The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 175): Sauce

#1GF! made sauce, but I really don’t remember too much about the day.

Monday (Day 176): Contractor Calls

I spent the day calling contractors to see if they could take a look at our house. We have some plan ideas that involve moving walls that we’d like to price out before moving in. I called at least 8, and one told me that the job sounded too small. When I asked if he could recommend someone else, there was a long pause before he said “No”. I was confused enough that after I hung up, I said “Ok, then” to no one in particular. Luckily, six other contractors seemed at least interested in the project.

#1GF! went out, so I ended up working on site stuff until 10:30PM to make up for the time spent on the contractor location project.

Tuesday (Day 177): Editing

Had an awful time trying to edit one of my articles to make it make sense. It spent more time in editing than I spent writing it. I still wasn’t happy with the final product, but you have to let things go at some point. I also looked up sedans to replace rocket car, which never gets driven anymore.

Wednesday (Day 178): Running Man

Got my car inspected, did the food shopping, and attempted to drop off some library books. Because I never drive my car anymore, the clock was an hour off due to DST. I showed up to the library an hour early and pulled on the door like a moron. When I was done, I wished that I had more errands to run, but headed home to get some writing done.

I got our settlement sheet for the house closing and stared at all the freakin’ zeros. I took my mind off it by upgrading Worpress to the latest version. Then, I looked at my stats. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but one of my stats programs is claiming that I served up over a million pages this month. I don’t think that’s quite right, but I know it’s well over 100k. I spent the rest of the day writing some of the CD reviews that I’ve been neglecting for months. I ended the day by making #1GF! some pork chops for dinner because the web has killed my ability to help out around here in recent months.

Thursday (Day 179): Hanging With The Parents

I went out to get the down payment check for the house closing, and then headed up to my parents’ house to install the DVD writer that bought for my Dad for his birthday. The install didn’t take long, but I stayed for soup and ended up leaving around 3PM. Most of the time I was there was spent clicking on “Are you sure?” messages from Vista. I’m kidding, but those messages are a pain in the ass. Afterward, I went home and started writing. #1GF! had a haircut, so I ended up squeezing a full day in.

Friday (Day 180): We’re Home Owners!

We spent the morning goofing off at home before doing the walkthrough for our house. The previous owners had cleaned the house better than I expected considering it was only supposed to be broom clean. The surrounding trees have dropped their leaves, and we can see water on all four sides and a lighthouse in the distance. Once we signed a hundred times, caught a few errors that shouldn’t have been in the paperwork, and agreed to pay a billion dollars, we became the latest stewards of a quaint seaside home. We returned to the house to see how accurate my Google Sketchup plans were, and despite missing a few small twists and turns, I have to say that I was pretty close for being done from memory. We went out to dinner with my parents to celebrate. During dinner, a friend who has his own ringtone called. Other diners were pretty amused by the “WAAAZAAAAAAAAAP!” coming out of my pants at full volume.

Saturday (Day 181): Reality Slap

Went to meet with a construction guy who nicely told us that our construction plans were way out of our budget. While we were talking to him, #1GF!’s family showed up to see the house. It’s an interesting exercise try to seriously discuss home plans while waving to a four year old peeking in a doorway. After everyone left, we went out for lunch to unwind a little. After lunch, we went home and I revised my Sketchup plans because they were off by a few feet that we really needed to make our plans work.

What I learned

• A few feet make a difference in a plan.
• So far, I suck at estimating home improvement costs.
• Giving your friends strange ringtones can create a laugh among strangers.
• Even running errands can seem fun if you spend your days alone writing.
• I had no idea that there certain contractors who only work on million dollar projects. Now I know that there are contractors who are out of my league.

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