monkeyplus1

this is a history, in aerial photographs, of where I live.  The curious thing, my house is not in any of these.
2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

I hope it shows up in the 2008 map.

Today’s drink of the day:  “Hennessy Paris”:

• 1.5 oz Hennessy (cognac)
• 0.5 oz lemon juice
• 0.25 oz Cointreau (triple sec)

Shake over ice, strain over your favorite glass.

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We are finally, 100% moved into our new house. It’s fucking beautiful. A lot of stairs, though - it’s 3 stories tall.  We still have a ton of things in boxes, many things left to find.

We weren’t at the apartment very long, a few weeks, but long enough. There was a Burger King nearby, and the cancerous stench of grilled cowflesh, that gray cloud of dioxins, could be fucking awful when the winds were just right.  I think even a carnivore would get sick of the smell.

A house party is on the horizon, but for now, unpacking, resting.  Aggravated an old back-injury, gawd I feel like an old fuck sometimes.

The music room is getting set up. When the boy is a couple years older, this will be his room, and I will turn the garage into my studio.

I have looked up nearly all of my neighbors within a one block radius.  I know the names of all the owners, when they bought, how much they paid, how much square footage their house is, when it was built, what type of construction it is.  I have a lot of names of past residents who have lived in the area.  I know some of their health conditions, their prescriptions, their allergies.  Some of them, I know their occupations, I know their hobbies.  There is a glass artist, some musicians, a teacher, some business folks, some retirees.  There are a couple sex offenders, too. In their case, I called up their parole officer, who kindly gave me 30 minutes of her time to go over their case history, status, etc.  I have kids, so I’ve got a special interest in watching out for those kinds of monsters.

I am a resourceful motherfucker.

One thing I’ve noticed - the older people are, the harder it is to find out anything about them.  At least, through free, publicly available (and legal) means.

found a new house.

Here is a  phenomenon.  We put an offer on the house the day we saw it. I have the keys less than two weeks later.

My mortgage broker this time around is a real champ.  Usually, between an offer and getting the keys takes one month, as there is so much that happens in between.

• the buyer makes an offer, putting down “earnest money”, usually a few thousand bucks.
• the seller accepts the offer.
• the buyer acknowledges the seller’s acceptance.
• the mortgage broker collects pay-stubs  (there is a lot of other paperwork, credit-reports, etc, that we had done in pre-approval before we found a house, which is the smart thing to do, since you’ll know what you can afford once the broker gives you a “good faith estimate” that breaks down all your closing costs & monthly mortgage, real estate, and hazard-insurance payments).
• the mtg. broker finds a suitable lender.
• the mtg. broker submits your paperwork to the lender to apply for the loan. The lender drafts up the loan documents.
• you sign all the documents, and give your down-payment money, closing costs, etc, to an escrow officer.
• the escrow reviews all the docs, sends them back to the lender for their review.
• the lender then wires the money to escrow.
• escrow sends all the documents to the county recorder, where they are scanned and photographed into the county legal records.
• escrow then gives the seller his money, and then the mortgage broker, realtors, tax office, and title company/escrow all get their cut.
• the buyer gets their keys.

that’s a lot of stuff to happen in less than two weeks.

the house is gorgeous.  I won out in the new house (me)  with modern amenities & efficiencies, versus old house (wife & realtor) with charm & higher return on equity.

here are a couple of the realtor-taken pics (the furniture is not our, it’s staged for the open house)

there’s a room which will be dedicated to music, so monkeyplus1 is soon to be back in the saddle.

okay… I might have originally complained about my renter’s life being rather expensive ($1850/mo). Almost twice my mortgage payment.

But holy shit… this life is straight up fresh, I feel like a pimp. Yah, no equity is building up, but goddamn.

One block from Lloyd Center, the big mall in close-in Portland. Four blocks from the MAX light-rail transit. Three blocks from the interstate I-5.

Oh yeah, even though we’re very near a McDonalds, Burger King, and Taco Bell, we’re also near a slew of great restaurants, ranging from upscale Mexican food, noodles, several kinds of sushi ranging across the full price range.

And if that’s not enough, we’re literally two minutes from downtown, where vegan and vegetarian food is aplenty.

This place makes me remember… I FUCKING LOVE PORTLAND.

Our apartment looks to the Southeast, plenty of morning sunshine, without being overly hot in the afternoon. But it’s also air-conditioned, just in case. Our house had no air conditioning. There’s also a dishwasher, our house had none. The building is only a few years old, so everything is super fresh and clean.

There’s an onsite gym, an elevator that goes right near our door.

Free wi-fi is a fucking godsend, I may not renew my subscription to cable tv and internet. I use the TV only for gaming anyway, I’ll have to make do without xbox live for a bit.

And what else goes along with this ultra urban location? Super beautiful eye-candy, in the female form. Jesus.

I’m not going to want to move. It’s inevitable, I know, but I’m going to enjoy every delicious second. YEOWW!!

The new job is OK. My cube sucks major fucking balls. The worst setup I’ve had in goddamn ages. But it’s only a 3 month contract, I can deal with it.

Plus, the commute is fairly painless.

Well, well… pictures are soon to follow. Peace love and goodwill to everyone, except Doo Doo Brown.

The house has been sold, the new owners take posession in two weeks.  After the anal-rape that are realtor fees (amounting to nearly 20% of MY FUCKING EQUITY), we’ll be sitting well for a future down-payment.  No goddamn wonder I see so many “for sale by owner”.  Meaning, fuck the realtors.  Ours is a nice lady and all, but damn does my ass hurt.

The search for work continues.  In the meantime, we’ve found a swank apartment a stone’s throw from Lloyd Center that does month-to-month, allowing us to move quickly on a new house when the time is right.

After being a home-owner for the last four years, it feels strange to move back to an apartment. Strange, but good.  No yard to worry about, no maintenance issues to worry about.  And if my neighbors are douchebombs, well, there’s management to complain to.

Also, it’s been nice, if not a little nervewracking, to be temporarily unemployed.

I’ve beat GTA IV, re-started the game, and am almost about to beat it twice over. I played over 100 hours of a game that has barely been out one month.  I’m still not sick of it.  Whenever I’m bored, I just go to the multiplayer modes.

When you’re scurrying through the streets like a little rat, and bullets rain down from above, look skyward for “Spacechump”, floating like a hellborn butterfly of doom in Annihilator helicopter.