Condo Blues

Signing a contract to lower the asking price on the ole' condo. Let's think happy thoughts, everyone.

Perhaps with my aunt coming to visit AND a lower price, we will have a winning combo. Will Joanne be the one to win something shiny?

Selling a Condo: Jesus versus Friends and Family

I planted St. Joseph upside down in a plant in my home around 2 months ago in hopes of selling my condo with some help from the lord. But I think my St. Joseph is sound asleep in that potted plant. Perhaps you must be Catholic for it to work. I know He is allowed to have his own time line and that we're not to rush Him, but... ummm, how long are we talking here?

So while downward-facing St. Joseph works out a time line with the dude upstairs, I might possibly have unlocked the secret that gets prospective buyers to the house on my time line: Visitors with bags that must be hidden under the bed, in storage and in my car (who must endure my newfound OCD) must come spend the night.

Although the offers have not been rolling in with my method, getting people to the house is obviously key, and it is doing that.

You might tell me that it's spring now, so more people are looking. But I tell you that it was spring when we had a three-week dry spell. My mom comes to town on a cold April weekend and three people come over. My guy says he's coming to visit, and two people have already called. Last time he came, two people also came by.

So, who's coming over?

If I don't owe $10k at closing and you're visiting when I get a realistic offer, you will not only get a hug and my St. Joseph, but I might even buy you something shiny. Now who can say no to that?

Virginia is Long in the Width

The westernmost tip of Virginia is at Cumberland Gap. It's longitude is 83°2′51″W.

Meaningless, right?

Now consider that Detroit, Michigan is at 83°43′24″ W.

That's right. Detroit is further east than some points of Virginia.

Did that just blow your mind?

College Park Tornado of 2001

My dad called to verify that I didn't happen to be in Richmond the other day when they had their tornado, and gladly I had not. It's been in the news around here lately, though, and it got me to thinking about the tornado I was in during my senior year at the University of Maryland. My pictures were taken on an old fashioned camera, so I had to dig deep on the Internet for these gems. Luckily, since I had been in the heart of the storm, I found pictures of where I had been.

This picture is of Metzerott Rd. It is the road adjacent to the apartments I was in during the storm. My house was also on a side street another 1/10 mile away.


This is 2 side streets away from mine. My street had tree damage, but nothing like the damage of the apartments I was in during the storm.


This is the parking lot of the complex I was in. The storm only lasted about 15 - 25 seconds. It was so short that had we not peered out of the bathroom (nice hiding spot) and seen the brown that was the tornado and had our ears pop the whole time, I would have thought the storm had missed us. But when we went outside and there was a car upside down directly below us, and the shed near the parking lot was completely missing, we knew we were wrong. This picture doesn't really show cars flipped over or sideways, but it's still kinda crazy. My personal side note is that my car was in the visitor lot that abutted an old forest. A HUGE tree fell directly toward my car and would have crunched it right up the middle if I had been parked just a few feet closer to the woods, like I usually did. It was a shocking site to see how narrowly I averted having to call Geico.


This picture was taken about 800 feet from where I was. When we walked out onto the street the man was still in his truck. He opened the door and got out like it was no big deal. I was sure he was going to get electrocuted and die, but he did not. Thank god.



Of the two girls (sisters) that did die, one was in a geography class of mine. And to make it even more crazy for a school with 35,000 people, a semi-friend from a sociology class of mine was in the car directly behind the one the sisters were in and watched them get picked up and flown over the seven-story dorm to the right of the road about 2/10 of a mile from where I was.

I wish I had thought to save the Google satellite images of the area, because the aerial of college park showed really graphically the destruction of the tornado. Seeing all the trees bare was really eerie.

I also remember that Steve Francis took 400 kids who had been displaced (a ton from the apartments I was in) out to dinner that next night. Go Terps!

I hope to never be in a tornado again. My stomach turned for the next two months every time it got windy. Seeing destruction in person as compared to a newspaper or TV news is hard to swallow. On TV you're like "wow, look at that." In real life your teacher tells you that your classmate is dead and your friends live in hotel rooms because they can't go home.

Weekends Fly By These Days

Last weekend my mom was in town. We traveled to different parks in search of birds that had not migrated yet. We saw as many snakes as warblers, which is obviously not an ideal ratio. The two year-old we saw on a motorized vehicle on a wooded trail with a stream five feet below on one side was far more dramatic than any bird we saw.

This weekend I went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to hang out with my man before he started campaigning for Obama. What fun. H-burg was bigger than I expected. It reminded me of Cumberland and Baltimore, Maryland in it's level of run-downedness. It was a friendly place though, with a nice park and view. So at least it had that.

