The University of Mississippi Amateur Radio Club (UMARC) will be setup in the Circle on campus from approximately 1pm on Saturday to 1pm on Sunday. We’ll have three HF stations setup, two on voice and one on CW (Morse code).

The purpose of Field Day is to practice setting up stations “in the field” and showing off our capabilities to the public. Mainly it’s just fun. For those of us without radios of our own, it gives us a chance to get in lots of quality operating time.

If you’re curious about ham radio, stop by and give it a try. If you’re not in Oxford, have a look at the Field Day Station Locator and find a club setup near you.

It was a record day for me personally. I voted for two Democrats and a Republican. While I don’t identify as a Republican, I do tend to agree with them more than the Democrats. I’m to the right of the Republicans on most economic issues, so voting for Democrats is typically out of the question. On the other hand, parties mean less in local elections, especially here in Mississippi were a lot of your older, hardcore conservative voters self-identify as Democrats and won’t vote for Republicans, period. Also, I’ve found that programs I could never stomach on a national level aren’t so bad on a local level.

Back in my hometown of Belmont, my younger brother ran for alderman. In Belmont (population ~2,000), all the alderman are at-large, and they all run as independents by tradition, so there is no primary. Brandon received the second highest number of votes out of the eight that were running. Most of his opponents were twice his age or better. Congratulations, Brandon!

My dad has been an alderman in Belmont for 21 years, but didn’t run for re-election this time. The other aldermen held a reception to honor him and the retiring mayor a few weeks ago. I’ve got some pictures to post when I get a chance.

As you’ll notice, there are a few things that need to be fixed or tidied up before we move in. This includes refinishing the kitchen cabinets, fixing or replacing the cracked tiles in the kitchen, and painting the front door. Cassie wants to do some painting too. Also, as soon as I we close I want to go ahead and get some more trees in the ground. We’re running out of prime tree planting season.

As for the home inspection, I haven’t gotten the report from the home inspector, but last time I spoke to him (about two hours into the inspection) he said he hadn’t found any major issues.

It occurred to me while I was organizing the pictures that Cassie and I haven’t shared a bathroom in about six years, since we moved out of our first apartment. Of course, given the size of the master bathroom, that shouldn’t be a problem.

I’m sure I’ll be posting much more about the house.

]]> http://www.movl.net/blog/2009/03/our-new-house/feed/ 3 http://www.movl.net/blog/2009/03/buying-a-house/ http://www.movl.net/blog/2009/03/buying-a-house/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:41:52 +0000 bnp http://www.movl.net/blog/?p=526 Cassie and I started house hunting last week, made an offer yesterday afternoon, and came to an agreement with the seller earlier this evening. We are quite excited about the prospect of being “homeowners.”

The house is in the South Oaks subdivision, which is about half a mile south of where we live now. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and is a little over 1900 square feet. It sits on a 0.96 acre lot on a cul-de-sac, at the edge of the subdivision. The fenced-in backyard is huge, and the lot extends well into the wooded area behind the fence.

There are currently over 1,500 properties on the market in the Oxford area. However, due to our requirements and budget, our options were relatively limited. Firstly, we wanted the house to be in the Oxford School District. We want the kids to go to Oxford city schools (more on that later).

Secondly, we wanted a relatively large yard with some trees. When we began our search we defined “relatively large” as half an acre. We did much better with the yard that I could have ever expected.

On the other hand, we were hoping to get a four bedroom house, or at least three bedrooms and a bonus room. There were a few of those in our price range, but there was always something else “wrong” with them. Three bedrooms is a little on the tight side for us, but it’ll be fine. We plan on moving up in house in five or six years anyway.

The house was originally put on the market in August. The seller dropped the price 7.2% in October, and the price we agreed on was 5.3% below the reduced price. The price we agreed on was a lot less than we initially planned on spending. As our house hunt moved along we decided we’d prefer to spend less on a house and have a little more surplus income. I’m very happy with that decision, and I’m not sure I would have been so relaxed through the whole process if we hadn’t come to that conclusion early on.

Our contract states that we’ll close on or before April 15th, and we plan on being moved in by the end of April. There’s a lot to do between now and then. The first step is a home inspection. I’m sure you’ll be hearing much more about the house.

My research primarily consisted of reading some bowl picks on ESPN.com and looking at schedules. I spent a total of an hour and a half making my picks, so I’m not going to be able to claim much skill in the case that I do well.

So far I’ve picked 8 of the 11 bowl games correctly, putting me in top 54 or the top 9%. No one has picked all 11 correctly, only 1 person has picked 10 correctly, and only 8 people have picked 9 correctly, so making these picks is a little harder than you might think.

A couple of my picks that went the wrong way have been very close. Troy lost to Southern Miss in overtime by having a relatively short field goal blocked in the New Orleans Bowl. North Carolina lost 30-31 to West Virginia in the Meineke Bowl.

Because someone will ask, I’ll go ahead and tell you that I did pick Texas Tech to beat Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl. I’ll be cheering for Ole Miss, but the reality of the situation is that we’re unlikely to win. It could happen, but the odds are against it.

As I mentioned, the score of the championship game serves as the tiebreaker, and I picked Florida to beat Oklahoma 34-27. It could really go either way, but I picked Florida to win because I want them to win. I noticed that some people played twice, turning in identical sheets with the exception of the championship game pick and score. That’s a good strategy, but I’m too cheap.

I’ll post a couple of updates as the bowl season progresses.

In other Oxford news, we’re getting a Chick-fil-A on West Jackson. Presumably it’ll be open by the time the students return in the fall. Also, the Country Club of Oxford/Grand Oaks is being foreclosed on. Be at the courthouse steps on December 30th at 11am. You might get a good deal.

