Well, for those of you keeping score I succeeded at most of my tasks today.  It took two trips, but I got proper light bulbs for the track lighting in the kitchen.  I also replaced the light switch cover that was taken by the previous tenant, which was made easier by the discovery of a flat head screwdriver in the corner of the basement.

I also got a firewood holder, but I still need to find some firewood.  I got a tub of laundry detergent and did up all of the work laundry from this week.  The only dirty clothes in the house are the ones I’m wearing right now, which should earn me a few brownie points when Tasha shows up tomorrow.

The moving guys are showing up here with our stuff between 8 and 10 am tomorrow!  I’m pretty darned excited to have my bed and our sofa back… the living room floor is hard and my quality of life will drastically improve when I can sit on the couch again.

Today is my last day by myself in this place, so aside from pulling a Tom Cruise in Risky Business, I will be fixing up a few of the easy things that the previous tenants of this house left undone.  On the list is replacing burnt out light bulbs and the missing light switch cover.  I’m also going to pick up some firewood and a holder for said firewood, and some laundry detergent so I can get my small shambling mound of laundry subdued before Tasha arrives.

In other, more exciting news… I have purchased a new HDTV!  The venerable Samsung LN52A750 52″ monster will be arriving at my house as soon as I can get a payment method to post that Cefcu won’t kick back.  I tried an eCheck, figuring that it would be easier to process than a huge charge on my Check+ card.  It appears that Cefcu hates those, and I think my daily purchase limit on my Check+ card is not high enough to process the order but I am trying anyway.  If that fails, I will call them tomorrow and get them to bump the limit for a few days while I place the order.

Thanks to Eric for the tip on the TV… I couldn’t have gotten that big of a discount at the stores around here, they’ve all got the thing at like $2700, which makes my $2149 look like a pretty sweet deal.

The cable guy just showed up, he says he has to run a new underground cable and that someone else will come out to bury the cable in a few weeks at no cost to me.  Hopefully I will soon be coming to you live from my own Internet connection!  woot!

I’m sorry to say that I generally slept like crap the first night in my new house.  My air mattress wasn’t quite inflated properly, so it deflated slightly overnight leaving me with a backache.  I was all prepared to be up for the cable guy to show up at 8 am, only to find out thanks to a phone call from my lovely wife that he will be here between 8 and 10 am.

Due to the aforementioned air mattress issue, I am still quite tired today and I would prefer nothing more than to sleep until about noon.  I don’t think that is in the cards so I will wait for the cable guy, get cleaned up, and head over to King Sooper’s or Safeway to get some groceries.

Some interesting things about Colorado: King Sooper’s is owned by Kroger, all the Hardee’s are Carl’s Jr. out here, and nobody seems to obey construction zone speed limits (except for me, of course).  Thankfully, there are a ton of familiar stores too, it seems that I am in a consumer paradise given the likes of Costco, Sears Grand, numerous Super Targets, and the list goes on and on.

Interesting thing about my neighborhood… there are 10 wireless networks, 2 of which are unsecured.  This is how I am able to blog to you right now, as I am sitting in the unfurnished living room of my new house!

Among the strange things the previous tenant took with them: one light switch cover, one towel rack, assorted random light bulbs, and shower curtain rods.  That’s right.  Shower curtain rods.

At some point this weekend I am going to have to venture out to get replacements for those things, but the major To-Do for tomorrow is to select myself a new HDTV.  I am leaning towards one of the new Philips 120hz LCD TVs… it lends them to better black and less artifacting during action scenes.  The trick will be whether or not I can parlay myself into severe discounts on said set.  I will do the best I possibly can, but I’ve never attempted negotiating a purchase like this before.

One other thing I have noticed about this house: it was not apparent from the photos or other walkthroughs, but it seems that the majority of the light in the house was generated from floor lamps that were controlled by wall switches.  Neither of the master bedrooms actually have light fixtures, which should make it for a dark evening.  I am somewhat tempted to get myself some logs and have a fire tonight, but I lack my fireplace kit to clean up after it so I will probably delay that until Tasha gets here.

