ironSoap

Remember how I mentioned that we were trying to save some money for things like house purchases and whatnot? Well, quicker than even we anticipated, developments have… er, developed.

It seems that by the end of April we will be occupying a brand new (that is, never been lived-in) condo just up the street from our current digs. It seems kind of odd, I suppose, to mention houses and then days later find yourself on the verge of once again renting something that is decidedly not a house. But it makes sense, I swear.

Part of our wishy-washy talks of moves that coincided with my new job was the element of housing price versus commute. Specifically, we pay a pretty low rent (for California and especially for Bay Area-accessible California) right now. However, I commute for about 120 miles round trip four days a week so at first we thought the obvious thing was to move closer to where I work. The problem is that places that are very close to my work are either prohibitively expensive or, for those places we looked that were in our price range, shabby and potentially usafe.

There are places in between, but the price issue becomes a bigger factor there; many of the more eastern bedroom communities are nice and relatively safe but likewise demand higher rents. The tradeoff between the increased housing costs and the commute relief was generally a wash at best.

Now there are a couple of things that we looked at as sub-motivating factors. Things like the fact that in our seven-plus years of marriage we have had our own washer and dryer exactly once, for less than a year. Also, our rent is unlikely to stay as reasonable as it is now for much longer, especially since the complex has decided to move to a for-sale model sometime in the next year or so and while our apartment is nice enough, there is no way I would ever actually want to own it. There are a couple other minor considerations such as the atrocious parking situation and the fact that one of the buildings blew up not so long ago. You know, that kind of thing.

But with the pricing and the timing and everything else, it seemed like it was never going to quite work the way we hoped. So we more or less gave up and decided we’d stay as long as we could and hopefully find a way to save up and maybe buy something old or in need of many repairs.

As is so often the case, once we stopped looking the answer sort of fell into our laps. I happened to drive by one of those dancing sign people waving an oversized arrow that pointed at some condos down a street a block or two up the road from our complex that I never would have considered investigating for that kind of housing. I mentioned it to Nik and we had a little time to kill on Saturday afternoon so we drove by to check it out.

It turns out the condos are brand new and they’re trying to get them all leased out by the middle of April. It was a hurried time table, especially for what we were looking for, but we toured a couple of the units and found them to be really nice. We discussed it a bit and agreed to go home, fill out the online application, talk about it, sleep on it and return the next afternoon with a deposit assuming we hadn’t changed our minds or there were no problems with our application. Which is exactly what we did and the next day we were still a go although Nik had begun debating our initial thought of going with the three-story, three bedroom model for the smaller two-story two bedroom. After a couple more tours we decided on the two bedroom, and handed over the holding deposit.

Maybe you’re asking why I’d move from a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment to a two bedroom one and a half bathroom condo? Here’s why: For one thing, the place is new. Our apartment is probably twenty years old and despite a couple of renovations, it pretty much feels twenty years old. The condo also has more square footage, by a little bit. Another thing is that the condo doesn’t share a ceiling with anyone else. Two walls I can handle, but I don’t really care for tiptoeing around or dealing with the bowling-alley fun of being the downstairs tenant. The condo also comes with brand new appliances and allows interior decorating that includes the option to paint the walls. I’ve been staring at white walls for seven and a half years now while I watch my friends and family members do marvelous things with their rooms. I’ve even helped them in some cases. Well, I want a piece of that action.

Oh, and there is one other little thing. The condo has a garage. Did you catch that? I’m about to have a garage. This is big for me. Huge.

On top of all the amenities and so forth, the other positive factors are that the new place is offering a special that gives you the first month rent-free. Since we’re making the move on fairly short notice it works out that we can have two places through the end of April. We’d have to give 30 days notice at our place now and pay for April’s rent anyway, but since we’re not being charged for April at the condo place we wind up basically having a month to move in, at our leisure. And once we do start paying rent on the condo, it’s less than two hundred dollar more than we pay now. Dude, I would pay $200 just to have the garage.

