The 'bent Needle

At least, not where it used to be. Well, you might be able to, but I can't. At least not for a L O N G time from now at least...

What am I babbling on about now, you ask? Well, give me a minute and I'll tell ya... ;-)

Anyway, on the way home from work tonight I am listening to the Talk Radio program that is on the radio and trying not to doze off (my rider would be VERY upset with me if I did that; I drove today) when all of a sudden I catch a snippet of an advert that is talking about the place where I used to live when I first moved out on my own. Something or the other about condominiums. "Huh?!? That can't be right." is the first thing to come to mind, so I listen a little more carefully. Sure enough, the Radio Announcer Person is talking something or the other about condos in my old apartment building. Hmm... So I make a point to listen to the rest of the advert -heckling it all the while- and make note of the website mentioned in the ad. Okay, that will give me something to do when I get home...

Fast forward to home. I get all settled in, realize that it is TONIGHT that Kim is getting her hair done (need to work on that memory stuff) and get some stuff started for dinner. After that, I go online and look to see what this condo business is all about. Well, the first few attempts at to find the website failed miserably. Methinks I mis-heard the name or something... Oh well, it isn't like I don't know the name of the place. Check, check, check... Hmm... That doesn't work either... Oh well, so I plug in a search for "condos" and "Rorick" (the name of the old apartment) and lo and behold! I find this site. HOLY HANNAH ON A HOT POGO STICK!!! Ahem... sorry, but that is about what I was thinking.

Anyway, if you click on the link you can see what look like some pretty nice condos. To me, I see my old apartments (I lived in a couple of the units a couple different times.) as the models in the 360* tours. I kid you not! I mean, the 1 bedroom one shown is -more or less- the same as the apartment that I originally moved into when I moved into the place all those years ago. (Talking about a major league freak out!)

AND THEN... I clicked on the mortgage calculator. Just to see what they were asking for them and H O L Y H O P P I NG H I P P O SPIT!!! (I cleaned that up, by the way...) Now if you are condo savvy, you might not think that the price was too much. Well let me tell ya... Up until a couple three years ago, this whole area was a Low Rent District. (Oh yeah, Capital Letters all around...) Example: the apartment that I had when Kim and I got together cost me about $380 +/- a month. Well... If you look at the mortgage calculator, you can see that they cost a little bit more than that now. (Now you can see why I made the hippo spit comment.) The only thing that I can think of for the EXTREME price hike is the fact that a Big New School was built in the area and The City Fathers decided that it would be a good idea to encourage Businesses to come in and renovate all the old apartment buildings. Translation: newly remodeled apartment buildings = higher rent and 'nicer' residents. ...orsomethinglikethat...

Anyway... methinks you can see why I titled this post the way I did. (Still shaking about the whole condo thing here...) I am -more or less- over the seeming unfairness of the whole deal. It is amazing how much things change over time, even though they seem to stay the same.

Okay, enough of that type of stuff. Here is a little bit of something that may pull you all out of the hum-drum feeling that the above story may have created:

This little cutey was milling about outside our window. He/she was just sitting there... munching on the grass... looking into the window... munching more grass... and NOT MOVING! I am not kidding one little bit. I swear, he/she just sat there... and sat there... and sat there... At least 5 minutes, easy. And then... one of the neighbor dogs and his/her owner walked by and scared him/her off. Methinks the dog just wanted to say Hi! but the bunny thought differently. The dog was a bit bigger than the bunny, after all. ;-)

Okay, what else? Um... Oh! Thank you to all and everybody else who have come to take a look at what I have to say. Makes all the typing worth it. ;-p Just kidding... I seriously do appreciate all the visitors.

And with that... Farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu... you know... all that international 'see you later' type stuff... ;-)