We are now T-minus-one month to house purchasement and the subsequent Milo Move V. I have a feeling this is going to be among the longest months of my existence. In situations like this, I have a certain urge to plan things out and get them done. There are many plans made; however, none of them can be done at this point. Can't buy most of the stuff we're planning on buying because there's nowhere to put it yet. Can't get in there and do anything because we don't own the place yet. It's slightly maddening.

We did make a couple moves over the past few days. With July 4th coming up this weekend, we're now at a time of year to reflect on our country's history, honor those who have fought to preserve our freedom, and SAVE SAVE SAVE ON A WATERBED! BLOWOUT PRICES! ROCK-BOTTOM DEALS ON APPLIANCES! LOWEST PRICES OF THE SEASON! BUY BUY BUY!

It's actually gotten to the point where places are having July 4th sales a full week before the holiday, kind of like the way the malls put up their Christmas decorations around the third week of October nowadays. However, since we have stuff we need, this early display of commercial patriotism benefited us somewhat.

The first stop was Value City Furniture, where we were responding to a beacon placed in the newspaper advertising what looked like a couple decent living room sets for a price that was in our price range. And what's more, it was on sale (SAVE SAVE SAVE!). However, at our price range, the meaning of "decent" is up for interpretation. So we went to check it out.

Apparently when we drove into the parking lot, we crossed some sort of electric eye or similar such sensor that alerted the sales staff to our presence, as there was no fewer than five shady-looking men, dressed in suits of various grey shades, all with excessive hair either on the head, face, or both, hovering by the front door when we came in. Fortunately we had Zed with us, and he was putting up enough of a fuss at wanting out of his stroller that they hesitated for a split second, allowing us to escape to the right towards one of the sets of furniture we wished to examine.

However, no sooner did I light upon the couch than one of the HairSuits went into action. He broke into an imaginary stroll, acting as if he just happened to be walking through the area, and then pretended he just suddenly saw us there. He then started the talking. "Finding everything OK?" "This is a nice set, isn't it?" "The sale price only lasts through Monday!" I thought for a minute about how horribly pathetic this guy's life must be. It can't be fun wasting away your days by having to troll around a furniture store trying to make a catch.

Eventually, the guy finally read our level of dis-interest in his presence. "If you need anything, just let me know!" Sure buddy, you got it. Furniture, heart surgery, legal advice, i'm coming your way.

We quickly determined that in the case of living room set #1, "decent" interpreted as "piece of crap," so we set out to find and evaluate the other, slightly more expensive set. During our search, Zed toddled up to a nice-looking older lady, probably grandmother age, that was sitting in the furniture people-watching. Zed likes grandmothers, so he went to say hi. She was very nice towards him, told us he was cute (duh), and things like that. And wouldn't you know it, she happened to work there. We showed her the set we were trying to find, and she proceeded to show it to us, explain our options, and generally do an excellent job.

"Decent" interpreted as "pretty darn good" on the second set, so we ended up getting this sofa and loveseat and these tables. They're now tucked in Layaway, waiting for Milo Move V. While we went to arrange payment terms, we passed the HairSuit from earlier, who seemed to get a look on his face that was a mixture of frustrated and crestfallen. Hopefully we didn't drive him to drink.

At the other end of the spectrum, Zed was quite pleased. He was running up and down ramps, around displays, climbing on ottomans, and basically turning the store into his own little jungle gym. And then he would greet people and act cute, doing so more effectively than the HairSuits. I think he sold a dining room suite to one couple.

Having now determined the color of our living room furniture, we could now go buy paint, which was on sale at Home Depot for $5/off per gallon. We went in, showed the paint dude what colors we wanted and how much of each, he mixed them up, and we were done. Bing bang boom. My kind of transaction.

So it's not much, but it's a start. Now maybe I can hold off on buying tools until we actually close on the house.

-- We have a urinal in the men's room at work that is a testament to the wonders of advanced technology. They renovated said men's room over the winter, replacing the urinal with a model equipped with one of those newfangled light-sensing automatic flushing devices. It worked fine for a couple months, but about six weeks ago, it stopped flushing altogether. They took it off-line for a couple weeks until it was fixed, highly bewildering us males, who don't really know what to do when we walk into a public restroom and don't find a urinal. Then a couple weeks ago, it stopped working again. Today it's fixed, but now it's flushing every 45 seconds whether there's someone in there or not. We can hear it from the newsroom... just going "wooooooooshhhhhhhh..." like clockwork. I'm not sure who its target is, but it's definitely mocking someone.

-- Then on the outside, we have highly motiviated workers who are "powerwashing" our building. I say "highly motivated" because they're taking forever to do this, and we think they're highly motivated to get as much as possible out of their hourly rate. And whatever method of "powerwashing" they're doing doesn't involve the spraying of water. I'm guessing toothbrushes and small buckets of soapy solution.

