Illini Welcome...
Brian Carlwell: Welcome to Illinois
Dee Brown: Welcome back to Illinois, it's amazing how you found time to play basketball while being on the latest season of Real World (Austin)
Seriously, Nehemiah on the Real World looks exactly like Dee Brown. It's uncanny.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Monday, June 20, 2005
The Grill of My Dreams
Not sure how many of you guys out there are avid grillers, but might as well throw the question out there. For my new place I will probably buy a grill, and I'm trying to decide whether I should go with gas or charcoal (I'm not cool or rich enough to get both).
So far from talking to some people I have gathered the following pros/cons of each:
*Gas*
Pros: Much easier and quicker to start up. Cleaner.
Cons: Doesn't taste as good. Grill itself costs more in the beginning. Grill enthusiasts will look down on you for not going with charcoal.
*Charcoal*
Pros: Taste is the best.
Cons: Takes a while to start up and need to pay more attention to grilling.
So basically, I'm wondering if anyone else has additional advice on the subject other than the above mentioned list. It sounds like charcoal grills are better for parties, so if I'm planning on having guests over often, then it would be worth getting one. But gas would be nice if I'm gonna be using it to cook my own dinner after work. Not sure whether I will have the time, energy, or the motivation to hold parties at my place that much, but we'll see.
The one thing I wonder is how different the taste really is between the two. Lately I have only had charcoal grilled stuff and it was good. Is the gas cooked food that much weaker? I mean if it's gonna taste the same as if I cooked it on the stove or a Foreman grill, then it would be stupid to get a gas grill. But if only grill enthusiasts care about the difference, then I am not one of them.
Not sure how many of you guys out there are avid grillers, but might as well throw the question out there. For my new place I will probably buy a grill, and I'm trying to decide whether I should go with gas or charcoal (I'm not cool or rich enough to get both).
So far from talking to some people I have gathered the following pros/cons of each:
*Gas*
Pros: Much easier and quicker to start up. Cleaner.
Cons: Doesn't taste as good. Grill itself costs more in the beginning. Grill enthusiasts will look down on you for not going with charcoal.
*Charcoal*
Pros: Taste is the best.
Cons: Takes a while to start up and need to pay more attention to grilling.
So basically, I'm wondering if anyone else has additional advice on the subject other than the above mentioned list. It sounds like charcoal grills are better for parties, so if I'm planning on having guests over often, then it would be worth getting one. But gas would be nice if I'm gonna be using it to cook my own dinner after work. Not sure whether I will have the time, energy, or the motivation to hold parties at my place that much, but we'll see.
The one thing I wonder is how different the taste really is between the two. Lately I have only had charcoal grilled stuff and it was good. Is the gas cooked food that much weaker? I mean if it's gonna taste the same as if I cooked it on the stove or a Foreman grill, then it would be stupid to get a gas grill. But if only grill enthusiasts care about the difference, then I am not one of them.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
House
As many of you know, in early April, I decided to buy a house (link). During the weeks that followed, Olivia's mom took me to see a pretty wide variety of places - townhouses, single family homes, brand new, 20 years old, from Elk Grove Village to Des Plaines to Arlington Heights to Palatine to Schaumburg.
As I mentioned in previous entries, there were some places that I liked, but each one had its drawback. Some were too far, some too close to the highway, some had terrible layout, etc. One was absolutely perfect, except it only had a one car garage. And then a lot of them were just too freaking expensive for me.
Finally, I narrowed down my choices to 2 places. One was a brand new townhouse right off the Rand exit on 53, a pretty good location. The only things I didn't like were that the master bedroom was weak, and the taxes were probably going to be really high. The other was a townhouse in Schaumburg. Good location (5 mins from Woodfield and highways), slightly lower price and lower taxes. Only thing is that it was older (17 years), although the owners did replace a lot of things and it was still in pretty good condition.
