Friends, Floridians, Countrymen, lend me your ears...or don't! I won't be posting much this week because...Holidays!
We live in trying times. Issues are thrust upon us as a Nation that we have never had to handle before. The internet and social connections due to the internet have allowed us to branch out in our understanding of relationships. In so doing we have become the an inaccurately over-informed people. We have nearly infinite information out our fingertips, but rather than searching for (and thinking about, and deciding if...) 'good' information from valid sources, we have decided, as a culture, to take our Facebook newsfeed as law.
I feel deeply troubled by the burgeoning race-war that seems to have so very little to do with race and so much more to do with accountability, training and cultural understanding. Ferguson has shown us that there is more than just a single issue hurting us at home. While the current craziness is being brandished as a riot against police brutality, we all know that that simply isn't true. While ignorance is more common than I'd hope, no one is stupid enough to think that rioting against police will actually lower police brutality. Bullets for peace, condoms for children, etc. It's one of those things that has an inverse reaction. The more violent our populace, the more combat ready our police. If a community values violence, toughness and anger, they will get police that can handle that, and are trained to handle that as best as possible. (A small example, ask any military or former military man who the best fighter they know is. It will be a Military Policeman. Because the question always becomes: who do you send to arrest someone? Answer: Someone whose bigger, tougher, and more likely to win a fight.)
I don't want to get into this debate again I simply want to say this: I love my friends, I love my family and I love my country. I very much hope that we get by this together, as opposed to being forced to live in a situation that no one desires. The Holidays are upon us and despite the corporate goals that we have being force-fed to us with a side of cranberry and a dash of holly...it really 'tis the Season. We should be able to celebrate our holidays, celebrate those we love, without fear for our own safety or the well-being of our neighbors.
America is a great place. It might not be the best place, but it's really, really great. We owe it to ourselves to keep it that way.
So I end with this: get involved, if you want, in the ongoing debates about Ferguson, but please, read up. Find the facts. And make sure the facts are relevant to the real world, i.e. come from a reputable news source. Not some asshole like me who happens to operate a blog that sounds trustworthy.
But more importantly, enjoy your life. Take responsibility for yourself and your family, but have some fun. Don't drive drunk, but enjoy a drink!
Happy Thanksgiving. I love you all!
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Are You Putting Your Back into Texting?
After years and years of research into how technology effects our sleep patterns, social patterns and financial patterns, Kenneth K. Hansraj, chief of spine surgery at New York Spine Surgery & Rehabilitation Medicine is talking to us about how cell phones effect our....backs. Well specifically our spines (Hence the Spine Surgery part of his title.)
According to the article, people who text and walk consistently rarely use what is known as "neutral spine" position. If you were to use neutral spine (on purpose) that would mean that you are looking down at your technology using your eyes, as opposed to turning or bending your neck.
According to the article, "People spend an average of two to four hours a day with their heads tilted over reading and texting on their smartphones and devices. Cumulatively this is 700 to 1,400 hours a year of excess stresses seen about the cervical spine." Using your technology this way has the effect of pushing down on your head with the equivalent of 27lbs (on average) of force.
That's pretty bad.
So keep texting and chatting folks, but remember to keep proper posture! Proper posture according to the article: Proper upper spine posture, he says, is generally defined as aligning the ears with the shoulders while keeping the shoulder blades pulled back.
We wouldn't want something measly and unimportant like our health and general well-being to effect our rad, social network-infused lives, but it's worth thinking about.
I wonder what other tiny ways jumps in technology such as cell phones and social media/ social networks have effected our/my life? Positive or negative! (I've read about some awesome health apps that do great things for diets and work outs.)
According to the article, people who text and walk consistently rarely use what is known as "neutral spine" position. If you were to use neutral spine (on purpose) that would mean that you are looking down at your technology using your eyes, as opposed to turning or bending your neck.
According to the article, "People spend an average of two to four hours a day with their heads tilted over reading and texting on their smartphones and devices. Cumulatively this is 700 to 1,400 hours a year of excess stresses seen about the cervical spine." Using your technology this way has the effect of pushing down on your head with the equivalent of 27lbs (on average) of force.
