New Mexican wonders

I spent part of Saturday at national park that I would have thought would be a monument, another part at a monument that I thought would be a park, and the rest on highways that I thought would never end.

Ben, another intern in my department at SNL (who turns out to be a CMU student) picked me up at 5 in the morning and we struck out in the general direction of Texas. The first attraction was the Valley of Fires, which turned out to look more interesting on Google maps than from the road. It's an old lava flow (not formed by any recently volcanic activity) but pretty much just looks like a boulder field. There is a stretch along I-40 somewhere around Gallup, NM where you can see some lava flows, and I actually think those are more interesting.

We continued on to Roswell. Ben wanted to get pictures of the outside of the alien museum, but otherwise it was essentially just a quick drive through. They have really capitalized on the alien hype, and it seems like every other storefront has some type of Martian in the window. I was quite amused. Now I can say I've been to Roswell, and just need to come up with some abduction story to go with it.

Our first real destination was Carlsbad Cavern. I suggest following the link to read some of the facts and figures. The biggest room in the cavern is 750ft below the surface, so either you walk down a mile long path, or ride down the elevator. We elected for the scenic route: the path. It turned out to be in better condition than most roads in Pittsburgh. The asphalt surface is about 4 feet wide and lined with stainless steel railings along (both sides of) its entirety. I brought a flashlight, but it was more of a burden than anything else. The place is adorned with over a thousand bulbs (and tubes). You can't always see everything around you, but most of it. The cave itself is amazing. My spelunking experience prior to this is derived completely from Tongue River Cave (near Sheridan) and would scare away anyone with claustrophobic tendencies. There you have to think skinny, hunch down, crawl, and watch your steps. Carlsbad Cavern is more like a cathedral. I spent more time looking up at the high ceilings than anything else. The stalactites and stalagmites made me think of pipe organ plumbing and ornate woodwork you might see on old church. It was definitely a cavern in a big wide openings sense, and not a cave. At the bottom disabled visitors can even share in the experience on the wheelchair accessible portion of the path. The link has pictures, so take a look, and remember that everything is actually bigger than how it looks in the image. By the way, the cavern is a national park.

After returning to the car we started our return trip. We took a westward bearing, and eventually pulled in to the White Sands National Monument visitor station. I actually enjoyed this part of our trip the most. 275 square miles in middle of the desert is covered with gypsum sands. The granules are actually crystalline, and would normally be transparent if they were bigger and polished. The scratches on the surface (from blowing around in the wind) are what make the sand white. Again, follow the link for pictures and some facts and figures. We went on the sunset stroll with the ranger, and I took a bunch of (film based) photographs. Her little talk was interesting, and it was also fun to watch the young kids play in the sand. Here are some things that I found most interesting:

• They plow a road through the dunes just like you would in snow. In fact, you could take pictures that would look like they were from the Pacific Northwest or Michigan's UP or something. The sand is that white, and they pile it up on on the shoulders just like snow.
• This is one of three gypsum dune areas in the world. Gypsum is water soluble, so it normally gets washed away, but this area has no outlet for runoff so the gypsum collects. It's something like the salt flats in Utah: the gypsum runs down streams from the mountains, and just sits in the basin.
• Kids were 'sledding' down the dunes on disks and such. Again, you could almost be fooled by a picture into thinking they were on snow, but their clothes would give it away.
• If you dig down in the sand, you eventually hit water, and it's really shallow. The hole they used to demonstrate was only about 3 feet deep. The water is foul, and has a strong odor to it. Remember water doesn't flow out of this region, only in.
• The government has a large missile range that essentially surrounds the monument. The Trinity site (where the first atomic bomb was detonated) is in land that is now part of the range. Ben and I actually drove within 20 miles of it. They only allow visitors two days a year (once in April and once in October), so we couldn't stop.

We watched the sunset and drove around a bit more, then got back on the highway and started heading home. At 1:30 Sunday morning I was finally in bed. I had spent most of the day on asphalt, even the 2-3 hours we were underground.

Home Layout

Okay, once again you get to experience the amazing artistry of Ashlee using Microsoft Paint! Here's my rendition of the layout of the house. Please note that not everything is scaled to size. But at least it will give you an idea of what the house looks like, especially when combined with the pictures.

