House

Clothing

Blue slacks
Blue socks
Long-sleeve button-down shirts

Reversible belt (40)

BMW

Xenon headlights with Angel Eyes

Photography

Photography class in Boston

Tools

Valve extension for inflating spare tire (bavauto.com part Z327, http://www.bavauto.com/lview.asp?imgfile=assets/imglib500/z327.jpg)
Small oil hand pump (to wet gaskets)
Tool chest/cabinet
Air compressor
Spring/shock compressor
Creeper
Gas generator

Cycling

Thule locks for Big Mouth bike carrier (pair of 2 locks)
Bicycle wheel for trainer (cheap)
Bicycle tire for trainer (orange)

Miscellaneous

Wii MotionPlus controller accessories (3)
Wii Fit
Steak knives
Office chair

IKEA

Chair and ottoman set

DVDs

Well, I figured-out what I pay on a monthly basis:

Condo fee = $248
Electricity = $78
Gas = $62
Cable/Internet/Phone = $133

That is a lot!!!

Sunday I went to IKEA, the Swedish superstore!  I came out with two great nightstands where there is a lid to store stuff in addition to a door with shelves.  I also got a bench for the bathroom and three wicker baskets to organize stuff.  I can put reading materials on the bench :)  I found two floor lamps for $7 each, what a deal!

Part Deux will be my trip with my brother's minivan to get my new office desk.  I figured-out the pieces I need and measured the office.  I am good to go!  It will have a corner table top and a large rectangle, forming a nice L-shaped desk.  The frames are intelligently designed such that the legs will be out of the way when I am working, so I do not need to worry about hurting myself.  The next phase will be to select a comfortable office chair and shelving for hanging stuff above the desk.

I am getting Verizon's FIOS service for phone, cable TV, and Internet installed.

Before leaving Comcast for good: 6,279 kbps download and 361 kbps upload speeds (out of New York, NY).

My Verizon FIOS internet speeds are:  5,142 kbps download and 1,838 kbps upload.

I have not posted in a while...things have been busy. I spent a lot of time going through all of my financial statements to organize them by bill and date. I have not done this since I bought my condo back in 2004! Once I was focused, I got it done quickly. I entered my gas and electric bills into Quicken. I decided to hold off on the others for rainy days because summer is over and I want to utilize any nice days we have left. It will take a while to update everything and it may end up requiring some fudge-factors but that is ok.

I went to Target with the plan of buying the Harry Potter game for the Wii. The excitement is due to the feature of casting spells by waving the Wiimote controller like a wand. Alongside Harry Potter sat the Transformers game for the Wii. I was like , shit, I did not plan on it but it would be a cool game to check out. So, I caved, and bought both Harry Potter and Transformers!

Dave helped me take apart my Denon DVD-3800 because it was not playing certain DVDs.  It turns out the magnet used to clamp on the disc was disintegrated!  So, he took box tape to remove all the fragments and it works like a charm again.  That is such a strange behavior, especially for a high-end unit!

My new mattress arrived yesterday and it is ever nice! Gardner Mattress (www.gardnermattress.com) is a local company, based out of Salem, MA and they build their's to order. The quality is much better than the high-volume crap people typically get. One funny thing is how thick it is, I only have a few inches of the headboard visible. This thing is a beast but it feels so good to sleep on!