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House News
October 21, 2004 17:17
New House PagesAll house information and news has been moved to a new page here.. I will list there photos of the progress, 3D floorplans of my current and future plans, and news related to the house.
October 17, 2004 19:16
It's mine.. it's ALL mine.As of 10:00am Friday morning, I became the owner of the previously listed house. Monday, I start pounding nails. The list of necessary repairs are extensive, and I expect to spend the majority of the next year working on getting it into decent shape. This project will be part repair, part restoration, and part improvement. Since the previous residents decided to remove practically everything that wasn't nailed down, the slate is pretty clean to start with. I will be adding a new section to the site to track house progress and allow people to contribute comments, suggestions, etc.
September 27, 2004 21:27
More House InformationNow that we're likely to be getting the place, I'll spill out some more info on it. It's located in Denison, TX, has 4 bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two living areas. It was built in 1916. We're getting the place for $21000. The place needs a lot of work. Almost immediately we're going to redo all the electrical and plumbing. Going to enclose an area currently outside to become a utility room that will house the electric box, AC & furnace, washer, dryer, and hot water heater. The area currently used for the washer/dryer will then make a nice dinette. Internet options are still in question. I know for a fact that cable internet is available, and it's possible that DSL is as well, although I've so far been unable to confirm it. Currently, the seller has accepted the offer verbally, today I made a written offer and paid the earnest money, so as soon as they officially accept that, we're good to go. Closing is currently set for the 16th, but could happen anytime before that. Basically as soon as I get the mula. I had it inspected today, both a general inspection and a termite inspection. The house has numerous issues, but it's in pretty good shape for it's age, and there was nothing shocking that we didn't already know about.
September 25, 2004 15:09
I now have proof that the bank REALLY doesn't want to keep that house in Denison. They actually accepted my lowball offer. In a matter of days, the renovation project will begin. And as soon as possible, we'll be moved up there. DMI will be restored to its former glory. And the recent past can be forgotten. All will be well with the world again. Yes, we got a house. Time for me to learn how to cohabitate with 4 girls, and a few random mobile electronic critters. Soon.. So very soon. :)
Oh, and a total of 4 geckos have been relocated so far.
September 18, 2004 22:06
New House TargetedWe drove around Denison, TX today and found this lovely 4 bedroom house. It's a foreclosure and most of the appliances have been removed, presumably by the previous owner, but the structure is in good shape and with a few weeks of sweat equity, this place could be ready to move into. Here's some outside pictures of the place:
And some from the inside:
September 17, 2004 15:47
2 Weeks LaterAfter getting the letter, I started searching for a new place to live. Since I had already paid through the end of the month, I figured I might as well stick it out until then. My plan was to then leave at the end of the month. So basically May turned into a search for a new residence. Two weeks later, wes comes to talk to me for the first time since he handed me the letter. Asked if I wanted to buy his house. Now, all other things aside, assuming his loan would be the easiest way to end up with a house of my own, although not necessarily the best. However, Gertie and I agreed that place would work out well for us, so we basically quit looking.
Meanwhile, at the same time, Cari posts a rather slanderous chat log in her
livejournal about us, although I didn't discover it until a month later.
September 07, 2004 15:02
The LetterOn May 1st, at about 1 am, Wes gave me a letter. I don't have a copy with me or I'd type the whole thing in. It was two pages. First one an explanation of what the letter is for, a reassurance that it's nothing bad, just that some things needed to be written out. The second page is a list of new rules. Most of them are no big deal. No cams in their part of the house, use the garage or my patio door to come and go so I don't bother them, don't check their caller ID, close my door at night if I'm gonna play loud music. Stuff like that. Then the last item on the list.... Gertie is no longer welcome. Ever. The reason for this? She's too happy. And despite Cari's constant initiation of contact with us, we apparently bother her too much. Her sunny personality is in conflict with theirs, and so now she's no longer allowed over. This is in spite of the fact that they both invited her over, and waited until the day she was going to move up here, AFTER she quit her job, AFTER she made all the arrangements to move. Needless to say, we were both rather confused by this. I talk with her about it and we debate what we should do about it. We finally decide to spend the month looking for our own place and I'd just leave at the end of the month. I'd already paid rent up until the end of may almost a month ahead of time, and I seriously doubt I would have been able to get that back on a moments notice, so there wasn't much point of leaving immediately. More to come.
