Fully Furnished

Those words probably ring true for college students looking for their first off-campus housing. Or in my case, as a freshly-minted Ensign in the U.S. Navy searching for housing at my first duty station: Newport, RI. But in this case it a reference to the final piece of the puzzle, our living room set. We saved ourselves some delivery fees and picked it up ourselves a week ago today, just in time for our little housewarming. Pictures speak, here it is.


We had a bigger than expected turn-out for the party. Only one from my UConn class, but I'd say 15 to 20 from ESPN Research. Katie's co-workers came over earlier than I had planned, but they we on the way to a sporting event (what are the chances?). But we didn't have any neighbors show up, so it worked out perfectly.

On that note, not sure what's going on the neighborhood here. Our neighbors on one side came over to say they already had plans relating to watching someone's kids, and the neighbors on the other side also were heading out of town. The neighbors kitty-corner across the street came over with brownies, gifts, and card in the afternoon. Very nice of them, we owe them a thank you card.

But that was it. Still haven't met the other neighbors across the street (we look up their driveway). Their kids are always out playing basketball, and their grandfather, I'm guessing, is always out walking and gives me a friendly wave. But my brief conversation with him went like this:

"Hi, what do you think about this tree?" (we have a tree that is all but dead in the front yard).
"I don't speak English, just Italian."
"Oh."
"Caio (friendly wave)."

In other news, we appealed the FEMA classification that has us in a flood zone. Had a survey done by a local engineering company and sent the forms in to our insurance company. The last part of that was taking a couple pictures of the yard, one from the front and one from the back. Hopefully here something soon.


And today we get our new air conditioner hooked up. The last couple days were pretty warm, and we could have used it. I honestly thought the existing one had finally quit. Turns out they changed out the condensers earlier in the week and never told us. They just have to finish the hook-up today. No wonder all it would do it blow warm air! At least I got to practice opening all the windows in the house. It's actually a perfect day today.


That brings us to the cars. Subaru finally got all fixed last Friday. No more disco lights in the dash, no more wobble on the highway, and the cruise finally works. I'm hoping to get some marks on the front bumper fixed (someone had a little accident while I was away, but no real damage). Then detailed and its finally good to go.

Jeep is not so rosy. It's a never-ending saga. The latest is all the gauges, or instrument cluster, suddenly stopped working after I pulled some fuses under the hood. Of course I put them all back in, in the proper places. But gauges stopped working, followed by overdrive, AC, and even the power steering doesn't seem to be all there. It idles funny and has no power when pulling away from a stop. So I probably hosed the computer somehow. The original problems of the interior lights flashing and instruments varying in intensity remain. So its back at the dealer today. Who knows how much it will cost. At least I got the finishing touches on the exhaust yesterday. They had to tack weld the catalytic converter cover in place. Another victim of rust underneath. And I have a new tailgate lined up at the local Maaco paint shop, which will require a full body paint job. At least I'm stimulating the economy.