Picking a first home

Soon I will officially be a home owner. I know the real estate market is down right now but hopefully I will be able to stay in my new condominium until the market picks back up and it gains a lot of value. Today I will start the first of many blog entries which recap my home shopping process and maybe help other perspective home buyers with their decisions. First I'm a college-educated, single engineer in Northern California. For this reason my home needs are very simple, however I decided that I would be aggressive with my purchasing choices and hope to get a roommate to defer some of my costs. With this in mind I decided to get a two-bedroom and two-bathroom unit. Also, given the size of the apartments I had lived in before, I wanted something at least 1,000 sq. ft. to ensure that it would be comfortable for a roommate and myself. I also wanted at least two assigned parking spots (hopefully in a garage). With these requirements in mind I would be able to let a real estate agent find some properties for me.

Return of the (Green) Ring

I just received my refurbished XBox360 back from Microsoft. According to them,about 4% of XBox consoles need to be re-serviced. The company that sells the warranties on the console, SquareTrade, says it's more likely around 16%. I think it's higher. Well, it took my XBox (purchased in November 2006) just over one year to succumb to the Red Ring of Death (after a month of fighting it stopped working in the first few days of February). Well, the refurbished unit is up and working. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that I never need to ship my XBox back for repairs.

Post Trip Report - Colorado

I made my first trip to Colorado this weekend. I went with my girlfriend, Erica, to visit her friends, Mario and Jaime, in Dillon, CO. We stayed there Friday to Saturday so that we could go snowboarding at Keystone Ski Resort. The snowboarding at this resort was awesome! The runs were nice and long and well-groomed. Also, the weather wasn't too cold and it was snowing hard enough to ensure that you were always on a layer of powder.
Sunday we packed up our things and went to Mario and Jaime's house in Colorado Springs. Their house was really nice and puts my new condo to shame. Thanks to Mario and Jaime for hosting us. It was a great trip. I hope to get some pictures of the trip up later this week.

Rocky Mountain High

I still don't have that much time to write but I'm excited because I'm flying to Colorado to go snowboarding this weekend. Not quite sure which resort I'm going to... maybe Vale. I'll be staying at a friend's ski condo. I hope to have some pictures to post on Monday night.

Beginning Anew

Well, here it is: yet another attempt to restart my blog. Right now my blogging has slowed not because of lack of things to write about, but rather a shortage of time spent on blogging. Well I'm going to do my best to make regular entries now and get back into the swing of things. In the short term, I am going to be writing about the process of buying one's first home. This is a process I am experiencing right now first hand. Let me tell you, it's not a simple process. I am pretty for in the process; I am supposed to close escrow next week. However in my next couple of entries I plan to summarize the steps I have already gone through (e.g. looking at places, putting down the deposit, working out mortgage loan decisions). Until then, if any of you reading this have any tips about home ownership I would be happy to read them.