Unfortunately, something it does not have going for it is capitalism on Sundays. So thanks to that fact and the massive downpour, we randomly decided to head to Gettysburg, an alleged 30 minutes south. That place had to be open, right? Yes, even in the driving rain, Gettysburg is open for biz.

I learned a small amount about a few battles, but mostly just enjoyed the scenery and the company... and the brown cow root beer ice cream and laughing at t-shirts with cats dressed up as civil war soldiers.

So there you have it. Two fun weekends in a row.

Getting My Hair Did

For most of my life I was not attached to a hair stylist. I was 24 or 25 when I found a gal I wanted to go back to for a second cut. She said the most beautiful words I'd always wanted to hear: "Let's get off some of the weight so you can actually do something with your hair." I wanted to hug her. My heart was filled with joy.

A game I should have played in the past was to guess how long it would take each new stylist to tell me how much hair I had. "You have so much hair!" This translated into a trim 95 percent of the time, since there wasn't much they could do for me.

So fast forward to 2007 and I have now stopped going to that gal who I thought I loved. She moved further away and was charging $65 before tip. Also, she was sort of a snobby punk-rocker type and she always had an I'm-better-than-you vibe. Stories of her hot Brazilian boyfriend certainly didn't help. It's a random February and I'm walking through D.C. trying not to Metro back to work. I randomly decide to check prices at a salon (slash gym (what the heck?)) that is located AT the Verizon Center. $35 for a cut. No kidding!

Blah, blah, blah, I meet Jayson. He's chubby, rock-and-roll, uber-gay, and completely magnificent. I love him. He's my new man. On my second visit he told me I looked familiar, and after just a few minutes of chatting he recalled things that we had talked about 6 months earlier. At the end he hugged me. He hugged me! It was fabulous. It felt so Sex in the City. Ok, I've only ever seen that show 5 times, but it's what I envision that show to be like.

And I have a date with him next Wednesday. I'm excited like it really is a date. Momma's getting a hair cut!

Painting

I painted my bedroom this weekend. I did a great job. I love painting.

I guess I need a headboard of some sort now, but here's the color.

Keys Down

Do you want to know what is a huge hassle? Losing keys.

Not that I don't value the existence of my valet key, it's just that I sure loved my clicker. I keep walking away from the car only to have to walk back to lock it.

And then there's the housing situation. Luckily I live in a heavily fortified prison, so until I got Scott's spare, the security guard was able to buzz me in and hold my license hostage while I borrowed the master key to get into my apartment -- a mere 10 minutes process.

I am not a fan of government fingerprinting and all of that futuristic chip stuff, but I'd be okay with embedding a (much smaller) key fob under my skin so I could get in my building or start my car. That would be sweet. And useful. right. about. now.

Oregon

I already knew that my family was freaking awesome. But I didn't know that my cousin's wedding would be the most fun ever. It totally was. For srsly. I'll post pictures when I get back to D.C.

In other news, I learned how to knit today. My aunt gave me my own pair of knitting needles, ball of blue yarn, a darning needle, and a book called "Bitch and Stitch" that looks informative and hilarious. Hopefully I can convince my aunt to come visit me on her upcoming vacation so we can go knit at the fountain at the Smithsonian. That would be so awesome.

Oh my god, I love my family and I love Oregon. I wish the coasts were closer together so I could have the best of both worlds on a more regular basis.

General Update

• I've been really productive at work.
• I just found a free and easy way to convert Census TIGER files into shapefiles, which I know means nothing to any of you, but is so exciting! This basically means that when I make maps, my roads won't be based on data from the year 2000 anymore.
  
• Tomorrow I will be presenting some stuff I've been working on for the past few months. It will be my first time presenting actual ideas for changes for a transit system. I've mostly been responsible for explaining the current trends and situations until now.
  

• I've been making food b/c Brian has been in town.
  
• My bravest was sea scallops. I made a wine sauce (butter sauce, more like it) that was almost too rich. It was so good!
  
• Last night I also made one of my favorite cakes - Cinnamon-Apple Cake. I first made that cake for my mom's birthday when I was still in high school.
  

• Going to Oregon on Thursday. My cousin is getting married on Saturday. Very exciting stuff. I can't wait to have fun with my fam in Portland!

• Went to the farmer's market this weekend and finally asked my favorite bakery where they live when they're not at the market. I am happy to report that they are very, very local and I can now get delicious muffins for more than just four hours a week. Score!

