A Geek Point of View

Buying a House - Part III

2006-04-28T17:04:00.000-05:00

Our house is sold! And for more than we could have hoped for! $$$CHA-CHING$$$!

Wednesday night was the deadline for all offers. So around 9pm, the agent comes over with a stack of offers under his arm (good!). Turns out we got 12 offers! Unfrickenbelievable! Another high number: we had 55 people schedule appointments to see our house in the 3 days it was showing.

So we start opening up the offers. Some not bad, some barely over asking price. Some with very scary conditions like the following:

Seller guarantees all electrical and plumbing in house. All electrical and plumbing will function correctly for 2 weeks after possesion date.

Uhm, I'm sorry, but WTF? So, months from now (August), we move out, they move in. Middle of August I can get a call saying, sorry, plug socket in north-east corner of basement is no longer working. We want our money back, you can have this POS house. Yeah - even if that was the highest offer (it wasn't) that guy can go take a flying leap off a cliff, into a bed of rusty spikes in a shallow pool of vinegar and salt.

About halfway through the pile we hit gold. An offer that was $25,000 over asking, and $31,000 more than I paid for this house less than 2 years ago! And the best part, that newer, nicer house we already bought? Yeah, we bought that for $3,000 LESS than what I just sold my old house for! There is not even a word that can adequately describe how fricken Snakes on a Mother Fucking Shiny Plane this whole deal is! How often does one upgrade their house, but come out ahead?

I feel like I just robbed two people... the guy who we bought the new house from, and the guy we just sold our house too.

My dad looks at like this. He figures we made $30,000 on our old house, and bought our new house for $30,000 less than market value, which means we are ahead $60,000! Snakes on a Mother Fucking Shiny Plane, man!

With all this extra cash coming this August, me and the finacee will be able to pay off pretty much all our outstanding debt, and leave us with just a mortgage. We are only planning to put 10% down on the new mortgage, the rest of the money will be better off paying off all the other stuff which is at a higher interest rate. No more student loans!

Oh, there was one condition on the good offer on our house, final mortgage approval on the buyer's side. He was pre-approved, but it still needed final approval. Well we had to wait til Friday (today) before we got the call saying final approval was granted! w00t!

I'm so buying lottery tickets today.

:o)

Time to talk some SMAC

2006-04-26T10:58:00.000-05:00

Just what exactly is SMAC? I'm not even sure if anybody really even know yet.... maybe you can figure it out? Go check out SMAC now!
:o)

Buying a House - Part II

2006-04-14T15:42:00.000-05:00

Well folks, we got the house!!
Ended up paying $5,000 more than we put in our offer, but that is okay, cause that is still a good $20,000 less than that house would have easily sold for on the market! Man, what a blessing - moving into a better house AND getting it at a steal! (We have a home inspection this Monday, so hopefully that won't turn up anything nasty).

We get possession of the house Aug 5th - man that is going to be such a long wait :o(

We already called a daycare and the school in the area. Good news on that end as well, the daycare is literaly 6 houses from the new place, and the school is around a block away. It gets better, this daycare only charges for the days we bring McKenna there, which means we'll be saving around $200/month on daycare - bonus!

Next on the list to do: Sell the current house.

We had an agent come down to the house today. Everything is looking very promising, houses are flying of the shelves around here, and going for a good $20,000 over the asking prices. Seems there are around 8 offers/house in our area - definitely there are people wanting a house here. So, there is a definitely a chance we can sell this current house for the same price we bought the new one at. If that in the case, then this will really help, as we can then buy some new furniture and replace some of our older stuff! Plus pay off some debts we have.

Our house is going into the listings Monday, then will show the following Monday to Wednesday. So, in less then 2 weeks this should be all over with!

I'll tell you something though, cleaning up, repairing this current house to make it more showable sure is taking a ton of my time lately!

:o)

Buying a House Ahead of Schedule!

