Oh my Back!!

After selling off some exercise equipment a few days ago, I think I strained a muscle in my back helping the buyer get this stuff down our stairs and into his vehicle. My back felt a little sensitive after that but no big deal...until this morning and then...ZOWIE! I was rolling two trash cans down the big hill of a driveway we have down to the road and one of the trash cans flipped out of my hand and landed on the ground. When I bent down to pick it up, a sharp muscle spasm in the right side of my middle back area immediately seized me and I couldn't move. Lucky for me my wife Heather saw me from the window and could tell something was wrong and came out to help me get back inside. Now I'm having to get around with a stiff back and every time I try to sit up or down, one of these spasms kicks in and just about takes my breath away. I should be too young for this but actually it's happened before (about 13 years ago I think). The last time it happened I was taking a drug called Soma to relax my muscles but I'm not sure I want to go that route as it makes me kind of nauseous. I guess I need to get something though.

Still getting ready to move out...

Things are coming along well with our preparation to move out. Heather and I have been busy with fixing up the Asheville house to get it ready to go on the market in 3 months or so and fixing up our new place too. We are working on new kitchen cabinet fronts, painting and resurfacing walls in our bathroom among other things. We still have a lot of work to do here in Asheville before the house goes on the market but we are making progress. We are also selling a lot of stuff on Craigslist and taking a lot of things to charity just to cut down on all the packing. Today we sold some of our exercise equipment that we will no longer have room for and I even made $80 selling a bunch of vinyl records yesterday. We had our second accumulating snowfall for the year today. This time it may manage to stay on the ground a couple days before it melts. Winter is here.

Happy Veteran's Day

I can't believe that I forgot today was Veteran's Day (especially since I am a veteran). I have been up at our new place in Tennessee for a couple days and made the 65 mile trip to Asheville NC this morning to get to work by 9am and guess what: the place was closed up. I had nothing to do but come all the way back (well I did stop at Tupelo Honey for a little breakfast first). I've never actually forgotten a holiday and came to work in my entire 18 years at NCDC (the place I work) until today.

A Record Show is in town

My daughter Dresden is home for a day from up in Boone NC (where she goes to ASU) and we are going to a record show in downtown Asheville today to just look around. She has recently become interested in vinyl records and so we should have a good time there. I'm thinking of taking some of my valuable Beatles vinyl there just to see what kind of offers I get for some of it. I wouldn't actually sell anything now but it would be interesting to see what kind of offers I was given. I have some pretty valuable stuff and it's all inventoried at www.mybeatlescollection.com in case anyone reading is interested in checking it out. Last night I gave Dresden an old copy of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album on vinyl that I bought new when I was 14. She has a friend back at school who collects vinyl and she may give it to him.

Tonight we will be driving up to Tennessee to stay at our new place. We have been busy fixing our current home up and getting it ready to go on the market early next year. We are almost finished with re-doing the master bathroom and have done a few other things too but we still have a lot to get done before it's completely ready. Our plan is still to build a cabin on the 17 acres we bought back in September and there is a mobile home on the property now that we will live in until we can get it built. The money to do the building will come from the proceeds of selling this house and so hopefully it won't take to long to sell once we put it on the market. Given the way the economy is we don't really expect it to sell immediately but hopefully it won't be too long. The less time to have to live in a mobile home the better but it's all part of working toward a better end.

Our new place, and other recent things

Since returning from New Orleans we have been busy. Not only catching up with the work at our jobs but also with getting things ready to move out of our old place and also preparing the new place in Tennessee to move in. We now have electricity and water there and Heather & I spent our first night there last Sunday (Nov. 2). We had to return on Monday though because we need the Internet in order to work. Now the Internet is set up too so we will be heading back up there pretty soon though it will be kind of back-and-forth for awhile as we do work here too to get our North Carolina house ready to sell. Heather and I are working on re-doing one of our bathrooms right now and she just did a great paint job on it yesterday. We will be hitting the kitchen soon too. Also our North Carolina house is better furnished for family get-togethers (like Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up) so we will be here for those types of things for awhile yet but by next February-March we hope to be ready to put the house on the market.

Heather, Jake and I along with Lee (Jake's Dad) went to another Nine Inch Nails concert down in Greenville, SC's Bi-Lo Center last Saturday and had great spots right at the rail. The show was really good. Lee and Jake came up from Savannah to catch the show with us and then returned home afterwards. It will be awhile now before we attend any more concerts though. We have been crazy this year about those and now we need to concentrate on getting everything done and paid for necessary for our relocation.

Tuesday night was quite a success. I'm so glad Obama is our new President-Elect. I'm hoping the change he promises to get our country back on track will be what we need because we definitely need a new direction from the way things are going now.

New Orleans

Heather & I just took a vacation to New Orleans (actually it was a birthday gift promise from her to me from back in May) and it was great as usual. This was our 3rd trip down there and we came for the Voodoo Music Festival and saw some great concerts by Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots and REM along with a few good (but lesser) bands like Man Man and Dead Confederate. There was also plenty of good food (including meat pies..mmmm!). We stayed in the French Quarter at a hotel called The Frenchman (seen in the picture) which was close enough to the festival for us to be able to ride our bikes there. We also rode around in the French Quarter and enjoyed restaurants, candy shops, nightlife and just looking around. Now we are back home and ready to continue with the process of preparing to move out and get back to our lovely jobs.

View at the top

It was a little hazy yesterday but the picture is not too bad. This is a view from the top of the ridge on our new property in Tennessee. This is where we plan to build a cabin. This view is facing north toward Johnson City.