Well, the gofundme account for the salon owner in Dallas that was arrested and sent to jail for refusing to shut her salon topped $500k I think I would be willing to deny the Stasi for that payoff too and for general principles as well
I'm feeling encouraged that in my state apparently a number of county district attorneys have written to the fuhrer to make it clear they will not prosecute any cases of businesses choosing to reopen, as have a couple of other groups of state senators and representatives. Of course businesses regulated by specific state departments have to toe the line or they could have their licenses revoked, but it would be nice to know that the owner of, say, a shoe store could be trusted to figure out for themselves whether it was worth opening their business without relying on Nanny State to make the decisions.
I came to the conclusion long ago that when someone gets into the government (any government, it doesn't matter who's government) they have their common sense surgically removed.
Our province is now moving to open things up gradually, as of following the long weekend next week. I think it was our premier yesterday who said something like, "We're not telling you to not hug you mom on Mother's Day."
Strictly speaking I think the fuhrer's orders still prohibit people from even going to visit their mother. Perhaps unsurprisingly people are largely ignoring it, where that sort of thing is concerned. Technically speaking I think I'm supposed to wear a mask when I go on my walk around town. Practically speaking it makes zero difference - on yesterday's walk the closest I came to anyone not in a vehicle was about 150 feet as I passed someone mowing his yard. In fairness the day before that was a closer call - we got within about 30 feet of someone sitting on their front porch. I hope we don't die from such reckless exposure. The fuhrer was nice enough to open a range of counties including one of our larger cities, despite that county having more cases per capita than our county and more deaths (our county has fared pretty well so far, with a grand total of 0 deaths). People are confused as to why our Democrat governor might have allowed Democrat-leaning counties to open while denying the same freedom to Republican-leaning rural counties with better statistics.
To play devil's advocate. The city is probably more important to open from an economic pov. Cynically, there are certainly more voters there. That does not mean that the restrictions in low density rural make much sense. We could argue the same thing here. I have not heard hard numbers but I think our town had less than 10 cases and that might be overstated.
I can see lots of reasons why a politician would want to reopen a city, it's just that it makes even less sense (and makes it look even more like the fuhrer is making it up as he goes along) when areas with fewer cases per capita remain closed. In all seriousness it makes little sense to have locked down our county at al, let alone extended the lockdown for yet another month. It's hardly surprising that people start to ignore orders when they demonstrably make no sense at all.
Enjoying the birds in the garden. We've seen a male cardinal in the back yard a lot lately - far more than we've ever seen before. Today we spotted the reason - a nest tucked in one of the trees with what looked like it might have been a female cardinal sitting in it. Sure enough, after several minutes the male cardinal flew into the nest, then flew away. So we have cardinals nesting. We also have a nest on one of the drainpipes that routinely houses robins. Last year some doves moved in and I figured if they had taken over permanently I'd get rid of the nest. But this year we have robins again, and bits of broken eggshell on the driveway under the nest so I guess they have another brood this year. Some day I plan to rig up the highest definition outdoor web cam I can find to point at the nest and watch them raise the chicks. The third nest on the house has always housed doves. It's in an awkward spot, on a power connector. When we had the breaker panel replaced the electrician had to move it so he could get at the connectors, but the doves rebuilt it after he had gone. It's too awkward a position to get rid of it, so they can stay.
if they had not locked down your county, I suspect every yahoo from the city would have come out your way.
Doubtful, we didn't have every yahoo from the more urban areas heading out during the time they were locked down and we weren't. There's more than enough rural space around here without people needing to get to the furthest point. Even if we did have the yahoos descending, it's not as if a lockdown in a remote area is effective, given the population is pretty well spaced and it's all but impossible to enforce such a rule.
Uh, oh. I did it now. I think this falls in the category of "be careful what you ask for." Put the house on the market on May 1, around 10:30 a.m. Had first showing that afternoon. Showings every day except for one last week. Four showings on Saturday, and by Saturday night, had three offers, all at full price, each asking for payment of some closing costs, as is typical. Binding contract Saturday night at full price minus 1% for closing costs, buyer has conventional financing already approved. Now I have to figure out how to move all this, um, stuff by May 11. What have I done???
What have you done? Maybe not asked enough for your house, if you sold it that fast. Do you really have to move all the - er - stuff by today? That's a tall order.
Wow. Major typo. i would go ahead and cut my throat if it were today!!!! JUNE 11!!! Actually, I think we hit the sweet spot on pricing. Issue at anything higher was appraisal.... We actually listed about 5% higher than my realtor suggested, so I think we came out pretty well. Now I just have to plan all the logistics for the move to the river house and figuring out what goes where and what gets sold. We moved from a 6000 square foot house back to our 2300 square foot house five years ago, and put all the odds and ends furniture at the river house so as to avoid paying storage. So now, I have this house full of the "good stuff", the river house full of odds and ends, some of which will stay and some of which will go. Meh... first world problems, you know? The house we are selling had no mortgage, so I can't tell you how pleased I am to have turned an essentially "illiquid" assets into a liquid asset, given the financial times and political uncertainty. At the same time, we are refinancing the river house at a 2.8% APR mortgage. We will have the cash to pay it off it we wish, but at 2.8%, I think I'm going to sit on the cash and watch the market for a while. If we have another bottom in the stock market or in the housing market, I will be well positioned.
June 11 is easy. You just need to borrow a trick from Guy Fawkes, said to be the only man ever to enter the UK Houses of Parliament honest about his intentions.
Actually, the outline of a basic plan is in place. The move is about 65 miles from my current address. I have acquired one storage facility about 1 mile away. I have acquired an additional storage facility about 40 miles away, time wise, the rough 2/3 point. We are going to start with moving the non-essentials that would eventually need to be moved anyway either to the distant storage or close storage, depending on the nature of the stuff. As soon as the inspection period is over and there is no turning back, we will get everything out of the house that we can move ourselves without additional labor, again to either the distant or close storage. After that, we can move anything out of the river house to the distant storage, (which will turn into permanent storage) and begin moving anything from either storage to the river house. Then, all the stuff that is heavy for us to move by ourselves we will do all on one day, and it will either go to permanent storage or to the river house. Ah, the joys...
I know they don't look great on properties, but what about renting/buying a 20 or 40 foot shipping container for your river property? They are solid. I don't know the cost but I don't think they are unreasonable.
Great idea. Yeah, we checked in to that... If I could surreptisiously dig a hole back into the ridge and bury it I would do it in a minute, but I'd never get away with it! (Although I am seriously thinking about a concrete root cellar built back into the hillside down the road...) The area we are in does have some restrictive covenants, and shipping containers are a no-no. I'm hoping the long term storage becomes a place to sell all of the extras out of...
A shipping container might be a no-no but if you buried it would anybody ever know? You could always claim you found it buried on the property when you moved in. Technically if you buried it before moving in you'd be telling the truth
Yeah, but I already own the property and the house on it! It's five miles from the main gate, through the community, and then down the final stretch of road to my place. Too many neighbors around. But, if it was buried, you would never know... Besides, my plan (eventually) is to bring in a tiny backhoe/excavator and dig back into the steep hillside and build a "root cellar". Of course, after the root cellar is "completed," that back wall may be subject to continuous, um, "renovations..." i.e., Rambo, the Geriatric Blood.