Halloween

Well this was the first Halloween that we are living in a house and expect to get a bunch of kids tricker treating. Normally living in apartments you don’t' get many if any kids knocking on your door.. so I was really looking forward to this night. Of course I bought a ton of candy and also bought a full box of Hershey full size bars. I wanted to be the cool guy who is giving out full candy bars. Well come to find out my friend Tom was having a Halloween party that night as well, which I totally forgot about. So I got home and wanted to spend at least an hour handing out candy before we went to the party. It was so much fun. So many cute kids in costumes. I was handing out handfuls of candy knowing I had very little time to get rid of the stuff. Well around 8:30 we had to get over to our friends Tom's party. I got rid of about half of the candy so we still have a big bowl of candy sitting in the house.

We had a good time at Tom's. Saw some friends that we haven't seen in a while. We watched Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror and a really crappy cheesy murder mystery type of movie that we all made fun of. It was a fun night.

Toy Room

Today I worked on my Toy Room some more... I have been telling Harry the past three weeks that I was going to finish it and of course it never happened. We seem to always be doing something on the weekends. Well today I was determined to do nothing but the toy room, and for the most part I did. I got about 80% of it done and it's coming along nicely. Of course not everything is going to fit in the room as planned but it still looks great and I did manage to put out my favorite toys. Once this room is done we will set up a day for our house warming party..

Halloween Party

Tonight Harry and I went to our friend Christopher's Halloween party. I dressed up as Harry Potter of course and Harry went has himself. My friend Christopher goes all out for Halloween.. his place looked great. It was a lot of fun sitting around, drinking and chatting with friends.

New Stove and more

Today Harry and I went to Home Depot, we planned to get some curtains for the house. We also wanted to look at screen doors. What we didn't expect was to find a Gas Stove. I have been looking online for a used stove but when we saw this stove and it was on sell for $399.99 we couldn't pass it up. We both agreed that it would be better to have a new stove rather than a used one since we were dealing with gas. So with the purchase of the stove that limited us on what else we could get at that time. We picked up a few light switch cover plates, two cutains rods and four really cool multi color curtains. We figured we would do two in the living room and two in the dining room since they are connected.

The stove will be delivered on Thursday, we are both very excited since it's been about three weeks since we had a really good cooked meal that wasn't microwaved or BBQ.

We went to put up the curtains and sure enough just two curtains weren't enough for the front living room window, so we had to steal one of the curtains that was suppose to go up in the dining room. So now we have to go back and buy one more curtain so we can at least finish the living room/dining room area.

Friends who have houses always say that you are never at a lose for buying stuff from your house.. and that is so true.. Harry and I had so much fun walking through Home Depot. So many cool things to buy.. too bad we don't have the money to do so. I guess will get a little at a time. Next up is paint for the living room, dining room and kitchen.

Relief in sight

Well the fires are far from out.. but with cooler weather and less wind the firefighters are making headway with these horrible fires. Still no word about the cabin but we're pretty sure it's still standing.

My Mom's Cabin

One of the many fires in SoCal is called the Slide fire. It's up near Green Valley Lake. This is where my mom's cabin is. Harry and I along with many friends have visited this area the past few years. Now the first has completely surrounded the small town. Everyone has been evauated and reports are coming in that of the 300 strutures 200 of them are burnt down. Also of the six buildings that make up the town of Green Valley are gone as well. It's a very sad down. Green Valley was such a beautiful place to relax and now it's blacken and smuldering. The last we heard the fire was two streets away from the cabin but it looks like the cabin was spared... at least for now. This fire is 0% contained. Just have to keep our fingers crossed.

You can see the lake in the middle of this picture.. the red outline is what has been burned.. Green Valley is completely surrounded by flames.

The Brown Moon

With all the smoke in the air we have a very brown full moon. It's very bizarre. Some fires are getting under control but other are still on the rampage.

Fires, Fires, Everywhere

This has been a really bad few days. There are fires all around Southern California. From Santa Barbra to San Diego. Thousands of home have been lost and half a million people have been evacuated. This has been the worse wildfires I have seen in years. It's super dry and the santa ana winds are blowing. Today I walked out of work and looked up at the beautiful blue skies. Then looking at the horizon there was this thick black/brown smoke all the way around me. We had fires on the north, souch, east and west of us. We had ash and smoke coming from 70 miles away. It looks like all of SoCal is on fire.

