House News, Maybe Job News, and Really Just a lot of babbling News
Great news! LEGO called Ian today for an interview on Friday! CROSS ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING! Wouldn't that be nice to finally settle down and buy a house (lowering our monthly rent payment by about $400 to just mortgage + PMI + property taxes) and have both of us working again? I wouldn't know what to do with myself! (But I am willing to figure it out.)
Couple interesting things happening tomorrow:
Our home inspection is tomorrow afternoon. Both Ian and I intend to be there. I've been reading articles about what to expect, and specifically what to look for during the inspection... most of these articles are not very helpful. Either they're way too basic, or way too complex. What I really want is a checklist, and I haven't yet found a good one.
We know for certain that the house will need a new water heater. Ian and I have exhaustively looked at all the fancy options, and in the end I think we'll go with a regular gas water heater. Not sure if we'll go 40- or 50-gallon -- I think there's a 50 in there now. Exciting details, I know! Wait, it gets better: I combed the EnergyStar.gov website, and then looked up the selection of models with 12-year warranties. I checked local retailers and looked at online owner's manuals to confirm the warranty and other details. We narrowed it down to a selection of 5 models, 2 40-gallon, and 3 50-gallon. If the contractor we eventually pick can get us a good deal on one of those, yay. If not, we figure those 5 are each all about equal in their size category. Between Sears and Lowes, we'll just go with whoever is running the better sale at the time.
Have further been reading up on how to choose a contractor for the larger work of not just the water heater installation, but the eventual replacement of the furnace and installation of central air conditioning. Read a bunch of articles. Read - literally - over 300 online consumer reviews. Checked with the BBB. Checked that licenses are current with the state. I've narrowed the list down to 5 contractors, which is itself too many as I don't want to get more than 3 quotes. Really there is one vendor whose credentials thus far stand out as superlative -- but of course, their prices also tower supremely higher than everyone else's. I figure price is always negotiable, and no one holds a gun to your head in these situations. Quality of service is not negotiable, however. Even the detractors who shook fists at the heavens about the inflated prices almost always added that they techs seemed very knowledgeable, and they had no qualms about the quality of the work done. Good to know, however, that their individual techs work on commission and have the power to negotiate before dealing with them, though.
* Note to Self: I found a cool estimator on Consumer Reports about estimating what size of an air conditioner we need. I'd like to educate myself with a little information before we receive even the first quote on the work. I'll have to remember to take some measurements while we're over there tomorrow for the inspection.
Anyway, we'll see how things shake out in the inspection tomorrow. I hope there are no major-major problems we don't know about. As it is, I figure we'll do the water heater replacement immediately, before we move in. If all goes well Friday at LEGO, and Ian can expect to return to work in September, then we'll probably go ahead and do the HVAC work before wintertime. We'll certainly have lower heating bills, and a more comfortable winter that way. If we're still living on just my salary, and with our funds suddenly all but disappeared with buying the house, well then, we'll just hold off!
Also related to the house, I finally get our loan paperwork tomorrow. There's been some snafu with the Loan Processor sitting on it since last week. I've had to follow up with our Loan Dude twice, wondering where the supposedly sent-by-overnight-mail papers are. Loan Dude gave me the two right answers, however: 1) He'll personally hand-deliver the paperwork to me tomorrow; 2) Although we haven't officially locked in our loan rate pending signing these fucking papers, they will guarantee a maximum of the rate they quoted us last week since WE had our shit together.
Lastly, once all is said and done with stuff going on with buying the house, I start school tomorrow night! It's been 1.5 years since I last took a class. I haven't taken a class in person since 2008. I haven't taken a Paralegal Studies class since 2004. On all points, I'm very much looking forward to getting back to it! By the way, my boss did something really awesome for me. He, and his boss above him (our General Counsel) are really supportive about my education. They've gently and politely pushed to make sure I get back into school. Once registered, I discovered the stupid loophole in our tuition reimbursement program at work that employees aren't eligible until after 6 months of full-time employment -- I started working here directly (not as a temp) in April. I just miss it by a few weeks. The awesome thing is that my boss went to bat for me! He hoped HR would make an exception, although the answer was ultimately, and unsurprisingly, no. My boss' willingness to go to bat for me unprompted means more to me than the $300 or so that the reimbursement would have been. He really impressed me then.
The rest of life:
Knitting while watching "Mad Men" on Netflix streaming. Kicking some serious knitting ass toward making Christmas presents for others. Started a Knitting Club at work to begin after Labor Day, and I'm teaching about a dozen people to make an easy scarf for a holiday gift. Still playing Pathfinder with good friends every Saturday night. Local LARP getting ever closer to finding a campsite and actually getting started. Annual vacation to DragonCon in Atlanta, and reunion with distant friends for six wonderful days next week! Watson has not had a single asthma attack since we started him on medication 2 months ago. Apartment is a ridiculous, unmitigated, and incurable disaster as we've both reached the threshold of this place just being too small, and a little bit of Short-Timers' Syndrome there. Oh, and I joined Weight Watchers once again since the Fat Alarm went off recently. Just finished reading Fight Club, and really thoroughly enjoyed the book in comparison with the movie which I also really like -- much more thought provoking since the reader has to question a lot more of surrounding reality.
