Wants and Needs for my New Home

Greetings y'all!

Today I began my independent search for a new home. I have an agent and all, but I can not expect my ally to do EVERYTHING for me! A huge part of it definitely involves... well... ME! So I started driving around and looking for some nice town homes. Now some of you might be thinking, "Well yankee, you ballin' and makin' that corporate money... Why not get a house?" Well, simply put, I do not want to deal with yard maintenance. That is a task for "settled and married men." Besides, I do not even have a lawnmower... That is what my homeowners dues are for. Let me find a woman, fall in love, have a knee failure on my strong leg on a romantic getaway first, and THEN I will worry about lawn work. Also, I see myself taking a hiatus from this area in the distant future (about 6-8 years ahead) since I am aiming for a top 10 Business School, so it would not be very beneficial for me to get a single family home at this time.

Do you HONESTLY think by paying a mortgage, this brotha is settling down and getting married? LOLOLOLOLOL!!! No! This young brotha is taking a financially responsible step in the right direction!

Young people fresh out of college, if you get nothing else from this entry, know that you lose more when you rent long term vs renting in the short term (we all know you gotta get your down payment together) saving, and then using the money you supposedly saved since day one of working for your employer as a down payment towards a mortgage!

So then I really thought about what I want vs what I need. Then I started asking some very hard questions... Questions like:

Do I WANT a Garage? HELL YEA!
Do I NEED a Garage right now (starting out)? Uhm, well, no not really. Since it is only going to be me, I can go without a garage. Yea, it will be nice to have a garage for storage space, but I am not even fully utilizing the storage space at my apartment, and the "Containment Area" is pretty safe... No one has mugged Jade, and the areas I am looking to live seem to be pretty safe and alert communities.

Do I WANT assigned parking? YES!
Do I NEED assigned parking? YES! - Let me explain. This is the one thing that really grinds my gears (thanks Peter Griffin) when it comes to (my) apartment living... Sometimes I come home late at night, from my evening adventures (99.99999% from work ;-) ), and I have no where to park! I would have to go all the way to the OTHER side of the apartment complex just to park, and Lord help me if I have groceries that night (and there were QUITE a few nights of that)! I am not a huge fan of parking behind other cars so I can run groceries in... Most of the time, people who park in our spaces are guests of residents, who leave at like 3-4 in the morning... Either way, I am screwed. So, definitely assigned parking. From the places I have been scouting, most of them if not all of them have two spots allocated per town home, more than enough for me and a guest. AND from the neighborhoods I have scouted, there are parking lots literally within walking distance of my assigned slots, so if I ever decide to host an Ohio State, USC, or a Superbowl party, company will not need to worry about where to park!

Do I want an energy efficient home? YES! AS EFFICIENT AS POSSIBLE! I will entertain all options for gas and electric appliances (even a hybrid mix of the two) as long as my bills are kept low when all the dust settles. You should see the electric bill I have to pay this month.... IT'S ATROCIOUS! And it is not like I am watching TV all the time, I do not even have cable! And I have energy efficient light bulbs everywhere! I think the technician is reading the wrong meter for my apartment, personally. Oh well.

One thing that I definitely do not want is a setup where you can place a TV above the fireplace. I want my fireplace on one side of the living room, and enough room to incorporate my couches, and my future flatscreen somewhere else BESIDES on top of the fireplace. If you guys are already doing that, kiss your warranty on your TV's goodbye! And plus, it is a really dumb thing to do, I do not care how well insulated your fireplace is. You never, ever, EVER place elecronic equipment (all electronic equipement is sensitive to excessive heat) above a fireplace! Take it from a "Double E" (Electrical Engineer) who knows!

Bedrooms... I want at least 2! If I can get 3, I would. I do intend on renting out those rooms once I get them. I remember the kindness of former strangers when they let me rent a room in their homes during my summer internships. Now it is my turn to join in on the fun! And make a little money on the side! Most likely it will be interns I rent to, gotta have reliable sources of prospects!

Bathrooms... At the minimum, 2 Full Baths! If I can get 3, el YAY, but at least 2 full. No compromises there! Especially if I am going to rent it out!

Appliances... I need my appliances. I do not want to move into a home and then see a big hole in the wall where the dishwasher, stove, and fridge used to be. I need all my appliances in the house. So all the above, plus washer/dryer, central air/heating, etc... I do not want to buy any major appliance. The only major things I want to buy (post closing) is my bedroom set, some couches for my living room, a decent sized flat screen TV (and no, Vizio will not do), and an XBox 360.