The House

Many people have been requesting pictures of this house that Todd and I submitted an offer on. So I'm going to go ahead and post some for you now! Unfortunately, I thought that I could use some of the pictures from the listing to augment my own collection, but I can't find the listing anymore (which is a good thing since that means the seller changed the status from "Active" to "Pending."

This is a picture of our front yard. It has a desert landscape with a huge cactus in front. We also have a grapefruit tree in front! Todd and I are thinking that we would likely leave this landscape in place. It's easy to take care of. All I would do is make the path a little more defined with the rocks.

The carport leads to a finished 2 car garage. The garage door needs a little fixing up (something about the track not really being right), but the contractor who is fixing up the house for the seller mentioned to us that he was having someone come by to look at it. But, let's go inside!


This is right as you walk in the front door. There is a decent sized living room and the doorway leads right to our kitchen. You can even see that past the kitchen is another small room (13' by 7.5') with a window to the backyard.


This is still standing in the living room, right before the doorway to the kitchen. To the left of the living room are the bedrooms. Two smaller bedrooms are on the left side of the hallway. The first doorway on the right side of the hallway is a linen closet. The second doorway is the main bathroom (decent sized, with enough room to put some sort of shelving or storage thing in there). The third doorway on the right leads to the master bedroom.


This is going through the doorway to the kitchen. The kitchen connect to a rather large family room (23' in length). There's a large window in the family room too!


Now, this is the room that is past the kitchen. The doorway behind me leads to a patio area and to our backyard (that has a pool!). Todd is taking the picture from standing inside our laundry room. The doorway to the kitchen is on the right side, just past the doorway that Todd is standing inside of.


This is a picture of the laundry room. The washer and dryer would go behind the door. The whole left wall is open and we could easily install some shelves or a counter back there. There's also a rack for hanging clothes. Overall, it's a nice sized laundry room (and inside!).

Now, let's go back to the bedroom side of the house for some pictures!


This is the main bathroom.


This is a picture of the master bedroom. As you can see, there is a main bedroom and then a small sitting room connected to it. The French doors from the sitting room lead out to the backyard (and the pool)!


This is standing in the sitting room looking back at the entrance to the Master Bedroom. There is a nice sized closet right against that wall. Then, directly to my left is the walk-in closet (it's huge!). Also on the left would be the master bathroom. And through the doorway to the master bedroom you can see the doorway to one of the other bedrooms. Here are some pictures of those...


This picture shows the bedrooms and the windows in each. Each one also has a closet like this (though in the other one it's a little smaller and the corner of the room has built in shelves):





Anyway, those are some pictures. As some of you know, the inspection went well. There's nothing major that is wrong with the house. The inspector found some small things, but almost all of those can be fixed up relatively cheaply by Todd (the handyman). Also, while the inspector was conducting the inspection, the contractor for the house came in. The inspector gave him a copy of the inspection report and the contractor said he would fix a lot of the little things (replacing a single shingle on the roof, putting shower heads in the bathrooms, etc.). We're glad he was so helpful! To be honest, though, we're not counting on him fixing up all those things. That won't be a condition on whether or not we buy the house. There's not a lot wrong with it and we can fix most of it easily (and it doesn't need to be done immediately). So we've put our earnest money down and we're gathering the documents now for the loan. The closing date is August 28th. We're so excited!

For now, I'm staying out in Apache Junction with my Aunt Wanda and Uncle Pat. I start doing some things for the Head Start tomorrow and then I get Tuesday off. Wednesday and Thursday I go through an orientation...and then I'm not sure what I'll be doing. I do know that I start home visits before the students come to school (which will be August 10th).

I think I'll hit my little "Publish Post" button and call it an evening. I want to make sure I have everything ready for the morning!

P.S. I'll go ahead and try to draw up a layout picture for the house and get it posted tonight too!

Inspection

The Inspection of the home begins tomorrow. The Inspector will be there at 8am. Todd and I will show up at 10am and hear the results.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

P.S. We will post pictures tomorrow of the house. We're going there with the camera and a tape measure.

So, more news...

....

....

While our Realtor doesn't have the actual document in her hand....

...

...

The Seller's agent has said that....


OUR OFFER WAS ACCEPTED!!!!!!!

More to come when I calm down.

