Yesterday’s high temperature in Kansas City was 92 degrees, a record high for the area. Today’s predicted high is right around there as well, 89 in Lee’s Summit this afternoon. Somehow we skipped spring and went straight into summer. It’s unfortunate that we have to leave this weather today and travel to Cincinnati just in time for the severe storms that ripped through Iowa yesterday. I could be playing golf all weekend, trying out some new clubs from Kim’s manager, Steve, or just lounge around in the sun. Luckily, there are lots of things going on in Cincy over the weekend that should make the trip well worth it.

I started looking for online calendar applications about a month ago knowing that Google Calendar would soon be coming out. Well that day has arrived, Google Calendar has been released as a public beta. It’s simple to sign up, especially if you already have a Gmail account. You only have to answer one question and you are on your way to a better organized life (we hope).

Kim and I started using 30 Boxes after my research a month ago. Overall it works pretty well and we were able to get enough events in our calendars to make our life look like a mess. But now that Google’s product is out I’ll have to re-evaluate my decision.

Thus far I like the fact that with Google multiple people can edit the same calendar. This is a huge advantage when our primary goal is to know what each other are up to. I also like the layout of Google’s much better especially dragging and dropping events. One thing that I liked about 30 Boxes was that it would automatically repeat birthdays every year after they were entered. I have not had any luck getting Google to do this, but it can be added manually by editing the event via a form. I think after only a few minutes of using Google that I will slowly start migrating toward it. Imagine how great it will be when the calendar is fully integrated with Gmail. I can picture simple adding of events that are discussed in your email conversations.

The pictures from our weekend in Utah are up! I sorted through the 100+ pictures and selected the best 48 to share with everyone. I hope you enjoy them. Utah is really a sight to see with your own eyes, it is very beautiful. In addition, I think that Utah has the best skiing/snowboarding mountains in the country. I think I can safely say that now after spending time in Colorado and on the east coast in Vermont. I hope to return sometime during the peak time of the season, to experience Utah at its best.

After getting the pictures online last night, we spent some time catching up on some TV shows. We watched an old episode of The Amazing Race in addition to the American Idol contestants butchering some Queen songs. If you are into the show, then check out DialIdol.com. I don’t use their application for voting, since I’ve never voted, but I find their predictions to be fairly accurate and interesting to read.

My face still hurts! “Well it’s killing me,” my dad would likely say.

The top layer of my sunburnt face has mostly peeled away. However, the next layer of skin below that is still bright red. Hopefully this goofy new look fades away soon. I could take my boss’ advice and get some of that fake tanning cream, but I think I’ll just wait it out. There have been multiple picture requests, so here ya go…

This was taken on the second day of boarding during a break at the Summit House, which is nearly 10,000 feet above sea level! You can easily see the “tan” lines on my face, and I think they are even more noticeable now.

I was hoping to get all of my pictures from the trip online last night, but I spent my free time working from home to update a client’s software. Hopefully I’ll have some time tonight to finish going through the pictures and then get them online. There should be some really good ones.

The pain I’m experiencing today is a little different than I was expecting. In the past, I would come home from a snowboard trip with bumps and bruises all over. After this trip, however, my sunburnt face is what’s hurting the most. All it took was one day on the slopes, and the lower portion of my face and nose got fried to a crisp! The second day I wore sunscreen, although it didn’t matter much at that point.

The flight to Utah was the first time I’ve been on Frontier airlines in awhile, and I must say that I am very impressed with their new planes. Each seat has an individual television screen with 24 channels of DirecTV service. Of course this doesn’t come free, the fee is $5 per flight leg. Yesterday on the return flight, I bit the bullet and paid for just over an hour of TV. The time on the plane literally flew by! Hopefully more airlines begin to offer this service (and hopefully for free).

Back to the weekend trip. Thursday night in Salt Lake City was relaxing. We didn’t want to be up too late, since we would be getting up early to go out to Park City the next day. We decided to walk around downtown for a bit and then wandered into Squatter’s Brewery for a couple drinks along with dinner. I would highly recommend both their food and their beer!

Early Friday morning we made the drive to Park City and immediately hit the slopes at The Canyons. The ski shop that I rented my snowboard and boots from recommended this resort, so we decided to do one day here and one day at Park City. The powder left from the recent snow storms was amazing! I don’t think I’ve ever boarded in conditions like these. On one run, the powder was so think we couldn’t make it down without the boards getting buried over and over again. As the day went on, it got warmer and warmer outside. Some of the runs turned to slush, so we decided to spend as much as time as possible at the top of the mountains. The warming also led to the previously mentioned sunburn. I have learned my lesson, and will definitely wear sunscreen at all times, if my skin will be exposed.

Later that night we took rode on the free bus system to historic Main Street. We had dinner at Buona Vita, which was excellent and a good value as well! From there I got us a guest membership at The Spur, so we could have a drink. Utah has some of the strangest liquor laws. Restaurants can serve alcohol but only to customers intending to eat. These private clubs can serve alcohol to anyone, regardless if they are eating or not. I guess you can think of it as paying a cover to get into the bar. Fortunately, The Spur was giving away free memberships!

