Revised offer papers in hand

The headline pretty much says it.  I've got the revised paperwork in hand and under review.  Baby steps, but steps none the less.

Another very brief update

Had a nice chat with the Realtor last night.  I worked some of my spreadsheet magic and we’ve started piecing together a counter to the counter.  We’ll see where it goes from here.

Oh, I gave out a couple of cards to friends at the flea market this morning and one to a friend from the old neighborhood last night at the store.  Mostly for Mum’s relìv business that’s mentioned on the back.  Before long I may have to print some more.

Some thoughts on currant economic policy

Gold: $1,507.70 per ounce Troy - Trend: Up

Silver: $46.68 per ounce Troy - Trend: Up

Oil: $112.29 per barrel - Trend: Up

$1US = .95¢Canadian - Trend: Down

That whooshing sound you hear is the dollar circling the bowel.

Seriously.  It’s not that the commodities are getting more expensive.  Gold is gold.  It always has been and always will be.  What we are seeing is the erosion of the buying power of the dollar as a direct result of the Federal Reserve Bank’s (which is neither Federal nor does it have any reserves) policy of running the printing presses 24/7 and flooding the market with worthless paper. 

Would the prices charged for Tickle Me Elmo have been anywhere near as high a few years ago if you could just walk into any store and find hundreds of them?  Of course not! 

Supply and demand. 

The supply of Federal Reserve Notes, that’s US paper currency, has reached market saturation.  As a result, its perceived value has gone down.  It has to.  We the People don’t want it to, but apparently the President and the head of the Federal Reserve do as evidenced by their policies.

It’s not about saving the country from a recession.  It’s about ending the dollar’s status as the reserve currency of the world.

Sources:

Kitco Precious Metals

Gold

Silver

CNN/Money’s ticker

Yahoo! Finance USD/CAD

When you go to the currency pairs link at Yahoo! Finance it will put you on the day trader chart.  Below the chart is a navigation panel with links to the charts for 1 day, 5 days, 1 month, etc.  [1D][5D][1M]…  Click the link for Max.  The long term trend will astound you.

Not wanting to just sit around twiddling my thumbs...

Now that I'm fairly satisfied with the floor plans I've drawn* my focus has shifted to designing things like business cards and return address labels.  I finally got around to loading some software that I picked up on the cheap (do you hear birds?) at the used book store over on Daniel Webster Highway.  It's an old copy of Microsoft Publisher 2000.  Up until now I had been fighting with MS Word for this type of project.  Being able to move chunks of text all around however I want is fantabulous!  And it has built in templates that work with commercially available card stock, labels and such!  This opens up so many possibilities that I could get lost for a week playing with my new toy!

Hmm...  I wonder if it has CafePress compatible templates? 
[ HerrBGone's eyes light up and say TILT! ]


* What I have is based on a very poor quality scan of a badly revised old plan that was probably done for the county many years ago, as well as my own recollection from the viewing and the few photographs I have.  It's a given that my drawing will need extensive revision once more information becomes available.

TAG! You're IT!

I've been playing phone-tag with the realtor for the past few days.  The delay is helping on my end since I'm still waiting for my checks to come in.  But I am getting antsy to get this show on the road...

More on the water heater

Last night around twenty past eleven I was in the vicinity of the water heater.  OK, I was in the can getting ready for bed…  And I could hear this dripping that sounded like it might be coming from the water heater.  I thought to my self “That must be drained out by now!  I wonder if it’s just rain dripping from the roof.”  It had been extremely windy just a little while before and it came along with a nasty sounding driving rain.  But it seemed to have stopped.  So I threw some clothes back on, grabbed the cordless drill (it has a couple of screw driver bits that live in a compartment on top of the motor housing) and went out side to check.  You see, the water heater is in a closet accessed from the outside of my home and the original door was long gone by the time I bought the place and was replaced by a sheet of plywood that’s screwed to the door frame..

All of the connections Ted made are holding just fine without a drip in sight.  But the pipe we cut off that feeds the water heater was still dripping at an alarming rate.  Something must be back-feeding the tank.  I thought I’d checked everything inside and made sure they were all off.  Time to button up the hatch and go check again.

