Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Good news

Good news: I got all of Billy's pictures!
Bad news: I got all of Billy's pictures.

It's going to take a while to figure out which ones are just duplicates I already have (most of the wedding pics, for example), then get them all sorted, tagged, and uploaded. I think most of it might be worth waiting until I get home. Then I'll have the new iPhoto to work with (hurray for facial recognition and Flickr integration) and a faster internet connection. But I'll try to get at least our recent travel stuff up sooner than that.

More good news: Aaron's on a plane to Brazil as I write. I should have my Kindle in hand by dinner tomorrow!

For those who may have assumed I was announcing we got approval to stay here for the duration, alas, but no. No word at all. Billy's pass is still only good until the 30th. He's on nights now, so I hope someone thinks to renew it for him!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Lots of photos uploaded

I finally got around up loading photos again. I've got a bunch of new ones from here in Brazil, plus some from the end of the China trip. I even added what little I had from Australia. I'll have to see what I can get from Billy from the Sydney trip and upload that too.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Permanent Address

I've never understood the term 'permanent address'. Maybe that's because I've never lived in the same place for more than 5 years straight. When we bought our current permanent address, I honestly thought I'd break that record. The house was nice enough. The area was nice enough. Billy's job seemed like it would last. But it's got two big strikes against it now:

  1. It's really inconvenient to leave behind when we travel.
  2. I'm getting antsy.
When I decide to make a big change, it's like flicking a light switch. Sure there was lots of thought and worry and mulling over the options that went into to it, but once my mind is made up, that's it. Time to move forward full speed ahead.
In that vein, we finally made up our mind to sell the house and move this past Sunday. Ironically, that's my mom's birthday - one of the few people I know who's moved more than I have. Billy had off from work (power was out at the mill, I think). We went to a big corporate party thing, then spent the afternoon talking. I've been getting more and more annoyed with having to deal with leaving our house behind when we're away. So I finally started to entertain what is really the most logical option - moving to Huntsville so Billy's parents can keep an eye on the property and take care of the mail. I'd rather move in with my parents (in an apartment over the garage or something), but to pretend that they're really not going to move AGAIN in the next few years is just silly. I stopped believing that claim when I was in first grade. They've moved about 10 times since then. Changing my address is something I'm very familiar with - but it'd be even more of a pain when I'm not actually home most of the year.

To be perfectly honest, I'm still not that hot on the idea of moving to Huntsville. The thought of having so many relatives within a couple hour's drive totally creeps me out. I grew up seeing mom's side of the family twice a year, and dad's side of the family twice a year. The idea of having to do 'family time' on a regular basis makes my skin crawl. The fact that most of the family events are centered around children, or break down into talking about children just makes it about a zillion times worse. It's not you, it's me. Of all the possible conversation topics on earth, I would probably rank children last. For people with kids, however, it tends to rate #1. Sorry, but if that's what you're talking about, I'm really not interested in being around.On the plus side, Huntsville is a growing city with a fairly large population of young professionals. Which means at least we'd stand a decent chance of meeting some new people - people without kids who'd be willing to use some of their disposable income to participate in interesting activities with us on the rare occasions we are 'home'.

The main issue with moving though is that we can't do it so long as there's 2 trucks spread out over our basement, lawn, and garages. Which had meant that we'd stick where we were until Billy could turn it all into one truck and get rid of the extra pieces. Then we could look for a condo, and maybe buy an old mechanic's shop for Billy's toys to live in. I suppose it's only fair that if I'm compromising to move to Huntsville, Billy should to. On his end, he's actually agreed to get rid of the trucks! I agreed to let him buy a Harley to assuage the affront on his manhood that giving up this project apparently entails. But he has to buy a cheap starter bike first. After all, he doesn't have his license yet, and he doesn't really know how to ride. Better to learn on something smaller and cheaper. And on the off chance he turns out not to like motorcycles as much as he thought, we'll only be out 2 instead of 15 grand. At this point, I think I'd move anywhere Billy wanted if it meant we didn't have to bring the trucks along. I know he'll have toy cars again some day. And I'm fine with that. When that day comes, we'll have a big barn of a workshop decked out with everything he needs to make his vision come to life. I'm not fine with having projects sitting around for years that he doesn't have the time or tools to complete.

For now, we're still in Brazil - crossing our fingers that tomorrow will bring positive news about his work permit. If he doesn't get it tomorrow, I strongly suspect we'll be going home. If he does, we're here another month or two. At that point we can go home and get the house on the market as fast as possible. Most home sales in NY are in June-August. In the mean time, we're browsing the condo/townhouse/patio home market of Huntsville. Billy's parents are so excited we might move home they immediately contacted a agent to help us get info on the development we liked the looks of - townhomes for 120-150k, with 2 car garages! It sure would be handy to have a garage so we can just lock up and leave without putting the car in storage. But most places that have them are the much larger, much fancier developments. I'm not spending an extra $80k and buying a place twice the size just to have a garage. But there are a few places that meet our criteria. The question is whether any will be available when we're ready to make the move!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Of Chocomint and DSL

Last night we had a great dinner out with a bunch of finnish guys, and their brazilian girlfriends. We went to the place from Valentine's day - probably the best restaurant in town. Turns out nearly the whole place was full of Andritz people, in three different big groups.