I brought my family to go look at the two places with me one last time, and for the most part they liked both. I guess secretly I was hoping they would make the decision for me, but no such luck.
It's kind of interesting when I think about the major decisions in my life so far, I haven't really had to make them. When I was applying to colleges, U of I accepted me before I even finished applying to anywhere else. Since I couldn't really see myself going to another place for way more money to study engineering, I pretty much stopped applying anywhere else. Then when it came time to find a job, the market was so bad. My first offer came from NG and at that point there really was not much to think about. I guess in both cases things worked out okay.
Anyways, what was trying to say is that in this case, there was no easy decision as far as choosing which house to offer. At one point I contemplated flipping a coin so if it turned out to be a bad decision, I could blame the coin and not myself. But eventually, after giving it a lot more thought, prayer, discussion with those around me, and spreadsheet analysis (yes I am serious), I think the right choice finally came to me. I settled on the Schaumburg one.
The offer went in Sunday night, followed by a couple days of back and forth negotiation on the final price and other contract details. Negotiation is not my thing to say the least, and I think it was especially frustrating in this case. I mean, when you're talking about something that's in the hundreds of thousands, a few thousand dollars of difference might not seem like a lot. You definitely start to lose track of what these numbers mean, as far as the amount of debt I would be in and what I would be paying every month for the next 5, 10, 15, 30 or whatever years it ends up being. All I knew is that I liked the place and it would suck if the whole deal fell through because you can't agree on a matter of 1% of the total price.
Thankfully, after a day or two, an agreement was finally reached. Both sides signed a contract, and I wrote out a check for the "earnest fee". As I was signing all these documents, it almost felt like I was signing my life away. I know that the real transaction and much bigger deal will be at closing, but still. I've probably signed my name thousands of times, ranging from credit card transactions and personal checks, to high school yearbooks or the sign-in sheet at IMPE when I forgot my student ID. This was a new feeling. It's like "wow, this time my signature actually means something."
The next steps were the home inspection, having a lawyer go through the contract, and deciding on a mortgage. First two were pretty straightforward. Not saying they were easy, but I didn't really have to do much, just pay other people to do them for me.
Finding a mortgage was where things got complicated again. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with random brokers who I knew nothing about, but mostly with friends or family friends who I could reasonably trust. Thanks especially to Rich for patiently answering my questions and providing very helpful knowledge to a mortgage newbie like myself.
Nevertheless, going through all the estimates I got from lenders and trying to figure out which was the best deal made my head spin. And I'm pretty good at math, so I can only imagine how confused some other people would be. I thought I would just find the lowest rate and that would be that. But then there's "points" and "closing costs" to factor in. Then closing costs is broken down into subcategories, that some lenders cover and others don't.
After crunching some numbers, most of the estimates seemed to add up to be pretty close with each other. Basically it really just came down to making my best guess as to how long I would be staying at this house. And I still honestly don't know. I hope it's at least 5 years, but by then who knows what will happen.
At any rate (har har), I think by now the major decisions I need to make have all been made. Still have to actually get approved for the mortgage, and there's also more negotiating between the lawyers and the realtors of both sides on some of the details of the contract, but I'm starting to see the end of this tunnel that is the closing date (currently set for the 2nd week of July).
Overall, this whole process has been pretty hectic so far but also a good experience. I mean, I wish there didn't have to be so many people and so much paperwork involved, but I guess that's how things work in our system. I do understand the need for realtors, lawyers, etc. and the roles they play in the process. Still, I wonder whether there was ever a time when people just bought houses directly from each other, with a simple "handing over of money" and "giving of keys". That would have been so much easier, and take like 5 mins to do.
On the other hand, going through all these hoops has forced me to learn more about things like mortgages, taxes, home maintenance, and be more aware of what's going on in general. And that's definitely a good thing.
