I forgot to bring everyone up to speed on the status of our short sale offer.
Our agent sent us an email titled, "Kaumualii F-up." Yeah, I thought it was going to be bad too. Turns out our agent was just shortening "follow-up" in her email.
Anyway, here's the deal. Last we heard, at the end of March, Bank of America ordered a BPO. That's Broker Price Opinion. That's where they hire a specialized real-estate agent to do a walk-through of the property to determine its value. The agent also looks at the comparatives (similar properties that sold recently) to adjust the value.
The latest update from our realtor says that the seller's agent has been in contact with customer service at Bank of America, and they have confirmed that they received the "valuation" on April 9. I'm guessing the valuation is the BPO and other related materials. The customer service person said it will be 15-20 days for a decision on our offer. So if they actually keep to their timeline, we should hear from the bank this week. Of course, this is Bank of America. They are notoriously slow and sloppy when handling short sales. Try and Google "bank of america short sales" and see what you get. According to Bank of America, they're supposed to give replies to short sale offers in 10 business days. HA!
Truth is, our agent told us to expect 4 months or more for a reply.
I wonder what ever happened to the Treasury Dept.'s requirement that banks make decisions on short sales in 2 weeks or get penalized?
Anyway, the seller's agent plans on requesting updates every few days. She's been working on this property for over 400 days, and I bet she wants to finish it.
Wendy is a bit more optimistic than me. "I bet we hear from the bank tomorrow," she says. She's been saying that for the last three weeks though, so eventually the bank will reply like she said, and I will have to bow down to her Nostradamus-like clairvoyance.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
3.5
Nick, just so you know, we're going to try and run alternating campaigns. The one we got started is 1st edition. One of the guys is working on a 3.5 edition campaign.
It's not too late, dude.
It's not too late, dude.
Playing House
Today is Sunday, and Wendy went off to church. I had planned to go riding on my motorcycle, but I have this really nasty pimple on my forehead, and it hurts to wear a helmet. So I stayed home instead.
When Wendy got home, we decided to do something for lunch. We headed down to my parents to drop off some food for Kyle. It was a dinner special from Wendy's restaurant... Kobe beef burger with garlic cilantro fries. Mmmmm.
Once at my parents', we took stock of their groceries and decided to cook whatever came to mind.
Microwaved baked potatoes with cheddar cheese was first.
Second was a pasta dish. I sauteed some garlic and added diced SPAM. Wendy boiled the spaghetti noodles. When the noodles were done, we mixed in the SPAM and some butter. Topped it off with optional Parmesan cheese.
It actually turned out pretty darn good. Maybe next time we'll think of something to make out of canned corned beef.
When Wendy got home, we decided to do something for lunch. We headed down to my parents to drop off some food for Kyle. It was a dinner special from Wendy's restaurant... Kobe beef burger with garlic cilantro fries. Mmmmm.
Once at my parents', we took stock of their groceries and decided to cook whatever came to mind.
Microwaved baked potatoes with cheddar cheese was first.
Second was a pasta dish. I sauteed some garlic and added diced SPAM. Wendy boiled the spaghetti noodles. When the noodles were done, we mixed in the SPAM and some butter. Topped it off with optional Parmesan cheese.
It actually turned out pretty darn good. Maybe next time we'll think of something to make out of canned corned beef.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The Adventure Begins
After years of talking about it, my little gaming group, the Adventure Follies, have managed to play a session of Dungeons and Dragons. This is no small feat seeing as we were spread out across the globe.
I played a half-orc fighter named Dumas.
J played a dwarf fighter named Thud.
Wes played a human cleric named Bartandilus.
Karnor (I don't recall his real name) played an elf mage named Karnor (heh).
Pete played a human druid named Griffith.
The Dungeon Master was Donald.
We covered Hawaii, NY, UK, GA, and IA.
We found ourselves in a small village near the sea. J was the first to wake to the smell of bacon. Instead of waking the rest of us, he headed off to the shop and ate the last bacon sandwich in the entire village.
I woke up next. Being a half-orc, and being in a southern town, the guards were a bunch of racist rednecks. Right away they started hassling me. I figured I could stand my ground since whichever being summoned us to the village would want us alive. I was wrong. A dozen level 10 guards surrounded me and treated me like a pinata at a Mexican birthday. I was an inch from death... -9 hp, just 1 hp shy of dying and having to reroll within 10 minutes of the start.
The noise woke up the cleric next. Being the holy man that he is, when he saw my crumpled body, he did his best to stop the bleeding and kept me from dying.
The noise also attracted the stupid dwarf, who finished his sandwich, then came out of the huts to investigate. Seeing a wounded orc on the ground, he stabbed it. Great. Almost killed by my own teammate. (Dwarves and half-orcs don't get along.)
Just before I succumbed to my wounds, the old man whose name I can't remember, teleports us to meet him and heals me. Jerk. Took him long enough.
