1) Living in a house has taught me that something can go wrong at least once a month. Since we moved in we have had a washing machine issue, a gas issue, an air conditioning issue, a water heater issue, and, as of this weekend, a furnace issue. This is in a house that has had people living in it for the last few years, and an attentive landlady who takes care of regular maintenance. Just sometimes things wear out and sometimes things go wrong.
2) Last night's conversation with some friends who bought a house is even further evidence that we are doing the right thing for now. Our friends feel stuck. They have had to deal with regular maintenance issues, as well as unforeseen problems. They told us last night that they have to spend their vacation budget on an emergency plumbing problem (and also get their yard completely dug up to get to the pipes). Also, they have wound up not being thrilled with their neighborhood, and he's not completely thrilled with his job. But they can't really move with the market the way it is, and they would probably lose their investment. The husband in the couple asked us, with a wistful tone in his voice, "You're renting, right...?" We confirmed that yes, indeed, we are. And are so, so happy we are.
The one caveat is that you have to have a good landlord/lady. We've been lucky that the owners of the last two places we've lived in have provided stellar service. I've lived in a slumlord's house before and it's no fun.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tucson, Sunday, October 10, 2010
AKA, my birthday!
We started off the day by going to church with my grandpa, and paying a visit to my Nana. Her ashes are in the memorial gardens at the church. It's a very peaceful place.
Then the three of us (me, Jason and Papa) met up with my aunt Vicki and her husband Bill and headed up Mt. Lemmon. In the depths of Tucson summer, my mom, dad and I would drive up the mountain on a Sunday afternoon and enjoy the 30-degree drop in temperature. Later, in college, I would drive up with friends and revel in the views of the city and the scent of the woods.
We stopped at Windy Point lookout.
Saw a guy climb one of the big rocks:
Look at that!
Hmmm.....
We stopped for a picnic halfway up, then pressed for the summit (in the car, mind you. This was not a hiking adventure).
In 2003, a forest fire whipped across the top of the mountain and burned the town of Summerhaven, as well as a huge swath of the forest. I had been wondering how everything looked. Well, the trees are pretty decimated.
It's actually pretty shocking because I remember when it was all forest.
The good news is, they've rebuilt a lot of the cabins up there, and some of the shops.
There's a New Agey shop with lots of beads and beaded jewelry that completely burnt to the ground. The owner salvaged a bunch of glass beads that had melted together in the heat of the fire and created new beads and attached them to little chimes. I bought one.
Back down the mountain and to Vicki and Bill's before dinner.
Presents!
Vicki gave me this fantastic old movie poster for Gone With the Wind in Spanish.
Also, a cameo brooch that she thinks was either my great-grandma's or my great-aunt's. Either way, it belonged to someone I love who has passed away, so I'll love wearing it.
My cousin Trevor joined us for dinner at Cup Cafe in Hotel Congress downtown. (Sadly, I realized when we got home that I didn't get any pictures with Trevor, despite my grandpa mentioning he wanted one. I am a bad granddaughter. My excuse is, it was very dark in Cup. Also, Trevor was out and about a lot, as 20 year-olds are wont to be.)
(Speaking of Trevor, he wants to be a music producer and played some of his stuff for us. It was actually pretty awesome. Anyone know how you go to LA and become a producer?)
Cup is one of my favorite places and I ate a Heartbreaker (baguette, melted brie, apple, roasted garlic = fabulous) and triple chocolate pudding for dessert.
Great birthday!
We started off the day by going to church with my grandpa, and paying a visit to my Nana. Her ashes are in the memorial gardens at the church. It's a very peaceful place.
Then the three of us (me, Jason and Papa) met up with my aunt Vicki and her husband Bill and headed up Mt. Lemmon. In the depths of Tucson summer, my mom, dad and I would drive up the mountain on a Sunday afternoon and enjoy the 30-degree drop in temperature. Later, in college, I would drive up with friends and revel in the views of the city and the scent of the woods.
We stopped at Windy Point lookout.
Saw a guy climb one of the big rocks:
Look at that!
Hmmm.....
We stopped for a picnic halfway up, then pressed for the summit (in the car, mind you. This was not a hiking adventure).In 2003, a forest fire whipped across the top of the mountain and burned the town of Summerhaven, as well as a huge swath of the forest. I had been wondering how everything looked. Well, the trees are pretty decimated.
It's actually pretty shocking because I remember when it was all forest.
The good news is, they've rebuilt a lot of the cabins up there, and some of the shops. 
There's a New Agey shop with lots of beads and beaded jewelry that completely burnt to the ground. The owner salvaged a bunch of glass beads that had melted together in the heat of the fire and created new beads and attached them to little chimes. I bought one.Back down the mountain and to Vicki and Bill's before dinner.
Presents!