New House, New Offer

Well, we landed on our feet. The fact that the other house already had an offer pending was a bummer, but the next day another home came up on the Realtor's site that looked nice. So after a flurry of phone calls, it was arranged that our Realtor would meet me at the home that evening.

Thankfully Uncle Pat and Aunt Wanda were willing to come and pick me up at ASU (only about 20 minutes after I got off the bus from the school site), and take me to see the house. We walked through it and I was really grateful to have their advice as we looked it over!

Knowing how fast regular homes (not short-sales, not lender-owned) go on the market, Todd and I put in an offer that very night. We had also heard from the Seller's Realtor that he was expecting another offer. I talked to Stephanie (our Realtor) today and the other agent got our offer...and didn't get the other one. So as far as we know, our offer is the only one he's taking to the sellers this afternoon.

They are supposed to get back to us by 5pm.

I'll put up pictures when I can. If all goes as planned, Todd and I will go back by the house on Friday or Saturday and take more pictures.

Once again, keep your fingers crossed for us!

-Ashlee

P.S. Oh...And this house has a pool. YAY!

=(

The house already has an offer pending on it. We're going to put a backup offer on it. I'm pretty bummed though.

It makes me remember a saying that my brother's wrestling team had.

"He who hesitates, lost."

Back to square one.

Home Search!

Ashlee here with what is probably going to be a longer blog post. With pictures (Thanks to Todd for helping me to figure out what was wrong with my uploading!).

This weekend Todd came up to visit me, which was great. He picked me up Friday night and we went to Apache Junction. We stayed the night in our unit. Unfortunately, someone decided the night before to throw a paving stone through the window. Here's some pictures that Uncle Pat sent out (I hope it's okay that I post them here).




Sometimes I just don't understand why people do these things. Thankfully the window didn't completely shatter. It was covered with plastic while we stayed there and we're told that it will be replaced over this next week.

In any case, on Saturday morning we met with our Realtor and went looking for houses. We must have looked at 6 or 7 different homes. Some were decent and others were...eye openers. On that day, we found 1 home that we liked. It is a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house. It's a short sale home though, which means that if we put an offer in we will likely not hear back from the seller for about 2 months (sometimes longer). And even then, there's no guarantee that our offer will be accepted. So at this point, we don't really want to buy a short sale because of the uncertainties and the time issue. If we don't close by December, we won't get the $8,000 tax credit the government is offering. So, while we liked that one and we'll put an offer in (just in case), we're not holding out breath.

Then we ran around Phoenix doing some errands for the rest of the afternoon and had a nice dinner at a Japanese Grill called Kabuki. It was pretty good and I tried Sake for the first time. It's a Japanese alcoholic drink...think like...a mix between wine and whiskey. It tastes like wine but has that burn that whiskey does. They served it in what amounted to an oversized shot glass. And that was plenty for me :)

We finally made our way back to Apache Junction and spent some time talking to Aunt Wanda and Uncle Pat, who had just returned from a motorcycle trip they made over the past couple of days. They have been such gracious hosts during our stays out there. We're very thankful for their kindness and generosity (and ability to put up with us!).

After chatting for a bit, Todd and I went back to our unit and watched a couple of movies, split a oven pizza, and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and went to check my email. My Realtor had emailed with an updated list (recent listings). There was just one home on the list. I saw the pictures and location and new that I had to see it. So after getting Todd up, I called the Realtor. I couldn't get a hold of her so I sent her an email. Then Todd and I went and had breakfast with Uncle Pat and Aunt Wanda, followed by a swim in the pool.

...Which was interrupted when I saw something near one of the drains in the pool. I didn't have my glasses on and figured it must be a shadow. After all, if there were something there, surely Todd would have seen it?

Or at least, that's what I thought. Until I saw, clearly, this thing looking back at me.

"What is that!?" I said, probably louder than absolutely necessary. Todd turned to look.

"Oh wow! It's a toad. And a big one."

This statement was followed by my high-pitched shriek and a sprinting swim to the other end of the pool. That was the end of my morning swim!

Now, I don't have a phobia about frogs or toads like I do snakes. I just didn't want to share my pool with this big guy. I felt a little bad though. When we left, he was hiding out by the ladder to get into the pool. I could only imagine some poor woman going to get in the pool and having a heart attack when she met Mr. Toad right there.

