Fire Safe?

It was a busy weekend, first it snowed on Friday morning while my mom and grandma were at the Lodge and then they had dinner at the Girard's while my dad and I hooked up the trailer and headed to the mountains. On Saturday I did media outreach for Earth Day and went to ACE Hardware then it was back to the Lodge to clean up our property for fire season.

After only 1 1/2 days and 3 trailer loads of pine needles and oak leaves, we seem to be fire safe, a far cry from the 19 we hauled away last year over the course of many weekends with lots of help from friends. We will probably still do some minor clean up further out on our property throughout the summer, but for now we should pass the fire inspection. We also got some of the deck furniture out from our below Lodge storage areas and started to install our new hardwood stairs, a project that should get finished on Mother's Day weekend.

ps ... The sold out (and then some) Thrive 2009 with Nick Vujicic, Franklin Graham, Francis Chan, Lincoln Brewster and so many others starts on Thursday @ Bayside! Photo highlights from 2008.

Andrew's House, Day 3

Well it has been about 3 days since I signed all of the paperwork to get the process started on owning my first house. It was a busy day, first I worked from home, then went to the bank to get a cashiers check to officially say, I'm going to buy the house, then I met my Pulte agent to give it to him, luckily he was downtown, so it was easy. While I was meeting with him I scheduled a phone call (that will be on Tuesday) to talk to my mortgage counselor and I got all of my financial documents and everything else they needed faxed to their office in Denver. Oh, and I worked a lot while all that was happening. Next I rushed up to the new house to take about a hundred pictures (some are below) and get some measurements taken. While I was doing that I had my first house guest, Kara, (cousin) came by for a tour, so that was fun to show off the new place already. Once all of that was done, it was off to Bayside for a Thrive 2009 volunteer meeting.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little less crazy.

My First Place

So I went to look at houses and ended up liking one and signing papers. It was a good thing too, because about 5 minutes after I started signing papers another person tried to buy it, but since I was already in the process of buying it, I won. The other person decided to buy a bigger version in the same development, so I guess they are happy too.

Anyway, it's a new home, 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathrooms and somewhere around 1800 square feet. It has an HOA, so that will take care of the front yard, I will just need to put in and take care of a small backyard. The pictures below show some of the house right when construction was being finished and a few that I took yesterday. I hope to be back up there tomorrow to take more pictures of all of the rooms and then I'll post those.

I close (if all goes well) in mid to late May and can move in anytime after that, although I would like to paint some of the walls first. Between now and then, I get to buy furniture and get ready for my first place!

If you know of anyone that wants to rent a room, let me know, I will have two rooms available beginning in mid-June or early July.

PS ... the house needs a name, similar the "Bradley Lodge," so if you have an idea, let me know.

Just Say No

When I looked at my mail today, I thought I had gotten a piece of junk mail from one of those places where you mail your gold into them and then you get money, but then I saw a "Surgeon General's Warning" and realized it was a very fancy advertisement for smoking. Well, I guess USA Gold and their market research company failed miserably:

A. I never have smoked
B. I never will smoke (I value clean looking lungs and exercise)

Please join me in making sure that USA Gold and every other company that makes this lethal product is run out of business, not by lawsuits (although they can be effective), but by lack of world wide demand.

If you need help to quit smoking, please click here.

Tea Party

Well, I'm not really a big fan of drinking tea, although having "high tea" at about 40,000 feet over the Atlantic in the first class cabin of a United Airlines 777 on my way back from Europe was pretty cool.

Today the California State Capitol played host to a crowd of approximately 6,000. They were protesting taxes, the government and just about everything else they could think of, with a variety of hand-made signs in all shapes and sizes. Supposedly Sacramento's TEA party ("Taxed Enough Already") was one of the largest ones in the nation and that brought FOX News' Neil Cavuto out to film live from the event. Although I did see a few "tea bags" hanging from signs, I'm sure the original tea party had a lot more tea on hand, this one had a Coca-Cola Zero distributor, so at least the caffeine theme was kept alive.

Pictures include the view of the crowds from my office, the Capitol Parking Garage (full of cars all the way to the roof), random signs (some of which were pretty funny or witty), police on horses and snipers on the Capitol roof, and a crowd of nearly 6,000 on the West Steps/Lawn of the State Capitol.

Walking in the Wind

As I was walking around Downtown Sacramento today in the wind I decided to take a few pictures. First there is the Wells Fargo Center (where I used to work) and the still under construction Bank of the West Tower (where the windows look like they have painters tape on them, but they say it's a permanent architectural feature). Next is the US Bank Tower, which at night has a pretty good light show. After that there is the always beautiful California State Capitol Building where Fox Business Channel was filming something, but I couldn't figure out what. Now off to a birthday dinner for my mom at the Freeport Bar and Grill.

'

and while it was windy in Sacramento it was

snowing near the Bradley Lodge!