That's pretty bad.
So keep texting and chatting folks, but remember to keep proper posture! Proper posture according to the article: Proper upper spine posture, he says, is generally defined as aligning the ears with the shoulders while keeping the shoulder blades pulled back.
We wouldn't want something measly and unimportant like our health and general well-being to effect our rad, social network-infused lives, but it's worth thinking about.
I wonder what other tiny ways jumps in technology such as cell phones and social media/ social networks have effected our/my life? Positive or negative! (I've read about some awesome health apps that do great things for diets and work outs.)
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
The Debate: Should you let your kid play Contact Football
There's an interesting debate making its way around the country--mainly in and through Sports Media circles. It poses a simple question (that doesn't have a simple answer): Should you let your child play football? (Specifically, the contact variety.) I've struggled with this question for awhile. Some of you may know that as of the writing of this here blog, I do not have a child, but I do have five years of high school football coaching experience. I know a little bit about this.
Football is not a sport for the weak, and I mean this in the least mean-spirited way possible. Football is a lot like marriage, it chews up people who don't really want to be there and spits them out, and quick. So to some degree, worrying about whether your kid should play football or not is a problem that sorts itself out. Moving forward with this piece, let's assume that every child of every parent has the potential to go on and successfully play high school football. (If you're worried about your child in college football or professional football, you should stop worrying. Get them through high school first.)
Let's talk about the reasons why a kid shouldn't play contact football first. List form style!
The Downsides of letting your child play football (not necessarily in order of importance):
1.) Injuries.
This is, after all, the primary worry of every parent. "I'm worried my kid will get a concussion." As a coach, let me tell you what I'm not worried about. Concussions. You see, concussions are one of the easiest injuries to heal, they just happen to hold the title of "hardest to recognize injury, like ever." The problem with concussions is that, at the highest levels of the sport, players and coaches still don't consider them a big deal. They take a hard hit and can't see straight for ten minutes and have a splitting headache and instead of taking a week off (which is how you heal a concussion), they beg to strap up and get back on the field, and they do this over and over again throughout their career (which is why we have the long term issues we have in regards to concussions.) At the lower levels of play this is not the case. On the high school football field kids are tested by trainers who aren't paid six figure salaries and will block the child from going back onto the field if they feel the kid has a concussion. As parents, your responsibility is to check and make sure after each practice and each game that your son (of maybe daughter, depending on badasstitude) doesn't have a concussion. I recommend every single parent of a football playing child get certified for concussions just like every coach has to be, you can do so here.
I am very aware of the long term threats of concussions, but let me tell you this. I was a four year varsity starter and did a bit of time on the college field, and continued to play multiple sports up until my most recent round of knee injuries. All told, that's over 20 years in competitive sports, with at least five of them in contact football. I never suffered a concussion. I had a coach who taught me how to hit, and placed emphasis on protecting my head.
I am all too aware of other things that football does cause. I have lingering knee injuries, lingering should injuries, over eating issues that stem from my habit forming years in high school. Now, are these things curable? Sure. I could have knee surgery, I ice my shoulder weekly and I could always hire a nutritionist and really get disciplined on eating better, healthier and more portion controlled meals. But the habits I formed came directly from what I experienced in football. Being a huge ol' fat dude was super useful on the football field, and is a super big pain in the ol' caboose as an adult.
Lastly, the biggest threats to your child's enjoyment of their life through football are injuries to joints. Such as ACL and MCL tears, etc. But to pretend that this isn't happening frequently in basketball, soccer and baseball is ludicrous. These days people are able to do things that the human body simply wasn't designed to do. Injuries happen when boundaries are pushed, and athletes live to push those boundaries.
2.) Football is an extremely violent sport.
It rewards anger, meanness and violence. Now, this completely belittles all of the good things it brings about in children such as teamwork, companionship, discipline, etc. But we'll get to those in a bit.
