Polite Dissent

I am on vacation this week and until next Wednesday! No big plans, I just needed to burn some vacation. I’ve been here in Central Illinois almost one year and had some vacation I needed to use. That means it’s also time to start thinking about future plans. I signed a two-year contract with the option to buy into the practice after two years. I like it here, but the Polite-Wife is not entirely certain she does. I’m a small town Midwest boy, so I feel comfortable here while she is Las Vegas born and bred.

While she may be ambivalent about the town, she loves our house. We moved into this two-story house a year ago, and it’s now three years old. I call it the 90% house because it’s clear that the previous owner ran out of money when the house was almost completed. The front porch is primed, but not painted. The light post by the driveway was never collected to electricity. The hallway and room light fixtures cannot support any bulb stronger than 40 watts. There are two piles of rocks by the front culverts, but they were never cemented into place. The foyer and front hallway have some nice tile, but the kitchen floor is this awful linoleum that matches nothing.

Since moving in, most of my effort has been in fixing the remaining 10%. I installed ceiling fans and new light fixtures in every room. I installed the porch and garage lights (wired, but never installed). The Polite-Wife has done a remarkable job on landscaping and working on the yard.

Monday, I finally got the chance to tackle the back porch. Never let anyone tell you that power washers are not fun…they are! I power washed the back deck and discovered that what I thought was weathering was in fact a grime-encrusted cheap wood varnish. That became a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that the re-finished porch will look a lot better than I ever expected, but the bad news is that it’s now going to take about three times as long because I need to sand all the old coating off. So far, this project has taken three days just for the washing and sanding. It’ll look nice, right? Right? (I better finish soon though, the Polite-Wife is becoming less-than-polite about the barbecue grill now residing in the kitchen).

Friday we head up to Chicago for the weekend for the Wizard World Chicago. I haven’t been there since 1991 when it was called the Chicago ComiCon and held at the Rosemont/O’Hare Ramada Inn but I’m looking forward to it.

Plans for the rest of the vacation include:
1. Re-finish the back porch.
2. Cement the rocks around the culvers.
3. Spackle the nail holes in the front porch.
4. Enter this month’s and last month’s comics into Comic Base (I not usually this much of a procrastintor, I just haven’t decided whether to use Comic Base 9 or stick with version 8).
5. Finally getting around to reading some review comics (sorry, Larry).
6. Sit down and play Beyond Good and Evil on the X-Box.
7. Read this month’s Comic Buyer’s Guide (Hush, Best Story? grumble grumble) and the first issue of the new Amazing Stories.
8. Finish reading A College of Magics by A Scholar of Magics by Carolyn Stevermer.