Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Momma don't Play....

Thanks to Shawn for providing this wonderful display of active parenting!!



Saturday, August 20, 2005

Welcome Home?



THE GOOD NEWS: Praise God!!!! I am finally a home (condo) owner!!!! Thanks for all of your nice thoughts and prayers.

THE BAD NEWS: In some strange way he was right...I either have a roommate or a squatter, you decide.

ARE YOU CURIOUS ABOUT THE PICTURES? First I have a question for you... Do you think that a man who cuts up his boxers with a pocket knife, then leaves them in the middle of the living room floor should be allowed to roam the streets freely or should someone give him a nice white jacket (with very long sleeves), a mask, and a padded room?

SHORT EXPLANATION: The above pictures are what I was greeted with as I walked into my new residence for the first time. The top picture is the filthy couch I talked about in the prior post, the one on the left is a picture of a tire and a vacuum left in one of the hallway closets, and the one on the right is a pair of the previous owner's boxers that I think he either left as a threat or a gift...I'm not really sure.

LONG EXPLANATION: By the grace of God I was able to get all of the missing paperwork in by the deadline and close escrow on time. I arrived fifteen minutes early for my walk through (which is a miracle in itself according to most of my friends). As I walked towards the door I got the feeling that things were not going to go as smoothly as my realtor originally led me to believe. The first thing I noticed was that the blinds were closed (in the middle of the day). As we walked through the door I was once again overcome by that terrible odor. As I went into the kitchen I was surprised to see that the previous owner had made a pitiful attempt at cleaning. All of the garbage was picked up off the floor and most of his tattered filthy furniture was gone. My realtor was under the impression that the previous owner was finally gone but....Of course not! He was once again asleep on the nasty couch (see above picture). When his realtor arrived he got up and stated that he was in the process of moving out and that he would be completely out by 9am the next day. He also made sure to point out everything that needed to be repaired (it was an as-is sale) in a somewhat coherent manner. So, the walk through wasn't all that great with him as a shadow but I figured it could have been worse right???

IT GETS WORSE: The next day my realtor calls and says the magic words, "Come get the keys it's yours!" I filled out the last of the mountains of paperwork, got my keys, and excitedly headed to my new home. Problem #1: None of my keys fit any of the door locks. Problem #2: I didn't get a remote to the gate. Problem #3: I didn't get a key to the mailbox (and have no idea where it is). To say that I was upset would be an understatement but instead of freaking out I called a locksmith and went shopping for new flooring. An hour and $300 dollars later the locksmith picked the door lock, replaced several locks and let me in.....or should I say broke in. Welcome home.

IT GETS WORSER (yes, I know that isn't a word) : The first thing I noticed when I walked in was a tire and a vacuum cleaner stacked in the hall closet (see above left picture). Then I walked into the bathroom and found a wet towel on the sink, open deodorant (I'm not sure why it was open because it's evident that he never used it) and a plugged in electric razor. I looked in all of the cabinets and closets and found out that the garbage I thought he had disposed of was simply hidden in new spots. He had actually moved more of his belongings in since my walk through instead of moving things out. Idiot! I also started getting nervous because I thought he was possibly hiding somewhere in the area. As I walked into the living room I saw that his couch (see middle picture) was still there but he was nowhere to be found. I. WAS. FURIOUS. I called my realtor and lost it.

IT GETS WORSER-ER:I won't bore you with all the details but I will say that I have one huge mess on my hands. According to my realtor the previous owners realtor can't seem to find him. He took his money and ran. She has been able to contact one of his brother who says he will pay for the costs of disposing of the crap that was left behind but he refuses to put it in writing. I wanted to dump it all but according to the local police I have to store that jackasses belongings for a minimum of 30 days and make reasonable allowances for him to pick it up if he so chooses. I planned on painting, pulling out the carpet, and remodeling the bathroom before moving in but that is going to be hard with all of his crap laying around. I'm also nervous that he will show up again once I actually move in. I feel like my whole life is up in the air right now so I guess only time will tell how this all works out......Off to the gun store.


