Monday, September 05, 2005

More house pics


This is our dining room/kitchen before we bought the house. We have our refurbished cherry wood dining table, and a bunch of other stuff in there now. This place has bad kitchen feng shui which I will explain later. One of these days we will do some serious remodeling, but for now this is fine.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Suspicious Activity on T. Trl.

A few months ago we received a neighborhood association newsletter that listed the items on the next association meeting, including "Suspicious Activity on T. Trl."

Since we live on T. Trl, I thought, "hmmmn, I haven't seen any suspicious activity on our street, but we just moved into the neighborhood, so perhaps WE are the suspicious activity???"

When we bought this house, there was another house for sale about a block away. We didn't even look at it, because a medical facility was being built right behind the house, and we thought that it might get too noisy. The house was a bit smaller, but it had 3 bathrooms instead of the two our house had, and it was fully carpeted, and our house had more tile and pergo (which is what we wanted.) Someone bought it within a few weeks of when we moved in, but almost immediately, put up a "For Rent" sign -- which isn't all unusual in an investor's market. (This may look like a digression, but it is pertinent.)

I wasn't able to attend the meeting -- a couple of day before my admin associate, Jesus, (yes, I hired Jesus) became ill with viral meningitis, and the day of the meeting I had a headache, so I decided to stay home. I e-mailed one of the neighborhood assn. officers, who lives across the street and asked him what the suspicious activity was, but all he said was, "Gee, I hope you don't have viral meningitis."

We forgot all about the suspicious activity on our street (which is only 2 blocks long), and we didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

Last week, S. was working in the front yard, and the wife of the neighborhood assn. officer (whom I e-mailed about the suspicious activity) came over while S. was working in the front yard. We talked about plants, work, etc., and she started to go back home, when I remembered -- "Oh! what was the 'suspicious' activity" on T. Trail??"

Well, it seems that the house up the block has been inhabited by an S/M gang -- and it isn't the fact that they have bondage parties on the weekends -- the suspicious activity is the fact that THEY DON'T RECYCLE -- they leave their beer cans & wine bottles all over the place. (place emoticon for SHOCK here!) That is absolutely the worst thing you can do in Austin! The "FOR RENT" sign has been up for months. Several neighbors have called the number and said they were interested in renting the house. The neighbors are told variously -- "oh, it is under contract" or "$5,000 deposit, $3,000 per month" (double market rents around here, I'd say) or "it's already been rented out." But the sign is still up.

*******
Tonight as we drove home, we noticed two nicely dressed couples walking into that house. So, out of curiosity, we drove around the block and saw two more couples walk up the street toward the house -- at least they are parking in the assisted living facility parking lot and not on our street, lol!

About 12:45 this morning, S. says, "Do you want to drive by the house?" and I say, "oh, yes" even though it's not all that far -- we drive down the block -- there are now 4 cars parked in the driveway, one in front, and 2 or 3 on the side. S. drives past and keeps on driving, "so as not to look suspicious" -- we drive out at least 5 miles (on $3.20 a gallon, eeek!) -- well, we are looking for a house in that neighborhood for his parents, so that justifies it, har har. When we drive back past the house, we notice that most of the windows have soft lights in them (candles?) and the garage is lit up but the garage windows are draped with red fabric. So what's going on here? Do the submissives have to park a block away?

This neighborhood is really getting interesting. It's nice to not be the suspicious activity in the area for once.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Our New House






In March, S and I bought a new house (above). Real estate in Central Austin is getting a bit pricey, so this is all we could afford. We figured that after a few years of house payments, we'd have enough invested in the house that we could get one of those home equity loans that are always being advertised by Di-Tech and make a few improvements around the place. Perhaps windows and skylights first?

For now, it's not that bad. It's actually larger in the inside than it is on the outside -- sort of like a Tardis.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Who am I? Why am I here?

So, I finally had something to blog about, and it has been so long that I'd forgotten my username and password, so I had to get that back -- really, the process to do that is pretty easy, but in the less than 5 minutes that it took to do this, I'd forgotten what I was going to write.

We did buy a house recently -- I'll put some pictures up (as soon as I can remember my username/password for Flickr.

Sigh.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Obligatory Election Post

I voted for Kerry. This doesn't mean I'm a Bush hater, but I just don't think he's the most qualified for the office of president.

Monday, November 01, 2004

sbrown's Religion rantlets

A prayer which all religions could say in good conscience would be meaningless.
-sbrown

If belief in evolution leads to decadence and moral downfall, then why aren't our prisons flooded with biology professors?
-sbrown

Scott owes me so many movies

went to see "team america" this weekend, and i must say this is the first movie that made me physically ill. (puppets puking for 3 or 4 minutes is NOT my idea of entertainment, thank you very much.) scott owes me SO many movies now. the only redeeming quality was the "vicious panthers" who were loosed by Kim Jung Il upon team america -- they were really cute little black kitty cats!

Friday, October 29, 2004

imarriedapumpkin


imarriedapumpkin, originally uploaded by blogblack.

Photochopping -- just the thing to do with all those icky first wedding photos!

randomquote/costumes

this is october - the weather report should be crisp, brisk mornings followed by warmish afternoons, but it's been 85 - 90ish most of the month.

random quote for the day (and so sorry i forgot who said it):

"Some people are just late bloomers. When you figure it out -- what you're here for, you'll be eminently prepared to realize it."

didn't get out much today, but i did see:

dylan with sponges plastered all over his clothes. he was "self-absorbed."
a woman in the parking garage who was dressed as a 1890's dance hall girl. i wanted to ask her -- "is that a halloween costume or do you always dress like that?"
stephanie from astronomy was absolutely frightening. it was so hideous, yet so natural.
a very scary masked man poked his head in my office while i was meeting with a student. he didn't say anything -- just stood there. karen said that he frightened one of her baristas -- she knows who he is because of his lurky walk, but she doesn't know his name.

Monday, October 25, 2004

halloween resolutions

so, you might want to start thinking about your halloween resolutions!