The New apartment..

A little about the place first... It's a five bedroom house. 4 upstairs and 1 downstairs. I have the bedroom downstairs. The only that that sucks is that there's only 1 bathroom. Other than that it's a great place. You can see by the pics where there were some touch ups and where some touch ups need to be done but other than that just some TLC and it'll be great. The cable is coming sometime next week to get setup and we'll have cable in all five bedrooms including HD and DVR in the living room and HD in a second living room in the basement.

Ok so I'm starting with my bedroom. It's a little smaller width wise but is longer than the rest.


Don't worry I've already changed the curtains and I think I'm gonna have to buy some new blinds and some stuff to go up on the walls..


This is one side of the kitchen. There's so much more counter space than the old apartment. Which means the microwave, crock pot, rice cooker, and electric skillet don't have to go on top of the fridge. Let's also not forget the coffee pot and the toaster oven.


I like to two pictures they had hanging up on the wall when we moved in. They may just stay up.



This is the gi-normous dining room. To the left you can see an indent which could make it an excellent place for a desk but the dining room itself is huge. There's a shelf that goes around the room and behind that wall is my room. I wasn't an original room, obviously, I think it was a porch type deal. But hey, it worked out for me.


Yes the chimney part has to be re-painted but the shelf space on either side is great.


For the indent part in this room which I believe will be our living room, my roommate just bought us a 52 inch projection TV. The TV that we have in our living room now which I think is a 37 in flat-screen will go in the basement for out second living room. There's also a little closet in there near the door.


stained glass that you can see better in the next pic.


Flowers or pictures on the landing??


First 2 bedrooms on the left.


2nd 2 bedrooms on the right. The orangy room has the access to the attic. One of those cool pull the string ones and the stairs come flying down at you. And that's the bathroom to the far left.


Some of those bulbs need to be replaced but that can't be too difficult.


There's the treadmill and stair stepper I just bought. To the left of that will be my bench and to the right of all of it.. hopefully will go an exercise bike. I've tested out the both and almost fell off the treadmill when it shifted on me. I gotta put something in front of the wheels but it's the best spot only cuz I'm five eleven, and I'm too tall to put it anywhere else in the basement. 2 feet to the right and my head was hitting a pipe.


This is where the second living room is gonna go. That TV's gotta go and that table can be moved. There's gonna be an area carpet go to down on the floor and more furniture.

So all in all it's a great place. $1200 a month and everything split 5 ways. With utilities I'm lookin at about 300 to 350 a month which is not at all bad for an entire house. I'm excited and I've been moving stuff yesterday and today. Saturday is the official day the big stuff is getting moved and we'll officially be IN.

Looking for a new apartment..

So the time has come to look for a new apartment. There are a few websites that I check just about every day for a number of things. Craigslist, Hotmail, Twitter, and on occasion Ebay, and Youtube. Well I've been checking Craigslist religiously to see if there's apartments available. What we're looking for is a five bedroom apartment. Let's start off that one roommate wanted to go with the cheapest place possible which thank god someone talked him out of. Let's just jump to my experience today with the grand apartment search and where it landed us. We've seen pictures of the inside and none of the outside. Not only that but the neighborhood isn't that great. What I've tried to do is give up what I want (with a little fight, of course) and just let it go where it needs to go. Today we check out the apartment and one roommate says the place looks like it's ready to fall apart. So we check out a second place and it was kind of tiny. Well let's just say I wasn't ready to completely give up the search though it was looking a little grim. Whatevs.. I sent an email to a bunch of people with 5 bedroom apartments and got a bite (so to speak). So while it's looking a little grim at the second place I make a phone call to someone that attempted to reach me while I was at work and wanted to talk about the 5 bedroom I saw online. He says the HOUSE has 5 bedrooms is upper and lower, the rent is $1200 which was lowered from $1450 because on both apartments at the same price he had people ready to sign and they bailed at the last minute. He said they belong to a neighborhood association so snow removal and lawn care is taken care of. He said all 5 bedrooms are big as well as the living room, dining room, and kitchen. All the time he's telling me this I'm doing the happy dance. He said he has two apartments and the one we want sounds absolutely amazing. He said if you guys like barbeques this is the place for that too. It has the perfect yard and best front porch. Ok so we set up appointments to check out the place tomorrow. With the 4 roommates we have now it'll be 600 per person up front. If we get a 5th person it'll be 480 up front. But upon re-reading the ad it says the lease is for 9 months only. Does that mean if we want to stay past 9 months we can't?? We'll see.. Though looking back on that last thought it seems ridiculous. We're gonna check it out tomorrow and ask all the questions we like. It may just be an excellent house or its gonna be crap. off to bed. oh and one other thing. I remembered that my last not-date with dave was breakfast last Thursday and it was fun. I actually referred to it this time as a date and he was ok with that. I'm not even sure he noticed.. I sent it to him in a text and just said "so our breakfast date is still on right?" and he replied with yes. But after our breakfast not date we set up 2 more not-dates.. potentially dates, and he paid for the food. So me being the guy I am said ok well I'll leave a tip and on a 19 dollar check left the waitress a 10 dollar tip.. And even that I felt like I was shorting her. Eh.. I'm gonna hang with him again this week then dinner next week with some "parent" types, as it was put to me. Ok off to bed. Lighter note: not feeling so bad today.. the past 2 days were rough.

