07/20/05 03:06 - 80ºF - ID#32111

The Study Of Creativty

So last night at about 11PM, we began our inquiry into the creative method as part of a study conducted by our neighbor Katie. She is enrolled in the Creative Studies Masters program at Buffalo State.

I am sorrry the picture for this blog were taken with my crappy sidekick1. Someday I will get a better phone. Basically, we were interviewed about a group problem we were having last week. The problme being, deciding on and moving into a home. The process involved lots of paper products. I probably wrote out about 130 post-its. I think the process really needs to be digitlized. In the end we decided on the home that we had decided on before, but we feel much more confident about the decision. Thanks Katie.

For part of the study, we had to look at these pics. After we completed looking at each level of the picture, we had to guess what we thought it was. For the first three stages I guessed the following.

1. Priests looking at Jesus

2. Priests looking at Jesus and a stained glass window.

3. Priests looking at Jesus dressed as a woman.

Permalink: The_Study_Of_Creativty.html
Words: 208
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: thesis

07/19/05 01:36 - 80ºF - ID#32110

Writing the Thesis!

I was writing my thesis for a change when I looked up toot in the thesaurus. It turned out to not be the word I was looking for.

toot - 1. a bout of heavy drinking 2. to inhale an illegal drug, especially cocaine

Permalink: Writing_the_Thesis_.html
Words: 42
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: renting

07/19/05 06:47 - 80ºF - ID#32109

What landlording sounds like

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

Here is (e:matthew) smashing out a cabinet, that needs to be replaced. Check out his triceps.

Permalink: What_landlording_sounds_like.html
Words: 21
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: money

07/19/05 06:33 - 80ºF - ID#32108

Maybe I should just [se|ki]ll myself

Student loans. So owing the money isn't the big part, it is paying the interest back too. Apparently, I owe $58,180.39 for grad school + $20,000 for undergrad.

With interest that the grad school amount comes to $68,075 and this is after (e:terry) consolidated it and with me paying $566.92 per month till 2016.

Another friend of mine who doesn't even have an undergraduate degree makes about 3-4 times as much as I do. But what makes me even more crazy is thinking about all the rich people whose parents could afford to pay for their schooling. How am I supposed to compete with them. They now have all of their salaries to invest in things like a business and mortage/investments while I am going to end up paying about $700/month in student loans.

There's definitely a class system at work here, as well: Rich kids whose parents paid for their Ivy League educations start off their adult lives debt-free; the rest of us desperately trying to avoid middle-class poverty are stuck treading water.
Quoted from: The Case for Student Loan Amnesty

Permalink: Maybe_I_should_just_se_ki_ll_myself.html
Words: 187
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: renting

07/18/05 08:58 - ID#32107

Working Hard Till Thursday

Finshed painting the bathtub and cabinet and capped the spickettes. The bathroom is now complete. We also packed stuff in boxes and Iscrapped the old paint to add some new paint. I am tired of it but it looks like our tenant will move in on Thursday night and it will be over for a little while at least.

The washing machine is 500 lbs and is waiting to kill me when it falls down three flights of stairs.

Permalink: Working_Hard_Till_Thursday.html
Words: 84
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: renting

07/18/05 06:05 - 86ºF - ID#32106

Another Day Landlording

So I thought I would be able to have been done writing my thesis by now. i was quite wrong. I never anticipated how much time landlording takes. Today I had to paint the bathroom cabinet, fix the shower, cap the pipes, and paint the tub. Then I scraped paint from a part of the house and want to begin painting ASAP. It is so time consuming.

I forgot the sidekick I piece of crap phone so I don't have any pictures of today's progress. You will just have to beleiev me that it occurred ;)

Permalink: Another_Day_Landlording.html
Words: 95
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: property

07/17/05 09:12 - ID#32105

The mini mansion

Here is a pic of the house I was talking about before. We really want t to move here but I think I would have a hard time leaving linwood.

Permalink: The_mini_mansion.html
Words: 49
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: renting

07/17/05 05:10 - ID#32104

The shower showoff

Our friend Dave came over around 2am for an inspirational speech. I think he convinced us that being landlords would be a good idea. A part of me wants to go back to a pre-manual labor era and another part of me finds it all fun to do something besides compute.

Update --> It is done. We have built a shower for our new tenant. Soon it will be all done and we can buy the other house down the street.

Permalink: The_shower_showoff.html
Words: 84
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: renting

07/17/05 09:20 - 75ºF - ID#32103

Plumbing, I hate plumbing sort of

Well at least I hate getting yelled at while attemping plumbing. After reading google, I just realized that I was wrapping the teflon tape counterclockwise instead of clockwise. Now I feel dumb because the side where I wrapped the tape the wrong way is leaking.

I am so sad about this whole thing. (e:matthew) and (e:terry) don't want to be landlords anymore. I wish that they were more excited because it is bringing me down. I am really happy when I have to try and solve problems that are time consuming and tricky. I think that is why I like prgoramming so much. They just get really bored and angry.

The downstairs neighbors also told us that the lady we rented to is bringing her kid to live there. I wish that she had told us that. I hate it when people aren't upfront. I am also tired of being too nice. We are going to make virtually no money on this until after 5 years the way it looks. Sometimes, it seems important to work for things that will pay off in the future as I am getting older. On the other hand I can do so many cerebral things that make lots of money, that I don't know if it is worth getting my hands greasy.