Archive for the 'Fun' Category
Technology, Real Estate and Me
Note: This post is written by the Luddite, Amy.
I’m of the generation that started using computers in grammar school. I died more than once from dysentery while playing Oregon Trail. I’m sure many of you fine readers suffered similar fates. After college I worked for IT consulting firms. Again, surrounded by technology. I used to transfer data from legacy computer systems to whatever new, spiffy software my company was installing. Thrilling, I know.
Today I continue to find myself inundated with technology. My laptop for all of my everyday work. My smart phone (currently a Droid 2-something-or-other) for talking, emailing, texting and surfing the web while I’m on the go. And most recently, an iPad2. I’ve lovingly named it Tiny.
Kyle convinced me that we needed the iPad for business stuff. I’m not going to tell you for what exactly because that’s strategic voodoo and many of our competitors read this blog, so I can’t be letting them in on the goods. Let’s just say he had a compelling argument on why we should have one. So I sent him off to the store to make the purchase. My only input was to demand the sky blue colored cover rather than the apple green one he proposed.
Maybe there is something wrong with me (and I’ve been told by several that there is), but I really have no interest in the latest addition to our family. Tiny, while cute, small and light has no draw for me. I shudder when I look at it. Another device and technology to learn- I’ve been a Microsoft girl since undergrad, some 17 years ago. Another time suck. My laptop and phone seem to do everything that it does. Why the redundancy?
Urgh. I’m all about technology and my job, but it’s getting to a point where I’m starting to feel overwhelmed. I need to keep up with my various devices. I need to keep up with Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and Google+ (does it even exist anymore? I just don’t know…).
When can I go back to doing my job? After I learn how to use Tiny to make me “better” at my job, I guess… Thanks Kyle!
GHREB, Where Have You Been?
We’ve been a little quiet over here at the GHREB during July and August. So what exactly have we been up to?
1. Lots of work. Stressful work. The market is a little crazy right now and people are being cranky. More about that in an upcoming post this week.
2. Indoor projects around our house. Amy has been up painting late in the night again. The bright pink back stairway is now gone. Two bedrooms have been painted. Things are looking fresh and clean. Benjamin Moore is richer as a result.
3. Outdoor projects around our house. We had a big rotting tree taken down. We’re having some new fencing put up. We’ve planned some new gardens.
4. More work.
5. Evening trips to the beach. The Bergquist family is what you would call pale. We don’t do well in the sun. But we still like the beach. Well, Amy and Ellen do. So we make early evening trips down to Hammonasset and spend about an hour or two once the sun has retreated somewhat. And then Amy gets to eat fried clams. All is happy when Amy gets fried clams.
6. Planning our house’s 100 Year Birthday Celebration which will take place in September. So there, Hartford Preservation Alliance!
We’ll be back to more dedicated blogging in the upcoming weeks as summer winds down. We hope you had an enjoyable summer too. What have you been up to?
Goodbye Engine-less Lawnmower
June 2004: Amy and Kyle have just bought a home in Hartford, their first … it’s time for some yard work.
I was very excited to have property to take care of for the first time since I worked summers during college as the maintenance guy for our Town Park back in Vermont. As you might imagine, the lawns up there are a little larger than down here in the City. The parks I maintained involved quite a bit of mowing – acres and acres.
Our lot in Hartford, on the other hand, is 0.16 acres. Most of the land is taken up by house, driveway, gardens, and a crushed stone “patio” area, so there really isn’t much grass at all. I figured it would be a breeze to keep it mowed. A riding mower was out of the question. Not only was it complete overkill for the time and effort required, but we also don’t have anywhere to park it. A traditional push mower and a string trimmer were more than enough to keep our property under control.
The local home improvement center had numerous options for lawn mowers. One that really jumped out at me was a reel mower – the kind that doesn’t have an engine – just spinning blades that act like scissors.
Because the yard was so small, I figured it would be a nice solution. Small, so it wouldn’t take up much room in our shed. No engine, so I wouldn’t have to deal with buying and storing gasoline, and just a little more environmentally friendly than the other options. Plus, the extra effort of pushing the thing around for 15 minutes would be a good way to get some exercise. So I bought one, why not give it a shot?
