by themselves…
Thursday, I received a certified letter from the IRS containing a Notice of Deficiency which has to be cleared up in 90 days.
The relo company — which has had my approximate schedule for some time now — now needs 3 weeks advance notice before having a surveyor come walk through the house and tell them how much it will cost to move us. Because it’s summer. Apparently, summer snuck up on them.
I think it was yesterday, maybe it was the day before — time gets so lost right now — when Sam made the half of the (stereo-)typical baby noise. She said “Ga” — Now all we need is a “Goo” to go with it, and we’ll be set!
Also, people are coming tomorrow to see the house! It’s still not in great shape, but mostly it’s just clutter. I’ve finished the work I want to do to it (mostly thanks to the family helping out last weekend.) I’ve painted (and re-caulked) the bow window, painted and patched the trim around the garage door. Grandmère and Tom painted what was going to be Sam’s room. Gramma Carolyn, Grandmère and I polished the brass bed. It looks sooo much better, it had been far too long since it had seen any attention.
The purging continues. This stuff will be sent to freecycle later this afternoon, but I wanted to give blog readers first dibs:
Are you a computer tinkerer, or want to become one? Well, you’ve just hit the jackpot. I have a whole lot of computer things to give away including several working computers. Almost all of the computers are of the P3 500Mhz-800Mhz generation, though there is some deviation. Included are
I’ve made a page for it, rather than a regular blog entry because I don’t want it to fade from view (until it’s sold). We listed our house on Monday with the Real Estate Agent who helped us buy it. It’s such a treasure — we don’t want to leave it behind, but as good as the Linden Lab relocation budget is — I don’t think it would actually cover picking up the house and moving it to San Francisco. So, we’ve got to sell it.
So, we’ve been madly purging in preparation for this move. It’s still quite difficult (though I’ll have a whole mess of computer equipment to offer up shortly. Blog readers get first dibs, though I suspect I’ll have to go to freecycle to get rid of it). Anyway, I came across a few grad school notes and papers, one notebook of which was full of various labs, tests and notes from my Perceptual Psychology class — relevant to virtual worlds, of course. In there were notes from a lab on the demonstration of the blind spot — something that also came up in my physical exam for my pilot’s license (No, I’ve still not flown in years, but I’ll get back to it soon, I’m sure!). I’ve mocked up the experiment here. It still amazes me how little of the world we actually see compared to how much we think we see.
I haven’t mentioned it here much, but every Sunday, I played soccer with a few other people — mostly Penn State people, but we’ve picked up a few neighbors and others.
AC Capehart
Soccer Champion
Altoona, PA 2006
I started this after having played wallyball with Mike — they don’t play in the summer, and there had been a little bit of buzz about it. Someone else started it up, but quickly stopped coming, and I gladly took over. I set up a mailing list and sent weekly harassment reminder emails. At our best, we got up to 5-v-5 which got to be some real fun.
Ever since my wife said she was thinking about getting me an iPod for father’s day, but decided against it because it’s too expensive, I’ve been thinking about getting myself an iPod for father’s day. I’m about to have a much longer commute than before–any time you have to get on the train, it’s going to be a lot longer than the trip from the bedroom to the den!
Anyway, I went to the Apple store to look at iPod nanos. Of course, you can get them engraved. My first thought was just name and cell phone number in case it gets lost and whoever finds it already has an iPod, therefore would maybe feel like returning it. But, I might change my cell phone number once I become a Californian, so I checked out their suggested engravings.
Whew. I’ve been holding my breath and biting my tongue on this for so long, it’s really cramped my blogging style. Finally, today I can write about it. I’m up-heaving our lives!
During a long walk during the winter time, Carolyn and I took stock of our lives as we tend to do during long walks together. We found ourselves out in the cold, walking among the depressed (and depressing) houses of Altoona with our baby daughter strapped to us. We thought about where we were, and where we wanted to be. Carolyn was just coming off of her maternity leave and was back to teaching. Fortunately, she only had two courses in the spring, and as a professor got to be home more than most other full-time professionals, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted to be home full-time with Sam. While I enjoy being with my daughter (usually), I was missing the intellectual stimulation, camaraderie, and information streams (and income stream) that came with my former professional career. We fantasized about living somewhere with nice weather, with plentiful opportunities for Sam. We thought about my working full time in computers generally, not daring to think I could get back into games/entertainment. We thought about Carolyn getting to follow creative pursuits so long abandoned for career and child. Of these fantasies, a dream was spawned, and we were again taught one of our big lessons from life: Beware what you ask for, you may get it.
Dear Sam,
Wow. Another month whipped by. I can’t believe how quickly it feels like April went. Of course, for you, it was one seventh of your life, and for me it was about one three hundred and fortieth, so we’re bound to have at least slightly different takes on it. That said, looking back, your mom and I still managed to come up with a number of things regarding your development that we think noteworthy.
As you may recall, we had some trouble picking Sam’s name. While I love my daughter Sam, her name still seems a little random. We wanted something relatively unique, but still not so uncommon as to be a source of teasing, or misunderstanding. The latter was the major strike against Anaïs — a name both Carolyn and I like. Alas, the uniqueness was also called into question when within a month of her birth, I received an email from another Samantha Capehart! (One to which I’ve still not responded — terribly sorry Samantha, I’ll try to rectify that before too long.)
(click to enlarge)