All posts by Jonathan

House shopping is like clothes shopping (only worse)

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I’m not a big fan of clothes shopping. If I need a new shirt, my ideal shopping experience would be as follows: A few feet into the entrance of the store is a rack of shirts. This rack would have the exact size and style I need. It would be unnecessary to try one on. A few feet from this rack of ideal shirts would be the cashier. There would be no one in line, and I would be done shopping after a minute or two. Alas, the clothes shopping experience is usually quite different.

Now that I’ve got a good offer on my condo, I’ve been shopping for a house. I’ve come to realize that shopping for a house is a lot like shopping for clothes. First you browse the listings, then find houses to look at. Once you visit a potential house, you spend some time walking around and checking its comfort, not unlike a new pair of shoes. Like clothes, you wonder how long aspects of the house will last before they might need some mending. Will those sleeve buttons fall off soon? Will I need to replace those windows? If the house doesn’t “fit right” you move on to another house. Or you might think the fit is okay, but wonder if there is a better fitting house out there. You try the next house. You might also hear of a new sale (house or shirt), and try that one on for size. Does it fit?

Right now I’m just looking for a good fit.

The waiting is the hardest part

When I put my condo up for sale, I never considered all the waiting I’d have to do. You wait for people to be interested, you wait for offers to be made, you wait for answers to counter-offers, etc. The deeper into the process you go, the more intense the waiting becomes.

Saturday a potential buyer came to see my condo for a second time in a week. That evening they did submit an offer, so I scheduled a meeting with my Realtor for the next day, and waited. Sunday we prepared a counter-offer and I waited some more. Monday morning we received a counter-offer from the potential buyer, discussed it, and decided to submit another counter-offer. This last period of waiting was the worst. I spent the waking portion of the next 27 hours second guessing my last counter-offer. I couldn’t tell you half of what I saw of President Obama’s inauguration, because my mind was on the counter-offer hanging out there.

Thankfully, there is a happy ending to this story. Late yesterday afternoon my Realtor told me the last counter-offer was accepted! In the end, I’m not sure if I was more grateful that we came to an agreement, or that the waiting was over.

Cold thoughts

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A few random thoughts inspired by the brutally cold weather we’ve been having…

snow scene

1. I saw a few finches hanging out and chirping in a tree outside the building at work this morning. When I see small creatures like that surviving in sub-zero temperatures, I’m just amazed. How does such a little, warm blooded animal generate enough heat to keep from freezing to death?

2. Do you ever wonder about the Native peoples that populated this area hundreds and thousands of years ago? How on Earth did they get along in their wigwams during bitter cold spells? Makes it hard to complain when you imagine what they had to deal with, doesn’t it?

3. Often during bad winter storms, or below zero temps, some people invariably proclaim they’re ready to move south. When I hear that I think, “no thank you.” Moving in that direction means more heat and humidity in the summer. As bad as winter can get in Wisconsin, I’d rather deal with extreme cold and snow than extreme heat and humidity.

2008’s best music

I heard a LOT of new music this past year. Quite a bit of it though, seemed mediocre to me. Some albums would have a few great songs, but also a lot of filler. Is that a consequence of the single song sales on iTunes and other online music outlets? Is the complete album dying as an art form? I hope not. Whether I get them on CD or full-album downloads, complete albums are still how I listen to music. Here are the best ones I heard in 2008.

Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
The fresh and unique sound of Vampire Weekend made this my favorite album of the year. It’s also the best debut album of 2008. See my post from last February for a review of Vampire Weekend.

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Banished from my home

My condo is currently on the market. Today I got a call from my Realtor, that someone wanted to take a look at it this evening. So, here I am hanging out at my local public library for a while.

It’s all a bit odd when a showing is scheduled for my condo. I pick up the clutter, clean a bit, and otherwise make my home look nice and attractive, and then I leave. After that there are these strangers that come. They have their own key and they let themselves in. As they look over my home, they have full access to all of my worldly possessions. Want some CDs? Stereo or computer equipment? How about my bank records? My computer backups have some pretty juicy vital records too. It’s all there if they look in the right places.

It’s not that I don’t trust the real estate agents. I’m sure they do an excellent job of keeping their clients from snooping and stealing. I just find the whole process kind of strange.

Music from the Big Blue Ball

For all the talk in the news about the downfall of the music industry, there certainly has been a lot of new releases over the past few months. I’ve had my hands (or is that ears?) on a lot of new music lately. But the album I keep coming back to is Big Blue Ball.

Almost eighteen years in the making, Big Blue Ball grew from three extraordinary Recording Weeks at Real World Studios in the summers of 1991, 1992 and 1995. The project’s originators and curators were Real World founder Peter Gabriel and Karl Wallinger of World Party and The Waterboys.

So very appropriately named, Big Blue Ball is filled with international artists, collaborating together. On “Shadow” Congolese singer Papa Wemba combines his vocal and musical styles with flamenco guitarist Juan Cañizares.

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