"You gonna get another job?"...

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Well, now I've got a bunch of new stuff I've never done before to do with almost no training--some of it on the production database for an insanely complex international corporation. And a deadline to get it done by.

Which is nice. Because otherwise I'd have just done things I needed to do for my business, like work on getting my upcoming rental ready, arranging financing for my next purchase and a bunch of other things. :(

That said, I've got at least...7 minutes to get started on things. But really, at this point I don't have the energy to start something of this magnitude to see how far I can get on it in 7 minutes.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Tired. Or maybe overwhelmed is a better word. Got the keys back to the rental. They did as good a job cleaning it up as anyone could. But it definitely needs a little TLC to get it ready for new tenants.

And I don't have the time right now for what I'm already busy with, let alone maintaining another house.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Oh. The other depressing thing? That house smelled like a Persian gigolo. Best efforts to clean it *seemed* to work. But as I came inside today, I'd swear the smell was back. Not as pronounced as when I bought the place and might have been something else, but very familiar.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
New cell phone battery showed up. It doesn't work. I stick it in the phone to charge it up--because that's the only way to charge a phone battery--and it does nothing. My old battery--even now that it has problems--immediately shows up as charging.

So now I have to consider options.

Do I try buying another battery? Just buy another phone? Let go of my preference for a small Android with a removable battery? Get a secksy Galaxy S3 Flip 5g (which almost certainly does not have a removable battery)? OR! Should I try getting a new battery for my previous phone which is a little larger than I'd like, but not Etch-a-Sketch large like modern phones, and given how long I had it and its symptoms, maybe it just needs a battery. And it's just might be a battery I can actually buy in a local store and test out and shit.

I dunno. What I do know is that I am again at a point where my time is more valuable than money.

Speaking of my consulting job, I got shut down today because the company Sharepoint site said I didn't have permissions to do what I needed to do. Ultimately the designated site admin found that he also did not have permissions to do what I needed to do. Meanwhile my friend/boss has been battling with IT since I started because a key navigation pane on the site doesn't show up on his computer when he logs on.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
On unrelated job news, Hot Girl at the factory may or may not have a sister.

I say that because they look a lot alike--but different--but most of their similarity is not genetic. The dilemma is, a white guy can absolutely NOT ask a black person if they are related to someone because they "look alike".

So. Anyway, they're both about the same complexion. Both have long straight black hair. Both have extensive but tasteful tattoos. And both are insanely hot, know it, and know how to dress to accent their insane hotness.

Hot Girl is shorter. We'll say 5'5" for storytelling purposes. Firm and tight and perky. Has a tendency to wear skintight one piece catsuits and similar outfits with nothing underneath.

Hot Girl 2.0 is around 5'7". Firm and tight. Wears skintight clothes, but most definitely *with* underwear. I can't say why she opts for the thong (that you can clearly see the outline of through the bike shorts) but I get the bra. It is to lift and support her magnificently spectacular D cup tits. Now at this point in my life, I've seen more than a few tits. And I've learned to be subtle about scoping them. But Monday night I was like a 12 year old. Every time I happened to look up and notice her, my eyes unapologetically and with out any subtlety went straight to her cans. And lingered there. They are perfect. The skintight pink tie-die only magnified their awesomeness. And it was short enough to highlight the gold Playboy bunny belly ring.

My god.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
1) Section 8 renters can be good but you have to be EXTREMELY picky. Try to find a stable family or at least a single mom with a really good work history. The law here is that no one can simply reject an applicant because they are section 8 but, at least here, it is not unusual to get 20-50 applicants on a single opening so I make sure to charge an application fee to cut down on the punters and groupers. You still can effectively pick the applicants you like as there are so many applicants.

You should definitely buy the house and seek financing in order to preserve capital. Nothing is as worthwhile as cash on hand after all. It will be a pain to try to rent to a place during the low period, especially in a low demand market, but it can be done plus the low prices of the market mean you can pay off the entire places in 10 years or less. BTW don't quit your job, maybe try to find a higher paying job, as you are in your prime earning years and it is easier to earn in your 50's than to run out in your 70's or 80's. More money in the piggy bank is always better plus you will have some years to compound it.

