Whatever the reason, nothing is going to stop me this time. I may even upload beard progress report photos if you're lucky.

I only hope I can grow a nice one!

...and now we return to our mostly silent blog!

We bought a puppy.

It was pretty sudden. When I woke up on Memorial Day I had no idea we'd be getting a puppy at all, and then it just happened. I had gotten my car washed at the Downtowner car wash in, you guessed it, downtown Saint Paul. The Downtowner is a fantastic place where they really know how to hook your car up so that it looks brand new. They also go one step further and throw in a free Sunday paper when you go on Sunday. Anyways, it was the next day and I remembered that I hadn't yet read my free paper. I started paging through the thing and thought, "I wonder if any one is selling Australian Shepherd puppies?"

Hope and I had been kind of joking that now that we have the house, that we may as well get the dog that we've been talking about for the last two years. Then there it was, Aussie pups for sale in the Sunday paper. I called the breeder, and later that day we were at his home about an hour out of the city picking out our pup.

I could go on and on about the details, but I'll just say that his name is "Peet", and that we could not have gotten a nicer puppy. He sleeps through the night without crying, doesn't wet his kennel at night or when we're at work during the day, and is as friendly as can be. Our cat doesn't care for him much, but we're confident that they'll grow to love each other as brothers. It should also be noted that Peet comes from a long line of champion Aussie show dogs , but we don't plan on breeding him.

Enough talking, photos say everything much better. Please check out the first installment in a series I like to call: The Summer of Peet!

I think a few pictures of Mr. Luffer snuck in here too, but he also deserves a whole lot of attention for putting up with all the changes in this house.

One of the things I've discovered through these travels is that there is an entire drinking sub-culture in St. Paul that previously I had no idea existed. Maybe I just ignored it, maybe I presumed myself too "classy" to associate myself with it, or maybe it's true that our perception of the world is very much shaped by what we want to see, as much what is really there. At any rate, I never would have guessed that I would enjoy the West End so much, or that it would feel as comfortable as it already does.

Before I moved to Boston, I always thought of myself as a young, hip, Uptown-Minneapolis bar-hopping kind of guy. Since moving back though, I've been slowly getting more and more back to basics. This transition has been most notably showcased by my almost complete refusal to step foot into any bar besides The Muddy Pig at Selby and Dale in St. Paul. Something about the feel of neighborhood bars started to really grab me. Maybe all those years of being very anonymous in Boston made me crave a place where people know my name. That, or I just love the Muddy's Cuban sandwich, which is certainly possible.

Anyways, I was stunned to find out that there are least five drinking establishments in a 3 block radius around my house. These are old bars, born at a time when windows were optional, and cheap wood paneling was not.

One of these bars, "The Spot", is actually rumored to be the oldest bar in St. Paul. It proudly states that it was "Established in 1885" on a faded "Pig's Eye Pilsner" sign that hangs like a testimonial to the neighborhood's past on the side of the building. This bar is pure simplicity in action: 3 booths, 2 windows, a beat up old bar, and one dartboard. When Mose and I were there a couple weeks ago we came to the conclusion that The Spot could actually make for a great replacement for the modern living room. We came to this conclusion because from our own observations it seemed that everyone there had shown up just to drink and watch television. The place was silent except for the occasional clinking of pint glasses as everyone was engrossed in watching the latest episode of "CSI". It was so laid back and chill that a La-Z-Boy recliner would not have seemed at all out of place. We had to remind ourselves to keep our voices just above a whisper to avoid disturbing the serenity of it all. If you're looking to have a quiet conversation with a friend or two, The Spot is the spot for you. The only thing that really let me down about the place was the lack of a proper bar-food menu. In fact, the only food present is a rather comprehensive and impressive selection of little bags of honey roasted nuts, as well as Cheetos. If that's your idea of a meal, then I guess you're all set. Mose needed something more though, even after finishing two bags of the little buggers. That said, if you're lucky enough to be there at the right time you might be approached by a little old Latino lady passing through who sells tamales out of a little portable cooler. I can't vouch for the quality of the tamales though, I haven't had the appetite to try out out the few times we've crossed paths.

The other establishment high on my list right now is a little hole in the wall on West Seventh Street that goes by the name of "Joe and Stan's". To tell you the truth, I don't know if I would have ever even noticed it, let alone ventured inside, if it weren't for the glowing recommendation that the place received from a schoolteacher friend of my mother. I figured that if it's safe enough for an elementary school teacher, that it's good enough for me. My first encounter with Joe and Stan's happened the same night that Mose and I hit The Spot. It was around 9PM, and Chris Tierney had actually shown up to join us, being that he also lives only about 4 blocks away. Mose got a craving in his belly for something a little more substantial than the mixed nuts that the Spot was offering, so I suggested we hoof it down a few blocks to Joe and Stan's. The idea came to me because I'd been encouraged to check out Joe and Stan's two-dollar dinner specials. They serve a different special every night of the week: tacos, hot pork sandwiches, coneys, and other sumptuous items all at the low price of $2.00, which was definitely enticing. What I didn't know was that the specials end at 9PM, and that Mose was out of luck. All was not lost though, since after nine they still serve up pizzas. I didn't expect too much from the pizza, which was from an unknown to me purveyor by the name of "Heggie's", but the waitress insisted that they were very good, so we gave it a shot. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be very tasty! In fact, it bore a very close culinary resemblance to one of my favorite St. Paul pizza's: Carbone's. Even better than the pizza though, was that directly following the delivery of the pizza to our table, the waitress proceeded to get up on stage for karaoke night and give the best performance of the evening.

