Say goodbye to the iPod Mini...

...say hello to the iPod Nano. Apple also updated iTunes. Version 5 is available at itunes.com

Say goodbye to the iPod Mini...

...say hello to the iPod Nano. Apple also updated iTunes. Version 5 is available at itunes.com

Canon announces the 10D's replacement!

The Canon 20D....... I absolutely WANT TO OWN this camera!
8 Megapixels of glory!

I met Jim Dale last night!!!

Okay... for you non-Harry Potter lovers out there, I'll tell you who Jim Dale is. Jim Dale is the gentleman who performs the US version of all 6 (so far) Audio Books. He won a Grammy for HP4 and was nominated for HP5. He's a multiple winner of the Audie Awards and Queen Elizabeth II has honored him with an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). He's even a Guinness Book of World Records Holder for "Most Character Voices in an Audio Book" for HP5!

I absolutely love, Love, LOVE the audio books! Getting the Audio CD for Book 6 was of the MOST importance on release night.

Anyway... our original plan for the night was to take the kids to downtown Crystal Lake for Thursday's Classic Car Night. It was going to be cooler than the ordinary car night since this time it was Corvette night and the famous Budweiser Clydesdale horses were going to make an appearance and march through downtown. I brought my camera to work with me because I didn't want to stop back at home.

I was tied up all morning at work so I didn’t even get a chance to do my daily morning routine of checking CNN, MacNN, TCF, MuggleNet & The Leaky Cauldron. (The previous day I read about Jim's reading in L.A.) It wasn’t until around noon that I was back at my desk and had the time to check my regular sites.

Then I saw it...
Random House has sent us the rest of Jim Dale's booktour schedule:
Thursday, June 28, 7:00 PM
The Levy Center
300 Dodge Avenue
Evanston, IL
Arranged through The Book Stall at Chestnut Court
847-446-8880

Sure it said June but I figured that was a mistake and that it really meant July. I called both the book store and the Levy Center to confirm and find out about parking. I immediately calculated train schedules to see if it was a viable option (it was not) and told my boss I was leaving an hour early.

There was no time to run home to get my video camera & tripod so at 4:00pm I picked up the kids at my parents house. I borrowed my dad's digital camera so I would be able to take a few 30 second video clips. (Better than nothing because my DSLR doesn't do video) and headed to Evanston (about 20 miles away) stopping to get gas along the way.

We arrived at The Levy Senior Center at 5:20pm. The doors opened at 6pm. When we arrived it didn’t surprise me that there was already a line. Only about 8 people, but a line none-the-less. It didn’t take very long before that line of 10+ turned into 50+

While we were waiting we watched the book store employees setting up a table with items for sale. Included on the table were HP 1-6 on Cassette & CD. Books 1-5 in Paperback and book 6 in Hardcover. Also included were a few of Jim's non Harry Potter audio books.

Once the doors opened a couple of minutes after six, we headed in. The room was a gym complete with basketball hoops and a stage.

We passed the time by talking HP with people sitting around us. After about a half hour I headed to the sales table. My problem was that I had nothing for Jim to sign. Had I known about this earlier I could have planned better. I own 4, 5 & 6 on CD but years ago I got 1, 2 & 3 from the library so I figured that I'd buy HP1 so I'd have something for him to sign. As I expected from the beginning, they were charging FULL retail for everything. So HP1 cost me just over $53 with tax. I could have purchased it for $33 at Amazon.com. I'm not complaining though, the Jim Dale reading was free, if they did charge, I would have paid the entrance fee, so the way I see it, it's a wash anyway. I grabbed my purchase and headed back to my seat.

At 7pm a Lady from the Senior Center introduced the lady from the Book Stall at Chestnut Court (who arranged this whole thing) and then she in turn introduced Jim Dale.

He appeared on stage and after a few microphone issues, he began telling us of the process in which an Audio Book is created. After that he began his reading. Instead of reading from a set book, he picked a collection of scenes that he enjoyed from all of the books. Between scenes he told us some stories about how he came up with some of the voices he created. Somewhere along the line his reading glasses broke and after a few funny moments (trying on some woman's) he put on a spare.


Click images for larger version

Video Clips... 30 seconds per clip is all the camera would do (sorry)

Bubotuber Puss - 5.6MB, 320x240, MPEG-4
Divination - 5.7MB, 320x240, MPEG-4
Howler #1 - 5.7MB, 320x240, MPEG-4
Howler #2 - 5.8MB, 320x240, MPEG-4
HP5 Dobby - 5.7MB, 320x240, MPEG-4

Contest time. He called 12 kids up on stage that aspired to be narrators. He broke the kids up into 3's and had the four groups read one of these parts...

* Part of the Sorting Hat song from HP1
* Ron’s Howler from HP2
* Aunt Marge talking about leaving Harry in a orphanage if he were dropped on her door step from HP3
* Professor Sprout talking about Bubotuber puss from HP4

The audience decided by applause which of the 4 moved on to the final round. Once there were 4 winners, they all competed for the grand prize by reading part of the Sorting Hat song from HP1. The girl who won that received all 6 audio books. The remaining 3 received the HP6 audio book.

About an hour and a half after he first was welcomed on stage he departed and people started to line up for the book signing.

We were about 10 people back from the front of the line. It went quickly. I had hoped that I’d be able to take a picture of my kids with Jim but the areas on both sides of the desk he was seated at were roped off. Some people leaned over the desk to get a pic with him but there was no way my kids were tall enough to even bother trying that. I also noticed two things. 1. I did not see anyone shake his hand. 2. No one really said anything to him but 'hello' and 'thank you' That wasn't gonna happen when it was my turn.

Nicholas was first. He shyly gave him the CD Sleeve and he signed it. Next up was Alyssa, she handed him her CD Sleeve and he signed it. Alyssa thanked him. It was my turn...

“Hello Sir”, he said

“Hello... It’s a real pleasure to meet you... " I replied.

"Thank you"

"...You are the one who got me into Harry Potter!"

“Really?”, he asked.

“Yes, listening to book one in the car. I got hooked and went on from there.” I responded.

"Excellent! It's nice to meet you sir." he replied.


I shook his hand and said “Thank you”, I snapped one last picture and we were on our way home. I would have loved to chat with him some more but there were over a hundred people waiting in line behind me.

Alyssa & Nicholas were excited that they got the autograph of someone famous and they couldn't wait to tell their mom. We hopped in the car and about 41 miles later we were home.

I must say that this VERY last minute addition to my week was a nice surprise. A few weeks earlier when HP6 was released and I closed my self off from the world to read along with Jim Dale on my iPod, I never would have guessed that by months end, I'd get the opportunity to meet him. I absolutely can't wait for book 7!

I must also thank The Leaky Cauldron because if they didn't post the schedule, we never would have had that amazing evening!

