It's almost the end of September... who would have thought...

Who would have thought we would still be waiting to sell our house in Durham.

Almost 6 months ago we put the house up for sale in a hot sellers market. By all accounts the house is well maintained, in a good neighborhood, it is bright, new carpet and tile throughout... Realtors were warning we needed to be prepared to move into an apt in Durham in case the house sold before we were ready to move to Dallas. Yet here we are. Our house has been shown, closing in on 90 times yet not a single offer. Not even a low ball offer. We have had to lower the price yet again. All total, $28000 from where we started.

Our new home is almost ready. Probably will be able to close in 3 weeks, though officially the date is still Oct 30th. Of course that takes money.

On top of that, the lease on our apartment is up the 31st of October, the POD that is still in storage's renewal comes up on the 21st of October

I can get a lease on the house in Durham, which helps in many ways but I still need to find money for a down payment on the new house.

College tuition, car payments, food, gas .....

I am feeling the pressure.

I know there are much more significant issues I could be dealing with at this point. I need to count myself lucky. I have a job that pays me well. I am relatively healthy (I need to work on my cholesterol and Glucose levels according to my new Doc.) and with exception of a significant scare this past weekend the family is all safe and healthy. I have a roof over my head, food on the table and people who love me no matter how stressful life becomes.

We will make it through this I am told. My confidence is a bit shaken but I still believe we will make it through it but still..... Who would have thought?

Our first Texas HS football game

Friday night Michelle, Kyle, Karen, Howard, Nancy and I joined the the rest of the residence of the city of Wylie and attended Wylie HS's home football opener against Hebron HS.

Things sure are bigger in Texas. The first thing that hit us the first time we drove onto campus is the towering press box that overlooks the artificial turf athletic field and the 10,000 seats of "Pirate Stadium". The concourse under seats of each side of the stadium contains the athletic offices, concession stands, restrooms as well as a shop where you can buy Wylie fan-wear and periphanailia including giant foam fingers ( I gotta get me one of those). The fans standing in the secession lines can watch the action on the field on the closed circuit TV network so they don't miss a minute of action.

When we entered the stadium we realized there were no metal detectors, no police searching bags. We presented our tickets and walked right in. When we walked through the concourse and entered the stadium we found our path was blocked to the good seats by the Wylie HS ROTC students. The center section of seats, the comfy molded plastic seats, are reserved for those willing to pay the big bucks; As was a large section of parking spots right outside the stadium. The general admission seats however were not too shabby. The seats we occupied had backs and plenty of leg room.

In the endzone were two blow up tunnels that the players run through to make their entrance. The visiting team had a giant blowup football helmet attached to their tunnel. Right before the teams took the field the precision drill teams from each respective school marched out to a whistle cadence and formed a path for players to run out through to their respective benches as the bands simultaneously played their respective fight songs.

Once the players were on the field, the PA announcer asked the crowd to stand as the band from each prospective school plays their "school song". Not the fight song mind you, some other song. Hebron's band played first then Wylie's band. But when "That Wylie Band" played, not only was a large portion of the home crowd singing the song they also did this pointing hand motion; And it was not just the students. The adults were into it as much, if not more than the students. After that THEN the national anthem was performed. There was a real display of school and community pride that I had not witnessed before. Definitely not in North Carolina. I thought it a bit hokey at first but grew to appreciate the significance of what I was seeing.

At half time both bands performed as well as both school's drill teams. All the performances were impressive. The bands were bigger and as a result had perhaps a bigger more balance sound than Jordan but overall I don't think either band was that much better, overall, than what Jordan HS is use to seeing in competition. I did find it interesting that the halftime was extended by 15 minutes to allow time for all the performances. If that where Durham. The football team would have run onto the field and started warming up regardless if the band on the field or not.

The Pirates put up a good fight but at the end of the games fell short for the second week in a row but the game was quite exciting, as far as football goes. Both sides played very hard without a hint of poor sportsmanship.

The whole evening was a nice positive family and community centered event. At least it was until l we got to our car. Just as we reached the Volvo a group of apparent students came running through and a ruckus broke out right behind our car. I never felt we were in any danger and other than one of the kids bumping into Michelle on the way to the incident no harm was done. School staff and security folks were on the scene very quickly and broke things up but not before the whole small town storybook experience I had up to that point was burst.

I am looking forward to attending the next home football game.

Reply to comments

Just a quick note to tidy up / respond to some comments left on my blog.

• I fixed "pearl" in my last blog. I saw a bunch of other typos as well but figured anyone who is gonna read the blog probably already had so it wasn't worth the additional effort. I have been getting sloppy/lazy with the blogs. I will try to get back to TRYING to make it more correct.
  
• I really wasn't trying to be sarcastic... too much. Mostly trying to ask for an explanation of why the horse is to be revered, even if the reason is a biblical reference.
• I updated the profile to reflect the current city/state.
• I have no real way of knowing who adds comments, which is fine. I just might be more likely to reply if I know who it is and not some random person.
  