Of course, once we were all in his presence, he doesn't give us any information and lets us wander around aimlessly. Finally, after he got his rocks off watching confused warriors muck about, he told us he needs our help, but first he had a test for us. We were to get him the claws of 10 giant crabs.
It took us over 15 minutes before we even did something about the crabs. I said it was a trap. He has level 10 guards who could get him the crabs. Why would he send level 1 adventurers? Someone suggested the druid should charm the crabs. We thought about having the dwarf tip the crabs over. We considered digging a large pit... Basically anything we could think of except actually hitting the crabs with our weapons.
During the crabbing expedition, the dwarf and half-orc started fighting again.
To speed thing up (HA!), the DM just said we continued and killed 10 crabs. We returned to the village at dawn.
(OK, this is taking almost as long as the first session...)
We spent another 15 minutes haggling with an armorer because he wanted to charge the druid 200 gold pieces to make a shield. Shields only cost 15 gp. Turns out the shield was magical, but we had no idea it would be, and we had to reason to trust the armorer.
We spent another 20 minutes figuring out our marching order. It was like the puzzle with the cat, dog, and catfood that you have to bring across the river. We couldn't leave the half-orc alone with the dwarf, but they were the fighters, so their prime spots were up front together.
***I never got around to finishing up this post, but we spent another 10 minutes arguing about figuring out which direction was north. "You mean the druid, who is attuned to nature, can't figure out north?" "We brought the crabs back to town at dawn, but we didn't see which direction the sun rose?" And stuff like that. It sounds crazy, but it was all a big bunch of laughs.***
I played a half-orc fighter named Dumas.
J played a dwarf fighter named Thud.
Wes played a human cleric named Bartandilus.
Karnor (I don't recall his real name) played an elf mage named Karnor (heh).
Pete played a human druid named Griffith.
The Dungeon Master was Donald.
We covered Hawaii, NY, UK, GA, and IA.
We found ourselves in a small village near the sea. J was the first to wake to the smell of bacon. Instead of waking the rest of us, he headed off to the shop and ate the last bacon sandwich in the entire village.
I woke up next. Being a half-orc, and being in a southern town, the guards were a bunch of racist rednecks. Right away they started hassling me. I figured I could stand my ground since whichever being summoned us to the village would want us alive. I was wrong. A dozen level 10 guards surrounded me and treated me like a pinata at a Mexican birthday. I was an inch from death... -9 hp, just 1 hp shy of dying and having to reroll within 10 minutes of the start.
The noise woke up the cleric next. Being the holy man that he is, when he saw my crumpled body, he did his best to stop the bleeding and kept me from dying.
The noise also attracted the stupid dwarf, who finished his sandwich, then came out of the huts to investigate. Seeing a wounded orc on the ground, he stabbed it. Great. Almost killed by my own teammate. (Dwarves and half-orcs don't get along.)
Just before I succumbed to my wounds, the old man whose name I can't remember, teleports us to meet him and heals me. Jerk. Took him long enough.
Of course, once we were all in his presence, he doesn't give us any information and lets us wander around aimlessly. Finally, after he got his rocks off watching confused warriors muck about, he told us he needs our help, but first he had a test for us. We were to get him the claws of 10 giant crabs.
It took us over 15 minutes before we even did something about the crabs. I said it was a trap. He has level 10 guards who could get him the crabs. Why would he send level 1 adventurers? Someone suggested the druid should charm the crabs. We thought about having the dwarf tip the crabs over. We considered digging a large pit... Basically anything we could think of except actually hitting the crabs with our weapons.
During the crabbing expedition, the dwarf and half-orc started fighting again.
To speed thing up (HA!), the DM just said we continued and killed 10 crabs. We returned to the village at dawn.
(OK, this is taking almost as long as the first session...)
We spent another 15 minutes haggling with an armorer because he wanted to charge the druid 200 gold pieces to make a shield. Shields only cost 15 gp. Turns out the shield was magical, but we had no idea it would be, and we had to reason to trust the armorer.
We spent another 20 minutes figuring out our marching order. It was like the puzzle with the cat, dog, and catfood that you have to bring across the river. We couldn't leave the half-orc alone with the dwarf, but they were the fighters, so their prime spots were up front together.
***I never got around to finishing up this post, but we spent another 10 minutes arguing about figuring out which direction was north. "You mean the druid, who is attuned to nature, can't figure out north?" "We brought the crabs back to town at dawn, but we didn't see which direction the sun rose?" And stuff like that. It sounds crazy, but it was all a big bunch of laughs.***
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
D&D
Hey Nick,
Check your other email. We're going to try a test run using 1st edition rules. You need to sign up on the website I sent you. Oh, you'll also need Ventrilo and a mic.
Check your other email. We're going to try a test run using 1st edition rules. You need to sign up on the website I sent you. Oh, you'll also need Ventrilo and a mic.
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