Author: Cj B

Shopping Weekend

So this past weekend was very expensive for me! I went out and bought a new headboard and some other stuff.

But first! Friday night was Sirin’s birthday, so we had a party at her house. I brought cake and beverages. Very yummy! 🙂 We had an excellent time at her place. We went home (the whole 2 steps) about 2am.

Saturday we slept in and then met up with Jason and Steve for breakfast. After that we went to ZGallerie Outlet. I got an $800 headboard for $150! I really like it. The only thing is that it’s a king and not a queen. But I actually like the look of its size. Now I just have to get matching stuff for the bedroom. Including nightstands!

The whole pick it up and what not was a huge mess too. We got the truck half an hour before they closed and rushed over there. We were all running around like crazy.

That night Const and I went to Buca di Beppo. Our food was really good, but I thought it was a little over priced for what we got. Went home after that, put my bed together and rearranged the bedroom and then watched a movie in my new bed!

Sunday we got up and sat around the house for a while then Jason and Erick met us and we all went to Ikea and then to Home Depot again! Once we were done with that we went to Jason’s, watched The Queen and drank Champagne. Very fun!

Const left after we were done with that and I spent the night watching TV and reading, etc.

Now that I have a new headboard, I really want a new comforter and sheets, I found some on Amazon, I’d be saving $500, but I’d still be spending $300! I’m not really sure I want to spend that kind of money on them! Ugh, why am I so cheap!

Work has been boring.

Adios.

How to recover 2Gigs of space on your new Leopard install!

I installed Leopard the weekend after it came out. Besides the few things I wrote about in the past that aren’t working. I really like it for the most part.

I have a MacBook Pro with a 120 Gig hard drive in there. I allocated 15 gigs to Windows, so that doesn’t leave me with much space really. Since this is my MAIN desktop and the computer I use for everything, I have _everything_ on here. After my recent trip to Europe, I’m running out of space. So I went looking for ways to save some space.

I found three things you can do to easily recover 2 Gigs of space on your mac:
1) Go to /System/Library/Speach/Voices/ and delete the folder called “Alex”. This is the newest voice from Apple, but sadly it takes up a whole 700 Megs of space! Insane!

2) Go to /Library/Application Support/iDVD/ and delete the folder called “Themes”. You just saved 500 Megs.

3) Go to /LIbrary/Application Support/iPhoto and delete the folder called “Themes”. You just saved another 500 Megs!

Suggestions: Make backups on an external drive first and don’t do this if you plan on using the themes to create books/cards/etc in iDVD or iPhoto. I don’t use either of those options, so it’s an easy and quick fix.

(I take no responsibility if you break something)!

Update on the VA House…

So, remember I wrote about all the VA Paperwork we had to fill out a while ago.

Well our offer was rejected. Twice.

There were two initial offers on the house. Our offer which was about $10k less then what they were asking and then another offer which was $5k less then our offer! Well they rejected both the offers with no explanation.

So we resubmitted for $3k less then what they are asking. And they rejected that one with “You’re going in the right direction”.

Obviously these people have never heard of negotiation? Come back with a counter or something! Idiots. So we’re going to let them sit on it for a while. My dad estimates it’ll take about $15k to get it up to livable conditions, so we don’t want to give them anything more then we have too!

One of the houses that we put an offer on a while ago is still on the market as well. I think I’m gonna call my dad and have him resubmit the same offer to see what they say now. It’s been 3 months since we first made an offer, surely he’s a little more willing to sell now. 🙂 Plus with prices going down 5.1% across the country, that’s good news for me!

Also my dad has been working with this guy at Polk County Bank for a while now, he had me fill out an application so that way the guy had it all when we do finally find a place and we can move quick. Well I mailed it all into him and apparently he forgot what was going on because he passed it onto someone else who then passed it onto this girl I used to work with at Liberty Bank back in the late nighties! She called me to get more information and the story she was told was that I am buying a house to move back to Iowa to live in. How do they get the stories so messed up! lol.

Anyways, I got to talking with her about what our price range should really be… Her answer.. “For you guys, basically the sky is the limit”… ::Evil laugh:: They’ll be funding it internally and since our family has been doing business with them for over 30 years and have taken out so many loans from them (mostly business loans like this one), they know we’re good for it. I love small town banks, even if they are a bit stuffy!

Adios!

Restaurants in Prague and Vienna

While we were out and about in Prague and Vienna we ate out a every night. Here’s a list of some of my favorite places we ate at while there (in no real order):

Vienna

1) Cafe Central – Vienna. They had some very good cakes and desserts. As well as excellent Coffee and Tea
2) Hotel Sacher – Vienna. You must visit this place for the famous Sachertorte. It’s well worth the price. Plus the waiters were all hot. 🙂
3) Cafe Frauenhuber – Vienna. Excellent Wiener Schnitzel. Also a great atmosphere and history as this is the supposed last place that Mozart’s last public performance took place here.
4) Cafe Landtmann – Vienna. A fairly expensive place, but well worth it. The food was excellent as well as the atmosphere. I’d suggest sitting inside in the “Smoking” area as it’s much nicer then the outdoors area. However, when you sit in the glass enclosure outside you get a wonderful view of the Rathaus.
5) Haas & Haas – Vienna. Stop here in the afternoon for a wonderful drink of tea and some excellent desserts. They have a WONDERFUL chocolate brownie type thing. Just amazing. I can’t remember the name, but ask your waitress, it was the first item listed on the dessert menu.

Prague

1) Jama Pub – Prague. Stop in here for a quick bite in the afternoon. They have some pretty americanized food. But it was excellent and everyone was very friendly. This is also a great pub to stop into at night for a quick drink.
2) I honestly don’t remember the name of this place and sadly I can’t find the business card we took from there, but it’s right next to Jama Pub in Prague. You can find it because they are next door to each other (there’s a car lot in between then, it’s down the street towards Vodickova) and this one has a fish tank in the window.
3) Marie Teresie Restaurant – Prague. Another great place to go eat, it was a little dead when we went, but we were there early and on a week night. It’s in the basement and they had some excellent decorations and history.
4) Restaurant Gratia – Prague. This was probably my favorite place we ate at while in Prague. Located in the arcade of the house is a commemorative board reminding of the fact that at that very place, in November, 1989, by the brutal suppression of the peaceful students’ demonstration the “velvet revolution” started. The food was soo good. You can see a picture of me and my food here!
5) If you’re there during the Winter Festival/Christmas Market time, be sure and stop at one of the stands and pick up some Staroceske Trdlo . I’d highly suggest hanging around and watching it be made too. It’s pretty interesting.
6) And lastly, if you’re feeling adventurous! Try out one of the MANY MANY stands located between Mustek and Museum metro stations in Wenceslas Square. You can smell the meat cooking from a long ways away! It was actually really good. 🙂