This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Well, someone else beat our offer. Not sure if they actually beat the dollar amount or if so how much, but we did get told that they put down almost 50% of the price of the house in cash. Something we definately could not do. Oops.
Oh well. It was a nice house and we liked it, but buying before everything was settled on the PA house did make me nervous, as I mentioned. But we finally saw one we liked and moved on it, ya know? Anyway, we’ll still look at any that match our specs which come up in the next month or so. But having said that, I’ll be a lot more comfortable if we wait until late July (when all the cash flow stuff should be settled down) before making another offer. Maybe on one of the places to be built. I really like the Tiffany “Oriole” model. It is at the high end of our range though.
Well, we’ll let it play out. If something perfect comes up we may do the offer thing again. Otherwise… not until at least July, maybe August I’m thinking. The longer we wait the stronger the money situation will be. Of course, at the same time, the longer we wait the higher the prices will be (unless the market crashes) and we’ll have to deal with the whole schooll juggling thing.
Argh! Anyway, time to just think about getting the actual move done.
There are 2 other offers besides ours on the place in Florida. And the owners are playing hardball on things like how much deposit up front as opposed to at closing, and when the closing date will be and things like that. We put in an updated counter offer reflecting that stuff and sweetening our offer a little bit. But there is competition, so who knows what will happen.
If we don’t get this one, we’ll probably wait until mid-July to even look again. The situation in terms of available cash and the closing on the house here and everything else will be a lot more stable then. Juggling the sale of the house here, the timing of relocation payments from the new job, and the purchase of something new is really quite stressful. I like doing things in sequence without so many dependancies a lot better.
But this seemed like a good place that we all liked, and it will also be really nice to actually get settled in the perminant place before the school year starts so Amy won’t have to bounce schools at the second move. Plus prices are going up at a rate that can already be seen in the couple of months we’ve been looking at houses down there. So when we found this one, offering seemed the right thing to do.
We want it.
But… if one of the other two people get it instead, we’ll be OK with that too. We’ll find something a couple months down the line. Every month we stay at the Bou’s should actually do a lot to put us in an increasingly better position… but at the same time, we’re anxious to get settled in a long-term spot, especially because of the school thing.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens.
I put in an offer on a place in Florida today. We had been thinking of building, but saw one on Thursday that seemed to be a good match and all three of us liked. And the price is in my original budget range, not the higher range I had decided to also look in after not being satisfied initially with what I saw in the lower range. If the offer is accepted I’ll post more info in a few days. And I guess if it isn’t I’ll post that too.
Well, as of last night Amy and Brandy have seen the place in Melbourne we are renting from Ivan’s family for the first time. We won’t be fully moved in with this as our primary home for another month or so, but we’re starting to get the feel of the place and the neighborhood.
I was going to take the time and make a photo gallery page on abulsme.com with my look and feel and my navigation and my site stats tracking and all that fun stuff, but things are pretty busy these days and who knows when I’ll have the time. So here is a mac.com photo album (took only seconds to post with iPhoto). Enjoy!
Some Pictures of Our Place
This is a transitional place, for us to stay until the sale of the house in PA closes, and we decide what we want to buy down here and then wait to be able to move in. That may take a little while. In the mean time, this will be home!
Edit 2016-12-05 03:30 UTC to replace link to defunct mac.com page with a new page with the same pictures and captions I just created. The old URL was http://homepage.mac.com/abulsme/PhotoAlbum24.html. A Wayback Machine snapshot of the original page is also available here.
Watch what happens with Chalabi. In many ways he manipulated the American Neo-Cons into the invasion last year. Now it hasn’t gone the way he wants and the Americans are turning on him (finally). But it doesn’t seem he will go quietly. He is definately one to watch.
The Truth About Ahmed Chalabi
(Andrew Cockburn, CounterPunch)
In dawn raids today, American troops surrounded Ahmed Chalabi’s headquarters and home in Baghdad, put a gun to his head, arrested two of his aides, and seized documents. Only five months ago, Chalabi was a guest of honor sitting right behind Laura Bush at the State of the Union. What brought about this astonishing fall from grace of the man who helped provide the faked intelligence that justified last year’s war?
