Wahoo, let me tell you how excited I am that tonight is the last session of my Chemistry 1215 lab! Now if only my other classes would hurry and finish (Chem 1210 and two Calculus courses).

So we had an offer on our property in Auburn, WA about a month ago (we’ve had two offers now).  As part of their inspection results, they requested several items which simply didn’t, and still don’t, make sense.  Specifically, the buyers required that the foundation and electrical wiring be updated to 2008 code requirements.  It’s a 1941 home, not 2008; code changes don’t apply retroactively (for single-family homes, anyway).  There’s no problem with the existing foundation (i.e. slippage, cracks, etc) or wiring, so why (sh)(w)ould someone demand that a 1941 home be updated to 2008 code requirements?

We agreed to the buyers’ others requests but said no on these two items —  “No, we’re not going to rip walls out [which are lathe and plaster – not nearly as quick, painless, or ‘clean’ to demolish and replace as drywall] to replace wiring nor make foundation structural changes.”  Seems logical to me.  Surprisingly, though, the buyers walked.  Their agent’s message was that it “wasn’t good enough.”

Now, I understand this is a buyer’s market, I’m not an idiot (sometimes, anyway).  I understand that when you’re in a buyer’s market, and you want to sell, you sometimes need to play the dumb game of acquiescing to what are sometimes frivolous requests.  So we did that for all the other requests, we acquiesced.  But wiring and foundation?  No.

Maybe I’m just too dang proud, and 1yr from now when the property remains vacant and unsold I’ll wish I’d acted differently, but at this point, anyway, it still doesn’t make sense.

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. BEEP.

If you see this message, then I’ve successfully configured the blog to receive incoming email messages and categorize and post them.  Yippee!

I’ve added some additional photos to the picture frame header.  I’ll add more as I find the time.  I like the random photo display of the fam.  🙂

So, I’ve already spent more time on this than I likely should, but the Smith Fam blog is finally coming together.  I registered the domain name some time ago, but only now that I’ve seen how active a ‘blogger’ my wife has become, only now do I see the value.

It also helps that one of my co-workers pointed out an article in the July or August Ensign wherein Elder Ballard discusses blogs and their value.  Moreover, he encouraged Church members to be active bloggers, to use it as a forum to share testimony of Jesus Christ.  Accordingly, I’m now an official blogger.  😐

So I’ve enabled the stats plug-in, primarily for Mrs. Smith, but it loads an obnoxious blue bar across the top with a “random” post (which I’ve discovered isn’t so random) that I cannot remove.  I’ve looked through the plugin code but it appears the image is called as a function of the call out to wordpress.com.

Grrrrrrrr, I don’t like that.

Hello World.

If that doesn’t indicate that I am, in fact, an uber-geek, then I suppose nothing will.