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Our New House from B-B-B-Brian on Vimeo.

We have some new photos of our new house to share. I took a video “tour” of the house as well, but I’m having trouble getting it onto Vimeo. Will post it here as soon as it’s up.

Photos!

I’ve stumbled upon a website called Cquestrate, which is an “open-source” movement to bring an idea to fruition, thus solving the problem of excessive CO2 emissions in our atmosphere. The idea: Add lime to our sea waters. Adding lime will give the sea water twice the capability of absorbing CO2, and even though the process of extracting the lime via mining creates CO2, the amount it ends up absorbing is double of what is needed to extract it, thus still being a “carbon-negative” process.

They’re looking for intelligent people who are experts in related fields (mining, environmental analysis, bulk transport, etc.) to submit their ideas and answers to problems to their website. Even if their method of adding lime to seawater doesn’t end up working, their method of finding a solution is very creative and powerful. Utilizing the internet and patent-free ideology, they can freely tap into the enormous brain power of everyone who visits their website.

And speaking of their website, here it is!

Do you think it’s a viable method of reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? Add your thoughts in the comments below.

Wow, never thought I’d actually say it: We bought a house! It’s located in Markham at Woodbine and Major Mack, about 5 minutes away from my in-laws, and just a few minutes from our friends Jean and Aimee. Closing date is mid-August (!!), so we’ll have time to get things gradually moved in between then and when we plan on moving in for good (around the Sept. 1st weekend). Painting is on our list of things to do and we’re going to pick out paints very soon!

Before I get to pictures, here’s a quick description: 9′ ceiling on the main floor, hardwood almost everywhere (if not everywhere), 2 car garage, fireplace in the family room, dining area, living room, all open concept kitchen, appliances including fridge, dishwasher, stove (with flat-top burners), washer/dryer, unfinished basement, oak staircase, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms.

Pictures!

We’ll be visiting the house again on Sunday to have another look. I’ll bring my camera along with me to get better photos. Leave comments if you want a photo taken of something!

A well-written and relatively short article on writing with style, by famed author Kurt Vonnegut. He also happens to be my wife’s favorite author of all time, so, he’s got that going for him.

How to Write With Style

Basically, no. Nadia changed her mind on the kitchen so we’re not going to pursue it any longer. We’re still looking for a place to put an offer on, and will see one or two more houses tomorrow.

The last place we put an offer on was 323 Bur Oak (a few posts ago), and we found out that it’s been sold on condition. The condition lasts a week, we don’t know why or what the condition is, but we expect it to go through without a problem. We are now looking at another house that is close by to that one, though not quite as nice (or, luckily, as expensive). I won’t list the address here because it is not publicly listed, though I will post photos. Because it has been 17 days on the market, we see no problem waiting to make sure 323 Bur Oak actually does get sold, at which point we will make an offer on this one. It has 3 bathrooms, an unfinished basement with washer/dryer, a nicely built deck outside between the house and the 1 car garage (with parking space beside it), 9′ cieling on the main floor, pot lights in the family room, central air, all kitchen appliances (these would need to be replaced as they are quite old), all electric light fixtures, etc. etc.

It’s the fourth day (third full day) of recovery from getting my wisdom teeth out, and still eating mush foods. I just had two chocolate puddings for breakfast and to be honest, I’m getting a little sick of them. My diet includes mashed potatoes, congee, pudding, and ice cream milkshakes. What’s keeping me from eating more solid foods are the stitches in my mouth – they rub against my cheek and cut the ever living crap out of it. It’s not a complete breakfast without drinking a little bit of your own blood. Anyway, the stitches are supposed to dissolve in about 3 more days. Hopefully it’s before that!

While sitting here being extremely bored, I decided to give my Ubuntu OS another try. For those not familiar with it, it’s a free alternative to Windows XP/Vista (despite Best Buy selling it for $20). Now I’ll admit, it’s quite intimidating, even for me. The one thing it has going for it though is it’s community of developers and of general users. If you ever run into a problem, chances are that someone has posted it online and someone else has posted a solution. I’m currently writing this from my Ubuntu installation, and everything is working perfectly with only one exception: If I want to play a game like Call of Duty 4, I have to go back to my Windows XP installation. Ubuntu just doesn’t handle Windows games 100% (though there are some games that, when run with a program like WINE, can be run without any problems in Ubuntu).

Taking into consideration that one fallback, I’m still extremely pleased with how it’s running. The desktop effects are very nice and smooth, and it supports my dual monitor setup quite well. Skype even has a nice little client for Linux users, so I’ve been using that as well.

In about 5 minutes I’ll be out the door with Nadia to look at five more houses. I’ll post back with our favorite(s)!

So I now have my wisdom teeth out. There was no knock out, no laughing gas, only four or five shots to freeze my mouth up so I wouldn’t feel anything except extreme pressure as they pulled and pushed relentlessly to get the tooth out. The whole procedure didn’t take longer than about 45 minutes, and the pulling of the teeth hurt only a little. What really hurt was the drilling into the teeth, and the initial shots of mouth-freeze.

My wisdom teeth are now in a small cup you normally put marinara sauce in. My mouth is actually not that sore as long as I don’t open it or move my jaw from side to side at all. If I do, the pain is absurdly bad. I’ve attached some pretty gross photos. The first is of my bottom right wisdom tooth which was actually infected (the gum around it is fine, it was just the tooth that was infected). They cracked it in half to yank it out, so you can actually see the infection below. The second photo is of the two wisdom teeth (the two upper ones) that they didn’t have to break apart. Talk about friggin’ huge!

Well in about 3 and a half hours, I’ll be sitting in the dentist’s chair getting prepped for the removal (or “extraction” as they like calling it) of my four wisdom teeth, all of which are severely impacted. I think it goes without saying that I’m less than excited.

On the flip side, I get happy pills from the nice lady!