July 2004: Reality of a reel mower sets in.
It turned out that reel mowers aren’t all that effective with a lawn that is bumpy and weedy. The bumps cause the reel to bounce around, making it difficult to keep the wheels in contact with the ground, which is critical for maintaining the system’s momentum, and for getting a clean cut. The result on our lawn was a very uneven cut, and lots of missed blades that eventually grew quite tall. Reel mowers are also less effective at the longer blades and weeds, meaning that the stuff I missed the previous mowing would either get tangled in the reel or get missed again. I had to use the string trimmer to clean things up.
Reel mowers work great on golf courses. I eventually realized that there were considerably more differences than similarities between my lawn and a golf course. My lawn is not made up of a uniform grass type. My lawn is neither irrigated nor chemically treated. My lawn is nowhere near as smooth. And my lawn is not mowed frequently to maintain the grass height. So my lawn is not a good match for a reel mower. Nevertheless, I was determined to stick it out for the first year to give the reel mower a fair shot.
May 2005: Kyle gets real.
Going into our second summer, I decided to get serious about the lawn and buy a normal lawn mower. I no longer wanted to work extra hard to mow the lawn, more frequently than otherwise necessary, yet still end up with sub-par results. The first couple of mows with the power mower were wonderful – the lawn looked perfectly smooth.
The reel mower moved to the back corner of the shed, out of the way. It was still available if needed, but was no longer the primary mower.
July 2005: Kyle can’t get the gas mower to start.
Gasoline engine lawn mowers have their challenges too. For me it was trying to figure out why it consistently took 25 pulls to get the things started. Seriously? Just start! I never had this problem with my reel mower.
This issue did not cause me to pull out the reel mower.
July 2008: Kyle’s gas mower needs a tune-up.
Why does the mower’s engine sound like it’s slowing down every 5 steps? Maybe it needs a tune-up. An oil change. Or a new spark plug. What else do small engines like this need? It probably needs the blades sharpened, but that’s not causing it to sound funny.
On the plus side, I figured out why it was so hard to start. When storing it in my shed, I was tilting it about 30 degrees to the side and driving it on two wheels in order to avoid an obstacle. Somehow that was causing the engine to flood, which made starting it much more difficult.
Reel mower? What reel mower?
May 2011: Kyle’s gas mower still needs a tune-up.
The gas mower still works, but the sounds it makes do not inspire much confidence. Like modern electronics, it seems to me that the lawn mower was built to be thrown away rather than maintained and kept for a long period of time. It cost about $100. And I can’t imagine finding anyone who would be willing to figure out what’s wrong, buy the parts, and fix it for less than $50.
I’ll just keep using it until it finally gives out, offer it for free on CraigsList to someone who can fix it, and then go buy a new one. And maybe this time I’ll get one that actually comes with an instruction manual that talks about how to service it and what parts might be needed. I can follow instructions. But I’m just not interested in trying to figure out what’s wrong and then try to fix it. Besides, if it makes it through this season, year 7, then it will have cost about $15 per year to own plus $10 per year in gas. I’m comfortable with $25 per year in equipment costs to mow the lawn.
July 2011: Kyle decides to part with the reel mower.
The reel mower has been sitting in the shed since it was retired in 2004. For a while I had hoped to fix the lawn so that it would be reasonable to use it to mow. But now I’ve accepted that even if the lawn does get fixed (which is unlikely), I would still prefer a gas powered mower.
It’s time to get rid of the reel mower. Would anyone like it? I’m planning to listing it for sale on CraigsList, but if any reader is interested in giving it a go, I would be happy to let it go for free.
Celebrate West Hartford 2011
Gather ’round everyone, it’s once again time to “Celebrate! West Hartford.”
This year’s festival marks the 25th anniversary of the event and will be held on June 11th and 12th, 2011 on the Town Hall property in the Center. It will have all the usual attractions, including craft booths, rides, food carts, petting zoo, booths for local businesses/organizations, and a trolley. Saturday’s musical entertainment looks to be high school jazz bands, while Sunday has a slate of 3 bands each playing a 2 hour set. Check out the complete schedule of events for more details.
