Cali Road Trip: Hitting the road
I am writing this from Columbia, Missouri at Stephanie’s grandmas(I love stealing wi-fi) and we are getting ready to head towards Denver tonight. We have about 11-12 hours to go today so I need to get off of this laptop so that we can get driving. Every mile is a minute, here we go!
On the road again…
Cali Road Trip: Packing and saying goodbye
Steph and I were almost ready to hit the road, but first we had to pack up and say goodbye to our homies. Ever try to pack your life into one car? Good times. 
Stay updated each day, we are attempting to do one of these during the entire trip….attempting.
Saying goodbye to my home-away-from-home
I have been saying goodbye to many, many people the past few days (when I’ve had the time) and I’m sure that more than a few people are still going to have no idea that I’ve left. With so much to do in such a little amount of time, it’s been hard to communicate the message to everyone so it’s basically inevitable that some people will fall through the cracks.
But, thanks to my habit of heading there at least once a day, one group of people who I have not left in the dark on me jetting out of Indiana are my Subway ladies. Considering that I see them more than my family, I thought that getting some video of the goodbye was only appropriate so that everyone can see the bonds that I’m made with my favorite sandwich artists. Check out the video below or watch it over here on YouTube.
Thanks, Craigslist! We finally found a place…
I am VERY happy to announce that after many, many hours of Craigslist, phone calls, emails, etc. we have officially nailed down a place to live out in the beautiful city of Palo Alto, CA. I think that it was well worth the wait considering that we snagged one of the best places that I could ever imagine us living in.
It’s a cottage that is literally 2 blocks away from the main strip in downtown Palo Alto and the landlords seem super cool to boot. I’m pretty sure that the interviewing process for this place was more intense than any job interview that I’ve ever had to go through in Indianapolis, but they were very adamant about getting the right type of people in there. Considering that the cottage is located directly behind their house who can really blame them, right?
Well, the good news is that after speaking to them on the phone several times and after sending them many of the videos from around Indy that Stephanie and I have been creating - we’re actually going to be moving into our new place in a little over a week! I can not wait to met our new landlords and their family, I think that they’re going to be a lot of fun and will soon become our Palo Alto foster parents before you know it.
This whole process has moved along very fast and it has been a little crazy, but it just seems like it has all worked out for the best. I think that the fact that Stephanie and I are going to be living in this cottage is yet another example of this and hopefully the trend of everything going our way will continue as we make our way out west. What an adventure…
Oh yeah, be sure to check out the video below or over here on YouTube to get a better idea of what it’s like trying to find a place to live out in Palo Alto, CA while still living in Indianapolis, IN. We repeated this same process about 60 times in less than 4 days. Good times.
Heading to Cali Series: Getting rid of Steph’s car
Wow, does it feel good to actually break the news to the world about Stephanie and I heading out to Palo Alto, California. I have held back until now for a few different reasons, but now it’s officially time to let everyone know that WE ARE MOVING TO CALIFORNIA!
Whew…there, I finally said it and in about a week I’ll be living it as we pack up and drive on out west to our new cottage out in the warm and beautifully sunny streets of the computer nerd capital of the world. I’m sure that I’ll fit in just fine, but there is plenty of nervousness going on even though this is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time now. I know that it will work out perfectly with Stephanie and I fitting in like we belonged there from the beginning. I guess it’s like I always say: ‘If you don’t get nervous about it, then it’s probably not even worth doing.’
So, as we move along the super accelerated schedule of moving out there we have a a type of ‘mental list’ of things that we need to take care of before we get out there. One of the first things we decided to take care of was what we are going to do with our cars. Stephanie drives a 2007 Civic si and I was driving a 2007 GMC Envoy Denali and we have decided that we need to not only get down to one car(with one cheaper payment), but we also needed to get into something a little more gas efficient.
But, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, the first thing we had to do was get rid of Stephanie’s ride. We were told to go get her car appraised at Carmax so that we could see what it was worth. It was my first Carmax experience, so of course I decided to make a video about it and you can check it out below or over here on YouTube. This is the first of many more Moving to Cali Series videos that we’ll be making, so come on along for the ride!
This is why I love the Internet
There’s a party in my tummy!
On any given day the Internet can show you things that you never knew you might enjoy and of course sometimes it can show you things that you may never want to see again. I choose to focus on the first reason because I frickin’ love the web and all of the possibilities, quirks, opportunities and whatever else comes along with it.
An example of why I love the Internet just happened today, so I thought that I would share. Somehow I stumbled upon this random blog entry and in front of me I saw one of the weirdest and most interesting YouTube videos that I’ve ever seen. It’s a kids ‘edutainment’ video, similar to the big, purple dinosaur Barney of my childhood. Check it out below(or here on YouTube) and I dare you to say that it’s not one of the more entertaining/scary things that you’ve seen on the web lately.
Fixed laptop = more videos!
My laptop and I have been butting heads for many, many weeks and probably months due to the fact that it has been running really, really slow and has gotten to the point where I can barely get my day to day stuff done without throwing it out my car window. Luckily, I took the high road with the many frustrations that me and my constant companion have been dealing with by taking to the time to archive all of the files, etc. from the laptop’s hard drive so that I could proceed to wipe out everything that has been saved, installed, hacked and created on it.
Well, the good news is that I’m back in business with a decent laptop(it’s runnin’ great…for now), it’s not taking 25 minutes to pull up the Internet and probably the greatest result of getting it fixed is that Stephanie and I can start doing videos again. The videos that we put together are a great creative release from me and something that I really enjoy doing by myself as well as with Stephanie. Since I worked so hard at getting the laptop fired up today, I vowed to get at least one video up and ready by the morning, so here goes nothing.
This video is of a glimpse into the first birthday party of my two baby nieces, Reese and Riley - you can also check it out over here on YouTube if you can’t see it below.
Sweet Memories…
It’s always fun to take a little trip down memory lane isn’t it? Tonight I was looking through some old videos and I stumbled across a video I made way back last summer on my way to hang out with Ryan on one of our first “dates”. It’s so funny to think about the beginnings of our relationship and all of the crazyness that has preceded those early times. In this particular video I was actually on my way to be picked up in a chicken limo ( yes a chicken limo) that would then take me to a poison concert (Yea Bret Michaels!!). I can’t believe that I almost made up an excuse not to go… What was I thinking?!?! Haha This night has got to be one of my favorite memories with Ryan. It’s obvious that we were simply destined to be together.. I mean come on.. I was already making videos in my car before I even knew him… coincidence?? I think not!
Check out the video below or over here on youtube.
A blizzard can’t keep us away from a birthday party
Today Stephanie and I are both down in the snow-filled state of Keeeeeentucky(insert your own hillbilly accent here) for the latest monumental event of the family, the first birthday of my twin nieces Reese and Riley. Up until about an hour ago, Kentucky was under an official blizzard warning(see my sister’s snow covered car here) but it didn’t come close to stopping me and the rest of the fam from making the trek down for the bash. We hopped into dad’s Yukon, slapped ‘er into 4-wheel drive and actually had no problems making our way down once we were on the road.
Well, according to my niece, Madison, it’s time for Uncle Hup to get off the computer and come play and it’s pretty hard to argue with that. I can’t wait to see the twins tear into their first birthdays cakes…get after it, kids and make this uncle proud.
Until I get the video done for today’s birthday goodness, check out my nephew Mason’s first birthday video below or over here on YouTube.
Chewing on balloons is ill-advised
The United Way’s Night at the Oscars that Stephanie and I rocked out about a week and a half ago was an amazing night filled with open bars, paparazzi and balloon chewing. See exactly what I mean in the video below or check it out over here on YouTube.