Happy Halloween?

I have been in upstate NY for the past 4 days for work. Tif and I got up at 3am eastern time (which =midnight at home) this morning to get ready to leave for the airport. It was a long day, but we made in back into Portland about 10:30am. Yay for timezones. Thankfully I really don't get jet lagged anymore. I have to head out (by myself this time) to go back to NY this Sunday for 6 days. Ahhh... after 2 months of no work travel I think the travel has begun again. I hope my luck for missing the snow storms holds up!

Kitty, Me, and Heather

Kitty was the prettiest bride ever!

Kitty Got Married!

I met Heather in Memphis TN for our friend Kitty's wedding. I had not seen Kitty for years.. I guess since college days, but it was so nice. Heather and I met Friday night in the airport, went shopping early Saturday morning, and then went to the wedding Saturday afternoon. Kitty (I guess Katherine now) was a gorgeous bride. The ceremony was a long Catholic wedding. The church was beautiful, and they had it decorated with these unbelievable orchids. The church was across the street from the FedEx Forum. That night we went to the reception at a neat art gallery. There was lots of food, lots of beverage, lots of cake, and lots of people I didn't know. We did see someone from college - Jessie. It was nice catching up with him. After the reception, Heather and I went down to the Peabody Hotel downtown. We wandered around, had dinner in one of the fancy restaurants there, and then sat in the lobby enjoying a drink. It was really cool, but no ducks!

Sunday we got up early to do some touristy things before I had to get on a plane to Skaneateles. I originally was supposed to stay in Memphis with Heather until Tuesday morning, but duty called - insert whiney sigh here. We went to Graceland which was kind of anti-climatic yet cool. Let's just say I was not moved to tears! We also went to the Memphis Pyramid, which is the 3rd largest pyramid in the world. That was creepy. it used to be a sports arena. According to their website they are still an active arena, but it looked as if there had not been a person there in months and months. There were cobwebs, spiders, and trash accumulated around the doors and windows. There was not a soul there, and when we were leaving there were 2 police cars with their lights on booming through the parking lot... thankfully not at us. After the Pyramid we went to Mud Island. That was cool. There was almost no water running through the scale model of the lower Mississippi River, but it was awesome. Heather and I poured through the museum and steamboat replica.

We had just enough time to have lunch with Kitty and catch up. It was so nice to see her. I am so happy for her! She really seems happy. She deserves all the best, she is such a great person. Unfortunately I had to catch a plane, so Heather took me to the airport, and I was sad.

Memphis. Wow. It was not what I expected. Downtown was disappointing - it was dirty, kinda scary (I found out afterwards it is actually pretty unsafe), and unimpressive. Heather and I were glad we couldn't get a room at the Peabody. We probably would have been wandering around down there more. Beale Street was flashy, but just not what I expected. Alot of the buildings in Memphis were empty, and not for sale or lease - just empty. It was really depressing actually. Once you got into the suburbs it was nice and pretty, but it was sort of like you could imagine the ick just oozing out of town and swallowing it up.

I guess if I ate BBQ I would have enjoyed Memphis more, but I sure did LOVE spending time with Heather!

Oil?

Well we broke down and had our oil tank filled.

Backstory:
When we first started looking at houses, we noticed alot (most) of the homes the age we were looking at had oil heat. Huh? Coming from the South East that was just weird. Weird. We had considered replacing the oil furnace with electric or gas (which we would have had to have run from the street - yikes), but we just thought we would try it for one winter to see. The quandry now is that we would have to replace the furnace anyway to have air conditioning put in, and the furnace is about 7 years old (on a 30 year life). Either way... having oil heat (since it is soo common here) will not impact the future sale of the home, and neither will the lack of air conditioning. So... we will experience oil heat this winter. We had 194 gallons put in. Apparently the company we used get their oil from Canada, so that was a double wammy. Oil prices are so high, and the value of the dollar is so low. Either way, getting the bulk of your heating expenses paid in one lump sum is pretty nice.

So far so good. We are warm (er). One drawback though - the dogs aren't so cuddly.