Had “Bachelor Party” weekend for a friend of mine. We didn’t do the strippers and all that. Instead it was ice-fishing, gambling and drinking weekend. Eddy’s “resort” left something to be desired. It was essentially a Super 8 with a nicer sign out front and a few rooms turned into suites. It was low grade and the service was non-existant. At least the place was cheap. Guess the axiom still holds, “you get what you pay for”

The fishing was terrible, I think the largest thing caught was a couple small perch. We were not fishing very hard, but you would think that a larger fish would have been caught on accident.

About a week ago I put an offer in on a house. This was after looking at about a dozen properties in person and going over about 60 online. Online I was able to look at pictures, view tax documents, and read inspection reports. This allowed me to really pare down the list without ever leaving my PC. I can’t imagine the leg-work involved with buying a house pre-internet. There is such a wealth of information online about each house that seeing a dud is really not an issue. You should have a good idea of what a place has to offer even before you get there.

The place that I put an offer on is a short-sale. This means that the owner is negotiating with their lender to sell the house for an amount lower than the remaining owed. This can be enough to cover the banks principal investment, or even less. When the alternative is foreclosure the bank is willing to take the lesser of two evils.

I am now waiting for the bank to respond to our offer. The seller has agreed, but that was expected. The waiting is the hardest part of the process. Recently the point of sale inspection was done by the city. They found some issues with the home that need to be addressed. This adds a little cost to me up front but also, hopefully, puts the screws to the bank to move on this property.

Through this whole process my agent has been amazing. I have no issue recommending her to anyone. Mary Benson of Creek Realty. She is definitely in it for the buyer and not just her commission or closing the deal at the expense of the buyer.

I will write some updates as the process moves along, assuming that it does move along.

i live in an apartment, and near to my brother.  We are able to share an internet connection via wireless because we are so close.  We use a Linksys WRT160N v2 updated with the latest firmware.  We both have an Xbox with Xbox Live account.  When we are both on them watching netlix or play games online the performance is severly degraded.  The issue seems to occur when you have two Xbox(s) on one IP address.  You can pay a monthly fee to your ISP for a second IP address.  I decided to just get a router.  D-Link routers were highly reccommended for this exact situation.  i went with the D-Link DIR-655.  It is not the highest-end model but still gives many of the features.  It includes a USB port for attaching a storage device and three external antennai for great range.  The web interface for the router is a little annoying, but how often do you really go into that after initial set-up?  Overall a great buy, on-sale for $99.99 at MicroCenter in St. Loius Park, MN.

I saw Avatar on Friday night.  It was well worth the money I spent.  I purchsed two passes from my work for $13.00, and then paid a $8 up-charge for the IMAX version.  So $21 for two passes to the IMAX 3D-HD Avatar showing.  I thought that was a fair price.  The IMAX “experience” did offer a slightly larger screen, and possibly better quality, though not terribly noticable to a non-avid movie-goer.  The 3d glasses were so-so.  I was given a cheap tiny pair of glasses that hurt my head.  Luckily my girlfriend was given a much larger pair that didn’t fit her head.  We switched and were both better off.

Regarding the actual movie, I thought it was an amazing visual experience, and something new to me, 3D.  The use of 3d was used in a very fluid way.  There was not not the over-the-top things flying out of the screen of previous 3D movies.  It simply lent a depth and feel to the movie that I have never experienced to this point.

Where the movie really fell down was the story.  It was the classic gruff military man goes to “simplistic” native people and learns that they are not so simple and might have a better way of life.  You can watch The Last Samurai, Pocahantas, Dances With Wolves, or many others to get the same major story.

I think this film is worth seeing only in the theatres, and only if you go to the HD-3D showing.  This film in regular format is just another formulaic film you can get as a rental and enjoy as much.

This morning I stopped off to get a coffee on my way to work.  As the worker called out my order, “Large milk chocolate mocha skim no whip” I realized that I had made a mistake.  It was once said to me, “If your coffee order has more than three words, turn around and walk out the door”, I don’t think that I can make the switch to just straight black coffee, so maybe I should make it at home.  That way I at least won’t have some guy shouting my order out.

I was recently out to dinner with my family.  We had not gotten together in a while and there was reason for celebration, I had just gotten a promotion.  We went to a place just down the street from my place.  It was a busy night and we had to wait 30mins for a table.  I admit that a table for 6 is not the easiest to find.  There should really be a system to where people can call in to assure a low wait time and the restaurant can plan the evening ahead of time.  Oh yea…they are called reservations.  Now this was not an up-scale place, but it would be in everyone’s best interest to have them at all places outside of fast food.  You could even charge $10 for the reservation, and that $10 would be used toward the bill so long as you kept the reservation.

The meal was average to slightly above for most in our party.  The one downside was my mother’s chicken.  It was still raw in the middle.  The manager was very apologetic and offered to bring another item.  The meal was already half done and given the wait time on the first entrees, we would have been there another hour waiting for the new food, and my mother declined the new order.  When the bill came her entree had been removed from the bill, which was expected.  While in H.S., college and shortly after I worked in the food service industry.  Simply not making a guest pay for their raw meal is not enough.  There needed to be something else.  Remove a drink from the ticket, give a gift certificate for a future visit, and least something.  This seems to be prevalent in the service world; when people make a mistake they offer you a dessert or a drink that you didn’t already order.  No…I don’t want more of your food after you failed to execute on my entree.  Credit me for something that I have already purchased, give me something that I obviously wanted.