March Madness

Contrary to what you might think, it would have been madness indeed to suggest that all four Number 1 seeds would make it to the Final Four. Apparently, in all the years of the NCAA tournament, that's never happened before. But now it has, with Kansas edging out Davidson. My work bracket, forecasting a UNC/Memphis championship game, still has a possiblity of coming true. UNC just has to beat Kansas, and Memphis needs to beat UCLA. Then I'll be rolling in the dough- all 45 dollars of it.

I apologize for the over-abundance of hyperlinks in the previous paragraph, most of which were probably completely unnecessary.

So, with our realtor on vacation this past week (certain clients kept requiring him to show up at their doorstep at 10 pm, necessitating a breather), not much has happened with the home purchase. Shelly and I did drive by there yesterday and were gratified to see that the HOA had actually repaired the wood damage to the outside of the house. No word yet, though, on when they'll come to their senses and paint over that cringe-inducing pink color (Shelly refuses to allow me to save face by calling it "salmon". "It's pink!" she insists.)

Also, after years of spurned invitations, I've finally secured a guaranteed visit from my cousin Scott! All I had to do was wave a little money at him! Contrary to his MySpace title, he's not going to be putting down any carpet for me, but rather redoing my new kitchen with ceramic tile. That's in between me removing the popcorn ceiling... and taking down the wallpaper... and repainting the cabinets... and removing the mirrored doors to the laundry closet... and installing a pedastal sink in the downstairs bathroom... what a second, who's idea was it to move again?

Actually, the timing's pretty good for us. We just found out this week that our rent would have increased $40 a month, whereas, with the mortgage, escrow, and HOA fees, we'll be paying about what we are right now.

In other news, Jason and Erika ventured over to visit on Friday, capping off a week of extended stays by Miss Hawkins at the DeAdder palace. They've been having a lot of work done on their own home, with hardwoods being put down and a new kitchen being put in. Since lounging on the existing furniture would entail enjoying the delights of their garage, Erika decided to grace us with her and Charlotte's presence this week. Anyway, I think if I don't post this picture, I might go missing, and Erika will stash my body in the kitchen subfloor. Her countertops are on backorder (and they found out about it after the kitchen had been torn out), so I'm really reluctant to antagonize her right now:

Alright, I know it's been kind of short, but Shelly wants me to come finish watching T2 with her. A random reference to Skynet on The Soup this morning got her in the mood to watch it, but we put it on pause for the games.

Updates and Important News

There's not much new on the townhouse. On Wednesday, our realtor had to rush around and get our initials on the revised bid, to stave off a last minute bid by someone else. Apparently, after we went under verbal contract on Monday night, the seller's realtor showed the house to three groups on Tuesday. Not exactly fostering confidence in her going forward, but we got the bid officially accepted.

Yes, Jen, that kitchen wallpaper is among the first orders of business. Shelly will be tackling that, and I drew the short straw and have to take down the popcorn ceiling in the kitchen.

In other news, sorry for not getting the "Chris Blog" NCAA brackets off the ground, but maybe next year. However, the bracket I submitted at work is looking awesome so far! Of the fifteen teams that have advanced so far, I've been right on 12 of them (I was wrong about Coppin State winning the preliminary round, and I picked upsets against Pittsburgh and UNLV that didn't happen). But on the plus side, I picked an upset of Kansas State against USC that did happen- and was a big deal too! If Duke had actually lost to Belmont, though, that would have royally messed me up- all the ones I've been wrong about so far, I have losing the next round, so I'm doing good. Now Drake just needs to win the game they're playing now.

Now, that important news I mentioned: The Supreme Court heard Heller this week. And judging from Justice Kennedy's remarks (he's seen as the 'swing vote'), the Supreme's seem set to finally put the Collectivist Rights theory of the Second Amendment out of its misery. I've always viewed that theory as a sham borne of necessity, and I'm glad that it seems at least five members of the Court have enough intellectual honesty to agree. Brooks and I exchanged lengthy emails on the subject this week, but we both seem to think this was the pivotal moment:

"JUSTICE KENNEDY: So it was supplementing it. And my question is, the question before us, is how and to what extent did it supplement it. And in my view it supplemented it by saying there's a general right to bear arms quite without reference to the militia either way."

