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June 29, 2006

Buying a house

Since Amanda and I are now married, we're moving forward with the next most obvious step: buying a house. For the almost 7 years that we've been together, we have lived many places in both Frankfort and Louisville. Most of these places have been apartments, but on two different occations we have lived in a house.

Now, I grew up living in a home most of my life. From the time that I was 7 or 8 years old till the time that I was 19 years old, I lived at my parents home in Frankfort. For a short period of time, I lived there by myself, responsible for the routine things that come with living at a house: yard work, minor maintenance, etc. I enjoyed doing these things and missed them after moving out. I've wanted to own my own home ever since.

For over 3 and a half years, Amanda and I have lived at the same place here in Louisville. While it's been nice living here, over these past few years, the management has changed 3 times and the quality of living here has gone downhill. We decided that after we were married that we would begin the process of purchasing a house of our own. After all, I make a pretty decent living in IT these days and in a years time Amanda will be finishing up with school in another year and begin bringing in a decent income of her own. It only makes sense to begin putting our money into something that we can get back should we ever decide to sell the home. Living here at the apartment, we're just throwing money away.

Let's put it this way: Amanda and I have been living here for 3 and a half years. That's 42 months. Our rent is roughly 600 per month. That's a total of $25,200 dollars that we have given someone else when we could've been putting that to a home of our own.

That's a LOT of money.

So, I've been looking around and have come up with what we think would be a reasonable amount of money to borrow so that we can purchase a house. Several weeks back, we went driving around different neighborhoods in the east end of Louisville to see exactly what certain amounts of cash would buy. We had an idea of what kind of house we want: 3 bedrooms, 2 or 2.5 baths, kitchen, dining area, etc. We found all kinds of homes in the surrounding area that fit this outline, and it allowed us to get an idea of what we should be looking to borrow to get exactly what we want.

After getting an idea of what we needed to borrow, I started doing some research on buying/building a brand new home instead of purchasing a home that has been around for many years and may need some fixing up. This eventually lead me to the Dominion Homes Web site where they have many different housing options available. The best part is that these houses are brand new, including all appliances and such, so that maintenance wouldn't be a problem immediately going in. We would be able to spend the first few years living at the home without putting a lot of money into it, which is a pretty big thing to me. After all, if we're going to be spending this much money, I would like to have something to show for it from the beginning.

Another important thing going into this is making sure that we purchase a home that fits our space requirements. The apartment that we're in now is pretty damn large. Over the past few years, we've aquired many new pieces of furnature, pictures, movies, computers, etc ... so that moving into something smaller just wouldn't be feasable for us. Because of this, I've been looking for something a bit larger than what we currently have. We're hoping for a place that will have at minumum 1300 square feet, but really want around 1500 to 1600if at all possible. With what I've found, there are quite a few options available to us at this point that will give us exactly what we're looking for.

Some other things that we're looking for are:

The other night, Amanda and I decided to take the next big step and begin the process for a pre-approval. Should everything go OK, we should be starting the process for buying a new home here in the near future.

Wish us luck.

~out...

Posted by ed at 09:34 PM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2006

Mr. and Mrs. Edward David Engelking II

Well, the wedding has come and gone. Amanda and I officially exchanged our wedding vows on Saturday, June 17, 2006 at roughly 7:30PM. The event itself was unspectacular, but the fact that Amanda and I are now "official" makes everything that we went through up till that point worthwhile. Here' s a breakdown of the events for Friday and Saturday of last week:

1. The Rehearsal and Dinner
Amanda and I arrived in Frankfort in the middle of the afternoon that Friday. I had worked that day till around 12PM and came home to pack our stuff for our mini-honeymoon and overnight stay in Frankfort. When we arrived in town, we headed immediately for the church, where I dropped off Amanda before heading to my mom and father's home to drop off all of our stuff.

Eventually, everyone in the wedding party arrived as expected, some on time and some late. We managed to get everything started at the church a little after 6PM and had two good dry runs. David Blankenship, who performed the wedding service for us, provided great feedback and offered sound advice moving forward.

After everything was said and done at the church, we all packed up and headed to the rehearsal dinner at Office Pub and Deli. It was an unremarkable meal that really should have been done by Amanda's and my mother, as I'm sure that they could've put something together that would've just blown the meal that we received out of the water.

