Lanier Update

Scott Hardie | June 21, 2002
Kelly and I are now in our new house. Moving was a bitch and took an extra day, but thanks to some help from my mom we finally got it done. I've spent so much money the past few days! I had no idea furniture was so expensive! But we've finally got all the furniture we need, except the king-sized bed, which is actually a difficult piece of furniture to find. Stores sell king-sized mattresses and frames, just not headboards and baseboards. Go figure.

I also ordered a new computer from Gateway, top of the line, to be delivered next Tuesday, and a cable modem connection to be activated on Thursday. Gateway sells Earthlink connections (which is how I got it so fast), but I was amused that the Gateway clerk told me just to get a router and network our two computers to share one connection. We still haven't decided if we'll do that or not.

My new 400-CD changer is a mixed bag. I was happy to get a 3-year warranty on it, to cover possible breaks, which worry me because it's a Sony. I was also pleased to discover that a one-second power outage this afternoon did not erase the memory on the machine, which will help since most power outages around here are about that bad. (I plan to buy a surge protector with a 20-minute battery backup to help.) On the other hand, I thought it allowed up to eight "groups" (like jazz, rap, etc). Instead, it has eight "top artist" slots, where you specify your favorite eight musicians, which is useless, since it takes three clicks to activate any musician, favorite or not. I was really looking forward to playing music by genre, but I can't.

We have our first visitor on the way. Jackie has made plans to stay here from July 30th to August 2nd. Thanks for the birthday gifts, Jackie!

Plans for tomorrow: Get new drivers licenses. Go to Radio Shack and find a short-wave radio broadcaster to hook up to my 400-CD changer so that I can hear it on any radio in the house. Go to the post office to mail a check to our old landlords. (We got billed $185 for cleanup that exceeded our security deposit, but at least they weren't mean about it.) Cook our first meal in the house. Find out why the fuck the new dishwasher won't work.

Plans for Saturday: Get two cats. Kelly will be getting an adult female from an animal shelter, while I'll be taking Sweetie from my mom. We thought about renaming her, and settled on Felicia. For a while now, Kelly has been joking that we should name our first daughter Felicia after Black Cat, a Spider-Man supporting character whose real name is Felicia Hardy. I'm not willing to name a girl after a comic book character, but a cat is just fine. The Cat Soon to Be Formerly Known as Sweetie is all black, except for a white chest and white paws, just like Felicia Hardy.