Approximately Day 28, or Day 1, depending on your view
Instead of being overwhelmed and waiting until everything works itself out, I will just embrace this wonderful adventure and write about it as things progress, for good or bad.
Smart and Hot Wife and I are in contract to buy a house in Santa Clara, CA, USA, hence Day 1. The real work to find a home started about 28 days ago when Hardworking Wife found our excellent loan consultant Erika Pratt, then our most excellent realtor Kevin Kanning. Two weeks ago we found the house where, after only a few days of negotiation, the seller and we agreed on a price.
Day 1 ends in 4 hours. Our contingency period ends on April 10th, 2009. For those that are ignorant like I was, that’s where this magic phrase called Liquidated Damages comes into play. I’m not sure where the term comes from, but here’s how I understand it:
- Games are more fun when you put some money on the table.
- Janna and I hand over what I’d rather call an ante.
- We say, “We want your house, here you go. Unless we find something whacked about the house within 14 days (our contingency period), you get to keep our money. All we ask is you stop whoring your house out to other people on the side and pay attention to us. Pretend we’re engaged and you like us.”
As you can tell, home buying === new to us (I program JavaScript, I can use three equal signs). Without the additional support from great friends like Geoff and Rob, the most immediate non-monetary-vested-directly-contributing parties in our home search, things would be much more difficult. To repay everyone that has helped, I’ll post what works, what doesn’t, mistakes I feel we’ve made, and anything we learn. You’ve been warned: we’re new at this. Don’t be surprised if we help rewrite the next version of the book 106 Common Mistakes Homebuyers Make.
I’ll have a lot to thank Geoff for later, but the most immediate thanks goes to Rob. Tomorrow is our General Inspection. What’s that? I’m not quite sure, but I’m going to find out. I just know it costs money (around $400), and time (about 2 hours), and it’s something you’re supposed to do. Rob, you’ll appreciate the answer to the questions you told me to ask of our inspector:
Q: How long have you been doing this
A: 12 years.
Q: What area have you been inspecting houses in.
A: From San Francisco to Hollister [basically from a ways north to a ways south of our house].
Q: How many houses have you inspected?
A: Upwards now of 6300.
My response to the inspector: I think my friend who told me to ask you those questions would approve of you, and so do I.
Kevin, wonderful suggestion for an inspector. From a person who is cynical about what help Realtors are in this day of Zillow and Redfin, I’m very happy you’re helping us because life would be a pain in the ass without you.
Tomorrow starts Day 2, and the general inspection of our home at 9:30am.
Life Changes in Process
When it’s done I’ll let you know when my menopause is all done.
It’s good news for Janna and I. Wish us luck, even though you don’t know what it is yet.
How to get that Web Inspector, Java Script Console, DOM Explorer up in Safari on Windows
This has been written before, but it’s just not propagated enough. After spending a day and a bit chasing down really esoteric browser incompatibilities, I’d like to drop another bit of information into the ether for those 0.00005% of people who just might appreciate it. Other people have reported on this, but most posts are ancient and not currently useful.
Problem: I want to work on Safari 3.1 in Windows XP Service Pack 3, not the WebKit nightly builds. The tardtastic Developer Safari FAQ neglects to tell me how to open the JavaScript console on Windows.
Solution: To turn on your JavaScript console in the set-up listed above:
- Find your Safari
WebKitPreferences.plistfile. If your setup is like mine, it should be located in: - Input these two lines between the
<dict>...</dict>tags - Restart Safari, if it’s running.
- After opening a page, right click on the page to bring up the context menu
- Click on the “Inspect Elements” menu option
C:\Documents and Settings\INSERT_YOUR_USER_NAME_HERE\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari
<key>WebKitDeveloperExtras</key>
<true/>
Viola, Web Inspector.
And remember, it is “Love your pet rock” week starting tomorrow.
It’s shit like this…
that can make a great day EVEN BETTER!
Quotes and Mishaps
Scene: In the kitchen before doing dishes.
Me: I’m fucking Darwin on a pogo-stick!
Wife: [Stares at me uncomprehendingly.]
I love being a software engineer
I’m so new in the world of “sit down and code, damn it!” software engineering. Even worse, I spend most of my life complaining about shit that doesn’t work and about people and groups who should be taken out and shot.
But, let me take a moment and say I LOVE BEING A SOFTWARE ENGINEER! I love languages in all forms. I finally sat down and learned Java this weekend. I’m a total tard when it comes to programming in Java, and (nerd alert begin here) I’m embarrassed to say that I have never understood what a package was, nor what a classpath was (nerd alert ends here), until this weekend. And now I do, and that is SO COOL!
I can’t think of a better job out there than being a nerd.
Humorous Dialog with a nerd
Me: “Honey, you can delete that entry off the white board.”
Honey: “Yes, I will erase it off of the white board.”
Me: “Oh yes, erase, that’s what I meant to say.”
Pork is GREAT!
If I was the real poster-boy for the other white meat, I would have made this, taken pictures of it and posted it, and this guy would be blogging about me.
I Like to Talk Episode 6 – I Like to Listen
Taking some time out of my day to listen to you.
Another Random Pic – Good things in life
I didn’t understand why a friend told me to dust my lamp. I opened the picture and yep, he was right. I dusted the lamp this morning.