You should be able to finance a house at 2.5% - 3% and get 8% or more on your saved capital. You are buying low and getting a great ROI plus capital appreciation on the asset so of course you want to do that. Any good businessman would.
Ah, but you live in California. In Kentucky, Section 8 is NOT a protected class. Except (since March of this year) in Jefferson County. Can you guess why I'm looking at Bullitt County for my next rental?

I mean to write an article for my real estate investors newsletter on the importance of knowing The Rules. So you can know when to break them. Because the rule of thumb is that leverage is good. But if I own a place free and clear, that's enough extra in my pocket each month to pay a health insurance premium and get a hooker. Or just sock it away so you don't need a job.

And that's the other one. Yes, on paper, I'm in my prime earning years. But I haven't built a work history that supports that. The reason you can command high money is the quality of your resume. I've been working entry level part time stuff for years now because I couldn't leave my dog home alone much. And because of my age, it's a harder and harder sell to hire me. Yes, there's age discrimination laws, but the elephant is in the room. On top of that, I have no debt right now. I have no wife or ex-wife to keep in baubles. I have no colleges or private schools to pay for. I have (as of this writing) no car payments. So if I can have 4 nice houses in a ZIP code where a nice house sells for around $162k, and they're all paid for, and they all get around $1,100 a month in rent (well, 3 of 'em, I need one to live in), I really don't NEED a job to sock away money. Because the houses are paying more than my expenses. And appreciating in value. And not having a job frees me up to hunt for and renovate bargains. If I want to take the tax hit, I can flip them. Or I can hold them and rotate them through my portfolio--sell my oldest vacant house and put a renter in the new place. If I'm really cheap I can live there 2 years and avoid any taxes on the sale--although I'm getting too old to move every 2 years (and the TARDIS wouldn't stand it).

So yes, everything you say is absolutely correct and is the textbook answer. However I'm such a unique person that many of these rules do not apply to me. Heck, even...John Shaub? I think Schaub says it in his book. Even Schaub says a 55 year old single guy could live quite comfortably on 3 nice paid-for rentals.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Had something else I'd meant to say. Forgot it. Remembered it. Forgot it again. So, unrelated to anything and totally irrelevant, since there's nothing I can do about it now, I'm pretty sure the new house speeded my dog's death. She'd been having troubles with hard-surface floors for some months and even single steps had become a challenge for her. The 3 steps up to the back deck were trivial. But for my dog they were literally a huge hurdle. I built a tiered deck that would've been easier for her, but by then it was too late. I still need to do a radon test too. Don't think that was a big factor in the dog or the cat, but the soil type lends itself to it and I do have an actual basement here sooo...
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
OH! NOW I 'MEMBER: If I were harder and more disciplined, at 8pm or so, I'd head over to the rental and spend a couple hours working on getting it rent-ready. Instead I sipped whisky, watched episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" I've seen a dozen times, and read Winston Churchill's account of WWII.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
This...this is so far off topic I can't even say how I got here. And I shouldn't say it online. Had an AR15 carbine. It got stolen. Replaced it with insurance money. Last year the police in Illinois recovered the stolen gun. I also have an M14. And an A-Team van. And a decent nest egg. SO!...in the unlikely event the Illinois cops ever give me back my gun, I shall pop over to Ruger and get me a stainless Mini-14 and pop over to Samson and get the appropriate stock, and put a back seat in The Awesome Van so I have a place to store them all. I have spoken. So say we all.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
A few years ago the company I'm contracting for outsourced all their IT. So about 75% of my friend's time is spent trying to get IT to give his people access to the things they need to do their jobs. Right now I'm supposed to upload a file to the Sharepoint site. After spending a day troubleshooting with the designated site admin, we learned that *he*, as Sharepoint site admin, does not have permissions to upload files to the Sharepoint site. IT is mystified and has asked us to see if ANYONE has permission to make changes to the Sharepoint site. So far, no one does. Excellent network security. If you don't give anyone any access to anything, no one can cause any problems. Of course no one can actually DO anything either, so...

