Posts Tagged "living in atlanta"

I am a drinker. I’m not out of control or anything, but I can say I like to put them away more so than the average guy. I like to have a good time. I like to party. I have friends that like to party and they have friends that like to party. I indulge in the activity of drinking at least once a week but most likely more than that. I have noticed that most social gatherings, when you are in your twenties, has to do with drinking and most of the time it has to do with drinking a lot. Sometimes more than others, but most of the time it’s enough to make you take a cab home. Society today really embraces drinkers so everyone seems fine with the idea of “going out for some drinks after work”. That’s just the way it is. I didn’t really see the whole extremity of the situation until I decided to stop drinking for a month. It’s almost strange how it is so natural to drink when “going out” or when “hanging out with friends”. It’s just what we do and the way things are. And we all know that people stick with what they know and what seems comfortable.

I can’t take credit for the idea of giving drinking a break. Though it seems like a simple concept, I hadn’t met anyone who had actually considered doing it until I met Priscilla’s good friend Meghann Quirk. She gave up drinking for Lent a couple years in a row before I had decided to partake. This was about two years ago now. I didn’t really quit because I gave myself three “give me’s”. Three days that I could drink within the six weeks that I couldn’t. It made it a lot easier and it more than made up for the days I didn’t drink by getting plastered the days I could. By the end of it, I did feel a small sense of accomplishment, but it was short lived.

This time I didn’t give myself any free days. I set a time to start and a time to finish. It just happened to start on my friend Dennis’ Bachelor Party and ended on his wedding day. It seemed fitting since I knew I would be drinking heavily at the Bachelor Party and then again at the wedding. The four weekends in between were uneventful unplanned weekends without traveling, or guests, or parties, or birthdays or holidays. With nothing to stand in my way, I knew it would be the easiest time to be successful. Is that cheating? Maybe a little, but I still had my hardships and those four weekends filled up pretty quickly with drinking events.

Right off the bat I had a run in with temptation. I joined a kickball league with friends that had games every Tuesday night after work. The games were sometimes followed by dinner and drinks at a local Pizza joint Mellow Mushroom. I drank my water and ate my pizza. It was harmless. Nobody really got wasted so it wasn’t that hard. That weekend Priscilla and I went to a concert to see Rascal Flatts. (A gift from me to her for our Anniversary) We tailgated and everything. I watched Priscilla try to down as many beers as she could in the four hours we were there. It was pretty entertaining to try to get her drunk. That was until the ride home when she complained the entire ride about how she had the hiccups and wanted to throw up. All in all it was still fun though.

The following weekend was uneventful. A weekend of rest and being lame. We stayed in both nights. The weekend after that was looking to be a challenge though. We were visited by Priscilla’s college friend Michele and her husband Jake. I thought I would have some long nights at the bar in front of me being miserable the whole time. I lucked out though because they were ready for bed after dinner each night. Now don’t get me wrong, they had plenty of wine and drinks through dinner as most people do, they just didn’t want to get crazy and stay up all hours of the night. I wasn’t complaining.

Then the last weekend came a visit from the in-laws. This doesn’t seem like it would be hard, but they do drink so it is was present. Plus, a few drinks while the in-laws are around makes everything a little easier to withstand. The weekend was fun and we filled it with shopping and cooking. It wasn’t bad at all.

So now the wedding and the cutoff date is slowly approaching. Only a couple more days left. It really hasn’t been hard. People wouldn’t understand when I would explain I wasn’t drinking. They mostly would give me a strange look like, “what a weirdo”. Everyone would ask me, “why are you not drinking?” I would always answer, “Just for Fun” but the real answer is that I just wanted to take a break from something I do all the time. A break from something that isn’t good for me and something I most likely should cut back on doing. I still like to drink and I think I will most likely will be getting pretty drunk at the wedding this weekend, but I do plan on cutting back when I start back at it. Not completely, but maybe through this experience I can have a better perspective on how much I drink. But especially how much I drink cause everyone else does.

UPDATE: I drank the day before the wedding cause I counted the days and it had already been 32 days. So I had a couple to get my liver ready for the wedding the next night. The wedding came and went and yes, I drank enough to get drunk. It was a good time. By Monday I was sick as a dog and had to miss work cause I had a fever. Hooray for alcohol.

Priscilla and I bought a house in March of this year. It is a suburbanized home in Smyrna right outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We took our time to find the right one. We worked with a mortgage broker and determined how much we can afford and how big of a loan we can get.  In turn we would know how much house we could buy. Priscilla and I got a kick ass deal on the two story, three bedroom house in Atlanta. The economy told us it was the best time to buy with the home prices and interest rates being at an all time low. We dove in head first and bought our first home. I had saved up some money from freelancing and had a chunk of money from my late grandparents inheritance so we used that money as a down payment and to do some much needed renovations to the house. When we finally moved in we were in a good place financially. We had a great house with money still in the bank. We were happy.