YOU'RE KIDDING RIGHT?????- Today my mom called to tell me that she and my uncle were going to bag up all of the crap that the freak left behind and put it on my deck until I figure out what I'm going to do. She said that when she arrived a fire fighter advised her that half of the building burned down last night but the fire stopped right before it reached my unit. I wonder if Mr.Cranker set the fire. I also found out that I have a storage unit that I was never advised about. Apparently it was padlocked and he has possibly been living in it. Somebody pinch me please......


Tuesday, August 16, 2005

I asked for it.

After (another) very long hiatus this gifted blogger's post has inspired me to start writing again.

So, a while back I mentioned that I was trying to decide if I should buy a home close to my job, further out, or not at all. The biggest problem was that it is almost impossible to purchase a house in the bay area (in a decent neighborhood) for under $500K. Even the smallest hole in the wall studio is just under $300k. I have terrible road rage so a 4 hour (round trip) commute was out of the question. I finally decided that any city within 30-40 minutes of my job was acceptable.

I won't go into detail about the homes and condos that my realtor showed me but suffice it to say that most of the places within my budget were crap, crap, and more crap. Anyway, after a whole lot of searching I found a place that looked like it had potential. My realtor and I let ourselves in to what was suppose to be a vacant unit. The first thing I noticed was a terrible odor (kind of like burnt Bologna and Mayonnaise) that I attributed to the lack of ventilation but boy was I wrong. Stretched out on the dirtiest living room couch I've ever seen was a naked, fat, greasy, pasty white man sleeping the day away. Once he was up and dressed my realtor asked him a series of questions regarding why he was there. He looked at her grunted, scratched himself and walked out the front door without ever saying a word. I suppose the average person would consider a naked fat man a bad omen or some other crap but hey this is California and affordable property is hard to come by so... let's just say I put in my offer immediately after leaving.

(perhaps I should clarify...Strange things happen to me on a daily bases so I took the dirty naked man as a good sign... No Chops I was and am not sexually attracted to fat naked white men.)

I'd heard so many horror stories about problems with loans and other first time buyer issues that I was expecting the worst but oddly enough I hadn't experienced any problems until today. My realtors assistant called (and woke me up) all upset and said that I had to submit several documents that I've had trouble tracking down within 14 hours. Ummm Kay so I'm suppose to get all this shit together in the next 14 hours (it was 6pm when he called) and I'm on my way to work a 10 hour shift so you do the math. Yeah, that's gonna happen. NOT!! He then called two additional time to reiterate the importance of my compliance in this matter.

Later that evening (or I guess I should say a few hours ago) my realtor called to inform me that the reason for her assistants frantic state was that the freak I'm buying the condo from is a cranker (meth-user). During a drug induced stupor he convinced himself that my realtor is actually with the DA's office and is conducting some type of investigation on him. He thinks that when we viewed the residence we were actually looking for drugs and drug paraphernalia (which is funny because the only things in his house were the filthy couch four tires and a whole lot of garbage). He even claims that he saw her at the local court house following him around. He has also decided that if my loan does not fund by tomorrow he is going to pull the unit off the market and cancel the entire deal(even though he can't really do that).

Somehow in the next few hours I've got to figure out how to get the necessary paperwork (without leaving my job), fill it out, get it to my agent, sleep for a few hours, and do a walk though at 1:00pm (even though I don't get off work until 5AM) BLECH!!! Hopefully that wack- job of an owner won't be there for the walk through but with my luck....

Anyway, please send your prayers and good thought my way cause I'm gonna need um. Thanks.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Young And Stupid Aint Just A Phrase

I guess you've noticed that we've been on a bit of a blogger break lately. I personally haven’t wanted to look at a computer outside of work!!

The other day my cousin brought up an incident that occurred back when I was a young fool in the Army and I guess I'll share.


You know the drill - read the bold if you dont have time to read it all right now.



Army Dayz~
I went into the army right out of high School
. I guess it was mainly because almost all of my family had been in the military and I was next in line. It wasn’t anything that I particularly thought about, it was just something I knew I was going to do...sort of expected.