• I like that people read the blog. Feel free to comment... or not. But it is nice to hear from folks so the blog gives you an excuse to correspond.
  

Have a good day!

Texas Update

Just a quick update on the activities of the TX-Grissoms.

The house is moving along, though our closing date has been pushed back to the end of October.
The brick arrived and as of Sunday afternoon about 1/2 of the house's brick is up. There have been several mistakes/issues in the house but after some discussion, the builder has agreed to address most, if not all of them. I will try and post new pictures soon

We went to "The Ranch" (Nancy and Howard's home) on Saturday. We played Bocci Ball, and after an early dinner, Howard and Kyle played a round of golf, Michelle and I went for a Bike ride and Nancy and Karen drove around looking at houses and walked.

Sunday, Karen and I booked airline tickets for Bob and Tyler for Thanksgiving. The tickets were like $600+ each. We decided to cash in some American Express Reward points so instead of $1200+, the 2 tickets ended up costing us only about $58.

Sunday afternoon, after checking out the progress on the house, Michelle Karen and I headed out to Lavon Lake to check it out, see what there is to do etc. We were amazed at how far the lake levels have dropped. I know we are in a drought and all but it really struck us when we were there. Standing at the end of the boat launch, we looked down at the water lever, 3 feet below us, we turned around and looked up the ramp to where the water level use to be. That normal water line was a good 6-10 feet above our heads.

We walked along the shore for a bit and Karen looked down at a shell. A fresh water clam shell I believe. And low and behold there was a pearl in it!. What are the odds? As it turned out Michelle looked it up when we got home. She found that the odds of finding a natural pearl in a clam or oyster to be 10,000:1 or something like that.

The house is Durham is still on the market. We had an open house this weekend that reportedly went well. Our agent indicated there were a couple of good prospects. Keep your fingers crossed.

Last note; I received 2 responses to my last blog about the horse controversy. I am not sure exactly who left which comment but I have an idea. Regardless, the message I got was horses are above being eaten, along with cats and dogs for that matter. I respect that is your belief but you did not provide any justification for such a stance; compelling or otherwise. So the question still stands in my mind, what is the difference between a horse, cow, pig, goat or chicken. Not that the argument would hold any water with me but does the Bible say "Thou shalt not eat the beast thou sits upon", or some such thing?

Ta for now!

I think congress wants me to blog...

Why else would they have done something so utterly stupid...again.

I will admit that I do not know the whole story here. In fact I really know only what I read in the Dallas Morning News. But apparently Congress has decided that our 4 legged equine friends are somehow higher in the food chain than other agricultural livestock.

Someone please educate me. Where's the beef here? (sorry, I had to) Is the problem that the horses being slathered are "strays" and/or unwanted "pets" that bother folks?. If someone would put a fence up around these horses call it a pasture THEN would it be OK.

I will again admit I am speaking from considerable ignorance on the specifics of the bill or the processing plants in question. But for sake of argument, lets assume these horse processing plants are all federally regulated, the same way processing plants for cattle, sheep, chickens, pigs etc. are. And that the horses are slathered in much the same fashion as these other livestock are, whether you consider it humane or not. What makes it a crime to slaughter, process and consume a horse where the same actions are legal when talking about ol' Bessy?

Is the argument that they are more intelligent than your average barnyard bovine? Therefore deserve to be granted a reprieve? What about Dolphins? I thought they were pretty intelligent.

The animal rights folks certainly have a beef (last time, I promise). Or at least they are being consistent. They don't condone the slaughter of ANY species. But I would suspect there are many members of congress who voted for this bill and less than 12 hours later sat down to a Steak and potato dinner. Is there hypocrisy there? Hmmmmm....

I imagine there are similar laws concerning the rounding up and slaughter of cats dogs and parakeets as well. I love my cats but when it comes down to it cats and dogs are lower on the food chain than human beings. And if there was an agricultural use/need for the fluffys or snowballs of this world then, as long as it can be done humanely, they should be to be used as an agricultural commodity. If there is no market for a particular species then there is no market.

Lets get back to bottom line here. We humans are, for now, are pretty much at the top of the food chain. We all learned in Middle School science class that those lower on the food chain are typically consumed by those above it on the food chain. This is nature. Animals are a renewable natural resource.

Personally Horse steak or Kitty fillet are not things I would order at a restaurant, any more than I would order Deer or squirrel, but that is just me. My pallet and prejudices should not dictate what others can or cannot consume. So as long as an animal species is not endangered, and the animals are not abused or tortured, they are raised/rounded up legally etc, I believe they are fair "game".

To congressmen and women; Please quite wasting your time and our money on these types of issues and address things like homelessness, Keeping our food supply safe, Funding renewable energy sources or educating our children.