It has been almost 6 months since we have been home owners and the time seems like it has just flew by. Since March we have made several improvements to our new home, some of which we knew about going into it and some we didn’t. When the weather started to turn hot and humid as Atlanta normally does come summer, we noticed that our upstairs bedrooms and closet never seemed to cool down the way they should. I didn’t want to believe we had an issue with our air conditioning, so I put off calling the repair crew as long as possible. Now, we got extremely lucky these first couple of months of owning our first home. The air conditioning needed a new compressor and that was looking to cost over $1500, but our awesome real estate agent David Willard bought us a home warranty on the day we closed on the house as a wedding gift. The warranty covered the entire thing except for a $200 deductible. It was incredibly lucky and we knew it.

The warranty came in handy one other time when our water heater valve was leaking. Only a $50 deducible covered that small fix. Oh, and before the compressor was replace we spent $50 on a deductible for a guy to come replace a non-working thermostat. As you can see, things are starting to add up. We just had our new kitchen table delivered from Room Togo which is just what we needed. It fills a huge hole we had in our main living area and it was something we were planning to buy the moment we moved in. Another expense. The list of things we need to improve or fix grows by the day. Priscilla and I are both somewhat perfectionists and we need to have things a certain way. Because of this I’m sure the list will ever go away.

I love our new home. It is everything I have ever wanted in a house. It is expensive though. Very expensive. I have never been so aware of my finances as I am now. Credit Cards are the devil but they are saving my ass right now. I know things will settle down and my debt will recess, but until then I am watching every bill and pinching every penny. I guess it is good for me. I figured I would eventually have to lean on my credit one day. Living without debt is unrealistic, but I tried as long as I could. It’s a helpless feeling owing money you don’t have. I don’t like it. Not at all. But again I love my house and it’s worth every penny.

My wife Priscilla doesn’t cook.  She never has and I don’t think she ever would have either.  That is until about a month ago when we both decided to trade off days during the week when we both cook dinner.  Not a Fast Food pick up order or a pizza delivery guy.  A real home cooked meal.   Now, cooking a meal at home may seem simple to some people, but to Priscilla, cooking is a really, really big challenge.

Priscilla can clean and organise and even do yard work with all the confidence in the world.  She can take a messy closet and turn it into a rainbow of organised shirts, undershirts, button downed shirts, dress shirts and suits all in order and all color coordinated.  Don’t get in her way when she is in her “”clean mode”.  She is like a runaway train.  She will clean the house til you can eat off the kitchen floor.  I can’t even take a shower two days after she cleans cause it will dirty the tile.  (just a joke there)  She will spend hours pulling every weed in the yard after she mows and edges the grass.  It’s incredible how meticulous she can get over some of the smallest things.

Well, as domesticated as she sounds, she has never been a chef.  Apparently she has never cooked in her life.  Ever.  I, on the other hand, was a line cook in a restaurant for 5 years as I made my way through college, so I know my way around the kitchen.  Now I have always been proud of my cooking ability and have always cooked for myself and then for Priscilla when we started to date and eventually got married.  I didn’t mind then and I don’t mind now but I do want Priscilla to learn how to cook so she can appreciate the world of the Culinary Arts and try new and exciting foods.

Priscilla has always been a picky eater.  Ever since I have known her she has been very particular about what she orders off a menu and what restaurant she attends.  She is usually not  ”in the mood” for anything other than chicken fingers and quesadillas.  She has her moments of being open minded about what she eats, but most of the time she just isn’t feeling it.  The idea of having us both cook opens up the idea of making new foods and trying new things we normally wouldn’t want.  We are letting the other person choose the meal and make it the way they like.  The main thing I wanted wanted to achieve for us both was to appreciate these meals because it took time and effort to create them.

Priscilla was all for it.  She knows she is a picky eater and wanted to learn how to cook.  I would be there to help and she would be there to help me too.  So far the meals ranged from Polenta to frozen chicken fingers.  All in all, we have leanred a lot.  Eventually I want us to take some cooking classes and learn even more.  I want to try new things and cook new vegtables I now consider weird or gross.  Eggplant?  Not sure if that is good or not but I want to try it out.  Priscilla has eaten everythign I have made and cooked up some excellent things herself.  The Pulled Pork was some of the best I have ever had.

Sometimes it is hard to find a weekend when everyone is in town and willing to hit the town hard.  This was not one of those weekends.  Our good friend Mandi came into town with her boyfriend Kevin.  Mandi is a good friend of our little click and when she moved back home to Michigan we immediately anticipating her return.  Kevin planned this surprise vacation and wanted it to be a special one.  This is because he ended up popping the big question just one day before the plan ride down here.  The way I see it, it’s just one more reason to party.

