Four family homes used to be the guaranteed way for a person to own their own home. They’d live in one apartment, rent out the other three for mortgage & taxes, and do their own work. Once they built up enough equity, they would take a new mortgage & use it as a down payment on their single family house ( and rent out the 4th apartment).
FTR ( and IMHO) - “single family home real estate investment trusts” are gobbling up homes and are destroying the possibility of home ownership by individuals and couples in America.
We bought our house decidedly not up to code… it had the old knob and tube wiring, and we fully expeced to replace it all if we did any electrical work (which we had to… there was ONE outlet in the entire upstairs, AND it was up next to the ceiling at the top of the insanely-steep stairway).
Can anybody explain why Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp are still getting time on the news cycle? Who gives a damn about either of those two attention whores after 25 years or more? And while I’m talking about the “news”, what’s with Richard Engle of NBC lately? Since when is he supposed to be airing his personal opinions about pulling out of that Afghanistan money pit instead of. . .you know. . .reporting the fucking NEWS?
Hollywood is pretty damn desperate. Ideas are apparently hard to come by. Just look at how many “remakes” come out these days, because they can’t think of anything original.
Maybe part of the issue is that there are too many outlets for things. We used to have a few broadcast networks and then a handful of films released to theaters. Now we have hundreds of TV networks and many streaming services needing content, and so they need to find something to offer people. If that means digging up something that people shouldn’t care about anymore, whatever, it’s at least something.
It’s the same reason why every other show is “reality” television; it requires very little scripting so you can churn it out pretty quickly and cheaply. (Nobody should delude themselves into thinking that there is no scripting and they don’t edit it to create a storyline to interest people. but it’s easier than writing a screenplay.)
I for one have zero interest, but this is exactly the sort of content that bored people who consume gossip shows and tabloid “journalism” love to gobble up.
Sooooo, I recently moved from LA to Washington DC. When I lived in LA, I never had any issue finding an auto service/repair shop, or car wash. They were abundant and ubiquitous.
As for car washes, there were many options from the coin operated spray bays, to cheap drive-thru, relatively modest priced full service, and of course more costly detailing. And no matter where I lived over the years, there were always a couple within a very short distance from home.
But Washington DC? Yeah, not so much. I did find one full service shop near me, but it has just closed (the land it occupied will become another high-rise apartment building). Otherwise, there seem to only be detailing establishment, charging lots of $$, and I would have to drive at least 20 minutes in traffic to get to one. There doesn’t seem to be any spray bay types, or cheap drive through types either. And living in a high-rise apartment, hosing my car off in my driveway is the stuff of science fiction. WTF? FFS? I just want to get my car washed.
Apparently not. It also doesn’t appear that much has changed in that area since I lived there over 25 years ago. Actually, I just looked on Google and spotted a few in the downtown area.
Bae, you’re lucky of you can Drive your car through some of the streets by Georgetown (one way traffic) and not sideswipe any of the street parked cars there. Space is at a premium there.
Working in an ever widening circle from where I live (Navy Yard), everything I’ve dug into so far is pricey detailing (and a 20 minute drive in traffic).
I’m on a family beach vacation this week, 4 adults and a young child. As we were planning, the discussion turned to the high prices of the local beachfront restaurants. My nephew and his wife were all “we don’t have to go out to a restaurant every night - we have a kitchenette and the motel has grills so we can cook and save money…….OK, whatever.
So tonight we cooked to save money. First we went to the fish market and spent $30 on shrimp and $20 on fish. Oh, and $10 on some premade crab dip that looked good and $15 on a really great looking homemade key lime pie. Then we went to the grocery for a just few other items, lettuce and tomato and cucumber and a couple of kinds of salad dressing and croutons and kebab skewers and onions and green peppers and mushrooms and marinade and teriyaki sauce and salt and pepper and hot sauce and fresh corn and butter and green beans and a bunch of microwave yellow rice cups and tortilla chips for the crab dip and pita bread and a watermelon and iced tea and soda and beer and aluminum foil and charcoal.
It was a delicious meal, but I’m pretty sure no one saved any money.
Under similar circumstances we’ve done hot dogs cooked on an outdoor motel grill with supermarket baked beans, coleslaw and sweet corn and saved $$, though money wasn’t the only reason.
Sounds like there’s a market available. Here’s 821 Virginia Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003 for sale for only $3.5 million. That’s less than $575 per square foot. How many $20 car washes you figure I’d need to sell to pay the mortgage on that?
Slight rant at myself. For many years I needed the adrenaline caused by the sound of a deadline whooshing past to get stuff done, and then could get some reasonable work done, but is was never as good as it could have been, much procrastination, or getting way too deep into projects and data and spending hours focused on squiggly lines, randomly tuning out in meetings or when with the family, really crap short term memory, never getting my expenses or taxes done, and getting easily irritated with one of my sons who has ADHD and tends to jump topics a lot in conversation as I could not follow as I would blank out. Over the years I tried many techniques, writing peoples names down, meditating, wine, lists, wine, lists of the lists of things I didn’t do, vodka, music in back ground ,no music, beer and vodka etc but none of it really worked.
Finally at the age of nearly 50 I decided to see a psychiatrist who treating my kids ( the older daughter who has ADHD, depression, and a couple of suicide attempts but now doing great at college, a son with bad ADHD that we didn’t get treated until he was 15 and now doing really well, and our youngest who is Autistic and a bit of a handful and on going project) who pointed out I had just a smidgen of ADHD. Well a big smidgen on top of a dollop served with a giant bowlful of ADHD.
I started on Adderall and it’s quite a change, I feel very calm and level, can get the trivial stuff done , actually focus in meetings and find I am way more present with the family.
So rant at myself for not getting help years ago, so many wasted opportunities and too many times being a bit of a dick to the family through inattention , fortunately my wife is a saint.
Don’t rant at yourself, be happy that things are on the upswing!
IANAD and I have no experience with Adderall, but I will say emphatically that from both direct and indirect experience, I’m a big fan of behaviour-altering drugs that work for the benefit of the patient. I and just about every smart, introspective person I know has been on something like fluoxetine (Prozac) or diazepam (Valium) at one time or another, to great benefit.
Congrats on the improvement, carry on, and best of luck!