If you can break away from the fun, we’ll be hosting two open houses on Sunday afternoon where we promise to NOT have live music. 83 Kenyon Street in Hartford, and 97 Lancaster Road in Glastonbury will both be open from 1:00 to 3:00.
Real Estate Dreams
What kind of home would you live in if you could go out right now and buy a place? I’m not talking about the pie-in-the-sky fantasy here (I’m going to buy my own island!), rather asking what kind of home would ideally fit your current lifestyle, interests, and approximate budget?
The American Dream
Amy and I lived in apartments for a long time. After college we were working in the Boston area and weren’t mentally or financially prepared for a home … so we lived in an apartment. From there we moved to Charlottesville and knew we would be in town for less than 2 years because of our degree program … so we lived in an apartment. As we considered job opportunities at the end of those two years, one of the important factors was whether or not we would be able to buy a home in our new town.
Our goal at the time was to find an average home. Something much larger than our smallish apartments, but nothing crazy. A home comparable to the places we grew up in back in Vermont. Amy’s folks live in a Colonial, while mine lived in a Split. Both were in quiet suburban neighborhoods that can be found in most Greater Hartford towns. We wanted a reasonable sized yard, and were willing to take on a project or two to make the place our own.
Unfortunately, the super-hot real estate markets conspired against us. Everything we were interested in touring sold by the time we made the trip up from Virginia to look. We ended up rolling the dice on a home that was larger than we needed, and older than we were familiar with. But it had a great location in the West End of Hartford, and had fallen into our price range after languishing on the market. That first purchase jump started our interest in real estate, so we kept looking at properties once we arrived and were settled.
Investment Dreams
Our next phase was to look for investment properties, but in the back of my mind I was also looking for interesting old buildings that could be turned into spectacular homes. My favorite TV shows at the time were the ones where people converted old industrial buildings in to loft-like homes on a grand scale. We were serious about the investment property side of things, but I really enjoyed thinking about how to covert the more interesting buildings into a home.
We checked out a huge Victorian mansion in Bristol with major fire damage (top picture). It was an incredible structure, and would have been a gorgeous home or investment property, but was well out of our league in terms of the repairs needed.
We also visited out a turnkey apartment building in New Britain. No dream home potential here, but it seemed like a solid investment for the right buyer, which was not us.
We looked at two larger homes in the West End that had amazing architectural features, but needed quite a bit of updating. They would be very nice places to live, but definitely didn’t qualify as investment properties.
Finally, we toured a partially leased commercial building in Broad Brook (picture above). This one was my favorite because it had amazing potential as a residence, and really fit my vision at the time. But it was rather far from work, and not economically responsible to convert to a home.
In the end, our practicality carried the day and we bought a one bedroom condo to rent (picture below). The thinking was that if it worked out, then perhaps we could add more properties over time.
Real Estate Overload
Our next, and current, real estate phase is simplifying. Once we got into the business of helping people buy and sell homes, I found that I was less inclined to also make real estate my hobby. I did not want to deal with tenants, so we sold the condo that we had been renting. Maybe one day we’ll get back into real estate investing, but there will definitely be a property manager involved.
My dream home right now? I don’t think I’ve quite transitioned over to wanting a condo, because I still enjoy spending time outside in the yard, but I want my home to be easy. Easy to maintain, and easy to live in. The honest answer is that my current dream home is probably a fully updated version of the home we initially set out to find when we first moved to town. So it’s too bad we weren’t able to find one of those.
But we’re not going anywhere, our place is close enough to what we want. As an older home it needs more maintenance than many, but our gung-ho efforts in the first few years set us up pretty well. The main projects on our to-do list are “easy” things like painting and redecorating (why did we pick bubble gum pink for the hallway again?) or stuff that will be hired out.
Our home is a work in progress, which seems to be true for most people. We’ll continue to do a little bit here and there to bring it that much closer to being our dream home.
What kind of home would you live in if you could go out right now and buy a place?