Now living in Atlanta we have a number of great restaurants to choose when deciding where to eat, but most of the time you pick the spot you like and the one that’s convenient.  Well this weekend we were venturing out into the unknown.  Friday night we went to a restaurant in Inman Park.  Inman Park is an area we rarely visit, but has a number of great spots to eat.  That night we tried P’Cheens.  With a mixed variety of food, P’Cheens was a great place for a night out.  I got the Tom Yom Noodle Bowl which ended up being pretty damn good.  I tried a new beer to Atlanta called Mothership Wit made by New Belgium.  It’s made by the company that makes Fat Tire.  I guess it is supposed to be awesome.  It was ok.  

Anyway, after dinner we went down Highland Avenue to Dark Horse Tavern.  Now, Dark Horse is actually a place we have all been to quite a few times before, but it was close, convienent and it is a pretty awesome little bar.  We took a Jack Daniels shot and watched Lebron hit a ridiculous game winning shot with 1 second left then made our way home.  Since Priscilla and I live in Smyrna, the ride was about 20 minutes.  That 20 minutes seemed like an eternity to Kevin and Mandi.  I guess they drank more than I thought cause when we stopped for a pee, Kevin lost his dinner in the parking lot.  I guess that means we are showing them a good time.  That, or they can’t handle their Jack Daniels.

Saturday was a “hung over” day and amounted to watching movies at home and straight chillin’.  We knew that Saturday night was going to be another great night out.  We made our plan, got pimped out and made our way to yet another new restaurant.  This time we headed to Cabbagetown to a little restaurant called Agave.  This fancy Mexican place has a cool vibe plus it has over 100 different tequilas on their menu.  After some good food, good times and some 100 proof Margaritas we made our way to El Bar on Poune de Leon Avenue.  It’s the place no one knows about but everyone would love.  Literally attached to  the back of an El Aztca Restaurant, this little bar was small and loud, blasting the hits from the 90′s and 80′s.  It was awesome.

After way too many shots, we walked down to The Clairmont Lounge.  If you don’t already know, the Clairmont is the oldest strip club in Atlanta.  They have been around for more than 50 years.  The catch is that most of their strippers have been too.  Headlined by their most famous dancer ” Blondie” who crushes beer cans with her boobs, Clairmont is the strip club where strippers go to die.  It is a freak show at it’s best, but the drinks are cheap and the crowd is always entertaining.  As for me, I was in bad shape before I walked in the door.  I could only handle an hour before I decided to leave everyone and take a cab home.  I drank too much.  What can I say.

The next day we were all miserable but once again decided to make our way to a bar.  (I wasn’t the one voting for more drinking.)  So we decided to (yep again) try something new.  We made our way all the way to Decatur to a small but incredibly awesome bar called Brick Store pub.  With an endless amount of beers on their menu we had plenty to choose from.  We ate some food and drank some strange brews and called it a day.  

Monday was Memorial day and honestly the nicest, sunniest day of the weekend.  We went to lunch at Garrisons and then went to the movies and saw Terminator Salvation.  The movie was better than I thought.  Later that day we dropped Kevin and Mandi off at the airport and sent them on their way.  It was a great weekend full of new experiences and lots of drinking.  CONGRATS MANDI AND KEVIN!!

So I bought a new house so I live in a new spot.  New spot.  New Commute.  Now when I was looking at houses the location was a huge deal for me.  Not so much for Priscilla, but she considered it.  I had to make sure where we were made sense for both of us now and in the long term.  Obviously location in Atlanta effected the price significantly so when looking I limited our search to only the convenient locations.  

Atlanta is a big city.  There are a lot of choices on neighborhoods and communities to live in.  But not all of them made sense for us.  Before we bought our house we rented in a condo in Vinings.  We love Vinings and the area around it.  We didn’t want to go far so Smyrna was an obvious choice. Smyrna is located just outside of Vinings and just outside the perimeter of Atlanta.  Yep OTP.  Though Smyrna is not the hippest neighborhood in Altanta, it is close to the city and it is reasonably priced.  Because of this, there are a ton of young families that call Smyrna home.  It may not have the party atmosphere of Brookhaven, but it does have new houses that are affordable.

Our new house is located on the corner of Atlanta Road and Spring Road. It is the heart of Smyrna and is located just a block from the Smyrna Market Village. My office is in midtown off Northside Drive right across from Six Feet Under. My commute from Vinnings, even though it was only three miles from our new house, was a lot better and quicker. It was more convenient because it was located so close to the freeway which made it a quick 10 minutes to work. Now with living in Smyrna, I am a good ten minutes from the freeway and the same 10 minutes from there. Because of this, I take the back roads.

A straight shot down Atlanta road takes you to Chattahoochee Road which then hits Howell Mill. My office is on 11th Street which is right off of Howell Mill. It clocks in at about 15 to 20 minutes but with no freeways.  The trip is painless on most days.  Some are worse than others, but there is very little traffic and never any cops or accidents.  This mostly just means that the commute is mostly the same day to day.  

