively new thing is that I've discovered that the local library has audiobooks for download. I've downloaded a few books and have been listening to them. I never thought I would like listening to books, prefering to read them, but I've found that I quite enjoy listening to the narration. This is partly due to the voice acting which makes it almost like a movie but inside your head. It makes me think of the time before T.V. when people would gather around the radio to hear a story program. I've listened to the first two books of the Prydain Chronicles, which includes the Black Cauldron. Unfortunately the library doesn't have a subscription to the last three books in the series which is a disappointment (audiobooks are expensive $20 compared to a $6 book). So if anyone has access to these audiobooks through their library please let me know. The other books I've been listening to are "His Dark Materials" by Phillip Pullman. There was recently a movie based upon the first book, 'the golden compass'. Needless to say the books are much better than the movie (same goes for the black cauldron). Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately. Well I have to get to work. Later.