And then there’s the small matter of the flexibility and opportunity the condo affords us. See it turns out the owner really wanted to sell the condos. But he had the misfortune of having the development complete during one of the crappiest housing markets in years. From what I gather, everyone bought houses back a couple years ago when the interest rates were ideal and now they aren’t selling that well. To compensate, the owner decided to rent the condos for a year or two and then offer them for sale to the tenants (hopefully when the housing market is better; one thing about California, you can pretty much count on housing markets to improve eventually). But they’re also offering a sort of retroactive rent-to-own plan where a percentage of the rent you’ve already paid for that year or two will be set aside and used as part of the offer for the condo purchase. And of course it will be optional at that time.

What that means for us is that our rent won’t necessarily be wasted money, which is a concept I can completely get behind. It also means that even if it doesn’t work out, it’s not a big deal since we’re technically just doing what we’ve always done. And if it does work, we end up getting what we had almost given up hope of ever having which is something tangible that we could hopefully leverage into something bigger down the road as needs warrant.

In any case, I’m pretty excited. I know it doesn’t much address the commute issue but honestly I’ve been doing it for three or four months now and it isn’t so bad, especially with my current schedule. If there is one positive thing about the grave shifts, it’s the smooth, traffic-less drive. Besides, at this point I might as well concede that this town is where we live and while not without its flaws, it has friends and family and a certain familiarity that make it perfectly tolerable.

As a second part of our busy day we also got our taxes done. Whether good or bad, we were pleasantly surprised by how much our returns are this year. I suppose that means our W4s aren’t as optimally configured as they could be but what is done is done so now it looks like we’ll be able to do some of the furniture swapping as part of the move and still have a nice chunk to put into savings as well. The key is going to be avoiding the temptation to buy the biggest HDTV you’ve ever seen instead of stuff like a couch that doesn’t cause active humiliation whenever other humans are forced to set eyes (or worse, posteriors) upon it, but I’m sure Nik and her icy stare will help sidestep that landmine.

In fact the only bad news I can even think of is that I guess the staircase is too small to allow one to maneuver a queen-sized box spring up the stairs so you have to have one of those split boxes instead, and from what I understand they aren’t all that cheap. Granted, the one we currently have has been frustratingly used by the cat as a secondary scratching post as we’ve operated without an actual bed frame for three or more years now which puts the box spring in easy access of Dixie’s claws, but it’s hardly something I’d replace if given the choice.

This pending move has also brought about an even greater intensity with the big “stuff we no longer need” fire sale. This includes a few items added to the list:

• Computer desk. For those who’ve been to our place, this is the big black desk with hanging file cabinet, roll-out keyboard tray and overhead bookshelf. We’re going to trade down to a smaller computer desk since I no longer have or use sixteen computers simultaneously therefore the behemoth is not needed. If you’re interested, I have a truck and will just haul it to the dumps unless someone wants it so it’s going for free, and I’ll bring it to you assuming you don’t live in Utah or something. If you haven’t seen it, I should mention that it currently has a bunch of really geeky Linux stickers and junk plastered all over it, but I can try to remove them or paint over them if that’s going to be a problem.
• Entertainment center. We have a new TV stand in the living room and the old one (which was a gift from HB) probably won’t make the move with us. I kind of doubt HB wants it back so if I can pass it along, I’d be happy to. Same deal applies: I’ll bring it to you gratis if you just say the word. It’s possible HB would rather have it back than see it junked, but he gave it to me free so it would just be wrong to try and make a buck off it.
• Microwave oven. We have a white GE microwave in perfect working condition but the new place comes with an over-the-counter one included so we have no use for the standalone. If you want it, lemme know. Microwaves are pretty cheap so I’ll just give it to ya, but if you want it delivered (it fits in a Civic, I mean… how lazy are you?), I’ll do it for the gas money.
• Green leather sofa. Hahahahahahahaha! Just kidding. I wouldn’t inflict that thing on my worst enemy.

