phone - eek

Last night our internet connection was flaky and I decided to use my cell phone to call a dial up internet number I have use of. I have unlimited evening and weekend minutes so that's not an issue. It's a really slow connection (slow like the modem I was using in 1994) but all I was doing was Instant Messaging. Well, I finished with the internet and closed my laptop, plugged my phone into the charger and went to bed.

This morning after I got to work and looked at my phone for some reason. It was still connected from last night. The display said it'd been connected for 10 hours. Eek. That scared me breifly. I called the phone company and double checked the hours for the evening and weekend calling. The normal day rate starts at 6AM. I accidently burned 220 peak minutes. The plan I have shares 1000 minutes between my wife and I. So far this month we've only used 47... up till this morning. Our plan resets on the second of the month so that leaves us just under 750 peak minutes to use. :D

ramblings

It's after midnight and I'm not terribly sleepy yet. I'm getting there though.

I just took the trash out front to be picked up tomorrow mornight. There were no clouds in the sky and the temperature was actually nice. I was out in khakis and a t-shirt. Just last week we had lows in the 20s. It's odd like that here in central VA.

Capital One bit me today. Last month, October, the due date was the 11th. I had marked on my calendar that CapOne gets paid on the 11th. Only, this month it was due on the 6th. I got slapped with a $35 late fee and for some reason the minimum due went up by $100. In looking at the statements available online, October is the only month in the last 5 that end on the 11th. The 11th was a Wednesday. grr. It looks like they aren't jacking up my interests rates though. That's a good thing though if they did, I'd just move the balance to my American Express. I wish I could pay them off. I'd been out of credit card debt for a few years, but then I bought a house that needed fixing up. Oh well.

I was going to ramble on about something else. I can't remember what that was though.

I have nothing to say right now.

There probably isn't anyone reading this anyway.

Sold!

Well, it's official. I am no longer the proud owner of a Modified 1997 Suzuki GS500E. I sold it to some guy from Baltimore. He's a mechanic and sounded like he's had several bikes. I guess he thought the price was good because he brought cash and didn't try to negotiate on the price.

I thnk the bike has a good new owner. Now we just need to figure out what to do with the money.

I think I might miss the bike, but I haven't been riding it much and we needed the cash more than I needed the bike in the driveway. Besides, the bike cover I had is in tatters. Now I don't have to figure out what to do to keep it covered this winter.

insom

it's after one A.M. and I'm a little too restless to sleep.
Outside the sound of an owl hooting rises above the thick blanket of insect chirps
once in a while a car will pass by, its tires making a hushing sound on the road
i'm going to go back to bed to hopefully go to sleep.

An unfortunate name for a cool little program.

The Sect of Homokaasu - The Rasterbator

This website has a program on it takes an image you upload and "rasterizes" it so you can make posters and murals on your printer. It takes the brightness (and optionally color) information from your image and makes a large image made up of round dots. This image is then broken up into the number of pages needed by the output size that you set. It then makes a .pdf and sends it to you.

There also is a stand alone application that you can download.

doin' fine... a bit unmotivated at the moment though.

Ligers are real and big!

Apparently, sometimes (rarely) a male lion and female tiger will mate in captivity. Their offspring can be really, really big.

http://www.sierrasafarizoo.com/animals/liger.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/liger.asp

Google search
Google image search

If a male tiger mates with a female lion, the offspring is called a tigon. They might look like ligers, but aren't as big.

My week (boring)

I am midway through my second week being self-employed. I haven't settled into any kind of schedule yet.

Monday morning I read the first 5 or 6 chapters of the Maya Fundamentals training book we have. I spend a few hours in the afternoon at Blair media. After that I went to my old place (which is now Pilgrim's Progess the Movie Headquarters) and loaded up most of my computer equipment that was left there. I brought that home, unloaded it. Hung out for a while and then went back to the old place and waited around for Tim to get back so I could use his pickup truck to bring my table, desk and chair home.

Tuesday morning I hooked up my computer (the main workstation). Most of the day I worked on Pilgrim's Progess test shots. Even though it won't be used for anything, it feels good and useful to get my brain back into this kind of work.