For example, did any of you guys know that there was a "7% Assessment Cap" enacted in Cook County recently to limit the amount that property taxes could increase per year? I'm guessing that unless you own a house in Cook County, you are like the pre-yesterday-Me and had no knowledge of such a thing. In case any of you are interested see here for explanation.
And before last month, I had no idea what the heck an "amortization table" was, or much of a clue what the latest interest rates were. Whenever economic figures used to come out in the news, I'd read about them, but never really thought of them as affecting my life much. Now, not saying I'm an expert on mortgages or the economy or anything, but at least I tend to pay more attention to that stuff, because I feel like it actually means something to me in a practical sense.
Well, that was way more than I intended to write on the subject. I probably could've summed it up in one sentence: "I think I done bought me a house, fellas". But now you all have an idea of what I have been doing for the past few weeks.
*****
Oh and let me get this straight - so in that song, R Kelly's girl basically set up the whole thing? Like Cathy/Mary, Rufus, and Chuck introduced her to the cop, and then staged the whole scene in the morning just to mess with him? Or, was it one big coincidence, Chuck and Rufus really were secret lovers, and he just happened to hook up with Cathy/Mary? In either case, how would she know that the cop stopped him on the way back? Something doesn't add up...
*****
I've been working with one of the summer interns here for the past week or so, and noticed today that in his emails he started signing them like me, with name followed by phone extension. Made me feel kind of like a big shot, now that I have college kids looking to me for an example here at work. I remember the days when I was new here and had to copy that kind of stuff from the older engineers at the time. Haha... I'm awesome.
As many of you know, in early April, I decided to buy a house (link). During the weeks that followed, Olivia's mom took me to see a pretty wide variety of places - townhouses, single family homes, brand new, 20 years old, from Elk Grove Village to Des Plaines to Arlington Heights to Palatine to Schaumburg.
As I mentioned in previous entries, there were some places that I liked, but each one had its drawback. Some were too far, some too close to the highway, some had terrible layout, etc. One was absolutely perfect, except it only had a one car garage. And then a lot of them were just too freaking expensive for me.
Finally, I narrowed down my choices to 2 places. One was a brand new townhouse right off the Rand exit on 53, a pretty good location. The only things I didn't like were that the master bedroom was weak, and the taxes were probably going to be really high. The other was a townhouse in Schaumburg. Good location (5 mins from Woodfield and highways), slightly lower price and lower taxes. Only thing is that it was older (17 years), although the owners did replace a lot of things and it was still in pretty good condition.
I brought my family to go look at the two places with me one last time, and for the most part they liked both. I guess secretly I was hoping they would make the decision for me, but no such luck.
It's kind of interesting when I think about the major decisions in my life so far, I haven't really had to make them. When I was applying to colleges, U of I accepted me before I even finished applying to anywhere else. Since I couldn't really see myself going to another place for way more money to study engineering, I pretty much stopped applying anywhere else. Then when it came time to find a job, the market was so bad. My first offer came from NG and at that point there really was not much to think about. I guess in both cases things worked out okay.
Anyways, what was trying to say is that in this case, there was no easy decision as far as choosing which house to offer. At one point I contemplated flipping a coin so if it turned out to be a bad decision, I could blame the coin and not myself. But eventually, after giving it a lot more thought, prayer, discussion with those around me, and spreadsheet analysis (yes I am serious), I think the right choice finally came to me. I settled on the Schaumburg one.
The offer went in Sunday night, followed by a couple days of back and forth negotiation on the final price and other contract details. Negotiation is not my thing to say the least, and I think it was especially frustrating in this case. I mean, when you're talking about something that's in the hundreds of thousands, a few thousand dollars of difference might not seem like a lot. You definitely start to lose track of what these numbers mean, as far as the amount of debt I would be in and what I would be paying every month for the next 5, 10, 15, 30 or whatever years it ends up being. All I knew is that I liked the place and it would suck if the whole deal fell through because you can't agree on a matter of 1% of the total price.