After the meal, Amanda and her portion of the wedding party went their own way and me and my guys headed out to Applebees. At this point, we just wanted something to snack on and sit around to shoot the shit so that we could waste some time. After staying for an hour or two, the party broke up and we all headed back to our respective places to crash. Steven and I headed back to my mom and father's home and I was out within 15 minutes of hitting the bedroom while everyone else hung outside next to the pool being loud and drinking a lot.

2. The wedding day
I knew that there was going to be a lot of down time before the wedding, and I had planned it out accordingly. That morning, Suzanne had planned to have a big breakfast at the church. She made good use of the materials that were available and cooked up a breakfast that would keep us all going throughout the day.

After breakfast, Steven and I took off to do some of the things that I had planned for the day:

A) Visit Sammie's grave site.
B) Visit Cheryl's grave site.
C) Hit Wal-Mart to pick up some necessities.
D) Any other misc things that I wanted to do.

A: Our trip to Frankfort cemetery was an exercise in frustration for me. I didn't bother to tell Mike that we were heading to the cemetery because I wanted to keep the trip a private thing. I hadn't payed my respects to Sammie since the funeral several years back, and I was feeling really bad about it. The funeral itself was a wet, nasty day and I didn't remember much about the location other than it was towards the back of the cemetery near the left side fence. Steven and I spent about an hour and a half looking for the grave but left empty handed. We did, however, find the tombstone of an old classmate of mine that had died several years back. He had a nice tombstone and the area where we was buried was very well kept.

B: Cheryl's grave was much easier to find, as I've been there several times over the past 10 years since her death. While we were there, we were looking at the grave stones that were around the general area and found that there were a lot of people our age that had died young. Talk about making you feel mortal...

C: Our trip to Wal-Mart was sweet and simple. We needed to purchase some black socks to ensure that everyone would have them for their tuxes. Additionally, there were a few other items that I wanted to pick up for the sake of doing so. We spent about an hour in Wal-Mart, just looking around, and then headed out to do other things.

D: Steven and I had a lot of time on our hands, so we found ourselves driving around the city and thinking about the things that we used to do when we were younger. After all, Steven and I met in Frankfort when he and his parents lived at Ravencrest. We went and toured the Ravencrest Apts, drove down back roads and found dead animals on the road, went through historic areas of the city and noted how little things have changed (with the exception of the new library) and so on and so forth.

3. The wedding
I told people to start arriving at the church around 5PM so that everything would be ready by 5:30PM. We needed to start getting ready early so that we could start with our photos. Matthew, our photographer, setup everything and we all began to take pictures on the steps of the podium. During this time, I also setup the camera that pop gave us as a wedding present so that we could record the ceremony. Kyle also brought his HD camera and set it up across the other side of the church so that we could have two different perspectives.

Around 7PM, people began showing up for the wedding itself. We hadn't quite finished taking pictures at this point, but we were getting pretty close to finishing up. We had to make some judgement calls at this point regarding which pictures were to be taken, so we were rushing like crazy to get them all done in some sort of civilized manner. After the last picture was taken, we split everyone up and my groomsmen, best man, mother and Mike headed to the choir room to count down the time to the beginning of the wedding.

Before I knew it, it was time.

There's not really much that I remember about the wedding itself. It was a very very short ordeal, which I was thankful for. The suit wasn't too uncomfortable, but the shoes that I had on were killing me. The one thing that I kept telling myself was "don't lock your legs, don't lock your legs" so that I wouldn't pass out in front of God, friends and family.

Amanda finally came out, and she was stunning. I can't really begin to describe the event, but when I saw her coming up the isle, I had to look away for a moment so that I could re-collect myself. Had I not, I'm sure that I would've started bawling like a big baby. We said our vows and headed out of the church, only to come back in so that we could excuse everyone from their seats and allow them to head downstairs for cake and punch.

4. The reception
I really felt stretched thin by the time the reception was going. I felt like there were too many people (even though Amanda didn't agree), and it was very difficult to give everyone enough attention that they deserved. At one point, mom grabbed me so that we could talk privately outside for a bit. During this talk, I missed my dad leaving so I wasn't able to tell him goodbye and thank him for coming.

I did have one really nice surprise during the course of the evening. An old friend, the son of David Blankenship, Andrew, showed up for the wedding. Andrew and his brother, John, were good friends of mine growing up while at Ravencrest and then to the Elkhorn neighborhood afterwards. I hadn't seen either of them in many years, so to see Andrew at my wedding was a very nice treat. I introduced him to Amanda and I was able to meet his wife, Robin.