Google Earth: The ULTIMATE Walt Disney World Collection File

This is a project I've been working on since I bought Keyhole in late April. As you can tell, I've put a lot of time and research into it. I don't work for Disney... I'm just sort of a Disney geek. Lots of books, lots of vacations and aerial shots of WDW is what actually got me into the world of Satellite Imagery years ago on Terraserver.

You can download version 1.0 here. Follow the Keyhole BBS thread here.

So you're into Google Earth now right?

Now it's time to check out this site...

http://www.googleearthhacks.com/

So maybe he shouldn't die and spend eternity in the fiery pit of hell....

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Release

Taken at the Crystal Lake Barnes & Noble Store during the HP6 Release Party. We were yellow (reserved) wristband #33.





Yes, that's people way down there... click to enlarge.

My clock says... 2 days, 5 hours and 26 minutes to go...

Yes, we'll be at a midnight party! I can't wait!!

Shuttle Launch Scrubbed

Screw you Barry... I'm right!

It's been confirmed by a very knowledgeable source. The restaurant that is now Sun Shui in Arlington Heights WAS INDEED a Red Lobster many years ago!

Finding the Right House - Part XII: The Wait

Then the waiting game began. Even as Thanksgiving had come and gone, we still didn't let anyone know we found a house. There were still just over 2 months of time that things could go wrong with these sellers. After all, they weren't the most stable people in the world. My philosophy was, whoever we told we'd also have to explain the how's and why's if it fell through. I didn't want to have to do that.

During our LONG wait Valerie and I made it a regular routine to drive up to the area after she got off of work. Once there, we'd drive around to familiarize ourselves with the neighborhood. That ended up being a very smart thing to do since we got used to where things were and where the best shortcuts are.

Fast forward a month...

Our file was submitted to the lender on 12/15/04. That would give them plenty of time to get it processed by our lender in order to receive the commitment letter by 12/20/04. The wait for the letter wasn't long because we got a copy of the commitment letter faxed to us two days later on Friday 12/17.

It wasn't till Christmas that we told everyone we were moving. We seemed to get a mixed reaction.

As the New Year approached we began to pack. There were a lot of things that I didn't want in regular boxes so I insisted that we buy some of those big plastic bins at Wal-Mart...


After getting about twelve of them at a rough cost of $140 total, I put all of my computer, home theater & office stuff into bins... They were a good purchase... hell I filled up two bins alone with just DVDs! And now we can use them to organize our Christmas, Halloween & Easter stuff.
Every week we'd do a little more and get the bins "staged" for the move.

The Movers Decision
We had expected to do the move ourselves. We already reserved the longest U-Haul they had and figured we'd be able to pack & unpack it ourselves. That was a good idea in theory, until after packing a while we realized how much shit we really had. A few weeks before the move, I decided to look into movers. I knew that U-Haul had been advertising the emove.com service and that was among the ones I researched. Because it was a local move I was able to use the same guys and have them "Load" it up and then "Unload" at the new house. I knew that it wouldn't be that difficult a job since we had no major furniture that we were moving. I booked 2 movers for 2 hours each location. That is the minimum the company will do per location. It was quite reasonably priced at $150 per location. Now that we knew we were having movers a lot of the stress for us would be removed especially since that moving day would be stressful enough without having to do it ourselves.

As the final weekend before the move grew closer more and more of our stuff was packed away. On our final late night Friday drive, we noticed that the sellers had moving trucks in their driveway. Then on Saturday night we drove to the house again and they were all moved out. The drapes in the living room were opened and the dining room light was on. Sunday was spent taking apart the last pieces of my desk and removing the TV from the entertainment center. I put the finishing touches on my "Master Plan" which detailed our schedule for the next two days. By Sunday night we were too tired to drive by again.

We packed both cars with cleaning supplies, tools, new locks, and other stuff that we didn't want to end up in the U-Haul.

We fell asleep knowing that tomorrow would be a long, exhausting day.

Back to Part XI --- On to Part XIII

Finding the Right House - Part XIV: Moving Day

The day began way too early for me! We were already at U-Haul by 6:45am. I was happy when they opened 10 minutes early. The U-Haul guy asked me to do a favor for him. “There is only a 1/4 tank of gas in the truck. The truck costs $39.95 + mileage to rent. If you put in $39.95 in gas and give me the receipt I will waive the $39.95 charge and all you'll have to pay is the mileage”. His goal was to get more gas in it. I certainly didn't mind since that meant that the gas I'd use was at U-Haul's expense. I accepted his offer and headed to the truck.

If any of you have ever driven the 26' U-Haul (the LARGEST they offer) you'll know exactly what I was feeling at the time... "Can I really drive this fucker?"

The U-Haul guy showed me how to start the engine (it's a diesel truck and you have to wait for a light to turn on before you engage the starter) It soon roared to life! So there I was... A bit overwhelmed… Sitting in a HUGE empty truck.

I pushed hard on the clutch, put it in second gear as instructed and drove forward about 100 feet to the end of the parking lot. My goal was to go all the way across the street to the Mobil station. That might seem easy... but to those of you who have done this from the Palatine U-Haul you know that there are like 5 lanes of traffic to cross. Thank god it was just before 7am so traffic wasn't that heavy yet. After about a minute of waiting I was able to shoot across the street.

After filling it up.... wait... that's not the case... the $40 I put in gas didn't even give it 3/4 a tank! It must cost over $100 to fill that bitch up! After getting gas it was on to the In-laws house to get items that we staged there. What really sucked was that WE had to load the truck. I could have paid the movers another $150 to load from that location but it was only 45 minutes of work and with a 2 hour minimum with the movers we both agreed to load shit from there by ourselves.

Yes, we could have just done this bit by bit in the next several days with the Blazer... but my goal was... 1. To get everything moved in one day. and 2. Have the movers do the unloading for me. Because while we had to load... we wouldn't have to unload.

My schedule was pretty on the money because 45 minutes later we were driving home to begin the "REAL" move. At 8:00am sharp the movers were already waiting for us. When I opened the truck they saw that most of the truck floor was occupied by shit from the in-laws. They told us that they would have to compact that stuff before loading could begin. We obviously knew that would be the case and helped them move the stuff. The movers began by staging a lot of stuff in the driveway. Valerie and I were helping by loading up the Blazer with little stuff and stuff we didn't want in the truck.

I was pretty amazed at what these guys could do. A couple of times I warned them… “That one is heavy” to see a few moments later one of them picking it up like it was as light as a feather. I was also impressed by how easily they brought up my 31” TV from downstairs. I remember bringing it down the stairs… believe me.. it was NOT easy.

Three minutes shy of two hours later the truck was completely loaded. All that was left was a few small things and the BBQ. I told the movers that they could go and get lunch or something because I was going to take my sweet time driving the behemoth truck.