Thankfully, after a day or two, an agreement was finally reached. Both sides signed a contract, and I wrote out a check for the "earnest fee". As I was signing all these documents, it almost felt like I was signing my life away. I know that the real transaction and much bigger deal will be at closing, but still. I've probably signed my name thousands of times, ranging from credit card transactions and personal checks, to high school yearbooks or the sign-in sheet at IMPE when I forgot my student ID. This was a new feeling. It's like "wow, this time my signature actually means something."
The next steps were the home inspection, having a lawyer go through the contract, and deciding on a mortgage. First two were pretty straightforward. Not saying they were easy, but I didn't really have to do much, just pay other people to do them for me.
Finding a mortgage was where things got complicated again. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with random brokers who I knew nothing about, but mostly with friends or family friends who I could reasonably trust. Thanks especially to Rich for patiently answering my questions and providing very helpful knowledge to a mortgage newbie like myself.
Nevertheless, going through all the estimates I got from lenders and trying to figure out which was the best deal made my head spin. And I'm pretty good at math, so I can only imagine how confused some other people would be. I thought I would just find the lowest rate and that would be that. But then there's "points" and "closing costs" to factor in. Then closing costs is broken down into subcategories, that some lenders cover and others don't.
After crunching some numbers, most of the estimates seemed to add up to be pretty close with each other. Basically it really just came down to making my best guess as to how long I would be staying at this house. And I still honestly don't know. I hope it's at least 5 years, but by then who knows what will happen.
At any rate (har har), I think by now the major decisions I need to make have all been made. Still have to actually get approved for the mortgage, and there's also more negotiating between the lawyers and the realtors of both sides on some of the details of the contract, but I'm starting to see the end of this tunnel that is the closing date (currently set for the 2nd week of July).
Overall, this whole process has been pretty hectic so far but also a good experience. I mean, I wish there didn't have to be so many people and so much paperwork involved, but I guess that's how things work in our system. I do understand the need for realtors, lawyers, etc. and the roles they play in the process. Still, I wonder whether there was ever a time when people just bought houses directly from each other, with a simple "handing over of money" and "giving of keys". That would have been so much easier, and take like 5 mins to do.
On the other hand, going through all these hoops has forced me to learn more about things like mortgages, taxes, home maintenance, and be more aware of what's going on in general. And that's definitely a good thing.
For example, did any of you guys know that there was a "7% Assessment Cap" enacted in Cook County recently to limit the amount that property taxes could increase per year? I'm guessing that unless you own a house in Cook County, you are like the pre-yesterday-Me and had no knowledge of such a thing. In case any of you are interested see here for explanation.
And before last month, I had no idea what the heck an "amortization table" was, or much of a clue what the latest interest rates were. Whenever economic figures used to come out in the news, I'd read about them, but never really thought of them as affecting my life much. Now, not saying I'm an expert on mortgages or the economy or anything, but at least I tend to pay more attention to that stuff, because I feel like it actually means something to me in a practical sense.
Well, that was way more than I intended to write on the subject. I probably could've summed it up in one sentence: "I think I done bought me a house, fellas". But now you all have an idea of what I have been doing for the past few weeks.
*****
Oh and let me get this straight - so in that song, R Kelly's girl basically set up the whole thing? Like Cathy/Mary, Rufus, and Chuck introduced her to the cop, and then staged the whole scene in the morning just to mess with him? Or, was it one big coincidence, Chuck and Rufus really were secret lovers, and he just happened to hook up with Cathy/Mary? In either case, how would she know that the cop stopped him on the way back? Something doesn't add up...
*****
I've been working with one of the summer interns here for the past week or so, and noticed today that in his emails he started signing them like me, with name followed by phone extension. Made me feel kind of like a big shot, now that I have college kids looking to me for an example here at work. I remember the days when I was new here and had to copy that kind of stuff from the older engineers at the time. Haha... I'm awesome.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Trapped In the Closet
Is anyone else out there as stoked as I am to hear part 5 of R Kelly's song? I thought it was over with part 3, when he left Cathy/Mary, Rufus, and Chuck.... but then the story just got spicier. He pulls back the covers..... then he finds a rubber..... What a great song!!