Oh, and since we get to move in fairly leisurely over the course of a month, we probably won’t need to even rent a truck much less beg our friends to waste a whole Saturday on manual labor.

I haven’t posted many link-fests in a while. Now I will rectify that.

• You may have seen some of these court transcript excerpts before, but they’re still funny.
• Kind of a fun diversion cataloging 80s food. I think some of the submitters miss the point (Corn Nuts? How are those “80s” exactly?) but they do mention Chocolate Payday candy bars, which merits a link on its own. I would literally pay up to $10 for a fresh one of those today.
• I’m sure this BBC article about US fascination with British accents is true, but count me among those who think English accents of any kind are just as cool as can be.
• At this point I’m pretty much just counting down the minutes until I get out of here so I can go home and download Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I’ve wanted to play this game for so long.
• Are they taking recommendations? Because I vote for Niki/Jessica and Nathan. Just sayin’.

Nik and I have spent some time recently examining our finances and preparing a plan for future spending and, more importantly, saving in an effort to prepare for some down-the-road life events. You know, buying an actual house and that sort of thing.

Part of this plan involves a pretty strict budget and a pre-agreed-upon set of major purchases for things we need (or actually have needed for quite some time, like a sofa that isn’t a continuous source of humiliation and bedroom furniture that isn’t broken or nearly useless) so as to avoid putting them off indefinitely. Of course that means less money on hand to purchase things that aren’t as pressing but arguably more fun to buy. I mean, for me the choice between sofa aesthetics and HDTV is really no choice at all but I recognize that our current television set is perfectly serviceable while our couch isn’t.

However, I’ve got a hankering for some equipment that isn’t included in the plans for a purpose I’ll reveal later and my only thought for affording it requires getting rid of some stuff I’m not using or don’t really want. Now, I know I’ve tried to offer stuff for sale here before to little response but since my audience is comprised almost entirely from friends and family members, I thought I’d give you a last chance to claim any of my stuff before I hunker down on eBay and try to accumulate some un-earmarked cash.

If any of this interests you, please let me know by emailing me any point before the auction starts. I plan to start listing things one at a time beginning this weekend. Everything here is first come/best offer and if you help me avoid an eBay listing I’ll ship it free assuming the shipping costs don’t eclipse the offered price.

