Archive for January, 2009

So the wedding came and went.  It seems just like yesterday that we were walking down the isle.  But it’s not July.  It’s not even 2008.  It’s a new year and with a new year comes a new home for me and Priscilla.  After talking to some friends that had recently entered the world of home ownership we came across a guy named David Willard.  My good friend John and Dennis both used David as their real estate agent so I thought I would meet him and start the process once again.

David is a tall and dark guy that, though not necessarily his main neighborhood, has sold homes in the Smyrna area.  We decided he was our best choice to help continue our search.  He hooked us up with his brother who just happens to be in the Mortgage business.  James Willard, though I have never met him in person, seemed to be the ideal choice for our mortgage needs.  He got us quickly preapproved and we  were on our way.

David hooked us up with a similar online house portfolio that updated daily with new homes that are in the area we want and has what we want.  We were sticking with the 3 bedroom two bath range in Smyrna.  I wanted a basement.  Priscilla wanted anything new.  We both had the perfect house in our head.  It was just a matter of  finding it.

 The first day we went out to view some homes, we only went to see three.  The one with the basement was too old.  Go figure.  The more I looked the more I found that new houses are either expensive, or far away.  We needed to start looking for compromises.  Priscilla was dead set on a “non-fixer upper”  She wanted it “move in” ready.  I was willing to change some wallpaper and paint some walls if we had to.  So I started making a new list of houses to go visit.  This time I found about 8 houses to see.  This time they were mostly in the 2000 or newer range and still were safe in our price range.  They all had some plus’ and minus’ but none of them really made a splash.  

That was until I found a house one Montclair Circle in Smyrna.  I immediately showed Priscilla via email and she too thought it was a good one.  She made sure I knew that it didn’t mean a whole lot until we see the house in person.  It was hard for me not to get excited.  ”This could be it.”, I thought.  I tried hard to not get my hopes up.  We made our way to see the houses I found and after a full day of viewing all the houses the home on Montclair was still the only one we favored.

After that long day I knew we needed to act fast.  We told David to get any and all information on the Montclair house while I continue to look for more houses to see.  I tried to convince Priscilla that this was the house we wanted, but she was set on seeing at least 50 houses before we decide as her friend Becki looked that 50 before she decided.  As I thought 50 was a little excessive, I truly thought it would be a good idea to see as many as possible, if only to educate ourselves on what was out there.  I then stretched out search criteria alittle wider in order to have more options.  My main concern was that we may not have any more to see in our price range or the area we wanted.  I raised the amount by $50,000 and made a new search.  It is amazing what $50,000 can do to a home search result.   Anyway, I was not willing to drop the extra 50k on our new home but in such a shitty housing market I thought it was not a bad idea to at least view homes out of our range.  I truly only did it thinking I could find someone desperate enough who would drop the price into our range.  It was that and Priscilla needed to see more homes.  Just enough to convince her that the Montclair house was the one for us.

We told David that we wanted to do Saturday and Sunday and see as many as we could.  I gave David a list of 15 houses.  Saturday we started our journey.  We saw 15 homes in one day.  Not one impressed us.  I mean there were some good ones.  Some new ones.  Some with basements.  But not one convinced us the Montclair house was not the best one out there.  Monday, we made an appointment to see the Montclair house again, just to help us make the decision.  Tuesday we had made up our minds.  We were ready for the next step:  making an offer.

to be continued…

One of my first experiences of deep thinking came in the realization of myself.  As this may sound strange, it hit me pretty hard at age 13.  I had an epiphany that I was who I was.  I was David James Caselli born in Sacramento California to a mid class family on the east side.  I was tall for my age and alittle chubby.  I was no one else but myself.  In a way I felt I had lost some control.  I had no choice on who I was or who I was going to be.  I would always be this David Caselli person in this body that I was born with.  I had to sit down as the thoughts overwhelmed me.  At the time I didn’t realize it, but it was the beginning of a long journey of self searching.  But it was the first step in learning something new about the world I live in and my place in it.

Overall I feel that most people in this world have never even had this thought enter their mind, or at least they have never tried to really ponder it.  I say this because I feel that a lot of people forget the perspective they have been given.  They live their lives for the one point of view they were given as a child. Their own.  The theme of perspective is forgotten so often and because of this, it effects the lives of the entire population.  Let me explain.

