Wed Apr 11, 2007
Comments Are Back
I've been scratching my head as to why I haven't received any comments to this blog since resurrecting it in March. Turns out I had commenting disabled. Whoops! During the year of mass blog neglect I had disabled comments in an attempt to thwart the blog comment spammers, and well, I forgot to re-enable it. So umm, comment away!
On a side note: I have added a CAPTCHA to the comments form and have enabled moderated comments. Those seedy spammers shouldn't be able to infiltrate this blog!
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Apr 11, 07 | 5:39 pm | 
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As Seen in the New York Times
So I guess the New York Times is doing a piece on Sacred Harp conventions in their Escapes section. I was contacted this week by their photo editor who wished to use five of my WMSHC 2007 images to run along side the story. The article is to be published on April 20th and should appear both in print and on their web site. So keep an eye out for it. If I can link directly to their online edition I will do so here. •
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Mon Apr 02, 2007
April Fool's Day
I've always liked when web site's play up the April Fool's humor. So for an April Fool's gag we decked out Amy's popular knitting web site with a new main page featuring yours truly.
[ Link Here ]
Apparently, some of her forum members thought I looked like Peter Brady which is very funny. When I was younger (much younger!), I was often accused of looking like Bobby Brady. So I guess I am progressing through the Brady paternage.
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Tue Mar 13, 2007
WMSHC 2007 Photos
Good Lord! Look at the dust and cob webs in this place. Is that a rat in the corner? Oh no, it's just a blog spammer. Oh well.
Anyhow, here are the 2007 WMSHC photos. Enjoy!
The new gallery has the ability to post comments. I would be thrilled if people commented on their favorite photos.
And since I am on a roll, I might start working on the WMSHC 2006 photos too! And now that I remember how to log into my own blog (took a good 10 minutes to figure it out!) I might even make some updates from time to time.
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Thu Mar 16, 2006
So about this house.
Tomorrow at 9:30AM we sign papers, present our settlement check and the house is ours. Hooray! So what exactly are we getting? Well, it's a 3 bedroom colonial home located in a quiet and wooded neighborhood in Belchertown. The house has a little over and acre of property and is protected on all sides by trees. Behind the house is acres and acres of forest. The neighborhood lives up to it's name: Forest Road. Despite all these woods, our yard get plenty of sun for gardening.
The house was built in 1978 and has been completely updated. In the last two years it has received a new roof, meticulous vinyl siding, a new septic tank, and a new state of the art radiant floor heating system. The previous owners spent a lot of money on this place which means we don't have to worry about all those things. We can just move in. The house also have an enormous deck off the back and an equally enormous swimming pool.
Inside the house we have a large family room with cathedral ceiling, exposed beams, paddle fan and sky lights. This room was certainly a selling point for me. In addition to this family room, we also have a second family room (parlor?) with dark hardwood floors, fireplace and french doors opening off to the deck. There's a smallish dining room and a kitchen which is in deperate need of an Ikea makeover (already in planning as I type!). Although the previous owner purchased all new quality stainless steel appliances.
Upstairs are the three bedrooms and full bathroom. The master bedroom will be used as my office. One of my first project this weekend will be removing the office carpeting and installing laminate wood flooring.
So that's pretty much it. I took some photos a few weeks ago during the home inspection and posted them online for family to see. So I guess I will make them public now:
http://www.sheldonfinlay.com/content/photography/simpleviewer/
Tomorrow is our closing and kicks off our long anticipated moving in. Oh happy day!
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Tue Mar 14, 2006
Convention photos sneak peek
I am sure that anyone present this weekend would back me up in saying that the 2006 Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Convention was freaking awesome. The singing, the food, the friends; it was all perfect. But alas it is past and I am left with ever so slight postpartum depression. Why do those two days go by so quickly?
I know people will be hounding me for photos and I am afraid with my pending house closing this Friday and subsequent move, it could be a couple weeks before I process all the photos (I shoot in manual mode using RAW so I basically have to develop each photo individually using PhotoShop. What fun!). So to appease the masses here's a small sampling of 375 photos I took this past weekend.
