Done this week (20170226Su - 0304Sa)
2017-03-05 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbearI was on vacation this last week. Which means that it was extremely busy, but in a different way from work. That's not a bad thing. There were two major events, so we'll take them chronologically.
Monday Naomi and I went out looking at houses with (realtor) Chris. There was one place that we found that looked intriguing, and two that we thought were worth trying for. The intriguing place, the third one we looked at, was a five bedroom place for about 280K, the high end of our range. It had two usable sections, plus a huge unfinished basement. It would have cost us about another 100K to remodel to the point of usability. (Another place, less interesting, was an absolute dump, but had a large back yard that we could have easily put a tiny on.)
The first place we looked at was a great-looking mobile, fairly new, for an astounding price. I figured, correctly, that it would be selling for considerably over the asking price. When we saw the place in Maple Valley, we pretty much didn't care. We took G, Colleen, and the kids out Thursday evening. They loved it as much as N and I did.
I'm not going to say much about it until after we have an offer in, and there could still be dealbreakers in the inspection and feasibility study, but it's basically everything we were looking for: a piece of land with an existing cottage for me and Colleen, and space for a tiny house for N and G. (One kid in each.) The price is right on the edge of what we can buy for cash (and we'll have to) after our present house sells.
OK, that's the first thing.
The second was g's Bat Mitzva. It was wonderful, and g basically blew people away. It was followed by a small party for the visiting family members on both sides -- we provided the space, and g's dad and step-mom provided the rented equipment and food. Those are getting used today as well, for the kids' party.
I'd forgotten (or never knew) how wonderful the music was -- it's been over 50 years since the last one of those I'd been to, and for that matter they may not have been that musical. The entire Hebrew portion was chanted. I never learned the language, despite my heritage, but it didn't matter. I just let myself be carried away on the music.
Wish us luck on the house transactions!
0226Su * Up 6am; W=202.4; shower, laundry, dishes * The dwarves left the kitchen a disaster area @ History of Earthbag Building : Lydia Hungate - friend of Mom; wants to have lunch. Saturday? * Updating the two Lenovo laptops. The Thinkpad currently has Cygnus's old disk in it; Renaming it to Raven (continuing the black bird theme). if the Windows partition doesn't work on it I'll transplant it back into C. so as to have a usable windows machine for taxes, which would let me put the mini in the pod. May not be worthwhile, though, since the mini already works and has my history. * Upgrading Raven to 16.04. 0227Mo - on vacation * up 6:10; W=200.8; laundry : snowed last night * Ordered Bat Mitzva gift for g -- should have done it last week; I'd forgotten that it wouldn't be eligible for Prime. * 8am Looking at houses with N and (realtor) Chris. One great place at a price that probably won't stay that low, and one _perfect_ place, out in Hobart, with a perfectly good 2BR manufactured home on 5 acres. : 3:45 snowing again. Thunder a little while ago. : Raven's upgrade still going on because it insists on stopping to ask questions that nobody is there to answer until later. Close, though. * Sold 13 shares, for a little under 11K. May be needed for earnest money. % 7:22 have had a headache for a couple of hours. Ugh. * 15min: puttering in the Great Room. A few more things put away. 0228Tu * Up 5ish; W=200.6; laundry @ How to be an anonymous source on the Net – Techno-Liberty How to Run a Rogue Government Twitter Account With an Anonymous Email Address and a Burner Phone How Scientists Can Protect Their Data From the Trump Administration OnionScan: Investigating the Dark Web GitHub - micahflee/onionshare: Securely and anonymously share a file of any size With Virtual Machines, Getting Hacked Doesn’t Have to Be That Bad Whonix Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system Icelandic Web Hosting with Free Speech | OrangeWebsite @ Tipping Point - What I Will Do Now * Worked with organizers - office corner and closet. Major one in the closet was the first aid stuff. * Later, worked on the vanity. 