Month: December 2018

Three houses on one skinny lot

This is a lot I’ve been watching since 2015. I used to ride by it regularly as I bicycled to work. The lot was sectioned off from the house next door and sold during that time. Not much has happened since then, though that fence is new.

Today I was interested to notice this for sale sign which not only advertises the price of the lot as just south of $300k, but also has already drawn plans for a three-unit modern condo development. My mind boggled a bit trying to mentally fit three houses in here so I spent some time studying the renderings.

This seems to be an example of vertical living. On the main floor is the kitchen/dining area, followed by the living room/office on the second floor. Then you climb to the third floor to get to the first set of bedrooms and then to the fourth floor to get to the master bedroom.

I did the math and the square footage works out to 376–441 square feet per floor. That’s a little bit bigger than the footprint of my studio apartment.

This is an interesting development in infill housing. It doesn’t provide parking, which I still feel should be at least a small priority for each lot. I do rather like the idea of three normal-sized houses on one lot, rather than one big one.

I’ll keep my eye on this property and see what appears.

Christmas Eve Eve 2018

The MAunts and Matt’s mom Linda gathered to celebrate Christmas Eve Eve. (We celebrate Christmas Eve Eve not on 12/23, but on a random day in early December to kick off the holiday season.)

We ate the traditional Christmas Eve Eve meal of soup and bread and then we played a round of Uno. Aunt Pat won, with Matt being the first person to crest over 350 points.

We were playing Uno to kill time because the Miracle of a Million Lights didn’t open until 6 p.m. This Christmas lights display is just down the street from our house at an event rental space with a big old house. I’ve seen it for years, but this was the first year they put up a sign of what it was called. I could then Google it and find out information.

It was pouring. Though we were properly outfitted with umbrellas, I forgot my camera and didn’t bring my phone, so we have only these photos Matt took on his phone.

Here is everyone (Aunt Carol unfortunately in shadow on the right) amid the million lights.

We also got to tour the historical house. On the top floor were cutouts of many superhero cutouts including actual people portraying Shuri and Black Panther. Matt was very excited to get his picture taken with them.

We returned to the house to have gingerbread brownies and ice cream for dessert.

10 Years of Sentinel Damascus Collins

Sentinel joined our household in December of 2008. I adopted him on December 7, a date I remember because it also happens to be Pearl Harbor Day.* If you want to read his introduction post, it’s here.

Reading that first description, I can report that Sentinel still follows me around all the time. I’ve often thought about how accurate the original description of him at the Humane Society was. It said something like, “he’s more like a small dog than a cat.” He’s very much a companion animal.

He’s not a fan of posing for photos, as evidenced by his ears in this picture.

Sentinel is 14 now, and this is the first year he seems like an old cat. This year he had to have a bunch of teeth pulled. He’s now missing upper incisors on both sides, not just his right side. And he now takes a half tablet every other day that keeps him from throwing up regularly. His fur isn’t as thick as it was, but other than that, he’s the same cat as ever.

Sentinel is a marvelous cat, the kind of cat that friends look forward to visiting with, and that I’m sure I will think fondly of for years after he is gone. We’ve been lucky to have 10 years with him and here’s to another good length of time and a happy rest of his life.

*Antares was adopted on a random January day in 2010, and thus we never celebrate him properly. I’ll probably commemorate the occasion next Pearl Harbor Day, as it looks like we brought him home in mid-December 2009. Here’s the first siting of him on the blog.

The 60/30 Rule Final Report

I came up five hours short of my time goal. But I still got 56 hours of work done that I wouldn’t have otherwise done.

This was a very good exercise and it’s gotten me much closer to getting 3SMR in shape for publication. FFI, hasn’t progressed at all. Lesson learned about how much time it takes to start a website.