Well it is quite a wet Wednesday out there - Jamestown is getting hit with some nice solid rain.  (Logan over at the Sun posted a vid and a funny scanner comment on it.)  On the bright side, Jennie swung by the house and did a quick look:  no leaks to report, so the roof is doing better than her office’s roof is doing.

Since it is raining, and I managed to mow the lawn on Monday evening, probably going to start prepping the upstairs room for painting.  Once that is done, I should be able to start unpacking and organizing the office stuff.

"Is it time to go in yet?"

Other than that - nothing too exciting here at the moment.  Sparky is doing well and a very happy puppy :)  We are having a blast with him - and nothing has been destroyed yet in the house!

Still working on the whole getting used to the kennel when we aren’t home thing, but that is going pretty well too.  I think we aren’t going to show him the upstairs till after it is painted - don’t need puppy assistance for that!

Technorati Tags: Sparky, olorinpc, Logan Adams, Jamestown, North Dakota, puppy

This is probably going to turn into something of an installment piece. A chronicle of a “New Homeowner” so to speak. The idea is to do pieces on our first house. It is an exciting time, but I am sure (especially after talking with friends) there are going to be a million things that we run into that are not as much fun.

Moving in general usually means a WalMart trip for supplies and stuff. Moving into your own house – more so I think. We have been renting a house for two years, so there are various places we are a step up from people coming from an apartment. Yet, there have been things we are lacking that one needs when they are the landlord. Though it isn’t just that, and it leads me into this installments topic: The Lawn. (Queue music and trumpets please.)

In renting our place, the neighbor kid mowed the lawn for a reasonable rate, so we never had to buy a lawn mower. His dad had his own well system, so turned the sprinkler system towards our lawn all the time. Plants, we did a little, but what point was there in investing a lot of work into someone else’s house on stuff that we couldn’t take with us? Long and short of it is, we never really had to do anything outside.

Now that we are moving into our new place, we had to get a lawn mower, hoses, sprinklers, etc. It added up pretty quick, but with a little looking around not that much. (The mower cost us $15 at a garage sale. Not the best thing in the world, but it will do the trick.) This does mean we will have to put more effort into the outside, but since the place is ours, there is an inherent desire to see what we can do with the place. I am sure there are a ton of outside tools or whatnot that we don’t have yet. However we have enough to make a start and keep the place looking decent.

The next project (and so installment) is painting: Geek or Chic?

Also, in future pieces I am planning on linking to other blogs I find that discuss this topic.

Technorati Tags: olorinpc, jamestown, north dakota, homeowner, walmart, lawn and garden

Well the quite zone is being discussed again. (Article from the Jamestown Sun.) Before anything let me be perfectly clear - I hate the trains. Twice in town I have lived near the tracks and can’t wait till Jennie and I are moved into our new place further away from them.

Anyways - I love the concept of a Quite Zone. (Plus it would close the crossing by my Fire station so we wouldn’t have to play the fun game of dodge the crazy people trying to run us over when running from our vehicles to the station.  It is actually kind of sad we have to play that game, but people seem to be oblivious to what guys running towards a firestation means.)

The City Council in pushing this seems to be missing the critical point - every measure on the ballot that included anything with a Tax Increase failed.  *We do not want special assessments* - nor one-time fees, no matter how big or small they are. Stop spending us to death. If it is great, spend less somewhere else instead of taxing us more. (Sorry my liberal friends, but instead of always demanding more money, try reallocating.) Becoming a homeowner in the past week is making me watch that bottom line much closer - especially since those “assessments” generally come in the form of property tax.

If it is going to mean an increase in taxes just to do it, find another way. The people said no to more taxes not the idea. So don’t try to bypass them just because the idea is good.

Technorati Tags: Jamestown, North Dakota, Olorinpc

It has been a busy, but exciting weekend so far.  We closed on our new house Friday.  Since then we have been looking over the place and trying to move small loads of stuff.  (The idea being when everyone shows up to help with the big move next weekend, it is hopefully just going to be the big stuff left so it goes quickly.)

