Horror stories about people losing extremities while using these sorts of fireworks make me hesitant to mess around with them.  The guys I was with were more than confident at their own handling and use of these digit-destroyers.  One guy even went as far to say:

“Fireworks are perfectly safe as long as you use them properly”

This quote was tested and proven about 20 minutes later when we were scurrying around with hoses putting out three separate grass fires produced by one of these “proper” uses of fireworks.  Luckily, nobody was hurt – save for some egos.

All in all we had a great time with some great friends.  Possum Kingdom is a gorgeous lake.  The sheer cliff walls and clear blue skies made for a picturesque setting.  After a couple of days, we had our fill of plenty of sun, wake boarding, fireworks, and beer, and today we are nursing our wounds.  Some of us even needed to begin the wounds nursing in the middle of the yesterday:

Feeling the pride of home ownership swell, I tromped into the backyard with my newly purchased lawn mower, quickly studying the land.  I notice on one of the stepping bricks, some little ants have attempted to make a mound.  I smush and scatter their home with my shoe, destroying all of their hard work, and I get on to mowing the lawn.

About 3 minutes later, in some sort of unholy synchronization, I feel several stings on my legs.  I frantically start swiping off these once innocent ants.  Of course, the act of swiping only seemed to spread them to other places on my body – including my arms and neck.

At this point, I was confused, and slowly realizing how many times I had been stung.  Michigan has no such little demon ants – I recall playing with ants several times as a boy.  Some days I would take the role of their merciful god and offering them chocolate and other goodies, and other days taking on the role of a benevolent overlord, causing spontaneous combustion with a simply magnifying glass.

Revenge was to be had on these new ants!  It took all of 60 minutes for me to check the internet, identify the assailants, and go to the local store for some fire ant killer.

Revenge was had swiftly, but they certainly left their marks on my legs.  It took a surprisingly long time for those stings to heal, and I think there are still little scars there.

I am happy to report though, our backyard has been fire ant free now for at least a month.  I swear, I’m not cowering inside afraid of my own backyard.

We ended up walking away from that house, towards a nicer house.  The last house, we were forced to work with Haliburton’s Relocation company, which became annoying very quickly.  While the (latest) house doesn’t have a pool, it is on the end of a cauldisac and has lots of windows overlooking the park and lots of trees.  So barring any major event, we think this is the house that we will be moving into June 12.

For your photo viewing pleasure:

2008 05 New House

Now, remember, not all of our junk is in it. I took the pictures while the inspector what doing his thing.

See, the last two houses we put offers on, Jenni sent out big mass emails.  She has not done so yet with this one, due to how the other two turned out.

I can say with pretty high confidence that as of this past weekend, Jenni and I have bought a house in Fort Worth!

Woah, it is like we are all grown up with ‘real’ jobs and a house now. Maybe that is a part of the freaking out. We won’t move in till mid June, so we have a bit of time yet. I will post more pictures once we actually move in and make it our own a bit. Right now, the pictures certainly have an old person feel to them seeing as the couple we bought the house from is at least in their 60s. Pool Party at my place this summer!

Per Amanda’s request…

Rahr & Sons Brewing Free Brew and Tour Breakdown:

The Good

Free beer #1, free beer #2, free beer #3, and free beer #4. Yum. Good music, lots of people, bring a driver – after four of these suckers you are gonna need it.

The So-So

You end up waiting the the beer line for most of the two hours. You pretty much get a beer, get about 1/3 of the way done, then hop back in line so that by the time you are done with your beer, you are at the front of the line begging for more. This is made better by the live music and the social aspect of it all.

The Ugly

Two bathrooms + Hundreds of people + Four Free Beers each = really long lines for the bathroom. To make sure you don’t explode, you need to think ahead when you get that spider sense goes off that it’s tinkle time and jump in line right away.

“Verification Needed, Please Wait for Assistance”.

Confused, I’m wondering if the weight sensor messed up or if I scanned it twice or something.  The cashier walks over, looks at me, and says

“You are 18, right?”

“Uhm, yeah…”

She proceeds to type in her employee code, to verify that I am “of age” to purchase windshield wiper fluid.  What…the…?  I thought checking ID and limiting how often you can buy Sudafed was a bit extreme.  Somewhere out there is a devastated 16 year old with a very dirty windshield.

As it turns out, two other Hope grads started the same date I did, but at the Lockheed Martin. Both Ben and Amanda accepted positions there recently. So including Kevin who works at Lockheed Martin, that brings the number of Hope grads from my class working at Lockheed Martin up to at least 4. Considering my engineering class graduated about 14 people, that is a pretty large portion. Not to mention one of our engineering professors from Hope now works at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control as well.

So yeah, I’m a working man. Now my dad should be satisfied that I am “putting my money towards his social security fund”.

Hey Dmitri….slacking on your quota!

We found a decent cable modem there for $60. Not particularly cheap, but we wanted the internet as soon as possible seeing as we just moved to a new area. We get home, just barely open it, but I put off setting it up. Within the next couple days, we find ourselves at Target, and there happens to be a sale on a cable modem there for $40. We grab that one up quickly and then head on over to Walmart to return our first cable modem.

Wait in the line at the service desk for a bit, and give them our receipt and the (barely) opened cable modem box. The employee opens it up, asks why we are returning it, and if anything is wrong. We simply tell them that we found a cheaper one elsewhere, and that the box was barely opened. She checks the cable modem, looks at us funny, and asks again why we are returning it. We explain again that we just found a cheaper one somewhere else. A few minutes pass as she is mulling over something, and then a more senior manager comes up and asks the same set of questions.

At this point, I’m getting the sense that something is wrong. We have explained our situation several times and each time the Walmart employees look at us suspiciously. They explain that the serial number on the cable modem doesn’t match the serial number on the box. So now they think we are trying to pull a fast one on them or something. They call in some electronics manager and they look at it, and the suspicious eyes continue. They go through the box a bit more and find that the CD that was included was shattered into pieces, making us look all the more guilty I assume.

We continue to insist that that is the cable modem that came in the box, we never even set it up. Grudgingly, the senior manager says “Well, since the serial numbers don’t match, I’m not supposed to take this back, but I will let it slide this time.” This time?!?! What kind of implication is that? I have no way of checking to make sure that the serial numbers match before I purchased the cable modem, how am I supposed to support my case to them that I’m not pulling a fast one on them? I suppose that we are now on some sort of Walmart watch list for returned electronics, but I don’t care.

So yeah, just a warning to anyone who is thinking about buying electronics from Walmart.

So if you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, give us a call, drop on by! Chad is supposed to be visiting in July and we are really excited to suffer the Texas heat with another Michigander.

Video apartment tour, guided my by lovely wifey.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_lsH4kyIpI]