At the farm apple picking... Gonna miss ya Rach..

So we went apple picking just yesterday morning and Rachel made me promise I'd have the pics to her by last night. I came through and sent her the pics and she came through and sent me her pics.. This one's for you Rach.. Good Luck and I'll miss you.. Can't wait for next year Apple Picking 2011 TBA...

Apple picking 2010.. Rach and Sabrena

This is where the drive started.. I liked the pic so when we drove passed it and I gasped Rach said we'd stop on the way back for this photo opportunity..


This is the same farm the Rach and I went to last year... It sprinkled on us the whole time and it was just the two of us having fun in the rain picking apples. We were the only 2 patrons that came to the farm at that point and the lady was so happy we came she put on warm cider right away and seemed to have as much fun as we did. She was there this time but I think she got a late start cuz we got there at 1030 and when we were getting ready to leave at about 1145 she was just getting there.




This is for anyone that might want to visit this place.. I like it...


The apple bags look like drums..



Excellent view..



I never really was good with rules... side note:.. backside not looking bad these days.. ;)


Bad girl....


I'm surprised we didn't get dirtier.. We went for the hard to reach apples...


Exhibit A


Exhibit B


Exhibit B-2.. Caught red handed...


Long rows... That's all really


My input on this was.. "I'm sure I've probably had pesticides before... I don't see why we can't eat them." Total apples eaten along the way.. 2. We ate part of a pear too but it was too hard.. Little did we know that on the sheet I got on the way out that we broke every rule that gets grandpa's blood boiling.. It actually says that on their info sheets.. "5 things that gets Grandpa's blood boiling."


Sabrena looks confused...



So that's it... A fun time had yet again this year picking apples. Rach is moving back to Florida and I am going to miss her. It was part of the reason this apple outing was so important.. One last hurrah... She leaves next week.. Though last year her and I said we'd come back this year to go apple picking again and this year we made it. So this year we made plans for next year to come back and go to this farm again.. probably later in the season though so we have more choices.

I got a large bag of apples, cinnamon apple butter, a pound of mini pears, and 3 small pumpkins (1 orange, 1 white, and 1 that looks like a watermelon) ok.. so I last minute decided to post a pic of those with my phone.. The big yellow one in the back is from last year and it's still good. The lady at the farm was pretty surprised that it was still ok from last year but it reminds me of the little octopus on finding nemo.. The one with one short tentacle..


I would like to go again this year if anyone is interested..

oh and the address is:

Blackman Homestead Farm

4472 Thrall Rd.
Lockport, NY 14094
(716) 434-7116

Open Daily 9am-6pm

The Job Offer.... Flattered but declined...

So I'm at work today and the numerous things that happen happened today. There's no phone line, and what goes through phone lines? Credit cards. We had no credit cards today, or yesterday. Well yesterday was just an all around bad day and I'm trying to make the best of today even with the worst conditions. Well not the worst but mediocre at best. Anyway I'm doin my thing and taking care of a couple and they're finished eating this is how the conversation went.

Me: here's your slip and thank you guys for coming and have a nice day.
Man: hey.. I just wanted to tell you that your an awesome waiter. Have you ever thought about doing sales?
Me: I've done it.. It's not really for me.
Man: Well I like the way you handle yourself and I manage a Cricket store down on ____ and ____ and I'd love to have you on my staff....
Me (flabbergasted): Well that's extremely flattering but I make a great living here and I'm mostly happy but really thank you for the offer.
Man: You ever change your mind, come talk to me.
Me: Thank you..

I was definitely in a good mood the rest of the day. He thought I was a good server and carried myself well. Thanx guy. Even though it was just a cricket store who cares... =)

Labor day and volleyball finally posted...

So this is where it all started.. ok... let's start it this way.. I DID NOT WANT TO GO TO THIS PICNIC (only because the weather said it was going to be 65 and raining all day). Am I glad I went?? YES. I had a great time.. The pavilion was great just like last year only this year I bought a fantastic new camera that captured everything I wanted it to.



This is just a gazebo.. (duh..)



This is the beach that we played volleyball on all day. So it was a little cool and was a little windy but that did ever stop us before.. I think not.



So stupid me was getting angry that my camera wouldn't focus.. helloooooo MCFLYYYYY it was trying to focus on a rainbow.. and a far away one at that. It did it's job...


This is where the volleyball action took place and notice.. no one else around.. beautiful clouds though. At one point there were a few Roberts Wesleyan students that played volleyball with some of my friends and they were cool. One was totally cute too.. Wouldn't mind seeing him again next year... woof. haha


My new camera takes fantastic pictures... There's no story that goes along with this bird other than I was standing in the water when I took it. The air was freezing cold but the water was nice and warm.



And this is how our picnic ended. If you look close enough it looks like a mini hurricane off in the distance. It's not (duh again) but... I like the shade of blue that was cast on everything and the pinkish sky in the back. It was kinda of cold but it was a great day I would have hated to miss. That's all for now but I will be posting a lot more pics.... I took them with a Nikon Coolpix L22 12 mega pixel.. BTW.. I definitely recommend Nikon's..