Holy cow! The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser
is freakin’ amazing! A quick Google search will show I’m late to the
party, but I had to post something anyway because I was absolutely
floored by this thing. I picked up a pack a week or so ago while buying
stuff to wash my car. I picked up a standard monster brush to use on
the rims, along with one of those �spray-on, wash-off, you’re-done�
products. I saw the Magic Eraser sitting right there and thought, �No
way is this gonna do anything on my nasty wheels�, but it was very
cheap so I thought I’d give it a shot. I started with the spray-on
product, and it did absolutely nothing, even after two applications on
one of the rims. Then I tried the Magic Eraser. Honest to God, it was
effortless and the rims look brand new!! The months of
dirt/grime/brake-dust just wiped away with no force whatsoever as
quickly as I could move the eraser over the rims. It probably took all
of 10 minutes to clean all four, despite how aweful they looked when I
started. I was truly, truly amazed (enough to write this blog post).

If you haven’t tried these things, by all means go pick up a pack
and give ‘em a shot. They’ve also got a Magic Erasor Duo which is two
sided and meant to be used indoors (you use the non-eraser side to wipe
up whatever it is you’re trying to get rid of after going over it with
the eraser). I’m definitely gettin’ me some of those. Granted, there
are some surfaces you’ll want to keep these things away from, but they
still�work on a ton of stuff (even sneakers, according to some
posts I found with Google). Check ‘em out!

So it’s been a while. No doubt about that, but let’s not linger. Moving on…updates…

I’ve been amazed this last couple of months at just how fast things can move. Business, personal…it’s all flying by lately. Case in point – I got pissy back in January towards the leasing agents at my apartment complex. My lease was expiring at the end of January and, despite several phone-calls I made to let them know I intended to renew my lease at the same monthly rate, they never got back to me. Finally, when I got them on the phone in early January, they informed me that my rent would be going up by $75 per month. Though I complained vehemently that I had called several times to renew but was never called back, they basically said, �Well how do we know you really called?�. In other words, I’m a liar and they’re raising my rent. As you may have noticed by now, I’ve got a thing about customer service, or the lack thereof nowadays. In light of this treatment, I took their new lease (which they finally left on my door) down to their office, tore it in half and told them I would be going month-to-month until further notice, intending to find a new place ASAP. Granted, the month-to-month rate for my place was $300 more per month than I had been paying, but it was still cheaper than signing a new, seven-month minimum lease, assuming I got out of there within a few months.

A week or so later (because I never do anything immediately – it’s a flaw, I know), I got hooked up with a realtor a couple of friends had used and started looking around. Ten days or so after that, I found �the one�, made an offer the next evening and had a sales contract within the hour. That certainly made things busy for the next few weeks! It was an…interesting experience. I wouldn’t say it was as nerve wracking as everyone said it would be, but it’s definitely not something I’d say I enjoyed. The actual �closing� was this past Monday. That was a little overwhelming – signing 50,000 documents, none of which made much of any sense, save the one which points out just how much money I will have spent assuming I pay off the mortgage in thirty years (never going to happen, but still – holy shit).

Tuesday sucked. I now owned a house, but the movers weren’t coming until Wednesday morning. I went to my new place, but after a couple minutes I was bored with the emptiness and went back to my apartment. The move on Wednesday was pretty easy, since I paid a company to do it for me. I’m too old for the �U-Haul-and-some-buddies� method. Things like moving everything you own down three flights of stairs is exactly the kind of crap job money is made to get you out of doing, and I was more than willing to write the check. Hell, it only took them a few hours! I had the cable guy scheduled the same morning and the phone company switched me the same day as well, so I was good to go by 1:00 PM or so. When they all finally left is when things got a little weird. The size and emptiness of �my house� got to me, so I threw on some shoes and went to the office. I’m still flipping back and forth, actually. Sometimes, I’m excited as can be and it’s all good. Then I freak out and convince myself the mortgage broker is going to come knocking on my door to let me know they’ve discovered I’m just a kid pretending to be grown-up and they want their money back.

Anyway…long story short: I moved out of my apartment, I bought a 2-bed, 2-bath, 2-car-garage, 1340 sq. foot �villa� in a little development about 3 miles from where I used to live and about 3 miles from my office. For those of you who may actually visit one of these days, let me apologize right now: the 2nd bedroom is an office. You’re welcome to the couch, or a blow-up matress I’ll borrow from my brother, but that’s the best I can do.

Time to sleep. I’m back in the office tomorrow after taking off Monday afternoon and all of Wednesday and today. Sad as it is, I think that’s the most time I’ve spent out of the office in a single week since I started my career 7 years ago.