Bye, Bye Carpet

We were again very busy at the Bradley Lodge this weekend. The snow was melting quickly (we got about 15 inches earlier in the week) and we worked quickly to rip out carpet in two of the main hallways and put down laminate flooring. We got all of the flooring done and even started to rip off some of the carpet from the stairs so that we can replace that with wood treads on our next visit. There was also a visit from the twins, both home and doing well now (despite the fact that their due date is sometime next week), so it was fun to hold them and hang out with their mom and dad. My mom also got a semi-early birthday present, flowers from my favorite florist and some wine!

Happy Easter from Bayside!

Hollywood

After a quick flight from Sacramento to Burbank (my favorite airport, since you get on and off the plane with stairs and not a jet way) I was off to meetings in the Los Angeles area, my Chevy HHR got a workout driving over 200 miles in less than 48 hours through traffic on both freeways and surface streets, including Rodeo Road (unfortunately it was not the more glamorous Rodeo Drive). The trip was a great opportunity to meet with some awesome groups (one was even featured on Good Morning America on Wednesday) that I have only gotten to speak with on the phone in the past and, while staying in Hollywood, I got to see some of the Hollywood Blvd sites. I saw El Capitan, right next door to where the Jimmy Kimmel Show is filmed, the Grauman's Chinese Theater with all of the hand prints in the cement, took a picture of the Hollywood sign and walked on some of the stars on the sidewalk. Unfortunately I was a few hours too late to see the taping of American Idol at the Kodak Theater. After a quick sight seeing walk, I went to the Hollywood & Highland Center and looked at the different restaurants, I decided on uWink, since it looked like a fun concept. You sit at a table with an interactive (touch screen) monitor that allows you to order your food and beverages and then play games while you wait with others at your table or with other people in the restaurant. It was pretty fun; I even got one of the high scores in a geography quiz, similar to “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” After all the sightseeing in the big city, I also had a chance to look at the beautiful Pacific Ocean from a few parks around San Pedro, one with a “Friendship Bell” and another with a historic lighthouse, so that was also a nice break between meetings and a good chance to look at the massive Port of Los Angeles (where cruise ships go in and out of), although there were lots of signs for an aquarium, I never found it and probably wouldn’t have time to go in, maybe next time. After all of the meetings, one night of being able to check out the sites and missing my company win 11 awards at the Cappies, it was back to the airport and to Sacramento. Now I’m off to the Bradley Lodge, time to rip out some carpet and put down wood floors in one of the hallways.

Typo

We all make typos and while I was on the Los Angeles Times Web site this morning I saw this one and had to share. Although it really would have been a political breakthrough for President Obama to visit Iran, he actually visited Iraq (note: the LA Times did correct the typo within an hour and when you clicked through to the full story it was always correct).

A Busy Day with a Beautiful Ending

Although I normally prefer to sleep in on Saturday’s I decided to wake up early and go to “Saturday’s 4 Men” at Bayside in Granite Bay with Lincoln Brewster speaking. It was great to eat amazing food and hear his stories and listen to his answers to questions like how he gets his hair to stand up straight. He even explained his song writing process which was interesting, especially with his song “Today is the Day.”
Next it was off to soccer, a sport that I have always enjoyed, but really haven’t had the chance to play since I graduated from college nearly five years ago. Although I’m not in as good of shape as I used to be it was a lot of fun and it was also a good chance for me to see how good my friends were at soccer to, maybe now we will play more often. In the mean time if you know of anyone who needs an extra player in some sort of recreational soccer league (all men or co-ed) let me know. After soccer we had some great Mexican food, then I came back home, mowed the lawn and got ready for the big event.
Brandi and Brandon got married at the lovely and historic Old Sugar Mill in Clarksburg. I had never had the opportunity to really explore the old building before, so you will see quite a few pictures that are neat looking (at least to me) and then the lovely wedding ceremony outside and the reception inside. Brandi, Brandon and Samson (the dog), thank you for inviting me to be a part of your special day!

Visit Pictage for Professional Photos from the Event

Company

So on TV people are always saying how bad it is to have company at your house, but I think it is kind of fun to have friends and family over. We hosted 13 for a Mexican Fiesta "Bradley Style" on Sunday. Although my parents were not able to go to Mexicali during Easter because of safety concerns we had some of the people who have been going for years over for dinner just to spend time with everyone and catch up on stories, while looking at pictures from the past and listening to the infamous "Good Morning Song." They were also presented with a Jackalope, I really don't understand it, but it will go good in one of the two semi-trailers that houses the Mexicali kitchen or the "Man Cave"/Internet Cafe. (We also discussed taking a trip across the border sometime in May)

On Tuesday, Luke and Natalie came to visit while Dave was traveling in Klagenfurt, Austria for work, so of course we had to have our neighbors over for some Papa Murphy's pizza and wine, while watching Luke run around the backyard, hunt for Easter Eggs and play on his slide.

Wednesday we had nine new people over for dinner to once again see Luke, all because of a twitter post that said Luke was in town. Dinner included fish tacos, enchiladas and dessert provided by my cousin and Cortney (thank you to BabyCakes too) all were fantastic!

This weekend will also be busy ... breakfast with Lincoln Brewster, soccer with friends, a wedding of a good friend (with what will be a fabulous cake, by BabyCakes) and I might make time to look at houses in the Roseville area.