There were a lot of friends and family members present at the reception, including Steven's mother, Michelle. I love this woman terribly, but haven't had an opportunity to see her in several years. That's one of the things about getting older, I guess, is that you don't have the opportunities to do things that you could do when you were younger. When Steven was still living at home, I had a good reason to head out to Paris, KY to see them all. These days, with Steven living in Cincinnati, I don't have nearly as many reasons to head to the Martz house ... not to mention that Michelle and Steve work really odd hours.

5. The aftermath
After everyone left, Amanda and I needed to come back to Louisville so that we could pack up all of our luggage to head down south on our vacation. But before we left Frankfort, we stopped in to Applebee's once again and had a very nice dinner with Kyle. We haven't had a real opportunity to have a meal with Kyle in a while as well, so it was nice to be able to sit with a good friend after our wedding and talk about absolutely nothing important. It was the first real down time that we had all day, and it felt really good to just sit and talk for a while.

When we got home that night, we were pretty exhausted, but managed to get in all of the gifts that were given to us at the wedding. We were delighted at the assortment of things that were given to us by our friends and family, and even amazed at the quality of items given. We honestly weren't expecting any high dollar items from anyone, but what we received just stunned us. It's nice to know that we have friends and family members that think highly enough of us to give so generously to a couple "officially" starting their lives together.

After getting over the generosity of the items given to us, we headed to bed in preparation for our trip down south the next morning.

~out...

Posted by ed at 06:24 PM | Comments (1)

June 11, 2006

Smashing success

Well the bachelor party has come and gone. I woke up this morning still drunk in a hotel room. Steven had gone to the breakfast area and cooked me up a waffle and brought it back to the room with a hot cup of coffee. I had a really nasty headache, so I drank a few glasses of water and took some Excedrine.

Was it worth it? Oh yeah, it was a great time. Here's how the night went down:

My brother, Michael, decided that he would come up early in the day. Amanda, her sister Ashley, Michael and I decided that we would go to have some dinner at Hometown Buffett. Afterwards, Amanda and Ashley left to go back to the apartment while Michael and I went to look for a place to have my oil changed. We were unsuccessful in finding a location, so we decided to drive around some. We ended up in an Office Depot in the Summit, walking around and talking about life.

We left from there and came back to the apartment to wait for Steven to get here from Cincinatti. He arrived shortly after 8PM and we immediately left to go downtown. Steven had reserved a room at a hotel downtown about 2 blocks away from 4th Street Live so that we wouldn't have to drive anywhere after we finished with our get together.

After checking into the hotel room, Michael, Steven and I made our way to The Pub, where my nieghbor John had a table waiting for us. We arrived, I introduced John to Steven and vice versa and we ordered some drinks and appetizers (wings and fried pickles). Kyle arrived shortly afterwards and joined us with having a beer. I introduced Steven and Michael to cider and put down several pints before Matt and Dave arrived.

After several drinks and appetizers, we decided that we wanted to head to a different bar so that we could get cigars. After all, what's a bachelor party without a good cigar, right? We made our way to Maker's Mark, which was a few doors down from The Pub, and found some great seats right outside the front door. Those of us that got cigars lit them up and we ordered more drinks.

After a period of time outside, the wind started to pick up and there was lightening in the clouds above. The smell of rain came through and Kyle recommended going inside to avoid the possability of incoming rain. We all headed in and found a nice area to sit, but were made to move about an hour after being there. Apparently the place was reserved, although there were no indications of this when we sat down. But, this didn't bother us at all, so the group collectively rose and headed to look for another place to park.

We eventually headed back outside, as the winds and threat of rain subsided. We stayed outside for the remainder of the evening, continuing to drink and have a good time. We even managed to run into Amanda and her bachlorette party ... all three of them ... and Amanda was really tore up.

After we realized that it was really late, we tried to find some grub around 4th Street Live but discovered that all of the kitchens were closed. Someone thought it would be a good idea to hunt down either a White Castle or the Bristol ... so we headed north towards main street. I'd say that this group of mostly drunk guys of all ages was definately something of a site to behold heading towards main street.

