ahhhhh....the weekend

saturday has come and gone, i suppose. not a bad one by any means. Loren read a bunch of Spider-Man comics i got him last Christmas. his "grounded" friend came over and borrowed some DBZ movies from us. Loren watched some amusing flash cartoons- this week's Loren Recommended Viewing includes the many episodes of "Radiskull and Devil Doll". i'm not really all that impressed with it, though it's some original work and certainly amusing. Loren however is bowled over as usual. maybe these guys just have their finger on the pulse of the 6th grade crowd. we had a late lunch and watched the third DVD of Deep Space 9, season one. that's 9 episodes under our collective belt. this DVD included one episode ("Vortex") which i hadn't seen before- first time in a very long time i can say that. i know for sure there's one episode of Enterprise i missed this year (4th and final season)- it's the last episode they played before entering a period of reruns, the resolution of a storyline in which Dr. Flox (sp?) is kidnapped by Klingons to aid in their pursuit of development of Klingon augments. irksome. however, there's a good chance i'll be able to catch it in reruns before UPN trots out their new lineup.

i was wrong about Ethan's birthday party taking place this weekend, it's actually next weekend and his actual birthday is Monday.

made my house payment this morning over the phone, for an extra $15. wish i'd known earlier that i wasn't going to get paid last Monday, i wouldn't have paid up other bills that could have waited a little longer instead. learned my lesson though. if my pay dates are going to fluctuate, i'll be more careful about making sure the money for the house payment is first in line.

Mom and Dad came up and took Loren and me to dinner this evening. always nice to see them, and especially nice to have them here. dinner was on them, Mexican food at a place in Frontier Village- thanks, guys, it was great. Loren ordered a virgin lime marguerita and they accidently brought him a real one. he took one sip and realized it didn't taste right. Mom took a sip and thought there might be tequila in it, but wasn't completely sure. i took a sip and there was definitely tequila in it. of course Dad had to try also, and he thought it tasted like a marguerita to him- by which he was inferring that it didn't NOT taste like a normal marguerita. everyone else might have been guessing but i wasn't- definitely tequila. the watiress and another guy (possibly the owner or manager) were appropriately mortified and brought him an actual virgin one. Loren tasted it and immediately said there was tequila in that one too- but there wasn't. my tongue proclaimed it liquor-free. Mom squished his lime in it and then it tasted right to him. dinner was good and Mom and Dad came back and hung around for a little while. it's obvious to me whenever i have company that this place is definitely not tailored for it. i only have a couch in the living room, no chairs, and it's bisecting the room (for practicality) and pointed toward the television. the whole layout isn't conducive to more people than can fit on the couch (three at the most) and nothing's arranged so that people can face each other. some kind of semi-circular inward-facing layout would be better for company, but it's impractical with the TV stuck where it is (by the only available cable outlet). sooner or later i need to run coaxial cable to another wall.

there are some real improvements it would be easy to implement here, but there are some limiting factors that would be monumentally difficult or impossible to change- access to the backyard in a manner other than through the house or around the block being the most prominent of those. it's a limitation of the unit's "middle unit" placement in a multi-unit building. in the buildings in this development the end units are single floor dwellings- they're sacrificing something also by not having a second floor. i'm not sure why this was done, other than to create more affordable places. there's no other practical reason for not building the end residences to the full height of the building; i'd think it makes it a slightly more difficult build, adding two lower sections of roof instead of continuing the existing one to the ends. there's certainly no reason the existing second floor plans couldn't have been used on these end residences. maybe the contractors were simply lowering the cost of the project.

i guess i'm done jabbering. congratulations to the intrepid readers who got this far.