Ah ha!  The valve in the tub. While turned off was still set to mix for the temperature I prefer for my shower!  That must be the path for the water to flow backward down the out-flow from the water heater and out the cut off in-flow pipe!  I cranked the knob over to full cold (I really hope I remember to check that after the new water heater is installed!) and after a few minutes the dripping has stopped.

Thank goodness!  If that hadn’t worked I don’t know what else I could have checked…

One other little tidbit, while I was checking for leaks I noticed that my idea to cut off the pipe after the valve would not have worked.  Whoever installed the water heater that’s there now used the shortest possible nipple between the tank and valve that they could.  There is simply no room there to even cut it off, much less to install a cap.  So to borrow a line from Weekend Update: “Oh, um, never mind…”

It’s always something…

Friday night I was sitting at the table with Mum finishing my pizza when I heard what sounded like water running.  Since we were both at the table and it wasn’t raining why would there be water running?  There shouldn’t be…  I got up and traced the sound and it was coming from the water heater.

Uh oh!

I already knew from a previous problem we’d had with this water heater that the valve to shut it off didn’t work.  I had to shut off the main to the whole house – which meant no water anywhere, and no tank refill the next time the toilet gets flushed.

Oh crap!  Or, well, try NOT to crap…

I called my friend and handyman Ted: “Buddy, pall, friend o’ mine…”  He had a job that had to be done in the morning before it rained, but he could come over and install the new one after that.  Works fer me.  Mum and I can ‘fly a holding pattern’ until then.

Actually we went out for breakfast the next morning (and their bathrooms!) and went over to the old house after so I could pick some more at the carcass.  We still have some things over there and I’ve been slowly grabbing the best of what’s left and bringing it to storage or here to the new house.  Ted  was working a couple houses down the street from his and saw us drive by.  He called my cell phone and told me where he was so Mum and I stopped there.

Poor Ted looked wrecked!  I don’t know anyone with a stronger work ethic than he has and I include myself in that list.  I had come up with a quick fix to get the water back on.  But I’m no plumber.  The idea was to remove the bad valve and replace it with a good one so we can isolate the water heater and turn the water back on to feed the cold side of the system.  That way Ted wouldn’t have to install my new water heater that night.  My plan was approved and I learned about a new kind of plumbing fitting I’d never heard of before.  SharkBite fittings.  They are a snap-on fitting that work with the copper I have here and with PEX or CPVC.  They are versatile, easy to use and can be disconnected and reused.  What they aren’t is cheap!

Ted still had quite a bit of work to do on that job so we let him get back to it and went on our way.

Later that evening Ted came over and I drove the two of us over to Home Despot to pick up some parts.  Then we set to work on fixing my plumbing well enough to at least be able to flush the toilet.

Then we went back to Home Despot for more parts.  All told I probably spent around $60 on parts.

In the end, we were successful and the cold water side is functioning normally.  We’ll schedule the water heater install around Ted’s other jobs.  Mum and I can make due in the mean time.  Well just heat water on the stove when we need it.

This morning (as I was sitting in my now functional ‘thinking room’) I realized there was an easier way to accomplish the same thing.  Both Ted and I were thinking of the feed side of the bad valve.  If I had known more about the fittings we used and was thinking more holistically, and if Ted hadn't been so wrecked, we would have realized that we could accomplish exactly the same functionality with one cut and one $6 fitting.  If we had cut the pipe after the valve and put on a cap the job would have been done in under two minutes!

Doh!

Live and learn…

And to my friend, Alan

As I said in chat over on Facebook:

:-) B-day 2 U, :-) B-day 2 U, :-) B-day U Geezer, :-) B-day 2 U!

Teehee!

One of my Pet Peeves

Mum and I like riding around scouting for yard sales.  Now that the weather is turning nicer the sales are starting up again.  :-)  We’ve already stopped at a few and scored some good deals.  As I mentioned in the post about the rather disappointing opening day at the flea market we’ve even had an addition to the family at one of the sales this year.

Where I get peeved is when people post bad signs.  Over the past few years I’ve noticed a trend where people have started putting their address on their signs instead of an arrow.  Some have even posted signs printed on their computer with not more than 72 point text and a full inventory of what they have to sell.

