The Spirit of Erie

So I have developed a couple of issues with my car lately…

First, I got into my car the other day as I was headed to work, and I heard this loud crack, and my seat started rocking. I get out of the car and look, and it looked like one of the brackets connecting the seat to the rail had snapped. Needless to say, I am not amused. But, the car is obviously drivable, I just have a rocking chair for a drivers seat.

After work, I go talk to my next door neighbor, who is a service manager at what was, up until about two weeks ago, a Chrysler dealership (I just happen to drive a Chrysler car). So, I explain what happened, and he pretty much knew what needed to be replaced. So, he goes ahead and gets the part ordered and I scheduled an appointment to get it taken care of yesterday.

However, on Tuesday, as I was headed to Lacy’s place after work, my car started overheating. I also noticed a leak coming out of the front end (and it was not water coming from the a/c…which, by the way, today was the ninth consecutive day of over 90 degree temperatures). Sure enough, I was losing coolant. Since I had the appointment to get my seat fixed yesterday, I also had them take a look at what was going on.

Sure enough, the water pump had developed a leak. They did not have time to properly diagnose it yesterday, but they called me with the news today. That cost was $900. Why so much to replace a water pump? Because they needed to remove a good portion of the front end of my car just to get to it…then reassemble everything. It was going to take an estimated 10 hours just to tear everything out and put everything back in.

Since my car is 11 years old and has nearly 125,000 miles, I have no idea if the water pump failure is the first of many problems to come…or an isolated incident. If my car was seven or eight years old, I may have paid to have the problem fixed, but since it is so old, and has gone through nearly 10 Erie winters, it is time to trade it in for something new (or new to me).

As a result, Lacy and I went to a Honda dealership just around the corner from my house. I test drove a few Accords, and found them to be a very nice car priced in the low $20,000s. Tomorrow, I plan to go to a nearby Toyota dealership to try a few more cars, and then spend Saturday checking out cars as well. With car companies tripping over themselves to offer deals in this economy, I think I can get a pretty good deal. Hopefully by the 4th, I will have figured out what I will do with a new car and have the car issues resolved!

So what do we get here after we get about six inches of rain in a 36 hour stretch earlier this week?

A third consecutive day of temperatures in the mid 90s and the seven day forecast containing nothing but the same. So much for those $25 a month electric bills!

…to the St. Louis Cardinals.

This past weekend, my friend Corey came into town. He lives in Los Angeles, but he is doing a two week drive around the central part of the country. He arrived at my house at 4:30 Saturday morning, after attending a White Sox game in Chicago. Since he, Lacy and myself all had season passes to Six Flags, we decided to go do that on Saturday afternoon. I was very surprised at the lack of crowds at Six Flags. We were able to get in and through most lines in under 20 minutes for all of the rides. It was a sunny day with few clouds and about 80 degrees out (plus it was a Saturday). So the lack of crowds was a bit perplexing to me, but I was not complaining due to being able to not have to stand in lines all day.

Then yesterday, we went to downtown St. Louis to see the Cardinals play the Colorado Rockies. Lacy obtained tickets through the PTO at her school, so we were there with a bunch of friends as well. The game did not go so well for the Cardinals, as they lost 7-2. However, add yesterday’s game result to the two losses out of three games that I saw last year, and the Cards are 1-3 in games that I have attended since I have moved here. But it was still great to go to the game, and everyone had a good time!

So I thought I had hit ‘publish’…but instead I hit ’save’ and this was never published as a result…my bad.

The trip home for the weekend was great. Except for the drive. We left my house at about 1:45 in the afternoon, which was not too bad, because Lacy had to teach. The drive was largely uneventful, but long. After driving nearly 700 miles, we pulled into my parents driveway at about 1:15 in the morning on Saturday. My mom was up, and after the dog growled at us, she quickly remembered who I was, and warmed up to Lacy pretty quick. We talked with my mom for a few minutes before heading to bed.

On Saturday morning, I woke up and went and got my haircut because I had not had a decent one since I was last home for Christmas (I have yet to find a place out here that can give good ones). After that, I went back home and picked up Lacy and took her around the Harborcreek and Erie area. I showed her where I grew up, went to elementary and junior/senior high school, as well as Behrend. We also went downtown and I showed her Dobbins Landing, and we went up the Bicentennial tower. It was a bit hazy, so we could not see too well out over the lake, but it was nice to have a good aerial view of the city. Following that, we went out to Presque Isle and for a quick walk around Waldameer before heading back to my parent’s for dinner. After dinner, we went out to my friends Richelle and Chris’ house to catch up with a bunch of friends for the evening.

