The Gun Counter

MarkD wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:17 pm

Greg wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:00 am Getting away from Jersey has done me a world of good. I hope it works out.

I'm expecting quality-of-life to improve substantially. Hell, a minimum of 3 1/2 hours a day NOT commuting is a big deal. I could do a lot with that time.

Lest you think I joke about commuting time, I leave home in the morning at 6:10 and typically walk into my office at about 7:50. If there are delays on any of the three trains I take I'm later. Then reverse the process coming home.

I believe it, and I understand. When I lived in East Rutherford and worked in Raritan my commute was over an hour and a half each way, and it was almost all highway miles.

When we moved and it cut my commute to under an hour each way I was overjoyed. It was glorious.

We tried a gated resort-type community of similar description in Drums (almost the Poconos), but CINCHOME haaaaaaaated the hills and trees. I liked 'em okay, but I also still liked home enough that we sold the place and bought another back home, and I went back to commuting. My drive is about 320 miles, but my daily commute from my local apartment to my office on campus is about 0.6 miles, so one small compensation for being away is that I get to walk to work (very nice, if you like that sort of thing).

Without Skype it would really suck, but Skype has been a godsend.

Cancelled train before mine tonite. My usual train was standing room only. According to NJ Transit the train was cancelled because of conductor availability.

This morning my wife noted that the pants I was wearing we're worn and we needed to get me new pants. I pointed out that if we move to the hideout and I work from home I don't need pants.

Yes I'm getting into the possibility.

Well, another update.

I've now spoken to both consulting company managers, both have no problem with me working from home and want to keep me on the project, so that hurdle is jumped. Higher manager will speak to the client, she thinks he'll be OK with it since other people telecommute (including that same manager).

Doooooeeeettttt.

HTRN wrote: ↑Wed Oct 10, 2018 5:40 pmDoooooeeeettttt.

We'll go shooting when we're both there. And reminisce about Rich R and Hank A. Among others.

Thought I'd post an update.

Some needed repairs to our current house have been taken care of (biggest one being a leak that showed up in the roof, which has been repaired with a five-year warranty transferable to the new owner). We've been purging stuff we don't need or want, and generally getting the place ready to sell (amazing how much shit you can accumulate over 18+ years). In fact this morning four garbage cans, plus four bags, plus some loose stuff went out (our normal for our weekly trash pickup is one can, sometimes two).

We expect to list our house this week. Our neighbor across the street (who moved in about two years ago), who's mother used to live in our house and whose two sons live within two blocks asked if we were selling (he saw the realtor taking pictures). He said his daughter was looking to move to our town, then said "You're going to need a new roof, that roof is over 30 years old". Not so, it was replaced shortly before we purchased in 2001, but way to try to set up a lowball offer. Sorry, just because I wave to you while I'm mowing the lawn doesn't mean you get my house at a discount, she wants it that badly she pays for it.

This weekend we'll be heading to PA to meet with a realtor and begin house-hunting in earnest. We've already seen several online that look damn near perfect, but of course we'll have to see them in person. Everyone in the family is excited for us.

I'm expecting a considerable increase in quality-of-life:

1) No longer commuting anywhere from four to five hours a day.
2) because of (1), having time and energy to do things I enjoy but don't have time or energy for now, like shooting, model trains, fishing. Maybe even trying something NEW like brewing beer. Hell, I can go fishing for an hour or so BEFORE I start work for the day, come home, have breakfast, and start working.
3) also having the time and energy to get my fat ass back into some semblance of shape, in fact one of my requirements is a garage, preferably two-car, so I can build a garage gym. And because it's all mine, I can work-out when it's best for me (late afternoon/early evening), not when it's not too crowded (5:00 am, yuck).
4) Speaking of shooting, better opportunities to go shooting, and an environment where people don't freak out if they see you loading a rifle case into your car. Plus CCW and no AWB.

I won't be coming home from work, having dinner, crashing for an hour or so before I go to bed. Seriously, I generally get home now at 7:00 or 7:30, have dinner, then wife and I watch TV usually until 9:00 or even earlier before I hit the sack so I can get up at 5:00 am.

All the best wishes.

One observation about house hunting - when we were house hunting, not a single listing we looked at was an accurate representation of the actual house.

For most the listing was way more appealing than the house. For a few, the listing sucked and the house was way better... mainly due to inept photography.

The house we bought and live in now, and love, my wife initially didn't even want to look at because the listing *looked* so bad.

So take everything with a grain of salt and look at as many houses in person as you can.

Make sure you're clear to realtor on what you want. When we bought this house in the 90's, our realtor was getting annoyed that I refused to waste time looking at houses that violated my criteria* no matter how "good" the deal was. It stretched out the time we took house hunting, but it was worth it.


* My criteria were:

Absolutely no places in an HOA area or that had and deeds, covenants or restrictions on putting up external antennas. If I can't put up antennas for amateur radio, I ain't going. And I don't need the stress in dealing with the Junior Reichsfuher wanna be's that HOAs seem to attract.

Nothing inside Dayton city limits. At the time you had to register all guns with the city, have a city issued permit to own firearms, and they were working on an "assault weapon" ban as stupid as anything out of NJ or CA. Fortunately state preemption passed and kicked all of that to the trash heap, but I've since learned other reasons over the years to not want to be under the jurisdiction of the Dayton city commission no matter how nice the neighborhood.

randy wrote: ↑Mon Feb 11, 2019 9:28 pm Make sure you're clear to realtor on what you want. When we bought this house in the 90's, our realtor was getting annoyed that I refused to waste time looking at houses that violated my criteria* no matter how "good" the deal was. It stretched out the time we took house hunting, but it was worth it.


* My criteria were:

Absolutely no places in an HOA area or that had and deeds, covenants or restrictions on putting up external antennas. If I can't put up antennas for amateur radio, I ain't going. And I don't need the stress in dealing with the Junior Reichsfuher wanna be's that HOAs seem to attract.

Nothing inside Dayton city limits. At the time you had to register all guns with the city, have a city issued permit to own firearms, and they were working on an "assault weapon" ban as stupid as anything out of NJ or CA. Fortunately state preemption passed and kicked all of that to the trash heap, but I've since learned other reasons over the years to not want to be under the jurisdiction of the Dayton city commission no matter how nice the neighborhood.

Seems either like your realtor screwed the pooch, or there were just no properties in her area that he/she could show you. Realtors are geographic and more often than not gain a rep from a certain clientele. If you're outside their area of expertise you're pretty much screwed and they'd rather not waste their time with you.

Give the realtor a list of givens, things that are deal breakers, and druthers, things that youd like but if the price is right you can make the adjustments. And if you see a house with a deal breaker let the realtor k ow he/she is wasting your time.