As it turns out, we didn’t just beat them, we beat them very solidly, 31-13. It could have been worse too. At the end of the game we went to the “victory formation” inside their five yard line. We missed another good opportunity to score when we intercepted the ball on their end of the field. It was just a well-played ballgame all the way around on our part. Ole Miss football teams have a tendency to fall apart in big games like this, but we didn’t. A lot of credit for that has to go to Coach Nutt. He has a lot of big game experience. His Arkansas Razorbacks beat LSU at home, in triple overtime, last season. LSU went on to win the national championship.

Saturday’s game was the first annual “Magnolia Bowl.” Also, we are now ranked No. 25 in the country in both the AP and Coaches polls.

Assuming we beat Mississippi State next Friday, we’ll get a spot in the Cotton Bowl. I don’t see any way around it. On paper, we beat Mississippi State every time. You can never be sure about rivalry games though. We better not overlook them.

The last bowl game we went to was the 2004 Cotton Bowl. It was Eli Manning’s senior season. The Cotton Bowl is a good, quality bowl, and Ole Miss fans should be thrilled. I know I would have been happy with the Music City Bowl at the beginning of the year.

This weekend there was one game with definite national championship implications. That was Oklahoma vs. Texas Tech. Texas Tech came into the game ranked No. 2 in the country, and Oklahoma was supposed to be somewhat of an underdog. The Sooners crushed Texas Tech 65-21.

I’ll spare you the “in-depth” analysis, but my prediction is we’ll see Florida vs. Oklahoma in the national championship game. Texas is ahead of Oklahoma in the BCS rankings right now, but that should change if Oklahoma beats No. 12 Oklahoma State next weekend. Oklahoma State is not a gimme by any means, but I expect Oklahoma to pull out the win. That would put Texas in the Fiesta Bowl, and Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl.

Yes, that’s right, we’ll be playing Texas Tech, an 11-1 team (after they beat Baylor next weekend) that was one win away from being (beaten by Florida) in the national championship game.

With any luck there will be a lot of controversy over whether it should be Oklahoma or Texas in the national championship game, and we’ll move a little closer to finding a sane method to select a national champion in college football. The BCS is definitely not it.

I had the “Big Bad Breakfast Plate.” It was quite good. Give it a try if you’re looking for something a little different for breakfast or lunch. I look forward to going back and trying one of their omelets and their andouille sausage.

On an unrelated note, I had forgotten how much fun it was to get a day off in the middle of the week. I may have to do that more often.

The pictures aren’t that great for two reasons. First of all, I used my Fuji point and shoot instead of my Canon SLR. I did this primarily because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle Luke and the SLR on the walk to the Ford Center. Also, I was a little concerned the security guys might flip out if I pulled out the SLR. As it turns out, that fear was completely unfounded. There were only a couple of rent-a-cops around the Ford Center, and I saw other people with SLRs. Also, Luke wasn’t real thrilled about being strapped into his stroller. Now that he can walk he likes a little more freedom.

A large tent set up for the journalists covering the debate just east of the Ford Center.

I plan on going back up there in the next few days with my SLR. Hopefully they won’t move anything around until I have a chance to take more pictures. With a tripod and a little time, one could take some really nice pictures around twilight. They have some very interesting lighting on the exterior of the building after dark.

Earlier in the week, the was some concern over whether or not the debate would actually be held. The latest news I’ve heard is that the debate will definitely take place, but possibly without McCain. Early this evening one of the Memphis stations was reporting the McCain “advance team” had done a walk through of the Ford Center. Also, it was being reported that both parties had reached an understanding on the financial bailout. However, it turns out that’s not the case, so it’ll definitely be interesting to see if McCain shows up. If he doesn’t, a one man debate will be interesting as well.

A lot of Oxfordians, myself included, will be upset if the debate doesn’t proceed as planned, with two candidates.

Cassie’s doctor told me a few months ago that he had heard we would be getting 3G because of the debate. According to this article from the Clarion Ledger, we were moved to the top of the list because of the debate.  Jackson, Vicksburg, and some suburbs of Memphis are the only other cities in Mississippi with 3G through AT&T.

The new repeater will supplement our existing 2m repeater on 147.33 MHz. The club also recently installed an APRS digipeater on top of Bishop Hall on campus.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any 70cm capable transceivers currently. I can listen on my scanner, but that’s it. Hopefully I can remedy that by the end of the year.

Anderson Communications' "tower jocks" carry the antenna to the top of the tower.

Continue reading for more photos of the antenna install and a propogation map.

Repeater antenna being installed on top of the hospital's tower.

The view to the south from the top of the hospital. (The view back toward town is blocked by pine trees.)

A propogation map showing the expected coverage area of the new repeater. (Image courtesy Rick, N5RB)

Last weekend Liam made his first trip to Belmont (our hometown). He did great, despite the fact he was awake the entire time, which is a little out of character for him.

Luke had his first swimming lesson at the Turner Center on campus last Tuesday. He was a little timid at first, but he really enjoyed it. They just splashed around to get used to the water. He was supposed to have another lesson Thursday, but we had to miss it to make it to Brandon’s rehearsal dinner on time. I’m interested to see what they do this time. Both Luke and I are looking forward to it. I’ll try to get some pictures at some point.

The presidential debate is in Oxford Friday night. Several streets near campus are shut down. Luke and I are going for a walk near the Ford Center this afternoon, and I’m going to see if I can take some pictures. It’s quite an impressive set up. Hopefully I don’t get tackled by the Secret Service.