Best part (in part 2): She said 'you busted meeeee, and that much I agreeeeeee, you caught me cheeee-tiiiing, but this is a little extreeeeeeme!!!'
Awesome.
Is anyone else out there as stoked as I am to hear part 5 of R Kelly's song? I thought it was over with part 3, when he left Cathy/Mary, Rufus, and Chuck.... but then the story just got spicier. He pulls back the covers..... then he finds a rubber..... What a great song!!
Best part (in part 2): She said 'you busted meeeee, and that much I agreeeeeee, you caught me cheeee-tiiiing, but this is a little extreeeeeeme!!!'
Awesome.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Laguna Biatch Reloaded
MTV showed a marathon of the first season of Laguna Beach yesterday. Reminded me of what a great show it was. I did some searching on Amazon and found that the DVD for Laguna Beach Season 1 comes out in July. Think I'll have to get that.
Hotel Rwanda
It was a good movie, though it's hard to tell in these movies what was real and what was exaggerated or added. Either way, it was a sobering reminder of how much we take for granted in this country, in terms of basic things like political stability and personal safety. We work every day to save up money and provide a better life for ourselves and the ones we love, but if one day an army were to pull up to your house and wanted do whatever they felt like doing to you and your family, what could you really do about it? At that point, all the stuff we normally think about and care about is out the window and the only thing that matters is survival.
Original Star Wars
Found my old original Star Wars trilogy on VHS and watched "A New Hope". I still remember when I first bought it for $30 in high school and that was a big investment for me back then. But they said it would be the "last chance" to own the original trilogy on video, so I decided to pay up. Since then, I think we can all safely say that it was a good thing I did, because look how scarce these Star Wars movies are these days. Anyways, I was disappointed to find that my tapes had deteriorated since the last time I watched them (probably at least 5 years ago). Still watchable, but a little flickering in some parts of the picture. I really did not get my money's worth in buying that VHS trilogy. At least the next time when I buy the sixlogy or whatever the complete set ends up being called, it will probably be DVD or some even more advanced digital format and will last longer.
Baseball Tonight
I used to like watching Baseball Tonight on ESPN every night. There was the story (I think recounted either on my blog or P's blog) one year when me and P were so excited to see the first BBTN of the season, but were hungry, so we raced across the street to Mykonos for some food and rushed back within like 10 minutes so we could catch the beginning.
Unfortunately as I've been watching that show this year, it has turned into a borderline unwatchable program for me. Half the time it turns into John Kruk and Harold Reynolds yelling over each other about something stupid, like whether or not Juan Uribe was wrong to trick Derrek Lee on that "foul ball" play. Honestly, if I wanted to see annoying arguments about pointless topics, I would just watch PTI, Around the Horn, I, Max, or any of the 20 million shows on TV that do exactly that.
The other day they were showing a highlight of Dae Sung Koo giving up a monster home run on a 3-0 pitch, when Harold Reynolds made some comment like "this isn't the Japanese leagues anymore". At first I thought I didn't hear him right, but then he went on to talk about how "in Japan, they don't swing at 3-0 pitches, but here, we'll make you pay".
What an ignorant thing to say. Sure, the talent level in the US is higher than in Japan, and there's differences in the style of play. But it's not like American pitchers have never grooved 3-0 pitches and gotten burnt before. To say something like "you're not in Japan anymore" is just condescending and unnecessary. And on top of it all, I don't think Koo is even from Japan. Pretty sure he's Korean. Not that I would expect Harold to know or care about the difference.
