originally posted april 28, 2005

The Home Search Is Over

Fuck yeah, I'm home.

Today I closed on Blank Slate, a carriage house in Highland Park. After three months of searching, my extremely helpful and patient buyer's agent insisted that I see this house right after she first found it. She said it would be perfect. It was. It is.

Pour the Champagne

Closing was an absolute breeze. I was in and out of my realtor's office in just under 40 minutes. The build-up was more difficult: many phone calls, many faxes to send back and forth, and an immediate immersion into the insurance and mortgage world. I ended up with a 15-year term whose payments are almost exactly the same as my current rent -- but which will build equity in the home.

Ready for Action

I now have two months of having two places to live. My lease runs out at the end of June at the Brake House, which I admit I'll miss. I was lucky enough to be the first tenant in my unit here. Everything was brand new -- a fitting situation since apartment life was new to me. Now I get to move again with a full complement of furniture, books, and other possessions.

I've already started my furniture planning. Coming from a technical background, buying furniture is a breeze: just measure it all, put it on a diagram, post some photos, solicit feedback, and buy at a deep discount from retail. Some of my old furniture will have to go, so I'm glad that Craigslist now has a Pittsburgh site.

Physically, there's only one issue I need to take care of: build a little closet around the unsightly water tank on the lower level. Anyone know a good carpenter in Pittsburgh?

Geek It Out

I have a comfy couch. I'll have a very comfy chair. There's a satellite dish sitting on the roof just begging to be activated. This can only mean one thing: time to get some toys.

I've enlisted one of my A/V-loving co-workers to help turn my lower level into a fine TV-watching lair. First on the agenda: a big HDTV, say 42" or so. I like Sony's LCD projection screens myself; I fear plasma screens burning in and LCD panels are still too pricey for me. Second on the agenda: lots of speakers. There are two pairs of satellite speakers already mounted on the walls. As far as I know, those speakers will probably come down so that I may instead put in a quality 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1-speaker sound system with which I may properly enjoy my entertainment.

Either DSL or cable is a necessity for me; I don't really care which one I get, but I will probably have all that set up well before I have a full complement of furniture moved in.

And oh yeah, free laundry. I'm sick and tired of pumping quarters into the machines in my apartment. That's one toy I'll really use.

Oh, the long home search is over. I beat it. The end guy was hard. Life is indeed good.

Back to April 2005, or to the year 2005.

Where am I?

This is Weill Aspects, the official news archive of Jason Weill Web Productions. All articles posted to the front page end up here. This page was generated automatically by a series of Perl scripts.

Articles in Weill Aspects are organized solely by date. You may find the Google search in the left column to be useful if you are looking for an article but do not know the date on which it was posted.

Weill Aspects is composed of static web pages generated as appropriate when a new article is posted. It was developed in May 2001 as a way of managing the content on this site. I also used it extensively while in Japan, during which time I did not have continuous access to the Internet. I was able to write daily updates during July and August 2002, pack the files onto a CD-R or memory device, and upload them from the Internet-connected computers at school.

These scripts are all hacked together in less than elegant fashion, and I don't plan to release them. Some of the design that went into Aspects also was used to develop Livestat, a suite of Perl scripts to process statistics for academic competition tournaments. Livestat is available freely.