The answer lies in Chalabi’s reaction to his gradual loss of US support in recent months and the realisation that he will be excluded from the post June 30 Iraqi “government” being crafted by UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.
Lashing out against his exclusion from power, he has in effect been laying the groundwork for a coup, assembling a Shia political coalition with the express aim of destabilising the “Brahimi” government even before it takes office. “
(via MetaFilter)
I convinced my mom to give a try at putting a print newsletter she edits online in blog form. I set her up on Blogger and showed her how to post. Just a couple posts so far. She is experimenting. I don’t know if she’ll keep it up, but I’ll keep an eye on it! Anyway, it is my mom, so check it out.
Just Peace Advocate
The Just Peace Advocate appears in three formats. The “short version” is two pages per month included in Western Area News and… which is mailed to pastors, churches and leaders in Massachusetts by the Western Area office. The “long version” appears 5-6 times a year and goes to a special list of persons who have requested to receive it or are known to have an interest in justice and peace issues. This site posts updates between publications of the print versions.
The Top Ten list for March 2004 has now been posted to the public. Enjoy. (Of course the actual winners were notified weeks ago.)
March 2004
But I think Chad will be disappointed. Because this total means he missed the previous all time record for emails sent to me in one month by only 45 emails. Of course, that record is held by Chad. March 1999. But only 45 messages? Poor Chad. Perhaps if he hadn’t taken off the 9th and 10th of the month and sent no emails at all those two days he could have done it. Oh well!
The process of moving to Florida is now well underway. The new address and phone number are final. As of about an hour ago, my phone was switched over to the new number. The old one now gives a “no longer active” type message when you call it. (They couldn’t put a forwarding message, and I lost some voicemail, which is annoying, but it is switched.)
So if you need to call me, you need the new number.
The new postal address will probably be ready to recieve mail around the end of the month (we have to get a mailbox to put outside the house). Until then use the old addresses.
Oh, and no, I won’t post the number and address here. If you want it, send me an email. :-)
(Those who send me lots of email will get the info by email in a few minutes.)
As of yesterday, the paperwork has been signed by all parties, and I have a contract on the sale of my house in PA. Yea! It is less than I had hoped, but right about where I had expected really. I’m selling it for more than I bought it, only 9 months later… and without having done any improvements on the house really… It is selling for enough more than I owe that I’ll get a check back at closing, even after all the fees and such are deducted. (Although not that BIG a check.) It isn’t enough to completely make up for the closing costs on buying the place last year though, but that deficit should be covered by my relocation agreement with the new company.
In the end, when all is totaled, including my relocation agreement, it should be a wash, and I’ll be essentially restored to the financial position I was in right before buying the house in PA. (Or close anyway, I guess I racked up some additional debt in the last nine months too. Oops. But that is unrelated to the house.
So, things move along. I’m checking out a house owned by Ivan’s family on Monday, and will probably end up renting that as an interum place. Then we’ll close on the PA house, probably sometime in July. After that, I’ll feel free to move forward on buying in Florida, once it is clear EXACTLY what I have in my pocket, and once there would not have to be any contingincies on the sale of my current place.
I’ll be continuing the back and forth thing, flying down to Florida and back every other week, for another month or so. Then Amy’s school year will be over, and we’ll all move down there. Once we’re all down there, things will be a lot nicer. This back and forth is crazy!
Busy times!
It would be great if we have another rerun with disputes taking weeks to resolve the election! I love that stuff! Maybe this time it can be sent to the House where it belonged last time…
This guy is using last year’s election results, plus current state by state poll results and such to keep a running projection of the likely outcome in November. Right now his projections are showing a result almost identical to 2000. Yum! Fun stuff! The closer it is, the more fun it is to watch! (Forget about the actual results and who wins, I’m just talking the enjoyment of watching the process!)
Polling Data Update
Now to the first returns using the new formula. Are you kidding me?? The President is slightly behind Senator Kerry in the popular vote, 48.56% – 49.61%, while once again winning the electoral vote race, 274-264! So, after hours and hours of data processing using the new formula, we’re right back where we ended up almost 4 years ago! Without state polls included, Kerry would win Florida and Bush would win New Hampshire. The first state poll advantage goes to the President.
(via Wizbang!)
Full 2004 Election Projections.
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