Surfergeeks

Awww crap. It’s not even November yet. Anyone got access to a time machine?

In case your wondering why the logo at the top of the website now looks like ass it’s because I’ve changed the colour of the background in honour of the Boston Red Sox (it’s Red Sox red) winning their first World Series in 86 years!!! Not only did they finally break The Curse of the Bambino, they beat St. Louis four games straight! Combined with their ACLS victory over New York, Boston won EIGHT games straight to capture the World Series title!!!!!

Let’s just hope it isn’t another 86 years.

First off, let me express my condolences to the Hendrick family and Hendrick Racing after the loss of one of their planes with no survivors. It is a sad week in racing.

Now on to the gains. The home inspection went smoothly and there’s pretty much nothing left in the way of us getting this house. The conditions of sale waiver should be signed by tomorrow and then it’s just a matter of waiting until the closing. Man…never have I wanted the month of November to go by so quickly…

I had a wishlist for amazon that I was going to put up here so that everyone could pick and choose of the list of stuff that I had up there that I wanted. It would make shopping for Christmas soooo much easier for everyone. Then we went and bought a house. Obviously we’re going to need some stuff for the house that we don’t have (shovel, rake, lawnmower, garbage cans, ladder, etc.) so I figure that stuff should take priority over things like books, DVDs, and XBox games. Meh, what the hell.
Here’s the link: My Wish List
You can browse the selections off of Amazon.ca that I’ve added to my wishlist. This doesn’t even include all the stuff that Nikki wants. If you ARE really insistent on picking up something from this list for me, I would highly recommend ANY of the books on Barbequing and Grilling that are on there since I’ll finally be able to barbeque again!

Since Nikki’s to lazy to actually figure out where she lives, here’s a mapquest image of where Van St is. Please note the star does not actually represent our house location. But she’s right, we both love the house. Not only is it apparently in move-in condition (home inspection, the final hurdle, is Saturday morning) but there is a TON of potential for the future with all the space we have. Personally, I just can’t wait to get my barbeque out of storage (of which Jen & Mike are probably just as happy!) and start barbequing again! Indoor grilling works, but it’s no substitute for the real thing!

UPDATE!!!!! APPARENTLY Internet Explorer is being completely retarded and refusing to show the picture that is to the right of this blurb. If you don’t see a pretty map it’s most likely because you are using the retarded Internet Explorer and haven’t switched to the superior Firefox yet. Do so. Immediately. If you’re really obstenant, or stupid, and don’t want to switch then just click on the white space to the right of this and the picture will load. Don’t blame me – blame Microsoft.

So, I think everyone already knows this, but in case we missed telling you, Rob and I have made an offer on a house. They accepted. We are in love with this house. Four bedrooms, two and a half baths, two kitchens! It’s a great starter home for us.

It’s on Van street, beyond being East London, I couldn’t tell you where that is. It will take me a while to figure out where everything is once we move there.

The only thing pending is the full approval for our mortgage and a home inspection. We were pre-approved and we doubt there is anything seriously wrong with the house, so by the end of December, we should be in our new home.

We will definitely have to have a Christmas/House-warming party this year!

Ok, this article is way cool.

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041004/full/041004-17.html

Damn, it’s late. I’m tired, but I want to post this before I head off to bed. So, as I mentioned, we went and looked at houses today.

Of the five we passed on to the realtor that we wanted to see, two of them were sold – including the one with the pool (sniff). Well, it’s a conditional sale pending on financing, but apparently these usually go through.

So that left 3 houses. The first one, on East St, we thought looked kinda nice from the outside based on our drive-by the other day. Once inside we were rather disappointed with the house. The back half of the house had a sloping roof that basically culminated in a bathroom where Nikki would have trouble standing up in the shower – no lie. PASS.

Next up was a house on Price St. As soon as we walked in, we realized that the difference between this one and East St was like night & day. The main floor had a nice, spacious living room, the kitchen, although having the laundry in there (washing machine was right beside the stove!!!), was HUGE and had a ton of cupboards! This house featured a second floor which sported 3 bedrooms. None of the individual bedrooms were what you would call large, but with a minimal amount of renovation it would be possible to have two decent sized bedrooms up there. A fair amount of renovation would see a couple smaller bedrooms and an ensuite bath (this would involve an addition to the upper floor). The basement was…cozy. Yeah, that’s the ticket. First, there were these stairs of almost-death which almost force you to limbo under the ledge to get down there. Once the descent was complete, was one room that had a six-ish foot ceiling and a ledge along the one wall (ah…how the memories of Woodward came flooding back). No room for a pool table (two pillars in the way). The lot was quite large and featured a good sized garage near the back of the lot that is powered, insulated, and heated. This could quite conceivably be turned into a games room of sorts with minimal work (slap up some drywall and paint and you’re set). We did have a couple concerns about this property but they were minor – a few windows needed to be replaced and we weren’t absolutely in love with the location of the only bathroom – on the main floor just off the dining room/living room.

Okay..on to the third and final house of the day. This one was on Dreaney (or Dreary as I referred to it prior to visiting – afterward it was even more appropriate). Walking up the stairs onto the front porch you immediately see a large front window with a nice half circle window above it. Once inside you’re greeted to a living room/dining room with what we think were 12 foot ceilings? H-O-R-S-E anyone??? The next room we hit was obviously a kids room as it was painted with brightly coloured squares in the primary and secondary colours. Next was the kitchen – very much in need of updating. The second bedroom was about the same size as the first. The next room was the bathroom. UGH! Black mold of death was present in here. The main floor also had another room and a laundry room. In the laundry room were stairs to the side door and leading to the basement. The basement was, for lack of a better term, a maze. Not quite sure of the original use – maybe a rooming house – but there were a few different rooms that may have been bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. I swear the basement seemed to have more space than the floor above it. It went on forever. Unfortunately, the ENTIRE basement would have needed to have been stripped down to the bare walls and rebuilt from scratch. The lot was also a good size and had a garage, shed, garden, and horseshoe pits. This house would be AMAZING as an investment property where you could spend about 3 or 4 months renovating and cleaning it prior to renting or flipping it. Unfortunately, not what we’re looking for yet. PASS.

So, that was the house hunting today. 1 potential of 3. We’ve submitted another five to Boyd (our realtor) that we’d like to see and have found another ten that we would like to get some more info on and do drive-bys to see if we’d like to see inside them. I’ve no doubt that we’ll find a place but I’ll be a lot less stressed once we do.

Nikki may chime in with her thoughts as well on the houses – we’ll see.

Today’s the first day we go around looking at houses with our realtor. We’re meeting him at around 1:30 and we’re looking at five houses. There are two that Nic & I both are really interested in and then 3 others that we both like, or at least are interested in seeing.

One of the houses has a pool even! We’re taking the camera and video camera so that, if allowed to tape, we can review them here at home to see what we like.

Yeah so I forgot to activate the commenting on the house post. my bad. We’re having to limit the entries that allow comments because of asshat spammers that spam all the ones they can. I’d rather not have my visitors clicking through to see women and horses thank-you-very-much.

It’s been fixed now.

In response to Jason’s comment, we met with the real estate agent last night and are spending most of the weekend looking for houses. We’re doing recon on Saturday before Nic has to work, then I’ll probably look around at some others. Then we have to call our guy who is going to setup some viewings for Sunday. Who knows, we may find our dream home this weekend…