I don't buy into all this crap about football bringing about violence in people who aren't naturally violent and such. The very public issues that the NFL has recently had with domestic abuse have aired this issue for all to see, without really putting it in any context for the average person. I haven't been in a fight since I was in 10th grade. I've had no need for any form of violence other than the occasional loud argument. Most of my fellow teammates live quiet, happy lives. As with most things, the few make the majority look bad.
3.) Youth football does not prepare your child for higher level play.
This is where I come into the argument in full swing. Is youth football worth the risk? I wasn't able to play football until high school due to my size. (I was simply too big for Pop Warner and CYFL didn't exist yet.)
So here's the reality of youth football. The coach's kid gets the position he wants. Probably quarterback or running back. Maybe linebacker too. The slower kids, the ones who haven't bloomed yet, they play line. The speedsters play everywhere and do everything.
You see...youth football ignores one major thing that high school football doesn't: puberty.
Chances are your 14 year old kid isn't going to look anything like he did at 11. It doesn't do much good to teach a kid about playing offensive line, for him to go and hit a growth spurt and all of a sudden be playing wide receiver because he's a 6 foot 5 beast with a 4.2 (second) forty yard dash and the ability to catch anything thrown at him. Wide Receiver and offensive Guard are such vastly different positions that they're barely the same sport. And yet, this happens all the time. As a freshman coach I was constantly bombarded with this line: "Coach, in Pop Warner/CYFL I played running back." Now you can insert any old position into the underlined portion but the problem with that oft-repeated line was this: that kid who played running back back in Pop Warner? Now he had a gut and hadn't showed up to summer work outs and hasn't had a meal that wasn't McDonald's in a month. That kid is going to be a lineman. Which may have led to some interesting conversations with Mom, but I always kept to my general rule, which was: if I can outrun you, you're a lineman.
The point: your kid is going to change, a lot, right in front of your eyes. Youth football teaches them to play the position they are suited for in their youth. Which most likely will not be the same position they are suited for on a high school football team. So if you're really all that worried about youth football, hold them out, let them decide if they want to play football when they're in high school and are at least going through puberty. You get teamwork from youth basketball and baseball. (To be fair, one of my worst injuries ever came from playing little league baseball.)
The Upsides of letting your kid play football (definitely not in order of importance):
1.) Injuries.
Weird right? But injuries toughen a kid up. I broke or jammed every finger on both hands in my playing career. And you know what? When I get hurt now...I don't freak out. I understand pain and I understand my limits. I can calmly assess the situation and figure out what needs to be done. I'm not the toughest guy on the block, but I can hold my own. When I came into high school football I was a puffball-fruitloop. I cried in history class because I got a B once. No lie. I mean, I didn't deserve the B, she was mad at me for talking. That's not right.
2.) Football is an extremely violent sport.
Hmmm. Again with this. The reality is that life isn't always that pretty, and having your child be able to hold their own with the roughest and toughest kids that high school can throw at them is not a bad thing.
3.) Teamwork.
Every job asks about it. Everyone who has played misses it. That feeling of team goes a long way. I still remember the vast majority of players I played with from every single season I played. Those people are important to you, they make a difference. Football is a great chance for your child to be a part of something bigger than himself. That opportunity is not afforded to everyone. It is earned, and it is worth it. Eleven guys with one purpose, one focus. Get the touchdown, deny the touchdown. It's beautiful, almost poetic.
4.) Discipline
Earlier I talked about how I had a lack of discipline with eating, due to, in part, football. This is largely true. But I also became extremely disciplined in working out, doing my homework (for some kids the only reason they even bother with class is because without it, they can't play their chosen sport) and showing up on time. With my coaches, if you missed the beginning of practice, you missed the beginning of the game, even if you were the Team Captain.
5.) It's fun.
It's so fun. I'm not the kind of person who sits around reliving the Glory Days, but if you put me in a room with even one of my high school football teammates and BOOM. We'll be...well, reliving the Glory Days. And our team wasn't even that good! Football is just that fun. There is nothing like it. You work so hard, day in and day out and you get rewarded by getting to go play against people you don't know and put everything on the line with your friends beside you. I'll say it again: eleven guys with one purpose, all working towards a common goal. It's an amazing feeling, one that I can truly say I miss.