Anyway, earlier this week they made it over to the front of the building, meaning they erected scaffolding around the sidewalks and placed plywood on top to protect us from falling powerwashing debris. This was all fine and good when I left work in broad daylight on Monday; however, when 4AM Tuesday rolled around, it got interesting. Trying to navigate the scaffolding maze in the dark was like trying to get through a fun house. I'm surprised they didn't put mirrors up just to mess with us. I would have.

-- And in the parking lot of the Travel America that I frequent in the mornings on the way to work, some shady-looking folk have set up a tent out of which they are selling fireworks 24-7. They have signs up at the door to the T-A to alert potential pyromaniacs of their presence, and a couple of the signs advertise T-N-T in big letters. I grinned and thought about how much of a hoot it would be if they actually did have dynamite. It would be just classic to see the Darwinism in action when some trucker bought a couple sticks and tried to shoot them off the roof of his tralier or something.

That's all for today. More in the near future.

We've all had long days. But that's all in your head. Hours are the same length every day, although it doesn't always seem like it. Maybe you thought the longest day of your year was that day you were stuck in that eight-hour company ethics meeting. Or maybe it was on the final day of your week-long "vacation" at your in-laws, when you were forced by your wife, at imaginary gunpoint, to help her Aunt "Large" Marge, unabashedly wrapped in spandex, plant petunias in front of her house.

Scientifically, today is actually the longest day of the year. It's the summer solstice, the first day of summer, the day the spaceship is stopping by to pick up your cult (if you're into that). It also means it's the peak of a time of year that seems somewhat out of whack to those of us who are already awake when Mother Nature crawls out of bed. There's something odd about looking out the window and seeing full daylight at 5:45 AM, which is what happens for approximately a week before and after this particular date.

However, this time of year was even stranger when I was living in Michigan. Being an East Coastite, I was used to certain things -- the sun rising over the ocean instead of setting on it like it does on the West Coast, being able to drive to said ocean in no more than two hours, and the word "beach" meaning natural sand at said ocean placed there by real waves, not a bunch of dirt and crap dragged to the edge of a big lake like they have in the Great Lakes State.

However, there was a phenomenon in Michigan around this time of year that caught me by surprise. Because Michigan is so far west in the Eastern time zone, there's a notable daylight difference. The sun typcially tends to set about 45 minutes later than it does in Delaware. Therefore, at this time of year, you can actually still see outside when the clock strikes 10pm. It tends to knock you off your stride a bit.

-- Breaking news today: Iran has apparently seized several British naval vessels. Does anyone else find this to be just fundamentally wrong? What did they use, a big floating camel? God, that's got to be embarrasing. This is probably worse than when England didn't qualify for the World Cup in 1994. I mean, just say it once... Iranian Navy. How can you not chuckle?

-- I know that we need to be vigilant and what not in this day and age. But sometimes, people seem to over-react a little bit, especially in Washington. Part of the DC Metro was shut down for a while this morning because of a "suspicious package" on the tracks. It turned out to be a sleeping bag, one that probably rolled off some poor homeless guy's cart. Now I'm no terrorism expert, but I think I can tell a sleeping bag's not a bomb without a whole lot of examination.

-- Joan Rivers is currently on the television behind me. I'm jealous of her. It must be nice to not need a costume at Halloween.

I'm off to procure homeowner's insurance. Have a lovely Monday.

Well, here we are, Thursday, and I think DC has finally cooled off from Reaganpalooza. I knew as soon as that story broke that it was going to make for an interesting week at work. The whole city pretty much came to a standstill after noon on Wednesday and all day on Friday. That was kind of nice, because it meant a little less traffic -- especially on Friday, because I can see National Cathedral from my window, and our street was the northern point of closure on Wisconsin Avenue. Normally, Wisconsin is best described as taking the traffic from your local interstate and placing it on the street outside your house. But Friday, there was nobody around. Still, it was pretty neat... it was the first major news event to happen since I started working at WTOP.

We're heading into the home stretch of The Ordeal Which Is Buying A House. On the construction front, things are excellent -- the carpeting was 60 percent complete on Monday evening, meaning by now it's all done. Basically, the only obvious things that aren't in yet are doorknobs and electrical outlet/switch plates. Everything looks good except for the curious hole in the kitchen floor. It's over near the wall and is about one inch in diameter. I'm quite hopeful that they're going to notice that sometime in the next six weeks and I'm not going to have to call them out on it at the walkthrough.

My communication with the mortgage company finally wound its way through the channels, from me to the phone company to some soothsayer in Turkey to a dude in Slovenia and back to Greenville, DE. It's a state program with a nice cushy 5.5% interest rate. So now the state will spend the next few weeks deciding if we are worthy of receiving their money.

