Posts (page 2)

today was kinda of split.  I woke up before 6am but couldn't bring myself to get out of bed and go running.  I can justify it as it was very cold outside but given my current weight, I really need to take advantage of these moments when I can.  I was doing pretty good this week too.  I ran on Monday and went to a spin class yesterday, my first in months.  If I run tomorrow am (not likely as SigOther is staying over) or after work, I'm no worse off.

At least I left home a few minutes earlier than usual and caught two buses without having to wait.  But then when I got the IrvingPark blue line station, about 4 people ahead of me on the escalator stood instead of walked, apparently because the first guy didn't want to walk.  When we were about 2/3 up the stairs, the train started coming.  as soon as we were able to clear the slowpoke, most of us started running.  A lady shouted something about not running people down.  I wanted to tell her that we are running because we don't want to be bunched up on the last car when there are 10? other cars and we wouldn't be running if the slow people would move out of the way.

I can understand not being in a hurry.  And I can sort of understand not wanting to walk up an escalator.  But what I can't understand is why wouldn't you want to avoid those people who are in a rush?  Why not make a little effort to move to the right so those needing to move faster can get around you. 

One of the utterly useless things I can do is stand by a bank of elevators and more often than not, be the closest to the one that arrives next.

Some would say this is merely coincidence or only seems "more often than not", but I know that it is a directly related to the following fact.

I also can pick the slowest moving line at the grocery checkout.  I can get into a line with only one person ahead of me and the other lines can each have two or more people and they will start to move faster.

This happened last night at Trader Joe's.  It isn't often I get the same wacky cashier at TJs because I don't go with any consistency but as luck would have it, I got the same HipsterChick as the last visit.  She might even think I purposedly choose her checkout because I didn't move to the one next to us each time it appeared that the person checking out was finished.  It just that other customers got into line before I could move my cart.

Finally I got in line and we had a little chat.  Usually the TJ checkout clerks are friendly and chatty but there's no real connection.  For example, they will say "did you find everything alright" and you can say "I couldn't find the frozen aardvarks" and they will, without blinking, say "yeah we must be out of them again." 

Last time, HipsterChick seemed about as interested in going through the TJ required interact-with-Customer routine as I usually am.  And watching her slowy pack her customer's groceries, she looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here.  But strangely, when I got up in line, she seemed more chatty with me.  I would almost say, flirty.

Not in the "I'm really trying to pick you up" flirty, but more of the "you are the first interesting person that has walked through the door in the last hour please take me with you" sort of flirting.  It could just be my imagination.  Maybe she asks everyone what they got going on tonight.  If she was flirting, I'm certain that telling her that I'm gonna set up my new DVR squashed any remote desire that she would want to let me see her naked.

Not that I buy into this sort of thing, but here is my RedEye horoscope from January 7, 2008: 

A bouncy new moon is giving you a positive attitude about the new year.  Instead of obsessing about a lost love, you're focusing on finding new love.  Keep an open mind and and open heart and you'll go far in 2008.

A little sappy but I have to say, in retrospect, it was dead on. 

Here's one a few weeks later, January 28, 2008:

You're lost in a fantasy land, thanks to space cadet Neptune.  you're dreaming about the one who got away and thinking about what might have been.  Snap out of it, already.  There's a good reason why things end.

Again, words of wisdom.

During the week of December 20 - December 26, 2008, Chicago experienced radical shifts in the temperature.  Earlier in the week, the temperature had been extremely frigid, followed by a warmup and snowstorm in the middle of the week.  Toward the end of that same week,Chicago experienced unseasonably high temperatures and thunderstorms. 

Because of this, the gutters on my condo, which do not slant correctly, were solid ice.  Ordinarily, this would not be a problem.  Because of the rapid increase in temperature and the rainfall, the snow on the roof started to melt and run off.  Instead of hitting the gutter, The rainfail and the melting snow bounced off the ice and re-directed itself toward the adjacent wall, finding a crack in the window lintel of my upstairs neighbor's condo.