That's about it for life lately.
Trace
Couple interesting things happening tomorrow:
Our home inspection is tomorrow afternoon. Both Ian and I intend to be there. I've been reading articles about what to expect, and specifically what to look for during the inspection... most of these articles are not very helpful. Either they're way too basic, or way too complex. What I really want is a checklist, and I haven't yet found a good one.
We know for certain that the house will need a new water heater. Ian and I have exhaustively looked at all the fancy options, and in the end I think we'll go with a regular gas water heater. Not sure if we'll go 40- or 50-gallon -- I think there's a 50 in there now. Exciting details, I know! Wait, it gets better: I combed the EnergyStar.gov website, and then looked up the selection of models with 12-year warranties. I checked local retailers and looked at online owner's manuals to confirm the warranty and other details. We narrowed it down to a selection of 5 models, 2 40-gallon, and 3 50-gallon. If the contractor we eventually pick can get us a good deal on one of those, yay. If not, we figure those 5 are each all about equal in their size category. Between Sears and Lowes, we'll just go with whoever is running the better sale at the time.
Have further been reading up on how to choose a contractor for the larger work of not just the water heater installation, but the eventual replacement of the furnace and installation of central air conditioning. Read a bunch of articles. Read - literally - over 300 online consumer reviews. Checked with the BBB. Checked that licenses are current with the state. I've narrowed the list down to 5 contractors, which is itself too many as I don't want to get more than 3 quotes. Really there is one vendor whose credentials thus far stand out as superlative -- but of course, their prices also tower supremely higher than everyone else's. I figure price is always negotiable, and no one holds a gun to your head in these situations. Quality of service is not negotiable, however. Even the detractors who shook fists at the heavens about the inflated prices almost always added that they techs seemed very knowledgeable, and they had no qualms about the quality of the work done. Good to know, however, that their individual techs work on commission and have the power to negotiate before dealing with them, though.
* Note to Self: I found a cool estimator on Consumer Reports about estimating what size of an air conditioner we need. I'd like to educate myself with a little information before we receive even the first quote on the work. I'll have to remember to take some measurements while we're over there tomorrow for the inspection.
Anyway, we'll see how things shake out in the inspection tomorrow. I hope there are no major-major problems we don't know about. As it is, I figure we'll do the water heater replacement immediately, before we move in. If all goes well Friday at LEGO, and Ian can expect to return to work in September, then we'll probably go ahead and do the HVAC work before wintertime. We'll certainly have lower heating bills, and a more comfortable winter that way. If we're still living on just my salary, and with our funds suddenly all but disappeared with buying the house, well then, we'll just hold off!
Also related to the house, I finally get our loan paperwork tomorrow. There's been some snafu with the Loan Processor sitting on it since last week. I've had to follow up with our Loan Dude twice, wondering where the supposedly sent-by-overnight-mail papers are. Loan Dude gave me the two right answers, however: 1) He'll personally hand-deliver the paperwork to me tomorrow; 2) Although we haven't officially locked in our loan rate pending signing these fucking papers, they will guarantee a maximum of the rate they quoted us last week since WE had our shit together.
Lastly, once all is said and done with stuff going on with buying the house, I start school tomorrow night! It's been 1.5 years since I last took a class. I haven't taken a class in person since 2008. I haven't taken a Paralegal Studies class since 2004. On all points, I'm very much looking forward to getting back to it! By the way, my boss did something really awesome for me. He, and his boss above him (our General Counsel) are really supportive about my education. They've gently and politely pushed to make sure I get back into school. Once registered, I discovered the stupid loophole in our tuition reimbursement program at work that employees aren't eligible until after 6 months of full-time employment -- I started working here directly (not as a temp) in April. I just miss it by a few weeks. The awesome thing is that my boss went to bat for me! He hoped HR would make an exception, although the answer was ultimately, and unsurprisingly, no. My boss' willingness to go to bat for me unprompted means more to me than the $300 or so that the reimbursement would have been. He really impressed me then.
The rest of life:
Knitting while watching "Mad Men" on Netflix streaming. Kicking some serious knitting ass toward making Christmas presents for others. Started a Knitting Club at work to begin after Labor Day, and I'm teaching about a dozen people to make an easy scarf for a holiday gift. Still playing Pathfinder with good friends every Saturday night. Local LARP getting ever closer to finding a campsite and actually getting started. Annual vacation to DragonCon in Atlanta, and reunion with distant friends for six wonderful days next week! Watson has not had a single asthma attack since we started him on medication 2 months ago. Apartment is a ridiculous, unmitigated, and incurable disaster as we've both reached the threshold of this place just being too small, and a little bit of Short-Timers' Syndrome there. Oh, and I joined Weight Watchers once again since the Fat Alarm went off recently. Just finished reading Fight Club, and really thoroughly enjoyed the book in comparison with the movie which I also really like -- much more thought provoking since the reader has to question a lot more of surrounding reality.
That's about it for life lately.
Trace