HOW THE BLODY HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO READ THAT  

AS I’M DRIVING BY IN MY CAR?!

Sorry.  I get a little peeved…

So in an attempt to save myself from (another) full-on melt-down over it I have written a special web page dedicated to proper signage for yard sales, garage sales, tag sales and all similar types of events that one may wish to direct people to via homespun signage.

I have even provided two styles of signs that can be downloaded for free and printed on your very own laser printer.  The larger set is even customizable.

You can find my signage tutorial and the free downloads at Beetlemania, my original web site.

BTW: If you happen to be looking for yard sales in the Boston Northwest/Merrimack area on Craigslist you may see my ad for the signs web page.  I posted the first iteration of that for the year last night.

You know, it’s always something…

I’ve been expecting it for a while now.  This evening it finally happened.  My water heater took the gas pipe both literally as well as figuratively.  I have its replacement warming up in the bullpen just waiting for the coach to wave him in.  Now I just need to schedule the inst – pardon me, the phone is ringing…

That was Ted, the handiest handyman south-west of the Merrimac.  We’re on for tomorrow afternoon.  He has a job that has to be done in the morning, then he’ll call and come over.

Progress!

Just heard from Mum who heard from the Realtor who has, in turn, finally heard from the seller.  We have our counter-offer.  Unfortunately I am at work and my spreadsheet is at home.  So I don’t know for sure how their counter-offer fits in with my needs for the property.  At first blush it still looks doable, but before I call the realtor and accept I have to do a little more homework.

Now if only my Federal refund check will come in… 
* crosses finger & toes & everything else! *

UPDATE:  The spreadsheet says it’s outside of my parameters.  The plan was to arrange the payments to be equal to or less than what I am paying now for storage.  Looks like it’s a miss.  By $5.00 a month.  Hope I can swing it…  :-)  

BTW: The check was not in the mail tonight.  Grumblegrumble!

Update, such as it is...

I had an email from the Realtor this evening replying to my voice-mail from last night.  It turns out they are having a hard time making contact with the seller.  He's apparently moved out of the area and has become hard to reach.

Hmm...

Some delay on their end may be a good thing as I'm still waiting for my Federal refund check to come in, but zoiks!  This may complicate things just a bit.

Yawn...

Sorry I haven't had much to add over the past couple of days.  I left a message with the realtor last night looking for an update on my offer.  Haven't heard back yet.  I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Time-kill central…

Well, busywork actually.  While I’ve been waiting to hear back about the offer I’ve been keeping myself busy what with working on the floor plan, designing business cards, thinking about additional sources of income and thinking up suitable phone numbers. 

The right phone number for a business is important.  For example when you see 1-800-GOT-JUNK you know exactly what that whole business is all about. 

I’m not at all satisfied with the business cards I’ve come up with so far.  I’ll get it eventually.  I just haven’t got it yet.  But I think I have hit on an 800 number that I like.  And it’s even available!  While it may not be as iconic as my example, it works well for our little B & B.  Several of the numbers I’ve looked at are already in use.  Their owners probably don’t even know they spell anything!

Anywho, we need to move the P&S to the next step before I go and spend any cash on locking in a telephone number.  What is it?  I’ll let you know as soon as we’re ready to start taking reservations.  ;-)

Your call is important to us ...

... Please continue to hold ...

Actually I'm not surprised that it's taking a little while to hear back about the offer. 

First the broker has to get it to the seller.  That should have been done already. 

Then the seller has to come to after passing out because
    a) he actually got an offer on the property, and
    b) the amount that I offered. 

Once the seller collects himself, he has to come up with a counter offer and tell the broker, who will tell the realtor, who will in turn tell us.

And the realtor is away at a conference until at least the weekend.

I am eager to find out the seller’s bottom line so we can get this process rolling.  But at the same time having a delay on their end is good for me because I am depending on my Federal tax refund to cover some incidental costs like, oh, hiring a home inspector, paying the lawyer and title company, other closing costs…  You know, minor things like that.  It hasn’t arrived yet.