Vicki gave me this fantastic old movie poster for Gone With the Wind in Spanish.
Also, a cameo brooch that she thinks was either my great-grandma's or my great-aunt's. Either way, it belonged to someone I love who has passed away, so I'll love wearing it.My cousin Trevor joined us for dinner at Cup Cafe in Hotel Congress downtown. (Sadly, I realized when we got home that I didn't get any pictures with Trevor, despite my grandpa mentioning he wanted one. I am a bad granddaughter. My excuse is, it was very dark in Cup. Also, Trevor was out and about a lot, as 20 year-olds are wont to be.)
(Speaking of Trevor, he wants to be a music producer and played some of his stuff for us. It was actually pretty awesome. Anyone know how you go to LA and become a producer?)
Cup is one of my favorite places and I ate a Heartbreaker (baguette, melted brie, apple, roasted garlic = fabulous) and triple chocolate pudding for dessert.
Great birthday!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Tucson, Saturday, October 9, 2010
Day 3 in Tucson was a geek's paradise.
Our first stop was Kitt Peak National Observatory, which I had never been to during all my years in Tucson. It's about 50 miles outside of town.
Saguaros on the drive to Kitt Peak:
We arrive
We went on the tours of the telescopes. One of the first things Jim, our tour guide, told us was that Kitt Peak is on the land of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Astronomers researched sites all over the country to build telescopes and determined Kitt Peak Mountain was one of the best. However, it was the 2nd most sacred site for the Tohono O'odham. Initially the tribe told the astronomers "no", but then the astronomers invited the leaders of the tribe to the U of A to look through the telescopes there. The leaders were intrigued by what they saw and agreed to lease the space for the observatory, with the qualification that only research would happen on the mountain. Now there are several telescopes and other associated buildings on the mountain, but no commercial businesses, which I think is great. It's very peaceful up there.
Jim took us to the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope.
Inside the solar telescope.
The sunlight comes down at a slant about 200 feet underground, where the light bounces off one mirror, back up to another mirror and down into the observation room.
This researcher was working and took some time out to talk to us.
The benefits of working on a solar telescope is you get to do your research during the day and sleep at night like a normal person.
View from the mountain next to the solar telescope
Baboquivari, the most sacred mountain to the Tohono O'Odham:
Also, you can see Mexico
Between the telescopes was this basketball court:
Apparently astronomers aren't what you would call "sporty".
Next we went to the 2.1-meter telescope.
Jim the tour guide was pretty great, but our second tour guide was a little rambly. We wound up breaking off from the group and going to the telescope ahead of the crowd. Kitt Peak has mp3 tours you can download ahead of time, which probably would have been a good way to go for this telescope.
Our last stop was the Mayall 4-meter telescope:
Looking at the view from inside the telescope building:
The telescope:
HUGE!
Jason took this video from the site of the Mayall telescope (Ignore the last 6 seconds. Technical difficulties):
We finished up with Kitt Peak pretty early and since we were already west of town, we decided to check out the Titan Missile Museum, which we had seen advertised at the Pima Air Museum the day before. I had been there with my dad and grandpas when I was little, but that was a long time ago. The museum is the last remaining Titan missile silo in the U.S., a part of our Cold War defense.
Above the silo:
Showing us the boosters before we head underground:
Down in the silo, tall people have to wear hardhats
Everything is on giant springs so that when the bombs hit above ground, the shock waves don't shake apart the silo underground.
I am commander of the old school computers
Our silo tour guide (also named Jim like the guide at Kitt Peak) explained what would have happened if the soldiers on duty were told to launch the missile, or, as I like to call it, Defcon 1 (thank you, War Games).
This is serious business
Hallway to the missile:
The Titan missile in the flesh:
We bade farewell to Jim 2 and headed back to my aunt's house where she filled us full of chips and salsa and guacamole and veggies and hummus. Later, we went to see Dracula at the Gaslight Theatre, which was something I especially requested. It was a blast, as always, and I wish we could go back in December and see Bill, my aunt's husband, in the Christmas show. My only regret is that we got no pictures at the theatre.
Our first stop was Kitt Peak National Observatory, which I had never been to during all my years in Tucson. It's about 50 miles outside of town.
Saguaros on the drive to Kitt Peak:
We arrive
We went on the tours of the telescopes. One of the first things Jim, our tour guide, told us was that Kitt Peak is on the land of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Astronomers researched sites all over the country to build telescopes and determined Kitt Peak Mountain was one of the best. However, it was the 2nd most sacred site for the Tohono O'odham. Initially the tribe told the astronomers "no", but then the astronomers invited the leaders of the tribe to the U of A to look through the telescopes there. The leaders were intrigued by what they saw and agreed to lease the space for the observatory, with the qualification that only research would happen on the mountain. Now there are several telescopes and other associated buildings on the mountain, but no commercial businesses, which I think is great. It's very peaceful up there.Jim took us to the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope.
