Burning CDs at 40x ROCKS!

All sorts of good things right now….

We just closed on our new mortgage. Our monthly payments will be almost half of what they were previously. In addition, our existing escrow account with our previous mortgage company will be returned to us soon. That’s about $2,300. In addition to all of that, we don’t have to make our first mortgage payment on our new mortgage until the beginning of May, and we don’t have to make any more payments on our old mortgage ever, so we basically don’t have to pay mortgage for the month of April.

On top of that, I just got my taxes back from my accountant. While I do have to pay a little bit for the business (filing fees, basically), we, personally, are getting back about $3,000 between federal and state.

Also, I just got a BIG check in today from a job I did a while ago.

Also, there’s NOTHING on my calendar until Tuesday. And Ali is on Spring Break until Monday.

It’s been a pretty good week, so far…

That’s Munch and a bunch of Fuzzles. I’ve been playing Oddworld a lot lately, and these guys are really cute and amusing. Also, I know Jen likes them, so I thought I’d post this cute picture for her.

Short Changed – Why do tall people make more money?

Unfortunately, this article also lends some legitmacy to the importance of high school athletics….

“The economists report that “after controlling for age, height, region and family background, participation in athletics is associated with an 11.4 percent increase in adult wages, and participation in every club other than athletics is associated with a 5.1 percent increase in wages.”"

I just spent the last two hours balancing accounts and paying bills. You’d think this would make me grumpy. In fact, I have a sort of satisfied feeling right now. Maybe it’s because I’ve just gotten a big pile of bills off my desk and still managed, somehow, to keep some money in the accounts. That’s probably it.

Tomorrow we close on our new mortgage. Our monthly payments are getting cut almost in half.

I guess the best thing I can say about the Oscars is thank god Russell Crowe DIDN’T win.

E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial
A movie review by Darren R. Sussman

Eh…

Saw Dar Williams last night. She’s still awesome.

Someone told me the other day that I’m “living the dream.” I wonder what he meant by that. I mean, whose dream? Mine? His? The “American Dream”?

If he meant my dream, well, first, how does he know what my dream is? And second, I don’t quite think I’m living it, yet. I’m on the path, but I’m not living it.

I’m never really sure what people mean when they say that. I don’t think there really is a universal dream. It wouldn’t make sense. What’s right for me may be very wrong for someone else. I think that’s a phrase that we should add to Bryan’s list of phrases not to say anymore.

Spike posted a link to the best place to live test. It asks you a bunch of questions, and then based on those questions, it tells you the best cities in America for you to live in. Apparently, I’m not too far off in where I currently live. My number one city was a place in upstate New York, but my number two city was in Northern NJ. Number three was New London, CT, and number four was in NJ about 30 minutes from where I currently live.

And, just for Becca, my number ten city was State College, PA.