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 e closed on the house this afternoon! I have the keys in my hot little hands. This weekend will be filled with moving, major appliance purchasing and general home improvement. O my internets, I fear I shan't have time for thee. | |
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 om surprised me and opted to get off the truck yesterday and fly home from Laredo, something about a limited window of opportunity for seeing his daughter this weekend and he wanted to be sure he was home for it. So I'm solo for the moment, but there's a good chance I could snag a new student in Dallas this afternoon since it looks like I'll be sitting here until this evening.
 s per my daily routine of late, I made the requisite phone calls to my real estate agent and the lending agent. We're trying to schedule a time for the closing this Friday afternoon. It was beginning to look like we were all set to stick a fork in this puppy then I get word today that no one seems to have the deed to the property. Um, what? This is a foreclosure property, being sold by the bank who holds the old mortgage. Why would they put a house on the market they don't even have the title for or not have taken the steps necessary to procure a new one before doing so? Grrrr. At the moment, it's unsure how long this will take with only 72 hours left to go 'til closing, I fear this is going to delay things. The question is how long?
 h fine, have some gams; a display of ink from ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) oberonia.
 his afternoon for lunch I had my first experience with Whataburger. Good stuff. As far as major regional burger joints go, this only leaves Fatburger on my list to try. Unless there's something I'm forgetting. I'll likely not get loaded until this evening, so I've been max'n and relax'n, listening to some Sonic Youth with Sally. I think I'll fire-up the DVD player and watch Seven Samurai, a long over-due complement to my viewing of The Magnificent Seven several weeks ago. | |
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 nyone who's been around me for any length of time knows one thing for certain: I am a fan of Dr. Pepper. It's my soda of choice, hands down. Years ago, I had heard that their main plant in Texas still made it with the original recipe, with cane sugar instead of corn syrup. It's been a foodstuff holy grail for me ever since. Today, I finally had an opportunity to try one. It definitely gives it a different flavor and is totally awesome. Hey fujerica, want me to bring you one?
Sally was a pain in the ass yesterday. First, she conspired with the trailer to have the door unlatch itself while I was pulling out of a dock. The door swung wide and clipped the mirror of the truck beside me. Luckily, the truck had break-away mirrors and no damage was done. Then one of her tires went flat and I had to get it replaced. Finally, the fan on the HVAC in the bunk stopped blowing which... blows, frankly... especially in this heat. Then this morning, the blower was mysteriously working again, although not as strong as it should. Crazy bucket of bolts. I hope I can just keep her together until I'm through with the payments, then I'll have plenty of cash to sink into her and get her all fixed up sweet.
All we're waiting on with the house is for the appraisal paper work to be completed. Home inspection? Check. Termite inspection? No treatment recommended. Home owner's insurance policy? Check. Notice given to landlord? Check. As long as the appriasers don't drag their feet, we're still on track to close on the house next Friday. I'll be glad, too. I'm tired of all this headache. | |
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oday is the day that all of the various inspectors are descending on the house welfy and I are planning to buy. The home inspector is already finished and I spoke with him briefly about his findings. He said for a house its age it's in remarkably good shape. All of the deficiences he found are reasonably minor (missing storm windows, electrical outlets, downspouts, etc), with the exception of the central air conditioning unit which he could't get to blow cold. I'll hire a HVAC guy to check it out, as well as the furnace since there was some issue with an old space heater in the basement that prevented the gas company from turning on the gas. At best, maybe it just needs a good recharging of freon. At worse, Welf and I might have to suffer the remainder of the summer and replace the unit before next summer. Maybe get a cheap window unit for the bedroom to make for comfortable sleeping if necessary.
So the deal is virtually sealed. I still have to hear back from the termite inspecotrs as well as the appraisers, but I'm not anticipating any issues there. My main concern for a deal breaker was some major deficiency in the foundation or roof. In a mere ten days, Welf and I will be home owners.
- Tags:frankfort
- Music:tell me baby, do you feel the same?
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his next month is going to be so stressfull and drive me crazy if the past few days have been any indication. The process of getting utilities turned on so that inspections and appraisals can be performed at the new house are underway, and I have already spent more time on the phone this morning with people who aren't welfy than I do in a typical month.
As if the hassle of buying a home isn't headache enough, Sally has decided to throw little fits and tantrums. On Friday, her clutch rod came unfastened. I got out of that one fairly cheap with some help from my student Gary, who was a diesel mechanic prior to becoming a driver of the them. He offered to do the labor in my drive way, so all I had to pay for was the parts.