I climbed (literally) into the driver’s seat, turned the engine on and headed to our new home. Driving that massive beast was an odd sensation. It was very slow to pick up speed when compared to everything else on the road and vibrated on every bump & the handling was quite a bit sloppier than I’m used to. I soon learned that right hand turns REALLY suck with this thing. The first right turn resulted in the first curb clipping. There were only five right handed turns on the drive there and so far I was 0 for 1. That score remained for turn 2. I was getting passed by little old ladies on the road. A few of them gave me the finger too! (kidding) By turn three, I pulled out further into the intersection to avoid the curb. Yeah! I’m 1 for 3. I also managed turns 4 & 5 pretty well. So I ended up clipping 40% of the right hand turns on the way in.

Once we arrived at the new house, I backed 'er in with Valerie's help. (a quite scary experience in itself!) and to my surprise, the movers had followed us there and were ready to unload. We slowly opened the back of the truck in case anything shifted during the ride. Luckily everything looked okay.

Valerie immediately headed inside to put Bailey in his crate so he wouldn't be in the way. Then the fun of unloading began. Once again I was super happy that I hired movers to do this. I had them for a full 2 hours and wondered if they would go over the time. After all... they were going to unload MORE than they loaded because of the stuff Valerie and I loaded earlier.

I was busy unloading the blazer but again it was cool to watch them work as they lifted heavy items with ease and brought them inside.

They put everything where I wanted it. They even put my 31" TV into the entertainment center for me! They also laid out and connected our bed frame since I didn’t know how to set that one up.

It was only after 90 minutes of unloading that they informed us that they were done. On their way out we tipped them and they asked me to go back to the emove.com website to rate them and provide feedback. I told them I would.

After they left we locked up everything and Valerie followed me as I drove back to Palatine to return the U-Haul. I took a different, easier way to limit my right turns to only four. Again I clipped the first one (hard too) and was able to safely navigate the final three. The ride out was MUCH louder than the ride in. Every bump I drove over sounded like the whole truck would shake itself apart. I pulled into U-Haul, dropped off the truck, paid the bill and hopped back into the Blazer where Valerie and I went to pick up the kids. After getting the kids we headed home for our first night in the new house.

Once there, the large task of unpacking began. Standing there, looking at my desk in pieces, the new boxes containing the kids' dressers, 2 nightstands, my audio stand, TV stand, and all of the other work ahead, it looked like we’d never finish.


Back to Part XIII --- On to Part XV

Finding the Right House - Part XV: That's all Folks...

As I type this final segment we've been in the new house about 6 months. It's starting to feel like home which is much better than feeling like a hotel like it did in the first week or two. We're about 98% unpacked. We've bought a living room set, a dining room set and seating for the family room. We still need to buy a master bedroom set and we've got a long list of odds & ends we still need to buy and that'll just take time.

In our first week here, our garage door opener broke and had to be replaced. A couple of month later our septic system began to act oddly and we had to have it pumped. Then we had to fix the air conditioner and after that have a plumber out due to a water pressure problem.
Ahhh.... yes.... the joys of homeownership!

My advice… FORCE your sellers to provide a home warranty!

Finding the Right House was pretty simple though very stressful.

And as I must be famous for saying now… It's a series of compromises.

END OF LINE

Back to Part XIV

Cool Software Alert: UPDATE

So I recently posted that you should check out Keyhole.

When Google bought Keyhole they lowered their from $70 a year price to $30 a year. Then recently, Google changed the name and updated the software/database. It's now called Google Earth. They also changed the price again. FREE!!

http://earth.google.com/

I strongly urge you to download this software... since it's free now, you have NO excuse not to.

Cool Software Alert

Have any of you checked out Keyhole? It's a subscription based Digital Globe who's price was recently lowered to $29.95 a year. It's not available for the Mac yet but I have faith that it will soon support the mac since Google bought them last year. They have a 7 day free trial you can check out.

Somewhere in this image is my house...

Click image see a larger view.

Finding the Right House - Part XI: Lawyer Induced Issues

Let's go back in time for a second...

On November 12th the seller's lawyers sent our attorney a letter requesting changes and modifications to the contract. Our lawyer didn't notify us of this letter until AFTER we contacted them with the results of the inspection. Those changes were...

* Change December 20th Mortgage Contingency date to December 9th.
* Delete the last sentence of Paragraph 7, Line 65, which was "Seller shall deliver possession to Buyer at time of Closing."
* Deem paragraph 32 (post closing possession) operative and adding February 2, 2005 as the date and $0.00 per day for the 2 days of post closing possession.

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail exchange with Mary...

MARY:
I can't believe they have the nerve to think they would not have to reimburse you for your expenses. Don't get too mad at the sellers, we don't know if it was their idea or the attorney's.

ME:
Yes, my lawyer agreed that it was nervy.

My lawyer spoke with their lawyer this morning. It seems the 2 day post closing possession is a MUST for the sellers. It would have been nice if they would have mentioned it before the contract was signed!

He drafted a reply and is asking for $200 for the 48 extra hours. (Our lawyer fee will increase by only $50 due to this because the seller's
lawyer has agreed to create that extra contract.) He's also asking for $5000 withheld from the sellers to insure they do leave after 48 hours and that they don't trash the place.

On November 16th our lawyer drafted a letter to the sellers to reply and inform them of our inspection issues.

* Mortgage Contingency date to remain December 20th.
* We agree to the post closing possession provided that the sellers pay us $100 per day and that $5,000 is withheld from closing to insure the house is delivered in a timely manner and in acceptable condition. That sounds COMPLETELY reasonable to me.

As far as the inspection...

* Sump pump is to be repaired/replaced by a licensed plumber and a receipt must be provided at closing.
* Furnace leak is to be repaired by a licensed heating/cooling repairman and a receipt must be provided at closing.
* Kitchen faucet leak needs to be repaired & confirms reverse osmosis filter is attached.
* Garage service door frame is rotted and needs repair.

On November 17th they replied...

* They insist the Mortgage Contingency date be December 9th as verbally agreed to by us. The reason was that they moved the closing date to accommodate us and due to that they lost their mortgage lock-in rate. Complete horse-shit since we never verbally agreed to ANYTHING and the January 31st date was on the ORIGINAL contract... they didn't change shit for us!
* They will deliver property at closing... no post closing possession necessary.
* They will repair/replace sump pump
* They will repair furnace leak
* They will repair kitchen faucet leak
* No repair will be made to the reverse osmosis filter since it's not hooked up due to the house having a whole house filter.
* They will repair the garage service door frame.

According to info I gathered from Mary though the seller's realtor, they were very pissed off because they wanted to have friends help move and they need time to move into their new house. I understand their side but we WOULD be paying mortgage for BOTH of those dates they would be staying and I believe it's very rude to offer us NOTHING per day when WE are doing THEM a favor and essentially letting them live in OUR house for 2 days! Not to mention the fact that, as our lawyer pointed out... if they trash the house with no sort of contingency ($5000 held back) we would be screwed.

As far as the mortgage contingency date, I didn't care if it was moved to the 9th (even though we did NOT verbally agree to shit) so long as Mark, our mortgage broker, didn't care.