So, should you hold your kid from football? Maybe. In the end, you're the parent and the decision falls to you. I can tell you this, if your kid wants to play, like really wants to play, and you stop him from doing so, you're doing your kid a disservice on a few different levels. But holding a child back from youth football is not going to hurt their high school football potential.
The best thing you can do is make an informed decision, talk to your kid about it, and if they decide to play, go get certified on how to recognize a concussion. Here's the link again: https://nfhslearn.com/courses.
Football is not a sport for the weak, and I mean this in the least mean-spirited way possible. Football is a lot like marriage, it chews up people who don't really want to be there and spits them out, and quick. So to some degree, worrying about whether your kid should play football or not is a problem that sorts itself out. Moving forward with this piece, let's assume that every child of every parent has the potential to go on and successfully play high school football. (If you're worried about your child in college football or professional football, you should stop worrying. Get them through high school first.)
Let's talk about the reasons why a kid shouldn't play contact football first. List form style!
The Downsides of letting your child play football (not necessarily in order of importance):
1.) Injuries.
This is, after all, the primary worry of every parent. "I'm worried my kid will get a concussion." As a coach, let me tell you what I'm not worried about. Concussions. You see, concussions are one of the easiest injuries to heal, they just happen to hold the title of "hardest to recognize injury, like ever." The problem with concussions is that, at the highest levels of the sport, players and coaches still don't consider them a big deal. They take a hard hit and can't see straight for ten minutes and have a splitting headache and instead of taking a week off (which is how you heal a concussion), they beg to strap up and get back on the field, and they do this over and over again throughout their career (which is why we have the long term issues we have in regards to concussions.) At the lower levels of play this is not the case. On the high school football field kids are tested by trainers who aren't paid six figure salaries and will block the child from going back onto the field if they feel the kid has a concussion. As parents, your responsibility is to check and make sure after each practice and each game that your son (of maybe daughter, depending on badasstitude) doesn't have a concussion. I recommend every single parent of a football playing child get certified for concussions just like every coach has to be, you can do so here.
I am very aware of the long term threats of concussions, but let me tell you this. I was a four year varsity starter and did a bit of time on the college field, and continued to play multiple sports up until my most recent round of knee injuries. All told, that's over 20 years in competitive sports, with at least five of them in contact football. I never suffered a concussion. I had a coach who taught me how to hit, and placed emphasis on protecting my head.
I am all too aware of other things that football does cause. I have lingering knee injuries, lingering should injuries, over eating issues that stem from my habit forming years in high school. Now, are these things curable? Sure. I could have knee surgery, I ice my shoulder weekly and I could always hire a nutritionist and really get disciplined on eating better, healthier and more portion controlled meals. But the habits I formed came directly from what I experienced in football. Being a huge ol' fat dude was super useful on the football field, and is a super big pain in the ol' caboose as an adult.
Lastly, the biggest threats to your child's enjoyment of their life through football are injuries to joints. Such as ACL and MCL tears, etc. But to pretend that this isn't happening frequently in basketball, soccer and baseball is ludicrous. These days people are able to do things that the human body simply wasn't designed to do. Injuries happen when boundaries are pushed, and athletes live to push those boundaries.
2.) Football is an extremely violent sport.
It rewards anger, meanness and violence. Now, this completely belittles all of the good things it brings about in children such as teamwork, companionship, discipline, etc. But we'll get to those in a bit.
I don't buy into all this crap about football bringing about violence in people who aren't naturally violent and such. The very public issues that the NFL has recently had with domestic abuse have aired this issue for all to see, without really putting it in any context for the average person. I haven't been in a fight since I was in 10th grade. I've had no need for any form of violence other than the occasional loud argument. Most of my fellow teammates live quiet, happy lives. As with most things, the few make the majority look bad.
3.) Youth football does not prepare your child for higher level play.
