The Raging Tech

The New House, Hot Dog, and Chairman Meow

Weekend before last, I moved into my new house, about 20 minutes away from where I work. It’s a 30 minute drive in traffic now, though, because they closed off one lane on either side of the highway to install a concrete divider.

Everything has been crazy but amazingly smooth - I moved in, have been settling, and waiting on my closing date (this coming Monday, 3 days away!). They neglected to tell me I needed to have my home owner’s insurance ready by closing, so today I scrambled to get my insurance setup, and in the process am moving my auto insurance to the local office. Since the bank had e-mailed me a PDF of my appraisal, I just forwarded that on to the insurance company, and they got all the information they needed. I’m all set for Monday to close!

In related news, two days ago Kylara gave me two kittens that her cat had, and now they live at my house. I’ve named one Hot Dog (the girl, kind of adventurous and curious) and the other Chairman Meow (the boy, very quiet and stern, looks like he’s scowling at everyone all the time).

Here are photos of the house and my kittens:

Renuzit TriScents Home Makeover Semi-Finalists

In my bathroom at home, I have the cheaply priced 97-cent screw-top Renuzit air freshener, and I must say, they’re a lot more effective than candles or spraying, and they don’t overwhelm.

Renuzit is having a contest where participants are instructed to upload a video explaining why they feel like they deserve a Home Makeover in the contest titled “Transform Your Home with Tanya Meme.” Tanya is the star of A & E Emmy-nominated show “Sell This House!”

The girl in the screenshot above sings a hilarious song about how her Mom worked really hard to earn money to give to her for her education so she could earn her degree, and now with no money they can’t afford to fix up the kitchen, so she needs a home makeover.

I felt bad for the girl, but I enjoyed her out-of-tune singing and the hokeyness of her video. Go visit the contest page and find her in the semi-finalist gallery and vote for her to win! What’s great is you can vote every single day, once a day, until June 7th. If most of you do this, she’s almost sure to win.

The winner with the most votes will receive a $20,000 makeover with Tanya Memme - so vote early and often. I’m tempted to enter, but I don’t actually own my home - I’m a renter. Still, it’d be neat to have some lady come in and do $20k worth of fix-ups to a place I did own.

More on Loans and Finance

I’ve written previously about my experiences with credit cards and the like, but one facet of personal finance I have yet to experience is getting a mortgage loan. One thing that bothers me about mortgage loans is that the entire loan is centered around the house you’re buying.

Basically you either pay them back, or they take your house. The collateral for this particular loan, is the thing you’re buying with the loan. A house actually costs so much that you really couldn’t put something up against it for collateral, besides another house.

However, I can remember several times when I was a kid and my mom and dad would tell us they were getting the house appraised to see if they could easily refinance their credit cards and other debt and consolidate at a lower interest rate with a new mortgage. They always seemed optimistic about it, so I never really worried.

Now I understand things like interest rates and principle amounts and consolidation.

It still doesn’t scare me. It’s just a huge amount of debt to think about - but it doesn’t seem feasible to purchase a house at my age with just saved up money.

My Weekend Update

So this past weekend went pretty well. Friday, I went to see Asheville band Dawn of the Dude, and it was a pretty entertaining show! It’s always awesome to see a good band that also has good showmanship. It’s one thing to be a good musician and a good artist, but it’s another talent altogether to entertain an audience while putting on a performance of your music. To me it just creates a more personal feel.

After the concert, several of us came back to my house and we played a game called “A Thousand Blank White Cards,” and much hilarity ensued. That was followed up by our traditional late-night trip to Huddle House for breakfast. I got to bed around 6:30am Saturday morning.

I slept through most of Saturday, got up around 4pm and hung out around the house. My roommate and his girlfriend and I sat around watching some TV, and I drank a couple of my birthday presents and then went to bed. I did make it to church the next morning, and was glad to see some of my church friends I’ve missed for a couple weeks. I came home and relaxed around the house and then watched the Super Bowl with some friends (Go Giants!). Afterwards, we watched House, and then I fell asleep talking to the girl I have a second date with tonight. All-in-all, not a bad weekend at all.

Rest for the Weary in California

Many people have been affected in the recent times by the increasing warm, dry weather we have during the summer months. It takes just a few hours for an entire house to burn to the ground, but months and months to build a new one.

With the outbreak of wild fires in the San Diego and Southern California area, many residents are left without permanent housing and their belongings and sentimental items destroyed. Along with our prayers, Californians have temporary relief for their housing crisis.

National Corporate Housing offers corporate apartments not just to professionals, but also affordable options for individuals, small businesses, corporations that had to relocate staff and their families, and anyone else affected by the wild fires.

While these places may not be the home you lost, it may relieve some of the burden from family members and friends who put up the victims of these fires in their own homes for an extended period of time. We love our families and friends, but when you’re all cramped together in a space meant for one family, there can be stress and arguments. Once more, these people can have a place of their own until they can get back into a permanent house again.