The time approaches

This past weekend, a whole passel of folks came up to visit. In part it was just an opportunity to visit, and in part it was an opportunity to get my geologist uncle to look over the new house.

I spent Monday morning with the Realtor® down at the Santa Cruz County offices, poring over old geological reports and building permits. We found out that the retaining walls above the house and the gabion wall along the creek were well-constructed and that it's a lot cheaper to get the permits first rather than just to start building stuff and get the permits after you've been fined.

We're excited about the house. We're working on getting all the bits and pieces squared away. Jeez, we still need to pack stuff up. At least PoppaPirate says he'll host the website at his place once we move (no really good broadband solution up in the mountains, I'm afraid). All we really need now is flood insurance.

And we need to be sure that the current tenant takes his deer with him.

Truly Awesome

We're going to be moving.

There are now a million things we'll need to take care of. Geologist's report, flood insurance, movers, packing, unpacking...but all that is in the future. Right now, this minute, we are just happy. No more uncertainty about the offer, no more waiting and wondering. We know. We're going to be paying rent to the bank, now, instead of to the landlord.

And we got the house!

Dispatches From the Underworld

I'm spending some vacation time in Hell and was wondering why all the newspapers down here are in Russian. What's that about?

So, I've gotten a crew together and started working on Hell's first English-language daily. The "Tarnation Picayune" will begin printing in August (just before the summer rush!) with a full complement of news.

The front page will have basically Earthly news. Really, there's no need for a change there. Everyone on the front page of an Earthly newspaper is either going to hell in a handbasket or has recently been delivered there. Our first day's headline will note that due to worldwide recession, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are being laid off and replaced with George W. Bush, who has been doing their job single-handedly for some time.

The local news section will let you know what's going on in Hell's many Circles. In addition to the endless coverage of local politics (since we seem to be a bit top-heavy, management-wise), we're devoting one page to each Circle, to give it more of a "neighborhood" feel. We're also including a new "Hot Spots" section with places to go on those Friday nights when you're tired of hanging around the tar pits.

Sports coverage here is going to be HUGE! We've got so many pro athletes that it's like every all-star team you've ever dreamed of! And the lovely thing is that it's always summer here. All of you ice-hockey fans had better hope for seats in the upper Circles. We've got a game pretty much every day, but since this is Hell, I can tell you right now that your team is going to lose at the very last minute on a bad call. Those are the breaks.

The Lifestyle section should be a big hit with newcomers. You'll be able to find out how to treat 3rd-degree burns with baking soda and what sort of ointment will heal those severed limbs. We'll also highlight some of Hell's various communities with columns like "Suicide Success Stories" and "The Priesthood Didn't Prepare Me For This." This being Hell, we've replaced the pages of comics with a full page of Daily Puns!

The Want Ads in Hell are a little different than you'd expect. It's mostly about time-share swapping. Things like "Wanted: trade a week in level three (pelted with rain and hail) for a week in level seven (showered with eternal fire), particulars negotiable."

I'm excited at the prospect of the biggest newspaper Hell's ever seen! There are delivery problems (the papers on level two tend to get blown off people's porches) and the matter of procuring materials and income, but I really think that we'll have a lot of popular support, after all, we have all the highlights of the press for the last millenium right here!