La la la

Did you know that Dr. G, Medical Examiner and Condoleezza Rice have the same voice?

True story.

Yummy Dinner

Anne and I made a delicious dish tonight.

Spicy Noodle Salad with Tofu and Peanut Dressing from Cooking Light.


This is the healthy, but flavorful alternative to Pad Thai I was looking for. And it was so simple and fast.

Next time I'll double the sauce and cook the noodles for 3-4 minutes.

Yum!

Glorious

It was 38 when I came to work this morning. Two hours later I walked to a dentist appointment in 60 degree weather. The sun was strong, the breeze cool.

There are not many things that make me happier than spring in D.C.

eBay

Why does feedback on eBay always look something like this?:

AAAAAAAAA GREAT TRANSACTION THANK YOU, or
Great Buyer!! Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New Favorite Website

Short, hilarious videos at: http://www.236.com/video/

May I suggest "Not Tom Cruise," or the SwiftKids for Truth videos? The Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani ones are also a good time.

A Year Ago Today

A year ago today I was celebrating Valentine's Day in Asia with a girl who means more to me than she will ever know. Thank you for everything, Andrea.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Amazing how the Petronas Towers make the other skyscrapers look small.


The most wonderful Turkish man, who sang and danced as he prepared my much-needed ice cream.


My first rain forest. Note to self: Next time, don't wear a skirt.


Gross. I think this was at an outdoor Starbucks kiosk.


I'm such a sucker for hilarious signs. The English portion of this sign read: Menara Kuala Lumpur is not responsible for any inconvenience cause.

This sign was so Simpsons: Doktor Gigi, ... Dental Surgery.


This city was amazing b/c:
-I rode a roller coaster in a 13-story mall. (To be fair, the mall only occupied six floors of the building.)
-It was insanely culturally diverse.
-It was so urban and yet so tropical.

Is This Even Real?

I stole this from a blog I love.

I Voted.

A few things about voting.

1. I like to vote in the morning so that my vote still counts if I end up dying unexpectedly on election day. (I envision a car crash, but after the Tennessee primaries, perhaps a tornado will be the cause of my untimely demise. )

2. I like to vote in the morning because I never want a traffic jam to be my excuse.

3. Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that folks care about the same issues; they just have different ideas on how best to address them. I'd like to see a political climate in which compromise is something people brag about instead of use against each other.

Redlining

The Washington Post published an article this weekend about mortgage companies going back to redlining -- designating certain geographical areas as soft markets so that they can charge customers differently if they want to invest there. The only difference is that the race component of redlining is technically gone.

This makes me so upset. This is so pre-Civil Rights Movement. By requiring potential buyers to put down more up front than they would have to for an equivalent house in a "better" area, they make that "soft market" area less affordable to consumers who could have otherwise legitimately afforded a place there. That, of course, leads to fewer people investing in said area, which leads to lower property values there, and the next thing you know you've got blight and foreclosures. And that is just the place side of things. This policy also prices people out of the housing market altogether in some circumstances. And I am not talking about denying folks that really can't afford a mortgage.

This, friends, is how we get to poor school systems, increased crime, unemployment rates, and racial segregation. Look how much residential (and therefore educational) segregation persists today. Redlining played a really huge role in that.

Mortgage companies should base credit approval on peoples' abilities to pay, not on an area's vitality. How can any place turn itself around if people cannot invest there? And a zip code?! Zip codes are such arbitrary boundaries.

I hope these lenders get eaten alive for doing this.

Elections

Has there been a more exciting time in politics?

I have one week before my primary and I still don't know who I'll be voting for. It was never this hard in the past!

2000: Al Gore and Bradley. Come on now.
2004: Ok, I guess you had Edwards, Dean, and Kerry. But that wasn't hard for me b/c I heard Kerry say brilliant things about health care back when there were still 147 people running for the dems.

But now! Two amazing democratic candidates that I truly believe have the ability to be amazing. I go back and forth every day. And to make it even crazier, for the first time in my voting career, I see a republican candidate who seems to also care about the issues and not on spewing out fear-inducing rhetoric. I think McCain did a lot to reinvent himself since he last ran for Pres. He's no Hillary or Barack, but I also think he's stopped being so partisan, and that is important to me.

This is so exciting.

Side story:
I heard Romney say that he talked to people from all over who had jobs and could afford health care but would rather go to the hospital and get treated for free. Think about that. Not only do I not believe that crap for a second, but it scares me that someone might. These are the fear-spreading welfare-momma lies that make me fear for our future.