‘Blink’ as applied to homebuying

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink touts the wisdom of trusting one’s split-second decisions. As Hallie and I passed our new neighborhood this morning I can affirm this wisdom. Before I even saw our new house for the first time the deal was already done. I just knew when we turned onto our new street that this was where we would live.

With this in mind, I’ve decided that it is not necessarily a good sign when prospective homebuyers take their time viewing the house. While they may linger out of habit, in less than two minutes they should know if this is their new home. They may not know if this isn’t their new home (the two are not the same), but if its right they will know in an instant.

That’s all it takes: an instant. Anything longer and you’re just talking yourself into it.

Beaten up

Wow. I went to bed around 10:30 last night thinking the severe storms had fizzled out. Boy, was I mistaken! From about 11 until the wee hours of the morning our house got absolutely battered! I don’t recall ever experiencing winds that strong from any storm that didn’t have a name. It was anything but a gentle rain! Things were made worse as the winds came from the south, right where our bedroom is.

The MT.Net weather station tells me we had a top gust of 20.6 MPH at 9:30 last night. Judging how my wind gauge is shielded significantly by the deck the gust was likely far stronger. Wow.

I remarked to Kelly how quiet the birds were this morning.

“Well, yeah!” she answered. “They got blown into Delaware!”

Moving on up

As you know, I spent the weekend doing more moving. Parking a storage container on your driveway is a great way to move: you can pack things at your own pace. I tucked the last items into our container this morning so tomorrow it can be carted back to the warehouse. Yay! I never thought we’d find enough stuff to put into an 8’x8’x16′ container but we did.
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Turning fast food green

A few weeks ago we rewarded the kids for staying happy during a busy day by taking them to McDonald’s. As I ate I couldn’t help but notice the food packaging – it was made using recycled paper! The cups were paper as well. I whistled to myself at that. How could McDonald’s turn green and I didn’t even notice? Not that I’m their biggest customer or anything.
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Always Love

Geez. Here I go again…

Always Love
Nada Surf

To make a mountain of
your life is just a choice
but I never learned enough
to listen to the voice that told me

Always love
hate will get you every time
Always love
don’t wait ‘til the finish line
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More promising showings

The weather was gorgeous this weekend, and as I’ve come to expect when the weather is nice there were mucho people out looking at homes. We didn’t get much visible traffic yesterday but today we did well with two showings: both of which went very well.
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Buy naming rights to “lake,” get a house thrown in for free

Craigslist frowns upon simply reposting one’s ad, so I had to get a little creative this morning.

Behold my new ad. Can you tell this whole moving business is making me a little punchy?

Naming rights to Raleigh’s Memorial Auditorium, the RBC Center, and Walnut Creek Amiptheatre have sold in the millions! Why break the bank when your name can be on your very own “lake” for a mere $229,900 – and get a charming house and a huge yard thrown in for free! It’s an unbeatable deal!!!!!11!!!1!

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Pandoramonium

I fired up Pandora for this first time outside of work. Set up my laptop in my living room and rocked out while I cleaned up after breakfast. Addiction experts would now say that I have a “problem.”

I’ve also noticed something. I’ve set up about 10 “channels” that were launched by specifying the bands I like. Since tuning in, I am far more likely to skip over my so-called favorite bands in favor of the great new stuff Pandora brings me. I never expected that to happen. Maybe I should write Pandora and ask “is this normal?”