Anyways, it was rough being away from home so long, but I got used to it. My first few days in boot camp I met a 40 year old sergeant - let's call him Sgt. Pops. Prior to my going into the military my mom and ex-stepfather had went through and ugly break up (more on that lata), so when I met Sgt. Pops, for some reason (I'll blame it on my youthful ignorance) I was convinced they would be GREAT together! I had even shown him a picture of my mom and he commented that she was gorgeous!
Sgt. Pops was always looking out for me. Whenever I'd get into trouble he'd offer to bail me out. I didn’t get into trouble much, but if I ever did he was always there to offer to help me out (I never accepted though).

He was always doing stuff for me that I'd never gotten from a father figure before. He was just a really cool guy and I saw him like a father. On one particular occasion he told me that I could come down to the Sergeants office in order to get a quick TV fix (we weren’t allowed access to TV's). I was sooooo excited I almost soiled myself!! LOL!

So after lights out, at approximately 11pm, I snuck my silly ass down there thinking I would get to watch a few shows and have some cool conversation with my "Pops". I can honestly say, thinking back on it, that was one of the stupidest decisions I've made in my life (a fact that Beg reminds me of often).

So I skipped my happy little naive butt down there and met up with "Pops". He gave me a hug and told me to sit on the couch. I sat down and immediately turned towards the TV. I remember asking him why the TV was on mute, and he just looked at me and smiled. I really started to feel uncomfortable at that point, but I just shrugged it off thinking I was being paranoid.

Sgt. Pops sat down beside me and put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me deep. I swear, at that point I began to freak out inside. I couldn’t believe what was happening, but then I kept second thinking it and trying to rationalize out why he was being so touchy feely.
Then the sergeant started to lunge at me. I pulled back but he was much stronger than me, and I was quickly realizing that he was easily going to overtake me. Tears started to fall and I wanted to start to scream but I was petrified, and when he saw this he told me to “Relax. Just as he had started up again, God happened.

I tell you, God is sooooo good. As he was lunging at me about to do God knows what to me, there was a sound in the hall outside the door. Sgt. Pops got up, and went to the door to check it out. When he came back he told me to go up to my bunk and wait for him to come and get me, since he thought another sergeant had arrived early.

I ran back up to my bunk, covered my head under my blankets, and began to weep. I cried like a baby and I prayed like mad woman until I passed out from exhaustion.

I believe it was about an hour later that I heard someone moving around in the room. I peeked out from a crack in my blanket and saw Sgt. Pops waking up the private across from me (there were about 8 or 10 girls to a room – I was part of the last all girl Company). He thought it was me!!!

My fellow private (who I affectionately called Pooty-Booty, due to excessive flatulence) woke up and asked the sergeant what he wanted. He realized he had the wrong person and couldn’t risk her seeing him with me, so he told her to go back to sleep and he left the room.

Now a lot of you may say that I should've run to the top of the food chain and sung like a freaking canary on his sick ass, but consider this. I was a young, naive, emotionally jacked up kid. I was hella far from my family, I wanted to go home, and I didn’t believe that anyone would believe me if I told them what had went down. What's worst is that I really thought it was my fault. I thought that if I told anyone I would've gotten into trouble, and I would've ended up stuck there for much longer than I was already assigned to be, or maybe even go to jail (it was against the law for Sergeant to get with Privates).

The next day (and from that point forward) I avoided Sgt. Pops like the plague. He would try to corner me sometimes, but I always made sure I was with another private whenever he was around. At one point he asked me to be the mother of his kids (he had a 5 year old, 8 year old, and 15 year old!!) in front of another Private!!! I told him “HELL NO!” and he really didn’t bother me much after that.

Eventually Sgt Pops got his. Apparently he was screwing quite a few privates in my Company. Girls talk, so it finally got out and he had to go to court or something over it. I'm not sure what became of Sgt. Pops, but I'm sure he was removed from the base and reprimanded. There were just too many girls with too much dirt on him (I hear some of them thought they loved him and that he loved them...sad).

Always in love...unless you target and take advantage of extremely young naive girls, and in the process damage their self-worth and self-esteem.

Chops~

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