The only thing I would have to say is a deciding factor is the bridge that crosses the Chattahoochee on Atlanta road next to the Water plant.  From what I have heard, the bridge has always been two lanes.  It has always taken Atlanta road from 4 lanes to 2.  Who planned this city anyway?  The traffic is pretty much the same everyday.  Easier in the afternoons, but it still sucks.  The light has five roads coming together which makes the light extremely long anyway, then add that it’s backed up a half mile.  It takes me at least ten minutes just to get through the light.  When it is done, my commute will improve immensely.

Overall I love my new commute.  It is quick and safe and isn’t through a ghetto.  My new commute is only one of the great new things I get with living in our new house.  Now lets just hope that Indigo doesn’t move to Kennesaw.

We closed on our house on February 24th 2009 at 12:00.  The events that lead up to that day were littered with fear, anger, frustration, stress, and excitement.  You see, after the official acceptance of the offer we had three weeks of Due Diligence and Financial Contingency.  What this means is that we had three weeks to get financed, get appraised, get inspected and make a decision.  During this period, we could walk away for any reason at all.  So we had a lot of decisions to make.  But, in the beginning, it was a waiting game.  We had to wait on our Mortgage Broker and our Realtor to set up our appraisal and inspection and get us financing asap.  Fortunately this was the least of our worries as the appointments were made for early the next week.

We didn’t say much to the appraiser, but the inspector took us on a quick tour of our new home pointing out all the imperfections along the way.  From the beginning, I was nervous that Priscilla would find something to make her change her mind as I knew that inspectors are paid to find something wrong.  That wasn’t the case though and she was surprisingly accepting about the homes tiny faults.  They were minor though.  A few boards that needed to be replaced.  A leaky pressure valve.  Some other little minor things, but nothing to keep us from closing on our new home.

Next we had to wait on the finances.  At the moment we had an acceptance letter James Willard was in contact with us requesting a number of documents including proof of employment, credit checks, proof of funds, etc., etc.  After that it was in someone else’s hands.  Mostly the Banks as they have a list of potential mortgages and they were not going to even get to ours for more than a week.  We waited, but I wasn’t too worried.  This market wants buyers like us and we fit all the requirements.  Plus we had the money and credit.  We waited.

Closing was on Friday, so we decided to do a final walk through on the Monday before.  Everything was looking perfect.  That was about to change.  

Quick back story on the house:  There was a lady living in the house that was not the true owner.  She was renting the house from a young guy that bought the house in 2008.  The details from there get a little cloudy, but all I know was that she did not want to move out.  From what I can gather, she had been doing small renovations throughout the house since she had lived there.  I am not sure why a renter would spend the money to renovate a house they do not own, but, as far as I know, she was responsible for a the dishwasher, the carpet, the unpainted crown molding throughout the kitchen, the updated thermostats, and alarm system, to name a few.  She did these things thinking she would be buying the house.  I guess.  We found out she had lost her job and ran out of funds.  All in all, she was not happy about loosing the home.  OK end of back story.

Our walk through was interesting from the start as when we walked in we heard noises from the upstairs.  Not wanting to freak anyone out, we talked loudly to make sure they knew we were here.  A young African American man came down the stairs and said all of three words to us.  Our Realtor David Willard asked if his mother was home and that we had an appointment to see the house.  That is when we noticed some things.  A broken marble fireplace corner, a broken baluster, and a few ten inch gashes on the stairway wall.  These were things that were new and the boy confirmed that.  We also noticed the alarm system and the thermostats had been yanked off the walls throughout the house leaving large holes in the drywall.  It was not pretty.  As we were leaving the lady living in the house came home and as she walked in the door she threw her hands up in disgust.  Unaware why we were there, she was pissed.

We didn’t know just how pissed til a couple days later.

I get a call from David Willard stating that they would offer $500 as compensation from the new damages, but there was a kicker.  The Lady had taken a key to the front of the super nice dishwasher and scratched up the whole front.  We were not sure just why she did it, but we assumed it was out of spite.  This lady was growing more annoying by the hour.  After I had agreed to the terms and a few hours later, I got a call from David that she has done damage to the dishwasher and that it may not work.  Now, let me remind you, this was a “short sale.”  The seller was broke and had now way of compensating us for the new damages.  The $500 was the limit.  Our only choice was to completely back out, and David seemed to think that they would just let it happen if that is what we decided.  In other words they would call our bluff and let the house go into foreclosure.  He seemed to think we had no other choice but to let it ride out and take what we get.  We were stressed and confused and pissed.  We let it ride out.

The next day the owner decided to replace the thermostats and try to fix the dishwasher before we moved in.  We were pleasantly surprised.  By this time he had kicked the Lady that was renting out of the house and changed the locks.  She had no more overnight privileges.  The only thing was that when we signed he was going to put the old locks back on.  Crazy Lady had the keys to the old locks.  First chore and expense in our new house was a set of new locks throughout. (but that’s for the next blog entry)  We found out the dishwasher was not broken at all.  It was disconnected because the Lady tried to take it!!  We couldn’t believe it.  But really we could.  She was nuts.  But is didn’t matter.  We were happy with our functioning dishwasher.  When we signed the papers, we were content and convinced this was the house we wanted. 