We contacted Mark. I asked him who picked December 20th in the first place and asked why that date was on the contract. He told us that December 20th was picked because it was 45 days before closing and that the lender wouldn't process anything before 45 days because everything has to be fresh within 45 days or everything has to be redone. Okay... so it's clear... we NEEDED that date.

That concerned me greatly... if they needed their date and we needed our date, we were going to lose this house and since we've already paid for the inspection and the appraisal, so we'd be out money on this. The whole thing just pissed me off because December 20th WAS on the contact that they SIGNED!! Knowing shit like this could happen is why we hid the fact that we found a house from friends/family because I didn't want to have to deal with explaining that we had to look for another house now.

I immediately fired off an e-mail to my lawyer...

Here's what my lender told me earlier today...

"...the lender would prefer we not submit the file until 45 days prior to closing which is 12/16. We can have the full approval 3 days after that if all docs are in and good to go. You will be providing a commitment letter 40 days prior to closing which is way sooner than most transactions."

Just so we're clear... we want THIS house. When you draft that letter to the seller's attorney, please mention that we're willing to compromise.

If it requires bargaining with the post-closing possession.... $0 money... No money in escrow, etc. so be it.

Apparently, my lawyer either didn't get the e-mail or ignored my plea because our lawyer replied with...

* Mortgage Contingency date remain as originally stated in contract.
* Paid receipts will be provided at closing for replacement/repair or sump pump & furnace leak.

Now I had SERIOUS issues with this reply since I made it PERFECTLY clear that we were willing to bargain. His reply was cold and blunt. He didn't explain our reasons for being so adamant on Dec. 20th.

At this point I thought we were screwed. Keep in mind also that most of this happened while i was at work. I was pissed... I needed to make a phone call and I needed privacy... I went into my bosses office (he was on a business trip) and shut the door. I called Mary. I asked her to call the seller's realtor and explain everything. We weren't trying to be dicks... we HAD to have Dec. 20th. I told her that I gave my lawyer specific instructions that went ignored. I was trying to get her to get their realtor to 'backdoor' that information to the sellers.

She called back later informing us that the realtor said that the sellers were indeed pissed. She was able to calm Mr. "Seller" down... as I understand it, he is very high strung. She also made a few comments to Mary about how unreasonable Mr. "Seller" is.

The wait began... we didn't hear anything the rest of the day Thursday or Friday. In fact they made us wait the ENTIRE weekend.

At this point Mary was e-mailing us listings again. I figured that was a definite sign. We pissed away $600 and now we've got to start the entire process over again.

It wasn't until Tuesday the 23rd that we got a reply...

Attached is your letter of November 18, 2004 which I have signed and accepted on behalf of the seller.

FINALLY the saga was complete.

Back to Part X --- On to Part XII

Finding the Right House - Part X: The Inspection

With the contract signed, we had one week to get out of it and get our earnest money returned. So we hired a professional home inspector to inspect the house. We didn't know any home inspectors personally so we used the inspector Mary recommended (cough kickback cough) The earliest he was able to come was on Sunday, Nov 14th. His report would decide whether or not we were going to ultimately purchase this house.

I'm glad that it's customary that the buyers go along on the home inspection, because it's something I was GREATLY interested to tag along on.

We arrived at the house in the morning... I think it was 9am. Bill (the inspector) was already there but we had to wait a few minutes for Mary. When Mary finally arrived she knocked on the front door to learn that the Mrs. "Seller" and daughter were home. Mary expressed her disappointment that the sellers were home because it would hinder us being able to talk "privately". While we were upstairs the 2 of them kindly retreated to their family room downstairs to get out of our way... that was nice.

Bill was running around everyhwere with sensors and testing stuff. He tested every possible thing he could test.... he was running around so fast I just walked around looking at things. While we were talking to Mary, I asked her if she would asked Mrs. "Seller" if we could take some pictures of the house. I brought the camera in case they said yes. She gave us her approval... with that... I had a mission... to take as many pics as I couild because I knew that we wouldn't get inside the house again for 2 1/2 months! I took a good ninety something pics.

The inspection lasted a bit over 2 hours. Once Bill was done he sat at the kitchen table, pulled out a laptop & a printer and typed up a report. Once complete, he printed out the report right there in the dining room. The length of time this took makes me believe that he's got some sort of custom home inspection software and for a lot of the items I assume he was able to select options rather than type out everything... after all... the final report was almost 30 pages long!

In the report summary (2 pages) Bill noted the following issues...
* Sump Pump would not operate and needs replacing.
* Small Gas Leak at the pipe connection to the furnace.
* Kitchen Sink faucet leaks when turned on.
* No water comes out of the reverse osmosis filter faucet in the kitchen.
* Bottom right side of garage service door was rotted.

He gave us our copy of the report and from his laptop faxed a copy over to attorney's office. With that, we said our goodbyes to Bill and Mary and drove around the neighborhood a bit before heading home.

Back to Part IX --- On to Part XI

Where I'd rather be...

Apple sets the Tiger loose...

Mac OS X Tiger delivers 200+ new features which make it easier than ever to find, access and enjoy everything on your computer.

Learn more here.

I will be picking up Tiger shortly... but I may get the Mac Mini first (that will already have Tiger) I can't wait to check out Spotlight, Automator & Dashboard

Nicholas & Frank...

I took this pic last weekend. After a light snow, Nicholas created "Frank" all by himself. He was kind enough to pose for a picture for me.

Finding the Right House - Part VII: House #3

After that LARGE disappointment, we headed to the Cary house. I wasn't in a good mood. Unfortunately we were relying on Mapquest directions and we blew right past our turn. After pulling over, figuring out where we went wrong, we headed back to the turn and to the Cary house.

** THE LISTING **

Listing Price: $204,900
XXX XXXXXXXXXX
Cary, IL 60013

Bedrooms: 3
Baths: 2.5
Year Built: 1993

IMMACULATE HOME IN MOVE IN CONDITION! NEW CERAMIC FLOOR IN ENTRY, NEWER NEUTRAL BERBER IN LIVING ROOM, LIGHT OAK CABINETS IN KITCHEN, 1/2 BATH IN LOWER LEVEL + HUGE FAMILY ROOM LEAVES ROOM TO ADD A 4TH BEDROOM, BIG GARAGE IS INSULATED & DRYWALLED - OVER 27' DEEP FOR WORKSHOP OR STORAGE, LIGHT OAK DOORS & TRIM, MAINTENANCE FREE SIDING, FENCED YARD + WOODEN PLAYSET, WALK TO LAKE & BEACHES, TOO!

Other things noted in the flyer... Deck, Shed, and Lake Rights.

Living Rm: 17X17
Dining Rm: 10X10
Kitchen: 10X10
Family Rm: 25X14
MstBed Rm: 13X12
2nd Bed Rm: 11X10
3rd Bed Rm: 13X9

Style: BI-LEVEL
Type : RAISED RANCH
Lot Size: LESS THAN .25 ACRES

Mary told us that this house was just put on the market two days earlier. We were the first people to view it. It was so new that no pics were up on the MLS and it wasn't listed on Realtor.com yet. The house was priced to sell. Other comparable homes in the area sold for a bit more... but the sellers were already under contract for the new house they were purchasing so they were under a great deal of pressure from the seller of that house to sell their house quickly.

