In what turned out to be a very stressful and annoying season, the White Sox finally get back in the playoffs for the first time since 2005 when they won the World Series.
As many readers know I’m an avid White Sox fan and I had a ‘feeling’ they would get in, but it would require 163 games to do so. Sure, had they won just won game last week in the series vs the Twins, or another game against Cleveland then we wouldn’t have even had to play the 1 game playoff. But, who doesn’t like a little bit of drama in their lives?
So, now I get even more reason to procrastinate going into October, as I get to watch both the Cubs and Sox in the playoffs (the first time that has happened in 102 years). Dare I ponder about a Crosstown Classic Series?
My apartment is now baller! The couch, as expected, is pretty huge but it looks pretty awesome too. It came yesterday around 2ish and we no longer have to sit on desk chairs to watch television.
That brings another problem though: what to do with our spare desk chair? It’s too expensive to throw away and we have no way to store it. It might turn into a spare dining chair now that it is no longer needed to watch TV.
I’ll see about taking pictures and getting them uploaded to show how the living room of our apartment looks. I can’t show the bedroom or kitchen because usually that’s a mess.
(Video doesn’t work with Firefox 3 and should be watched using Internet Explorer, or find original here)
Well, I had just finished talking with Kiyoshi and I was opening up my Rock Band Drum Set from Marlyn (awesome!) when Marlyn just said ‘Whoa!’
I look out the balcony window and see a very large fire. At first I thought it was a tree on the other side of the pool but with further investigation it was the hotel building under construction across the street, about 200 yards away from our building.
As I frantically looked for my video camera Marlyn was out on balcony still in astonishment. I wish I had that video camera as it would be something fantastic to watch later (I still don’t know where it is).
That was just the beginning of the blaze, not 10 minutes later the flames had engulfed the ENTIRE hotel and the flames were as high as 7 storys! And, no, I’m not exaggerating. Hot ashes started to work themselves into the air slowly and worked their way over to our building, and eventually ended up over the building and onto several cars. When they hit the ground you could see the red glow of them spreading; if you weren’t a little scared then it would be kind of cool. The ashes were quite large, some over a foot in diameter and you start to thank the hurricane rains we received last weekend.
So we stood on our balcony watching with amazement at this fire, meanwhile we were able to feel the heat like we sat in front of a campfire. Marlyn had been saying we need to evacuate for a few minutes, then our own fire alarm went off.
I’m not going to lie it was exhilarating, not so much in a life or death way but still, I don’t know how else to explain it. If it wasn’t for Marlyn I wouldn’t left the apartment and I would have continued my front seat view.
However we left and went out to the store, even though traffic was a mess and they were blocking traffic.
ALEXANDRIA, Va (WUSA) — Two firefighters were treated for injuries after a fire Thursday night inside a hotel which was under construction. The three-alarm fire began inside the under-construction Marriott on Richmond Highway (U.S. Route 1) near Belle Haven Park in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County. Damage is estimated at $2 million.
Firefighters arrived to find the four story hotel engulfed in flames. An open gas line running through the Marriott was fueling the fire, but firefighers were not sure if this was the cause of the fire.
Two firefighters were evaluated for injuries at the scene. One was transported to a local hospital. He is expected to be released Friday. Both injuried firefighters are expected to recover fully.
Hot timbers from the Marriot hotel blew across the street onto the roof of an occupied five story residential building. Firefighters quickly evacuated the residents of that building and put out the roof fire. After the fire was out, residents were allowed back in the building.
So yes, I will forever remember 09/11/08, the day I turned 25; almost as much as I’ll remember the day I turned 18 back in 2001. My birthday continues to be eventful.
And its pretty big. I don’t know what it was, but the chair looks a shit-ton bigger in our living room than it did on the store floor. Either way it looks pretty good and I’m glad we have a small piece of our living room together.
We still don’t have the couch, as that wont arrive now until September 16th. No biggie for me because I’m not really going anywhere or doing anything.
As many of my friends know I have absolutely no furniture in my apartment. To watch TV, Marlyn and I pull the desk chairs over and attempt to relax while watching the big screen as it rests on the floor. I have kept all my clean clothes inside garbage bags because I had place to put them and you can imagine how 3 monitors on one desk looks like.
But not any more! Marlyn and I spent the entire day yesterday spending money and finally getting the apartment to a place where we want it. We had several pieces of furniture that we needed: Couch, Desk, Dresser, and Entertainment Center.
We’ve been looking for a while but the pieces were either too expensive or too ugly and we just waited until we found some good pieces of furniture that we liked.
Truthfully, the picture online originally made me think this furniture was ugly and wouldn’t fit in well with the apartment. However when we went to the store and they had one assembled, I really liked the way it looked and I thought for the price I really couldn’t ask for much more.
We were looking at either the 4 drawer or the 6 drawer and in the end we went for the 6 drawer because it will look less awkward when we put a TV on it. This probably the least expensive dresser from all competitors and with Target, you know the quality when you buy it.
The Desk
Location: Target
Color: Espress
Price: $69.99
Where’s the link? I have no idea, apparently Target doesn’t actually carry this item, but how we got it at Target I have no idea. The item description on the box says “desk” and same on the receipt lol. It looks fairly normal for a desk and it fits in well with our other furniture. The price is what hooked us in and frankly, it’s pretty cheap.