I ventured back to Joe and Stan's the following week with Hope, Chris, Marie, and baby Ada. We were all very curious about the taco special - well, maybe not Ada - and with all of the stress of getting ready to move, a cheap meal among good friends sounded damn good. Upon setting foot inside Joe and Stan's we couldn't help but be surprised by the popularity of the place at dinner time. The place was packed by an interesting mix of parents with their kids, as well as a seriously large group of leather-clad bikers! We were a little hesitant to bring four month old Ada around a bunch of potentially rowdy bikers, but were pleasantly surprised by their polite and friendly manner. One lady even exclaimed:

"That girl should be in commercials! She's so cute, I want to buy her something right now!"

Personally, I would have rather she paid for my tacos instead, but I digress. Another surprise was that while yes, you could get two dollar tacos, you also had a wide array of other mexican food options: enchiladas, nachos, burritos, and tostadas. Not bad for a biker joint on a Wednesday. We all ordered a bunch of food, a few cheap beers, and proceeded to wait, all the while trying to stay out of the line of fire of bikers trying to get to the pull-tab window near our table.

The food showed up and was actually pretty good. I ordered two tacos, which was actually way too much food. I mean, it wasn't amazing food, but for $4.00 total, who can complain? The one comment I will make is that it's a big stretch to give unique names to all of the "entrees". Everything has exactly the same ingredients: cheap shredded lettuce, pre-shredded cheddar cheese, and some real greasy taco meat. They're just presented in different versions of the shell: flat and fried, folded and fried, rolled up and baked... you get the picture. Again, I'm not complaining, but come on!

We're going to try to head back for dinner again next week sometime during "pre-move house cleaning week". I'm pretty curious about the pork sandwich and the coneys, but I probably won't spend an hour writing those reviews too.

So, head on down to Joe and Stan's or the Spot sometime and check out the "real" Saint Paul. You won't be disappointed! Next adventure: Skarda's

Hope and I will be closing on May 12th. Now we just need to get packed and ready!

However, I was abruptly awoken at around 12:30 this afternoon by my realtor calling. Turns out that our offer was not accepted, and we have no intention of making another one. The house we were looking at was a lovely two and a half story Victorian built in 1910, located in a great St. Paul neighborhood. It has a ton of potential, but needs so much help that we just can't see offering more money. There was a considerable amount of work we'd want to do just to feel good moving in: floors, garage, kitchen cupboards... I think the woman selling it is going to be sorry that she didn't just sell it to us now... it's just priced too high considering all the help it needs.

So, we're back to the drawing board, and back on the streets of St. Paul looking for a place to call home. I know we'll get there, but this is the second house we've lost in the search so far. We're getting better at not getting too upset about it, but we just want the search to be over soon.

The perfect house is still out there somewhere, so let us know if you see it!

I'm on-call for Target this week, and while most of the week was fairly quiet, I've been pretty much working off and on all weekend on one of our largest servers. I'm currently staring bug-eyed with sleep deprivation at my monitor waiting for it to boot. The thing takes like 4 hours to boot... seriously.

I've been here since 7AM, and may be here till 7 tonight. Ahh...

Having all this down time is also not so good for taking my mind off the fact that Hope and I put in an offer on a house in St. Paul yesterday! I'm not going to give any details right now though, because I don't want to jinx it by talking it up too much. All I'll say is that it's a beautiful, and I really really hope the woman selling it accepts our offer.

Hopefully I'll have to more to tell about it, and pictures to post in the next few days!

I think I'm going to take a nap or go for a walk while this server boots...

Basically, the short version is as follows:

Hope and I have decided against having a big crazy wedding. Instead, we're going to have a very small ceremony for our families, and instead we're going to be:

• Going on an extended honeymoon to Belize and Guatemala.
• Putting some of that money towards buying our house!

We're about to dive into the whole house buying thing next week, hopefully. We just need to settle on a realtor and start viewing some houses!

More to follow... I just had a killer week at work, and this is all I can muster.

Death Cab For Cutie is in town to support their new record, "Plans", and my attendance is required. I'm going down the Ave with Hope, The Blizz, and Chris and Marie Tierney... which will pretty much make it just like old times. I'm just scared of what other Twin Cities ghosts might show up. At a show this good and hyped, it could be just about anybody!

This corporate emotional manipulation through song is truly evil stuff!