Thursday, November 19, 2009

Minority Report

So, as I mentioned this week, we're having a moving sale this Saturday. We're selling all kinds of stuff. I put some of that stuff up on Craigslist. I've gotten a ton of responses and questions over the past few days. These are my two favorites (these are actual emails from actual people).

Firstly:

for how match you selling for the ps3 and Ninetendo DS

Ritchie

I like this one because of the obvious language butchering, but also the lack of punctuation and capitalization. Richie went out of his (or her) way to capitalize the Nintendo and the DS, but didn't bother with the obvious start of the sentence.

Secondly:

hi what time good for you tomorron an interesig for book case call me *phone number omitted*

Again, no punctuation or capitalization, plus a disregard for spelling and it's super fun to try to say. Go ahead. Say it out loud. It's very fun. Interestig.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

All Done.

Just kidding.

There's still a lot left to do.

Over the weekend, I got on that stupid horrifying extension ladder and found that there is, in fact, flashing all the way around the house. That inspector is an idiot. On the bright side, I didn't have to spend four hours peeling shingles back and hammering sheet metal in underneath them.

Home inspection wise, the only thing left to do is get the basement sprayed with chemicals. Hooray.

On the moving front, we secured a residence to move to. It is going to be terrible. We are going from a 2300 square foot house that has been completely rehabilitated, to an outdated 700 square foot one bedroom apartment in a complex. We decided to go there and rough it for awhile for three reasons:

1. It's about half a mile from my job.
2. They will not penalize us if we break the one year lease if it is to move into a house.
3. It's super cheap.

All of those factors make the generally crappy confines a little more tolerable.

Also being done this week? Selling our house full of stuff. I put up a bunch of stuff on Craigslist (here, here, here and here) and we're having a Moving Sale on Saturday morning (here). Basically, we're going to invite a bunch of strangers to traipse around our house and haggle with us. It is going to be an intense four hours or so. Hopefully, we'll be getting a bunch of money for all of our crap.

Once the sale is over, we'll try to sell the rest of the crap via Craigslist and get ready to move to a terrible apartment that barely has enough room for me to lie down comfortably. It's going to be an interesting few weeks, as we're pretty booked up every weekend (Thanksgiving in NJ and NH (11/25-11/29), weekend flight to somewhere (12/4-12/6), get keys to crappy apartment and family Xxxmas party (12/11-12/13), close on the house (12/18), Xxxmas in NH and NJ (12/24-12/31), New Years Eve (Duh).

I may die in the next few months.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Veteran's Day

I have not, nor will I ever fight in a war. Even if our government decides to institute the draft again, I'm now far too old to be of any use. And even if we were in such a huge crisis that I am not too old to be drafted, I'm sure I would be dishonorably discharged after a few days of sarcasm and poor push-up form.

That aside, yesterday was Veteran's Day. That brought with it the ultra rare day off in the middle of the week. It was a little weird, sure, but days that I don't have to go and sit in a cubicle and stare at a computer screen all day are welcomed. With the day off, I planned on doing some of the things pointed out by the buyer (fix the garage door, add flashing to the roof, patch up the garage roof).

After a trip to The Home Depot in the ghetto, I arrived back at the house with some garage door parts, some roofing nails, tin snips and some flashing. I got to work on the roof of the garage and managed to patch it up with the shingles that the previous owner left behind (thanks Haiti) in about an hour and a half, then fixed the tricky garage door in about an hour. After that, it was time to get to work on the roof of the house.

A little background - I have a healthy fear of extension ladders. I cannot explain it. I am not afraid of heights. I have never fallen off of a ladder (I was stung by five or so bees when lifting one, but that doesn't matter here). I don't even know anyone who has fallen off of a ladder. I just hate them a lot. I am not crippled by fear, as I've cleaned out gutters and painted some trim, but it is an uncomfortable experience for me to be sure.

Yesterday was a relatively windy day, as the weather was changing from fairly warm, to getting colder. That wind, along with the aforementioned disdain for work on a ladder, made me decide to scrap my high-wire act for the day. I am such a sissy. It's incredible.

I will now hope for some better weather (read: less windy) this weekend and finish up. If it is again too windy to stifle my uneasiness, I will give Crazy Jeff Doors a call and ask if he can get it done.

Once finished, all that's left is calling an exterminator to spray a few gallons of toxic chemicals around the basement. Hooray.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Fall.

It's fall. I live in New England. I'm sure you've heard by now that the fall in New England means crazy leaf colors. What it means to those of us who live here is indeed crazy leaf colors, coupled with the inevitable result of changing leaves: fallen leaves.

As a kid, I never liked yard work. I avoided it if possible. Luckily, I lived in an apartment, and thus, no yard work needed for most of my childhood. I was only really exposed to the terrors of rakes when cleaning up my little league field, my grandparents' yard (to jump into leaf piles) or watching cartoon characters step on them.

That all changed when my parents bought a house on seven acres of former Tree Farm. It's as if they were trying to make up for lost time or something. That purchase, along with my burgeoning adolescence, and thus, distaste for all tasks handed down to me, led to my current anti-yard work stance. I'm sure my father's constant over the shoulder management style had something to do with it as well (this is a tangent that would take far too long to describe adequately).

This brings us to the present: there are four or five mature, and generally welcomed trees overhanging my back yard. The majority of trees here are shedding more and more leaves with every wind gust. The trees overhanging the yard are no exception:



This is the result of four or five trees continually leaking. This image is a little misleading, as by the garage, there is no visible grass, or even asphalt:



Crap.

On Saturday, I spent the morning raking and mowing. While raking, I counted each leaf. 16 trillion; all of them on our property. Three or so hours later, and the driveway was cleared, for the most part, and the yard was kind of cleared (I half assed this by raking up and removing the big piles, then just mowing over the rest, hoping to catch as many as possible in the mower bag).

In other news, we did a few drive by's of potential properties and apartment rentals. Nothing major.

Also, Amanda's little sister and her boyfriend showed up to watch a movie, eat some food and play some Rock Band. As a result, nothing was finished, or started, house-wise after I put the rake away on Saturday morning. Luckily, we have Wednesday off for Veteran's Day, so I'll get cracking on the roof stuff then.

Lastly, I just noticed that this is the hundredth post. That seems significant considering our love for the deka system.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Update

Not much went on this week. I agreed to fix everything they pointed out (officially) and started the search for the next dump.

As reported earlier, the buyers requested some pest control spray. I didn't see anything on the home inspection that led me to believe there was a pest problem. That's because the buyer had a separate pest inspection done. I got those results, and they apparently showed some sort of pest had been in the basement at some point in this house's long history. Because of that, I have to get the basement sprayed down. Yippee.

I hope to see some houses this weekend, as well as look at apartments to live in once we're kicked out of the house.

Also, we'll probably play Rock Band.