Summertime and the livin's easy

It's always a good idea to blog while slightly tipsy, right? Right? It is when you're bragging about living in a place where you can walk to at least 2 dozen happy hours! We live diagonally across the street from a brewpub with a fantastic happy hour. They have 15-20 items on their menu, and so far everything we've tried has been good.

Although I frequently use my blog as a venting space, things are going really well. The weather has been great, so I've stopped driving to work. Instead, I walk the .62 miles to our light rail and take that into work (it stops 1 block from my office). It's delightful to start my day off with a walk in the fresh morning air. While I can't promise I'll continue when the rainy season starts, it's great for now. Once they finish repairing the bridge near our place I might ride my bike as well.

In my entire life I've never lived in a place where I could walk everywhere. I'm totally loving it. The closest grocery store is 1 block away, Whole Foods is just a few blocks, Trader Joe's is a few more blocks, and the restaurants are too numerous to count. We lived in our house for almost a year and only really knew one neighbor, yet already in our apartment we know several people and we've been invited for wine around the fire pit. We've enjoyed fresh cookies while sitting in the courtyard, and we've wandered the neighborhood in the evening after work. We feel a new-found sense of freedom with an extra hour after work since we have short commutes. Bored and want a movie to watch? Just walk across the street to the Blockbuster box or take the mile walk to one of THREE local theaters. It's ideal in these warm summer days.

In an ironic twist to the rant about Comcast, our "free" wireless they promised doesn't work at all on my computer, and intermittently on Bryan's computer. While they are "actively working on it" and appreciated me letting them know it didn't work, it's really hard to live without internet (or TV). We can't have any type of dish due to other buildings, and the rabbit ears only got 1 channel well (CBS - unless you count the Jesus stations that came in perfectly clear!). We had to cave and get Comcast again. The bright side is we got a great deal ($59.99 for cable and internet) and no contract. We hope our building gets everything figured out before our promo deal ends in 6 months so we can cancel. It sucked to have to give them our money again, but we're paying less than half of what we paid before, so we're still "saving" money.