Wednesday was taken up almost entirely by attending an auction at the University of Virginia. We were there from 10am till 2pm. We got a desk/table for Rebecca and a bunch of wall cabinets for various places in the house. We paid $57.75 for both of them. I might spend almost that much getting them down here. I didn't get the chair I wanted. After we left the auction, my wife and I ate a late lunch at Red Robin. Then we went to Old Navy so she could pick up a few things. After that we hooked up with one of my friends and sometime client who gave us a tour of the new basketball arena at UVA. I did a lot of 3D work on that building before it was built/finished so it was interesting actually be inside it. It's pretty cool, and I think, the largest facility of its kind in the state of Virginia.

This morning (Thursday), I'm installing the Maya personal learning edition so I can ... umm... learn it. I may work on the Apollyon scene animatic. This afternoon I'll be at Blair for a few more hours. After that, more PP stuff.

Tomorrow (Friday) morning I'll be picking the stuff up that I bought at the auction. I don't have any plans for the afternoon yet. Maybe we'll go to a baseball game in the evening. Some friends are going. We've been invited.

A New Beginning

Well, Friday was my last day as a full time employee of Liberty University. Things are looking up for me, income wise... even after health insurance and taxes take their toll. 

I'll mainly be working for DRC Films (My old room mate) in making a modern movie adaptation of Pilgrim's Progress. It should be fun and full of new (hopefully not scary) experiences.

I'm grateful for the opportunities that have reared their heads at this stage of my life.

castrati [cringe]

Weirdness.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060712/sc_nm/arts_farinelli_remains_dc_2

excerpts from the story

"ROME (Reuters) - Historians and scientists have exhumed the remains of legendary castrato Farinelli in Italy to study the anatomical effects of castration carried out on young boys to turn them into high-pitched stars of the opera.
ADVERTISEMENT

Castrati played heroic male leads in Italian opera from the mid-17th to late 18th century when the bel canto was the rage in Europe. Farinelli, born Carlo Broschi in 1705, was the most famous of them all, in a stage career lasting from 1720 to 1737."

...

"
The last surviving castrato, Sistine Chapel chorist Alessandro Moreschi, lived long enough to make recordings in 1902 and 1904, though on the dated gramophone records his voice sound like what Clapton described as "Pavarotti on helium."

Sale at Eddie Bauer

The sad thing is that it's $20 off and it's still $20 more than I want to spend on a shirt. I just don't like spending money on clothes... Of course, it shows but I'm okay with that.

Copyright Comic

A discussion of copyright law and fair use issues in comic book form. It's a bit interesting but I'm still confused.

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/zoomcomic.html

Vision issues

I had an eye exam today. Both eyes got a bit worse since last year. Of course, my eyes are really bad now because my they are dilated. I have to use the zoom function on my ibook so I can see enough to type this... and it's still very blurry. I could get new glasses, but I'd like to keep my old frames. I just have to find them. I guess I'm supposed to wear them more often now so my eyes don't wear themselves out trying to compensate for each other.

Home again... Away again.

Well, we made it safely back to Lynchburg last Friday. This Friday I'll be boarding a plane for the Pacific Time Zone again. The last trip was for business. This trip is for a funeral. Rebecca's Grandma died and the funeral is on Saturday.

There's so much going on in our lives right now. I feel somewhat overwhelmed, but somewhat at peace. Maybe it's a healthy apathy or maybe it's a healthy trust in God's provision. I have a house to fix and no time to fix it in. I won't say I'm not stressed, but I will admit to being able to admit I'm in over my head. Okay, I haven't been proclaiming it loudly, but I realize I need help and I'm open to receiving it. That doesn't mean I know how to ask for it. ha ha

NAB day 3

Wow, there's so much going on and so much to see that the days here seem very long. Things that happened this afternoon feel like they happened yesterday.

I wrote down a list of things to look at today and promptly lost it. I have a whole stack of papers and catalogs that serve as a fairly good overview of the booths I visited today. I didn't get to see Kevin Adamson again. I guess I'll have to take a trip to VA Beach to do that.

The demo at the JVC booth reinforced the thought that the camera we bought for work was a good choice. They have a couple more models that can be used for live HD production with a wireless transmitter or in a studio configuration. They also have good features for movie makers (like an adapter to let you use 16mm camera lenses) as well as adding the ability to do 60p.

Panasonic was showing off a 103-inch plasma screen. That was really cool, but I totally missed it yesterday because of all the other displays around it.

We ate lunch in the Alladin's shopping center. Matt R and I had relatively cheap sandwiches at Max's Café while most of the rest of the gang ate at a sushi buffet.