This is where I come into the argument in full swing. Is youth football worth the risk? I wasn't able to play football until high school due to my size. (I was simply too big for Pop Warner and CYFL didn't exist yet.)
So here's the reality of youth football. The coach's kid gets the position he wants. Probably quarterback or running back. Maybe linebacker too. The slower kids, the ones who haven't bloomed yet, they play line. The speedsters play everywhere and do everything.
You see...youth football ignores one major thing that high school football doesn't: puberty.
Chances are your 14 year old kid isn't going to look anything like he did at 11. It doesn't do much good to teach a kid about playing offensive line, for him to go and hit a growth spurt and all of a sudden be playing wide receiver because he's a 6 foot 5 beast with a 4.2 (second) forty yard dash and the ability to catch anything thrown at him. Wide Receiver and offensive Guard are such vastly different positions that they're barely the same sport. And yet, this happens all the time. As a freshman coach I was constantly bombarded with this line: "Coach, in Pop Warner/CYFL I played running back." Now you can insert any old position into the underlined portion but the problem with that oft-repeated line was this: that kid who played running back back in Pop Warner? Now he had a gut and hadn't showed up to summer work outs and hasn't had a meal that wasn't McDonald's in a month. That kid is going to be a lineman. Which may have led to some interesting conversations with Mom, but I always kept to my general rule, which was: if I can outrun you, you're a lineman.
The point: your kid is going to change, a lot, right in front of your eyes. Youth football teaches them to play the position they are suited for in their youth. Which most likely will not be the same position they are suited for on a high school football team. So if you're really all that worried about youth football, hold them out, let them decide if they want to play football when they're in high school and are at least going through puberty. You get teamwork from youth basketball and baseball. (To be fair, one of my worst injuries ever came from playing little league baseball.)
The Upsides of letting your kid play football (definitely not in order of importance):
1.) Injuries.
Weird right? But injuries toughen a kid up. I broke or jammed every finger on both hands in my playing career. And you know what? When I get hurt now...I don't freak out. I understand pain and I understand my limits. I can calmly assess the situation and figure out what needs to be done. I'm not the toughest guy on the block, but I can hold my own. When I came into high school football I was a puffball-fruitloop. I cried in history class because I got a B once. No lie. I mean, I didn't deserve the B, she was mad at me for talking. That's not right.
2.) Football is an extremely violent sport.
Hmmm. Again with this. The reality is that life isn't always that pretty, and having your child be able to hold their own with the roughest and toughest kids that high school can throw at them is not a bad thing.
3.) Teamwork.
Every job asks about it. Everyone who has played misses it. That feeling of team goes a long way. I still remember the vast majority of players I played with from every single season I played. Those people are important to you, they make a difference. Football is a great chance for your child to be a part of something bigger than himself. That opportunity is not afforded to everyone. It is earned, and it is worth it. Eleven guys with one purpose, one focus. Get the touchdown, deny the touchdown. It's beautiful, almost poetic.
4.) Discipline
Earlier I talked about how I had a lack of discipline with eating, due to, in part, football. This is largely true. But I also became extremely disciplined in working out, doing my homework (for some kids the only reason they even bother with class is because without it, they can't play their chosen sport) and showing up on time. With my coaches, if you missed the beginning of practice, you missed the beginning of the game, even if you were the Team Captain.
5.) It's fun.
It's so fun. I'm not the kind of person who sits around reliving the Glory Days, but if you put me in a room with even one of my high school football teammates and BOOM. We'll be...well, reliving the Glory Days. And our team wasn't even that good! Football is just that fun. There is nothing like it. You work so hard, day in and day out and you get rewarded by getting to go play against people you don't know and put everything on the line with your friends beside you. I'll say it again: eleven guys with one purpose, all working towards a common goal. It's an amazing feeling, one that I can truly say I miss.
So, should you hold your kid from football? Maybe. In the end, you're the parent and the decision falls to you. I can tell you this, if your kid wants to play, like really wants to play, and you stop him from doing so, you're doing your kid a disservice on a few different levels. But holding a child back from youth football is not going to hurt their high school football potential.