I get a little tired of complaining about race issues all the time, and I think overall I just let most things go, but sometimes it just has to be pointed out. Anyways, back to non-racial topics, I also noticed Harold Reynolds sucks at his fantasy advice too. The guy has little to no clue what he's talking about, and most of the time his explanations on who to trade and who to keep make zero sense. Honestly I used to think he was a good anaylst but he and the BBTN show have really gotten a lot worse in recent times.
Willie Harris Quote
White Sox article in the Sun Times
I got a laugh out of the quote at the end by Willie Harris: "Like Ice Cube said, today was a good day"
MTV showed a marathon of the first season of Laguna Beach yesterday. Reminded me of what a great show it was. I did some searching on Amazon and found that the DVD for Laguna Beach Season 1 comes out in July. Think I'll have to get that.
Hotel Rwanda
It was a good movie, though it's hard to tell in these movies what was real and what was exaggerated or added. Either way, it was a sobering reminder of how much we take for granted in this country, in terms of basic things like political stability and personal safety. We work every day to save up money and provide a better life for ourselves and the ones we love, but if one day an army were to pull up to your house and wanted do whatever they felt like doing to you and your family, what could you really do about it? At that point, all the stuff we normally think about and care about is out the window and the only thing that matters is survival.
Original Star Wars
Found my old original Star Wars trilogy on VHS and watched "A New Hope". I still remember when I first bought it for $30 in high school and that was a big investment for me back then. But they said it would be the "last chance" to own the original trilogy on video, so I decided to pay up. Since then, I think we can all safely say that it was a good thing I did, because look how scarce these Star Wars movies are these days. Anyways, I was disappointed to find that my tapes had deteriorated since the last time I watched them (probably at least 5 years ago). Still watchable, but a little flickering in some parts of the picture. I really did not get my money's worth in buying that VHS trilogy. At least the next time when I buy the sixlogy or whatever the complete set ends up being called, it will probably be DVD or some even more advanced digital format and will last longer.
Baseball Tonight
I used to like watching Baseball Tonight on ESPN every night. There was the story (I think recounted either on my blog or P's blog) one year when me and P were so excited to see the first BBTN of the season, but were hungry, so we raced across the street to Mykonos for some food and rushed back within like 10 minutes so we could catch the beginning.
Unfortunately as I've been watching that show this year, it has turned into a borderline unwatchable program for me. Half the time it turns into John Kruk and Harold Reynolds yelling over each other about something stupid, like whether or not Juan Uribe was wrong to trick Derrek Lee on that "foul ball" play. Honestly, if I wanted to see annoying arguments about pointless topics, I would just watch PTI, Around the Horn, I, Max, or any of the 20 million shows on TV that do exactly that.
The other day they were showing a highlight of Dae Sung Koo giving up a monster home run on a 3-0 pitch, when Harold Reynolds made some comment like "this isn't the Japanese leagues anymore". At first I thought I didn't hear him right, but then he went on to talk about how "in Japan, they don't swing at 3-0 pitches, but here, we'll make you pay".
What an ignorant thing to say. Sure, the talent level in the US is higher than in Japan, and there's differences in the style of play. But it's not like American pitchers have never grooved 3-0 pitches and gotten burnt before. To say something like "you're not in Japan anymore" is just condescending and unnecessary. And on top of it all, I don't think Koo is even from Japan. Pretty sure he's Korean. Not that I would expect Harold to know or care about the difference.
I get a little tired of complaining about race issues all the time, and I think overall I just let most things go, but sometimes it just has to be pointed out. Anyways, back to non-racial topics, I also noticed Harold Reynolds sucks at his fantasy advice too. The guy has little to no clue what he's talking about, and most of the time his explanations on who to trade and who to keep make zero sense. Honestly I used to think he was a good anaylst but he and the BBTN show have really gotten a lot worse in recent times.
Willie Harris Quote
White Sox article in the Sun Times
I got a laugh out of the quote at the end by Willie Harris: "Like Ice Cube said, today was a good day"
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