Today my dad bought the farm

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Today I recieved 3 mysterious pictures in my work email, entitled:

john and sharon new house <– picture of a house
dad’s fram ??????????? <– picture of a painting
john fram <– picture of the same house as above

Now, first off, recieving any email from my dad is an adventure in trying to figure out what he was trying to say.  My first guess was maybe “frame” since the one picture showed a painting in a frame.  Maybe he made the frame and he was proud of it?  But why the pictures of a house?  Surely he would have mentioned to me if he was thinking of buying a new house!  Finally I figured out that the picture was of a farm and the house was in the picture, by which I guessed he was buying a farm.  Rather than retyping everything, I will just put the emails between my sister and I:

From: Shane
Sent: Wed 4/12/2006 8:26 AM
To: Rachael; Nathan
Subject: RE: john fram

After about 20 minutes of trying to figure out what a “fram” was…

Did dad buy a farm??? And if so, why is this the first I’ve heard of it??  Did you guys hear anything?
________________________________

From: Rachael
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 9:31 AM
To: Shane; Nathan
Subject: RE: john fram

Hey
Well, I figured the same thing, so I called him last night and asked. Apparently he has always wanted to be a farmer and he did buy it but they have so many days to sell there house before they sign the papers. I guess there are several buildings on it, and he wants to raise chickens and cows.  He was talking about getting 1000 chickens so I guess he is serious.  I think this is for when he retires so he will still have stuff to do.  I could think of a better hobby for someone, but whatever.  Maybe its a midlife crisis:) Anyways I guess that is probably where they are moving.  He told me to start lifting weights because he’s going to need help moving.  But I’m moving, Shane’s moving, and Amy’s moving into town I guess that’s the first I had heard of that also.  He said he would absolutely not pay 2 house payments this time though.  It seems like a pretty good deal, he is selling his house by owner and already talked to legal services about how to do it. Who Knows? Maybe it is what he wants! Love, Rachael
________________________________

From:  Shane
Sent: Wed 4/12/2006 9:38 AM
To: Rachael; Nathan; Sara
Subject: RE: john fram

Wow, okay well this is good information!

I know dad would love to be a farmer, but I’m surprised Sharon is going along with it.  Is he still going to work at GM and be a farmer at the same time??  Anyway, it’s a pretty big life changing decision, so you’d think he would have talked about it before hand, unless he just decided to buy a farm and then bought it the same day.

I figured dad would be more of a field farmer, like corn or wheat or something, not livestock.  He loves to garden and work outside, so that would make sense, but does he even know anything about raising chickens and cows?

Nathan, I’ll tell you right now, if Rachael’s moving away you better get moving as well or else you know you’ll become a defacto farmhand!

Where is this farm?  I assume it’s close to where he lives now?
________________________________

 

 

From: Rachael
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 9:50 AM
To: Shane; Nathan; Sara
Subject: RE: john fram

 

Hey!
So apparently the farm is in South Whitely, which is very close to where Amy lives, but now she is moving into town (I believe the town is either South Whitely or Columbia City.)  I think it will still be about 1/2 hour away from Fort Wayne though.  I guess Sharon was taking Meliah home on Friday and saw the lady putting a for sale by owner on the house, so she called dad and he went to see the house.  He is not planning on retiring now because he already has his 30 years in and the package they are offering is not very good.  He said something about getting 25 chickens until he retired and a few cows.  He is planning on having a garden out there as well, but not doing any actual farm land stuff.  I guess the property has 80 acres but he said he can’t afford to buy it all, he is just hoping for 3-4 acres around the house and barns.  He is planning on taking the cats and getting outside and inside dogs when he gets there.  He did say that Sharon is the one that wants to move and he is not entirely sure.  he said he is completely happy where he is but the price is right and he could have the new place paid off in 5 years.  
Love,
Rachael

So that’s just really weird.  It seems like a pretty big, life-changing decision so I’m surprised he didn’t mention it to anybody.  I guess it happened fast though.

In other news, CNN declared Software Engineer to be the best job in the United States.  I think I need to talk to some people about that average salary…

 

Daylight saving’s time in IN

/ Shane / Leave a comment

erith1: well one crummy thing is that your first one was the worst one
Zamitov86: I know!
erith1: going the other direction is much better
Zamitov86: they start by taking an hour
Zamitov86: jerks
erith1: i know
erith1: wait!
erith1: i just realized!
erith1: you solved the mystery!
erith1: i always wondered if we were losing and hour and then getting it back or if we were loaned an hour and then returned it
erith1: but IN just proved you’re losing it and then getting it back
Zamitov86: hah, couldn’t you guess
erith1: so it was rightfully yours to begin with
Zamitov86: its just like social security
Zamitov86: by the time we are ready to get our hour back, the baby boomers will have taken them all already
erith1: bastards!
erith1: my first one when I moved to PA was the other way around
Zamitov86: oh man, nice timing
erith1: i felt like a god
erith1: living an hour longer than you chumps back home
erith1: toying with time like my plaything
Zamitov86: we should do it with 3 or 4 hours

I am the biggest dumbass EVAR

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Holy crap, that’s all I can say.

Today I wrote a long long email to my friend John Keith about the problems I was having getting my 2 realtors to send me any properties to look at and how I wasn’t going to “fly all the way out there unless I had some properties to see.”  20 minutes later I get a reply to said email from my boss, John Kielty.  Notice the similarity of the two names.  My boss says, “Odd email.  Sounds like you need a new realtor. By “fly all the way out there” am I supposed to assume you’re looking to relocate?” Obviously I haven’t told anybody at work about looking for a new job.

So I had to go talk to him and tell him about it.  I guess everything went okay, I mean what was he going to do?  He understood wanting to relocate closer to family.  It was going to come out soon anyway, and as Sara pointed out now I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to tell him!  Still, I don’t think all the fretting in the world would be as bad as the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I read the response from him and realized I sent the email to the wrong person.

Also, this was at 9:30 in the morning, so needless to say, my day didn’t go very well.

In other news, I called the job and asked for more money.  That’s right, I handled it like a man!  Everybody says, “Don’t take the first offer, reject it for sure.  They expect you to.  They’ll respect you more.” but then you say, “Oh, did you reject your first offer?” and they say, “Oh, hell no, not me.  That’s crazy talk.”  So I went back and forth but eventually I did it!  So I’ll keep ya’ll posted on that.  If nothing else, maybe I can serve as a warning to all the idiots who say reject the first offer…

Best movie EVER

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Okay, I swear to god, they’re making a movie named Snakes on a Plane.  I kid you not.  I mean, based on the title alone, you can’t miss this movie!  Basically the plot is that there’s this international assassin and he’s supposed to kill this guy in police custody, so he decides the best way to do that is to infest the plane he’s supposed to be on with snakes!  I’m talking the bad CGI made-for-sci-fi-channel kind of snakes.  And here’s the best part, it’s staring Samuel L. Jackson.  Now you might be wondering what he’s doing in a movie like this…well according to him (and I quote) “That’s the only reason I took the job: I read the title.”  In fact, the filmmakers tried to change the title and Jackson wouldn’t stand for it.  I think I have to agree with him.

In other news, I’ve been listening to the not-so-new anymore Better Than Ezra CD, “Before the Robots.”  It’s really really good!  I guess I expected it to be so-so since I hadn’t heard much about it, but I’d say it’s as good as any of their old CDs.  If you were a BTE fan back in the day, I’d definitely check it out, especially their first single off of it “A Lifetime.”

Make Him Whale

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Dude, let me tell you a story.  It’s sooo sweet, it makes me want to kick my mom in the face.