John's comments from life.

Condo Update

Thursday, September 27, 2007 0 Comments

Yesterday afternoon I found out that the CO should come in today, and I’m scheduled for next Wednesday to close. I called my banker-guy and he said that’s too soon. But next Thursday I’m scheduled to drive to WI to help a friend move to here in CDA. NP, if it’s not done before, I’ll do that when I get back!

No news is good news?

Wednesday, September 26, 2007 0 Comments

As of this morning, I’ve still not heard back from my realtors - after all they did say they would call me on Monday afternoon. And I left a message yesterday too. Who knows, maybe they’ll decide to update me today!
In the meantime, I’m working on the lovely job of cleaning up the hard drives, archiving data no longer needed but need to keep around, burning to DVD’s and cataloging for instant retrieval. It does get complicated when some of the files are 13gb, and a DVD only holds 4.7. Those, I’m afraid, will have to wait for Blu-Ray.

Short update

Thursday, September 20, 2007 4 Comments

Just met w/ the realtor, and signed on 723 East Whispering Pines Ln., Unit #104. I then gave the paperwork to the banker to start on the mortgage. It’s not the unit I originally wanted, but it’ll do nicely. Very nicely. Thank you, Lord!

Housing saga

Thursday, September 20, 2007 0 Comments

Last night I sent out an email update, but didn't get into all the gory details of the housing situation. I wanted to try and record what's taken place up to now, to help me remember what hoops had to be built (and jumped through) to bring this about.

Background: there are 2 buildings involved, 723 and 743. There are 7 units per building, 3 upstairs, and 4 downstairs each. The desired location was 743, unit 104, but was more expensive than the upstairs apartments.
Starting off, I signed a contract ($100 down) on unit 203 - upstairs, nice location, but did not have the most desirable floor plan. But it was cheaper, and I thought I had a good deal on it because I was the first one to sign, and they didn't let the downstairs go at such a discount because 'they were easier to sell.' No problem. This was back in May 14, with a tentative move-in date of mid June. Chad, my initial realtor, cut his commission in half to help get me in at this price, but he's also representing both me and the builder. So, if I had my own realtor, I would have to pay another 3% it would seem to get in.
2 weeks ago, getting close to having the units finished, I asked, "How much would it take for me to get in 104?" They came back w/ $2k more (which was the difference in price at the retail level.) I said that's great, I'll take it.
No paperwork came around for a couple days to sign, so I thought I would drive to look-see how things at the building were coming. The builder (Ted) was there, and I talked with him for about an hour and a half! He was in partnership with another fellow as the builders.
In talking with him, he mentioned that 104 was 'reserved'. No details were given, other than this had been in the plan for several months.
So, I called my realtor, and he said that Ted didn't know what was going on, but Fred (the other builder) said that it was ok. No problem. Whew!
I needed to bring some paperwork down to my banker, so I stopped at the Century 21 office to see my realtor for an update on how things were going, and hopefully some explanation for all the mis-information. He met with me and said that Ted was the one buying the unit I wanted. So now it wasn't available. He apologized but there was nothing he could do.
So now I needed to pick another unit. I went back, and Ted was still there (he's been running inspectors through the units for final inspection.) I did talk with him again, and discussed his plans on 104, and he confirmed his intention, as well as mentioned that he's been saying he wanted this unit for a long time (even since the framing stage.) My original realtor knew this, he said, and since there are 2 realtors on these properties, I would think they should get their stories straight.
The next best that was still available was 104 in unit 723.
Funny thing is, when I was talking to Ted this second time, he was mentioning that a 'kid' drove by and said he was buying 104 (723 block) -- the one I just picked. So, I called my realtor again to see if this was so, but he had not heard of this yet.
I'm still waiting to hear if anything has been locked in. Might still have to go with my original #203 if things fall through again.
And I just received word that interest rates are going up tomorrow (currently 6 1/8%). But I can't lock it in unless I know which unit I'm getting. So, I'm waiting for my realtor to call me back.

To be honest, after writing all this down, it sure seems like I should get another realtor. And I might, pending on what happens here soon. I had no idea things would be so weird. I sure am thankful that the Lord is in control, no matter what the outcome. Obviously, He can make anything come about if He so desires. My job is to do the best I can and trust Him with the results.
Hope that wasn't a boring description of the past few days, but that's sorta-kinda where things are. Needless to say I'm not impressed, but there's not much I can do at this point to get the price I'm getting...

RSS Feed now active

Saturday, September 15, 2007 0 Comments

For those of you who have RSS readers, I’ve enabled RSS to my site, to help y’all who want to keep up to date that way. Sure is nice to have one location collecting data from every site I want to keep up with, instead of having to go to each site to look if something is new. Anyway, the link is on the bottom of the page, but if you don’t want to go that far, you can click this: RSS Feed.

DVD's finished, Moving downstairs

Thursday, September 13, 2007 0 Comments

This morning I passed the masters for The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus DVD series off, to be duplicated. This is a project that I’ve been working on for a good long while. Our DVD’s were getting low, and we needed a new reprint. But we alos have a new logo that needed to be on the new discs and menus. So, with the new DVD authoring, we will now have closed captions (which we have with the original set) but also subtitles. It’ll be real easy now to add another language in subtitles, if someone wants to put that together for us.
After much thought and prayer about where to buy / build, it’s come down to being accepted into a lower-level apartment, at a decent price. It really is a answer to prayer and a token to God’s goodness to get me into the unit of my choice, a ground floor condo with 1/2 of the apartment with nobody above. The upstairs unit was nice, too, but the floor plan wasn’t as attractive (mainly, the bathroom for the unit was through the bedroom.) So, here, on the lower unit, the bathroom is off a hallway, so if anyone comes to visit that won’t be as bad. Plus downstairs there’s room for a side/side washer dryer (something I’ll have to get yet), where upstairs is a stacker.
Nothing’s final till keys are in hand, but thankful for things coming along this far.
They should get their CO next week, and closing shouldn’t be too long after that!
Thank you, Lord!

Trip to Newport (Washington, that is.)

Monday, September 10, 2007 0 Comments

Making the rounds, I thought it would be good to visit my buddy Dave in Newport, since it’s been a few months since I’ve been up. It was a good time, we drove around, saw a bear (but couldn’t get a bead…) to the observation tower and back home again.