Flooring... I love hard wood floors! Growing up, my room had hard wood floors, so I guess I'm kind of used to it! But if it is too expensive to have, roll out the carpet! Again, hard wood floors is a want, not necesarilly a need.

That about all I had for now, and I am pretty sure I will amend my wants and needs list in my first home. But for now, I think I will fix my dinner and get ready for another nightly adventure... SALSA NIGHT in the City of Medicine!

Gotta keep these skills up (I did not take Salsa lessons to get my jollies off)!!! Aiight y'all, I am out! Peace!

Its the end of the week!

Well, it is the end of the week, and as I am making myself dinner, I will write a quick note... This week went by surprisingly fast. I guess when you are always on the move and staying busy, whether at work or outside work, time does not seem to slow down. I am very comfortable with this pace and will try to keep it up for as long as I can. Yesterday, I confirmed my first 1 hour tutoring appointment with a middle school student... I got my FIRST tutoring client! So I am very excited to tutor/teach math to a student. Now all I need, is more clients! I'll keep posting my services until people take advantage of it!

Tonight I'm just gonna relax, do some reading, eat, and sleep!

Tonight's dinner menu:

Salmon with dill sauce

Wild Rice

Mixed veggies

Yum Yum! I'm out... Peace!

Choir beginnings, more from the bookstore, and my position on money.

I am at my favorite bookstore catching up on some much needed reading. Killing some time before choir practice before church. Some of my friends did not know I sing. And they would be right.

When I first relocated to the "Containment Area" the first thing I did was look for a church. I found my church home two days after moving from Ohio, attended the church, introduced myself, and listened to the word. Before getting my masters, I told Christ that if I survived USC I will get more involved with the church than the traditional Sunday morning gatherings. I saw myself as a reader, or an usher... During church, I knew all the songs the choir was singing and I was singing along with them from the pew.... Loudly and enthusiastically, without making an idiot of myself! Of course I knew NO ONE, but I have bold tendencies! So I took the risk.

and Besides... Fortune Favors The Bold!

After the second Sunday I was going to talk to the pastor about being an usher, when two members of the choir approached me and asked me to join. They said they saw me in the pew, literally singing with them and being very enthusiastic while doing it. So I agreed. When I got to choir practice I had NO idea what type of singer I was, so I was just sitting in any section, not really knowing where I am supposed to be... I NEVER SUNG IN A CHUCH CHOIR BEFORE!!! So finally, when I was trying to sing,  a choir member recognized my tone and told me that I am a tenor and that I need to be in the tenor section. 

Once I lined up with the Tenors, it was smooth sailing from there.  At the end of that practice, some of the choir members thought I have sung before, and they did not believe me when I said that this was my first time singing in a gospel choir. I sung in an elementary school choir in first grade, but that does not really count, since I was a much different person back then, and it was literally a "one grade" thing, it was not consistent, and we did not perform every week. 

However, my musical experience spans from playing the baritone horn during my elementary, middle, and high school years. The tenors in our choir sings notes out of the bass clef most of the time (baritone horn is a bass clef instrument) and I was able to match my tone to the notes based on my playing experience with my baritone. It was enough to hold my own with the other tenors. And on the songs where there were no notes, I am able to sing in harmony, and in tune (thats REAL important!) with the other tenors, alto's soprano's and bass. The rest is history! 

So while I'm waiting for 6:30 to roll around so I can go sing for God, I will be reading more finance books! Gotta get my money right! Now some of you might think the love of money is the root of all evil... I think thats true, but so is the corollary: the lack of money or the misuse of excessive money causes evil too! 

Money is a tool, you can use it for good, or for bad. If you know how to use it, it can work for you! If you don't know how to use this tool, it can work against you! In this life, you can work hard for your money, or you can make your money work hard for you. And since I am in my early career, with ambitious goals, one of them includes making my money work for me! More to come... Must stop blogging... Must start reading!

My new OLD schedule, workout blues and Jade's upcoming 'surgery'

From the first days of working for my employer, my daily schedule went something like this:

0500 - WAKE UP

0515 - Breakfast

0530 - Shower, Shave, Brush Teeth

0545 - Get dressed for work

0615 - Start my 8 hr work day

1200 - Lunch

1515 - Done for the day!