By sheer luck, SigOther and I happened to be home when this happened.  We were out shopping and were going to an event later that evening but decided to come home first to grab a quick bite.  We spent a couple hours capturing water in the Cocoa-cola cooler I had borrowed for my party.  The 82 quart container filled up within 20 minutes and had to be emptied 5-6 times before the water finally stopped coming in.

Had the gutter not been frozen over, or had the gutter slanted correctly, or had the Window Lintel not been cracked, or had the rain not been so heavy or had the temperature been cooler...had just one of these things been different, water might not have found its way into my condo, traveling through the walls from my neighbor's condo to mine.  There is water damage to my walls and ceiling.  It might be possible to simply scrap and replaster but most likely, the dry wall needs to be replaced since mold will undoubtably form.

You can't be any dumber than a guy who makes $30,000 a year but bought a $500,000 house. Or the banker who signed the guy's mortgage. Or an investment bank that thought bundling such deals together made buyers with bad credit less risky. Or regulators who thought investment bankers were smart.

source:  http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomebuyingGuide/the-housing-mess-5-dumb-questions.aspx

we are looking to upgrade to a larger, more family-friendly property.  Essentially that is the goal for the SigOther and me.  But alas, there are roadblocks.  We each have a condo that would need to be sold or rented.  The Real Estate Industry is in upheaval right now.  Gone are the days when you could walk into a bank with 0% down, decent credit and get a loan for a ridiculous sum of money. 

 House hunting has certainly changed a lot in five years.  When I was looking for my condo back in the dark ages, circa 2003, my realtor would pick me up on Saturday or Sunday and drive me around to a few places.  Sure, sometimes she would send me a link to her MLB database beforehand, but most didn't have a picture of the property and since I was looking for a 2 bedroom condo w/fireplace, the descriptions were mostly the same.  It didn't do much good to search Realtor.com or ZipRealty for condos because you just got a picture of the front of the building.

Today the industry has embraced technology and realty web sites have smarter search engines.  You can narrow it down by more catagories like type of parking,  Master Bedroom on Ground Floor, or Separate Dining Room.  And pictures.  Most listings have multiple pictures of the inside.  Some even use virtual tours although most of the time it's just a slideshow of the still pictures.  and while it's not a substitute for actually seeing a place, it can be a great tool to aid both buyers and sellers. 

Some sites even allow you to search by neighborhood name and they are a bit more accurate than back in the day.  Sure, you get some overlap between Portage Park, Irving Park, Jefferson Park and Mayfair properties, but at least it's not as bad as when a search for Wicker Park would get you Logan Square. 

http://www.ziprealty.com even lets you search a map and find all the homes in a particular area...this is good for finding homes in a particular neighborhood that are also within a certain distance of a train station.

Some things I've learned that I hope I remember when we sell our places:

• Pictures:  Seriously how much time, effort and cost could it possibly take to post a few pictures of a house here in the 21st Century? 
  
• Good shots: Okay, so you have access to a digital camera and managed to take some pictures.  Good.  And yeah we understand that you're gonna post only a few good shots to lure potential buyer's into seeing the place.  Great.  But then there isn't any need to take 4 shots of your kitchen from different angles when we can see everything from just one.  Save the other shots for showing a good shot of the back deck, or the semi-partial-pseudo-complete basement.
  
• Video/virtual tours:  Sounds hi tech, but if  all you are doing is showing a slideshow of the 6 pictures of your kitchen, you deserve to have your home on the market for 6 months.  I've seen a few good ones that pan up and down in a room to show high ceilings and all the open space, or include a room or hallway not shown in the picture album.
• Fireplaces:  Realtors, please tell us in the wrap sheet if the fireplace is functional or ornamental, gas or wood.  Seriously.  I know your industry is designed to lure people into a home to view it but wasting each other's time isn't good for anyone.

