Back in Austin....

Christmas was mostly good. I'll go into more detail later. Right now I just want to get into bed and be comfortable for the first time in a week. Since when did they start making mattresses with rocks? Ah... blessed, blessed memory foam mattress topper!

Hello from sunny (in theory, at least) Southern California! So far we're enjoying our holiday vacation here. We miss our bed (it has a memory foam mattress topper) but it's been fun catching up with our friends and Christmas Eve/Day is coming, so there will be craziness from that. It's weird, like the past 8 months has been just a dream. It's like we never left... except that new stores have popped up and the last time we saw everyone, the weather wasn't as cold. It seems like all we're doing is eating out since we're catching up with everyone and they all want to take us out to dinner. But hey, no complaints here. We just want to make sure we hit up In-N-Out and Del Taco before we go.

But I've got something to complain about here. Why do people automatically assume that if you wake up after noon or eat past 10 pm, that you are lazy and gluttonous? I mean, we get 8 hours of sleep every day (sometimes less) yet just because our sleeping hours are not traditional, we're lazy? People automatically assume that sleeping past a certain time denotes laziness. Geez, our shift doesn't even end until 3 am. What are we to do? Sleep for only 2 hours each night just to fulfill some stupid, uninformed notion of non-laziness? And so what if we end up eating late at night? That's dinnertime for us! Are we suppose to not eat the last 8 hours of the day and starve just because it's gluttonous to eat past 10 pm? It's like asking a normal person to stop eating past lunch. There are medical conditions for people who do that on purpose, and we're not going to make ourselves anorexic because stupid people don't get it!

Maybe it's just an Asian thing. I don't know if anyone else gets this kind of crap.

Just a quick update:

We found a house we like, and we've put in a bid for it. It's not a standard sale, though, so it will take awhile before we hear back. It may take up to 60 days for it to close, though our realtors gave an arbitrary deadline of January 31st.

Speaking of realtors, we figure the one that kinda pissed us off was having an off day, and so far she's working well with us on this house, so we're just going to let it slide. As Whateley knows, I hate it when people think I'm stupid, and I especially don't like being treated like we're stupid.

Our office holiday party was tonight, and it was fun. Sad to say, though, Whateley and I are very much wallflowers, and we're not so hip-and-happening at the party scene. I hope that's not going to bite us in the ass later in life. As we all know, the way to get ahead in a career is based a lot on who you know and socialize with.

We won the raffle for basketball game tickets, and it being Lakers vs Spurs, it's sure to be very much in demand. We're not too big on sporting events, but I've always had fun whenever I went to one. It's a big debate on going or selling them on eBay. I hear they would fetch a pretty penny. I'm not sure if it would be enough to buy a Playstation 3 with, but it could cover a good chunk of it. Any thoughts, my loyal readers?

A bit of drama with our Realtors... though I hope it's just a misunderstanding on their part. Technically, our only issue is with one of them. The one that's been showing us the houses (I think he's new and learning the ropes from a veteran) is great. I just hope this isn't a situation where just because our price range will result in a lower commission they'll treat us like crap. I'm sure every Realtor knows not to pull that kind of crap, but you never know....

I'll go into more details after this all blows over. Hopefully.

Saga continues in our home search. A few of our choices are getting snapped up, and there was a cute house in Cedar Park that went under contract... which means that barring anything major, that house is as good as sold. Ah, sad....

A part of me would like to live in South Austin since that's where all the hippie vibe is greatest. It's also closer to downtown. But traffic in this city is rather crazy since all the hippies were in denial that this city is growing, and they haven't developed the roads as much as they should for the population. So traffic is a major issue and getting worse. Coming from Southern California, the traffic is light in comparison (think LA to Orange County traffic at about 3 or 8 pm) at its worst. Still, an accident can shut down half the lanes and I don't want to have to drive through the entire city to get to work each day.

I'm steadily adding more pictures to my Flickr page, so keep checking for more views of "our" Austin. Keep in mind that we tend to avoid downtown and the University cuz it's crazy, and we also tend to keep vampire hours. If you need the link, just send me an e-mail.

I'm outtie!