One more lonely night. One more lonely day.

I'm sitting here in my classroom tonight, waiting. Tonight was lab night for my students, so I lectured for about 40 minutes, then cut them loose to go and find a lab to work on their final projects. Since I'm on call, and since there's no room in the already cramped labs for me, I told them I'd hang out down here in the lecture room if they needed me. I've got all I need to entertain myself for 2 more hours - a laptop, an internet connection, and a damn support phone that rings every 15 minutes. It's utter utopia. NOT!

But, I've been alone for almost 2 weeks now. I miss my wife and babies something awful. Its funny. Sometimes when I'm stressed out and the babies are crying in the background and I've got to get something done, all I want is quiet. Oh, what I wouldn't give to hear those babies screaming right now.

These couple weeks I've caught myself going into the nursery when I wake up to check on my little buddies, but they're not there. I've caught myself looking over at night only to see an empty bed next to me. Although my cat has taken to sleeping with me again, which he used to do when it was just us in an apartment.

The night before last I went into the babies nursery and turned on their favorite CD - ocean waves, and sat in their rocker and just listened. It was calming, but made me miss them even more, and soon I had to get up and leave the room. It was just too much.

I'm just afraid my babies won't remember me, and be scared of me when they see me. That would break my heart.

I just keep counting down the hours. There are two big events that happen tomorrow which will release me of a ton of stress. First, when the next sucker gets into work I hand this support phone off to him. That will be like 2 ton of bricks taken off my back. Then around 3 or 4 pm I'll proudly stand up from my desk, shut off my computer and walk....no...RUN out to my car and try to get to Ohio and my family as fast as possible. The babies will go to sleep, but hopefully Lauren will still be awake, and I'll have a big hug for her when I see her.

Ping Pong

As of late I've started to think of our housing situation as a ping pong match.  It seems like almost weekly we back out of this deal, then get back on board, only to repeat it again and again.  It's really tiring.

First, Arbor has a very bad tendency to say everything you want to hear while you're standing in the office, and then when you go out to the site you see all kinds of discrepancies.  That was always the case with our first house.  We'd demand for a fix of something, they would say they were back there working on it, and we'd walk in to find the problem area still there, and in the process find 3 or 4 more issues.

I thought we were finished with that process when we walked away after the great flood of '07.  But no, like morons we were lured back into trouble with promises of lower pricing, upgrades, and a "personal commitment" to getting us into the house we wanted and deserved.  That, to say the least, hasn't been panning out.

On Saturday I walked into the office and told them we were through.  Finished with their empty promises and lies.  Finished with the constant disappointment that we've dealt with for the last 6 months.  I thought, for a minute, that we might actually walk away for good this time.

Then, once again, we're being lured back in.  I don't know what will happen, but we've made them commit to getting us in the house by the first week of December.  We told them if they can't do that, we're walking away and want all of our money back.  So we'll see what they have to say about that.

1984 (remastered)

I found something while rummaging through boxes yesterday that I am jamming to today.  I forgot I even had it, but I bought Van Halen's 1984 (remastered) album forever ago.  It had been in a stack of CD's and I must have overlooked it when I loaded everything into my iTunes/iPod.  Well, I popped that sucker in last night and loaded it, and this morning I am JAMIN IT!

I forget how awesome that band is.  This one is about half crunchy Eddy Van Halen guitars, some bad ass 80's synth, and of course "Diamond" David Lee Roth on vocals.  The way it should be.  None of that "Van Hagar" crap!

So anyway, if you don't have this album, and you like Van Halen, get it.  You should have it anyway....just in case your kids ask you one day "Daddy, who's Van Halen?"  Whip this baby out and crank "Hot for Teacher" or "Panama" so loud the neighbors call the cops.  I guarantee they won't ask again!

"PAAAAA NAAA MAAAAA!"

Today my domain peace'd out.

Yeah, this morning was fantastic. I woke up to no email, no website. No nuttin.

I called my hosting company. They said my domain had expired. I told them, well, renew it. They couldn't. It was owned by my previous hosting company.

So I called them, the lazy sods. They told me that yep, the domain was expired. I should renew it with my current host.

That's excellent.

I called my current host back, and after begging them to look at it closer for me, they determined that the domain name was owned by Tucows.com. A domain name reseller. I did a whois lookup on myself at that site, and wouldn't you know it, my old host still had control.

I promptly called them back up and demanded that they give me access to something that allows me to reinstate my domain name, since they DID have control over it, and I was basically dead in the water until they did something.

Finally, they set up a temporary account for me to pay for and re-register the domain name. Within minutes, it was all kittens and daisies, and I was back up and running.

I was nervous about it because I just got last weekend's motorcycle race photos up, and I was freaking out because people have started purchasing photos. If they couldn't get to the site...they couldn't get photos...and I'd lose money. That would suck.

We are settling back in for another 4 month stretch of Arbor rebuilding a house for us. They found the presence of mold contamination in the house finally early this week. We pulled out of the deal immediately, telling them we were finished. They called us back and offered us a deal we can't really walk away from, so we decided to give it a try again. We'll see if their word holds true on Sunday when we go see the paperwork. Here's hoping for some good luck to come our way!

Looking for a weekend.

Well, it's Thursday.  Finally, in what will go down as the second longest week ever.   Last week would be THE longest week ever - sorting out all of the house stuff and getting plans in order.

This week has just been a long week for me and Lauren because I've had to work late almost every day.  Sunday was a bad day because I was on call for work, and basically what was supposed to be finished by 9:00am so I could do my part of the job wasn't finished.  They kept saying "One more hour.  Call back in an hour." and "Check back in 2 hours," all day long.  That lasted all day, and all night, and into Monday.  I handed the support phone off mid-day Monday, and someone else had to deal with it, but after being up all night and having to work all day, I was beat.

Then I worked late Tuesday and last night, and tonight I teach and probably won't get home till 10:00. 

I know...cry me a river.  Right?

Well, it just seems like forever since I had a weekend, and I'm really looking forward to this one.  It seems like I've been on call for work for the last month, and finally I have a few weeks of "freedom".

This weekend my dad and I are going to go do some target practice, and then have a walk through inspection of our house.  We've decided to go ahead with fixing it, and so far Arbor has done a great job of "saying" they will fix what we want.  Now it just comes down to them actually "doing" what they are "saying", if you're savvy.

Sunday I am shooting another track-day race at Putnam Park Road Course - which should be fun.  The last time I was there - the rainy day, I found a couple of new spots to shoot from and get some really good photos.  So, I'm excited about trying those spots out again, and spending the day in the sun.  It sounds funny, but when you're cooped up in a cubical for long days, a sunburn doesn't sound so bad... 

I always end up missing my family when I'm out there, though, but knowing they'll be home waiting for me gets me through.

I'll post pictures when I have a chance!