And the funny thing is that it completely shoots them in the foot, because they have things locked down so much--and getting any results from them takes so much effort--that the first troubleshooting step is usually "Screw it, I'm just giving you full access to everything." "Dude. Yes, I had fairly high security clearances in the military. And yes, I've known your boss for more than half our lives. But still, I'm a contractor you've never met and who has barely worked with this software before. Even *I* have issues with giving me full control over enterprise level applications."

The point is, it's very demoralizing and hard to build up energy to do work. It's frustrating to get 15 minutes into your day and find out you can't do what you've been told to do because someone's changed something in the software and no one knows who, when, or how to fix it. There are few things that are worse for me than to be tasked to do something and then not given the tools to do it. Then I just wait to be beaten for failing.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
The upshot is that there are things that I *can* do, but I have a hard time working up the energy to do them because in the end it all feels pointless.
 

Oerdin

Active Member
Oh. The other depressing thing? That house smelled like a Persian gigolo. Best efforts to clean it *seemed* to work. But as I came inside today, I'd swear the smell was back. Not as pronounced as when I bought the place and might have been something else, but very familiar.

Steam clean the carpets and consider using that sealer paint used for houses people smoked inside.
 

Lanzman

No-one of consequence
A few years ago the company I'm contracting for outsourced all their IT. So about 75% of my friend's time is spent trying to get IT to give his people access to the things they need to do their jobs. Right now I'm supposed to upload a file to the Sharepoint site. After spending a day troubleshooting with the designated site admin, we learned that *he*, as Sharepoint site admin, does not have permissions to upload files to the Sharepoint site. IT is mystified and has asked us to see if ANYONE has permission to make changes to the Sharepoint site. So far, no one does. Excellent network security. If you don't give anyone any access to anything, no one can cause any problems. Of course no one can actually DO anything either, so...

And the funny thing is that it completely shoots them in the foot, because they have things locked down so much--and getting any results from them takes so much effort--that the first troubleshooting step is usually "Screw it, I'm just giving you full access to everything." "Dude. Yes, I had fairly high security clearances in the military. And yes, I've known your boss for more than half our lives. But still, I'm a contractor you've never met and who has barely worked with this software before. Even *I* have issues with giving me full control over enterprise level applications."

The point is, it's very demoralizing and hard to build up energy to do work. It's frustrating to get 15 minutes into your day and find out you can't do what you've been told to do because someone's changed something in the software and no one knows who, when, or how to fix it. There are few things that are worse for me than to be tasked to do something and then not given the tools to do it. Then I just wait to be beaten for failing.
Tell them to make sure the style library at the top of the site collection has open permissions. If that is locked down, it nullifies permissions all down thru the site collection that uses it. Otherwise I'd check to make sure all the user profiles have all the necessary attributes.
 

The Question

Eternal
On unrelated job news, Hot Girl at the factory may or may not have a sister.

I say that because they look a lot alike--but different--but most of their similarity is not genetic. The dilemma is, a white guy can absolutely NOT ask a black person if they are related to someone because they "look alike".

So. Anyway, they're both about the same complexion. Both have long straight black hair. Both have extensive but tasteful tattoos. And both are insanely hot, know it, and know how to dress to accent their insane hotness.

Hot Girl is shorter. We'll say 5'5" for storytelling purposes. Firm and tight and perky. Has a tendency to wear skintight one piece catsuits and similar outfits with nothing underneath.

Hot Girl 2.0 is around 5'7". Firm and tight. Wears skintight clothes, but most definitely *with* underwear. I can't say why she opts for the thong (that you can clearly see the outline of through the bike shorts) but I get the bra. It is to lift and support her magnificently spectacular D cup tits. Now at this point in my life, I've seen more than a few tits. And I've learned to be subtle about scoping them. But Monday night I was like a 12 year old. Every time I happened to look up and notice her, my eyes unapologetically and with out any subtlety went straight to her cans. And lingered there. They are perfect. The skintight pink tie-die only magnified their awesomeness. And it was short enough to highlight the gold Playboy bunny belly ring.

My god.

Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I have plenty of things to talk about, but right now I just need to come back to the "Office Space" point at the start of the thread. Because right now I'm like, "What would *you* do if you had a million dollars?" "Nothing. ... I would relax, I would sit on my ass all day, I would do nothing."

Things are OK right now. I'm making good money. I'm so close to my goal that I can smell it. I feel busy, but I'm really not.