ANYway....

Our Realtor finally got back to us and we met at the house. I'll put some pictures of the house up now. First of all, here's the basic layout of the house. PLEASE NOTE: This is not to scale! It is not a very good drawing at all, but it will at least give you an idea.


Okay, so now that we have my very bad drawing out of the way, here are the actual pictures of the home:


This is a picture of the outside of the home. I love the two trees in the front. The dirt around the trees is outfitted with a drip system, so I can plant some flowers or something in there! Or better yet, my mom can come up and plant them =)

Just kidding. Here's some pictures of the inside.


When you walk in, you walk into an open room. The kitchen is to your left.


This picture was taking facing the kitchen from the living room (which is on your right after you come in the front door).


This picture is standing in the kitchen and facing the living room. As you can see, it's a nice and open area. I love the rock wall. I think it adds nice character to the house.


Heading towards the stone wall, there's a this doorway. After the doorway there is an office room to the right and a larger family room to the left.


Here's a picture of the family room that you would see. On the wall you can see the door that heads to the side of the house (and to the back). Now, when you go to the back of the family room and turn around, you see another neat little feature of the house...


This built in shelves/entertainment area. Here's a closer look...


I just love it. There's also speakers wired to the walls. Just a note, past this shelving unit, you can see the doorway to the office room that I spoke about earlier. Now let's go back out to the kitchen/living room area...then up the hallway to the other 3 bedrooms!


This is the bathroom that is on the left side of the hallway, past a little pantry area.


Not the best picture, but it shows the closet of one bedroom and across the hallway is the entrance to the master bedroom (which is nice and large, with its own master bathroom!).


This is looking directly into the master bathroom. And to the left is this:


So, it's not huge but it's a nice little spot to get ready in the morning!


So that's the house we saw. I loved it. The only problem is that the laundry room is outside in a room that's under the carport. It's not like it's a huge walk or anything. I think that it will be fine - just slip on some shoes, take the basket out there, switch laundry, and come back inside. Like I said, it's under the carport and like 5 feet away from the door that is in the kitchen.

The location is nice. It's just down the street from a shopping center that Todd and I like. There's a park past the shopping center and a golf course past that. It has easy access to the 202 and we drove from the house to ASU in 10 minutes (though there was no traffic).

This is a house that Todd and I want to put in an offer on. We're very excited about it, though there is one concern...It's not a home that is eligible for an FHA loan. Which means that we need to get qualified for a conventional loan and put 10% down on the house. So we're talking to our lenders to see if we're qualified. While the 10% down is more than we were expecting, we still think we would be able to do it. Please keep your fingers crossed for us.

And that's all for now. Sorry for the huge post! I'm talking to Todd on the phone right now as he's driving back to New Mexico (don't worry, he's using a hands-free device so both hands are on the steering wheel). And earlier this evening I think I got everything printed off that I'm going to need for the rest of the week. My last week at Institute!

I'll chat with you all later and definitely keep you updated on the home!

1 Week Left.

It's Friday. That means there is one week left of Institute. I've learned so much here - about teaching, myself, and working with others. It's been a tiring experience, but nothing compared to the horror rumors that we heard during Induction.

I know that I promised more pictures. They're coming. I just need some time in order to upload them (right now I'm typing this up at the school).

Also during this time I have engaged in a lot of self-reflection. I feel like I'm really taking concrete and applicable steps that will contribute to where I see myself in the future.

I'm going to work over these next years on developing the qualities I want to see in myself. I want to find a way to center myself - So far I'm thinking of reading up on meditation, trying out a yoga class, or both. Just something that I can do to exercise my mind and body while keeping a deep sense of calm. It will take years to cultivate, but I'm anticipating that I'll have the time to develop it. And I know that if I pursue the career that I want to, I'll need to have strong sense of peace in myself if I want to stay sane.

So that's a little insight into my self-reflection.

Also, it's been warm here. Very warm. And I'm loving it. I love not freezing if I walk outside at night. I also love sitting around the pool at Aunt Wanda and Uncle Pat's. Speaking of which, Todd and I will be spending the weekend out there this weekend too. And we'll go to look at more houses on Saturday.

Yippee!

