September 24 , 2004  House Inspection

We had an inspection on the house, and everything went pretty well. We only had one surprise- the deck wasn't built to code and needs to be redone. There were a lot of other minor code violations and issues that aren't too difficult to fix nor expensive. We are basically just waiting for our pest inspection and our final loan approval to come through and then we are in escrow! After one month we get the keys! Then we can do the construction - we want to knock down one wall and get the floors done before we move in. It's going to be a stretch financially, but I know we can make it work. You peeps just might have come to dinner at our house instead of going out for a year or so. We are very excited about making the place really nice over time. It's kind of a blank canvas, which is what we were looking for.

I took some pics while we had the inspections (Sam Hobbs and his girlfriend Emily were visiting and were able to check the house out too!). It isn't easy taking pictures of an empty house. I checked them out when I got home and I saw a lot of walls. Not very exciting. So I am going to post a few pics here and explain a lot more about the house. Here is the outside. Note the 'light lime green' they chose to paint the exterior of the house. Nice. Not a priority, but we are going to paint that, and flatten out the lame texture too. Notice the garage AND driveway. 2 car parking- this is a big deal in San Francisco. This photo was taken in the upstairs living room. Nice effort making the place presentable for showing guys. Anyway, this photo doesn't show you the whole room, but I'm really excited about the WORKING fireplace (also a big deal in San Francisco as many have been converted to gas). Aesthetically it needs work, but cool nonetheless. This room has a wall opposite the fireplace, which we are going to knock down. We are also going to rip the carpet out and fix the oak floors underneath (before we move in).

Here is the main hallway. The wall to the right is the one that is getting knocked down. To the immediate left is the first bedroom. Further down the hall (closer to Sam) on the right is the second bedroom. Across from that is the bathroom. The bedrooms are big for San Francisco size (yay!). Behind Sam is the kitchen, which is alright, but really cheaply done - we will be redoing it when we have the cashola.

At the end of the hall is the kitchen (on the left) a small dining room (ro the right of the kitchen) and then this sunroom. This room is super dope. If overhangs the garden and gets amazing sunlight. It is really big, usually bigger than I remember each time I visit the house. We are also going to put hardwood floors in here.

This is the view of the backyard from the outdoor deck (opposite the sunroom). As you can see, it is basically a bunch of brick, dirt and weeds. Believe it or not, this make me happy. There is a great deal of potential to build a spectacular garden here, and judging by both neighbors yard, shit will grow real nice. You will be over having dinner out here soon enough.

So, the other great thing about this house is that there is an entire downstairs level. So, the top floor is 1000 square feet, then the bottom floor (with the garage) pretty much mirrors that. And it isn't really a basement exactly (although they call it a basement in San Francisco for some reason) because it is at ground level and the rooms have windows facing the garden. This photo shows the large main room downstairs. On the other side of the left wall is the garage. We want to use this room as our 'home theatre'. We will go down here when we want to watch movies or TV. Our upstairs living room will have no TV (look at us pretend we are classy). Not shown in the photos are the 3 (yes, 3!) rooms at the back of this one. One is large enough to be a studio, the other can be an extra bedroom (or small capoeira/yoga work out room) and then there is another small room that has toilet and sink hook-up which we will eventually convert to another bathroom.

This is the back of the house. As you can see, the deck needs redoing. I think there is a lot we can do under the house to make it nice as well. So exciting!

September 16, 2004  House Hunting

We are in the process of buying a house! We still need to have a contractor look at it and have a pest report drawn up, but if all looks good, then it is ours. It's located in the Mission Terrace neighborhood between Glen Park and Balboa Park BART stations. Very cute neighborhood. The house is fairly large- 1000 square feet on the top level, with a fully renovated ground level that is probably 800 additional square feet. It also has a large garage, driveway parking and a huge terraced backyard. It's kind of a fixer-upper- mostly for aesthetic reasons rather than structurally. They put really nasty acrylic carpets in for showing, which we are going to tear out before we move in. Must have hard wood floors! The backyard is just a big mud pit, but it's a blank canvas that we can design any way we like! Oh yeah, it also has two bedrooms, a living room with a fireplace and a sunroom dining area. We are very excited. More pics to come...

July 8, 2004  A Few Nice Things

When I was 12, my mom asked me if I wanted 'lots and lots of little things' for Christmas, or 'just a few nice things'. Right now I feel like I want 'just a few nice things' in every aspect of my life.

July 6, 2004  4th Weekend

Had a pretty strange Fourth weekend as we went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 and Control Room, both important films for anyone to see, no matter what your political views. I was happily surprised by F9/11 and how touching it was. Some express annoyance at Michael Moore's tactics, but I felt he focuses more on the human side of war and it's repercussions and that is what resonated with me, not the Saudi connections or other factoids. Control Room felt more like a documentary and less like an expose, as F9/11 could be considered. I found myself recalling the events of the US attacks on the Al-Jazeera networks, or of the news of US POWs and the Jennifer Lynch story. This, of course, was just before I stopped watching the news on TV and instead decided to read about it from many sources online. I plan on fully reviewing both of these films here soon.

July 3, 2004  Waycross/Dirty Power Doing Eno

Last night Tom, Andy and I went to see members of Waycross and Dirty Power performed Brian Eno's 1974 Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy at the Bottom of the Hill. It was amazing. Three tight guitarists, two percussionists, a bassist and a female vocalist (no keyboards) recreated this album perfectly, while creatively altering tempo or adding splendid guitar solo embellishments. They slow down the track Third Uncle to an almost unrecognizable pace which gives it an eerie, sexy edge. Listen to a clip of their version (studio recording) here and compare to the original. You can buy their cd at Amazon. They only performed it live twice, so if you didn't make it out to see them, well, I guess you have to buy the cd.