The Luney Bin: H. Wade Minter

Last night marked Class #2 of Hurricanes University – the off-ice class. There was some sort of Jesus thing going on at the RBC Center, so we had to park in the staff lot next to Carter-Finley.

We went up to the “Varsity Room” on the second floor. I snagged a spot on the front row, so I wouldn’t miss anything, a couple of seats down from a guy with a microphone and audio recording equipment.

We got each got Subway subs and a bag containing a bound book of class materials, a Hurricanes yearbook, and a T-shirt. After a few words from the guy running the program, we met our “Professor” for the first half of the evening – Hurricanes assistant GM Jason Karmanos. Karmanos was there to talk about the business side of hockey. While the course materials covered a wide range of business topics, he spent the whole time going over the new CBA. Things like the league, team, and player salary caps, calculations, how different trade scenarios affect the cap, that sort of thing. Very interesting to me, but I like the front-office side of sports. Apparently it was interesting to other people as well, because the room peppered Karmanos with questions until his time was up.

We all headed down to the lower level for our next trip (though I was the last one on the elevator asking Karmanos questions about where our AHL team will be next year). At that point, we found out that the guy with the audio equipment was a reporter for the Boston NPR program Only A Game, and he was doing a story on Hurricanes U. Pretty cool.

Our second professor of the night was Hurricanes head trainer Pete Friesen. He took us on a quick tour of the locker and training facilities – the “wet stall” locker room for game gear, the “dry stall” for player street clothes, weight room, cardio room, hot and cold tubs, etc. Friesen has a manic personality – very excitable and it seems like he’s got about eight thoughts going on at the same time. I can see how he’d be a great motivator for an athlete, and he was very fun to listen to. Also joining us was Canes rookie forward Andrew Ladd. He was actually supposed to join us for the on-ice class, but had aggrivated a hip injury and was scratched. We got to hang out in the lockers (I sat in Bret Hedican‘s just for Holly) and listen to them talk about training, pregame rituals, travel, the draft combine, and the like.

After that, we went back upstairs, got our suite tickets for tonight, and left.

So it was another great class to compliment the on-ice portion. For only $100, it’s still hard to believe you get what you do. Tonight is the on-ice “graduation” (complete with cap and gown), and we get to watch the Canes/Panthers game from a luxury suite.

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Last night marked the first of three “classes” in the Carolina Hurricanes fantasy camp, Hurricanes U. I took the “Hockey 101” class a couple years ago, and decided this year to go back for the Graduate course.

Last night’s class was the on-ice portion. Holly and Hayley came with me to watch, which was cool. We went down to the lower level of the RBC Center, where the team had set up a mini locker room, made up of the old Hurricanes lockers. In each locker was a helmet and a waiver. Heh.

Hockey hall-of-famer and Hurricanes broadcaster Chuck Kaiton was there to meet us. He took us to the production office, where the game feeds are managed, and then up to his radio booth and the pressboxes. Very cool look at the technology behind the game, and the fact that Chuck Kaiton has no neck. None at all. Stormy also made an appearance, which made Hayley happy.

After that, it was time to strap on the skates and hit the ice. Holly and Hayley, who’d been tagging along until that point, went into the stands to watch as I grabbed a stick and made my way out. I took a few practice laps around the NHL ice…

They had a goalie out in full pads, so several of us took turns taking shots at him. I managed to get one past him for my first time putting a puck past someone into the net!

Hurricanes coach and former player Jeff Daniels led the practice. He talked to us on the bench about strategy for a while, then we went through some drills. We started off with a drill to skate out around a glove at the faceoff circle, turn, and shoot. Then we advanced to a drill where we’d skate around the glove, wait for a pass from someone in the other line, and then take a shot. We finally split into two groups and did a relay race up and down the ice, which my side won.

It was back to the bench for some more coach talk (I amused the woman next to me by going over the wall to get on and off the ice – she even took a picture of it), then some free skating until it was time to leave. So much fun – I really need to get into an adult learn-to-play class.

Thursday night is the classroom portion of the U, with a section on the business side (waivers, draft, contracts, etc), followed by a trip to the locker room and a presentation by the training staff. Then Friday is our “graduation” on the ice before the game and tickets to a luxury suite for the game itself.

For $100, you can’t beat it.

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Well, there go my Duke-Over-UConn NCAA brackets.

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Looks like my Alma Mater got a shoutout on Wonkette today, in reference to the Washington Post’s new 24-year-old “conservative blogger” Ben Domenech.

Seems like a weird guy. And a strange “Hey, I know that place” moment.

I bet he wrote for “The Remant”.

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Given that it’s like 40 degrees out and nasty today, Holly and I both left the house this morning without making it presentable figuring, hey, we’ve only had one showing the past two months, they certainly won’t come out today.