1530 - Workout

1800 - Dinner

2100 - LIGHTS OUT

Thats right, I used to go to sleep at 2100 and wake up at 0500 during the weekdays! For those of you that are not familiar with military time, thats 9:00PM and 5:00AM respectively. And I have taken many steps to preserve that schedule for as long as I can in 2009. Only family and 'lucky' women can keep me up past my bedtime. ;-)

But today was crazy, so yea, got up at 5, did everything according to the above schedule, but I had to take my car, Jade (because she's green), in for its routine 3000 mi. oil service. Come to find out that I need to get new tires because the treads are worn thin, and she needs a new alignment... Her surgery is scheduled for the 15th!

And if that was not bad enough, I ended up getting a slight tear in my right leg (upper thigh, I think its the flexor or abductor muscle) during my workout, and could not do any squats or variants (this was supposed to be my Leg day)! I was able to work out all the other leg muscles though. Now that I'm home, I'm putting some ice on it.

Wellp, its dinner time for me, tonight's menu: 

-Lemon and Herb baked chicken

-Sweet Potato

-Squash

-Rice

Gotta feed and maintain this body! 

OSU-Texas post thoughts, New clients for math service

Well, its late over here, so I will try to write this as fast as possible. First, let me start of by saying how disappointed I was in Ohio State's loss to Texas. But even in defeat, I have seen tremendous progress in Ohio State's 50-day-layover problem... Let me explain.

In 2007, Ohio State lost to Florida 14-41, thats a difference of 27 points .
In 2008, Ohio State lost to LSU 24-38, a difference of 14 points.
This year, Ohio State lost to Texas 21-24, a difference of 3 points.

Follow my logic? So hopefully next year, my beloved Buckeyes will win the BCS National Championship at the Rose Bowl by.... 4?

So the coaching staff is making the right strides, but still has a way to go to solve this problem, and we still gotta get over that SECurse (Ohio State is 7-11 vs the SEC and ALL 11 came in the bowl season) in the bowl season. I hope Terrelle Pryor is the man to get us to that promised land we saw in 2003! LoL!

Oh yea, I got harassed by all my O-State-Haters! Its okay, because had we won all our BCS games, including these past 3 losses, we would be hated on and called arrogant, now we are being hated on and called lousy, unworthy, you name it... Its a double edged sword either way you look at it. Again, it's all okay, because one day, the Buckeye Nation will return to its glory.

The streets shall flow with the blood of the nonbelievers!

I have a potential client in my newly resurrected math tutoring service! I'm excited and can't wait to seal this deal! I love math, and its a skill I do not want to lose any time soon. Now people know I can do this type of teaching! Besides, I'm always trying to share my gifts with others, and now that I have an opportunity to, I am going to make the most of it... AND even make a lil money on the side ($20/hr). Gotta love capitalism!

Still putting together my real estate purchasing strategy, and it's gonna be a damned good one! This brotha is truly getting things in order, and maintaining a healthy social life on the side, but there will be plenty of time for me to write about those adventures!

It's late, gotta get up at 5, Im out, peace!

Game Night!

I am live from the Skyboxx watching the Fiesta Bowl where The Ohio State University is hanging on to a narrow 3 point lead over Texas! So far they are hanging in there, so we'll see what happens in the second half. They need to stop that two QB crap though... They tried that against USC... It didn't work THEN! Oh well! On another note I went back to work today and saw many a familiar faces! I've returned to my 6:00 am work schedule... And I'm LOVING it! Dunno how I'm gonna get up at 5 tomorrow! But I'm an engineer, I'll innovate SOMEthing! Peace!

Last day of vacation

Well, it was a fun 2 1/2 weeks of doing what I wanted to do, but all good things must come to an end. Tomorrow I go back to work, and get my (Electrical) Engineering thing on! During the break, I used my time as constructively as possible... Barnes and Noble and I have developed a strong bond together. I took this time to read as many finance books as I could, seeing how to better invest my money, looking for new ventures, and doing things on the side. I used to tutor back during the OSU years, so I started to offer my services as a math tutor again. So far, I have 2 inquiries, and if they retain my services, I will have a little bit more income added to my bottom line. Since I plan on getting a home soon, and I saved quite a bit of money in the process, adding this income to my savings along with my commitment from my full time job, will increase my down payment, and plus its something that I like to do. So I figured since all I do during the week, is sleep, eat, work, workout, and sleep (included twice on purpose), I can spare more time to help students understand and learn math. It also helps to major in a math-intensive field. So we will see how my resurrected freelance tutoring gig goes...

Now its way past my bedtime, and I need to sleep. Good night!