It's a conspiracy:  For a geek, I'm fairly low tech at home.  I have never had cable.  My place is not wired for sound.  And it was only because my analog TV broke last year that I finally broke down and got a HD LCD TV 20 months ahead of the switch in broadcasting technology. 

Recently, I have decided to come a little deeper into the 21st Century and try to come up with a better solution for recording TV shows than the archaic VCR I'm using now.  For one thing, it can't tune in the digital channels that I would like to record so I'm forced to playback the analog stations which my TV is not optimally set for, thus sometimes providing poor playback. 

Secondly, the VCR seems to have a mind of its own and often "forgets" to record the correct station and or time. And finally, it would be nice to ride my armoire of unneeded components. 

Therefore, a DVR would seem to be in order.  Again, as I don't have cable, it doesn't really make sense to buy/lease a TiVo just for over the air programming.  Not to mention, I'm a cheapo.

So I started researching various devices.  If you're gonna get a DVR/VCR combo, you probably want gizmos like a hard drive, built-in tuner and the ability to playback in High Definition.  And that's where the complexity comes in.

You can find hundreds of cheap DVD/VCR combos, most under $100.  If you want to be able to record on the DVD, the price goes up a bit, but not too much.  If you want a built in tuner or HD capacity, you can still get a good price.  But if you want a hard drive on top of it, you are out of luck.  It seems these are not made in the US anymore.  You can get a DVR with a hard drive, but the VCR addition isn't there. 

Why if I didn't know better, I'd say the TiVo and DirecTV syndicates have made the electronic manufacturers an offer they could not refuse.

My only options are to find one in the European/Asia market where they are still pretty common, or built a PC with an HD Tuner.  That still doesn't give me integrated VCR which defeats the goal of consolidation.

*************

Something to remind me:  A long time ago, a friend gave me a CD rack for a present.  It's followed me around for the last decade or so, through four homes, serving me well.  I haven't seen this friend since 1999 and haven't talked to her on the phone since 2004. 

Tonight I found that I could fit my small CD collection in the bottom shelf of my media cabinet.  So while I'd like to keep the rack to preserve the memory, it seems more fitting to practice what I preach about getting rid of the clutter, while simultaneously letting go of the past.

Every couple of weeks or so, I upload my address book to Facebook -- using their little known geek utility that does this for you -- and send out add requests to new friends.  Last week, I forgot to Cherry Pick: select only the names I know instead of the people who were added to my contact lists because I "replied to all" on some ancient email.

I was pressed for time and figured anyone who didn't recognize me or see any Shared Friends would simply ignore the request.  Nope.  For every new friend confirmation from someone I legitimately knew, came two or three confirms from people I cannot figure out our connection at all.

When I first joined Facebook, it was simply me waiving the White Flag in surrender to the many friends who were on it.  I thought I would simply use it for connecting with long lost high school friends and as a potential networking tool.  Since then, the criteria has shifted to running friends, volleyball friends, friends/relatives of friends, etc.

Therefore, I can understand when someone simply clicks confirm when they get a request from someone they don't recognize.  What still surprises me is the acceptance from more than one lady whom I dated, ever so briefly.  To say things ended badly would make a mountain out of a mole hill.  However, if we were on the same last date, then it was fairly certain that we were not destined to continue on the same path.  Furthermore, a couple of these ladies led me to believe they would rather be sodimized by monkeys than ever see me again. 

Yet here it is not too many years later and they simply accept my friend request.  I guess time does heal all wounds.

So I got a friend request on Facebook from a fraternity* brother the other day.  I get these a bit lately as more and more of my generation catches the Facebook wave.  I was only at this school for 2.5 years but I made some good friendships that are still around, in one form or another, two decades later. 

When I get a Facebook friends request, I generally try to look through the requestor's friends to see if there are any more people I may know.  Usually there's a mutual friend or two already on my list (probably how they found me) and sometimes a friend I'm not connected with on Facebook so I'll add them.  Sometimes we send each other notes, more often (as the novelty of Facebook has worn off) we just leave it be.