• Comic Book Collection. I have hundreds of old comic books including lots of Iron Man, X-Men and Batman books. I’ve read them all several times over and they’re just taking up space at this point. Practically all of them are in good condition and have been kept in bags with cardboard to preserve the condition as best I could. I have a list I can dig up that catalogs the whole collection and I’ve estimated the value at somewhere north of $700, although I’ll pretty much take what I can get for them. It would be a pretty good gift for a budding geeklet/comic collector.
• iBook. My laptop is showing its age especially for the kinds of things I need it for like Photoshop and Final Cut. Also, it has a problem with the sleep feature which seems to cause the display to freak out more often than not which requires a cold reboot. I haven’t investigated how much repairs would cost but I’m guessing not that much since the display still works it just gets goofy sometimes. It’s probably a wire that gets pinched when the lid is closed. In any case, it’s a G4 PowerPC 944 MHz that has maxed out RAM (I think something odd like 640 MB) and even without repairs would probably work great with an external monitor as a nice intro machine to the world of OS X (I’ll include a fresh install of 10.4). Similar items on eBay seem to go for around $500.
• GameCube. It’s a nice system but I’ve played all the games for it that I was interested in and it’s just hogging room in the entertainment unit. I have a few games I’ll toss in as well including Zelda: Twilight Princess (which lots of people love but I didn’t care for) and I have a WaveBird wireless controller. Similar packages go for around $50 on eBay.
• Dreamcast. Yeah, I still have my Dreamcast. There are some really excellent games for this system that you can find really cheap so if you’re into the whole bargain gaming thing and don’t mind being several years behind the curve, it could offer some good times. People ask for around $50-60 on eBay; that’s too much in my opinion, but whatever. It’s your offer.
• Warhammer 40K Chaos Space Marines Army (Partially Painted). Okay, okay, this is a tough one. On one hand, I don’t want to give it up because, well, it’s cool and I put a lot of time and money into it. But several forces have conspired to make my time and desire for the game wane so I’m willing to entertain offers for it. This is a massive army (2,750 points worth at least, if you’re already familiar with the game rules) and while I confess the quality of some of the painting shows my learning curve, it is probably only in need of 6-8 hours worth of work to be tournament-ready and maybe twice that if you want to touch them up and make them look really nice (assuming you stick with the original palette). I’ve done some stripping before and it isn’t that hard if you wanted to start over. The thing is, I don’t want this to go bit by bit, it’s gotta be the whole enchilada. But I will throw in the Codex ($20-25 in stores) and some sample army lists I made plus the base color paints I special ordered from the UK because no one in the US makes the color anymore (grr). If you bought all this stuff retail it would be worth well over $1,000. Lesser pre-painted armies go on eBay for $600 or more. I won’t even indicate what would strike me as reasonable, it kind of depends, but if you’re interested let me know and I can provide specifics on what I have and the state of the painting and we’ll take it from there.
• Atari 2600 and games. I have a functioning Atari 2600 system plus a slew of great games, which are fun for some non-emulation retro fun. This kind of listing on eBay runs in the $30 range.
• Sony DVD player. I re-shuffled some entertainment center components and ended up deciding to use the XBox as the DVD player in the living room. The standalone player it replaced is less than two years old and quite good: I’ve never put anything in it that it wouldn’t play, including Video CDs and weird burned DVDs in funky formats. It isn’t region-free, but it’s probably worth $30 or so. I can get the exact model number and other specs if you need them.
• I have a copy of Dawn of War and the Winter Assault expansion for PC. I no longer have a PC available to me so they’re kind of useless. Let me know if you want ‘em. I’d be willing to simply give these away to someone who wants to pay for shipping since they’re no good to me anymore.

I may have more stuff available once I start cleaning up, but these are the main items I know of right now.

This season I haven’t talked all that much about the Sharks, despite the fact that I’ve followed them pretty closely all year. Part of it is that they have been oddly inconsistent in some respects. Just when I think they’ve either got it all put together or they seem to have completely fallen apart, they have a game or two that defies the trend. But as the stretch toward the playoffs sets in, it bears examining what they’ve done, what they’re doing and how they might fare in the postseason.

Part of the things I wanted to say are covered by Mark Purdy’s recent Merc column in which he evaluates some of the things the Sharks have been doing lately. He notes that they have been uncomfortably lackluster on home ice, despite being pretty solid on the road. Road wins are good, no doubt, especially since they are unlikely to have home ice advantage come first-round time. But the Tank has typically been the one bright spot for the Sharks even when they are otherwise miserable. And on paper they are anything but miserable this year. But their better record away than at home causes concern because in the playoffs you really have to take advantage of the opportunity that home games represent.

Purdy also mentions how the Sharks potent offense from last year has been less than stellar at times this season. I think it’s a bit unfair to compare the dream stretch that Thornton and Cheechoo had last year with this; as good as both players are, Cheech has always been somewhat streaky and Thornton was hurt early in the year plus he also no longer has the luxury of playing in a conference that isn’t used to seeing him so frequently. Other teams have made appropriate adjustments to both players that has impacted their overall dominance. But it is still hard to ignore that it is no longer reasonable to expect that each shift Thornton steps on the ice will result in at least some sort of offensive opportunity if not a goal.

I do, however, disagree with Purdy’s assessment of Bill Guerin. While unfortunate that he hasn’t contributed tangibly thus far, I think he has provided some interesting sparks to the San Jose offense mostly by putting a welcome end to the pass-and-grind fests that the Sharks fall victim to and just hucking the biscuit at the net when possible. Plus his right-handed orientation has helped noticeably with some of those far side digs along the boards and has helped set up plays that at least give the opponents another look to think about. Assuming he can continue to contribute in ways that may not always show up on the scoresheet, eventually the stats will follow.