I realize that, without a passing familiarity on the subject, that quote doesn't seem like a big deal, but it really, really is. And there were a lot of other good moments, and I was in my glory Tuesday night as I listened to the 90 minute audio of the oral arguments as I read along with the transcript, but not many of you are probably that interested. Anyone interested in a good summation, read this.

Long story short, I can't wait to see what verdict comes out in June. Hopefully, they'll just uphold the lower court ruling, but we'll have to wait and see.

In case anyone's wondering why I'm blogging at 11:30 on a Friday, it's because I'm off today. SECU observes Good Friday. Shortly, Shelly and I will be traveling to Charlotte for Easter; I'll undoubtedly have pictures and stories to tell when we return.

Until then, everyone have a good Easter!

Bid Accepted

Shelly and I were countered today about halfway between our offer and the original price. Since this also included the original $3000 offered in closing cost, and because after crunching the numbers today, I figured the mortgage payments would be about what we're paying in rent now, we accepted.

Closing is scheduled for May 7th.

Stay tuned- probably have more to say tomorrow.

Also, here's a picture of the distance between the two places, with the most direct routes in red. As you can see, it's very close to where we are now. The new one's circled in yellow.

Bid In

Shelly and I just finished up the paperwork with our agent; we've put in a bid on that second townhouse I spoke of two weeks ago. We lowballed them pretty good, so we expect a little back and forth over the next two days (although it'd be admittedly sweet if they accepted our offer as is). Hopefully the seller doesn't have a horrendous leak and then refuse to fix it, or insult our intelligence by pretending the floor will be OK if allowed to dry, or demand to be allowed to remain on property for a third of a year after closing (this last would be especially troublesome since our backyard is a roughly 10x10 patch).

In other news, way to go Tarheels! They had two big wins this weekend, the first over Virginia Tech and the second today over Clemson. Both of them were very close, hard-fought games, but they pulled it out and won the ACC championship. Now, on to March Madness. Any of you devoted readers want to fill out brackets and start a "Chris' Blog March Madness Pool"? I'd probably need to check with Shelly to make sure I'm not getting myself into federal racketeering territory by operating a multi-state gambling ring, though.

We were delighted to host Jen Glass this weekend. At least, I think we were. She was like a ghost, here one minute, gone the next, in late, out before dawn (or before we got up, anyway, which admittedly is nothing close to 'dawn'). We did have a nice dinner with her on Friday night, though, as attested to in this fine picture, the only evidence of her otherwise low-footprint stay:

Also, obviously, Shelly's mom came up this weekend and "Not Disapproved" our townhouse purchase (probably only Brooks would get that reference). She also treated us to Macaroni Grill (pictured), and the next day took me out for a late birthday present at Brixx. Thanks Mary!

In yet another nod of affirmation regarding our prospective move, Erika and Charlotte came over to see the townhouse last week, and in the process visited the nearby lake. Apparently, some of the locals took exception to this, honking loudly and throwing poor Charlotte into hysterics. Here is one of the unidentified culprits, still at large as of this writing:

Now she'll no doubt harbor some hateful grudge towards geese of all flavors, much like the suspicion with which her mother regards all swans.

Alright, it now being past my bedtime (we just finished the paperwork at 11 0'clock), I'm now signing off. I'd be really surprised though, if i don't blog once or twice more this week. Between landmark gun right's cases (even more important than last week's case of Charlotte v. Geese) and first home purchases, there will be undoubtedly be much to talk about.

See you then.

Quick Read About Heller

For anyone else interested in the Heller case, which will be heard on Tuesday, this article by Bob Novak is worth reading. If his sources are to be believed, the Bush Administration’s brief in the case is a miscommunication between the President and the Solicitor General’s office.

