"You gonna get another job?"...

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
I've been a renter my whole life. Never looked back. Banked the taxes and difference in mortgage and repairs I would have had to put out and have a lovely nest egg. Some of the CD's I invested in early on were when interest rates were in the 17-21% range. I maxed out the investment when covid started at Schwab and just recently sold all my stocks

So yeah, I pay the rent on time every month :D
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Approaching time to get another rental. Only there's less than 1,000 houses listed in the MLS for the metro area--including surrounding counties. But I digress. The important point is a sad setback on my sex dungeon. Washing machine hookup is in the basement. Since water doesn't flow uphill and the house was on a septic tank, they decided to just run the washer pipe to the sump pump and pump the laundry water out onto the gravel driveway. Not really an optimal solution. Since I'm now on the city sewer, most of the plumbing is in the back of the house, and the main is in front of the house, my plumber saved me around $5,000-10,000 of trenching by running the pipe along the wall of the basement. As an added plus, this just about left enough slope to hook up the washer without having to put it up on a pallet or add a "crock" and a pump or anything like that. But the key is to keep the pipe as short and straight as possible to get the best possible flow. This means I now have a bunch of PVC piping running right in the middle of the stairs to the sex dungeon. :(

I've got a workaround plan, but it will take some time... (Not that I have any time for years and years before I get around to building a sex dungeon.)
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Holy crap. I maybe figured out how to get my next house. It's completely crazy and totally hippy-dippy, but it could work, in theory. Except that my aging dog would have a rough time with it. :(

To recap, my current home is on over an acre of land. Long narrow lot. You go to what you think is the end of it and there's a whole other lot behind that. Basically a grown-over pasture. Hard to subdivide because there's a 1 lane narrow gravel driveway. Too difficult for a renter to properly maintain. And there's enclosed parking for 6 cars, plus a rusty tin "yard barn" that is big enough for a riding lawnmower. Or a motorcycle.

So. Rent out the current house and the 1 car garage (or however many spaces the renter wants to pay extra for above the 1 car garage). Build a 1980s geodesic dome home in the back pasture and live there. Or a more conventional little cottage. Either way. It's so crazy it just might work.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Buckminster Fuller approves.
 

Oerdin

Active Member
Is it south facing? If so you could build an earth ship. Actually that is a stupid idea as ever earth ship I have ever been in (namely two on the same property) smelled like sewage and didn't work as designed.
 

FBI parte due

Folces Weard
Unsure what a "greywater planter" entails, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want one in my bedroom.
 

Oerdin

Active Member
The gray water planter is what made it smell like sewage. I know most of the plans call for a leach line to dispose of sewage (assuming that is allowed in an area and the soil passes a percolating test) but the gray water quickly ended up smelling funky especially if they put fish in it to try to run a hydroponics set up. It turns out it is pretty hard to get the balance right especially in a small enclosed area.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Made a big dent in my bookkeeping. All my personal stuff is in the system (Microsoft Money). Now for my business stuff, which goes in Quickbooks. And before you say it, yes, Money is an old program, but it isn't anywhere near as old as my version of Quickbooks. Seriously, I'd update it, but my version is so old the programmers didn't account for broadband. Since I don't have a phone number from my ISP to dial in with, I need to know my default gateway and all that other stuff from Long Ago in the Before Time to connect to Intuit's site, which I'd bet money has changed URL's since this software was mailed to me on a CD. I may still find a newer copy I can buy somewhere that will get me to where I can get to The Present, but right now that's such a low priority that it isn't even funny. Well, off to walk The Dog, because it's a nice day, it's time for her afternoon walk, and my brain is fried on bookkeeping. I do kind of understand why more people don't do real estate investing. We like to say it is easy, but it isn't *that* easy. I'm a pretty smart guy and even so, my ability to do it is close to maxed out. Guys that can buy 100 homes in a year and manage 50 properties while working a full time job? More power to them. I think 3 will about keep me as busy as I want to be (when I can finally get another one).
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
This is totally not appropriate to this thread, but it is too sensitive for Facebook and I want to share it soooo....

Today was a warm day. And I needed to do desk work, not work-work. So I put on clothes that would get ruined by work-work. I mean not super-nice clothes, but brown slacks and a khaki button-up--my Hannibal Smith cosplay. Of course I promptly got black shit all over the shirt after walking The Dog by clearing away some bamboo (that's another story) but I've got, like 5 of these shirts, so I threw a new one on.