Then today, heading back on the road after a few days off, Sally starts whining about low oil pressure. She has plenty of oil, and her engine's not knocking, so this is probably something reasoinably small and simple to fix - perhaps a bad sensor or switch. The shop I got her into though won't be able to even diagnose the problem until later tonight or tomorrow morning. This means that, by the time she gets fixed some time tomorrow, I'll have been off the road for nearly a week. This is not a good time for me to be losing income. I have way too many things on my plate at the moment that's going to require funding over the coming weeks.
Do I know that all of this is worth it? Absolutely. But getting to a point of comfort again is going to arduous and taxing. I'm going to be irritable and cranky all the time until I get to the other side of it. You best stay out of my way for a while. | |
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fter a week of agonizing over the financing glitch we encountered last week, I finally got the phone call today that we were approved for a mortgage. I immediately called my realtor and left her a voicemail. After not hearing anything from her after a couple of hours, and an increasingly impatient welfy needing to know about that status of the house we want to buy, I placed a phone call to the listing realtor. He informed me that he currently had no offers on the house. I told him he did, now.
Barring any unforseen glitches, hitches, or sons of bitches... we should be homeowners within the next 30-40 days. Yeeehaw.
Now comes the really fun stuff.
- Tags:frankfort
- Music:stompin' our feets on the wooden boards, never gotta worry about lockin' the door
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n Monday, welfy and I intended to look at well over a dozen houses, all of which we had already done drive-bys the previous two days. Among them was the river front property I posted about over the weekend. We only saw four houses total then decided to give our realtor the rest of the day off. We had three strong contenders and we already knew that the other houses on our list wouldn't be able to compete with them in terms of price, space, and what we wanted in a house.
We deemed the river-front property to be too impractical. There simply wasn't enough space in the house and we'd be miserable trying to live in it for an unspecified amount of time until we could expand, with no guarantees that we'd be able. You can't predict your financial situation as things change and emergencies occur. There's no shortage of river-front property on the market in Frankfort if/when we do have that financial capacity; there's no sense in trying to do it on a budget.
This left two houses, one downtown on Payne Street with a great view overlooking the city and another in an older neighborhood on Letcher Avenue in Thorn Hill. We didn't originally have Letcher on our list, beacuse we found it quite by accident while driving about. It's only been on the market for four days. After much talking and consideration, we decided the house on Payne Street was charming, but that it ultimately didn't have have what we needed in a home. If a great view/location was all that mattered, we'd be moving down by the river into that little concrete box.
So we went with Letcher Ave and it is a whooooole lotta house for the money, like whoa. Then we hit a snag. Because I'm self-employed, and have been for such a short period of time, they don't have a full tax year with which to determine my income. The best they could do was annualize my 8 months worth of self-employed income from last year, which needless to say... 8 / 12 looks really low. Otherwise my credit is good and I could certainly do this myself next spring after I file my taxes. While things are still a little precarious, it's looking more hopeful now that we've added Welf's income to the process, to make this happen now instead of waiting until next spring. We'll have a slightly higher interest rate, but I can always refinance the mortgage later if it's ridiculously high. We should have more certainty by tomorrow, enough to make an actual offer on the house.
Some of you are going to just die when I tell you this. The house's listing price? $74,900
Let's take a look shall we?
It's a 63 year old, 1 1/2-story home on a full basement with a detached garage. It's been well maintained and has been updated with vinyl siding and lots of fresh paint on the exterior. The lot isn't great and features a nasty old pool that'll have to be disposed of, but with a little work I think, we can make it quite charming.
( More photos.... ) | |
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 emember that house that welfy and I liked so much? We still like it a lot, but after thinking more and more about it, we realized that there are quite a few things about it that we don't like. We also realized that we are in a really sweet spot; we have a lease agreement that we can leave on 30 day's notice and no property to sell. We figure that it's best to be patient and find something that will have everything we require in a home.
So for the past couple of weeks, we've been scouring the online real-estate sites for other houses. We put together a list of 22 currently on the market that we're interested in seeing. Tonight, Welf and I each picked our top 11 and then we compared notes. We had 8 duplicates. We're each picking one bonus property from our lists to round out the number to an even ten and plan on going house viewing this weekend.
We talked about making an us-only entry in one of our jounrals with links to these various houses to refresh our memories, but I thought it might be fun to just make a regular journal entry out of it. Below are the ten houses we hope to go see. Some of these photos have links to interior photos, some aren't.
