n u l l g e l

This is one of our cats, Migo.  I turned this picture into an lol.  It’s my first one, and if you think it’s any good, please click on it and cast your “positive” vote.  KTHXBI.

If you comment or read other people’s comments on my site, you might have seen something funny going on in the comments of my last post. Apparently, someone on our street (which ends in a court) used my personal site to vent their frustration with me parking my car which brandishes a sticker with this site’s URL (may need to re-think that) in front of my own house. Here is the comment in all its glory:

Please stop parking your awful black car so close to the stop sign, you have more than enough space in your drive way, and on the side of your house. It’s a blind spot for children on bikes and skateboards. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your child to encounter anything so awful.
Thank You.

-Neighbors on Highcliff Ct.

I chose not to respond (much) in the comments that followed, as I knew I would be making this post after getting some things straight. (Note that the NicerNeighbor commenter is not a neighbor at all. He was just someone I told this story to and who decided to comment) At first I thought that this was a prank, but I soon decided that it would have been such a well thought out prank that it deserved having me be strung along, and so I pursued it. Let’s break it down and consider:

• “Awful black car” - I drive a ‘99, gas sipping, Honda Civic. It’s a great car, actually, and I keep it in good condition. The negative adjective was completely unnecessary and is the main reason for my backlash. Here’s a tip for the future: If you want to persuade someone to adopt your position, don’t start out by insulting them.
• “Stop sign” - Whoops. This IS the internet, and I AM a geek, so I’m going to have to call you out on this one. Our street actually ends at a Yield sign. Like Amanda said, you might want to learn to r-e-a-d.
• Don’t tell me where to park my car. Our driveway is one lane wide. It is two cars long, that’s true, but if I don’t know where Amanda needs to go after I get home, I’m not blocking her in and playing leapfrog games with our cars. I’m also not parking on the busier street to the side of my house. That road is too narrow as it is.
• Blind spot? I fail to see my car causing that. I park as far from the intersection as possible without blocking my mailbox. There is a bush at the corner of our yard that I plan to remove that is more of a blind spot creator. Besides, I was taught very early on to “look both ways” before entering a street.
• “I’m sure you wouldn’t want your child to encounter anything so awful.” - Umm… Be careful how you phrase statements like that. Being the slightly-over-protective dad that I am, I read that as a direct threat to the safety of my daughter. Don’t try me.
• Did you look through my site at all? If you did, you may have discovered my computer geek tendencies. I have the IP address you posted from and anyone could have used ARIN to find out that you posted from a certain construction company’s office network. I stopped my snooping there, as calling the company to inform them of your actions might have been going too far.

Whew. I didn’t mean that list to turn into a response like it did, so, sorry about that, everyone else. I’ll give this person points for spelling and grammar, as I struggle with those two. (Although, I think their first sentence may be a run-on) There is more to this story, but I’m going to leave it out to protect the innocent. At least it gave me something to post about and I have to say, the rest of the neighbors we’ve met so far are quite pleasant and we do enjoy our new place.

We love our new house.  We’re finally settling in and it’s been going fairly smoothly.  Until this morning…  See, I set up a wireless computer network for our house, as always, but apparently, THAT ISN’T ALLOWED in our neighborhood.  We got a knock on our door and a subsequent door bell ring (thanks for waking Sophia, guys) at about 8 AM.  It was the neighborhood association.  Well, two of them, anyway.  They told me that the association had agreed that wireless networks were too insecure and a possible health risk.  So, they are banned.  This is just ridiculous.  But I guess it explains why I didn’t see any other wireless networks when I set mine up.  Ah well.  I prefer a wired network anyway.  Sorry Amanda.  :[

It looks like we’ll be closing on our new house today. It’s actually the house we wanted the first time we went looking for a house two years ago. We offered the asking price back then but the sellers went with another bidder for some reason. We were devastated because we really thought that God had planned that house for us. Well, it looks like He did. He just needed it for a while first. That’s only the first bit of good news.

I was also promoted to a level 3 software engineer today! All I asked for was a jar of Peter Pan but I can buy lots of jars of Peter Pan now.

Now all we have left is to move ALL of our crap to the new house. Yay…

P.S. I really appreciate the help everyone has given us to get us into this new house. I REALLY appreciate George and Janet’s help, especially George in having to deal with that crazy (with a capital B) agent.