OS Agnostic

by flickr user A Y U M i (LoveLiveLaugh)

I tend to obsess about things (people who know me IRL are going “duh”). Whatever is going on in my life at the time becomes fairly all consuming - I will talk about it a lot, think about it a lot, sketch plans and ideas- obsess is a very apt word. I do this until a) I can implement my plan or b) I realize that what I want can be accomplished another way and for far less money, or is simply unimportant.

I think this obsessive aspect is healthy for me. As an example, I think about my computer network a lot. How to tweak it, how to to back up files, what OS’s to use (a particular and contentions point.) I research solutions, learn new tech to make it possible, and decide on what’s not important to me. So, rather than going out and buying a $500 solution to a problem, I can often work with what I have buy, say, putting together spare parts to make a file server or replacing an old router’s firmware. I learn a lot along the way, too.

Lately an obsession has been buying a house, and soon (since we close on the house Monday) it will be decorating and outfitting the house.

So the obsession thing is fine with me, though a little annoying for friends who have to hear me ramble on about my obsessions, and that brings me to my main problem: I have several places I create content online, and I don’t really want to add any more of them. I have trouble using the ones I have. In part, the problem is focus. I’ve probably read too many of those “10 tips to writing a better blog” articles, but I have the idea that I should stick to one main topic per blog. But I don’t want to split things up like that. On this blog in particular, I want to be able to ramble about whatever- but I worry that would be annoying to readers.

Of course, I don’t have to worry about annoying online readers as much as real life friends. Online content is more easily ignored. So, I’m not going to worry about it.

I guess what I’m saying is, I’m going to get a little freer with content posted here, and that may mean more rambles about random topics and a greater volume of posts about a particular subject for extended periods of time. Feel free to unsubscribe. I hope that at least some of what I write about holds some interest for regular readers, and I will still post content (hopefully more frequently) to my other main blogs - free-artwork.com (art related stuff) and nirak.net (professional stuff- but what that means is a little up in the air right now.)

Possible upcoming obsessions:

• Building stuff: Furniture, etc. Also, setting up a shop to build stuff, stuff about power tools, maybe light house construction projects
• Decorating: Paint colors, furniture, all that fun stuff
• More stuff about Ubuntu/ open source for designers. Probably a lot of ranting about not having the options I want (Adobe CS4 on Ubuntu, ideally)
• Cooking/gardening/yard planning

Yeah, I’m going to be busy.

If you are reading this and you know me (even vaguely) you’re probably invited to my 30th birthday party on May 23rd, 7:00 PM to whenever. If you don’t know my address, shoot me an email at karin@nirak.net.

I’m not sure exactly what I’m planning (I didn’t even know if I’d be able to have the party at my house ’till recently because of the house stuff) but there will likely be cake and booze. If you want something specific (i.e. beer) please bring it. I’ll try to pick some up but I’m forgetful about these things.

I don’t need any gifts, but if you really feel you MUST get me something, I always like pixy sticks. (mmmmm, pure sugar….) Besides, I’m probably going to lose my teeth soon anyway what with the getting old and all, right?

Geoff and I put in an offer on a house Wednesday, and it was accepted. Yay! The house is near 7th and Washington- a nice, quiet little section south of downtown. The new house meets most of the qualifications we were looking for:

Walking

I photoshopped a few variations on painting schemes.

The walk to work will be a tiny bit farther than it is now (about 5 min more) but will be more varied, with lots of different routes to take. Also within walking distance is a grocery store, lots of places to eat, and coffee shops. The walk score of the house is a little lower than my last place at 57- mostly because it is completely blocked off in one direction by train tracks. But that also means it’s a quieter, less busy neighborhood, with less through traffic.

The “walk score” rating is a tricky thing. While my new house may not rate quite as high on the walk score site, I will be able to go weeks without driving- everything I need is within walking distance. This was one of my bigger goals in getting a new house. Our old location at 28th and T was mostly OK for walking, but the Alps grocery store, quite frankly, scared me (we have gone there several time to find all their milk expired). Plus, walking down 27th street just isn’t that pleasant.

Decent size yard/space from neighbors

We looked at a few houses that were great except they had tiny yards, which left no space for a garage, gardening, or any of the other things we’d like to plan for outside. The new place has a standard downtown lot size- 50×142, and the house site a decent distance away from the neighbors.

We are going to get rid of as much as this wall as possible to open up these 2 rooms.

Finished basement

we really wanted a finished basement, or, failing that, a non-scary, non-leaking basement. This, as it turns out, is fairly difficult to find downtown (basically, someone needs to have put in new basement walls at some point). The new house has a fully finished, very livable basement with some newer walls, a newer floor, and an egress window. So our bedroom will go in the basement, where we will be cooler in the summer and less affected by neighborhood noise.

Extra garage space

We wanted a two car garage- not so we could put both cars in the garage, but so I could have a woodworking shop permanently set up. The new house has a very deep one car garage, so it fits the bill. We’ve talked a bit about adding a two car garage off the alley, but we’re not sure yet.

Price

The house came in at more than $40,000 less than the top of our price range- which makes me very happy. We increased our buying range from $140,000 to $150,000 and then to $160,000 at the very top. We increased the price range because we just weren’t finding anything that met our specifications, but I am much more comfortable in the $110,000 range. If one of us were to lose our job, we could still make our utility and mortgage payments on one salary.

The rooms are a little small. We are having the wall on the right taken out, which should help.

The compromise: size

The house that started this all was quite large. And Geoff and I both really liked the idea of having a house with TONS of room, and really high ceilings, and oh, did I mention lots of room? Going back to that first post on “the dream house” these were my reasons for wanting the extra room: bigger art room, more garage space, and the ability to put litterboxes far away from living areas. The new house accomplishes a few of these things, but the litterbox problem will still exist. We’re working on solutions to that: building an outdoor cat run so the cats can go outside on nice days, and venting rooms where litterboxes will be outside to mitigate odors. (If anyone has any other ideas, please let me know!)

A view of the back of the house. Note the door that leads onto the roof on the 2nd floor.

My art room will be in the “master bedroom’ on the 2nd floor. There is more room than my old artroom, and a walk in closet to store stuff. There’s also, strangely enough, a door out onto the roof. We plan to build a balcony out there.There’s no water upstairs, but I would like to get a water recycling sink anyway.

There’s another bedroom on the second floor that we will use as a guest bedroom- it’ll be nice to have a place for guests to stay besides the living room.

There are advantages to a smaller house: we’ll be less likely to keep accumulating stuff (especially since there is less storage in the new place), energy bills will be lower, and there’s less to clean and maintain. I want to integrate more green features into the house like water collection and maybe solar panels, and that too will be easier on a smaller scale. I’ll have more posts about my plans for green additions later on.

I’m quite excited about our new house, now we just need to get our old house ready to sell. Hoping it sells quick!