"...and someone made an awwwwful mess down there."-Abe "Grampa" Simpson

Construction has started on fixing up my basement to turn it into a nice rec room.  Pretty much all of January I've been: ripping off paneling form the 1970s, knocking out drywall, ripping out 2x4's and slowly, but surely, disposing of said materials. 

Thus far, I've managed to install a 300lb, 12ft. long steel support beam underneath the hallway to the upstairs. It's really helped open up the flow of the area since the old wall that was there wasn't needed anymore.  All I can say is, thank god we have a construction worker in the family. MANAGER DISCOUNT!  This weekend I'm having a window installer come out for an estimate on replacing all 5 windows down there, since, again, they're from the 70s (notice a pattern?).  Then all that's left is: building a wall frame around the basement to install drywall, put in insulation, hang up the drywall, rework the electrical and lighting, paint, and put in carpeting.

Since this is going to be a rec room, I'm definitely buying another big screen and probably a sectional couch as well.  But the best thing is, I'm going to build my own bar!  I'm planning to make the countertop out of frosted plexiglass and have blue LEDs light it from underneath, to give it a cool sci-fi kind of feel.  I also want to put in an emergency party button http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBfOKhLF8tY

And you're all invited. Bring booze.

Well its the end of the year and a LOT has happened with the house, so I figured I might as well share the progress! Living Room: Had to rip up the god awful carpet and repaint the walls. Still need to buy some couches for it though. Dining Room: They were wallpaper crazy in this house(as you'll see in a bit)! I think this was a MUCH needed improvement. Family Room Not much done here. Got rid of the old couch and entertainment center and got myself a nice bigscreen, courtesy of the grandparents! Half-bathroom Yeah...MAJOR upgrade...but wait...what's that...on the ceiling.... ...wallpaper...on the ceiling...Do you know how hard it was to get that crap off!? Office/1st Bedroom This was some sort of reading room/office but yeah, kinda dinky and such, so I turned it into a REAL office.  Ungh, again with the wallpaper. This was the most time consuming room to get it all off too. Guest Bedroom "Someone call an eye doctor...I'm blind!". That's exactly what i said when I first saw this room.  Obviously it was the owners daughters room, but...c'mon! Master Bedroom My room was the first to be worked on.  That ratty-assed carpet was the first to go and couldn't go soon enough!  Good thing that the owners left me the dresser, armoire and nightstand. That save me a ton of money. Different angle of my room: Well that's pretty much it.  Just going to keep buying furniture slowly but surely from here on out.  Hoping to have more people visit in 2010! Til then, have a safe holiday season!

Well, even if you didn't say it, you're getting one anyways.

House
Been living on my own now since August and things are good. The major renovations, installing hardwood floors and painting, are set. Had a few house warming parties thus far and the consensus is that everyone wants to live in my awesome house, ahaha!  Almost done buying furniture for it as well.  Just bought my dining rooom last week and I get the last part of it this Saturday.  I'm planning to have a cousin of mine install a skylight in my kitchen to brighten the place up.  I'll post pictures on here once all that is done, with before/after photos.

Work
Ehh...work is work. Could be worse, I could be unemployed.  They decided to change up my schedule despite my constant re-itterations that I want morning hours.  So of course, they put me from 3-11pm, to 3:30-12am.  Wonderful.  Just going to have to wait and see if this new guy they hired will get the shift they have me on now, so I can get an earlier one.  I just finished reading Book 1 of my Cisco Certified Network Admin certification book, so I'll try to take the test soon.  I'd ideally like to take a course at my community college to get the hands on experience in setting computer networks up, but if the work schedule stays like this, might not happen.

Conventions/Costumes
I really have no big plans other than ACEN and Dragon*Con, though I have considered Penny Arcade Expo East in March.  Just not sure if anyone else I know would want to go.  Might want to see if San Diego Comic Con or Anime Expo is possible too though.  I think this year the only costumes I'd like to get done are my Terminator( which was supposed to happen this past D*C, but didn't) and Omega Red from the X-Men.

Vacation
I'll be using up the last of my vacation this year during the first week of December. Again, no idea what I want to do, but I will NOT lounge around the house all week again.  I had cabin fever real bad last year when I was on break and felt like I wasted my vacation.  I would be down for anything really, visiting people, or maybe even doing a group thing.  If you guys have any suggestions, I'm all ears!

