Archive for February, 2009

I get anxiety.  It’s not like being scared in the movie theater during a horror movie.  It’s not the feeling you get before a big meeting.  It’s the feeling of being tense.  You don’t understand why, but you cannot get this feeling of fear out of your head.  The more you think about it, the worse it gets.  It’s a snowball of terror of god knows what that seems to have no end.  It is, hands down, the worst feeling I have ever had.  In a nutshell, I get the feeling I am going to die.  Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.  Sometimes I feel like I’m having a heart attack.  Most of the time I really can’t put my finger on what I am freaking out about, it’s just pure unadulterated terror.  It sucks.  If I could have one magical wish in my life it wouldn’t be money, or power or even the ability to fly (even though that would rock) it would be to be done with this anxiety.

It all began about five years ago when I lived with my buddy Todd.  I was single and had recently broken up with my ex-girlfriend.  I had worked at Indigo Studios for about a year and was still very much at the bottom of the totem pole.  Needless to say, I was stressed out and depressed which made me more stressed and I didn’t even know it.  It was the first time I was making it on my own.  I had my own money, my own friends and my own life.  I smoked a lot of cigarettes back then and smoked alot of other stuff.  Overall, I smoked alot.  I also started to drink some more as I began to hang out with my buddy Jamie.  It was a fun time.  I’m not sure the exact date, but I started the day off with a double shot Iced Mocha from Starbucks.  Not anything unusual as I started drinking coffee when I started making it everyday for my boss Marc and Indigo.   It was a Sunday so I did nothing all day.  Sat on the couch, ate food, hung out, ate food, smoked and smoked.  Todd came home and brought a movie he needed to watch for some project he was working on for his Portfolio Center class.  It was called “Jacob’s Ladder”.

He threw it on.  The first scene was a group of soldiers in the Vietnam jungle sitting around eating food and having a good time.  All of a sudden they broke out in seizures.  I hate watching seizures.  I didn’t make it through that first scene before my life changed in a way I could never imagine.  I had my first panic attack.  Now panic attacks are the peak of all anxiety.  And a first ever panic attack is by far the worst it gets.  It usually starts with a rapid heart beat and the feeling of not knowing what is happening.  This follows by panic.  Again, the panic not geared towards one thing in particular.  It is just fear of the unknown.  Fear of death for no apparent reason.  I paced back and forth in my room, sweating, and freaking out.  It took me about 15 minutes before I could get myself back to sanity.   After it was over, I knew I couldn’t watch the movie, but I did anyway.  Thank Gad there were no more seizure scenes.  I made it through most of the movie, but I grew bored as I had no idea what was happening cause I missed the first 15 minutes.

The next day I still had no idea what had happened to me.  After some long extensive research online I learn my disease.  Anxiety happens to a lot of people.  It happens to a lot of people in their early 20’s or 30’s that have a lot of responsibility thrown on them all at once.  To this day I still deal with anxiety, but I have been fighting a battle with it for almost 5 years and I have a pretty good grip on it.  There are certainly things out there that can still make it flair up once in a while, but nothing like that first day.  Too much caffeine, depression, Priscilla’s pms, stress at work, stress at home, weddings, buying a house, traveling, being hung over are all things that can make anxiety kick in.  But now I know.  I have found ways to keep my cool, but I am always looking for new ones.  I honestly think that my good friend anxiety will be with me my whole life in one way or another, but I am confident that I will be able to keep him at bay when it really matters.

I have become one with my Facebook.

1. When Dave was 19 he moved 2,466 miles away from home to go to an Art School that has 300 students.
2. Dave was called David until he moved to Atlanta.
3. Dave’s brother recently lost over a hundred pounds and looks awesome.
4. Dave is an artist that never uses a pencil.
5. Dave named his freelance company 23 Designs after Michael Jorden jersey number.
6. Dave is a die hard Kings fan even when they suck.
7. Dave can’t spel.  Never could.  Never will.
8. Two of Dave’s best freinds ever are gay.
9. Dave is an internet pirate in so many ways.
10. Dave owns a fat gray cat named Winnie and an all white ferret named Alice.
11. Dave is in constant fear of panic attacks.
12. Dave met his wife when he was 22 and married her at 27.
13. Dave owns his car.
14. Dave has a blog.  Read it.  http://www.23designs.net/blog
15. Dave will eat anything once but will never eat Durian twice.
16. At age 20, Dave traveled to Singapore with his roommate Spyke.
17. Dave graduated with an illustration degree yet does not do illustration.
18. Dave is a skeptic in so many ways and has no hope for our current government.
19. Dave has always loved female pop singers including the Spice Girls and Britney Spears.
20. Dave is Agnostic and his mom works for the California Catholic Conference.
21. Dave has a blind Aunt named Shelly.
22.Dave has watched every episode of Lost, Heroes, Dexter, Entourage, Weeds, Smallville,The Office, and 30 Rock.
23. Dave’s website is http://www.23designs.net.  Look at it!
24. Dave was born on May 16, 1981 and will die August 2, 2069 from an infection in his left big toe.
25. Dave married Priscilla and is, in every way, the king.

