Being alone is weird. Really weird. But I am managing so far. At least it's only for 10 weeks. 10 weeks kind of seems like a long time though, eh? At least I have had lots of distractions so far... but that may be drying up in a few weeks.

Home

There's food in the food fridge and beer in the beer fridge. The desk is assembled (though I always seem to end up with a couple extra pieces whenever I do that). The TV and DVD player and internet are set up. The dishes are put away. The bookshelves are full of books. There's laundry in the laundry room, toiletries in the bathrooms, beds in the bedrooms (one of them is even made). China in the china cabinet. Dirty dishes in the sink. Most of our stuff has been dispositioned, if not put away yet. Tools in the garage. Couches in the basement. The bar is set up. We've had a board game night and a movie night. It's starting to feel like home.

Not too bad for our fifth day in the house.

We're near pretty much everything in the city, and that rocks. A short list:
-bus stop on our block
-Yeti Records 2 blocks away
-Bakery 2 blocks away
-Bookstore 2 blocks away
-vintage clothing store 2 blocks away
-neighborhood farmer's market 1 mile away
-community gardens in our neighborhood
-~1 mile from a coffee shop, Anodyne Coffee
-~1 mile from The Lowbrow, a great scratch kitchen restaurant
-~1 mile from Sun Street Breads, an amazing scratch bakery
-~1 mile to lake calhoun and the others in that system
-~1.5 miles from a grocery store, Lunds
-3 blocks to I-35W
-~1 mile to the lyn-lake area, a little further to Uptown
-~3 miles to downtown
-and still only about 20 minutes to work for me

All things are appearing to be awesome so far. I never would have thought it was possible when first moving here, but Minneapolis... I love you so hard.

Minneapolitan

Well, assuming nothing goes horribly wrong (always a dicey proposition whenever I bring it up), we are buying a house. We still have inspection, post inspection negotiations, etc to go, but our offer has been accepted. After hunting for a while, we found a house that was the right combination of price, condition, location, and amenities, and it has a lot of gorgeous old woodwork that is in remarkable good shape. It has a two car attached garage that opens into a street, not an alleyway. Most houses in our price range have a detached one car garage without an automatic opener, so this was a good find. It is on a main street, which is a turn off for some people, but here it means that our street will *always* be plowed promptly, which is a big plus. It has a completely fenced in back yard with a nice, relatively new fence, also a rarity at our price point. It has a kind of 70s basement, but it's large and finished. It is close to Lyn-Lake, Uptown, and the lakes, which is pretty much perfect location wise. It's about a 20 minute drive to work for me, less than half of my KC commute, and there is a bus stop *on our block* for Rikki to grab a bus to work. Northern Brewer is opening its Minneapolis store roughly 2 miles to the south this fall. It has a smallish driveway and sidewalk (less shoveling), and a smallish but decent back yard (less mowing, enough space to have a small garden). Walk score of 77 is totally respectable. It's in a safe neighborhood. Inspection is next Friday. We asked for a long close because we need to run out our lease, but the sellers accepted. I am more than a little excited. It's all looking good so far.

Master! Master! Master of Engineering

I finished grad school! I am now allegedly a Master of Engineering in Computer Engineering. It felt rather anticlimactic to finish as a distance student given that I didn't attend the graduation ceremony, but it's good to be done at any rate. Hopefully I can parlay this into a raise or promotion or something. Now if only my diploma would arrive...

New new new new new new music

Yeah! I am making music again. I'm going for an EP-length running mix this time. Enjoy this crappy video I made using the iTunes visualizer for the first track I finished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y71DybgWTWc

In happier news

We are looking for houses in the proximity of Lyn-Lake. Holy moly are houses more expensive here than in KC. But we will try to make it work. It's hard to resist houses like this: http://www.edinarealty.com/MN/Minneapolis/55405/homes-for-sale/2536-Harriet-Avenue-S-59729408/popup

Anyone want to rent a room?

I mean holy wow that house is gorgeous. Hopefully it's in better shape than our KC house (it appears to be), otherwise no deal. It's in Whittier, near all the stuff, and I mean ALL the stuff, worth doing around here.

But yeah, it looks like $250 is about what you're paying for a house in decent shape up here, so... ouch.

And apparently central air is not a thing here, because it just doesn't get that hot. Weirrrrrd.

Also, we might be getting a Corgi puppy soon if things work out, and OMG it's the cutest thing in the world And I never use OMG, ever.

The weeks of awesome

Ok, school's out forever on May 6. The twin cities have blessed me with a ton of great shows over the couple of weeks following that, which I will dub the weeks of awesome.

5/8 tUnE-YarDs / Buke & Gass
5/13 Fiery Furnaces
5/16 James Blake
5/17 Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings / Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears
5/18 Zoe Keating
5/19 Sleigh Bells / CSS
5/21 Death Cab for Cutie
5/23 Man Man
5/26 Adele

Man! I knew this town was going to make me broke.