Tonight we've got plans to go over to the only other American guy's house. His Finnish girlfriend is visiting for a few days. I was discussing what to bring to the cook-out and was talking about why we live in the hotel instead of a house. One word. Internet. We'd been told there was no way to get real internet in a real house. Apparently, Robbie (the guy) has a house AND internet! Whoever lived in the house before had arranged for DSL somehow. Ugh. I could have had a real desk and a real chair and a real kitchen. It's only one more month here probably. So I doubt we'll be moving. The DSL couldn't have been easy to get if no one else has been able to figure it out.

And for some reason, Billy told me the ice cream shop had promised to make me a batch of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Last time we were there, we discovered they had mint syrup. So I told the gal we should try for mint chocolate chip milk shakes. Which is what we ended up having last night. A little heavy on the mint syrup (which was really a bit more spearminty than peppermint), but still pretty good.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Life's a bit dull right now

I'd like to believe you've noticed I've been blogging less. It's not so much for a lack of interest in writing to you as a lack of subject matter to talk about. I prefer to talk about my travels, since I assume you find those interesting. But Tres Lagoas is, well, dull. It's a rather sleepy, hot, small, Brazilian city. It has a lot of very small restaurants, most of which serve the same stuff. It has 3 or 4 decent pizza places. They're all fine, but no one in Brazil makes pizza the way I really like. Not enough sauce, and the crust is never quite right. We keep going to the same handful of restaurants over and over. None are all that interesting. Not bad. Just not anything to write home about. We're thrilled to occasionally eat dinner someplace with real chairs. Nearly everywhere is outside on the same crappy plastic chairs. Or the even more uncomfortable wooden ones. At least the food is pretty cheap. Billy and I can easily eat for less than his allotted per diem. Breakfast is included at the hotel (a very limited buffet). Billy eats the provided lunch at the mill. I buy cereal and eat that every day. Sometimes, I steal a banana or apple and a roll from breakfast and have that instead. If I really want something larger, there's a gas station across the street with all the usual Brazilian meat-stuffed breads. Some are fried, some are baked. I bought some ketchup to keep in the hotel room in case I go get one of those.

So please don't think I'm living some sort of glamorous life down here in Brazil. Thing's weren't much more interesting for me in Porto Seguro (our last long-term stay in Brazil) - but at least my room had a tiny view of the ocean. Here I don't even have a proper window to look out of! The room's a bit of a cave. Probably more so than Australia. Only here it's too hot to leave the window and door open. There it was too cold. Even with the AC running, it's about 80 in the room during the day. I feel bad for the poor AC unit working so hard, so I leave it off whenever I can stand to. On a cloudy day I can leave it off all day. But the rainy season is over - and the cold time of year hasn't started yet. So I'll be living in a hot box a while longer. Luckily, we should be gone before the coldest time of year. When it's down to the 50s outside this place is going to be uncomfortably cold. Even if the AC unit has a heat pump, the ceiling is so high it wouldn't do us much good.

I have been working a bit more. After a rather drawn out start, I finally have the green light on my big new help center project. Between that and all the new smaller jobs that have been added to my list, I have more work than I know what to do with. It's difficult to ramp myself back up to full hours. I'll be falling short again this week. I thought I'd make it, but it turns out Billy will not be working Saturday. So I can't put in a full day. For some reason I tend to put in better work days on the weekends. Maybe because Monday feels like a deadline I need to meet? I always want to have something good waiting for the bosses when they come in on Mondays.

Most of the pictures here were taken with Billy's camera and never made it onto my computer. I'll try to remember to get those from him this weekend. Then upload them all Monday. Internet's a lot better during the day, weekdays. In the evenings, all the hotel has more guests trying to use it. On the weekends there are usually power fluctuations that knock it on and off. I think we've lost power at least once every weekend so far.

Billy's paperwork is still with the Brazilian officials. His pass is good until March 13. I do hope he has his documents by then.

I ordered my Kindle yesterday. I think it will ship Monday (super-saver shipping). I got a zippered neoprene case to protect it when not in use. The one I'd really wanted (a folding fake-leather book cover style) wasn't going to ship for a week or two. Maybe I'll get it someday, but I can't wait that long right now. I'm having the Kindle and cover shipped to mom to test out and load my books. I've saved a list of a few dozen freebies I can start with - classics like Dante and Jane Austin. Then she can ship it to Aaron in Atlanta. He's flying here at the end of March. He promised to carry it on for me. Cool electronics have a tendency to disappear from luggage. International shipping is very expensive, and I'm not sure I trust it. I'm so very grateful he agreed to bring it for me!

I've been having a bit of insomnia the past week. Hence Billy's in bed sleeping, and has been for an hour. And I'm here writing this. I think I might start dosing myself with benedryl at dinner if this keeps up.

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