Rants and musings, without care for substance.
Posted in housing, in the news, money, politics on Sep 25th, 2008
I usually don’t watch the news, but while at the car dealership yesterday I had some time in the waiting room. On the one hand I don’t feel that the taxpayers ought to be bailing out either individuals or corporations that made poor financial decisions. Like a friend helping out your friend because they made [...]
Posted in housing, in the news on Mar 6th, 2008
It seems that the local police department has a Vice Squad and that they’ve recently been active in my community. My HOA just sent out an email stating that the squad started an investigation based on a resident’s tip.
“As a result of this investigation the following female was determined to be managing this sexual enterprise [...]
Last year I scored a bag of incandescent light bulbs when the ACW household replaced all of their bulbs with compact fluorescent ones. Those bulbs got gifted to another friend of mine, since his house — when purchased — was devoid of light bulbs for some reason.
I went to the bank this afternoon to deposit [...]
Posted in food, housing, life in general, plans on Dec 27th, 2007
I had a nice time at home with the family. Went for a bike ride before presents and dinner. It was my first bike ride in years, which made me consider — as I have been lately — getting a bike and getting some exercise thataway. It’s low-impact and I always enjoyed riding as a [...]
Posted in housing, life in general, oddities on Dec 13th, 2007
The overhead fluorescent light in the kitchen has been acting up for several months now. It hums a little more than normal and the tubes flicker dimly when you turn them on. Light output is cut in half. Besides complaining I haven’t done anything about it until the other day when the single flood in [...]
Posted in healthcare, housing on Nov 19th, 2007
Joel Spolsky recommended a neat mashup today, rating the “walkability” of an address according to how many places of interest (stores, restaurants, etc) are nearby. The area surrounding my house has a Walk Score of 23. That’s pretty low, but if I use the address of a house nearby the entrance to my community I [...]
It astounds me how many young people don’t have a clue when it comes to money and taxes. Fewer still know how both relate to being a homeowner. It feels like some people go out of their way to know as little about finance as humanly possible. I don’t know if its a generational thing [...]
Posted in housing, life in general on Sep 7th, 2007
It took us a few hours, but we successfully replaced my hot water heater with only one minor injury. I assisted my buddy with much of it; my soldering skills are horrible, but I was fine with the 240V line. It didn’t go quite a smoothly as we had planned, but the solder is holding [...]
Posted in cars, complaints, housing, life in general, music on Sep 5th, 2007
Listening to the soundtrack from Garden State, grooving to Thievery Corporation. That obviously doesn’t suck, but it certainly helps insulate me from the following.
My hot water heater is leaking water and might be on its last legs. The base shows signs of rust and the concrete below has signs of calcium build-up from water that [...]
Posted in housing, legal rights, politics, privacy, the system on Sep 1st, 2007
Due to a poor laptop security policy, here are some snippets from the diary of an American Community Survey (ACS) Field Representive.
Friday, 6 July 2007, 5:55PM
Every single time I want to take the wife down to Rehobeth for the weekend Mr. Fancypants Fitzpatrick strolls into my cubicle like the boss from Office Space at ten [...]
Posted in complaints, housing on Aug 22nd, 2007
The HOA drives me nuts. When they came through to inspect they suggested that I check for rot on the garage door. I did. No rot. A few weeks later I got an irrational nasty-gram from the HOA about the state of my place, saying that I hadn’t taken action and that if I didn’t [...]
This weekend is going to be full of manual labor. I’m helping out with home improvements at two separate houses.
Tomorrow I’m helping dig a hole. Not just any hole in the ground like the type that kids create while trying to dig to China while Mom and Dad sit back and enjoy not having to [...]
Posted in complaints, housing, legal rights, politics, privacy, the system on Jul 10th, 2007
Here is a rough copy of the American Community Survey questionnaire. I wasn’t able to locate a scanner, but I’m a quick typist. The only thing you’d gain from a scan is the design of the survey, which honestly isn’t too difficult to follow. I can confirm that there are no choices for you to [...]
Posted in advertising, housing, idiots, money, privacy on May 30th, 2007
“Life’s too short to clean your own house,” proclaims an ad for a cleaning company that was mailed to me. I’d argue that I don’t care enough pay someone else to clean my own house. Part of owning a home is taking care of it (or opting not to take care of it). I have [...]
Posted in housing, life in general, technology on May 27th, 2007
Friday afternoon I got home from work and did the unthinkable. I turned on the air conditioning. Turning on the AC is something I postpone until absolutely necessary. As cheap as I can be, I just couldn’t help it. It was 83° in my living room and I was expecting people over that evening for [...]
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