This is a grab bag, but all things that really happened in our apartment complex. One day, pulling into the parking lot, a lady was standing in the middle of the driveway. Naturally, we stopped to avoid hitting her, but she just stood there. Apparently, she dropped a bag of McDonalds yum-yums, and was yelling at her friend to come pick it up. Instead of picking it up, she kicked it to the side...
For the first time EVER, we have had the time (and enough, barely, money) to spruce up a house before we move in. We have a long list of things to accomplish, first and foremost was the interior painting. Our Real Estate agent recommended a painter and a color consultant that he had used often. I was a bit hesitant on the color consultant, but if it meant peace in the family, then so be it. Our...
I have been struggling with whether to mention it or not. Last week, starting on Tuesday, my left foot began to hurt. By the weekend, it was agonizing. I thought it was a torn ligament or something, possibly even a plantar fasciitis flare up. A couple of years ago, I had something similar in Chandler, and the podiatrist gave me some super Aleve. I figured this was the same thing. How wrong I was...
I have had off and on problems with my feet for years, plantar fasciitis, inflamation of joints etc. In Arizona, when this flared up last in Phoenix area, I was able to schedule an appointment with a new podiatrist the same day. Here in California, the wait is 4-6 weeks. They have a cancellation next Tuesday they can squeeze me in. Yo, I can’t walk NOW, what do you think I can do for...
The painters are half done. The popcorn is off the ceiling, the walls have been repaired and textured, and the real work will begin on Monday. Today, we had the Color Expert in to advise us. I wasn’t sure what a color consultant did, and how it would be better than looking on Sherwin Williams website for color pairings. In fact, in the past, that is how we selected colors, find something we...
As we have bought a house, and are having way too many trades people tweaking on it, it is time to plan our vacating of this apartment. This entails giving “notice” of our intent to vacate. Having read the fine print of the lease (I know, shocking) we know that breaking the lease early is going to cost us 2 months’ rent. A bit of a hardship, but not unexpected. Of course, we...
While the outside of the house has pretty decent paint, the inside was a bit, uh, hideous. Nothing too awful, but it clearly hadn’t been painted in a long time. The bedrooms had some odd paint colors on some walls, and one was obviously a child’s room with some odd trim. Add to that the awful 70’s vintage “popcorn” ceiling, and you have a mess. Fortunately, our real...
Before moving into our new house, we are having a lot of work done. While the “bones” of the house are in good condition, it is clear that some of the extremities were in need of some massive overhaul. The Kitchen Appliances are one of the worst offenders. As a former professional chef, I am lucky (cursed?) with the ability to make anything “do” around cooking. Old stoves...
The last post was about an innate understanding of scale and scope, and how this lead to a general understanding of magnitudes. A real world example, and one that is top of the news lately is the whole “anti-vaccine” movement. This is the increasing tendency to choose to not vaccinate your children due to the faulty belief that vaccines are worse than the disease. Leaving that...
I wrote this a couple weeks ago, before we closed so I wouldn’t jinx the process. The process of mortgage underwriting is completely f*cked up at this point. This post is some of the zaniness I had to endure. The last house I bought, in Chandler Arizona was a breeze. We bought it in 2012 (i.e. well after the global financial crisis), and apart from documenting my wages, and supplying some...