Well by the time of the evening walk, I was wearing the safari jacket in the house and it was warm enough out to wear it for the walk, so I strapped on the M-1911 and the spare mags, pulled on the black gloves, and headed out for the full cosplay experience (I mean minus the Awesome Van, which remained in the garage, since The Dog hates it and anyway it defeats the whole purpose of walking). True, my hair is too long right now, with the pandemic, but the big problem came a block into the walk, when I realized I did not have an appropriate cigar to chomp on.

OK. All that said, I will say a decent holster and mag pouch rig makes a full-sized service pistol much more pleasant to lug around, but even so, I'm glad I'm not a 21st century cop. I totally relate to Sheriff Andy in Mayberry. A big pistol, 25 rounds in 3 clips, and a Leatherman tool is not a trivial weight to be strapped to your waist.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
A little after 9pm. I *should* be filling out the tax stuff my accountant sent me back in January. But that doesn't seem like a good way to get ready for sleep.

That's the last time-sensitive thing on the To-Do list that was getting put off while I was getting the houses ready. Then I need to make a new To-Do list for a new phase. I've got some yard work to do on the newest rental. I want to get the other place set up with a functioning fireplace. Because I know the renters want to use the fireplace. And I mostly trust them to not use it because I've said not to, but if they do use it, they use it like cavemen. There's no grate and because the glass is painted black, they just leave the glass open. And they poke at the logs with a stick. (I said they could use the fireplace during the cold snap when their furnace went down).

I've got to see if I qualify for a VA mortgage and if I can afford another rental with the money from it. And then there's the truly overwhelming list of things that need to be done on this place. Shoot, I could spend a year just getting all the brush and weeds and detritus under control.
 

Oerdin

Active Member
I believe VA requires you to, at least officially, to live in the house as your primary residence. No problem as long as they don’t find out but potentially a problem if they do find out it is a rental.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Ah, but that shouldn't be a problem. I just get a VA loan to finance the house I bought for cash and then use that money to buy another house. I'd just be taking my equity out of this house and using it to buy another house. It *should* work.

If I were braver or more experienced, I'd have gotten a loan while I was living in the other place because it is nicer and can probably get me more money (truth be told, I worry that inspectors won't qualify this place for a VA loan until I'd done more to fix it up). But then I'd definitely be playing the tricksey game. "What's that? It has to be my home? It was my home when I got the loan. Do you want me to keep making payments or would you rather call the loan, try to foreclose during the 'rona, and then have a house you need to sell? Your choice."

Not that the VA is allowed to use common sense. They'll give you a loan if you have a part time job mopping floors at McDonald's--where you could get fired or quit tomorrow--but they won't give you a loan if you can show them that you have enough money in your retirement account to buy the house for cash. But that's another story. I call it "The Time Fox Cashed out a Big Chunk of His Retirement and Bought a House For Cash Because the VA are Tools--But it's OK Because He Sold it Seven Years Later For Almost Three Times What He Paid For It."
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
So. Work today. We've got a new line. I'm in a factory that makes a bunch of different versions of the same product--different price points, etc. I used to work the absolute low-end ghetto line. It was the corner of the factory that looked like you could be mugged in it. But they built a new line of, I dunno, midrange? I haven't been there long enough to see the finished product, but the door seems nice, but not Richie Rich nice. Anyway, we're on that now. And it is micromanaged by a computer. And human micromanagers. But right now my beef is with the computer. So. Say you're at a station where every 17 seconds, you have to shoot 3 screws. *No*, you have to shoot the screws between 2 tape marks. Because if The Computer thinks you haven't, it will helpfully shut the entire line down. So first off, I'll say 1) The Computer will shut the line down if you fail to shoot all 3 screws, but 2) it will also shut the line down if you manage to shoot all 3 screws, but it thinks you took just a little too long to do it. and 3) it will shut the line down if you manage to shoot the screws before it thinks you should be able to. AND 4) Even if you manage to shoot the 3 screws within the bounds of the arbitrary tape marks, it will STILL shut the entire line down if it doesn't think you shot them within the bounds of the arbitrary tape marks. And here's the kicker: Once it stops production for the entire product, IT LIGHTS A RED LIGHT OVER YOUR HEAD. It doesn't light it where you can see it and do something about it, it does it where EVERYONE ELSE can see it--and be pissed about the jackass who's slowing things down. Oh, wait, there's another kicker, but we'll get to that. Anyways, so it takes about 3 times before everyone is like a frightened field mouse, frantically looking up for the hawk, every time production stops, for fear that you're to blame--and thus have to yank the blue cord to Set Things Right.

