I didn't vote for him.

This picture must of came out after hurricane Katrina. I think the caption is fitting.

I have been taking a break from blogging and doing some other things. I have lots of stuff happening, I'm just to lazy to post!

X Realtor

Every once in a while I get a phone call or email from someone that wants to look for or sell their house. I was a part-time Realtor from 2003-05. After 9/11 the company I work for (Rockwell) laid off a few people. Being in the avionics business we didn't know how the company was going to be affected by the terrorist attack. It turns out that they made more money as military spending went up and commercial avionics also increased. In fact Rockwell was just in Business Week Magazine's top 50 fastest growing companies in the US. Hind site is 20/20, at the time I was unsure if I was going to be affected by the lay-off so I decided to start looking for new opportunities just in case something happened and I was out of work. Looking back at it now, I should have waited things out.

I had a friend at the time(I haven't talked to him since I quit working for him) that was a Realtor and he needed help, so I thought I would work part time for him and get my foot in the door. He had 3 new housing developments and needed people to show the new model homes. For 2 1/2 years I worked during the week at Rockwell full time and then in the evenings and weekends I put my time in trying to sell homes. I made some money and sold a few homes, but the rewards really weren't worth the time and effort that I had to put into it. It takes a few years to build up a business as a full time agent and I couldn't devote as much time to real estate to make it worth my while. If you don't have a reserve of money to start with it is pretty difficult to keep going without any sales right away. The other thing was that it was really a bad situation working for a friend and not being completely in charge of my business. I was showing new homes for him and not reaping the benefits when they sold. He would always get a cut no matter who sold the house. It was a pretty great deal for him having someone there all the time showing homes for him , not so well for me spending time and not getting any clients. It wasn't all bad and we live and learn from our mistakes. I know now that being a Realtor is a full time job. I feel kind of like a failure sometimes, but I can always try again if I want to. I still have my license and every three years I just need to renew it and keep it on inactive status. If I wanted to start again I could just reactivate it again.

The last client that I had emailed me today. She wants to look into selling her house and moving out of Cedar Rapids, possibly to a smaller town. After replying to her email and getting feedback from her, I found out the real reason she wants to sell. The house next door had a double stabbing and a lot of other crime problems have popped up in the area and she just doesn’t feel safe living alone.

I spent about 3 months looking for a house with Kerri. I would pull up listing in EVERY parts of town. No kidding, I must have shown her 30 houses in her price range and gave her information on many more. She would keep coming back to the neighborhood that she finally ended up buying a house in. She wanted to be near Ellis Park and the water. She has lived in Cedar Rapids all her life and she knows the city. I didn’t know that area all that well and wasn’t impressed by the neighborhood. I have lived on every side of town but that side. I suggested other homes in other locations, but in the end she made the decision on a particular house she liked. The house is a very cute little home it had been well maintained. She was very happy at the time and said she still loves the home, she just wishes it was located somewhere else.

I kind of feel bad that things didn’t work out for her and she isn’t happy. She obviously liked the service that I gave her as she contacted me again. I told her she would basically lose her ass if she sold it now. She hasn’t been in it much more than a year and the market has slowed down a bit and we are not the fastest growing area in the country. I said I would help her any way I could. What she really needs to do is stay living there for a few more years and then sells. I hope that is the advice she takes from me. I think that’s her best option for now unless she can find a buyer. The other thing is how strange is it that you have a stabbing next door? It's not an event that happens everyday to your neighbors, at least not here. I recommended getting a security system and sticking it out and hoping that when she goes to sell her house the neighborhood is looking a little safer. Neighborhoods change all the time, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. It might not have been the best advice, but it was all I could think of at the time.

Am I going to win this cat fight?

How could I be more clearer? No more animals means, No MORE ANIMALS! Right now as I'm typing a little kitten is playing with my feet . He arrived on Sunday afternoon when I was out. Daryl said that he was a homeless cat hanging around the house that his friend Melissa was moving out of. How could he leave this poor little cat with no one to take care of him? Now I'm afraid this cat will be moving in permanently. I like animals and everything, but I just think we are 2.5 animals over our limit as it is. A small dog, 1 cat, 1 midget feet biting cat and a bird is too much to handle for any household.

When Daryl moved in he had 2 dogs a cat and two stinky ferrets. I complained about the ferrets from day one. They are the smelliest things. He couldn't part with them of course, because they were his ex boyfriends and he said he would want them back if we couldn't keep them. So we held on to them. Finally after about six months of me bitching that the house stinks, he decided to call his X and ask if he wanted them back. Yeah! He said he had a place to live and he wanted them back. Funny thing, about 2 months later we looked in the paper and seen two ferrets advertised for sale with his x-bf phone number as a contact. Why couldn't we have done that?

I grew up on a farm. We had dogs, cats, rabbits all over the place. We never lived with them. My parents wouldn't let any animals in the house, " Animals are outside and people inside". I myself prefer dogs and I had one of my own for 10 years after I had a place of my own. Pets are fun and I like them and all, I just don't want to live with a bunch of them. One pet is fine, maybe two, but more than that is a zoo.