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Sun Feb 26, 2006
Car troubles
Amy and I share one car. This is rather convenient, since with both work at home and rarely need to travel to separate destinations on any given day. However, as of recently our car has been giving us a great deal of grief. It all started with a "Check Engine" light back in the November. I brought it into the shop to get a pre-inspection tune-up so it would pass the MA inspection. They managed to get the check engine light to go out, but the car would not pass inspection. We returned the car to the shop and had more work done on it and it still wouldn't pass. Turns out the inspection station could not get a reading from the car's computer, yet our shop says they can get a reading from it just fine. In addition to this, the check engine light keeps going on intermittantly. After about four trips to the shop and an equal number of trips to the inspection station, we are at our wits end. We can't afford to put any more money into this 1996 Hyundai Elantra.
We are currently driving our wounded Hyundai without a valid inspection sticker. We have no choice. This past weekend the car started rough idling and getting performing poorly. I took a look at it today and it appears that cylinder #4 isn't firing at all. That's just great! I don't think our Korean wonder has much life left it in.
So, here we are about to buy a house and are already being stretched thin financially and we have to figure this damn car thing out. We also need a car with a trailer hitch so we can pull our trailer full of goodies to the new home. Fortunately, a quick search has turned up a suitable replacement: A 2002 Hyundai Elantra with 55K miles which is located less than 5 miles from our current home. It's not the best time to be spending money on a car, but we are pretty much stuck. We need a car, we can't afford to put any more money into this one, and we can't afford to wait. So we're just going to have to bite the bullet and go over-budget and pray everything works out. I am sure it will.
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Moving along
It is really amazing to me how fast and smooth this whole house purchase is going. I expected the whole process to take months. It's hard to believe that we set forth on this pursuit on Valentine's day and here we are just a few weeks away from moving in. Things are moving along so fast that we are actually considering closing earlier. Perhaps by mid-March instead of late-March. That would give us more time to make some changes before we move in.
This past week we met with a mortgage lender at People's Bank. The whole experience was very pleasant and we locked in at a very good rate. People's Bank is known for having the lowest rates around and beat our CountryWide mortgage rate by almost a whole point. The application went very smoothly. Given that we're both self-employed, I figured things would be a little more difficult. But the person we met with said our income was very stable and was well suited for this home and we shouldn't have any problems. Now we just wait for the bank to commit. But overall, I am sighing a great relief given that the financing is pretty much in the bag.
On Friday, we got to visit our property for the second time in order to accompany the house inspector around the premise. On this visit an odd thing happened. The place seemed to shrink in size from my memory of it the first time. Both Amy and I experienced this. Very interesting.
The inspection was very thorough and the inspector was great. He was a seasoned contractor and knew exactly what to look for. Overall, he gave the place a very good rating. There were a few minor electrical considerations (non-GFI receptacles in bathroom and kitchen, missing water ground, etc.) but nothing critical. We talked with the Realtor and agree that we should have the seller bring an electrician in and make these quick adjustments. He did make some general homeowner suggestions such as weather-sealing the deck and blowing more insulation into the attic. Not really faults, just common sense improvements.
In addition to the inspection we are also getting the well water tested and having the basement tested for radon levels. The house already has a radon remediation system so radon shouldn't be an issue, but it will be nice to know for certain. The bank also requires the water test to be satisfactory in order to approve the loan.
So things are moving along nicely. I did take some photo while I was there and I am debating whether or not I want to post them online yet. We'll see.
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Tue Feb 21, 2006
The FACT Act: Get copies of your credit reports online for free
It's been a few years since I cared to peek at my credit reports with the major credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TranUnion. But since I am going up again mortgage lenders, it's probably a good time to ensure everything is in apple pie order. The law used to require credit reporting agencies to provide a free yearly copy of your credit report upon request. This only applied to a dozen or so states, Massachusetts included. The last time I requested my credit report I had to call each agency and go through a fairly lengthy automated verification process before they would send me a paper copy by mail which would usually arrive a week or two later.
Yesterday, while doing some credit reporting research I found out about the FACT Act (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act). Basically, it entitles everyone, regardless of state, to receive a yearly copy of their credit report. This is a fairly recent law which went into effect on December 1st, 2005.
Thanks to a website ( https://www.annualcreditreport.com/ ) which was recently created by the top three reporting agencies, one can quickly and painlessly receive copies of their credit reports online from all three agencies. Each agency will attempt to sell you other things such as credit scores and debt analysis and credit report monitoring, but you can deny these additions.
I now have all three credit reports saved and printed out. And I am pleased to report everything looks better than I had expected.
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