Chris Ashley's Blog

My last post was July 7. I'm thinking that this blog doesn't really play a part in my life anymore. I do read quite often, but I don't know why I don't have much of a desire to write anything. So here is what will probably be my last post.

• So, yeah. I got married. Alicia and I committed our lives together on August 8. It was as good as anybody could ask for, and that was only because we had such amazing family and friends helping and celebrating with us. I'm thrilled to death to wake up every morning next to the woman I love and cherish. She is somebody who reminds me most of God and loves me almost as much as He does.
  

Kiss!

Apparently I just don't post anymore. Good thing we have templated posts like ToT for checking in now and again.

Not Preferring
- I can't seem to get into a sleep rhythm lately. It all god thrown off with my latest trip to SoCal and getting sick.
- Got a speeding ticket on the way back from the trip. I had five of my youth in the truck with me. Stupid truck-with-trailer speed limit.
- I am all alone in the office.
- Facebook rejected my first 15 minute attempt to upload a bunch of photos to an album. I'm trying again.
- All this Michael Jackson grief. Everything he did revolves around counting to four over and over. There are many many more important things going on.

Preferring
- Having Alicia living in Northern California with me. I get to see her almost every day. The novelty hasn't worn off and I'm praying it isn't novelty but just general love and affection.
- I AM GETTING MARRIED IN 32 DAYS.
- I had the most amazing time with my youth in Southern California. None of them read this so I can say that I have the best job in the world because I get to hang out with awesome teens for a living.
- Had a date night with my One and Only last night. She cooked chicken and rice (but only because I was dead-tired). We went for a walk and then watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I slept on and off and missed probably 40 minutes in total, but what I saw I enjoyed.
- I AM GETTING MARRIED IN 32 DAYS.

I am watching ESPN's First Take this morning as I do most mornings getting ready for work. A commercial for freetriplescore.com came on. But while everybody was repeating freetriplescore.com over and over, the address on the screen showed freetriplescore70.com. I've seen several different addresses for this website. I wanted to see who else online has noticed this and I came across this website:

http://domains.dan.info/hall/shame.html

It's a website that I wish I had created. They list dozens of website urls and point out how they're stupid. As I read the website, I chuckle because many of the sites they have listed are those that I have noticed and was irritated by. This amuses me.

I'll be honest with you. I'm really upset with my neighbors and their labs. The others dogs aren't a problem at all, especially compared to these labs. My blood boils whenever they bark and woof. So this is me expressing everything I love about my house, because there are many more ups than downs.

• I get to paint my walls, put in new floors, install new lighting fixtures, dream about updating my bathroom and kitchen, and tend to a yard.
• I really do love the sounds of kids. I live near a park and I enjoy when kids roll by on their scooters or bikes. It shows me the family-friendly atmosphere around here. I just watched some kids pick some flowers off of a bush in the front yard.
• There isn't a whole lot of dust. At my last apartment, dusting was required about every 45 minutes. I don't notice the dust floating in the air in the sunlight here.
• I have plantation shutters in the front of the house. I use them in all their various functions.
• There is a place for my car in a real garage again. No more burning bum on hot leather... at least not at home.
• I have a whole lot more room, though most of it is occupied by stuff yet to be unpacked.
• There are windows on every side of the house, even the roof. In my apartment I never got to look out to the south or to the west to see the sun in the evening.
• I don't have to have Comcast!
  

So I bought a house, as most of you know, and I do love my house. I love having my house on my property, not sharing walls with anybody. I love that I can run and jump and yell and crank the TV up and it doesn't affect my neighbors and I am unaffected when they do the same. I love that I get to paint my walls, change fixtures, take care of the yards, and have the responsibilities that come with the 'money pit,' as Mr. Betz so wonderfully put it.

This house does have one major drawback, though, and that is neighbors' dogs. A little one, a medium sized one, and a couple large ones fill up the entire audio frequency range. Don't take this to mean that I would give it up and go back to an apartment, absolutely not. For the majority of the time I don't hear them. In fact, in those times that I do, I have had a little fun trying to train other people's dogs for them.

The neighbors to the left have been fantastic neighbors and I love them already. Their dog is the one that for the first two weeks didn't allow me to even hear my alarm. Now I get to hit the snooze button as much as I want. With their permission, I keep a bucket of water next to the fence where the dog loves to bark. When I hear him going (which is less and less) I quietly run out there and use the cup I leave there to dump some water on his stupid border collie head. He hates it and runs away, barking inside, which I couldn't care less about. Now the dog is completely terrified of me and runs away at any sound coming from this side of the fence and all I have to do is bang a window and he runs away if I hear him at all.

Border Collie

The neighbors to the right have two labs, one chocolate and one yellow. These are big dogs with big barks. When they are inside their house and I am inside my house and all windows and doors are shut I can still hear them. When they're in the backyard, however, they are incredibly loud, and the neighbors don't seem to care too much. I have a different perspective on the matter. The yellow lab is the greater offender. The good news is that in preliminary tests he seems to be responding well to a sonic annoyer of sorts. When he barks, I have tested this device that basically screams back. I've only tried it on him this morning, but he immediately shut up and sauntered around the corner. I'll go ahead and mount the unit near they're yard and see if it works in the longterm. Otherwise I'm going to have to talk with the owners.

