Regarding Sarah Palin

You may have heard something odd this morning when John McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running mate.

What you heard was a collective, "wait, what?"

Man oh man... Talk about pandering.

The Wet Seat

I left my truck's driver's side window open last night. It was a total brain fart. I thought I was going to be heading out again after I got home from house-hunting, but I ended up watching Barack Obama's acceptance speech from home and going to bed.

By the way, great speech, huh?

Anyway, we had some thunderstorms overnight, which resulted in a soggy seat this morning. That soggy seat, even with a towel over the wettest part, resulted in a wet butt after my drive to work. It was not a comfortable feeling.

Thankfully, I have a dehumidifier in my office. I turned that sucker on full blast and went to stand in front of it for a while. Eventually, I may have started to sort of straddle it a bit. It was working quite well. The only problem is that this dehumidifier is really loud, so I can't hear anyone approaching when it is turned on.

So it is natural to assume that I did not hear our director -- my boss -- approaching my office. I also did not hear him walk into my office where I was semi-straddling a very loud dehumidifier -- a dehumidifier purchased by the department, a purchase he approved.

He looked at me. I looked at him. I resumed my normal posture and attempted to explain.

"I left my driver's side window open last night, and my pants got wet this morning on my way to work, and..."

He just shrugged and walked away.

I get that a lot.

The biggest advantage of a commuter campus

The university where I work is, for the most part, a commuter school. Sure, there are a couple of dorms and a couple of apartment complexes on campus, but the vast majority of students live off campus. Heck, the vast majority of students have full-time jobs. And lives.

At times I miss the atmosphere of a residential campus. However, I recently realized that residential campuses have one feature that really annoys me.

Swing dancers.

During my Truman years, walking through the common areas of my residence hall was always dangerous, as the swing dancers would be constantly practicing their moves in lounges and hallways. Do you know how many times I was almost kicked in the head while walking to my room? Does the actual number really matter? Isn't once more than enough?

But at my university, there are no swing dancers. Or, if there are, they stay well-hidden. And for that, I'm thankful.

Don't get me wrong, if swing dancing is your thing, great. More power to you. I'm sure it's fun. I'm sure it's great exercise. It's just that, at Truman, there wasn't much to do, so the really hardcore swing dancer types felt a need to practice constantly.

Okay, that's all, rant over.

Houses

My realtor is going to be pissed.

He sent me a list of houses to consider -- I want to see nearly every one of them. I think a small tour of south city will be happening soon.

Yes, Al Roker called the ribbon his bitch.

Thanks to Kelli over at South City Confidential for posting this. Awesome.

Blah.

I met with my realtor to write a contract on a house today. When I arrived, I found out that the company selling the property had changed its mind when informed of what the closing costs would be. We needed an extra three percent, and they weren't willing to give it... Unless we went over list price.

I don't want to go over list price.

An investment company (the current owners) bought the house from a distressed owner for $19,000. If they were to give us the extra three percent, they would still have a profit of almost $34,000 after all is said and done. And this was a pretty nice house to begin with, so I'm not sure that the investment company put that much work into it.

Oh well -- the longer that house sits, and the longer it takes for that company to sell it, the more it will cost them.

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I last posted. Not a lot has happened, I guess, but something big has occurred.

I'm about to put a contract on my first home. It's got two bedrooms, one bath, and is in a lovely area of south city. I had been inside the house a couple times already with my realtor, and then today, my mother got to see the inside. Because, just like any home has to have its value appraised, the buyer's mother (if the buyer is a 28 year old youngest child of four and the first of his siblings to buy a house) must assess the property as well. I call it the appeasal, since her opinion of it really doesn't have all that much bearing, but it does make things easier.

After showing mom the house tonight, I stuck around and talked to the neighbors. Because, you know, when buying a house, it's always good to chat with the neighbors, as they will give you an honest assessment of the neighborhood.

The neighbors are all really nice. One even offered to "accidentally" run over the for sale sign in the yard so no one else buys it before I submit my contract.

Conflict Resolution

I wrote a kind of long blog entry about a conflict I recently resolved. However, since it is about my professional life, you have to be my friend on facebook or myspace to read it, as I have posted it using the blog functions there.

If you're interested in reading it, contact me.

Basically, I wanted to write this entry, but I didn't want it to show up in the RFT.