But I have zero desire to do anything.

Maybe it's the rainy weather. Maybe it's being mentally tired from trying to be 2 places at once, but at present things are manageable--just as long as I keep working on crossing stuff off The List.

Instead I want to nap and fuck off. Maybe eat things. A blowjob would be nice. But impractical to make happen right now. And eating, napping, and fucking off will not make the list any shorter. Meanwhile, the list will grow the more I ignore it, so I guess I'd better stop whining and moping and get to it.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Intelligence and Ignorance.

I figured out a way to string a few topics together. (Well, not really. Because one happened just a few hours ago.)

My friend who shanghaied me into this accounting gig called to chat. These calls are exhausting but he's a good friend and the only person who calls me. Anyhow, he's pretty smart. Could be as smart as me. Beat me at chess aaround half the time when we were college roommates. Knows things about software and the details of accounting processes that are so complex they only start to make my head hurt (because I'm only starting to understand them enough to get frustrated and confused). Well today I mentioned "BRRRR." It's a pretty basic real estate investing concept: Buy, Renovate, Rent Refinance, Repeat. Renovating a house (if you do it right) makes it more valuable. Having a renter in it makes it less risky. So lenders will give you more money than they did when you bought the place. Plus you have the cash flow from the tenant paying the mortgage. You use the money from the refinance to buy your next rental. It's a bit of a house of cards, but if you're smart and disciplined and lucky, you can build an empire and get rich in under a decade with relatively little money of your own.

Well this concept was amazing to my friend. I mean, this was one of those moments where--and I'm not that perceptive of people--I could hear the lightbulb going on at the other end of the line. It's funny. Because I'm miserable, trying to understand the things that are very basic for him, while something so obvious to me was so revolutionary to him.

Which segues me into the dichotomy of doing brainy consulting part of the week and working at a factory another part of the week. I'll get one off-topic thing out of the way first: I can't count the number of times someone working next to me has confided to me an obscene amount a friend is making every week. I smile and nod and bite my tongue because I'm making 20% more than that part time working for my friend. There really are 2 (or more) worlds.

But the point I was going for--along the lines of intelligence and ignorance (and ignorance has such a needlessly negative connotation. I'm very VERY smart. But I'm very VERY ignorant on a lot of subjects) is dealing with people who aren't particularly intelligent AND are ignorant. Other day I had a very nice conversation with a guy about Keno. He liked it. And I confessed I didn't understand it and that it seemed like a bad idea. He explained the basics of it enough for me to grasp it. After a few more questions I smiled and nodded. Today I looked up "Keno odds". Around 1 in 4. That's the best you can do playing Keno. If you play as smart as you can, you're going to lose 75% of the time you play. I'm too drunk to parse math right now, but that may or may not be worse odds than playing slot machines. And 1 in 4 is the BEST you can do. If you pick more numbers it actually REDUCES your odds of winning. Meanwhile the conversation flowed to pull-tabs and scratch-offs where even these guys realized they might as well just light dollar bills on fire and throw them on the floor--but they still took a chunk of their tax refund to play them.

So. Show of hands. How many stories have you heard of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and Elon Musk hitting it big on Keno or the Pick 6? None? I wonder why that is. I mean, they've got plenty of money to...invest..in gambling. Anyhow, I'm too tired to smoothly lead this back to where I'm going. The point is...among the points, is that I'd have only pissed these guys off if I explained that they were paying a voluntary tax. And that wealth redistribution doesn't work because the wealthy people are that way because they know how to make money. And the poor people are poor because they lose their money. And you can no more convince a Bingo fanatic that they're burning money than you can get Bill Gates to sit down with a blotter and a bunch of cards.

Meanwhile, a nice girl that I'd very much like to have sex with except for her engagement ring told me all about buying her house and how much over the asking price she paid to get it. And to be fair, you might have to pay a lot over the list price to get a house--especially if it's already been "flipped." But I know people (myself included) who've paid around 60-70% of the asking price and got the house so I felt a little bad. The good news is, I've almost certainly paid too much for houses. And even so I've never lost money on real estate. So she'll probably be fine. And she's happy with the deal she got. Mostly. If the conversation hadn't moved too fast I could've told her about my roof and plumbing and she would've felt better about her electrical. But that's another story.
 

