Chrislashley's blog

Call + Response

Hello Vox Neighbors,

I have a request. As many of you are quite socially conscious and have hearts for the brokenhearted, I was hoping you might know how I can get my hands on a copy of the documentary Call + Response.

Call + Response

I'm getting quite frustrated because it seems as though they're doing everything imaginable to not let me watch this documentary. I can't find it on Amazon, eBay, iTunes, their own website. The only options I see are flying out of state for one of their screenings. I could host my own screening, but I really just want to watch it in my livingroom and see if it's something for my kids to see. Any thoughts? Has anybody heard of this? Seen it?

An Angry Letter

Dear Pimples,

I am 25 years old, one month, and 14 days old today. I officially exited puberty in the middle of high school, when your only purpose was to make sure that girls I liked wouldn't come near me, except to check their reflection in my forehead. While your only gesture of generosity was letting me pop you from time-to-time, you were mostly the bane of my existence. What? Who needs self-confidence?

In any case, I am now 25. I am engaged to be married, so of course I don't really need to impress girls, but that begs the question: Why are you here? You have nothing to ruin for me anymore. You mostly just tick me off because, as I said, I am 25. Let's just shake hands and you can go bother some other poor preteen just entering puberty somewhere else. Deal?

With sincerity,
Chris

Ceiling Fan?

Now that I'm buying a house, I'm looking at all the things you can do to a home that you own unlike when you rent. Most of the things won't happen for a long time, if at all. Removing the tile floor and replacing it with hardwood, for example. One thing that is high on the list is updating many things in the house. The appliances and many of the fixtures are original to the house being built in 1989. The ceiling fans are high on the list. I was perusing Lowes.com (must hate Home Depot) and found this interesting model, below. Part of me thinks its very cool and simple, but another part of me thinks I'll hate it in three years. What do you think?

Phan

I'm a Busy Man

If you've been dying to know where I've been the past week, I apologize and want to let you know that I am not that important. However, there have been some fun developments that I don't mind sharing.

• Friday I had the privilege of seeing my fiancé in San Jose for the day, since she was in town visiting family. I miss her so much all the time always so even one day is so very appreciated. We babysat her (soon to be my) niece and nephew for most of the day. We took the to Chucky Cheese in the morning, gymnastics in the afternoon, and we found a quick replacement so we could have an hour to ourselves at Panera. That was the best part of the day, by far.
• Saturday was sister Cori's final (I think) day of celebration for her golden birthday. We went winetasting, out to dinner, and played some games. I think the highlight may have been ten people in a limo having a potluck lunch, though I did purchase a fantastic bottle of zin.
• Sunday I unveiled my new 14-hour workday schedule. It begins at 7:30 in the a.m. setting up for church and concludes at 9:30 having cleaned up youth group, with two services and college group in the middle. It is a looooong day.
• The highlight of Sunday was finding out that my the leasing ladies at my apartments found someone to rent my apartment on May 20! That means I'll be getting 1/3 of my rent check back and won't have to pay for a mortgage and rent at any point! I'm so excited. This was a huge answer to prayer.
  

Crabtree is a 49er!

And the Oakland Raiders have to be the biggest bunch of morons. Seriously, guys.

Things On Tuesday

Things that I am not enjoying, per se:

• Fretting over finding somebody to rent my apartment, though I did show it to someone yesterday and have gotten quite a few inquiries
• Hotness. 95 in April. Are you serious? I woke up this morning and went outside to 75 degree heat. IN THE MORNING!
• Running out of cereal
• Missing my One and Only

Things that I am enjoying, thank you very much:

• Having all my documents ready for my loan officer
• Finding out there's a utility truck in front of the new house, presumably working on removing overgrown trees or working on the dryrot
• My job, my kids, my coworkers
• Wonderful little unexpected gifts
  

Some Photos For You

For those of you who aren't my Facebook friend, that is. I've chosen the best from my recent home inspection, where I had a bit of time to roam around and shoot some pictures.

My Day

Today has already been a great day, and it's only just after 4:00 in the pm. Here's a quick rundown of my day as of yet:

• Woke up early to take a friend to the airport in San Francisco, two hours away.
• Bought some new plates, bowls, cups (came with the set, Cori), and flatware. Red, very cool.
• Bought a house.
• I repeat, I BOUGHT A HOUSE.

It is beautiful. Pictures will come shortly. This one just appeared as Alicia and I were looking at another dump of a home. My realtor knew that realtor and it just kinda clicked and we fell in love with it.

Once again, I, Christopher Loyd Ashley, have purchased a home. Ho. Ly. Crap.

Here is the only picture as of yet, the front of the home:

Housey House House

A Valid Thought

I am enjoying this house-hunt quite a bit, despite the fact that I feel like I'm going to have an ulcer and I cannot sleep at night. My wonderful parents are accompanying me in the search and are asking and thinking of all the things that I could never think of because they have purchased a few more homes than I have. I had a conversation with my father about what is, for me, the number two reason for purchasing a home, behind the whole this-economy-is-making-owning-more-affordable-than-renting thing: the noise.

As I have mentioned many times before, I cannot stand sharing walls with neighbors. I hear everything, including conversations, televisions, babies, keys in keyholes, walking, etc. My dad brought up the thought that in a home there are still plenty of noises to be heard in neighborhoods, such as neighbors' barbecues, subwoofers, and dogs. I thought about that for a moment and chalked it up to damned if I do, damned if I don't. But I think there's more to it.

Where I live now, if I'm disturbed by noise (and I mean noise that I can't complain about, like people talking) I have little recourse because by trying to be considerate, I won't crank up the television or radio. At night I only use a fan for white noise. In a house, however, I can make quite a bit of noise inside my house without it disturbing my neighbors.

The second major point is that since graduation I have lived in one house and three apartments. The house's backyard bordered a major boulevard in town. One apartment was downtown and the other two are in the same complex. In the house, I never had any problems with the noise on the street, including the subwoofers and sirens. In the apartment downtown, I didn't mind the sirens and traffic noise, but hated that I could hear my neighbor's radio. In my apartment now, my only complaint is my neighbors whom I share a wall or floor/ceiling with. I don't mind the children playing softball or swimming outside. I don't mind the dogs in the poop-park outside.

So I think that for my sanity's sake, the house route is still a good one. This certainly turned out to be a longer post that I had anticipated. Sorry.

My New Album

To cheer myself up, I decided to do a little Internet project. If you've never seen one, you find a random article on Wikipedia and that is your band name. You find a random quote on quotationpages.com and that is your album title. Lastly, you find a picture on Flickr from the last seven days and that's your album cover art. Combine in Photoshop and you have an album:

Debut Album