It’s good to own a home in Colorado!  Woot!

Today was a very long, productive day at the office.  It was punctuated by one meeting that was a little challenging, but in the end we emerged with some victories and a clear cut direction toward the right answers.

This is my last night in the hotel, tomorrow I close on and take possession of my new house!  After that point, it will be an air mattress and camping out until my stuff arrives on Monday!  I’m very excited, this has been quite a few months in the works and I’m ready to begin getting settled.

I hear tell that Tasha has been very productive getting the house packed and loaded, and my dog and rabbits are peacefully coexisting at my parents house.  Only a few more days until our little family is all back together again, and then the fun of unpacking and setting up the house can begin!

Well, I woke up bright and early this morning, ready to greet my first work day at the new office permanently.  As fate would have it, I took a wrong turn and ended up driving around Westminster for 40 minutes or so, eventually finding my way back to my hotel, picking up the trail correctly the second time around.

The day itself consisted of equal parts setting up my desk, greeting people, training, and working on project tasks.  I had a lunch meeting with my buddy Paul at the deli attached to the building, they have a nice sensible French Dip that was just right for lunch.  We got some good planning work accomplished, so at least something productive happened today!

I left work and headed over to the Safeway, where I was delighted to find the Ruffles Thick Cut Cheddar Baked Potato chips that I had been longing for in Pekin… I almost ate the entire bag!  Prices were almost exactly the same as in Pekin, so that is looking up.

Last, but certainly not least, Tasha got the final quote on our mortgage payment and thanks to the recent rate drop my monthly payment should be only $300 more than my old one!

All in all, it was a great first day at the office.  I’m going to aim to be a bit more productive tomorrow, focusing on knocking out some of the training I have been putting off!

Tasha and I spent last night on the dubious task of packing up all of my swords from the basement.  It took awhile, and it ended up being much less distressing than I expected.  I woke up by my alarm (all by myself) today, and spent most of the morning telling inanimate objects, rooms, and local businesses goodbye.

Interestingly, the part that was strangest to me was leaving my keyring and car keys behind.  My pockets feel relatively empty, and that is VERY strange!

I am sitting at Peoria International Airport waiting for my plane to show up.  I’m ready for this, let’s go!

For the second time in my karate career, it has come to time to leave my home dojo for an extended period.  Thursday night’s workout was my last training in Pekin, Sensei Quinn nominated me to lead warmups and I was surprised to be asked to teach the first class.  I decided to leave the class with a strong basic workout, and I made sure they were good and tired by taking the entire club through our Perfect Pushup workout.  I really should dig out my labelling and add this post to that count, but I would have to go back quite a way so I’ll give this one up to the ages.

Sensei Brewer led us through the second class, and it took the more familiar format of sparring combinations, partner drills, and the day was polished off with the five Heian kata.  I was panting pretty hard by the end of it!

As previously mentioned, the black and brown belts went out for a nice going away party for the Pekin group… and much fun was had by all.  Sensei Quinn appears to be running for a local political office effective immediately, so be sure to think about him on Election Day.

This morning’s workout was my last Saturday Morning Breakfast Club workout for awhile.  It took more of a “preparing for nidan test” feeling as we started with basic combinations focusing on using the floor, body movement, and switch-back.  We tried this with partners, and Sensei Hartman took us through some true closet kata… we did Heian Shodan without moving more than a few feet off of the starting point by employing switch-back to execute the techniques.  It was really interesting, I want to try a few of the black belt katas with that in mind to see how it goes.

The day was rounded off with the customary send-off… I was made to spar all takers.  I felt like things were working for me today, despite Sensei Hartman turning into the Terminator and continuing to walk forward with attacks.  I tried my best Sarah Conner impression but it didn’t really work too well!  Mike, John, and Matt all gave me something unique and different to remember them by, and we capped everything off with a Sochin kata for good measure.  I was tired, but it was one of the better workouts that I have had in a long time.