After we pulled into the driveway, my initial impression was "nice!" After opening the front door I realized that this is certainly a nicely kept home. I guess they weren't lying when they described it as "Move in condition".

The house is a raised ranch style. When you stand in the entry way you have a choice to go up a 1/2 flight of stairs to the living room/kitchen/bedrooms or down a 1/2 flight to get to the family room, laundry room and garage.

We went on to view the rest of the house. The more we looked the more 'right' this house seemed to be for us.

Once we viewed the entire house, we said our goodbyes to Mary and headed home. We needed some time to think....

Back to Part VI --- On to Part VIII

Finding the Right House - Part VIII: The Weekend to Think

I liked it... the problem for me was that I wanted to see MANY more homes.

The pressure was on for this house. The new house the sellers were buying hit the market on 10/26/04, they were under contract on it by 11/02/04. They put their house on the market on the same day. We were the first people to see it on 11/4/04.

The seller's were already under contract with their new house and they needed to sell ASAP. Therefore they priced the house to sell. They were having a realtor's open house on Saturday and with it being priced so well and being in such good shape, it would certainly sell REAL soon.

While it met many of our requirements, it didn't meet them all. Here's the list from the Introduction....

What we are looking for...
Priced from $180,000 to $220,000 - $204,900
No Older than the Mid to Late 1980's - 1993
Move in Condition (or close) - YES
At least 3 bedrooms - 3 BEDROOMS
At least 2 bathrooms (with a Master Bathroom) - 2.5 BATHS
Separate Living & Family Rooms - YES
Decent sized Bedrooms - COULD BE LARGER
Decent sized Kitchen - COULD BE LARGER
Basement - For storage and my Office - A LOWER LEVEL, NOT REALLY A BASEMENT
Large Back Yard - YES
2 Car Garage - 2.5 CAR GARAGE
Nice area to live - YES
Low Crime Rate - YES
Great School System - YES
Near to Parks - YES
Near to Major Shopping areas - CRYSTAL LAKE SHOPPING DISTRICT 2.5 MILES AWAY

Pluses...
Fully Fenced in yard - YES
Deck - YES
Formal Dining Room - NO
Walk-in Closets - NO
Fireplace - NO
3 Season room - NO
Pool - NO

That weekend we hand wrote a "Pro's and Con's" list. There were 19 Pro's and only 6 Con's.

I would have a real hard time wiring up a house with a finished basement. It was well & septic and we have no experience with either.

But when I got honest with myself... I didn't think we'd find a house this nice, this close to work in our price range... Hell... it's 13 MILES closer than the Aspen house!. It would be stupid to pass it up.

Valerie and I finally agreed we would submit an offer on Monday.

Back to Part VII --- On to Part IX

Finding the Right House - Part IX: The Offer & The Contract

The day was Monday November 8th. I arrived at work and began my day. At 9:30am we left to head to Mary's office in Libertyville. After waiting a few minutes for Mary to show up we headed into the office. We sat in a conference room and she went through the contract and filled in the blanks. The offer price on the contract was $190,000, the closing date was set to 01/31/05 and the mortgage contigency date was set to 12/20/04.

A few hours later came the negoation. We weren't going to get them to come down much. Getting the sellers to come down anything was just a bonus as far as I was concerned.

Mary suggested that we offer $190,000 with the contract. It was lower than I figured a first offer should be but she's the one who does this every day... I defered to her. My goal was to see if we could get the price down to $200,000.

It wasn't more than a couple hours later that we had our first counter offer... $201,900 with no Fridge or Washer & Dryer.

We countered with $193,000 and they returned a "final offer" of $199,900 with Fridge & Washer & Dryer.

With that, I called Valerie to confer. At 6:29pm we agreed to accept that price & they accepted our offer.

Later that night we had to initial the changes made to the contract. The house was ours. The hard part was done... or so we thought...

Back to Part VIII --- On to Part X

Apple introduces 6GB iPod mini

Apple today unveiled the second generation iPod mini lineup with a new 4GB model priced at $200 and a new 6GB model with 50 percent more storage priced at $250. Both iPod mini models feature increased battery life of up to 18 hours, USB charging and an ultra-portable, lightweight design available in four colors (pink, blue, silver, and green). "The iPod mini is now available at the magic price point of $199," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "At this breakthrough price point, and with more than twice the battery life, the new iPod mini should appeal to even more music lovers." The 4GB and 6GB models of iPod mini are available worldwide immediately and include earbud headphones, a belt clip case, and a USB 2.0 cable.

MacNN Article Here.

I'm famous... well sort of...

If you happened to pick up today's Northwest Herald... take a peek at the top most headline.... it's a quote from me!

Online version of the article here.

Finding the Right House - Part VI: House #2

Next up was the house in Barry's subdivision called Applewood.

This is the house I was excited by. This was the house I was pretty sure we would buy.

** LISTING **

Listing Price $198,500
2016 Aspen Dr
Woodstock, IL 60098

Bedrooms: 3
Baths: 2.1
Year Built: 1993

WHY BUILD....THIS HOME LOOKS LIKE NEW**** CERAMIC TILE IN KITCHEN, FENCE YARD, FIREPLACE, LANDSCAPED PROFESSIONALLY, WALK IN CLOSET, FULL BATHROOM IN MASTER BEDROOM, VERY NICE REC. ROOM IN FINISH BASEMENT

Living Rm: 13X12
Dining Rm: 10X10
Kitchen: 17X11
Family Rm: 14X12
MstBed Rm: 15X12
2nd Bed Rm: 13X11
3rd Bed Rm: 11X10

Type: 2 Stories
Style: Colonial
Fireplace: 1
Basement: Finished
Garage: 2.5 Car
Assoc. Dues: $ 400

We pulled up into the driveway and I eagerly walked up to the front door. Mary came around and used her Realtor keypad thing to unlock a little lock-box that contained the house keys... moments later I was standing in the entry way.

The first thing that came to mind was... "What the fuck happened to this place?"

How shall I put this....? Hmmm.... while the house was really nice on the outside... it was.... well.... abused on the inside.

Mary said... "This is probably why it's been on the market for 6 MONTHS!"

I hadn't a clue it was on the market for that long.

In order to get this house into "move in condition" it would require a massive cleaning job, the repainting of every single wall & ceiling, new carpeting in the ENTIRE house (all 3 levels), new tile in the kitchen and new appliances. That is not to forget the drywall repair and rewiring!

I was greatly disappointed. I was hoping this would be "The One"!

I loved the layout, I loved the size, I loved the full size basement. The yard was a little bizarre and it was in a community that would require HOA dues, but from the outside the +'s way outweighed the -'s

We stood in the kitchen for a few minutes to discuss how much it would cost to get back into shape and soon realized, it wasn't worth it.