And the kicker-kicker I forgot: In order to let The Computer micromanage you to this inept degree, it controls the guns. So if you crossthread a screw and back it out or some other thing, that confuses The Computer and it won't let you use the gun again until the belt gets to a reset point. If you've got 2 screws to shoot and you fuck it up, next time you only get to shoot the 1st screw. Then you have to wait until the door leaves your "zone" to shoot the second screw (which The Computer thinks is the 1st screw of the next door). Then you only get to shoot one screw. And no one really knows the best way around this completely management manufactured crisis where they trust a brainless robot that was programmed by God knows who God knows where God knows when more than they trust the people they hired to build their product.

Retirement cannot come too soon.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Oh, shit. Forgot. I've been with the company since August. Only 2 days a week, so the people I train are regularly faster than me within a week or so. And on the old line I was amazingly useful. I could do any number of positions and I also knew how to clean and restock parts, so I could just freelance and make things run smoothly. On the new line I know very little (but exponentially more today, but I digress), so they assigned me to this chubby 24 year old chick who's been on the job for less than 2 months, to "shadow" her and learn the jobs she does--and also help her out until she's able to do the full job. She's nice. But really stupid. So she was amazed that I could do the job better than her within a few minutes (when The Computer wasn't sabotaging me). She also proudly told me that on Friday she'd be getting a rent-to-own (please say house/car, please say house car) sofa (DAMN.) But not just any sofa, a *sectional* sofa AND they'd be throwing in a 795" TV (OK, only 72", but still, I had a 19" CRT TV until 2017, so a 6' TV for an entry level worker blows my mind). So I did what I do when my brother tells me things: I put on this sickly smile and said "Oh. That's nice." :( Because she really didn't want me to tell her that was a terrible idea and that she should get a couch at Goodwill or St. Vincent's and a 35" TV at Wal*Mart for probably under $100 and stick whatever usurious amount she'd be paying into a savings account until she could pay cash for couch.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
She's like "Wow, you pick things up so well, compared to all the other people I've tried to train." "Bitch, I've been doing this for 4 times as long as you have. I can shoot 2 screws. I can shoot 2 screws while sticking in a latch and a Styrofoam spacer. It's not rocket science."
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
This is off-topic and doesn't really fit into the idea of TK. And a friend on FB was unfortunate enough to message me and get caught where I dumped a bunch of this, but there are a few other things I want to touch on.

My dog isn't doing well.

She's almost 12 and in the last year or so it's like the freaking warranty ran out. I got her at 2. She had a back injury at 3 that left her with some loss of fine motor skills in her back legs. Then she broke a nail around 8 that never healed. Vets told me there was nothing wrong until January 2020, by which time the nail had completely fallen off and the vet told me the toe had a tumor on it and would have to be removed. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Fairly boring regularly shaped small soft fatty deposit on her chest around the same time, one on her belly a year or two later, but other than that, a long and healthy life.

Until this year. At a little over 10, she lost a toe to a tumor. 6 months later she got another tumor (benign) on the same foot. That one took forever and a trip to an ER vet to heal. In the last month or two the lumps and bumps have been like crazy. One on the shoulder (on the same side as the chest one). Another pretty good sized one under the ear on that side. Then she started getting them along the collar--this is around the time we moved, so I worry/wonder if there's something she's allergic to or a seed that is getting under the skin. On top of that, there's steps to the yard. Nothing major--a back deck and then 3 steps down (5 if you count the deck and the ground as steps) but it's a challenge to her. A challenge she seemed to be having more and more trouble with. I made a plan to address it with a terraced deck that could be climbed gradually, but fast-tracked a makeshift ramp this week--before abandoning that after she vehemently refused to use it (again, lab/border collie so she's smart and stubborn).