Saturday we headed to the slopes at the Park City Mountain Resort. The early conditions on the mountain were fairly similar to the previous day, although some of the lower lying area had turned to ice from the previous day’s slush. Again we tried to stay as high on the mountains as we could. I think that overall I liked Park City better than The Canyons, mainly because Park City had more intermediate runs. These are still the runs that I enjoy the most.

After spending the entire day on the slopes, we again went to Main Street for dinner. This time I wanted to go someplace with TVs so we could watch the end of the frozen four. We decided on the Hungry Moose Pub. We had some good beers on tap from Wasatch and good bar type food. After the game, we headed back to the hotel. By this time both of our sunburns had gotten the best of us.

Early on Sunday we drove back to Salt Lake City and had a little tour of the city. We first drove by the Capitol building and stopped in at the nearby visitor center. From there we drove past Temple Square, which is the main temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If we had more time, we could have taken a tour and then maybe I would have more to add about the center of downtown. After just a few minutes there, we drove out to the Olympic Cauldron Park, where the cauldron and stadium still stand from the 2002 Winter Olympics. We were then out of time so we returned to the airport and flew back to Kansas City. Not only was this a great trip, I have now visited 33 states!

Park City on Dwellable

With most of the house stuff out of the way, at least on our end, we should be able to relax this weekend. And what better way to do that then by visiting wonderful Utah. Actually I don’t know if it’s wonderful or not. I’ve never been there before, well besides a previous layover in Salt Lake City, which looked amazing from the flights in and out. I guess I’ll find out shortly after 7:45 tonight, when I land there and actually leave the airport, thus visiting my 34th state!

Kim is already in Salt Lake City doing business, so I’ll meet up with her tonight. Then after spending a night in downtown Salt Lake City, we will head up to Park City early tomorrow for two days on the slopes! When we first booked this trip we were concerned if it would be too late in the season. I guess this is not the case, since they just got 10 inches of snow in the last day. The weather for the next couple of days should be sunny (or at worst partly cloudy) and fairly warm. The conditions are perfect for me to return to Kansas City in serious pain!

Last night we sat in a short meeting with ACORN Housing.

ACORN Housing Counselors make the home buying process more accessible to first-time buyers. Instead of having to approach bankers or contend with brokers, first-time homebuyers can meet our counselors in the local ACORN Housing office to pre-qualify for a mortgage.

The advantage of going through ACORN is that homebuyers can gain access to mortgage programs with lower interest rates, lower down payments, flexible underwriting guidelines and lower origination fees. And the biggest advantage is that you do not have to pay Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) regardless of how much you need to finance, even if it is 100%. I’m not sure if I stated everything correctly or not, but so far the program seems to be worth the $20 it costs. Perhaps Kim will add a comment sometime since she is the one with the finance degree. :)

Since we already had an approved contract for a home and all of the paperwork filled out, they had us stick around so that we could be pre-approved (which we already were) and receive the certificate of completion. That has to be some sort of record! We completed their entire program in about an hour, although there is a required class towards the end of the month. Luckily the lender that Kim had already talked to was also at the meeting, so just about all of the paperwork has now been completed. I think today we will be locking in a rate and then from there we are almost done.

Hopefully that wasn’t too boring. The sad part is I know very little of what I just said, although I have learned a bunch this past week. Seriously though, if you are considering your first home, I would highly recommend this program. Sorry bro, it doesn’t look like they have any offices in Ohio.

We had an inspection performed on the house yesterday. It ended before I could get there, but both Kim and our agent were there for the whole thing. We are now trying to sort through the issues that were reported to see if anything could be considered a deal breaker. The nice thing is that there aren’t any glaring red flags in the report, at least from my point of view (I think my dad agrees though).

We’ve already been pre-approved for a loan, but now we need to look around to see what all is out there. We are quickly discovering that many banks will require some upfront fee just to get started. US Bank even has fees and we’ve got 3 different accounts with them. We thought about using the credit union that I belong to, but they don’t have any authority (license?) in Ohio. Feel free to point us to any lenders you’ve used, enjoyed, and have low rates. :)

Today’s entry comes from a soon to be homeowner. This weekend Kim and I spent a bunch of time working out the details to buy the house I mentioned last week. If all goes as planned we will be moving all of our stuff in just over a month, the weekend of May 12th. Overall I would say that it has been very nerve racking, but at the same time also very exciting!

Besides all of the time spent on the phone and signing our names on the dotted lines, we had a pretty busy weekend. On Friday night we went to a Shaking Tree concert. Saturday we played nine holes of golf (although Kim was on the phone most of the time) and then hung out at the Brooksider for the night. Sunday we ran some errands (including faxing in our official offer for the house), hung out with Bianca, and I even got in a game of hockey.

This week is definitely going to be a busy one. Heck, the next month or so is probably going to be jam packed. That should give me plenty to write about, I just hope that I still have the time to do it.