Turns out, this new friend has a long lost friend of mine, who apparently married a friend of another friend of mine.  Confused?  Let me try to clear it up.

Steve sent me a friend request.  Turns out, he's friends with Paula, the girl I use to hang out with my third year at NMSU.  Paula ended up marrying Steve's friend Larry, whom I knew of, though didn't hang out with back then. 

This friends-request, like many on Facebook recently, got me thinking.  It's so strange that at one point in time someone or some group of people were so significant in my life and now they are in the backseat of the memory mobile.  As am I to them.  A hodgepodge of stories from another time and another place.

The life you have at this very moment is the direct result of the difference between the choices we make and the paths we didn't take. 

I'm very happy with the life I have today.  Sure there is some room for improvement -- I wish my mom wasn't having trouble with her house and I wish I could finally qualify for the Boston Marathon -- but for the most part, things are great.  But sometimes when I look back at the past, I realize that my stories aren't very Hollywood ending.  I seldom scored the winning touchdown or got the girl.

But all those squandered opportunities, mistakes and screw ups have led to a pretty good life today. 

*  Not your typical college fraternity; it was a co-ed service fraternity though we had our share of wild parties.

So I got this letter from my bank the other day.  Essentially it said that because my property value has declined, they can no longer support the full amount of the Line of Credit they issued me a year and a half ago.  The Line of Credit they insisted I take when they generiously offered to refinance my HELOC so that I could get a marginally better rate of interest, and they could obtain a few more years of maintenance fees.  I didn't want the amount they offered then, I was perfectly happy with the limit I had.

I'm a bit pissed because I was hoping to use that Line of Credit to make a downpayment on a second house purchase, as either investment property or to buy a bigger home so that the SigOther and I could live in while we rent our condos out until the market improved enough to sell them.

I'm pissed becuase I'm not the one with a mortgage in default.  I've paid my loans on time each month and only bought as much condo as I could afford when banks were handing out loans like hotcakes.  I'm not the one who let some ambitious yet devious realtor talk me into buying a home I couldn't afford and take on an impossible to pay loan from a seedy lender. 

My reward for being responsible with my money:  my efforts to purchase real estate in this economy get handcuffed even further.  Luckily, I am only using barely 10% of the LOC, so it doesn't make too much of a difference.  Some people have used their LOC to buy bonds or CDs or other short term investments and would be screwed right now.

Speaking of screwed, I feel bad for poor Ms Avers.  Ms Avers is selling her home that we looked at the other week.  We asked the Realtor some question and learned that she is selling the place because her children have finally moved out, her husband has passed away.  We also learned that the place has been on the market for five months and the asking price has dropped about $150K.  And that's what really sickens me. 

This woman isn't one of those people who bought a few years ago thinking that she could simply flip the place for a tidy profit.  This was her home for at least a generation.  It's not her fault the economy and housing market is tanking.  She should be entitled to retire on the proceeds from her home so she can move into a smaller place or a warmer climate and enjoy her golden years.  Instead, she has to cut her nest egg significantly just to be competitive. 

The house wasn't everything we are looking for and we have our own concerns to address, such as what to do with our condos.  We are gonna wait and watch the market.  If a place with everything we want goes on sale at a price we can afford, and the sun and moon aline and our places can be rented for the majority of their respective mortgages, we might make the move to snag said house.  But not if we have to bargain down some old lady's nest egg.

Conversation with former co-worker last night on Instant Messenger:

CO-WORKER27: so how's it going?
CO-WORKER27: like it?
CO-WORKER27: better than C2?
ICARUS: it's going good
ICARUS:  but so far, it's been orientation and training...the real work begins tomorrow
CO-WORKER27:  ooooooh
ICARUS:  however, I suspect that my worse day at this law firm will be better than my best day at C2
CO-WORKER27: that is AWESOME!
CO-WORKER27:  no Menace like types?
ICARUS:  My Menace is unique breed...the last one like her was killed when Dorothy threw a bucket of water on her
CO-WORKER27: OMG! that was hilarious!