Update from the Frontlines
Well, I'm sure none of you slept a wink last night, just waiting to hear about the latest housing possibility for Casa Intellectual Poison. The short answer is that it is a pass. When I started to chart it out, Pros versus Cons, I quickly amassed a list of cons that was twice as long as the pros.

But let's traipse down the house hunting lane to see if we can learn anything from this failed house.

One, its a good idea to make a staircase and loft with a ceiling above 6 feet. I'm not really all that tall at about five nine but I couldn't stand up straight in the proposed bedroom. That's an issue and one that's not easily worked around at all.

Two, if you're planning on selling your house and you are a smoker then get your big fat ass up and go smoke outside. Smoking inside your house is not only disgusting but it layers every surface with your smoke stench and that will make it damned near impossible to sell.

Three, a bedroom is a bedroom if its a usable space. The "second" bedroom on this house was the back end of a converted garage and no one in their right mind would want to live out there, no bathroom and not much space make for an unhappy living situation.

Four, there is a nice deck that runs around half of the house. Only problem is that its not been kept up and is rotting, again, makes it harder to sell a house if a potential owner is looking at a couple of thousand to replace the deck right off the bat.

Five, the house is close to the highway. So close that you can look up and see cars ripping by on a bridge. And hear them. Too close for comfort or sanity.

Six, the driveway to get back out onto the road was awful, it was canted at such an angle as to obscure your vision to the right (where speeding trucks came blasting by with impunity). Not fun and less so when I think about my wife and child pulling out of the driveway.

Okay, so you're wondering why I didn't just bolt upon first view. And no, the realtor being 20 minutes late didn't help at all (note to universe, if you are late and both parties know it, own up to it and apologize, as it is I would never do business with this woman, she was late, she was not especially helpful in seeing the house and looked at Cody and me as not worthy or something, whatever).

There's a good amount of land, just under a quarter acre, with a creek running through it. I grew up on a stream in Vermont and like the feng shui of running water nearby. The living room had a nice open layout and the loft overlooking it was a cool touch. The house itself appeared to be in good shape and had loads of potential but was, overall, a big pass for all of the reasons above. Oh yeah, number seven, the asking price was a good hundred thousand over what we'd be willing to pay for the place.

Next up on the house hunt express?

I'm heading down to Watsonville after work tonight to check out a couple of townhouses (assuming I can get in touch with the listing agent). One is nearly brand new and has great space inside, three bedrooms, two and a half baths and a big ol' two car garage in addition to all the other goodies. Its main drawback is that there is no yard so no dog for us. But who knows what the deal is until I get there and take a look around.

Side note, yesterday was the first field test of my super cool Raytek MT4 infrared thermometer (oh yeah, you knew it was on the way when I wrote about it a week or two ago) and yes, it is the one with the laser. It works really well for quickly finding hot spots and cold spots in walls (i.e. around outlets and badly sealed windows) and is proving pretty useful for checking food temps as well. The most use its gotten so far though is as just a laser dot to make the cat run around the house chasing it. By the way, did you know that an LCD monitor generally runs at just under 90 degrees? Or that acorn squash is a really good insulator and holds its heat extraordinarily well? I found that out last night and didn't end up scorching my mouth as a result.

And halogen lights can get hotter than 500 degrees (the top end for my little MT4)?

Keep your collective fingers crossed that tonight's inspection yields a juicier and more alluring fruit than last night's lemon shaped house.

And because I'm a linkin' fool, how about two new ones?

Stumble Upon.com is a new to me and super cool way to bop around the internet. You get a toolbar that allows you to "Yea" or "Nay" any given site so that, over time, you create a profile that will allow the system to point you to more and more sights that resonate with your interests. One of the first sites it stumbled me upon is An Atlas of Cyberspaces and damn if they don't have some of the most amazing graphical representations of the internet ever.

I'm installing the browser tool bar on my work computer right now and will be able to rate sites from work as well. One of the cool features is that, if you like a site, you can add a comment to the Stumble Upon record for the site as to why you liked it. And then people with your same interests can find it even easier. It is a very cool way to find new places to go surfing through. Interactive museums, lots of incredibly cool art sites and more than I'd ever even try shaking a stick at.

And now, we work.