Last weekend (or a few weekends ago, I can't remember) we went back to the old house, post gut. Took a few pictures and I figured I'd throw 'em up here for all to see:

And that's that.

It's been about a week now since we moved into our new digs, and we're still settling in. It's kind of hard to really settle in when your furniture inventory consists of a couch, a tv and a cardboard box for a coffee table, but we'll manage.

We also still don't have a washer, dryer, or refrigerator, but we are still in the process of ordering all that kind of stuff. Of course, we opted to get a refrigerator with Beer Door (which I've learned is called a "Beverage Station"), but apparently Samsung decided to fuck us and stop making the one refrigerator on the planet that made me happy. I really want that fucking beer door, and it seems now that it's soley sentimental value fueling our search for someone who still has one in stock (Scott, check the appliance section where you work).

We're also going to need to do a style overhaul around here. All the fixtures and hardware are all this country-bumkin brass shit and there's this Shoney's-esque woodgrain throughout the house (sans salad bar). Seeing as I have about as much experience with home design as Hitler has with sensitivity training, the bulk of this effort will need to come from the person in this house with a vagina.

Outside of these little things, everything's been going pretty smoothly considering. We haven't been able to try out the pool since we've moved in due to the frigid artic temperatures have settled down here for an undisclosed length of time. Will update as soon as that happens.

Our masta bathroom has one of those tubs set in a cubby under a window. I'm told that this configuration is called a "Garden Tub," but I'll just stick with the cubby/window description as I can speak it without physically feeling a drop in my testosterone levels.

So, I suppose without further ado, I'll let you see a few photos. Keep in mind Brenda asked me to be conservative with the depth and breadth of pictures I distribute as we haven't settled or cleaned anything yet:

So, after having my stay at the Holiday Inn cut short a few weeks before we closed on the new house, we were forced to find alternative digs. Initially we were going to stay with my brother in Baton Rouge, but after looking at the logistics of getting to and from work (work being over an hour away), we settled on my aunt's camp in Springfield, a scant fifteen minutes away from the office.

The trade-off in the situation is the quality of accommodations; the Ritz it's not. If you're not well versed in what a "camp" is (no, not that kind of camp), it's basically little more than a shack on some rural land (or sometimes raised on pilings over a body of water) that people stay in on the weekend to go fishing or hunting or snipe catching.

I have many fond memories of coming to the camp on weekends as a kid, memories that have been all but obliterated by the last two weeks trying to live day to day in a place that is uncomfortable if you're only there for a weekend. To add insult to injury, we had no hot water for the first three days we were there. On the third day, when I was right on the cusp of being called "Pig Pen" at work, we broke down and heated up water on the stove and showered each other with a perforated garbage bag.

During Brenda's lunch break on the forth day she swung by the camp to pick something up to find my cousin fiddling inside the fuse box using a light bulb duct taped to a frayed wire to test the different circuits in an attempt to resolve the hot water issue (he's from the other side of the family). Amazingly he fixed it and we felt as if we were living in the lap of luxury after that.

Of course that didn't stop me from getting a nasty case of athlete's foot from the rusty ass shower stall.

This is a rather short story, but one that should be told none the less. It's set at a Kinko's in uptown New Orleans, a Kinko's that doesn't exist anymore because a coffee house now occupies the charming stone building it used to be in.

Now this isn't really a "first day at the new job horror story" for two reasons, the first being that I can't really say for sure if it was really my first day but it was definitely whithin the first week (this was eight years ago, it's all I can do to hang on to the actual memory, much less place it in an exact timeline). The second reason being that this didn't actually involve me, I just got to witness it.

Anyway, on with the anecdote. I'm new so I made sure to show up a good bit early as to make a nice impression with my new bosses and such. Unfortunately there was a bit of a rush at the counter when I arrived, so one of the computer guys told me I could plop down at a free computer and surf the web until my shift started or the manager got time to show me a few things.

I sat there for a few minutes reading PlanetQuake or whatever the hell I read back then, when all of a sudden a heard a commotion coming from the wad of customers at the counter. Not wanting to contribute to the growing scene this person was making, I never turned my head from the monitor, and this is something I will regret for the rest of my life. Here's the content of the commotion:

Manager: Here you go sir.
Angry Customer: This is all fucked up!
Manager: I'm sorry? What's the problem with your order?
Angry Customer: It's all fucked up! You fucked it all up!
Manager: Well, we can redo it for you if you're not happy.
(Manager turns and throws contents of order in the garbage)
Angry Customer: What the fuck are you doing?
Manager: We are going to redo your order, sir.
Angry Customer: This place fucking sucks, you fuck everything up. Why can't you fucking do anything right?
(At this point, another customer in the line turns to Angry Customer)
Other Customer: Excuse me sir, but I'm a customer here and I've always been happy with their service!
Angry Customer: Oh yeah?! Well you shut your shitty mouth!

The argument abruptly ended there when a guy behind the counter told the guy to "get the fuck out of the building before I call the cops," but that guy's snappy one liner has stuck with me over the years.

Shut your shitty mouth. Do you think that one's a well used piece of his expletive repertoire, or was it some raw, straight off the cuff, profane creation? It's a question that's plagued me for years and I suppose I'll go to the grave not knowing the answer.

So, we're apparently buying a house here. It's a bitter sweet sort of victory, but a victory none the less. I swore that my place in Lakeview was the last time I'll ever rent, so now I have to keep up my end of the bargain, even if I've been relocated from Lakeview to Poncha-fucking-tula.

I suppose anytime anyone buys a house there are hurdles, surprises, stuff that pisses you off, and stuff you breathe a sigh of relief about, but since this is my damn internets site I get to bitch about my experiences.

First off, as you can expect there's a bit of a land grab going on here since the hurricane, so finding a house worth a turd is a pain in and of itself, so we had that to go through. After finding it, finding anyone to do inspections is impossible seeming as anyone with moderate construction knowledge is in New Orleans raking it in hand over fist. Once we found someone he suggested we get a roofer to come and inspect an obvious spot of damage to the shingles that look as if the home owner replaced them himself with a few tiles he bought at Lowes.

We were getting rather pissed about the subject and were ready to just drop it until our realtor told us that the problem was the owners threw their house up on the market to cash in the moment the land grab started and never looked for a place to live. The reason they were being so obtuse about any repairs was because they no longer wanted to sell the house because they don't have anywhere to go, so they were trying to be difficult so that we'd cancel the sale, which brings us to where we stand now:

We are now buying a house just to fuck the current owners. They pissed us off that much.

The beauty of it is that now their realtor is begging us to push back the act of sale so that she can get them in somewhere else. Fuck her and fuck them. I'll rent them the spare bedroom if they need someplace that bad, all for the low price of one roof and allowing me to rest my feet on his wife's face while I watch television.