Busy at work

Sorry I didn't update yesterday. It was a busy day. I am helping with this paper for the World Space Congress. Actually, I was reduced to writing most of it -- even though I am only a co-author, the primary author (my mentor) is mucho busy, and I got worried he would never finish in time for export control to read it. So, I started revising it. Talk about opening a can of worms, I've been almost non-stop working on it for two weeks now. I think its done, though, and I can get on to bigger and better things.

I bought a house

Oh, I bought a house. Well at least we have a signed contract. And I have a mortgage (5.75%, 30-year fixed, isn't that a rock-awesome interest rate?). My inspection is today. Closing is October 30. I am going to try to take pictures to provide you with details later. But to make a long story short: 2 floors, fireplace, 2.5 baths, 3 bedrooms, living, dining, kitchen, breakfast room - master down (with whirlpool tub!) and 2 rooms up, along with a game room, big bay window, big back yard, two car garage. And Sarah's right, I don't know what I'm going to do with it -- but now I desperately want a $5,000 plasma flat TV (like in the Phillips commercials) to hang over my fireplace!

Long, confusing conversation

I've had some very entertaining conversations with random house-related people. There was the one insurance compnay who I SWEAR had two separate names and ended up calling and providing details to twice (that would be American National -- kind of a redundant name, don't you think?). And then there was the talk with USAA to determine eligibility (I'm not, as I expected, but I would have been if my grandfather had ever been a member of USAA -- but he can't join now, he would've had to join before, when I couldn't establish), but you wouldn't believe the strange rules and strange relationships you can have with people, but the operator seemed to know all of them. And then, good old Allstate -- you'd figure they could find native English speakers to answer the phone!

Oh, and Sarah's journal entry yesterday was very good, very NASA-inspiring!