Riding in the rain

So yesterday I had to ride home in the rain on the bicycle. This is not a big deal. Riding to work in the rain, a big deal. Well, annoying really. Because I can't shower at work. Anyway, as I was coming home, I saw someone about a half-mile ahead of me. We were going at the same speed, so I figured, hey, why don't I try to catch up to him! I pounded for about three miles (in the pouring-ass rain, no less) and finally got the guy. Then I stayed with him, and boy, was he deceptively quick. (slightly overweight guy, but HUGE calves) Either that or I was running on fumes from having run him down.

I've found that this can be a rather fun mental and physical exercise in the morning and afternoon. Might as well add a bit more of a challenge to the workout. Not sure if I've lost weight from all this (over 200 miles pedaled already!) but my pants sure do fit better!

No new updates on Maria's driving. We need to get crackin' on that. There was still some yelling last time. I need to calm down.

Asim is doing this thing where he'll stand for about a second or so and then fall back on his butt. So he's slowly progressing to even faster modes of independence. I spent part of the weekend baby-proofing the kitchen by putting those plastic catches on the lower cabinet doors. Not entirely easy.

This weekend (Sunday) I also went out for about an hour on the bike, just for fun. I wanted to see if I could go certain places (a large neighborhood) and see, generally, how good the roads around here are for biking. Well, on a Sunday evening they're quite ideal. I managed to cover 19.2 miles in just over an hour. Very happy. The great part was that as I was getting home near the hour mark, I was thinking that I could probably go for another hour. I will have to try a 2-hour Saturday morning ride this weekend.

Ok, so the house.

Right.

Things are slowly happening still. Namely, the builder (Ryland) is bailing on the neighborhood. This isn't entirely confirmed yet (or is it?) But should be by the end of this week. But they are committed to building our home. So far they've built two model homes and another couple have put down money for the lot two over from ours. (They got a corner lot, ours is an interior one.)

Salesguy calls me and asks if we wouldn't mind moving to the lot adjacent to the couple. That's fine. And there's even some financial incentive for doing so! Yay! Then I suggest that we move both houses next to the model homes, cause, well, why not. He asks how much it would take for me to consider that. I tell him. He laughs. I tell him half the amount and then say, yeah, really, that would do it. He's going to find out. (He needs to talk to the other couple, too.)

Another developer is going to build homes on the rest of the lots. A nice builder. He couldn't say who, but the two who are there now make really great, really expensive homes. So that's good for us. Salesguy said (and this isn't entirely clear to me or whatever, but that's all moot) that the homes aren't really (my words here) economically feasible considering the amount of changes that people wanted to make. Like how much they wanted to customize the homes. He said that my demands were "typical" of the others. And since Ryland doesn't own the land and does it lot-by-lot, it's easier to bail. Also, the family of homes they can build there is only being built in one other neighborhood. And those are very custom (and $100K more). So maybe they're seeing that they can't quite "cookie-cutter" these ones like their typical "American-style" homes. (McMansions)

I have to be honest and say that I saw something like this coming. I thought it would be a complete up-and-go, we're-not-doing-it-at-all kind of thing. Because when I asked him over the past few months about people buying in or not, nobody had bought in. Except for the one couple. However, he added that the neighborhood hadn't undergone the Grand Opening. Usually after that things take off. But then again, once you miss that done-by-August window for folks with school-aged kids, you're SOL for a while. (I didn't even consider that).

I have also been wondering that, in the land of big lots, garages-out-front and huge floorplans, who would buy these homes? People out here just want houses. They don't want a lifestyle (walk to stuff, small tree-lined streets, garage-out-back, tiny lots, no cul-de-sacs) stuffed down their throats. These homes are square-shaped. that's a departure from the rectangular box. They reflect home styles from the 1800's. They're actually interesting.

So anyway, the home is still under permit review and all that, but should be done by Thanksgiving at least. We'll probably use the extra money they gave us for moving the lot on giving the interior one paint color (brownish instead of white) and maybe a refrigerator. What's left will just get hacked off the mortgage which of course thrills me to no end.

I'm also going to "call" something right now. The one model home they have completed is the same floor plan as our home. I'm assuming that Salesguy will at least try to pitch it to us. Oddly, it's listed for the same as our home, and I'd rather have our home (obviously). The model doesn't have a nice bay window in the dining room and two windows in the family room. It also doesn't have the monstrous 9' ceilings in the basement. And that's definitely a no-no. Although I guess for the right price ...