March 31, 2007

New House

Dane and I have fallen in love with a house in Williamston. Actually, I think I fell in love with it first, and Dane, trying to be a "realist" came up with a bunch "realist" viewpoints on why we might or shouldn't get it. Interestingly, when I have "realist" viewpoints, I'm being a pessimist.

So anyway, a little background. This was the first house we looked at. I didn't really know what to expect out of houses in our price range, so when we saw this house, I was pretty critical. There was still snow on the ground so we couldn't see the roof or the backyard. There's also a pool in the back, and we couldn't get out there to see how that looked after the winter. This was a foreclosure, so we had no idea how and when it got winterized.

It's a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath ranch. It has a full partially finished basement. The backyard is HUGE (at least compared to other houses we've seen), and there's a pool. We ended up not putting an offer in because it was the first house we'd seen, and it needs some work to make it really nice. Well, after we'd seen a bunch of other houses we just kept going back to the first and comparing them. It was at this point that Dane told me that he really loved that house too, but that someone had to be logical about things.... I have no idea what he's talking about.

Anyway, we decided to make an offer and then we found out this house had been pulled off the market and no one knew why. After playing the waiting game for about 3 weeks (meanwhile, seeing more houses we didn't like) our realtor found out that it was sold be Fannie Mae but they didn't know who they sold it to (most likely a smaller bank). We waited around for about 2 more weeks and our realtor found out who was selling it. 2 more weeks later and it's back on the market. We went and looked at it again the same day and made an offer. The callback the next morning let us know that 2 other people had also made offers and we were supposed to come back with our "best and final". We didn't change our offer because it was already really good in our opinion -- we're hoping that the other 2 offers were just investors and we already have a better offer in. Keep your fingers crossed. We probably won't hear anything until Monday.

March 22, 2007

Radisson Hotel - Phoenix, AZ

Wow!

And I don't mean that in a good way. Although, I can't officially say that this hotel sucks, I definitely think that for a "nice" hotel, it is seriously lacking. It's a good thing I'm not paying, because I can positively say that I would be seriously annoyed.

First of all, the AC kicks on randomly. I am convinced that there is sensor in my room that detects when I walk in and makes it turn on because every time I open the door it starts blowing. You might be thinking this is a great feature, perhaps it cuts down on the energy bill? You might be right - the problem is that every time my AC kicks on, so does the smell that pours out of the vents. It is not a nice smell. It's more like, a "you've just stepped into a vault holding gallons and gallons of raw sewage" smell. MMMM.

Secondly, there is no breakfast. Let me rephrase; there is breakfast - if you want to pay $11.95 for a cup of orange juice, cup of coffee, and an english muffin. Are you kidding me? If the Hampton can give that stuff away with the room, I would think the Radisson could handle it. Apparently not. I don't even care about getting free breakfast... I'm ranting on principle.

Thirdly, every time I step off the elevator in the morning someone very "courteously" shouts "GOOD MORNING!" at me. I understand this is an attempt to be friendly. Note: It is 8:00 am. I don't know you. I didn't make eye contact with you. There is a chance I don't even care if you say hello. A polite smile will do.

Other than that, it's been great!