Categories
Adventure

Insane Home Viewing

Decided to check out 2 homes after work for a potential purchase. Luckily the majority of the homes I’ve checked out thus far have been empty. I just feel more comfortable looking around when the existing owners aren’t around. Suppose I don’t feel like I’m intruding in that case.

Well, the second stop on the day turned out to be quite a memorable experience.

First off, this home was easily the most filthy home I’d ever seen. There was left over food literally everywhere, and I don’t recall being able to see walls in the kitchen to go so much gross clutter. This made for a very easy decision by me, no way.

My realtor felt very embarrassed of the condition, as he has never seen it in person and wasn’t the listing realtor. He suggested we leave right away, but I really wanted to continue to survey the filth. While extremely gross, it was also somewhat of a marvel that people could survive through such conditions.

However the true craziness would ensue when the ex wife made her appearance from upstairs. She came out screaming , “this house is not for sale!”. It was very awkward. She then began to engage the ex husband rather aggressively in argument.

Again, this was very, very awkward. She continued escalating her anger, at times directing it as us now. Claiming that, “I will not sign your papers! I will not sell!”. Darn, I was carry papers that I was going to force her to sign (this is sarcasm).

She finally decided to warn us that she, “am going to start throwing and breaking things!”. I’m not sure exactly what that would of done. But I did decide it was not time to leave. It was getting scary at this point, like she would be getting physical. Was a big concerned that they might have a weapon in the house.

It was truly insane, both in filth and sheer amount of hate in a home.

Categories
Adventure

I Rode In a Schoolbus

In one of my stranger recent adventures I found myself riding merrily in a big yellow school bus over the weekend. The occasion was to celebrate some birthdays (only one I was sure of was Fierce’s, but I think a few other’s may’ve had birthdays too) and catch a Phillies game.

The trip was made up of mostly SJSL friends, and while not my typical crew (not that I currently have a crew to speak of), it was a pretty fine bunch. I do enjoy randomly hanging out with people whom I don’t normally hang out with time to time, as I think it keeps things interesting. I think it’s not very creative when it’s the same bunch over and over again.

The ride itself was a bit on the bumpy side. Chip, the all star well aged driver got us to our destination and home ok. He was pretty amazing and while I attempted to converse with him on a few occasions, I was also a bit too much in awe of his amazing presence to get much conversation going. He was the best damn bus driver I’d ever had the pleasure to know (sorry Mrs. Gaskill, you were pretty amazing too).

Hanging out in the parking lot before the game was fun stuff. I think it’s also what is known as tailgating, but I don’t get out that much so please don’t quote me on that. Again, it was some new faces so that made interaction interesting at times. I did want to also act like someone else the entire day and see how that went, but I think while most don’t know me all that well, they do know me just enough for me to not pull off such an entertaining attempt.

Oh, I also brought an apple for my trip. I’m not sure exactly why, but was super glad I did when I realized it was in my pocket as the day wore on. Apples are delicious and serve not only as food to me, but also help me in the hydration department as well. I believe they’re also good for you teeth too, which is always a plus.

One of the stranger sights of what was a very strange day, was the mystery breakdancing kid. I have no idea of where he came from, but this little kids just started breakdancing for everyone and flashing weird hand gestures (gang signs?). While he was entertaining and unique, I wasn’t a big fan. I think we had all been “served”.

The Phillies game itself wasn’t so great. It was super windy and cold! I didn’t stay for the entire game, and wound up walking over the the Xfinity something or other. I did escort some friends back through the mean streets to Philly to the yellow bus and back. While nothing too excited happend on the cold trek, I did feel like a Secret Service agent for a little bit.

All in all it was a pretty unique yet entertaining day. I am truly surprised at just how much smaller a yellow school bus feels inside than when I was in school.

 

Categories
Books

No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Obama

No Easy DayAs a guy who enjoys history and grew up playing with G.I. Joes I figured I’d give this one a shot. I have read a few of the other recent seal books and they were interesting, these guys are asked to do some rather crazy stuff.

This was a pretty good book and I found it pretty easy to read through. It did a great job of not only going through the author’s perspective on the famed mission, but also a good background on what these guys do to get to that point.

I also enjoyed all the detailed maps of the mission. I’ve always enjoyed looking at maps, I’m not sure exactly why but one of my favorite things when I was a kid was an atlas or road map. I’d just study them, and having them included really helps to piece together his account of the mission.

Overall I thought this was a pretty interesting book and I found myself reading through it rather quickly.

Categories
Development

Google Maps v3 Weird Controls Rendering

I just upgraded a few of my Google Maps to v3. But, I noticed that my Controls and InfoWindows weren’t rendering correctly. They were looking pretty weird.

So I began much investigation. Turns out that it was a CSS conflict with styles on my site.

For Responsive goodness I was using:

img { max-width: 100%; }

and this was the source of the conflict.

Fixing turned out to be really easy once I narrowed down the problem.

I just set the max-width of the images within the map container to none.

#map-container { max-width: none; }

Now my maps look pretty and my Responsive goodness is still working like a charm!

Categories
Books

The Lord of the Rings

It dawned on me that I still had never read the Lord of the Rings books. I figured with all the reading I’ve done that past few years, this was a rather strange omission for myself. So my recent quest was to read all three.

Having seen the movies numerous times and knowing general story beforehand, it was kinda cool to read just how different the books were and how much didn’t make it into the films.

Like the movies my favorite book was the first, the Fellowship of the Ring. I just enjoyed the whole quest aspect, and when the whole fellowship is together. While there separate adventures were very cool, I do enjoy it best when they’re a group.

I was surprised at just how much the hobbits journeyed together before they finally met up with the rest of the crew. I also wasn’t aware that the elves held 3 of the other rings. I can’t recall if that was in the movie or not.

Excellent books and I’m glad I finally gave them a shot.

Categories
Video Games

Fire Emblem Awakening

Fire Emblem AwakeningI’ve been a big fan of Fire Emblem games for many years now, and I do believe Awakening was the finest installment yet. I definitely played this game too much and found myself wanting to play it at weird times. While this also says a bit about perhaps I need to find better things to be doing, it clearly also reflects what a fine game this was as well.

I do enjoy strategy games, and challenges as well. The perma-death, is what really makes this series stand out to me. When a character that you’re spent way too many hours leveling up and kinda getting to know in a weird way dies in a battle, they are dead. No extra lives, bringing back from the dead, phoenix downs, etc. They are gone.

While it many sound ever more strange is how attached you become to these stupid characters and just how much effort and thought I found myself spending before each and every move to ensure their safety. There were nervous moments indeed, but I somehow played through Hard level without losing anyone until the very last chapter. I thought that was pretty impressive given how hard and unforgiving this game can be.

This was easily one of my all time favorites and was really impressed with how well done and how much there was to do in this game. The amount of downloadable content has been impressive as well, fine job Nintendo. Though I’m bummed that it’s over, I’m also very glad that I feel like I’ve gotten a good chunk of my life back as well.