Chocolate and Yellow Lab

Lastly, to the back is a little shaved norfolk terrier. I would not have a problem running this yapper over with my car, and I am a dog lover. This guy thinks he can bark like the labs and likes to show it off. Trouble is that he hasn't responded well to the water or sonic treatments. He really gets going and is difficult to stop. I may just kill him.

Norfolk Terrier

I have heard good things from several people about the quality of dispute resolution between neighbors concerning dog barking in Sacramento County. The trouble is that I'm afraid of ruining a relationship with a neighbor before I've had much of a chance to establish one. It scares me a bit. I'm less concerned about the neighbor to the back since I have yet to see them, let alone meet them. I may end up going that route with them. I don't want to do that with the neighbors to the sides though. Might any of you have any suggestions or experience in this matter?

Alicia moves up here to Elk Grove in exactly three weeks. That is going to be quite a splendid day. This weekend we did a lot of work to make that happen.

- On Friday, I flew down to LA. We had dinner at our favorite restaurant and went and saw Up. Fantastic meal, wonderful meal, great date.
- Saturday, we were up pretty early. Two roommates had already moved out, but she wasn't the last so we didn't have to do the gruntwork of cleaning the whole place. We did do some cleaning, made a trip to Salvation Army, picked up the U-Haul, loaded most of her stuff, and made our way up to Elk Grove.
- Today, Sunday, she flew back to LA to finish up the school year.
- I'm very tired.

I am never going to move in summer months ever again. I know it's May and while it technically isn't summer, we are in the 90s lately. This morning I spent an hour and a half packing up my bedroom, bathrooms, and laundry room. I started at 8:10 and produced enough sweat to end the water crisis in California. All these packing days have been like this, mostly doing packing in the shortest shorts I can find with no shirt, getting really stinky and sweaty and then taking the coldest shower tolerable. I would just go jump in the pool but it is usually monopolized by either dozens of little brats or arrogant, inconsiderate mid-20s jerks. I don't like a whole lot of people my age sometimes.

I have movers scheduled today. I have appliances scheduled for delivery tomorrow. I don't have the keys to my house yet. Optimistically, I was supposed to have had them last Friday. Well, that didn't happen, so surely they would come on Monday, right? Not so. While all the documents were reviewed and my loan was approved for funding, they didn't do it in time to wire it to the title company. So we are 'encouraging' them to wire it first thing this morning so I can get the keys about half an hour before the movers come.

Here in Elk Grove, just south of Sacramento, we are enduring a brisk 103 degrees. In May. It is really stinkin' hot. I jumped in the pool earlier and the water was tepid, at best. I can't drink enough water, and I can't get enough air conditioning. I don't think I'll be living here for the rest of my life. Portland or Seattle sounds fantastic right about now.

Hello my wonderful Vox neighbors,

I have not updated very regularly, and I know it's killing you. I've been mostly busy with purchasing a house, chasing down documents, trying to get people on the phone, etc. But BUT the good news is that (hopefully) by tomorrow evening I will be holding the keys to my new home. Today I'm going to turn in my down-payment-and-other-closing-cost-fees check (which will be the biggest check I have ever written) and will do my final inspection. That pegs Saturday as the big move day, which sucks that it will be 90 degrees, plus. But I don't care!

Also, it turns out my Realtor lived in the same floor plan in that neighborhood 17 years ago and found the brochure for the neighborhood featuring the various layouts and such. I scanned, flipped, and cleaned up my floor plan so I could do some planning in advance. And here it is for you to see, in case you're interested:

Floor Plan

I am a man with more than one best friend. Of course, I have a bestest friend whom I'm going to marry, Alicia. But after that, Phil, Dan, and Scott are all my best friends. They have more to do with who I am today than anybody else, save God Himself. Well, it would seem as though I have somebody to add to the list. First, some background.

Kelly is the Director off Children's Ministry at the church that I work at. I love her a lot. She's smart, funny, and has three of the cutest kids I've ever seen, boy(6), girl(4), and boy(2). They were all at the office a while back while their mom was making some copies so I was in the lounge hanging out with the kids, cause I just love kids. I forget what we were doing, but the two boys started pouncing and the girl came to my rescue. We fended off the boys quite well as a team and afterward I asked, "So are we best friends, now?" She nodded her head, and I thought we had a new friendship, but nothing too serious.

Then at church last Sunday, Kelley delivers me this note, written on the back of the sermon text where sermon notes usually go:

"You are the best boyy. I have a grat tim being your frend. I like you. you are the best frend iv evre had."

Well, she definitely has my heart now, but I'll still spoken for. I'm happy to have a new best friend. I just hope I live up to the expectations!