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Partying In Rio Rancho

Fun stuff happening around these parts. Here are some choice bits from the article.

A loud party last month led to the citation of nine minors for underage drinking and possible charges for the “passed out” mother who allowed it. Marcus Riggs, 18, whose mother rented the apartment, let police in. Riggs told officer Chris French that “he and some of his friends got together and had a few beers”. It is unclear if Riggs’ mother Lynda, 36, would have objected to the party, as she was in no condition to break it up. “Lynda Riggs was found passed out in one of the back rooms”. Still, the officers suspected that Mrs. Riggs facilitated the party, leading to the possible charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The district attorney’s office will decide whether or not to file that charge. This arrest was part of a Sandoval County DWI Task Force underage-drinking sweep run by the Sandoval County Sheriff’s Department.

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Kitchen Stage One Complete

Stage 1 completeIt’s been a few months since I moved in and started working on the kitchen remodel so I’m glad to report that Stage 1 is complete. Stage 1 is what you see here, with half of the upper cabinets installed including the appliances. Every bit of it built by me. Stage 2 will complete the kitchen with the rest of the cabinets, paint and tiling.

When I first made the offer on the house I wasn’t initially planning to remodel the kitchen. But after spending a few hours in it, it was clear that I was not going to be happy with the wear and tear that had been put on it for 20+ years. I used Home Depot’s design service to do the design, which turned out to be a good deal. It’s costs $100 for them to come out and do the measurements and plug everything into the computer. They give $100 off materials if you buy from them.

When choosing the materials for the cabinets I looked at both the lowest cost and highest cost cabinets. I’m pretty disappointed at the amount of particle board used in the construction of both version. The lowest cost is totally made of particle board except for the doors and are complete do-it-yourself. Where as the more expensive ones are about 50% particle board and are installed by someone else. I went with Mills Pride cabinets that Home Depot keeps on stock because of their much lower costs, significant in some cases. Despite the fact that they are made of particle board they are of pretty good quality and very easy to assemble. Well worth it for the money I saved. I would say it cost around $1000 for this section of cabinets (the maple doors were as much as the cost of the cabinet boxes, that’s the real expense).

Stage 2 will involve taking down the wall on the right and putting in a cabinets along the bottom (this is where the refrigerator originally was). This will open it up to the living room more. I’ve never pulled down a wall before (just as I never did any of this kitchen work before). I will also probably pull out the original tile back spash and put different tile up. I will finish it up with paint, trim and what ever else will be needed. I figure it will cost about $2000 to finish it up (doing it all myself of course) but don’t know when I will start it. In the mean time check out my Flickr photo set showing the stages of the remodel.

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Stupid Law Tricks

This is really giving New Mexico a good name.

Late last week, a Santa Fe District Court judge signed a temporary restraining order against talk-show host David Letterman alleging he has tormented a city resident for more than 10 years by using code words on his television program .

Apparently David Letterman is using his eyes and other gestures to send secret signals to this woman. The judge apparently agreed!

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Think Of The Animals

It’s a sad, sad situation when you have animals and don’t think of them after your death. It even worse when you died in your home with those animals and no one knows it. If your dead for a while and your animals have to eat, well I guess you can still provide for them.

Apparently that’s what happened to a lady in Albuquerque with her 33 cats and 4 dogs. It’s pretty likely that the animals were eating her after she died. Of course eating a decomposing body is probably not such a good thing for ones health.

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New Mexico Space Port Moves Forward

Good news for New Mexico’s space port. Virgin Atlantic has agreed to set up shop there being known as Virgin Galactic.

The first customer has been secured for the planned $225 million spaceport in southern New Mexico and state officials plan to announce Wednesday that construction of the facility will now move forward.

State officials, including Gov. Bill Richardson, also will announce tomorrow that London-based Virgin Galactic, a subsidiary of Britain’s Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd., will be the facility’s first lease holder and plans to pay $1 million a year for the first five years of its 20-year lease.

I’m getting excited about this. I’ve always wanted to be a astronaut but I never had the “right stuff” (namely not being a Air Force pilot). This may provide me an opportunity to participate in the space race.

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Stuck To A Home Depot Toliet

Home Depot was sued by a shopper from a Colorado store who claims he got stuck to a restroom toilet seat because a prankster had smeared it with glue.

The man is suing Home Depot because they ignored his calls for help. Eventually they called the paramedics and they had to haul him out with the seat stuck to his ass.

I try to avoid public restrooms in places like this, but when you gotta go you gotta go. I pretty carefully inspect the area before I sit down and put plenty of paper between me and the seat. I can’t imagine that I would have not seen glue like this.