When we got to Main Street, there was a realization that we had no clue where we were going. Steven recommended heading to the hotel room so that we could regroup and perhaps find a place to eat. I somehow managed to lead the group from Main to 2nd and Liberty to the hotel room. Upon arrival, we realized that there was a Papa John's on the corner and managed to get some pizza and drinks for all of us to share.

After a short period of pizza bingeing, everyone in the party began to crash. Everyone began to leave and I thanked them all for coming. After everyone was gone, I crashed on one of the two beds in the room. For a while, Steven and I talked before we finally gave in to the need for sleep.

Yes, a good time was had by all indeed...

~out...

Posted by ed at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2006

One Week To Go

Just a little over a week to go before the wedding. Officially, it's 7 days, 5 hours, 54 minutes and 53 seconds as of the date of this post. After this time has passed, Amanda and I will be in the process of being joined as man and wife in front of our friends, family and God.

I look back at my previous posts over the past few weeks and months and realize how quickly everything is going. I remember when I made my first post outlining how many weeks away the wedding was, it really seemed like a long time away. Now, with only the blink of an eye, it's upon us.

The past few months have been interesting. The wedding started off as something small, but gradually over time it has grown to this huge thing that is really outside of the scope that I had originally planned. I guess that's what happens when you let other people start making decisions about what's going to happen. During the process, we've had to make some difficult decisions regarding our wants and needs and cut out things that either didn't work or we just couldn't possibly afford. The latter being the bigger reason than the prior, unfortunately. We're at a point now where everything is in place and most of it makes sense.

Yeah, there's a wedding next week...

This week, on the other hand, is a completely different scenario. This weekend is my bachelor party. Steven is coming to town, and Michael, Kyle, Dave, John and Matt are all coming down to The Pub on 4th Street Live here in Louisville. We're going down there for some good food and some good drinks.

I'm personally looking forward to the Strongbow Cider.

A little history when it comes to my love of drinking cider. Otherwise known as "hard cider", in this blog it's just going to be known as "cider". I was first introduced to cider when I first started going to Canada about 9-10 years ago. I was 18 or 19 at the time, which is the legal drinking age in Canada. I was going out to bars for the first time, playing pool and watching strip shows. A great time was had by all.

At one of the bars that we hit, an English pub, they had something called cider. Now, I grew up in Kentucky and the only beer or beer-like substance that I ever heard of was Coors and Budweiser. While in Canada, I was introduced to things like Molsen, which was much better than Budweiser and had a higher alchohol content. But it was only after I had my first cider (and second, and third) that I found a drink that truely fit me.

Now, back in KY it's difficult to find a good cider. After the past 10 or so years, I think I've only come across a good one a handfull of times. This past weekend, Saturday to be precise, I was hanging out with Dave. Sometime in the afternoon, Kyle called and asked if we wanted to go to dinner. I asked where he wanted to go, and he mentioned a place called "The Pub" on 4th Street. After discussing it with Dave, we decided that it would be a good time and headed down to the Pub later that evening.

As I entered the bar, I realized that this wasn't your average place to drink beer. There was a guy walking around outside with a kilt and the employees were dressed in shirts that had British slang on them. Yes, Virginia, we had found a English pub to drink in. We got to our seat and I went over the menu. There was a wide assortment of drinks on the list, and I finally found what I was looking for: Strongbow Cider.

I ordered the first drink, and had it down in about a minute (I was thirsty). The second drink came and I drank half of it in a minute. Dave and Kyle started to give me a hard time about how fast I was putting them down, so I slowed down after that point. I continued drinking the Strongbow Cider throughout the night and had a total of 5 pints. Needless to say, I was definately feeling good and wasn't feeling much pain.

So, after having so much fun at The Pub last weekend, I called Steven this week and made the request that we go back tonight. So, that's the plan ... all of us are meeting up at The Pub tonight. Steven has rented a room at a nearby hotel so that we won't have far to go when the time comes to crash.

Overall, tonight should be a great night had by all.

~out...

Posted by ed at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2006

11 days and a few hours remain

As of midnight tonight, there are:

11 days, 19 hours, 30 minutes to the wedding
or
283 hours, 30 minutes to the wedding
or
17,010 minutes to the wedding
or
1,020,600 seconds to the wedding

We're getting down to the final stretch. Personally, I can't wait for the time off ... I need a vacation.

~out...

Posted by ed at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)