3037 Montclair Circle is tucked away in a little town called Smyrna.  Smyrna is a small suburban town sitting directly next to it’s big brother Atlanta.  Located just outside the perimeter, Smyrna is close enough to the city to still be considered part of the city yet just far enough away to loose most the traffic and craziness.  It is close to the freeway, close to a little town square with shops and restaurants, and just close enough to my office.  The neighborhood itself is a cookie cutter community that has about 35 homes that share about ten different styles.  It’s not too bad, but they all definitely look similar.  They are all brick.  Some of them have basements, and some have fenced in yards.  3037 has neither, yet it is in the best spot in the neighborhood.  Montclair Circle is one street that simply goes in a loop.  At the end of that loop, it continues to a small community of blackstone styled townhomes.  We both share the name Montclair.  Overall, it is a great little neighborhood.

3037 Montclair Circle was built in 2003 and has three bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms, a kick ass kitchen with an island and a cool back splash, two story tall ceilings in the living room and a two car garage.  The current owner had leased the property and the current tenant was making some renovations.  They were putting in hardwoods in the living room and crown molding in the kitchen.  The only problem was that they ran out of money before they could finish. Plus, the house was selling “As Is” so we would have to fix the floors before we move in.

 It was originally bought in June of 2008 for $352,000 and the owner soon realized they could not afford it.  It soon began to go into foreclosure.  When we made our offer on the house it had two weeks before it was to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  We knew we had to act fast.  The house was listed at $299,000 so we made an offer of $280,000 with a month of Due Diligence and two weeks of a Financial Contingency.  This basically means we have a month to make inspections, get financing and commit.  Mr Willard also added some small stipulations that will cover our asses from the seller and the bank.  Overall the process of making an offer was way more complicated than I thought and involved signing a large contract with a lot of things I didn’t really understand.  But we did it.   It was our first official offer.

About a week went by before we heard anything.  We found out that there were two other offers on the table but the seller was interested in ours none the less.  They wanted to slice some of Mr Willard’s small stipulations off, cut our Due Diligence and Financial Contingency down a week and wanted to know if we could up our money offer.  Before we came to settle on this house, we had seen 40 others that didn’t peak our interest.  We were willing to negotiate.   We let them have their cut stipulations and threw on another $10,000 to tell them we mean business.  When we first starting looking, my top price was $300,000 so I was willing to give in alittle.  We submitted our second offer.  After talking with the listing agent Mr Willard told us that they were very interested and they were going to push to make it happen.  The excitement started to build.

After a few days they came back with another offer.  This time they wanted to slice the Due Diligence and  Financial Contingency down to 15 days.  This is where things got sticky.  I really wanted to not have to play hard ball and take a stand because I really wanted this house.  Priscilla thought the 15 days was just too short of a time to decide and I agreed.  We turned down those stipulations and stuck to our guns.  We took a stand and resubmitted our final offer.  

We received the signed offer sheet from the seller three days later.    They accepted.  But this is not the end of the madness.  In a “short sale” the owner and the seller have to agree on the terms.  So now the seller needs to submit our offer to the bank.  Mr Willard says that because it was about to be auctioned off, the bank should act fast and accept within a couple of days.  Priscilla and I are trying not to get our hopes up, but we have our fingers crossed.  If all things go as planned, we could soon be on to the next phase: inspections and financing.

to be continued…

Over the years I have had four cell phones. The first two were big and bulky and, as of today, very outdated. My first one didn’t even have a camera. Man! Year after year cell phones get better, smaller and faster. So a little over a year ago, with all the iPhone madness, I decided I wanted a “cool” phone. Now being with Verizon, I could not go buy a iPhone even though I wasn’t completely sold on them anyway. I am a PC guy and I wanted a PC phone. Anyway, I went out and paid $350 for a LG Voyager. It had a touch screen and a keypad. Awesome. The more I played with it the more I hated it. I updated the firmware and downloaded a ton of ring tones to make it awesome. It never really got there. Anyway, after a year or fumbling with the Voyager, I decided I needed another upgrade. I went out and bought a Blackberry Storm.

Now I did a little homework before I actually bought the thing. I looked at various LG phones amongst others all with touch screens. I read reviews and tried them out in the store. I liked the Blackberry Storm because when you clicked the screen, you had to really click it. Not just touch it. I had major issues with my Voyager because the touch screen was so sensitive and it wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. I took it home and started playing with it. I had never had email on my phone so this was a whole new experience for me. I got everything hooked up and figured out that I could synchronize it to my outlook contacts on my work computer. It is pretty helpful, but now I have way too many contacts and I need to find a way to organize them. Hopefully there is an easy way to do this. I still have a lot to learn.

I got to say that the Blackberry Storm is awesome. It is fairly easy to use and the typing is actually pretty good with practice. My only complaint is that it is a little slow. I am fast and can move through a computer pretty quickly so when there is a lag I can get pretty frustrated. But there is new firmware that will be out in February so maybe that will help things out. I’m glad I bought it but I do wish I could get an iPhone. Even though I hate Macs cause they are too expensive. But the iPhone is not expensive but whatever. The Storm is close enough.