Well Wednesday afternoon she starts favoring the last good leg she has. I can't find any thorns or glass or anything in the paw. In the evening I think I might've found some tar or something sticking some of the fur together that might have caused the reaction and cut that away. Also trim back the nails a bit and on Thursday she seems to have gotten over it. Until Thursday night/Friday morning. She's staggering around like she's drunk. (And a pandemic is a crap time for the warranty to run out on your dog. Level of care drops even farther and effort to get her seen goes through the roof.) I'd gotten an appointment for the 12th for the bumps, but this seems bigger. Also, the bump on the shoulder is on the leg she was favoring. And it has gotten much larger and more irregular than any of her other bumps.

There's a vet here that does same-day appointments. While I'm grateful for them and no one else seems to be able to do it (best my vet could do was move the appointment up to Monday--not really enough if your dog suddenly doesn't know how to walk--they have the most frustrating and badly administered clinic in the universe. OK. You show up, say at 9:30am. You wait in line to "check in." The desk person writes down some notes and your phone number. Then you wait. And wait.

And wait.

8 hours later you get a call that you should come back to the clinic for your consultation. So you get there and call in from your car to tell them you're there. And wait. And wait.

And wait.

2 hours (and 3-4 phone calls--because the actual door is now locked) later you finally are allowed into the building. They get your info relatively quickly and get you to an exam room. Where you wait. And wait.

And wait.

I forget how long that took before we finally got to see the vet. She proceeded to declare 3/4 of her lumps and bumps normal for an old dog and 1/4 of them cysts before discovering a huge bloody hemorrhoid/tumor while taking her temperature--which, shockingly, isn't apparently a serious problem. Then, once The Dog gets up to demonstrate her symptoms (and by this point it was so bad I had to carry her in) and immediately recognizes it as a "vestibular disorder." Which I guess is fairly common in older dogs and she's presenting classic symptoms.

After a night in the hospital, you finally get a call the next afternoon that she's ready to be picked up. So you go to the vet, check in, and wait. And wait.

And wait.

Eventually everything gets figured out and they let you have your dog back--doing much better, apart from the swollen bleeding ass wound. You obey instructions (mostly) to the letter, sleep on the floor with her, and she seems to be doing better. That said, she seems kind of clingy the next day, so you decide to sleep on the floor in the room you've got her recovering in to keep her company. By the morning she's doing so well that you venture a very short walk (partly to ensure she's pooping OK with her bleeding ass wound). You've got work that night and no easy way to take the day off so you grudgingly go. But it's fine. The Dog handles the separation anxiety like a champ, although she's still visibly worked up when you get home so you decide to take her for a midnight patrol. It goes amazingly well and she seems well on the road to recovery.

Until you have to get up to let her out in the morning and something seems "off," but you're too groggy to really know. By the time you're ready to take her for a very short morning walk, she's staggering so badly that you cut the walk short before you're past the first house--and she's actually pretty OK with this. By time for the afternoon walk, she's laying flat and motionless in the middle of the yard. She won't eat. She won't drink. She won't move. A call to the vet is about as useful as you thought it would be. There's some brief sign of improvement in the evening before we're back to laying flat and motionless with the eyes open, staring off at nothing. At least you got some food and water and her meds in her. There's still plenty of time for signs of improvement and she seems alert and not in pain--just freaked out and motionless because she can't control her body, but you still keep going "shit, well that's it, my dog's dying." And that is where we are.

Rationally, I tell myself "don't worry, be happy." The Bobby McFerrin song is great, simple advice; there's no point in worrying about something you can't control. And if it is something you *can* control, then do what needs to be done and don't worry. But simple isn't the same as easy and it's hard not to worry about your sick dog. Rationally, she's an active dog and I let her do things that make her happy--even if they're dangerous. And the lifespan for labs is around 10 and around 15 for border collies, so really, she's in the window, so everything in the past few years has been gravy. Hell, since the back injury at 3--a year after getting her--everything is basically gravy but it's hard to be rational.

When she was laying in the yard with no interest in going for a walk, I headed to the local market down the street and picked up a couple chicken breasts for my hail Mary sick dog that won't eat cure. A cup of rice for each chicken part you've got. Add extra water to try to make it a broth/soup/stew--but the rice will soak it up anyway. Ladle it into the bowl.