MY awesome bonus house, East Second Street
Welf's boring bonus house, Furrow Lane
( The eight houses we agreed upon.... ) | |
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fter completing my load in Columbia, MD on Saturday afternoon I was dispatched with a load originating in Big Island, VA that evening bound for West Chester, OH just outside Cincinnati by midnight on Sunday. I figured that I would be afforded a little time to make a small side-trip to Frankfort for a few hours. When it became clear that this was indeed going to happen, I called the realtor who I had made an appointment with for next weekend to see the house. Since Sunday's are typically working days for realtors anyway, I thought it might be worth a shot. Sure enough, she was working an open house that afternoon and would be done by 4pm and said she'd be more than happy to go ahead and show me the house.
I got in about 4pm and grabbed a quick shower then welfy and I headed downtown to meet her. Welf had already seen it earlier in the week, but she wanted to tag along and see it again with me. I'm still in love with it. Tomorrow I'm going to get the ball rolling on things I need to do to secure financing. If all the goes well with that, I hope to make an offer within a week. It's vacant and I have no property to sell; I only need to give my landlord a proper 30 days notice. I figure that it won't be any trouble to be in there before the end of July. - Tags:frankfort
- Music:i gave you seven children and now you wanna give 'em back
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 arlier in the week, I made the mistake of peeking at a real estate web site. I had decided that I was going to wait until next year before buying any property. It would give me some time to save-up for a down-payment on a mortgage. I have been known, though, to browse through the listings periodically or keep my eyes open whilst driving about Frankfort. I guess with the precarious nature of where welfy and I stand, I was thinking that I might have to give some consideration to my living situation. Granted, I could easily not have any place to live if it came to that; it's not like I'm home very much anyway. I could easily put my stuff into storage until next year when I was ready to buy a place. I've come to like Frankfort... a LOT. More than that, I've come to enjoy having a place to come home to. I guess my thinking may have been along the lines of, why move twice?
 In short, I fell in love with a house this week. Its location on East Main is peculiar, but also very interesting. The interior of the house is also very interesting, from what I can see through the windows: hardwood floors, a beautiful staircase, fireplace, and French doors. Welf caught wind of my house hunting and asked if there were any good ones and so I had to concede that there was a strong contender. I took her to see and she fell in love with it, too. She asked if I bought it, could she rent a room from me.
Welf ended-up going back to the house the next evening with her brother and future sister in-law. Apparently, the lady who is the selling house lives just a few doors down and still had keys to it. She was outside working in her yard and offered to let them inside. LUCKY. So Welf has actually gotten to see the layout of the house and she still thinks it's awesome. I got in touch via the web with the realtor who's listing it to setup an appointment to see it next time I'm home.
This afternoon an agent called me back and I have an appointment at 09:30 on Sunday June 10th, the next weekend I'm home. After talking with Welf about what she saw and seeing photos that her brother took, I'm not counting on finding anything that would be a deal breaker for me. The mortgage payment would be about the same, maybe even less, than what the rent at the duplex is. I may just go for it.
 just finished loading in Bloomington, IN and am bound for Columbia, MD just outside Baltimore. I don't have to be there until 15:00 tomorrow so it should be a leisurely trip. The loss of miles from not training is missed, but I'm enjoying the pace that comes with working alone for a little while. It's a nice respite.
Finally, I'd like to share something that has had me in stitches for days. A couple of nights ago, Welf and I were laying in bed and looking at a Something Awful photoshop thread called The Adult World of Richard Scarry. The entire thread was a hoot, but this one in particular makes me giggle every time I think about it.
 Have a great weekend, everyone. - Tags:frankfort, humor
- Music:oh my god, is this what it feels like to be in love
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 elivered bright and early in Renton, Wa this morning and was unloaded quickly. We're picking up a load that's due to be ready by 16:00 about ten miles north of here and taking it to Wisconsin... by Wednesday morning. That's some hard drive'n. Hopefully it will be ready earlier than the appointed time and we can get out of the Seattle area before the evening rush hour. I'm not going anywhere right now, though, as the morning rush is still in full effect. I can see the 405 from where I'm parked and it isn't pretty.
I will definitely be stoppping in Missoula, MT on the way for some of the best tomato soup in the whole world, even if it's for breakfast.
