Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy 4th of July

With Independence Day falling on a Wednesday, half the country took Monday and Tuesday off and the other half will have Thursday and Friday off.  Some lucky souls probably saved enough days to take the entire week off. 

I usually like these weeks because it means nothing gets done an easy week in Corporate America.  However, I have my year end review on Thursday and I never look forward to reviews.  I learned a long time ago I'm not the type that wows anyone with work performance.  Just like I could never get straight As in high school and college, I could never go an entire performance period without pissing someone off, or missing a deadline or having something go wrong that while not technically my fault, still my responsibility.

It doesn't help that I've been extremely slow the last few months.  Our fiscal year comes to a close at the end of this month so my projects have been put on hold until the 2013 budget is approved.  I'm also not a good Look Busy Person and I'm terrible at sitting at my desk until the 5 o'clock Whistle Blows person.  The temptation to leave early, especially to avoid traffic, is enormous.


In my last post I said that I wasn't going to do my typical review of houses we saw on Sunday. However, one place does come to mind that I should write about. 3647 N Kedvale St, 5 bd/2.5 ba $499,900.

This house has a beautiful garden and magnificent outdoor living space. There are decks and a suana and even a basketball court. all on an double lot. My question is, did they do this at the expense of the inside space? From the listing, it says that it has been the same owner for over 30 years, ergo they should own the place outright.

For one, you can tell this is a family of smokers who smoke inside the house.   Second, it hasn't been updated since the 80s when they likely put in the back addition to the house.  Third, did I mention it reeked of smoke?

I'm not trying to judge.  I'm sure they had a lot of big plans.  They also appear to have a large family which isn't cheap.  They probably did what they could and got the outside space as wonderful as possible.  Now they are riding on the home values of Old Irving Park.  It is hard to find another home in a four block radius for under half a million in as decent of condition.  Someone looking in the $550-600K price range will snap this up and consider it a steal.

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