Happy New Year!

What a different year it's going to be? This hopefully will be the most change I've dealt with in a long time. I moved just a couple of weeks ago and I'm in the middle of training for the Ironman. Not only will I experience new workouts but I'll be doing them in a completely different area. I'm hoping this will make me mentally tough and ready for the Canada course.

I'm in the process of buying a 2 bedroom condo. After searching and looking at a bunch of apartments, it turned out that rent was going to be just as expensive as a mortgage on a condo including condo fees and property tax. It's crazy so luckily I had the down payment so I decided to buy rather than rent. I made an offer on a real nice condo. It's about 3 miles away from Elena's house but it's still near a Metro station(the major mode of public transportation in the DC area) and a mall. This will help its resale value I'm hoping when we move in 5 or so years.

Buying a house/condo is a pain in the ass though. It seemed a lot different in 2000 when Amber and I bought the house in Portland. Luckily, the realtor I got is understanding and quite helpful. Of course since it's the holidays everyone is on vacation so getting the offer signed has taken longer than normal. I've also been dealing with Bank of America because of their cool mortgage loans. This has required numerous calls to them and at least I got the paperwork so I can complete that process.

The closing costs are killers though as they suck money from you that you would normally put towards the house. Luckily if things go well because of the current "buyers market" the seller is going to help with these costs. All in all it's still a pain. I can't have it finished soon enough because of the movers.

Ahh the movers. I think they cheated me as they called and said my shipment was just over 4000 lbs. I just couldn't believe all my stuff weighed that much. I was figuring it would under their absolute minimum of 3000 lbs. Crap so that's gonna cost me even more but at least I got the first month of storage free and they didn't have to come to my house for an estimate. I guess next time I'll make time for an estimate and just go with a super big mover.

I have to tell them though that they will be carrying my stuff up 3 flights of stairs rather than using an elevator. This should be interesting as the movers when they got to my place didn't even count stairs or anything although over the phone they wanted to know the exact number of stairs. I think I'm gonna be a little vague about the stairs when I call back to get my delivery scheduled. The other strange thing which appears to be the case for all moving companies is on delivery they need to be paid in cash or US Postal money order. Talk about lame. I guess they don't have any leverage on you if you got your stuff and you try to stiff them. I'll feel like a gangsta if I get cash. Maybe I can get the bank to give me $500 bills so it won't look like i have a big stack leaving the bank. Who knows...I guess I'll need to figure that out soon.