Lost!

I don't sign many online petitions. This one I did sign...because I feel taken advantage of by the Telcoms for permitting the National Security Agency to paw through their phone records. In this case, props to Qwest, although I'm not about to run out and buy Qwest products at this point...

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. Its been a couple of weeks since my last entry...but I won't be telling you all about my sins today. Sorry!

Have been very busy setting up the apartments upstairs and getting the grounds looking nice. Landlording is like homeownership, but you can't slough off once in a while like you can with owning a home.

So...I have several open projects right now, but today I'm working on:

Suburban Chicago (DuPage and Kane counties in the far west): Its interesting to check population figures for this area, actually, because I still think in terms of what the area was like when I grew up there. For instance, Bolingbrook, IL was once a sleepy little burg on the prairie...in 1970, there were 7,651 people there. At around that time, someone built Old Chicago, touted as the first Indoor Amusement Park. Although featured in the movie The Fury, it flopped. As of 2000, there are now over 56,000 people there, and I imagine it no longer is out in the sticks as it once was...no longer on the frontier of suburban development.

Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway: I have a handful of corrections to make on a brochure map for them...

Later today, I will be picking up my large light table in Cleveland. It has been storage at my ex-wife's house for several years...she's been asking me to remove it almost since we broke up...now that I own a house, I have room to store it.

I'm exhausted with the process of closing. I took off for Chicago for a few days to get away from it all. On Thursday, I geared up to close the deal by hiring a contractor to install a fence as required by the city's planning department. I thought I was finished...but on Friday, the mortgage officer tipped me off on additional paperwork needed to document my divorce settlement. That warranted a trip to Cleveland.

Although the seller is required to handle certain things per our agreement, I'm also finding that I need to take care of them if there's going to be a deal at the end of the week. I bagged a ton of rubbish from the bag yard (I think that this property was used as a neighborhood dump for a while) that included a car gas tank, car battery, a couple of coats, loads of branches, railroad ties...and I had someone haul it out. Today was spent in the yard repairing the "trip hazard" caused by the upheaval in my front walk. Sure...the seller is supposed to do this, too...along with removing the vines growing under the aluminum siding.

I've also been working on planting the recently bulldozed backyard with perennials and weeding the front yard. I'm exhausted....Pepperint is dropping by later tonight...

I'm exhausted...

Thank You, Lord, For Sending Me The F Train: Mike Doughty
Autumngirlsoup: Kirsty MacColl
You Were The Last High: The Dandy Warhols
Bad Things: Jace Everett
Mohammed: The Dandy Warhols
Prison Sex: Tool
(Around You) Everywhere: The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Infra Riot: Soundtrack Of Our Lives
Daybreaker: Beth Orton
Spoons: Afel Bocoum, Damon Albarn, Toumani Diabate & Friends

The work crew is in the backyard digging away so that the property will meet with the zoning code for a multi-unit. ICK:

In order for the mortgage to go through, this property must meet proper zoning. Since the property was once vacant in the 1990s, the current owner was supposed to bring the property up to code. The current zoning law requires that multiunits must have a paved parking lot. Although the lot is big, the concrete slab is still going to dominate the yard: my parking lot will be 30' x 50' I hate concrete.

The process is ugly as well. There's a ten-foot pile of dirt on top of my daffodils. The Bobcat is leaving tracks all over the yard. I'll still be stuck with a ton of gravel (figuratively speaking; I don't really know how much) spread all over the back yard.

Right now, the excavator has bulldozed the area, laid a drain, and has started to grade the area with gravel from the old driveway. He has already pulled the permits, surveyed the lot and also started to install the forms for the concrete. He is also going to leave behind a 4' wide gravel path to the driveway. I'd like to install either a brick or stone walkway, but this is a couple of years off, probably. Reusing the railroad ties would be an idea, but I suspect that they would be slick in wet weather.

My gut tells me that the seller never got this work done in the past because he's a gardener, too. He dropped by last night to show me the various plantings in the front yard. I've been fighting a cold, so I'll need to ask him about it all again later. He's been super towards me, so I don't think that asking later will be problematic.

Still no tenants. The people in the two-family next door were all told on Monday night to leave. Someone just bought the place and has different plans. I tried to get one couple to lease here, but I suspect the units upstairs will be a bit small for them...I had wanted to buy that place, convert it to a single family and flip it, but since I'm not a real estate mogul with deep pockets, I opted for this place as a long-term investment. No regrets; just wish I had had a chance to jump on both places.