But thinking about some of the other changes from last season, I think it is safe to say at this point that adding Mike Grier was about the smartest thing they could have done: The guy is quickly becoming one of my favorites. He reminds me of Mark Smith out there in terms of work ethic only with a lot of talent as well. The only real weakness I see to Grier’s game is his finishing: He gets more breakaways and opportunistic chances than any two other players on the roster but those chances don’t wind up as goals as much as I wish. Maybe Grier’s shot isn’t the best in the world but you have to admire his ability to get into situations where he is testing the opposing goalie.

Another guy I started taking notice of this year is Patrick Rissmiller. He seems to be cut from the same cloth as Smith and Grier (although probably falling more on the Smith end of the spectrum when it comes to raw talent) and it’s fantastic to watch him out there busting his tail on the forecheck, through the neutral zone and all the way back low trying to clear pucks from the defensive end. For all the remarkable talent some of the other guys have out there, it irks me to see guys like Clowe and Pavelski coasting—or worse, standing—around in their own end hoping a puck will fall in front of them.

Which is not to say the Sharks have been slack on defense this year. I’ve been rather impressed all season long with how many pucks aren’t ever even getting to the crease because the whole team seems perfectly willing to block shots coming off of sticks. But where their defensive fortitude has been impressive, their ability to handle the fundamental task of clearing the zone has cost them dozens of points against all year. To some extent I chalk this up to a coaching thing: I think someone has told the forwards to spend too much time swinging sticks into lanes and not enough time telling them to get bodies on dudes. It doesn’t matter how diligently you work to cover passing lanes, if you let the point man stand around up there for thirty seconds without challenging him, eventually he will find a play to make and then you have to start all over again.

I’ve said it about a hundred times but the Sharks have always, always been 200 times better when they play physically than when they try to be cute. I mean, the team was specifically built to be imposing since so many of their players are these massive, yet quick guys but they stand there in the defensive zone and wait for the other team to make a mistake? I don’t get it. When the Sharks have their forecheck down they seem to spend hours in the offensive end because they muscle guys off the puck in the corners and keep it deep where they can use their size to protect until something develops. It stands to reason that if it works on one end of the ice, it ought to at least help on the other end.

Speaking of coaching, another thing that has started driving me nuts is Wilson’s obsession with line juggling. Have the Sharks ever had consistent line combinations this year? It’s not like they’ve been wracked by IR-level injuries this year that have forced the changes, but I guess Wilson doesn’t believe in line chemistry because he never bothers to let it develop. Listen, Ron, it ain’t that tough: Guerin, Thornton, Cheechoo; Michalek, Marleau, Clowe; Bernier, Rissmiller, Grier. See how easy that was?

Going back to some of the changes this year, I think we can all safely say that Mark Bell has been a total bust. Even if you’re content to ignore the DUI hit and run (which I’m not), the previous two years had Bell scoring 20+ goals and 40+ points; this year he has eight goals and fifteen points so far and isn’t likely to go on a big run here to close out the season. He’s never been too hot on the plus/minus side of things (suggesting he’s something of a defensive liability which the Sharks don’t need considering the relative experience level of their defense) but his -11 is the worst on the entire team. Why he made it past the trade deadline I’m not sure but I think I’ll be unhappy if he’s still around next season.

When it comes to the goaltenders, the Sharks’ inconsistencies take a turn for the bizarre. On one hand you have Toskala who, before getting hurt was far and away the better netminder with a 24-9 record. At the same time you have Nabby barely putting a .500 season together and yet he hasn’t been that bad, really. For one thing he has had remarkably limp goal support, and if you ignore the last four games he’s had he was 14-16-1 with four shutouts. In fact, of his sixteen losses this year, nine of them have been by either one goal or one goal against (with another goal into an empty net) which means if the rest of the team had done their jobs even just a little bit, Nabby’s record could easily be 18-12-1 or 19-11-1. Heck, the Sharks lost two games 1-0 with Nabby in the net. There is absolutely no excuse for having your goalie keep the opponent to a single goal and not being able to pick up at least a tie.