We are officially home owners.

So a couple of years back I heard of this awesome invention called ear candles.  It was actually my good friend Kiki that first told me about them and from the start I loved them.  With a history of ear issues I thought that a natural safe cleanse of ear wax would be good for me and feel awesome.  So I went for it.  Kiki, Priscilla and I all took turns watching the candles burn down to nothing and cutting them open to find out who had the most nastiness inside.

Ear candles are easy to use.  They come in packages of two and are basically a thick wax sheet rolled into a tube that has a cone at the end.  That end is placed into your ear and the other end is lit like a candle.  It burns for about ten to fifteen minutes.  It needs to be monitored by someone else so the ashes don’t fall on your head and light your hair on fire Michael Jackson style.  It’s not hard but definitely takes patients.  I have ADD so it’s not easy for me, but neither is getting my hair cut.  haha.  Anyway, when you are done you go to the sink and with some basic scissors you cut the rest of the tube open and examine the insides.  They always include a collection of yellow and white stuff that is bunched up like ear wax.  The reason that has the most wins a prize of the knowledge that they have the most ear wax in their head.  I won most of the time.  But later I would find out that our competition really meant very little.

About a year ago I was ready for my next ear candle experience and I went online to search for the best place in Atlanta to buy some.  The health food store by my house had gone out of business so I was left with no place to go.  Whole Foods does not carry them and Whole foods has basically wiped out all the “Mom and Pops” health food stores so my search was not easy.  I resorted to Google and what I found was alarming.

The first article that came up was an article explaining how Ear Candles were not only ineffective, but extremely dangerous.  I continued to read and found out tha ear candles have been around for centuries, but only recently has been considered a waste of time.  The current Wikipedia stats:

“Ear candling, also called ear coning or thermal-auricular therapy, is an alternative medicine practice claimed to improve general health and well-being by lighting one end of a hollow candle and placing the other end in the ear canal. According to medical researchers, it is both dangerous and ineffective. ^[2]Claims that the practice removes earwax have been thoroughly debunked.”

It’s amazing just how many people I know personally still stand by ear candling and use them to this day.  My own wife needed proof before she believed me and so that exactly what I got her.  Priscilla, not believing my warnings, insisted we buy some ear candles.  So I said that as long as we can burn one by itself, we can seek out and buy some for her to use.  All I wanted to do was run a simple experiment to see if the contents of the candle after it is burned is truly only the residue left from the candle itself.  And thats exactly what we found.  After letting the candle burn for over fifteen minutes without an ear to accompany it, the inside looked identical to that of one that had it’s ear partner.  Priscilla was convinced and so was I.  

After realizing that the wax found inside was indeed from the candle it scares me to think that some of that wax could drop down inside the ear itself while candling.  This is the main reason doctors are against them.  So stay away and dont believe the believers. Tell them to do the experiment themselves and they too will believe.

(All these pictures are from our experiment. No Ears included.)

I work at Indigo Studios which is located at 660 11th Street Atlanta Georgia 30318.  11th Street is located in between Howell Mill Road and Northside Drive in Midtown Atlanta.  Northside drive is a very unique place to work and is shared by a number of different kinds of people that makes Northside such a wonderful place.  There is always something different, something new.  There honestly could be a reality show purely based on the trials and tribulations of the characters that reside on the street they call Northside.

Northside actually runs from my condo in Vinings then through the edge of Buckhead and then all the way to my office in Midtown.  Its about a ten mile ride with numerous lights along the way which is why I bypass most of it with a quick jump on the freeway.  It’s kinda funny to think of the type of people that litter the streets only ten miles apart from each other.  You see, up by my house Northside is a forested community with rich mansions and preppy neighborhoods that include some of the riches people in Atlanta.  Celebrities such as Jermain Dupree, Oprah,  and Elton John  also have been known to live up in the north end of Northside.

But that’s not the Northside I work in.  The Northside I work in is the south end.  Almost everyday I have been driving the stretch of Northside that starts at Interstate 75 and ends at Georgia Tech.  Lets just say that it is the ghetto part.  Yeah it’s ghetto, but it’s also an artsy, cool kinda ghetto.  It is beginning to be an art deco neighborhood with a ton of digital art shops like Indigo itself.  We have several competitors right down the street from us.  It also is on the up and up with a couple giant new developments including the wonderful Atlantic Station that is right down the way on 17th Street.

Northside also has a large community of music recording studios that almost completely make up the local Atlanta Rap scene.  Actually Indigo shares a building with Solar Sound Studio that pumps out mad beats that we can hear all day through the wall we share.  The vibrations are accompanied with a heavy stench of marijuana which is something our clients just love.  Also, 5 years ago Indigo was located just a mile down Northside and we were neighbors to the infamous Atlanta rap duo Outkast.  It was pretty cool to see them and there hallowed out cigar remains in our parking lot.