On the way back to NAB Ena got a call telling her that she won the drawing in one of the booths and got 2 tickets to, I think, a circ du soleil show. After the expo closed, Ena and Tim went to the show. James B, Unc, Mike, Gus and I went to a Final Cut Pro user group super meeting or something and wasted money on raffle tickets for some really cool prizes.

Tomorrow, we'll go back to the exhibition hall and do whatever else looking around we need to do. We may leave early and go see the Hoover Dam. James B, is having us over to his house tomorrow night as well. Then after all that we have to get up and go to the airport super early so we can get through security in time to board our 6:15am flight. The sad thing is that I may be just about acclimated to the time zone difference.

I really only took one picture today and that was of an LCD field monitor sitting on top of a CRT field monitor with a light pointed straight at it. The CRT was so washed out that the picture was barely visible. The LCD was plain to see.

NAB day 2 - revisited

ahh, I feel rested.
It's nearly noon on the East coast (where I'm from) and only nearly 9am here. I'm still tired, but not achy anymore. Walking around all day yesterday made my back hurt. I met up with a guy I haven't seen since college. That was cool. CBN has about 30 people at the NAB this year. They are meeting with apparently everyone. Pat has mandated that everything they do (except maybe over-seas field work) will be HD in January.

The Ultra High Definition demonstration was very cool... very sharp. It has nearly 8 thousand pixels across but I don't know how many vertically. It also has 22.1 channels of audio. HDTV has a max of 1920 pixels across and 5.1 channels of audio. The ".1" audio channels is the really low subwoofer channel.

We also looked at a new camera in development called "red". It's not made by any of the major camera makers but rather someone who's has a lot of money and a lot cameras and wanted to make the camera that was perfect. It's a digital camera that's aiming to be equivalent to a 35mm movie camera. There'll also be one that's equivalent to 16mm. I think the big one is a 4k camera... we're hearing a lot of that term this year. We've barely got HDTV in the homes of America and we're looking at the next stuff. Of course, the better your source image is, the better your output it... even if it's down converted to SD.

We also watched some HD and 4k footage in Sony's booth. The amount of clarity and detail is amazing with 4k too.

Tim and I learned more about gamma, knee and matrix adjustments for his Panasonic HVX200 camera. I think the same kind of adjustments are available on the JVC GY-HD100 we have at the office. It's good to know what those functions do.

We also had some of the features of Maya shown to us. I think we could make some cool looking flaming stuff with that. The athletic teams at the University I work for are called "the Flames."

We did some looking at things for the studio but the first day of exhibits is more about getting acclimated to the goings on. I did learn that from one place it'll cost about $5,500 for a nice green screen corner set with floor. I have the guy's card.

I expect to be more focused on finding and trying products for work on my 2nd and 3rd days at the show.

NAB 2006 Day 2

I'm too tired to write something up now. I did post new pictures. Nothing too thrilling though.

NAB trip day 1

Hi there, 
There was a rumor that we'd have wireless highspeed internet at the hotel here. Nope. I guess that's false. Darn it. I'm using my cell phone (unlimited night time minutes... woo hoo) to dial in to LU's dial-up service. It's a blazing fast 14.4k connection. Well, it would've been blazing fast in 1991.

Anyway, I'm trying to upload pictures I took with my phone and make a little site to document our trip.

http://dwburman.com/nab2006

Monroe, VA

I came accross some info on the town we're moving to... I mean near.

http://www.brainyzip.com/zipcodes/24/24574.html

too much caffeine

I'm awake. Too awake for 2am. I think I over-did it it with the caffeine today... darn it.

homeownership

I'm now a home owner... at least I will be when the deed is recorded or whatever.

The place needs a lot of cleaning and a lot of work and most of the appliances and furniture as well. 

I don't have much $$$ to pay for all of that stuff. In fact, I have ~$800 less than I thought I would because of closing costs.

Oh well. 

Lots of work ahead.

Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper

I've been drinking a lot of this stuff lately. It's been satisfying my craving for sugar water and the artificial sweetener is masked good enough for me.

Isn't it amazing how much pain is mingled in times of happiness?

I'm getting married in a little over a month. My brother is going through a divorce. I'm buying a house. It'll cost a good chunk of money to fix up and populate with appliances. Then there are the hurts that loved ones bear.

And on top of that I just can't seem to get applications/games installed on my new cell phone from my computers.

heavy...