UPDATE: I recently found out that this house sold a couple weeks after we viewed it... here is the info...
List Date: 05/15/04
Contract Date: 11/24/04
Close Date: 11/30/04
Sale Price: $ 185,000

It closed in 6 days and sold for $13,500 less than listing. And that wouldn't even cover all of the repairs needed to bring the house to A+ shape.

Back to Part V --- On to Part VII

Finding the Right House - Part V: House #1

After work on November 4th we headed to Woodstock and drove to the house on Quail ct. I knew it was in a different area of Woodstock than the Aspen Dr. house but it was further away than I realized.

** LISTING **

Listing Price: $208,000
1801 Quail Ct.
Woodstock, IL 60098

Bedrooms: 3
Baths: 2
Year Built: 1989

CHARMING AND IMMACULATE !! HOME OFFERS MAPLE HARDWOOD FLOORING THROUGH OUT THE MAIN LEVEL, 3BD, 2BA, A LARGE MODERN KITCHEN AND BEAUTIFULLY FINISHED LOWER LEVEL FAMILY ROOM. THE HOME HAS MANY EXTRAS AND IS IN MOVE IN CONDITION. WON'T LAST LONG AT THIS PRICE. A MUST SEE!!

Fireplaces: 0
Garage: ATTACHED,2 CAR GARAGE
Master Bath: NO
Family Room Size: 20X14
Kitchen Size: 11X11
Living Room Size: 21X13
Master Bedroom Size: 12X13
BR 2 Size: 13X10
BR 3 Size: 10X11
Style: TRADITIONAL
Basement: YES
Type - DE: 1.5 STORY
Lot Size: LESS THAN .25 ACRES
Taxes: 4297

The house was nice, I loved the hardwood floors, but it was pretty much ruled out due to it's distance from Route 14.

Back to Part IV --- On to Part VI

Finding the Right House - Part III: Realtor.com

I love Realtor.com. While it's not always up to date, it certainly gives you a great idea of what kind of house you can buy in your price range for any given area.

I searched many areas within 30 or so miles from Buffalo Grove. That helped me narrow down the areas we would have the Realtor look into.

We couldn't look to the East because it gets more expensive the further East you go. We weren't interested in going South because to get a really nice place for the money you'd have to go to like Sugar Grove or Oswego. So we looked as far North as Antioch and as far West as Woodstock and Huntley.

Some of the areas we were looking in included... Gurnee, Lindenhurst, Lake Villa, the many Round Lakes, Grayslake, Mundelein, Cary, Crystal Lake, Woodstock, McHenry, Hainesville, Lakemoor, and Wonder Lake.

Gurnee was pretty simple to rule out. All of the houses in our price range were close to Waukegan. Which if you know the area... isn't a good thing. That sucks because a couple years ago we saw several houses in our price range that would have really been nice.

Mundelein was ruled out because all of the houses in our price range were 40-50+ years old. We wanted something newer.

We found a couple good houses in Woodstock in the same subdivision that Barry, a guy in my office recently moved to. We wanted to check out those in person.

Other than that, the other areas had some decent places and they were worth including when we handed the search off to our Realtor.

Back to Part II --- On to Part IV

Finding the Right House - Part IV: Realtor time

In early November, after we got a feel for the new construction in the area, we decided to enlist the help of Realtor Mary Ronan.

We scheduled an appointment to check out the listings I found in Woodstock on Realtor.com. She scheduled a viewing for a couple days later.

After she learned what we were looking for, she did a search on the MLS system.

Later the next day, she e-mailed us a list of 24 houses. Truth be told... I hated them all! In the afternoon she sent us another set of 21 properties to check out. I looked through them and none were appealing to me. When I got to the last one I stopped. It was a house in Cary. There was no picture included (which would normally mean I'd skip it and go to the next one... I'm very against imageless listings) but the description of the property on the listing was enough to pique my interest. After all, since we were already seeing 2 properties in Woodstock, another property in Cary (which we go through on the way home anyway) wasn't that big of a deal.

Back to Part III --- On to Part V

Finding the Right House - Part II: New Construction: Townhomes

The search then moved on to closer locations. But, due to the market, all we were left with for new construction was Townhomes. But they all were about 20 miles closer.

Valerie and I spent 3 weekends visiting pretty much every new construction site we could find. That search took us from Round Lake to Volo to McHenry. Some just sucked right off of the bat, while others were for all practical purposes perfect!

Madrona Village - Concord Homes

The Glen at Lakemoor Farms - Neumann Homes

Bradford Place - Pulte Homes

Heron Bay - Pasquinelli Homes

Remington Trails at Valley Lakes - Remington Homes

Abbey Ridge Townhomes of McHenry - Gerstad Builders

Morgan Hill - Concord Homes

The last one we looked at was actually the one we liked the most... Terra Springs by RHA. The Drake was the best model we saw out of almost 20 different floor plans.

After seeing the Drake we had some serious thinking to do. For a townhome, it was rather pricey.... $225ish and then there was an association fee.

Back to Part I --- On to Part III

Finding the Right House - Part I: New Construction: Single Family

Our search began with new construction... why not start new? That easily lead us to check out Shadow Creek in Harvard.

Dave & Kay had moved to Shadow Creek a few months earlier and I loved the little subdivision. We checked out the most expensive model in the subdivision... The 4 Bedroom Dogwood... It was $174,900.... VERY affordable.

The Dogwood was pretty much everything we were looking for in a house...

Excellent price, split level, 4 bedrooms (an office of my own), 2.5 baths, an unfinished basement, and a nice, open kitchen. The best part... of course... completely customizable since it's NEW CONSTRUCTION! I could wire that house till my heart's content. I could have ceiling speakers installed in various locations. We could blow over $25,000 on upgrades! Ahh.. the joys of new construction!

The ONLY downside I could find was location. It's 38 miles away from where we work.

Since Shadow Creek was over 90% complete, they only had 3 lots remaining that the Dogwood could be built on. It's REALLY easy to get caught up in the excitement of a brand new house. We actually put $1000 down on a lot that day! Is new construction really worth a 76 mile round trip commute? Later that day we discussed it further. Valerie decided that the commute would be too much, while I was still thinking... holy shit we can build this house from scratch, wire it exactly the way I want and pick everything from cabinets, tile, wall color, certain wall locations.... EVERYTHING! But as reason set in, I relented. Unfortunately... no matter how much I loved the idea and freedom of new construction.... it WAS to far.

Back to Introduction --- On to Part II

Finding the Right House - Introduction

Not unlike the My Ride-Chicago Experience series, in the days to come I am going to post articles describing my recent experience in buying my first house. I'm calling this series, "Finding the Right House"

For starters... you need to understand the Real Estate market around here. Buffalo Grove is a place where you can buy a tiny 3 bedroom ranch built in the late 1950's for about $250,000+. That's certainly not as bad as some of the areas I've seen on HGTV's "House Hunters" but it's still pretty damn inflated. Take the Shadow Creek house (in Part II) as an example... if that $174,900 house was in Buffalo Grove, it would easily sell for near $350,000.

