Meeting the owners
Yesterday I met with the current owners of the house that I'm buying. They seem like very nice people. Very friendly. I was worried that this might be a little awkward, but it was very pleasant. They were very happy to have sold the house so quickly and there were no issues with me knocking $5000 off the price.
The house has a 9 zone sprinkler system, with very well hidden heads as I've still only seen two of them. He's got a big 80 gallon air tank with a two stage compressor, probably in the 170psi range. He says this is all that's needed to blow out the sprinkler system for winter, so I guess I'll be upgrading my compressor before next winter. Any excuse to buy a new tool!
I then made my first ever trip to the Mall of America and its Sears store to pick up a new Craftsman all aluminum 2 ton floor jack in preparation for putting on my new snow tires. I wandered around the Mall for a few minutes, thinking it was smaller than I expected, especially considering the eight story parking garage I parked in. I only saw an eighth of the mall before I found the food court and had lunch, so maybe it would appear bigger if I'd seen more of it.
At Sears I looked at washers and dryers, since the new house won't have them, and they had a couple of floor models that had really great deals on them, but I decided that having them delivered to the townhouse just wouldn't be a good idea. Oh well, hopefully there will be good deals in six weeks once I've moved. I also looked at lawn mowers and snow blowers.
The guy I'm buying the house from said that he would charge $40 a time to mow my new lawn, and for that kind of money, it wouldn't take long to pay back the cost of even a moderately expensive lawn mower. The snow blowers were interesting. They even have models with headlights on them. There was a $150 electric mini blower, good for a townhouse or something I suppose. The next cheapest model was a $300 gas model that's probably what I'll need to do my sidewalk and driveway. I'll start with a shovel and see how that goes first though.
I then did a quick trip to the local Checkers Auto Parts (Kragens are called Checkers out here for some reason) and the first thing I noticed is they had a Powerbuilt aluminum 2 ton floor jack for $70 less than the Craftsman jack I'd just bought. My first thought was that I didn't want to return the one I'd bought since it was heavy (44 pounds) and getting it back to Sears wouldn't be easy, but $70 would almost make it worth it. Then I remembered the few Powerbuilt tools that I've bought were clearly not made to the same standard as the Craftsman tools. So I'll console myself with the thought that my jack is better than their jack even though they look very much alike. However, it's the innards of a jack that do the most work, and those you can't see on the showroom floor, so there is a very real possibility that the Craftsman jack is better than the Powerbuilt jack.
The house has a 9 zone sprinkler system, with very well hidden heads as I've still only seen two of them. He's got a big 80 gallon air tank with a two stage compressor, probably in the 170psi range. He says this is all that's needed to blow out the sprinkler system for winter, so I guess I'll be upgrading my compressor before next winter. Any excuse to buy a new tool!
I then made my first ever trip to the Mall of America and its Sears store to pick up a new Craftsman all aluminum 2 ton floor jack in preparation for putting on my new snow tires. I wandered around the Mall for a few minutes, thinking it was smaller than I expected, especially considering the eight story parking garage I parked in. I only saw an eighth of the mall before I found the food court and had lunch, so maybe it would appear bigger if I'd seen more of it.
At Sears I looked at washers and dryers, since the new house won't have them, and they had a couple of floor models that had really great deals on them, but I decided that having them delivered to the townhouse just wouldn't be a good idea. Oh well, hopefully there will be good deals in six weeks once I've moved. I also looked at lawn mowers and snow blowers.
The guy I'm buying the house from said that he would charge $40 a time to mow my new lawn, and for that kind of money, it wouldn't take long to pay back the cost of even a moderately expensive lawn mower. The snow blowers were interesting. They even have models with headlights on them. There was a $150 electric mini blower, good for a townhouse or something I suppose. The next cheapest model was a $300 gas model that's probably what I'll need to do my sidewalk and driveway. I'll start with a shovel and see how that goes first though.
I then did a quick trip to the local Checkers Auto Parts (Kragens are called Checkers out here for some reason) and the first thing I noticed is they had a Powerbuilt aluminum 2 ton floor jack for $70 less than the Craftsman jack I'd just bought. My first thought was that I didn't want to return the one I'd bought since it was heavy (44 pounds) and getting it back to Sears wouldn't be easy, but $70 would almost make it worth it. Then I remembered the few Powerbuilt tools that I've bought were clearly not made to the same standard as the Craftsman tools. So I'll console myself with the thought that my jack is better than their jack even though they look very much alike. However, it's the innards of a jack that do the most work, and those you can't see on the showroom floor, so there is a very real possibility that the Craftsman jack is better than the Powerbuilt jack.
posted by Mark at 8:15 AM
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