We plan on closing on my first house within the next two weeks. Besides that, I'm getting married next month. These last two days I've really been feeling the weight of new responsibilities. The financial commitments are substantial. I'm going to have to change the way I spend money. I've been kind of free with it, the last few years... not irresponsible, mind you, just intentionally not frugal. I have no idea how much getting the house into shape is going to cost... well, I have some idea, it's just the specifics I don't know.

I don't know how much it'll cost to have the tin roof cleaned and painted. I don't know how much having gutters installed will cost. I don't know how much the HVAC unit will cost to be serviced or how much fixing the duct work will be. And those are just the things I won't do myself. There's much more to do.

Tthat's just the house. There are some other things that need to be taken care of, and I'm glad to do them, but I'm just not sure of the best way to do it. I suppose I should do some research... or have Rebecca do it since she likes that kind of thing.

I know it'll all turn out okay. I see this as a temporary struggle. Things may be fine by December but right now, I know how tight it's going to be.

Free online massively multiplayer 2D game

No where else and beyond

A 2D MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that runs in your web browser and is free. I haven't checked this out yet so I don't know if it's cool or not... or if I'm into this kind of thing or not... you might think so... be so...

diet coke

in an effort to get some caffeine and flavor without the sugar I'm drinking a diet coke. Blech. I suppose I don't mind some diet sodas. I suppose I've had diet coke before and didn't dislike it like I do right now. Now it's just ... blech. I might have to get a real coke just to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.

health concerned

This morning I went to the doctor's office again to have my blood tested. There's not much more fun than spending an hour in the doctor's office... especially when 55 of those minutes are spent in the waiting room. Anyway, It was a follow up test because my triglycerides were insanely high in the last test. Rich said the last time he was tested, his were in the mid 80s. Mine were in the low 500s. yup... insanity. Hopefully it's just a glitch, though I don't really know what having high a level of triglycerines means for my health. I read a little on it. Hopefully, I won't have to take medicine to get the levels down. Hopefully, I can return to normalcy by reducing my sugar intake and exercising. I actually started tonight. I needed to start exercising anyway. I'm out of shape. I weighed around 10 pounds more at the doctor's visit than I thought I did. My resting heart rate is pretty fast. I can feel my cardio-vascular system working hard while I'm just laying here. Hopefully, the excess baggage I picked up over the last year will go away without much of a fight. I don't expect to get back to my college weight any time soon. I hope to get down to at least between what I weigh now(160lbs) and what I weighed then (125lbs). Besides, I'm getting married in a couple of months. It'd be good to increase my stamina and strength for the more active parts of wedded bliss. 

Triglycerides

I just got the blood test results back from my physical Monday. My triglycerides level was super high. I'm talking between 3X & 4X what theyshould be. I have to fast and be retested to double check the results. They didn't tell me how to fast though... how long? can I drink juice?

I should've filed for a patent.

Carol Wright Gifts: Auto Accessories: Auto Vent
Even on the hottest days, your parked car is kept cooler and the air fresher thanks to this solar-powered ventilator/fan. It maintains a safe, comfortable temperature level for your return. Place vent on top of window, then close window and lock up. Its solar panel uses sunlight- not car's electrical wiring or batteries- to power the built-in fan. Fresh air is drawn in as hot, stale air vents out.
• Keeps Your Car up to 25 Degrees Cooler


Here's an idea I had several years ago. Someone beat me to it. If I had patented the idea of a solar powered fan that clips on a car window... well, I suppose I really wouldn't do anything about it except have bragging rights. Besides whoever invented this may have had the idea before I did. It's very unlikely that the inventor is someone who saw and stole my idea. I should probably buy one since I thought it was a good idea in the first place. I saw one advertised on TV for half the price of the ones at this place.

Is this the future of how we use computers?

YouTube - Multi-Touch Interaction Research

WB

It's been so long since Becca has posted in her blog, but a few days ago she wrote twice. I enjoyed reading her thoughts. It was one of the major ways we communicated in the early stages of our relationship. I think I miss it more than I realized.

house thoughts

In just about 32 hours from now I'll be with the home inspector looking over the house I'm trying to buy. I worry that it may get a failing grade and that I won't be able to get it and will therefore have spent $265 in vain. It's better than buying a money pit, but my financial resources are limited. I can't afford too many bad inspections. I think it'll be fine though. For some reason I have the feeling that I'll be spending a lot of money on this place up front, but I do think it's worth it for the price. I just don't foresee having much to spend on furnishings.

oh so fabulous lunch plans of the non-famous

I think I'm going to eat a messy burger for lunch.