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Another Ski Lift

I’ve seen a new ski lift in the plans for the last few years at the Santa Fe Ski area. I wonder if this means that they actually built it over the summer. I look forward to a new lift but I believe in the rights of Native Americans. I don’t really know what the right answer is here.

The pueblo filed suit in August against the U.S. Forest Service, which had approved the expansion of the ski area. The ski company, which was not named as a defendant, recently intervened in the case.The pueblo contends the new lift will give skiers access to the tribe’s holiest shrines and locations, places where members conduct rituals and ceremonies that are necessary for the pueblo’s survival. Skiers presence in the area increases the risk that important shrines will be tampered with or destroyed the lawsuit says.

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Buying A House The Not-So-Easy Way

On September 29th I finally closed on my house, on September 30th I took possession. Since then I have been spewing cash from my savings getting the place ready to move in. My apartment lease is up at the end of the month, so there’s not much time left. For those considering a foreclosed house, I have some advice for you.

Closing on a foreclosed house is nothing like closing on a normally private owned home. Keep in mind that a corporation owns it. If you work for a big company, think about what it would be like if they were selling a house. There’s a bureaucracy involved. They have their legal requirements to ensure all the “i”s are dotted and “t”s are crossed. Not to mention that the individuals at the company have no personal interest to ensure that the process is speedy.

Next you add on items such as liens and other legal matters that have to be cleared up before the owning bank can sell it. In my case, there were liens that took longer than they probably should have to clear up. The State of New Mexico had s legal interest in the property so official clearance from the state had to be issued saying they weren’t going to take possession of the property after the liens were paid. In this case, the state would only offer those documents via the US postal service, no fedex, no couriers.

The closing officer said my closing went pretty well compared to most. Sometimes liens can be near impossible to clear up, such as those from the federal government. Can you imagine what it takes to get a lien removed from the DEA? The closing officer also said my paperwork wasn’t so bad, he had a guy in the day before with a literal foot high of paperwork to sign.

Take this advice if your looking for a foreclosed house.

  • Be prepared to wait, wait and wait some more.
  • Be prepared to be disappointed. I looked at several houses, a few that were foreclosed on before this one. In one case the previous deal had fallen through and the house was back on the market. We didn’t understand the problem at first but now I can see how these things can not work out. Most of the hold ups on my house were on the owning banks side. Yet they had the nerve to say that if it wasn’t funded by September 30th they were going to call the whole thing off. I had the approved loan, I was ready the bank needed to get their act together.
  • Get a real estate agent. There’s a ton of issues with this sort of house and the un-savvy can get very overwhelmed quickly. It’s not going to cost you anything.
  • Find a agent that will work with you. Some agents wont take the time and effort to deal with all the various issues especially considering how long it can take to close. I have to give mad props (as the kids say) to Paul Taylor. He was awesome though all this and took care of everything for me. I didn’t have to deal with the idiocy of the sellers at all.

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X Prize Cup Countdown Event

It was a cold and rainy day in Albuquerque on Sunday. Las Cruces wasn’t much better. Having drove from Arizona the day before, i wasn’t in a mood for another drive. I eventually got my act together and made it to the event by 3 PM. It cost $6 to get in and about $80 in gas to drive there.

Don’t be fooled by the name of the Las Cruces International Airport. It’s a dinky little airport and they were able to completely close it down for this event. They had us park several miles down the highway at the fairgrounds and bussed us to the airport. The area was set up like a fair, with some dubious businesses in the tents. This makes me think this is for real and private space flight will happen for sure.

I missed Armadillo Areospace’s launch of their craft. Despite the 20 mph winds, they were able to launch and control the craft. However on landing it 2 of it’s 3 feet landed off the landing pad and it tipped over. It didn’t explode but was damaged. Carmack and crew were out in the crowd showing off bits and pieces of their rocket. It’s an impressive machine for sure, they are clearly thinking out of the box with their design.

I did get to see XCOR Aerospace fly their rocketplane, which I have on video. It’s a impressive little craft and was flown as if there was no wind. There was lots of wind, the fact that it was blowing parallel with the runway helped.

Starchaser showed off it’s rocked engine. I think it blew up after it was ignited since there was a big boom, but there was no announcement either way.

When I was leaving the event about 5, they only had 2X and 3X t-shirts. Have I mentioned the wind yet, the winds had picked up quite a bit by this time. There’s nothing like 50 mph blowing sand getting in every orifice of your body. I had a handful of sand in my pockets!

I have pictures of the event on Flickr, and will post a video at some point.