Since Sensei Hartman had to work on Thursday and couldn’t join us for an outing, he and the rest of the Saturday morning crew went to Steak and Shake for lunch.  Sensei Hartman gave me a copy of the Shotokan Magazine with his article in it, amazingly we realized that Sensei Yaguchi was on the cover.  I will be training at Sensei Yaguchi’s dojo in Denver during my time out there, so that was a strange moment of unintentional foreshadowing.  He signed the magazine for me and gave me some pictures of the crew to have on-hand when I’m missing my beatings.

Sensei Quinn also joined us, and really floored me by giving me his own calligraphy of the dojo kun.  He also gave me a wall scroll that had calligraphy that described an old story that described some warriors that were surrounded on four sides.  He went on to explain that the details of the story reminded him of me and the Rabid Chihuahua nickname and so he thought I would like it.  Just liking it is a gross understatement… I was so floored I could hardly select words to thank him with.

I have an immense amount of respect for Sensei Quinn, Sensei Brewer, and Sensei Hartman… these guys will probably never know how much their efforts in teaching and mentoring have meant to me over the years.  Karate has given me the confidence and dedication to achieve many of my personal, educational, and professional goals throughout my life and it is due in large measure to those three men, in addition to the support and hard knocks that I received at the hands of my fellow dojomates.

I had Sensei Quinn come out and show the class a demonstration on front kick, and I joked that we all had to pretend like we were him for a few minutes to try to get our front kicks looking that good.  It was only a partial joke… I think all of us that walk down Karate’s path strive to be more like our Sensei’s in both technique and personality.  Any amount of praise from these guys is golden to those of us that have looked up to them for so long, and I had the honor of getting many well wishes and compliments this week.

These nice thoughts and words mean a lot to me, and I want to thank everyone who have wished me well this week.  Everyone at work seems to think that I’m going to fall in love with the scenery out there and never come home, but I know that will not happen.  I consider my family and my second karate family some of the most important things, and I don’t intend to be cut off from them at length.

I’m coming home soon enough, and I expect you all to punch me when I return!

Osu!

Today was my last work day in Peoria, and Tasha’s last day on her job.  The day at the office flew by, as I was visited by everyone on my work team (several times by many) to wish me good luck and a safe trip.  Scarab and I repeated our oft-favored Arby’s in East Peoria, and before I knew it the time had come to bid my good buddy Dave goodbye.  He surprised me with The Beatles’ White Album, a noteable omission from my Beatles collection.  That was really cool, and now I get to think of him while I listen to Everyone Has Something To Hide Except for me and my Monkey, which is somehow appropriate for us.

We had our last chiropractic visit, which was much needed and after an hour and a half of Trick or Treaters it was time to meet Beth, Ryan, Scarab, and Mr. B for dinner and a movie.  All too soon it was time to say goodbye to that crew, it is always hard when you have to leave a solid group of people like they are.

All of this comes atop last night’s post workout bash with my karate dojo, which took place at Goodfella’s in Pekin.  I succeeded in taking out a truckload of Blue Moon’s myself, which helped to ease the goodbyes for a group that is so far entrenched into my inner circle that they are like family.  I’m going to miss everyone in that group for too many reasons to list in this confined space.

I think I was talking to Dave a few days ago when I said that this whole process feels a little like planning our wedding… you’ve planned for it so long, covered it in your head so many times, and when the time comes to actually execute the plan it feels so surreal that it seems not to be happening at all.

This amount of change is difficult. Changing the dynamics of how your friendships will operate for a fixed period of time is hard, but it is attainable at the same time.  Moving so far away is scary, any way you shake it.  None of those stressors begin to touch the amount of actual work I will be expected to do while out in Colorado.  It’s going to be a big adjustment but I’ve got Tasha there to depend on, and the Internet has made the world a lot smaller of a place.

At least, that’s what I’m telling myself to get through the next few days and weeks!

Tomorrow: the Saturday morning crew attempts to kill me, my last Steak and Shake and family dinner awaits me if I survive!!