The Vet

Today was Daisy's biannual Vet visit. She is always happy to leave the house and today was not exception. But once she realized where we were going and when we pulled up to the Vet building she started to whimper. It's like dragging dead weight when going inside. I really don't understand her fear since the Vet hasn't been a horrible place for her. She occasionally gets shots but that is the extent of it. Everything went well, she lost some weight, which is good. The only thing the doctor said is that she'll need some dental work. And with dental work the knock out the dog so they had to do some blood test to make sure everything would be okay with the anasteshia. Well for that they had to take blood and would be doing in the back. So the vet picked Daisy and carried her way. The look on her face was of sheer panic and confusion on why we were giving her away. About ten minutes later the tech person comes back not looking too happy and handing us Daisy back. He mentioned that they will be having a dental sale on Feb and we should wait to make our appointment then. We really like this Doctor. We were good to go and I went to pay the bill. $450.00. I almost fell over.. our normal visits are about $100.00 so I was not expecting this. Oh well she's our little girl and her health is very important. So now we have to wait till Feb to make an appointment for her dental work.. which I know she is just going to love.

Wally's Birthday

Today was my uncles birthday party. It was going to be at his daughter's Renee's place out in Hidden Hills. When they have parties they are pretty much and all day thing. We haven't been to Renee's since last Christmas so I wasn't exactly sure I knew the directions. But I figured between Harry and I we would managed. Well we start to drive and continue to drive and I start to notice that none of this looks familar to me. We get past Agora Hills and I turned to Harry and say " I think we went to far" but I didn't see a sign that said "Hidden Hills" or Mulhollun Drive. Harry says "oh I saw a sign for Mulhollum a while back. So we turned around and headed back and of course there the exit was, only 2 miles from where go got on the freeway. So we found the exit and I tried to call my Dad because I couldn't remember the street she lived on. Well his phone had no siginal so we were on our own. After three attempts at dead ends we finally found the right street and made it there.

The party was fun. We got to meet Wally's sister Betty who was visiting from Hawaii and also having a birthday. We hung out and ate for about five hours. I knew we had to take Dad home so we left around 7:30pm and went home to pick up Daisy. I was already super tired and I still had to drive an hour and a half to Corona to drop off day and then back again. Well by the time we got home.. around 11pm I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.. after watching the news for five minutes we headed to be for some much needed sleep.

Dumbledore is Gay

Yesterday while on her press tour, J.K. Rowling was asked about Dumbledore's love life. Jo said she always felt that Dumbledore was gay.

Now there is no mention of this in the books but I always had my suspicions that this was the case. Of course this revelation has caused quite an uproar. There are three camps, one is made up of people who kind of knew and is happy that it is finally announced. Another would be people who had no idea but still are cool with it and the third of course are people who now say the books have ruined by this info.

I belong to a lot of Harry Potter yahoo groups made of people from all over the world. I can't understand why when people here gay they think of pedifiller. I have read many comments about how gross it is now knowing that he is gay and the kind of relationship he had with Harry. I also can't believe people say that now that they know this information they can't like Dumbledore anymore, even though nothing has changed in the books.. Dumbledore is still the same Dumbledore.

Being a gay man might skew my view, but I don't see what Dumbledore being gay has to do with the story of Harry Potter. Nothing is ever mentioned in the books. The stories haven't changed, we just get a little background info on one of the main characters.

I'm proud of Jo for making this announcement, it shows that strong, powerful people can also be gay and that it's okay. I guess you will always have "religious" people spewing their hate and mean comments... oh well… such is life.

Nothing much going on.

This week has been a fairly quiet week. Didn't do anything fun or special. Worked hard as work is really getting crazy and when I get home I plan on organizing my toy room but very little of that actually gets done because I'm so tired. Instead I spend a few hours with Harry before I head to bed.

I did enjoy some good TV this week. Little People Big World is back and is a good as ever. Another funny Big Bang Theory, an awesome Heroes, and very charming Pushing Daisies.

All in all not much is going on.

Things End... New Beginnings

Well today is offically the day. It's our last day in the apartment. We haven't been there for a week but today is officially they day we had to be out. The only thing we had left was to put the shower head back on and take the cans to recycling.