Flu, house, mood update

Well, I'm not quite over the flu yet. I have a rather nasty sounding cough that feels like my face is trying to turn inside out, but other than that I'm good. 

I arranged for the house inspector to do his thing on Monday. As  far as I know we're all on our merry way to home ownership. It kind of stinks that I have to buy the place as-is and pay for the inspections and tests. I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I'm just glad I have the opportunity to buy a house. It just isn't an option in most parts of the country.

Overall, I'm in a pretty good mood. I'm saddened, tho, by the crap of life that some friends and family are going through. I've been a bit blue or distant at times today... tomorrow may be worse. I tend to be happier when I've had plenty of sleep and it's getting late now :) Though, overall, right now, I'm happy... maybe even joyful.

photo leeching

I just spent entirely too much time pulling nice photos from this site to use for the screensaver on the computer I'm using right now.

this is a test of the blogger widget. That's all... sorry.

diagnosis 1

Doctor Unheimlich has diagnosed me with Dana Burman's Lurgy
Cause:	overwork
Symptoms:	whistling, itching, hyperactivity, beige hair
Cure:	take two paracetamol and come back in the morning
Enter your name, for your own diagnosis:

emails and dreams

Today I got an email from my realtor. It sounds like we should hear back from the seller today. We'll see.

Today I got an email from a friend. It sounds like she's having a tough time of it with her family. I don't want to share here, but I hope things work out.

I had a dream that I was invited to a surprise party for my ex-girlfriend (it's been years since I've seen her and even more years since we've dated... and years since she didn't tell me for 3 years that she was a lesbian) so my friends, fiancé and I went to the party. I don't know if I ever got to see my ex though... I think I woke up before then. I do remember running into some old friends/acquaintences there that I hadn't seen in a long long time... In fact, I think I made them up for the dream. It was all a bit odd.

I also had a dream that I was in Best Buy and they actually had the XBox 360 in stock. Now that was an odd dream.

Nathan Sawaya | The Art of the Brick™ | Han Solo in Carbonite

Does it mean I'm a nerd if I think a lifesized lego sculpture of Han Solo encased in carbonite is cool?

Nathan Sawaya | The Art of the Brick™ | Han Solo in Carbonite

The Klinton-Levinsky scandal and Voagra

Got this little bit of spam email. This amused me... it's wrong on so many levels.



Everybody knows the great sexual scandal known as "Klinton-Levinsky".
After the relations like this Klintons popularity raised a lot!
It is a natural phenomenon, because Bill as a real man in order not to
shame himself when he was with Monica regularly used Voagra.
What happened you see. His political figure became more bright and more attractive.
It is very important for a man to be respected as a man!

See our Voagra shop to enter upon the new phase of your life.
[address removed]

Yay tax time

I've been doing my taxes on TurboTax online the past couple of days. I'm doing this now in order to show my annual income is greater than my salary at LU in hopes of qualifying for a bigger home loan.

Things were going pretty well. After adding the business expenses there was a quite large return for me (less than 4 digits, but still quite large). Woo hoo. I won't say I was elated but very pleased to see that the number looming in the upper left corner of the screen had grown so big.

Then I did the state tax part. Ouch. Apparently I only paid half of what I should've paid on my extra income. My seemingly large federal return has lost some of it's glory now that I know at maybe a third of it will go to pay my state taxes. To add insult to injury Virginia isn't satisfied with revenue from sales tax in the state. They decided that their citizens should pay taxes to VA for things purchased online from other states that don't charge sales tax online. They may even want us to pay sales tax on things purchased in states where there are no sales taxes... I wonder how that works when I buy clothes or food in PA where those things aren't taxed. I promised myself last year that I'd be good and pay up this year. By the time pay 5% on what I bought online from other states and the amount I owe them my big fat federal refund may be cut in half.

I guess the bright side is that I didn't owe on both the state and federal levels. This is the first year in several that I'm in the black. Also, the Federal return has been E-filed so that's done (I'll save state for later).

I'm just bummed because I was feeling good and then state taxes punched me in the stomach. The jerks.

YouTube - Brokeback to the Future

Movie trailer mashup. :D

YouTube - Brokeback to the Future

So since this morning my right eye has been irritated.

So... when should I start to get worried?

Clientcopia : Stupid Client Quotes

Clientcopia : Stupid Client Quotes

I haven't checked this out yet, but the premise sounds fun.

