House Pics

Hello all!

We have signed the offical contract and now just need to come up with the cash and then start the repayment treadmill :) Here are the pics I promised so many times but never delivered.
Outside - we have the one on the left.



2nd floor looking out of the master bedroom to the deck.



Kitchen



CAT-6 Cables (woot!)

Our first house

Hello everyone!

Well good news, we have purchased a new home here in Brisbane, Australia. While it is a townhouse it is at a great location (you know what they say, Location, Location, Location!) and looking at rent prices and how much growth happens around here we are confident the investment will go well :)

So here are the specs.

Insulation in all the walls, ext and interior. High grade stuff - Rockwool which acts as an insulator and a sound dampener.

Upstairs:
2 Bedroom
- Master bedroom has a balcony
1 Bathroom
1 Study

Downstairs:
1 Toilet
1 Kitchen with gas oven, living room etc

Outside:
Large tree
Small area for a 4 set table
Fenced off with a locked gate.

Things near by:
Train Station - 4 blocks
Main Artery Road - Two streets away
Grocery Store and shops - 6-7 blocks
Pub/Bar - We are not sure the exact location but guestimate of about 4-6 blocks away (Walking distance)

We want to talk to the builder about getting network cable run before it is completed as well as giving us an access door under the stairs. We want to install a nice wine storage area under there :)

Here is a link to show where we currently live vs where we are moving. Map

I will get some pictures of it online once we get a chance to go out again.

Value of blood

Yes yes the USA Trip blog is coming as soon as I can get all the pics organized ;p

Well I got a bit of mail yesterday which surprised me. I gave blood about a month ago and my blood donor card arrived. It seems I am O- blood type! Which means three very important things.

1) I am a universal donor which means anyone of any blood type can take my blood, even the really rare blood types like AB- so it's pretty important I keep giving blood. doh, moral obligation!

2) I can only receive blood from other O- peps! DOH! Luckily there is 9% of the population in ozzie land with this blood type so all "should" be okay ;p

3) Now, since the blood I give anyone can receive that releases me from other obligations! You know like politics and shit like that :D I can now sleep soundly ignoring the world around me because my blood is out there saving heaps peps, you know, keeping those voters showing up to the booths and posting their rants on the web about how things are messed up ;p . So my contribution to humanity will be blood. Hahaha I win

Now I can ignore all the meat bags that are not friends and family and just concentrate on animals :)

Baseball, BBQ and all the goodness

We have been back in the USA for 5 days now and we have done quite a bit!

After visiting with the folks for two days we picked up Peter and the following day had a really good BBQ here at the house. We had good fun taking Kasey and Peter around to all the big commercial spots like Walmart, Sams Club etc. The price of beer and booze here still even amazes me! So we had a good long BBQ and got to meet up with the locals here in YC :)

Yesterday we went to Old Sacramento, hit up an Irish Pub (as you do ;p) and from there went to the train and war museums which is quite fun. Those trains are huge! After the trek around Old Sac we went to a River Cats Baseball game. It was great fun, it has been a long long time since going to a baseball game and even though the Rivercats lost it was still a ton of fun.

Today we are making our way to Chico to visit Sierra Nevada and do the whole brewery tour. From there we will just hang out till its bar time! :D

DOH!

Unfortunately the price and discussion with the agent was only about the LAND for the area, the house costs extra.

Well... I guess next time we want a home and land package we will have to be explicit in that the price contains a house as well ;-)

That is to say, we were very happy to pay the land price when we thought there was a house on it hehe wonder if we can get a shack built for 30k!

Home home everywhere!

Well everything is coming together quickly!

The trip to the USA is only a four days away and we have a lot of things coming together quite quickly.

We are going to meet with an agent about this land and home package (what they call it here for a new house), out in a really forest-y area, it is two blocks from a train station and is close to a major road! So that lands all of our requirements and its a new home! We won't have to worry about building, pests etc inspections since it will all be under contract. So, yes, everything is happening this Saturday. If we are happy with the property we are gonna give the big thumbs up to the agent and then start hammering away on the loan guys to it all finalized. Of course this is all happening the day before we leave for the USA, so I imagine I am gonna be still doing it while on holidays ;P

Ahh and the block is a massive 836 SQ Yards (or 1000 sq meters) which is f***-tastic because of how close it is to the CBD. It also means in the future we can split the lot and build to houses then sell them as individual lots or build a small block of flats on them and sell them off individually for a good amount of bling bling.

And of course we have the trip to the USA which Kasey and I are looking forward to a great deal! It will be just over two and half years (I think..) since I have been home so it will be good to see everyone and visit :)

Nothing else really to report, I am doing ITIL training all this week which is a bit of a pain but will look good on the ole CV (Resume for US folks).

See a lot of you soon!

Belgium Beer Gooooood

Kasey has finished her thesis (YAAAA!!!) and to celebrate we went out to the Belgium Beer Garden which has a very swanky restaurant attached to it and very nice beers.

We has to get the most expensive beer of course since it was a big celebration so we got this beer here :)



Very nice stuff. Recommended it highly!