And the .gov may shut down at midnight tonight.  * eyeroll *

How a tractor beam works

The Starship Enterprise featured quite a few cool technologies that didn’t exist when the show débuted back in 1966.  Cell phones (communicators), portable computers (tricorders), Bluetooth earpieces (those gizmos Spock and Uhura would stick in their ear on the Bridge), transporters and tractor beams.  Many of those things exist in some form today.  Some do not.  I can’t help you with designing a transporter or a warp engine, but I do have a theory about how to make a tractor beam.

The premise behind a tractor beam is that it is some kind of probably electro-magnetic beam that can somehow grab hold of an object and either hold it in place or push it away or pull it in closer relative to the device that generates the beam.  How this was done was never explained.  We just assumed that it worked and in the context of the show it did.

But could such a thing work in the real world?  I don’t see why not.  All we have to do is figure out how gravity works.  Then we need to figure out how to generate gravity without lugging around a 55 gallon drum of the stuff neutron stars are made of.  Oh yes, once we have gravity figured out then we’ll also need anti-gravity.

Minor little details…

Flying a holding pattern...

Nothing much to report tonight.  I haven't heard from the realtor today.  The managing broker was supposed to present my offer to the seller.  It may take a couple of days for the seller to counter and the realtor to notify me.  It might even take a couple of days for the broker to get a hold of the seller.  Hurry up and wait...

Again? That trick never works!

I called the realtor this evening.  I was beginning to wonder at not being on the receiving end of a call confirming receipt of the fax I sent last night.  Turns out it had apparently gone AWOL.  After resending and confirming that it was received I went back to my Vonage logs.  Same fax number, same call duration to the second, both fax transmissions said “completed” on the display of my fax machine.  I have no idea where the one I sent at 12:10am this morning went, but the resend was confirmed both received and legible.  The printout should be on the managing broker’s desk even as I write this.  Hopefully in a day or two I’ll know the next step.

"It's away!"

The fax has been sent.  All 17 pages.

Update: I wonder what my blood-pressure's like just now... 8-o

Please leave a message after the tone…

The realtor finally returned my call this evening and we had a nice, long, conversation.  In it we discussed several creative ways to put this deal together.  I think she’s reassured that I’m not just an idle tire kicker.  (I could kick my car right at the moment, but I’ve already written about that at length…)  I’ll be getting a fax out to her this evening and a more detailed letter about the other ideas we discussed tomorrow evening.  So some progress is being made.

I gleaned from this evening’s conversation that the ‘other couple that was interested’ has withdrawn their offer.  I think this was the couple that wanted to turn the old jail into a tea room.  I don’t blame them for taking their idea to another property.  I really don’t see how that could work here.

Supposedly there is another buyer who might be interested.  I don’t know if that’s just being put out there in an effort to give me a sense of urgency to get my offer in first.  I hasten to point out that they already have my check for the earnest money in hand…

Tires & Tank Traps & Tow Trucks, oh my…

So Mum and I drove up to Vermont to check out the jail.  I mean Bed & Breakfast…  It was a nice ride that included Franconia Notch.  People drive clear across the country to see The Notch.  We’ve been through The Notch several times over the past couple of years and each time it was simply the road between here and there.  We didn’t even stop – except for traffic.  This last time was a breeze.  We were heading north when most of the other traffic was already heading south.

Klunk, our GPS, sent us on a couple of wild goose chases.  How she came up with one of the roads she put us on is a complete mystery to me! 

But we survived.  355 miles round trip. 

Well, it should have been 359 miles…   

We were about four miles from home driving down a road I’ve driven dozens if not hundreds of times when ...

Signs of Spring

Today was opening day at the flea market in Hollis New Hampshire.  Sort of…  The April Fools Day snow storm threw everybody off this weekend.  Two of the three fields decided to postpone opening until next weekend – even though they hadn’t changed the dates on their signs.  The one field that did open only had about ten venders.

We stopped at the first yard sale of the year on our way to the flea market.  Mum got a couple more cookbooks.  I picked up a box of over-wire style mason jars.  There’s one pint size and several 2-quart.  There was one of the larger size jars on a table at the flea, but I didn’t bother to find out what they were asking for it.  I paid $2.50 for the whole box that I already had in the car.