Northside Drive also ends directly at the inner city college Georgia Tech.  It is a beautiful campus with a extremely diverse demograph of people.  Mostly those include nerdy Asian kids and 24 year old women that have never been laid, but overall I’m glad the campus is close.  It is still a college.  It brings a whole other element to Northside and is the main reason it has begun to grow with all the new developments.  College kids need apartments to live in and they are going up everywhere.  Even with such a shitty housing market, there is a massive complex being built right next to Indigo that now dwarfs our building.  I’m just excited cause we are getting a Smoothie King and a Jersey Mikes right next door.  Holler!

But all this is not the true deep down entity of Northside Drive.  Northside itself has its own residence.  It is littered with a large amount of homeless that can be seen daily walking up and down the street.  There has been copper stolen from our neighbours and Indigo itself has been broken into.  There is a metal scrap shop at the end of 11th Street along with three abandoned homes that look as if they were built in the fifties and left to rout in the seventies when cinder block homes went out of style.

We also have grown to get to know our homeless friends.  At Indigo, we constantly get a knock on the door from the same 2 homeless men asking for our collection of coke cans.  We also have one guy that drives around on his tricycle talking to himself and dancing through traffic. We lock our doors when we see him.   There is actually an abandoned bank where homeless people live, but not in the building just under the covering for the once active drive through ATM.  We often see a skinny black woman sitting in the parking lot of the bank  holding her knees rocking back and forth whispering to herself.  We also see our old friend that used to live in the parking lot of building next door in an abandoned house before they tore it down to build the new apartments.  He calls himself the Sheriff because he watches the neighborhood.  We found out later we was a regular at the local bar Northside Tavern.

Northside Tavern actually is on Howell Mill which is one street over but it is worth mentioning because it is so famous for its live Blues music ever night.  Northside Tavern is one of many wonderful bars and restaurant that are found all over the Northside area including Taco Rio Del Sol, Flip Burger and Six Feet Under.  Unfortunately they are also accompanied by a number of trashy strip clubs and novelty shops.

I once saw a movie named “Crackheads gone wild” that has a wonderful quote from an Atlanta crackhead that said, “I buy my shit on Northside drive!”  I thought it summed up the neighborhood pretty well.

I get anxiety.  It’s not like being scared in the movie theater during a horror movie.  It’s not the feeling you get before a big meeting.  It’s the feeling of being tense.  You don’t understand why, but you cannot get this feeling of fear out of your head.  The more you think about it, the worse it gets.  It’s a snowball of terror of god knows what that seems to have no end.  It is, hands down, the worst feeling I have ever had.  In a nutshell, I get the feeling I am going to die.  Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.  Sometimes I feel like I’m having a heart attack.  Most of the time I really can’t put my finger on what I am freaking out about, it’s just pure unadulterated terror.  It sucks.  If I could have one magical wish in my life it wouldn’t be money, or power or even the ability to fly (even though that would rock) it would be to be done with this anxiety.

It all began about five years ago when I lived with my buddy Todd.  I was single and had recently broken up with my ex-girlfriend.  I had worked at Indigo Studios for about a year and was still very much at the bottom of the totem pole.  Needless to say, I was stressed out and depressed which made me more stressed and I didn’t even know it.  It was the first time I was making it on my own.  I had my own money, my own friends and my own life.  I smoked a lot of cigarettes back then and smoked alot of other stuff.  Overall, I smoked alot.  I also started to drink some more as I began to hang out with my buddy Jamie.  It was a fun time.  I’m not sure the exact date, but I started the day off with a double shot Iced Mocha from Starbucks.  Not anything unusual as I started drinking coffee when I started making it everyday for my boss Marc and Indigo.   It was a Sunday so I did nothing all day.  Sat on the couch, ate food, hung out, ate food, smoked and smoked.  Todd came home and brought a movie he needed to watch for some project he was working on for his Portfolio Center class.  It was called “Jacob’s Ladder”.

He threw it on.  The first scene was a group of soldiers in the Vietnam jungle sitting around eating food and having a good time.  All of a sudden they broke out in seizures.  I hate watching seizures.  I didn’t make it through that first scene before my life changed in a way I could never imagine.  I had my first panic attack.  Now panic attacks are the peak of all anxiety.  And a first ever panic attack is by far the worst it gets.  It usually starts with a rapid heart beat and the feeling of not knowing what is happening.  This follows by panic.  Again, the panic not geared towards one thing in particular.  It is just fear of the unknown.  Fear of death for no apparent reason.  I paced back and forth in my room, sweating, and freaking out.  It took me about 15 minutes before I could get myself back to sanity.   After it was over, I knew I couldn’t watch the movie, but I did anyway.  Thank Gad there were no more seizure scenes.  I made it through most of the movie, but I grew bored as I had no idea what was happening cause I missed the first 15 minutes.