This was...without ANY shadow of a doubt...the BEST...DRAGON*CON...EVER!!! 

Pictures:s62.photobucket.com/albums/h118/d_bandola/Dragon%20Con%202009/

Highlights
-Drunken pre-registration line party
-Skittles vodka
-Meeting people for the first time from the internet
-Picture taken with Doc Hammer!
-Met Mary McDonnell from Battlestar Galactica
-Astonishing X-Men group was awesome!
-FRED "THE CRUMPLER" CRAWLEY!!!
-BSG Colonial Fleet party on Saturday night
-Watching the terrible, terrible masquerade on tv while drunk

Shoutouts
rasmirin I've said it before, but I'll say it again, you made this convention for me! The Steampunk concert, the Colonial Fleet party and everything in between, was just incredible! I hope you get to listen to that Abney Park cd I got you soon, let me know how it is!
roguesamus Despite all the constant pootin' in my car, you, Cam and Jason were the most well behaved (and drama free) roadtrip buddies I could have.  And the 150+ Corvettes we saw on the way there? FULL BLOWN RETARDED!
amazonmandy I finally got to hang out with you and Matt! You guys were a lot of fun at the Colonial Fleet party! And you're both pretty snazzy dressers after that too! Would party with again!
voltz DUDE! You came out of nowhere! That makes it all the more awesome to have seen you there! Shame I didn't know you were there earlier, you could've totally had some of my concotion of skittles vodka and whatnot. Next year, get ready to rock!

Fred Crawley-You made CNN my British robot bretherin!
Jessica (Shadowcat)-You may not ever read this, but it was very nice of you to fill in the gap in our Astonishing X-Men group and be my Shadowcat. And thanks for covering up the makeup stain on the front of my costume when people wanted pictures!

I also got on CNN!!! I'm at the 00:36 mark: www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/09/08/geeks.romance.dragon.con/index.html

So I've been on vacation since the 4th and the whole time I've spent about 8 hours a day (minimum) fixing up my place.

Here's what me and my family have done in that time:

-Removed wallpaper (sometimes 2-3 layers!) in all bedrooms, master bath and living/dining room
-Painted above mentioned rooms
-Ripped up old carpet 
-Installed hardwood floors
-Chopped down a dead, overgrown tree
-Remodeled the master bathroom
-Cleaned out gutters
-Met the neighbors

Granted that isn't a huge list, but a lot of these things took anywhere from a few min. to 6 days.  All I know is that its going to be so worth it when all is said and done.  A lot of people have been asking me to post pictures, but I think I'll wait until everything is set before I do that.
I'll probably do a before/after side-by-side comparison. 

Also, I found out that I have a dove nested in a tree about 5ft tall by my drive way.  She just had babies! I'll have to take a picture of her soon and show you guys.

Cuz I have pictures!

s62.photobucket.com/albums/h118/d_bandola/House/

Now obviously I'm gonna still have to work on the place.  Wallpaper is THE ABSOLUTE first thing to go, god its just so horrendous.  Then I'll probably replace the carpet upstairs and just do some other touch up stuff.  Unfortunately the bathrooms are gonna have to stay like that for a while.  I'm in no rush, I've waiting this long to get my own place, I can wait a little longer to fix it the way I want it.

...is over.

I OWN A HOME!!!

The seller accepted my offer today and now I get to do all the fun paperwork and legal mumbo jumbo. Oh man.....I'm so goddamn excited! hahahaha 

MORE INFO COMING SOON!

So ACEN has come and gone, so I figured I might as well write about it.

I went from Thursday to Sunday, not expecting to do a whole lot of costuming, more socializing than anything.
Thursday: check in and wander around looking for people I know til Laura shows up.  Met up with rasmirin and she
regailed me with the stories she had of working with the Battlestar Galactica props company. I can honestly say, I'm jealous!
We then bumped into voltz and StripperVash to get our drink on.  It was pretty interesting since we were also watching stuff about
black holes in their room.  Makes for good sci-fi converstation.