I’m wondering how unusual it would be for the Solicitor General to give an oral argument contrary to a position he took in his written brief. Something tells me it would be pretty darn unique, but I’ll have to consult my in-house lawyer on that. Shelly? (UPDATE: Shelly confirms this would be highly unusual)

However, more disturbing is the insinuation that President Bush is powerless to request Justice to withdraw the brief and change it. Novak attributes this to pressure from Democrats not to interfere with the Justice department. For starters, if that’s true, it basically means that Bush has abandoned any pretense of leadership on domestic conservative issues, preferring to focus exclusively on Iraq.

Really, though, it also means he’s getting incredibly bad advice. Confronting Justice on this in the most public way possible would only help him. The Democrats really couldn’t say too much to him about it, since majorities of both houses of Congress signed an amici brief to the right of the position the Solicitor General took! Are they going to attack the President for agreeing with the position their own body took?

But even if the Democrats were fighting tooth and nail on this, Bush would probably still see a net gain from taking a stand on the issue. Nothing hurts Democrats worse than going against gun rights (hence the reason they’ve barely addressed the issue the last 2 elections). If Bush had come out the day after the brief was filed and said “I’m sorry, there was a big misunderstanding, we need to take another look at this,” the worst that would have happened would have been Pelosi mumbling a token objection and then letting the issue go. Democrats would not have engaged in a long attack on the issue; if they had, the issue would have alienated the conservative Dems and Independents that gave the Democrats their 2006 majority. That would have forced Obama and Clinton to take weigh in on it, which they desperately don’t want to do. The whole thing would have been red meat for the conservative base. But that wouldn’t have happened, because the Democratic leadership knows the issue is a huge loser for them, and they aren’t stupid enough to pick a fight over it.

So, in total, not very encouraging, but hopefully Novak is right in that the government will argue something different than what they submitted in their brief.

We’ll see on Tuesday. Stay tuned.

(By the way, I'll be posting again tonight or possibly tomorrow night in other news. Quite a few developments, not least of which, as confirmed in an incident this week, the Hawkins women's tradition of rocky relationships with waterfowl has been passed on to the next generation.)

House Huntin'


Contrary to all of our well-agreed-upon future plans, which had this life phase scheduled to begin early next year, Shelly and I went looking at houses this past weekend. Recent dips in housing prices and plummeting interest rates on loans make this a good time to at least consider the idea, though I do worry that perhaps the "child-rearing" schedule might be advanced as well.
We looked at this townhouse, which is literally 5 minutes away from where we live now. It has three bedrooms (a must for us), a decent sized kitchen (important as well), and a nice backyard (extremely unusual for townhomes). Amazingly, it was priced pretty much right at its tax value, a situation we later found to be somewhat more common in the area than we’d believed.

While in the neighborhood, the realtor we met, Jim Pavlica of Remax, took us to see another, within walking distance. This townhouse was priced below tax value, with $3000 offered towards closing costs. Suspicious, we nonetheless checked it out, and aside from a few relatively minor things, found it to be perfectly livable. The seller must just want to get out in a hurry.

While it lacked the large, fenced backyard, and the kitchen is substantially smaller, it is a very good deal for the money. It also has a larger living area, new carpet, new paint, and new kitchen appliances. Yesterday I took the liberty of having the senior loan officer at the Credit Union write me up a pre-qualification letter, should Shelly and I decide to put in a bid on the place.

LATE BREAKING NEWS: Awesome! The SECU just today lowered the ARM rate down to 4.25%, and the 30 year fixed to 6.00%! I'd be stupid not to do this!

Finally, and of most importance, a nearby lake is positively overflowing with various species of waterfowl, providing fodder for years and years worth of blog entries. I know that Erika, for one, has told me time and again how she checks my blog every day to see if I've written anything about geese lately.

Since she’s on spring break this week, Shelly’s dove into this enterprise with both feet, and even today went and looked at other houses in the equivalent price range. Unfortunately, various factors (distance from Raleigh, higher prices, level of ghetto-ness) disqualified everything she saw today.

If nothing else, we did get an encouraging email from Martha on the subject, which brought other alarming possibilities to our attention, raising such specters as Shelly not passing the bar exam, rumors that no one with credit scores under 720 can get approved for loans, and me doing renovations unassisted due to Shelly’s busy lawyerly schedule. Shelly had to do some quick talking to get me to drop that cyanide capsule. (I kid, Martha! I kid because I love!)