If you want a nice House in Buffalo Grove you will spend well over $300,000. If you want it to be a newer house... be prepared to spend over $400,000. It's all location.

There was NO WAY in hell we were going to pay a 1/4 Mill for small, crappy 40+ year house.

In order to get more affordable homes you need to get further away from Chicago. That will mean heading North, way South or more West.

It's amazing what 15 miles can do to prices... but they are ALL on the rise... A couple of years ago you could build a brand new house in Lake in the Hills for $200,000. That ain't gonna happen now.

We looked at homes in Lindenhurst/Gurnee a couple years ago. Those 1980's houses that went for the $175's are now in the $190's.

That should give you a decent idea of the market we're in.

What we are looking for...
Priced from $180,000 to $220,000
No Older than the Mid to Late 1980's
Move in Condition (or close)
At least 3 bedrooms
At least 2 bathrooms (with a Master Bathroom)
Separate Living & Family Rooms
Decent sized Bedrooms
Decent sized Kitchen
Basement - For storage and my Office
Large Back Yard
2 Car Garage
Nice area to live
Low Crime Rate
Great School System
Near to Parks
Near to Major Shopping areas

Pluses...
Fully Fenced in yard
Deck
Formal Dining Room
Walk-in Closets
Fireplace
3 Season room
Pool

Okay... let's begin... Finding the Right House... Part I

Finding the Right House Posted in several parts

While the blog lists things with the newest first, make sure you read this in the correct order....

Start with the introduction.

Introduction, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, Part XIII, Part XIV, Part XV

Finding the Right House - Part XIII: Closing Day

The Final Walkthrough
The day started pretty normally... we woke up, took a shower and got ready. With the cars already packed the previous night, we drove separately per my master plan and arrived at the house at 8:30am. Mary had called on the way informing us that she was stuck in traffic and would be late. She told us we can look around the exterior of the house in that time. The first thing I did when I got there was to take a picture of the electric & gas meters. I wanted proof of what the meters read on that day. While looking around, we noticed that a picket on the gate to the backyard was freshly broken.

Eventually Mary arrived at the house. She used her little realtor gizmo to get the keys to open the door. At that same time the seller's realtor pulled up and pulled her "For Sale" sign out of the yard. I was actually hoping to get a pic of the house with a "SOLD" sign in front of it but her office doesn’t put up “SOLD” signs (forcing the interested party to call the phone number and get a “Sorry that house is under contract, can I interest you in this house instead?" ) so that didn't happen. After we walked in I realized that the empty 1960 sq. ft. house looked REALLY BIG that day.

Having attended Kay's final walkthrough, I knew what to look for. I was looking for any problems with the house and its contents that were NOT there during the inspection in November. They left the place pretty clean. It was clear that once the carpet was cleaned and the bathtubs/sinks/toilets/counters/tile floors were all cleaned (they were clean and the carpet was only 6 months old but it was more of a mental thing than anything) we were good to concentrate on the move.

We ran the dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, stove, oven, all of the sinks & flushed all of the toilets just to make sure nothing had changed in their working status between the inspection and now. Everything worked okay but there was a noise when we ran the washing machine. It was a sort of thud sound every few minutes that was coming from somewhere behind it in the wall. Mary didn't waste any time, she grabbed her cell phone and called our inspector to ask him about it. He assured us that the noise was coming from the ejector pump and that it was normal. You could pay to have it silenced but it doesn't affect the working of the pump. All was good. Having been the first time either of us had been inside the house since November we were eager to take our time. It seemed like time flew by. Before we knew it, we had to leave for the closing.

The Closing
We arrived at the seller's attorney's office at 10:02am. After walking in we were shown to a long conference table which already had the sellers, their attorney, our attorney and both realtors seated at it. Our lawyer introduced himself to us and we sat down on the remaining open seats.

Then it was time to sign our lives away with paper after paper. The lawyer explained what it was that we were signing and told us to initial where we should initial and sign where we should sign. That part was pretty fast. The entire process was over in 45 minutes.

It was then that the day took a sudden turn to the worse. The Heritage Title lady double checked our paperwork and said, "We're all set. We're just waiting for funding."

The wait began. The Title Company wouldn't give us possession (although we did get the keys already) until the wire was verified. Due to this, the closing on the seller's new house was also on hold because they couldn't close without the money from our purchase.

Our lawyer hung around an additional hour. He did make himself useful by calling the lender and the broker's company to yell and get to the bottom the delay. Apparently instead of sending the wire sometime on Friday they wouldn’t send it till first thing Monday morning. That means no earlier than 11:00am Central time which would have been more or less right on time if they sent it an hour after the closing began. He was upset by this and spoke to the upper management of both parties.

While it was completely beyond my control, I still felt bad for the sellers… it was our mortgage company that was holding everything up. I felt bad until Mr. "Seller" expressed his anger and peeled out of the parking lot with his car on their way to lunch. On his way out he made some snide comment about how at least HE verified his wire was sent over the weekend! Implying that we should have or we even knew we had the ability to do that. The looks from even his realtor implied she thought he was full of shit!

By noon we were told that our lender had sent the wire. I wasn't aware at the time but apparently all wire transfers of a certain size must go through the Federal Reserve in Washington D.C.

Our lawyer left. The sellers were out for lunch. Their attorney was gone. All that was left was Mary, the Seller's Realtor and the two of us.

We called ChemDry to tell them that there was no way we could do the noon appointment.

Mary urged us to go get something to eat but there was NO WAY I could eat as stressed out as I was. The four of us just sat there chatting about real estate.

The seller's Realtor informed us that she listed both the sale of the house we were buying and the purchase of the seller's new house. She told us the story of her experience listing the new house our sellers were buying and described them as just as unreasonable as our sellers. She told us about how she was yelled at for turning all of the lights on in their house for the showing of it. They were really offended for some reason and she even offered them $20 to cover the hour of electricity that was used just to calm them down.

Somewhere in our conversation we were also informed that if the wire wasn't processed by the Fed by 4pm Central that it wouldn't happen till sometime the next morning. Both Realtors told us that it's rare, but has happened before. If that happened we'd be screwed and it would CERTAINLY cost us extra money with the movers as they’d have to be moved to the later afternoon. Not to mention that we’d also have to pay for all of February at closing instead of just the last day of January.

As soon as the seller's Realtor realized that it may not be until the next day that she will receive her check, she instructed them to mail it to the office and she wished us luck on her way out.

I later learned that we had 4 things working against us...

1. We had a morning closing.
2. The Lender is based in California. (2 hour time zone difference)
3. Closing is on a Monday.
4. Closing is on the last day of the month. (the most popular day to close because you only have to pay one day of mortgage at the table)

Oddly we soon realized that the 3 of us were left completely alone in their office while everyone was out to lunch. The phone rang several times. Any one of those calls could have been the lady from the title company telling them that the wire is confirmed and we're all set to take possession and leave. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was tempted to answer the phone on several of those occasions.