Let’s start with a quote from my man T.I., a local Atlanta rapper, “In order to understand my train of thoughts  you’ll have to put yo self in my position.  You cant expect me to think like you cuz my life ain’t like yours.”  His life is not like yours.  All he is asking is for people to judge him from his perspective and not your own.  This world is full of diversity.  Everyone is different and people fear that.  It is a simple concept but humans fear what they don’t understand.  All I really can truly understand is my own perspective yet I can try to put myself on someone else level and see from their side.  In doing this, problems can be resolved as you truly try to understand the person or the conflict or the society.  

Racism, Sexism, Agism and every other form of segrigation is all based on fear.  It is the fear of someone that is not like you.  We all need to admit that in one way or another we have this fear inside us.  As non-rascist as someone may think they are, there is a part of them that would rather be around someone of thier own race or age or sex as it makes them more comfortable.   Most of the time we don’t even realize our fear and quitely avoid it without confrontation.  My point is that when we segragate ourselves from the rest of the world, we refuse to look through the eyes of others.  And in doing this, we will never truly undersatnd each other and will always be in fear of one another.

The same thing holds when someone is in a certain mood.  If your wife is unhappy with you for no apparent reason, maybe there is an emotion running through her head because she is PMSing and she is stressed at work and stubbed her toe at 10:35am.  She may not even realize it, but this is the reason she is not a happy camper.  You, as her husband, have no way to understand as you cannot see it from her perspective.  You want to do everything to make her happy, but have no idea where the problem lies.  It’s up to you to find the answer to that one, as I have no idea.

All I am saying is that there is a reason for everyone’s actions.  They stem from that persons perspective.  As horrible the war overseas is, the people over there are doing the things they are doing for a reason.  Either Iraqi, United States Military or Al Quida.  Whether we think it is the right reason or not, it is not up to us to determine.  We were not born into a family that was part of Al Quida and if we were, we would hate the US just as much as they do.  And if we didn’t hate the US, we would be shot.  It also holds true here in the US.  What if I said I hated the US.  Why would I say that?  Shouldn’t I have some pride for the country I was born in?  Yes, I should and I should back my government no matter what.  Right?  It’s all a matter of perspective.

All this perspective talk made me think about life and who is wrong and right in this world.  All in all I think people are good.  Humans try to do what they think is right.  No one is truly evil.  Hitler had no respect for anyone else except himself and his power and his country.  He did what he thought was right.  He truly thought that if he ruled the world, it would be a better place.  I think he had the same problem as we all have today.  It is easy to judge each other and to say someone is doing something “wrong”, but it is our own responsibility to look deeper and to find the reason why someone is making that “wrong” decision.  And in doing that, we could find that the “wrong” decision may not be “wrong” at all. Maybe that”wrong” decision was only a misguided attempt to do something right.

We need to see things from other people’s perspectives as it is the only way to truly understand each other.

So it’s January again and it’s time once again for another all out redneck party for Holly’s Birthday. This time we all decided to hit up the Monster Truck Rally down at the Georgia Dome here in Atlanta.   The girl’s also planned a special present in bringing our old friend Mandi down from Michigan for a surprise visit.  It all turned out great and was full of good times great memories.

The Friday before the Rally, Priscilla, Meghan, Holly, Serina, Alex and Mandi had a girls night at the house to start things off right.  A night of preparation and wine ensued.  I cannot comment further as I am not allowed to know anything that happens at “Girl’s Night”

The Monster Truck Rally started at 7:30pm so, of coarse, the girls threw a kegger at 3:00pm to get everyone pumped up.  Priscilla and I surprisingly arrived on time only to be the first ones there.  Yeppie, more beer for me.  Not really as I remembered it was 3:30, but I poured one anyway.  I didn’t want it to go to waste.  Plus Meaghan worked so hard at getting the level of CO2 just right.  After five minutes of watching my foam go down, the fun began.  

Priscilla had gone all out and created her own t-shirt that read “Wanna Crank My Tractor?”  I’m not sure what that means, but as her husband I’m not sure I should approve.  But whatever.  I went with the more traditional look decked out in all Camo with a long sleeve camouflage shirt, a camouflage hat and my nice Banana Republic jeans.  (they were the tightest ones I had)  I added a mullet wig later thanks to Jo.  We looked pretty awesome.