0227Mo-0303Fr - take the week off 0301We * up 5:15; W=199.6; laundry & Good talk with N about logistics * (Mover) Derek here for pod, trash, and donations. Colleen's old chair went into the trash -- Goodwill didn't want it. Now, since the other lift chair and all of the folding camp chairs were podded, I don't have a comfortable place to sit in the Rainbow Room. Guess I could move over to the couch & Some singing with N. Mostly me on guitar and her singing, because my voice wasn't doing too well. So some unfamiliar stuff, along with The Fox. I haven't been playing enough, but I apparently stopped before my fingers stopped hurting; perhaps because the nails on my left hand haven't been trimmed recently. * Renewed driver's license; paid Ford Credit for Felicity's lease overage. * tried to transfer files from the Lenovo tower to the laptop. The cannonical way of doing this was Windows Easy Transfer, which disappeared in Windows 8.1. Which of course is what both machines are running. I'll just rescue the drive. * Travis got the lights upstairs going -- bad breaker. . take out the extension cords and put things back the way they were. * my side is done, as is C's boombox. Which did need a (short) extension because I needed to move it off the tray table so that those could be used for the parties. : Colleen and I both like the arrangement with her little cart between us and the chairside table on the far side. We can see over the cart, and I can get to stuff under the table without having to make it a production. % 9:30 drifty. Should get up and do something. 0302Th * up 5:50ish; W=197.6; laundry @ The twelve virtues of the Democratic Party - Alan * called Accredo - renewed and changed (pen to syringe) prescription still being processed; call back Monday. % 1150ish sitting up in the bedroom; G' is doing the floor in the Great Room, and I've been having to make decisions about what to do with clutter. Brain fried. % 12:20 having lunch. Depressed * 2:30 C Dr. Chopra. Drive there with N and both kids, and leave directly for Maple Valley. -> cut the time a bit close, but got there. @ How Republics End - The New York Times : The place two doors up is apparently under contract for more than its asking price of 695K, after less than two weeks on the market. That is very encouraging. * ~4pm get up to Maple Valley. G will meet us at 5. In the end, we got there about 5:20, and G came a little later. Everyone loves the place! It will work! Internet is a Verizon portable hotspot, or something similar, but there's apparently enough bandwidth to run an Amazon fire stick. % getting home was a difficult drive for N. Narrow, poorly-lit roads. Things were not helped by the fact that Google kept giving me totally worthless directions. : The economics of this are interesting. My take-home pay from $A is only about 1200 more than our mortgage. We're also paying about $1K/month for utilities, and with heat and water free we won't come close to that. Even with very minimal expectations from my IRA it looks like I come out enough ahead to at least cover health care, assuming the system doesn't deteriorate further. 0303Fr * up 6:10; W=198.2; shower, laundry & The Anker 5-port usb phone charger has finally died. many of my usb chargers seem to have vanished; ordered another. Then found one of the blue ones; knew I'd kept at least one out. & Wikipedia dive starting at Cumulonimbus incus, by way of siliconshaman | Tear down. Good story - start with An unexpected development. (Incus is the name of the cat) * bring in walker and stray pants bags from Van (short for Vanessa?) : There is a recliner downstairs. Mentioned it to N who said it was hers (I wasn't sure, because we had had one at the Starport once, and my parents had had one in Wilton as well.) It will be kept; I'll try to bring it upstairs at some point. : The party supplies -- tables, chairs, etc. -- arrived. Manny apparently ordered rectangular tables instead of round; we'll have to bring up my 6' table from the garage. :P : Gave g her laptop, Raven. It's a replacement for the Lenovo desktop that was in the Rainbow Room. Still have to pull the drive from that one. -> done. : Correct tables installed. * Brought recliner up from downstairs. It's a cheap imitation, and one of the pivot pins popped loose when I tried to adjust it. It is now cross-threaded, so it's probably not going to be adjustable. Not all that comfortable either, but it will do for now. -> no it won't -- hurts my back. My guess is that it will end up being discarded -- I think the padding has disintegrated. * Fortunately, G had a 1/8" stereo patch cable. Tested with my phone. It's going to be needed for tomorrow's music at the party. Used the Gem speaker. Might want to pick up a bluetooth one eventually. * Run scooter battery out to Van 0304-5 g's Bat Mitzva parties 0304Sa * up 6:17; W=198.2; laundry, dishes * close rainbow room, take Desti downstairs * leaving with N at 8:30. Get up early. ~ Don't forget scooter battery! * Bat Mitzva is at 9:30 -- get Colleen up ~7:45 -> g nailed it. So, for that matter, did j. * Party for the adult relatives; finally met N's father and stepmother. @ Don’t Get Your Undocumented Friends in Trouble: A How-To – Medium @ How I Learned to Love Being Aromantic – Narratively (thnidu) @ Older Queer Voices: The Intimacy of Survival – An Anthology (alatefeline) % didn't have a naproxen yesterday or this morning, but I think I'll have one tonight. % seeing the house so empty is depressing.