Location: Value City Furniture
Color: Walker Chocalote
Price: $350 + $50 Fabric Protection Guarantee + $60 Delivery Fee
It was really the style that hooked us in with this couch, plus the surprisingly low cost. Sure, they add in the fabric protection and delivery as extras but reallly that isn’t exclusive to any furniture store. The only thing I hope for is that Marlyn’s comfortable on it.
Location: Value City Furniture
Color: Walker Chocalote
Price: $250 + $50 Fabric Protection + $60 Delivery Fee
We really fell in love with how the chair and sofa went together and the fact that we have room for it and we save $50 by buying them together really sealed the deal. Delivery date for both chair and sofa: September 10, 2008.
So it was an expensive day, but still below our budget AND we got an extra chair too.
Marlyn and I went into DC last night onto Dupont Circle to grab some dinner. Metro has been cutting back on expenses so it seems like they have turned off the air conditioning to save energy. Needless to say I was quite uncomfortable for the entire 40 minute Metro ride into the city.
Luckily for us it was a really nice night outside, it wasn’t muggy at all and we couldn’t ask for better weather. This will be our 3rd restaurant that we’ve eaten at in the Circle, with previous restaurants including some French (good) and Ethiopian (bad).
The menu looked pretty good online at the Moroccan Restaurant (I forget the name) and I’m usually up for trying new kinds of food. I ordered a couple kabobs, one with grilled lamb and veggies and the other with grilled chicken and veggies. You wont hear me say this often but: The veggies were much better tasting than the meat. The lamb and chicken were both over cooked and quite dry, and pretty much flavorless too. Had I closed my eyes I couldn’t tell you what meat I was eating because they cooked all the flavor out of the meat.
Marlyn also ordered some lamb, but in a couscous dish; it had some powdered sugar on it but from what I heard she wasn’t impressed either. Probably the best thing on the evening was the Tea that I drank at the end of the meal. It was quite delicious as it was brewed with fresh mint leaves/flowers and it smelled awesome too.
There was something with the combination of food that I ate yesterday that didn’t sit well in my stomach, as I felt sick for the next few hours until I went to bed. Marlyn headed for Chicago early this morning so I would have liked to spend more time with here but I just didn’t feel well.
I’m hoping to have a pretty busy weekend poker wise, I’m going to have to inorder catch up to my required number of hands by months end.
This could get interesting… I did a quick search on the MoneyGram website for local places that will let me receive MoneyGrams: Not one Bank! I didn’t care if I had to drive like 15 minutes but I really would have liked to have my money cashed in from a bank, I just feel more secure doing this.
Just for funsies, let me list some of the places I could pick up my MoneyGram:
-Margarita’s Grocery
-Ace Cash Express
-Tanya’s Mercado Latino
-Walmart
-Air World Travel (wtf?)
-Shoppers Pharmacy (My only choice IMO)
-Esther’s West African Fashions
-Yc Latino Market (sic)
-Carolina’s Unisex
-El Eden Supermercado
-Immigration and Bilingual Services
This was only on the end of page 2 of 5!!! Do you guys see a pattern here because I do, but I think Marlyn would get mad at me if I actually point it out. To view other places where I could possibly cash the money gram click here and fill in Alexandria, VA USA.
I guess I should go take care of that today, even though I got up later than normal I haven’t played any poker yet. I certainly plan to though when I get back depending on how long it will take.
It’s so lame, I know. I like to go down there and swim for at least an hour in between poker breaks but I can’t do that today. I really like the pool but today must be day off for the lifeguards.
Another weird thing: all 4 lifeguards speak a Nordic language which I find pretty weird. I go back and forth if they’re all brothers or sisters or just friends, but really I have no idea.
I guess I’ll have to play poker on my breaks from poker today, but no doubt I’ll be swimming tomorrow.
It’s been quite a while since I last updated and most of you know why: I just moved. I’ll attempt to go back from my last post and recollect what happened, as the move wasn’t uneventful.
There is still a ton of shit everywhere and we have no useful food in the refrigerator, but at least I have Cable and Internet. I need to start playing poker soon as I made a prop bet with Kavin: 50,000 hands in the month of August. I’m a little rusty so I need to start today.
I’ve been getting up ass early the past couple days, 7 am EST, and hopefully I can get things going. We will actually have a lot of shit to buy to fill out this place, such as another desk and living room furniture.
Alright, well, time to get going for the day; I haven’t even searched any forums because I don’t want to waste any playing time.
I swear last night I spent 5 hours straight just cleaning two things: my oven and my blinds. That oven cleaner is some nasty shit, and it doesn’t help that my oven was also real dirty.
The blinds, too, were pretty bad. I mean, who actually ever cleans the blinds? I soaked them in my shower for an hour or so and meanwhile I used a sponge to clean off 2 years of crusted dust. Such a bitch! They do look good clean though.
I’m picking up the truck at 10 am and Marlyn will be here at 6 pm, just in time so she has to do nothing lol. I still need to clean the refrigerator, bathroom, and the floors but otherwise that’s it. Well, that and whatever dusting that needs to be done.