Inside the solar telescope.
The sunlight comes down at a slant about 200 feet underground, where the light bounces off one mirror, back up to another mirror and down into the observation room.This researcher was working and took some time out to talk to us.
The benefits of working on a solar telescope is you get to do your research during the day and sleep at night like a normal person.View from the mountain next to the solar telescope
Baboquivari, the most sacred mountain to the Tohono O'Odham:
Also, you can see MexicoBetween the telescopes was this basketball court:
Apparently astronomers aren't what you would call "sporty".Next we went to the 2.1-meter telescope.
Jim the tour guide was pretty great, but our second tour guide was a little rambly. We wound up breaking off from the group and going to the telescope ahead of the crowd. Kitt Peak has mp3 tours you can download ahead of time, which probably would have been a good way to go for this telescope.
Our last stop was the Mayall 4-meter telescope:
Looking at the view from inside the telescope building:
The telescope:
HUGE!Jason took this video from the site of the Mayall telescope (Ignore the last 6 seconds. Technical difficulties):
We finished up with Kitt Peak pretty early and since we were already west of town, we decided to check out the Titan Missile Museum, which we had seen advertised at the Pima Air Museum the day before. I had been there with my dad and grandpas when I was little, but that was a long time ago. The museum is the last remaining Titan missile silo in the U.S., a part of our Cold War defense.
Above the silo:
Showing us the boosters before we head underground:
Down in the silo, tall people have to wear hardhats
Everything is on giant springs so that when the bombs hit above ground, the shock waves don't shake apart the silo underground.
I am commander of the old school computers
Our silo tour guide (also named Jim like the guide at Kitt Peak) explained what would have happened if the soldiers on duty were told to launch the missile, or, as I like to call it, Defcon 1 (thank you, War Games).This is serious business
Hallway to the missile:
The Titan missile in the flesh:
We bade farewell to Jim 2 and headed back to my aunt's house where she filled us full of chips and salsa and guacamole and veggies and hummus. Later, we went to see Dracula at the Gaslight Theatre, which was something I especially requested. It was a blast, as always, and I wish we could go back in December and see Bill, my aunt's husband, in the Christmas show. My only regret is that we got no pictures at the theatre.
Tucson, Friday, October 8, 2010
On Day 2 in Tucson, we went to the Pima Air Museum. Jason loves airplanes. Every year that he's lived in Rhode Island, he's gone to the air show. This past year I actually went with him, and had a good time, though I must say it's just as much fun to people watch at these things as it is to look at the airplanes.
I've always been kind of blase about air shows in general because there's a big Air Force base in Tucson, as well as the Air Museum and the airplane graveyard (as featured in Can't Buy Me Love, and, to a lesser extent, Transformers 2). I grew up going to the Air Museum with my dad and Papaw every time Papaw was in town. One time the space shuttle flew over my junior high riding piggyback on a 747 on the way to the base.
OK, that was pretty cool.
But basically, I've seen a lot of planes in my life. The first time I went to the air show in Chicago, I watched a big plane fly back and forth along the Oak Street Beach and was like, "Wait. That's all it's going to do?"
I knew Jason would LOVE the Air Museum, though. Plus, I discovered that you can now go on a tour of the airplane graveyard and I totally wanted to do that. I was pleasantly surprised when we got there to discover that the museum has expanded a lot since I was little. We took a docent-led tour through a couple hangars, rode the tram through the airplanes set up outside, and then loaded onto a bus for a tour of the airplane graveyard.
I highly recommend the docent-led tours. The docents are actually very old retired Air Force officers who like to pepper their stories about the planes with anecdotes and life lessons. One of them also informed us that the physical therapy exercises his Peruvian nurse had taught him were working wonders. Which, you know, is great news.
In the hangars:
Jason's favorite, and one of the museum's prizes, the Blackbird
Jason next to his plane
After touring the hangars, we caught the tram to take us through the rows of airplanes outside. I'm not even sure if they had the tram tour when I was little, but I had never done it before and I recommend it. Each airplane has a sign in front of it stating what the plane is called and the year it was made, but that's pretty much it. The tram driver had a little anecdote for each plane and that made it all the more interesting.
Some A-10s from the base flying by (see what I mean about how easy it is to be blase about the planes? They're just kind of always there.)
The next plane is kind of awesome. After building the Saturn V rocket (used in Apollo), NASA realized it was too big to ship to Florida via train. So they modified a big airplane by expanding it with a giant bubble on top to fit the rocket.
This was my favorite airplane when I was a little girl. It used to be parked right next to the fence, so I could see it from the road whenever we drove by. I named it "Goofy" because it reminded me of him with that nose.