The best thing you can do is make an informed decision, talk to your kid about it, and if they decide to play, go get certified on how to recognize a concussion. Here's the link again: https://nfhslearn.com/courses.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Searching for a House, the Online Edition
Alright fellow House Hunters and blog-readers, we talked a little bit about my 5 Must Haves earlier this week and I promised a conversation about the MLS. The MLS (or Multiple Listing System) is a tool that Realtor's use to list their client's homes, and search for homes for their buyers. If you're not a Realtor you would use various websites and services such as Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com. The danger of all of the sites is that they don't update regularly. They update about as often as your grandmother updates her facebook account. Or maybe as often as mine. You could have a very socially active grandmother, who am I to judge?
Zillow has, on multiple occasions, shown me a house for sale that I loved, only for me to find out that the listing was sold or withdrawn entire months before I even saw the home! I try to keep up with the various apps and services so that I can better understand what my potential clients are seeing, but sometimes I get sad.
Now, down to MLS. The wife and I decided to actually start taking one night a week to look at local listings. We have our "must haves" and we know where we would, optimally, like to live. We have a general idea what we want the bones of our home to be and that we don't want to have a crawlspace because snakes live down there. So when I went to input our search parameters I was relatively sure my search would be limited, with not a lot of options out there, right? Wrong. Even thought the current Real Estate landscape is definitely in the favor of the Seller, there are a lot of properties out there, they're just not all...perfect. Or you know...good.
I had to narrow and narrow my search, almost nitpicking the homes I didn't like. "Well, this one is facing north so, mildew might grow on it and there's a chance I could see Jesus' face growing in there and I don't want all the added attention... and this one is neon-purple in places it shouldn't be and who paints anymore?" I know, I know exactly what you're thinking, is there any place where neon-purple shouldn't be?
The reality is that the wife and I have been taught, through years of hard education, plopped down in front of DIY TV, specifically: Property Brothers and Rehab Addict...to look past the paint and current decoration or even layout. But at some point, you (the buyer) have to remember that, looking past the paint, the carpet, the kitchen, etc...it can get expensive surprisingly fast. If you find a home that's listed for 30K under what you're okay with spending then, yes, look past everything! If you have room to remodel and redesign then you should! Make your new home truly yours (well, if you have the time, desire and know how to actually do the work.)
But, let's say your price-ceiling is 200K and you find a home that you feel needs a lot of immediate work, listed for, let's say, 190K...unless you manage to get your lower offer accepted, you may end up living in a house you don't love...and a general fact of life is: if you don't do it (whatever it is) when you first think about it, then you probably won't. There's a good chance that if you buy a home with "plans to remodel in the future" that you'll just end up living in a house you don't like talking to your friends about how this kitchen is so getting redone next year.
So we've begun to narrow down our search even further. We're okay with purchasing a home that needs small amounts of work that I can actually do on my own, or is affordable to have done (say carpeting one or two rooms.) We're okay with problems that are mainly decor based, although after seeing pictures of about four homes with male, graphically, intensely-nude statues in the front yard and one home with what I'm pretty sure was a mounted jackalope on the wall, I understand why my clients sometimes have issues looking past what they see immediately.
Since we aren't actively ready to buy quite yet, we also eliminated any houses that had just the one picture--of the front of the house. To me that says two things:
1) There is a good chance that this house isn't real, it's like Clint Eastwood real--a prop house that may or may not have been the background for a shootout or two. You know, the kind of place where you can walk in the front door, right into the backyard.
2) Or, entirely more likely: this is a horribly lazy Realtor (or the property is Bank Owned, or both.)
Many of the photos we saw on our first day of searching were like this:
Sweet! A curtain! Even if the Seller did decide to leave this precious gem behind for me to treasure forever, and possibly ever...I hope the Realtor knows that I can, in fact, buy a new shower curtain.
Zillow has, on multiple occasions, shown me a house for sale that I loved, only for me to find out that the listing was sold or withdrawn entire months before I even saw the home! I try to keep up with the various apps and services so that I can better understand what my potential clients are seeing, but sometimes I get sad.