I had gotten up early again and started to unpack the toy room and organize. Once Harry got up we went to the recycling place and turned in about 3 1/2 bags of crushed cans and got about $80 bucks. We then went over to the apartment, put on the shower head, took one last look and said our goodbyes. It was a good apartment. It was the first place Harry and I got together. So there are many good memories there.

Once home I kicked in to over drive and started to organize the garage, office, bedroom, living room and toy room. By the end of the day I had finished everything I wanted to.... well almost everything. The house is unpacked and everything is in it's place except the toy room. That will take me a bit longer to complete. After I finish the toy room we have to move on to the garage where we have several boxes that need to be gone through and decided to keep or trash. The house looks great and Harry, Daisy and myself are very happy it's all over. Now we can enjoy life in a house.

Soon as I have finished my toy room will be having a house warming party.. be on the look out.

Moving the Jeep

Well today I attacked my toy room. I really wanted to finish unpacking everything and start to put things up. but we had to move Harry's Jeep, which I knew would take several hours. It is currently non-operational so I had asked my brother, who has a ball on his truck to come help tow it to the house. Well my brother, sister-in-law and dad arrive. We go to UHaul and find out that in order to use there car dolly you had to disconnect your drive shaft from your rear tires. It sounded like a lot of work for such a small thing. It was also going to cost my $39.95 to rent the dolly. After hearing what we had to do to tow it Michael said I should just use AAA. Of course I had thought of that but wasn't sure they would move a car from one place to another, it really wasn't an emergency. Well we figured it would be cheaper and a lot less hassle to try. So I called up AAA and since I have the "classic" deal I get 7 miles of free towing and they had no problem moving the jeep.

Before we called AAA my dad, lora and mike took a look at the Jeep and said it sounded like it was fuel problem, that it was either the fuel filter which was easy to change or the fuel pump which is a bit tougher to change. So Harry and I replaced the fuel filter but still it didnt' work... it seems it's the fuel pump.

So I should have went with my first instict and went with AAA but instead I spent about five hours of my unpacking time dealing with the Jeep.. but in the end the Jeep made it to the house safe and shound and we are a few steps closer to getting it repaired.

I did get back to unpacking but I was very tired and only got a bit more done. Oh well there is always Sunday.

It's Over... FINALLY!!!!!

Today on my extended lunch I went the the apartment and packed up the last of our stuff into my Jeep. That is all.. there is nothing else to move. Well that's not totally true. We still have Harry's non-operational Jeep sitting in the underground parking. We are going to get that this coming weekend. We also have to go and clean the place up. I know we aren't going to get much of our deposit back so we aren't going to do a super cleaning.. just get rid of the trash and clean here and there. But it's over.. no more moving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now the fun part of unpacking and making the new place look cool.

Will this ever end!!!!

During my extended lunch (I have had quite a few of these the past few weeks) I headed to the apartment to pack what I could into my Jeep. It was mostly odds and ends but still couldn't get everything in... one more day!!!

Big Screen TV and Moving

Today we got to sleep in a bit till 9am. We had to be down in Newport Beach to pick up a Big Screen TV that my mom bought for Harry and I for our birthdays. It belonged to a neighbor of hers. We arrived at 11am and picked up the TV, we strapped it in and then my mom said we could have her patio set. Which consisted of a table, unbrella and four chairs. She was also giving us four ouside chairs and two small tables. Now the plan was to fit all this in a small pick up truck. Well we had the TV, table, four chairs, umbrella and two small tables. We couldn't get the four other chairs and will have to pick them up later. We tied everything down and made sure it was nice a secure. We made our way home and got to Sunset in West LA on the 405 when we hit a bump and Harry said.. I think the TV shifted and sure enough I look in the mirror and the ropes and blankets were flapping in the wind. We quickly pulled over and tried to re-secure the items but we were close enough to take streets home and after two more stops to secure things we made it home safely. We unloaded everything then went to Target to get a few things for the house, one being a Microwave since we have no stove at the moment and were tired of eating out food. Well $400 dollars and two hours later we left Target and dropped everything off at the house and then had to head to the apartment to finish up there. We managed to bring everything down to the living room and we knew it would take more then one more trip.. so we packed up what we could in the truck and jeep and brought it over ot the new house. I was disappointed that we couldn't get everything, I so want this to be over... but it will happen. By this time it was about 10pm and I still wanted to organize the living room, I really wanted to set up the Big TV and watch an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. So as tired as I was I moved around boxes and furniture until Harry and I were happy with the set up then we sat down and turned on the big screen TV for the first time and popped in a TNG episode and kicked back. It ended just past 11:30pm and again exhusted I headed to bed.