Lanzman

No-one of consequence
So. Show of hands. How many stories have you heard of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and Elon Musk hitting it big on Keno or the Pick 6? None? I wonder why that is.
These guys might also be aware of how addicting gambling can be. If you get the bug, you can turn a million bucks into pocket change pretty quick. And next thing you know, the leg breakers come looking for you.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
So much to talk about what developed while the site was down. That said I just had another amazing realization that I don't have the time, energy, or skill to exploit so I will share it for your amusement. Should someone steal it and get Mark Zukerbot rich, be a mensch and kick a few bucks my way.

I was pissed at how shitty and terrible Facebook is. I'm about out of options to sanction them, short of closing my account, which I can't do for a few reasons--one of which is as much as I hate it and it is shitty, I hate it less than any other options out there.

Anywho, in the depths of my screed I accidentally mistyped it as "facefuck." So naturally, the next thing I did was put in the URL "facefuck.com" and got an "unable to connect." Haven't actually bopped out to see if the domain is available--really surprised it isn't a porn site--but that would be suck a magnificent parody site for the shitty horribleness facebook has become.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I left Portland over 4 years ago. Should've left 12 years ago--or never went there. When I finally got out I tried to lure a couple friends away. Got excuses. "All my family is here." "I don't like humidity." Tonight one of those people was on Facebook, saying she hates Portland and always has and she'd leave but she can't afford to. I feel a little bad, but I did warn her. And she's smart. She had the same info I did--and had lived there even longer. She could've made the decision I did. When it's time to get out, get out. You don't want to stay too long and get trapped.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Being a turd right now. There was a miscommunication and the building I was supposed to work in Friday night was shut down for inventory. I probably should've went to my regular building (that was also shut down) to see if they wanted to put me anywhere else, but I've been bitching about how I hate my jobs and don't have enough time for my real estate so I took it and ran. Did a quick triage of my lawn and only mowed what absolutely needed mowing last night so I can throw the mower in the van and head over to the vacant rental.

But then I wound up staying up later than I should've and sleeping later than I should've and now I'm fucking off on the computer in my jammies with a cup of coffee instead of getting a house ready to rent.

So there's that. I could just do a quick turn. Touch up the paint, clean up the yard. Do a good deep cleaning and maybe bring back the accent rugs I had when I showed the place (that I have since integrated into my house) and get the bugger listed. But there's also a temptation to fix some of the things that I learned after I had renters in. I did an OK job filling in the footprint of the "above ground" pool that had been removed before I got the place. But still, after a heavy rain, there's an inch or two of standing water in a roughly 20' circle in the middle of the yard. The grass is tall enough to hide it, but still, not ideal. There's the fish pond. I tried leaving a corner of the pool footprint for a goldfish pond, but couldn't get it watertight. Without a liner, it would dry out. With a liner, when it would rain the water table would push up from below and float the liner. Weighting the liner (I assume) tore holes in it, because then it was back to drying out. Until the next rain. I guess I could call it a "rain garden" and be done, but I should either fill it or put a rigid fish pond form into it to hold water.

The closet for the laundry hookups, I should stick a stackable washer and dryer in there. Louisville is odd in that landlords often don't provide any appliances and never charge a premium for appliances. The lease is always worded along the lines of "any appliances are provided as a convenience to the renter..." so if they break you aren't obligated to repair or replace them. [shrug] But the utility closet with the hookups is so small that a standard washer and dryer completely fill it, making it useless for storing brooms, etc, and where you need to pull out the washer to get at the furnace and water heater.

Then there's the fireplace. Apparently if you have a fireplace in a rental, renters will build a fire in it. Even if you tell them the fireplace isn't functional. Even if the glass screen has been painted black and the handles have been removed from the doors. [shrug] I never really liked the idea of a nonfunctional fireplace anyway, so I'm tempted to get a gas log kit and put in a gas fireplace. I've got a stubbed out hookup down in the crawlspace. I just need to figure out how people get the gas line up into the firebox area.

But time's a-wastin'. Whatever I do, I should get off my ass pretty soon and do it.
 
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