Now, down to MLS. The wife and I decided to actually start taking one night a week to look at local listings. We have our "must haves" and we know where we would, optimally, like to live. We have a general idea what we want the bones of our home to be and that we don't want to have a crawlspace because snakes live down there. So when I went to input our search parameters I was relatively sure my search would be limited, with not a lot of options out there, right? Wrong. Even thought the current Real Estate landscape is definitely in the favor of the Seller, there are a lot of properties out there, they're just not all...perfect. Or you know...good.
I had to narrow and narrow my search, almost nitpicking the homes I didn't like. "Well, this one is facing north so, mildew might grow on it and there's a chance I could see Jesus' face growing in there and I don't want all the added attention... and this one is neon-purple in places it shouldn't be and who paints anymore?" I know, I know exactly what you're thinking, is there any place where neon-purple shouldn't be?
Didn't get enough club at the club? Well we brought the club to your room. Now you can club, even when you get home from the club.
You're welcome.
But, let's say your price-ceiling is 200K and you find a home that you feel needs a lot of immediate work, listed for, let's say, 190K...unless you manage to get your lower offer accepted, you may end up living in a house you don't love...and a general fact of life is: if you don't do it (whatever it is) when you first think about it, then you probably won't. There's a good chance that if you buy a home with "plans to remodel in the future" that you'll just end up living in a house you don't like talking to your friends about how this kitchen is so getting redone next year.
So we've begun to narrow down our search even further. We're okay with purchasing a home that needs small amounts of work that I can actually do on my own, or is affordable to have done (say carpeting one or two rooms.) We're okay with problems that are mainly decor based, although after seeing pictures of about four homes with male, graphically, intensely-nude statues in the front yard and one home with what I'm pretty sure was a mounted jackalope on the wall, I understand why my clients sometimes have issues looking past what they see immediately.
Elmer Fudd's unicorn.
1) There is a good chance that this house isn't real, it's like Clint Eastwood real--a prop house that may or may not have been the background for a shootout or two. You know, the kind of place where you can walk in the front door, right into the backyard.
2) Or, entirely more likely: this is a horribly lazy Realtor (or the property is Bank Owned, or both.)
Many of the photos we saw on our first day of searching were like this:
Admittedly this would be fine for a hardware store, or a tile show, but this leaves out important information like...where is it? What does the rest of the bathroom (I hope it's a bathroom) look like?
Buy the end of our first night of actually looking for a home I'd found as many ways to not be lazy as a Realtor or crazy as a home decorator as I had actual houses I was interested in. (And we found quite a few homes we were interested in.)
If you have any funny house hunting experiences or things you've seen that can't be unseen, hit me up in the comments below, or on facebook!
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
The House Hunt is On
My wife and I decided awhile ago that our townhouse was no longer for us. Well, she bought into what I had been saying since the record breaking day where I knocked the same wall decoration off the same wall ten times via the exercise of moving from the hallway into the office/guest room. After about two months of this rinse-repeat process I had a really sore shoulder and our wall decoration became noticeably thinner.
Now, I'm not insinuating that we want to buy a home because I knock things off walls. This is simply an example of the problem. We have no work-space, where the Hell are we going to put our future little ones and I am most certainly not a dog-walker. One more night of me standing out in the rain/cold/heat/wind/humidity/mosquitoes staring angrily at my dogs as they smell one piece of grass so relentlessly, so deeply I think they might be trying to actually ingest it through their nostrils and I might break down into an outdoor rant about how much I hate walking my picky freakin' dogs. I want a yard so badly that when I look at my back porch I imagine adding chores like lawn mowing, gardening and building a fence with a smile. Something my parents would tell you I was not so quick to smile about in my youth.
So the time has come and we are on the house hunt. Conveniently I'm a Realtor, meaning I don't have to hire anyone, find anyone, vet anyone, or any other thing you do when person hunting for a house hunter.