In other news, you don’t have to be a UNC fan to be enthused about their victory over Duke on Saturday. We watched the game with Jason and Erika over at their house, while enjoying Jason’s homemade salsa, and he was even gracious enough to give us a large jar of it to take home afterwards.


So, in political news, Clinton won in Ohio and Texas last Tuesday, which basically means that neither she nor Obama will win the Democratic nomination outright, so they'll both need super delegates. Things will be especially interesting if she ends up winning more of the popular vote than he does, even if he leads in pledged delegates. Either way, we'll be treated to one of the two of them arguing after the fact that the rules they agreed to play by aren't fair after all (does Florida ring any bells here?) If Obama loses, he'll be railing against the power of the super delegates, despite competing in a system in which they were designed to be able to overrule popular will. If it's Clinton that goes down, she'll be arguing that the proportional allocation of delegates wasn't fair, because it had the affect of giving small states too much influence, and Obama won most of those. (Thank God I'm a Republican with no qualms about the winner-take-all system)


Meanwhile, for any other conservatives out there enjoying this whole spectacle as much as I am, this quick read, on Senator Obama's view of the Constitution, should sober you up in a big hurry.


Also in news, Jen Glass, newly recovered from the Turbulence Tragedy, is coming to stay with us for a few days this week, though she has yet to call us and tell us when she's coming in tomorrow. Ah, well, the airport's only ten miles from here, and Jen probably wouldn't mind a little hike to reconnect with her native North Carolina...


Hmm... I don't really have much else to tell you, but Shelly's currently watching America's Next Top Model in the other room, which is a natural repellant for all heterosexual human males. And there aren't any pictures to post relevant to this blog entry, so I'll go hunt down an irrelevant one... OK, here's Melissa, opening her Christmas present (in February):

Oh, and this might put a smile on your face...

Birthday Weekend


Up front: In a sign of divine displeasure over Hillary's impending victories in Ohio and Texas, tornado warnings dot the entire central region of North Carolina tonight. If I trail off unexpectedly in mid sentence, just assume I was sucked into a swirling vortex as I sat, furiously typing at my computer, trying to get word to the outside world about my weekend.

Anyway, my parents came to visit this past weekend, following my mom’s successful dodging of her civic duty. They arrived Friday afternoon after a leisurely afternoon trip from Maryland. The highlight of that night was the playing of Yahtzee, in which I turned in a blue-ribbon performance of 142 points on the second game, the bottom half of my card looking like a goose's nest. I wistfully thought of little Chris’ house rules which allow for 7 dice to be thrown.

On Saturday, after a repast of (according to Shelly) the most loathsome breakfast food imaginable, chipped beef, the four of us traveled to the NCCU School of Law so Shelly and I could get our taxes done. There were a few tense moments there, as I saw our "Balance Owed" total start high in the red and gradually dwindle down before switching into the low black. Finally, the addition of our IRA deposit sent the balance due (to us) soaring. I left with a much lightened heart, as this annual reckoning sends always sends chills up my spine.

Afterwards, we visited Southpoint mall, ostensibly to pick me out a birthday present. However, possibly due to the double dollar signs of the promised tax return dancing in Shelly's head, the endeavor went horribly awry, resulting in visits to such places as Bath and Body Works and the Macy’s makeup department. I was lucky to escape with a couple pairs of jeans and some ties.

Homeward bound, we watched UNC pull out a come-from-behind victory over Boston College (actually, over Rice from Boston College, who had the lion’s share of points), then headed over to Brixx for dinner, joined by Jason, Erika, and Charlotte. Sonny, discriminated against by the restaurant's arbitrary No Pets policy, had to sit that one out. I had my usual spicy shrimp pizza (don't knock it til you try it), and Mom and Dad inaugurated their first outing at Brixx with a Franciscan Chicken pizza, though they, unlike the rest of us, opted to share it.



