Monthly Archives: October 2016

Have Liberals Lost Their Mind?

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Maybe we have. A homeowner in Northern Virginia took to a popular DC area parent forum:

We live in a fairly liberal part of town. Are putting house on market next week. Our next door neighbors, who we don’t know well, just put up a Trump sign-only one in the neighborhood. We are afraid this will scare off potential buyers. Do we ask neighbors to take sign down?

So pathetic a question. Imagine the horror of having to live next to a Trump supporter, the uncontrollable groping, the giant Wall to keep out ethnic looking neighbors, the constant coming and going of Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, and Rudy Giuliani. Probably best to get the Homeowners’ Association to write an Anti-Trump covenant. Nip this madness in the bud.

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Asia’s Rise

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Such a sad headline, “Billionaires Fall on Harder Times“. Tucked in the article though is a telling factoid:

“The billionaire population in the U.S. grew by only five last year to 538, but that was offset by Asia, which is creating one billionaire every three days led by China.”

Meanwhile, a Chinese car and battery maker has invested $750 million in mass transit. More specifically, monorail.

BN-QG487_cbyd10_GR_20161014000646.jpgThe company says, “. . . building a monorail system requires only a fifth of the capital expenditure of a metro line and a third of the construction time.”

What Home Buyers Get Wrong

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Six months on in the new crib, I’m ready to educate my brother who is allegedly studying design. This is for him, but I’ve been posting so infrequently of late, feel free to eavesdrop. Bro, just send a check for whatever you think my insights are worth.

Home buyers focus too narrowly on total square feet, too often thinking the bigger the better. We moved to a slightly smaller home, but it feels larger because we regularly use much more of the total area. In other words, there’s no wasted space. And even though there’s less total square footage, the kitchen is quite a bit larger. The beauty of the kitchen layout is you can open every drawer and the dishwasher and the refrigerator and still have two-three feet all around. No more sucking everything in when moving the silverware from the dishwasher to the drawer. In fact, now there’s nothing stopping me from packing on an extra 40-50 lbs this winter.

Our new master bathroom is about 60% the size of our former one. And it’s perfect. That other 40% was wasted space for the purpose of what, a slightly higher sales price? The new one has just enough room to do everything comfortably, and when it comes time to clean, it’s a breeze because damn near everything is in reach.

Homebuyers don’t realize small things make a big difference. Especially when combined together. Case in point, dimmable lights. Mercy me, how did I live in an on-off world all those years? There’s nothing like entering the bathroom at 5:30a, flipping the switch, and being met by a faint pre-dawn-like light. Same when preparing to retire at night. There’s nothing like brushing one’s teeth under a faint post-sunset-like glimmer. Every light should be dimmable.

Another lesson. You can’t put a value on genuine quiet, and on natural beauty, and on the edifying result of the two combined.

Another lesson. You can’t have genuine quiet and natural beauty without sacrificing some community. There are always trade-offs. Long time readers of the humble blog will know I value community. Is sacrificing some community worth the return in quiet, natural beauty, peace? Stay tuned, time will tell.

What else do home buyers get wrong?

 

Paragraph to Ponder—Trump Downward Spiral Edition

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If you’re like me, the worse Trump does, the better you feel about the country’s future. So despite it being gray outside, I woke up Saturday a bit more bullish about things. But thanks to John Cassidy of The New Yorker for the proverbial, political science slap in the face:

“Another argument you hear from Trump supporters, and even from some nervous Democrats, is that the polls might be understating his chances. That could be the case if pollsters are systematically underestimating the likely turnout among groups who like Trump, or they are systematically overestimating the likely turnout among groups supportive of Clinton, or both. It’s also conceivable that some Trump voters are reluctant to reveal their support for him to pollsters. These sorts of things can happen. Look at Brexit. Most of the polls in Britain got that result wrong, partly because their assumptions about turnout turned out to be mistaken.”