Long weekend, leg weakness, and lame writing

Last weekend Ashlee got some much appreciated R&R, but that wasn't quite the case for me. My weekend left me feeling more worn out than I've been in a long time, but it was worth it.

On Thursday I caugh a flight after work and eventually made it to Portland, OR. Eric (my brother) picked me up and we stayed at a friend's house that night. Friday we did some errands to prepare for Saturday's mountain adventure, but spent a few hours rock climbing as well. I have my Boy Scout merit badge in climbing, but that was completed on a wooden structure at a camp without touching an cold, hard, rock. This was essentially my first experience doing real rock climbing. So, how did it go? It was a lot of fun and I'm really glad we went. It turned out to be a great way to beat the heat (93F or something) but still do something outside.

That night we drove to a trailhead and slept under the stars (no tent even) so that we could get on the trail ASAP in the morning. That turned out to be 4:20am, which was later than we wanted, but was still a decent hour to begin our ascent of Mount Adams, the third highest of the Cascades. It may not be as well known as Mt. St. Helens or Mt. Hood, but it is taller. Mt. Rainier and Mt. Shasta are taller, but not quite doable when I was only in town for 3 night and 2 and a half days.

Our task was simple: climb about 7,000 feet from the traihead to the summit, eat lunch, enjoy the view, then ski down most of the way, and hike the rest of the way back to the car. For the most part, things went well, and it was a good trip. The ski down was the steepest I've been on in years which I and the others handled just fine. About 3/4 of the way down the real steep section a lose rock (dislodged by sun thaw) threatened all of our lives. It passed by Eric and I safely, but our companion was hit. He got a couple really nasty bruises that we thought might have been broken bones. He wasn't able to ski anymore as a result, and even once we slid him off the steep stuff, his walking was slow and painful. He turned out to be okay (no broken bones or other seriuos injuries) but or return to the car was delayed by about 6 hours.

Sunday was marked by my realization that forgetting sun-glassed AND goggles for the hike led to a bit of snowblindness. My eyes were in quite a bit of pain early on, but got much better as the day went on. I slept through both flights, and packed it in early that night. My long (in more ways than one) weekend was finally over.

Early this week I took it easy as I rested up from the trip, but I finally took the plunge and biked to work today. I had decided that I wanted to start riding as soon as possible because it won't be long before I have to leave the car in Phoenix and rely complety on two narrow road tires to get me everywhere I need to be. Considering the hassle it's been to get this bike commute ready (new wheel, new cassette spacer, new tubes, new lock, and borrowed pump), I'm pleased that the trip went really well both ways. My only complaint is that my legs were just starting to feel better from the weekend, but now they are sore in all new places. Oh well, being sore is satisfying.

Lame writing completes the title nicely and refers to my work. Before I got to Sandia the developer of the code SPPARKS (which I've mentioned before) had implemented an algorithm based on a paper written by a collegue of my boss. As it turned out, the SPPARKS version wasn't behaving anything like the paper reported. This was frustrating to the Sandians, and it became a side project for me. I was tasked with trying to uncover the problem, under the assumption that something in the SPPARKS code wasn't done correctly and that once we fixed it things would work. Well, this week I discovered that what was done in the collegue's actual code and what he wrote in the paper were not the same. Anyone in the research world knows that this is not only an unacceptable practice, but can be frustrating for people attempting to reproduce the author's results. We are convinced the SPPARKS implementation matches the description in the paper perfectly, but it doesn't work because the paper's description is incorrect. Not cool.

Happy 4th of July!

Just thought I would wish everyone a Happy 4th of July!

I spent a great day with my Uncle Pat and Aunt Wanda. We spend the morning seeing the beautiful sights in the desert and having a yummy lunch at Ma's Restaurant. After we got home, both Aunt Wanda and I took a nap (all that sight-seeing is hard work!). I went to the pool for a bit before dinner and we finished up the evening by eating a "No-Peek Roast," which Aunt Wanda had peeked at when we got home.

Tomorrow, I'll try to upload some lovely pictures of the countryside that we saw. For tonight, I'm going to head over to bed!

Goodnight everyone!

P.S. My cell phone has been off for most of the weekend, since I forgot the charger at the dorm. So that's why I haven't called. I will try to call people tomorrow once I get back (and after my phone has charged).