Since blowing the radiator hose on Saturday, I haven't had to replenish the coolant. We've been in generally warmer climates than what we were experiencing in the midwest and east coast, so I'm inclined to believe it definitely had something to do with that.
Inspired by lossfound, who was undertaking his own OS re-install yesterday morning, I decided to tackle the one I had been contemplating, to see if it would resolve the issue with my Aircard making the laptop crash. It seems to have helped a little, but in the end, I still think it's a hardware issue. It seems that when I stick it in the slot I have to be very particular about how I put it in or else everything goes to hell. I had a similar issue with my ex-wife. Thankfully I've not had to re-install as many SO's as I have OS's.
Speaking of SO's, welfy and I have an interesting development on the domestic front. Her brother (nebreztnem) and his fiancé (smiles_sweetly) both graduated from college last spring. In the rust-belt of western Pennsylvania, job opportunities are somewhat slim. Welf and I extended an invitation to them to come stay with us a few months to check-out the job market and milieu of central Kentucky. With the state government opportunities locally, nearby cities like Louisville and Cincinnati, and the micropolitan areas of northern Kentucky and Lexington all within an hour and a half from our front porch, Frankfort is kinda ideal as base of operations. It would give them an opportunity to see if a move would suit them without the commitment of apartment leases and the hassle of moving a ton of things only to move them back if they decided to return to PA. Somewhat to our surprise, they took us up on the offer. They're planning to come down next Monday, the 19th. The plan is to disassemble the much coveted Guy Room this coming weekend when I get home. They'll essentially have the entire downstairs as their domain complete with their own bathroom. If they decide they like central Kentucky and want to stay, they'll have some time to get on their feet and find their own place.
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 ince moving to Frankfort, KY, I've spent a lot of time driving around my new city, sometimes with my girlfriend, other times by myself. If there's one thing I've discovered , it's that no matter where you live, there's always something interesting in your own backyard if you're willing to get out and find it.
Kentucky's capital city sits on the banks of the Kentucky River in the central part of the state. The river's use for industrial purposes such as transportation and power have long since vanished, but remnants of it remain. The most notable of these are the dam and locks system just west of downtown. What has become on of my favorite local restaurants, Jim's Seafood sits high above the river overlooking the old dam. In fact, their slogan is "The best seafood by a dam site!" Inside Jim's, there's a room devoted to the preservation of the area's industrial legacy with photos, essays, and articles. The land upon which Jim's and several other nearby establishments rests used to be a hemp factory which used the flowing waters of the Kentucky River to turn a millwheel.
I discovered all of this one afternoon while driving about Frankfort alone. Jim's has an outdoor patio-deck, and just around it, is a small footpath leading down to the river and the edge of the dam. I took the foot path that day and descended from the hot asphalt of Jim's parking lot into the cool shade of riverbank oak, maple, and sycamore. I later stood on a concrete precipice beside the dam, the water roaring over it. I didn't have my camera with me, however.
As I stood there, I look across, up, and down the river. In the distance, downstream I saw something on the opposite bank. I wasn't for sure what it was, but it was huge and I had a good idea. I went back to the car and followed the highway over the river. After about 30 minutes of trying various road, I finally found myself in the vicinity of it. I parked the car in a small parking area and headed into the underbrush which led down to the river.
It was what I thought it was. But I still didn't have my camera with me! I went home, but, I knew my girlfriend would kill.me. if I didn't take her, so I waited until she got off from work and told her I had a surprise for her. A boat....
...a really, big boat.
In fact, it was an old freight barge. Years of fluctuating water levels have deposited rich, fertile silt in the cargo hold allowing grass and trees to take-root and grow there.
( Read more... )x-posted to abandonedplaces and urban_decay | |
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 hile the nearly two weeks spent at home was nice, and getting to spend so much time with my dear welfy, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm glad to have the wheels back on the road. All that time, though, allowed me to work on The Guy RoomTM. It has a long way to go, but Rome wasn't built in a day. We can only hope the decadence and grandeur of The Guy RoomTM can someday give Rome a run for its money.
The basement had begun to collect all manner of clutter from its general state of non-use so I began by sorting, organizing, and finding homes for this stuff. I decided to re-arrange the futon and coffee table and put them on the opposing wall. I also finalized the piecing together of a new PC I had started building, but more on that in a bit. First things first, I got some things hung on the wall, in particular, my Black-Jesus-Hanging-Out-With-Dead-Rappers art that I bought a few weeks ago found a home beside the door leading to the garage.