In the meantime, we've been pricing furniture, refrigerators, and other items we'll need for the place. We've located decent stuff we can actually afford at places like Big Lots and Sears Scratch 'n' Dent, perhaps two of the coolest places on Earth. However, the entertainment center has been more difficult. Mary has something particular in mind that costs no less than $500 in stores, even the Sauder Home version. While lamenting this fact the other day, she muttered that I should just build one.

My ears pricked up. Hark! Do I sense the opportunity to acquire numerous power tools? I caught a glance of death.

We'll see what happens. We've decided to go with this. And since Hearn convinced me I could actually do this, any impending disasters are hereby his fault.

In closing, I'd like to note that the window in my studio is currently frosted glass. This is not a normal feature -- that's how humid it is in DC right now. I almost had to wade through the air to my car today. Happy Summer!

I have come to dislike holidays. Well, not the major family holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. And especially not my birthday. Those are still cool.

But these major government holidays like Memorial Day annoy me. Since I work in radio, I don't get these days off like everybody else does. You can close the bank, and the store, and the mortgage office, but you can't just shut off the radio station. I don't even get paid extra or get any comp time. If I were to take the day off, it would cost me a vacation day. It's just expected that we're at work.

So for me, the only differences between a holiday and a regular work day are: 1) I can't make any progress on anything in the real world, like send or receive mail, finalize my mortgage, update my budget off my online bank statement, things like that. 2) It seems many people decide to celebrate Memorial Day by driving their cars. One of the few enjoyable things about my 2:30AM-4AM daily journey to DC is that I get to do it more or less by myself. But not on Memorial Day weekend. No, instead, I get to drive in a gaggle of cars driving between 60 and 63 MPH, which means one car will get thisclose to passing the one in the lane next to it, only to fall back, so I can't get by. Too close for missles, Goose, I'm switching to guns.... (Why did the RIO always need to know that anyway? Shut up and shoot!)

What's more, much of my daily entertainment isn't taking place today because the generators of such were off yesterday. Dave Barry didn't blog at all. WVSR took the day off. Even the Bob and Tom show was off yesterday, which meant I had no show to record and listen to in the car on the way to and from work. (I should mention that some radio people, specificially 30+ year veterans with four Marconi awards, do indeed get Memorial Day off, and one of the lackeys gets to work in their place. Yes, I am a lackey.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the concept of Memorial Day at all. I think it's great that hundreds of thousands of people visited DC over the weekend for the WW2 memorial and other stuff. And I'm quite pleased that our station is located in a portion of DC that is well removed from all the interesting stuff, so I didn't even notice any of those people. It's all grood, I suppose -- it rained here yesterday anyway.

-- My car is out of surgery and back at my service. I've pretty much broken in the new parts now, which include the hood, the front bumper, the left front headlight, the left front fender, and the rear driver's side door. There's also a new front door brace on the driver's side, so the door is notably stiffer when opening and closing. When I first got it back, you could tell from 150 feet that the right headlight was new and the left one wasn't. Now they're both equally dirty, so it's more balanced. Now to go out and get some of those doodads that supposedly scare deer away. Do those really work?

-- The house is coming along. It is now outfitted with doors and the whole place has been painted. They've put down the kitchen floor, and the cabinets and countertops are there and waiting to be installed. Hopefully I will be locking in the mortgage rate this week. This is both terrifying and frustrating -- the former because it's another step towards spending an ungodly amount of money, and the latter because I quite literally have had an easier time communicating with AP and CBS reporters in Iraq than I've had trying to get someone from GMAC Mortgage on the phone the past two weeks. You would think someone in Baghdad would be harder to reach than someone in Wilmington, Delaware. And you would be wrong.

-- Hearn and I golfed at The Rock on Friday. I actually did quite well, especially for my first round of the season. I was actually hitting fairway irons onto greens, which never happens. I'm not sure what I was doing, but I say "it's gotta be the shoes" -- I replaced my 10-year-old footware with a new pair of Adidas shoes, originally $100, now $50. Loving that. If I could putt, I would have shot 80 instead of 92. But at least I still whomped Hearn. His drive on #4 hit the water tower. That's hard to do, unless you're Craig and you're trying to hit it on purpose. When this happens, it generates a highly amusing DONG that catches the attention of everybody on the course. It was HIGH-larious.

-- Anyone familiar with lacrosse... is it an NCAA rule that Johns Hopkins and Syracuse have to play in either the semifinals or the finals of the NCAA tournament every year? Because it sure seems like they do.

This is perhaps the best StrongBad email ever. And at least the Homestar people were working this weekend, so I have something to enjoy this morning. Peace out.