Sunday was a very low-key day. We were going to go to my grandmother’s house for a picnic, but instead, everyone went over to my parents. My grandmother and two of my uncles came over and they all loved Lacy. After several hours, everyone left, and Lacy and I went down to The Plymouth for a bit to meet up with my friend Paul and his wife Sue for a few drinks and to catch up. We headed back to my parents after that, and went to bed early because of the long drive on Monday.

On Monday morning, we headed out to Park United Methodist Church in North East, where my mother has been the organist for well over 20 years, for their annual Memorial Day Pancake Breakfast, before we hit the road. After that, we headed out, and had to take our time through Ohio, because of the high police presence. I saw police pull over three people between Cleveland and Columbus, and saw countless others already pulled over along that stretch. We stopped in Indianapolis for a quick dinner with my uncle, before making it back here nearly 13 hours after we left Erie.

Overall, it was a great trip. The weather was perfect, as most of you know. My entire family really liked Lacy and she liked them. As someone who had never been to Erie, Lacy really liked it, but I still think she is scared off a bit by the snow that falls there in the winter. Hopefully she finds it is not that bad when we go back sometime this winter.

On Friday, Lacy and I will leave here and head to Harborcreek for the weekend so she can meet my parents.

We plan to leave my house at about 1 in the afternoon and make the 10 hour trip and pull into my parents driveway at about midnight. I figure we will take a drive around the area for a bit on Saturday and show her around, then we will visit with a few of my friends on Saturday night. Then on Sunday, my parents are having a picnic for the rest of the family and then maybe Sunday night we will take a trip to The Plymouth, before leaving on Monday.

It should be a fairly low key weekend while we are there. While I am not really looking forward to driving 20 hours this weekend, it will be nice for my parents to meet Lacy and vice versa, as well as to see some of my family and friends from back home!

This weekend was a great weekend.

Yesterday, Lacy and I joined hundreds of Boeing employees and their family and friends from St. Louis and participated in Rebuilding Together. Rebuilding Together is an organization that helps low income people rehabilitate their homes. I did it last year, and had a great time, and wanted to participate again this year.

Every year, Boeing provides enough funding to help support about 40 houses, and we always are able to have enough employees help out. Each year there is about 140 to 150 houses across the St. Louis area that have teams of people help out. This year, Lacy and I joined about 23 others at Nancy’s house, who lives over by Lambert Airport. She is a 49-year-old woman who had a stroke about seven years ago, and her husband died a few years before that. She had a nice house, but it had fallen into disrepair over the last several years due to her not being able to keep up with the work.

I spent most of the day tearing out a brick sidewalk on one side of the house, cleaning off the bricks and helping to lay the bricks back down. I also lead the efforts to put in a railing to help her get to her car from her door on the other side of the house. Lacy spent her time cleaning up the back yard and painting. Both of us had a great time.

Between the 25 or so of us at the house, we were able to knock out about 40 various projects in and outside of Nancy’s house. It was a great project that Lacy and I enjoyed doing, and look forward to doing it again next year. It would be great to see someone get this going in Erie. I know there are a lot of people that could use the help!

Then this morning, I ran in my first ever 5K race.

I’ve never really been a runner. But I have been working out for about a month and a half, now that I have a gym membership, working to get in shape for the race. That did not work out so well for me, but the reason why I ran was far more important than my time.

My co-worker Molly and her husband Bryan’s son Brady has a hole in a part of his eyes known as coloboma. It has been a very trying time for them as they have done everything they can up to this point for Brady. The Delta Gamma center here in St. Louis hosts a “Run for Sight” every year, and Molly and Bryan put together a team to participate.

Between the two of them, they had over 400 people participate. Included in that was my manager and several coworkers. All of us had a great time and I was glad to be able to run. Even though I did not do too well, I will get better over time and hope to be a much better runner in the future. I will try and post some pictures as soon as I get them!

So what is a good way to comment on the nearly daily running of the story about the drunken rant of James Cousins II in the Erie Times-News without people being offended? People were over what Obama said on Leno by the next day, but something said by an average cop that nobody ever heard about has been in the news seemingly nonstop for the past two weeks…

Not everyone is seeing the value of their house plunge in this economy.