Finishing dinner, the four DeAdders returned home for a rousing round of Pictionary. One of Mom’s drawings, supposedly of a ski lift, elicited Dad to guess "Two-headed giraffe!" I just thought you’d all like to know that.

With my actual birthday festivities officially dispensed with, the four of us rose moderately early Sunday morning for a full Southern breakfast (ie, no chipped beef) courtesy of Shelly. About 11:30, we all got on the road for the Asheboro NC Zoological Park, arriving there around one. Here are some pictures, including a giraffe, albeit not one of the two-headed variety.









On the way home, Mom and Dad treated us to a dinner at Chili’s (they very well could not have come down to NC without making a stop there, could they?), then I drove us home. We were all quite tired, as the zoo boasts five miles of pathways, and we traveled a decent share of them. Once home, we had leftover birthday cake and settled in to watch The Illusionist, starring Edward Norton. They spent one more night, then departed Monday morning, reaching home in Maryland safely in the afternoon.

So. I haven’t written about politics in a few posts, and there’s really not much to discuss right at this moment. John McCain, despite weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, is the Republican nominee, and there’s nothing to say about the Democrats until tomorrow, as "Super Tuesday 2" is tonight. (Isn’t that ridiculous? The first one had 22 states, and this one has 4! No media hype going on with this, no-sir-ee bob!)

The only thing I can say to reassure conservatives about to commit harikari over McCain’s nomination (ie, my esteemed brother) is "Can you not give conservatives in Congress any credit at all?" True, they caved to Bush early on, but that was during the "He’s one of us, so let’s cut him a little slack" phase of his Presidency. If you’ll recall, during his second term, conservatives have stood up to him and blocked him on several key issues. Immigration. Harriet Myers. "Maximum Mike" Sullivan. Heck, Vice President Cheney even signed on to a brief in the Heller case that was at odds to the one Bush’s Solicitor General filed, unprecedented in history. There’s no reason to think that they wouldn’t be the same way with McCain, especially since he comes in very much distrusted by so many on the right.

And as for the suggestion that the party would be better off losing the White House to Obama or Hillary, all I can do is sigh and shake my head. It's one thing to lose one branch of the government; it's quite another to lose two.

As far as the Democrats go, I’m going to just watch the results tonight before opening my mouth. I kind of have a feeling I know how this is going to go, but being as I’ve gone 0 for 2 in my predictions on the Dems so far, I’ll just wait and see.

UPDATE: Clinton just won Ohio, one of her must-win states. If she pulls it out in Texas, this thing's going to the convention. McCain, by the way, just officially locked up the nomination, and Huckabee gave a very moving concession speech. I have a hunch we'll be seeing him again sometime.

OK, this has nothing to do with anything I've been talking about, but just to get this off my chest, am I alone in wishing Columbia would bomb the absolute crap out of Hugo Chavez? Not Venezuela itself, just the wanna-be Castro eunuch who's running the country. The poor guy really wants to be our South American nemesis, but since we've got more serious problems on our plate than some banana republic dictator, he starts something with his neighbor. So, President Bush, since I know you read my blog: Now's a good time to ship a few dozen Tomahawks on down to Columbia, just to show little Chavez that, while we don't really have time to deal with him directly, we did notice and wanted to send a little token of our appreciation.

Oh, and Mr. President? Withdraw that brief you submitted in Heller, please. That really ticked me off.

Ok, everyone, that's it for tonight. If anyone wants more zoo pictures, for instance, for the kids, I can email some to you.

UPDATE: Justin's Rat War is apparently going well! Read all about it here, in this private email to me, which I'll now publish for public consumption:

Well, I am glad to report that after laying 6 rat baiting
stations with just about 4 pounds of professional grade bait
(thanks to doityourselfpestcontrol.com!) it appears that I have
single handedly decimated the rat population in the Alley of
Chesterfield Avenue. I saw 2 rats last night and absolutley 0 tonight
(standard being at least 5 in in 2 minute period, on a slow night)
==> Not too mention that tommorrow is trash day and everyone's trash is out
too! Plus the alley cat population is back in full swing (guess they
can rome free now without fearing for their lives!)

Well, just
wanted to update everyone...Hope all is well. J