2006-04-12T12:59:00.000-05:00

Well, me and the old ball-and-chain (finaceé) weren't planning on moving for at least a year. However, the other day I get an email from one of my friends who has another friend who needs to sell his house and does not want to go through an agent. For the area and size of this house, the asking price was really good, almost too good. Okay, so we call this guy up and arrange to check the house out.

The house looks to be in pretty good shape, much better than my current house (which could use a redone bathroom, kitchen, etc). The only problems to me seem to be the exterior colour (butt ugly beige and bright blue) and the laminate floor in the living/dining room. That's much less work than I need to do on my current house.

I found out the reason the price of the house is low. Turns out he is going by the estimate of the house's worth from 2004 - two years ago! Uhm, house prices have increased dramatically in this city since then. (To put this in perspective, the friend we have in common, just bought a house in the same area. That house is around 200 square feet smaller, but my friend ended up paying almost $40,000 more than his friend is now asking!). Also, I am thinking there is a fair chance that I can sell my current house for the same price this new house will cost. Considering this new house is in better shape and 30 years newer, and in a better area, well that is TOO GOOD to pass up I think!

So, me and the finaceé did some scrambling. Got pre-approved for the mortgage, met with a lawyer, drew up an offer, and handed the offer in last night. I believe we gave two days to accept the offer, so needless to say the finaceé is going absolutely crazy waiting for the call-back!

Wish us luck folks!
*fingers crossed* :o)

Prey Alone - Awesome short movie

2006-03-02T13:11:00.000-06:00

Hey all. Got a really cool 15 minute movie I think everybody needs to see.
You can find it over at a site called jonny3d.com.

In the links along the left hand side of the page, choose the one called Mpegs. Download the one called Prey Alone Movie and give it a watch.

While watching this thing, it made me think of a cross between The Matrix and The Usual Suspects. It really sort of draws you in. Then you get to the ending - and wow! Awesome!

Reading a bit on the site, we find out this movie was filmed entirely infront of green screens, and that it cost a whopping 80,000 euros, which I think is around 96,138.18 USD or 108,747.43 CAD.

Anyway, enjoy, and let me know what you all think!
:o)

2 Interesting Podcast adventures - part 2

2006-02-20T22:27:00.000-06:00

As you may recall from one of my previous entries, I found 2 new story-based podcasts:

Children of the Gods(CotG)
&
The Silent Universe

I've now had a chance to listen to all 3 episodes available to CotG, and the 1 episode of Silent Universe. So, as promised, here are my initial thoughts to the both of them.

Children of the Gods:

This series (according to the website) is heavily inspired by the book "Footfall" and the movie that was inspired by that book ,which we all know as "Independance Day". From what I can tell, this series takes the idea that not all of the aliens from Independance Day are destroyed, and what would happen if they come back.

Yes, this one pits Humans vs. Aliens, which means we get lots of space battles, which is good in my books! This series uses a ton of sound effects and sound scapes (think ambience noise) to add to the story. For the most part it is really well done, except for one sound effect they use that I find doesn't sound right. That is the sound of footsteps on the deck plating in the ship. For some reason the pacing sounds totally wrong to me - it just seems too slow to me to be somebody walking. But, other than that it is good.

The acting is pretty good, and rarely sounds like somebody just reading lines. So far there are no annoying characters (unlike the other podcast)....

In the end, I must say I rather enjoyed these 3 episodes and I will be tuning in further.
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The Silent Universe:

Only 1 episode so far. The release schedule is supposed to be 1 episode a month. This may seem like a long time, however I believe there is a reason for that. The makers of this podcast want us listeners to give them feedback after each episode. They want to take our suggestions and perhaps use our ideas in future episodes. I think this is a totally cool idea, and I hope it works out.

