This afternoon, while Jeffrey was at a birthday party, Diane and I walked down the street to see some new homes near us. They’re two-story houses, with OK kitchens and 9-foot ceilings. The smallest house is 1471 square feet and goes for a bit over $500,000; the next is 1700 square feet and goes for about $640,000; and the biggest model is 2005 square feet and goes for $740,000. All of the houses are on the same-sized lot — 3000 square feet (which is about the footprint of my brother’s house!), and there might be a good four feet between the houses.

They put the houses on the market last week, and they’ve already sold five of fifteen (and not all are available yet). I think this is just insane…oh, by the way, the houses are on a busy corner, with a bus stop right below one house’s bedroom window. I am very glad I’m not trying to get into this housing market; I don’t know how people can afford to move into the area.

It’s an ill market collapse that blows no good

In case you don’t know, eToys is having a big clearance sale (I’m afraid it’s in preparation for going out of business). We took advantage of it to buy toys for just about all of the birthday parties Jeffrey will be attending for the rest of this year — stuff from “Uniquely eToys” is especially well priced. Get yours while you can!

Perfect!

I, too, took the quiz (link via Backup Brain via Susan), and I got all 20 right. Not only am I over 40, but I retain useless information beyond all belief!

I’m at my group’s twice-yearly planning meeting, held at my boss’s summer cottage on Lake Wallenpaupack, in the Poconos. It’s a lovely area, but broadband is not available yet, so at every break, the dozen or so of us compete frantically for the two available phone lines so we can connect up to the network. And half the time, someone plugs into a line in use, blowing the session away.

This year, though, life is better. We’re still restricted to a phone line, but we’ve got a wireless LAN set up and are sharing a single dialup line seamlessly. It’s still slow, but it’s much better than any previous meeting. The real test will come tomorrow, when we should be paying attention to each other instead of our computers!

The other problem, of course, is that this is a summer resort area; facilities are a bit light during the winter (the hotel doesn’t serve breakfast during the winter, for example). And the roads in the development don’t get paved…and my winter driving skills are limited, to say the least. So far, so good, though — there’s no fresh snow arriving, and what’s on the ground is well packed.