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624 days ago
The jump is complete... officially. Alyse and I have now set up residence in Austin, TX. It's been a rather long and strange trip, but it's good to be in a home again. Our in-laws were nice enough to set us up in their guest house for almost six months while our house was being built. Getting in here was one of the most taxing experiences I've ever had buying a house. The last two were simple. Sign some forms, move in. This one had a builder that was up against a financial wall. It was their end of fiscal year, so they wanted to make sure everyone closed by Jan. 31st. The sub-prime crisis is in full swing, and loans we applied for in May of 2007 are now non existant. We ended up going with our own loan provider, Prodigy Mortgage LLC. These guys are a start-up and they were great. The were up past 10pm on several nights to rush our application and get us closed by noon on Jan 31. We had 34 minutes to spare on Jan. 31 when we signed. The consequence being the house going ...
752 days ago
Nepal can hardly be summed up in a single blog entry, however I have finally gotten a portion of the pictures upload for you see some fraction of our experience there. I took over 1200 photographs, and the combined total of the group was probably near 10,000 photographs. This is a mere 200, as paging through even that many can become a drawn out affair. The trip was in-tents! Don't be too fooled by the beautiful scenery, most of the trip I spent looking at the ground trying not to step in anything that might carry a pathogen. However, when we did stop to look up, it was an impressive sight almost everywhere. I could only describe it as an asian fairy tale world come to life. Think Hobbit, but in Asia instead of England. Most of the villages we visited could only be reached by foot, donky, yak, or otherwise. As such these areas showed little impact of cars, trucks, and modern machinery which reveals just how beautiful this country is. There isn't much usable land, ...