MOVING DAY

It's funny calling this moving day since Harry and I have been moving since last Sunday. But today was the day when we rent the UHaul and get the bulk of our stuff over to the house. By today we had moved about 2/3's of the boxes but there were still quite a bit of stuff to move. I rented the 17 foot UHaul and figued we would have to do several trips. A few weeks ago when we got the house I sent out a mass email to all of our friends for help with the move. I know moving sucks.. believe me I have done it enough and though I hate it I always help out friends when needed for this task. Well I got a few responses from my mass email and of those responses a few had plans (it happen to be Gay Day at Disneyland) and several were injured and could not help out but the majority just ignored my email....so we were on our own. Luckly my brother, his wife and my Dad did offer to help which was great.

Harry and I got up at 7am and picked up the UHaul, we still have some stuff to pack and did that for a few hours. By 9am we started to pack up the truck. Mike, Lora and Dad showed up about 10:30am and the moving really started to pick up. We had the truck loaded in no time. We went to the house, uploaded and headed to Denny's were I bought lunch for everyone. During lunch my brother informed me that they would help pack up the second load to the truck but had to leave after that, due to the fact that he had to go out drinking of something. So we packed up the truck for a second time and Mike, Lora and Dad left. Harry and I drove the truck to the house unpacked and returned the truck to UHaul before they closed. We still have stuff at the apartment but we were exhusted and knew we still had Sunday to pick the remaining stuff up. Back at the house we made a makeshift bed and fell asleep...

Work Craziness and oh... still moving

Today I was called into the Executive Producers office and told that she and the company were parting ways. Work has been falling behind but I never expected this. This happend midway through today and things just kind of got crazy. After work I headed home to pack more. I am one to have everything packed and ready to go before we start to move but this has been a really crazy few weeks and so there was still quite a bit to pack. I was hoping to go home and do some packing and get to bed early because we had to be up at 7am to get the UHaul truck. Well as most of my plans, it didn't turn out that way. Both Harry and I were up late packing. We were exhusted from all the moving during the week and all the packing at night. We knew this weekend it would all be over and we couldn't wait for the weekend to be over.

Working, Moving, Working, Moving

This week it's been pretty much work, move, work, move. When I'm not working, I'm moving. Harry continues to take stuff over to the new house while I take stuff in my Jeep to work then while on my extended lunch I'll take the stuff over to the house, met up with Harry and have lunch. Then when I get off work I had either to the apartment and pick up more stuff or over to the house to grab more boxes so I can go back to the apartment and pack up more stuff. And I'm doing this while not feeling so hot. I think all the stress and no sleep has finally taken a toll on my body. So now I get to work, move, work, move and be sick.... ahhhhh life is good. I gotta keep telling myself.. we are moving into a house.. so it makes all this worth it.

Finally Sleep

Well I've had 3 hours sleep in the last 48 hours... It's been a rough few days, but I'm still functioning. I've had my good hours and my bad hours. Work is just crazy and everyone is feeling it. Harry managed to take another load of boxes to the house and was there most of the day organizing and unpacking. I stopped by for a bit to have lunch and see Harry and Daisy. We still can't beleive we live in a house now.. it's very exciting. Okay... sleepy time now. good night...

Working in the wee hours

Well it's 2:30am and I'm at work. I'm exhusted from the previous day move. I have been up since 6am and can't believe my mind is still able to form words. I'm preping an output of our first episode, the producers and editors have been here all weekend. This was suppose to happen Sunday afternoon but as it always happens there were delays and now it should be done around 3am then I get to convert it to a quicktime which should take an hour or so then upload which can take three to four hours. Then I get to go home for a few hours and sleep, then come back to the craziness. At least that is the plan.. will see how things go... I'M SOOOOOOOOOOO TIRED!!!!