Wow, so much to consider. So far I'm not feeling overwhelmed or over stressed. A little apathy can go a long way sometimes. I do wish the paths were clearly marked.

As to her question of what most makes me nervous about getting married... Maybe part of it is just the reality of the situation sinking in. I'm getting married. :D it still sounds weird. Ahh but it makes so much sense when we're together. This is probably the best decision I've ever made.

i feel like a jerk

Please don't think you have to change in order to be good enough for me... You're already too good for me right now. I don't deserve someone as wonderful as you are, though I wouldn't settle for anything less.

ugh

What's going on? No news then suddenly a request to request the withdrawal of a restraining order. Hurt piled on hurt. I didn't even know about it. The family grapevine isn't very efficient. What happened? I'd like to hear it from the source, but I don't want to disturb him... and I don't know how to reach him. I knew things hadn't been going well but I have no knowledge of what triggered this. I guess I'll go to mom... if she knows. I presume she does... unless she's being shielded. So many thoughts that don't make it through the keyboard. So much hurt in the world. ugh.

God, I hope things work out. Bring humility, repentance and forgiveness where it's needed. I have a bad feeling about this.

Hi There!

bummed about soup

Tim used the microwave at work today and found some soup that I heated on Wednesday. I don't remember not eating lunch that day. Perhaps the idea of eating was enough to satisfy me that day. I feel a little bit bad for having wasted the food but I wasn't about to eat it after it had been exposed to air and room temperature for two days.

brief update.

Becca and I met with our pastor (or elder who happens to be the primary teacher as he may prefer to be called) to initiate the marriage mentorship/counseling. I have the number to a lady I need to contact as part of the next step. I called the number and left a message. Hopefully we'll hear from her soon so we can get the process rolling. Due to Becca's school plans and my possible projected work loads we're currently thinking June would be the best time for us to get married. We'll probably do a tiny ceremony (just us and the pastor) and then a reception/party with everyone else... not necessarily on the same day. We may do two or three parties. I'm not sure where all the funds are coming from... especially if we buy a house. I know. I know. Some people never buy a house, but around here I could actually buy a place and spend less on a mortgage payment than on rent. Of course, there are other costs, but the point is that it's affordable here. Renting feels like you're just throwing money away... of course, there's no rule that says a house won't sap all of your resources and leave you broke in the end.

The company that owes me money supposedly mailed some checks to me. I figure if they mailed them Monday, like they said they would, I should've gotten them by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. They still hadn't arrived as of Friday's mail so I emailed them again. They assured me they had been sent and that I should be getting them by Saturday... we'll see.

Becca and I are going to Va Beach for the day on Saturday. We may spend the night at a friends house... or just come back the same day. We'll play that by ear.

Wedding plans are oh so much fun. :)

I'm sure you didn't mean it that way

This was all on one line in the farewell to the dating site Becca and I met on.

"am now engaged to be married to a man that I love and respect. For now,"

haha. it just doesn't look good when pulled out of context, eh?

Love ya, babe. :)

Yippee Yikes

Wow. I'm engaged. I popped THE Question on Saturday, January 14th of 2006 and the answer was yes.

Woohoo!!! (gulp)

:D

Freelance woes

Gee, it'd sure be nice if a certain company that owed me $3400 would pay me... at least something. It's been another whole week since they were going to "see how much we can get out to you this week." Obviously the answer was NONE!

This is ridiculous. I want to use this money to pay off my car loan which would put me in better position to buy a house.

argh.

Big decision

The decision seems easy and obvious. A simple question with lifetime consequences. A decision that could change the course of the world, but probably won't. Mostly I'm concerned with how it'll change our lives here and now. I worry that I'm taking it too lightly, that this is something that should require soul searching. Instead, the thought of marrying her isn't profound. There's a fatalistic feeling to it... like it's unavoidable. It's just what happens when you're in a relationship like this. Eventually, you get married. The process is probably accelerated by the commitment we've made to not have sex until we're married. Also, we're not getting any younger and we're both (or at least I am) tired of being single. Getting married is what grown-ups do, right?
So here I am pondering marriage like it's an inescapable end to this dating relationship. Does that bother me? No. Does it worry me? Not really. I think it'd be very difficult to find someone else that'd be better for me. Maybe just the fact that she's willing and wanting to marry me is reason enough to marry her. Of course, there's more to it than that. ;)

pt

I suppose I'm at a turning point.
[n/c]