At the bottom of the steps, greeting all entrants to the Domain of Dudes, is a sign that Welf got for me.
Fubu likes The Guy RoomTM, too. She hangs out with me a lot when I'm down there.
So, another thing I added to the room was a fun kitty toy dipped in catnip oils. She had a blast. ( Read more... ) | |
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 got up at 6am and made myself available for a load. It was 10:30 before they assigned me one, and it won't be ready to pickup until 4pm this afternoon in Hebron, KY headed for Blaine, WA. That gives me a few hours to kill today. I have the house to myself; welfy began her first day of work at Rebecca Ruth. I thought about driving downtown around lunchtime to surprise her, but then I remembered, "Duhhh, big truck."
So the plan is to have a couple more cups of tea, maybe a bowl of cereal, and to write a proper final chapter to my Tatham Springs Hotel series with the photos from my recent visit there.
 ne of the things that amuses me about cohabitation with a new person is all the teensy differences in housekeeping that occur. There is no right or wrong way, just the way you learned to keep your home from your parents, or from previous cohabitants, or from trial and error on your own. Most of these things I don't give a second thought. One of the consequences of my years spent in the restaurant industry is that I am picky about the kitchen, but not to the point of caring so much that it would come to fisticuffs. The thing which drives me up the wall for some weird reason though, is laundry folding. It doesn't irk me to the point of being angry or demanding, but it bothers me in a manner where I find myself refolding things because it's not to my liking. Take for instance, socks. They way I fold socks is the way I learned it from my mother; you fold the top of one of the socks outside-in over the other and roll it down just past the heel, leaving the foot portion of the sock to dangle. This is the correct and proper way to fold socks, because it is MOM APPROVED.
My ex-wife went to one extreme, completely rolling the entire pair of socks into the elastic portion of the sock. Obviously, this causes undue stress of the elastic portion of the sock, which could result in unwanted sock slippage at an inappropriate moment.
Notice I said ex wife.
Welf goes to the other extreme. She tucks just a small portion of the upper sock outside-in, leaving the foot, heel, and calf of the sock outside of the roll. While this is much better for the sock than my ex wife's ball of destruction, it causes another problem; there's just not enough holding the sock-pair together.
I'm afraid they're going to come apart. It's hard enough not losing one sock in the dryer. Stephen Hawking should be looking for wormholes in the modern dryer; he's more likely to find one and the lint is fun to play with.
Then there's T-shirts. I just fold them in half the long way, then fold them over. Sometimes I tuck the sleeve into the fold, sometimes I don't. Welf does this really tiny fold. If the Rebecca Ruth thing doesn't work out, she's got a bright future at The Gap. Honestly, I don't care how a T-shirt is folded. The compulsion to refold them doesn't come from being opposed to the fold, but because now they don't match the way the rest of my shirts are folded. Got OCD?
 an't get enough of them legs! These belong to a new livejournal.friend, just made within the past couple of weeks. Judging from a recent entry she made, stillimage's 17th birthday is later this month, making these jail bait gams. She admits to having a sock obsession (although not the same type from which I apparently suffer), which made for a fun picture.
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he past week has been filled with lots of moving, sorting, organizing, and assembly. Now that most of it is done, welfy and I are starting to settle into our new digs. Welf ran around for a while yesterday afternoon snapping photos of the place. I'm sure she'll eventually post a similar entry for her journal, but she's feeling a bit under the weather today so, opportunist that I am, I figured I'd beat her to the punch. Welcome to my tour of the Soopawelf Homestead.
It is a duplex in suburban Frankfort. This is the side we don't inhabit. Our neighbors goingincirclez and mix3d3m0ti05 live there.
We live on the other side, with the bitchin' driveway and garage, much to the chagrin, I'm sure, of our automobile gearhead neighbor.
( See more of the Soopawelf Homestead )
Last night, Welf and I had dinner with thawaltzingfool in downtown Lexington. I've lived downtown twice, first in college while attending UK then again for about a year after my divorce. I'd forgotten how much I like the general feeling down there. The colorful and quirky blend of people and attitudes. The dinner was sublime as was the company and conversation, and meeting LJ people for the first time is always fun. I hope it's not the last, as thawaltzingfool is every bit as beautiful, charming, and intelligent and I expected her to be.
Last week, before getting h4rdc0r3 with the moving, Welf and I paid our respects to the charred remains of the Tatham Springs Hotel. You can expect an entry about that sometime tonight/tomorrow as well.
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