Granted, Nabokov has also been responsible for a couple of real stinkers, including the 8-0 loss to Phoenix and the 7-4 loss to Calgary but I wonder if Wilson’s strict every-other-game policy had something to do with it. Look at the last week: Nabby is finally healthy and getting regular starts so what does he do? He goes 3-0-1 with three shutouts and gives up only one goal in twelve regulation periods for a .981 save percentage overall. It’s not a simple situation though because Toskala has been sharp all year. Maybe Vesa works better within the switch-off system than Nabokov does or something, but it also can’t hurt that the Sharks’ offense has given him a little more than four goals per game on average to work with while Nabby gets nearly half that. If the team just flat plays better in front of Toskala, it bears investigation as to why that might be.

In the end the Sharks will likely make the playoffs but their position in the post-season isn’t likely to change very much. Unless they get red hot in a big way and Anaheim falls apart as the season winds down, those ten points with only a single game in hand are going to be tough to make up. The only other team they might look to unseat to get a better playoff berth is Detroit, but the margin to overcome is identical there and the Sharks do not have a game in hand over the Red Wings. Plus, both Detroit and Anaheim are tied for the fewest regulation losses in the entire league so it is likely the Sharks will fall somewhere in the middle of the pack and could face a number of teams including Minnesota, Detroit, Dallas, Vancouver or even Anaheim in the first round.

If nothing else, it ought to be interesting.

Somehow in the hours between my final grave shift and my first official swing shift a decision was made behind the scenes to not change the schedule. My week concludes with a “grave shift” meeting Wednesday morning and the parting words from my supervisor were something to the effect of “Oh, and we’re not going to change the schedule after all so you’ll just work your regular graves next week.”

That’s all I’m going to say about the work part of it because I risk dangerous territory if I start talking about how that makes me feel and what I think about the way the news was delivered so I’ll neatly sidestep that.

The truth is that my room to complain is narrow because I decided to be all accommodating and easy to get along with during the interview process to try and secure a position at the company. Even since then I’ve exuded this air of nonchalance when questions of scheduling come up. Specific instances of this have typically been followed by a mental self-berating rant but intentions aside, any evaluation of my external demeanor would give no indication of how badly I despise the shift I’m on.

Not that any shift would be much preferable. Day shifts involve making the long commute in heavy traffic, swing shifts clash harshly with Nik’s schedule so we completely—completely—miss each other for several days when I work those hours and then of course there is grave which has me sleeping vampire-style. Schedule-wise the only thing my job has going for it are the ten hour days which affords me enough weekend time to partially make up for the crummy schedules.

As it is I’ve been flip-flopping my schedule from the vampire-like to the regular prey human. This means that once I wake up on Tuesday evening I don’t go back to sleep until around 9:00 Wednesday night when Nik calls it a day. Then on Saturdays I wake up like a normal person at around eight or nine in the morning but then I have to go back to bed late in the afternoon to get enough sleep to carry me through until around noon on Sunday when I finally get home.

The problem with this is twofold: 1) I stay up for at least 24 hours at least once a week and 2) If I don’t get to sleep on Saturday evenings (which isn’t uncommon because I’m rarely all that tired then) it throws me off for the rest of the week. That’s not even taking into account how tweaked it is for me to be sleeping on Saturday afternoon when most people are hanging out or running errands that are harder to handle during the week. This week for instance I wasn’t able to get more than an hour’s sleep Saturday so I dragged through work all night, had a miserable drive home and arrived cranky and only interested in getting to bed.

I don’t really have a solution for any of this nor do I expect sympathy considering my very active role in er, making the bed in which I must now sleep (if ever there were an inappropriate cliche, that was it). I just thought I should complain a bit about it.

And see? I feel a little bit better. Still tired, but better.