The next day I still had no idea what had happened to me.  After some long extensive research online I learn my disease.  Anxiety happens to a lot of people.  It happens to a lot of people in their early 20′s or 30′s that have a lot of responsibility thrown on them all at once.  To this day I still deal with anxiety, but I have been fighting a battle with it for almost 5 years and I have a pretty good grip on it.  There are certainly things out there that can still make it flair up once in a while, but nothing like that first day.  Too much caffeine, depression, Priscilla’s pms, stress at work, stress at home, weddings, buying a house, traveling, being hung over are all things that can make anxiety kick in.  But now I know.  I have found ways to keep my cool, but I am always looking for new ones.  I honestly think that my good friend anxiety will be with me my whole life in one way or another, but I am confident that I will be able to keep him at bay when it really matters.

3037 Montclair Circle is tucked away in a little town called Smyrna.  Smyrna is a small suburban town sitting directly next to it’s big brother Atlanta.  Located just outside the perimeter, Smyrna is close enough to the city to still be considered part of the city yet just far enough away to loose most the traffic and craziness.  It is close to the freeway, close to a little town square with shops and restaurants, and just close enough to my office.  The neighborhood itself is a cookie cutter community that has about 35 homes that share about ten different styles.  It’s not too bad, but they all definitely look similar.  They are all brick.  Some of them have basements, and some have fenced in yards.  3037 has neither, yet it is in the best spot in the neighborhood.  Montclair Circle is one street that simply goes in a loop.  At the end of that loop, it continues to a small community of blackstone styled townhomes.  We both share the name Montclair.  Overall, it is a great little neighborhood.

3037 Montclair Circle was built in 2003 and has three bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms, a kick ass kitchen with an island and a cool back splash, two story tall ceilings in the living room and a two car garage.  The current owner had leased the property and the current tenant was making some renovations.  They were putting in hardwoods in the living room and crown molding in the kitchen.  The only problem was that they ran out of money before they could finish. Plus, the house was selling “As Is” so we would have to fix the floors before we move in.

 It was originally bought in June of 2008 for $352,000 and the owner soon realized they could not afford it.  It soon began to go into foreclosure.  When we made our offer on the house it had two weeks before it was to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  We knew we had to act fast.  The house was listed at $299,000 so we made an offer of $280,000 with a month of Due Diligence and two weeks of a Financial Contingency.  This basically means we have a month to make inspections, get financing and commit.  Mr Willard also added some small stipulations that will cover our asses from the seller and the bank.  Overall the process of making an offer was way more complicated than I thought and involved signing a large contract with a lot of things I didn’t really understand.  But we did it.   It was our first official offer.

About a week went by before we heard anything.  We found out that there were two other offers on the table but the seller was interested in ours none the less.  They wanted to slice some of Mr Willard’s small stipulations off, cut our Due Diligence and Financial Contingency down a week and wanted to know if we could up our money offer.  Before we came to settle on this house, we had seen 40 others that didn’t peak our interest.  We were willing to negotiate.   We let them have their cut stipulations and threw on another $10,000 to tell them we mean business.  When we first starting looking, my top price was $300,000 so I was willing to give in alittle.  We submitted our second offer.  After talking with the listing agent Mr Willard told us that they were very interested and they were going to push to make it happen.  The excitement started to build.

After a few days they came back with another offer.  This time they wanted to slice the Due Diligence and  Financial Contingency down to 15 days.  This is where things got sticky.  I really wanted to not have to play hard ball and take a stand because I really wanted this house.  Priscilla thought the 15 days was just too short of a time to decide and I agreed.  We turned down those stipulations and stuck to our guns.  We took a stand and resubmitted our final offer.  

We received the signed offer sheet from the seller three days later.    They accepted.  But this is not the end of the madness.  In a “short sale” the owner and the seller have to agree on the terms.  So now the seller needs to submit our offer to the bank.  Mr Willard says that because it was about to be auctioned off, the bank should act fast and accept within a couple of days.  Priscilla and I are trying not to get our hopes up, but we have our fingers crossed.  If all things go as planned, we could soon be on to the next phase: inspections and financing.

to be continued…

So the wedding came and went.  It seems just like yesterday that we were walking down the isle.  But it’s not July.  It’s not even 2008.  It’s a new year and with a new year comes a new home for me and Priscilla.  After talking to some friends that had recently entered the world of home ownership we came across a guy named David Willard.  My good friend John and Dennis both used David as their real estate agent so I thought I would meet him and start the process once again.

David is a tall and dark guy that, though not necessarily his main neighborhood, has sold homes in the Smyrna area.  We decided he was our best choice to help continue our search.  He hooked us up with his brother who just happens to be in the Mortgage business.  James Willard, though I have never met him in person, seemed to be the ideal choice for our mortgage needs.  He got us quickly preapproved and we  were on our way.

