Author: akooyer

Christmas is roughly 60 days away. If Target can start bringing out Christmas stuff 3 months in advance, then I can start my Christmas list–right?

We’re planning on hosting Christmas this year at our new house. Heather is actually at home painting right now! (If you’ve seen our walls you’ll know why!)

Anyway, I thought since I have such a hard time giving family and friends ideas of what I would like–I’d make a list that will be updated until Christmas rolls in. Here is my list so far:

Games:
Star Wars: BattleFront for the PC
GTA: San Andreas

Music:
R.E.M. – Around the Sun
U2 – How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

DVDs:
I Robot with Wil Smith
THX:1138
Disney’s Aladdin – gift cert from work purchased it
Wonder Woman: The First Season
Pink Panther: Box Set
Clash of the Titans
Jason and the Argonauts
Dukes of Hazzard: The First Season
Any Invader Zim
Highlander: 4th or 5th Season
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 6th or 7th Season
Star Trek: The Original Series 2nd Season
Star Trek: Generations Special Edition
Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea/Fantastic Voyage
War of the Worlds
It Came from the Bottom of the Sea
Any pulp Sci-Fi movies are fun

Gift Certificates:
Menards
Home Depot
Other Home Places

Other Good Ideas
Home made stuff: Blankets, Cards, Mix CDs, etc.
Coupons for a free Dinner with you.
Wine, Liquor (we love reds)
Cookies, treats
A celebration at Buca (my favorite place!)
A fruit basket

For media shopping I highly recommend Buy.com. They have excellent prices and I believe they offer things like personalization and wrapping if you like that sort of thing. I already preordered my copy of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and should receive it mid-December. January we will be hosting a marathon of the three extended versions of the films in our basement family room. So stay tuned.

Diode, cathode, electrode, overload, generator, oscillator…
Make a circuit with me.

So Qwest, as promised, had DSL running at my new home by Tuesday. The fact that it takes them 5 business days to complete this request is disheartning–but at least it’s done. Yesterday morning I activated the circuit by calling my ISP (Sound Internet) and with a few keystrokes they changed my ID over and we were live. Heather was able to use her work computer as of yesterday morning. Last night I turned on my server–which apparently needs some severe help. It was wheezing like an out-of-shape marathon runner with asthma. Nonetheless, adamkooyer.com (and all of my other .coms and .nets) are up and running. This makes me happy. But it’s not over yet. Today at noon Superior Electric will be out to survey the damage. You see, as expected, there are no ethernet runs in our new home. It was finished in 1968 from top to bottom and as you are well aware–ethernet did not exist. So I’m going to have him give me a quote on dropping a few critical lines here and there–among some other home improvements and electrical repairs. So sometime in the next few days I’m expecting to have another outage as I will need to disconnect and clean my server–then return it to service once wiring is complete. Isnt’ this fun?!

On a positive note, moving last weekend was quite successful. Thanks again, to all that were available to help on Saturday. At one point I believe we had 16 people helping. My Dad loaned us his racing trailer and called us afterward to thank us for being so organized. Although I didn’t think we were that organized, it was nice that he did. A big thanks to my Dad for that trailer! We still have many boxes to unpack, a few leftovers at the old house to grab and countless home repairs to perform–but we’re happy in our new home. In a few short weeks, the house will be shaping up. We plan to host Christmas this year for our families so we’d better get busy!
Continue reading Back Online–But For How Long?

On Moving: So I’ve got a list of helpers that includes 3 coworkers, 7 friends and 1 family member. With me and Heather that makes 12. Heather has her own list of people but many of her people couldn’t be there right away or were out of town. If we get more people it’s going to be a regular party! And the bonus is–you get to see the new house!

Moving Day is Saturday October 23rd at 10:00a.m. at 3235 34th Ave. S. in Minneapolis
Any help is appreciated and will be reciprocated.
Packing is nearly done–so it should go smooth.

I’m running over to a friend’s house this evening to get more boxes! Woot!

Health: I’m not feeling well today, but with any luck these new antibiotics will be working full time for me by Friday. That’s when we close on the new place! Rob is coming over afterward to help get some of the electronics and breakables moved. So that also should help us all out on Saturday with the official move. If the drugs don’t do the trick this round–the doc says I’ll need a CT scan. If I have to get my tonsils out, Adam has already offered to return the favor of driving me to the hospital. Though I’m sure Heather will gladly drive me.

We hung our SOLD sign on the house today. There is a great deal of satisfaction and comfort that comes with that task. I’m relieved we’ll have only one house payment and happy that everything went failry close to our plan. We get to return the “Open House” and “For Sale” signs that have been in the garage for some time as well.