I can only wish that we had heard about Ric Flair Finance, home of the Figure-4 Process™, before we bought our house - a Nature Boy 30-year Fixed mortgage would have been pretty sweet. And imagine the joy of getting a personalized loan statement from that Limousine ridin’, jet flying, kiss stealin’, wheelin’ dealing, son of a gun himself, delivered with all the precision of a knife-edge chop. The legal fine print on the back would contain, in tiny letters: “To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man; and whether you like it or not, learn to love it, ‘cause it’s the best thing going today!”

I think if you listened closely during the excruciatingly long black screen at the end of the Sopranos series finale, you could probably hear neighbors up and down your street saying “What the Fuck?” The final episode pretty much gave me what I’ve come to expect from this show - a few funny moments (Phil’s death and subsequent headcrushing), a whole lot of boring moments (to Anthony Jr: who cares?) and an ending that can best be summed up as “The Sopranos: David Chase totally stopped caring about making this show years ago, and now he doesn’t have to anymore.”

A while back, David Milch came up with a show idea that he loved so much, he killed his excellent Deadwood off in the middle of multiple plot lines to make it. That show, John from Cincinatti, premiered last night, and wow, bad move Mr. Milch. A show about a rage-filled family of surfers and a mysterious man with a weird haircut, checkered Vans and magical pockets? Even the presence of the great Luis Guzman can’t save this one - I predict it’s dead before the end of the season. Swearengen’s revenge!

Where has the time gone? I’ll tell you where:
About a month or so back, we did indeed find a house and went ahead and bought the thing. Our new ranch comes complete with a pedigree. We saw the place, fell in love and made an offer before we found out that the seller was a friend and former employer, who was able to fill us in on the house’s history: the previous owners (a couple who immigrated from Germany/Bulgaria after the war), moved in when it was built in 1964. They never had kids, and spent their lives painting, gardening, and hanging out before they passed away last year, well into their 80’s. They left us a house in top-notch condition that’s full of hardwood floors, sweet 1960’s fixtures (and appliances and some furniture), a HUGE yard full of plants, central air(!), and more space than we know what to do with.

Since then, we’ve been consumed with wiring, moving, painting, cleaning, planting vegetables, weeding, mowing, making bread, and other house-related duties. We’ve also gone to Texas for 10 days, (briefly) visited Baltimore, bought a widescreen HDTV, and just yesterday celebrated our 6th anniversary.

Still on the home improvement to-do list:

• completely redo gnarly 70’s bathroom (peach walls/tub + brown tile + beige toilets = ouch)
• Finish setting up basement lounge of AWESOMENESS
• Complete my transformation of the 60’s TV console to an A/V cabinet

After months of hour-long commutes and years of cramped apartments, it is really nice to wake up every day, pad through our spacious ranch, leisurely sip coffee while staring at the splendor that is my new backyard, and be able to make it to work in 10 minutes. Check out more images of our new place HERE.

Growing up in the rural environs outside of Bad Axe, in Huron County, Michigan, I envisioned my future self moving to a bustling urban center far, far away - somewhere with lots of people, no trees, and where the flattened vowels of the michigan accent (check yours now!) would fade from my ears. Since then, I went to college, got married, and stayed in Michigan. And it’s looking more and more like I’ll be here for at least a while longer… I can still see myself moving at some point, but now that I have years invested in my mostly-OK job it seems less and less possible. Sure, Michigan’s economy just keeps getting worse as the rust belt gets rustier, and last week the high temps were below zero - but the Vernor’s and coney dogs keep me satisfied, and all I really care about is spanning time with the Bride of Spape anyway. After years living in relatively highly-populated areas, the other big surprise is that I actually think I don’t care about living in a city anymore - and that I might actually prefer being in the country. Not the our-nearest-neighbor-is-a-soybean-field country I grew up in, mind you - more of the our-yard-is-totally-big-enough-for-a-garden country that can still be found relatively cheaply around the Washtenaw area.

So anyway, we’re seriously looking at buying a house, something closer to the town where we both work than our current place. Nothing against Hamtramck, because this town is full of very friendly people, bars, bakeries, and delicious sausages; but gas money for the Volvo and the hours commuting back and forth to Ann Arbor are destroying me. So we are doing paperwork, meeting agents, and otherwise going bananas, but hopefully it will all be worth it soon when we’re tiling our bathroom, chopping wood for our (hopefully) fireplace, and hanging pegboard in the garage.