Reading the forums on the Silent Universe website, there is a ton of talk about one of the characters, a Gilbert (Gill) Frye. He's the geek of the group, infact, it appears this guy has been frozen from our time and unthawed in the future. (Yes, they willingly made that a Futurama throwback). The problem that me, and a lot of other listeners, have with this character is that he is utterly silly on what he says. He does a lot of impressions (like Yoda, Chewie, etc), but that isn't the worst of it! He speaks in leet speak and internet acronyms. In the first ep, he said things like "teh" master, "arr oh tee eff ell"... it's just way too silly for me. However, the creator of the series I think is taking our complaining to heart, and I think this character will be using less of this crap in future episodes. I believe the creator is looking for ideas on how to phase that out a bit, but make it believable in context to the story.

Oh yeah, there are no aliens in this story, it's all just Humans. So this is looking to be a Sci-Fi, character based drama more than anything else. Supposedly this podcast is supposed to mix elements of "24" and "Battlestar Galactica". If it can do that successfully, then I am sure this is going to be one great series!

I will also be tuning into this one some more. And yes, I have posted on their forums giving my thoughts on that Gill Frye the Geek Guy - ug!
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Shit, I think I suck at reviewing stuff. I think I just did a bunch of unfocused rambling above... lol.
I hope it made sense though, and is useful...
:o)

Tying the knot...

2006-02-16T22:03:00.000-06:00

So I took the plunge a few days ago... I proposed to my long time GF Megan. (2 years+ is long right?) She said yes, of course. After all, who wouldn't want to marry a Geek eh?

It hasn't even been a week, and already we've went over a ton of different wedding ideas. Basically we are both in agreement that we do not want to go through the hassles of planning a wedding - even a small one. We looked at everything to just going to the lawcourts and getting married there, to Vegas, Hawaii, Banff, local wedding spots, etc. The thing that I think has finally won out is this:

Beaches Resort & Spa in Negril

This will be like a wedding and a honeymoon all rolled up in one, and it will not break the bank! Plus, it has a ton of kid-oriented activities, and kid camp, as we are planning to bring Megan's 4 year old daughter, McKenna, with us. Oh yeah, the basic wedding comes free of charge, and this place is a highly rated 4-star resort.

Anybody out there have any other ideas for a non-standard wedding? We really just want to show up and have everything all set up for us already for the wedding. Oh, and it can't be super expensive (say 5 to 10 gees).

PS: like my image? I have 1337 photoshop skills eh? lol!
:o)

2 Interesting Podcast adventures

2006-02-15T08:01:00.000-06:00

I just heard about the following 2 podcasts this morning:

Children of the Gods (CotG)
The Silent Universe

CotG bills itself as an original sci-fi podcast adventure, and The Silent Universe has a unique twist: us, the listeners, will be able to give our input into the story through the forums, and ultimately decide the direction the story takes.

How cool does all that sound? I am very intrigued!

Now to actually download these podcasts and give them a listen... I'll post my updated thoughts later!
:o)

To Jedi or not to Jedi?

2006-02-14T21:04:00.000-06:00

For years now (I'd say over 10 years at least) I've used the handle Jedi_Kez for pretty much everything I signed up for that required a username. Before then I would use just Kez, however, believe it or not, there is more then one of us out there - so I made the change way back when to include the Ultra-Cool Jedi prefix to my usernames. Hey, I'm a Geek who grew up loving the original Star Wars Trilogy. To this day, I have yet to come across another Jedi_Kez. The closest I got was a Jedi Taz (this was on XBox Live - so you can only imagine the confusion on our team trying to call out one of our names...).

Fast-Forward to current day. Star Wars is not really the same anymore. A lot of long-time fans are upset and even disgusted with the prequal episodes that spewed forth from Lucas' brain. Star Wars (as a whole) is no longer as cool as it once was. So here I am, with my long time Jedi_Kez handle, wondering if it is still cool to use 'Jedi' in my name (or anything else relating to Star Wars). Am I no longer as cool as I once was? Should I change to something else? Should I go back to regular ole' Kez?

Hmmm, something to ponder upon some more methinks. For the meantime, I'll remain a Jedi, and yes, the Force is with me.
:o)