Of course, when I get back to my desk from lunch, I find that we have a voicemail from centralized showing saying there was a showing at 2:30pm (about an hour from when I got the voicemail). I knew Holly was running more errands after lunch, so I drove home to do some cleaning before 2:30. Holly was there when I got there, so we ran through our getting-the-house-ready-to-show cleaning routine. I left to return to work around 2:45 or so.

Holly called me around 4 to let me know that the people had no-showed the appointment.

I want to kill.

Kill.

Don’t sell your house if you can help it, because at least with us, I’d say 20% of the people who call to request showings just don’t show up at all. Which means we screw up our schedule for assclowns who can’t even bother cancelling an appointment.

Kill.

Update

Holly raised the point that I hadn’t thought of – that it’s the buyer’s agents that are to blame. They’re the ones who call the Centralized Showing place to schedule the appointment, they’re (in all cases we’ve seen) with the buyers when they come to the house (since only the agent has the combination to the lockbox), so you’d think they’d have enough professional pride to call Centralized Showing and let them know they’re not coming. I know Centralized Showing will call back – we’ve had it happen like twice. But if our house has been scheduled to get shown 40 times since it’s been on the market, I’d say 10-15 have ended up being silent no-shows.

So if you’re a Realtor, don’t make showing appointments and then blow them off. It makes you look like a jackass.

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I went out yesterday and signed a contract on a new house. Or, technically, a .26-acre piece of ground that will eventually have a house on it. After looking around, we decided that Hampton Pointe in Rolesville, NC (near Wake Forest in northern Wake County) offered the best combination of location, house size, lot size, and cost that we’d found. So we picked up one of the last lots they had in Phase 1 of the development, and decided to put a Collinwood home on it.

Now for our next trick, we just have to sell our current house in Fuquay. We’ve technically got a 60-day contingency on the new house, but if ours hasn’t sold by then, we’ll just lift it and go on. Keystone (the builder) seems to take longer to build a house than a lot of builders in the area. That’s bad from the perspective that it’ll be October or November before we can move in, but good in the sense that they’re not throwing up a house in a month like a lot of big builders, plus it gives us a decent cushion to get our house sold. We’ll probably have to move into an apartment for a few months between selling and buying, which is lame, but I guess I can deal with it.

As for the house itself, it should be more than enough room for us, plus since we’re building it fresh, we got to pick out some options that we like, and remove ones that we don’t need. For example, we got a double-sink in the kids bathroom, ceiling fan prewires in all the bedrooms, hardwood floor in the dining room, and a brick front, but didn’t need to take the marble fireplace or ceramic tile kitchen floors. The house also has an office on the first floor for me, and a “sitting room” off the master bedroom that Holly can use for her creative stuff (scrapbooking, painting, writing, etc). Another couple of nice features are the “waterfront property” with a pond at our back yard, a school bus stop one house away, and the fact that (at least for now) we’re zoned into a year-round elementary school for Hayley in a couple years. Plus, it will cut about 45 minutes or so off a trip up to see the Grandparents in Virginia. It kills me on trips back from there to hit Wake Forest and think “God, I’ve still got another hour of driving to go.” Not any more!

So we’re excited about it – I’ll post some pictures when I get out to the property with the camera. And if you know anyone who wants to buy a house in Fuquay, send them to us.

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One of the things that I’ve often remarked “It’s odd…” on is the fact that, in spite of living in Raleigh for over seven years, voting, paying taxes, the whole nine yards, I’ve never been called for jury duty. In fact, in the 12 years since I turned 18, I’ve only been called once. And that was for jury duty in Lunenburg County while I was in college in Williamsburg, so I got out of it. Even Holly has been called here (though she got excused for having an infant).

Apparently my number came up today – I’m to report to the Wake County courthouse at 9am in late April for a day of jury duty. Fortunately, I have the kind of job where I won’t lose money or status by missing a day for this, so I’m very curious to see how the process works out. Check back in late April to see.

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Not much activity on the blog front lately. That’s because we’ve been busy with the house. After having it on the market since late October and getting no serious bites, we decided to make a change. The feedback on the house has been very positive, except a large number of people complaining about our carpet. Truth be told, it is pretty nasty, but we were under the (naive?) impression that if people liked the house, they’d be willing to accept us replacing the carpet for them at closing after we’d moved out. No such luck.

So we bit the bullet and are replacing the carpeting in advance this week. Our Realtor™(r)(c) is chipping in and hiring people to move our furniture out and paying to store it for a few days. They’re coming tomorrow morning, so we’ll have a completely empty house for the rest of the week (aside from the random crap we’ve thrown in the noncarpeted rooms). We’re going to take the opportunity to also paint the living room and office/3rd bedroom, which haven’t been painted since we moved in. Then the new carpet comes in on Thursday, and our furniture back in on Friday. Busy busy.

We’ve found a new house we like in Rolesville, but it looks like the lack of a sale on this house will probably keep us from being able to move on it. Booooo.

If you know someone looking for a good house in Fuquay, send them to us. Please.

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