August 28, 2004 01:26
Part 4. The cat's perspective.Meow. Meow. Hiss. Meow. JUST KIDDING!!! I'll get to it soon, I promise. :)
August 24, 2004 20:28
Part 3: More tortureWhen I moved out of my place back in August '03, Wes spent half a day helping me move out, and in exchange I filled up his gas tank and bought him lunch. I also spent a whole day helping him move out of his second story apartment, and he bought me dinner. During the months we were waiting for Wes to find a house, I lent him $250 for earnest money and $525 for setup charges on the internet service we planned to use. When moving day came, he rented a truck and we (wes, gertie, and I, along with Cari for a little while) loaded their entire storage building into the truck. It was mostly full at this point, but we swung by my storage unit and loaded a few things in there, mostly my bed, the organ, my desk, the washing machine, and a couple little things. I ended up paying for 2 more months since we weren't able to get everything out that day and I hadn't had a chance to get to everything else later. After unloading the truck, we followed Wes back to Uhaul to return the truck and my offer of money to pay for part of the rental was refused by him. I spent a great deal of time over the next month assisting them in various furniture moving activities and some minor house maintenance. They invited Gertie to New Years and she brought two $35 bottles of champagne for the occasion. They used both my washing machine and my grill frequently. They offered me a few meals now and then, and I did the same. On the few occasions that Gertie's children came over, they basically got free babysitting for Nathan, a fact they thanked us for on multiple occasions. I have several times given Wes rides so he could get work done on his vehicles. I have spent many hours doing yardwork, and once spent a couple hours helping wes take a load of trash to the city dump. I have kept my part of the house clean and Gertie and I have assisted on multiple occasions helping to clean the rest of the house too, including sweeping, vaccuming, and doing the dishes (not talking about the dishes we generated either). In fact, a couple weeks before May 1st, I was asked to go help Wes's sister quickly move out of her boyfriend's place while they were having a severe fight. While nothing physical happened, asking anyone to put themselves in the middle of a domestic dispute is no short order.
Although there was some initial concern and deployment issue of cams and
lamps, after a month or so we had everything ironed out nicely and everyone
was happy with the layout. Cari requested to have a cam on her own computer,
which I lent her and she had it up frequently.
Here are 80 captures from her cam, most of which show
her interacting, and some which she captured herself. Keep in mind she was
obviously quite willing to have this, and had it running as few as 15
days before May 1.
On one occasion, Cari talked to Gertie early in the morning and convinced her
to skip work and come over that day. She invited her over on several other
occasions as well. And both Wes AND Cari invited Gertie, SEVERAL TIMES, to stay there for
a couple weeks while she found a job and a local apartment, which was the
purpose behind the May 1st date. They both knew she was coming. They knew
she was going to quit her job and move up here. The day before it happened,
Wes wanted to make sure she wasn't coming until the next day. When I asked
him why, he said it was no big deal and he'd talk about it later. Later,
being AFTER she'd quit her job. Only then, did he give me the letter.
To be continued....
Upon obtaining a cellphone with mMode access, I have started to create a
mobile version of the site. It's currently not terribly useful, but
eventually I plan to allow a mobile phone user to be able to check out
the various cams, control the devices, and send messages from the phone,
as well as read some of the documents, like the news. You can access it
from your WAP enabled mobile phone from http://drivemeinsane.com/mobile
I'm currently beta testing a new projects page. Once I'm happy that I have
all the features in it that I'm going to want for the foreseeable future,
I'll move over the other projects that still hold some interest. You're
now able to add projects to the list as well as comment on them. To
check it out go .http://drivemeinsane.com/cgi-bin/projectpage.cgi.
Right now it mostly resembles the old projects page, but I have some
new ideas in mind that will make the page a bit more useful and I'll plan to
run all the daily projects I work on through it so others can monitor my
progress.
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