A giant helicopter, set up to carry huge cargo in what would be its belly, but is instead an open area with cranes and pullies and such.
Grrrr!
FYI, if you ever see a plane with "United States of America" written on the side, and the blue paint goes up and over the cockpit, that means it's Air Force One.
On the tram tour:
Jason standing in front of the planes:
On the bus to the airplane graveyard, or "boneyard".
The boneyard is actually the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG).
Not only is the AMARG the place where the US government lined up all the planes and lopped off strategic pieces of them to prove to the Soviets (and now the Russians) that the planes were no longer in use, but it's also a spare parts depot for the US Air Force and other air forces all over the world. The tour guide told us it's one of the few military installations that actually makes money by selling spare parts and saves the Air Force money by refurbishing current planes to extend their lives.
There are many, many planes lined up, just sitting in the middle of the desert.
C-130 flying overhead about to land at the base.
We spent pretty much the whole day with the airplanes and Jason was in heaven. Then we headed toward the U of A campus to grab some dinner before meeting up with my family. After a frustrating hour and a half or so of driving around and realizing maybe you can't go home again because they just close your favorite restaurants and make you sad, we wound up back at El Minuto for dinner for the second night in a row. Which isn't the worst thing in the world.
After dinner, we went to my aunt's improv show (hilarious!), then out for a late happy hour with some of their friends.
I've always been kind of blase about air shows in general because there's a big Air Force base in Tucson, as well as the Air Museum and the airplane graveyard (as featured in Can't Buy Me Love, and, to a lesser extent, Transformers 2). I grew up going to the Air Museum with my dad and Papaw every time Papaw was in town. One time the space shuttle flew over my junior high riding piggyback on a 747 on the way to the base.
OK, that was pretty cool.
But basically, I've seen a lot of planes in my life. The first time I went to the air show in Chicago, I watched a big plane fly back and forth along the Oak Street Beach and was like, "Wait. That's all it's going to do?"
I knew Jason would LOVE the Air Museum, though. Plus, I discovered that you can now go on a tour of the airplane graveyard and I totally wanted to do that. I was pleasantly surprised when we got there to discover that the museum has expanded a lot since I was little. We took a docent-led tour through a couple hangars, rode the tram through the airplanes set up outside, and then loaded onto a bus for a tour of the airplane graveyard.
I highly recommend the docent-led tours. The docents are actually very old retired Air Force officers who like to pepper their stories about the planes with anecdotes and life lessons. One of them also informed us that the physical therapy exercises his Peruvian nurse had taught him were working wonders. Which, you know, is great news.
In the hangars:
Jason's favorite, and one of the museum's prizes, the Blackbird
Jason next to his plane
After touring the hangars, we caught the tram to take us through the rows of airplanes outside. I'm not even sure if they had the tram tour when I was little, but I had never done it before and I recommend it. Each airplane has a sign in front of it stating what the plane is called and the year it was made, but that's pretty much it. The tram driver had a little anecdote for each plane and that made it all the more interesting.
Some A-10s from the base flying by (see what I mean about how easy it is to be blase about the planes? They're just kind of always there.)
The next plane is kind of awesome. After building the Saturn V rocket (used in Apollo), NASA realized it was too big to ship to Florida via train. So they modified a big airplane by expanding it with a giant bubble on top to fit the rocket.
This was my favorite airplane when I was a little girl. It used to be parked right next to the fence, so I could see it from the road whenever we drove by. I named it "Goofy" because it reminded me of him with that nose.
A giant helicopter, set up to carry huge cargo in what would be its belly, but is instead an open area with cranes and pullies and such.
Grrrr!
FYI, if you ever see a plane with "United States of America" written on the side, and the blue paint goes up and over the cockpit, that means it's Air Force One.
On the tram tour:
Jason standing in front of the planes:
On the bus to the airplane graveyard, or "boneyard".
The boneyard is actually the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG).
Not only is the AMARG the place where the US government lined up all the planes and lopped off strategic pieces of them to prove to the Soviets (and now the Russians) that the planes were no longer in use, but it's also a spare parts depot for the US Air Force and other air forces all over the world. The tour guide told us it's one of the few military installations that actually makes money by selling spare parts and saves the Air Force money by refurbishing current planes to extend their lives.
There are many, many planes lined up, just sitting in the middle of the desert.
C-130 flying overhead about to land at the base.
We spent pretty much the whole day with the airplanes and Jason was in heaven. Then we headed toward the U of A campus to grab some dinner before meeting up with my family. After a frustrating hour and a half or so of driving around and realizing maybe you can't go home again because they just close your favorite restaurants and make you sad, we wound up back at El Minuto for dinner for the second night in a row. Which isn't the worst thing in the world.
After dinner, we went to my aunt's improv show (hilarious!), then out for a late happy hour with some of their friends.
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