All in all, we are still very excited.  Shane is going to try to help me finish moving the upstairs stuff over to the new place.  (Pretty much just office stuff.)  If we managed that, then it will be the main floor stuff, which all goes onto the main floor of the new place.  I think our biggest dissapointment this weekend was we weren’t going to just keep moving stuff and try to get everything moved.  (Duh it never would have worked, but we have been excited enough to think abouit it!)  Oh and that we can’t pick up Sparky (our new golden puppy) till after moving weekend.  Though that does give us more time to get puppy stuff and the place ready.

Technorati Tags: Jamestown, new house, homeowner, north dakota, olorinpc

On a side note, I am also webmaster of the Jamestown Rural Fire Department website. It is in a fairly complete stage now, so fully open to the public. Stop by and check it out, view our safety links, and take a look through our photo gallery.

Many of the pictures you will see in the Gallery are compliments of Larry Phillips. You will recognize some as being quite similar to ones you may have seen in the Jamestown Sun. This is because, if you review the fine print, Larry submits many excellent shots to the Sun.

Technorati Tags: JRFD, Jamestown, North Dakota, Public Safety, olorinpc

I actually just recently made a post linking to Logan’s blog: It’s Good to be in N.D. (The Firefighters’ Muster Video.) I have now actually linked to his blog directly on my left side links. If you haven’t read his blog before, make sure to do so.

Logan is a fairly recent import to ND. He is the Assistant Editor of the Jamestown Sun. (Having been Editor in Chief of The Collegian back in college at JC - I can attest that can’t be an easy job!) I find his blog well written and enjoyable. Even if you aren’t from Jamestown - stop by and take a look. You might move here and like it too.

Actually just today he was kind enough to link to this blog in a post.  Thanks Logan!

Technorati Tags: Jamestown Sun, Logan Adams, North Dakota, Jamestown, olorinpc, blogging

Firefighters’ Muster

Logan over at the Jamestown Sun posted an article on it, with a link to a video! The parade and muster were a blast on Saturday. Shane got some great shots and I am looking forward to seeing what other pictures other people pass me. I have added them to the newly released JRFD website in the gallery section.

Here is the AP (AP is evil) article on the Fargo Forum website. I refuse to link directly to them, though since there isn’t another place I can find this story - this is the next best option.

200 National Guard folks have been called up in Cali for some much needed relief for those guys on the line. Fires out there have been nuts again - the fact that the article says the last time NG was called to assist in Firefighting was 1977, means it has been a while.

While we are a bit far away to be impacted in ND, for example the guys on my department, we can certainly keep those guys in our thoughts. Good work guys!

Well the weekend suddenly freed up. The girls were going to have a garage sale this weekend, and decided to bump it back till after Jennie and I move. (By girls I mean Ede’s and my wife.)

Actually a pretty good idea. First reason being we will have a little more time to gather stuff and also find more stuff to sell when we have everything moved out. The second being instead of trying to help with the garage sale, I can get moving on getting more boxes and actually packing things up. We close on the 11th, with the big move the weekend after that, and I feel like I have hardly anything packed. (Well that is more of a fact than a feeling, but you get the idea.)

Anywho - It just means I have to force myself to be extra productive this weekend, while at the same time crossing my fingers that there aren’t too many firecalls. (Last weekend I had a lot of house work actually all planned out was the weekend we got something around 7 pages in a 48hr period.)Technorati Tags: jamestown, north dakota, olorinpc, jake barnard

How to Winterize Your Home: Outdoor Maintenance | DoItYourself.com

Now it is a bit early for me to worry about it, so I am not. However this happened to come across the newsfeed today, so I read it anyways. I have been getting a little better at this since we have rented a house for a couple of years, but seeing as we will be owning our own place next winter, I am planning on trying to do the best job I can. In the end I am sure it will save us $$, so might as well try.

Technorati Tags: House, olorinpc, jamestown, jake barnard, north dakota, winter