Hi, I'm Jon but you can call me Santiago Cabrera

I think American names just a bit dull. Especially when compared to the exotic sounding foreign names.

A few nights ago Randy and I were watching Entertainment Tonight (yeah, yeah, it's on after ABC News), and there was a segment on the upcoming series "Empire" about Julius Caesar. Octavius is portrayed by Santiago Cabrera. When they mentioned his name I was like, "Hmm, my name is Jon Huff" or "My name is Santiago Cabrera" - which sounds better? Gee, all you have to do is utter "Santiago Cabrera" and you think of someone exotic and alluring. Fortunately, the actor doesn't disappoint. ;)

Another tasty sounding name is Estaban Cortazar. He's a teenage world- renowned fashion designer. Typical.

From now on, you can refer to me as Santiago Cabrera and Randy will be Estaban Cortazar. Ha!

Hello Moto - my new RAZR

Randy and I finally upgraded to modern mobile phones! (Interesting that such a young industry has changed so much!) Obviously you can see that I chose Motorola's fairly new V3-RAZR. It is quite a change from my old Samsung R225 (which, though basic is a good phone).

Though having a flashy phone with cool abilities was enticement itself, one of the biggest reasons I chose the RAZR is that it has Bluetooth and syncs wirelessly with Apple's Mac OS X - Tiger. I didn't realize that I had to use Tiger until this morning when I gleefully opened the Bluetooth device finder on my desktop, paired with the phone and then with horror realized that contact syncing wasn't available! A quick Google search confirmed my hunch: that I must upgrade to Tiger (i.e. 10.4). That's something I've needed wanted to do for a while anyway, so the shiny new phone was enough to force me into upgrading.

A few hours later I had a brand new install of Tiger and all my contacts loaded on my phone with barely touching the phone or keyboard. Ah, technology! Love it - when it works!

(I'm sure some of you will not think "Hmm, now there's no reason he doesn't call me more often at all!" I'll try to do better...)

Glenwood Park

At lunch today Randy and I visited one of this year's Southern Living Idea Houses. It's a wonderful new home situated in the new Glenwood Park development in East Atlanta. Although it's new construction, it has traditional southern architectural features like a large front porch, backyard veranda and upstairs sleeping porch. It is spacious but not forbidding. I could easily see a family (or Randy and me, natch) utilize the entire house.

Aside from its simple grandeur, perhaps what makes the home more appealing is its construction. It is built to be "green". That is, it is built to be very energy efficient and utilizes environmentally friendly building products. You can read more about the home's construction techniques at Southface.

If you are interested in redevelopment, construction, real estate or just simply want to see a great new home, I think the $10 admission to tour the home is worth it.

92.8%

I passed the state real estate exam!!!

YAY!

Rain, rain, go away

Come again another day!!!

Lord, it seems that whenever we'll have a chance to lie out at the pool the weather won't cooperate!!! I'm sure it will rain tomorrow. Blech! I must admit that part of the problem is that we are also busy with real estate; that's a good GREAT hindrance for getting to the pool, as you can imagine. I know I seem to harp on real estate stuff often, but we are very happy to be moving in that direction.

I guess at 35 I'm ready for a career change, to put it mildly. I don't know if I'm too old for one or too young! (Too young I'm sure!!!!) Tuesday the 14th I take the state real estate exam. (Incidentally, for those of you from my home town, June 14 is Greg Robinson's birthday, the son of "Sheriff HotDog"-cum-congressman Tommy Robinson. Funny the things you remember from childhood. He was a neighbor, but I degress...) So, assuming that I pass the state exam, I will be a full fledged Real Estate agent next Tuesday. I'm quite excited about it actually. I know, you're going - YAY?? heh. Randy and I are really looking forward to it.

So, tonight Randy and I are at a friend's cabin in north Georgia. We decided a small break was earned. We got up here this evening and will be going home tomorrow morning (it's about 1.5 hour drive). We brought our little girl, Martha. She loves it!!!

We'll be home tomorrow morning and will work on the office (see "It's been raining for a year") again. Actually it will be nice to have that done so we won't have an air hose (for the pneumatic nailer, natch) running from the basement across the foyer to the office, in addition to the network cable across the living room, etc... :) We're so butch!!!

OK, back to friends (and copious amounts of red wine - YUM!). 'Nuff blogging on a Friday night in the woods.

Out of the office

I'm at a conference here in Atlanta (Buckhead) for a few days. It's obvious to see that I blog most while I'm at work (on break, of course). The conference is fairly useful. I've attended several interesting seminars. Blah.

I'll be back in the office Thursday. I'll try to write something interesting then.

Until then, go read about Apple's upcoming switch to Intel! Pretty big news if you're an IT geek. ;)

It's been raining for a year

here in Atlanta. Well, not really of course, but seems like it. It was sunny last weekend on Saturday but Randy and I weren't home. Then it rained Sunday and Monday (Memorial day). Then more rain Tuesday and Wednesday. Oh well. Today is dry (so far) but cloudy... At least it's cool. :)

So, no cookouts or pool parties for Memorial day weekend. No lying by the pool. No working in the yard (yay!). Randy and I did, however, work inside the house. The current project is installing a murphy bed in the front bedroom office so that we can use the room as an office more effectively. Fun, eh? We actually enjoy that kind of stuff. However, after working like 5 or 6 hours, it does kind of drag... And of course, as with any project at our house, there is always more to do than we plan. In this case, we needed to rewire the receptacles, move two light switches, run audio cables (for whole house audio, natch) and run ethernet and coax cable. Additionally, since we're recycling pieces of old bookshelves, in addition to using a murphy bed salvaged from a friend's condo, the construction of the bed cabinet was strenuous, at times... We're not finished yet but hope to be soon.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I passed my real estate class final. I am now scheduled to take the State exam June 14 in Macon, GA. WHEE!