Friday: Checked into my friend Matt's room with his girlfriend and Alex.  It was nice being in the executive wing because we didn't have a bunch of idiots running up and down the halls at all hours of the night.  Changed into my Heavy Arms Custom suit, which took about 20 min. and 1 other person helping, then just stood in the lobby for about 2 hours.  I can honestly say, I was quite happy with how it turned out. Think I'd like to fix up the face a bit though.  After the pain in my shoulders, feet and dehydration set in, I changed out of it to meet up with roguesamus and Cam.  I needed to get my drink on bad!  Called up Heidi to hang out with us and party.  I think me and her were up til 4am, which I've never stayed up that late at a con before. I just had a lot of enegy for some reason that night. The con was off to a good start.

Saturday: More of a hang out day than anything else.  Debated if I wanted to climb back into my suit, but my shoulders and feet were killing me from the day before so I decided not to.  Which was good, because I enjoyed just people watching with Meg, Cam, Brett and Arthur.  We befriended this older African-American guy who seemed out of place there. Said his 15yr. old son was interested in becoming a graphic designer so he wanted to see all ths artist stuff there. I think he was taking the whole cosplay thing in stride, and we couldn't help but crack up. "Hey look at that thing...what is that...some sort of 'Dead Book'?" "You mean 'Death Note'"? "Yeah yeah, that thing.", or "Man...I know that thing down there is good, but NOTHING can beat Halo!" Oh man, he was awesome as hell.  Night came and we broke out some weird/funny videos to watch on the laptop to pick up our spirits.  Met up with Heidi again that evening after she was done judging the masquerade and we all booked it to the Alton Hotel for more booze since we ran out (first time that EVER happened to us!).  It was alright over there, met up with more people, talked, drank, etc.  We headed back, and saw the RIDICULOUS 3hour line to get into the rave.  We just walked past everyone and snuck in.  Took us 5 min. to get in and we left in 10 min. Hahaha. Again, up til 4 am.

Sunday: Not much went on. Packed up, said my goodbyes to people.  Walked around the dealer's room with Heidi before I took off.  I swear, this girl made my con for me.  I've yet to meet someone as sweet as her.  We said our goodbyes and I headed home to wish my mom a Happy Mother's Day, or what was left of it.

Over all, I think that this ACEN was kind of lacking in energy and craziness that it usually has.  I think out of all the ones I've been too, this one would have to be the least worth while.  Just not enought OOMF in it this year.  That's what Dragon*Con is for!

So since now is the time to buy and there's a lot of incentive to do so (low rates, tax credits, moving away from parents,etc.), I've
taken up my house hunting to a more serious level.  I've been in contact with a realtor and we're starting to make visits to homes
within my price range and that are also closer to my job.  I've also gotten in contact with some lenders to see what kind of a loan
I could get.  I'm VERY excited! To have my own place, do what I please...ahhh one can only dream. 

Alright, time for some updates to share.

1. Love- Me and my girlfriend of 7 months broke up back in January.  We had a talk a came to the conclusion that even though we enjoy each others company, we just didn't have all that much in common.  It wasn't a blown out fight or anything, more of...an understanding. We've decided to remain friends since we know a lot of the same people and will still hang out at cons and such. But only only as friends.

2. Job- Still working at Redbox, doing what I do. Just got told what my bonus will be ($$$$$!) and my raise.  I'm actually going to be sent to the east coast to try and fix about 40 machines or so and also train some of the field techs how to repair some stuff.  Where I'm going to go, not sure, hasn't been decided yet.

3. Health- After Dragon*Con, I found that I hit 215lbs, up from 205 in May of 2008. So I hit the gym and lost some of the weight I put on and got down to 207. Then I put the weight back on in muscle, just doing a lot more intense weight lifting, feeling sore for days on end.  I've also moved up to jogging on the treadmill. Usually I would do walking, but now I'm up to jogging around 4 miles in a 40 min. session. Just trying to go for a leaner, muscular look.

4. Stitches- I had a cyst removed from my scalp in mid-February and had to get stitches put in. I've been wearing a hat since then and will probably do so for a while.  The cut is going to take time to heal. Its nothing serious, but something that I've wanted to get rid of for a long time.

That's all for now. I'm sure I'll see lots of you at ACEN and Dragon*Con and everything else in between!