I'm afraid this cat can't stay. I just wont have it! He's going to have to find a home for it. I'm putting my foot down on this one. Yes, this cat will have to go. He's trying to be all cute now playing with me, but I'm not falling for it! He will have to find a new home. Anyone want a cat?

Sunday Thoughts

I'm getting my weekly fix of celebrity gossip this morning from Perez Hilton. Sometimes he is so cruel, yet funny when he draws and writes on the pictures of the celebrities.

I have noticed that after five months of blogging my site has had over 1000 hits on it. I really didn't think I read my blog that many times, but I guess I must check it more than I think!

Cinder took me for a walk this morning. She seems to think that she is the head of the pack. I have been watching a few episodes of The Dog Whisperer and I know that she can be trained properly if I work with her. Daryl never took her for walks because she would pull so hard on her leash and start choking. We just got her a harness type collar that fits around her body and she seems to be doing a lot better. She likes to pull and hasn't figured out yet how to walk along side a person. She just gets so excited about going for a walk that she's out of control. My arm was was getting tired of holding her back. By the end of our walk she was doing really well at stopping when I stopped. She's a hyper little thing, so I'm going to have to be really patient with her. She has some anger management issues too. I'm hoping we won't have to call Cesar for help. He is kind of cute on his roller blades though, so I guess I wouldn't mind if we do.

This is my week in review:

They reduced our department by 3 people. I considered volunteering to go to another department. I wanted to go to a 9 to 5:30 shift, but it didn't work out, so I'm staying put where I'm at. I really thought If I could switch to a later hour, maybe I could work out in the morning.This shift I'm on now sure isn't getting me off my butt to exercise.

Thursday Dr. Jeff gave me my annual eye exam. I have to go with a more mature (bifocals) prescription . I have been having one heck of a time seeing things properly as I'm looking into a microscope all day. Today has been the first day this week that I haven't left work without a pounding head.

We also had our book club meeting Thursday night at the Sushi House. The book we read last month was Snow Flower and the Secret Fan . I just picked up the book last Sunday and had to do some fast reading. It wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have the headaches all week. I liked the book and rated it a 7 out of 10 for a score. Jeff and I thought that we wouldn't like this "chick" book that the girls picked out when we were not around for the last meeting. We like to gay it up a bit with some books we would like to read. Sometimes we can sway things our way. It was a surprise to me that I liked it and Jeff rated it a point higher than I did. The food at the Sushi house was great as always. If you haven't been there I would recommend checking it out.

I had a phone call from another friend of mine with a problem. He had recently started living with his in the closet lover. He was really upset at his boyfriend when he came home, because a lot of his stuff was put into hiding. His boyfriend ungay the apartment! One of his straight friends was coming for a visit this weekend and for some odd reason unknown to us, he doesn't know he's gay. My friend was going out of town this weekend on a business trip and his boyfriend thought he could just hide his stuff and no one would know the difference. I felt sorry for my friend as he really loves this guy, but he is really getting tired of the closet. After a lot of crying, they seemed to come to a compromise this time. I'm sure it will come up again in the near future if they don't work this out. I understand both sides to the issue. The fear of the boyfriend that isn't out and my friend side too. It's just something we all have to deal with. I hope they can find a way out of this issue.

Daryl became a grandpa again this week. Babies are so cute! I haven't made it to see the baby yet, but Daryl took plenty of pictures. Sixty-three pictures to be exact, so I have an idea of what the baby looks like. I haven't seen Daryl for most of the week. He has worked a couple of double shifts and nights this week. The few minutes that I have seen him he has been really grumpy and so I'm not really missing him that much. It should all straighten out this weekend after he gets his rest and gets back on schedule.

Gas problems.

0.52 miles from our house to the gas station.

0.62 miles from our house to Daryl's work.

Daryl runs out of gas going to work today. I guess he needs to start looking at the gas gauge once in a while. It's kind of funny I think, as long as it didn't happen to me. :)





PS - I may have forgotten to mention a minor, insignificant, minute detail to the story above. I was the last one that used the vehicle.

Fat Kitty

Today was the baby shower for Beth, one of our book club member. Jeff hosted the party at his house. This was my first and hopefully last baby shower. It really wasn't so bad, just a little boring. We played some games and Beth opened up her presents for the baby. I don't know why women make such a big deal out of it?

I took some pictures of Jeff's cat Colby. He's the fattest kitty I have every seen! Jeff said he weighs around 26 lbs. One thing about it, being around Colby makes a person feel thin.

True colors Tour 2007

With the political climate heating up so early it reminded me to renew my membership to The HRC. The link is at the side of my blog, check it out if you haven't already.

In the membership matters section of winter 2007 Equality magazine from the HRC, they have an article about the upcoming True Colors Tour 2007. The only information about the tour that I can find out, it is in the magazine. If anyone knows more please, please get a hold of me. I'm really excited about the line up. I'm sure that Chicago will probably be the closes for us, so that would be a great excuse to head to the city again and see a great show! The only problem would be getting tickets. Well, we will cross that bridge when we get there. The first thing is finding out the tour event locations.

The True Colors Tour will feature Debbie Harry, Erasure, Margaret Cho, The Gossip, The Dresden Dollsand other artist. The tour is scheduled for 20 cities between Memorial Day and July 4th. HRC will receive $1 from each ticket sold throughout the tour.