The real world has started with a bang. Both Leah and I started working full time on the same day. For those of you who have not yet heard, Leah secured her internship with Green Mountain Energy. And it's going great. It is turning out to be a 40 hr a week deal which is just superb. She has lots of work to keep her busy. Thus far she has been a star at the office. The work that she has done and the ideas that she has generated have been met with much praise by her co-workers. Being able to put a college education worth of knowledge to work to produce necessary tangible products is proving to be quite satisfying.

My first week has been good. About what I had expected. A bit overwhelming, busy and fun. There are a lot of names to learn, both of students and other teachers. The co-teaching situation has a learning curve but it's going well. We share similar views on most situations. I did finally get a computer from the school so I can now do my job. That was a huge relief. A good portion of my responsibilities involve some variety of computer program. And I should have a desk by Tuesday morning. So far I haven't had anywhere to put anything. I just have a way overstuffed bag that I carry back and forth home with me. It's not too bad but will become overwhelming soon.

I recently purchased a new car. Leah and I spent most of our evenings last week dealing with one thing or another related to the purchase. Lots of hoops to jump through. I can't imagine what buying a house is going to involve. When all was said and done we had ourselves a 2004 Honda Civic. The old Subaru was quite tired and needed a replacement. Especially considering the daily 35 mile round trip commute. This new car should use about 1 gallon of gas for that drive. When compared with 1.5-2 gallons for the Subaru over the course of a year I should save a considerable amount of money. Very good. Besides the mpg I really like it. The AC works and it gets up to speed much faster with much less effort. It is a manual which I really like and the brakes actually stop the car in a reasonable distance.

Unfortunately Leah's car got itself stuck in a parking garage on her first day at work. The key simply would not turn in the ignition. And of course the tow truck that can access garages was out of town. As you might remember we just recently had work done on the ignition so naturally we had the car towed back to that shop. They quoted the repair at $1000 +/- $200. That didn't seem quite right, especially after they told us that during the first repair they had told us that the car wasn't completely fixed but they gave it back to us because we insisted on getting back on the road. If my memory serves me correctly, which it usually does, that is not at all what occurred. After a few more phone calls the Focus now sits at the Ford dealership waiting to be fixed for a far more reasonable price. The service manager at the dealership told me that whoever did the first diagnostic didn't have a clue what he was doing because there was physical damage to the steering column. Needless to say I will be having a few words with the manager at the Goodyear store when he returns Monday.

We are trying to figure out how to avoid the working man schedule. The apartment managed to get really messy and all we wanted to do in the evening was sit around and eat. Not a good situation. I think once we get into a more consistent routine we'll be able to get out in the evening on a regular basis. The weather is still a killer in the afternoon but the mornings are cooling off. Yesterday it was in the low 70's and it felt cool. I went for a ride at 9am and the air literally felt cool. It was amazing. And while I was biking Leah was biking too!! She took her Motobecane down across the river, through town and back up to our place. Last night we saw the new movie "Inglorious Basterds". It was very good. Highly recommended.

Only one new piece to the apartment. Leah bought a spherical lamp shade a few weeks ago but it didn't come with anything else. It was quite literally just a shade. We wanted it in our living room so I wired a light socket to the end of an extensions cord and wired a small inline switch into the middle of the cord. It works well and was a fun quick project.

Today we're getting ready for another week. Cleaning and cooking and relaxing in between. We took a walk this morning at the SW end of the greenbelt. Completely different type of trails out there. Narrow hilly single-track.

Hope you're all doing well.

Love Jay and Leah.