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the Long's Strange Trip

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Despite the fact that we are still nearly 4 weeks away from leaving on the Long's Strange Trip, life is moving at breakneck pace. Right now, we're sitting at the Highland Pub in Little 5 Points, doing our routine Sunday afternoon "vacate the house during the Open House" gig. We got a contract on the house last night, but the Open House was already advertised, and we wanted to go ahead and have it, considering that the last contract we had on the house fell through, due to our inability to reach an agreement on repairs with the prospective buyer. The girl who is buying our house is a youngster, just out of law school. She's certainly making a great investment, and is getting an amazing house. Note to self: prepare Susan for possibility of former owner's friends showing up on weekend nights expecting hot tub privileges.

Right now, Wiley is simultaneously recording minidisks for the trip and adding to his perpetual things to do list. While Open Houses are somewhat of a pain, it gives us a chance to get out of the house, read travel books, and work on the web site. Hopefully, this will be our last Open House, because as I mentioned above, we got a contract on the house last night. We were incredibly lucky to buy a house in the Virginia-Highlands neighborhood in 1992. Although at the time we felt like we were paying an exorbitant price for the house, the property has continued to appreciate since we bought it. This is probably a good time to to say, "thanks" to our close friends Betsy and Mac Orr. Betsy and Mac were my childhood friends from Columbia, and they moved to Atlanta in 1990. We immediately re-kindled our friendship. The reason we owe them thanks is that they had the foresight to get going and buy a house, while we would have probably been content to continue renting a slightly scary basement apartment in Little 5 Points for quite some time. When they bought, we said, "Whoa - time to grow up.". So we bought, too, and now we are selling that great house. Maybe someday we will follow them in to parenthood...

This has been a pretty eventful week. Besides selling the house, I told my manager what my plans were. Soon after that, word leaked out, and I have pretty much spent my time in the office fielding calls from co-workers around the country. Almost unanimously, reaction has been extreme jealousy. I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who seem to want to do exactly what we are doing. Hopefully, we will inspire some to follow their dreams, like we did.

We got our new digital camera in the mail on Thursday. It is an Olympus D450 Zoom, and I had things up and running within an hour. Not having to bring and keep track of film on the trip is going to make things alot easier.

Lastly, an only slightly interesting note is that the cats got collars this week. They've never worn collars before, and even though they are of a very tasteful Guatemalan weave, they are both scratching profusely as if they have picked up a parasite from that or another third world country. We felt like they needed collars, since they're going to be living around the corner with Lele.

Next weekend, Betsy and Mac are hosting our going-away party. Hopefully, the long-term damage to their house will be under $1000.