David hooked us up with a similar online house portfolio that updated daily with new homes that are in the area we want and has what we want.  We were sticking with the 3 bedroom two bath range in Smyrna.  I wanted a basement.  Priscilla wanted anything new.  We both had the perfect house in our head.  It was just a matter of  finding it.

 The first day we went out to view some homes, we only went to see three.  The one with the basement was too old.  Go figure.  The more I looked the more I found that new houses are either expensive, or far away.  We needed to start looking for compromises.  Priscilla was dead set on a “non-fixer upper”  She wanted it “move in” ready.  I was willing to change some wallpaper and paint some walls if we had to.  So I started making a new list of houses to go visit.  This time I found about 8 houses to see.  This time they were mostly in the 2000 or newer range and still were safe in our price range.  They all had some plus’ and minus’ but none of them really made a splash.  

That was until I found a house one Montclair Circle in Smyrna.  I immediately showed Priscilla via email and she too thought it was a good one.  She made sure I knew that it didn’t mean a whole lot until we see the house in person.  It was hard for me not to get excited.  ”This could be it.”, I thought.  I tried hard to not get my hopes up.  We made our way to see the houses I found and after a full day of viewing all the houses the home on Montclair was still the only one we favored.

After that long day I knew we needed to act fast.  We told David to get any and all information on the Montclair house while I continue to look for more houses to see.  I tried to convince Priscilla that this was the house we wanted, but she was set on seeing at least 50 houses before we decide as her friend Becki looked that 50 before she decided.  As I thought 50 was a little excessive, I truly thought it would be a good idea to see as many as possible, if only to educate ourselves on what was out there.  I then stretched out search criteria alittle wider in order to have more options.  My main concern was that we may not have any more to see in our price range or the area we wanted.  I raised the amount by $50,000 and made a new search.  It is amazing what $50,000 can do to a home search result.   Anyway, I was not willing to drop the extra 50k on our new home but in such a shitty housing market I thought it was not a bad idea to at least view homes out of our range.  I truly only did it thinking I could find someone desperate enough who would drop the price into our range.  It was that and Priscilla needed to see more homes.  Just enough to convince her that the Montclair house was the one for us.

We told David that we wanted to do Saturday and Sunday and see as many as we could.  I gave David a list of 15 houses.  Saturday we started our journey.  We saw 15 homes in one day.  Not one impressed us.  I mean there were some good ones.  Some new ones.  Some with basements.  But not one convinced us the Montclair house was not the best one out there.  Monday, we made an appointment to see the Montclair house again, just to help us make the decision.  Tuesday we had made up our minds.  We were ready for the next step:  making an offer.

to be continued…

So my wife Priscilla and I have been talking about buying a house for a couple of years now.  After long discussions about where we want to live, what cities we like, and where we feel we can see ourselves settleing down, we decided that we both love Atlanta.  It’s a big city, but not too big.  It’s constantly growing with new hip, cool places to go to all the time.  Traffic blows, but it takes about a half hour to get anywhere in the city (without traffic).  It has nice neighborhoods, new neighborhoods, expensive neighborhoods, and a whole lot of ghetto.  There is a river, but no ocean.  Everything outside of Atlanta is at least four hours away from including the ocean, but Florida is right next door.  Tallahassee, Destin, Jacksonville, Savannah, Reighle, Charlette, Memphis, New Orleans, and Biloxi are all close enough to drive to.  It’s a five hour flight home to California, and a five hour drive to Priscilla’s parents house in Beaufort, South Carolina.  I think the biggest reason Priscilla and I love Atlanta so much is because it is neutral for the both of us, there is nothing we hate about it.  Plus we have a bunch of friends here and there is no reason to move.

Our journey began a few years back.  We had no idea where to start.  We just got engaged but we were not yet married and, as you could imagin, we were busy with a number of other things.  We asked our friends and family what to do first but we realized that none of our friends own their owned house.  We were lucky though becuase our friend Matt was friends with a realitor.  I wanted to do everything I could to learn about Real Estate before I actually bought something, so I wanted to get hooked up with a realitor as soon as possible.  

Brent Garrison taught us the beginings of Real Estate.  He hooked us up with a lender and we found out our price range.  At this point I realized why the economy and real estate business failed like it did.  We were aproved for some rediculous amount that would put our payments at over half our take home as a couple. Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to know a house and be broke because of it.  So we decided our price range was nothing more than $300,000 which is pretty normal for a starter home in Atlanta.  Our house hunt began.

Brent hooked us up with a series of emails every week with updates of new houses that come on the market.  We checked them out as they came, but nothing really caught our attention.  Priscilla and I were too caught up in everything else in our lives, so buying a house was soon put on the backburner.  We then decided to wait til after the wedding maddness was over before be began to dig into the house buying process once again.

to be continued…