People started to arrive slowly and five people soon became 30.  The jello shots were flowing along with the apricot Moonshine that was in every way the “Real Deal”.  Later in the night I tried to eat on of the floating apricots only to spit it out.  (it tasted like ass)  Anyway, most people dressed up so, as you can imagine, the party was one incredible sight to see.  Around 6:30 we all caravaned down the street to the MARTA to take the train down to the Georgia Dome.

On the MARTA I got a lot of looks from freaked out children that couldn’t figure out if my mullet was real or not.  I thought it was pretty funny.  Once we arrived we got our tickets and made our way up to the upper upper deck of the Dome.  The seats were cheap and in the “Nose Bleeds” yet they were decent considering you could see everything at once.  The trucks were pretty damn big if you know what I mean.

I was definitely disappointed that they didn’t crush more cars and the fact that there was no fire breathing robot dragon, but all in all, it was fun.  The giant trucks drove around in circles and jumped off ridiculously high jumps only to destroy themselves in the process.  At one point one truck lost his front wheel and still made it around the track several times before he flipped.  It was pretty entertaining.

At the end of the show we took a few pics down below and made our way back to the MARTA.  Once we got home we drank more beer and went to sleep.  Like I said it was a good time and I can’t wait to go again some time.  Maybe next year there will be a dragon.

As time continues on, things change throughout your life one way or another. As I wrote last month things involving the Caselli family are continuously evolving into something new; changing as time does. But for the traditions around Christmas, this year seemed a lot more familiar.

You see when I was growing up our family would partake in the same wonderful events year after year. After a long December of Advent calenders, decorations and school Christmas plays we were finally excited to go to church. Our family would always attend 5:30pm Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church Christmas Eve. I remember my Dad rushing us out the door at the last minute in our best Holiday attire and a Christmas sweater to match. Our Grandparents would always be in the pew alone waiting as they arrive extremely early to save us a seat. (The same aisle every year; the one that’s a pain in the ass to get in and out of because of this giant column on it’s right side.) We all would be joined by my Uncle and Aunt and their kids as well. Church always seemed longer on Christmas Eve, as the anticipation of what lie ahead continuously grew in my mind as Mass progressed.

After Church we would all head back to the house to grab an assortment of gifts and make our way to my Grandparents house. Would would be met by my other Uncle and his wife and kids too, creating around fifteen people to enjoy the night. My Grandma would prepare a wonderful Holiday feast that most of the time consisted of a Baked Ham, Raviolis, Bread, Salad and Wine. Even to this day, I eat at the designated kids table with all my cousins and, of coarse, my brother and sister. This year Priscilla got to join us. Over the years the table has gotten smaller, but we always seem to make it work. (Though Priscilla did bang her knee pretty hard against the table leg this year.) As kids, we would eat fast. Really fast. The time in between when us kids finished dinner and the family gift opening event seemed like an eternity.

So when the Grown-ups all had enough wine, we made our way into my Grandparents all white formal sitting room accompanied with a giant white Christmas tree. Usually a giant pile of Christmas presents was stacked high under the tree, and tree stockings hung from the fireplace with the names of my Dad and his brothers reading, “John”, “Jim” And “Mike”. Starting with the youngest, we would open our gifts one at a time. After about two rounds of that, us kids couldn’t be held back. It was a free for all.

Then, after piling our gifts into the car, we would make our way home to another sleepless night as the next morning brought even more gifts from Mom and Dad and of course Santa. The morning present opening was fun and full of gifts as it is still is to this day. We would finish up and wait a couple of hours till the Hills came over. My Mom’s side of the Family was always entertaining. They included my two big uncles Louie and Tim, my cousins Christine and Richard, my other uncle John with his blind wife Shelly, my Mom’s parents Grandma and Grandpa Hill, and later included my great Aunt May. The day was filled with another feast, visits from friends and family and other traditions like these nasty German Cookies.(sorry mom)

This year seemed almost like it always did. Priscilla is added to the group and Grandpa is in a wheelchair, but other than that the tradition is just as I remember it. Memories hold strong with the Caselli’s but I know one day even this tradition will evolve. Next year Priscilla and I will be celebrating with her family in South Carolina with her Sister’s babies and their new traditions. It makes me sad to think things wont continue on as they once did, yet the thought of a new tradition makes me excited about what tomorrow brings.