backstreet boys

Tonight was my grandmother's birthday cake event. While we where there we were talking about well water and she said that their system is filtered. It was mentioned that salt is used in the systems generally to soften the water and her response was, "I don't want to drink all those chemicals." "What about all the Diet Coke you drink," I said. "Well, I'll drink some chemicals if they're in Diet Coke." yeah, okay.

My short work day:
The 10:00 real estate meeting turned into the 10:30 meeting because there was rain. This isn't the first meeting where an agent has run late, but it's only thousands of dollars in commissions so why is it so important to be timely? I say that but I really like the agents we are working with and think they are doing a pro job, but the fees do get under my skin.

I ended up getting to work today a few minutes after noon which wasn't a big deal today as it was a very calm day. The weekend is busy with an event, but the prep for the event is mostly taking place on Thursday and Friday. Since we are now putting in an offer for a house there was a second meeting for more paper signing. That meeting was set for 4:30 today, so my work hours today were noon to four. Not my most efficient work day, but probably the shortest in a long time.

Our agent asked if we remembered to bring a checkbook to write the contract deposit and I said yes. We put our offer together so it can be sent to the seller's agent as soon as we have a ratified contract in hand. When it came time to write the check I was all ready to write the $1000. check (like we saw earlier this morning), and she was like, umm it's a $4500 check. Nope, not ready to write that check right now. Give me a day or two to transfer some money and move things around, choke. When we started this process 50+ days ago she did let us know that it's a 1% deposit generally, but I wasn't paying attention. (for those at home doing the quick math the price offering is 450k, it's just the offer, it only get's more expensive).



View of the front of the house from the street

Then we'll get to go through the negotiations back and forth, more time away from work. Fortunately the timing of these meetings is working out since it's August and it's slow. When we are planning to move will be a different story, it will be mayhem at work. In the meantime IF everything goes as planned and there are no hitches EVERYONE is getting paid for inspections and docs:

Septic Test
Well Test
Home Inspection
Radon Test
HOA Documents for buyers ($225 and it was a pdf download!!!!)

My upcoming work:
Since I've been light on comments and recently found out there are actual readers I'll throw in this tidbit to get some comments. We're providing concert lighting for Hanson and The Backstreet Boys this Sunday at Pier Six in Baltimore. Did you just read that, The Backstreet Boys, for real. When checking the web to get the link above I found out they have a Backstreet Boys cruise that is sold out. Did you get your tickets for the cruise?

first offer

Today we got an acceptable offer on the sale of our house. There is a meeting set for the morning with our Realtor to go over the details of the 40 page contract. Everything sounds good from what I'm hearing, but I'm not getting my hopes up just yet. I know two couples that have put in official offers via contract and flaked out on the purchase due to their own bad projections in one case and irresponsible banking behavior in the other case. I'm being realistically cautious, but I'm happy that we got a real offer none the less.

Moving on to another subject now. I've been doing some Summer reading and need to note the books I have completed in this here blog:

Road Show by Neil Peart (the drummer from rock band Rush)
No Angel by Jay Dobyns (motorcycle, undercover cop, Hells Angels)
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk (yes, I did have to look up how to spell the last name. It's the guy who wrote Fight Club)

I'm looking for my next book but have not settled on it yet. Actually it was just decided that it will be Cat's Eye by Margret Atwood as this book is an in stock item in the house and I recall liking The Hand Maid's Tale and Oryx and Crake.

In stage lighting news I put in a purchase order today for Mac 350s. As far as I know they are the first LED profile fixtures on the market. We have needed a lower rental cost fixture replacement for our sold off Studio Spot 250s and 575s. In this case I'm glad that I waited for the LED fixtures to finally hit the market. I've been out of the "250" rental market for about two years waiting for this to happen. Since the Mac 350s are built on the SmartMac platform they will be inherently stable. We have had SmartMacs at a club install for over a year in a brutal environment and they have held up fairly well. Now we can do an all LED moving light show with Mac 350s and GLP Impressions and everything can be powered off of one or two circuits of 120 volts current, that's pretty cool.

Double Air Bag Deployment

This was a big week for me. On Friday, 6/25/10 my house went on the market. Now I'm living ONE mile from work, but it's time to move to a nicer neighborhood and house, I'll leave it at that. The process of getting ready and paying for new carpet throughout the house, and getting all of the trim painted, and paying to have a few rooms and ceilings painted is stressful and expensive. But, we are now listed so the hard part is over?

On Wednesday, 6/23 I put a down payment on a 26' Freightliner M2 box truck (for the company obviously). The delivery date for the truck is four to five weeks from now due to the customizations to the truck. We are having the box painted to match the dark silver metallic color of the cab. We are switching out the steel lift gate for a larger aluminum self-leveling lift gate. Lastly we are extending the wheelbase and frame to properly fit the 26' box vs. the 24' box that is currently on the truck. All of the changes are adding up to the four to five week delivery time, but we'll have the truck in time for September when things get very busy again.

In getting prepared for the arrival of the truck we applied and were issued a US DOT number this week. That is the number you see on the doors of all large trucks on the roads that clearly identifies the company that owns the truck. I figured the application process would be slow and difficult but it took about four days, I was impressed.

On Tuesday, 6/22 I was a passenger in car crash this week. Yellow light, Honda accord in front of us hit the brakes, the driver of the car I was in hit the gas to make it through the yellow light and the collision occurred about two seconds later. Both air bags deployed on impact but thankfully nobody was seriously injured. Luckily enough we didn't make known contact with the airbags because my nose and/or glasses were not broken. The driver of the car I was in wasn't injured at all, but I had some cuts on my left leg from where the airbag hatch opened, and my pinky finger on my right hand was jammed on something and five days later is still swollen and sore. The driver of the Honda wasn't injured and was pretty relaxed considering the rear bumper and muffler of his car were messed up. The driver of the car I was in was pretty down about the incident because his car was totaled, and I did my best to push the fact that this was a best case accident - nobody was hurt, the totaled car has 201k miles on the odometer, the tires needed to be replaced, and the driver you hit wasn't a crazed madman at the accident site. Sure, it is never pleasant to be involved in an accident (especially with an injured Pinky!), but things could always be worse, you could have hit a new Mercedes or a dump truck.

When I rode my motorcycle home after work after the car crash I was a bit extra on edge regarding the cars around me. I couldn't help but to think about what an impact from a car or truck would be like on a motorcycle. I guess it would be as fast as the airbags deploying - BOOM, what just happened? I hope to never find out.