Property requirements and wishlist.

Obviously my house-hunting wishlist is to find a sufficiently wonderful house for a sufficiently wonderful price I don't feel the need to move in six months.

Ideally what I'd want would be a two to three bedroom house, colonial by preference, on a postage stamp lot, in the middle of protected forest - and with no neighbors not more than 10 miles from a Wegmans. 

For some silly reason I don't think I'll be finding that.


More seriously, my list of things that I feel are non-negotiable are a lot simpler:

1. Right Angles.  I spent a year in a row building in the NYC/NJ area that had not a single right angle because of settling of the structure over the past century.  Never again.  (Even though we're talking about 89.45 degrees, or so - you'd be surprised just how accurate the human eye can be for noting such angles as being off.)
2. Off Street Parking.  I don't really give a shit if there's a garage or not.  I simply don't care to be stuck on snow days trying to find a place to put my car so it won't get towed or ticketed.  There are advantages to a garage, if it is sound and not in need of huge repairs, no question there, but. . . that's an 'it's nice' feature - not a necessity.
3. No obvious six-legged roommates.  
4. Move-in ready.   All major appliances in place, and working.  Including furnace/boiler; hot water heater; stove; oven; and fridge.   If I can get them:  washer/dryer.  Also by preference, none of any of these more than 20 years old.  Working bathrooms.  No plumbing issues.  No heating issues.  No open walls.
5. Oh, yeah.   No dyslexic plumbing.   No burners that can't stay flat.  Some kind of ventilation from the kitchen - if only a stupid window.

 Things get a bit more complicated when we start looking at my wants:

1. No galley kitchens!
2. A dishwasher!
3. Washer/Dryer
4. More than one electric outlet per room.  Preferably several, and update electrical post 1960.  
5. No enclosed porch
6. If a garage a garage that is sound.
7. Fenced in yard.
8. Relatively easy road access.   Either room in the back to turn the car around or not backing out onto a road as busy as Clifford St. 
9. Preferably zero abandoned properties still standing on the immediate block;  as a practical limit no more than, say, two.  Likewise, no more than two lots where former structures were bulldozed by the city.  

Other decisions I've made:  No condos.  Add in a set of HOA fees and something doable becomes a nightmare very quickly.  (Besides I want more space between me and neighbor.  No more upstairs mosh pits.  Similarly - while I understand the reasoning, and see the potential benefits, no duplexes.   Probably the best argument against it is that I have no fucking clue how the VA would react to such an income source.  But really the biggest hurdle for me is that I don't trust myself to pick good tenants.

Besides, all the duplexes I've seen in my price range have galley kitchens.  Inevitably.

I think that's the main stuff that I want to bring to the meeting with the Realtor tomorrow, but we'll see.

I remember Oklahoma City

I remember Oklahoma City.

I remember the confusion.   I remember the questions.   I remember, too, the rush to judgment.  The blind accusations that it must have been some kind of foreign strike.  (If I recall there were suggestions of PLO asssociation.) 

I don't want to do anything like that with this strike.

So, I do not make accusations. 

However, I am thinking of the reasons why I don't think this is the work of Al-Qaeda.  Nor any other foreign group. 

Patriot's Day, in Massachusetts is a big thing linked inextricably to the Minutemen and the Revolution.  And all the things that have been being fetishized in certain circles who claim to want to save America for Americans. 

Add to that that the Boston Marathon is a hugely international event these days...

I can't think of anywhere a bombing would be more likely to be considered to be both a hearkening to the Minutemen and a condemnation of globilization.  

Which has me wondering just who might be behind this bombing. 

I make no accusations.  Logic isn't proof. 

But I won't be surprised if this logic turns out to be related to the facts, either.