And our family added a new member at the yard sale.  There is a new Vermont Teddy in the family – and he’s a Wizard!

The one disappointing thing about today’s fun and frivolity was that some friends of ours that we were hoping to meet up with at the flea went elsewhere when they heard that the field they usually set up on was not going to open today after all.  I had brought along the floor plans that I mentioned a couple of posts ago so I could show them.  Well, maybe next week…

Can you hear me now?

I’ve been having a little bit of difficulty contacting the realtor over the past week or so.  She had a death in the family last week and has been out of the area attending to more important things.  I hope she’s doing OK.  We lost a close relative last October and it’s been rough few months for us as well.

Where are The Plans?

[/Vader voice]

For the past ‘seems like forever’ I’ve been working for a big company.  For now I’ll just refer to it as That Big Company.  Or just ‘work.’  At That Big Company I spend my days sitting in front of a computer from 0dark:30 until far too late.  I’m a mechanical designer and CAD draftsman.  There are a couple of patents at the USPTO with my name on them and several more applications on file.  All are from my work for That Big Company.

I’ve been doing this kind of work for the better part of three decades now.

This ties in to The Guilded Cage in that I have the skills and software available even here at home to do fairly decent CAD work. 

Now the software I use at work is not available here at home.  But SolidWorks the company that makes the high end 3D CAD software I use at work also makes a 2D CAD program that you can download for free.  That’s what I’m running here at home.

In that 2D program, DraftSight they call it, you can import bitmap graphics onto what they call a reference layer.  With that you can create a pretty good CAD drawing from a fairly poor quality scanned image.  And it’s scalable.  You can even measure and dimension drawings you create this way.

So that’s what I’ve been working on these past several evenings.  Creating a detailed plan of what I want The Guilded Cage to become.  I’ll be sharing the plans here after we lock in the P&S.

The more I get into it the more potential I see.

Genesis of an Idea

In the beginning there was a guy.  This guy, in fact.  He had a lot of stuff.  I wouldn’t call him a hoarder, but he had A LOT of stuff.  Several storage bins full.  It was costing him a fortune.  He decided it was time to find a place for his stuff, so he started searching through the Craig's List real estate listings looking for a barn to put his stuff in. 

Did I mention that he had a lot of stuff?  Oh, I did.

Well, he didn't find a barn that he liked all that much until he came across one in Vermont.  He likes Vermont.  It's pretty country up there.  His Mum used to own a place up there near Lake Champlain.  She always said they stayed on this side of the boarder because they didn't want the Canadian winters.  They were only about a mile and a half from the boarder, so I don't know if it made that much difference...

But I digress.

Anywho, the barn this guy found came along with a house.  It's right on the town common.  The town common is just across the river from New Hampshire.  He likes that, too because there is no sales tax in New Hampshire.

One of the problems he and his Mum had was that where they lived they only had one bathroom.  When they were on their way home from gallivanting they would often call "Dibs" which could be a problem for whoever didn't call it soon enough.  So they would often comment on how "Our next place will have more than one bathroom!"

Half joking about 'the next house' this guy would sometimes say "I want a moat!"  Particularly if he'd just read some ridiculous story in the news.

So there he was one fine evening surfing through the real estate listings looking for a barn for his stuff when he came across this one particular listing.

It had a barn.
It had more than one bathroom.
It even had a moat!  Though not exactly the kind he had been thinking of.

It also had a jail.

We'll pause here a moment for the reader to ponder on that.

After looking at the pictures the guy read the listing to his Mum who was sitting in her rocking chair in the living room crocheting.  He pointedly left out that one little detail until he'd fully described the rest of the property.

"Oh, and it also has a jail."

"Did you say it also has a jail?!"

"Yup!  I did."  :-)  "Here's a picture..."

"Oh, my..."  8-o

And then it happened.  He had a stroke of genius - although he thought he was kidding at the time.

"We could run it as a Bed & Breakfast..."

And the rest, as they say, is history!

---

In this blog I will attempt to chronicle that guy's, um, actually My efforts to transform this from a crazy idea to dream made real.  I'm not going to say exactly where the property is until we have the P&S settled and signed.  But we have seen the property and I’ve made a bona fide offer.  I think this is going to be fun!