During the return trip I'd resolved to bring her in where I could better supervise her and she'd be less exposed to the elements. Amazingly, she was willing to get up on her own, so I got a harness on her (some of the literature suggests collar leads could exacerbate this condition--and that letting her walk instead of carrying her helps with the recovery) and got her inside. Got her down and comfortable. Got some food and water in her. Started a pizza for dinner.

I picked my brand of frozen pizza because it was smaller than the major brands, so I could eat one without getting as many calories. Unfortunately they kept "improving" it by making it larger so at some point I started carving out a slice for The Dog. So along with the dry dogfood and water, I could get some pizza in her (and hide her evening meds).

The problem is, the new oven beeps. A lot. And The Dog does NOT like beeps. Of any kind. When I was troubleshooting a light circuit on the badly labeled (is there any other kind?) breaker box, the chirps from the voltage detector, along with my trips to the basement "STAIRS BAD!" had her so worked up she was literally shaking. And by the time the pizza was getting ready, she was so worked up that I had to help her get into the living room.

She hasn't been keen on the living room here. The living room couch used to be her favorite place to rest, and even though there is a lot less hard surface floor in this place, she doesn't seem interested in the living room couch. (I've been adding more and more rugs to accommodate her.) But she seemed relatively normal while I ate my pizza and watched the local news. Got her slice in her (with its medicine payload) and decided to tackle some stuff from the move-in list, since Katie Couric is hosting "Jeopardy!" and I refuse to watch her after her bit on Bill Maher, but I digress. While I was doing this, she decided to get up. So I went over and grabbed her "handle" and helped her negotiate her way to the carpeted back room. At this point she was so bad she would've just spun in tight little counterclockwise circles until she fell over if I wasn't helping her. Once she got on her bed, she proceeded to lay there motionless, staring at nothing. And that is where we were.

But as I typed this, I decided I needed another drink and as I went to get it, I saw that she'd moved. And she picked her head up as I came into the room. So I got my big vat of boiled chicken and rice out of the fridge, stripped out the ribcage, mixed it all up (with my hands) and ladled (again, with my hands) it into her bowl, mixing it up with the remaining kibble. After she licked off my fingers, I brought her the dish and she proceeded to wolf most of it down. Wouldn't take any water, but that's why I added water to the recipe. I'm feeling slightly better as I finish typing this than I did when I started.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
On a lighter note--and marginally more on topic--today I made a list of stuff that needs to be done at the new property. The Rape Dungeon is 26 out of 30.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
She's not improving either. Getting worse. After 2am I was able to get her up exactly once. I wanted to see if she'd made any progress. She didn't want to get up but she tried for me. Made it about 5' before falling down again. Took great effort to get her back to the dog bed. Supposed to take her back tomorrow for a follow-up. The way she was this afternoon, I didn't think she'd last the night. Resolved to lay next to her until morning but I had to go close up the garage and tidy up a few things. When I got in she was up and wanted to go Out. Unfortunately she had just about enough energy to make it into the yard (with assistance) and laid down at the foot of the porch steps.

I was setting up to lay down next to her out there when I got the idea to drag out the nylon fabric fold-up wagon I got when her foot tumor surgery wasn't healing. She wasn't thrilled with getting in it, but once she was in and had some pillows, she was in heaven. Took her back to see the neighbor's horses and they came out to say "hi" to her. Then I took her on one of her new patrols and she smiled almost the entire time. When she wasn't smiling, she had her head over the side, staring off into the woods.

But now I'm not so sure what to do when we go to the vet. She's not Stephen Hawking or Christopher Reeve. She's a dog who is almost 12 years old and, based on her mutt breeds, should live between 10 and 15 years. But she was alert and aware and enjoying herself.

Personally, I think a life time of added stress on her spine from her injury back when she was 3 is what is complicating this. That's the best way to explain why, when she looked like she was on the way to recovery, she was suddenly back to Square 1. There's a nerve that keeps getting damaged and there's really nothing to be done about it. I mean, if I were Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, I might do anything up to and including building her a robot body, but again. 12 year old dog. She's had a good, full life. Maybe her purpose was to get me to this house and now that I'm here, it's time for her to move on to whatever's next for Good Dogs.
 
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