Saturday Jenn and I went out house hunting with the realtor again. This time, however, we met with success - we found a beautiful house that had everything we wanted. We walked through and loved everything about it. Very spacious, beautiful construction, excellent floor plan, lots of character. Perfect.

You know when people tell you that when you walk into a house you just sort of “know” whether that’s the house for you? We knew. It was awesome.

We went through a couple more houses just to make sure, but we couldn’t stop thinking about that one. We decided to make an offer.

The realtor went back to the office to draw up the paperwork and told us to go hang out at Starbucks or something for a half hour while things got prepared.

Twenty minutes or so later, I got a call from the realtor.

Someone made an offer the day before on our house and it was accepted. So, from the category “a day late and a dollar short,” we were a day late.

sigh…

I guess we’re going to take a day and go through some more this weekend, but I don’t think we have that many now that we want to see. I know much better what features I’m looking for in a house (at least, I know all the things about the house we lost that I would like to see in any future prospects) and none of the ones we have seen so far even come close.

So… the search continues. Much to my dismay.

In related news, our next door neighbors moved out of their apartment this weekend. It made me very jealous, though honestly I don’t know if they’re moving to a house or just another apartment. Either way, I couldn’t help but feel like it should be me doing the moving out.

What is it about developers that requires them to practice poor hygiene? I went to a Microsoft developer event and the sour body odor stink was nigh unto overwhelming. Besides that, I think it’s mandatory to have some sort of respiratory issue requiring you huff and puff like you’re working out the largest crap of your life.

This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this phenomenon, and I think it’s high time someone did something about it. Maybe that’s why they hand out t-shirts - as a subtle hint to folks that they need to change clothes sometimes. If that’s the case, I suggest the hint is too subtle. Perhaps it’s time for “Microsoft soap-on-a-rope” or “Deodorant 2003.”

(My suspicions were confirmed on this point when I more closely investigated the tag on the shirt I got from the event. See for yourself.)

Oh, and I don’t claim to be a fashion guru, but I’m pretty sure the Hawaiian shirt, khaki pants, and Birkenstocks-with-no-socks combo does not fall under “haute couture.” (There were two of those there.)

I went to Mr. Bill’s Trivia again last night with Andrew and Susan and crew. Always a good time. Andrew laid off the beer a bit this time so he didn’t go shouting the answers to the questions for the world to hear, but Susan spilled her drink in her lap after getting worked up about one of the questions so I almost had to cut her off.

It was confirmed once again last night that Jenn and I think pretty much the same thought process entirely. It began with a conversation Andrew and I had about reality TV:

Andrew: Do you watch reality TV? Travis: Yeah, Survivor and sometimes American Idol. You? A: Both of those. Oh, and Average Joe. T: Is that the one where the guys wear the masks? A: No, it’s the one where the lady has to choose between a group of average guys and a group of models. T: Who’d she choose last season? A: The model. T: Of course she did. Was there ever any doubt?

*** Time passes… conversations change, the trivia game continues, and somehow someone starts talking about reality TV again… ***

Jenn: So you like reality TV? A: I watch a couple of shows. Average Joe… J: Is that the one where the guys wear the masks?

I think you see where that’s going.

I ended up eating way too much - a huge nacho, an order of cheese sticks, an order of potato skins, and three iced teas - and this morning I can still taste the potato skins. I really need to just cut back when I’m there.

Anyway, that was a good time. It’s always fun to hang out with those guys. Plus, Andrew finally won something at the trivia game ($1 off his meal), so his bad luck streak is broken.

Super Diamond is coming Saturday, March 13, to the Crystal Ballroom and both Jenn and I are thinking this group needs to go experience the Surreal Neil. Andrew’s firmly against it, which will make it all that much more fun. Doesn’t look like we have a hockey game that night (is the season over already?) so it’d be cool.

In entirely other news, it turns out Hasbro is releasing (or re-releasing?) the “original trilogy” line of Star Wars action figures. I never got a Millennium Falcon and I’ve always wanted one. I don’t know what I’d do with it, but I want it. Maybe I’ll have to get one now.

Okay, now this is just plain cool. And I don’t even play guitar.

I called my mortgage broker who said it was no issue to raise my budget for houses, so I’m doing just that. I found a good rule of thumb is for every $1000 extra you want to spend, it’s an additional $6 monthly payment.

I told my realtor that and got back a listing of 81 possibilities. 81! Looks like opening up the budget has opened the door to more possibilities. And these are actually decent ones, too. It’s almost like there are “tiers” in the housing market - sort of like tax brackets. Certain types of houses will be found at certain price levels. I think I’ve found the price level I was meant to be looking in to begin with. Lots more that look good to me here.

Jenn and I went over the list of 81 last night and whittled them down to 21 that we want to see more information on. Not sure how much further down we can cut the list, but that does mean a full day this weekend driving around looking at places. Maybe this weekend will be the one?

I’ve realized for quite some time that I just have too much stuff to remember so things end up falling through the cracks. The latest issue I’ve run into is the fact that so many things out there require so many different passwords that I can’t keep them all straight. Either you end up using the same password for everything or you start forgetting what all the passwords are that you’ve registered places.

To that end, I started investigating different options. At first I liked the idea of this hardware keychain you can get from Mandylion Labs where you just cart the keychain around and look things up on it that way. There were only two problems: first, it only holds 20 passwords and I need it to hold more than that; second, it’s like $65, and I don’t feel like investing that much.

I decided the best way to go was a password management program, but then you run into the problem that you can’t cart your computer all over the place, so you need the thing to be self-contained either on your handheld computer or on a USB keychain drive. Since the keychain drive is more portable (and I happen to have one), I went with that.

What I came up with was Password Manager XP from CP-Lab.com. You can install it on your local machine and then store the database on your USB keychain, or you can create a local copy of the program itself right on the keychain. In my case, I did both - that way, regardless of where I run it from (my computer or the keychain), it’ll connect to the password database.

It also has features like the ability to right-click a password field on a web page and insert your password directly from the database (and then copy your username to the clipboard so you can paste that in, too).

And it only costs $20. Which is just about right for my pocketbook. Er, wallet. Whatever.

I’m digging it. Now I can actually change all of the passwords I have everywhere and not have to worry about forgetting - I’ll just look them up.