In what felt like HOURS AND HOURS later, the secretary arrived back in the office and we eagerly waited for her to finish checking the voice mail system.

"Are you for the "Seller's Last Name" closing?", she asked.

"Yes, "Seller's Last Name" & Miller closing.”, I replied.

"Oh, we just got funding for the "Seller's Last Name" and "their new house seller's" closing. It looks like we are still waiting on your funding.
Ahhh… really... my watch reads 2:30pm… The seller lied in his snide comment before he sped off like a little whiny bitch for lunch... smoking tires and all.

Every single time the phone rang we looked at the secretary and awaited her reaction.

ChemDry called back. They might have to reschedule for another day if we don't get possession soon. That too would cost us more money since a house with furniture costs more than an empty house.

The phone rang. We looked at the secretary. She looked at us and shook her head no.
The clock struck 3:00pm. Zero Hour. If we didn't get funding in the next 59 minutes, we'd be screwed till tomorrow. That in turn would probably change our very annoyed, high strung seller into a raving psychopath. My NRA training may come in handy.

We spent the time chatting it up with Mary. Valerie called my dad to tell him we would need to have him pick up the kids from school. He was most accommodating.

The phone rang again. The three of us looked at the secretary. She looked back and again, shook her head no.

ChemDry called back and said they can’t wait any longer and that we would have to reschedule. I begrudgingly agreed.

The phone rang once again. Mary, Valerie & I looked at the secretary once again. Her eyes lit up and she gave us a thumbs up. She started writing things down and confirmed with the Title Lady that she was to give keys to the proper people and disperse the checks. We already had the keys so we were FINALLY good to go.

A whopping 5 1/2 hours after we first walked into that lawyer’s office, we were on our way to our first house. I wish we had time to savor the moment but we were in a big hurry. We said our thank yous and goodbyes to Mary and we raced like a bat out of hell to the house calling ChemDry on the way. The lady told us they were still in Cary and she would radio to the van for them to turn around and head back to the house.

We finally pulled in OUR driveway... As expected, ChemDry was already there. We unlocked the house, let them in to measure the rooms with carpet and unpacked our cars.

ChemDry quoted us a price of $357 and change to clean and protect all of the carpeting in the house. I wanted to keep it under $300 and was tempted to say screw the protectant ($100+ extra ) but I was worn out, stressed out, and just happy for the closing to be finally over. I said okay.

While they went room to room to clean the carpeting, Valerie started cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms and I started changing the locks. My master plan suggested that we get in a few trips back and forth before spending our final night in Buffalo Grove. I wanted to bring my computers, my home theater stuff & some fragile Christmas stuff... things I didn't want to have the movers touch. But since closing was just so long, all of that had to change. We only had the time to make one trip. At around 8pm we headed back and stopped at Chipotle on the way. Neither of us had eaten all day long so this was a much needed break.

Valerie picked up the kids and the dog and I filled up the Blazer with all of the dog stuff and as much other stuff as I could and we headed back to the new house.

I took the opportunity during the drive back to fill Dave & Kay in on the events of the day.

30 minutes later I pulled into my driveway. This is the first time the kids were able to go inside the house. They were quite excited!

While I finished up on the door lock for the garage utility door, (a couple of holes had to be drilled) Valerie and the kids put Carpet Shield Carpet Film Protector on the hallways, stairs and a little path leading every room to protect it from the movers. I was quite impressed with my little $12.00 purchase! With so many things to do time flew REALLY fast... Before we knew it, it was after midnight! It was time to leave.

We got Bailey all set up in the laundry room to be the first member of the family to spend the night in the house. Valerie moved her car into the garage and we packed into the blazer had headed back. We had to be up in the 6:00am hour to get the U-Haul... the kids were still excited about the house and the decision was made to keep them out of school for moving day. They wouldn't get much sleep anyway. Once we got home, I crashed right away... knowing that less than 6 hours later, the start of a very busy day would begin.

Back to Part XII --- On to Part XIV

It's headed right for us!!

Severe Thunderstorm Watch
Effective this Wednesday afternoon and evening from 455 PM until 1000 PM CST.

Hail to 1.5 inches in diameter... thunderstorm wind gusts to 70
mph... and dangerous lightning are possible in these areas.

Nip/Tuck will slice its way through another 2 seasons!!

This is excellent news because Christian Troy is one of my all-time favorite tv characters!

Article here. And don't forget that season 1 of Nip/Tuck is available on DVD.

Why is it so hard to find a lock?

I'm having great difficulty finding the type of front door lock I'm used to...

Because I don't know what the official term for this lock is, let me describe the action of opening the door to you. (Leaving the deadbolt out of the discussion because that's not at issue)

I put my key in, turn the key (the door knob does not turn when I turn the key), then push the door open. The thumbturn on the interior side does NOT change position so the door remains locked... I do NOT have to turn the thumbturn to reengage the lock.

If I want to unlock the door completely, I can turn the thumbturn vertical, turn the interior knob and the thumbturn will pop out making the door complete unlocked.

All of the locks I looked at today at Home Depot, Menard's & True Value will require that I turn the thumbturn to reengage the lock after I enter my house.

Anyone here know what I'm talking about.. cause the Home Depot guy certainly didn't. Is there a term for it? Why can't I find it at any stores?

Thanks for all of your help!

Once bitten.... twice shy?

Clip from the Daily Herald...

"In March 1995, nine homes were destroyed when some 600,000 tons of earth fell onto the town after a powerful storm."

Okay... I've been accused before of being an insensitive prick... but can you please answer this question?

If the SAME thing has happened before about 10 years ago... WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU BUILD THERE AGAIN? Are people really that stupid? As Barry, a guy I work with, said earlier today... "...if that happened, I'd take that insurance money and rebuild ELSEWHERE! I'd NEVER rebuild in the same place!"

3rd house is a charm??

Say Hello to Mac Mini...

It's the cheapest Mac ever! Starts at $499. I will definitely be buying one of these something this year. It will make an easy upgrade for the kids computer.

Check it out here!

Apple introduces iPod shuffle

And yes... I want one! Why do I need one since I already have a 40GB iPod you ask? Simple... it's even more convenient to take with you AND it doubles as a memory key (which is something I was going to buy anyway!) Check it out here.

Steve says it's the year of HD...

Apple kicked off 2005 with some very fine HD products... first there's the 3rd version of the popular Final Cut Express video editing suite and then they raised the bar on HD video editing by offering the new iMovie HD which can edit High Def video and essentially costs $20 since it's bundled with 4 other programs for $79 in Apple's new iLife 2005.

I can't wait to see what Apple has in store for the rest of the year!

Did someone order snow??

We'll we've got about 10 inches!

Happy New Year!!

I'm sure all of you had more fun than I did. Valerie was at work and I went to bed at 10:30pm... After spending the day getting things organized for the move, I was pretty damn tired.