The first step in house hunting as a couple, as those of you with some experience in this may know, is deciding what both of you actually like. In some relationships that would have been more difficult. Luckily for my wife she loves Jonathan from the Property Brothers and his sense of style and I was a clean slate with no opinions on anything involving what the inside of a house should look like. (Basically, we like mostly the same things.) So we put our 5 Must Haves together and discussed them.
Ours rounded out to something like this:
1) Must have yard.
2) Must have storage space.
3) Minimum of 3 bedrooms.
4) Must be in a reasonable price range. The modern economy has everyone in a bind, and typically I wouldn't recommend worrying too much about price, but rather worrying about your monthly bill. However, keeping track of interest rates and discount points is never a bad thing.
5) Must have good bones. I'm not afraid of work. I also happen to have a father-in-law who is very gung-ho about his daughter and would love to help us put the home we want together. The point here being, a lot of the times we have to look past the paint, the kitchen, and the general decorative arrangement and scheme of the house and see what we like about it. Room placement, room size, location (location, location) etc.
We can always adjust our "Must Haves" as the situation changes, but it's not a bad thing to put together. In fact, we've been trying to apply the idea to other things in our lives, such as Must Haves for our diet, exercise and general rules of our relationship. For example: she must be perfect in all things and I must be catered to relentlessly. Or did I get that backwards?
If you have any great "Must Haves" you think I should care about more, leave a comment, or even if you want to share your ideas. (Or good homes you know for sale in the area!)
Next we talk about the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and why it's weird to browse with your spouse. (Mind you, if you're not a Realtor you'd probably be using Trulia, Zillow or Realtor.com, but the general idea is the same.)
Now, I'm not insinuating that we want to buy a home because I knock things off walls. This is simply an example of the problem. We have no work-space, where the Hell are we going to put our future little ones and I am most certainly not a dog-walker. One more night of me standing out in the rain/cold/heat/wind/humidity/mosquitoes staring angrily at my dogs as they smell one piece of grass so relentlessly, so deeply I think they might be trying to actually ingest it through their nostrils and I might break down into an outdoor rant about how much I hate walking my picky freakin' dogs. I want a yard so badly that when I look at my back porch I imagine adding chores like lawn mowing, gardening and building a fence with a smile. Something my parents would tell you I was not so quick to smile about in my youth.
So the time has come and we are on the house hunt. Conveniently I'm a Realtor, meaning I don't have to hire anyone, find anyone, vet anyone, or any other thing you do when person hunting for a house hunter.
The first step in house hunting as a couple, as those of you with some experience in this may know, is deciding what both of you actually like. In some relationships that would have been more difficult. Luckily for my wife she loves Jonathan from the Property Brothers and his sense of style and I was a clean slate with no opinions on anything involving what the inside of a house should look like. (Basically, we like mostly the same things.) So we put our 5 Must Haves together and discussed them.
Ours rounded out to something like this:
1) Must have yard.
2) Must have storage space.
3) Minimum of 3 bedrooms.
4) Must be in a reasonable price range. The modern economy has everyone in a bind, and typically I wouldn't recommend worrying too much about price, but rather worrying about your monthly bill. However, keeping track of interest rates and discount points is never a bad thing.
5) Must have good bones. I'm not afraid of work. I also happen to have a father-in-law who is very gung-ho about his daughter and would love to help us put the home we want together. The point here being, a lot of the times we have to look past the paint, the kitchen, and the general decorative arrangement and scheme of the house and see what we like about it. Room placement, room size, location (location, location) etc.
We can always adjust our "Must Haves" as the situation changes, but it's not a bad thing to put together. In fact, we've been trying to apply the idea to other things in our lives, such as Must Haves for our diet, exercise and general rules of our relationship. For example: she must be perfect in all things and I must be catered to relentlessly. Or did I get that backwards?
If you have any great "Must Haves" you think I should care about more, leave a comment, or even if you want to share your ideas. (Or good homes you know for sale in the area!)
Next we talk about the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and why it's weird to browse with your spouse. (Mind you, if you're not a Realtor you'd probably be using Trulia, Zillow or Realtor.com, but the general idea is the same.)
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