With mortgage interest rates so low these days, I figured I would look into refinancing the mortgage on my house. I contacted the mortgage broker that I used when I first bought my house, and we began the process of refinancing.

Since my credit score soared over the last six months (rising to nearly 800), I had a lot of options that had become available to me. I had been looking mostly at an 80/5 combo loan, which the extra five percent of a loan would have prevented me from needing PMI, because I would have only had about 17 percent equity in my house. I could have covered the difference, but it would have left me with not nearly the amount of money available to me in my checking account that I had wanted.

But with the improvements in my house, I figured I could go for an appraisal and see where the value of my house stood. When I bought the house, it was appraised for $140,000 six months ago. With the new roof, new hot water tank, new back door, new paint in several rooms, the front of the house spruced up, as well as the jungle in the back yard taken down, I was hoping for at best, a value appraised for $145,000. With the quick sale of several houses in my neighborhood in the last couple of months, I figured it was a safe figure to hope for.

Well, I had the appraisal yesterday, and my broker contacted me today to say that the new value was $154,000. All of those things, plus the great housing market in my neighborhood pushed up the value of my house $14,000 in just six months. So that, combined with a new interest rate somewhere around five percent will save me about $150 a month.

So for those who own their own house, it may not be a bad idea to look into refinancing, especially if you have done improvements in your house lately. Make sure you check the sale prices of similar houses around your house to see what the values are.

As I posted last week, I headed to Mississippi to meet Lacy’s parents over the weekend. From my perspective, it was a very good weekend.

It took us almost nine hours to get there, so we ended up getting there a bit after 12:30 on Friday morning. I gave her mom an easter tulip and both of her parents a couple of bottles of wine after arriving. We stayed up for about an hour talking and getting acquainted, before I practically fell asleep on the couch. So, I went to bed and slept in late on Friday morning.

Friday, Lacy and I met with her neighbor from across the street and her grandmother, who lives next door. We then drove up to Macon to visit Sippi, her other grandmother. Her husband (Lacy’s grandfather) passed away two weeks ago. He spent most of his career with the Mississippi State Police, but before then, he was the bailiff in court the day that John C. Stennis closed court for the day to go file the paperwork to run for Senate (Stennis was from DeKalb, just like Lacy and her family is).

After visiting with Sippi, we went and hung out at her friend Joetta’s house, then went back to Lacy’s parents house for dinner. Then we played cards for quite awhile, then Lacy, her brother and I watched tv until early in the morning before we crashed.

On Saturday, we had an Easter egg hunt, put on by Lacy’s parents, where between the two of us, we earned $11 in casino money. We then went to the other side of Philadelphia to the Silver Star and Golden Moon casinos on the Choctaw Indian Reservation. We both spent more than $11 there…but did not win any money. We then made a few stops on the way back to her parents house (Williamsville and Jerome Tank (a local ‘find everything’ store)). After that, we went back to her parents house, where the four of us, her brother and grandmother went to Meridian for some Japanese hibachi. We followed that up with dying of Easter eggs in the evening.

Early Sunday morning, Lacy and I made the trip back here to St. Charles county and we arrived yesterday evening. Overall, the trip was great, as it was great to meet her parents, who I have heard so much about. In return, they liked me, and are looking forward to seeing me again (as I am looking forward to seeing them again soon). But next up, is a trip for the two of us to Harborcreek, so that Lacy can meet my parents and family. We will be making that trip during Memorial Day weekend, so I am looking forward to seeing my family and some of my friends while we are there!

After work tomorrow, I will head over to Lacy’s place, load up her car with my stuff, and begin the eight-and-a-half hour drive to central Mississippi. Why am I headed there? To meet Lacy’s parents.

While I have not talked to her parents, I am excited (albeit a little bit nervous) to meet them. I have never really ‘met the parents’ in the sense of traveling out of town, to their house, to meet them. Of course, Lacy has been saying good things to them about me, and likewise, good things about them to me. I just hope I can live up to their expectations.

I have not talked much about Lacy here, but I certainly have no reason not to. She is three years older than me, and works as a speech language pathologist in a middle school (and occasionally the high school) of a school district about a half hour drive west of my house. She received her B.A. and masters degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, so she is born and raised in the south (and has the accent to match Overall, she is a fantastic woman who I really enjoy spending time with and am thinking she may be a keeper…

So, I think this will be a good weekend coming up. I am excited for the trip, am looking forward to some good southern cooking, and maybe just come back here to St. Louis with a bit of an accent myself